by Kerri Sharpe
The awareness of his gaze on my body had an unexpected effect. Even as my cheeks reddened with shame, I felt my spine arch, my hips rock a little. I was leaning back and enjoying this display, presenting my naked breasts to this man like a glamour model. My inner voice screamed ‘Crazy’, but my body was opening to his attention. Then it dawned on me. I was showing off.
Why the hell not? What did I have to lose? I didn’t even know this guy’s name, and he’d probably disappear into the anonymous city in an hour or so. We were just having a brief taste of each other. A little adventure.
Suddenly reckless, I spread my legs for him in invitation. I was acting lewd, shocking myself, and I hadn’t felt so damn alive in months. He swept down to join me, to kiss me again with those perfectly pretty lips and press the length of his body over mine. When his cock nudged at my slit and then entered me, it felt like I’d discovered the fast way to make a new friend. I don’t mean that glibly either – he was moving in me so softly and so intensely I felt I was suddenly close to him, not just interlocked physically, but discovering him in a way that hours of late-night conversations and shy dates just wouldn’t do. How else do you know a man, I thought, as his cock – long and thin and hard – filled me. I could feel him going deep and grinding against my pubic bone.
The quality of his love-making was as much part of him as his conversation – light and rapid, eager and somehow tender. He cradled my head with one hand to kiss me, lifting my mouth towards his. The kindness of strangers, I thought. He fucked me with easy strokes, and the rhythm I’d felt earlier – his hand inside me, darting against the inside of my cunt – was repeated with his hips. His kisses were playful and interspersed with little bites. As his hand roved down to stroke my body, he tweaked my nipples and gripped handfuls of flesh. He wormed his hand in between us, flicked at my clit, latched onto it and started frigging me in time with his fucking.
My body was opening up to him, hungry for the thump and bang of his hips against mine and eager to absorb his cock as deep as I could. We rolled on the floor, collecting broken bits of charcoal on our flesh and slipping on a pool of turpentine or oil or something, and the two of us kept sucking at each other, licking and thrusting and not giving a fuck how dirty and cold and uncomfortable our situation was. I had his hand hard against my clit now, and he was fucking me less playfully, driving into me with more emphatic pushes, pulling back as if he was taking a big in-breath, running his cock back into me with the urgency of approaching orgasm. I was jarred against the floor, hit hard by his body every time he pushed into me, feeling the magical tingling buzz in my cunt that meant I was going to come too, all over his hand and with him stuck deep and hard inside me all the way to the hilt. The whole of my body, inside and out, was alive and screaming for release, every part of me fucking back and forth, rubbing up against him, feeling him in and on and around me as he thrust with big heavy hip-jerks. It hit, hard.
He jolted against me one last time.
And cried out, and spilt himself inside me, and finally made my orgasm explode like a black starburst. Deep in my brain the inverse of colour swept through me, blanked out my mind, swallowed colour and transmuted it into pure burning, animal sensation.
Our bodies dissolved together and shook, hands slipping over each other, clutching hard, grunts and moans falling from our mouths involuntarily.
Perhaps I had lost my mind. I rolled around on the floor, feeling the last sweet stings of orgasm shoot through me, making me shiver as I held onto the guy.
I felt the sweat cool on my body almost instantly, the hard floor and the scratches on my ass and back from whatever the hell mess we’d just been lying on. The sudden emptiness as he pulled out of me, leaving my pussy tender, free-falling. The cold air rushing at my body, reality hardening the edges of the moment. Him sitting back and the unfamiliarity of his face reasserting itself. Looking shockingly strange. I didn’t know him.
The distance between us was suddenly as great as it was when he’d first entered the studio – two strangers in daylight, trying to breathe normally.
There was an awkward moment when it came to paying him – and when I had to admit I’d nicked him from Joe’s life-drawing session. But we laughed it off and, as he took his leave with a curiously chaste little kiss, I felt a sudden pang of affection for him. Not that we’d be repeating the encounter – that was pretty clear. After you’ve fucked someone on your studio floor without asking their name first, you’d be hard put to go through the whole rigmarole of dating and flirtation.
It was a short and sweet encounter, nothing more. But my heart felt somehow lighter that evening as I walked home with the rolled-up sketches under my arm and an aching body. I would pin up the pictures of my ‘David’ on my bedroom wall to remind me of my studio adventure. To show myself that beauty can turn up in unexpected places and that life tastes sweeter when you take the odd risk. I walked across town and for the first time in a year felt like I was plugged in to life. Part of the whole colourful, terrifying, electric game; like the switch my heart had been flicked to ‘on’ again.
In the swarming, messy crowds of rush hour I saw the young guys and the rough-at-the-edges guys, dark and light and moving fast around me. A thousand possibilities for a little buzz, a little smile, a little warmth. A thousand gaps that weren’t that hard to cross if you took the chance.
As Sandy says: ‘There are a hundred kinds of love out there.’
Now I intend to taste as many as I can – one mouthful at a time.
Nikki Magennis is the author of the Black Lace novel Circus Excite
Public Relations
Mathilde Madden
MILES KNOWS THAT Laura likes rope. Favours rope bondage above any other kind. Knots no boy scout knows and complicated diagrams, line drawings and photos that she insists Miles copy precisely on to her. Patterns and symbols like a new language. Written on the body.
Like a magic ritual, without the magic.
And after she has persuaded Miles to try every possible arrangement of jute and cotton and twine and her limbs on the ground, she starts talking about suspension. When Miles points out that his flat doesn’t have the structure for that (and nor does hers) she tells him she knows the perfect place.
‘Here, amongst all this . . . this archive?’ Miles stands in the basement of Laura’s office building, drifting in an ocean of foolscap and filing drawers.
‘Yes, look at the ceiling supports.’
Miles looks up. The ceiling is criss-crossed with metal supports. Above this basement there are four floors of Motif, the weighty PR company where Laura is an account manger. Maybe Motif needs all the extra reinforcement for all its wily, headline-grabbing schemes. Or maybe it was just designed by the god of kink to perfectly fulfil Laura’s latest twisted desires.
Laura jumps up and catches one of the grid of iron beams, which supports the ceiling, swinging from it. ‘It holds my weight, see, you don’t need to worry.’ While Miles watches she swings from beam to beam. Hand over hand. Monkeylike. Childlike. Un-Laura-like.
Miles looks around. The perfect place? Almost, but not quite. Not quite private enough, really. Oh, the building is empty right now, Miles is sure Laura wouldn’t risk it otherwise. But he notices a small grimy window in the door to this storeroom and he notes it coolly like he does everything.
Casually, still on surveillance, Miles pulls open a filing drawer. It doesn’t make a sound. Clearly Motif favours beautifully made expensive furniture – even in the basement. Miles lifts out a sheaf of paper. ‘These files are . . . these are personnel files. Aren’t they confidential? This cabinet should be locked.’
‘Yep. Whatever. Does it matter?’ Laura drops the foot or so to the ground, landing clack-clack on her expensive stiletto heels. ‘Anyway, shall we get on? I was thinking a Strappado.’
‘I thought you wanted a suspension,’ Miles says, not looking at her as he bends over to place the file he’s holding down on the floor. Sitting on the floor next to it is a
soft leather bag beside his. A bag from which he starts to pull armfuls of bright-white cotton rope.
‘I do,’ Laura says, a little breathless already. As she speaks she clasps her hands behind her back and then slowly raises them up in the air, bending over automatically as she does so, until her arms are pointing straight up – perfectly vertical and rigid in the air – and her body is parallel to the floor. ‘Strappado. Oh yes.’
Miles walks softly up behind her and presses his groin against her smoothly tailored buttocks, leaning across her back to place his lips right by her ear. Very slowly he whispers, ‘A Strappado with suspension will dislocate both of your shoulders, you stupid little bitch.’
He knows that little note of hardness in his voice will have got to her. Somewhere inside. He also knows she won’t show it. Yet.
But Laura gives him a little, because she catches her breath and wriggles against him, precise and calculated, turning her head so her eyes meet his. Too close to focus; black blurs. ‘Just do it, Miles.’
Orders already is it? Silently, Miles straightens and catches Laura’s patiently pre-positioned wrists in one hand, flicking the rope he is holding into place with the other; capturing them with bondage-master ease. He knows it feels like love-making to Laura when he wraps the ropes around her like this. More intimate than any caress. And he knows she’s never known anyone who could give her what she needs – what she hates to admit she needs – like he can.
As Miles works on, throwing the end of the rope around the beam and securing it, Laura says nothing more that is intelligible apart from one single half-gasped ‘God, tighter’, as he clinches her elbows strictly behind her back.
But a few minutes later, after he’s finally managed to re-tie the rope in a way that satisfies Laura’s masochistic specifications, and is hitching off the one that holds her wrists high in the air, Laura looks over at him angrily, shuffling her feet. Feet that are still very much on the ground.
‘This isn’t a suspension.’ Her angry lips barely move as she speaks.
Miles finishes tying off the rope and walks back to where she stands. She is bent right over by the way the rope is pulling her arms back and into the air. ‘I know,’ he says, ‘I thought I’d take charge, make an executive decision.’
Her eyes are luminous. He particularly likes that. That fury. It’s making him hard. ‘But I said I wanted suspension. We came here for suspension.’
Miles smiles and doesn’t reply. He has many possible replies in his head – mostly about doing what he wants for a change, or isn’t he meant to be the one making the decisions here, or back to the old dislocation of shoulders idea. But he says nothing. Why explain? He knows he doesn’t need to. He walks back to his old soft bag. He reaches inside and pulls out a spreader bar about three feet long, and with a lightly padded ankle cuff at each end. He carries it back over to Laura.
Quietly, he fastens each of her ankles to either end of the bar, pulling her legs wide apart. Her feet are still on the floor though. Even with this extra stretch. This is not the suspension she wanted – but pretty uncomfortable nevertheless. Not giving Laura quite what she wants is always part of Miles’s best and most deviously twisted plans. This position is every bit as frustrating as being suspended would be. Yet it’s safe and restrictive and leaves Laura utterly vulnerable. It’s also on Miles’s terms. Laura growls low with annoyance, twisting pointlessly.
Miles stands up from where he was checking the ankle cuffs and looks at her for a moment, bending a little to get at eye level and then raising her defiant chin with his index finger.
He scrutinises her eyes. Was she there yet? Every time the same – she basically has to be forced into subspace, fighting tooth and claw all the damn way.
But yes, close now. Her eyes are a little glassy. The spreader bar has helped somewhat and in spite of herself she is going under. She is acquiescing. Finally.
And Miles smiles. ‘You know, you’ll enjoy it much more if you just let me do it. I thought you were supposed to be the submissive. How about submitting now and again?’ He bends down and gets kiss-close to her lips. ‘Or just shutting up?’
She growls again, pulling a little more defiance from somewhere. ‘Make me.’ She is practically dripping with it, but she doesn’t fool Miles. He knows for certain now she is less than a breath away from sub-space. Well, maybe not a breath, maybe something a little more substantial.
Miles has the very thing to tip her over. ‘Make you? Oh my pleasure.’ He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a ball gag. Holding it up so she could see exactly what it is. Just a rubber ball on leather thong – the exact same thing she has seen a million times before – except that with this one the ball, which is usually red rubber, is sugar pink. Miles had been unable to resist it. Too perfect for her.
Laura looks at the gag and there’s a second’s delay, as if she’s processing the information. ‘How many times Miles,’ she says eventually, ‘how many times do I have to tell you I don’t like being gagged?’
Miles’s next smile is the one he knows is slow and seductive. Melting. ‘Oh, you know I have such a terrible memory,’ he says walking slowly towards where she is trussed and helpless, twisting, with her feet scuffling on the polished concrete floor.
‘You try it and I’ll safe word so fast –’ But it’s an empty threat.
‘No. No you won’t,’ Miles interrupts and, holding her head still with a hasty handful of hair, he pushes the ball into her mouth. If she has any further complaints about Miles’s treatment he’s happily ignorant about them now.
Once the thong is tied tightly behind her head and her hair lovingly rearranged, Miles takes a step back. ‘You never safe word, sweetheart, you know that,’ he says. Then he leans in to peck her on the cheek and whispers, ‘And pink is so your colour.’
The noises Laura makes after that are pretty loud, but unintelligible, so Miles simply tunes them out. He walks around her a couple of times and then stops behind her and drops his trousers.
He puts his hands on her hips to still her where she is struggling and squirming. He knows all his knots would hold through any amount of fighting, but he would still rather she calmed down so he could enjoy his handiwork. He slips a hand up her softly expensive skirt and she seems to respond then, moving into his touch. Wanting.
There’s no underwear beneath her skirt and she’s easily wet enough that he can tell he isn’t going to have to bother with any kind of foreplay or lube. He takes his hand away, leaves a beat for her anticipation to build – wait for it – and then he slides inside.
He fucks her very, very gently, rocking on the balls of his feet. He knows what she would be expecting – wanting – at this point: rough treatment. A harsh nasty fucking; leaving her bruised and rope burnt. Well, guess what you’re not getting, baby?
How long is it going to take her to realise that what he really relishes giving her is a sweet combination of exactly what she wants spiked with just enough of what she doesn’t want to give him that feeling of controlling her? Controlling Miss Uncontrollable. For him that’s what it’s all about.
He keeps his movements light and gentle because he doesn’t want her to have a chance of coming. He knows how much that will drive her mad after the planning she’s put into this.
But he does give her a little bit of something special. ‘You know,’ he breathes into her ear, pressing his chest down across her back and twisting around her bound arms, ‘I’ve been thinking, all the time we’ve been here, about how much fun it would be to leave you like this.’
Laura makes a muffled sound, a moan that could be anything from desperate arousal to frustrated rage.
‘Mmm-hmm. It would be so easy. At your place of work. And who’d find you? A cleaner? A boss? A good-looking co-worker? Would they cut you down? Maybe I could leave a sign on your arse, here, inviting anyone who found you to use you for their pleasure.’
Laura’s moans get more intense and unreadable than ever. She’s moving against him as far
has her bondage will allow, but Miles keeps his movements as restrained as she is.
‘It would be terrible for you,’ Miles continues, ‘to be exposed like that. I know you like to keep this wanton side of yourself very private. Ice queen in public, bitch on heat in private. Oh, I know the drill. Ironic, isn’t it that you work in public relations, when you like your own relations to be kept so very private.’
Laura moans. She’s close to coming. Miles stops talking then. Laura still has a long time to wait before that. And then, when she is standing growling and spluttering frustratedly into his pink gag, with his warm semen gliding down her glass-smooth stockings, he walks away from her, retrieves the files he had slipped into his bag and begins to read.
Her file and Gabriel Blaine’s.
It’s nearly an hour later when he lets her go. He’s found a lot more information in the forgotten drawers of Motif’s basement since then. Including the time the late-night cleaners start their shift. Miles spotted the cleaning supplies storeroom next to the basement when they came in and decides to sit tight for the shift starting. He wonders if any of the cleaners look through the basement window as they collect their buckets and baskets of spray cans. He waits until he has listened to them come and go and confused panic lights Laura’s eyes.
‘I am never playing with you again,’ Laura spits as he unhitches the rope that supports her, letting her stiff limbs tumble to the floor.
‘Oh, don’t pretend you didn’t love every minute,’ he says, straddling her as she lies on the floor and tugging loose the knots which hold her wrists.
And then, with her wrists mostly loose but still half-tangled in bits of rope and with the spreader bar still holding her ankles apart, Miles pushes her skirt up and presses his tongue against her wet cunt. She bucks. Fire in his hands. He can’t resist pulling away and saying, ‘So, you hated every minute, did you?’
‘Uh.’ Just a desperate noise.