by Gabi Moore
I took another bite of carrot cake and savored the cold, creamy taste of the cream cheese frosting. I could still dream though, couldn’t I? The cake finished, I took my time licking the frosting off my fingertips. Sweet, sticky thoughts came into my head. I guess I didn’t actually have any objections to being paddled, once I thought about it.
But once I thought about it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it more. The thoughts I had dutifully chased from my mind a few times already today came bounding back again with a vengeance. It was his hands. I had always cared about a man’s eyes before. Or his smile. You know, you meet a guy and can’t take your eyes off of his, and he smiles and it’s cute …but this guy …well, it was all in his hands.
His were hands that did things. They were firm, assertive hands. Skilled hands. I knew somehow just by looking that each and every knuckled finger, each square white fingernail and each dry crease was accounted for, was under his conscious control, was a tool that he used to his own ends. I couldn’t explain it. He was just damn hot, that was all I could conclude.
My own hand idly hovered between my legs to stroke the weird tension that had grown there. Sometimes, only very rarely, I allowed my thoughts to go to these strange places. Places so well hidden I almost convinced myself that they weren’t there at all. But as I shut my eyes and swallowed down the last of the sweet frosting, I relaxed and let those images flicker into my mind again. Bad images. Wrong images. Dark, shameful, twisted secrets I had held tightly and would never share with another living soul.
Unbearably erotic secrets.
My hand started to move. Just slightly. In the dim corridors of my mind, a fantasy was coming to life. His firm, masculine hands gripped savagely at my hair and yanked… I was being abducted. Stolen. Ripped from my life and home, clothes torn from my frightened body so I could be flung into a new life of vice. I saw my legs being spread apart, my ankles twisted up with rope, my neck naked and flushed and exposed. And I saw him. And it wasn’t just his hands that were tools. His entire body was a tool… all of him was a machine, an instrument of incredibly pleasure…
I snapped myself out of it. My fingers were wet. Taking a breath, I tried to compose myself. I couldn’t go on. I hurriedly smoothed down the front of my skirt and tried to tear my thoughts away from him. And then it happened. My phone pinged.
It was him.
Mark: It’s finished. Your piece is done and ready for collection
I stared at it like it was a neon meteor that had fallen from outer space and landed on my kitchen table. I picked up my phone.
Mark: You’ll like it this time
Mark: I know you will
The second and third messages popped up onto the screen and hung there in the semi-darkness. Trembling hands, I wondered what to say. ‘How much do I owe you?’ ‘That’s great see you tomorrow?’ Or maybe, ‘Thank you, finding out what it is will be the highlight of my week and maybe life and secretly I think I’m really desperate for you to fuck me’?
Kat: I hope you made it using your intuition :)
I typed out a message quickly and sent it before I lost my nerve. The reply was almost instant.
Mark: Naturally
He was still online but had nothing more to say. The cursor blinked idly. Teasing me.
Kat: Can I get some clues? A picture?
I stared at the screen like I was reading a crystal ball.
Mark: But that would spoil the surprise
My heart was skipping all over the place.
Kat: Is it for paddling? :p Is it wood or steel? Do I have to use it with somebody else?
He took a long time to reply. The ache between my legs was intensifying again.
Mark: When you come back, maybe I’ll show you
I took a deep breath. What was I doing? I had to de-escalate this. I shouldn’t have even replied.
Kat: Sound great!
Kat: I’ll come tomorrow
Kat: And I’ll have to pay you too
Mark: But try it first
I laughed out loud. My fingers typed furiously.
Kat: You’re such a tease! At least give me some clue about what it is. I won’t be able to sleep trying to guess
Mark: Perfect
Kat: That’s not what I meant! Send me a picture?
Mark: Ooh, are you sure? Kind of dangerous
Kat: Ok don’t get ahead of yourself, I meant a picture of THE FURNITURE obviously
Mark: Don’t get ahead of yourself either
Mark: You’re crazy if you think I’m going to send you a picture of my dick
I couldn’t help but smiling like an idiot. I was trying to think of a witty response but instantly he messaged again:
Mark: But I can send you a picture of something even hotter than that, if you can imagine such a thing ;)
Kat: …..?
The next few moments passed with such delicious torment I couldn’t believe only a minute had gone by. Then my phone pinged again. I looked closely at my screen. It was a simple picture of a thin rope, one made of three plaited strands of leather and coiled loosely into two loops on the floor.
Kat: And what’s that supposed to be?
He again took his time with the response.
Mark: Try guess. Sleep on it. You’ll see when you come visit me tomorrow
And just like that his avatar blinked out grey and he disappeared, leaving me holding his scalding hot words in my hands. I put down my phone and tried to think about what the hell had just happened.
Less than five minutes had elapsed, but everything in the kitchen was different somehow. My whole life was different. The only thing that was the same was the burning theatre of dirty images pulsing their way back into my mind again. I was so wildly turned on I came the instant I touched myself.
Chapter 11 - Mark
For the thousandth time that morning, I cast eager eyes to the door. It wasn’t even noon yet and I had already died a thousand times with every phone call that wasn’t her, every buzz at the gate that wasn’t her.
I placed a swollen, purple finger on the chipboard and lined up my hammer for another strike.
I had been working wood for basically all my life. I never hit my damn thumb like some kind of amateur. And yet here I was, flustered, making mistakes, wishing she’d just come already, nervous to death that she eventually would…
The hammer came down carelessly and bounced off the already aching tip of my thumb. I roared and flung the hammer aside, thrusting my hand to my mouth and wincing.
“Fuck!” I cried and examined the damage. A red split grew angrily from the base of my nail and down. This woman was making me come apart, literally.
“Bad time?”
I spun around. She stood in the doorway, like a vision.
“The gate was already open and I called, but you didn’t answer, so I just came in…”
I waved her in and shut the door, still sucking my thumb.
“Come in. You’ll want to see your piece,” I said and hurried inside.
I was never like this. Never nervous. I was always the calm, instigating one. Always the one who lured women further and further out to more and more distant sexual horizons, the way you slowly coax baby chicks with a little grain in your hand.
But not this time.
I was surprised to see her clear-eyed, tranquil and smiling confidently. My head was a mess. I was an idiot. There were millions of women in this world, why did I have to fall for one who was getting engaged, one who expressly told me how much she couldn’t have anything to do with me?
Looking at how beautiful she looked, how perfectly open and sweet her face was, I felt a pang inside. I couldn’t do this. This was all wrong. I felt like some sleazy asshole trying to take advantage… it suddenly became clear as day to me: she was just a bored housewife looking for some distraction, looking for the thrilling confirmation that she still had ‘it’, just taking a little skip on the wild side before she fucked off to play house with the guy she really wanted.
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This rush of thoughts hit me almost as hard as the hammer did. I swallowed hard and tried to act professionally. This was just another order. And she was just another customer. An ethereal, otherworldly customer, unfortunately, but one who was as good as married.
I led her over to the finished piece and watched as her hands went to her mouth and she gasped.
“This is it? Oh my god, it’s beautiful,” she whispered, eyes darting all over it.
It was a beast of a thing, more than seven feet tall and mimicking in every way a fairy tale oak tree, except without leaves. The polished wood gleamed bright and from two of the main twisted branches hung twin purple, galvanized chains, laced across the boughs like it was a witchy Christmas tree. Bolted all up the length of the trunk were velvet-lined clasps. Two for her feet. Two for her pretty thighs. One bigger one for her waist. Another two for her upper arms.
It was like nothing I had created before.
I had fretted with ideas and materials, played with leather and rope and steel, but it was all wrong somehow. She was a goddess. It wasn’t for her to be put in a dungeon and defiled. No, I wanted to elevate her, pin her to a tree, ready to be beheld. And devoured.
She walked slow circles around it as I watched from afar. She had dropped that nervous habit of giggling and blushing at things like this, and was now silent, taking it all in, dragging her fingertips over the surface.
I tried not to think what she’d do with it once it left my studio. Or with who. I tried not to think of any of that. I needed to believe it was a mere gift. A gift given because she deserved it, and nothing more.
“I want to try it,” she said quickly and turned to look at me with serious eyes.
I balked. I had sent her those stupid messages, hadn’t I? I had opened this whole can of worms. But here she was standing before me and I felt so nervous I could puke. I nodded silently and started to undo the buckles at the base of the tree. I gestured to her to come forward and put her feet in the cuffs.
She hesitated and came forward, giving me a quizzical expression. I tried the cuff round her foot as though I was nothing more than a shoe store salesman. Satisfied the fit was snug, I gently took her by the shoulders and lined her up against the trunk, seeing that each of the other restraints lined up perfectly with her shapely body. I nodded. Everything aside, it was a well-made piece, and it was built for her, no question.
“I …I must admit I kind of pictured all of this differently,” she teased, and tried to catch my eye. I avoided her gaze and fussed with the chains in the branches.
“I thought I’d be, you know …wearing less clothing, for one!” she giggled.
I gave her a serious look.
“I don’t think Anthony would feel good about that, do you?” I said curtly.
Her face reddened.
With her arms strung up high above her head, I took a step back and examined the lines of her body. The chains could be adjusted to different heights, from Jesus-on-the-cross style to straight up above. She looked like a beautiful wood nymph, or a mythical forest sprite. Well, except for the fearsome daggers she was now glaring at me.
She wriggled a little but the restraints were solid.
“You know, I actually resent that. Just because Anthony wants to marry me, it doesn’t mean I’m suddenly his now. It doesn’t mean I owe him a damn thing. I haven’t led him on. I haven’t agreed to anything. God, I haven’t even known him for two months!”
I tilted my head to the side to examine the weight she was putting on the top left branch, and wondered if I needed to make any adjustments.
“The strange cages we put ourselves in, huh?” I said and tried to smile.
She tossed her head to the side in irritation.
“Oh come on, spare me the pop philosophy please, I—”
“Kat, stop. Just stop.”
She seemed stunned.
“It’s hard for me to admit this, but I haven’t been with a woman in a very long time. I don’t play games, Kat. It took time for me to make this for you. A lot of time. I get that you’re curious and whatever, but I’m not playing around. This is important to me. Either you want to do this with me or you don’t.” I took a deep breath. It felt like the most I had ever said to her. Or to anyone.
She was silent.
“You’re starting to sound like Anthony now,” she said.
“I don’t care. I only want a woman who’ll surrender to me, completely. Nothing less. No fear. No doubt. No holding back. I’m all or nothing, Kat. Now you keep coming here to tease me, and that’s cool, but I don’t want to just tease anymore…”
Her eyes were wide as she hung onto my every word.
“Mark, he’s just …he’s just a sweet guy who’s, you know …I don’t—”
“Have you turned down his stupid proposal then?” I asked her bluntly. That was all that mattered to me. She didn’t respond. I rubbed my face and paced the room.
“I want to do this with you…” she started to say meekly.
“Well, you can’t half do it,” I said, a little angry. “Why don’t you just call it off with him?”
She cast her eyes to the floor.
“Please take me down,” she said softly.
I did.
She closed her arms round herself.
Fine. If she wanted to leave, I wouldn’t stop her. I would rather legitimately lose her once and for all than pine over the stupid hope that I’d win her someday.
But she didn’t leave. She didn’t walk out. Instead, I heard a clink and looked up to see her taking her watch off and putting it on the floor. Then her earrings came off too.
“What are you…?”
She gripped the hem of her shirt and in one sweep pulled it over her head, revealing a bright blue bra against her angelic white skin. In an instant she had peeled her jeans off, too, kicked her shoes aside and stood before me in her underwear, hair tousled. She looked at me earnestly.
“I want to do this with you,” she said again, this time more insistently.
I gulped.
“I’m not a cheater,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Neither am I.”
“So you’re done with him?”
“There’s nothing to be done with. I’d be crazy to marry him.”
I took a step towards her, then slid my eyes all the way down her body and then up again. She was even more beautiful than I had imagined.
“Take it all off,” I said under my breath. Her little hands worked so quickly to tear off her blue lingerie it nearly broke my heart. Her breasts were milky; each salmon-pink nipple perched on her small breasts like a puffy rosebud. There was one long, smooth curve from her sternum all the way to her pubic bone, the lines of a ballet dancer, lean and fragile, ending in a blonde patch of fluff at the cleft between her shapely legs.
“Tell him you’ll never speak to him again,” I said. I had no idea where it came from, but it was all I wanted to hear from her, when it really came down to it. I wanted her to leave her stuffy, well-behaved life, untangle herself from all those threads of obligation, just walk away from it all and come to me. Naked.
She took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded her head.
“Nobody else,” I growled.
She lifted a cautious gaze at me from underneath her eyelashes. Her bare nipples were hardening.
I walked slow circles around her.
“Your body seems different now. More open. Good.”
Once my eyes had taken their fill, I nodded towards the tree and gestured for her to go to it. She did so without hesitation, planting first one and then the other dainty foot into the half circle of the restraint. There was a fluidity in her shoulders. Something loose and slow about her gliding movements, something nearly serpentine.
“Not like that. Turn around,” I said. She paused to give me a confused look and then obediently turned around to hug the tree, her magnificent ass now facing me.
“Now put your arms up.”
He
r long, slim arms trailed upwards and I took my time chaining her wrists in, watching the folds and swells of her shoulder and neck tense and release as my hands nearly brushed against her skin. I buckled all the way down her body, till I reached the ankle cuffs, taking care not to touch her. She was breathing more deeply now, as though in a trance. Her eyes were closed. Strands of copper hair fell down her back and whispered at the skin just where her ribcage dipped in and flared out again over her tight hips. She was without question the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on.
“Now it’s my turn to tease you, Kat. I knew it from the moment I saw you. I think I knew it before you even knew it. But this is what you really want, isn’t it? To be chained up there like this, naked? I suppose you want me to tell you all the dirty things I’m going to do to you now…?” I said, keeping my voice low. I could tell she was listening intently.
I went over to the work table and picked up a braided leather strip, the same on I had sent her in the message. I tightened it round and round my fist, hearing the leather creak against my fingers, and walked back over to her.
“What are you doing?” she asked, twisting her head from this side to that side, trying to understand the vague noises she heard behind her.
“I’m going to teach you a lesson,” I said. The silence in the studio was deafening. But her shoulders stayed soft, and her breath still came in smooth, easy rolls. It’s hard to explain, but I was impressed by this. I made a silent, internal vow to do whatever it would take to get that pretty breath to come in great heaving gasps instead.
