by Eden Myles
“It wasn’t what I expected,” I told them. “But I’m okay, as you can see, so no need to worry about me.” Before they could interrogate me further, I escaped to my bedroom, closed and locked the door, and stood there a long moment, breathing in the dark, just trying to process what I’d agreed to.
I closed my eyes, but I kept seeing that dangerously smirking face that Mr. Ishikawa had offered me. I could still smell his cologne in my nose. After about five minutes of standing there like an idiot, my phone went off and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
I fumbled the unfamiliar phone out of my purse, the new one Mr. Ishikawa had given me before he’d handed me down into my car for the evening like a footman turning me over to my royal carriage—though my car was an ancient, secondhand Dodge Aries with a bad transmission and nothing a princess would ever ride in. I thumbed open the sliding screen on the phone. The device looked a lot like my smartphone, but it was more compact and it had a lot more apps on it. He’d told me his company planned to unveil it later this year at CeBIT, the world’s largest computer expo. I was the only person outside his company who had one.
There was one email waiting. Mr. Ishikawa had left instructions he expected me to follow to the letter (his exact words) for our first meeting at his home this coming weekend. They were incredibly, embarrassingly, detailed and included everything from the way I was to groom to what I was to wear and how I was to walk, talk and address him, both privately and in public. I scanned the lost list to the bottom, where he’d sent me a simple personal closing message:
Remember you belong to me now.
No thanks yous or see yous or until then, just that. Just that message.
You belong to me now.
My older phone went off, the familiar ringtone making me jump and almost drop Mr. Ishikawa’s phone. It was my dad. “Hello, Daddy,” I said as I went to curl up against the headboard of my bed.
“Cookie just called and said she was a little concerned about you, baby,” Daddy said, and I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Cookie to call my father the moment she thought something bad had happened to me, though it did sound good to hear my father’s familiar east Texas drawl. I had missed it. “Is everything all right? How did the assignment go?”
“Everything went fine,” I told him cheerily and then deliberately changed the subject. We talked about New York and Texas, some bad storms moving in, and about my Aunt Sarah, who lived in Maine and desperately wanted me to visit her right after graduation. Finally, when I yawned for the umpteenth time, my dad told me I should get to bed, get some rest, and call him anytime I was feeling lonely. I told him goodnight and started getting ready for bed.
After sliding under the sheets, I lay there a long time, replaying the evening’s events over and over, wondering if I’d made the right decision, wondering what came next. The idea of seeing Mr. Ishikawa this weekend was both frightening and exciting—and seemed a long time off. I didn’t have a vibrator or anything like that—honestly, I was too nervous to visit a sex toy store and too worried if I ordered something online that Cookie or Darren would intercept the package and make fun of me—but after a while I let my hands wander old-fashioned-like under my Betty Boop nightshirt.
I started by circling my nipples until they were hard little pebbles standing at rigid attention. I imagined a hot, rough tongue encircling them, wetting them until they were slick with saliva before my lover started moving methodically down my body, licking and kissing along my ribs, then further down until he’d reached the wet, swollen folds of my labia open and waiting for his kiss. I imagined him kissing me there like he kissed my mouth—ravenously, deliriously—his tongue flicking along all my wetness…
In times past, I usually imagined my current favorite actor or musician going down on me, Channing Tatum, Matt Damon or Mitchel Musso. I’d always liked pretty boys with sweet eyes and full, kissable lips. Sweet, playful boys I didn’t have to worry would hurt me. So I couldn’t understand my attraction to Mr. Ishikawa at all. With his lean, almost ceramic face, long, brutal slit of a mouth, big hands and big package, he wasn’t exactly pretty boy material. He was too severe for that, too masculine, and his dark, intense eyes were anything but sweet. He looked like the type of man who was used to chewing people up and spitting them out en masse. I couldn’t imagine him being gentle in the least.
Remember…you belong to me now.
“Ahhh…” I sank two fingers deep inside me and curled them. I pretended they were his fingers as I found my g-spot, pressed and played with it. I imagined him holding me down, plundering my body roughly, controlling me. Using me to satisfy himself. I imagined his long, shining black hair blanketing my belly and legs as he licked and sucked at my clit, as he tried to eat me alive. My entire pelvis rose spontaneously up off the mattress and I grunted and bit my lip until I tasted blood to keep from making a scene and alerting my roommates as I came hard and fast, drenching my hand and the inside of my thighs.
“Je-sus,” I whispered as I fell back onto the bed, trembling in the warm, fuzzy aftermath of an orgasm so sudden and mind-blowing it left my entire body humming with unspent energy. When it was over and some of the feel-good chemicals had faded, I discovered I was covered in sweat and juice, and I badly needed a shower. But then I realized some of his cologne must have rubbed off on me as he walked me from the Dollhouse to my car because I could still smell him on my skin where he’d touched me. It was a lemony fragrance, like Frankincense, like Asia.
I inhaled deeply of the subtle, manly scent on my arm, then sat up to read his text message one last time. After that, I drifted off to a very satisfied sleep. In my dreams, he came to me and pulled my hair like that courtesan in the Dollhouse and said, “Your body is no longer your exclusive domain, Felix. You belong to me.”
***
“Earth to Felix, Earth to Felix,” my annoying co-worker Archie yelled from the ticket stand across the theater. “Come in, Felix. You have a customer.”
I jerked awake, barely aware I’d fallen asleep almost standing up behind the concession counter at the multiplex where I worked every weekday after classes. That’s what I get for pulling an all-nighter, I thought despondently. I’d spent most of the previous day shopping at the mall for the things I would need for my first night as a professional courtesan—the right dress, garters and stockings, the lingerie, the high heels of exactly the right color, make and height as outlined in Mr. Ishikawa’s text message. As a result, I’d been up almost all night, cramming for a world history exam I somehow managed to pass with flying colors, and now I could barely keep my eyes open!
“I’m stepping out for a break,” Archie called, which was code for yet another nicotine fit. “Can you watch the front end?”
“I’m not doing your job, Archie!” I yelled back. Archie could make me so mad sometimes! He barely worked and made twice my pay. But his uncle owned the multiplex, so there was only so much anger I could safely fling at him.
A conservative Muslim couple stepped up to the counter, the husband in a nice suit, the wife covered head to foot in a long black abaya and wearing a headscarf wrapped around her face and hair. She was carrying a two-year-old and trailing three other children behind her, five-year-old twin girls and a four-year-old boy. I could see the noticeable bulge of yet another pregnancy under her abaya. She was pretty but looked exhausted, aged well beyond her years, and I felt a little sorry for her. One of the five-year-olds was screaming like a siren, obviously opposed to the idea of seeing the big budget Disney movie on the matinee sign. I really couldn’t blame her. I’d seen the previews and they were really scary.
While I was fixing the Icees the wife had ordered for the children, the husband said in his heavily accented English, “You shouldn’t be yelling like that in public, young woman. It isn’t appropriate.”
“Archie’s a jerk who takes advantage of people,” I told him as I stuck the Icees one after another in a Styrofoam cup holder. “You’re lucky I don’t kill the bastard in his sleep.”
I expected aghast horror from the man, but he just laughed. “You need children to teach you patience.”
“Sure,” I said as he walked away with his family, “like I’m ever going to let that happen.”
***
On Friday night, I stood in my bedroom, in front of my full-length bevel mirror, and looked myself over. I checked the fit of the dress Mr. Ishikawa had insisted I purchase, a little red satin number, not overly expensive, but a little briefer than I generally liked my dresses, and the black stockings and fireman-red, fuck-me heels I wasn’t convinced worked for my girl-next-door looks. I had to admit they did make my legs look longer and slimmer, but I wasn’t used to walking in four-inch stilettos. I had no idea how I would survive the evening.
I slapped on a little mascara and some foundation to hide my freckles, then tried the bright, bold cherry red lipstick I’d bought to match my dress and heels…but quickly wiped it away. It really didn’t work for me.
At a quarter to seven, Mr. Ishikawa’s phone went off and the message I received was that he would be picking me up shortly and I was to wait for him outside. I grabbed my purse and headed for the door, but I wasn’t fast enough for Cookie, who was waiting to ambush me in the living room.
She stopped stretching in the “grasp the bird’s tail” form of her t’ai chi lesson and squealed, “Holy shit, girl, you look like a slutty Cinderella!”
“Thanks…I think,” I said, startled by her outburst. “But it’s strictly business. Mr. Ishikawa.”
Cookie’s eyebrows popped up but she held her form like a pro. “Good lord, you’re really going through with it?”
I’d explained about the experiment some days ago, if for no other reason than because I knew Cookie regularly checked my phone messages and she would have found out eventually. The one time I didn’t lock my laptop, she reprimanded me for visiting WetConstructionStuds.com. I should have gotten really mad at her for that, but she came from a family of seven siblings; I didn’t think she even knew the definition of privacy. Since learning about Mr. Ishikawa, I’d sworn her to silence, but I think she’d expected me to come to my senses and bow out early on. Well, I hadn’t.
“It’s a chance of a lifetime,” I explained. “Can you imagine the article I’ll have?”
“Do you think it’s safe? I mean, can you trust him not to take advantage of you?”
“We’re going to dinner at his place, but some friends of his will be there,” I assured her. “There’ll be other people around. And anyway, if things don’t feel right…” I shrugged and left it at that. “I’ll call you when I get there and after dinner, all right?”
“You better!” she said as she gracefully transitioned from “grasp the bird’s tail” to “bird flying away”. “If something happens to you, your father will kill me!”
Downstairs, I found a limousine waiting for me at the curb and Mr. Ishikawa leaning against the car by the open door, a hand in his pocket. He was dressed in what looked to be an Armani tuxedo similar to the one he’d worn at the Dollhouse, only tighter. The tailored black suit clung to his broad shoulders and narrow waist. Beneath it, he wore a dress shirt, bow tie, and a satin waistcoat in a bold red Oriental pattern. His long black hair was braided away from his faintly cruel face and sharp blue eyes. “You’re late,” he said, not the greeting I’d expected.
I checked my wristwatch. “By two minutes.”
“I expect my courtesan to be punctual.”
I hesitated and looked up at him towering over me, wondering if I shouldn’t run away. I wished my heart would stop pounding in my chest so hard. I wish I could think straight when he looked at me. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk to me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I belong to you. Like I’m your personal property.”
“For the next eight weeks, you are. You’re my courtesan. I expect you to be on time. I expect you to please me, Felix.”
I snorted in response and he crossed his arms and said, “If you ever expect this arrangement of ours to work, you will need listen to my criticisms and learn from my discipline, but at the same time, you need to not take things so personally.” He extended his hand to me.
I knew he was right, so I let him hand me down into the plush white leather interior of the limousine. The inside was surprisingly spacious, but Mr. Ishikawa’s presence and scent filled the space to capacity. He offered me his phone as we silently rode off into the night. “Call your friend. Tell her you’re all right, that that you’re comfortable, if you are.”
I frowned at him. I had my own phone.
“This is my phone, so there will be a record of it coming from me.”
I suddenly understood what he was doing. He wanted me to know I was safe with him. I made the call. After I was done, I handed the phone back to Mr. Ishikawa. My hands were shaking.
“I won’t harm you,” he told me in that low, almost hoarse voice. He sat with his body turned to me so I was pressed against the back of the seat. His hand went to my knee, and slowly he slid the skirt of my dress up, the material whispering against the silk of my stockings. “I may discipline you, Felix, but I will never harm you.”
“I know,” I said. I shivered minutely as his hand moved between my legs, gently but firmly, not hurting, but not letting me wriggle away, either. He stroked my clit to calm me and slipped a finger briefly inside me to check and see if I’d followed his orders. It jolted me, but not unpleasantly. He looked satisfied. I’d shaved according to his grooming rules, and I wore no underwear. He didn’t say anything about all the wetness his touch had teased from me.
Part of our agreement was to show each other our medical records. After he was done inspecting me, I took mine from my purse and handed it over. He gave me his. I looked it over before closing the file. He spent a few moments asking me about my birth control methods and I assured him I was on the pill. The fact that he was so concerned about my health and well-being put me more at ease.
“Have you chosen a safeword like I’ve asked you to?”
I squirmed. That too was in his list of instructions. “No.”
“We should settle that now, then. It’s important I know when you’ve reached your limit.” His face was absolutely serious and his expression made my heart tick in my throat. “Perhaps something in Japanese. I respond quickly to that.”
“I don’t know any Japanese.” Then I rethought that. “Well, I know neko…from watching anime.” I blushed at that, but he didn’t laugh.
“The Japanese word for cat. That’s terribly apropos, under the circumstance.” His hand on the back of my seat moved to stroke my hair as if I were, indeed, a little cat to be petted.
I felt a charge from his hand and I was just starting to relax into his touch when we glided up to the curb in front of a towering, all-glass skyscraper on Park Avenue. My heart started beating hard again. Oh god…I was on birth control and I needed a safeword. I realized I would be losing my virginity tonight. To him. I was almost too afraid to move, but I realized I was at the point of no return.
He took my hand, and with that secretive little smile on his face, guided me from the limo.
We passed the doorman and crossed a huge, ridiculously luxurious lobby full of fountains, ferns and Greek-inspired statuary to a glass luxury elevator that swiftly and soundlessly transported us up to his penthouse suite. His rooms, I soon learned, were spare and sumptuous and done in stark colors. The floor was black and white parquet and hand-painted Japanese shoji screens divided the vast space into sections. The steel and glass furnishing lent a remote tone to the penthouse that would have seemed cold were it not for the strategically placed Ikebana flower arrangements. The main living space boasted a Shinto shrine, a small fountain with koi fish in it, and a ceiling-to-floor cage with what Mr. Ishikawa explained were a colony of Rainbow Lorikeets, rare, multi-colored parrots that clicked and called when I stepped into the room.
Seated on a cozy collection of black leather settees wa
s the gentleman he’d spoken to at the Dollhouse, and beside him a pretty young woman in an elegant, white, Grecian evening gown. “This is my good friend Ian Sterling, of Sterling of New York, and his courtesan Evelyn, the couple I told you would be joining us tonight.” Mr. Ishikawa walked me to the pair, who immediately stood to greet me.
I felt infinitely more relaxed with the couple here. If we were entertaining company, we probably wouldn’t be doing anything too scandalous, would we? Mr. Sterling was very tall like Mr. Ishikawa and wore silver-rimmed glasses. He kissed my knuckles, openly acknowledging me now that we weren’t under the house rules of the Dollhouse, and said, “It’s my pleasure, Ms. Burks. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“I suppose Mr. Ishikawa explained about the article.”
“Yes,” he said with a vague smile. “The article.” After that, he turned me over to what I soon learned was not only his courtesan, but his wife as well.
Evelyn was tall and very glamorous like some silver screen starlet. I figured, being Mr. Ian Sterling’s wife and courtesan, that she would be scary and unapproachable, but within five minutes we were grinning like crazy and exchanging stories about high school and college like lifelong friends. I’d never had a really good friend growing up, but I soon decided that had I, I would have wanted it to be Evelyn Sterling.
“So you have children?” I said when she told me about her and Ian’s three-year-old son, Hunter.
“Just Hunter,” Evelyn said, grinning mischievously. “Ian wants more, but Hunter’s more than enough for me right now. He gets into everything. I call him danger baby.”
I thought about the Muslim couple I’d served at the theater earlier in the week, the tired looking mother of four, with another on the way. “He hasn’t insisted on more?”
“Of course he insists!” She sipped her white wine and smiled a secret smile at me over the rim of her glass. “And he can keep insisting. That doesn’t mean he’ll be getting his way anytime soon.”
We giggled together at Evelyn’s rebellion. “So I take it he’s not in charge all the time? He doesn’t tell you what to do?”
