Forty Shades of Pearl (Part One of The Pearl Trilogy)

by Arianne Richmonde

  “Can you feel what it is?” he asks in a soft voice.

  “It feels good. Really good.”

  “Remember that little story you told me? About your first time?”

  I’m focusing now. It’s on my other leg, trailing up my thigh. It is indescribably erotic. Not being able to see or move, I still feel fearful, but the sensation is radiant, wispy. I am aware of my pelvis moving, wanting whatever it is to move higher between my legs.

  “You still can’t guess, Pearl?”

  “It’s a feather.”

  “A kingfisher feather. It’s blue and orange at the tip. Can you imagine how pretty?”

  He’s tracing it up my body, onto my belly and circling it around my breasts. It’s barely credible how such a light, helpless object can have this sensual effect. It’s under my arm now and it tickles. Now on my throat, my lips, and now back on my throat, my shoulders, flicking with such delicacy on my nipples. I’m tingling all over.

  “It’s glistening like a little pearl.”

  “What is?” I ask.

  “A part of you I want to put my lips around and then fuck.”

  I groan with anticipation. I’m feeling ready.

  “It’s wet and shiny and inside it’s like a velvet glove, welcoming me, encompassing me whole – pulling me in, grabbing me all around in a tight embrace.”

  “What does it feel like?” I ask. “Making love to a woman? To me, I mean?”

  “Oh, Jesus, you have no idea how good. It’s warm and wet and delicious. It’s tastes sweet and salty and it wants me so much. It’s greedy for me like a comforting house inviting me in where I belong and offering me comfort – but with hot, hot sex at the same time. Do you want me inside you, Pearl? Deep inside?”

  “Oh yes,” I say, wriggling beneath the touch of the kingfisher feather. “I can’t think of anything else. All day long I get moist and throb with desire, just imagining that huge great erection of yours – your sexy lips kissing me, your eyes – that tongue darting in and out of my secret places.”

  I’m trusting him now, my fear has left me and I’m opening up. This feels amazing. The feather is now brushing past my clitoris and I sense his thumb enter inside me as he makes slow circles with it, engulfed by my juices. Then he takes it out and I can hear him pop it into his mouth and suck it.

  “So tasty, but I think we need a few extras to sweeten you up even more.”

  It’s dark behind my blindfold. I hear him open the mini-bar door beside the bed. What’s he doing? Having a drink?

  After much rustling about, I feel something cold oozing onto my navel. It shocks me for a second. What is it? It’s thick and gooey, not too runny. It smells sweet. So sweet but the lavender is making me confused.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  But he doesn’t respond. Then I feel something cold being pressed inside me. Maybe round. Something fruity. One, two – three of them. Wait a minute! All this was already in the mini-bar – did he plan this?

  “I smell fruit,” I say.

  “And what else?”

  “Honey?”

  “Big, black cherries and honey. But Pearl, I’m going to untie your ankles now – I think your punishment has gone far enough.”

  “No! Please, Alexandre. Please punish me some more.”

  “More punishment? Really? Don’t you think you already paid the price for your disobedience?”

  “No, I was a bad girl and I need to be disciplined.”

  “Okay then. I’m going to add another ingredient. Something very French. Something I used to eat for breakfast as a boy.”

  I’m waiting. Eager. I can feel the cherries inside me like little balls – so sensual – and suddenly he smears something creamy on my breasts. There is a whiff of chocolate. Do I smell Nutella?

  My hands are still above me, clasped into the Art Deco choker, which I’m scared of breaking, so I hold still. He starts licking my stomach, his tongue lapping up the honey. His mouth heads up to my breasts and he sucks each one greedily, flipping his tongue back and forth on my nipples. I’m moaning and writhing about like a snake. The large cherries feel so good inside me. The pleasure is intense.

  “Your breasts are like fruits. They fit perfectly in my mouth, not too big, not too small. I’m going to have to fuck those tits.”

  His hard penis laps against my stomach and then in between my breasts. His hands are cupping them, clamping his erection between them. When he moves up I try to catch it with my tongue.

  “I want it in my mouth,” I beg.

  “I thought those avaricious lips might want my cock.”

  “Please.”

  It’s in my mouth now, dripping with honey and Nutella. I’m licking him, ringing my tongue around the head of his shank, sucking. He rises higher and I catch his balls and I suck each one individually, each one whole inside like enormous balls of candy, as he guides his penis about my face stroking my nose, my forehead with it. He moves away now, his tongue trailing south down my body and he parts the lips of my Venus, holding my inner thighs with his thumbs as he starts to suck out the cherries inside me – vacuuming them out. His tongue is wild, slapping against my entrance – then he lets just the very tip touch my throbbing clitoris and then holds his tongue down still on it, pressing hard. I start thrusting myself up and down on his flat, motionless tongue, pressing against it and I start coming. It’s in hot waves rushing through me. I still can’t see, can hardly move, my body a vessel of pure pleasure. Behind my blindfolded eyes I see flashes of color and I go into a tunnel of black and red and gold, still climaxing, still pressing myself against his tongue as my body ripples and tremors.

  “Ahh…ah…ah…aaaaa.”

  Then he starts licking again, sucking out all my tastes from my opening but careful not to touch my tender clit. It makes the climax all the more intense.

  Then slowly, slowly, I come down, the spasms gentler now, the tingling in tiny bursts but still on a plateau. Such a surprise, this has never happened before. The myth has come true – I’m having an orgasm from oral sex!

  He begins to remove the ties on my ankles and then unclasps the choker about my wrists. He kisses me softly on the lips and I taste the mélange of flavors; honey, cherries, my salty turned-on self and Nutella. He lies beside me on the bed. I shake my hands free and bring them about his arms and shoulders. Finally, I can touch him. I unravel my fingers, stretch out my palms and stroke his smooth back. I’m still wearing the blindfold and don’t take it off. I can hear him fiddling about with something and more music comes on.

  “This is for you, chérie. The song’s called Black Cherry.”

  I grin. “Very apt. That was amazing but what about you?”

  “You think I haven’t enjoyed this? I nearly came just giving you so much pleasure. I had to count to ten to stop myself. And another ten to stop myself plunging into you.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “This isn’t about me, Pearl, it’s about you.”

  “It’s about us both, isn’t it?”

  “I want you coming,” he says in a low voice, “all around me when I’m deep, deep inside you.”

  “But you’ve already hit the jackpot.”

  “I want to make sure it wasn’t just luck, though. I was just skimming the surface. The most important erotic muscle you have is your mind. I have to get to know your mind better, get inside you, metaphorically as well as physically.”

  The way he says that frightens me. He’s already got me free and clear, can’t he see that? Is he trying to give me pleasure or control me? I want to say something, put up a fight but my body lies there exhausted, and the only expression on my face is a contented, I’ve-had-the-first-and-best-oral-sex-orgasm-of-my-life smile.

  He strokes my head. “Sleep now, princess. At least for a while.”

  The chill-out music is making me relaxed, heavy-eyed. I run my hands about my body, assuming I must be a sticky mess, but find myself quite clean. Licked new. He did a good job.

  A
very good job indeed.

  Chapter Nine

  I don’t know how long I’ve been sleeping, but when I awake he’s sitting on the bed next to me, watching – his eyes resting on me, transfixed.

  “I wasn’t snoring, was I?”

  He laughs. “No.”

  “Not dribbling or anything horrible, or talking in my sleep?”

  “No not at all. You look beautiful and serene. You had a sort of Mona Lisa smile set on your lips so you must have been dreaming about something very pleasant.”

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  “All night. It’s time to rise and shine.”

  I sit up and see faint light coming through gaps in the heavy drapes. “You’re kidding? It felt like I was asleep for ten minutes.”

  I can’t believe I wasted that precious time with him merely sleeping. What a fool!

  “Sorry, I must have really taken it out of you,” he apologizes.

  “You took cherries out of me,” I joke. “And there I was, terrified, thinking you were going to thrash me with a whip or something.” Even kill me.

  “I’m sorry, Pearl. Did I really frighten you that much?”

  “I was nervous when you tied my ankles.”

  “But you could have escaped any time – the knots were very loose, the necklace you could have snapped open at the clasp.”

  “At the peril of destroying an original Art Deco piece of jewelry? Never.”

  “I’m sorry, seriously, if I scared you. I would never, ever, hurt a woman. Not even kidding around.” After he says this his lips are tight, pressed together, all humor wiped from his usually open face.

  “Whenever you mention women and beating you look as if you’re talking from past experience. Did something happen once?” I ask. “Are you trying to chase away personal demons?”

  “Unfortunately, you can’t chase away something that lives inside you.”

  “You have a violent past?”

  “Yes.”

  Uh oh. I look at his face and wonder what he did that was so violent – he’s fighting against his dark side. “Can I ask what happened?”

  “I’m not so keen to discuss it.”

  “Surely you need to talk about it with someone?”

  “I hardly know you, Pearl.”

  “You know me well enough to have tied me up, to have bought me an outrageously expensive gift, to have delved, literally, into my private places. You think I’ve ever let anyone that close to me before?” I bark. “You think I go round opening my legs up with abandon like that, opening my heart up like that to any man?”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound dismissive.”

  I start to get out of bed, hurt that he is choosing to close himself off from me, and fearful I am falling for a man who has a violent side. I’ve heard that men like him do that; ply you with gifts, win your confidence, make you fall in love, and then, when it’s too late, they show their true colors.

  “My father used to beat the shit out of my mother,” he suddenly says, his eyes on the floor as if he were ashamed.

  I observe the grim expression on his usually happy face. “How awful. Are you violent, too?” I ask nervously.

  “I have been.”

  “With women?”

  “Christ no.”

  “When?”

  “In certain situations. I have triggers that set me off which I try to keep under control.”

  “What happened with your father, then?”

  “We nearly killed him.”

  “We?”

  “My sister and I wanted him dead.”

  “Well, it must have been your sister more than you, she being so much older.” So much older? She’s still five years younger than I am. Wish I hadn’t said that. I look at him hard, trying to read his face but he’s staring into the distance as if not focusing – a memory stirred up of something better forgotten.

  “Because I assumed you were young,” I continue, “when your father left. I mean, how could a little boy have hurt a grown man?”

  “I was seven.”

  “Only seven.” I don’t comment more but cannot imagine what a seven year old could have done.

  “My sister was seventeen. But it was my idea, not hers. I was grinding up light bulb glass and mixing it with his food. Amongst other things.”

  “Wow, that was imaginative.”

  “My sister stabbed him in the neck and face when he was sleeping.”

  I try to picture the scene. Worse than any movie. “What had he done…” I inquire tentatively, “to deserve that?”

  “He was a monster. The shit really hit the fan when that happened. The stabbing. He threatened to put Sophie in a juvenile delinquent home for offenders – we had to get away from him at any cost. The only reason Sophie stuck around was because of me, otherwise she would have left home a lot sooner. By the way, this is private information, Pearl. I have never told a soul any of this.”

  “You can trust me. I would never say a word to anyone. I swear. So you all left?”

  “Sophie and I packed and told our mother we were leaving. Told her that if she ever wanted to see us again, she’d better come with us.”

  “And?

  “She stayed behind with him.”

  “You’re kidding. Why? She was your mother? You were so young.”

  “She wasn’t Sophie’s mother. Her mother died when she was ten – our father remarried my mother.”

  “But she was your mother. Mom to a seven year old boy! I’m sorry, but I find that outrageous that she stayed with him after everything.”

  “She was terrified. That’s what can happen in abusive relationships. One partner gets worn down so much, they lose all self-confidence. It can happen in subtle ways at first, until the dominant one has all the power. It defies common sense, transcends reason. She was too weak – we tried to protect her, but failed.”

  “You did not fail! You were only children. She failed,” I exclaim, as I angrily run my fingers through my hair.

  “Anyway, we left home. She joined us a year later.”

  “One whole year later? She chose her violent husband over her seven year old son? Ouch.”

  “My sister was like a mother to me.”

  I let out a heavy sigh. “I find this really hard to comprehend. I thought you said you called yourselves The Three Musketeers.”

  “Sophie and I were The Two Musketeers for ages. My mother couldn’t contact us. We didn’t trust her not to tell him where we were, so we remained invisible. My sister got cash jobs, waitressing and other things, and we had alias names. Sophie pretended to everyone that she was my mother – lied about her age, said she was older.”

  He is staring into space now, locked in this memory. The way he is spilling all this out to me makes me feel as if he hasn’t shared this with anyone for a long time. Maybe never.

  “Later,” he continues, now glancing at me, “Sophie called my mother and met up with her, but kept me hidden just in case. But my mother had learnt her lesson by that point and swore she’d leave him. She did, and never looked back.”

  “How can you forgive your mom for not coming with you in the first place? For not denouncing your father? ”

  “You forgave your father, didn’t you? For abandoning you?”

  “Yes, but my brothers and I weren’t in danger.”

  “Brothers? I thought you only had one brother.”

  “Well, no. I had another brother,” I admit. “John – who died of an overdose.”

  “Shit. I’m sorry.”

  “My life hasn’t been such a picnic, either.”

  Looking at me, Alexandre asks, “What made your brother do that?”

  “He was an alcoholic. I don’t know, he was really messed-up about my father leaving, and was always disturbed as a young boy. He was a sensitive soul who took on too many burdens of the world. Then, one night, just over ten years ago, he had a lethal cocktail of drink, prescription medication and cocaine. He died.”

 
Alexandre holds my hand and squeezes it a little. “Shit.”

  “Yeah, it was a shock. I still miss him.”

  “Yeah, I bet. People do strange things. Not a day goes by when my mother doesn’t hate herself for what she did. Your brother, Pearl, was powerless against his addiction.”

  “Was your mother using drugs, too? Or drinking?”

  “He was her drug. He was her poison.”

  I notice he can’t bear to use the word father.

  “Was he your step-father or your real father?” I ask.

  “When you say, ‘real,’ do you mean biological?”

  “Yes.”

  His normally sumptuous mouth sets into a thin line. “Good – because he was never a real father to us. His seed produced us, but he was not our father.”

  “I’m so sorry. I thought I had a sob story, but yours – well it must have been awful.”

  “You can’t even begin to imagine.”

  “I could try.”

  “Pearl, what he did to us is beyond anyone’s imagination.”

  “He abused you? Sexually?”

  “Let’s get something to eat. I’m hungry. They do a great breakfast at The Carlyle.”

  “Isn’t it a bit early?”

  “They know me there, it’ll be fine.”

  I shower and put my Jean Muir dress back on. Alexandre offers to lend me something of Sophie’s to wear but I decline. There’s no way I’d feel comfortable dressed in anything of hers without her permission. Men don’t get that – how women are about their clothing.

  Alexandre puts on a dark gray suit, one of the ice blue silk ties, and shoes polished to a high shine. He looks so different, I’m stunned.

  “You look highly sophisticated,” I marvel, “very handsome indeed.”

  “Thank you, Pearl. I have a lunch meeting with an elderly gentleman, the type who wouldn’t appreciate my usual attire.”

  I feel very ‘morning after the night before’ in my dress and heels, but when we arrive at The Carlyle by cab – I couldn’t walk more than a block in those heels – I don’t feel out of place. Plus, Alexandre looks so dapper in his suit; I’d feel ashamed to stand beside him in something more casual. I realize when we sit down for breakfast that I have left my gifts behind; the kingfisher feather and the pearl choker.