by Melody Banks
“Yes,” he said.
I couldn’t imagine what else he would say. It was already so crazy.
“At the risk of bragging, I’m quite masterful in the bedroom.”
It wasn’t bragging if it was true. And based on the stories I’d heard….
“In order for this arrangement to work out, in order for me to give you more pleasure than you can imagine, you’ll have to let me set the rules – all of them. You’ll do what I say, allow me to do what I want to you at all times. Are you okay with that?”
At all times?
I wasn’t sure I understood. And I definitely wasn’t sure I was okay with this arrangement.
Sensing my discomfort, he added, “I’ll be respectful of your limits, don’t worry about that. But I’d like to push you just a little past your comfort zone. That’s the game I’m suggesting here,” he said, locking his eyes on mine. “Those are the rules. Are you in, or are you out?”
Chapter Three
“This whole thing is so hot,” my best friend Katie said. “Insanely hot. How could you have walked out of the office without giving him an answer either way?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I told him I had to think about it. He gave me 24 hours.”
It was the following evening, and we were sitting on a Greenwich Village patio taking in the warm June sunset and sipping margaritas.
Well, Katie was sipping a margarita. I was sipping some sort of 75-calorie concoction the bartender swore was “heaven in a glass.”
It’s meant to taste like a raspberry margarita, but it really just tastes like Alka Seltzer. No matter. The alcohol content is still the same, and, unlike Katie, I’m not blessed with a super fast metabolism.
“I’ve dated some hot guys in my time,” said shaking her head. “But Nicholas Colby…he’s unbelievable.”
“Tell me about it.”
I run my fingers over the margarita glass, debating another sip. I wonder if it will start tasting better as I drink more?
“It’s not like he’s just got the body,” she continued, “but that face. It’s so perfect. I don’t know how you could stand it when he offered to give you the intense pleasure of your life! How did you not say yes right then? Being that close to him…hearing him so those words…I swear to God, I would have jumped him right then and there, made him put his money where his mouth was, if you catch my drift.”
“I catch it,” I told her and we both laughed. “And believe me, it wasn’t easy.”
But the truth was, it had been easy. It just isn’t in my character to dive right into a physical relationship with someone I barely know, not even someone as incredible Nicholas Colby. I’m not a bold person by nature, and when it comes to sex, forget it. Sure, I’ve had my share of boyfriends, but I’ve never been one to take the lead, never been one to make the first move.
“One of the hottest men on the planet offers you the chance to have this, I don’t know, ‘sexual awakening’ with him.”
“I’m almost twenty-eight, Katie, I don’t need a sexual awakening,” I said, somewhat haughtily. But the truth was, I did need a sexual awakening. Very badly, in fact. Katie had no way of knowing this, though. I hadn’t shared with her that I’d written this week’s My Naughty Little Secret column, so she had no idea that I was the girl who had trouble reaching orgasm.
“Honey, I’m twenty nine and I could use a sexual awakening,” Katie laughed. “But call it whatever you will. You’re gonna do it, right?” she asked excitedly.
“Maybe,” I said, drinking more of my faux margarita. The alcohol was not helping any with the taste. If anything, it was getting worse with each sip.
“What do you mean, maybe?”
“I mean, I don’t know. I haven’t made up my mind yet. I need to think about it more.”
The truth was, it was all I had thought about. I’d thought about it from the second I’d left Nick’s office right up until this moment. Just the very thought of being with him – touching him, kissing him, the feel of his body against mine – was an incredible turn on. In fact, if you wanted to get technical, I’d already had several orgasms courtesy of Nicholas Colby. He just hadn’t been present for the process. Which seemed to be an ongoing theme for me.
Maybe it was time to change that?
I waited until later in the night, until Katie and I had parted ways to send the text. I had thought about it long and hard, and I knew my choice.
I punched Nick Colby’s phone number up on my screen, typed two words, and hit send.
I’m in.
Chapter Four
It was another two days before we saw each other, and the wait was torture.
As predicted, Nick had to take a quick trip to Japan to sort out his business dealings. We shared a phone call one day while he was there, chatting for almost an hour.
“I should have brought you with me,” he said. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Really?”
“Yes. I think you’d love it here. I know I’d love having you here. I’ve got this massive suite all to myself. A giant Jacuzzi tub…I wish you were here to share it with me.”
“That would be fun,” I said, keeping my tone even, trying not to sound too excited. A Jacuzzi tub in Japan with Nicholas Colby? I was pretty sure this was someone else’s life I was living. It sure beat Law & Order reruns. I didn’t want to let him know any of that, though. “I’ve never really been abroad.”
“Never?” He sounded surprised. “We’ll have to change that.”
It sounded incredible, but I couldn’t even allow myself to imagine it. He had called this a proposition, I reminded myself. A game. I likely had a shelf life – all of Nicholas Colby’s girlfriends did. If I was even his girlfriend at all. Who knew what he considered me? A project? A challenge? I tried to push those thoughts out of my mind. This was way too much fun to spoil it by over thinking things.
So I concentrated on his words. And his text messages, which came frequently:
I wish you were here beside me.
I’d reply: Me, too.
Just the thought of being with you turns me on so much….
It was such a turn on to read his words.
Really? Tell me more.
There are so many things I want to do to you. With my mouth, my fingers, my tongue….
Back and forth they went, until things had reached a fever pitch. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Nick returned to New York. We were scheduled to meet at his apartment – one of three he kept in the city – two hours after his flight landed.
This time, I took more care with my outfit, shopping for half a day on Saturday to find the perfect little black dress. My hair, nails and makeup were also perfect. I also slathered a lightly scented lotion on my body from head to toe. I imagined Nick kissing my body, enjoying the scent.
But, still, deep down I was self-conscious. I wasn’t sure how it would feel to undress before him, to allow this man with his perfect body to see me, naked and vulnerable. Had Nick ever seen a woman who looked like me, a woman with large breasts – the kind that came naturally, not in a plastic surgeon’s office? Had he ever seen a woman whose thighs were ample, a woman with thick legs, a woman whose stomach wasn’t perfectly flat?
He told me, repeatedly, that my curves excited him.
“You’re real Violet,” he’d said, during our phone call while he was in Japan. “A real woman. That’s always what I’ve wanted. The models…it’s just something I’ve done because it’s what’s expected of me. But I’m tired of that. I want to do what I want now…and what I want, what I’ve always wanted, is a woman with a real body.”
It sounded amazing, but I knew only time would tell if his words were true.
# # #
I was to arrive at his apartment at 7 p.m. sharp. To make things even more convenient, he sent a car for me, a luxury I hadn’t expected, but greatly appreciated. Getting around New York by taxi had been fun and adventurous when I’d f
irst moved to the city; now it was a cumbersome, time-consuming task. A cab could never be found when you needed one most. Tonight, though, I didn’t have to worry about that. I had Nick’s driver.
The car picked me up right outside my walk-up in Brooklyn and deposited me at Nick’s front door in Manhattan. He was waiting by the door when I got there, a glass of champagne in hand.
“I thought tonight we’d just talk a little bit more.”
Talk? I wanted to scream. Haven’t we been doing that for the past few days? But I followed him to his study none-the-less and sat down beside him.
As I sipped my champagne, he asked, “I’d like to find out a little more about your past, Violet.”
I was expecting him to ask me where I was born or where I went to school, but instead he said, “Have you been honest with men in the past about your orgasms? Or rather, lack thereof.”
“Mostly, I was honest,” I told him. “But, a few times, yes, I faked it.”
“And what about with women?”
“With women?” I was taken aback.
“No, a woman’s never been able to give you an orgasm, or ‘no you’ve never been sexually intimate with a woman?”
“Neither! Both!”
“Is it something you think you’d like to try?”
“No,” I told him. Again, feeling myself blush, although I wasn’t sure why. I knew I didn’t have any sexual desires for women.
If this affected him in any way, he didn’t let it show. “What kinds of things do you like, sexually speaking?”
“I don’t know.” I took another sip of champagne. It was nice, expensive. I could get used to this. But I was also drinking it faster than I should. “Everything, I guess. Everything ‘normal,’ anyway.”
“Define normal.”
“Regular, missionary style, oral….”
“Oral.” He started smiling. “I can tell from your face you’re a fan of that. How long has it been since you’ve…received?”
It had been months – probably closer to a year – since I’d ‘received.’ Just the mention of it excited me. “Um, I don’t know… a while.”
“I see.”
I took another drink. I could feel a throbbing between my legs. I squirmed in my seat, trying to get comfortable.
“I’d love to go down on you. It’s something I’ve been imagining a lot, actually.”
I gasped.
“But not tonight.”
“There’s something I want from you first.” Nick took a long, slow sip of his drink. “I want to know how you pleasure yourself.”
“What?” I asked, feeling my face grow hot.
“Show me what you do,” he said. “Show me how.”
“I can’t.” My voice was barely a whisper. It was too much. It was one thing to write about touching myself – to do it in front of Nick was another thing entirely.
“You promised to play by my rules, Violet,” Nick said. “And that’s a rule I’ve set.”
I can’t go through with this. But his face is so eager, so encouraging. And I want this, I really do. I want to know what this feels like. I’m shocked by how turned on I am at the thought of this, at the of letting go in front of him, of allowing myself to do that. It’s not something I’ve ever done in front of a man before.
“Maybe…for just a minute.”
“Just a minute, then,” he said. “You don’t even have to reach orgasm. That’s not the point. I just want to watch you.” He leaned back in his seat.
I lied down on the couch, sliding my hand underneath my skirt and panties and set to work, slowing running my fingers up between my legs.
“Ahh,” I said, feeling shocked by the thrill. I couldn’t believe I was actually doing this.
“Take your panties off,” he instructed.
I obliged, sliding them off onto the floor. Nick scooped them up and held them in his hands. He began turning them over between his fingers.
“You’re so wet already,” he said, noticing the small stain on them. He leaned in and sniffed them. “Mmmm,” he closed his eyes, inhaling the scent.
I gasped.
“I can’t wait to taste you, Violet.”
Slowly, I begin rocking my hips back and forth. The champagne has relaxed me, but I’m still too keyed up. I don’t think I can come. I’m still too tense.
“So this is how you do it, then?” he asked.
I’d been so lost in concentration I hadn’t noticed Nick had gotten off his chair and was now kneeling on the floor beside me. He watched, intently, as my fingers moved slowly back and forth between my legs. Then, without warning, he slid his own hand up and moved it ever so gently between my legs.
I flinched from the unexpected touch. He could see I was enjoying it, but not enough.
“Another night will be better,” he said, standing up and moving back across the room.
I stared at him, confused.
“I thought you might be nervous and it appears as though you are.” He looked thoughtful. “I think what I’ll need to do is get you out of your head a bit more. You’re the type who overthinks things, aren’t you Violet?”
I nodded.
I’ve stopped touching myself now. I see my panties have been placed on the couch beside me. I take that as a signal that our evening is over.
I’m disappointed, and confused, as I slide them back on.
“Another night,” Nick says again, as he shows me to the door. “Soon.”
Chapter Five
“Looks like you’ve created quite the stir with your column.”
“Excuse me?”
It was the following morning and Mariah was standing at the edge of my cubicle, tapping her heel.
“You created quite a stir with your column,” she repeated, in case I hadn’t heard her the first time. “Your naughty little secret.”
Uh-oh! She’d found out. But how? And, most importantly, how much did she know? Did she know what my column had sparked? Did she know about Nick and I?
“Um, could we talk about this in private?” I asked.
She winked. “Absolutely. Meet me in the conference room in a half hour.”
I spent the next twenty minutes nervously anticipating our meeting. What if Mariah had somehow found out about my night with Nicholas Colby? Not that we’d done much…I still hadn’t had an orgasm with him. Despite all the promises of all the ‘incredible pleasure’ he was going to show me, thus far, I’d really just been ‘showing myself.’
But if Mariah somehow knew, there was no way I could go through with this.
Fortunately, she did not. Despite my fears, it turned out that she had only found out about the column.
Thirty minutes later, when we were seated in the conference room, I asked her point blank how she knew.
“How did you find out I wrote that column?” I asked. “I put Staff Writer on the byline, just like you always tell us.”
“I have my sources,” she said mysteriously.
“Nick Colby?” I blurted, without thinking.
“Who?” she seemed taken aback. “Oh…wait. You mean Nicholas Colby.” She burst out laughing. “Don’t flatter yourself, honey. The odds of Mr. Colby ever reading any of your work are slim-to-none. He doesn’t even read my column, and I’ve been writing it for five years.”
So Nick doesn’t normally read our magazine? I filed this information away mentally. Well, then, how did he find out it was my column? How did he know I wrote it? Perhaps Mariah could provide some insight, without even knowing it.
“So who told you?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
“I was curious who wrote it, and when none of the freelancers took credit I had IT run a trace. It came back to your computer. I didn’t know for sure that you wrote it, but your response when I asked you basically confirmed it. Good job, Violet!”
Yeah, good job, indeed. How could I have been so unsmooth? I couldn’t even bluff my way out of simple test from Mariah; what was I thinking getting tangled up with someone li
ke Nicholas Colby?
As it turned out, Mariah’s “good job” had been literal.
“We’re promoting you to guest columnist!” she announced.
“Wow! Really? Thanks!” I couldn’t believe it. After all these years, I was finally getting a shot at writing for the magazine.
“Don’t thank me. You earned it. You got quite the Twitter response, my dear!” she said cheerily. “Lots of retweets with links to your article. Our naughty little secrets column was a trending topic all day yesterday. Let’s see if you can repeat the magic next week.”
“Next week?” I asked. Katie, who was already a guest columnist, usually only wrote one piece a month in addition to her editorial duties. Was Mariah really asking me to write for Brown-Eyed Girl on a weekly basis?
It turned out that she was.
“I want to strike while the iron is hot,” Mariah continued. “Oh, and you’ve been cleared by HR to leave for the day. Something about taking off for extra hours you worked last week.
I thanked her for the opportunity, and exited her office to get my stuff together to go home for the day.
I couldn’t believe I was going to get to do another column! This was a dream come true. I had no idea in the world what I would write about next time, though. But before I could think about it for too long, a text message went off on my phone. It was from Nick.
It turned out I wouldn’t be going home after all.
Chapter Six
My office. Fifteen minutes. Wear a skirt. Nothing underneath it.
I read the text three times, before replying that I’d be there.
I have a car waiting downstairs. He shot back.
I wondered if he was really going to deliver the goods, or just tease me again? Fortunately, I was already wearing a skirt – I would have had no time to run home and change clothes. My apartment was at least an hour round-trip from his office building.
I stopped in the second floor bathroom of my work and slid my panties off inside the stall. Walking out onto the street without panties was surprisingly exciting. I felt free…heady with anticipation.