by Gabi Moore
I watched him from behind. Even as he swayed gently from side to side, or as he reached out or shifted his weight from one side to the other, I could make out all the little muscles under his skin. He was truly a beautiful man. Hard, raw-looking. I noticed the faded ruins of some tattoos on his back, tattoos that looked like even they couldn’t stand the punishment he had put his body through and had sunk deeper into his skin to get away from the Malawi heat and dust.
When he turned around, my eyes were at his crotch. But I took my time in turning away. He noticed me noticing. Good. I took the steaming cup from him and blew on the surface, taking care not to drop the strange line of eye contact we had strung up between us both. Here, he was in his element. Something more animal than human, more wild than civilized. Only his quick eyes hinted at something noble and refined somewhere inside him, underneath all the grunt and sinew of his masculine frame. I wanted him to see me admiring him. I sat cross legged on his lumpy mattress and set the cup aside.
“What tea is this?” I asked.
“It’s a tea for your nerves. It will calm you.”
“Sure, but what is it?”
“Does it matter?”
I took a sip.
“I guess not,” I said. It tasted bitter and fresh, like wet hay or clods of soil. Maybe like melon peel.
“You built this house yourself?”
“With my bare hands” he replied, and came to side beside me. I looked down at his hands and made out a few flecks of crushed herb on his stocky fingertips.
I took another sip.
“I didn’t tell anyone. About what happened the other day.”
“I know.”
I could hear the breath enter and leave his immense body. He towered at least a full foot above me, even when sitting. The wind outside was playing with the grass. I exhaled loudly and put the cup aside again.
“What other special herbs do you have? Do they all have, like, magical properties?” I said, in my cheeriest voice.
He turned his pale jade-green eyes to me. Those eyes bore right into the core of me. They were eyes that were naked. The rest of him was scarcely clothed, it was true, but it was in his eyes that he was most exposed of all. He was open. Animalistic. A man uncivilized. A wild man. It was almost too graphic.
“If you look at it the right way, everything has ‘magical properties’,” he said, with a naughty smile.
“What does that stuff do?” I said, pointing to some shriveled looking pods hung up like garlic.
“Reduces inflammation. Good for the bones.”
“And that?” Some fresh leaves were drying in the window.
“For contacting the ancestors.”
“Really?”
He didn’t reply. I hated to think that I had offended him.
“Well what about what’s in that jar?” I asked quickly, to change the topic. It was a tiny china vase with a lid so dirty on the outside you could scarcely make out the red dragon painted on it.
He looked and said nothing.
“That’s …not for you.”
I jumped up and went to have a closer look.
“Who’s it for? What does it do?”
“Don’t touch that! It’s very potent. It’s for…. you’re young, you don’t need it.”
“But what does it do?” I begged. I felt like the nosiest kid in the strangest candy store.
“It’s trouble” he said and stood between me and the jar. His body was like a wall. Elemental, impenetrable. It took my breath away to be so close to him again. “You’re trouble” I said and laughed, going to sit back down on the mattress again. “Besides if it’s some gross traditional medicine thing for old men who can’t get it up, then you can just say so, you know” I said.
He laughed.
“Well, it’s kind of like that” he said quietly. Yes, I remembered the rumors. No, I hadn’t forgotten what people had said about him. That Mama Tembi thought he was a degenerate and that she had heard it from someone who had heard it from someone else that he was practicing some kind of witchcraft in here and dabbling with the dark arts… But I’m a Christian, goddamit, and Lord knows I was tired of hearing stories second hand. I wanted to see for myself. Just how dangerous could one man be anyway? How bad could any one plant be? What was he going to do, put a spell on me? I looked down at his hand, resting on his muscular thigh. He was just human. All human. I wasn’t scared.
“It’s more like …something to remind you of your animal side. Sometimes, for some people, that goes to sleep in them. They forget their bodies. They shrivel up inside. This is a plant that …wakes that up again.”
I wished so hard that he would reach out and kiss me again. But he didn’t even look at me. Didn’t he want to tie me up again? Force me to do something sleazy?
“I want some,” I said, without thinking.
He smiled to himself, as if he knew I was going to say that.
“No.”
“What? Why not? I’ll pay you. Just let me try some.”
He looked a little angry.
“Pay me? What makes you think you have anything worth giving me?” he said.
The words stung. His voice was dripping with the same biting sarcasm from the time before. The mango tree time. The time I had melted onto his fingertips, like the helpless little girl I was, and begged him to go further.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mea– “
“’Sorry’ doesn’t mean a damn thing. Don’t apologize. You’re ignorant and young and sweet. Just own it. Don’t apologize.”
I was confused.
“Sweet?”
He paced the room.
“Called your fiancé back at home yet? I bet he’s very worried about you” he said.
“He’s not.” My reply came so quickly even I was surprised.
“My fiancé doesn’t care about me at all. He just wants some airhead to play house with. Some puppet. He just wants to use me…” I said, more bitterness in my voice than I had planned for.
“And… you’re not OK with being used?” he said. He was towering tall above me, his imposing form seemingly swelling to fill up the whole cabin. I was wet again.
“Well, I didn’t say that…” I said, and raised cautious eyes up to meet his. He looked down at me, the stance of a warrior, and for the first time, I realized that his sparse clothing, his unkempt hair – all of it was nothing compared to the incredible life that seemed to thrum off him. He wasn’t just strong. He was …vital, like something vibrant and heady was pulsing through him, even as he stood there motionless, looking down at me. With those arms, he could have snapped me in two, if that’s what he wanted. I squirmed and looked away again, tried to fix my gaze on the intricate, manly tendons and wires in his broad foot. The air left the room. I could almost feel his laser focus on me. On my body.
“Your body is a beautiful thing, Penelope, you should treat it with only the most immense kindness and respect.”
A familiar, Sunday-school tale. I had heard it all before. But his story was inverted somehow. Had I done it all wrong? Your body is a temple, Penelope …but a temple of carnal pleasures. Your body is so special …that it deserves only the dirtiest of things. Love yourself Penelope …love yourself so hard it hurts.
I sighed.
“I don’t want to go back home. I don’t want to marry him anymore.” The words shocked me, once they were out of my mouth and there, for someone else to hear.
“Ok.”
“And I don’t want to leave Mchinji.”
“Ok.”
“And I want to travel more. A lot more. I want to go places and do things.”
“Good.”
“And I want you to tie me up again.”
Silence. His muscles cracked slightly as he crouched down to his haunches, took my chin in his hands and forced me to look at him. I was blushing ferociously, hot all over and 100% jelly and butterflies on the inside. But it was all true. I had started speaking the truth and I didn’t want to stop.
“Sit on the bed Penny. I’m going outside. When I come back, you’re going to do exactly as I say” he breathed, saying the words slowly and sensuously, giving them each ample time on his tongue.
“While we’re in this cabin, you do everything I tell you. You will trust me, implicitly. You’ll do everything. Do you understand?”
I exhaled one long, jagged breath.
“Yes.”
Chapter Fourteen - Viktor
I needed to get out of there. To clear my head. The entire cabin was buzzing, almost literally crackling with her scent. Something was different about her today. She was juicier somehow. Plucky and a little arrogant and yes, somehow some of her glossy little-miss-perfect shine had come off her, and god was she beautiful underneath. Fucking beautiful.
The more undone she came, the hotter she seemed. And now I was outside the cabin, my cabin, in the bright, fresh light of day, at a crossroads and wondering what in God’s name I was doing. The girl had a fiancé for fuck’s sake. Mama Tembi would skin me alive if she knew.
How was this really going to play out anyway? Like every other predictable female, she’d soon realize that oh, sure, the guy who lives in a log cabin in the woods in the middle of nowhere? He’s actually a wild guy who lives in a log cabin in the woods. He’s never going to give you that church wedding and holiday villa by the sea. The guy you thought was so exotic and sexy and different? Well, yeah, he’s different. That’s kind of the point.
It’s always the same. They come with that same desperate fucking hunger in their eyes, and they want you, but man, they don’t just want your cock (even though, Jesus, they really want it), they want your spirit. They eat it up. They see you free and bold and alive and they just want to take it from you. They want it all for themselves. Starved little girls who grow up to be starved women who suck the life from anything they can. They can fuck. Of course. But it’s just like a little spa trip for them: the full noble savage package, a thrilling weekend away with a well-hung forest guy who makes you feel like the woman you are and then what? Then she fucking leaves. Because of course she does.
And now I didn’t know what to think anymore. Penny was different. But was she?
Everything was going to plan. She was sticking it to the man/daddy/Jesus and I wasn’t going to stop her. Hell, let them send all their uptight little church girls my way. But there was something else. Something else under my damn skin.
Fuck it.
I grabbed the leather strip from the mango tree, filled my lungs with crisp forest air and stepped back into the cabin.
She was sitting folded, hugging her knees, on my mattress.
“Stand up,” I said.
I was angry with her. Angry for coming here. She didn’t fucking belong. She stood up.
“Take your clothes off.”
She did it with all the finesse of a convent girl in a communal change room. She had worn a cheap cotton shirt with tiny toucans printed on it, and little jean shorts. She folded these in half and placed them gently at the foot of my bed. She left her silver cross necklace on. When you rip out a stem of fresh kikuyu grass, the very base of it is bright sapling green and completely pliant and sweet. Her body reminded me of this.
She was supple, young. She stooped slightly, but her frame was lissome enough that it looked graceful. Her breasts were modest and puffy. Her thighs huddled against each other above the knee but parted ways again, just a little, leaving a slight triangle opening beneath her beautiful cunt. The hair was lighter there. I had never seen blonde pubic hair in my life. Like the pussy of an angel. I smiled.
“Your arms …put them behind you,” I said, and she obediently extended them for me, like I was about to cuff her. Once the knots were done, I pulled on them hard to test, and she wobbled a little on her feet. Where my fingertips grazed her skin, she prickled up in goosebumps. I leaned in to look closer at these, and smell her skin…
“Lie down on the bed.”
It wasn’t a command, not at all. I was only speaking on her behalf. I knew she wanted to be on the bed. So I told her to go to the bed. I was there, serving her. I was the mouthpiece for her desires. Every step, I spoke out loud the things she couldn’t, and didn’t know how to say. It was she who was commanding me. Through those Bambi eyes, she was dominating me completely, and I had absolutely no control over myself.
“Spread your legs,” I said, because it was what needed to happen. She was limber: even with her hands tied, she fell onto her back and swiftly split her legs apart, lifting them high to either side. But her face was hidden, tossed to the side and cowering behind her hair.
“Look at me!” I barked, and she did. Instantly. She flicked the little curtain of hair aside and shot me a tender, imploring look. Her eyes were bluer and more watery than I had ever seen them. She was perfect. A little doll. A sweet little doll with perfect painted lips and eyes and tiny hands. And I was going to fuck her till she screamed.
I dropped to my knees and placed two careful hands on either of her milky thighs. Her asshole boyfriend had never touched her here. Never touched her like this. And I was soon going to touch her in places nobody else even could. I growled approval at how my fingers seemed to send fresh goosebumps over her flesh. She was a split peach in front of me, slick, ripe and nearly bursting. I traced a finger all down the length of her slit. The effect was electric. She squirmed violently, but not in protest. Her entire body seemed to chase after my touch, like a cat snaking after a caress.
“Now tell me what you want.”
Her fragile ribcage rose and fell as she took a deep breath in and then released it.
“I want you…” she started, tossing her head first this way and that way, pulling her gaze away again. “I want you to touch me… I want you to teach me…”
She didn’t know what she wanted. She only knew that she wanted.
I suddenly realized just how woefully inexperienced she really was. Was I the only man she had ever even seen? Had she really been living in a bubble all this time? I guess you could have a life cut off from civilization right in your own body.
I took off my sarong and flung it aside, and she looked at me. With girlish wonder, she looked at me, and I swear to God, I had never been looked at quite like that. She didn’t look at me, but into me. For a moment, we were Adam and Eve in the garden, and I could almost believe she was about to ask me what it was.
She didn’t writhe and moan and reach out to grab it. She didn’t play-act. She was fascinated, so she looked. I let her. I’ve always been on the larger side, but kneeling in front of her now, I felt like a giant. She didn’t know any of the “rules”. Had she ever fumbled in the back seat of a car with a boy? Ever kissed and groped in the movie theatre? Nothing? She was more than naïve; she was like a completely sexual blank slate.
“Kiss it,” I said, giving her permission. She closed her legs and wriggled into a kneeling position in front of me, her face close, mesmerized.
“Kiss it,” I said again, and touched bent knuckles to her cheek. She kissed it, like she was kissing the feet of a Virgin Mary statue. My head fell back and I groaned and twitched in her hands. She squealed and jumped back.
“You can move it?” she said. I chuckled.
“Did I say you could stop?”
Her eyes flashed at me. She had no idea what the fuck she was doing. She kissed it again.
“Now open your mouth, and suck it.”
She obeyed. Even a third of the way in, she was nearly gagging, although she certainly tried. Her jaw was tiny, but I groaned as I slipped over her velvety tongue. It wasn’t enough. I wanted to be all the way in her, for my dick to disappear down into her throat completely, to reach down into her. I gave a tiny thrust and she recoiled, choking. But then she was on me again, taking me in even deeper. Fuck, yes. I would teach her. I would teach her everything and anything, if she’d only keep sucking like that…
“Lie back.” I clenched my fists to stop them from shaking. My head was spinning. I had fucke
d my fair share of women, but something about her was so strange, so different. I couldn’t tell if I wanted to fuck her brutally or wrap her in a blanket and kiss her. Or both. I wanted to protect her, but the most dangerous thing in this room was me, and I fully intended to hurt her.
“You’ve never done this before, with a man,” I said. She shook her head. I split her legs open again and traced tiny circles at the entrance, then pressed a finger in, just an inch, and waited there. The weight of her entire body clenching around me was out of this world. I smiled at her.
“More?”
She nodded. For what seemed like hours, I played with her cunt this way, easing the tiniest bit in at a time, tracing rings inside her and opening her up, one breath at a time, as she eased and relaxed into me. I would say, “more?” and she would nod, and I would give her more. A dark puddle grew under her ass and she opened her legs as wide as she could. We were both in a trance; and the smaller the movement, the more it seemed to affect her.
Eventually, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I needed to be inside her.
My body ached. I pulled out slick fingers and stroked my cock. Her eyes grew wide.
“It won’t fit.”
I grinned down at her.
“We’ll make it fit,” I said, and leaned down to kiss her. Her lips were soft and silky and warm, her little tongue darting around in her mouth like a rabbit. The tip of my cock pressed into her navel. Maybe she was right. Maybe it wouldn’t fucking fit. Good.
I pulled back and stroked a damp lock of her from her head, kissed her once more and then watched her, so I could see that exact moment when I penetrated her, when my body went where no man’s had been before. I pressed at that tender ring and waited, the heft of my body against hers, and she gasped.
“No! Not yet. I’m afraid. This is all wrong, maybe I should go home…” she said, the words tumbling out. But I looked into her milky blue eyes and they looked back at me and the words trailed off. They meant nothing. I pushed in an inch, and I felt her gorgeous pussy stretch and close all around me, hot and twitching and so beautiful it was like the door to heaven itself. She yelped.