by Vivian Wood
“I need you to be really clear with me right now,” he said. The blade rested, barely inside her.
“It feels alright, but I need more. Something else …”
“You can’t have anything but this right now, it’s too dangerous,” he said. “Relax. Try to enjoy this isolated experience.”
“Okay,” she said. Harper’s eyes took in all the details of the ceiling. She counted the lights.
Sean eased the blade just barely deeper inside her. It didn’t hurt at all, though the fresh coldness of the blade sent a shock through her. “Eden,” she said quickly.
“You’re getting so fucking wet,” he said. “But I’m going to remove the knife now, slowly. You might come when I do, so try to stay still.”
There’s no way I’m going to come, she wanted to say. Her body was stiff, unnerved, and wholly aware of the deadly foreign object inside her.
Still, as Sean began to ease the knife out of her, the feeling of complete safety and trust overwhelmed her. She didn’t know why tears gathered at her lashes and spilled down her face. “Oh, god!” she called out when there was still half an inch of blade inside her. The orgasm rushed at her, fierce and hard. She didn’t expect it, but even as it rocked through her, Sean’s words echoed in her head. Stay still. She exploded just as he removed the last of the blade. He buried two thick fingers immediately inside her and gave her walls something hot and safe to clench and cling to.
“Are you alright?” he asked softly as the last of the waves subsided. Her cheeks were stained with tears, and she felt forever changed. Whatever had just happened, it bound them together.
He lay down beside her as he easily removed the remaining knots. “Yes,” she said. And she meant it, on every level. She burrowed into his neck and inhaled his scent. “I love you,” she said. The words just slid out, unbidden.
“Fuck, I love you, too,” he said as he pulled her closer. “So much I think I could die.”
Her mouth found his as her body gave out, exhausted, to the darkness.
13
Sean
“What is that?” she asked. The lavender of the morning sunrise pushed insistently against the covered windows.
“Don’t ask questions,” he said. Sean gestured for her to stand. Harper obliged quickly. He snapped his finger and pointed across his lap. She leaned across him, naked. He felt her heavy breasts as they brushed against his calves and she presented her ass to him. It was already heavily marked with light red and purple bruises for what was going on forty-eight hours of fucking.
He chose a part of her creamy white roundness that was unmarked and spanked her twice, smartly. She grunted, half in pain and half in pleasure. He rubbed comfort into the area. “You know better than that,” he said. “Stand up.”
Sean peeled off the lip of the black latex tape, thick as duct tape. He assessed her body, though it was unnecessary—he knew every inch of her by heart.
She flinched slightly as he started the complicated process of “dressing” her. “Okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Gomorrah.”
As he wrapped the tape around her curves, he pulled tautly at the most sensitive areas. “This might sting a bit when it’s removed,” he said as he held the tape over her nipples.
“Yes, sir,” she said, and he promptly pressed the tape across her flesh. Her nipples hardened as he smoothed it down with a practiced palm.
It took thirty minutes to dress her properly. The kind of precision it took to highlight every angle, the slope of every hill, was almost meditative. Throughout the process, she didn’t speak unless spoken to. She took directions swiftly. Sean framed her triangular valley carefully. When a sheen of wetness appeared and her clit began to swell, he ignored it. Had she whimpered in desire or pressed herself into him, it would have been cause for punishment. Harper learned fast.
Finally, he bound her in a cross-chest box tie. The tips of her pale fingers could barely be seen from the front as they flickered behind her back.
“I’m going to bind your feet,” he said. “But you need to get on this first.” He went to the closet and pulled out the electronic black saddle. “Do you know what a Sybian is?”
Her eyes grew wide as she took in the monstrosity. Harper shook her head. “No ...”
“No, sir,” he corrected.
“No, sir.”
“For that indiscretion, I’m not going to spank you,” he said. “What I am going to do is start you off without a dildo. Just the vibration. That should be punishment enough for you. I was going to stop you at a three-inch girth,” he said as he held up a flesh-colored dildo, six inches long. “But forgetting your manners, I think we’ll train you up to five inches of girth today.”
She swallowed as he held up the black dildo. Like all the others he’d ordered, it was made specifically for the machine. “Yes, sir,” she said.
“Remember your words,” he said.
Sean spread a layer of lubricant onto the machine, though he doubted she’d need it. Still, her body had taken a lot in the past couple of days. “I control it with this,” he said, as he held up the remote. “Hold still while I bind your feet.”
Once she was tied, straddled over the Sybian, it all fit so well it would be nearly impossible for her to dismount on her own. Sean started the Sybian on the lowest vibration, and immediately Harper’s eyes rolled back. She started to pant and her nipples pushed against the tape when he kicked it up a notch. His erection pressed against his boxer shorts, but he refused to touch himself.
Her first orgasm came quickly, and Harper ground herself against the machine. “That’s good,” he said. “Time to start size-training you.” He lifted her and moved her a few inches toward the back of the machine while he fitted the smallest dildo onto the Sybian. He’d chosen it to be especially small, less than half his own size, to frustrate and tease her. He lifted her again and eased her onto it. Even that small amount of fullness in Harper made her cry out.
Sean brought her to orgasm a second time with just the slightest bit of edging. With each new dildo, both length and girth increased slightly. She was damp and heavy by the time she reached her fourth orgasm—and where he’d originally thought he’d stop.
He held the black dildo in front of her. By now, she was wet and her muscles were loose from the constant waves of pleasure. “I’m going to unbind you for this,” he said. “I need you to have a little more control. Don’t take more than you can handle.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
He snipped off the tape at her ankles and wrists. Harper leveraged herself over the black dildo that he’d fixed into the Sybian. As she lowered herself onto the tip, knees spread, she let out an animalistic moan.
“Keep going if you can,” he said. She lowered halfway onto the dildo. Sean saw her juices had already soaked down to the base.
“Eden,” she said cautiously.
“Wait it out if you can,” he said. “Just stay there. Think about how full you are. That’s a pressure on your G-spot you might not have experienced before.”
Her lips had parted perpetually. She was soaked in her own sweat, her own desire. Just the look of her, gorgeous and poised above the machine he controlled her with, was enough to make him almost go over the edge himself.
Harper tried to lower herself farther. “Inferno,” she said. She shook her head instinctually. “I can’t.”
“It’s okay,” he said. He went to her and helped ease her up. She breathed heavily when the black tip finally appeared. Sean saw the white wet strings of all the orgasms, a thread that trailed from the plastic cock to her middle.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t be sorry,” he said.
As he laid her on her back, he began to slowly peel away the tape. She did what she could to help and arched her back to provide better access. Harper let out a small cry when he pulled the tape from her nipples, though he did so fast to minimize the sting. After every inch of tape removal, he kissed her t
ender skin. When he gathered her sore nipples into his mouth, he licked and sucked gently.
When all the tape was finally removed, he nosed to her center. It was easy to see the fruits of his work. She was stretched, though temporarily. He began to lap softly at her clit, and she writhed in pleasure, insatiable. Sean licked up every drop that he’d commanded she release over the past ninety minutes.
Harper lifted her mound closer to his face, and when he obliged with a finger slid deep inside her she let out a sigh of contentment. The smallest sounds of protest came from her when he removed his finger, but she purred in surprise when he moved immediately to her anus and circled her rim.
As she came against his tongue, he wondered if his needs had shifted. When did the line between degradation and pain get so blurred? Or perhaps it was her needs that had changed.
Sean raised himself over her when he felt the last surge of her orgasm wane. Harper immediately grasped for his cock, needy and desperate. She called out his name as he buried into her. She nipped at his neck gently, and for a moment he considered punishing her. But it had been hours, and she’d been incredibly obedient. Let her have her fun, he thought. The sex was still amazing, but the undercurrent of pure need was new.
“Please come in me,” she said. “I need it, please …”
“Are you going to be my good girl, my sweetheart?” he breathed into her ear. “Are you going to clean me up with that mouth afterward?”
“Anything you want,” she panted.
“I want you to taste your come all over my cock,” he said.
“Yes,” she yelled.
“Tell me you’re just for me, you’re all mine.”
“I’m yours,” she said. “Please come in me.”
Even as he lost himself inside her, spilled his seed into her deepest parts while she writhed in pleasure below him, he couldn’t help but worry about everything. They were in unknown waters now, even for him. And he didn’t know how long he could stay afloat.
14
Harper
Harper woke with a cough. Water shot from her mouth and raked at her throat. Why is it so bright?
As her eyes fought against the warm water, she realized she was in the shower. Her elbow and temple ached, but there was no trace of pink in the water. I fainted again.
She didn’t know how long she’d been crumpled on the gray wet tiles, but it hadn’t been long enough for the water to go cold. A purple shampoo bottle lay beside her. It oozed a rich, bubbling froth.
Harper pushed herself to a seated position and pulled herself onto the wooden shower bench. She hadn’t locked the bathroom door and it was still firmly shut. At least Sean didn’t realize, she thought.
As soon as she turned off the shower, she began to shiver. She wrapped her hair in a towel and slipped into the white Egyptian cotton robe. Thank god for en-suites, she thought. It was the only reason he hadn’t heard what must have been a terrible crash.
While Harper dried off, she pulled an old favorite white t-shirt from the dresser. It had been one of her staples in the days when she had an average of six go-sees per day. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and delighted at how pronounced her hip bones and ribs were. She could count each rung that flanked her sternum like a ladder.
She paused before the mirror, the shirt caught at her breasts, and pressed her palm into her concave stomach. It was almost unbelievable that there was a life in there. Harper turned to the side to see her figure in profile. That’s when it was always the most striking, with no bones splayed wide. The ant-sized waist was still there. Once, a designer had asked her how long she’d waist trained. It was before Harper even knew what that was.
What would it be like to grow something inside of your body? she thought. Obviously, it would include getting fat. She knew that, had read about the relaxin that flooded the body and urged the pelvic bones to spread apart. No matter what, even if she lost the exact amount of weight she put on after the baby, there was no piecing the bones back together.
But wouldn’t it be worth it? Worth it to have Sean’s baby? Harper’s breath caught at the idea of it. This wasn’t just a baby, or even just her baby. It was her and Sean’s baby. And it might be the last chance you get.
The fact that she could even get pregnant was a miracle. She could count how many times she’d had a period in the past ten years. “You have to tell him,” she told her reflection. He might be angry, but he’d be rightfully enraged if he found out she’d waited to tell him. Unless it’ll just be a miscarriage, she thought. That was a stark reality she had to consider. Harper had known countless girls in the industry who miscarried regularly. Of course, they’d been trying to get pregnant.
On the other hand, if she miscarried relatively early, she wouldn’t have to worry about getting fat. She hadn’t even Googled yet how many calories she was supposed to have as a pregnant woman who didn’t want to gain excess weight. Some models did it, she told herself. Hell, look at Heidi Klum. Some of them were back on Sports Illustrated covers three months after giving birth.
But Harper knew that came from surgeries she couldn’t afford and genes she didn’t have. Genetically, she wasn’t supposed to be this thin. Every woman in her family had an hourglass shape, but they carried their curves well. She’d had to shed every ounce she could spare to look like this, and it hadn’t been easy.
Harper shook her head and pulled down the shirt. She grabbed a pair of jeans so worn-in that they felt like flannel. Pleased that they still fit, that the jeans she’d bought at fifteen still hugged her like a second skin, she took one last admiring look in the mirror. The thigh gap was prominent even in the denim. Can I really give that up?
In the living room, she curled up on the couch and opened her laptop. It was full of responses from employers, but she could tell from the subject lines and snippets of opening text that they were all rejections. “Thank you for your application. Unfortunately the position has been filed …” and “we will keep your resume on file for the next six months …”
“Fuck you,” she said under her breath.
“You’re chipper this morning.” She jumped at Sean’s voice behind her.
“Jesus, you’re like a cat,” she said.
“More like you’re addicted to that thing,” he said.
She sighed. “I’ve been job hunting,” she said. “Unsuccessfully.”
“You are? What kind of jobs?”
“At this point, anything anywhere they’ll take me,” she said.
Sean settled onto the couch beside her. “What about modeling?” he asked. “I know the last thing you had fell apart, but I figured—”
“I got fired. Permanently. Basically blacklisted from the industry.”
“What? You didn’t tell me that.”
Her face burned. I was on my way to tell you that when you got arrested! “It’s complicated,” she finally said.
“Try me.”
“Okay,” she said as she let out a breath. “I’m not thin enough anymore. I’m not young enough. Alright? I’m fat, I’m old, and I was never famous enough for anyone to overlook that.”
“That’s insane,” he said. It was simple, and she could tell that for him it was true.
“Yeah, well. Tell my former bosses that,” she said. “Tell the designers. The agents.”
“Well … what are you thinking of doing instead? Besides anything anywhere, of course.”
“I don’t actually know,” she said. “If it wasn’t for this … arrangement … I don’t even know where I’d be right now. I’m running out of money and there are even fewer options. I can’t even get a job as a waitress, can you believe that? Actually, never mind. I have zero experience and this town is full of professional waitstaff.”
“I have an idea.”
“Yeah?” She was doubtful, but at this point desperation overrode just about anything.
“Yeah. There’s a bottle of sparkling juice in the fridge. Why don’t I set us up two glasses on the patio,
and we can talk about it.”
Harper felt a half smile on her face. Sparkling apple juice. At least I don’t have to come up with an excuse for not drinking. We can be teetotalers together. “Okay,” she said.
“You go on out to the balcony. I’ll be there in a minute.”
The warm California sunshine quickly dissipated any chill that lingered in her. Harper slid the Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses onto her nose as she tucked her legs beneath her on the wicker patio furniture. You can say goodbye to designer sunglasses from here on out, she thought to herself.
Sean appeared with two crystal flutes and a bottle of sparkling apple juice that sweated in his hands. “Fancy,” she said.
“I aim to please,” he said. He popped the bottle and the familiar echo made her remember all those nights in clubs after shows. Everything she’d taken for granted.
Sean handed her one of the glasses, one-quarter full of bubbles and froth. “Cheers,” he said as he clinked glasses with her. “Look at me,” he said suddenly.
“What?” she paused with the delicate flute against her lips.
“It’s bad luck not to make eye contact when you say cheers,” he said.
“Well, then,” she held his gaze. “I’m not in a position to test the waters of luck.”
“You and me both,” he said. “So, tell me. What kind of jobs have you been drawn toward?”
She hesitated. “Well … I’ve been thinking about an art gallery.”
“Doing what?” he asked. She was surprised that he didn’t seem taken aback. Maybe it didn’t sound so stupid after all.
“Selling art,” she said. “An administrator, they call it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I like art, especially contemporary art. And I like connecting people with something they didn’t know they needed.”
“You are nothing if not a surprise,” he said as he took a swallow of the sweet juice.
Harper laughed. “I aim to please,” she said with a wink.
