As She's Told Read online

  There was some traffic now, and the song was down to a wordless hum again as he negotiated it. Scraps of the other verses were coming back to me, though the title still eluded me. Something about how the girl, aloof at first, had been felled by the irresistible sexual magic of this rake, and ended up following wherever he led. I could relate.

  We were crossing a bridge. I caught a glimpse of dark water and a line of bright headlights below us, and realized we were crossing the Don Valley, heading east instead of west. Not to my place, then. Where was he taking me? Still downtown, rows of Asian shops, then houses. My knowledge of the city was all centre core and downtown west; this side of town was terra incognita. Anders was silent now. His face looked remote, alternately lit and in shadow. I wanted him to speak and reassure me. A lurking paranoia crept in, lurid visions of kidnappings, headlines gloating over unidentified remains. Could I trust him?

  I watched the hands that had held the fiddle hold the wheel with the same deft authority. I thought of the care he was taking with me, and relaxed. He was singing again.

  And if by chance you look for me,

  Perhaps you'll not me find,

  For I'll be in my green castle,

  And enquire for Reynardine.

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  Reynardine. That was it. We were turning into a quiet street with a few widely-spaced street lights and a No Exit sign – I envisioned a camera panning on the sign and some creepy music, and almost giggled – and I saw the silver glimmer of a high fence across the end of the road. Something industrial? Or maybe railroad tracks. The last house on the left was not green but grey brick; detached, with a driveway separating it from the house next door. It looked like a typical downtown Toronto house: two stories and a peaked roof, long and narrow. Inside, a strong smell of cut lumber, and a trace of that metallic power saw tang. Anders turned on a light and I saw heaped two-by-fours, insulation, loose angles of black plastic pipe, but a functional living room set up in the space on my right with a couch and television and a stack of books on a low table. The drywall wasn't up yet; there were twists of cable in the dark wall spaces. Anders put his violin case down. Then he had me in a tight grip from behind, and was biting at my neck.

  "Reynardine was a vampire, did you know that?" he murmured. My giggle turned to a gasp as his tongue slid from my shoulder to my ear. He crossed my arms in front of me, lifted me up and set my feet on the first step of the stairway in front of us, my back to him. The jacket slid off my shoulders. Then my dress was over my head and off. My bra next. Shoes. I thought the cincher was coming off, but he tightened it instead, drawing hard on the strings, and I exhaled to accommodate it and whined a little. For a moment he caressed my naked ass and my thighs above the black stockings.

  "Up you go." Then he smacked me, hard enough to sting. A surge of heat flashed across my loins; for a moment I couldn't move. He smacked me again on the other side, a little harder, and I forced myself to run up the steps, feeling cunt lips slipping against each other, breasts bouncing. At the top he grabbed my waist and turned me around, studied my face; slowly he smiled. Then I was herded into the bedroom at the front of the house. With fingers deep in my cunt and his other hand on my ass, he lifted me off my feet and took my mouth over with his own. My blood was turning to thick, hot magma, weighing down my limbs, slowing my thoughts. And yet I was being handled as if I was no weight at all: a duality strange enough to give me vertigo.

  He put me down and took a step back. I was breathing hard, my knees 55

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  giving way on the way to prostrating myself at his feet. He let me sink to my knees, pulled up a chair and unzipped. I struggled to catch my breath, and then I was kissing fervently at him, trying to make up in enthusiasm what I lacked in skill. I'd had hardly any practice in the past; a few licks and a little timid sucking, a scary experience of gagging and nearly drowning, that was all my experience to date. Anders gripped my head and forced me to pay attention to instructions. At every sign of pleasure on his part my heart pounded and the magma channels surged.

  He got huge and I tried very hard not to gag and almost managed it.

  There was a hard hand on my neck and I choked and swallowed, and swallowed, and held my head still and waited for him to release me.

  A minute later I was sitting in his lap and he was stroking me firmly along the back and legs, calming me down a little. He ran a finger along my eyebrows and across my lips. "What happened when I spanked you?"

  Oh god. I ducked my face down against him, and felt him stroke my hip gently, six, eight slow strokes. "Come on," he said.

  "I felt… It was – so fast, instant – " I swallowed, couldn't say it.

  "Lust?"

  I nodded slowly. "And more than that," I whispered. "It was the first time you – the first time –"

  "I hit you."

  "Yes. I was so scared, I'd been so scared, and there it was. The first – .”

  “Symbolic, then."

  "Yes." I burrowed into his arms, shook with the fear and arousal he made me feel, tried not to cry.

  "So much more to come, Maia."

  "I know." The words muffled by his shirt.

  "Let's add a little to your experience, then."

  He stood me up, then arranged me face-down over his lap. Strings of words were running through my skull like beads on wires: please don't hurt me, yes hurt me, don't hurt me, please, anything, please. His big hand stroked my ass; it was gone a moment and then it smacked down, stinging.

  Like hot sauce on the tongue. Another on the other side. More. He forced my legs apart and stroked my pussy lips for a moment, then slapped me again. I was moaning now. My pelvis, angled over his thigh, began to climb him, try to touch myself to his leg just a little.

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  "Ah-ah, no you don't." His leg shifted and he resettled me, taking his thigh out of range. My breath was pressed out of me in a sudden huff; he had yanked the cincher yet tighter. I panted, squirming, as he retied the knot.

  Then my right wrist was pulled firmly behind my back, and the light spanking continued, ass, thighs, spreading heat. I didn't know if it hurt; yes, it hurt, yes. I writhed and could move only so far, and the feeling of restraint kicked me off the edge of thought; sensation swamped me and my body struggled and strained in helpless abandon. He stopped then, pulled my wrist even higher up my back, and waited. I whimpered, squirmed. I felt his grip change hands, and then he was squeezing my breasts, flicking the rings, pulling my nipples until I cried out. He waited some more. Slowly he stood me up, still holding my wrist, and brought me over to the bed. "Lie down,"

  he said, watching me as he took off his clothes. "Don't move."

  I lay with wet thighs trembling, stinging ass hot against the cool sheets, breathing fast against a waist held tight. Watched as he bared those big pale shoulders; the lines of muscle on chest and abdomen; hard, reddened cock.

  Bit my lip and repressed a moan. Watched as he rolled the condom on. He pinned me down, arms and legs; the moan ripped out of me, and my hips lifted to him, reached. I wanted him inside me like I wanted not to die.

  He looked down into my eyes. "Can you come without being held down?"

  I looked at him, half startled out of my trance. "What? I –"

  He shook me a little. "You know what I'm talking about." He smiled, almost laughed. "Can you?"

  He'd held me down each time, a substitute, I suppose, for the bondage he wouldn't use yet. I tried to look away, dug the side of my face into the sheet. "I – yes." I squirmed under him. "It takes – much longer…." His grip tightened and my taut thighs strained. Then in one stroke he was inside me and my voice was loose, climbing.

  He rolled onto his back, bringing me over with him. A moment later I was straddling him, all my limbs free, confused. I watched his long fingers at the cincher; he unhooked it completely in front and tossed it away, and sud
denly there was nothing restraining me. Eyes on my face, he grinned and began to play with my tits. "Come on," he said. His hips rocked gently, and I groaned, and moved against him. He stroked me softly here and there, guided my hips, pinched my nipples. "Come on," he said again. "You can do 57

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  it."

  I tried. I raised myself the length of his penis and back again, felt my nipples burning. I gasped and bit my lip and tried for a long time. When he took hold of my hips and thrust harder I almost felt myself getting close.

  Beneath me he shuddered, his thighs like steel cables, and then he came with a shout from deep in his chest, his head thrown back, hands gripping my flesh. Very slowly, his head rolled forward again, his eyes opened and focused on me, and he let out a long, long breath. Then he grinned again and pulled me down next to him. "You can't come at all in that position, can you?" My face buried in his chest again, I shook my head. "That's useful to know." He turned my face so he could see it, and he laughed. "Would you like to come now?"

  My entire pelvis was radiating heat; it was the Amazon basin in the midst of mating season. I could hardly hold back the animal noises. "Yes, please," I whispered.

  He closed his eyes for a long moment. Then he sat up, and his eyes travelled slowly down my body and up again to my face. A wicked light grew in them. "No, not just yet." He turned away, dealt with the condom, turned back.

  I lay there, wide open, stunned, stupid with arousal, waiting to see if he really meant it.

  He mused, "So all I have to do to keep you from coming is to put you on top and not tie or hold you…."

  I shuddered, and felt crazy drumbeats within.

  "I'm just kidding," he said. I looked up at him, feeling what? Relieved?

  Disappointed? "You'll be tied down all right. I just won't let you come." The noise I'd been holding back got past me. My breath caught in my throat and I felt close to tears.

  He closed his eyes for a minute, and then yawned and stretched. "I'm going to get something to eat. Are you hungry?"

  I shook my head.

  "You'd better come with me anyway."

  He took me by the wrist and pulled me up and out the door. At that moment I knew it was for real. This was an exercise of power in a direction quite unexpected, and it hit me like the slap on the stairs. I followed after him, saturated in juices. This really was unknown territory now. If he could 58

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  do this without tying me or hurting me, what could he do with the whole kink panoply available to him?

  The kitchen was mostly functional, but with raw places on the walls and new cupboards in plastic on the floor. Blinds with factory stickers covered the whole back wall. My thighs were slick and shaking.

  Anders moved some jars off the table and lifted me onto it. "Lie down."

  I lay back on the hard surface with my knees up. "Let's see," he said. "Does dipping food in you still count as soft porn? Why not?" He moved my hands up over my head. "Stay put."

  I did as I was told. Dipping food in me? He was pulling packages out of the refrigerator, and I felt my nipples tighten as the chill air touched me.

  Bread, meat of some kind, cheese – what was he making, a meal? It must be midnight. The microwave clock said 11:48; close enough. Good lord, he'd turned the oven on. I felt the heat when he opened the door. Now he was chopping something.

  He ate his open-faced sandwiches between my thighs, while testing my reactions to raw vegetables, naming them as he went. "A large zucchini, Maia, nice and cold." This went in early and stayed in, warmed up, got twisted from time to time, with noises wet and succulent. "Leafy celery, girl; let's try how it feels as a brush. You like that, yes. And now the other end.

  Yes, that, too. Here, some sprigs of parsley for garnish between your lips; hold them there while I finish this sandwich." I felt something hard dipped around the zucchini, and heard him crunching. Carrot sticks, I think. The leaves of the celery were back, tickling, teasing.

  He leaned across me and sucked my nipples hard, bit them a little. Then he pressed damp little disks over them. "Don't let the ginger root fall off, Maia; keep very still." I whimpered as the tingling started.

  "Ah, now, this will taste good. Mashed avocado, very ripe. My little guacamole girl." He licked his fingers. "Tastes like you." He smeared it over my vulva and began to nibble slowly, delicately along the lips. Dipped his tongue inside me, past the zucchini, which he shifted gently back and forth.

  Licked some more avocado paste off my thighs. Mounded it thickly over my clit, and took only a little from time to time. I shuddered, and a round of ginger rolled off. Anders picked it up, stood over me, shook his head and pinched my nipple hard before he replaced it. He rubbed both the rounds over my nipples, slowly back and forth and I stared mesmerized into his 59

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  eyes, my arms up over my head, nipples burning, a meal at my crotch. Then he was back between my legs, nibbling and licking, deliberate, unbearable.

  When the avocado was almost gone and my voice was one long, continuous wail, he leaned over me, shoving the zucchini hard inside me, and said,

  "What do you want, Maia? Say it.”

  “Please…" I panted. "I can't bear it.”

  “Please what, girl?”

  “Please, make me come, please!" I cried. "What if you have to bear it?"

  I stared at him, shook against the thing shoved in my cunt, panted. "I can't – you – please," I whispered. "I'm begging, I can't stand any more, please!"

  "Put your hands back where they belong," he said coolly. My arms stretched back above my head. "Begging is neither here nor there." His mouth twitched. "Though it's fun to listen to. You'll come when I feel like it," he said, rubbing a big hand back and forth across my belly. "And beg when I make you."

  He brought me to the edge twice more, taking his time, and twice more I begged, increasingly incoherent and piteous. The third time he relented, sucking my clit and half my cunt into his mouth so that I screamed, washing me back and forth with his tongue, wringing me out to the last shudder.

  Later, limp in his arms. I listened to the questions. Anything vital he'd missed? Anything beyond what I could handle? Did I need to walk away from this? No, no, no, I shook my head. God, no. Go back? To what? The safe, disappointing life behind my computer screen? No. He opened a little bag then, and drew out a long, thick silvery chain. My heart jumped and skipped, unable to find any kind of rhythm. The chain was pretty; the tightly worked links caught the light.

  "Stand up." A cool slither, closing snugly around my waist. I heard a click. It was held together with a small, heavy lock. Then he sat back to take in the effect.

  It seemed to me that I had passed some kind of test, had graduated to the point where he could claim me like this. Something substantial that held me even when he wasn't there. I was so brimming with gratitude that my throat closed up.

  "Hardly inescapable at this stage. Mostly symbolic," he said. "But if you try to take it off, Maia, you'll regret it."

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  I shook my head, and sank to my knees before him, my head in his lap.

  And whispered thanks.

  ***

  "A locked chain? Oh, god, that is so hot!"

  "No kidding. I can't keep my hands off it."

  "But is this like, a collaring or what? What does it mean?"

  "I don't – he didn't say."

  "What, nothing? Oh, come on."

  "Oh, Nikki, I don't know. He just said I shouldn't try to take it off, that I'd regret it. As if I'd want to."

  "Regret it how?"

  "I don't know. Come to think of it, that could have a few meanings. I think he meant he'd – punish me. From the look on his face."

  "But if you took it off it would mean you were breaking it off with him, so he'd have no right – ."

  "How would I get it off, anyway? It'
s locked; I thought that was the whole point."

  "Oh, Maia, a bolt cutter would do it in a second; don't be stupid. Hon, do you want to get it off?"

  "No! No, I want it on!"

  "You're sure?"

  "Yes!"

  "Okay, okay, take it easy. You worry me, that's all. All this no negotiating, no safeword shit. I know Leda said he's okay but honestly…"

  "He is okay. Honestly. And please don't tell me about bolt cutters."

  "Well, you asked."

  "I wish I hadn't."

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  Chapter Six

  Seal Into Water

  Anders spent Saturday morning in building supply stores, looking for the best prices on soundproofing supplies. He'd sent Maia to the library with a list of reading to do, feeling through her dress for the chain before he'd dropped her off.

  On his way home he picked up an assistant. Anders did most of the work on his house by himself, but sometimes he needed an extra hand. Val was his most reliable employee, glad of any extra work; she was saving to buy her own truck so she could go into business for herself. She was also a good friend who knew all about the soundproofing and what it was for.

  Eying him sideways as they worked, Val raised her eyebrows, pulled back on her drill and said, "Going good, huh?" He tried to get his expression in order. "Damn. I'm that obvious?"

  "Sorry, did I undercut your imperturbable dom image, buddy? Hope it doesn't affect your aim."

  He laughed. "Piss off."

  "But I'd say you are looking too damned pleased with yourself."

  The usual warning pressed its weight into his chest. Anders took note, then lifted it off and set it deliberately aside, packaged up like the fibreglass he was shifting. "Come on, share the joy, you miser."

  Val had her own dommish leanings with the parade of girlfriends that passed through her life. There never seemed to be a lack of them, but never the same one two months running.

  "I've moved us on a bit, that's all. The next step in the process." He felt again the buzz of power, the heat of Maia's flesh on his palm, listened again to the small click of the lock.