by Cecilia Tan
“Oh, okay,” Wren said. She didn’t think of Derek as skinny, but maybe Bob did.
Suzanne suggested they get drinks, and Wren was just starting to wonder how people paid for things if there was nowhere to carry a wallet in lingerie. But just then Derek emerged. As he’d promised, he was wearing a pair of leather pants and nothing else. Even his feet were bare, and that suddenly struck Wren as even more decadent than boots like Suzanne’s. Like he’d just come from strolling up the white sand of a deserted Caribbean beach. She wondered if that was how Bob looked to Suzanne in his surfer shorts?
“Hey, beautiful,” Derek said, and slipped his hands around her waist and gave her a peck on the cheek.
Right. They were supposed to look like a young couple out for some adventure. “Hey,” she said back, and went up on tiptoe to kiss him just in front of his ear. The scent of leather and just a hint of his soap and what had to be his skin sent a shiver through her. “Um, this is Suzanne and Bob. They've been kind of teaching me the ropes.”
Bob guffawed. “Naw, we’d have to go to another kind of club for ropes.” He held out his hand and shook Derek’s. Within a few minutes everyone had drinks in hand and Derek was pumping the couple for information. It was easy to do: they clearly enjoyed telling tales of the swingers circuit and helping out the "newbies.” Bob described the set-up here, how it was different from some other places, how here there were a series of rooms, and depending on how far you wanted to go or what you were willing to do, you went further and further in. Wren looked around at the other couples, wondering how deep in each of them would go. Most of them shared a drink or two, chatted a little with the others, and then would pass through a door painted silver, a design of a vine with heart-shaped leaves in darker silver painted over that.
But then everyone’s drinks were empty. Wren hadn’t even realized she’d finished her Blue Hawaiian, but she put the cup down on the tray by the bar with the others.
“Well, you all have a good time,” Suzanne said to them. “We’re going to go on and check out the next room.”
Derek held out a hand for Wren. “I suppose we should do the same. Ready?”
Wren just nodded, thankful that she hadn’t tried to wear high heels. The rum was going straight to her head. She took his hand and they went through the silver door, following the hearty sound of Suzanne’s laughter.
THE DOOR LED INTO A hallway, as it turned out, carpeted with a nice oriental rug, with an ornate lamp sitting on a wooden side table, like you’d find in the hall of an old hotel. They went through another silver door on the right, and into a room with a soft pinkish light and subtly pulsing music. The vine design painted on it was larger than the one on the previous door, Wren noticed, with more leaves.
There were about a dozen people here, along with two single women whom Wren eventually decided must be employees. They were both in high heels, with similar corsets and short, sheer ruffled skirts, through which Wren could see their dark panties, even in the dim light.
Some of the couples sat on couches and banquettes built into the wall. Everything was draped with sheets, and Wren tried not to stare at the couple closest to them, the woman in the man's lap and his hand between her legs. The sound of a woman sighing softly to her right caught her attention, and there a man sat with his back to the wall and his legs spread, his partner sitting between them and her legs spread also, his hand moving up and down under the sheer lace triangle of her panties. His attention was on his partner, as he kissed her neck and whispered softly to her, but the woman looked up, saw Wren looking, and smiled a dreamy smile.
Wren clutched Derek’s elbow. She barely listened when one of the employee women came over and welcomed him and reminded him that this was the foreplay room. Mutual masturbation was as far as people went in here, apparently, and—as Bob added after the woman had left—it was considered bad form for a man to come in here, though for some reason women were okay.
“And it looks like we’re just in time for the show.” He and Suzanne took a seat just a few feet from the spread-legged couple Wren kept looking back at, and Derek urged her to sit next to him on Suzanne’s other side.
The lights brightened at the other end of the room, and a small stage with a brass pole on it was illuminated. The music changed and got louder, and a burlesque dancer stepped up onto the platform.
She proceeded to do all manner of suggestive and acrobatic things with the pole, although Wren kept finding her eyes straying to the couples around her. One pair were kissing deeply, and then the man picked his partner up and carried her into the next room, where actual penetrative sex was allowed. One of the women took away the sheet they had been sitting on, like a waitress changing a tablecloth.
Wren found herself blushing and hoped the red tinge of the light hid it. She heard Suzanne giggle and looked up to see Bob had worked one of her breasts free of the corset and was sucking on it like a little baby, complete with "num num num!” noises. They were clearly having fun. In particular, Wren noticed, all the women seemed so happy. Even the ones like Suzanne who didn’t look like porn models. They all seemed to feel sexy and beautiful.
She shivered, as Derek absently ran a hand up her arm. His eyes were on the dancer, sometimes glancing back to the door the woman had come through.
Wren put a hand on his shoulder, then leaned closer to whisper in his ear. “You should... you should kiss me. Um. So we'll fit in.” God, his scent...
He turned his head so that their foreheads touched. “Wren...” But if he’d planned to say more than that, he didn’t manage it before his lips touched hers.
Upon closing her eyes, she lost track of her hands as her entire world centered on the gentle nibble of his mouth, the fleeting sweep of his tongue. She tilted her head back further, her lips parting, and his tongue darted to touch hers. Something flared, hot and bright, desire igniting in her belly, thoughts flashing through her mind, like how good that same touch would feel on other parts of her, if only she dared...
Wren imagined him spreading her legs right here, running his fingers up and down the now-damp edge of her panties until he slipped a finger under the elastic, Suzanne and Bob watching. She could almost hear his voice as he’d whisper in her ear, like the other couple had been doing. Wren, you’re so beautiful, he’d be saying. I can’t stop touching you. I want to show everyone you’re beautiful and you’re mine and this is the pleasure I can give you.
To her dismay, he pulled back. “I don’t... think we should go beyond this room,” he whispered in her ear. “I think Abby was one of the women in here. Let’s... stay here as long as we can and see if we see her?”
“All right.” Wren’s hand slid along his jaw and she swallowed hard. Going into the other room meant having sex. Or breaking the rules by not doing it—no one was allowed to "just watch.” It was, they said, part of how they kept the voyeurs out. “But if we’re going to stay... you... you...”
He tilted her chin so he could look into her eyes. “If it’s too much, we could...”
“You have to kiss me again.” And she took a ragged breath as she waited for him to do so. This time he pulled her in, just with those two fingers under her chin, so she pressed against him as he leaned slightly back and brought her mouth to his.
This time his tongue met hers repeatedly, in a soft, relentless rhythm that her body recognized and responded to before her mind did, her hips answering with a beat of their own against him. She groaned quietly, thinking, oh God, I want him to touch me. Derek, please, oh please.
His warm hand slipped around the curve of her buttock. They were sliding and moving and she almost didn’t realize it, until he was flat on his back, pulling her astride him, grinding her pubic bone against the matching hardness under his zipper.
Wren had never wanted someone so much, not even in her fantasies. Oh, God, Derek, touch me, please touch me.
He gripped her buttocks with both hands, then slid one around her thigh further, pulling aside the crotch of her panti
es and smearing his fingers in the ample wetness there. He slid them back and forth, back and forth, gradually parting her labia and exposing her clit to the same gentle treatment.
She cried out softly as the pads of his fingers brushed across it. Oh, yes, yes, that’s perfect.
Wren, lovely Wren. I shouldn’t have brought you here. But I’m not sorry I did. Not now.
The whispers only sent her desire soaring. I’ve wanted you since I first saw you, she thought. I never dreamed it could feel like this. She sank into the sensation, his fingers pushing her higher and higher, as quickly and surely as if she were doing it herself.
May I make you come? Please say yes.
Yes, oh yes...
She cried out against his shoulder, as spasms of pleasure wracked her body, as he trailed off the touch and sensation only gradually, still holding her close with the other hand, and then running it over her close-shorn hair. “God, you’re beautiful...”
It was only when he spoke she realized with a jolt that he hadn’t been speaking aloud before. She jerked upright and stared into his eyes. Can you hear me?
Derek blinked. Yes. And you hear me?
Yes. She swallowed, a sudden chill and goosebumps climbing up her back. Oh my God.
He reached up and brushed a finger across her lips. They tingled and she heard the thought under that: my God I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in all my life. Then a more direct thought: Can you hear anyone else?
She looked up. Suzanne and Bob were gone and the dancer had finished. There was another couple in their place, the woman running her hand up and down the man's crotch. Then he unbuttoned his jeans and she pulled his pecker out, yanking on it.
Maybe. I think the guy next to us just wondered why she always squeezes his dick so hard... Wren found herself giggling. But maybe I think that from the expression on his face. He’s like: 'I shouldn’t be ungrateful that she'll do this for me, but...'
Derek laughed quietly. What about the workers?
She tried to concentrate on the woman changing the sheets on the couch across from them, but Wren’s head was swimming too much. The air seemed close now, heavy with pheromones, and there was the rum and the orgasm and... she swayed and felt his hands holding her. “Can’t...” she said, shaking her head.
“Okay,” he whispered, and shifted their position, until she was in his lap.
She tried once more to reach out as one of the women came close. She closed her eyes. She felt a sensation of sinking, like the feeling of falling asleep, except she was still awake...
When she opened her eyes, she was under the cone of light, her hands bound over her head. Her breath caught. Maybe she had fallen asleep then, and straight into a dream? She could feel the wetness on her thighs, as if in the dream she had come directly from Derek’s arms.
“Ahhhh,” said a voice, just a whisper, off to one side. She felt a hand reach between her legs, rough fingers pushing her lips apart and smearing her juices back and forth. “So ripe, so ready.”
She shook her head in alarm. “No, no I’m not ready at all...”
“What did I say to you? Entry. Penetration. And it doesn’t matter what part of me enters what part of you. Once I’m inside, I’m inside.”
She gasped as two fingers were pushed inside her, a callused thumb rubbing her clit. “I guarantee you, my cock will feel better than this. And you'll enjoy it here more than any of your other holes.”
The hand began to move and Wren cried out, thinking he was right. She wanted to be filled so very much right now. But not by her dream lover. By Derek. Wait, hadn’t she decided Derek was her dream lover? But it didn’t feel like him. Maybe the dream was just an expression of everything she feared but wanted at the same time.
“Ask me to take you, and I will,” said the voice.
She shook her head, and then moaned in disappointment as the fingers were withdrawn.
“Hush, it’s all right. You’re just not ready yet. It’s all right. I'll wait.” Something soft touched her cheek and she turned her head into the heady scent of a rose.
The hand reaching out of the darkness held a perfect rose, so red its veins were almost blue. The soft blossom trailed down her body, brushed upward at the folds between her legs. She moaned again.
Then gasped, as the prick of one of the thorns scraped over her clit. She bit her lip as the point pressed in, not hard enough to pierce, but the sharpness of the prick made every hair stand on end, and her hips moved shamelessly, her flesh craving a more soothing stroke.
None came. The stem was pressed between her legs, and then the hands urged her knees together, until she was holding the thorns in place herself, hips still pumping as the light faded and left her in darkness.
SOMEWHERE BEYOND THE rushing in her ears she could hear voices arguing, insistence and apology ringing and twining in the tones of the voices, a woman, a man... then nothing again.
When she woke properly, she felt cool air on her face and a jostling... Derek was carrying her to the car. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and then settled her in the passenger seat while the woman who followed behind them asked, "Are you sure she'll be all right?”
“I'll be fine,” Wren said in a weak but audible voice. She wondered what Derek had told her. She waved a hand vaguely. “So sorry about that. I was having a lovely time.”
The woman was different from the ones she had seen in the foreplay room; among other things, she was dressed in a track suit and looked more like a soccer mom than a sex club queen. The woman nodded and rubbed her own upper arms against the chill. “Please come back and see us again.”
“We will,” Derek said, and they waved to each other. He got in his side and started the engine. “Are you all right?”
Wren took a deep breath. “I don’t know. That’s... never happened before.”
“Let’s at least get you some water and a Tylenol,” he said and backed out of the lot. “We’re not far from my place...? They gave me your clothes.”
“That sounds good,” Wren said, suddenly exhausted. She hadn’t realized until he mentioned it that she was wrapped in her coat, but still wearing the lingerie under it. What the hell had happened there? She tried to think about what happened without thinking about the dream, but she couldn’t seem to escape the images—the sensations—that made her squirm in her seat. She could still feel the fingers probing her, the thorns pricking her... She stifled a little moan.
“Almost there,” he said, and she wondered if he thought she were in pain.
He pulled into the garage of a small house, the light coming on automatically as the door went up, then closed behind them. Before Wren had quite realized it, he had come around to her side of the car and was helping her out. “I can walk...” she said, but he had only just gotten the door into the house open when she sagged against him.
He picked her up again and carried her inside, setting her down somewhere soft and dark and helping her out of her coat. “Does your head hurt?” he asked in a quiet voice, his hands moving cool and smooth over her forehead as he lay back.
She kept her eyes closed. “No... don’t think so. I had a dream...”
His weight settled next to hers. “What do you mean?”
“We were talking, you and I, mind-talking,” she said, recalling it. “And then I had this feeling like I was falling. Almost like falling asleep, but not quite... but I fell into a dream that I’ve been having a lot lately.” She felt her cheeks heat up.
“Hm. To me it seemed like you just passed out. You murmured a little, the way people who are drunk do sometimes...” He ran a thumb over her cheek. “I talked them into just letting me take you home, said you were on medication that made you do that sometimes. But I really wonder if we should take you to the E.R.”
She shook her head. “No. No doctors.” Opening her eyes, she found his face close to hers, his breath warm and scented like an electrical storm. The spark of her arousal, which had never fully dimmed, flared higher. “I think... I t
hink maybe being... turned on had something to do with it.” She found herself putting an arm around him, pressing close and breathing deeply of the salty scent of leather and his skin. “I’ve never... heard someone’s thoughts before.”
Looking up into his eyes, she hesitated a moment, but then tilted her mouth to his and kissed him. She forgot to close her eyes, watching him instead, as her lips parted and her tongue coaxed his out to play. Desire flared hotter as he did, as he shifted them on the bed so that his arm went to the small of her back.
She was still in nothing but lingerie, he in nothing but leather pants, his coat shed somewhere in the house. “Touch me,” she begged, breath quickening.
He slipped a hand into her panties again, gentle, so gentle, and as his finger touched her clit she heard his thought as clear as if he’d spoken it into her ear. God, I shouldn’t be doing this. What if she really does need a trip to the emergency room? She’s a client, not a girlfriend... but how can I say no to her? How cruel would that be? To both of us. I know it’s wrong, but it feels right. So very right.
She concentrated herself on her breathing, on relaxing and opening up as each stroke of his hand spread her more. Then he whispered, "Do you want to come again?”
Yes, she thought. And the thought slipped out before she could even think to censor it, that Derek was the only person who'd ever made her come, not counting herself. There had been a little sex in college, and a very little since then, but none of it good, apparently. And she couldn’t stop herself from thinking the earlier thought she’d had, about whether that gentle, darting tongue would feel as good between her legs as it did between her lips.
He made a hungry sound and his weight shifted, he moved between her legs and she closed her eyes and pointed her toes as he slid her panties off. Warm breath crept into her pubic hair, then his fingers held her spread. She bent her knees more, canting her hips upward, and cried out softly at the first, moist lick, petal soft and slow-motion over her clit.