by Sasha Grey
It’s about asking yourself what’s truly important in life.
I want something to believe in.
I believe in love. But I feel like the definition is being rewritten from the corner of my eye, where the rest of the revelations live. If I could turn my head fast enough, I might catch sight of one.
I’m beginning to believe there was a special ingredient in that drink, and the fact that I’m not worried or even concerned about that only strengthens my hypothesis.
I hadn’t noticed how terrible some of these people are at dancing until now. Their movements are too jerky and contained, like they’re afraid of their own bodies, scared of occupying more space than is necessary, which is ironic if you’ve ever seen a fifty-something man parade around the boardroom like he’s Baryshnikov, aching for every eye in the room to be on him. What is it about dancing that makes people feel vaguely ridiculous? A man’s getting a dildo rammed up his ass in the corner; a woman’s nipples are clamped so hard they’re almost purple as she has two men take turns on her with a riding crop, and yet people are worried they’ll look undignified if they bust a move?
Oh, the things that go on in some people’s heads.
But now I know what this place is. Once, when doing a story about surprising British tourist traps, I learned about this place called Magaluf, in a part of Majorca. There was a huge scandal there a few years ago when a girl gave several blowjobs for what she thought was a free holiday, but turned out to really only be a free cocktail. She was irrationally angry, which I find hilarious, like she was offended that she wasn’t receiving enough payment for her sloppy blowjobs on the dance floor.
The locals call it mamading, but it’s classic bait and switch, and capitalizing on the ignorance of a tourist. Not all places take care of the tourism industry—they see the foreigners as marks, free for exploitation in any way necessary to get what they want. And like in Magaluf, right here everyone is doing the same thing. It’s all about getting what they want.
This place filled with heavy drinking and sex is a safe place where people can let their desires thrive instead of hiding them. It’s mama-ding, but everyone knows the score—and welcomes it. There are no tricks. I flow around the dance floor, determined to show everyone how it’s done—to prove that I can move despite the clothes that would suggest I’m stiffer than I am. By the time three songs have passed, I’m sweaty and have gained an audience, and I’ve migrated back to where the guy with the paintball gun is hanging out.
And one of the girls is pulling his already hardening cock from his pants. He’s sweaty, and I wonder if he smells like the leather pants he’s wearing. He groans when her tongue swirls around his head.
He jerks, and at first I think it’s because of her technique, but then I realize he’s begun shooting the women with the paintball gun again.
She grazes the skin of his cock with her teeth while he uses the gun to shoot at other women—and the other women are so into the blowjob, I can tell, that they press closer, wanting to watch him get off. But all they get for their efforts are brightly colored splotches of brilliant paint, because they’re making easier targets of themselves.
I’m watching them watching him, and it’s sexy as hell.
His head tilts back and his jaw opens as his hips pump in rhythm to the girl’s ministrations. One woman gets too close, and he shoots her in the thigh. She lets out a squawk of pain and surprise, scuttling back to the relative safety of the group. Silly girl. That’s not going to get her noticed in a place like this. She’s not a predator; she’s the prey and needs to know her place.
Feeling my skin get flushed with heat, I unbutton my blouse and the front-clasping bra beneath it, and rock back on my heels. She pinches the back of his thigh and he shudders, sending thick jets of silvery come all over her face and tits, knocking her hand out of the way in his rush to continue pumping himself, draining his balls of the last drops, soaking her with his essence as the gun goes off—this time the paintball slaps me just above the left breast, and I cry out, with a wince he doesn’t notice.
But one of the girls does.
A tall brunette steps forward from the crowd and stands in front of me. “May I kiss that better?”
I nod. I don’t know whether this is the type of behavior that will get me fired or get me a raise, but she caresses my cheek, so at least I know I’m doing something positive for customer relations.
She’s wearing a white silk camisole covered with paint, and a light gray pencil skirt—clothes that do nothing to hide her ample curves. Her tongue is small and catlike, darting out to clean the paint with slender, warm licks. Her mouth is so soft against my skin, it’s not like anything I’ve ever felt. Men’s kisses tend to be rougher— even when they’re gentle, a lot of the time their stubble will lightly scratch you anyway, taking it from soft to lightly abrasive, unless they’re barely twenty.
It’s nice, but different from this silken mouth lapping at my chest. She makes it erotic instead of utilitarian simply by lingering, taking her time, and looking me in the eyes as she cleans the paint from my body.
She likes this.
Is this how it looks when I’m getting Jack off? The gentle teasing in her eyes, the shyness even in the knowingness. Screw Jack and his bullshit “break.” The things I want to do to this woman would be crossing a very big line.
My legs shake as she takes me by the hand and pulls me through a silver door into a nearby room, quiet compared to what we just left behind.
The room is darker and smells like cinnamon and some sort of sweet musk. It’s smaller, more intimate, and I realize there’s two other women already here together. The woman who brought me here smiles and leads me to the corner of the room, where a silk screen hides a large wardrobe, but I can still see the other women from this angle. Their whispers and exhalations enhance my anticipation.
I’ve never been with a woman before. What’s she going to do to me? While the other women build up their excitement, I try to listen to what they’re saying, how they’re interacting, but can’t understand the words. It takes me a moment to realize they’re speaking French.
My guide turns my face back to hers with a gentle pressure, biting her lip as she slowly strips my clothes from my body.
Her fingers don’t fumble over my clothes the way men’s do — she’s undone as many bras as I have, unfastened as many tiny pearl buttons on the tops of expensive skirts.
She drinks me in with her eyes when she finally gets me naked, and I shiver, but she doesn’t touch me. Everything feels warm and strange and soft. Inside the wardrobe are different types of lingerie, and she takes her time choosing bottoms for me—red lace—and then hunts for a top while I slip into them.
Have these been worn before? They feel new, but I don’t know or really care.
Her hands are soft as she spins me by the hips to face away from her. My breasts and belly are cupped by a corset, but it’s too big, and she tsks and removes it, choosing another one that fits better.
I like the way her nails gently scratch my back as she fastens the hooks, closing me inside the lace, making my breasts swell above the cups, making me seem curvier than I am.
She turns me back around and removes her clothes, and she’s already perfect. She takes me by the hand again and leads me to the corner, where the other two women have now moved to a leather sling. I swallow, excitement at being near them overtaking me, and my heart beats faster when my guide whispers to me to kneel facing the other women. She teases my hair back over my shoulder before kissing my neck.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Caroline.”
It’s now, as the slightest whisper of this woman’s skin against mine is making me sigh and shiver, that I’m sure the Swedish model had some kind of drug in the drink she gave me.
But Caroline is pressing her breasts to my back and cupping my breasts from behind and I can’t find it in me to be mad or scared that some of my walls have been knocked down by the mode
l’s cherry-honey cocktail.
I watch the French girls. One has been suspended in the leather sling; it holds her upper body, and two Z)-rmgs attached to chains clip onto the leather ankle cuffs she has on, so she’s completely relaxed without having to support her body weight. Her pussy is completely accessible, and covered with hair. I’ve heard that European women keep a more natural state.
Caroline teases my nipples while the French girl who’s on her feet leans in to whisper to the one in the sling as she fingers her pussy. The wetness is visible even from here, and I moan as the girl adds another finger, causing the girl in the sling to moan and say something in rapid French.
Caroline’s touch is feather-soft—a perfect contrast to the way the French girls touch.
When the girl employs all four of her fingers, Caroline urges my knees apart and rubs my clit through the crotch of my panties until I’m soaked and gasping. The other two girls murmur and moan together in French, and when the one stuffs her whole hand inside the other’s pussy, fisting her deep, my hips twitch and I lean back against Caroline, desperate to feel that same fullness inside me, but she continues teasing me with light, rapid fingertips.
With her other hand, she turns my head, and her impossibly soft mouth finds mine. I’ve never had a kiss so sensual and sweet. Her tongue strokes mine with equal skill to any lover I’ve ever had, but seems more nimble and deliciously invasive.
Her touches are firm but her skin is soft, and it’s strange to yield to arms that feel so much like my own, but I like how her body feels against mine, the way our lingerie rubs together, catches of lace and satin and silkiness that I’ve never felt with a man. She knows my body better than any lover I’ve had.
And yet, I don’t want to be teased, I want her to take her fist and do the same to me, make me her fucking puppet of pleasure and fill me up to my throat so I can taste myself on her fingertips.
“Please,” I whimper, mesmerized by the hips of the woman in the sling, which are undulating like a snake having a seizure when she looks over at me and tries to smile but gasps instead.
She screams out curses or blessings in French. I shudder as Caroline slides one slender finger inside my pussy, and that’s all it takes to slam me over the edge. I come all over her hand to the sound of another woman’s moans.
EIGHTEEN
MY SHOULDER PROTESTS A LITTLE when I shrug out of my stiff blouse, but I get the rest of my soiled clothes off, get in the shower, and scrub at my face.
Rivulets of hot soapy water cascade over my body and swirl down the drain.
Standing still, I bring my awareness to my body, deep in my body, and feel the ache on the back of my thigh where I got shot. I swivel and twist to look—there’s a bruise half the size of my fist forming to match the one on my chest.
I’ve been marked by pleasure. It reminds me of the way Anna used to talk about the bruises she wore like temporary tattoos as a signal to others about what she was into.
If I went out in a skirt short enough to bare it, would people think it was caused by an accident, or would there be people who knew it was sexual—a fuck bruise?
I trace the edge of it while my other hand finds my clit, soapy with bubbles, and I go to town working myself up into a lather.
I press the bruise and moan, as much from the pain as from the memory of earlier and from the slip and slide of my fingers on my clit. It sharpens the pleasure, this pain. I thrust two fingers inside my pussy, but it’s not enough, I need a fist or more right now like the French girl got, but I don’t have the leverage. My hand leaves the bruise, and I abuse my pussy and clit simultaneously with both hands.
I’m walking through the herd of girls, who are now wearing black vinyl. I’m in white vinyl so the guy with the gun can see the marks he leaves on me.
I pinch my chest, feeling the shot when he pulls the trigger.
I twist the skin on my belly when he shoots me there.
I get to his side and take the gun from him, looking at the women begging me with their eyes to shoot them with the gun and make them all mine.
I reach back and savagely press the welt on my leg, knees shaking as I feel someone kneel beside me and wrap their arms around my leg.
I look down at the person hugging my leg, and it’s Jack, clad in black leather with guyliner that makes his eyes stand out brilliantly. Staring up at me with so much soft trust and adoration shining from his gaze.
I reach down and caress his jaw, looking him in the eyes as I shoot him in the thigh. His face half crumples in a grimace of pain and pleasure like he can’t decide which it is, but he groans as I pull him to his feet and bend to lick the paint-covered welt already forming on his thigh.
The little swell is hot against my tongue. I press against it with one hard lick, and he shivers, his cock springing up and nudging my face. I snap my fingers, ordering the girls to come to me like my subservient little puppies, and they know exactly what I want and begin caressing Jack’s body, touching him everywhere except for the parts that belong to me—the parts that only I get to claim—all the while murmuring in sexy, accented voices.
I shoot him in the belly, on the arm, on the chest, on his calf, and each time, he hisses in perfect sips of air that nourish me like manna.
The girls press those bruises as I take his length in my mouth and suck and suck, confusing his senses a little more as to whether he’s feeling pain or pleasure, but making damn sure that he doesn’t want either to stop. I want him to be ruined for anything but this for the rest of his life, the same way I am.
I tear the showerhead from the wall, aiming it at my clit, twisting the knob as high as it will go so I can twist my fingers into my bruise as I suck Jack dry while the other women jealously watch us both come together, wishing I’d give the same pleasure to them.
I’m wetter than the jets pounding my clit.
I can’t fucking breathe.
I spiral higher and higher, feeling like I’ve come loose from my body, I come so hard. Maybe I do, because when I open my eyes, I’m sitting in the bathtub with the water still aimed at my cunt.
I put everything back the way it was, turn off the water, and towel off.
Pleasantly sore, but relaxed, I smooth lotion over my skin and notice the glow in my cheeks in the reflection of the mirror—making me look beautiful.
What I just did made me radiant. Being with a woman while two more fucked in front of me was sexy as hell, and yet fisting is somehow another one of those taboo things we’re never supposed to talk about. It feels good—or it looked like it did.
How can that be wrong or strange?
What is it about society that makes us shrink away from pain as though it’s unnatural and unhealthy, even though we’re bombarded with it in other areas?
Sports, for example. No pain, no gain. Give one hundred and ten percent. Do it till it hurts. From gym class to the Olympics, we’re pressured to find something athletic that we’re good at, and to try to exploit that talent in the hopes of making money at it—regardless of the tax on our bodies.
Little girls get ballet, little boys get baseball or football. It’s always seemed backward that we try to rub out the violence in girls, make them pretty and docile, and encourage the boys-will-be-boys mentality, then teach women to be afraid of the men society creates.
Maybe if we had little girls in martial arts and boys in dance, the world would be different. But ignoring the archaic gender roles, the expectation of pushing through the pain is there all along. We have to be the best, beat the best, but get along while doing it because Most Congenial is still a thing. But doesn’t competition make us stronger?
Not when it comes to pro football players when they hit the latter years of their lives and their brains are curling up and shrinking from the chronic concussions— the brain trying to curdle and protect itself by hardening like an interior helmet.
Hockey players weren’t required to wear protective gear for a startlingly long time. And of course, they wore cup
s long before they put helmets on—showing their true priority when it comes to safety. As long as they can still fuck, who needs headgear?
And now we’ve got MMA, which is as close to bringing back the old arenas with gladiators as I think we’re ever likely to get. People paying money to watch others knock the shit out of each other. The fighters sometimes grapple on top of the blood that the last round’s loser left on the octagon floor.
I’m equal parts thrilled and disgusted by it. On the one hand, it’s savage, and what’s the point of it?
On the other hand, it’s fucking savage, and giving manners and propriety the finger once in a while makes me want to purr. Is it wrong to want to be spanked? To revel in controlled chaos like that? Nature is the most violent offender of them all—the world itself is trying to wipe us from its surface with earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, fires.
Certain behaviors are learned, others innate. But all I ever needed to learn about violence, I learned in church.
I slip into my favorite T-shirt and climb into Inana’s bed, turning off the lamp. I want everything I’ve experienced to continue, to be more, bigger, brighter, but I wanted to experience it with Jack. And yet, the times I attempted to broach the subject, he looked at me like I was wrong or crazy for wanting things to be more intense, even though I wanted them with him. Even though I love him more than I’ve loved anyone and want to share everything with him. I crossed a line tonight, but he’s the one who drew the line.
I tried to cross it with him first, but he rejected me completely.
Tears sting my eyes when I check my phone. He hasn’t replied to any of my calls or texts. Are we just on a break, or are we well and truly broken?
Maybe I’m the broken one.
There are some things we need to keep only for our partners, but there are also parts of ourselves we need to keep secret, keep for ourselves, things that make us who we are.
