“Take a deep breath, Rikki.”
She smiles, inhales, and tries to relax.
“Now, slow down and tell me again,” Alex says with a laugh.
“Oh, Alex, I won. I really won! I got the letter today, and I’m going to Italy. Thank you for all of your help.”
He leans back in his chair behind the big mahogany desk and watches as she is barely able to sit still in her seat.
“Rikki, you look like 16 when you’re this excited.”
She blushes. “I’m glad that I’m not. I never could have written that story without my years of experience. I can’t believe it.”
“Come here, Rikki. I haven’t seen you in almost a month.”
She looks up in slight surprise. Dr Alex Russ has always been friendly to her, but he’s never looked at her in quite this way before. She steps over towards his desk, still bouncing with excitement, unable to quite discern the look on his face, that handsome bearded face that has cajoled and laughed with her through so many of her writing struggles.
“Sit up here on my desk. Let’s talk about what you wrote.”
Rikki blushes again. A tale of sexual obsession was her choice of subject matter for the winning entry. The theme of the contest had been “The End of the World”, and what would truly matter when that time came near. She had ditched her original ideas about survival and gone for what she knew.
“I’m pretty sure I was the only one to turn in an erotic story of domination and possession for my entry,” she says. “But what else is there, when you strip away all of our pretences?”
“Rikki, I have to tell you – talking about sexual obsession for those two months with a 32-year-old woman who just dropped in to audit my class has been the highlight of my year.
Perched on his desk, she pulls the folds of her full forest green silk dress over her stockinged legs and crosses her ankles primly in front of him. “Well, you helped me a lot. Like we talked about, the only themes that really matter are sex, religion, death, and art.”
“I’ve thought about you and your story day and night, and I have a secret to share with you.”
Forgetting the writing contest for now, she begins to notice Alex’s deep voice reaching her in strange ways.
“A secret? I love secrets,” she says, trying to laugh it off
“Look at me. I’m quite serious. I want to act out your story. With you.”
“Oh, my.”
“Yes, exactly. It’s all I thought of every time you left my office.”
“I don’t know, Alex, what are you saying?”
His eyes lock on hers, and she begins to feel the need for his hands on her, somewhere, anywhere.
“I want to feel it. I want to know if one person can truly possess another. Your writing is so clear, so erotic. We’re going to take that journey together. Nothing else matters. We can think of it as the end of the world.”
“Maybe it won’t work in real life?” she asks, feeling the wetness growing between her legs.
“Rikki, I can see it on your face. You want it as much as I do. Ask me to act out your story with you.”
“We both have real lives elsewhere. And, we both know how it ends.”
“It doesn’t have to end that way. We can stop whenever we want to. We can create our own little secret world. Go close the drapes.”
Alex lights a single candle, places it on the coffee table, opens a bottle of wine and pours two glasses.
“Do you like Coltrane, Rikki? You must.”
“God, yes, I listen to him all the time when I write.”
He starts one of her favourite CDs, “The Last Giant.”
“Come sit on the floor with me, Rikki, and let’s talk. You look nervous – tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Oh, you know. You know. I don’t know if I can do it.” “Unbutton the top button of your dress.”
She pauses.
“Do it.”
She slowly reaches down and undoes the first button.
“That’s not near enough. Undo another one.”
She unbuttons the next pearl button on her dress, exposing the top of her cleavage.
“That’s beautiful. Tell me you can do this.”
She just smiles.
“You’ll learn, every time you come into this office.”
“Yes.”
“Much better Now, tell me what you’re wearing beneath that lovely dress.”
Rikki looks down shyly and says, “I’m wearing a white lace bra.”
“Does it fasten in the front?”
“Yes, it does.”
“Good. Never come to me again wearing any other kind of bra. Reach inside your dress and unfasten it.”
She reaches down and unclasps the bra, freeing her breasts, feeling the hardness of her nipples against the silk of the dress.
“Beautiful. Now, what else are you wearing underneath?”
He still hasn’t touched her. She tries to move over towards him, reaching for a more comfortable level of normal affection.
“No, Rikki, stay right where you are. I want your eyes on mine while we do this. I want you to be uncomfortable, to find an intimacy that’s so easily bypassed by everyday sex.”
She sits back down crosslegged, looking directly across the coffee table into his eyes. “Yes, Alex.”
“Answer my question.”
“I’m wearing thigh-high stockings, and panties that match the bra.”
“Stand up.”
Another pause.
“Do it.”
Rikki rises and stands in front of him. She begins to sway to the music, to follow the rhythm as he talks.
“Lift your skirt up to your waist and hold it there.”
He sits before her and watches as she gathers the full skirt up around her waist, exposing her ass.
“Take your panties off for me.”
She reaches down and slips off her panties, dropping the dress from her waist.
“No. Lift it back up. And spread your legs.”
Hesitating only for a moment, she follows his instruction.
Alex lays her panties aside. “Here are the rules, sweet Rikki.” He finally touches her thigh, stroking gently up and down, never touching her pussy. “You will come to me twice a week, just as you did when we were working on your writing. But you will come in the evening, and you will plan on spending the night. You will bring nothing with you.” Trembling, she stands before him, as he kneels, stroking and examining her.
“You will never wear panties. You will never wear jeans. You may wear any kind of skirt that you choose. When you enter my office, you will walk over and close the drapes, then come to me wherever I sit. You will lift your skirt, for inspection, without a word. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I do.” The wetness begins to flow and she closes her eyes for the moment.
“If I call you and ask you to dress some other way, you will. You will tell me erotic stories when I ask. You will make them up on the spot if I so choose.”
“Yes.”
“We’re going there, Rikki, we’re going where the couple in your end of the world story went. We’re going to where nothing else in the world matters but our desire for each other. No matter what it takes. And we will give each other everything.”
His fingers are dipping into her slowly, withdrawing, coming to his lips as he tastes her wetness. He stands up next to her, holding her with one arm, and places one of his wet fingers deep into her mouth, running it around her tongue. “Taste, baby. Taste my finger.” He opens her mouth wider with the force of his finger, running it across her teeth and down into her throat, fucking her mouth with his finger as though it were his cock. Her head drops back, lost in the intimacy of a single finger invading her mouth.
“Drop your skirt down, Rikki.”
She opens her eyes in surprise as he withdraws his finger.
“That’s all for today.” He blows out the candle, walks away, and opens the drapes.
“I’m so proud of your winning that contest. I’ll see you here on Tuesday at six sharp.” He picks up her white lace panties from where they lay and tosses them in the wastebasket.
Rikki sits in her car and shakes, feeling her bare bottom touching the leather seat. This is crazy – this is the craziest thing I have ever considered. We both have lives. It was just a story. Just fiction. I’ll write him a note, that’s what I’ll do. I do have it in me to do this, but God, if I do, if let go into this kind of sensuality, I’ll never get back. I’m going to go home, get out my stationery with the roses on it, write him a note thanking him for everything, and then I’ll never see him again. It was just a story.
By Tuesday evening at 6:30, Alex is sure she’s not coming. He’s debating the virtues of calling her when he finally hears the knock on his door.
“Come in.”
Rikki ambles in, obviously a bit tipsy. She dances over to him and poses on his desk, kicks off her shoes and places her feet in his lap.
“Hi, Alex.”
“Rikki, aren’t you forgetting some things?”
She wriggles her toes in his lap.
“Do as you were told.”
With a flounce of her skirt, she hops down and heads for the drapes.
“And you’re late. Where were you?”
She pulls the drapes closed and turns to look at Alex. “Oh, you know, I just stopped down at the pub for a minute and had a glass of wine.” She watches him from across the room, feeling rather like a pawn in a chess game, unsure of her next move.
“Come here.”
She pauses, then joins him.
“What are you to do when you enter?”
“Close the drapes and then come to you.
“And then?”
Blushing, she reaches down to the hem of her black cotton skirt and lifts it up to her thighs.
“Not quite. Keep going, baby.”
She sighs and lifts the soft skirt up around her waist.
The tops of her black stockings perfectly match the jet black colour of her pussy hair. He reaches out to caress her soft hair and she moans.
“Yes, that’s better. Now turn around.”
She feels shy and slutty all at the same time. The two glasses of wine helped just enough to get her up to his door, but she suspects she needs the whole bottle to carry on much further.
He bends her over the desk. “Make yourself comfortable there, baby.” She looks back over her shoulder as he starts to caress her legs and her bare ass, talking to her the whole time. Her hands find the far edge of the desk and hold on.
“Was it hard to come here to me tonight?”
“Yes. I was scared. I almost wrote you to say I couldn’t do this.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. No, I kept putting it off, and then I had a drink downstairs, and here I am.”
Alex kneels down and starts to kiss her black-stockinged legs from the ankles up, slowly. “I’m glad you were scared. It means you take this as seriously as I do.”
He spreads her legs a little wider with each kiss rising up her thighs. “You’re all I’ve thought about every minute of the day, baby. I’ve thought about what we’re doing. About where we’re going. About what I need to do to you.”
Moaning and giving into his touch, she whispers, “It’s all I’ve thought about too.”
His hands slide up over her ass, slowly exploring every opening. “I have two surprises for you tonight,” he says, with his fingers buried deep inside of her. “First, something for your body. Relax, this won’t hurt at all.”
She feels something hard and cold pressing against her pussy lips.
“It’s just something to keep you warm inside for me while we take care of the second surprise. They’re small silver balls, and they will gently roll around inside your pussy while we’re out.” He pushes the second ball in. “How does that feel, baby?”
“Oh, God. It feels very full and wonderful. Out where?”
Alex leans hard down on her back as she lies over the desk, pressing his stiff cock up against her ass. “You love it, don’t you.”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then we’re going out to dinner with a friend of mine. Let’s get ready.”
He helps her straighten up her skirt, keeping his hands on her ass while she catches her breath.
“I don’t know if I can walk anywhere with these inside of me.”
“Yes, you can. Let’s go.”
Walking down the street on his arm, Rikki realizes that although he hasn’t even fucked her yet, she still feels completely possessed by him.
Waiting at the table in Sostanza’s, Rikki says, “You know, Alex, there are things in my end of the world story that I don’t want to do.”
“Yes? Like what?”
“Some of the more dangerous things . . .”
She’s cut off by the arrival of Alex’s friend, Jonathan. After greetings and polite chatter, Alex brags about Rikki’s prize-winning story
“You wrote about sex at the end of the world?” Jonathan asks.
“Yes,” she answers, “Sex and intimacy and stories and passion.” Give me another drink, she thinks, and I’ll even tell you the ending.
“Rikki’s a great storyteller,” Alex says. “Some night we’ll all have to get together and let her enchant us with her tales.”
He leans over, whispers to her, “How do the balls feel deep inside of you?” and watches her blush.
They continue to talk of her story as though it were a scholarly work, dissecting what could truly happen and what couldn’t. She listens in fascination while Alex keeps his hand high on her bare thigh.
“I was just telling Alex before you came,” Rikki interjects, “that some of the things in that story are just fantasy, and people don’t really do them.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, just some of the more dangerous things, involving control and possession and physical harm.”
“Rikki and I have been thinking about trying out some of them ourselves.”
She looks quickly to see if perhaps she misheard. She didn’t, he’s smiling. She excuses herself and flees to the restroom.
Alex meets her there in the hallway five minutes later. “Jonathan’s gone.” He pins her up against the wall, kissing her deeply. “He’s an open-minded guy, don’t worry about him.”
“How could you?”
“I could.” He whispers fiercely into her ear, “I need to fuck you, baby, here.”
“No, not here.”
“Yes, here.” He pulls her out into the dark alley behind the restaurant. “Lift your skirt and bend over.”
“No.”
“No? Let me help you.” He does it for her. Pressing her fast up against the railing, he shoves her skirt aside and unzips his pants. “Tell me, Rikki. Tell me you want me to fuck you hard.” He can feel her breathing fast, and reaches for the hardness of her nipples. “Tell me. Tell me how much you want it.”
His cock is hard against her bare ass. “Oh God, yes. Yes. Yes. I want you.” He spreads her legs and enters her pussy hard and fast, feeling the metal of the silver balls inside her against his cock. The heat builds until he’s fucking her fast and furious and she no longer cares who can see or hear them. His arms are wrapped around her tight and they both come violently into the night.
As they begin to recover, they straighten each other’s clothes and laugh. “You make me feel like a teenager, Alex.”
“You are, baby, in your heart. Let’s go home. I need you to tell me a story.”
Lying on the carpet in front of the single candle, Alex slowly removes all of Rikki’s clothes, and then all of his own. He ties her wrists together with one of his red neckties, leaving her feeling vulnerable but not seriously bound.
She recognizes this as one of the scenes she has written, and is amazed at his attention to detail, right down to the colour red and the single candle. She’s also amazed that it feels exactly the way she thought it would, purely and wonderfully sensual.
“Tell me a story, baby.”
She laughs. “Do you know where I got that whole thing from?” She’s beginning to melt under the slow and gentle massage of his hands on her back.
“No, where?”
“It’s a silly rhyme from my childhood –
Tell me a story and sing me your song
tend my heart gently to keep us both strong
make it a tale full of love and romance
or spin me the truth
and we’ll each take a chance”
“That’s not silly, it’s great.” He pours lotion into his hands and starts in on her thighs.
“Now, baby. Tell me a story. Make it a true one.”
She sighs with pleasure. “This is wonderful. OK, a story of my past.”
His fingers press and probe gently as she begins to talk.
“This is the story of where all my tying-up fantasies begin, I suppose. Once upon a time I had a boyfriend, when I was quite young and neither one of us knew much of anything about sensuality, who liked to play around with tying me up. He liked it, I liked it, it was pretty harmless. Mostly he’d just tie my wrists to the bedposts and fuck me. And he wanted me to do the same to him sometimes.”
“How old were you?”
“Oh, probably 20 or so . . . oh, my, that feels great. You are the sexiest man on earth.”
He turns her over and places her tied hands behind her neck.
“So what happened?”
“It was fun, but not great, probably because we weren’t that great together to start with. But then he got a little weird on me. He liked to tie me up and just leave me that way, all evening. He liked to sit me on a hardback chair with my wrists and ankles tied tight and just watch me. It was sexy in a way, but also scary and strange.”
Alex straddles her waist and begins a serious massage of her nipples. She can feel his cock growing hard at her words.
“He would come by the chair and tease me every now and then, you know, touching me, caressing me, pinching my nipples. But he wouldn’t say much, and we were so young we could hardly talk about what we were doing. It was like we knew what we liked, but we had no idea where to go from there.”
“Not like now, where you can write stories that take you straight to the end of the world.”
“Yes.”
He slides up to her mouth and begins to stroke her face with his cock. “Tell me more. And keep your hands right where I put them behind your neck.”
She squirms under the caress of his cock. “So, I often found myself sitting on this very uncomfortable chair, tied up for hours, just to please him. After the first hour or so like that, the stiffness of my body overcame any erotic feelings I might have had.”
Alex slides the tip of his cock into her mouth, watching her close her eyes and run her tongue deliciously around it. “More story,” he says, and withdraws.
“God, yes. Then, one night, he got kind of cruel about it. He not only tied me to the chair, he blindfolded me. Then I heard him leave the apartment. I was terrified. What if something happened? I think about it now, and I think it could have been sexy if we could have talked about it, if I had any idea what was going on.”
His cock is hard in her mouth now, halting her words. She sucks him until he is ready to withdraw again and hear the rest.
“So, he left. And I admit, I was turned on in spite of it all. But I was angry too. It’s dangerous to play too fast and loose in the realm of the senses like that. He came back hours later and I was exhausted from crying. But . . .”
Alex’s cock is fucking her mouth hard now, stopping the story, his fist wrapped in her hair. “Finish,” he says finally, withdrawing.
She takes a deep breath. “But . . . I admit we had the hottest sex we’d ever had that night. It was like he owned me. He left me blindfolded and held me on the ground and fucked me every way possible. I learned some amazing things about my body that night.”
The story stops as he buries his cock deep in her throat, coming with force. “Yes, baby, yes.”
She takes her time and licks her lips and swallows all of his come, and he leaves his cock near her lips so that she can lick him clean also. Untying her wrists, he holds her tight and begins to rock her towards sleep in his arms.
“That was a great story, Rikki.”
“But you never heard the end. I left him the next week. It was all too much.”
“You will never leave me, baby. You are the bridge to my darkest desires.”
“But what happened to stopping whenever we wanted to.”
He holds her close. “We can. But you will never leave me. Never.”
Tuesday and Thursday nights come and go in the fog of sensuality. Rikki starts showing up on time without the previously required glass of wine. Some evenings she even shows up early. They experiment with schoolgirl clothes, with candle wax, and with spanking. Meetings stay as planned, but the phone calls begin – two, sometimes three times a day.
“Rikki, I want you to wear your prettiest dance clothes tomorrow night,” Alex tells her one day on the phone.
She shows up in a deep purple chiffon skirt and black leotard, long black hair down and flowing, with no idea where they’re going. She enters, closes the drapes, and comes to him for inspection. Lifting the swirling skirt and hopping up on his desk, she spreads her legs wide and tucks her toes around his waist.
“Hi.”
He thinks perhaps he could die right here, watching this lovely woman be so free and open and sexual with him, so far into their intimacy that she no longer has any hesitations.
“I love you, Rikki.”
“Oh, Alex.” She’s speechless beyond that. This is not exactly in the story they are supposed to be acting out. “Where are we going dancing?”
He runs his hands up over her legs, stroking her pussy through the leotard. “I don’t even mind that you’re not quite accessible in this, you look so beautiful.”
She slides down onto his lap, holding him close, feeling the hardness of his cock beneath her.
“We’re not going anywhere, Rikki. We’re staying right here.” He lifts her back up onto the desk and opens the bottle of champagne he has brought for them. “No glasses, we’ll just share.” He takes a long swig and then kisses her, delivering champagne directly to her mouth.
She laughs at the idea of being all dressed to go out and having only their own private dance. He lights the single red candle, they pick out music together and begin to dance slowly, wrapped around each other. He steps back from her.
“Dance for me, Rikki.”
“A little more champagne, please.”
More long kisses deliver the champagne.
Rikki begins to dance, swaying, swirling her skirt, trying to remember every move she’s ever seen in strip shows. More kisses bring better moves, until she is standing right in front of him as he sits in the armchair. She removes her leotard completely, leaving only the long chiffon skirt and her black high heels. Her breasts move freely as she dances, over him, on him, for him, for her own sensuality, full of passion and power.
Alex strokes her breasts when she leans over him, then just lets her go. She dances over to the stereo and puts on Mickey Hart’s “Planet Drums,” and begins to dance and caress her body in the middle of the room as he watches.
“God, Alex, this music always makes me just want to lie down and be fucked hard.”
“No. But you may touch yourself all you want while I watch.”
He feeds her the rest of the champagne. She begins to perform a dance that involves fondling herself everywhere. She has no idea where this comes from, but she continues until she collapses in front of him and reaches an overwhelming orgasm while he watches.
“God, Alex.”
“Yes.”
They spend the rest of the night teaching each other every dance they know, from the tango to the Sugar Shack dance to an elegant waltz.
In the morning, Alex says, “Don’t leave.”
“I must.”
“Never leave me.”
“I won’t.”
Rikki calls him late that night at home at midnight.
“I need you.”
“Meet me by the fountain in the Quad. Ten minutes.”
She’s there when he arrives, and he wraps her tight in his arms and holds her.
“Alex, this scares me. I need you so much.”
“And I need you. We need to move forwards. We need to complete our story.”
The following Thursday Rikki calls him. “It’s your turn tonight, Alex.”
She enters promptly at six, wrapped in a long trench coat.
“You look rather like a secret agent, baby,” he says, smiling.
“I have a surprise for you, Alex.”
“I’m ready.”
She closes the drapes and comes to him in ritual fashion. “You sure you’re ready for this?” she asks.
“Yes, Rikki, I’m ready for everything.”
She strips off her coat, and Alex sits back in surprise and admiration. She wears thigh high black suede boots, a red and black corset with matching garters and black stockings. The corset pushes her breasts high. She also wears a red and black lace collar.
“Rikki, you look like every man’s midnight wet dream,” he says, regaining his composure. “You actually drove here like that?”
“Yes.” She’s amazed how far she’s going, how little she cares about anything in life but pleasing him.
He lifts her up and carries her across the room, laying her down in front of their candle.
“No, Alex, it’s your turn.”
He’s fascinated by the tone in her voice.
Rikki undresses him slowly and guides him to lay down in front of her. She ties his hands above his head with one of her red silk scarves.
“How does that feel?”
“Rikki, I don’t know about this.”
“Just give in to it, you’ll love it like I do.”
She stands over him in her high-heeled boots with her legs spread.
“Watch me.”
He watches as she strokes herself, trying to reach up and touch.
“You need something more, I think. You’re much less well-behaved than I am.”
She ties the ends of the scarf to the leg of the coffee table. “Don’t pull too hard or you’ll tip the candle over and we’ll be on fire.”
He holds still.
“One more thing.” She wraps another silk scarf around his eyes. “Do you like that?”
“I don’t know, Rikki, it’s strange.”
“Yes, it is. When you’re deprived of two of your senses like that, though, the seeing and the touching, everything else gets more intense. You’ve taught me that.”
Rikki lowers herself until her bare pussy rests on his chest.
“Now, Alex, tell me a story.”
“Oh, man.”
“Make it a true one.”
“All right.” Alex breathes deeply and tries to relax.
“Let me help you relax.” Rikki starts to stroke and kiss him starting from his toes.
“Yes, yes, I’ll tell you about Paris.”
“Paris?”
“Yes, Paris. I was there when I was in graduate school, just for a summer. There was a woman. She was pure sex. Pure abandonment. In fact, sometimes you remind me of her.”
Rikki laughs. “I have nothing that exotic in me, I’m afraid. In fact, I’m only French in my kisses.” She kisses him long and deep.
“God, Rikki, how can you ever tell stories and do this at the same time?”
“You’ve made me an expert.”
“Anyway, I met her in a cafe one afternoon. She had dark short hair, she was very tiny, and not terribly pretty. But there was something about her that fascinated me.”
“What was it?” Rikki moves down to his cock and begins to lick slowly.
“I didn’t know when I met her, but I can tell you now. She lived in her senses. She was totally impractical. There was nothing she’d rather do in life than fuck.”
“Yes,” Rikki whispers, her face buried deep between his legs.
“And she wanted me. But she wasn’t aggressive at all. She just let me know. It started out fairly normal, as young love affairs go. Lots of time in bed, lots of late nights. Then one night she told me what she really desired.”
Rikki spreads his legs wider and starts exploring down the inside of his thighs.
“I need to see you while we do this, Rikki.”
“No, you don’t. Go on with the story. What did she want?”
“She wanted me to command her. To possess her, to own her. To tell her what to do. To use her, to abuse her. To completely dominate her.”
“That sounds right up your alley,” Rikki says with a kiss.
“It may be now, but I wasn’t sure then. I loved it, but it felt bad. You know what I mean? The things she asked me to do shocked me. She was older, maybe 30, and she’d had experience with this.”
Rikki straddles him above his hard cock. “What did she want you to do?”
“She wanted to call me ‘Sir’ all the time. She wanted to serve me. She wanted to be on her knees for me. She wanted me to spank her. She wanted me to hurt her.”
“And did you?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about it while I fuck you.” She lowers herself down slightly, so that just the tip of his cock enters her pussy.
“I don’t know if I can talk about it.”
She slides down all the way, and holds him inside of her.
“Oh, man, Rikki. That’s wonderful.”
“Tell me what you did. I want to know all the good and the dark things about you.”
Alex tries to move his hips up to meet her, but she holds him still.
“OK. She would kiss my feet. At first because she wanted to do this. Then because I wanted her to. And finally because I made her do it. You know The Story of O? It became very much like that.”
‘And you loved it.”
“Loved, and hated.”
Rikki slides slowly up on her knees until just the tip of his cock remains inside of her. “Tell me more,” she says as she slides back down and leans over to kiss him deeply.
“I don’t know, she just found something in me that I didn’t know existed. The need to dominate. The need to be cruel. I often didn’t want to even see her again, but I would. It only lasted a few months or so.”
“What happened?”
Alex takes a deep breath as Rikki begins to ride him slowly to the rhythm of his words.
“It scared me to death.”
“What happened? You can tell me.”
“It just went too far.”
Rikki leans over and unties his blindfold and his wrists. “God, I need your hands on me . . .”
He reaches for her breasts, then slides his hands down to her hips and raises her up. “Come with me, Rikki. Ride me hard. Come with me.”
“God yes.” Rikki reaches her climax at the same time that he explodes deep inside of her, and they collapse together on the floor.
Entwined together by the light of the melting candle, Rikki asks one more time. “Will you please tell me what happened?”
“No. I’d rather show you.”
“What?”
“Next weekend we’re going away. We’re going to break all the rules.”
“Where?”
“You don’t need to know. I will take care of everything. And I will take care of you.”
The following Thursday Alex calls Rikki in the early afternoon.
“Meet me tonight, on time, at El Chapultepec. Wear that red short dress with the black leather belt.”
“Yes, I will.”
She arrives to find Alex and his friend Jonathan in a back booth in the jazz bar, deep in conversation. Rikki begins to slide into the booth, but Alex stops her.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Rikki laughs. “What? – there are no drapes here.”
Alex looks at her with that look that Rikki thinks he must practise in front of the mirror. It makes her melt every time – it’s a look of absolute passion, yet absolute control.
“Lift your skirt.”
“Alex!”
“Do it.”
“Alex! Not here, not with him . . .” She looks at Jonathan and blushes. He seems to just be sitting back relaxed, expecting this. “What can you be thinking of, Alex!”
“Look around you, Rikki. Not a soul is watching you. Except for us. Do it.”
Options float through her mind like the jazz riff she hears in the background – fright, fight, freedom, flight? All seem like a dream, for she knows that this act is in her story and that she is caught hopelessly in the descending rhythm of her own writing.
“Yes, Alex.”
Rikki looks one more time over her shoulder, avoids Jonathan’s eyes, looks directly at Alex, and slowly slides the front of her red linen skirt up her thighs.
“Isn’t she beautiful, Jonathan?”
“Yes.”
Alex reaches out and touches her soft lips gently, making her flinch. “You may lower your skirt, Rikki, and join us.” Alex rises to let her slide in between them.
Rikki knows there isn’t enough wine in this place to help her get through what she suspects is coming. She hopes perhaps he will alter her story and head in a different direction, as he has occasionally done in the past.
They chat about the blues singer in the spotlight, and Rikki tries to look at Jonathan and talk as though she hasn’t just bared her pussy directly in front of him.
“I have a gift for you, Rikki,” Alex says. He pulls a jewellery box out of his jacket pocket and presents her with it.
Rikki opens it slowly, and there it is. It is so close to what she described in her story that it brings tears to her eyes. “Oh, thank you, Alex.” She lifts the choker up to examine its beauty, and finds her name inscribed elegantly in script across the golden underside of the heavy clasp.
Alex takes it from her and lifts it up toward her throat. The delicate filigree chains shimmer in the shadows and the candlelight.
“It’s beautiful.”
“It was designed just for you, Rikki. There’s another piece that matches it, which you will receive this weekend.”
Rikki kisses him with passion. “Thank you.”
“Jonathan has read your story, Rikki.”
“He has?”
“Yes, and he knows exactly what this means. When I place this on your lovely neck, there’s no going back.”
Alex pulls the intertwined chains snugly around her neck, and fastens the heavy gold clasp beneath her hair.
“You are mine, Rikki. You are never to take this off without my permission.”
“God, yes, Alex, I do belong to you.”
Rikki dances with Alex, and then she dances with Jonathan, losing herself in the music of the evening.
Sandwiched between the two men back at the table, she feels warm and safe and loose and free, almost ready for anything. “It’s time, Rikki. Jonathan’s going to be so kind and lend us his cabin in the mountains for the weekend. I think we need to repay him for his generosity. Tell her about the cabin, Jonathan.”
“It’s pretty small, but comfortable,” Jonathan responds, “and very, very isolated.”
“It will be perfect for us,” Alex says with a smile. “Now, Jonathan, what would you like her to do?”
“Only one thing. Tell me a story, Rikki. Tell me a story full of sex and romance. Oh, and just like in your writing, raise your skirt and let me watch you touch yourself while you tell it.”
Rikki blushes until she’s sure she’ll die. “I cant.”
“Let me help, Rikki,” Alex says.
He turns her back towards his chest, so that she’s looking directly at Jonathan. “Sit here, move in between my legs, that’s it.”
Alex slides her skirt up above the black stockings, just above the soft black curls of her pussy. “How is that, Jonathan, do you have a perfect view?”
Rikki closes her eyes, pretends this isn’t happening. Yet she feels herself on fire.
“Perfect. Tell me a story, Rikki.”
By the end of the evening, Rikki’s told several stories, always stroking herself to orgasm at the end of each one. She’s told the story of the teenage finger-fucking episode in explicit detail, and the complete story of the three candles. Nestled safely in Alex’s arms with her legs spread wide, yet discreetly, behind the table, she’s made up a wild tale of a woman named Annie and her dancing and her Daddy. Jonathan’s entranced, and Rikki imagines he wants her to go on through the night this way.
“Alex,” she whispers, “I’m exhausted, and I need you. Can we go home?”
“Yes,” he responds, stroking her hair softly.
They all leave together, and Jonathan hugs Rikki goodbye. “Thank you, Rikki, that was incredible. Take care of her, Alex.”
“I will.”
Rikki and Alex barely make it inside the door before they are tearing each other’s clothes off, desperate to make love. They collapse on the floor in passion and wrap themselves tightly around each other and never let go.
They fall asleep immediately afterwards. Alex awakens her in the early morning with his tongue deep inside of her, letting her come to life slowly as he devours her.
“Oh God, it’s late, Alex, I have to go,” she whispers after recovering.
“Twelve hours, Rikki. In twelve hours we’ll be leaving for the mountains. In twelve hours you will be completely mine in the wilderness for three days. Do you remember your instructions?”
“Yes, Alex. I will bring nothing with me. Nothing.”
“Close your eyes tight,” Alex tells Rikki as he guides her to the car.
“Why?”
“Close them.”
She closes her eyes and lets him seat her in the passenger seat and fasten the seat belt for her. The aroma of flowers is overwhelming.
“Alex! What is that?”
“You may look.”
Her eyes flutter open and the sight outdoes even the smell. “Look at all the roses! I’ve never seen so many roses together! How gorgeous, Alex, what a beautiful thing to do.”
The back seat is full of roses. Huge bunches of yellow and orange roses, piled high and wrapped several dozen at a time, all tied with pale orange and yellow ribbons.
“Those are my favourite colour roses. But why so many?” She picks up one small bunch and inhales. “They’re gorgeous.”
“Because you deserve them. We’ll figure out something to do with them all,” he says with a smile.
“You are just too good to be true, Alex. I’m going to miss you.”
“What do you mean?”
She puts the roses down. “Oh, you know my trip to Venice is next month.” She realizes that this is the first time they’ve ever talked about the future.
“Are your plans all made?”
“Yes. I have a place rented for the month, and they have the conference all scheduled.”
He’s silent, and she peers at him through the dim light, trying to determine his feelings as they travel up the winding pass into the mountains. “We did say we could stop any time.”
Alex pulls the car to a stop at a visitor observation point.
“Let’s go for a walk, Rikki.”
They climb up to the top of the deserted viewing platform. The lights of the city can be seen twinkling in the distance. The valley spans below them beyond the 500-foot drop-off. He guides her close to the edge, with his arms wrapped tightly around her waist.
“Take another step, baby.”
“No, it’s too scary.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes.” She steps forwards.
“Another one. I’ve got you.”
She trembles in his arms, but steps forwards, wondering how far she’ll go.
“I need you, baby. You have to trust me that I know what’s right for us. I’ve reached the edge where I wanted to be. I can never let you go.”
They stand together and watch the lights. Rikki has no words.
Driving miles down a private dirt road brings them to Jonathan’s cabin.
“Wow,” is all Rikki can say when she sees it. A small log cabin with a wraparound porch sits a hundred yards from a small lake that is only discernible by the shimmer of the mist reflected in their headlights. Small groves of aspen trees surround the cabin.
“Have you been here before, Alex?”
“Yes.”
“This place looks like paradise.”
“Wait until you see it in the daylight.”
He guides her inside, where she gasps again. The ceiling soars to a peak of heavy logs, making the single room look huge. A narrow spiral staircase rises in the middle of the room to the loft bedroom above. One entire wall of the cabin ensconces a multi-coloured stone fireplace. The far right side of the room holds an old-fashioned ten-foot-long pine dining table.
“Sit here at the table, Rikki, and put your feet up. I’ll bring everything in.”
“I can help. I’m a feminist, you know,” she jokes, feeling rather helpless.
“So am I. Stay where you are.”
Alex brings in the groceries and the one large suitcase. It takes him five trips to bring all the roses in and lay them before her across the table. He gets the fire going, lights the candles on the mantle, and puts some music on the CD player.
“The roses are not nearly as beautiful as you are, Rikki. Stand up.”
She catches her reflection in the enormous picture window that has no drapes.
Alex turns her so she can watch herself in the glass. “Take your skirt off.”
She unbuttons the long straight denim skirt from the bottom, and lets it fall at her feet. She stands bare except for her shirt and sandals and the glimmer at her neck.
“Yes. Now the shirt and the shoes.”
Rikki strips off the shirt and kicks away the shoes. Only the filigree chains remain at her neck.
“Yes, baby, yes. That’s how I want you. That’s how I want us here.” He removes his clothes while she watches in the glass, and runs his hands down over her hips. “Civilization stripped away, all our pretences gone. I want you to stay like this all weekend.”
She’s lost in his touch, in the glancing reflection in the window of him standing behind her stroking her, in the aroma of roses that are strewn across the table. She can hear Joni Mitchell singing about “dancing up a river in the dark” in the background.
“Come lie across the table for me. This table was made just for us.” Alex clears a spot for her amidst the roses. “On your belly.” Her breasts press down into the hard pine.
He climbs up next to her on the table and begins to unwrap the roses. “Close your eyes and just feel, baby.” Roses run up and down her body, petals and thorns and then petals again. He caresses her everywhere, and she can only feel hands and softness and hardness and sharpness, until she cries out for him in need. He moves on top of her, hard cock pressing against her ass, entering her and fucking her hard, until nothing remains for either one of them but the fragrance of roses and love.
Hours later they are laughing and dancing around the kitchen area, trying to find enough glasses to put all the roses in. They line up the glasses down the middle of the table, finish putting the groceries away, and cuddle up together in front of the fireplace under a heavy blanket.
They tell each other stories, the silly and the serious, the important and the whimsical, until they fall asleep to the rhythm of their words.
In the morning Rikki wakes up shivering, and Alex gets up and finds her one of his big white cotton button-down shirts to wear while he cooks her breakfast. They relax in their closeness while gobbling down the scrambled eggs and toast. She tucks her bare feet up into his lap.
“This is the most breathtaking place I have ever seen, Alex. I want to set the next story I write here. Maybe I’ll write about a couple with minimal clothing and an absolute obsession for each other. And lots of roses.”
After breakfast, Alex finally takes her upstairs to show her around. There’s just one room, with a big four poster pine bed with lovely old quilts on it. It’s irresistible – they crawl under the soft quilts together and quietly make love one more time until they are momentarily satiated.
“Come with me, baby, let’s find out what it’s like to be bathed in rose petals.”
Warm water and bath oil, Alex’s hands and a thousand rose petals seem perfect to Rikki. Afterward they sit on the bed for a long time, curled together, while he brushes and dries her long hair.
She starts to put his white shirt back on but he tells her not to. “I want you like we talked about last night, Rikki, with no clothing here. We’ll keep the fire going all the time in case it gets cold. But we’re not about to have any visitors here who can see us. You look just perfect the way you are, except for one thing.”
Alex brings out a jewel box, and Rikki opens it to find another set of chains that match the ones around her neck. He kneels down in front of her to show her where it goes. He wraps the first section around her waist, and then runs the fragile chain down across her clit, teasing her and taking his time. The chain runs back up over her ass and fastens on the back of her waist.
“God, that’s just gorgeous. Thank you so much.”
She walks down the spiral staircase feeling completely open and vulnerable, shimmering in gold like an Egyptian princess.
In the afternoon it’s perfectly sunny and they lounge on the porch in the soft chairs with no clothing and their feet kicked up, drinking lemonade. They talk and observe the crystal lake in front of their cabin, and finally read each other erotic stories from some books they find tucked away on a shelf.
“Jonathan must be kind of a kinky guy up here,” Rikki says, looking at the stack of erotic books piled up next to her.
“He doesn’t get to come up here much any more. Rikki, I wish we could stay here forever.” He makes her read some of his favourite dirty passages over and over. “You look tired, let’s go back in.”
He takes her back upstairs to the big bed. “Lie down and hold still for me.”
She flops down on the bed, hearing the chains around her body clink together. Alex brings out the rope he brought in with the groceries and ties her wrists to each corner of the bed.
“You look so perfect there.” He covers her with the turquoise quilt. “I’m going to go out for a walk, and I want you to just rest here for me like this.”
“You’re going to leave me like this?”
“Yes. Do you trust me?”
“Oh, God . . . yes.”
She hears the door close, and begins to drift off. She finds herself wondering dreamily about what they’re doing.
Is this just meant to be? Is there any way to simply escape and live like this forever? Would it work if we did it all the time? What really happened to him in Paris that he’s going to try and show me? Is he safe? Am I in love with him? Do I really trust him? She finds that just thinking about him like this starts to make her nipples get hard and the wetness flow between her thighs. Being aroused and alone and bound is frightening, and she pulls at the ropes in frustration. What if he never comes back?
A few minutes later she hears the door downstairs. “Oh God, I got scared after a while, Alex. Please untie me.”
“Yes, baby, but we both know what happens in your story after this, don’t we? Do you think we can change the ending? Does being scared turn you on?”
She shivers. “Yes, oh, yes, it does.”
“We have two more days here, Rikki, I want you to stay as you are, naked and bound in some way for me the rest of the time we’re here.”
“For two days?”
“Yes. Just let me take care of you.”
He unties her briefly to let her get up, and then reties her hands behind her back. He helps her down the stairs and seats her comfortably on the bench at the table.
He feeds her dinner. “I feel like a child.”
“Yes, but I may not always be so gentle here.”
After dinner and wine, he takes her out for a walk on the patio with her arms still bound, slipping a jacket over her shoulders.
“It’s so quiet here, Alex, it’s like the end of the world.”
They experiment that night with every possible way to use the roses and their petals while making love. Rikki imagines she will smell these roses for the rest of her life. She’s beginning to lose track of where she is and why she’s here. He finally unties her for the night, and she feels lost.
Alex finds a way to help keep her comfortable and close and safe. He wraps her arms around his upper leg and reties her wrists, nestling her in between his legs to sleep. They both fall asleep with her head resting on his belly and her mouth gently on his cock. She awakens the next morning to find it’s already noon. Alex’s been up and gone out already. Rikki tries to stretch, only to find that he has quietly retied her hands above her head while she was sleeping.
He returns and brings her breakfast in bed.
“Alex, you’re spoiling me rotten.”
“I know.” He feeds her.
As the day goes on, she notices his mood changes slightly.
“Baby, I want you to feel what it’s like to be deprived of your senses, slowly but surely, until you are left with nothing but love and trust for me. I love you, Rikki. This is not just a story. We’re going all the way. I know it scares you some. It scares me too. But I have to do it.”
They go outside before the sun sets, and he reaches over and plays with her chains.
“I think we’ll skip dinner tonight, and just dine on champagne. Take a good look at the beauty of the lake, baby.”
She does, and then looks to him in trust. He brings out a black scarf and blindfolds her with it. Walking back in to the big leather couch, she gets a bit dizzy at the loss of both her hand movement and her sight. He lets her sit there comfortably on the couch, stretched out, feet up. “Tell me a story, Rikki. A truth. Tell me where you think we’re going. How you feel about me.”
She can’t reach for him, or even see him. “I love you, Alex. I do.” She pauses. “But I’m afraid we’re going to consume each other and lose track of the line between what’s real and what’s not if we keep going.”
He reassures her, and they talk for a long time. She notices that the apprehension over what they’re doing often alternates between the two of them.
“One more sensation, Rikki. Are you ready?” Another scarf. He wraps this one around her mouth, stopping her cry of surprise.
“That’s beautiful, baby. You should see yourself, so helpless, so vulnerable, so trusting.”
He doesn’t touch her, just lets her spiral into the loss of movement and sight and speech. He sits down next to her and tells her his story.
“This is the kind of thing I did in Paris so long ago, but we did it all the time, and there was too much cruelty in it and not enough love. It was more like a contest to see who could go farther. To see who could be more evil. There wasn’t enough trust, not like with you. You’re soft and loving and imaginative and full of desire.”
She struggles to say something.
“Just listen to me.” Alex begins to play with the chain around her waist again. “The night you asked me about. She brought a knife out, and wanted me to use it on her body. It was the night it ended. I ended it. It went too far. I started to do what she wanted. I did. But I was afraid I would hurt her too much, and I was afraid I might like it. She knew what she liked. I wonder if she’s still alive.”
Rikki’s getting slightly nervous at this story. She leans slightly away from him the best she can.
He holds her chain tight. “Don’t ever pull away from me, baby. We’re on the edge here, but we can stay there. I want to control you, I want to own you, but I will never cause you serious harm. Will you trust me?”
She nods slowly, struggling with the gag and the blindfold, scared, wet, excited, anxious.
“You just need to stay with me tonight, just let yourself go. Let yourself go for me, baby, there is no other world, there is only us and our passion. There is nothing more intimate in the world than giving yourself over completely to another human being. I want you to feel me tonight, I want you to know I am on you for ever.”
His words are becoming hypnotic to her.
“You’ve been bound since last night, but you’ve been able to move most of the time. Let me show you what control really is.”
Alex lifts her off the couch and lays her down on the floor on her back. Spreading her legs wide, he ties each ankle to a leg of the couch. Her wrists are pulled over her head and tied across the carpeting to the armchair. She can only feel the warmth of the fireplace, and the smell of the roses that permeates the cabin. She’s almost glad she can’t speak, because there are no words for this feeling.
“Are you all right, baby? Just nod if you are.” She nods. “Now, there is one last sense I can take from you.”
Her body jerks involuntarily, with no idea what it could be.
“Before I do this, just know that you are nothing but the sensations of your body, and that you can trust me completely. I will always treat you like a precious object. And it will make us both strong.”
Alex places tiny earplugs underneath the wrapping of the blindfold, and continues to talk to her, knowing she can no longer hear him. “I love you, Rikki. Good God, look at you. And now I am without a voice also. We are reduced to exactly where we should be. This may just kill both of us eventually.”
As he begins to command her body, she gives herself over to him completely, feeling the pleasure, the ache, thc withdrawal, the new sensations. Every opening and inch of her body is being explored and entered. There are strokes and there are slaps and she can barely tell them apart. Kisses begin to feel like bites and bites feel like sex. She hears stories in her head and they are like dreams, stories being told by someone else, someone who has total control over her and knows her from the inside out.
When Alex turns her over and reties her on her belly to begin working his way up and down her back, she’s lost in the dance on the line between pain and pleasure. With no sight, no sound, no control, no power, she finally gives in to the absolute sensations of love and abandonment and her own wild hunger for passion and silently begs him for more, and then more, and then even more.
The return from the weekend had been very quiet between them. Alex calls her on Tuesday to say he needs to cancel that night, and wants to meet her for lunch the next day.
He holds her tight when she arrives at the restaurant. “Rikki, this is killing me. I wake up craving you. I think all day long of ways to hurt you and love you and own you. I forget to do important things, like pay bills. I can’t get my work done. I can’t find my way back across this bridge we’ve created.”
She just listens. “We can stop whenever we want to.”
“Rikki. Rikki. The weekend was incredible. I’m sorry. You were right, we’re going to consume each other if we keep going. And I can’t handle it.”
“You loved it. And so did I.”
He’s near tears. “But I’ve lost the line. The line between fantasy and my own darkness. I’m falling apart, Rikki. If I stay with you it may kill me. It may kill you. We can’t live in this secret dark world forever.”
She watches him calmly, trying to figure out what to say. She’s never felt stronger in her life.
“I have to stop, Rikki. God, I have to stop.”
She rises to leave and drops her second airline ticket to Italy on the table in front of him. “I understand, Alex. It will be all right. But I have a surprise for you, just in case you change your mind. July first. Take care.”
After three weeks away from him, Rikki’s amazed at how strong and happy she still feels. She tries not to think too hard about why this is. She misses him. But their power shifted somewhere, and it satisfies her deeply. There are things that she wants and needs and now she knows how to get them
Leaving for Venice, she writes him a short note on her rose stationery. She asks him only to take care of himself, to be well.
Sitting on the airplane gazing out the window, she fingers the filigree chains that she still wears tight around her neck. Shortly before take-off, Alex arrives, out of breath. He looks thinner, worried, a little older. She just smiles, reaches over, closes the windowshade, crosses her legs, lifts her white sundress up to her waist, and presents her bare pussy for his approval.
Alex watches her, surprised, enchanted. “You knew I’d be here?”
“Yes.”
His hand is strong on her thigh as they take off. “Tell me a story, baby.”