The woman in front of me was being fucked to within an inch of her life. Her entire face was flushed red, the color extending far down onto her chest and to her two swollen nipples. She was writhing like something possessed, as though she was about to combust into flames at any second.

“She won’t come until I tell her she can,” said her tormentor to me. He flicked a sweat-damp fringe from his face and pummelled into her with more urgency.

“What do you think – should we let her come?” he said through strained breath, flashing deep, laughing brown eyes in my direction.

My mind raced.

A year ago, I had only seen this man in pixelated images. He had been nothing more than ink on a newspaper for me, and now… now he was sweaty and deep in a yelping woman who seemed to be melting before our very eyes.

Maybe I should back up a little. Everything happened so fast that it seemed like one day my life consisted of nothing but the endless cycle of work, sleep, eat …and then he appeared, like a dark hurricane, and turned everything on its head.

It started like this: I had gone into work early that Tuesday to beat back my growing inbox and try to get a head start on the madness that the rest of the week would surely entail. I was in that sweet spot where I had successfully started at Cache magazine on the right foot, but after six months there, I didn’t need to be so ‘”yes ma’am, no ma’am” as I had been in the first few weeks. I was beginning to relax into my new role a little.

I was young, sure, but sometimes having a lot to prove and nothing to lose is exactly the state of mind you need to write well.

“Katie, come in here a sec, would you?”

It was my boss Penelope Welsh, a severe pedant of a woman and dying supernova in the publishing world. She had used that notorious icy voice that could either mean I was about to be praised to heaven or threatened with my life. For Penelope, life was a dreadful bore, and she lived only for those moments of either sublime journalistic joy that made life worth living …or else eviscerating the newbie guts of baby writers like myself.

It being only Tuesday, I hoped it was the former.

“Your Tom Hood piece …walk me through this. What where you doing here exactly?”

Her artsy metal earrings swung on either side of her head. She gestured to her computer screen like an unknown bug had landed there. This looked bad. As far as I could tell, Penelope asked people to “walk her through” things only so she could eviscerate them all the better. Shit.

“Uh, yes, Tom Hood. I wanted to suggest that those nude photo leaks are kind of a new avenue for self promotion for him, that celebrities are looking for ways to manage their image by curating this completely fake online presence, except tha--”

She raised a single bony finger to shut me up.

“He didn’t like it,” she said, revealing a new cryptic streak that was unfamiliar to me.

“Who didn’t?”

“Tom Hood didn’t,” she said, relishing how ridiculous this clearly sounded to me. Her earrings had stopped swinging. I opened my mouth to speak, but she raised the bony finger higher.

“He called me, you know. For some stupid reason. He says you’ve been unflattering and he wants an apology.” She turned her face back to the screen with a quizzical look. “As far as I’m concerned you did the asshole a favor with this piece, but what do I know? He doesn’t seem like he wants to cause any trouble. So, will you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Oh, right. Will you meet with him? He wants an apology. And he says he wants to do a more formal interview and a larger piece on this nude photo scandal crap. I’m going to have to bump Mira’s piece this month and that’s going to burn her ass, but he wanted you specifically, and I’m not going to turn that down, so I said you would. You OK with that? We kind of need it this quarter.”

It was barely 5 minutes past 7 and I had already been assigned the biggest story of my short and desperate career. It was a lot to take in.

All at once, Tom Hood was real.

I had written a mere line or two of snark about him and now he had appeared right in the middle of my boring Tuesday morning, like a demon summoned with some kind of spell.

I was thrilled. I played it cool.

“Sure,” I said, trying to sound casual about it.

“Good. Just see what he wants. I don’t mind where you want to take it, honestly, but just keep Eddy in the loop, too, you’ll need some photos.”

She handed me a Post-It note with a time and place scratched on it in tight, impatient handwriting.

“Tomorrow?!” I said, horrified.

“Yeah? You can’t do it? I can get Mira to try -”

“No, I’ll do it,” I blurted.

I turned quickly to leave her office before anything else happened, but as I was about to close the door she quipped, “Well, have you seen them?”

“What?”

“The nudes.”

Ah, the nudes. Tom Hood had had his phone “hacked” and all his precious dick pics were now “leaked” all over the world, and it was shocking, simply shocking to him. Not only did this idiot have the gall to try this stunt, he actually believed people would fall for it. The photos were pure trash of course – grainy candid shots of him in various stages of undress, one with him completely naked, a pair of bikini-clad models in the background, him laughing with an obscenely large dick just hanging there…

“No, of course I haven’t seen them, ew,” I said, crinkling my face up.

“You should. Guy’s hung,” she replied and returned to her work, smirking.

Okay then.

I went to my desk, the emails I was dead set on just a second ago suddenly seeming utterly unimportant now. The butterflies in my stomach had not abated. I chewed nervously on the end of a long-suffering pencil and typed into Google, “Tom Hood nude pictures”, looking once over my shoulder.

Chapter Two

By the time I got home that evening, it was already somehow eight o’clock and was drizzling slightly. I was bone-tired, a little scratchy, and in no mood to deal with what I found there.

“Tigger’s got his diarrhea again!” he said, the very first second I walked in the door.

My head throbbed.

Tigger was nowhere to be found, but the vague odor of cat shit lingering in the air let me know immediately what had happened. My boyfriend stood lamely in front of me.

“Jeremy! Really? I told you not to feed him scraps from the kitchen, it messes him up,” I said, flinging my bag into the corner. My eyes caught the sight of a sickly brown puddle peeking out from behind the kitchen corner.

I wanted to cry.

“What! You haven’t even cleaned it up yet!” I rushed over and found a guilty-looking Tigger nervously cowering beside the fridge.

“Yeah, he only did it just a moment ago,” Jeremy said.

“Well, when?”

“Uh… I don’t know? I was in a game, babe, so I didn’t actually see him do it, you know?”

I glanced my eyes over to his Xbox, a half open bag of Dorito’s spilling onto the floor. I glared at him, fuming.

This was my boyfriend, the kind of man who would play Call of Duty for five hours straight, spew Doritos all over the floor and then when feeble old Tigger ate them, would literally watch him shit himself and think, well, Katie will just clean it up. When she gets home. From her job.

Anger shot through me. I was too tired to deal with this.

“How long have you been home, anyway?” I asked, slowly and not without a bit of poison in my voice.

He looked away.

“Oh come on, not this shit again, Katie. I didn’t realize I had to check in and out of my own house everyday.”

Something in me snapped. His house? I’d had enough. I kicked the fridge with all the energy I could muster, sending poor Tigger scampering away.

“I want you to leave!”

He started to protest, but one angry look from me shut him right up. He stormed out, banging the door behind him.

I stood there and waited for the throb in my big toe to subside, and felt my eyes filling with furious tears. Tigger poked his head round the corner to see if it was safe to come out again. I had had a long, stressful day and this is what I came home to? I crumpled down into a heap on the kitchen floor, defeated, and instantly felt my phone bleep.

It was from him.

“Don’t bother apologizing, I’m not coming back,” his message read. I nearly laughed out loud. Apologize? My first thought was to hurl the phone against the cupboard, but somehow I found myself doing something else. I rubbed the tears out of my eyes with the back of my hand. With a few easy swipes of my fingers, I was staring at my phone, at him again. Why had I saved these pictures? That’s easy: research. He’s a public persona, and one who probably loved the attention anyway, so there was nothing unethical about me having these images. And looking at them. Right?

I stared for a long time at the last picture in the series, the one that had appeared just a few weeks ago across the pages of every junk tabloid in the country, the one that had brandished (large!) black censor bars all over the only parts that people had wanted to see anyway. I stared at his face. At his body. At his face again.

Three lean supermodel types were in the background, frolicking, mid-giggle and each probably no older than twenty. With bleary eyes I focused on a woman in the center back – she was all catwalk model limbs and jet-black hair extensions, some kind of music video whore, probably. But at least she’s not wasting her evening cleaning up cat shit, now is she?

I sighed.

I allowed my eyes to fall on his body again. Surely people didn’t really look like that. Not really. I stared for a long time at the almost comically large cock hanging loosely between the two toned, tanned thighs. Was it photoshopped? It was the look of a Spartan still pumped up from battle, but the face was all wrong somehow and didn’t match: it was an easy, mocking face, too comfortable, arrogant even. Familiar somehow. It was the face of someone who’s never struggled, never had to fight for a thing in their lives.

My hand found its way into my pants. Fuck that stupid idiot for taking advantage of me. I wanted all his dumb gaming equipment out, and I never wanted to see him again. I slipped a noncommittal hand into my underwear, still looking at the picture. What was her life like? Did she have to put up with a man-child for a boyfriend? Or was it champagne and Gucci, all day, everyday?

I closed my eyes and felt ugly threads of tension slowly leaving my body. The kitchen floor was cold and hard, but I deflated with a huge sigh and try to calm down. It would be OK. I would be OK. It was hard now, but I was working for something. I had a purpose. Men could wait.

My fingers found the old familiar sensations as I began to stroke my clit, still staring at the same picture I must have looked at a million times already today. I imagined something easy, soothing, something outrageously hot. Why couldn’t I be the sexy girl on the yacht with the celebrity? Who would stop me now if I imagined myself laid down on a bed of money, lavished with attention by some airheaded stud with a big cock? Why not?

I moved my fingers more quickly.

My boyfriends had always been kind of weedy, nerdy types. And I liked it that way. Men with big dicks usually are big dicks, right?

A soft wet bead of moisture grew at my fingertips as images flitted through my mind. I bet he had so much sex he was bored of it already. I bet a big idiot like him could fuck for hours, like a machine.

Hovering over the edge of a warm, friendly orgasm, I held myself suspended there for a moment, still staring hard at the picture. Each pixelated fold and vein. The small pleat between his hard thighs and the flat of his stomach. What if it was me, perched there on his lap, with every last inch of that cock buried inside me? Curling my spine, I squeezed my eyes shut, shuddered smoothly and came, with long, easy twitches.

Damn. Ok. I stood up, flustered. Buttoned my jeans up again and looked with fresh disgust at the picture. I swiped the screen with slick fingers.

“Are you sure you want to delete Image 05?”

Yes!

Delete it all.

I was done with this shit.

I was finally getting recognized at work, finally making strides in a career that took many people decades to get off the ground. I wasn’t going to let some rich jock take up any more space in my mind than he strictly needed to.

Chapter Three

Looking back, I’m pretty sure my body knew what was up long before I did. Had I been paying attention, I would have noticed that I took just a little longer getting dressed the next morning, and picked an outfit that admittedly, I wouldn’t have worn otherwise.

I pretended this was all necessary, all part of this game I was playing wherein I was a professional, and people took me seriously. I would have to meet him at an expensive, up-market hipster hole where I would be forced to put fussy drinks and snacks on Penelope’s credit card and act like I did this all the time.

And he was late.

It was 11:00 am on the nose that I began to sweat in my low cut silk blouse and skirt that was just a few threads long enough for plausible deniability. My feet were killing me in my heels. Ten minutes disappeared and then another ten. I began to get annoyed. Possibly by the realization that even I, professional cynic and hard ass, was a little buzzed to be meeting the Tom Hood.

What an asshole.

Just as I had mentally condemned him forever, and resigned myself to trying to look busy and not stood up, a hidden number flashed across my phone screen with a buzz.

I froze and then snatched at it, nearly knocking over a glass of water on the table.

“Hello?”

“Is this Katie Mack?”

For a while, I actually didn’t know the answer. It was a deep, familiar accent, but instantly new somehow. It was him.

He repeated the question, this time with an extra lilt; it was a strange voice, rough and silky at the same time, like old velvet.

“Yes, this is she,” I said and instantly felt like a dumbass. “This is she”? Nobody but my grandmother spoke like that, what on earth was I thinking.

“Oh, hi. It’s Tom. We were supposed to have a meeting today, right?”

Without thinking, the full-blown image of his thick, unapologetic cock sprung into my head. I violently shook it out of my head.

“Oh, yeah, no. Um – of course, yes! You were supposed to meet me at 11, I think.”

I think? Why the fuck was I apologizing?

“I am so sorry,” cooed the velvet voice from inside the phone. “I’m just, uh, I’m tied up with something right now, you know?” This last part came out strange somehow, and the voice warped a little at the end and trailed off.

“Oh? Umm… no problem, do you want to reschedule then?”

The line was silent while I waited for an answer, and all of a sudden, a nervous burst of laughter. Then, a woman’s voice, a panicked giggling followed by a loud “shhhhh!”

My face dropped.

“Is this a bad time? I’ll get the secretary to reschedule with you if -”

“No, don’t!” he said, a little too loudly.

I could still faintly hear the giggling in the background. Was this guy for real? Did he just have a bevy of sluts following him around 24/7?

“I mean, I’m sorry, yes, let’s reschedule. My apologies.”

What happened next was, in hindsight, probably the turning point, the big crazy hinge around which everything turned. It was almost imperceptible. I almost didn’t notice it. But I heard it – a quiet, quick growl under the breath, followed by a single, desperate gasp as a counterweight. It was the softest, tiniest sound imaginable …but there was no mistaking it. I knew that sound anywhere. It was the sound of a man coming.

I dropped the phone on the table like it had suddenly sprouted spikes. I ended the call, dazed.

I had seemingly forgotten to breathe during the entire exchange and did it all at once the second the screen went dark. I was sitting there like a complete idiot, done up with three different kinds of foundation on my face and shoes that should have been banned for human’s rights violations… and I had been stood up by a jerk, an asshole who had the cheek to haul me all this way to give him an apology and then …and then …was he playing a game with me? I sat stewing for a few moments more.

The other, weirder thought came bubbling up in my mind. He was definitely having sex. Right now. I was busy being mad as hell for being messed around and he was…

I looked down at my phone again, ears burning. It was too outrageous to be true and yet it was: I had just had my first celebrity interview, and it was with Tom Hood, the Tom Hood, and he was on the phone, breathing heavy, dick in some giggling girl most likely.

‘Tied up’ indeed.

“Ew,” I said under my breath and immediately wondered whom I thought I was trying to convince. I got up to leave.

It wasn’t ew. In fact, it was all I thought about for the rest of the day.

Chapter Four

“Oh my God, Katie, there you are! Get in here and open this stupid letter, I’m dying to see what it says and they won’t let me open it!”

Clara, the new intern, was hovering excitedly over my desk, eyeballing a giant basket of blood red flowers with a small white card skewered on a plastic fork in the center.

When did my life become a sappy rom com?

“Didn’t you break up with what’s-his-name? Is it from him? What a douche,” she said, bouncing from foot to foot like a kid at Christmas.

The arrangement was overwhelming the entire surface of my small desk; the whole thing was unreal, the giant roses and lilies completely out of place in our minimalist chrome office. I felt worryingly conspicuous. I opened the card, gingerly; not quite believing this was really for me.

Miss Mack,

Please forgive my disgusting phone manners

67 Baltic Terrace, 9:00pm

You’ll have my full attention, promise

T

My eyes whipped over the lines again and again, trying to make sense of the letters.

It was an actual house address. An invitation. At night.

Clara looked at me with big eyes. “Oh God, it IS from what’s-his-name, isn’t it?”

I stuffed the card back in the envelope and buried it into the mound of stems.

“Uh, yeah, it’s from my ex. What a douche.”

I looked at my watch – it had just gone 3pm. Thinking twice, I grabbed the card again and slid it into my pocket.

“Hey, Clara, could you just let Penelope know I went out for a sec?”

“Sure. But she’s at the other office for a few days anyway. She’s been asking about your interview with what’s-his-name though – how’d that go?”

“Uh, yeah, the interview …if you see her just let her know I’ll have it ready for Friday, OK?”

I dashed out, not giving Clara the chance to pry any further. I only had a few hours. I would need time to think.

And I would definitely need a sexier dress. And shoes. Maybe.

Chapter Five

If you had asked 5-year-old me to imagine what the home of one of the country’s wealthiest personalities looked like – she would have accurately described 67 Baltic Terrace.

It looked like it was the scene of a movie. Flush with vaulted marble ceilings, dense green lawns folding into infinity pools, and a swooping grand staircase at the main entrance.

Tom Hood had made his fortune speculating on hot tech start ups, “angel” funding those two bit operations that turned into outrageous money-machines in a span of just a few years. He had a knack for spotting business diamonds so rough that it was almost as if his investment in them alone was the very thing to transform them, to make emperors out of the long sighted nerds in garages, and empires out of their impossible dreams. Tom Hood had made many people’s dreams come true, and he was living his own, clearly.

Coming down the staircase was a lithe, black haired girl in some kind of luxurious-looking kimono. A week ago, I would have laughed if someone had told me that this is what my dream magazine job would be paying me to do on a Wednesday evening, but by this point, I was getting used to the feeling that everything associated with Tom Hood had a sheen of unreality to it, a strange glint of power that he seemed to wear so well.

He was still a dick, though, obviously.

The black haired girl smiled broadly at me, slinking down the last few of the steps and gliding over to me as though she had been expecting me all her life. This, I thought, was some weird Stepford Wife nonsense right here. I made a mental note to take in every detail about her, knowing I’d find a place for her in my article, whatever it turned out to be.

“Are you Miss Katie Mack? Oh, welcome! It’s very nice to meet you,” she said with just a distant waft of an exotic accent, and then extended her slender hand.

I followed her all the way back up the staircase, eerie music seeming to come and go in pockets of air as we passed by rooms and corridors, finally reaching a wide conservatory style room at the end, and the source of the music.

The jaded part of me saw only the ill-gotten gains in the glittery tiles and disgusting privilege dripping in every giant mirror and painting we passed …but another, smaller part of me was quietly amazed.

Tom Hood was barely 30 years old. This was success, and there was no denying it. I was so used to seeing him surrounded by shocking red and yellow tabloid headlines that this neutral, expensive taste unfolding all around me was quite striking. He really was very wealthy.

By the time my black haired escort flung open the conservatory doors, I hadn’t yet decided if I was brimming with judgment or with secret admiration for all this opulence.

The black haired girl kept her kimono-ed arms spread open and floated over on her tiptoes to join Tom, who was seated on a cushion like a Buddha, bent over a carved chess board.

It occurred to me all at once that I should have prepared far more thoroughly for this interview than I had. I had spent too much time on my outfit, too little time on …well, I wasn’t sure yet. But I felt unprepared, already off-kilter.

A pair of small muscles was working in his bare, upper arms as he moved the pieces round before looking up and smiling cordially at me.

Great. He had decided not to wear a shirt.

The black haired girl had turned the music down and was flitting about with something in the periphery of my vision.

“Miss Mack! Welcome to my humble abode,” he said, and the girl giggled in appreciation.

She was busy fixing me a drink. Not Kool-Aid, I thought, although I wouldn’t be surprised if the story took that turn.

Again, there was something startling in how different he seemed in real life. How three-dimensional. He had that kind of vestigial dusty blonde-brown hair that some men seem to carry over from childhood, even though every other part of them had grown and matured. I guess I had always just written off male bodies of this exact kind: the predictable Calvin Klein physique in expensive lounge wear, the kind of deliberate all-American healthy tan, the boringly tight abs.

I had always shirked away from this kind of thing the same way I did from infomercials and ads – and for the same reason, too. I had had my beginnings in the advertising industry, and in my current job, I stared all day at men just like this. I was numb to this kind of beauty. I was just being pandered to, right? Just being sold something. Nothing sexy about it. Rampant objectification may work on men, sure, but I liked to think I personally was made of stronger stuff.

And yet… here was this body, this real-life flesh, and there was something immediately and obviously different in it. This body wasn’t an image, it wasn’t fake and forced and cheesy. The ease with which he held himself, his upright posture, the bridled strength that seemed to pulse in even his smallest movements …here was a man who was utterly and completely in control of his physical form.

And what a physical form it was.

He was more Robinson Crusoe than hedge fund kid. Not a Calvin Klein model but the inspiration for one.

This was very unexpected. I all at once felt small and became aware of myself slouching, of how cheap my haircut must have looked to him.

“Drink?” said the girl, and snapped me out of my daydreaming.

I thanked her, took the glass she was offering me and had a sip, noting how beautifully comfortable she looked, and feeling the lack of my own comfort even more strongly.

“It’s a pity we missed each other yesterday, I do apologize,” he continued, crinkling the corners of his eyes into a warm smile.

I cleared my throat.

“Well, it’s me that should apologize – I was made aware that you weren’t happy with my piece. I do apologize. Cache magazine is primarily committed to content that is fair, so we’re absolutely more than happy to issue another article with a more balancing perspective, and you’ll have the chance to weigh in throughout, and we’ll run each quote by you befo--“

“Woah woah woah,” he said, raising two broad hands and shaking his head.

I stopped.

The black haired girl looked adoringly at him, as though everything that fell from his lips was gospel from God himself.

Was she his girlfriend? Some random groupie? I would have to explore that angle for sure.

“I don’t care about any of that,” he said. “Cache magazine is, if you’ll excuse me, a piece of shit. They’ve written about me before, and they’ve been wrong before. But you …you were right.”

“What?” I stammered.

He had shifted his weight in the heavily upholstered chair and the black haired girl now perched herself prettily on one of his thighs, snaking a bare brown arm over his shoulders.

I was right? Then why had he called me all the out here to apologize? Why had I bought this ridiculous faux-reporter-please-take-me-seriously color-blocked monstrosity of a dress?

“I was told you were unhappy with my reference to you and your recent …data security issues, and so I…”

He interrupted me immediately.

“Oh my God, you are way too highly strung,” he said.

I tried to respond but he cut me short again, pinning me with his gaze.

“I just said that to get you here, obviously. But you’re actually onto something. I absolutely did leak those pictures on purpose.”

I felt like I was rapidly drifting out of my depth. I hadn’t prepared for any of this. And I was developing a complete and decided hate for my new dress.

I felt stupid.

I realized with fresh petulance that what I really wanted was exotic, flowing robes like this dark haired girl draped over him, and golden dangly bracelets, and I wanted to be loose and easy, and have long Pantene hair and easy confidence.

“Ok, well, sure, there’s not a journalist in this country that believes you were actually hacked, right?” I said, in a tone that instantly seemed too hard and snarky, even to me.

He looked hurt.

“Man, that was mean,” he said and turned to the girl. “Kai, I think it’s your fault for not making that drink strong enough, honestly. Miss Mack seems pretty stressed out.”

He turned back to me.

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. He was the rich, asshole one-percenter, and I was the honest, truth-loving journalist who was going to expose him to the world. It was like he didn’t even know how this story was supposed to go.

He was looking down at the chessboard.

You wouldn’t think someone with such triumphantly toned pec muscles could look disappointed, but he did. And I felt bad.

“You misunderstand me,” he said. “I know what the press makes me out to be, obviously. But the way you wrote about me was …different. You get it. What did she say…?” he looked over to Kai, who immediately parroted off a line from my article.

“She said, ‘Hood is not the first to troll the media with fake ‘leaks’, but why should he stop there? When you’re as wealthy as he is, you can afford an extra identity or two.’”

He chuckled.

“Man, I love that line,” he said, clapping his hands together. He stared meditatively at the chessboard again, Kai looking pleased at having performed well.

Was it some weird sort of S&M thing? Was there a dungeon somewhere in this stupidly huge house? That would make for a good story.

“I love it because it’s so true. I want you to write more like that. You’re good at creating characters, so make another one for me. I don’t like the image they have of me right now”

“The image?” I asked, thinking that he must be deluded if he thought the media had got him all wrong and that the model sipping champagne in his lap right now was somehow not what it looked like.

“Yeah. The image. Go on – what do think of me? Tell me. Three words.”

“Three words? What do you--”

“Yeah, quickly. Tom Hood. First three words that pop into your head. Go.”

“Ok bu--”

“No, just do it.”

I squirmed in my chair. I was mesmerized by how tight and vibrant his skin seemed. Warrior-like, I thought, making a note to say so in my revised piece. But I was also aware of another image trying to push into my mind. My gaze fell on the toned V shape disappearing into his pants, and I thought with horror about how well I knew how that shape continued down over the rest of him.

“Ok. Stupid,” I said. This seemed to upset Kai more than it did him.

“And …privileged,” I said after a pause. “Or maybe, entitled.” This elicited a tiny twitch around his mouth but he only sat silently, waiting for the third word.

My eyes flicked over his bare stomach again.

“And. Well. Sexy.” I said this like it had been tortured out of me.

When I looked up I fell immediately into the beam of his gaze again.

“But I don’t see what that has to do with anything. Can we just start with the interview?” I said, a little embarrassed.

What had made him make that sound on the phone yesterday? What made this man happy? What did he do, secretly, for pleasure? What did he do with this beautiful woman in all these rooms? What special words and gestures and actions would get him to make that sound again?

“Start? We started ten minutes ago. This is the interview. You’re going to write a story, a different story, and you’re going to make sure I don’t seem stupid or entitled or privileged. You’re going to--”

“Mr. Hood,” I snapped, “I’m not your hired PR person. You don’t get to tell me what to write,” I said, lashing out at even the slightest suggestion that I would slot into his vast harem somehow.

A slow, strange smile spread over his lips.

Reading some invisible change in the tides, Kai jumped up, stood behind him and began to gracefully massage his shoulders with long, womanly fingers. He spoke again, this time the velvety quality giving way to something rougher and more abrasive.

“Penelope Welsh has a net worth of around $1.2 million. I could buy your magazine before breakfast tomorrow and easily tell you what to do.”

He was stroking the curved neck of the wooden Queen piece, turning her over again and again in his fingers.

“But I won’t, because I have better things to do with my time, and besides, you want to write what I tell you. That’s why you’re here.”

I nearly laughed out loud. I didn’t know what surprised me more, his audacity, or the fact that I had trouble summoning up a rebuttal to it.

“Go on, leave if you’re not interested,” he said, gesturing to the door, while I fumbled for a response.

I was shocked at the sudden nasty turn things seemed to have taken. I began to wonder if I had been too rude, and played out a future where Penelope would tear me a new one for not only failing to apologize, but losing what could be a very lucrative story for Cache.

“I’m …I’m sorry. That was rude of me,” I said simply. Kai’s eyes met mine for a brief moment, over the strong curve of his shoulder. For a moment, there was nothing in the room but her nimble fingers working on the tanned tendons around his neck.

He looked at me pointedly.

“Why are you limiting yourself with that job, anyway? Writing trash for Penelope Welsh, for peanuts? You’re too good to be that kind of journalist, you know. You’re an artist. Like me,” he said, and this time I did laugh out loud.

An artist? This guy had a massive chip on his shoulder.

This time, the twitch on the corner of his mouth was more pronounced. Kai stopped massaging him and looked a little alarmed.

Shit. I had gone too far again.

He placed a hand on hers and spoke again.

“I’m going to ignore your insult. You know, I’ve read every piece of yours. You’re talented. You’ve worked hard to get were you are. I admire that. But your voice is wasted where you are now, and you know that, so I won’t tell you again. You think I’m an idiot and you don’t even bother hiding your contempt for me. But I complimented you and you responded with venom. I suppose you’re getting the proper journalistic training there after all.”

This little speech was delivered so eloquently, so quickly and with such precision that I felt cut. The beginnings of tears were stinging my eyes. It was true. I had made a career of my shitty attitude, calling it “insightful comment” and “wit”, but he was right. I wanted more than anything to be taken seriously, as an artist, and this bonehead had figured me out in ten minutes. My face prickled but my ego stung more.

‘I’m …I’m sorry you feel that way, Cache magazine is--” I started but he interrupted me again.

“Yeah, don’t bother. You know what keeps rags like Cache afloat? Stories about people like me. That’s it. That’s all. You have the nerve to look down on me and yet every time I do something, you reporters swoop in like vultures, ready to make money off it. ‘Fair’? If you say so. Judge my life all you want, but it pays your salary.”

I didn’t know what to do with myself. All the pieces the magazine had done on him over the years where crowding my mind, and I desperately searched for something to argue back with.

He had inherited a huge chunk of money from his father, had invested it in dodgy fracking technology in Canada, had called the president a “tit” to his face. For god’s sake, this was the man who had just last month been in the papers for hosting pirate themed yacht orgies in the Mediterranean – and he was lecturing me about my integrity? It was too much.

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but I was floundering.

“Hey, shh, don’t worry about it, I’m not angry. But you know what I’ve noticed about journalists?” His voice was calmer now, and Kai began stroking his shoulders again.

“They’re cowardly. They don’t do much of anything themselves, they just sit on the sidelines, watching everyone else. Now that I think of it, it’s all pretty voyeuristic.”

His hand had reached up to Kai’s again and was absentmindedly stroking hers in return.

“I’ll write your story. I didn’t mean to offend you. I want to show the public who you really are.”

He didn’t seem all that interested in my new confession, although I had startled myself with how easily I had given it. He was staring vacantly at a spot in front of him, thinking. Kai began to trace her hand down the front of his chest and he accepted it, not breaking his gaze or train of thought. She leant forward, letting the full lusciousness of her breasts and hair fall over him. She nuzzled herself into his neck and he gripped her forearms, trapping her there. He snapped his eyes up and straight to meet mine again, catching me staring. The effect was electrifying.

“Do you? Do you really want to show them …or do you just want to watch?”

He began to gently kiss the length of Kai’s thin arms, his eyes never breaking their gaze with mine.

My entire body flushed with the intensity of the moment.

“You’re curious about me, aren’t you? I think you’re like everyone else, you have a morbid fascination with me …you wish you could …wish you had the guts to do what I do...” he mumbled this in between kisses he was planting on her soft, white skin.

He had a way of saying things that you simply couldn’t argue with. He was an arrogant asshole. But he was also right. I didn’t dwell on whether I was enjoying this new flagrant display, or whether he was spot on and that I did want to see him kiss this beautiful woman’s arms, and maybe even do other things to her, and know exactly what he did on the phone yesterday, and what turned him on, and what he really thought of me, and what his life was really like, every bizarre, sordid, sexy inch of it…

But I didn’t focus on that. I thought, instead, about how he must be a sex-crazed exhibitionist, him and this woman both, and that they were both playing with me, and that I would write an awfully clever piece later on about these eccentricities …but was he right about the magazine? Where we all just feeding off him?

I said nothing. I couldn’t. Keeping my breathing steady was apparently taking every last drop of effort I had.

“What do you think, Kai, do you think she’ll get rid of that ugly blue dress and come play with us?”

My heart beat furiously in my ears. Kai gave me a long, slow look, dripping with more sexiness than you’d think possible for anything other than a black panther.

“I think she wants to keep her ugly dress on,” Kai said, “But later, when she goes home tonight, she’ll wish she had taken it off.”

Who the hell was this woman anyway?

With a deep breath that seemed to expand his already broad chest, he twisted his head to the side and received a deep, wet kiss from Kai, slipping his hand through her hair and pulling her down further into him. With a strange little thrill, I noticed that his nipples were hardening under her girlish hands.

She drifted away and he returned his gaze to mine, something warmed and loose in his eyes that wasn’t there before.

“Go ahead then, prove to me you’re not like every other coward journalist and do something instead of just writing about it.” He turned his torso again, giving me a full view of his crotch and angling Kai so that she came round to the front of him and seated herself on the floor at his feet.

“You’re very angry, Miss Mack. Just look at Kai …isn’t she so beautiful? She’s not afraid to be vulnerable. She’s very submissive you know. Not my thing, personally, but look how happy it makes her,” he said teasingly to the top of her head; she replied by giggling and playfully slapping the top of his thigh.

“Is it true, the rumor about those tar sands in Canada?” I asked, afraid of where this was going.

“Not even remotely,” he said, fixing his gaze on Kai, who was nestling her face into his crotch.

“Did you really inherit everything from your father?”

“I never inherited a single cent from anyone.”

“Is it true that you called the president a tit?”

“Nope. I called him an asshole,” he replied, watching closely as she began to gingerly trace the outline of his cock through his pants.

“Is it really even you in those pictures?”

He looked at me and grinned.

“Of course.”

I felt a dull ache growing between my thighs. I really did want to get out of this dress. I really was too angry. And I really did want to know about him, everything about him…

My head was spinning.

He reached down and tenderly tucked Kai’s hair behind her ears, revealing that she was staring at him hungrily. With swift fingers, she began to pull down the zip, and he smiled peacefully down at her.

“I have to go,” I said abruptly, jumping up from my seat. They both turned confused faces to me.

“Don’t go,” he said to me with the same tenderness.

I wanted to stay. I wanted Kai to unzip him and put all of him in her mouth, and I wanted to watch her coax that manly, delicious sound from him again. I wanted to see his arrogance shudder a little, and slip off. I wondered how he was when he came; whether he would lose control and grunt and clench his teeth, or whether he went soft and only whimpered, throwing back his head and giving in to pleasure. I wanted to catalogue everything this strong, healthy man’s body did, and I wanted to document its every twitch and sigh, everything that gave it pleasure.

But another, stronger force compelled me to stand up awkwardly and before I knew it, I was racing down the same glittery halls I had walked only a few moments earlier. I tore down the swooping staircase and out of the house, heart pounding, completely disbelieving of the things I had seen in there. My head was spinning with the improbability of this whole thing, and with some amusement, I realized I was soaking wet.

Kai was wrong about me.

I didn’t regret not taking my dress off when they had asked me. I regretted it that very instant, when I turned back and took one last glimpse of the house, with a growing, desperate pang that I hadn’t had the guts to be in there right at that moment.

Chapter Six

Let me tell you, nothing in this world seems so boring after such an encounter than a full 8-hour day of sitting in front of a laptop.

Had my job always been this lackluster? I had something of a stimulus hangover form the night before. It was all too much. The champagne, Kai, the never-ending acres of manicured gardens I had to run through to leave… I have left plenty of heated moments in my life, let me tell you, but something about having to make your way through twelve rooms, a billiard area and a giant reception hall before you can slam the door behind you can make any girl disoriented.

It was all well and good for filthy-rich people like Kai and Tom to lounge around and be degenerates all day. But some of us had to make a living. A real living. I’m sure I could be an eccentric sexual connoisseur too if I didn’t have to get up early in the morning and remember to give my cat his medicine every day.

I was irritated, but some of what Tom had said had taken root in my mind and was growing there, quietly.

The way he put it, it did seem like the media had swarmed around his larger-than-life life, themselves creating this overblown image and then feeding off of it in turn. But surely Tom was no innocent party – in fact, he seemed to love the attention. Thrive on it. He had specifically requested me, some unknown junior writer at a shitty magazine (it had only taken me the morning to decide that he was right about this) to craft an even more enthralling tale for the plebian masses.

It was awesome. And I was right at the center of it, tasked with putting just the right words to bring out how truly epic the whole arrangement was, how we were all complicit in this modern day myth making, with Tom and his mammoth manhood standing at the epicenter of it all. It would be a brilliant article, my best work.

The trouble was, I couldn’t write. I sat for twenty minutes staring at an empty Word document. Everything that left my fingers felt phony. I backspaced it all, irritated. I wanted him to read it. To approve. He had lavished such soft, liquid gentleness all over Kai as she worked her fingers over his zip. And I wanted that for myself, I thought, not without a little embarrassment.

The tone of the piece was coming out all wrong. No sooner had I started to write, did I realize I hadn’t captured the real strangeness of this man’s presence, of how his well-spokenness wasn’t at odds with his underwear model body, but somehow a natural part of it. He was a complete man whore, true, but there was something else about him, something noble and admirable, something that I wasn’t managing to capture. Each paragraph just looked like something cheap and nasty from one of our rival magazines.

I backspaced everything and started again.

I had to show the reader how dazzling it had felt to be there with him, with the gravity of his presence seeming to warp and dominate everything around it.

I wanted to write about Kai, too, and about how completely she seemed to have surrendered to this invisible force. I didn’t write how jealous it had all made me, and how badly I had felt the pull to let myself slip away with the current of his charisma.

“Tom Hood nude pictures,” I asked Google for the bajillionth time that week.

Who was I kidding? It wasn’t even remotely “research” anymore.

I scrolled through and landed on the picture I had first obsessed over on my cold kitchen floor a lifetime ago. It was the same grainy candid celeb shot it always was, but this time it looked different to me.

This time, the expressions on the girls’ faces seemed so much more …joyful. Tom’s grim seemed broader, more wholesome, and the surface of each of his limbs seemed less flat, imbued with new depths somehow. People were wrong about him. He wasn’t a vapid playboy. He was an Adonis, and these women were not groupies, they were devotees, sexual pilgrims, and the only difference between them and me was that they had given way to his…

I threw my phone into my bag and stared at the blank page again. I was a professional. What I thought about him didn’t matter. Just write, dammit.

Chapter Seven

I turned the package over in my hands again and again. It was almost a perfect cube, tastefully wrapped and giving no clues at all about what could be inside.

“Oh my god, is what’s-his-name still sending you shit again?” said Clara.

I’m pretty sure I’ve had hours-long conversations with Clara only to discover at the end of it that we both had been talking about completely different what’s-his-names. Present circumstances meant I was relieved from having to lie to her, which was convenient, so I managed to be less curt with her than I usually am.

“Yup, from what’s-his-name. Idiot.”

“Open it.”

“Nah, later.”

“How did the meeting with what’s-his-name go?”

“Fucking hell, Clara, which what’s-his-name? I can’t believe anyone ever lets you near a keyboard.”

“You know, buddy, what’s-his-name …Tom Hood. Your interview with him.”

“Yeah it was OK. He’s a bit of an asshole, no surprise there.”

“Oh,” she said, taking her turn to look over the box.

“Complete ego maniac. Wants me to write a big piece singing his praises.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Are you going to?”

“Nah. What kind of asshole does that? I’m just going to write it like I see it,” I said, putting on a phony accent and shrugging. Why was I saying this? Why couldn’t I tell Clara what I really felt?

Her face went serious.

“It’s such a big story, though. And it is kind of weird. No offense, but …well, why not get Penelope to write it? Why did he ask you? No offense.”

I took the package from her hands.

“None taken. He just saw that I had mentioned him in another piece and he thought I owed him an apology.”

“That’s it? So, Tom Hood, the Tom Hood, wants you to do a feature piece on him, just like that?”

I shot her a sour look and she balked immediately, sensing she had overstepped.

“Whatever, celebrities, I don’t understand them,” she said breezily.

“He’s not just a celebrity you know, he is an actual entrepreneur … and a lot of what we’ve written about him is actually kind of shitty and--” I stopped. Clara was staring at the package with renewed interest.

“Oh my god. That’s from what’s-his-name isn’t it?” she said slowly, eyes widening.

I spun around and went to shove the package in my desk drawer.

“Yes, it’s from what’s-his-name, so what?”

She backed away with a sheesh and left, leaving me to think about what had just happened. Was she jealous of me? It hadn’t occurred to me, but many women would have killed for the chance I had. More seriously, my mind wandered again to a darker thought: why had I thrown him under the bus like that? What counted as staying true to my story angle and what counted as a stupid crush on a hot celebrity?

Look, I’m a decent writer. But Tom Hood’s life seemed harder and harder to explain. I was getting drawn in, when all I wanted was to occupy that calm, neutral territory of a true pro, be objective, show people that I didn’t care how glitzy and glossy a thing was, my job was to get to the bottom of things …and I intended to do that job well.

I opened the drawer again and tore off the wrapping. Inside was a padded jewelry box, with a delicate gold bangle nestled inside. Along the bangle’s edge was a beautiful etched eye motif, like something you’d find marked on the entrance of an undiscovered Egyptian temple. It was so exactly my style that I held it in my hands for a moment, taken aback by its weight and cool surface, how pretty it was.

A tiny note inside was scribbled with a time and a date, as before. It was from him. I was being summoned, again. I snapped the box closed and flung it aside. Here I was trying to brainstorm a flattering and subtle profile for this man, and he was just a garden-variety player after all. Trying to buy me with stupid trinkets… One hot tear was growing on my lower lashes.

I had never both badly wanted and not wanted a thing at the same time before.

Chapter Eight

I returned to 67 Baltic Terrace the next day with quite a bit more apprehension than the first time, which is saying something.

Oppressed on all sides by sparkling fountains and trimmed topiaries, I felt more keenly than ever how much I didn’t belong here. Not only was this attention from Tom Hood, the Tom Hood, entirely unexpected, I felt compromised by it instantly.

Was he making fun of me?

I was nothing like Kai, nothing like the leggy goddesses that seemed to follow him everywhere. I was dumpier by miles. Completely lacking in glamor. Matte, even. So, what was the game, then? I couldn’t decide if I felt more humiliated that he had given a gift at all, to me, or that I was completely, utterly, one hundred percent wooed by it. Not only did this playboy jock have the audacity to mistake me for one of his floozies, but astonishingly, he seemed to be doing a good job of it. And here I was, dressed up, again, excited nearly half to death to see him once more.

What an idiot, I thought, as I found myself again in that cool marble entrance hall, except I wasn’t quite sure if I meant him or me.

Half expecting Kai to glide down the staircase and collect me again, I was surprised instead to see him, standing at the top of the staircase, looking down at me. This time, there was no broad, easy grin. Just his face. He was covered up this time, too, and the contrast to before seemed more intimate somehow.

“Hello,” I said, my voice echoing slightly against the walls.

He simply stared at me a little longer, then gestured for me to come up with a small, noncommittal lift of his chin. I obeyed. It must have taken me roughly 40 years to ascend that staircase, or perhaps it only felt like it with his eyes following my every step. But I reached the top landing and looked him square in the eye – or as square as I could given he was more than a foot taller than I was.

His gaze moved down the length of my body but stopped, and he frowned and suddenly looked crestfallen.

“You didn’t wear the bracelet,” he said, already seeming to accept the unhappy fact.

I had come here full of indignation for him but with these simple words his disappointment crushed me and I realized that I had offended him, again, and that it was the last thing I had wanted to do. Why hadn’t I worn it? I had no clue.

“I’m …I’m sorry but I …” I could do nothing but trail off as I stared at his eyes again, and what I found there stunned me a little, so that even I, Katie Mack, who always has something to say, was speechless. It was a naked gaze, a look so full and open that I blushed instantly and started stammering again, desperately trying to normalize the situation.

“I can’t accept gifts you know, especially as favors, it’s just completely unprofessional…”

The disappointment on his face remained. I had blown it. But blown what exactly? I didn’t know. I had gone through my entire life level headed and sober and somehow this, this man with just a few words could send my whole head into a fluster and have me bumbling like an idiot.

He looked down again at my bare wrist, reached out to softly take my hand and then led me along the corridor, to a different part of the house from before. My heart was beating violently inside me, his touch, though casual, seeming to send a wave of invisible goose bumps all up my arm.

We reached a dark, small room with a modest wood fire burning at the far corner. This room had a different character to the rest of the house. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out a few details here and there: an expensive speckled hide on the floor, two Bohemian looking red brocade chairs, arranged as though they were having a light conversation in the corner, an empty Chinese vase laced with red and gold filigree. I thought of poor Tigger alone at home, in my pitiful flat with its peeling wallpaper and budget shower fittings.

He sat down in one of the chairs and I followed and seated myself in the other. I would submit my article to Penelope tomorrow, and then …I didn’t know what would happen then. I couldn’t think of anything beyond this warm, strange moment, and this curious face in front of mine, so strange and yet so familiar all at once, lit gently with the light from the flickering fire.

I reached into my bag and pulled out three printed pages, then handed them over to him. My article. He took them, looked at me, then lowered his eyes. Dozens of editors had ripped into my work, people had criticized things I’d written nearly half to death, all my life, and like a good little journalist, I had taken it all with a thick skin, swallowing my hurt ego and committing to learning more. But this felt different. Very different. I sat in painful anticipation, studying his face to find any hint of what he thought of the piece, inwardly desperate for any flicker of approval, any sign that I had pleased him, at least in some small way.

His almond brown eyes flicked through the lines rhythmically, and he read quickly and quietly, not betraying his thoughts about it at all until he nodded once and raised his head again to speak.

“It’s … very good,” he said simply.

I felt warm and happy and confused and filled with a strange growing hunger that had no direction, no focal point except to do whatever he would find pleasing. It was a silly, girly state of mind, but as his praise hung there between us, I didn’t care, and I relaxed a little in the thought that I had written something good. For him.

“Thank you,” I said, consciously trying to reign myself in.

He let the pages drop to the floor and looked at me again, cocking his head to one side.

“I’m sorry about what I said the other day, about you being a cowardly journalist,” he said. The warmth and darkness of the room seemed to be closing in all around me. “I just don’t like to see people being …well, you have a talent, and you censor it. Why?”

My face flushed with this new, gentle turn his attitude to me had taken. I tried to think of some witty comeback, something to quip in response. I tore my eyes away from his and tried to think.

“What are you afraid of, really? Why do you hold back all the time?” he said, and I was again thrown off by the casual intimacy of the question.

“Hold back? I never hold back,” I snorted. I told it like it is. That was my whole job, right?

“Yeah you do,” was his immediate response. “You go up really close to something you want, then you back away. Like you’re scared.” He shifted his weight in the chair and let his eyes wander shamelessly all over my body. “I meet a lot of women. A lot of women. Some are more closed up than others, and that’s fine by me. Take a woman like Kai. Now she’s not afraid of a damn thing. Her heart’s completely open.”

The mention of her name felt like finding a bitter seed in what till now had been a sweet fruit. I hated hearing him talk about her.

“Yeah, I’m sure being a gold digger like her takes a lot of guts” I said.

He laughed.

“See? See how closed you are?”

“But come on Tom, Kai? Of course her ‘heart is open’, I mean she’s stupidly beautiful and she probably has had men paying her way all her life.”

He raised his eyebrows at this little outburst.

“Where is she anyway?” I asked.

“She’s in Brazil right now. I only see her a couple of times a year.”

“In Brazil? Attending a sugar daddy conference is she? Getting some more plastic surgery?” I felt growing anger that we were talking about her at all, that she was in the way, even when she wasn’t here at all.

“No, not at all. Kai owns a coffee plantation in Minas Gerais and she’s in some serious talks with the unions there about implementing more environmentally friendly farming techniques.”

It felt like Kai had appeared before me and slapped me hard across the face.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK, you’re jealous of her,” he said simply. He smiled at the frown this brought to my face. “You know, if you just opened up a little, you’d probably discover lots of other feelings, too.” His eyes were moving over me again.

“Ok, fine, I am jealous of her,” I said. I did feel relieved to say it out loud like that.

“See, was that so hard?” he smiled. “To be honest, I’m a little jealous of her,” he said, laughing.

I laughed too.

“You’re also very attracted to me,” he said suddenly, and I stopped laughing.

“What?”

“Yeah. You keep coming here, getting really close …and then running away again. You’re attracted to me.”

“I…” I stammered, but realized I was only going to say something stupid, to lash out again at him. It seemed that every wall of resistance I put up, every jab and barb, was melted by him. It really was an uncanny ability of his. Disarming.

“Hey, it’s OK, though. I know that you are, and you don’t have to pretend you aren’t.”

I said nothing.

He leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling.

“Why do people walk around this earth so tightly wound up? Why does everyone censor themselves and pretend not to want what they really want? There’s something I admire about people who can surrender. Who have the guts to be themselves. People who can look at something bigger than them and just let go, just release into it, you know?”

I did know. It was something, in fact, that I admired in him. Suddenly, all the tales of his exploits and orgies in the media were falling into place. Maybe Kai wasn’t so bad.

“Maybe it’s just my ego, but I’m convinced I could get you to open up, too. To me,” he said, completely unguarded.

He extended one bare foot in my direction, and we both watched as he gently let his toes graze the edge of my ankle and then rest on the floor again, right in the empty space between my feet.

“Let’s try an experiment, ok? I’m going to compliment you and try to make you feel good, and you’re going to not be a big ol’ bitch about it.”

We both laughed.

“No seriously. No arguing back. No smart-ass comments. You just sit there, and enjoy it, ok?”

“Ok,” I said, already way, way out of my comfort zone.

“Ok.”

The fire crackled quietly.

“You have very, very pretty hands, and your hair is really sexy,” he said.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or squirm and hide under the seat. He was right; I was completely incapable of receiving any sort of compliment.

“I like how little your body is. You have such dainty wrists and arms, they’re really pretty…”

I opened my mouth to speak but he jumped in.

“Uh uh uh! Don’t argue! Just enjoy it. Doesn’t it feel good, to be told that you’re pretty?’

I felt like I had turned the most obvious shade of school girl pink and would die of embarrassment any second now.

He leaned back in his chair again, looking off towards the fire. “I think this world would be a very different place if people weren’t so afraid of pleasure. Of pushing themselves to see what they’re really capable of.”

“Ha!” I interjected, “Tom Hood, the philosopher, fancy.”

He shot me a cold look.

“So what if I am? Is that bad? Maybe it seems cheesy to you, but I don’t want to hide behind make-believe barriers, too afraid to feel anything.”

It occurred to me that he was probably slightly drunk. It also occurred to me that I didn’t care. At all. I wanted to be persuaded by this strange argument. I wanted to go along with it. I had this vague notion that if I just blurted out how meeting him here, like this, was the single most thrilling moment of my life, that he would judge me, that my excitement would seem unsophisticated, that we would withdraw everything and I would be humiliated.

“I’m attracted to you,” I said and braced myself. He looked at me with a bright face.

“I’m attracted to you too” he replied, quickly.

The fire crackled on, oblivious to this new change in dynamic. I hadn’t had a single sip to drink but felt myself intoxicated nonetheless. By him. By the thrilling thought of myself and what I was capable of right now, in this moment. Surely life doesn’t really work this way? Surely people can’t go around blindly declaring one another hot and boning in the streets? If it was such a good idea to be this “open” why didn’t everybody do it?

“I’m wondering if you’re going to kiss me,” I said at last, feeling somehow that narrating my own thoughts felt less intimidating than baldly saying what I wanted, outright.

He smiled.

“Take off your clothes,” he said.

What?

“Trust me,” he said to my shocked expression.

“But I…”

“No! Just stop thinking for a moment. No excuses. Just listen to me. Do you trust me? Or are you going to turn around and run away from me again?”

“Yes bu--”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” I breathed quietly, sealing my fate.

“Good. Then take off your clothes.”

I already felt half way naked as it was. I stood up gingerly, hands shaking.

“It’s just that I’ve neve--”

“Did I tell you that you could speak?” he said, throwing a playful look at me.

I smiled.

With fingers that felt like they didn’t even belong to me, I awkwardly peeled off my blouse, raising it over my head, feeling that the brief moment my face was hooded by the fabric was insanely dangerous, exposing me completely to him. I never wore a bra; my two breasts stared back at him like two sleepy creatures who had been pulled from their bed. He said nothing, only drank up the sight of me with a very serious look on his face. His gaze urged me on. I unbuttoned the top of my skirt and felt the scratchy fabric drop to the floor. This, along with the shoes I had kicked off, was tossed aside and left me with only my panties, which I wriggled off all at once, almost relieved to be fully naked now, entirely nude in front of him.

“There. Now you’re at your most powerful,” he said.

I was nearly overwhelmed with my own nakedness, and the shock of feeling the plain air rushing over every part of me, unprotected.

“Sit down,” he said.

I sat down.

“Spread your legs for me.”

I paused, then slowly lifted one and then the other leg, placing each on the arm rest of the chair, relishing the delicious agony of having the most intimate part of my body exposed to him in this way.

“Good,” he said, and moved forward off of his own chair, dropping to his knees just a few feet from me.

“Wider,” he continued, and I felt an instant twinge between my legs. I obeyed, stretching my legs further out, pushing my crotch even closer to his now-lowered head.

He placed one broad hand on my inner thigh, and with the other, he hovered unsure fingertips over the skin there, the delicate touches sending hard shivers all up my spine. He traced a gentle line upwards and to my bellybutton, something so soft, so fleeting and tender, I couldn’t help but hold my breath.

His face was a blend of awe and utter concentration, as though something of unimaginable value had been placed before him, but only for a moment, and if he should make even a single wrong move it would flutter off instantly. A slight smile was at the corner of his mouth, waiting there, and I found my hands rising of their own accord and finding their own way to the top of his head. His hair was so silky.

I had never had a man look at me like this.

Ever.

Shifting closer to me, he lifted his glance to me, releasing that little quivering corner of his mouth into a full, warm smile. I blushed and smiled back. He was intoxicating. I had yearned for that look the moment I saw him lavishing it on Kai. Fuck. Kai. How many other women were there anyway? My body grew a little colder. And how many had been lured here this same way?

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” I blurted, instantly breaking the spell and making the smile fall completely off his face.

He frowned and leaned back, then looked away, as though thinking.

I suddenly felt stupid. Exposed. I hated this. So, he wasn’t denying it, then? Why was he irritated – that I was on to him?

The warm intoxicated feeling was rapidly floating away; I snapped my legs shut and sat up, a little dazed.

“It’s late. We should probably get some sleep,” he said and swiftly rose to his feet.

“Yeah, I should get going.”

He shot another hard look at me.

“You want to go? Just stay here.”

My face burned. As always, I was the idiot. Something clicked in me and I saw only an insult hanging in the air, the suggestion that he thought I was “easy”, that I was just another stupid slut he could conquer. Did he think I was buying any of this? That he wasn’t using the same tired tricks on me he had used on every able-bodied woman this side of the Atlantic? I should have seen it earlier. Nothing had changed, I guess. I was still my desperate 16-year-old self who turned to stupid-jelly at the merest whiff of attention from a man, and now here I was, compromised beyond belief and—

“You’re really petrified of sex, aren’t you?” he said, his demeanor seeming to harden with each passing moment.

“Petrified? Nope. But I know when I’m being strung along. I’m not one of your little groupies, sorry,” I spat.

“No, you’re really not,” he said, a little sadly.

I searched his face, desperate to find something there. Would he rush in and try to placate me? Tell me I was wrong and that he wanted nothing more than for me to trust him? What kind of a relationship could two people like us have, anyway? It would be a one in a billion chance, an airheaded Cinderella story. Unbelievable. Did I really expect that he would date me, an awkward idiot earning 25k a year? My shoes were scuffed second hand heels I had snatched from Goodwill, a $10 throwaway of some rich girl’s who had the life I really wanted. I was a hack. I had nothing but an old laptop that needed updates and a kitchen drawer filled with mismatched spoons and a sick cat and—

“It was my fault. I don’t know why I pushed you. I’m sorry. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to.”

My head hurt. I felt wounded, exhausted.

Without feeling myself doing it, I found my body leaving the room, and before I knew it I was outside in the chill, unwelcoming air. What was I expecting, anyway? Had I just blown it? But what would someone like Tom Hood, the Tom Hood, want from me? I came to this town to start a new life, one where I was in control, where I was worth something. I stood up a little taller. No, it was all too predictable. I wasn’t going to be sweet-talked by a billionaire with an 8-inch cock and the smile of a salesman.

I was better than that.

And I wanted him to think I was better than that, too.

Chapter Nine

The next day, I was in a dark mood. Money and power did weird things to people. And now, it was doing weird things to me.

On one side of the argument was my old friend Cassie, telling me matter-of-factly over cappuccinos that in this town, there was no getting around it, you simply had to sleep with a few important people here and there if you cared about your career. Men are just dogs, especially the rich ones, you see.

And what about the tar sands? What about all the nasty rumors? How could I trust someone who was so used to getting his way all the time, so used to simply buying whatever he wanted? What could I ever be to such a person but an object, something to collect and put in the cabinet along with all the other naïve girls?

But on the other hand…

I sat at my desk, sulky and miserable, dwelling on that tender look on his face as he stared up at me. At that moment, he seemed like nothing else in this world but a warm, loving, happy being who was devoted to nothing but my pleasure. And I believed him. Ah fuck. It wasn’t that his promises didn’t appeal, that I didn’t completely buy into this just let go and trust me spiel. I did. I really did. I just hated that I did. And I hated that now, on this dull Friday morning, I was on my own again, ego bruised somehow, wishing heartily that I wasn’t an idiot and had had the guts to just…

Penelope would want my final draft soon for the Saturday edition. I stared for a long while at two separate documents in front of me. One: a subtle, half-praising, generous account of the hidden Tom Hood, the man that nobody knew about, the complex mind behind the fame… the other: a damning snark piece, delivering blow after blow of cutting criticism, snippy one liners, all dripping with the implication that not only was Tom Hood as bad as he was portrayed in the media, he was even worse.

So, which was he?

And how could I, a 23-year-old junior writer, be the one to decide? He had sniped the weakest link in our company on purpose, had tried to sleep with her and bullshit his way to a flattering piece …for what? Ego? For fun?

The thought made me shudder.

I quickly tapped out an email and sent the second article to Penelope.

Fuck him.

Chapter Ten

“I forgive you. Don’t worry about it. I understand why you did it,” he said.

I sat opposite him, prickling. This wasn’t the reaction I was expecting, true. By now, the article had been printed and was being read by thousands all over the country.

It wasn’t good.

But if I was being honest, I had in the back of my mind that I had hoped he would summon me again. Be angry, even. I wanted to look him in the face, with my clothes on, and tell him that no matter how rich he was, or how powerful, there were just some things in life he couldn’t have.

I had blustered into his house, again, this time shaking with my newfound arrogance and the conviction that I was right. Not just right, but that I had seen through a very transparent bit of manipulation on his part, and now I would have my chance to gloat a little. I felt bad. Sure. I wasn’t a monster. There was something so sweet and open in his face the last time we had met, something so touching and trusting in his plea for people to be open with each other …too bad it was complete bullshit. He didn’t have to know that I was still crushing on him, still a little bewitched by that moment by the fire.

“I did it because it’s the truth. I never agreed to write a promotional piece,” I said.

We were in yet another room of the grand house, an airy terrace room filled with palms and what I guess rich people think counts as low-key. I had always known that I would find my way from rags to riches one day …just, not like this.

“Do you really believe that? Do you really believe everything you wrote about me?”

I was totally taken aback by how unguarded he seemed. I had expected him to be vengeful, and to scoff at me or even threaten me with legal action …anything but this, really. Instead, he looked hurt, his broad frame crumpling a little in the wicker chair. I looked out the window, saying nothing.

“I guess I misunderstood you. I’ve been going on and on about how you should trust me but honestly, maybe I shouldn’t have.”

It had never occurred to me that he was struggling to trust me. That he had any vulnerabilities at all, actually. Some of my indignation was beginning to feel a bit much.

He looked out the window, too, face contorting a little.

“I’ve been reading your pieces for a long time. Before you wrote for that stupid rag, too. That piece about Syria you wrote last year? I loved that.”

How did he get a hold of that?

“I thought that you were …that you would understand, that you would write something that… I don’t know. I’m not good with words. But you are. You know what it’s like to come from nothing.”

Here he looked at me again, imploringly. What on earth could he know about me?

There was a long silence.

“Do you remember that convenience store on the corner of Charles and 28^th? That one that had that weird cigarette lighter on a string on the outside?” he blurted all at once.

“What?”

“I think it was Patak’s or Patel’s or something. You must have gone there loads,” he continued.

It was Patak’s Supermarket. I remembered it well. It was a permanent landmark of my long-forgotten childhood, from a time in my life that I had gleefully forgotten, pretending it didn’t exist.

“How do you know about that?” I said quietly. “Oh my God, have you been snooping on me or…?”

My head was spinning. Things were taking a decidedly unexpected turn.

“What? No way. I mean, I could if I wanted to. But no,” he said, returning his gaze to the window, an unreadable expression on his face.

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. I felt like shit. Why had I published that trash about him? What had he done, really, to deserve it? Was I so broken? So badly mistrustful? What was wrong with me anyway?

“I grew up in the same town as you,” he said eventually.

“What? In Little Falls? No way.” This was bizarre.

“Yeah. We went to the same school actually.”

“That’s …not possible. That was a tiny school, there was no Tom Hood there…”

“Yeah there wasn’t, I changed my name when I was 18.”

My mind raced, trying to put everything together.

“Phillip Hellman. You probably won’t remember me. But I remember you.”

“But …but your father? You inherited all that money--”

He sat up and began speaking clearly, like he was reciting lines, or giving a statement at a police station.

“My father died when I was a baby. I created all the other stories. On purpose. It was deliberate. But none of it’s true. I never inherited a cent, not from anyone. I killed a man, when I was 16, and went into juvenile detention for a year and a half. I ran over him with my car by accident, they wanted to try me as an adult but they didn’t, thank god. It was the most awful time in my life. I ran away, I reinvented myself. I made a lot of mistakes. Turns out, I’m good at making money, too…”

He looked at me with a question in his eyes. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He went on.

“And so I did that. I forgot about my past, and I did well for myself. Really well. The rest you already know, I guess.”

We sat in silence for a moment.

“Who else knows about this?” I asked eventually.

“Nobody. My mother knew, but she passed a few years ago. Nobody else knows. Well, you do, now. I’m tired, to be honest. I actually found you by accident – long story – but I remembered you from school. You were a few years below me. It seemed like an amazing coincidence, that you had moved here, too. That you wrote about me. It was like …like …”

“Like a one in a billion chance,” I said.

“Yup,” he breathed.

We both took the next few minutes to blush and smile at each other like idiots. Everything was different. I didn’t know what next to say.

“Do you remember that awful piece of shit sports shed next to Mrs. Campbell’s class? The one everyone used to smoke in?”

“Yes!” he laughed, and clapped his hands together, “Oh my god yes! It was full of cockroaches, I remember. Did you have Mrs. Campbell? I heard she married a Puerto Rican guy eventually.”

“Yes, I heard about that too! So weird.”

His face had softened. Tom Hood had vanished. Now, there was someone else in front of me entirely. The effect was thrilling.

We spent the next hour – or was it many hours? – reminiscing about that shitty old school, and the people from Little Falls, and all the little snips of gossip we could both remember. I had only a dim memory of him – he had been a quiet, unassuming boy with mousy hair and good grades, but he had slipped under my radar for the most part.

“Like you were any better!” he laughed, “You were quite the dork, I remember it clearly,” he said and we both giggled.

Silence.

“Tom …Tom, I’m so sorry.”

He reached over and grabbed my hand in response, saying nothing. I felt in this gesture his complete and easy forgiveness, but I was still wracked with guilt at the horrible things I had said about him.

“No, really, I was just … I was afraid. I was scared you were just using me.”

“I know,” he said. We both looked at my hand in his.

All at once, I thought about his naked body again. This time, I felt like I could see right through, to the very bottom of the pictures I had seen, of the entire illusion he had crafted. I saw someone like myself, someone who had desperately erected a façade all around them.

I stared back into his eyes and found, at last, what I had been looking for during the last few days. It was there all at once, the same simple openness, only this time I felt nothing to prevent me from slipping and surrendering into it completely. I looked at him, with a gaze filled with yearning and vulnerability. We both knew, at that moment, that there was nothing to hold us back anymore. My entire body pulsed with the thought.

“Don’t leave,” he said, “We have all day.”

It was true.

The whole weekend spanned in front of us, like a red carpet, and it was nothing but me and this man, and his beautiful body. I was nervous, but this time my nerves seemed only to make things more delicious.

He leaned in, and kissed me. Slowly, meltingly. I had learned so much about him, it seemed, and now it was only natural that I explored him physically, too. My body ached with wanting to share myself. I kissed back, my tongue seeking him out, this strange man, this strong man.

I threw my head back, and he continued his kiss down onto my jaw, and then down onto my exposed neck, planting a hot string of soft kisses all the way down, then kissing the top of my breasts. I was breathing more heavily, my lungs hungrily taking in deep breaths to steady my growing sense of intoxication. He was now pressing the full weight of his body against mine, and the urgent insistence of his muscles made me limp and yielding, wanting nothing but to melt in his arms.

Seeming to sense this, he circled his big arms round me and held me tightly, breathing and kissing every piece of my exposed skin. I was in a blissful reverie, completely lost in the flow of kisses and breath, when he pressed hard against my hips, the obvious length of his cock suggesting more. I moaned, thrilled at what was happening to me, that soon there would be nothing between out bodies, keeping us apart. I felt drunk.

“You’re beautiful,” he said and the utterance felt like it nearly made me come right there and then. He smiled at the effect this had on me, pulling back a moment to take in my raptured expression.

“You are beautiful. You deserve pleasure. I want to give it to you. I’m so glad you stayed…”

This last part of his sentence disappeared as I kissed him hungrily, ready to assent to everything.

In an instant, he was tearing away at my shirt and yanking off my jeans, and I complied, wriggling out of them as fast as I could, then turning to him to remove every last shred of clothing from his tight, masculine body.

We surveyed one another, happy for more and more, relishing that there were still so many more layers to peel away, to explore. I pressed the full length of my body against his, surprised at how hot and responsive his skin was. I got it, just then. He was right. Why were people so afraid of what they wanted? Of being vulnerable? What was so threatening about this man’s glorious body against mine, breathing and alive and hot with all kinds of unspoken appetites and desires? I wanted to know all of them. I wanted to satisfy all of them.

His cock was fully hard, and it easily slipped in the little hollow between my legs. I held it there with my thighs, knowing that he could he feel how aroused I was becoming, how I was literally melting on him. We kissed each other hungrily, pawing and grabbing at each other’s flesh with playful, easy urgency. We had both collapsed to the floor, conscious of nothing but one another, and the thrill of what our bodies could do to one another.

I glanced down at his cock, his soft mouth kissing me all over my neck and shoulders as I did so. I had never been with anyone with anything remotely as big as that before (who was I kidding, I hadn’t been with many people, period) and I was spellbound, reaching out for it almost instinctively. He pulled back and looked down at me cradling it in my hands, smiling.

“You like that?” he asked, and in response I shifted my weight down, deciding that what I wanted was to have it in my mouth.

He grinned and threw his head back, the veins in his taut belly pulsing a little as I went to suck him.

The taste was warm, and salty. His skin was surprisingly thin and soft, and I delicately placed my hands on either side of his thick shaft, admiring how utterly hot he looked. He was like a god, and I wanted to make an offering to him, right here, with my mouth. I traced the tip of my tongue up the length and twirled it teasingly over the tip, thrilled to discover a small, salty bead of moisture there, which I happily gobbled up. I kissed the head lovingly, planting two tender lips on him, then gradually opening and letting him move into my mouth, one delicious inch at a time. I pulled back again, leaving a wet trail, hearing him groan in appreciation. He placed one cautious, shaking hand on my head, and with an almost imperceptible tug pulled me down again. I loved that he loved it. I obliged and took him in again, this time to the edge of what I could physically manage. I held him there, throbbing inside my mouth, his strong frame reduced to shudders as he clutched at fistfuls of my hair.

Holding him inside, I circled and flicked my tongue over every part of him, enjoying how he responded by growing harder, so I could almost feel the blood throbbing through him. I found a slow rhythm and began to suck him, up and down, loving the scent of him, feeling the muscles in his thighs and back twitching in response to the movements of my tongue. He was in as far as he could go, and I wanted more still. He placed both his hands on my head and, with more aggression, began to pump my head onto him, occasionally letting out gruff whimpers to the top of my head.

I pulled away and stared hard into his eyes, feeling a simple joy at how wonderful it was to please him, to turn him on, to suck his fat dick until he moaned and rolled his head back in ecstasy. I kissed him again, deeply and passionately, and with my hand I guided his beautiful cock into me, not wanting to waste another second. My entire body was almost delirious with wanting him, and when the moment came he sunk the full length of it into me, taking away my breath completely.

“Oh my god,” I muttered to the warm crook of his neck. “Oh my god…” and there really was nothing else to say. I felt almost numb with pleasure, overwhelmed by the heft of this amazing piece of his anatomy somehow deep, deep within me, bringing our bodies even closer than I thought they could be. He held me, still, for a long moment; nothing moved except for my aching pussy tightening and releasing around him, my body happily surprised at these new dimensions; I smiled, pleased that I could accommodate this part of him, that he was so close to me now.

We fucked. Slowly. Easily.

He curled his muscular back to bring the full length of his cock into my body, then curled away again, and with each thrust I arched to meet him again. He ran his big, smooth hands up and down my back, his lips and tongue delivering hurried affection all over my shoulders, my breasts, my neck. I looked down to see our two soft bellies bumping against each other, his wide dick linking them both, pulling me back again and again along its slick, glistening length. It was so fucking hot I nearly screamed.

Tearing his lips away from my skin, he followed my gaze and looked down as well, then stroked his fingers over my lower belly, planting the pad of his thumb against my clit and stroking me. These twin sensations were glorious: the heavy, almost painful heft of his cock fucking me down below, and the gentle, delicate strokes of his careful fingers caressing me up above. I felt him pushing me closer and closer to the slippery edge of a full orgasm, but one I wasn’t ready for yet – I wanted to stay here forever, hovering on this delicious apex with him.

“I want to make you come,” he whispered into my ear, and before I could respond he had jumped up and grabbed me hard around the waist, spinning me around so that I faced away from him, my two plump ass cheeks squashing against his midriff.

“I don’t want to hold back with you anymore,” he said to my sweat coated back and neck.

“Then don’t…” I said, anchoring myself against the cushions on the seat I had sat on only a few hours ago, my anger and resistance seemingly a universe away now. Who knew that his body could be such a source of pleasure? That mine knew how to open so easily to his, almost as if by instinct?

I leant back and threw my ass into the air, arching so that my pussy was open, raw and utterly at his mercy.

“Don’t hold back…” I said again as I felt his gleeful hands squeezing my butt cheeks.

With one single, almost frictionless slide into me, he pinned his large body against mine, holding my hips firmly to him. He drew back and plunged into me, the full length of his cock hitting even deeper, the new angle opening up new places in my body, new places that I wanted him to fuck just as mercilessly.

I cried out, my entire body wracked with waves of pleasure and pain. I leant back further into him, wanting more, and he responded with another savage thrust, banging his hips into mine, every atom of my pussy seeming to sing. Deep in me, he seemed to find that old thread of pleasure again, and before I knew it he had eased me closer to my orgasm again. He was fucking me harder now, pounding into me relentlessly, our bodies slapping hard together, my poor wet body quivering and pliant beneath his.

“Spread your legs wider,” he said. I obeyed, and he ploughed even deeper into me still, causing me to buck and cry out. With each angry thrust, he tore deeper into me, and I could do nothing but lean further into, offering up my body to him.

“More. Show me your ass,” he said and I reached back, pulling my butt cheeks apart, relishing how utterly filthy this felt.

“Oh fuck…” he mumbled, and I felt him pause as he shuddered a little, gathering himself. I giggled and wiggled against him, trying to push him over the edge. He growled and gripped my hips hard to stop me. His breath was so hard and ragged his entire chest was rising and falling, only one or two little shivers betraying how close he was to coming.

He pulled out of me, the head of his wet cock bobbing and slapping against my exhausted thighs. I spun around under him and gazed up at his face; he stood there for a moment, eyes half closed, his full, hard body heaving and beaded with sweat, his dick towering over me. My entire body was flushed with happiness.

“You turn me on so much,” I said, writhing underneath him, wanting it back in me again.

He opened his eyes and smiled down at me.

“Oh yeah? I want you to play with yourself.”

I cocked my head to the side and flashed a flirty smile at him. I glided both hands down over my breasts, over my hips and back in over my stomach, then traced one curious hand down to my wide open slit, sending one finger inside. As I arched back, I saw the smile on his face drift softly off as a new, more intense expression come over his features; it was that same, hyper-focused look he had given me that first night. Nothing existed for him at that moment except the tiniest movements of my fingers, and for me, seeing myself reflected in his hungry gaze, wanting to turn him on as much as he was turning me on.

I rocked my hips rhythmically against my fingers, having no trouble bringing my already swollen clit to a state of frenzy again. I was so unbelievably tense with pleasure that my entire pussy was spread wide and open, but I brought my knees even closer to my torso to open up even further – I didn’t want him to miss a single thing. I continued circling my clit as much as I could manage, breathing jagged and shuddering with the effort of avoiding coming.

“Are you ready to come?” he asked. His cock was in his hand, and he was stroking it slowly, pointedly.

I nodded.

“I want to feel you come,” he said.

He released his hand and introduced the head of his cock to me again, and even though he had fucked me senseless only a moment ago, the sensation was enough to send my whole body into fresh spasms of pleasure again. I was dangerously close to coming. I reached my hands out and put them against his stomach, stopping him from going any further.

“Woah! Careful! I’m really… close,” I said, gasping.

The room spun around me. I felt that a single tiny movement from him would send me hurtling over the edge.

He waited, tip inside me, and breathed heavily while I tried to compose myself again, then slowly removed my hands, ready for more. Locking his eyes with mine, he slowly, slowly pressed another inch of his beautiful cock into my poor, ravaged body. I rushed right up to the precipice again, shivering violently to hold my body back from a luscious orgasm. No. I wanted to have all of him in me, as deep as he would go, before I would allow myself to come…

“More?” he asked, and I nodded.

I was given another inch, and with a violent twitch I yanked myself back from the edge again, laughing at how insanely sensitive I had become to him, to his hard body nudging me closer and closer and closer.

“Oh fuck, I can’t take it …please …”

He smiled, relishing what a quivering mess I had become, knowing how he could collapse this entire moment with just a single hard stroke.

“You want it…?”

“Fuck yes!” I screamed, clutching at the carpet in fists.

In one smooth, confident thrust, he drove the rest of his cock into me, slamming the line of soft brown hairs on his stomach right up against my body. I cried out and threw my head back, letting the peak of a massive wave crush over my body, radiating out from the hot center in my core where he was, driving me into hot, wet spasms that my aching pussy lavished over him. He remained hard inside me, motionless, and when I had fallen into the deep, delicious pool of my first orgasm, I felt him stirring me up again, pulling another one out of me. I couldn’t believe it. I barely noticed that he had both of his fists clenched tightly around my wrists, and was pinning me firmly to the floor, his entire weight over my bucking, twitching body.

“Tom …oh god,” I began and then the second orgasm hit me, this time broader, looser than the first. I couldn’t help but to break out into giggles. I looked up to see a bright expression of pure joy on his face, his eyes seeming to want to penetrate mine just as deeply as his body was. He smiled, and with a thrill, I felt my body collect and swell again for yet another, bone-shattering orgasm.

My body felt so on fire by this point, so loose and free, so utterly his, that this third wave found absolutely no resistance. This time, I could scarcely make a peep as I slammed my eyes shut and let the sensations run through me, yet again. My body had become a vortex of wet, swirling pleasure, and at the center was Tom, beautiful Tom, tender-eyed, hard-bodied Tom, hung like a fucking donkey.

My body still twitching and writhing, I reached out towards him and took him in my mouth again. His dick was soaked from fucking me, but I quickly lapped this off, taking him in as deep as he would go, thrilled at the thought of having him enter me everywhere.

“Your turn,” I said to his crotch, and stroked it playfully against my cheeks.

“Remember, don’t hold back…” I added, planting both of my hands on his butt.

I heard a quiet murmur of assent; he gripped my head and began almost immediately fucking my mouth, savagely, driving himself right to the end of my throat. It easily reached to the back of my mouth and beyond, and I gagged, choking, my lips shaking around the fat base of it.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he said again, and this time, it was almost a plea; I could hear in his voice how close he was. I pulled him further into my hot throat, wanting all of him, as far as he would go, loving how good it felt to be filled and violated in this way.

I gagged once more, long strings of dribble forming on my lower lip, and one hot tear growing on my lower lashes. I wanted to do this with him always. I squeezed his ass in my hands, urging him to release and shoot his cum into me. The hands pulled hard on bunches of my hair; he thrust once, twice into my mouth and then he burst into spurt after spurt of hot sticky liquid.

I held him in my mouth, wanting to catch every last drop, proud at having eked out so much pleasure from this man, this man who had always seemed so strange to me, yet so familiar. He growled and I felt his entire body shuddering as he emptied himself completely onto my tongue; after a moment his spent cock slid out, bouncing against his hips.

His gripping hands had turned into gentle, searching caresses; as he hugged my head close I showered his softening cock with kisses, nestling him back to his senses. He groaned loudly and flung himself back onto the floor, pulling me down with him. I landed on his chest and clung there, heart still beating in my ears and the echoes of my trio of orgasms still fresh in my mind, and in my body.

I had never been so thoroughly fucked in all my life. I felt like the happiest girl in the world.

As I traced a shaking finger over his chest, I realized that I could never tire of him, of his body, of this. I wanted him to do that to me again and again and again…

Chapter Eleven

And he did.

It was a one in a billion chance that this, any of this would have happened, and to someone like me no doubt …but it did happen.

And once I had gotten my mind around the fact, once I had relaxed into the idea, I was no longer surprised any more, by anything that we did together. I guess even the improbable happens once in a while, right?

Tom spent the most of the next year trying to convince me that I wasn’t in some fantastical dream, and this was my life now, and his, and that it was OK to let go, to be happy.

And I resisted it at first. And we’d argue it out, and we’d fuck, long, passionate evenings in that same fireplace-ed room, hashing out our disagreements. He was one moment the cocky celebrity alpha male I had written about all those months ago, the next moment a playful, sweet boy from my hometown, one who knew every little alleyway of my past, every untouched spot on my body.

He was gentle with me, and I him, and we were unthinkably rough with one another, both desperate to see how close we could get, how many layers we could peel off, what was really underneath all that flesh we pawed at so hungrily. And we went even deeper still.

There was money, of course, loads of it. Life became easy in ways that made me nervous, suspicious even. But there was nothing Tom’s firm gaze, firmer voice and unbelievably hard cock couldn’t convince me of. I let go …and I kept letting go. I let my mind soften with him, and my body yielded, first a little bit, and then more and more, until easing into the warmth of his big body felt like the easiest thing in the world.

“Haha! Look at this one. Oh, you’ll love this,” he said.

He had a new issue of Cache spread out on his lap, and we were both in its pages, highly pixelated and walking quickly out of a restaurant with the headline PREGNANT stamped on my head. He held up the pages to me and I laughed, nearly spilling my drink. It was almost a year since I left Cache, since Penelope had left, and Clara had taken over. Like I said, even the unimaginable can happen sometimes.

“Should I call them up and tell them you’d just eaten an extra large burrito that day? That’ll break their hearts I’m sure,” he said, returning his gaze to the page. I playfully threw a sock at him.

“Shut up. I’m simply devastated, don’t you know. There are rumors your eye is straying, of course. Ah, my poor playboy husband, what is he good for?” I said, pretending to swoon.

“Good for? I buy you burritos, don’t I?” he laughed.

“Can’t argue with you there.”

He put the magazine down.

“I want you again,” he said.

I looked at him. He had that same look on his face, the one I was becoming very familiar with. He was like an adorable golden retriever puppy, only with a six-pack and a dirty mind.

“Again?” I laughed. It would be the third time this morning.

He sauntered over, cradling my head in his hands and kissing me softly.

“Unless you’re feeling too sore…”

I kissed him back, hard, and pulled him closer to me. I guided his hands over my body, letting his fingers rest on the spot where only a few hours ago he had pounded me relentlessly.

One look from me told him what he wanted to know, and he pulled off my shirt, kissing each of my breasts, saying “I love you” as though he only wanted them to hear and not me.

“I love you, too,” I responded and slipped my fingers through his hair.

People really do go around this world closed off from each other, I thought. He was my one in a billion, but I was convinced now that with an open heart, anything was possible.

Anything at all.

Chapter Twelve

I’m standing calmly, and I take a slow, disinterested sip of champagne. My hair is longer now, and has grown down to my lower back, where it grazes the top of my black suspenders. I’m wearing my favorite leather thigh highs, the ones with spike heels and tiny red chains around the ankle, plus a long, long string of real pearls that falls down between my bare breasts and to my belly button.

I’m tipsy, but not overly so.

For a moment, I have stepped back from the fray, standing apart from the mass of bodies in front of me, some dancing, some breaking off into slower moving groups of two or three, some already heavily twisted into each other… patches of light catch on their naked bodies.

He is at the center, and as he makes eye contact with me, a deep, knowing glance erupts on his face. He smiles a small, private smile. I return one of my own. The music is good tonight, very good, and I let my head fall back a little as I enjoy it, enjoying also the summer air on my half-naked body, and the cold, wet crystal glass against my fingertips, of the near-bursting perfection of this moment, seemingly held in suspension all around me. The yacht is far from the shore now, floating in inky blackness, only the lapping of water reminding us that we’re still technically on planet earth. A familiar cry breaks me out of my daydreaming.

The woman in front of me is being fucked to within an inch of her life.

Her entire face is flushed red, the color extending far down onto her chest and to her two swollen nipples. She’s writhing like something possessed, as though she’s about to combust into flames at any second.

“She won’t come until I tell her she can,” says her tormentor to me. He flicks a sweat-damp fringe from his face and pummels into her with more urgency.

“What do you think – should we let her come?” he says through strained breath, flashing deep, laughing brown eyes in my direction.

I smile.

A year ago, I had only seen this man in pixelated images. He had been nothing more than ink on a newspaper for me and now …now he was sweaty and deep in a yelping woman who seemed to be melting before our very eyes.

“Well…?” he asks again.

Kai looks beseechingly into my eyes, her hair damp and disheveled and her lovely face contorting with pleasure.

“No, fuck her a little more” I say, and smile.

I lock my eyes with hers, savoring that sweet moment, and blow her a little kiss. It’s a bit mean, sure, but I’ll make it up to her later.

* * *

On the day I lost my virginity, I also lost my first pair of knickers.

A tired baby blue and white number I had had since High School, it wasn’t exactly a vision of sexiness, but I mourned it all the same. It had an obnoxious Snoopy print on the crotch from the days I thought that kind of thing was cute. But I was sadder to see it go, somehow, than I was to be rid of my virginity. My friends spoke about theirs as though virginity was a tangible thing, a precious, squidgy, lace-and-cotton thing that they were holding onto and waiting for that special day to fling it at a guy on a stage, or wrap up in white lace and deliver to some man wearing an obedient smile and a rented tux.

But me? I just wanted to be done with it already. I wanted to be fucked. I sat in my first year law lectures and zoned out, practicing the words in my mind, trying them on for size. Fuck me I said in my imagination, to an imaginary boyfriend who conveniently had no opinions. I want you to fuck me I would say, which seemed so scandalous on its own that I seldom bothered to flesh out the rest of the fantasy. My idea of sex had been badly pieced together from Cosmo sex articles and my own embellishments on stories I had heard from a handful of friends. In these classroom daydreams, I was a vixen wearing leather, or a Hot Babe in Victoria’s Secret with beach ball boobs and a drum-tight belly.

But on the day I actually lost my virginity …I was neither of these women. I was wearing my blue and white Snoopy knickers, and a cotton dress, and my hair twirled up in a messy bun. Looking back, I can see how this might not have been the crime I thought it was, but at the time I felt myself to be an awkward mix of hormones and inexperience, and that it must be more or less obvious to every male within a 5-mile radius.

“Christy, stop all that studying would you? You’re making me look bad.” My friend Tara had blustered into our dorm room, and was furiously putting on mascara and changing her shoes at the same time, getting ready to go out. I grumbled something back but she stared at me. “I’ve got it! You should come with me. There will be boys there, but I think we can manage without adult supervision, can’t we?” she said, laughing and wiggling her eyebrows at me.

Twenty minutes later we were in a pretty suburban house crammed full with every flavor of teenage rebellion – somehow I had already finished one beer and mysteriously had another in my hand. Perhaps adults were no less awkward than teenagers, but just tipsy more often? I was enjoying myself, I realized, someway through the second (or third?) beer. I wanted to show Tara that I could have fun, too. I wasn’t some predictable nerd who studied too much. In fact I--

“Your life line is like, really long.”

A scruffy boy sat opposite me on the couch, my hand in his hand, examining the lines on it almost as hard as I did my law text books. He was cute, in a scruffy kind of way. Had I seen him around campus? It was hard to tell. There were probably a million scruffy boys just like him enrolled in classes in any one year.

“That means you’re going to have, like, a long life, you know?” he said.

It was getting later, the music was getting louder, our friends were getting drunker. I had read somewhere that pretending to read a girl’s palm was a great excuse to touch her …and hit on her. My head buzzed a little. Why not now? Why not him?

“You also have a really deep love line, which means…”

Here he locked his soft brown eyes with mine, smiling shyly at me. He flicked his eyes back to my palm, smiled and stroked my fingertips with his. I watched a small vein pulse in his neck. I had rehearsed tons of imaginary conversations with imaginary boys in imaginary situations just like these. In my own mind, I was like a female James Bond, unflappable, never more than a few seconds away from a devastatingly witty comeback. It was clear to me all at once, though, that James Bond probably wasn’t ever as drunk as I currently was. Ok, Christy. It was now or never.

I took a deep breath. “I want you to fuck me,” I said. The room buzzed.

Well, there it was. I said it recklessly, easily, but once the words were out there, hanging in the air between us, I realized that I kind of, maybe, might actually mean it. He immediately stopped stroking my hand. My cheeks burned. Oh shit oh shit what have I just said? What if he thinks I’m an idiot? Oh shit. We locked eyes again. It was something even more terrifying: he was grinning.

“Well, that was awkward!” he said, leaning back into his chair and laughing. I felt like I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. I flushed a deep red. He tossed a shaggy brown fringe out of his eyes and stood up tall.

“But yeah, nice and blunt. I uh, I like it.” He extended his hand and helped me up. “Come with me” he said, leading me out of the room and through a tangled clump of people who were standing around, drinking, laughing, being completely oblivious to the fact that I was about to…

There they were, being all civilized, fully clothed and polite, meanwhile all this time there was a secret world underneath everything, and I had accessed it easily with the simple, naughty words: I want you to fuck me. It was like abracadabra, but for sex. Turns out, you didn’t need witty comebacks at all!

I couldn’t believe this was happening to me.

Had I always been this close to it all along, nothing but these words between me and …”it”? I followed him up some dimly lit stairs, realizing with half-panic that there seemed to be something hot and warm moving down my inner thigh.

In an instant we were in a quiet, dark room, the thumping music of the party below seeming to become more indistinct and fuzzy. He leant against the now closed door, and pulled me closer to him. I was tipsy and fell into the pillow of his scent, nestling into his scruffy brown hair. He was so soft and yielding in some places, so taut and firm in others. Drunk, my mouth easily found his, and without really noticing, he had transformed from a shy, nervous boy into someone more forceful, each of his big hands firmly around waist. I relaxed into him, overcome by the distant memory of soap on his skin and the warmth my hands found underneath his shirt. His body felt so lean and tight under my hands; he seemed strong and animal, like the kind of thing you’d find on an ancient Grecian urn in a museum titled “youth.”

“You remind me of a horse,” I said. He burst out laughing.

Oh God, oh shit, I’m such an idiot, do I have to be such an idiot all the time?

“Um, ok? Christy, you’re a fucking weirdo. But I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said, smiling cheekily, pulling me firm against his crotch. The ache between my legs was so strong I couldn’t help but instinctively move my hips forward to answer his.

“Say it again” he said.

“You’re a horse?”

He giggled. “No, stupid. What you said before.”

He said this pleadingly, and so quietly it was though he only wanted the nape of my neck to hear. This time it was easier. I rolled my body against the growing bulge in his jeans, pressing my waist against his chest.

“I want you to fuck me,” I said again. I seemed to mean it more every time I said it.

And the words were magic. The instant I uttered them his entire demeanor shifted. With a surprising urgency, he unzipped and dropped his trousers. His cock sprung out at me, hot, silkier to touch than I had imagined. His mouth was again on mine, swallowing any chance of me saying something else idiotic. He was kissing me deeper now, cradling the base of my neck in hands that started to seem so much bigger, so much manlier than they had a moment before, on the couch.

He stroked his hand down, under my dress and into the cotton of my soon-to-be-gone-forever knickers.

A single finger hesitated there.

“You’re so wet,” he said, and before I could respond his fingers were inside me.

I wanted to scream. The entire room faded away, leaving nothing in the universe besides us standing there, his hot breath against my neck and the feeling of my wet body responding to his fingers. My head was spinning. He stroked gently in, gently out again. His breath was growing more urgent. His cock pressed warmly against my belly, waiting; were all of them that big? How on earth was all of that going to fit in?

“Say it again” he said, thrusting his fingers deeper still, pinning me hard against his body.

Something delicious was radiating out from his fingertips, sending shuddering ripples through me. I felt incredibly, almost painfully hot. I leaned further into it, into him.

“Fuck me” I said, and this time it was me that sounded desperate. Pleading even. I wanted it. In my hazy mind, one thing was clear: I needed his dick, all of it, in me. Now. I squirmed closer to him, asking with my body.

“What’s that?” he said playfully.

“Fuck me” I said again, adding, “please” realizing for the first time how truly hungry my body could be for something.

And he did. Slowly, the head of his cock pressed me open, and as the length of him slid in, I threw my head back with a gasp, overcome with the sheer weight of it, with how limp and yielding my entire body became around him. He plunged slowly in, till the skin of our bellies met. He held me firmly like this for a moment, still, and I swear I could feel his heart beating through his cock, through me. The dull thudding of the music went on below us, my own heartbeat was pounding in my ears, and I felt my whole world swell and grow with each inhale of his, each exhale of mine. He moved slightly inside me, and I felt my pussy respond.

He was big.

It stung, but with a pain that grew and fanned gently out into my body, becoming a delicious, syrupy thick sensation of heat and pleasure. He moved again inside me, like something beckoning me to play. I moaned and grasped him tightly, rolling my hips and pulling him even deeper in. It was a revelation. I loved this. I wanted more. I wanted to worship this cock. I wanted to go the rest of my life with this glorious thing wedged deep inside me, I wanted this blissful haze to never--

“Christy? Christy, where the fuck are you?”

Tara. A sharp, cold voice coming from downstairs, breaking the spell. I dimly saw the outline of a smile curl across his lips. My skin prickled. Laughing, he gripped my hips hard and began thrusting swiftly into me. I was completely overcome by this change in pace, still unbelieving that my body could accommodate him at all. I cried out, my heart threatening to burst free of my chest. What if Tara found us? Something hot and wet was gathering right in the core of me; he was moving rhythmically now, unrelenting, and a giant quivering bubble was swelling and growing deep inside me, threatening to burst all over him any second.

“I’m …I’m coming,” I squeaked and heard him growl in response; he rammed once more into me, nearly lifting me off the floor, and shooting a hot stream inside me. His entire body seemed to curl around mine, enveloping me. I felt his every shudder and twitch as he sent spurt after spurt of warm cum into me. A hot wash of goosebumps flashed across my skin, and I followed by coming myself, hard, scarcely maintaining my balance, gasping against his chest, now slick with sweat.

“Christy? Christy! We’re leaving now with or without you.”

I heard Tara’s voice coming closer. She sounded belligerent. His cock flopped smoothly out of me, and he tucked it back into his jeans, still wet. I had never been so petrified in my life, yet he looked at me with laughing eyes. “Looks like you’d better get a move on!” he whispered, hurriedly pulling my cotton dress back down around my hips.

“I’m coming, Tara, just a second!” I yelled through the door and kissed him again, fully and deliciously, my body still pulsing from my orgasm.

He jokingly waved me goodbye as I clambered down the stairs, my bun even messier than before. I hitched a ride back to the dorms with Tara and a few others, hoping nobody noticed my flushed cheeks. I sat in the back seat, quiet, my body still aching with a new and exquisite throb between my legs. Like a horse indeed.

Tara was ranting about something or other, and she turned back to me. “Why are you so quiet? You know, there were so many hot guys at that party and I bet you were just hiding off somewhere reading their Reader’s Digests or something!”

I felt the slow trickle of still-warm cum ooze out of me. Oops. I had left my blue and white Snoopy knickers somewhere. In the room? Did he have them? Had I left them on the stairs like some kind of skanky Cinderella, only to be found again when my prince came looking for me, crumpled panties in hand? I smiled secretly. Oh well.

Tara shook her head. “Christy, I swear, what you really need is to get laid.”

Quite some time passed before I lost my next pair of knickers, but boy did I lose them.

Despite my raucous introduction to it, sex seemed to fizzle out for me for the next year or so. Tara was still desperately trying to claw me away from my books, and I still clung to them desperately. Some days I would indulge in a little quiet rebellion - not a single soul knew that I had started wearing elaborate, sexy lingerie under my comic book t-shirts and jeans. Tramp-red basques with suspender clips. Thongs with expensive French lace ruffles on the bum. These silky, frilly pieces were pushed far to the back of my drawer, and I guess I thought that I would get around to wearing them more seriously one day …just not yet. I fancied myself packed tightly into a chrysalis made of law school and dumpy clothes, but inside, a devastatingly frilly butterfly was busy brewing. They’d all see, just wait.

It was the summer of my second year when a friend invited me out on a four-day camping trip through the Welsh countryside. At the time, I had been dating a guy who was more or less the male version of me. Translation: it was a disaster of a relationship. Andrew was sweet, and conscientious, and worked hard. But he was also the kind of guy who made me wistful for some passion, even if it was just the kind that made people smash plates on the floor during arguments and have make-up sex afterwards. I didn’t know how we’d make it through four whole days of being in each other’s faces, but I agreed and so me, him, my friend and her boyfriend started making plans for the trip.

Sometimes, I imagine myself in a courtroom, trying to explain (defend?) my actions to a jury of my peers. Was I guilty? When did I go from innocent bystander to pre-meditated instigator? Was it when I willingly packed four of my sluttiest sets of knickers into my backpack? Was it when I sort of decided to pick a fight with Andrew on the morning we left for the hike? It’s hard to say.

But I packed them. And then, in that strange way that life sometimes unfolds, events gradually led to me losing more and more things, until the final evening of our camping trip, when I lost my favourite pair of black and lacy knickers. But I’ll get to that in a moment.

First, I lost Andrew.

“Lost” is stretching it a bit. By now I can’t really remember how, but we got into an argument while packing our bags. One thing led to another, he said, “you think you’re better than me, don’t you?” and I didn’t say yes …but the truth is, I didn’t say no either, and by then things were sour enough that I told him to take a hike, although not literally, because I wanted to do that on my own now. Fine.

The next thing I lost was my tent.

This was more of a problem. My friend Elise, her boyfriend Joel and I set off, spirits high and backpacks full of way more stuff than we honestly needed. I had met Elise in my politics lectures. She was a wiry girl, like a compressed spring covered in velvety tanned skin that made you think of holidays. She was idealistic, fond of getting into arguments with our lecturers, and had dusty freckles, hair and eyes all of the same soft caramel brown.

Joel was – well, kind of the opposite. In fact, the deeper we walked into the idyllic Welsh landscape, the more I was struck by how he seemed to be a walking embodiment of the mossy hills we walked over, the ragged rocks cut in two by silvery streams, the morning mists. He had slate coloured, blue-black hair and dreamy, half asleep looking eyes, eyes that seemed always focused on something in the distance. She was all California girl, smooth as a beach ball, while he seemed like he had been born in a grey woolen jumper. He shared none of Elise’s high-strung energy, but he had his own gentle charm, and the two seemed to get on really well.

We spent hours picking our way through the countryside on the first day; conversation disappeared and we all three fell into a comfortable, silent rhythm. It was on the second day, though, when I was walking upfront, that I heard Elise yelling, “Your tent! It’s going to fall!” I felt a weight shift on my back and spun around just in time to see that my rolled up tent had worked free of its straps and had fallen to the ground. Elise made a swipe at it but it bounced once and then proceeded to roll down the steep edge of the path. Quick as a rabbit, Elise bounded after it, but it fell steeply into the brush and she had to stop, tangled in the bushes. She looked back up at me as the tent disappeared.

“Damn it!” I said, reaching down to lift her up. Joel did the same, and our joint efforts hoisted her up to within just a few inches of my face. She smiled broadly. Joel laughed, and started to pick some twigs off her, saying to me, “Christy, you didn’t say what a camping noob you were. Anyway, if you wanted to sleep in our tent with us you could have just asked, no need to throw away your own, yeah?”

He had on a naughty, sideways smile and a twinkle in his eye.

My cheeks flushed and we all laughed, but it was that moment, ladies and gentleman of the jury, that I knew it: I was going to fuck Joel that night. And I was going to fuck his beautiful girlfriend, too.

We eventually set up camp, and whiled away the hours it took for day to turn into dusk, and then into night. I watched Joel build an impressive fire, admiring his skillful, almost meditative calm. Maybe a person didn’t have to be thinking all the time, and maybe there was something sexy about just doing. Elise and I had a loud, ridiculous discussion about the relative pros and cons of being a lesbian. We were playful, somehow more comfortable with each other after our long, silent hike together, taking turns to say things we thought might break Joel out of his fire making focus and get a rise out of him.

“You know, I can totally see the benefits of getting it on with a woman. Really I can. But I don’t think I could ever give up on men entirely, you know? Joel has such an amazing dick. I don’t know if I could ever live without it,” she said, flicking her sandy hair in Joel’s direction.

My face prickled.

Joel stood up slowly, dusted the soot from his hands and stared hard at Elise from out underneath slightly crinkled black eyebrows. He glanced briefly at me. “You’ll have to forgive this one, Christy,” he said in a laughing voice. “She is indeed addicted to my dick, and it appears she’s forgotten her manners.” He plonked himself down next to her, and planted a deep, slow kiss on her open and waiting mouth.

I was taken aback. But it all felt so right. The clean air, the elemental landscape quiet and primordial all around us, a strong man building a strong fire and beautiful, perky Elise, giggling at my lame jokes. All the sweaty walking and climbing had lead us to this perfect moment.

“Yes! I’m a dick addict,” she said, kissing him all over in return. “It’s true. The government should look into setting up safe injection sites for me in town so I don’t ever have to relapse.”

It was properly night now, and the fire was robust. I wanted them both. I moved my chair closer to the fire and made a show of rubbing my hands to warm them. “Well, I don’t know, as lovely as I’m sure your dick is, there’s just some things that only a girl can give another girl, I think.”

I said this sweetly, instinctively feeling Joel’s warm dark eyes moving all over my body. Elise’s face glowed. We were probably the only people around for miles.

“Oh yeah?” He said.

“Definitely. A dick’s nice and all. But can it compare to another girl’s soft lips? Women just have that special touch, you have to admit.” I met his eyes, and, still holding his gaze, I rose and went over to Elise, dropped to my knees and gently took her face in my hands. She stared in wonder at me, her freckled face open and defenseless. Her lips were parted and already wet, and there was something so exquisitely feminine in the way she looked up at me, expecting. I leaned forward and kissed her lower lip, tasting her with the very tip of my tongue. She kissed back greedily, and my fingers fanned out over the back of her head. I pulled back, leaving her lips still wanting, quivering half open, eyes still closed. I looked at Joel, who seemed to be in deep contemplation of all of this.

“See? Now a big rough boy could never kiss a girl quite like that, could he?”

It might have been a few seconds or an eon that passed in that moment, but eventually Joel, who had been sitting in stony silence, allowed something like a flicker of recognition to pass over his face. It was something dark and elemental. Was it a smile? Before I knew it, he was in front of Elise too, who was now seated like some goddess on a chair with two devotees kneeled before her. He kissed her, savagely. It was a challenge, and when she gasped loudly, his hand yanking back her head, I understood the game we were playing. His other hand gripped mercilessly round her wrist, pinning it to her tanned thigh. He took her chin in his hands and kissed her deeply, and as he drew back, he trailed one of his fingers in her open mouth, staring at her like he owned her.

“I think Elise likes big rough boys, though, don’t you?” he said in a dark, almost inaudible voice.

Elise listened closely, almost bewitched. She caught my eye again. Regaining herself, she shook her head back, laughing. “Now don’t fight, guys. There’s only one way to resolve this, fair and square.”

In a moment we were in the tent, the light of the fire outside casting a magical golden haze over everything inside. It was warmer inside, and we were soon all naked, our three bodies creating one unified, glowing mass of warm limbs. Joel was somehow in charge, something almost primitive in his grunts, the way he handled Elise, pinning her this way and that way, kneading her body and sucking each of her small breasts hard while pawing the rest of her with big, rough hands. Elise, on the other hand, seemed to melt. No more was she the plucky, in-your-face girl with opinions she just had to share. No, somehow in Joel’s presence she became a kitten, girlishly purring under his firm touch.

I kiss her, taking my time, enjoying every soft fold of her lips and tongue. She was a gentle kisser, and thorough. Out the corner of my eye I see Joel’s hand working rhythmically between her legs. I find myself amazingly turned on by her scent, which seems to rapidly fill the tent, and when Joel lifts one glistening hand to stroke her belly, I see just how turned on and wet she really is. She’s writhing between the both of us now, me kissing her slowly and sweetly on one end, Joel slipping his fingers roughly back into her wet slit, his other hand on his own cock. It was that evening in the tent that I uncovered the existence of unusually thick, heavy cocks – and Joel’s was the perfect specimen.

We paused at some point, briefly kissing one another before looking down at Elise again, deciding how to divide her lovely body up between us.

“My turn,” he said, moving to her lips and kissing her. Her legs were splayed, slick pussy lips opened, inviting me closer.

I had never done this to a girl before. I knelt down between her legs and pushed her legs further apart. I was intoxicated by her scent, barely noticing how dripping wet I myself had become. I was fascinated to discover a sparse patch of blonde hair above soft pink folds that seemed instantly familiar. I gently parted her lips, and began sucking on her clit, which seemed to pulsate in response. Her entire body throbbed and bucked, even the tiniest blonde hairs on her abdomen prickling with ecstasy, despite the rising temperature in the tent. She was beautiful. And I wanted more than anything to make her come.

In my mouth.

Her legs had closed softly around my head and were drawing me in; she rocked her hips gently, riding against my lips and tongue, wetness streaming down over her thighs and ass. She seemed to swell and open the more I sucked and licked.

Joel now had the full length of his cock in her throat, and she murmured quietly, hands on the small of his back, pulling him further in. Flicking my tongue over her clit made her murmur loudly and arch her back. She closed her lips more tightly around him, and he let his head drop back in bliss, his eyes closed. I licked again, she moaned, Joel moaned. We were all connected through one long, delicious thread of pleasure.

My pussy was aching badly by now, and the thought that I was pleasuring both her and him at the same time nearly made me explode right there.

“Hmm, she likes that,” he said to me, his black eyes mysteriously making me feel even more naked than I already was. “But it looks like you need some help. Look, this is how you make her come.”

His fat cock slipped out of her mouth and he moved over to my side, hoisting her by both of her legs. She squealed in delight. He thrust into her easily, her pussy already desperately wet. They had an easy familiarity with each other …he’d probably fucked her millions of times, I thought. In that moment, Joel kneeling tall and strong over Elise, whimpering and pliant, and the light so warm and yellow, and me mesmerized by the sight of Joel’s cock easily and happily swallowed by her little pink lips.

I must have been staring dumbfounded, lips still wet.

“Well, don’t just stand there” he said.

I leaned in and kissed him. Oh, he certainly was a big rough boy, all right. His kiss was forceful, confident. He seemed to be savoring the taste of her on my lips. He pushed my head down towards her again. “Keep going,” he mumbled. And so I did. I gently planted my lips again on her tender clit, while he began to thrust firmly in and out of her. All the tension from her lower body seemed to pool up in one spot as she clenched tightly, then released, a wave of pleasure forcing her lips open into the sweetest, most vulnerable shuddering cry. I heard Joel mumble his approval.

He fucked her, and I kissed her beautiful clit while he did. I saw his cock jump a little and he paused, closing his eyes and breathing hard. He was close to coming. He entered her again, this time fucking her roughly, so hard that I could only draw back and watch as she tossed her head back and screamed, clutching at both of us and jerking with each wave of her orgasm. I leaned in again and immediately took his cock in my mouth, sensing that he was going to follow her soon. He orgasmed with just a husky groan, but I felt the full force of a load of his cum burst into the back of my throat, his dick pumping and pulsing on my curled tongue. I swallowed it all down, sucking out every last drop, feeling his body loosen and relax. I couldn’t tell where the sharp, creamy taste of his cum ended and the salted-honey sweetness of his girlfriend’s beautiful pussy began.

To my surprise, just the thought of this sent me over the edge, and I found myself coming all at once, the ache releasing into full, easy waves of pleasure. My entire body shook. I almost laughed out loud. Shuddering, I opened my eyes to find Joel holding me on one side, and Elise the other. We held each other like that for a while, slick with heat and sweat.

Elise was completely spent, but she was the first to break our reverie. “So I’m glad you lost your stupid tent after all, Christy.”

I beamed. So was I.

“I knew she was up to something,” Joel said, tracing his fingers round the curve of my bellybutton. “Honestly, when I saw that ridiculous pair of knickers she was wearing. I mean, who wears black lace panties on a camping trip?”

I laughed. He had a point.

“So, who’s better, boy or girl?” I asked Elise playfully. She teased and twirled a lock of her hair in her fingers. “Oh jeez, I really couldn’t say. I’m pretty sure Joel cheated anyways, so it’s hard to decide. I think we’ll need a rematch.”

I fell in love with both of them, I think, sometime during that trip. That blissful moment after our first fuck might have been the exact time it happened, although it could have also been the next night …or the night after that. On that trip I discovered my love for eating pussy, for moody, husky boys and for the taste of cum. I discovered the beautiful Welsh countryside and two new friends. But, you know, I lost my boyfriend. And a tent.

And I never saw that damn pair of lacy knickers again, either.

The first thing I’ll say about this particular pair of knickers is that I wasn’t at all sad to see them go.

By the time I was finishing up my third year at university, I became aware my nerdy image had somehow transformed into a sexy nerdy image. Truth be told I wasn’t exactly sure how it happened, it just seemed that one day heavy black glasses and boots with dresses were edgy, rather than awkward and unintentional …which they were when I last checked. I rolled with it. If I was going to be hot by accident, why not?

My over-the-top lingerie collection grew steadily and quietly, but this specific pair of satiny white briefs was a case in point: I very often had no idea what the hell I was doing or how to go about being “sexy.” I had seen them on sale, hideous things with a fat glossy bow at the back, and bought them, thinking they would make a sophisticated addition to my stash. Once I got home, though, and tried them on, I realized all the quilting and fuss on the front made my crotch look something like my granny might embroider on a Christmas cushion. I was disgusted, and sent them to the very back of the drawer.

But of course, by now I was getting used to the fact that sometimes, the most well-hidden secrets are the first to be exposed, and the things you think least likely to even happen usually do. And then they may even happen a lot.

Enter Liam, a man who turned out to love convincing me to do new things almost as much as I loved doing them. I had had a blissful summer with Joel and Elise, but they had since emigrated to Australia, leaving me with a bunch of overpriced camping equipment and a half-hearted promise that they’d both fuck my brains out if I ever found myself in Melbourne. I was sad to see them go. They were sad too. The camping equipment went up for sale on eBay. I bought a relationship self help book. Life went on.

When Liam and I first met, it was a blustery day. The night before, the wind had started to pick up pretty seriously, so I ran outside and quickly picked off the laundry I had hung up to dry, in case it decided to rain. I was stuffing it all into a wicker basket when I heard my phone ring. I rushed inside and forgot all about the washing. In the morning, I woke to find the wicker basket suspended in a tree, all of my clothes missing, except for one sock strewn on the patio. It was like the scene of a crime. The wind had come in the night, and made off with my laundry. Peaking into my neighbour’s garden, my suspicions were confirmed: a pair of pink pajamas lay like a dead body on his lawn. How embarrassing.

That same morning, I went around knocking on the doors of everyone in the complex to rescue my wind-stolen washing. People laughed and good-naturedly handed over an old t-shirt, a crumpled dress crusty with leaves, the other sock. I knocked on the last door of the complex, just to be thorough. I had never met the occupant, but when a good-looking guy answered, I realized he must have only recently moved in. I told my sob story about the wind and the flying laundry, like some kind of reverse travelling salesman, and he laughed. He was a good 10 years my senior, stockily built but with quick hands and light, intelligent eyes.

“Actually, I did think it was a bit strange, I found something in my flower box this morning, but …I don’t think it’s yours…?” He ducked back into the house and in a moment he was back, smiling strangely, holding something in his hands between thumb and forefinger, as though too scared to touch it.

Of course. What else were they but the very same hideous, satiny white nightmare knickers I had tried to forget about? How did they even get in the laundry pile anyway?

I turned deep red (probably) and he looked at the pair, limp like the carcass of an old fashioned angel or a strange butterfly that had died in his zinnia bushes. I snatched them from him, laughing nervously. He was obviously amused.

“Oh, so they are yours. I just …they don’t look like …I mean, no offense but they don’t seem like something a girl like you would wear…”

It was his turn to go red.

“I’m sorry, that’s stupid, I have no idea about…” he gestured to the knickers, shrugging.

We stood, staring at each other, the offending knickers hanging limply between us. I heard the wind stirring up again.

“Hey, I’ve actually just moved in here, do you want to …come in for some tea or something?”

In hindsight, this was the first thing Liam tried to convince me of. I laughed, saying, “yes, of course” and truthfully, everything from that moment got the same answer from me.

I went inside.

There was nowhere to sit. He turned his back to me and started to make some tea, his back and shoulder muscles moving visibly under the thin cotton of his shirt. Nervous as hell, I began chattering, staring at the empty space and unpacked boxes strewn everywhere. “So you’re new here? I never really spoke to the lady that lived here before you, although she looked nice. It’s two bedrooms, right? Nice. I don’t have this balcony thing in my place. I mean, I’m kind of offended now that I think about it – what’s wrong with my knickers anyway?”

I said this last bit a little too quickly, and when his eyes flashed to meet mine, I smiled back a little too awkwardly. I laughed, to show I was only joking, but this also came out awkwardly, and I looked away again. Typical. This ugly pair of panties couldn’t just exist. Oh no, it had to lead me here, to this strange guy’s apartment, where he’d probably murder me and chop me into bits or something. Or discover what a completely awkward idiot I am, which is worse.

There was nothing left in the room for me to pretend I was casually looking at. He handed me a cup of chamomile tea, fumbling for something to say, but as I reached for the cup, the tips of his fingers grazed mine and my eyes caught the flicker of a gold wedding band. All in the space of one giddy heartbeat, I knocked the tea from his hands, where it flew up, dumping its contents directly onto me. The pain was unbearable. A dark, chamomile scented wet patch was spreading down over the front of my jeans and legs, searing the skin underneath it.

“Shit!” I screamed, and began doing a little dance from one leg to the other. His eyes were wide and he stared slack jawed at my crotch.

“Oh god, oh god, I’m so sorry!” he said, panicking and looking around for a cloth to mop up the mess. By this point, I’m sure I could feel the top layers of my epidermis peeling off. I was nearly bent double – the pain didn’t seem to be stopping. My eyes prickled with hot tears.

He was dabbing helplessly now at me with a tea towel, which did precisely nothing, and I was sobbing, mentally running through a future in which I didn’t have the use of my legs anymore, when he snapped his fingers and said, “Aha! I have some ice in the freezer…”

He turned his back to me again and then, possessed by God-knows-what and unable to bear the torture anymore, I unbuttoned my jeans and tore them off my body, flinging them away. A rush of cold air came to the rescue. He turned around again, staring straight at my now pink, parboiled thighs.

“Oh,” he said.

We both stared at the pink blotch, while he nervously tried to find a place to put down the ice cubes and then figure out what to do with himself.

“Is this where I make a joke about making you wet?” he said, followed with a look of instant regret on his face.

Thank God, someone slightly more awkward than myself.

“You’re married,” I blurted out. Nope, turns out I was still the reigning queen of awkward.

He looked at his ring as though he was surprised to see it there and shrugged.

“Divorced,” he said.

I slowly took my knickers off, the rapidly cooling chamomile tea on them giving me goose bumps all over my belly. I had no idea what I was doing.

“So what do you think of these knickers then, do they meet your exacting standards?”

Where the hell did that come from? What was I thinking?

He was quiet, not looking at me or the pile of clothes I had tossed to the floor. Was I really doing this? Was I really standing half naked in some stranger’s house at 10 in the morning? Something in his face darkened. My eyes focused on a single quivering water droplet on the pad of one of his fingertips. For a moment everything was silent except for my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

“So, you’re just a little slut who goes to people’s houses and strips down?” His face was hard, serious. A flutter of panic rose in my chest. I suddenly started visualizing a future where I was cut into bits and stored in Tupperware containers, my family searching for my missing body, my ugly school photo flashing on the evening news.

“I …think I’ll just go,” I muttered, feeling as though all the air had just left the room.

“No you won’t,” he said immediately.

Silence.

Was I scared? To my alarm, I felt a desperate twinging between my legs. Did he really used to be married? Did that change anything? I had never slept with an older guy before. They had always seemed so …intimidating.

“Turn around,” he said. The words seemed to be coming from deep inside his throat.

“But …I …”

“Do it.”

I turned around immediately, placing my shaking hands on a taped up box propped against the wall. The cardboard felt so rough against my fingertips. Was my body going into shock? Did I need to go to a hospital to get burn treatment? My mind fluttered furiously. I closed my eyes, and heard him moving around behind me. I heard a ruffle and the unmistakable clink of his metal belt buckle falling to the floor.

I shuddered.

He came close, and his hands, almost as rough as the cardboard, reached around and delicately touched the tender red skin on my thighs.

“Does it hurt?” he whispered into my ear.

I exhaled, my head spinning.

Before I knew it, something immensely cold slipped over the skin there, and I yelped out. The ice. He was gliding a cube over my burnt flesh, the hot skin melting it easily, making prickling drops that slid all the way down my bare legs and puddled onto the floor. An excruciating throb radiated out from between my legs. My skin smarted, but with each stroke of the ice cube, soothing waves washed over me. The entire surface of my body seemed to tighten up, every last hair standing on edge.

With his hot breath against my ear, and the rapidly disappearing ice cube licking all over my body, each of my senses seemed blissfully overwhelmed. I couldn’t tell what was pain or pleasure anymore, whether the icy hot thrills running up and down my body were too much for me, or whether I very much wanted more. I whimpered. His fingers moved closer, and as he gently touched the ice cube against my clit, I cried out again.

The ice cube moved deeper down, and he pressed it firmly between my lips. I was streaming wet now, melting along with the ice cube and sending sticky rivers of my own all down my legs. The ice cube gone, he seamlessly slid two fingers into me, and I swear I almost felt my entire body move and pull him in deeper.

It was electric.

His other hand was resting on my clit, tracing tiny circles, while his fingers slipped silently in and out. I squirmed all around him, shuddering from cold and heat and some far more delicious feeling swirling in the centre of my belly. It was a new sensation, one that scared me a little, one that I hadn’t felt ever before.

“I have to go,” I said weakly, not meaning it for a second.

“I’m not done with you yet,” he said in the same growling voice as before, and as he did, he plunged a little deeper, pressing me open. It felt as though my entire lower body had melted into hot goo, and that I was pouring all over his hands, unable to contain myself.

The wind outside had grown stronger and was rattling at the windows.

His fingers pumped more aggressively now, and he anchored my body with his other hand. I couldn’t speak, even if I had had something to say, but I mumbled some vague protest to the wall, not really believing that his fingers could do what they were clearly doing to me.

“I’ve never done this before…” I sputtered, and it was true. I had never felt so hot, so wet and so completely at someone’s mercy.

To my surprise he spoke softly and firmly into my ear in a new voice; a gentle, caring voice, “Just relax. It’s OK. Trust me. You’re going to come soon. And when you do, I’m going to make you squirt. But you’re not going to do that just yet, ok? Not until I say.” I was so delirious with pleasure I could only nod mutely at his instruction. I relaxed deeper into the sensation. Something wet and full and luscious was growing inside me, sending shivering twitches all up and down my legs. I badly wanted to come, right there and then all over this stranger’s fingers, but I held back, and he patiently edged me closer and closer, holding my quaking body with one hand and ratcheting up my pleasure with the other.

“I want to come now,” I begged, my body about to burst.

“No. Not yet. Stay here with me. Don’t come yet.”

“Please,” I said and felt my body shuddering with the effort.

Before the word was completely out my mouth I felt his fingers pull out of me and in a split second he rammed his cock where they had been. It was so astonishingly quick, that I gasped silently and arched my back. My body clenched around him, and the growing ache reached fever pitch. A cascade of pleasure rushed over me. I felt as though I was unimaginably high on the apex of a roller coaster, pausing there for a second to gaze down at the long, long way I was going to fall… my heart stopped and stars twinkled and buzzed behind my eyelids. He breathed hard into my neck.

“Come for me,” he said.

I didn’t need any more encouragement.

With a single, very deep thrust he plunged me over the abyss, and everything that I had been holding onto slipped away in one rushing, blissful flood. He yanked his cock out and gripped my body firmly as I shook. To my amazement, torrents of liquid were gushing out from me, spraying him, my legs, the floor… I held onto him tightly, all of my body convulsing from its very core, the liquid never seeming to end. Every muscle cried out and pulsed, and my body rocked with an orgasm that threatened to break me apart.

I stood with his arms wrapped around me, panting. I felt emptied out; my entire body limp with the release of the most thrilling tension. He held me there, still pinned to the wall. I glanced behind me and saw his stiff cock, doused in a thick sheen of the same liquid, the flat of his belly glistening.

“Good girl” he said playfully, and slapped my ass.

I nearly laughed out loud. We both collapsed onto the floor, me more exhausted than I had ever been in my life.

“Wow …I’ve never …I didn’t know …I …” I stammered, trying to compose myself, to make sense of what had just happened.

“Shh!” he said, kissing me sweetly and smiling. “I bet you’ve forgotten about your burn, haven’t you?”

I lay back and closed my eyes, body still buzzing. It was though some new corridor of pleasure had opened up inside me, and I had come with every last atom of my body, hard, from the top of my head to my now wet toes. Floods of peaceful bliss washed over me. The wind outside sounded rough and dangerous, but inside I was warm and gooey and happy. I giggled.

“Looks like we’ll need another towel” I said.

He jumped up, looking for one, careful to avoid the previous puddle of chamomile tea.

“This place is a mess. Can I, uh, make you a proper cup of tea now? And where are those horrible knickers of yours?” he said.

“That’s weird. I swear I just saw them over here …it seems we’ve lost them…”

* * *

“Oh, Michelle, could you please see me after class today?” he said.

Words, they taught us in my Beginner’s Creative Writing Class for Adults, have meaning. Sometimes, some words can even have many meanings, and when you’re anxious like me, you learn how to read every possible meaning of every possible word.

I know everything there is to know about words. I know how to tell people off for using future perfect continuous tense incorrectly, I know the etymology of the word “mutilate”, and I know how to spell bureaucracy without cheating. I know that “I’m sorry” can sometimes mean “I hate you”, and “marry me” can sometimes mean “I give up.” It’s all in the context, you see, which is another thing my Beginner’s Creative Writing Class tells me.

“You’re reading too much into things” my exasperated friends tell me almost daily, but no, you can never read too much, into things or out of them, and when Mr. Cain asked to see me after class, well, there’s a whole universe of things that that could mean.

“Sure, no problem.” I said.

Mr. Cain smiled and nodded once, then continued nagging the corner of an old book that was resting in his lap.

If you look closely enough, there are words in everything. Take Mr. Cain for instance. His bleached white collared shirt says “yes sir” but his hairy forearms and five-day stubble say, “I’m a modern-day Hemingway, stand back while I engage in ennui and self-inflicted but romantic alcoholism.”

Maybe you think I have a crush on Mr. Cain. Well, so what if I do? It’s practically unavoidable at this point. There’s fate, and then there’s something even stronger: narrative necessity. I simply had to have a crush on him, you see. I was the plucky but maladjusted loner and he was the brooding and artsy teacher-type who was going to seduce me and awaken my inner slut. Tale as old as time.

He was crinkling up his eyebrows at the book, as though this would help him squeeze out more insight from the words on their pages.

“What makes this passage so visceral, though? What really jumps out at you?” he asked the class.

Mousy Linda cleared her throat and said, “The author is speaking to all five of our senses. She talks about the smell of the soil, the feeling of the air …so it’s all about, like, the body…”

She trailed off as Mr. Cain turned his grizzled gaze to her. It was pretty clear to me that poor Linda was totally not the heroine of this story.

“Right…” he said, gesturing for her to continue. “But what else? Take that further. Let’s develop that idea.”

Linda withered a little more. Nobody raised their hands.

“I think,” I say into the quiet room, “that she wants to show in this piece that the body is speaking. That the conversation is carrying on, but the message is now transmitted through the body itself. Words can have lots of different meanings, but in this passage she’s not interested in words anymore, she wants to show the body, as it is.”

Mr. Cain stops nagging the corner of the page and looks at me. He nods just once.

“Yes, I like that. The body as text. Good.” He nods again and changes his tone, looking back into the pages. “It’s certainly a common interpretation, but thank you for that, Michelle.”

Common? I look down at my arm resting stupidly on my lap. Common. Somewhere around last year, I had decided not to cover up my scars anymore. Yes, I know, self-harm is very 1990, but I was doing Troubled Teenager long before anyone else, I promise, and now there was nothing to do but own the many pale scar lines climbing all the way up my arm …especially when it got as hot as it was today.

I traced a finger over them; they were old calibrations from a time past when I measured my pain in a very different way. When I had ratcheted up all the way to the end of my arm, and had no more room to go, I had had to change my instrument. These days, I tried to use words to cut, instead. Words are sharper, and the wounds they leave sometimes never heal. Though everyone is happy I am 10lbs heavier and significantly less cut up (ha ha!) than I was before. The truth is, nobody knew just how truly lacerating some of the words I used on myself every day were. My body also spoke, except it said “broken” and “dirty” most of the time.

When Mr. Cain said the words “common interpretation,” I had quietly felt the word “stupid” cut into me a little, like a tiny sword. I sat in silence for the rest of the lesson, smarting. The hour drew to a close and I thought about saying something nasty about Linda’s cardigan, then thought better of it.

What on earth did Mr. Cain want to talk to me about? Having a crush on him suddenly started to seem a little inconvenient.

If I had a dollar for every time some angsty child came into my class and tried to impress everyone with her Tumblr poetry …well, I wouldn’t have to teach some dead-end writing class for extra cash in the first place.

The trouble with students like Michelle is that they’re desperately immature – and completely unaware of the fact.

Michelle was a thoughtful, subtle writer and created strikingly refined characters in class …but she was also twenty one years old. And no amount of talent could change that fact.

I’ve been writing for years. The old Middle School style melodrama and overwrought dialogue? It was a good thing she was pretty, because there was no way I would put up with that shit if she were otherwise. Michelle played the disturbed waif particularly well, but to be honest it didn’t quite suit her. She was too voluptuous underneath her ratty black clothes. Too robust. Her skin was a little too rosy looking, despite how bitchy she sometimes was to the other students, or how insulted she felt when I gave her a less than brilliant grade for one of her compositions.

I looked down at her assignment in my lap, and my “C” looped round with a big red ring. In hindsight, this wasn’t an entirely fair grade to give he. At the time, I thought it my duty, as an older man, to point out her haughtiness, bring her down a peg or two and truly help her with her writing. I had no idea that within a matter of a few months it would be her showing me a thing or two about writing …but I’ll get to that in a moment. At that point, was I inventing excuses to talk to her alone? I couldn’t say. But I was her senior (by a hell of a lot) and her teacher.

Did I have a crush on her? Well, that’s entirely beside the point. She dutifully stayed behind class and I noticed she was wearing, as usual, an outfit of only black and some junky Goth jewelry. She smelled like lilacs.

“Michelle, thanks for staying. I …wanted to discuss this short story you submitted last week,” I said, relishing the tension this seemed to create. I stroked my beard contemplatively, deciding this would heighten the drama a little, too.

“Oh?” she said.

“It’s an unusual choice …erotica,” I said, hating that she had made me say the word.

She looked out of the window. I was struck anew by how incredibly young she looked. The lower curve of a surprisingly full breast pulled at the cotton of her shirt, but she was sitting bunched up, tucking her body away. In all my years teaching this class, no student had had the guts to voluntarily submit something like this. It felt like a cry for help. Or a massive “fuck you” …I wasn’t sure which.

“It’s …well, it’s brave, I’ll say that much.”

She flashed her dark brown eyes over at mine and then out towards the window again, ignoring me and looking very much like she was sulking. I felt like a pervy headmaster who had called in a naughty student and we were in the first few scenes of a low-budget porno. Jesus, I hated this dynamic.

“Would you like to share why you decided to go with this topic? I’d really like to understand the reasoning behind this story.”

I suddenly felt like a school counselor instead. I felt a headache coming on.

She pouted a little, and kept ignoring me, with that teenage audacity that thinks any disagreement is proof that the person simply can’t “handle them.” I was getting irritated.

She finally spoke, flicking a slice of dyed black hair out of her eyes.

“You told us in the beginning of the class that we were here to express ourselves, and that there were no rules. So, I wrote what I wanted to.”

I bet, in her mind, she thought she had really showed me. How could I tell her that her juvenile scratchings had in fact embarrassed me, but not for the reasons she thought? Fine, the kid gloves, if you’ll pardon the expression, were off. We were here to learn, after all. If I weren’t hard on my students, they’d never learn anything.

I exhaled loudly and tried to seem as bored as possible. “Well, I’ve made quite a few suggestions and corrections, especially to this second bit over here. You switch tense a lot, but don’t worry, that’s a pretty common mistake to make, especially as a beginner. Plus, I’m not really sure you understand the meaning of the word “portentious,” maybe look that up when you get home. I’ve made some other suggestions at the end here…”

Girls like Michelle have one-trick-pony identities. Getting away with things because she was a hot girl who nobody “understood” just wasn’t going to fly in my class. This wasn’t a game to me. And I didn’t take kindly to girls who submitted nasty diary entries and called it art. Nope, she was going to have to try a lot harder than that.

She flushed a peculiar shade of red and looked as though she was about to argue back with me, but bit her tongue. She quickly took the assignment from me and stuffed it into her bag, then mumbled something and left.

She had beautiful eyes and almost mind-numbingly distracting breasts, it was true. But she was a mediocre writer. If she wanted to impress me, she had to do a hell of a lot better than that.

I wanted to tear that stupid assignment into a million pieces. The word “common” was still ringing in my ears. I had to be honest: I did not expect that reaction. I mean, I expected he’d want to have a word with me about what I’d written – that was kind of the point – but I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t foresee that he would go on about my tenses or vocab after …well, after all the things I wrote.

I’m not sure why I was compelled, right at that moment, to open my laptop and start writing again. I was dog tired, it was late and I needed to get up early tomorrow for work, but it didn’t matter. I furiously tapped the keyboard.

“The Teacher and the Taught” appeared at the top of the page. Good. What did he know anyway? I’d show him. Not only would I get the technical details perfectly correct, I would make the story even more outrageous. I looked again at the screen. Too obvious. I backspaced it all and wrote instead, “All of Me, Twisted.” There, it had a nice ring to it. I’m no idiot. I know exactly where his eyes had been roaming as we sat alone in the classroom that afternoon, nothing but my filthy piece of writing between us. I know it, and he knows that I know it.

It might have been my imagination, but there was something different about Michelle by the time the next class rolled around. Her clothing was tighter, and there seemed to be less of it. Or was I just imagining things? Maybe I had been a little too hard on her. Maybe I didn’t need to be quite so brutal with the red pen. She was so young, after all. I have to admit I was curious to see what she would come up with as her second draft.

We sat in our usual circle, and the students settled in. We started, as we did with every lesson every week, by having each person read out loud a section of a piece they were working on. We’d then take turns to weigh in, giving some feedback on flow, on word choice. True, it was sometimes cringe-inducing, but I wanted every student of mine to know that to create art was to be vulnerable, to be exposed. It wasn’t always pleasant to be criticized.

Linda read a paragraph from her Victorian memoir-style piece – a snooze for all involved but she was fairly competent when it came to describing crinolines and provincial dramas, so I couldn’t fault her much. The guy sitting next to her said his piece and the dutiful students took turns offering feedback. Then it was Michelle’s turn.

She opened a folder she had resting on her lap and retrieved a crisp sheet of printed paper. She started to read; it was a short horror story she had started at the beginning of the course, one with a suspiciously sulky heroin and an outbreak of contagion in a small town. As she read, her dark hair fell in a curtain over her eyes, and at the end of each sentence she paused and inhaled, her ample chest rising and falling softly in the slightly-too-small bodice of her black dress.

Should I say I wanted to speak to her again after this class? Why not? She’d have to obey me. I could whip out my red pen again and scribble even more corrections all over it, just because I could, just to see her squirm. I quickly stopped this train of thought. Why was I letting her get to me like this? I’ve made my mistakes in life, sure, but if there’s one thing I don’t do, it’s let girls like this get to me. She had tried to get a rise out of me with that ridiculous story she submitted. Well, if she wanted to play that game…

“Michelle, I think you’ve shown us that you have that piece pretty well-covered.”

She stopped reading and stared at me, a little surprised. A fake garnet ring glistened on her finger.

“Since we don’t have that much time today, why don’t you share that other piece with the class and we can give you feedback on that instead?”

The color seemed to vanish from her already white face as her panicked eyes locked on mine.

“The other piece, you know the one,” I said with careful indifference.

Her lower lip seemed to tremble visibly. Where she had been cocky a moment before, now she seemed smaller, incredibly vulnerable. In a flash, I felt horrible for being so cruel to her …but then again, I had the feeling she didn’t quite mind it.

“Um… which other piece? This is the only one I…” she began but I loudly cut her off, “Yes, the other piece you’re working on, the erotica piece” I said with emphasis.

These words had a powerful effect on the other students, who all turned to her now with a renewed intensity. She swallowed hard, then pulled another sheet of paper from the folder, the look of horror on her face slowly hardening and becoming defiance.

“Ok, sure,” she said, trying to match my casual tone.

For a few moments, the air was as silent and heavy as it had ever been in that room. In a pitiful voice and with all the confidence she could muster, she began reading the opening paragraph of her piece. I sat back in my chair, secretly thrilled that I had dominated her so easily. I hated being manipulated, but if she wanted to play at this game, well, then I would call her bluff.

It was as though every inch of my skin had caught fire. I was blushing so hard I thought I might faint – was he really going to make me do this? Why? You know, I can appreciate a good story. I can see the irony – I had wanted to make him a little uncomfortable with this story, to shock him, and now he was throwing it back in my face. Every word, I soon realized, had probably been written with him in mind, and those same words were now coming out my mouth, here, in front of all the other students, and I felt like I wanted to peel off my burning skin and run away from it forever.

How dare he?

I had done the same thing to my High School English teacher. I had submitted a “creative writing” piece dripping with expletives and graphic descriptions of all the many, many ways a tempting young Lolita character could seduce and ruin a married man. I had detailed the maddening allure of her forbidden pussy, the way she teased, asking to be put in her place, half daring, half begging to be disciplined for her behavior. And when I breezily dropped that paper onto his desk, I knew without a doubt that I had him on a string for the rest of the school year. He didn’t need to know that I was still technically a virgin, or that I would never in a million years do anything like that …but the control thrilled me nonetheless.

I had half expected the same easy reaction with Mr. Cain, yet here I was, looking like an idiot. I had always relished the idea of being “punished” …but this wasn’t quite what I had in mind. There was nothing I could do. I had to read it.

I worked my way through the first awkward paragraph. It was, I realized, a very similar story of temptation and debauchery. Maybe I was the predictable one?

“He threw her mercilessly against the bed, standing over her for a moment, making sure she understood that she was completely, utterly at his mercy. Slowly, he pulled off his leather belt, one loop after the other, and stood tall; letting it hang at his feet like a weapon, buckle wrapped firmly in his fist. Every part of her body pulsed with anticipation…”

I looked up, inwardly cringing, every student hanging onto my words with a mix of panic and amused fascination.

“Don’t stop,” Mr. Cain, said. He knew what was coming next in the story. And all at once I understood what was happening. This wasn’t embarrassing to him at all. Oh no. In fact, he liked it. He wanted to see me humiliated and exposed like this. I stared at him, disbelieving. I had totally underestimated him. Good move, sir. But now it was my move.

I cleared my throat and returned my gaze to the page, paragraphs crammed full of “cock” and “cunt” and other words that seemed that they would be further gasoline to my burning skin just to utter them. But I flicked my hair from my face, sat up straight and spoke clearly. I barged through the next few lines; not only did I not avoid the filthy parts, but I emphasized them, holding each dirty word a little longer on my tongue, relishing the descriptions, taking my time to describe the heroine’s swollen, glistening hole, the hero’s throbbing cock, the sweaty abs, the moans, the grunts.

Some of the students were giggling under their breath. Others were stunned into silence. The more I read, the more gloriously I felt that I just didn’t give a damn. In the final paragraph, the heroine is roughly bent over a boudoir stool and is begging for mercy, begging the hero to fuck her senseless, or not to, depending on how you interpreted it.

“Two hot, wet tears rolled down each of her cheeks. Her wrists burning in their restraints and her legs spread wide to him, she choked back a sob and pleaded, ‘be gentle.’ But at that moment he took his enormous -”

“Ok, that’s enough, let’s stop there,” Mr. Cain burst in suddenly.

“You want me to stop?” I said, teasingly.

“Yes, I think we’ve heard enough,” he said. The color dropped entirely from his cheeks.

“But I haven’t gotten to the good part yet. The part where he fucks her in the ass.”

His face had the expression of someone who had just been slapped. All eyes were now on him, waiting to see what he could possibly respond to this.

“Ok, but I think we do have some idea now of…”

“No, it’s OK, I want to,” I said easily. “After all, it’s this part that I was having really trouble with.”

With an electrifying realization, I noticed a fat bulge in his pants. Ah, so that’s where all the blood went. I was on a role. I had no idea where I had found the courage, but here I was, turning the tables on him, and it felt fantastic.

“It’s just that I find that writing these kinds of scenes can just be so ...” I flickered my gaze teasingly over his crotch. “So … hard, you know?”

Something like anger was simmering on his face.

“Unless of course the other students don’t want me to continue reading…?” I asked, the biggest hurdle of audacity already overcome. When the class offered only feeble nods and shrugs, I carried on reading, gleefully.

With each word, Mr. Cain grew more visibly shaken. He was holding a notebook on his lap so tightly his knuckles had gone white, but I knew what was going on beneath it. I knew, and I loved it. The heroine in my story was fucked within an inch of her life, and I paced luxuriously through the tale, savoring every last drop and morsel. By the time I reached the end of my sordid tale, my protagonist lying cum-splattered and crumpled over a chair, the mood in the class had completely changed – probably forever.

I spoke the last word, returned the sheet to the folder, closed it gently and crossed my hands over my lap like a good little schoolgirl. There.

The tension in the class had swollen, risen along with the story and was now released, but the students were thoroughly rattled and had turned their shocked faces to Mr. Cain, somehow sensing that more than one line had been crossed today, and wondering what he was going to do about it.

He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat awkwardly.

“Yes, well. You see, the trouble with this sort of thing… what you have to remember, Michelle, what you have to keep in mind… it’s kind of a delicate balancing act with the tension, you know… and the tension in this piece…”

He trailed off, the irony of tension not being lost on him or the students. He angrily glanced at his watch. We still had fifteen minutes to go.

“Ok. Well. We don’t have much time left so let’s just call it a day today and I’m sure we’ll all have some feedback for Michelle’s piece next week…”

I had the feeling he was trying to say that it was “common” but with a little triumphant flutter I realized he wouldn’t dare. Not now.

“I do think, Michelle, that you should come and see me after class, though,” he said.

My entire face was prickling with anger. This whole thing had gone on too far. I should have been the adult in this situation. I should have nipped this whole thing in the bud. Dirty slut, I thought, and instantly regretted it. But there was no denying it. She was sexy, she was talented …and she was absolutely toying with me. I hadn’t for a second believed she would follow my bluff, but she had done it easily, and made me look like a fool in my own classroom.

Without thinking, I had asked to see her after class, but realized with horror that it may have come across as a pleading invitation rather than an admonishment. But was it an invitation? I put the thought out of my mind. Little harlots like Michelle may have the upper hand in shock value, sure, but this wasn’t my first rodeo, and if she was going to be arrogant, well, I had full liberty to penalize her harshly till she understood: I don’t allow girls like her get the best of me. Never.

The class had cleared off, most of them barely waiting till they had reached the door to burst into excited chatter about what the hell they had just witnessed. Inside the class, though, I had bigger problems. Michelle sat in front of me, upright and self satisfied as a queen who’s just laid waste to barbarian lands. She said nothing. She didn’t have to.

“That’s quite the stunt you just pulled,” I said, in my harshest voice.

She feigned a look of surprise.

“Stunt? But you asked me to read that story…”

“Don’t interrupt,” I snapped.

She shrunk back a little.

“That story is absolutely, completely inappropriate for this class. That’s obvious. We’re here as a class to learn about composition, to learn about the mechanics of writing…”

“Was there something wrong with my tenses again?” she asked, in a voice so sickly sweet I wondered if she really thought I was buying it.

“No, no, not at all, the writing’s fine …it’s actually quite good…” I began but then realized I had lost my opportunity to humiliate her by claiming her grammar was faulty.

“So then what’s the problem?” she asked.

Her big wet eyes stared plainly at me, and she clutched her folder to her chest, pressing together her plump, white breasts. Could she see that she was turning me on? The thought made me irrationally angry.

“The problem is your writing …it just lacks pacing. It lacks restraint.” My mind snagged on the word “restraint.” All at once, an image of her flashed into my mind, one where she was the heroine of her own story, tied up, splayed on a chair, legs spread wide open… is that what she wanted? Is that what all of this was about?

“Without any restraint, the story just happens all at once. You need to let things develop slowly. To build tension. And the title. “All of me, twisted” is just… it’s just so clichéd, you know? It sounds like a country song or something. There’s just no building up. You just jump right into the sex, without laying the stage, without setting up the stakes.”

I felt more comfortable now in my old role as know-it-all teacher, patiently asserting my superior knowledge, guiding her out of her amateurish ignorance. The trouble was, it was all bullshit. Her story was remarkably paced, and the tension was perfect. This, too, made me irrationally angry.

“So… there’s not enough tension?” she said, looking a little confused.

“Nope.”

“I need to build things up more slowly?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

She looked away for a while, with eyes that looked as though they were brewing something. She briskly got up from her chair and set the folder to one side. Absentmindedly, as though she was doing nothing more than thinking about what she would have for dinner, she sauntered over to one corner of the room, where my desk was. Slowly, she put one palm and then the other onto the table surface, then leant backwards, giving her ass a little wiggle.

“So, when my main character is standing like this, waiting, I should make sure the guy just doesn’t come over and fuck her immediately?” her eyes twinkled.

It seemed like she had said “fuck” a million times in the last hour alone, and yet the word still had some electricity in it. I said nothing.

“I guess I should make it so that she really begs for it, really has to wait and wait …and wait…” She arched her back and dropped her head loosely forward, letting her dark soft hair fall softly between her hands.

The air thrummed.

After what seemed like eons she spoke again, “You’re right of course, I guess I get impatient. I see the whole story in my head and I just want it to get to the juicy bits already, you know? But …tension…” she said, now rolling a pen up and down the length of the desk with one coquettish finger.

I couldn’t let her know about the almost painful ache in my pants, and the feeling that if I budged as much as an inch I would explode right there and then. I opened my mouth to speak, to say something smart and reasonable and moderate, something that would let her know that I was still in charge here, and she was just a silly girl playing with things she didn’t really underst--

“Tension!” she said in a theatrical voice, interrupting my thoughts. “In my story, I just want them to have sex, and lots of it. But you’re right, that doesn’t make sense. So, for example, if it was I writing this story,” she gestured loosely to the air between us, “then we would be having sex already. I’d be over there on the table, already halfway to my second orgasm by now. But what do I know? That’s why I’m in your class, right? To be taught…”

I sat mute, watching. She seemed to be enjoying herself. She was tiptoeing a very, very fine line and knew it. She really was a master of pacing, I thought, and inwardly thanked myself for creating such a competent student.

“Instead, I have to think of a way to introduce more tension. To show the reader what the stakes really are. They want it, but they can’t have it,” she said dreamily, talking to some distant point outside the window. “The characters in my story, I mean, not you and I,” she smiled, flashing a teasing glance at me.

She turned away from the desk and sidled over to me. In the same way that honey pours from the jar almost unbearably slowly in the beginning, but then falls all at once in one heavy, luscious blob, she slid up to me slowly and then all at once was standing close, really close, so close that I swear I could hear the silky rasp of her breathing.

“So I’ll change my story. I’ll have them get close to it, you know. Really close. But they won’t fuck this time.” The word zinged again; something about the way it sat in her little mouth meant it never grew stale, always sounded shocking, unexpected. Her heavy eyes were even darker close up, and so liquid they seemed to reflect every last scrap of light in the room. Her hair smelled musky; the tiny links of a silver chain rolled over her delicate collarbones as she spoke. She had an almost old fashioned build; the kind of over-the-top feminine hourglass that made old-school cartoon characters turn into wolves with tongues that unroll to the floor. Her breasts really were uncommonly full and heavy, and seemed all the sexier for being paired with a sweet, innocent face that seemed unaware of the effect of all the voluptuousness below. Why was she hiding such a beautiful body in such ghastly clothing?

“Maybe the girl will lean in really close, like this…” she began, moving her face right up to mine. She parted her lips. I could hear her breathing stop, along with everything else in the universe, except the throbbing in my lap.

“…And she could do something like take his hand like this…” she reached haltingly to my lap and grasped my hand. Almost hypnotized, I didn’t resist. Gently, she closed her fingers around my wrist and pulled the hand closer to her.

“…And he could touch her, you know? Just a little. Just to build the…” here, she cautiously placed my hand between her legs, nothing but the thin black cotton of her dress between my fingertips. She paused it there, waiting to see the effect this would have on me, her deep eyes still fixed staring at mine.

“Just to build the uh… the tension,” she exhaled and pressed my fingertips further against her body. “And he’d want to touch her so badly, you know? He’d be just dying to really touch her. By this point she’s soaking wet …but he doesn’t know that yet.” She smiled. “He’s wondering if she’ll let him… let him…”

My head was spinning. This was wrong. Disgusting, even. At any point, any one of the other students could come barging in and I was sitting here, rock hard with one hand on my student’s crotch. There was no coming back from this now. She was tiny, easily half my size; I could grab her right now, and fling her onto the table, and fuck her so hard she would never think of teasing me like this again. So what was stopping me? Was she really so sure I wouldn’t?

Suddenly, she stepped back and tossed my hand aside. Her entire attitude changed. “But nope, they won’t do anything. Not yet. Nope. Because of tension.”

I was stunned. She pretended to pick some lint off her skirt and cracked her neck from side to side like a villain in a mafia movie. She grabbed her folder from the chair and gave me a glancing look before moving for the door. “You’re a good teacher you know,” she tossed her hair flippantly, “You’ve taught me so much already. Later!”

Before I knew it she had left, slamming the door behind her. My dick throbbed in my pants. Bitch. I was going to teach her a lesson, all right.

I had never felt so turned on in all my life. I raced home, drunk on my own brazenness, feeling sure that the people I passed in the street could see straight into my depraved soul, could somehow sense how soaking wet my panties were and how fast my thoughts were flickering from one dirty possibility to the next.

What had I done?

I hate being challenged. I hate when people underestimate me. Let’s call it a character flaw. But I was in hot water now. Now, I was committed. As I walked through my front door, the realization hit me like a ton of bricks: this was going to happen. Soon. Somewhere in my future I was going to let my Creative Writing teacher do very, very bad things to me. And now it was just a matter of time, a matter of playing it cool in these intervening moments.

Should I submit another story? Would he ask to see me again? Did the other students think I was a raging slut? I realized that their disapproval only seemed to add to the thrill of it. It was glorious. No longer was I just writing about these things, I was living them. He was right – words do have power. And the body can speak. And mine was saying, “more.”

The next class, I felt close to fainting, like some kind of maiden with a heaving bosom in a bodice-ripper. Mr. Cain acted like nothing had even happened. He was so bland and dismissive I almost doubted my entire memory of the class before. This, together with how painfully boring Linda’s piece was (even by her standards) and I was starting to lose hope as the end of the class approached. Maybe I had just embarrassed myself. Had I worn this tight little skirt for nothing? Had I agonized over which exact bra to wear just to go home and take it off again?

When it was my turn, I carried on with a reading from my short horror story, which seemed uninteresting to the other students in comparison to what had already passed; I couldn’t drum up any enthusiasm for it either. But as the hour petered out and everyone started to pack away their books and disperse, Mr. Cain cleared his throat and said to nobody in particular, “Michelle, could you please stay after class for a moment, please?”

In that split second, my entire body pulsed with an “oh god yes!” but on the surface, I tried to feign indifference and only muttered, “sure,” also to nobody in particular. He nodded once and the other students floated off.

As the last student left the classroom, he still had his back to me, fussing with some papers on the desk – that desk that I couldn’t look at anymore without my mind wandering. I sat deathly still in my chair, trying to will my heartbeat to calm down. Clasped in my lap was a new and updated story, longer by 2000 words and overflowing with tension, among other things.

Late into the night before, I had slaved on a new version of the story, one where the girl teases, and teases, and teases… She pushes too far, and she gets “punished”, her young body bearing the brunt of her sexual hubris, like some whore-ish character in a Greek tragedy. In other words, it was an amateurish hot mess. But, as they say, know your audience. I wanted Mr. Cain to read himself in those pages. And me. I loved the feeling of control I had over him, how I had immobilized him in his seat with just a look, just a suggestion. It was a power I was just feeling out the corners of; a power I did not intend to use wisely that day.

But something about the way he kept his back to me now was making me nervous. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, waiting. What was he doing? Should I say something?

“You’ve written another draft of your story?” he said, still not turning to face me.

I waited as long as I could before replying. “Yes.”

“Read it to me.”

The force in his voice sent happy tingles all over my body.

I waited again, not wanting to lose this moment yet, this sweet moment where anything could happen. I examined my fingernails with feigned boredom.

“Make me,” I said.

Slowly, he turned to look at me with something like a smirk on his face. His serious demeanor from the class was entirely gone, replaced with something much rougher, something I didn’t quite recognize.

“What did you say?”

He took a step towards me. He was genuinely surprised. I loved feeling that I had overstepped his boundaries. Loved the feeling that I could puncture his self-assured exterior and really shake him. I loved the feeling that this was all very, very wrong. Twisted, even.

“I said, if you want me to do anything, you’ll have to make me.”

I was proud of how womanly my voice sounded, and how firm. But inside, I was nothing but hot jelly, and if he had touched me at that moment I’m sure I would have exploded into a million pieces.

He riveted his eyes to mine, and they were two hard drills, boring deep into the core of me, challenging me.

“Ok,” he said, and before the word had left his lips he lunged towards me and snatched the folder from my grasp, flinging it in one smooth movement to the ground. The papers inside scattered onto the floor, the “All of me, twisted” title spinning across the polished floor. My useless hands still hovered in front of me, the rest of my body frozen in terror.

He turned to me and took one slow, searing glance all over my entire body. Could he tell that every part of me was humming and snapping with electricity …or was it fear? The thrilling rush moving all over the surface of my skin spoke so quickly I couldn’t tell whether it was oh god yes or just oh god. He stood in front of me, my eyes level with his belt and lightly freckled forearms hanging down loosely.

“Stand up. Or, if you like, I can make you stand up,” he said in a voice like iron.

Instinctively, I obeyed. I tried to look at his face, but it was as though there was a force field preventing me from meeting his eyes. I shuddered.

“Look at me.”

I looked. He returned a gaze so hard and penetrating that I turned away again, embarrassed by how much it embarrassed me.

“Take off your shirt” he said, easily. With shaking fingers, I worked each button, feeling as though his laser-like gaze was the reason for how hot I suddenly felt. With a nervous shrug, I let the shirt slip to the ground. The scars along my arms were exposed, but they seemed so faint now, nothing but pale ghosts from the past.

“And your bra,” he continued, and I did as I was told. The cool air on my breasts sent goosebumps all down along my back. With my gaze glued to the floor and a thick shield of hair hiding my face, I still felt his eyes crawling over every inch of me.

He grabbed my wrist and twisted me around, and in a second he had unzipped the back of my skirt and I felt the flimsy material flutter down over my legs and to the ground to join the rest of my modesty. Placing one heavy hand on my hip, he seemed to be sizing me up. I felt the warm air of his breath over my back as he caressed carefully, first one cheek and then the next.

“Go and pick up your story, now, and read it to me” he said, and his words were beginning to sound hypnotic. I stepped out of my clothes and went to the corner of the room where the papers had crumpled, completely naked but for my panties, and slowly bent over to pick them up. I gave him a full, slow view of my butt as my knees bent, briefly touched the floor and bounced back up again. I felt him watching.

Placing a page on the desk, back still to him, I started to read. I was desperately trying to conceal my shaking voice, feeling more exposed than I ever had in my life, and yet somehow relishing the sensation. I wanted him to see me. All of me. Twisted. I had gone no further than a few sentences before he stopped me harshly, “Don’t read that. You know what I want to hear.”

I took a deep breath and found the paragraph I knew he wanted. I wanted it too. In a faltering voice, I instead began reading about the heroine splayed open on the chair, legs spread, the hero violating her completely. As I read, I felt every last sliver of my resistance slipping away, till my mind had warmed to the idea.

From the very moment I had written those words, I had secretly wanted them all to come true, but it was only here, naked in front of him, reading them out loud that I truly realized with a deep, painful ache throughout my entire body that I wanted this. I wanted it badly.

Some part of myself had led me to this twisted moment, even though I myself wasn’t aware of it at the time. The realization of what was going to happen next sent a single bead of wetness rolling down the inside of my thigh. I was screaming on the inside. I reached the end of the paragraph, and let the silence close all around me; the words I had just spoken hanging in the air like an incantation that had conjured this dark, twisted moment.

“Is this how you want the story to go?” he asked. I could hear him breathing.

I nodded mutely, without looking at him.

“Then put your hands on the desk again.”

I did, and gingerly raised my rear into the air as I had done in the class before. But this time, the stakes were much, much higher. This time, I had skin in the game. I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on each of the sounds behind me – the rustle of fabric moving against warm skin, the sound of him unzipping his trousers, of his steps coming closer towards me.

Again, he placed a full hand against my ass cheek, holding it there as though to pin me down. I relaxed forward and let my forearms fall onto the table, exposing the most vulnerable parts of my body to him. I felt the hard tip of his cock gently touch the opening of my pussy, and wait there. It was a question, a suggestion, but he already knew that every part of me was responding yes; I squirmed with anticipation – I didn’t just want the tip, I wanted all of it.

But to my waggling hips, he only said, “That’s what you want? Hm. But that’s not how the story goes, does it?”

Oh, I knew how the story went all right.

I swiveled my head to see him easily thrust the length of his thick thumb into my pussy, right to the knuckle, and I arched my back in response. His dick bobbed menacingly against my ass, tracing wet trails on the skin there. I had never been so turned on in my life, and from so little. He slipped his thumb out again and dragged the moisture it had gathered slowly upwards, tracing a sticky line, anointing my ass with my own wetness. Just like that, he was a magician who had transferred the thrilling heat in my pussy to this other new, forbidden part of my body. A delicious warmth spread out over me. Nobody had ever touched me like that before.

Resting the pad of his thumb there for a moment, he then began to press tiny, insistent circles round my tight hole.

“But I’m scared,” I said, surprising even myself with how unguarded I sounded.

“I know,” he said after a pause, and resumed rolling and pressing. The warmth spread.

I pressed my cheek hard against the wood of the table and clenched my fists. I felt so small. Helpless.

I loved it.

“Is it going to hurt?” I asked, deliberately trying out my best damsel-in-distress voice. He took his time before answering; lovingly stroking my ass, as if doing so would help him figure out the answer.

“Hurt? Oh yes. It will hurt. A lot.”

My pussy pulsed around his thumb, and he smiled quietly at this, picking up the pace.

“But we’re going to stay true to the story. Don’t worry, if you don’t do it, I’ll just make you.”

Another pulse. With each passing moment, each stroke, he seemed to be bewitching my body, coaxing something dark and secret inside me to open up to him.

His cock was again between my ass cheeks, and now he took his time gliding the length of it all the way up, and all the way down again. And with each trip down, just as I was sure the swollen tip would catch and enter me, he pulled away and stroked once more, slowly, up and then slowly down again. The ache in my pussy was becoming unbearable – I reached around to touch my clit, but he swiftly slapped away my hands and then, on thinking about it for a moment, he grabbed both my small wrists in his left hand and pinned them against my lower back, the right hand still anchored against my butt, his dick sliding and teasing slowly up …and then slowly down again.

“Tension, Michelle,” he muttered, and pressed the weight of his body fully against mine. The feeling of his balls pressing into me was the only delicious relief I had; with my hands now pinned, I had to push my clit back against his body to soothe the infuriating pressure there. I needed the touch of his belly, something, anything. He playfully backed away, teasing me.

“That’s what you want?” he said, and positioned the tip of his hot cock against the quivering opening of my ass, sinking just the tiniest length into me. I gasped and melted into a wash of goosebumps.

“…Then come and get it.”

In those dizzying moments, my body was a whirring engine, rapidly working under wave after wave of pain, transmuting each thrill into deep, shuddering pleasure. He waited, sensing how I needed to adjust my body to him, around him.

My clit was longing again to be close to his body, to make contact with him and anchor myself against the waves. My elbows were beginning to hurt against the hard table. My feet were numb, a universe away.

“Come,” he said again, beckoning, but the moment I tried again to lean back into him, was the moment I became aware of the full heft of his cock blocking my path, finding only resistance in my overwhelmed ass.

All at once I understood. Tension. Every fiber in my body wanted to move closer and relieve my poor aching clit …but it came at a price. I took a deep breath, trying to gather myself. Sensing this, he leaned forward and showered my back with a sprinkling of soft kisses, kisses which seemed even more tender given that I was simultaneously impaled on his rock hard dick.

“Don’t rush. Remember, you don’t have to do it all at once. Go slow with me,” he whispered into my ear. His gentleness seemed to relax me, and I opened further to him, my body thrumming in this new altered dimension of pleasure, of how utterly filthy it was to be fucked like this, here, by him. I wanted his body to change mine, to reshape me. I wanted the pain.

Tossing my head back, I edged back a few millimeters, taking more of him into my body. It was though the corresponding amount of air was displaced from his lungs and he laughed, “Good girl!”

I felt my ass relax further, growing accustomed to its new life as a source of pleasure, a vortex of sensation, an undiscovered thing that could be used. Or abused.

He ran his hand all along my sides and back, stroking out any threads of fear and resistance. We were pinned hard together, only the smallest of movements possible. In a moment, his thumb was in my pussy again, and my entire body responded joyfully. With easy strokes, he guided me closer and closer to an orgasm, but as I saw the edge of it, he pulled out, the tiniest tip of his thumb left touching me, teasing.

“Come,” he beckoned again, and I took another deep breath, wanting with all my heart to follow that thumb and finally come, releasing myself from this torture. I leant back further, taking more of his thick cock into my ass, but at the same time winning more of his thumb too. Waves of pain and pleasure flooded through me, and I gasped. No sooner had I thought I was close again to my orgasm’s edge, did he pull his thumb away again and plunge me again into desperation.

“Come,” he said, more insistently. Almost the entire shaft was buried inside me now, so that I felt like a millimeter more and I wouldn’t be able to breath anymore. Chasing his thumb had led me to the wide, painful base of his cock, and I realized with horror that I may not be able to go any further. I wanted so badly to come, but the pain in my wrists reminded me that I was going nowhere, and that if I wanted the sweet release of pleasure, I would have to take it with a hearty dose of pain.

His breathing seemed to deepen, and become irregular. I felt him throb inside me, seeming to grow and expand into every last corner of my body. I groaned at the thought of him enjoying it, enjoying my ass.

“You like this, you little slut? You like pretending to be all hardcore, but look at you now, huh?”

I tossed my hair. He wanted to hurt me, did he? Well, I could hurt him, too.

“You’re an old has-been who will never publish his stupid novel, and all you do is live vicariously through your students,” I said, the burning pain bringing hot tears to my eyes. Where the hell did that come from?

“You think you’re so edgy don’t you? You thi--”

“Whatever. At least I actually write, at least I’m not afraid” I said, shocked at this outburst, the pain making me reckless.

He paused. I saw the curve of my own tear drop on the table out the corner of my eye. I had gone too far.

“Well, you should be,” he said. The next moment, he had drawn back slightly, gathered his force and threw himself hard at me, plunging the full length of an angry cock deep into me; I screamed out, my hips banging the edge of the table, the full weight of his manly body driving itself into me without mercy. I saw stars. In the moments that followed, the gathering bliss in my pussy came to one bright, delicious point and burst, sending heavy ripples of stinging pleasure all through me. My entire body bucked and twitched around him. As my poor ass clenched and grasped after him, I pulled him down with me into a juicy orgasm. He cried out too, defeated, spurting jets of wet cum deep into my body and squeezing down hard on my waist to pull in deeper still.

I collapsed onto the desk, body sore and soaked with sweat, and his body collapsed on top of mine. I welcomed the crushing sensation, feeling all at once that after what we had done together, I could let his body do anything to mine, endure any pain he wished to dole out …and push far past it. I heard him panting in my ear, and we waited like this for a moment, for him to deflate inside me, for my heart to stop pounding in my ears and my pussy to stop twitching so violently.

Slowly, delicately, he slid out of my body and stood up, surveying the damage in the form of my crumpled body on the desk. He gave my ass a squeeze.

“You’re still mixing your tenses in that third paragraph,” he said.

I love it when a student has the grit to rise to a challenge. I love when writers can dig deep and confront their limits, pushing them to find what they’re really capable of. Michelle was such a student. For the next three months, I pushed her. At the same time as her words were growing, enlarging, becoming more sophisticated, her body was opening up to me, until I could access even the deepest parts of her, easily.

And she really wasn’t afraid. I hurt her. I used her body, over and over again, daring her to back down, but each time she accommodated me, somehow finding new levels of pleasure, nuances of feeling that even I, old has-been that I was, had never experienced. I admired her. And I loved completely wrecking her body, finding new ways to violate her little form, to overwhelm her, to punish her naiveté.

By the time the class came to an end, Michelle was an entirely different person. She had transformed into a noble explorer of new sexual worlds, of vast and fearsome horizons of pleasure, of new places, both profane and sublime …that I had introduced her to, but which she had become native to in no time. My body had been new territory to her, but she had soon charted and laid claim to every last inch of it, so that I could only wish her well when the class was done and we had no more natural reason to spend time together.

That was also the last class for me. She had been right all along: I was hiding behind my students, being lazy, never pushing myself to write what I truly wanted, to take risks. It was scary, to force myself to do something I had never done before, but then I just remembered Michelle, face down in a pool of her own tears, ass upturned, utterly vulnerable to me and yet not the slightest bit fearful, and I thought, why not?

After all, tension is a good thing, isn’t it?

* * *

“Alan! Oh my God, Alan! It’s happening!”

My wife of 9 years, my beautiful, wonderful wife Tanya, was racing towards me with something small in her hand and a look of deep consternation on her face.

If the last few weeks have been anything to go by, I could be mere moments away from having a heavy kitchen implement thrown at me, or else pinned down and shagged – or possibly both, in that order.

Tanya is a woman who knows what she wants. And she wants a baby, preferably yesterday.

Everything else had been checked off the list: I was one of the first items on the list as the handsome, successful husband, and soon after me followed the autumn wedding, the house with just the right tiles in the kitchen, the pair of beagles we named Bubble and Squeak, the coordinated bedspreads, and the yearly trips to Bali.

I loved Tanya. With every (exhausted) fibre of my being. I gave her everything, and happily. And as I saw her rushing over, I had the distinct impression she wanted something, shall we say, very specific from me.

She pushed a mound of papers aside and plonked herself down on my desk, square in front of me as her one, true and rightful project in life. She waggled a thermometer right in my face, looking very excitable indeed.

“Look? See?”

She had just woken up, and was still sleepy-haired and sweet and smelling like cotton pajamas. I loved her nearly half to death, this woman. But it was 6 in the morning, and I was bone tired. I rubbed my groggy eyes, trying to focus on what in god’s name she was showing me.

“Plus! Egg whites. I have egg white mucous. Raised temperature, egg whites… this is it. It’s happening right now,” she said, leaning in very close and whispering this last part to my still slightly confused face.

“You’re ovulating?” I said.

Men are oblivious, I know. She had been going on and on about her… secretions for the past week now, and I, unsure about my manly part in what seemed so clearly “woman’s business” was trying to be supportive while hoping she wouldn’t ever quiz me on the difference in viscosity between Day 12 discharge and Day 20.

I smiled weakly, trying to remember if “ovulation” is the part that involved blood or not. Before I could say anything, she had tossed the thermometer aside and had hoisted her butt onto the desk, plunking her two bare feet into my lap.

“We should totally do it!”

“What, now?”

“Yes now, silly! The window is closing, Alan, even as we speak. And once it closes, that’s it for this particular egg, you know. Whoosh, gone, down the tubes, as it were.”

I loved how she spoke like an indignant professor whenever she got pissy with something.

I ran my hands up and down her thighs, probably soothing myself more than anything.

“Alright, alright, but how long have we got?”

“The egg is only viable for 12 to 24 hours. We can make it a few days before or after, but really now’s the time, now’s our best chance.”

Egg? Viable? Was this the same woman who had once whispered dirty words in my ear in the back of a cinema when we were in High School? The same woman who had jerked me off under a picnic blanket at that festival that one time, the girl who had flashed her boobs at me in church at my niece’s wedding?

I stared at the papers she had shoved aside – council tax, credit card statements, interest rate changes, bills for that damn broken boiler - and now here was beautiful, wonderful Tanya, reduced to another one of my chores, it seemed.

My work schedule for the last while had been the same every day: work myself to the bone, try to fix up our piece-of-shit house, replace that broken tile in the bathroom, get Tanya pregnant.

I was tired.

She sat staring at me, legs slightly parted, a few wild strands of hair falling into her waiting face. Her hazel eyes, the soft curl of her lip, they were all as beautiful to me now as they had ever been. And yet…

“Ok. Let’s do it,” I said, smiling.

I would give this woman the world. And good god if she needed it, I would dig deep and find it in me to fuck her, right now, and give her all the damn babies she could handle. I lunged forward and grabbed both her legs, pulling her onto the desk and laying her down.

“Ouch! Careful,” she mumbled, revealing a pointy paper weight she had landed on.

She lay back and shot me a flirty smile. Oh yes. God yes. There it was. The gorgeous, sexy little thing I had married. Her hair fell onto the desk and her pajamas fell loosely open. The word mucous popped into my head.

Shit.

I leaned in and kissed her passionately, as though this would help dispel the thought. Ok, so if we started now, and it’s probably around 6 o’clock right now, or ten minutes past… so if we take 15 minutes to get this over with, I’d still have a chance for a quick shower and would make it to work if I left by 7… but what if we took longer than 15 minutes?

I snapped my attention back to the moment and kissed her some more.

“Ouch!” she said again, and tore her lips from mine to fuss behind her some more, the sound of bills crumpling beneath her.

“You ok?” I asked.

She smiled.

“Yeah, sure, but uh...”

“Shall we go upstairs instead?”

“Uh, yeah, we could? I mean, let’s just--”

“Yeah, you’re here now, now’s the time isn’t it?”

“Yup, we should be spontaneous about it.”

We looked at each other.

I leaned in for another kiss, this one more strained than the last. I thought of her naughty, tanned brown legs under a sundress on our honeymoon, the way she had run away from me on the beach, laughing, the dress whipping all around her in the wind. The dim memory was stirring something down below, thank god. I pressed my cock against her; it was the beginning of an old, old dance I had been doing with Tanya for years now, the familiar choreography, the well-worn, happy ruts we had carved out for one another, affectionate patterns in both body and mind. I’m more or less an idiot with most things in life, but hell, I knew what turned this woman on.

But somehow, here, spread on the desk, everything was wrong. Our lips were out of sync with one another. A cramp was growing in my calf as I try to balance myself over her (when was I going to go to the fucking gym already?) and she seemed to be distracted.

She was suddenly pulling at my hair, tugging at clumps of it and manhandling my head as she kissed. She threw her head back and moaned,

“Oh, yes, give it to me daddy!”

What.

I sat up straight, looking at her.

“Daddy?”

She flicked a lock of hair from her eyes, looking a little embarrassed.

We struggled to make eye contact with each other for a few moments more, then she threw up her hands defensively, sending two pay slips to the floor.

“Ok, I’m so sorry, jeez, I’m just …I’m just trying something new I guess, because of the …baby? I don’t know, just forget it.”

She was turning a deep shade of red, and started to pull her nightdress down again.

“No, no, it’s…” I started. The word “mucous” popped into my head again.“…it’s hot. I guess,” I said limply.

She glared at me.

I leaned in again for another kiss, but she shoved me away and jumped off the desk, looking angry.

“Just forget it,” she said and made for the office door.

Damn.

She turned around in the doorway and looked at me with eyes full of daggers. “I’m going to the shops in a bit – do you need anything?”

I looked at her tired face. I wanted to curl up in bed with her right now, and forget all of this, and play Angry Birds with her under the covers with our own patented system of kiss penalties, like we had done only last year.

“We need milk,” I said softly, with as much affection as I could muster.

She turned and left.