The Principle of Desire (The Science of Temptation)

by Delphine Dryden

  “He asked me to marry him.”

  He had asked more than once, in fact. The horrible non-proposal didn’t count, but he’d made at least two actual proposals once his pain medications wore off and he could think clearly again. The first time he’d tried to be romantic and declared his love for her. She’d cried herself to sleep that night, and dreamed of Ed in a knight costume, LARPing. A visored black knight had strolled past him, ignoring him, and Ed had conked him on the back of the helm with his giant foam halberd. She hadn’t seen Aaron in the black knight costume but she was a psychologist, after all.

  The second proposal had been all practicality, and less emotionally fraught for Beth. He’d laid out reasons. They were the same reasons she’d argued with herself over, which made them extremely compelling and reminded her that, once upon a time, she and Aaron had seemed to be of one mind about most things. He’d pulled out photo albums. He’d pushed her buttons.

  “Figures he’d do that. He had you as a captive audience. Did you tell him to fuck off?”

  Under Ed’s levity she could hear the fear and doubt. He was trying to hide it with humor, but it showed in the tension of his body, the way he crossed his arms and didn’t meet her eyes.

  “Fuck off? No, not exactly. But I wasn’t snuggling with him, either,” she insisted, her first instinct to defend herself. Then she remembered she’d planned to be on offense tonight. “I’m here with you now, not him—that’s what matters. And I’m not in a snuggling mood at the moment, big boy.”

  She backed him into the wall and kissed him hard, slipping a hand around his throat and pressing as she canted her hips into his. She could feel him resist for a moment, then his instincts got the better of him and he kissed her back. When he tried to pull her closer, though, she slapped his hand.

  “No! And take your clothes off.”

  “Are you going to tell me what kind of mood you’re in, then?” He stripped on the spot as he talked. It didn’t take him long.

  “You’ll figure it out soon enough. Bedroom’s this way. Come along.”

  Crooking a finger at him, she sauntered across the living room and down the short hall to her bedroom, with only a passing thought for whether or not she’d tidied it. The bed was made, she saw with relief, and there were no stray clothes around the room. As good as she usually got.

  Taking Ed by the shoulders, she placed him in the middle of the room and pressed firmly. “Stay. I’ll be right back.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And close your eyes.”

  “Okey-dokey.”

  Okey-dokey?

  She took her clothes off, stripped the comforter from the bed, and gathered supplies from the special box in her closet, periodically checking to make sure Ed wasn’t peeking. Then she bundled the assortment of stuff into her skirt and stuck it on her nightstand so she’d have it at the ready.

  “All righty. Open your eyes.”

  “Will I get a big surprise?”

  “In a bit, quite possibly. For now I want you to service my needs like a good boy should.” She made a show of crawling onto the bed, wiggling her ass, feeling his gaze like a touch on her skin. When she rolled to her back, Ed was already there, kissing his way up the inside of her thigh, already half-hard. He must have shaved right before he came to the club, because his face was baby-smooth.

  When he finally stopped teasing and slotted his mouth over her pussy, Beth forgot everything, forgot her agenda for the evening, who was supposed to be on top, everything. Only Ed’s mouth mattered, his lips grazing her clit, pausing to suck, his tongue parting her folds and slipping inside to explore.

  She’d never had much trouble holding off orgasms when ordered to, when Aaron went down on her. Quite the opposite in fact. He knew exactly how to bring her up to the edge, when he wanted to, but mostly he indulged himself more than her. Ed was new, unpredictable, keying his behavior to her responses in a glorious sensual feedback loop, and before Beth knew it she was tipping over. Breaking under Ed’s gentle onslaught, shattered by the delicate persuasion of his tongue and fingers.

  He’s really very good at that.

  It was all she could think for a few moments, while her body buzzed with happy reverberations and Ed worked his way up to her mouth.

  Oh yes. That other thing. She had plans, and she had equipment. Shiny new equipment she’d never had a chance to use. And a willing bottom to try it all out on.

  After a few seconds of delectable sex-flavored kissing, Beth pushed Ed away and rolled out from under him. “Good boy. Very well done.”

  “Thank you. I try. Where you goin’?”

  “Not far. Hey, come here, big boy, swing your legs over the edge of the bed and bend over for me.”

  “Oh fuck. Fuck. Tonight?”

  “You know you want to.”

  “Fuck.” He buried his face in his hands for a few heartbeats, and Beth was about to give up on her beloved plan when Ed cursed again under his breath and kicked his legs over the side of the bed, shimmying into position in front of her. “Be gentle with me. No, seriously, extremely gentle.”

  Laughing, a little nervous, she reached past him for the bundled skirt and tugged it out of his line of sight before unfolding it. Harness. Dildo. Lube. Wet wipes. All ready to go.

  Beth couldn’t believe she was actually doing it. She had tried on the harness more than once, checking her cock-wielding self in the mirror and liking what she saw and how the idea of penetrating someone with the thing made her feel. But this time her fingers trembled as she buckled the leather straps into place around her hips and ensured that the dildo was seated firmly.

  “Okay. Give me your hands. No, don’t look back here, give me your hands!”

  He ignored her, staring in open awe at the black leather harness, and the faux cock in all its sparkly purple glory. “You look amazing. And I need to scoot back a little because my dick’s about to drill into your mattress.”

  “Oh. Okay, after that, give me your hands.”

  He scooted, then lifted his hands behind his back. She took them, placing them on his rear cheeks. “Now pull.”

  “Really? Because I already feel very, very exposed back there. In fact there’s a draft in this room and I can feel it swooshing by.”

  “There’s no draft, Ed. Spread ‘em.”

  “Ew.” But he did, and Beth rewarded his effort with a hefty squeeze of lube.

  “Not ew. It’s very hot. Almost as hot as it will be in a little while when I make you my bitch.”

  He laughed at that, but winced when she worked the first finger in, and clenched so hard her finger hurt.

  “Shh. Relax. Bear down. I know that sounds strange but it helps.”

  “I guess I’ll take your word for it.” He bore down. She gained a fraction of an inch.

  She stroked the small of his back, pressing down to soothe the muscles. He was unbelievably tight, and if he didn’t relax, they’d never work through the painful part to get to the good stuff. “Bear down and think of staying like that. Letting your muscles loosen into that position instead of contracting again.”

  It was enough this time. Angling her finger and slipping it fully inside him, she brushed over a ridged spot and Ed gasped.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  “Bad oh my God, or good oh—”

  “Good, good, keep going. Do it again. Please do it again.”

  He’d gotten the knack of it now, and she was able to work a second finger in. Scissoring her digits back and forth made Ed moan, and pumping gently loosened him even more and got his hips moving in sync with her actions.

  “Needs to be soon. I need to come soon,” he murmured into the mattress after another few moments of playing.

  Beth pulled out and grabbed a wipe, cleaning her hands as thoroughly as possible before she gripped Ed’s hip and lined the cock up with his well-lubed hole.

  She pressed the tip against him and he shivered. She pressed and eased back, pressed and eased back, until she felt
the head of the dildo breach the narrowest ring and slide forward unimpeded. Ed groaned as she thrust more deeply, and a wave of arousal hit her so hard she trembled nearly as much as he did.

  The sight was unbelievably hot, the gleaming purple silicone disappearing into Ed’s ass, his hole stretching to accept it. He dropped one hand from his butt and reached beneath his body, and when he pulled on his cock she matched the tempo she could see and feel.

  It was supposed to be about Ed this time, but she came first because she couldn’t help it. She ground her pelvis against the resistance when she pushed all the way inside him. The shift in rhythm took Ed with her, and he jerked under her hands as he finished himself off. Groaning in unison, they slumped together in a heap of postcoital exhaustion.

  * * *

  Ed’s muscles were noodle-limp, his mind oddly clear. He wanted nothing more than to fall asleep in Beth’s bed, to wake in the morning and watch her sleep if she was still sleeping.

  What did he do?

  He asked me to marry him.

  And in retaliation against that notion, she had taken Ed.

  He’d more than liked it. The act itself and the way it had made him feel strangely powerful to let Beth do it. Her ex hadn’t been willing or able to do that for her, to give the things she wanted to take, or to take the things she needed to give. Ed had done that for her, and it had strengthened them both. Now, though, when he most wanted to bask in afterglow and contemplate what it would feel like to do that to Beth, he stared into a dark part of his soul and wondered if it would eventually take over.

  Perhaps it was the ebbing endorphins that made him so sad. Perhaps it was just his inherently practical, skeptical nature. He knew things weren’t right yet, and he knew he needed to leave.

  Beth had gone and come back already once, with a warm wet washcloth. By the time she returned from the bathroom again, he was sitting on the foot of the bed, fully clothed and tying his shoes.

  Her expression cloaked her more effectively than a robe could have. Naked, she had more natural defenses than Ed had ever possessed. He admired the hell out of her strength, and hated that she seemed to be using it against herself in this case. Depriving herself of happiness. Nobody should get to deprive his Beth of happiness, not even Beth.

  “Why?”

  He tied off the bow, braced his hands on his knees, sighed. “I’m not Aaron.”

  “I’m absurdly well aware of that.”

  “But I’m also not...not-Aaron. This isn’t a competition between him and me, okay? I’m not doing that. Not because I know I’d lose, but because what matters is who makes you happy. Maybe it’s him, maybe it’s me, maybe it’s some hobo off the street that none of us have met yet. I have no idea. And right now,” he said as gently as he could, “neither do you.”

  “I...” She wove her fingers in front of her, shields slipping a fraction. “I brought you home. You let me peg you.”

  “And it was awesome,” he assured her, “but one pegging doth not a relationship make. On the other hand, being a complete tool once in a while doesn’t automatically end a relationship either. For you, this was still partly about Aaron. Reacting to what he did. And believe me, if I ever let you do what you just did to me again, I so do not want it to be about some other dude. Especially not an asshole like that. Because we both deserve better.”

  “So you’re just going? We can still be friends or something, is that it?”

  “No. I mean yes, I’m going right now. But I’m putting myself on the same terms you put Aaron. I won’t email you or call or send you presents. I’ll wait for you to figure out what you want. Not what you don’t want, what you actively want going forward. Just don’t call until you know for sure, all right?”

  She clamped her lips together and nodded, tears bright in her eyes. But they didn’t fall. Or if they did, it was after he’d closed the door behind him.

  Chapter Twelve

  Up to this point in his life, Ed had managed to dodge the drama bullet. No major family drama, no girlfriend drama. He’d never even had a terrible boss to deal with, and he loved his work. For one year of his childhood he’d been bullied, inexplicably and mercilessly, by another neighborhood kid. Then that kid had moved, the sun had come out again, and he’d gone back to his old routines.

  All that was fine. But with Beth in the mix, everything had become great. Not just the sun shining, benevolent in the background, but a sunrise so stunning he wanted to cry and cheer at the same time...the same old sun, but his perspective made him appreciate it infinitely more as the miracle it was.

  His world with Beth in it had become a sunrise thing, too extraordinary to take for granted. Now he faced the prospect of continuing without her after having his consciousness raised, and he had no framework for handling that kind of loss. No training. No practice. Nothing. He was wandering around in the sudden gloom, not sure how he got there and with no clue how to find his way out. Or even if he would find his way out.

  But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was knowing he could do nothing about Beth’s decision, or even offer his support. It had been days since Ed had talked to her, and it was driving him crazy. She was in her house, sad and alone, trying to figure out impossible life crap and probably feeling terrible, which made him feel terrible.

  He couldn’t take much more of that.

  * * *

  Grading freshman work was miserable under the best of circumstances. When Beth herself was miserable, it was all she could do to get through the short answer tests without screaming. But she had to grade, or she’d get behind. Grading also gave her something to do besides check her email, where she knew she would see another message from Aaron. He’d called, he’d written. Her house was in full bloom, fresh flowers on every available surface. She had at least two pounds of chocolates sitting, uneaten, on her kitchen counter.

  But that wasn’t the problem. What she didn’t see was the problem. No emails from Ed. No calls, no texts. Damn him, he was doing exactly what he’d said he was going to. But if Aaron cared enough to violate her request for time to think, why didn’t Ed?

  She knew that was ridiculous and unfair, which was why she had left all the emails unanswered and refused to eat the chocolates.

  The reason why classical conditioning and operant conditioning are different is because classical conditiong works on ur reflexes and operant conditiong is stuff u can control consiously.

  Beth wasn’t even sure how to grade some of this stuff. She had standards, but if she failed every student who slipped into text-speak or misspelled a word, her entire class would have to repeat the semester. And she really didn’t want to see most of them again.

  Skinner used rats for his experiments because he read that book about moving your cheese and figured working with actual rats would be a good place to start learning about human motivation. Furthermore, building mazes for rats requires far fewer materials than building human-sized mazes. Lastly, some humans are lactose intolerant and not positively reinforced by cheese, making rats the smarter choice.

  And some of the smarter ones weren’t even pretending to try. That was the most depressing thing of all, the wasted potential. This kid was clearly somewhat intelligent, but hadn’t even managed to grasp the difference between positive reinforcement and reward.

  ??? I forgot this test was supposed to be 2day. Sorry. :-(

  No, really, the most depressing thing of all was when potential seemed but a distant dream.

  Game night was tomorrow. She wanted to go, to be part of the group and have fun that was only complex in the sense that it involved special dice and keeping track of spell damage. But wasn’t she supposed to want to go to wine tastings and the theater department chair’s wife’s literary salon? The symphony and museums? Wealthy life in the big city? She loved all those things. Aaron gave her all those things, but he came with so many strings attached. He had potential, yes, but it was just possible he’d already wasted it. People didn’t really change their fundam
ental natures all that much in their forties. Hell, most people didn’t change their natures much past puberty.

  Ed had mentioned being a curmudgeon since middle school. Beth would be willing to bet he hadn’t really been one then either, because he certainly wasn’t one now. He was a hedgehog, bristling on the outside, softer inside, viewing the world with skepticism and keeping one big idea in mind. Not necessarily a positive idea, his notion that all people are stupid unless proven otherwise, but not an entirely impractical one either. He protected his feelings and kept them out of sight sometimes, but he did have them. And he didn’t blame people who didn’t meet his high standards, he mostly just avoided relying on them. He surrounded himself with people he thought highly of, which was a good thing. He had included Beth in that group, and that flattered her. His presentation might be rough, but his character was sound.

  Aaron, like the fox in Isaiah Berlin’s model, had no single defining principle except whatever worked best for him at the time. Proposing with negging? That hadn’t worked. Cue the romantic proposal. No? The practical proposal. She was almost curious as to what he might come up with next. But, she realized with a sudden flash like a lightbulb going on, she would still say no. Because Aaron’s character was not sound. It was all presentation, flash, with no substance to back it up. He had apologized to her and to Ed only when doing so was clearly his only viable social option. He was a chasm into which she could throw her emotional energy forever and never get a thing back. That was the opposite of a foundation on which to build a life.

  For so many years, Beth had defined her life by what she didn’t want, and now that system was failing her because those things had changed. It hadn’t occurred to her for years to ask herself what she did want. What truly made her happy. Game night had made her happy, and perhaps part of her uneasiness in accepting that was the way experiencing happiness now revealed all the unhappiness that had come before. She wanted to be around people who made her happy. To be around friends. She wanted to stay here, in the house she had started to transform into a home, because she actively liked this house. And she wanted a playmate, not a Master. Somebody who was neither top nor bottom, but a fellow adventurer. And possibly kids, a marriage, but that was further ahead. She was shedding old definitions and labels right now. There was time enough to take on new ones.