Chapter Twelve

Georgina

 

 

“Georgie?” Blake’s hand on my arm brought me out of my reverie. “Are you okay?”

“I’m great.” I shut the tears from my eyes with one hard blink. I locked my invisible armor back on. “Do you want to do this or not?”

Blake’s gaze searched my face, as though he could see that armor, as though trying to find chinks. Something changed in his expression, concern shifting to blankness with just the hint of a smirk. “I just want to know this isn’t getting complicated.”

“If you want out, that’s fine, but I’m completing my list no matter what,” I said, yanking my helmet on over my head.

With a shrug, he joined me at the bike, climbing on and putting his helmet on too. “Let’s get kinky then.”

I hopped on the back behind him. “Now, what do we need for this … bondage stuff?”

He just patted me on the knee, and we were off.

It was after dark when we pulled into the parking lot of the strip mall, and I stared at the building. The exterior was dirty-white and hot-pink. A neon sign overhead announced it as “your premiere destination for excitement!”

From the outside, it didn’t look very exciting. Only one car, plus Blake’s bike, sat in the lot, and there were no X-rated signs or anything. I was a little disappointed. It looked like any other storefront—not at all what I had expected.

I got off the bike and removed my helmet, shooting an uneasy glance at the street that ran past, but there was no traffic at all, not a single car on the long gray ribbon of four lane.

Once inside the shop, I didn’t know which way to look. No matter where I turned my head, something lurid assaulted my eyes—racks full of videos, magazines, and a whole section of things that looked more like strange, bright-colored kid’s toys than something used for sex. On another wall, there was a dildo as long and thick as my forearm. Surely that was just for display. Nobody could use that. Could they? How? Could I? I started picturing how big Blake was, trying to compare, and heat rushed up my cheeks and down my belly.

The surprisingly cheery and gorgeous girl with pink hair behind the counter gave me a nod. I retreated, half-afraid that she would open a cabinet, pull out one of those huge fleshy vibrators, and start her sales pitch. Or offer to give me a test ride.

I turned to find Blake and freaked out when he wasn’t next to me anymore.

I heard him call out, “Why, hello there, pretty eyes.”

Blake was behind a life-sized, realistic sex doll, puppetting her arm so she blew kisses at me. Her hair was a platinum blond, her lips, opened in a pucker I was sure was meant to be cute, were painted a scarlet red, and her legs were open to show the advertised ‘smooth, tight tunnel of love!’ nestled there.

“Quit mucking around. Can we just hurry up?”

Blake stepped away from the embodiment of uncanny valley, and I scooted over beside him. The shop was tightly packed with narrow aisles, and I almost knocked down a display of flavored condoms. I was already in panic mode, the little time bomb inside me ticking away audibly. The sheer overwhelm of this shop wasn’t helping.

“Do we really need to be here?”

“You want to do this bondage thing. I thought you’d want some supplies.” Blake shrugged.

I just want to get it done. Only I wasn’t entirely sure how.

He seemed to know where he was going when he led me to some shelves that held all sorts of crazy-looking contraptions. There was brightly colored bondage tape—guaranteed not to leave marks or stick to hair, which was a relief, I supposed— bottles of heating lube, packages of silk rope in various colors, and handcuffs lined with hot pink feathers or fur. Those looked ridiculous, really, like a joke toy.

I wanted something real.

A little farther along that row, things shifted from colorful to black-leather serious. Straps, gags, masks, harnesses—I didn’t know if these were what I’d imagined when I added bondage to The List, but I had to get something and get out of here.

“Just what kind of bondage are you thinking? Just a bit of blindfold fun or getting more into S&M territory? Because these floggers are pretty good.” Blake pointed. They dangled from hooks, their colorful tails swinging as I reached out and touched them.

“You know this, how?”

Blake half-smiled. “I had a girl once who was really into this stuff. A little too into it for me, to be honest. I drew the line at some of the things she wanted to do so we stopped hooking up.”

Jealousy erupted in my heart. Blake had already done this with someone else?

I knew I was being irrational. He was gorgeous, and he’d already said he was experienced. I wasn’t his girlfriend, and I didn’t want to be. I didn’t have time to be.

Urgency drove me onwards and I grabbed one of the small, flail-like whips. I didn’t really want to try it. I guessed I had just been imagining some “blindfold fun”, as Blake had put it. Probably extremely lame to a seasoned fetishist.

Blake smiled. “Nice choice. That one is leather; they give a nice thud. Those cheap ones over there are plastic. They’ll cut if you get hit too hard.”

I repeated my mantra of The List Georgina is Brave Georgina, but I was faltering.

“You’re trying to freak me out on purpose, aren’t you?”

“That depends. Is it working?”

“No.” That lasted about three seconds. “Yes.”

His lips went up at the corners, but he didn’t laugh. If he had, I might have kicked him in the shin and run away as fast as I could. The whole day had been awful, and I needed to get rid of that feeling that was sitting on me, that feeling that time was running out.

I closed my eyes for a second, but there was this low steady tick-tock sound there in the darkness that terrified me. I opened my eyes again and Blake was poking around in the aisle where more of those giant dicks sat displayed in boxes. He picked up a long thick black one that looked weirdly glossy. “You know, I am a little surprised that you didn’t put sex with a black man on your list. It’s pretty high up there in some women’s fantasies.”

I’d never wanted that cliché, but the time this was taking made me irritable. “Maybe that’s what should be next on my list.”

I grabbed for my purse, yanked my journal out, and started to write it down. His hand came down on mine and my pen scribbled a big black line across the page.

 

 

 

 

I slipped my small hand out of his and tried again, grinning defiantly.

“You can’t go adding stuff in.” Blake laughed at my efforts, easily snatching the pen from my hand.

“Says who?” I plunged my hand back into my purse to bring out one of the many other pens it held.

Blake wrapped his arms around me from behind, grabbing both my wrists and pinning them against my body. My back pressed tight into his chest, and I could feel him chuckling silently.

“Are we starting already?” I joked.

“Not in the shop!” yelled the pink-haired girl at the counter.

I wonder how often a day she yells that out.

Blake’s breath tickled my ear when he spoke. “I’ll let you go as long as you leave that off your list. For now. Look, that is a pretty long list of sexual adventures. It’s more than most people ever get around to doing. Maybe you should get through that first, then consider if you want to add something more.”

“Fine. Spoilsport.”

He was right though. It was a long list. I did not need to add in anything else. If I did, and didn’t get to do those added things I might regret it throughout all eternity. If that was a thing. Why take that chance? This was already taking too long.

I stared down at my list, at the black line running across the paper. Did I really want to do all that stuff? Still?

The answer was yes. I had to do it, and I had to do it now. There might never be another chance for me to do the items on The List, or anything else I wanted to do—like ride carnival rides all night, see Niagra falls, swim in the ocean, or have a family …

So many things. Simple things. Things some people took for granted. Tears pricked my eyes. I wanted to live. There was so much to do and not enough time to do it in.

“Are you okay? You look a bit off. Come on, let’s get out of here. Honestly, this place makes me a bit green in the gills too.” Blake took me by the arm and started leading me back out of the shop.

“But we need to get some things,” I protested.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll improvise. It’s better that way, anyway.”