As She's Told Read online

  I forced myself to glance beyond the intent circle of our two bodies.

  Even Lena and Nikki were gone. The restaurant was in its mid-afternoon lull, and the waiter had long since given up on us. I suddenly noticed the noise of traffic from outside, something I hadn't heard for hours.

  The man beside me watched me quietly. I looked down at my hands.

  They weren't shaking.

  "Maia?"

  I looked up into his eyes. Clear, aware eyes, kind eyes.

  "It's not."

  "It's not what?"

  "It's not beyond what I can take."

  The look he gave me was of such concentrated heat and sweetness that I felt filled with light, hollow enough to float. For a while I just focused on breathing in, breathing out. At last I anchored myself carefully, and found more words. "You just described me – what I am. Or at least what I'm meant to be. And the details – what happens – how far it goes – that's not up to me.

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  What matters is who is in control. And it can't be, it shouldn't be – me."

  He let out a long, slow breath, and took my hand again, his eyes searching my face. At last he gave whatever he found there a nod of recognition. I felt his thumb stroke the back of my hand, back and forth, back and forth. "And are you saying it should it be me?"

  "I think so."

  "You'll need to think carefully. We'll see. All right. We may have something here. If we're lucky." He laughed suddenly. "There's an understatement for you." His smile faded, and he gave me a look from beneath lowered eyebrows. "But we're taking this slowly, do you hear me?

  You give me your number, we go out, we talk, we get to know each other some more. No jumping into this. I could take you over too soon, and it could all go wrong for you and you might not be able to say so. No. We have a lot to work out, not least how you can have choice but no choice. That'll take time. So I'm sending you home now."

  I was trembling both with frustrated lust and with the pleasure of being told what to do. I wrote down my phone number and watched him pay the cheque. He scared me just by standing up, he was so big . Six-foot six or seven, maybe? A foot and a half taller than me. There was a tough, supple quality to his body that I couldn't tear my eyes from, now that he was looking elsewhere. He didn't have the self-conscious stoop that some very tall men have, but occupied the upper atmosphere as if he owned it. Not a Norse god of the bulked-up gym-muscles type. A lone coniferous tree-god reigning high above the deciduous canopy. Or a god from somewhere else in the pantheon. One with hard hands and muscles that came from real work.

  Wasn't there something in that mythology about a giant master builder?

  He walked me to the streetcar stop, his arm around me, his huge hand enclosing my shoulder. He was obviously walking slowly for my benefit, strolling. A wind gusted, swept shreds of clouds across the sky, played with my hair. This man's body against mine was maddening. I hadn't been anything like calm since he'd appeared next to me. I would have wanted to go to bed with him if I'd met him anywhere, but to have this golden giant find me there, turn out to be my brief miraculous mirror image of the chat room – that was good fortune beyond anything I could ever have expected.

  And he was sane, and he understood me, and he wanted me. All those hours, inches away but not touching, tantalized, wanting, imagining. And he was 21

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  sending me home.

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  Chapter Three

  Contour Mapping

  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 23

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  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…"

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; "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, 25

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  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 26

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  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 27

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  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."

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  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.