The Principle of Desire (The Science of Temptation)

by Delphine Dryden

  “I like both horns on that dilemma.”

  “Give me a break, I’m fairly new at this side of things.”

  Cheeky smile from the boy. Beth studied his face, wondering what she liked about it, trying to be objective. His nose wasn’t distinctive at all. His eyes were nice and kind of soulful but nothing to swoon over except when they were, because of the things they said. His mouth was nice enough to look at, he had no cheekbones to speak of, and though his jawline was strong he was about one slice of pie away from a double chin. The stubble he usually sported didn’t hide that. He did have fabulous hair, she had to admit. Thick and curly, light brown, just long enough to really get a grip on. But all in all, he ought to be no more than the sum of his mostly unremarkable parts. Instead...so hot, the way he looked at her. As if he actually saw her.

  “There’s more to you than meets the eye.” She tightened around him, squeezing as she rose then sank again. Watching his eyes, his mouth. Cataloging every reaction, each sound and shiver.

  “Look who’s talking.”

  “Does it scare you that I really want to use the whip on you again some time? With you naked, preferably.” Up. Down. His eyes fluttered shut, and she discovered another remarkable feature. He had eyelashes to die for.

  “Yes. I’d still let you do it, though.”

  She ran her hands down his chest, enjoying the spring of coarse hair under her fingertips. Pinching his nipple lightly brought a grunt, and Ed writhed under her before he could stop himself. She squeezed harder, until his eyes flew open and he regarded her with pain and trepidation. She released him and mirrored her action on the other side. “Don’t move.”

  Up, down. Beth was as turned on as Ed seemed to be. He shuddered each time she came to rest on his lap.

  “What else would you let me do to you? Nipple clamps? Cock harness? Clothespins?”

  “Oh, fuck. Maybe, yeah. Probably. A little pain is really hot. As long as the clothespins aren’t on my balls.”

  “Where’s the fun in that, then? Let’s see...how about pegging?”

  “Yes.”

  He hadn’t even paused.

  “You do know what pegging is, right?”

  Ed’s chuckle set up a sympathetic motion between them, tugging Beth so close to a climax she could feel her body blushing in anticipation. “Yeah. I never minded prostate exams all that much, though. Okay, that’s a lie, I’ve gotten a huge boner every time I’ve had one. So I figure, if anyone ever wanted to try that on me I’d say yes. At least once. And maybe I’d get to reciprocate. You’d be the first.”

  “I thought you were so grumpy and obstinate. Where is that guy?”

  “I’m only that guy when people are being dumbasses. You’re not a dumbass. Now please let me move?”

  Beth laughed. “Nobody’s stopping you. You’re not tied that tightly.”

  “You told me not to,” he said, winning her over without even trying. “You’re in charge. Another time I get to be in charge, right? And I’ll want you to do what I tell you, so...golden rule.”

  She leaned forward, unable to take his honest eyes anymore, and pressed herself against his chest. “Ed?” she whispered.

  “Yeah?”

  “Move.”

  He did. Oh, he did. And so did she, which made her come almost right away, because she’d been close since the whole thing started. Ed groaned as she clenched around him, and somehow managed to work his hips even faster despite the restraints. She met his pace, bearing down, working with him until he jerked to a halt and came inside her with a shout.

  Effortless. And Aaron had always made a thing of how hard it was to get her off, what a project she was. And fuck, she was thinking about Aaron again while Ed was still inside her, and she’d just had the best sex of her life. Fuck.

  Chapter Eight

  It ended way too soon. Beth kept moving on his lap even after they’d both finished, as if she couldn’t help but wring the last few drops of pleasure from both their bodies. But her face...something was wrong again, like it had been when she started. Her expression had gone from blissful to closed-off, and the gorgeous orgasmic glow was already fading. She lifted herself off him with obvious reluctance, but also a sadness he thought didn’t belong to him.

  Gathering her clothes, Beth disappeared behind him, and when she rounded the chair again she was back in her jeans and top. Still grim and tight-lipped, she began to untie him.

  He finally figured out this was her about-to-cry face when she actually started crying, fat tears pattering on his arm as she freed his hands. She was silent except for a telltale sniffle or two. He let her work until he was free, trying to figure out what to say. He knew he sucked at situations like this, situations when girls got complicated and weepy for nebulous reasons. In this instance, though, he really wanted to not suck. He wanted to help her feel better. And he wanted to make sure it wasn’t the sex she was crying about, because his self-esteem was solid but the timing was undeniably suspicious.

  “Hey.”

  She looked up from the floor, where she knelt unlooping the last of the rope from his ankle. Ed leaned forward, brushing his hand over her damp cheek.

  “I’m feeling a little down,” he said. “I could use a hug if you’re not too busy with that rope.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Beth dropped the rope and stood, letting Ed pull her down into his lap. “I didn’t want you to see this, I thought if I just made my escape quickly enough, but obviously that was insane. This isn’t anything about you. It wasn’t—that was completely wonderful and I don’t know why I’m crying. Well, I do, but I hate why, because it’s so fucking stupid, and—”

  He covered her hands, stilling them, and she stopped talking. Ed could feel some of the tension drain away from her slim body. Hypothesis confirmed.

  “Now you’re kind of being a dumbass, so I may have to get grumpy again.”

  “I’m sitting here crying and you’re calling me a dumbass?”

  “If the...ass...fits. Wait. That just sounds like I’m talking about the pegging thing.”

  She coughed out a laugh, but it turned into a wretched sob halfway through. Ed tried another tack. Honesty.

  “Beth, why are you crying? Let me decide for myself if I think it’s stupid.”

  Sniffling some more, she shrugged and swung her legs like a bashful kid. But she talked, which was all that mattered. As she spoke, she played with his fingers. “I kept thinking about Aaron. Not like I was fantasizing about him, but realizing stuff about our relationship. Things that made me feel bad about myself, and things I resented. Which was the opposite of how I was feeling about what we were doing just now. So I resented that, too, the way he’s still intruding on my life and spoiling things that ought to be happy and not about him. But I know it’s stupid because I’m the one letting that happen. He’s not here, it’s all on me.”

  He considered that for a moment, while he stroked her back in a way that seemed to soothe her. “He is here, in a way. Because he’s your baggage. That’s the problem with baggage—you carry it wherever you go.”

  “Pop psychology,” she scoffed.

  “It’s true, though. We all have baggage. Ignoring it doesn’t make it less true. It makes it heavier in the long run, I think.” He looked around the room, trying to come up with an example, and finally saw one through the door to the dining room. “Look, you see the wine rack over there?”

  Beth looked and nodded, and he went on.

  “So my mom is a Southern Baptist. Deep-down, dyed-in-the-wool, revival-tent church lady. Doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, thinks feminism is a dirty word. Watches Billy Graham and votes ultraconservative. All the stereotypes, right? Except she’s my mom, and I love her, and in a lot of ways she’s an awesome parent. This is the other side of the family from my grandmom who watched me as a kid, by the way.”

  “Okay. How does this relate to the wine rack?”

  “I’m getting there. I realized a long time ago that my mother’s beliefs weren’t
my beliefs, and that used to be a huge problem for me, especially when I was a kid. That’s part of my baggage now, she’s part of my baggage, in a way I don’t think everybody’s parents are. Way more than my dad’s ever been. Because I had to get past the idea that only one of us could be right, and that I had to hate her if she was wrong or hate myself if she was right.”

  “You needed separation from her.”

  “Yeah. But at the same time, this is an ongoing thing, because she loves me and is pretty convinced I’m going to hell. So unless I cut her out of my life, which I don’t want to do, I have to listen to this stuff a lot. How I shouldn’t be drinking, or cavorting with loose women, or whatever.”

  “Does she actually say ‘cavorting with loose women’?”

  “Yes, she does. Even though I don’t get much cavorting action. Anyway. Last year she tried an email campaign on me. Every evening, at the same time, she’d send me something on this topic. A link, a photo, a forwarded crazytime email chain, just something. It was hard, because I didn’t want to blow up at her, so I decided to turn it into an experiment. I bought some wine on my way home from work one day, and when I got the email I sat down, read the thing she sent, then drank one glass of wine. I thought about—this part is kind of crazy but it also was sort of the point—about putting all the stuff I wanted to say to her into that glass. Pouring it in there. And then drinking it down and processing it instead. Letting my body get rid of it.”

  “No,” Beth interrupted. “It was a sacrament. The symbolism is too obvious. You were turning your rebellion against her into a sacred ritual by drinking the forbidden.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. Whatever it was, it worked. After maybe eight or nine months of this, I was completely over feeling bad about her position on the state of my soul. It was her problem, not mine, but it didn’t have to come between us if I changed the pattern. So I started replying to her emails, and sending sort of random stuff. Feel-good puppy pictures, or human interest stories, or science. Sometimes pictures of vineyards. Not a repudiation, just glimpses of a world that was very different from hers.”

  Beth had stopped crying. Now she was just listening to him, a bemused expression on her tear-streaked face. Ed felt a sense of accomplishment he probably didn’t deserve, and a quickening in his genitals that was probably very poorly timed.

  “So is she still sending you emails about you going to hell? You need that much wine to cope?”

  “No, no. That’s the thing. Around last Thanksgiving she stopped. And one day she was over here and made some remark about how she could tell I must not be seeing anyone because the place obviously hadn’t benefited from a woman’s touch. For Christmas she gave me the wine rack and a new bedspread set.”

  “Huh.”

  “Either a peace offering, or she’s given up and wants me to at least go to hell in style.” He plucked at Beth’s shirt, lifting the hem and sliding his hand up her spine. Her skin was warm and soft, and her subtle curves felt like fine craftsmanship under his touch.

  “I’ve forgotten what that had to do with me crying. Oh, it was baggage, something about baggage, right?”

  “Aaron is your baggage, and you only started trying to put that bag down a few months ago. It took me close to twenty years before I figured out how to deal with mine, and I was lucky in that mine cooperated after awhile. Aaron hung on. Because he sucks, like most people. He was around during pretty much all of your sex life so far. Of course you’re still thinking about him during sex, and of course that upsets you. You need to give it time.”

  Tilting her head, she smiled at him. A wan, struggling smile but still better than tears. “You’re very perceptive. Are you sure you’re not a psychologist?”

  “My secret identity. Psychologyman!”

  “Psychoman! Wait, no.”

  “No,” he agreed.

  To his great regret, Beth stood up and started putting on her shoes. “This was wonderful. But sadly, I really do have to go. I would have anyway,” she explained. “I have a ton of grading to do. Especially since I won’t be able to work on it tomorrow night.”

  “You really wanted this to be the weirdest date ever, right? That was actually your goal?”

  “You caught me. I was secretly filming the whole thing for reality TV, too.”

  Ed stretched before reaching for his pants. “Is there anything I could help with? The grading stuff, I mean? Drive you home, bring you cups of tea or massage your feet while you work? Do some of it for you? I don’t want to send you away feeling bad.”

  “I feel better,” she assured him. “You helped. I’m sorry I got my angst all over you.”

  “Not all of that was angst.” Shameless. But her smile widened. “It’ll wash off. Seriously, let me help. I’m the one who roped you into the game night, so I owe you.”

  “Well...” She seemed torn, worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth. “Technically I think that’s illegal, having you grade things. But if you really wanted to help and you promise not to tell anyone, I have the stuff I need to grade right here. In my toy bag.”

  “You carry around your students’ work in the same bag as your kink ropes and ball gag? Somehow that seems so very wrong.” He fastened his jeans and pulled his shirt on, feeling more comfortable once he matched Beth again. Although he much preferred it with both of them naked, he didn’t think that would be conducive to getting any work done.

  Beth shrugged. “Typically I don’t, but tonight I was trying to keep the papers from flying off the backseat so I stuck them in there.”

  “Okay, then. Grab the stuff, make me an answer key, and let’s do this shit.”

  * * *

  He had graded her freshmen’s quizzes. He had brought her a cup of tea and even massaged her feet. He had made her laugh. He had kissed her twice before letting her out the door—once on the lips, and once on the forehead.

  At the moment, though, he was about to get her pixie ass slaughtered by some trolls.

  Beth thought she might be in love with Ed.

  This frightened her, because she had known him only a few days. Not a great few days, either. Lots of lows to go with the highs, although the highs were admittedly spectacular.

  You cried about Aaron while you were having sex with Ed. You shouldn’t jump to the love conclusion. Your emotions are running away with you. You need to get your own self in order before you can love somebody else.

  Beth hated it when her internal voice used accusatory “you” language, but it was what it was. And that voice wasn’t necessarily wrong. She just wanted it to be wrong.

  “Okay. In the meantime, while Glabnak is recovering from the Curse of Pants-befouling—” Lin began.

  “By recovering, he means I’m changing my underwear and hosing out the chain mail,” Ed clarified, to the general amusement of everyone at the table.

  “Right, while Glabnak is cleaning up after himself—”

  “Hey, do I have a mobile changing-tent spell or something? I could just...shoooop, bam! Cabana!”

  “Maybe in the next game, if you decide to roll a caster instead of a warrior class. Okay, while Glabnak has been changing his poopy metal pants in front of everybody, another troll joins the first two trolls. He or she jumps down from the rune-covered boulder just as they did, carrying the same kind of giant bronze mace, and lands on top of...who’s next, again? Oh, Ben. So the troll lands on top of Darolon, and knocks him flat on the ground for, let’s see...twelve points of damage.”

  Beth had never met Lin before. He was on the short side, pudgy, fussy, with a limp hank of blue-black hair dangling over his forehead. Nothing to write home about, and definitely not a likely kinkster, though she tried not to judge books by their covers. He was obviously a good dungeon master, but Beth still had trouble thinking of him as the “DM” without giggling.

  The game was fascinating from both a personal and a psychological perspective. She felt she was learning a lot about her friends, and found it especially interesting to watch the rest o
f the group interact with Lin, who was now the only outsider to the kinky set. The code-switching and double entendres alone could have kept her busy for an entire semester.

  But mostly, it was just fun.

  “Crrrraaaap.” Ben looked at his character sheet, then at the board, then at Lin. “Crap. I’m almost dead.”

  Ed grinned. “Shooop, bam! Casket!”

  “Dude,” Lindsey interjected, “never play a caster, please. You’re so doing it wrong. It’s not shoop bam, it’s Pffffwwwwwhoooomp!”

  In the end, as far as Beth could tell, the group survived the encounter and retired for the evening in a local tavern where the wenches looked suspiciously like succubi. She looked forward to next week’s meeting, because her pixie was immune to the succubi’s charms and she might end up saving the day. It was an exciting prospect.

  Exciting in an equal but entirely different way was strolling from Lin’s townhome down the row to Ed’s, anticipating what might happen once they got there.

  Chapter Nine

  Beth quickly deduced that Ed had a plan, and it started the moment his kitchen door closed behind them.

  “By the way,” he asked, obviously trying to sound casual as he followed Beth to the living room, “what’s your safe word?”

  “Spearmint. Because I hate spearmint. Why, am I going to need it, big boy?”

  “I doubt it, but I’m supposed to know it anyway, right?” He stopped her mid-step, catching her upper arms and jerking her back against his chest.

  She responded with a breathy giggle, nervous and excited. “Yes, you are.”

  “You’re going to do everything I tell you to, right? As long as it’s safe?”

  “Mmm. Yes, I am.”

  She knew better than to wing it like that. She knew about the importance of clarity in negotiating the D/s dynamic. Aaron had made her revise her contract with him twice a year, reviewing each hard and soft limit and all the various rules to make sure they were both still on board. But that just didn’t feel right with Ed. Too much like work instead of play. She just wanted to mess around, for God’s sake, without it being a matter for a signed contract between the party of the first part and the party of the second part. With Ed, she wanted them to make up the rules together as they went along.