19
James’ return is looming close, and it’s making me anxious. While I desperately want him freed from Robert’s evil grasp, I’m not sure there is space in my life for him anymore. I don’t even watch the footage we receive of him now because I know it will upset me. I am just too absorbed in Charlie, as our deepest and darkest desires manifest in each other.
Something has happened between us—something has happened to me—a new kind of knowing. He’s tapped in to a hidden part of me I never knew existed.
Our friendship is close and constant while our fucking is wild and it’s everywhere: the kitchen table, all over the gym from the boxing ring to the filthy mats on the floor, his office, the living room, his bedroom, and the shower.
I am breathless just thinking about it.
Sex with him is atmospheric, always different with strange levels of danger and simultaneous tenderness that I find addictive. I now seek the familiarity of pain before pleasure, a desire I never knew I craved, and Charlie seems to enjoy being the master of it. He pinches me and strums my clit concurrently to interweave my senses. He sucks my flesh into his mouth, leaving dark, dirty bruises to mark me as his. He even strangles me, often to the border of a starry abyss. Sometimes, I let him strangle me until an orgasm hits like a tidal wave, and sometimes I pass out. I wake to a mad Charlie shouting that I should have stopped him, but he doesn’t understand—I never want him to stop. I want to dance on the edge of death with him.
I’ve never felt more alive.
But he always ruins my moments by rambling on about rules this and rules that, safe words, hard limits—I laugh when he drops that one on me. Apart from belts and beatings—and burning my pussy—I have no hard limits. I don’t tell him though. I don’t want him anchoring his reasons and rules to my fears. He once promised he’d never hit me—and he hasn’t—and that’s enough to ease my concerns.
No matter how blasé I act to his angry outbursts though, he makes me listen as if I don’t understand. But I do understand. The rules are there to form limitations and cement trust, blah, blah, blah, but I already trust Charlie with my body, so what does it matter? I just want to freely relish in the unknown that is him. Without rules.
Instead of being a heroin addict, I have become a Charlie addict. Perhaps I always have been. Perhaps that was the magnetic pull between us when we first met.
Nothing other than him really registers on my radar anymore, not even when he tells me his brothers are flying in tomorrow. I should be nervous, but I’m not. While we’re lying in bed, glowing in the orange shadows of the roaring fireplace, I’m too busy furiously mulling over last night. Charlie screwed me four times in a row without mercy. He was steely and ruthless, getting hard in quick succession while I felt dry and raw after round two. He had to spit on me to moist me up again, but it was no use to me. I still felt shaky and exhausted, desperate to stop and go to sleep.
This happens a lot. It’s fucking frustrating. I’m back on form physically and mentally, yet I can’t keep up with him when we fuck?
“Charlie...” I say, turning up my head to look at him.
“Hmm?” He peers left at me, propped up against the headboard eating an orange.
Curious, I pose my burning question, wanting to know how he can get hard so quickly after cumming when I’m usually bested.
He doesn’t answer at first, just blinks at me.
“You being serious, baby?”
I pull a funny face at him. “Well, sure I am.”
“Oh.” His animated blinking continues as he tries to explain that his fast replenishing desire is because he has stamina, though he does need a moment after fucking to gather himself. “But you’re like a flaming red aphrodisiac, Blaire. Trying not to have a hard-on is the task.” He laughs to himself like he cannot believe it, shaking his head in a state of bafflement.
“I can’t be that much of an allure,” I say, insulted. “You didn’t touch me for ages after you stole my virginity.”
Smiling with evident affection, he lets me in on a confession: after he took my virginity, he felt extremely guilty for how it happened and refused to touch me in order to punish himself.
“What?”
“Yeah,” he says. “It was one of the most testing times of my life. I would watch you sleep sometimes, entangled in my sheets with your beautiful, red hair splayed out on the pillow. I wanted to ravish you, but I wouldn’t. I couldn’t, not after what I did.”
“Why though, Charlie? I wasn’t mad at you, you know?”
“I told you, baby,” he winks at me, “control is my philosophy, and now, you’re my muse.”
My chest explodes with emotions, the power of his honesty and charm pulling me under, holding me prisoner in his spell. When he’s like this, he makes me feel so special to him.
Seizing the moment of intimacy, I decide to bombard him with questions about sex and everything in-between. I need to talk to Charlie about all this stuff since I don’t have anyone else—and it’s driving me insane trying to figure things out in my own head.
I tell him I’m mostly curious about how the body works on such levels, how it becomes so overwhelmed with desire and orgasms. I profess what it’s like when I detonate, that I’m deemed useless until I float back down, particularly after a long session.
“That’s the whole point of orgasms,” he says, grinning from ear to ear. “The process of making children had to be pleasurable and satisfyingly exhausting, otherwise humans would cease to exist.”
That makes perfect sense. Who’d want to have sex if it was painful?
“You know not every woman can orgasm, right?” he says, shocking the hell out of me. “Some poor chicas spend a lifetime without ever feeling the high.”
“How is that even possible?” I ask with my mouth practically hanging open.
He laughs, struggling to say I cum so well because I’m very in tune with my body. “You meditate. You’ve trained with Wing Chun. You know yourself inside out.”
I still can’t believe it. I’m like a moth to a flame as he resumes telling me he thinks women who struggle to orgasm should at the very least try Yoga, to get in touch with their deeper selves. I agree without argument. Imagine not being able to orgasm. That’s misery embodied.
“Charlie, you know the lying on the back position...?”
“Missionary?” He hands me a piece of orange, and I take it.
“Yes, missionary. Why does it take longer to...you know...?”
His eyes sparkle like blue diamonds as he says it takes longer to cum because it’s harder to hit my G-spot, and my face lights up. I realize it must be the little button deep inside my body that reacts differently to every sexual position. On my back, orgasms definitely take longer to hit, but they’re dangerously intense and long. When Charlie takes me from behind or lying on our sides with him spooning me, the upsurge of ecstasy is so fucking quick it blows my mind out of its skull.
That’s my favorite position, on our sides. He can touch me all over my breasts and my clit. He can kiss my back and neck while breathing in my ear, “Te amo.” Fuck, when he says that.
“Is that what you meant?” Charlie interrupts my warped thoughts, tapping my arm to obtain my attention.
My head lifts to his, blinking with hazy confusion. I got lost there for a second.
“Why does it take longer to cum when lying on your back, is that what you meant?” he repeats himself, smirking. “You didn’t know it was because of your G-spot?”
“Oh. No, I didn’t,” I reply, continuing to pepper him in questions about sex.
He’s still smirking at me.
I shift my head on the pillow, squinting up at him. “What’s so funny?”
“I adore you when you’re like this. It’s like when you have your period. You’re full of curiosity.”
“You made me like this,” I say, wanting to know if he thinks how much he wants to do it is normal. It wasn’t that long ago when we first did it, and he’s fucked me so many times I’ve lost count—not that I’m complaining or anything. “I mean, if all men are like this, then how is anyone ever alone?” I blink at Charlie, frowning too. I bite half the orange he gave me, pulling a funny face because it’s so sour. “Wouldn’t desire alone drive people to each other?”
“Well, not all men are lucky enough to have a nice girl like you, Blaire, who’s dutiful and willing. So they’ve no choice but to hold out for the occasional one-nighter. Or they date and marry someone who’s all for fucking like rabbits in the honeymoon period and when it’s over, so is the fucking.”
“When what’s over, Charlie?”
He cocks his head, smiling at me with fondness. “The honeymoon period, baby.”
“Ohhh...” I take another slice of orange he proffers. “Will that happen to us?”
“Absolutely not,” he says with insult, pulling a ghastly face. “I wouldn’t let you turn me down—as I’m sure you already know—unless you have your period, and that’s only because I’ll worry you’ll get a stomach ache if I take you too hard.”
I’m glad to hear it. I feel decadently desired because he wants me all the time, like I want him.
“Talking of your period,” Charlie’s voice comes out thick with unshed questions, “have you noticed how irregular or even nonexistent it is?”
I nod, mouthing a whole slice of orange he passes.
“Has it always been like that, Blaire? When I had you at the house for those three months, I noted you only had one cycle.”
“Yes, it has always been like that,” I say between chewing. Then I wonder, “You’d have sex with me while I’m on my period?”
“Course I’d fuck you while you have your period.” He chuckles, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Tis’ just a little blood, baby. Nothing to be scared of.”
“Like, when we fight in the gym, get bloody, and then fuck?”
He snorts on a laugh, covering his mouth with one hand. “Yeah, something like that.”
I don’t know why he’s so amused. It happens a lot lately. Charlie’s been getting rougher and rougher, throwing me around the ring to beat me. Not that he’s had much luck. I’m thriving, back to my old self.
“Does it feel the same?” I ask, subconsciously agreeing when he interrupts to ask if I’ll let a gynecologist doctor check me over.
“Does what feel the same, baby?”
“Like, when I’m lying on my back,” I say. “If I’m on my period, will it feel the same?”
He finishes up eating his orange, giving me his last piece, and puts the peel on the bedside cabinet. He turns on his side to face me, braced up on one elbow. “I imagine it’s more intense. But we’ll be extra careful if you want to fuck when you’re on your period. You’ll be more...tender...delicate.”
“Okay.” I smile at him, believing he will be extra careful. I know he hurts me a lot during sex, but Charlie doesn’t lie. If he promises to be gentle, then he’ll be gentle. He follows all those lackluster rules, anyway.
“When you’re lying on your back,” he says, piquing my curiosity again, “that position is for lengthy love making, and so I can see the powerful reaction on your pretty face.” He touches my face in that moment, his expression blazing in some emotion.
“Yes,” I say, hypnotized by him. “I think it’s more intense, too.”
He leans down to kiss my smile, tasting unholy of tangy orange juice. At the same time, he reaches for one of my hands, fondles with my fingers so my middle one is sticking up, then he sucks it dry of juice. The warmth of his sodden mouth sets my veins on fire, and my stomach quivers like a rattlesnake when he forces me to reach under the blanket, brushing across my belly. My eyes enlarge as he puts my hand between my legs, fingering through the pubic hair to my opening.
“Charlie...”
“Relax,” he whispers, holding my stare the entire time. “I want to show you something.” He urges the tip of my finger in my body, making my toes bend in embarrassment. I am tight, hot, and a little wet. I guess talking about sex turns me on, too.
When a teeny ball on my upper wall rubs against the pad of my finger, Charlie says, “That’s your G-spot. That’s where the magic happens.”
I laugh in a mixture of awkwardness and amusement as he bends again to kiss my mouth. “Now, curl your finger gently. Don’t scratch with your nail.”
“Are you going to hurt me tonight?” I say in anticipation, glancing between his eyes. “Or make me hurt myself?”
“No,” he whispers on my lips. “Not if you don’t want to play like that. I’ll be soft.”
I maintain our visual connection and do as he orders, certain that if I want it rough, all I need to do is say so. I tenderly curl my finger inside my tight channel, shuddering as I do. He is right again. It is that spot. Pleasure sprays through my body every time I touch it, but it’s not nearly as extreme as when he does this.
He closes his lips over mine with a deep moan and consumes me in a red-hot kiss, letting go of my hand. His voice is deep and gravelly as he tells me to keep playing with myself, and I do. I can’t stop now that I’ve started. He reaches under the blanket again, smudges his fingers in my dampness, and touches my clit with the pads of his fingers, leisurely circling the peaked bud. My hips start moving as heat begins to build. It charges in my center, expanding outward, morphing into a fierce surge so fucking powerful it turns my body inside out with a light, skittish orgasm.
In the aftermath, I’m all hot and tender, panting through the shockwaves. Charlie pinches my chin to arch my head back, so we’re gazing heavily at each other, so the world outside of our eyes doesn’t exist.
“Charlie,” I say his name in a deep, bated breath.
“Hmm?” He glances back and forth between my foggy gaze, enjoying the frazzled state I’m in. “What is it, baby?”
“I want to be called Blaire Decena from now on”—his expression scorches as I tell him that—“I don’t want anyone to call me Blaire-Markov anymore. She’s gone.”