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by Clarice Clique

  All the time I was embarrassing myself at work and murdering my evening finding people I didn’t care about on the internet, all the time I was creating detailed sexual scenarios with total strangers, I thought of my lover. I wanted to be on his doorstep, kneeling, begging, asking him to have mercy and keep me safe from myself.

  I made up mental speeches.

  ‘My body aches for you. Truly it aches; throughout the day I am in physical pain, my head, my stomach, my limbs, my heart. I feel every fibre of my clothes chafing against my skin, a constant irritant, and reminder that you’re not touching me. I need the warmth of your hand on my naked flesh. I need to spread my thighs and feel my body mould around you. I need to be bound, blindfolded and gagged, my muscles tense as I listen for the swish of the cat o’ nine tails in the air before it lashes against me.

  ‘I need your guidance. I need your order. Without you nothing feels right, nothing can ever be right. I don’t need to be separated from you to know this. It is the truth of my life. It is the centre of my soul.’

  And that is where I always stopped, before my mind drifted off into song titles as if all the music that had been playing on the radio in the background throughout my life was now my only means to communicate.

  I just died in your arms tonight.

  Take these broken wings.

  How can you mend a broken heart?

  Don’t leave me this way.

  Against all odds, take a look at me now.

  How am I supposed to live without you?

  I want you back.

  Etcetera etcetera.

  I resisted phoning him. Not because I was strong. Because I was scared. If I didn’t speak to him, I could fantasise, I could believe; if I did speak to him and he rejected me, there was nothing left. Nothing.

  I thought of telling Joe that I was a free agent, that we could go out to dinner together, hold hands in the middle of the pub at work dos, spend our free time fucking like rabbits. And it made me feel so very tired.

  That is why I hastily sent the text to my master, barely looking at the phone as I pressed the letters in, not giving myself the chance to rethink.

  Can’t stop thinking about you. Can’t replace you.

  When the reply buzzed through, quicker than I dared hope, my hands were actually shaking.

  I’ve been feeling the same. May I phone you?

  There were tears on my cheeks before I realised that the text was not from my lover. It was from someone I’d inputted as Slave. I brushed the salt off my cheeks and recalled one of the early men online, who had vaguely interested me enough to ask for his mobile number.

  I sighed, deep, deep, breaths, then texted back a simple yes. I’d had enough of these virtual conversations; it would be easier to actually hear a human voice.

  The phone rang. I answered it.

  ‘Hello, mistress.’ His accent was plain, perhaps a slight West Country undertone, but nothing much. There was a clear tremor of excitement in his voice, though. ‘Thank you for this great honour.’

  A pause.

  I opened my mouth, but had no words. There was still too much disappointment and that wouldn’t be fair to him.

  He continued. ‘I hope it doesn’t sound silly, but I really felt a connection with you in the conversations we had. I’m not normally an emotional person. I can’t tell you how it made me feel to receive your text today and know that I wasn’t being silly, that you felt the same.’

  Another pause.

  My mind was blank.

  ‘Mistress, may I ask you a question?’

  Silence.

  ‘Are you still there?’

  Silence.

  ‘Are … Are you a man?’

  I laughed.

  His voice filled with relief. ‘Oh mistress. You have a beautiful laugh.’ There was a certain note of sweetness to his voice when it was relaxed.

  ‘For a man?’ I teased.

  He gave a small giggle. ‘For anyone.’ Then he took an audible breath. ‘I haven’t offended you, have I?’

  ‘Is it such an insult to be mistaken for a man?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I’m not a real man, I’m a pathetic worm.’

  I laughed again, although I don’t think he meant it as a joke. ‘So, how are things going with your mistress?’

  ‘She likes me to take my clothes off, do her cleaning, and then lie naked under her bed while her husband and her have sex.’ He rushed the words out like a confession.

  ‘Does the husband like you under the bed too?’

  ‘I’m not sure if he knows that I’m there, mistress.’

  ‘What does your instinct tell you? How many times have you done this?’ Catching myself in the mirror, I was surprised to see I was smiling, a genuine, amused smile.

  ‘So far I have been under the bed four times. I don’t tend to follow my instinct, mistress, I prefer facts. I don’t trust feelings the way some other people do. Is that a problem?’

  ‘You prefer facts to feelings? Then I suppose you’ve never been in love.’

  ‘I’m not sure. I mean, I’ve never really thought about it, mistress.’ He sounded unsure, defensive.

  I shook my head at my reflection. Wicked girl indeed. The one and only internet man I’ve spoken to and straight away I’m noseying about in his private life.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ I kept my voice casual. ‘Tell me more about being under the bed. What do you do when they finish having sex?’

  ‘I creep out and drive home at an appropriate time.’

  I found myself laughing once more at the absurd image in my head of this man with the too-normal profile and looks, with his polite words and sweet voice, crawling about under a married couple’s conjugal bed. ‘And do you enjoy this?’

  ‘I – um – don’t know quite how to answer that, mistress. It wasn’t quite what I imagined … I’m not sure’

  ‘Do you have sex with your mistress?’ I interrupted him.

  ‘Oh no. I haven’t earned that yet.’ His tone seemed to indicate I was the ridiculous one for suggesting such a thing. ‘She says she’s going to let me lick her out soon. I’m learning that a lot of sex is about the brain.’

  I frowned. ‘You mean that sex is 90 per cent mental?’

  ‘Yes. Exactly.’

  What person who played on the BDSM scene didn’t know that true sexual intensity came from the crazy, dark fantasies of the sub and dom merging together into something beautiful and irresistible. Had I understood him right, that he was learning? Maybe his mistress was training him in Tantric sex or something?

  ‘I’m free today if you want to meet.’ The words spilled out of my mouth without me thinking about them, but I didn’t regret them. It sounded right.

  ‘Oh yes, mistress. I would make myself free for you.’

  ‘That’s very nice of you.’ Then his repeatedly calling me “mistress” sunk in and I made a slight effort to be what he wanted. ‘I can only meet you, of course, if you’ll be of interest to me.’ It sounded weak to my ears, but it would do.

  ‘What sort of slave would I be if I couldn’t amuse my mistress?’ A note of smugness that hadn’t been present before dominated his voice. Suddenly he seemed identical to all the other men I’d spoken to online.

  ‘I’m not your mistress.’ Still he had amused me, so I told him a time – two o’clock, which gave him plenty of time to drive down to me, a place – a small, independent bookshop that had a tea shop and did homemade cakes (I would eat well if nothing else), and hung up.

  I purposely spent no time getting ready. This wasn’t a date. This was a distraction.

  My mother had sent me the magazine article about meeting men online, with certain sentences underlined. I’d read it and, like a good little girl valuing her own safety, I now told someone where I’d be, making extra sure this time I sent the text to the right person.

  Meeting a slave I found online. It’s our first meeting. He seems harmless, but letting you know as I hope even with this separati
on thing, you’re the guy who keeps me safe.

  I got an immediate response which made my heart thump.

  Darling, if I am the only one you’re telling, please let me know all the essentials. Where (somewhere public I insist), when, his name, occupation, cock size. I’ll always be the guy who keeps you safe; make sure I’m the only man you take risks with.

  I glowed. And almost got myself run over rereading the text as I crossed a road. But if that had been my last moment, it would have been a good one. My lover cared. That was enough to make my whole life fulfilled.

  I replied to his text thus:

  The place is where you spend too much money and then purge your guilt by binding me extra tightly and whipping every part of my exposed body. If you need an extra hint, it’s where you bought the cream cake which you smeared over my breasts in the car park and licked off as you fucked me on the back seat of the car. The time is now.

  At the bookshop I browsed about the aisles, running my fingers over old book spines and thinking about my lover. I actually forgot the real reason I was there. I was 15 minutes early, but the wait was nothing. I was walking on air. I was dancing on clouds.

  A text buzzed through from Slave. A few customers glanced over at me, and I put my phone to silent before I read what he’d sent.

  Mistress, please may I ask you what you look like? How will I recognise you when we meet?

  You’ll know or you won’t know who I am, I replied.

  Then, after a second’s thought, I sent him another text telling him to be holding a pink carnation.

  Then came a succession of texts saying he couldn’t find a flower shop, he didn’t know where one was, he didn’t know this area, he was lost, he was sorry, he was going to be late. Would I prefer him to be on time without the carnation, or late with the carnation?

  I barely glanced at them, then I didn’t look at them at all. My master was there. Only a few feet away from me. I could hear his voice. He was greeting the shopkeeper; they were old friends. Then he was turning, towards me, but not looking at me. He walked past me and up the old wooden steps to the next floor.

  The shopkeeper gave me a reassuring smile and said hello even though we’d greeted each other when I’d arrived mere minutes ago. I wondered how much he knew about my relationship with my lover. But I didn’t care. When my lover had reached the top of the stairs I took them two at a time after him.

  He was going up the winding staircase to the third floor where the most academic and specialist texts were kept. I called out his name. He didn’t stop his ascent. I chased after him.

  When I reached the top of the stairs, he grabbed the flesh of my upper arm and pushed my back against the nearest bookshelf. He pressed his body against me and I breathed in his scent. It was pure oxygen to my lungs.

  ‘Why did you choose here to meet?’ His lips were next to my ear, brushing against my skin as he spoke. ‘A place you and I have been many times. Did you want my friend to see you with another man, to report back to me? Did you want me to feel humiliated, jealous?’

  He moved his head so he was looking into my eyes; the tips of our noses were kissing. His eyes were smiling, teasing.

  ‘It was a place I knew. I like the cake. I texted you myself to say I was meeting a man.’ I could only speak in short bursts of words. My heart hurt, my lungs hurt, my head hurt.

  In old stories, people die of broken hearts. I felt I would die, expire in that moment, from too much love, too many expectations and hopes.

  ‘Are you happy?’ His hand went under the waistband of my jeans, beneath my knickers, and cupped the heat of my sex.

  ‘You know.’ My hands were by my side, my nails digging into my palms.

  ‘Do I?’ His thumb tweaked over my clit.

  ‘Yes,’ I sighed.

  His hand pressed hard against me, his fingers curling up towards my cunt; a book tumbled from the shelf.

  ‘I know I shouldn’t be here.’ He bit my neck. ‘That I’m breaking my own rules, when you’re being such an obedient little slave and doing what I told you to, tasting the world, meeting new men.’

  I put my arms around him and scratched my nails down his back. ‘I’ll always do whatever you tell me to. You’re my master.’

  ‘Then go and meet your internet slave.’ He stepped back from me.

  I collapsed forward onto him. Then dropped to my knees, clinging onto his legs. ‘You’re here. I don’t want anyone else.’

  There was a cough beside us. An elderly man stood at the top of the stairs. Neither of us moved or even acknowledged him and he retreated.

  My hands, with their own will, moved to my lover’s crotch. One squeezed his balls through his trousers and the other worked at his fly.

  ‘That’s not fair,’ he said.

  Maybe it wasn’t. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t stop me as I found the beautiful familiarity of his erection and took him into my mouth. He gripped my hair and held onto my right shoulder and he fucked me in the way I’d been dreaming of being fucked since this whole thing started.

  His cock hit the back of my mouth again and again. Relentless. Powerful. I emitted a wail of pleasure. His fingers dug deeper into my skin; he pulled harder on my hair. The taste of him was manna on my tongue and I was starving. I sucked on him with as much force as he thrust into me. I let my teeth drag along his length. My nails pinched into his balls with all the lust and pain and love that made life agony without him.

  ‘Hellcat.’ Between us, that word was comfort and endearment.

  I stared up at him as his cock pounded into me; he gazed down at me. I recognised the look in his eyes and pleasure flowed through me. He yanked my head backwards and his hot spunk shot over my face, over my cheeks, lips, nose, chin. It dripped onto my top and jeans.

  We remained looking at each other; he didn’t release or soften his grip on me. I flicked my tongue out and claimed the come glistening on the end of his cock.

  This was us. In the empty academic floor of a second-hand bookshop, the air rich with the scent of his sex and musty books, me on my knees, my jaw aching, the world close around us.

  He smiled at me, a slow, sad smile which made my limbs feel heavy.

  ‘This shouldn’t have happened.’ He wiped my face on his shirt, with a tenderness that I obtained hope from even though I knew what he was about to say. ‘We’re still on a separation. This was a weakness. A mistake.’

  I licked the whole of his cock, taking him in my mouth a final time before I placed him back within the refines of his trousers.

  ‘Is that how you view me, as a weakness, a mistake?’ I remained on my knees before him.

  ‘No.’ He stroked my hair where a moment earlier he’d been pulling it. ‘No.’

  I looked away from him. I blinked, pretending there weren’t tears stinging my eyes. ‘Where does this leave us? What do you want me to do?’

  ‘This slave you met on the internet, is he the only man you’ve chosen to meet?’

  ‘I had sex with the guy from work.’

  ‘You told me. But only the once?’

  ‘Yes. Only once.’

  ‘There must have been something about this slave that appealed to you. Play it out. See what happens.’ He put his hand out and raised me back into a standing position.

  I pressed against his body, savouring his warmth, his scent, before stepping away. ‘Sometimes I think I’m on the edge of understanding this. Mostly I try not to think about it and just wait for it to end and you to call me back into your bed.’

  ‘Go and see your man.’

  My foot was on the top stair before something struck me, something I somehow hadn’t thought about before, hadn’t let myself think about before.

  I looked over my shoulder. He’d already picked up a book and was studying its frontispiece. ‘What about you? Are you meeting other people? Checking whether there is anyone else better out there before you decide whether you want to propose to me or not?’

  ‘Lots of relationships e
nd, lots of people get divorced, men and women both have affairs.’

  What the hell did that mean?

  I gave him a final look, engraving his image onto my mind, not knowing how long this moment would have to last me. Then I made myself, step by step, walk away from the man I loved.

  I stopped at the second floor, looking down over the balcony. There were a few people, maybe a dozen, all singletons, mingling with the books rather than each other. I couldn’t see the tea shop at the back from my position, but there would be more people in there.

  I knew the slave immediately. I did recognise him from the photo and he was holding a pink carnation, his hand gripped around the stem, the petals not more than an inch above his thumb. He was burdened down with something else: tucked under his arm was a packet wrapped in silver, shiny paper reflecting the little sunlight that was allowed to creep in amongst the old books. His clothes were smart casual; I wondered if he’d spent more time putting his outfit together than I had. There was nothing surprising about his appearance, except maybe how neatly he matched my expectations, how closely he resembled the picture he’d used on the site.

  I looked at the time on my mobile. It was nearly three o’clock; was it two I had set for our meeting? I noticed there were ten more texts from Slave, I deleted them without reading any.

  He glanced around, furtively. There were three women that I could see. None looked like a potential mistress, but then neither did I, with my jeans and no make-up and scrappy ponytail and the smell of a man’s spunk clinging to me.

  I considered which one the slave might favour as being most likely to spend her nights on sex sites looking for an easy fuck. They weren’t Wickedgirl; they carried around the quiet, intent air of intelligent people going about their business, in this case browsing books, without any desire for social interruption.

  I fantasised that I was them and they were me. In my mind their seeming primness was tossed aside like so many of the other façades and masks that people wear. They lifted their long, flowery skirts, pulled down their beige corduroys, and bared pale buttocks for punishment. I imagined the shopkeeper taking his precious books and spanking the women’s arses, leaving perfect red lines with the hard edges of the covers.