Curio

by Cara McKenna

  “You can have those things with me.”

  “I hope so. But once I leave…I’ll never really be able to have you, a man like you. But I want to experience it anyhow. Like a wonderful feast I’ll never be served again.”

  Didier’s face turned thoughtful and he sat up, drawing a knee to his chest and wrapping his arms around it, obscuring my view. “What do you mean, a man like me? Why can’t you have whatever you want?”

  “I’m not pretty enough,” I mumbled. “And even if I could land a man as perfect-looking as I want, I don’t think I could ever relax, I’d be so worried he’d leave me.”

  “Do you think maybe that’s not what you’re afraid of at all?”

  I did think that, sometimes, but I just shrugged.

  “Maybe,” Didier said, “you’re more afraid of being left by a man you see as your equal. So you tell yourself you’ll only ever be satisfied with one you think is better than you are, and you give yourself permission to not bother.”

  “But I don’t want to settle. I don’t want to spend my life pretending the man I’m with turns me on when he really doesn’t.”

  “What turns you on, aside from the perfect face and body?”

  I blinked. “I’m not sure. Charisma, maybe.”

  “Wit? Kindness? Talent?”

  “I guess.”

  “You like the way I look, yes?”

  I nodded. “Very much.”

  “Say we fell in love, got married.”

  “Okay.” I shifted in my chair, unnerved by the impossibility of such a notion.

  “All of this,” he said, circling his face, “will become mundane. What if you do not like anything beyond what’s on the outside?”

  “You make me sound like a man, after a trophy wife.”

  “And if we are together forty years, for maybe ten of those I might still be the object you crave. What then?”

  “Are you trying to make me feel bad?”

  He smiled. “No. I’m trying to understand why you’ve constructed these rules for yourself. Why you seem to want permission to opt out of love.”

  “It’s scary.”

  “Of course it is. That’s what makes it so exciting.”

  “Maybe.”

  “On your end,” he said, pointing at me, “you fear the rejection of a man you deem too attractive to ever want you. On my end, I might fear that what I have on the inside will only disappoint you, once my looks are gone. Put out on the pavement like a once-loved chair, after the cushions are stained and worn.”

  I frowned, a potent pang of sadness twisting my insides. “I don’t think about men that way. Really.”

  “I’m not suggesting I understand you,” he said in a kind tone. “But I’d like to. That’s why I’m asking all these questions. You’re a very extraordinary client. You interest me very much.”

  I blushed at that. “You must think I’m a sociopath. Or some female chauvinist.”

  “I don’t. I think you’re just scared. I want to know what you’re scared of.”

  “Of being left, I guess. Of not being good enough.”

  “Did that happen to you, when you were young?”

  I laughed, partly uncomfortable, partly amused. “You are a prostitute, right? Not a shrink?”

  “If I’m prying too much, tell me so.”

  “No, I don’t really mind. And I wasn’t ever really left as a kid. Both my parents were around until I was in high school, and when my mother moved out it was actually a relief. But I was a really awkward kid. I know, all children are at some point, but I was like, properly homely. I didn’t really get it together until I was out of high school.”

  “And your classmates were cruel to you?”

  “Yeah, but not just because I was weird-looking. I was mean, too. Bossy and rude when I thought I was smarter than other kids.” Why was I telling all this to the sexiest man I’d ever met, sitting open-shirted and wet-haired mere feet from me? And why precisely did it feel so good?

  “A bully?” he asked.

  “No, not quite. I didn’t go after anyone, wanting to hurt their feelings. I was just clueless and reactionary. I didn’t know how to hold back whatever I was feeling. I couldn’t separate emotions from reality, my dad used to say. Everything hit me on this intense, visceral level, and if I was angry or insulted, I couldn’t step back and calm myself down before I reacted.”

  “I could see how that would be alienating.”

  “My mother was the same way, sometimes. But she’s severely bipolar. I’m not, but I learned how to interact with people from her. It wasn’t until she left and I went to college that I really realized how not-normal it was, living that way. I’d grown up seeing that my dad always caved in the face of her mood swings, until the day he filed for divorce. So my kid brain thought, hey, that’s how you get your way.”

  “Usually it is the parents who teach the child that tantrums are not the way to get what you want.”

  I nodded. I felt odd, woozy from having told this stranger so much. Much more than I’d ever shared with anyone since moving to France.

  “It’s nice,” Didier said, “getting to hear about you.”

  I laughed. “Really? I must sound like such a mess.”

  “Everyone is a mess. If you and I are meant to make love, I wouldn’t want to do that without trying to understand you first.”

  “I thought this would be way different.”

  “That I’d be some object?” he asked.

  “Kind of. Just that it’d be all about appearances. I mean, I figured the women who come to see you are looking for the fantasy, the illusion. Like a place where they don’t have to worry about sharing anything personal.”

  “I suppose some whores offer that.”

  It gave me pause, hearing him use that word. An ugly, blunt word, though his heavy accent made it less a cinderblock than a strong shot of liquor.

  “For me,” he went on, “I think the experience is better for everyone when there is a connection. And you cannot connect to someone if you know nothing about them aside from their body. A woman could have a scar across her throat, and I cannot help it—I want to know, was that from an assault? A surgery? A cycling accident? I’m curious. Every woman goes beyond a body and a collection of kinks, even a personality. Each woman is like a landscape to me, and I want know the history, not just the placement of the rocks and trees.”

  “That’s rather poetic.”

  Didier grinned, that smile that makes my middle melt.

  “Would you like to kiss?” he asked.

  My stomach gave a flip. I hadn’t expected him to initiate anything, but he must know as well as I do, I need coaxing if I’m ever to get anywhere. “I’d like to try that.”

  He lowered his leg and turned onto his hip, leaning one arm on the back of the couch. I scooted closer and did the same, pulse speeding.

  “Do you like to kiss, or be kissed?” he asked.

  “Somewhere in the middle.”

  “I will kiss you first. As I would if we were coming to the end of a very good first date.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  Annoying worries clustered in my brain—I would hate the way he kissed and my attraction would die, tossed into the mass grave alongside so many others.

  “Close your eyes,” he said, pushing aside all the buzzing thoughts.

  I did. I held my breath as his large palm cupped my jaw. He spoke and his words warmed my lips. “I want this very much.”

  “So do I.”

  His lips brushed mine, and suddenly, this was a date. This was my fantasy, one I rarely let myself indulge, a scenario that actually included me. I’d had a date with the best-looking man I’d ever seen, and he wanted me as much as I wanted him. And it occurred to me then…I’d kissed perhaps a dozen guys in my life. But I’d never before this moment kissed a man.

  And I’d never before felt like a woman, doing this. Always a girl.

  Another graze of his lips, the faintest drag of skin. Tight
, urgent heat spread from my mouth down my neck, through my chest and belly and down between my thighs. Eyes still closed, I found his throat with my palm. The skin I’d watched him bathe felt as clean as it smelled from his olive oil soap. He took my lower lip between his, then the top. I slid my hand back to feel his damp hair, the heat of his neck. He cocked his head, the kiss still closed-mouth but promising more, soon.

  I let myself imagine the acts he’d mentioned doing with others, and though they’d thrilled me before, now I couldn’t picture such things. In this moment he was my cautious first date, my maybe-a-boyfriend. He was no other woman’s, and he’d never kissed any girl and made her feel this way before. His body was far from innocent, but I fantasized that his heart was as untouched and virginal as mine.

  As with everything else about Didier, he did not kiss as I’d expected. There was no showing off, though I’m sure his skills are untouchable. I realized in those moments that he might be the most intuitive human being I’d ever met. Part psychiatrist, part psychic, part prostitute.

  I pulled away millimeters to whisper, “Kiss me deeper.”

  “You want to go further?”

  “I think so.”

  “Do you want to watch me as we kiss?”

  My pussy ached at such a thought. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

  Didier kissed me again, more insistent than before. Heat shot through me as his tongue penetrated, our mouths locked, his chin scratching mine. For only a moment did I freeze up from his forwardness. I gave in to the fear, to his maleness and his lead. His palm left my neck and I could sense it as he opened his pants. I broke away to watch. He slid his hand under his shorts, the flex of his forearm taunting me for a minute or more. I could see his erection growing, framed in his open fly.

  “You are always welcome to touch,” he whispered.

  “I know. But not yet. Not tonight.”

  He nodded. A deep shiver ran through me as he eased his waistband down to expose his cock.

  “You’re big,” I mumbled.

  “I suppose I am.”

  “I hoped you might be.”

  That earned me a mischievous smirk. “Then I’m glad I’ve pleased you.” The arm draped behind my shoulders shifted and he held my head gently as he began to masturbate. Putting his lips to my temple, he kissed me there, then down to my ear. His warm mouth took my earlobe, breath so close and ragged I shut my eyes, overwhelmed.

  His whispered words tore through me. “You’re going to make me come.”

  I opened my eyes and cast my gaze at his pumping hand. “I’m not doing anything.”

  “You’re here. You’re watching. You’re letting me show you all this, things no other man has been allowed to.”

  I felt near to fainting, my breathing as labored as Didier’s. “Let’s go to your bed.”

  He stood at once, erection tucked behind his shorts. He held his pants by the belt and took my hand in his free one, leading me back to his room, where the candles still burned.

  I sat on the edge of the mattress and watched the shirt drop from his broad shoulders, watched as he stripped naked. I moved to the far end of his bed and patted the space next to me.

  He sat. “How are we doing so far?”

  I laughed. “You’re doing just fine…not sure about myself. I haven’t kissed many guys. And I haven’t kissed those few guys very, um, extensively.”

  “I could not tell.”

  “Really?”

  A fond smile. “Really. I like the way you kiss. You kiss as though you are nervous about it, but curious. It’s very sexy.”

  I reached for his face and he did the same to me, cupping my neck. It felt so intimate, his palm on my pulse point as explicit as fingers on my clit. We kissed deeply and I gave as much as I took, tasting his mouth then welcoming his tongue, like a dance. We must have made out for ten minutes or more, until I felt woozy and nuts and ravenous, ready for more.

  I broke my mouth from his, lips and chin tender. “Touch yourself. Please.”

  We paused as he adjusted his legs, spreading his thighs and fisting his neglected cock. I watched with utter fascination as he grew, as his skin went from tan to deep pink, as his erection lengthened and his foreskin receded to expose his smooth head.

  This was the closest I’d ever been to a bare cock, and the experience was nothing like I’d feared. He didn’t look silly or scary. Everything about him was right. Everything about him made my body ache the way it was designed to, and I felt normal and functional, boring adjectives that are nothing less than magical to me. “Lie down.”

  He reclined, head on a pair of pillows, clasping his cock. I lay on my side, propped on my elbow, thrilled all over by how close we were, close enough for me to feel the damp heat of his freshly bathed skin and hair. I breathed in the scent of his covers and pillows, the old wood and the candles and his sex.

  I brought my mouth to his ear, speaking softly. “Tell me how you think it might be, if you took me.” It would be right here, I thought, in this bed. We were so close. All it would take was his strong, slow hands stripping my clothes away, the shifting of his body to cover mine.

  He ran his hand lightly along the underside of his shaft. “We would do nothing, until you were ready. Wet and trembling for it. Then I’d go slow, sinking inside you, holding back each inch until you asked for more.”

  I swallowed. “You’re on top?”

  “Yes.”

  Good. That was how I’d imagined it, too.

  “Then when you told me to, I’d start moving. Still slow. Until you were right there with me, wanting it.”

  I watched Didier’s powerful arm, the elegant twitch of his tendons as he stroked.

  “Do you touch yourself?” he asked. “When you’re alone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I would have you do that, while I made love to you. It would feel so amazing, your body tensing around me as you took pleasure from both of us. Not just to be the one who had you first, but to know you enjoyed it. That’s what I want. To give you the satisfying experience so few actually get their first time.”

  “Does it turn you on, being my first?”

  “Yes, it does.” His hand seemed to speed at the thought.

  “I’m afraid it might ruin me, to have someone as beautiful as you. I’m not sure how I’d be able to date anyone, even after I got my first experience out of the way. I don’t think anyone could ever measure up.”

  “I’m only a man.”

  Oh, but he’s so much more than that.

  “And you said, getting this experience ‘out of the way’. If it were up to me, that’s not how it would be. I would want you to feel that all this waiting was the right decision. Utterly worth it.”

  “It will be. But I am eager to finally, you know. Join the club, I guess.”

  Didier smiled, an odd tweak of his lips. His hand paused and he looked right into my eyes. “You make it sound so ordinary.”

  “No, if it really were just ordinary to me, I’d have done it years ago. But you know. I’m nearly thirty. I want to have a lover, like everyone else seems to.”

  His smile deepened. “And you chose me?”

  I nodded, feeling shy. I looked back to his hand and he resumed the show.

  Didier’s voice softened and his eyes shut. “I want to spoil you, if you decide you want me. Anything you wish to do with me, you only have to ask.”

  “Your other clients…” I thought it would hurt, to remember that so many women had had this man and his extraordinary body, but it only filled me with hot, antsy curiosity.

  “Yes?”

  “What sorts of things do they like to do with you? Do they want romance, like being seduced? Or are they aggressive?”

  “Every woman has different needs and desires and secret curiosities. Some want it to feel like a date, and to be seduced, yes. Others want to be in complete control.”

  “Do you ever get tied down or anything?”

  “Yes, I’ve done that. I will do nearly
anything. Anything but physically hurt a woman, or be hurt myself—enough to scar. But I’ve been tied. I’ve been spanked, and done that for others. I’ve had clients who want me to get them drunk and take them to bed against their seeming wishes, so they can imagine letting a man take advantage of them. So they won’t feel guilt over having desires. And I have clients who like to treat me as their slave, order me around and demean me.”

  “And you don’t mind?”

  Another mysterious smile. “I love indulging a woman’s fantasies. No matter what they are.”

  “Even being demeaned? What do they do to you that’s degrading?”

  “Well, it’s not degrading, because it’s all an act. But sometimes they talk down to me, call me a whore, reduce me to a hard cock, a servant. I love to be whatever a woman wants, so it turns me on. Some want the opposite, to be the one who’s ordered. But I’ve done many things. I’ve been bound and gagged and sodomized.”

  “Oh. Whoa.” I tried to picture such a thing but stopped, not enjoying the image. Didier to me is masterful, not overbearing but certainly not made to kneel in silence and submit to anything, least of all penetration.

  “Whatever a woman’s fantasy is, that is what I want to become. That is what gets me hard.”

  “When a woman wants to be the one who’s degraded, what do they want you to make them do?”

  “Suck my cock, perhaps. Or have me take them, rough and selfish.”

  I imagined trying all of those things, sampling a dozen other women’s desires for this gorgeous man.

  “Whatever you decide you want,” Didier said, “I’ll love that too. What I’m doing for you right now…” He looked to his hand, drawing my attention there as well. “My cock is aching, I want this so much. You want to watch and so I want to show you everything.” He sat up and I did the same, letting him bring our faces close. “Do you wish to touch me?”

  “I’m not sure. Not yet.” I didn’t know which of us I wanted to taunt with the anticipation, I only knew it felt right, waiting.

  For a minute we both watched, and I sensed his gaze darting all over in my periphery.

  “Does my body please you?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m glad.”