As She’s Told

At the stop we waited, leaning on a wall facing each other. His deep set eyes were fascinating out in the daylight, so light a grey they looked like clear glass, the iris outlined by a darker rim, with sharp flecks near the pupil.

From my vantage point his face was all angles – long-jawed, high-browed, lean flesh over hard bone. Lashes and brows almost paler than his skin.

There was a short white scar beneath his chin that I wanted to touch. I wanted to move in under his open jacket and rub my face against the green sweater he was wearing, try its texture. He brushed the hair back out of my eyes, his fingers touching my face for the first time; they were cool and rough against my hot cheek.

I heard the streetcar coming, but didn’t turn my head. If I ignored it maybe it would go away.

He took a deep breath. ‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you tonight.’ The car pulled up and people were getting out, a crowd gathering by the door waiting to get on. Anders bent down to kiss me. My fingertips brushed his face. Slight bristles on the cheekbone. Slight touch of lips against mine. But a thrill of electricity, an elemental exchange. Suddenly our mouths were open and inside each other, and I felt a groan, from which of us I couldn’t tell; I was lifted half off the ground, our bodies molded tight, and the kiss was a deep well we’d fallen into, with no will to climb out.

He finally drew back and panted in my ear, ‘It’s not safe for you, I said we’d take it slow,’ and we laughed shakily. ‘You should get on.’

‘Oh, please,’ I breathed, and he held me hard. He’d straightened up and was holding me against his chest. Our eyes met for a long moment; some exchange happened way beyond words. He turned me around, ran me to the streetcar and got on with me at the last moment. In a seat at the back he put an arm across my shoulders, took a few deep breaths, pulled me to him and then laid down the law fiercely sotto voce in my ear.

‘First of all, no bondage. It is too soon. We can’t help our fantasies, but I’m not acting on them. We’ve known each other all of – ‘ he looked at his watch,’ – four hours. I’m not tying anyone up after that short a time.’ I nodded, ecstatic that we were doing anything at all. ‘Second,’ and he pulled out his phone and gave it to me, ‘you are calling a friend and telling them you’re bringing me home with you. My last name is Thygesen.’

I stared at him, too flushed with hormones and lust to think straight.

‘What do you mean? A safe call?’ I giggled. ‘You weren’t anonymous in that restaurant, you know. Leda knows you. If I turn up dead you’re a marked man.’

‘Call anyway.’

Fortunately I had Nikki’s number handy. I left a message on her machine, dutifully telling her the time, what madness I was up to, my address and his name. Anders even showed me his driver’s license so I’d know it really was his name. I looked at it for a minute, my mind working slowly.

‘Didn’t you drive to the restaurant?’

‘No. Streetcar. I don’t drive if I don’t have to.’

‘Good thing.’ Under the light words I was trembling again, with fear and impatience. On a Saturday afternoon the Dundas streetcar moves like it’s in an artery ripe for a quadruple bypass. Every crosswalk, every red light, every crowd of fresh passengers with their shopping was another unspeakable delay. It took us four lights to get through the intersection at Spadina. I thought we were going to put down roots. His hand was on my thigh, the fingers slightly caressing the inside…people were too close.

Finally, approaching the right neighbourhood, we had to work our way through the crowd to the back doors. Then it was two and a half blocks to the house, then running up the stairs holding hands, breathless.

The moment we were through the door he had me up against it, lifted up so he could kiss me, devouring my mouth, my face, my neck. Then he put me down and took a step back. I licked my trembling lips. The taste of him was intoxicating, instantly addictive; I wanted more.

‘I think we’ve just been through several hours of foreplay,’ he panted, his eyes bright. ‘My only excuse.’

Fingers deft despite their urgency, he began to undress me. I put my hands on his. ‘Wait,’ I said.

He paused, my hem in his hands, and looked at me inquiringly. One finger stroked my thigh.

‘I have to tell you first,’ I whispered. ‘I – I did something last year. I don’t know now if…’

‘What?’

My head dropped. ‘You’ll see….’ I trailed off, taking my hands away, and raising them so he could pull the dress off over my head.

The dress slid off, and then my bra. ‘Ah,’ he said. Gently he touched the slender rings in my nipples. I took a deep and shaky breath. Watched his face for reaction, judgment, saw no clue.

After that he didn’t pause over body parts revealed, but went straight through until I was naked. And then he stood back and ran his eyes down my body: throat, breasts, belly, pubis, legs. I was acutely aware of my nakedness while he was clothed. My hands didn’t know what to do with themselves; I had to contain the impulse to cross my arms in front of me. Even stronger was a surprisingly powerful, unexpected urge to kneel.

Anders’ expression was calm, almost remote. I was afraid that my body was disappointing him. Or that the rings upset him. Then his hands were back, fastened on me, heating and molding my flesh. The dark green sweater slid smooth against my naked breasts; his jeans were rough against my legs, my ass squeezed tight in big hands, his mouth on my neck.

Then his clothes were off almost before I knew it: a long, sinewy body, long ropes of muscle like tight rigging just below the skin, a mat of light hair on his chest. I had barely a chance to look at him before we were skin to skin, my back once more against the chilly front door. His huge hard cock pressed between us. His skin salty under my tongue. He looked around and then we were on the bed, and he was all around me, wrapping me up like a valuable package.

‘Do you keep condoms in your bedside table or am I going to have to go back to my clothes?’ I said that he’d have to go back to his clothes, and he stood me up and kissed me and walked me backwards toward the door, kissing me because he said he didn’t want to let me go. On the bed again.

The condom was on and his hands were around my thighs, and his movement into me seemed slow as seasons; as if he meant to introduce each of our separate nerves to each other, one by one. Each moment seemed to stretch and distend, full of its own distinct sensation. I quivered and waited, held in place like something planted in the earth, at the mercy of the elements; at the mercy of the gardener most of all, and of my own helpless unfurling. Welcome. Please invade me.

Suddenly he was deep, so deep, an incursion far into my territory, forcing sounds from my mouth, taking over. My hands were reaching, grasping shoulders, chest, face, hair. He growled and grabbed my wrists and held them down hard. Anchored, I arched my back and howled, felt myself contract in brilliant white waves around him, felt him bury himself to the balls inside me and explode.

***

They were both gasping like they’d run all the way from the restaurant.

Anders let go of Maia’s wrists and turned onto his shoulder, slipping from her. He had the condom off in seconds and then he had her on her side facing him, her mouth on his chest.

One hand stroked her ass and the curve of her hip. The room was in semidarkness, the blinds down but letting in bars of daylight, parallel lines that decorated their intertwined bodies with an odd curving geometry.

‘God, you’re seductive,’ he murmured. ‘I couldn’t resist you at the streetcar stop, despite best intentions. Couldn’t resist holding you down, despite best intentions. What a way to start.’

She lay very still. ‘Maybe I’m too extreme after all,’ she whispered.

He snorted. ‘Hardly.’ He was silent for a minute. ‘Obviously I’m not as controlled as I’d like to think. After four – five – tantalizing hours with the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’ He felt her kiss against his breastbone.

Now that the first urgency was taken care of, it was time, Anders thought, to have another good look at this woman. But a heavy tide of post-orgasm lassitude was moving in. His eyes closed; he sank his face into her hair, nuzzled slowly down her neck. She smelled like an exotic tea: spicy and warm. Pausing, he drank her in. Just his hand, with a life of its own, was investigating the terrain of her flesh. The hand took in the contours of her ass, smooth warm curves all leading to the grotto between her legs. Then he stroked down her slim thigh, taut and subtly muscled, and pulled it up over his leg. Her calf curved perfectly into a slender ankle. The little foot was high-arched, the instep offering him a satisfying grip. She lay against him, knee over his thigh while he held her foot firmly in his hand. He could feel her belly tight against him, her breath slowly releasing in response to his hand’s solid clasp.

Eyes still closed, he let go of her foot, slid his hand over her ass again and felt his way up her spine. Smooth, taut flesh that arched back slightly as he travelled up, vertebra by vertebra, and then down along the small ribcage on one side, back up on the other. Her neck in his hand was a slender stalk that shivered. Anders felt like a new landowner discovering his property for the first time, mapping the topography, lying in the grass on the hills and bathing his hands in its ponds, with the hope of years of occupation and management to come.

He was caught for a moment in her hair, soft strands rough with curls.

Smooth shoulder, the soft flesh beneath her arm. Energy started to return, like wires humming. Anders’ eyes almost opened of their own accord, but he was enjoying this blind tour too much to end it now. He turned her around in his arms so that her back was pressed against him, tasted her smooth shoulder, then began on the contours of her breasts, spiraling a finger around them, squeezing them round the base and then running his thumb over the prominent nipples. He tugged slightly on the rings, one after the other, and tightened his hold as she shuddered, her arms and legs shifting forward. His fingers slid down the firm slight curves of the belly to the thick fur below, followed the curve of pubic bone and buried themselves in her folds and up her pussy. One of his fingers rested gently on her asshole, and he felt her shiver and tighten. She was making inarticulate sounds in response to the movement of his fingers. He ran them lightly along the lips, in a circle around the place where her clit swelled hidden, along the inside of her thighs. She was whimpering now, and trying to press against his retreating fingers.

‘Hold still,’ he murmured.

She obeyed; only the slippery liquid between her thighs moved.

His fingers tested, dipped, squeezed. With his whole body he could feel her open, retreat, open, shrink away, tremble, open more. Finally he sat up to look at her, watched her react to his manipulations, the firm pinches and prods, watched the deep light of her eyes startle and look out at him, the eyes of an animal who doesn’t know whether to run or abandon itself to strange, stroking hands. She kept her eyes open and on him, her mouth open too, looking all the time as if words were forming there, perhaps pleas, but she said nothing. Her body was open to him, knees up and wide. Her hands had reached for the head of the bed but never got there, and now lay palm up above her shoulders. A gesture he could hardly fail to recognize.

***

He looked at me quietly for a while, his hand on my belly, and then he settled back down on the bed and wrapped me in his arms again.

‘It’s not just our fantasies we can’t help, is it?’ he asked.

I shook my head. My ribs expanded with difficulty against the strength of his arms; my heart thumped.

‘Tell me about the rings.’ He moved back onto one elbow and touched a nipple. ‘Did you do that for someone else?’ His expression was mildly inquiring, his voice – was that an accent? – an odd sort of grumble.

I let out a long, vaguely worried breath. Trying to release some of the sexual tension so I could speak. ‘No. No one else has seen them. Except the woman who did the piercing, of course. I did tell Nikki, afterwards.’ I looked anxiously at him. ‘Are they –’ I swallowed, tried again. ‘Do you – ?’

‘They’re gorgeous.’ He kissed them, looked at my face, then kissed each of my eyes. ‘But I want to know why you did it.’

‘Oh –’ I grimaced. ‘It was a bad time. A whole year on the net, yet nothing and no one. Not one that even came close. I got depressed. And I thought, it’s never going to happen, nothing real. No one is going to give you what you need; you’d better do what little you can for yourself. I made myself do it.’

‘When was it?’

‘Last summer.’

‘Are they healed?’

‘I think so. Just about. It takes ages.’

He stroked my breasts, clasped one firmly with the tip of his thumb through a ring. ‘What do they mean for you, Maia? Tell me.’ His voice had become comfortable, like a deep couch I could lie in. The question was more like a rack.

I looked at him through my lashes, heart thumping, my tongue stranded by my fickle brain. ‘You know,’ I murmured at last. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Say it.’ The quiet voice expected compliance, and I complied. My face pressed, eyes closed, against a hard shoulder.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I know – that they’re common. In the scene. Outside the scene. But for me – They mark me. As what I am.’

‘A slave.’ I nodded blindly. ‘What else?’

‘They could give power to – to someone else. Over me.’

‘Control? Pleasure? Pain?’

‘Yes. All that.’

He squeezed me tight. ‘You are so right. But not quite yet. Give them a few more weeks.’

‘They mean the same – to you?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘But – you seemed – I don’t know –’

After a minute he propped himself up again. ‘All right.’ He looked down at me. ‘I just wish that it had been me that did it. Had it done.’

I knew it; he was angry. That deadly, sinking sensation dragged me down, the all too familiar feeling that I had done something irretrievably stupid. Oh, why had I done it? Why hadn’t I known better than to take it upon myself? I wanted to turn over and hide my head. I wanted to disappear, actually, and take my stupid, brazen, disastrous nipple rings with me.

He raised his eyebrows at my stricken face. ‘Look, you weren’t to know.

It’s okay.’ He caressed me, looking quizzical. ‘Anyway, it’s done. And in fact it’s a good thing. I can make use of them that much quicker.’ He smiled, a genuine, slightly wicked smile. In repose his features fell naturally into serious, austere lines, but when he smiled his face opened up, and I found myself catching my breath. For a moment I even forgot my sense of self-inflicted doom. Anyway, the slithery sand at the edge of this particular sinkhole seemed to have firmed up a bit. Usually it took days to pull myself out of the pit of perceived catastrophe.

Anders flipped one ring lightly back and forth, and my breath caught again. My thighs parted all by themselves. The corner of his mouth twitched, and he murmured, ‘One good reason, eh, little girl?’ Gently he played with the other ring, watched my reaction to this tiny, subtle, powerful sensation, and shook his head, eyes gleaming. Then he settled back down next to me and stroked my hip. ‘So tempting, but I’d better wait a little. Oh, baby….’

His arm went round my waist and pulled tight. ‘I have to rethink the pace, or it’ll get away from me. Build in safety….’ He was silent for a while.

I lay still and waited, trusting him. Genuinely trusting him, for some reason. Also feeling like I’d hopped a freight train that was starting to gather serious speed. Inside the car it was safe enough, but where did the track go?

Did I have any idea who this man actually was? Apparently my body did. The flavours of his skin and mouth, the forest smell of his hair were invading me, locking into ready receptors. Some kind of recognition and bonding was taking place at the molecular level. Just his proximity was

keeping me simmering, a stew of unresolved lust. I wanted to fall at his feet, taste and worship his body, just for a start. I also wanted to hide away, retreat behind a computer screen, anonymous and safe. How could this be happening so fast? How could I trust a virtual stranger this way? Never mind all that time waiting and searching. Maybe I wasn’t ready.

My impulses cancelled each other out, held me poised between them, a puny tin toy suspended between enormous magnets. I waited, stayed where he’d put me. Followed my third and most overpowering urge, which was to do as I was told.

What he decided on, for that moment anyway, was dinner. It seemed touch and go whether there would be enough food for a man his size in my little kitchen. I mostly got by on bags of salad mix, eggs and frozen corn.

But he found some rice and made a stir-fry, setting me to slice carrots and root through the cupboards for condiments. I thought he was planning to feed us for a week on what he cooked, but most of it disappeared. What was left over was what he thought I’d eat but couldn’t. We were both a bit bemused by the differences in our appetites. He must have been about twice my weight, but ate four times as much; there had to be some kind of metabolic logic there. I could find out; it might make a good research project for my final paper.

He was more or less fully dressed, but I was only in my kimono, a red one he had plucked from the back of my bedroom door and held out for me before heading for the kitchen. When I sat down he arranged it, sliding it partway off my shoulders, opening it enough to see part of my breasts, letting it fall from my thigh. And as we ate his eyes ran along its edge, pausing on the small crescent of nipple that was visible, sliding down to my almost-exposed crotch, then back up to my face, his eyes amused and gleaming.

‘Soft porn,’ he commented.

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. ‘All right. We’ve got a couple of ways we could go at this point.’ I stirred uneasily. He eyed me, but went firmly on. ‘I could pull back and we could be equal partners for a bit.

You’d have all your usual level of choice. We could do the vanilla thing, until we’ve built up some trust….’ He looked at my expression and smiled wryly. ‘No?’

‘Do we have to?’ I stopped myself. ‘I mean – I’m sorry, I will if you think we should….’ He laughed, and I smiled self-consciously, weaving the edge of the kimono between my fingers. My head drooped, and I murmured,

‘I can’t imagine I’d be very good at – well, at equality, you see. With you.’

‘I do see.’ He leaned forward, elbows on knees, took the kimono out from between my fingers and smoothed it on my knee. ‘The other alternative has the advantage of showing you sooner what you’re in for. But you’d be trusting me a lot.’ I looked up. ‘We’d still start slow,’ he said. ‘Out to dinner, that kind of thing; no bondage, no pain. Get to know each other.

But we wouldn’t pretend I’m not in charge, or that you aren’t doing as you’re told. I wouldn’t find it very easy myself, to tell you the truth. It’s practically impossible for me to be around you without taking control. And you, well…’ We smiled at that, and then I laughed. ‘What?’

‘I do know how to be assertive, believe it or not. I learned it out of books.’ He gave me a look and I laughed. ‘No, I mean it. Literally. Before that I was doing everyone else’s high school homework. It’s a useful skill to have, but it’s just tacked on.’

‘I thought those books were supposed to make you feel different about yourself. Strong!’ He flexed a bicep. ‘Tough! Take no shit!’ His eyes teased. ‘Not effective in your case, eh?’

‘No, it’s just like doing a part in a play. Or wait, more like using a cookbook. Step One: Gather ‘I’ statements. Step Two: Stir and bake voice until low but firm. Step Three: Add listening layer. Repeat.’ He laughed silently. ‘So when someone like me comes along…’

‘No one like you has come along before,’ I said, no longer laughing.

‘Ever.’ He took my hand and then I was in his lap. When the kiss was over and I was tucked tight beneath his chin I said, ‘I can’t imagine playing that game with you.’

‘Better not.’ His voice was quite serious behind the friendly teasing.

I whispered, ‘Just – do as I’m told?’

‘That’s right.’ He kissed the top of my head. ‘We’ll proceed with all deliberate speed, then.’

I sighed, shivered. He stroked my back gently.

‘What’s that about?’ he asked.

‘Relief.’

He nodded, and held me tight for a minute or two. Then he moved me back in front of my plate. I played with my food, and watched his face, the way the bones moved when he talked, the finely-cut curves of his lips.

‘I suspect we’ll be moving from soft porn to hard-core and beyond before long. There’ll be a whole lot more intensity if we move in together.

Assuming all goes well.’ I nodded, feeling my heart beating high in my throat, trying to concentrate. ‘We’ll start with some very simple rules. For the time being, of course, you do as you’re told. Never keep me waiting.

Always, always tell me the truth. And we’ll be all right.’

I nodded again, scared. What would happen if I lied? What if I didn’t know I was lying? ‘There’ll be much more as we go along. Since I’m neither a kidnapper nor a negotiator –’ The light eyes lit and he blew out an amused breath. ‘– Hey, CNN here we come! – I’ll have to think about the choice problem.’

When it was clear I couldn’t eat any more he stood me up and rearranged me. The kimono got closed up a little, and the crumpled and folded cord was flattened into its original wide sash. Anders wound this tightly around my middle three times and tied it at the back. Geisha stuff, though not over my breasts and nowhere near as restrictive; there had been lots more torturous bindings under those beautiful Geisha robes. Pauline Réage, eat your heart out. He pulled the kimono sideways again from under the sash, exposing lots of skin over and under the tight bands around my middle. His eyes went to my face. And then his hand was parting the robe at my thighs and investigating me there, coming away very wet. He had me lick his fingers, and sent me to do the dishes. Something I normally wouldn’t have done for hours; maybe days. From the sink I watched him skimming through my books, including the ones in untidy piles on my desk. They looked oddly small and comfortable in his big hands. Suddenly I recognized the scholar: that incisive sweep through titles and tables of contents.

When the dishes were done Anders settled me on the floor facing the couch, sitting on my heels as befitted the costume. He sat with arms stretched out along the back. And we talked. We talked about schedules and time pressures and other practical things. Friends, family. His brother was travelling, last heard from in Dublin, his parents and sister in Denmark. My parents were fixtures in Oakland; they’d only come up once when I’d first moved here. My sister and her husband lived three streets over from them, worked irregular hours, and leaned on them a lot for babysitting.

It felt very odd, sitting there mostly naked and talking about my family.

‘Work and school, lots of it, but people won’t be a problem, at least not yet,’ Anders said. ‘You’ve got what? Eight weeks to go? A lot of evenings doing school work, right?’

‘It should get easier once school’s over, if I get the right job….’

‘What have you applied for?’

I told him, and all at once foreboding struck me. A couple of the places were out of town. What if I had to move to find a job? It happened. A dismal vision of long-distance domination opened up before me. Oh, no. The taste of him was already in my system, spreading, reconfiguring my synapses. I had to have more. Anxiously, I looked up at the man enthroned on my couch.

He was thoughtful. ‘If this works out…’ My eyes were fastened on his mouth, waiting for his next words. I was ready at that moment to jettison jobs, school, my whole career if it meant more time with him. Hell, I was only doing Information Studies because a person needs a job. Well, mostly.

‘If this works out I’m not going to want you to work full-time. Start looking into part-time. But don’t withdraw the other applications yet.’ My heart leapt, and my mind began scampering through the postings I’d seen. But the next question yanked me back. ‘What else have you done besides those rings, Maia?’

I sucked in a breath. ‘Hardly anything. I know the rings seem like a lot, like I must be – concealing something…?’ He shook his head. ‘But apart from ordinary messing around – I mean, I provoked one boyfriend into spanking me for fun, but it didn’t even hurt!’ I said indignantly. He smiled, and I laughed up at him. ‘He never did it again. Really almost everything I read, any connection has been on the net.’

‘Someone domming you online?’

‘No, never.’ I thought about the ones that had offered. ‘God, no. I’ve been on IRC, and mailing lists, but I mostly lurk. I’ve been – a shadow.’

He had me list all the groups I’d been on. Mainly d/sTO and one or two other supportive bdsm groups, the ones that discouraged trolling. ‘What about toys?’

My face went hot at the mere mention; I shook my head. ‘I’m afraid to have anything in the house – I’m afraid the Silvas might come in and look.

My landlords. They live downstairs. There’s a piece of clothesline….’ He waited. I took a breath. ‘I didn’t really feel I had the right, anyway. Toys,

anything I did myself, that felt wrong. The rings I did almost on impulse, and felt bad about because – because it was me doing it. Like you said. It shouldn’t have been me. I should have waited.’

‘Don’t worry about it now. If it bothers you that much, I promise I’ll punish you for it later.’

I examined his face. He was serious. Some weight in my chest seemed to lift. Crazy but true.

Going back to his original question, I said, ‘I admit I was curious. I walked into Northbound Leather once, stayed five minutes and ran.’

‘Why?’

‘So – out there. Scary.’

‘Hard to lurk.’

‘Mm.’

More questions. Contraception. Safe sex. Had I practiced it, how many partners had I had. He told me to get an HIV test, said he’d get one, too. All the complicated issues that this suggested – monogamy, trust – I thought of but didn’t raise.

Then he questioned me so thoroughly about my classes and assignments for the next eight weeks that he probably ended up with a better idea of them than I had. In short order he had estimated the time I’d need for research, preparation, revision, etcetera, etcetera; way more time than I would normally devote to it. Evidently his standards were going to be strict, and he believed in work before pleasure. He wouldn’t even see me the next day, Sunday, because I had a paper due Monday that I had barely started on; he shook his head over that.

‘All right, little girl,’ he said finally, ‘stand up.’ The sash had loosened and slipped down a fraction. He rewound it about thirty percent tighter than it had been before, and bent me forward over the table to tie the knot. His hands went underneath the material and explored, leaving me breathless, and then he lifted the robe up and folded it over my back. His fingers slid into me like a spoon through cream. Then he bent over me, pressing his heat into my body, his mouth against my ear.

‘Little by little, Maia. It’s going to happen. Step by step, until you’re –’

he shifted his fingers inside of me and I gasped; ‘—mine. Chattel.’

He lifted my hips so that they were right on the edge of the table and my feet were off the floor. I heard the latex sounds again. Then he was inside me, parting my flesh with his cock. Hands on my tits, tight, nipples trapped between fingers, the moaning sounds from my throat, my cunt like hot wax melting, his fingers there, too. The sash so tight I felt it at every breath, pressure of the table across my hips, his slow insistent thrusting, forcing a high rhythmic whimper from me, making my fingers scrabble pointlessly on the smooth table. Big hands crossed my forearms across the small of my back and pressed on them hard as he thrust. My shoulders shifted helplessly, and my back arched and strained; my head turned back and forth, pressing first one side of my face, then the other against the hard surface. I hovered for several seconds, an eternity, in exquisite suspension. And then I fell, mile upon mile, acutely aware of his taut body behind me, plunging too.