“Maybe he doesn’t want to.” I really hoped Kimberly wouldn’t remember this in the morning.
Patrick took my chin in his hand and give me a firm, brotherly kiss on the cheek. He grinned. “Time to take your kit off, girls.”
“I’m on my period,” I said, matching his facetiousness.
He rolled his eyes. “We can put a towel down.”
“Oh, don’t be gross,” Kimberly said. A second later she let out a snore.
Patrick and I looked at each other. She was fast asleep on the bed, her skirt riding up, revealing the top of one stocking.
He straightened her skirt and removed her other boot.
I took the throw from the foot of the bed and folded it over her. She’d be furious when she woke in the morning and found she’d neglected her usual rigorous cleansing-and-toning routine.
I unfastened her earrings and laid them on the small bedside table. “Don’t let her drive home if she wakes up.”
“She’s out for the night.” He stood looking down at Kimberly, an odd expression on his face, tenderness and regret mixed.
“You okay?”
“What? Oh, yeah. Just disappointed that I won’t be hearing more about junior high.”
“Me, too.” I hesitated. “You have dirt on your face, too.”
“Do I?” He scrubbed at his face.
I stepped forward and rubbed his cheek with my thumb.
“Not tonight, Josephine,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to say that. Is it Josephine?”
“Yeah. I hated it for years.”
“Jo suits you better.”
There was a pause. I still had my hand on his face and I stepped back, feeling like a fool. “Good night, then.”
I grabbed the bottle and glasses and fled back to my side of the house, unnerved by that moment of contact and the intensity of his gaze. My thumb still held the warmth of his cheekbone.
What the hell was I doing?
“Hey, wake up.”
I could smell coffee. I opened an eye to see Kimberly sitting on my bed, a cup of coffee in each hand and a bundle of clothes beneath her arms. Mascara was smeared beneath her eyes and she wore a plaid dressing gown that had to belong to Patrick.
“Thanks.” I took one of the cups and sat, rubbing my face and hair. “You okay?”
“Fine. We broke up.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I know it sounds real dramatic. It isn’t. I was his rebound girl and other than the screwing we don’t have a lot in common. He’s a nice guy, though.” She looked away as she said it.
“And you’re okay with it?”
“I guess. He broke it off.” She laughed. “I’m suffering from hurt pride. I’m the one who breaks things off. And it was after we had sex this morning.”
“Jerk,” I said.
“Nah. I was the one who grabbed his pecker. I was pretty insistent. I guess he was being polite. Real polite. Very considerate, very… I mean, the guy knows what he’s doing, as far as fucking goes.” She dropped her clothes onto my bed, cowboy boots tumbling on the floor, and wandered to the window and pulled the blinds up. “They ploughed. We got about six inches, I figure. Do you have eye-makeup remover?”
“Sure. Help yourself. You know where the towels are.”
She made a move toward the bathroom but turned, her hand on the door. “So what happened last night? I was drunk as a skunk.”
“Not much. You fell asleep and snored a bit.”
She made a face and retreated into the bathroom. I listened to the shower run and breathed a sigh of relief.
After a half-hour she emerged, her hair wet and wrapped in a towel, her face clean and shining.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Jason?”
Good question, and why did she have to remember my embarrassing revelation and not her own? I swung my legs out of bed and headed for the bathroom, muttering that I had to pee.
When I came back out she sat in front of the mirror braiding her wet hair. Her reflected eyes sought mine.
“We don’t have secrets from each other,” she said. “We’ve known each other for five years, Jo, and it’s not just whatever happened with Jason. I feel left out. What’s going on? You’re not in any sort of trouble, are you? Is everything okay with Willis? Because you can tell me. You can tell me anything.”
“I know. I’m not in trouble, Kimberly, and I don’t think I’m dating Willis anymore. He hasn’t called in a couple of days. He was a nice guy, but he really wasn’t my type, and I wasn’t his.”
She pulled her cowboy boots on. From outside came the scrape of a snow shovel.
“Patrick’s shoveling the drive, bless his heart,” she said.
“And about Jason—technically it’s sexual harassment. We decided to keep it quiet, and since he wasn’t going to tell anyone, I couldn’t, either. He’s a lot of fun. No hidden piercings, though he has a cute tattoo on his shoulder. Lots of stamina. Pretty dick.”
“Okay.” She looked slightly mollified.
“Want some breakfast?”
“No, I’ll get going, but thanks. I need to get home and change for work. You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. Are you okay?”
She shrugged. “I guess so. I’m gonna find me a nice lawyer—a real one—or an accountant.”
“There’s no accounting for taste,” I said, which made her laugh. I was relieved.
I accompanied her downstairs and refilled our coffee mugs while she knotted her cashmere scarf around her neck.
“Kimberly,” I said as she was about to leave, “have you ever felt that your fantasies were better than the real thing?”
“We are talking about sex, I assume?” She paused in pulling on a pair of beautiful leather gauntlets. Even by looking at them I could tell they were buttery soft. “Isn’t that what fantasies are all about?”
“I guess so.”
“Honey.” She poked my shoulder. “You let me know when you’re ready to drop the fantasies for a few hours and come back into the real world, you hear? There are friends out here, and real people, and it might not be so bad.”
She swayed out through the front door and Patrick paused to lean on his shovel. They had a brief conversation and kissed each other on the cheek with, as far as I could tell, a fair amount of affection.
He’d kissed me on the cheek, too, last night, but it had felt like something far more intimate. I remembered the grip of his hand on my chin, followed by that overly long moment when he gazed into my eyes and my thumb slowed on his face.
The guy knows what he’s doing. High praise from Kimberly.
I could believe it.
“Purse, cell phone, watch. Here’s your locker combination.” The woman eyed me up as she handed me a slip of paper. She looked like Mrs. Danvers in black leather.
I nodded, memorized the code and slipped the phone into my pocket.
“Want to take off your jacket, honey? They like to show off their bodies. It’s very competitive. Boots off, too, we have a no-shoes rule in the house.”
“Okay.” I unbuttoned my denim jacket and stowed it in the locker. I wore a skimpy little camisole beneath that had cost a lot of money, supersoft cotton with a discreet lace trim.
The room had a tiled floor and white walls, lockers along one side, chilly and brightly lit. The only furniture was a wooden bench. I’d had a glimpse of the turn-of-the-century mansion as we drove by, the imposing front door flanked by panels of opulent stained glass. But the limousine had continued to drop me off at a modest side door; quite definitely where the hired help entered the house.
Mrs. Leather Danvers looked at me with a great deal of interest. “Very nice. Ah, here’s Harry to go over the ground rules.”
Harry entered the room. When I’d met him before he’d worn a suit, but tonight he was in jeans and a T-shirt, feet bare, and carried a clipboard and a binder under one arm. He glanced at me with approval, particularly at my nipples, which had perked up with the cold air.
<
br /> “Welcome!” He kissed my cheek. “Great to have you with us, Jo. Okay, Angela, I can take over now.”
Mrs. Danvers gave a regal nod and left the room, striding confidently on her spiked heels, black leather creaking. So much for the no-shoes rule.
“Silly old dyke,” Harry said under his breath. And then to me, “So, ground rules. You’ll be in the Great Room with the others. No penetration, no orgasms, that’s the main rule. Two main rules, I should say.” He consulted the clipboard. “You had your tests done yesterday, that’s good—as soon as those results come back clean, you can start thinking of moving up. Unless you like it in the Great Room. You’re welcome to stay there, some of them do, but if you actually want some fucking on your own terms, you need to think about progressing.”
“No penetration, no orgasms?” I repeated.
He winked. “Yeah, but a heck of a lot of fooling around. Anything more, there’s a punishment.”
“What sort of punishment? By whom?”
He patted my rear and handed me the thick binder. “More than you ever wanted to know in here—the full set of rules. Ready?”
I placed the binder in my locker, and as we walked toward the door, I said, “What do you mean by ‘fucking on your own terms’?”
“One of us may choose you as a partner. You don’t have to accept, but it’s a way to progress, and to be honest it’s pretty serious if you turn someone down.”
“Okay.” We walked through a dark corridor and then up a staircase. After one flight, taking us to the first floor, he punched a code into a keypad.
“You’ll do great,” he said. “Remember, if you want to leave, call zero one on the phone, but I’d suggest giving it a couple of hours, until midnight at least. They might tease you a bit, but Jake and Willis tell me you can give as good as you get, and you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. Believe me, this’ll be one of the most interesting—and sexy—nights you’ve ever had. Pity you couldn’t get in earlier, but, hey…” He pushed the door open. “You’re one of the boys and girls, now. Have fun.”
10
THE BOYS AND GIRLS.
I walked forward feeling more than ever that I had regressed back to high school, or, even worse, to dance class.
The large room held a group of mainly young and good-looking people, sprawled on comfortable furniture, chatting and drinking. A few clustered around a table with a partially constructed jigsaw puzzle, and a Scrabble game took place on the rug in front of the fireplace. One couple was immersed in a chess game at another table, but the largest group clustered around a television, a pile of DVDs nearby. A piano stood against one wall, and a woman sat at the keyboard painstakingly picking out a Scott Joplin rag.
It could have been a frat house, not that I’d ever hung out with frat boys, but its shabby, casual décor gave that sort of youthful, sloppy impression. But a frat house from an earlier, more innocent time, before fancy electronics. Although perhaps—given how people were dressed, or undressed—not particularly innocent.
One of the men uncoiled from a couch where he’d been entwined with a woman stripped down to her bra and panties. He wore a pair of sweats, hung low on his hips, and it didn’t take much in the way of powers of observation to see that he wore nothing beneath. His cock, semi-erect, swayed and pushed against the cotton knit as he walked.
“Well, well,” he said. “And what do we have here? Fresh meat. Very nice.”
He walked around me, staring at me, while I tried to suppress a smile. This was a kid who’d seen too many noir movies; he played the role of the boss/leader to perfection.
Others walked forward to stare at me, assess me. One of the group around the television hit Pause and the screen stilled.
The self-appointed leader continued to talk. “Nice tits. A bit small. Good legs.” He leered at my breasts. “What’s your name?”
“Jo. What’s yours?”
I thought for a moment that he was going to bellow that he asked the questions, but he smiled and circled around me again.
“Someone dressed up fancy for tonight,” the guy said.
The others crowded a little nearer. I knew they wanted to intimidate me, but I stood still and maintained my smile. As Mrs. Danvers had said, they were competitive, and I’d half expected some sort of hazing activity. Most of them were gorgeous, too, and stripped down to underwear or the sort of cotton clothing sold for sleeping or lounging around the house, which gave the whole place the atmosphere of a slumber party.
Something moved above. I looked up to see railings, and a couple of dark figures. The entire room was surrounded by a dimly lit walkway at the second-floor level.
“They watch us,” the guy said, addressing me instead of his audience. “They’re picking out who they want later tonight.”
“And they are…?”
“You’ll find out, Jo.” He walked behind me and unbuttoned and unzipped my skirt, the same polka-dot one I’d worn to seduce Willis. As the fabric slithered around my ankles I stepped out of it.
“Well, well.” He regarded my extremely expensive panties with approval. They were made of cotton to match the cami sole, with a fairly modest yet flattering cut, high on the thighs, but the fabric was fine enough to reveal the shadow of my pubic hair. “I’m Pete. Stop staring, boys and girls. You’ll have plenty of time to get to know your new playmate.”
They drifted away, returning to the games and movies, to their places on couches or the large, overstuffed chairs that dotted the room.
Pete led me around the room, introducing me, pointing out the refrigerator, stocked with soft drinks and wine, the snack table with plates of cut fruit and cheese. He mostly ignored the couples making out, or in one case, the threesome of a girl and two guys.
“How does this work?” I asked.
“Work? We’re all hot. We basically have boring things to occupy us, and up there—” he lifted his chin to the gallery “—they’re watching. So we like to put on a show.”
“But the no-orgasm, no-penetration rule?”
“Safety’s sake, since not everyone here has been cleared physically. And it makes it more challenging for us. What’s wrong, Jo? You don’t like a challenge?” Before I could answer, he wheeled around to address a couple coiled together on a chair, “Do I detect wet panties, Monica? Uh-oh. And Allan’s hand inside them?”
“Fuck off,” she said. “Who made you dictator of the day?”
But the guy removed his hand with a rueful grin.
We resumed our tour of the room. “So what happens if there is an orgasm or penetration? And what sort of penetration?”
“We choose a punishment. A spanking, for example. No penetration means no penetration, although if you want to get technical, it has happened that a finger has gotten inside a pussy, or a cock inside a mouth, but usually peer pressure prevails. Now, Lindy here has been a very naughty girl.”
Lindy, fair-haired and pretty, grinned in an embarrassed sort of way. She stood apart from the others at the side of the room, facing the wall.
“Tell Jo what you did, Lindy.”
She turned around and fidgeted. “I went to the bathroom and I played with myself.”
“Which is perfectly okay,” Pete said. “But then what?”
“I had an orgasm. I didn’t mean to, but I got carried away, and…”
“So we’re punishing you,” Pete said. “Tell Jo how.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I have to stand here, on my own against the wall. I’m bored, Pete. Can I go to the bathroom?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “You can’t be trusted in there alone.”
“But I want to pee,” she said.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait,” Pete said. He led me past her.
“I really do,” she wailed, clutching her crotch. “Please, Pete.”
“Isn’t that sort of bad for her?” I asked as we walked on.
“That girl has a bladder like iron. We’ll get her worried, and
then…oh, a little public humiliation will be in order.”
I looked back at her. “What’s to stop her going to the bathroom? I mean, in the sense of just walking in there?”
“Peer pressure. Watch.”
He turned me so we were no longer looking directly at Lindy. She began a slow sidle toward the door at the end of the room.
One of the Scrabble players looked up and shouted, “Where do you think you’re going, Lindy?”
“Oh, you’re so mean.” She stomped back to her original position.
“So,” Pete said, “you have to be careful. That might prove difficult for a sexy girl like you.” He drew a finger down the side of my face, down my neck and collarbone and circled a nipple. “Nice. You like that, don’t you? I bet you like your tits played with when you’re fucking.”
I was aware of movement in the room as the others gathered around us, although the chess players remained immersed in their game and a quarrel over which video to watch next seemed to have broken out by the television.
Another man, with long brown hair tied back into a ponytail and wearing boxers and a T-shirt, knelt at my feet. He put his face against my knee and licked up my inner thigh, his nose bumping briefly against my crotch. And then the other leg. His hands clasped the backs of my knees, keeping me steady.
Pete nuzzled my neck. “Tell Ivan to lick you, Jo. He’s good at it, the girls tell me.”
Ivan’s breath was warm and moist on my pussy. He pushed his nose to and fro against the crotch of my panties and grinned, inviting me to share the joke.
A girl vaulted over the back of a sofa to join us. “Mmm. You like girls, Jo? I’m much better than these losers.” She leaned to kiss the side of my mouth. “Ooh. Nice titties. Get off, Pete. My turn.”
Pete shrugged and stepped away as she lowered her mouth to my breast and bit gently through the cotton. I gave his cock, even more prominent now, a long, hungry stare and licked my lips. I could tease them, too. I rotated my hips and moaned a little as Ivan slipped a finger inside my panties, partly for show, but also because I enjoyed the attention and hunger and heat.
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