She turned her face to Alaric. Behind her small, plain mask, Anisette’s eyes burned into him, and Alaric understood. This was his punishment. He was going to watch her allow another man what he would have been granted if he had obeyed her.
She sighed quietly, running her hand from the base of Pemberton’s spine to the nape of his neck, spearing her fingers into his hair and pulling him closer. She set her mouth to his ear and whispered, loudly enough for Alaric to hear.
“Undress me.”
Alaric lurched involuntarily toward them. Pemberton kissed Anisette’s neck again, then circled around her and began undoing the long line of small buttons down the back of her dress.
“Are you watching, Alaric?” she demanded.
“Yes, Anisette.”
Pemberton looked as though he hadn’t even heard the other name. He looped his fingers under the shoulder straps of her dress and brushed his lips over her neck as he let the dress fall to the ground.
Alaric drank in the sight of her shoulders, her bosom, her legs. Anisette held Alaric’s gaze as Pemberton worked her corset open and let it drop onto her dress. Her pert, cream-colored breasts and blossom pink nipples came into view as her chemise joined her dress and corset on the floor, and finally, Pemberton removed her bloomers.
Alaric found himself struggling futilely. His movements achieved nothing more than an overwhelming sensation in his cock, as though he might pop if he moved at all, and a pitying smile from Anisette, before she reached behind her, grabbed Pemberton’s arm, and brought it between her legs. She bit her lip, and Pemberton sighed, continuing to trail his lips over her neck and shoulder and he worked his fingers against her and she muttered appreciatively.
“You know what I want,” she intoned. Pemberton backed away from her and pulled off his boots and trousers. He fetched her chair from the vanity and set it in its usual spot. Anisette, comfortably and gloriously naked, walked toward Alaric. Her perfectly rounded thighs eclipsed the black triangle of hair between them with each step she took.
“You’re doing well,” she whispered to him as Pemberton moved the statue. He set it reverently in Anisette’s usual chair, where its blank eyes watched Alaric. Anisette returned to the statue’s table, standing to the side of it, facing the door. Pemberton picked her up around her slim waist and set her up onto the table, where the candle light shimmered across her skin the same way it glittered off the polished wood of the statue. She grabbed a handful of Pemberton’s bandana again, pulled him down to his knees and pressed his head between her legs.
Alaric’s body felt like it was on fire, his legs were full of hot pins and needles, his chest felt like it was being crushed under embers, and still, his cock burned. Anisette raised her head, looking at him as Pemberton wrapped his arms around her hips. She rocked up into him, her breasts bouncing on her chest as she moved. Pemberton’s head bobbed between her legs, a sort of rolling, keening noise emanating from him, muffled by Anisette’s skin. Anisette’s head lolled back, and she spread her knees farther apart, biting her lip. Incense smoke curled around her as she moaned. All Alaric could think about was what she must taste like, what her thighs under his hands would feel like. The idea of doing what Pemberton was doing, making her gasp and moan like that- he could barely begin to imagine.
Maybe that was the reason he was one tied up and watching. Maybe Anisette had taught Pemberton how to do this for her, and, Alaric gulped even thinking about it, maybe he was expected to do this for her one day.
The thought sent a jolt through his poor, abused cock. He whimpered, shifting his unmovable arms again, accomplishing nothing but the slide of Anisette’s silk cushions against his legs. He cried out in frustration, suffering like he never had before, and Anisette answered with an unrestrained moan of pleasure.
“Do you want me?” she demanded hoarsely.
Alaric’s “Yes” from between gritted teeth was drowned out by a moan from Pemberton and another gasp of pleasure from Anisette. She hauled Pemberton back up to his feet by his bandana, then reached between his legs and took hold of his cock, the size and girth of which Alaric was trying not to compare to his own.
She leaned back on the table, holding herself up on the elbow of her free arm, and guided Pemberton forward by his member. Pemberton groaned as she moved her arm between her own legs, swiping his cock against her. Alaric shuddered, somewhere between jealousy and arousal. Anisette cast Alaric another glance, set her hands at Pemberton’s hips, and pulled him inside of her. She moaned, a loud, almost animalistic moan, as her legs came up to wrap around Pemberton’s waist.
Alaric couldn’t watch anymore. He tried to turn his face toward the entrance of the tent, but the rope around his neck was too tight against his jugular.
Anisette cried out, Pemberton groaned, and the legs of the table thumped against the ground as it moved. Alaric turned his head to the other side and his eyes settled on the statue’s shadowed eyes as Anisette’s moaning continued. His own breathing started to rattle in his chest as the sensation in his heavy cock overtook him. He couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t touch himself. Anisette was still yelping and moaning and crying out.
“Watch, Alaric,” Anisette managed. Alaric looked to where he could see Anisette’s delicate hands working over Pemberton’s strong arms, her red nails like drops of blood over his skin. She clenched her hands into his biceps, and threw back her head, sending a wave through her long chestnut curls. She howled, and Alaric’s cock throbbed as though it were threatening to burst.
“Stop,” she ordered. Pemberton froze. Anisette’s body went slack and languid across the table for a few moments before she pulled herself up almost to sitting and, flushed and sweating, pushed Pemberton away.
“Mhmm,” she sighed. “Back on your knees.”
Pemberton dropped so fast it made Alaric uncomfortable enough to relieve some of the pressure in his veins and the buzzing in his head. How…how could he even manage something like that? Was he that far under Anisette’s spell?
Pemberton, still hard, still naked, looked up at Anisette with a glowing expression. It was almost like worship. It scared Alaric.
Anisette slid off the table, her full body rosy with satisfaction. The blush across her face, under the mask and across her chest, burned red in the flickering candle light that infused the tent. Alaric shook as she pulled the small silver scissors off of the vanity chair and walked toward him. She paused in front of him, the smell of her incense and sweat overwhelming him, then reached out and carded her fingers through his hair. A sound, as though from a wounded animal, pulled involuntarily from his throat.
It was the first time she had ever touched him.
“You are so lovely like this, flushed and wanting.” She traced the pads of her fingers under his hair line, letting a drop of sweat slither down his temple. “And you’re doing so well. Maybe you’ve earned a reward after all.”
“Anisette,” he choked out.
“Do you know what the French Technique is, Alaric?”
Alaric attempted words, but managed no more than a moan as Anisette smiled at him and ran her hand down his face and over his shoulders. His heart pounded faster with every inch of his skin that her hands covered.
“Close your eyes.”
There was a sound of shuffling somewhere in the distance, but all Alaric could concentrate on was the feeling of Anisette petting over his shoulders, his arms, his neck, his chest. He used the fraction of movement available to him to arch toward her hands. He gasped as her hands traveled down his stomach, even skimming over his rope encased thighs. And then a warm, wet heat lapped at his tumescent cock, and he groaned, his eyes flying open despite the command to close them.
And he found himself still staring forward into the liquid black of Anisette’s eyes, encircled by the red leather of her mask, as the gentle roughness of a tongue ran around his cock, causing the uncomfortable tingle in his legs to turn white hot.
A hot wetness, a mouth, Pembe
rton’s mouth, slid around his cock, and Alaric lost all ability to think coherently. Everything narrowed down into the moist suction around his desperate cock. The thought that it should be strange, a man, flashed through Alaric’s mind. But a pirate ship provided a broad education, broadened further by the fact that Tosser and Tiv often thought the hold was emptier than it, in actuality, was, and Alaric had seen them doing this to each other on more than one occasion.
It also felt so incredible he couldn’t find it in himself to care. Pleasure was spiking through his thighs, up his spine and burning in his cock while Anisette ran her perfect, soft hands over him. It was almost as though Pemberton was nothing more than a proxy. Anisette was still causing that sensation through his body. Alaric devolved into moans and hiccups and shaking as Anisette’s breath, sweet, and just a little bitter, like wine, wafted over his face.
A dry pumping sensation, like his body was desperate to come and couldn’t, made him thrash.
“Obeisance will reward you,” Anisette whispered. Pemberton groaned around his cock, and the vibration made Alaric scream.
“No, stop… too much,” he managed.
Pemberton made another noise as his mouth slipped off of Alaric’s cock, and Anisette set her hand to the crook of his neck. Alaric fought for breath, pulling in gulps of air that felt like they didn’t even reach his lungs, trying to swallow away the cold burn of rough air against his throat. Anisette shushed him, continuing to pet at his shoulders and his hair.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, stroking her thumb over his forehead and cupping his face in her hands. “It’s okay to stop. What’s too much?”
“Too much,” he panted again. “Too good. Too hard. Need to… stop.”
“Shh shh,” Anisette hushed him. Alaric forced his eyes open. Anisette was holding Pemberton, red lipped and looking content, by his bandana, as though absentmindedly holding back a lap dog by the scruff of its neck. Her other hand soothed against Alaric’s neck.
“We’ll stop,” she said. “Pemberton? Time to go.”
She dropped the other man’s bandana, and he stood and turned, returning to the chair and table. Anisette petted at Alaric’s hair and shoulders as Pemberton replaced the statue on the table where Anisette had been perched, then placed a hand next to the statue and rested his weight on it.
Anisette took her hands off of Alaric and went to her vanity, leaving Alaric with a full view of Pemberton, in the same pose he himself had been in only a few nights ago, finishing himself off in front of the blank eyes of the statue. The muscles of Pemberton’s back corded as he came with a whimper, and Anisette didn’t even spare him a glance as he slipped his clothes back on.
She returned to Alaric with a pair of silver scissors in hand and Alaric’s gaze switched immediately from Pemberton’s departing back to the blades in her hand.
Anisette opened the scissors and slid the dull side of the cold blade against his neck, cutting the loop of silk. It tumbled down his chest, and he hissed as it brushed his cock. She stepped past him and bent over, her long, unbound hair tickling against his bare thighs as she cut the rope loose from its anchor on the right side. She crossed to his other side, her smell, incense and perfume and sweat, wafting over him as she finished cutting him free.
“Up,” she said quietly. He obeyed, and she unwrapped his legs but left his arms tied.
“Lie back.”
He worked his way down to his back, moaning slightly as he shifted his stiff knees over and lowered his bare ass onto the silk cushion. Lying back onto his still-tied arms was a little difficult, but not painful. His hips were pushed up into the air from sitting on top of his fists, and his cock rose like a flagpole between his legs.
He braced himself for what Anisette might do to him next, now that she had given him this little reprieve.
She stood next to his shoulders, then slid an arm under Alaric’s back, raising his chest and straining his wrist a little. He hissed as his cock throbbed again. With a careful little twirl and tuck, Anisette sat down on the box and set his head in her lap. The skin of her thighs under his neck was exactly as soft as he had thought it would be. The smell of her was spicy and sweet, like cloves, and the smell of her arousal overlaid it gently.
One handed, she untied his cock. He panted and whimpered in discomfort, nearly pain, caused by the feeling of her careful fingers tugging the knots open. The sensation as the ribbon fell away screamed inside him, the long tease and the total frustration utterly overwhelming.
“Don’t hold back,” she ordered, her usually deep voice still touched by the breathiness she had put on while speaking to Pemberton. Or maybe that was her real voice. Or maybe Alaric had never heard her real voice.
All Anisette did was wrap her bare fingers around his cock, cup him in her warm palm. Before she even moved her hand, Alaric felt the burning, tingling sensation fire up at the bottom of his feet and at the top of his head, and he came with a gasp and a groan, shooting ropes of come over himself, up his chest, over his thighs. What little he could see of Anisette’s expression did not change as she continued watching him, running her hands lazily over his still pumping cock, stroking him through an orgasm that felt like it was trying to kill him. He could feel hot fluid dripping down himself for what felt like forever. Humiliated, he turned his head away from her, but she grabbed his chin with her free hand and turned his face back, so he was looking up at her.
“How do you feel?” she asked him. Her voice had fully returned to the deep, steady voice he recognized.
He shook his head.
“Tell me,” she intoned, still moving her bare hand along his oversensitive shaft.
“Embarrassed,” he whispered.
“Why?”
“You barely touched me, and I-”
“That’s good.” She set her hand to his chin. “That’s what I wanted to happen. I told you not to hold back. When you’re here, you listen to me. When you listen to me, you can’t do anything wrong.”
Alaric considered her for a moment, surprised, but her approval washed away his shame and he felt his still bound shoulders relax instantly, back into the soft flesh of her body. The slight sting of her continuing to touch his cock, however, did not lessen.
“Who was he?”
Anisette tilted her head, and to Alaric’s surprise, she hesitated.
“A man with some skill, but no potential,” she finally answered. Alaric shuddered slightly. His hips tried to shift away from the overstimulation her hand was causing.
“Don’t move,” she said.
Alaric let out a little groan of worry. They weren’t done yet. “Anisette? Can I ask a question?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want…am I supposed to act like that?”
Anisette shrugged. The movement of her shoulders caused an interesting ripple in her breasts. All Alaric could see from this angle.
“Pemberton is a special case. He enjoys serving. I indulge him as it suits me.”
“So, he likes…all of that.”
“Why did you become a pirate, Alaric?” she asked him suddenly.
He wet his lips. “To escape,” he answered.
“What did you escape, Alaric?”
“Umm….” he started.
“Tell me.”
He needed a moment to think, but unlike when he took a moment before answering Thomas, or Tiv, or the Captain, when he was searching for the words that sounded like what they wanted to hear, or the words they would use themselves, this time he was searching for how he really wanted to say something. He was also fighting the distraction of keeping his hips still while Anisette lazily brushed her fingers across his spent cock.
“Stagnation,” he answered finally. “Mediocrity. Boredom.”
“Is your life exciting now, Pirate?”
Alaric looked up at her, trying to meet her eyes, let his meaning be clear. “It is now.”
But she didn’t seem to notice, watching his cock with a shadow in her eyes that Alaric coul
dn’t interpret. She ran her thumb under his cock, swirling it around the head. Unable to stop himself, he jerked his hips away from her.
He gulped and glanced up at her for reaction, but she wore the same expression. Just a little bit absent, tired. She stopped stroking him, and Alaric shuddered again as she wiped her hand against his stomach, leaving another trail of cooling come across his skin.
She lifted him back up, set him gently on the cushions on top of the box, and walked toward the entrance, grabbing Alaric’s satchel. Anisette returned with it and sat back down, replacing his head in her lap. She brushed her fingertips against his face contemplatively before retrieving the sketchbook and opening the cover. Alaric watched her carefully. He had forgotten all about Anisette’s declaration that they would look through his sketchbook.
He had never shown it to anyone before. Thomas had only even found out about the pastels on accident. Even after everything Anisette had put him through in here, what he had seen her do, what she had just done to him, letting her see his sketchbook seemed somehow too private. Though, tied and pliant, he couldn’t have stopped her.
She looked at the first page for much longer than Alaric would have thought anyone could possibly want to look through complicated, cramped, and dull technical drawings. He just laid there, arms still bound underneath him, his head in her lap.
It was bizarrely peaceful. Everything seemed eerily quiet and blissfully warm now. His cock lay exhausted between his legs. His blood was no longer roaring in his ears, and Anisette, always larger than life, always holding his attention as though by a leash, seemed smaller and more natural. As though proving she could be touched after all had made her…human.
Anisette reached her hand out as if she were about to turn the page, but stopped. Instead, she settled her hand against his face, and brushed her vaguely chalky textured fingers over his cheekbone before moving them across his face, over his nose. Finally, looking down at him as she did it, she traced a finger across his lips.
Alaric felt the muscles in his stomach tighten and churn. There was something sweet but still humiliating and shamefully arousing about this.
The Promise of Silk Page 6
