by Cara McKenna
“Didier.”
“Okay?”
“Yes, very.”
He sat back on his haunches, candles drenching his torso in warm, wavering light. He held my hips as he pumped and the vision was…gah. Those tight, hard muscles are gorgeous at rest, but fuck. Surely this was exactly what God had in mind when designing the male body.
As I watched him, he watched me. His tongue wet his parted lips, his nostrils flared, his throat twitched with a deep swallow.
“Let me,” he muttered. My fingers were pushed aside as his larger, rougher ones took over.
So much of sexual pleasure comes from the spasms of the brain, not the flesh. His fingers worked wonders but it was watching him that brought flares of pounding heat to my clit. His touch merely stoked the fire, kept it glowing. A glance at his eyes, his chest or hips, a moan in his deep voice…those bits of evidence were what had me tight and antsy.
“Do you like it,” he asked, “my being rough?”
“Yeah.”
Again, his lips taunted me with words they wouldn’t share.
“What?”
“I want… I’d like to take you from behind. If you’re willing to try.”
How about that? I’d driven Mr. Whatever-You-Wish to dirty requests. “Sure, I’ll try. I’ll miss the view though,” I teased.
“Would you like a mirror?”
“Oh.” I blinked. “If you have one.”
“I do.” He left me to cross the room to his tall mahogany wardrobe. He opened one side to reveal neatly hung shirts and a full-length mirror on the inside of the door. He angled it, glancing at me.
I got to my knees. “There,” I said, when the bed was centered in the reflection. Studying his naked body as he returned to me, I was suddenly beyond intrigued by the idea.
“The way you look at me,” he said, climbing onto the bed, “made me think you would like to watch.”
To watch him, yes. My only fear was that my own reflection would distract me, that I’d not like how I looked paired with a man so breathtaking. Too much reality, too much chatter from my brain…
I needn’t have worried. I dropped to my hands and knees, facing the headboard, our bodies reflected in profile, but all I truly saw in the mirror was Didier. The shape of his hip, the curve of his ass. The shadows playing on his arm and back, his handsome face. And the way he looked at me, looked down at me. Hungry but patient. A predator.
And heck, a nervous glance told me I didn’t look too shabby myself. Pale gold in the candles’ glow. We made a rather pretty portrait of hunter and prey, I decided.
The weight of Didier’s hand on my hip took my attention off our reflection and back to our reality, here on this bed. He edged forward on his knees until the fronts of his thighs touched the backs of mine. His thick, hot cock slid between my legs—not taking me, but brushing my lips and clit. My eyes shut, not opening until I felt his head at my entrance. I looked to the mirror and the sight of his face cast down, hand guiding his dick, muscles flexed.
“Didier.”
He sank deep, the angle smooth and natural. As his hips met my butt, the contact electrified me. I reveled in this helpless feeling. He took me again, again, and the force that accompanied each thrust was honest-to-Christ the hottest thing I’d ever felt.
Before long he was fucking me as fast as before, and I was high.
In the mirror I watched my fantasy come to life in his pumping, greedy body. His moans started low and shallow, growing deeper and harsher by the minute. He became more than the man I’d paid for, more than the one I’d honored with this privilege. He was hot and strong and selfish, all things male, personified.
“You’re wet.” I loved the way he said it, as if he were accusing me of something. “I want to feel you come on my cock.”
I gasped as he stooped to wrap an arm around my waist, fingers on my clit. His touch matched his driving shaft, fast and masterful. After a dizzying minute, he stopped.
“Forward.” He nudged me with his legs and I shuffled closer to the top of the bed. “Up,” he said. I braced myself on the headboard. The view of the mirror was ruined but something better took its place. Didier leaned into me, damp chest and belly against my back, free arm curled around my ribs. I felt everything a woman should—owned, spoiled, protected, exploited. I didn’t need to see him. The most gorgeous man on the planet he may be, but I had everything I needed from Didier in this union.
His fingers knew exactly how to tease me and it wasn’t long before a miraculous realization dawned on me. I was going to come. I was having sex and I was going to have an orgasm—be given an orgasm—by Didier. The world’s biggest sexual fusspot was getting laid and, how do you fucking like that, it was hot.
“Didier.”
His arm tightened around my waist, thrusts short and rapid. “Are you going to come for me?”
“Yeah. Just keep doing exactly what you are.”
“Yes. Please.” Oh, when he begs…surely no drug feels that good. “Come,” he whispered. “Come for me.” He said it over and over, plea morphing to a command as I began to shake. My sweaty palms slipped along the headboard, arms trembling.
“Make me come.”
“I will. I will.”
And he did.
No crashing waves, no ripples of ecstasy. Violent pleasure tore through me, a whiplash at my clit that bloomed and radiated through my belly and chest, down my arms and legs to my fingers and toes. I felt possessed. I felt like his. And goddamn, I felt like a woman.
He’d slowed everything when I came, and as the mania faded I heard him. Heard his crazy breathing, smelled his sweat and the sex we’d created. I craned my neck to see what my climax had done to his face. One glimpse at his wild eyes was all I got before he kissed me.
As we broke away, I knew what I wanted.
“Sit back.”
He let me go and did as I asked, and I shuffled around to face him.
He’d made me feel a million things, and being dominated by him physically had taught me what had been missing the previous time I’d tried to suck him. We’d made it too much to do with my comfort, and now I knew that wasn’t what the act was about. It was about service, and I wanted my second chance, my “some other night”. He’d shown me the commanding, merciless man he was, and I wanted to worship him.
I settled between his legs, and after some slippery fumbling he intervened and took the condom off for me. He didn’t ask if I was sure, if I was ready. He just held his cock as I put my mouth to his head, groaned as I slid my lips down his shaft.
It wasn’t a beautiful show, I’m sure, but my enthusiasm couldn’t be faulted. I took him, embracing everything inelegant about it—the acrid taste left by the latex, the ache in my jaw, the stilted breathing. I felt a little demeaned, a little helpless, a little used when he gathered my hair, smoothing it away from my face for a better view. But those things were so much nicer than comfortable.
“That’s good,” he whispered.
Keep talking, please keep talking.
“Suck me. Suck the cock you waited so long for.”
Perfect, filthy words. I sucked him as hard as I could, welcoming the bump of his fist on my chin as he stroked himself.
“Oh, Caroly.”
I hoped he was watching us in the mirror. I hoped he was memorizing all of this and that five years from now he’d still remember me, doing this to him. Wherever each of us was, I hoped he’d wonder what had become of the weird American woman who’d come to him to be corrupted and got exactly what she was after.
“Fuck. Yes.” Barely words, soon lost to gasping grunts. His strokes turned rough as his hips begged for me to take him deeper. I granted the wish as best I could, and that strong man unraveled to a frantic, quaking animal from what I was doing to him. The hand in my hair became a fist, his other palm pressed to my neck, trembling.
He went still as stone as he came. A hot spurt, a gasp, another taste. After three spasms his hold went slack and he slid his cock f
rom my lips. I swallowed what he’d given me and stared at the beautiful wreck I’d reduced him to.
I wanted to dance around the room and sing, “I did it, I did it, I did it!” but instead I watched him recover with a silly grin on my face. After a short while he dragged me down to lie with him, cupping my head to his chest and planting kisses on my hair. I listened to his heart and willed mine to beat at the same pace. It worked.
No one said anything for a very long time, not until my body grew cool and sleepy against his.
He cleared his throat.
“Well,” I said.
“Well. We never finished our wine.”
I laughed. “No, we didn’t. Guess we got distracted.”
He pushed onto his elbow to stare down at me. “You did not bring an overnight bag.”
“No.”
“If you won’t stay the night, after all this, at least stay and help me finish the bottle.”
“Sure.”
We dressed, and everything I felt was right. Shy, relieved, energized, proud. Even sore. The tenderness in my sex was welcome, because it was Didier who’d given it to me. He carried the candles back to the living room and I fetched the wine, then settled against the arm of the settee, my bare feet on his thigh. I turned my glass around in my hands, so completely, simply happy.
“You have a very mysterious smile right now,” he said. “Like a certain Italian woman who lives in the Louvre.”
I pursed my lips but they soon blossomed to a grin. “I’m very content, that’s all.”
“Oh?”
I nodded.
“So it was what you’d hoped?”
“It was fantastic. And it’s just nice to… I don’t know. Not ‘have it over with’…”
“To be part of the club?”
“I guess. Or just to feel like, yes, I’m a woman now. I’m okay. I used to worry and wonder, will it ever happen? And if it did, would it be because I’d get desperate and settle for someone I don’t really like?”
“That would be a shame. It’s sad what a burden some people make of their virginity these days, a defect. They are so eager to have it done with they’ll sleep with whoever’s willing, far too young. Sex is not as sacred as I would wish.”
So says the man-whore…but of course, he has every right to say such a thing. I’d expected someone in his position couldn’t help but be jaded about sex, yet this man speaks of it with the reverence of a monk.
“How old were you, when you lost yours?” I asked.
“I was young, sixteen I think.”
“Was it with a girlfriend?”
Didier nodded. “It was love…or what passes for love, at such a stupid age.” He smiled faintly.
“Since you, you know…came into your profession. Have you had any relationships? Or do the two just not mix?”
“I have.” He nodded slowly, eyes unfocused, as if a videotape were playing in his head. “It’s not easy.”
“I’ll bet. She’d have to be like, jealousy-proof.”
“You have to be careful, that’s true. I have dated two women since I became a prostitute, two very different women. The most important thing is to establish primacy, I think. When I’ve dated I cut down on how many clients I saw, and how often. I wanted to make sure my girlfriends got more time with me than my clients. I did my best to prove they came first.”
“Did it work?”
“One relationship did not work so well. No matter what we tried, she could not get over what happened when she was not with me. We had a no-speaking policy about it, pretending it was not happening, and of course that failed. We had two hopeful months and another very painful one, then we went our separate ways.”
“What about the other one?”
He smiled in a fond way and bit his lip. “The opposite. She asked to hear about the other women. It excited her. I respect my clients’ experiences and I like to keep them private, aside from the most general details, which frustrated her, I think. She mistook my confidence for secrecy. But overall, that went quite well.”
“Why did you break up?” My heart froze. Had they broken up? Yes, yes, of course they had. Past tense. Calm down, Caroly.
“We broke up after perhaps six months, when she became interested in a colleague of hers.”
“Were you sad?”
“I was. But I had seen it coming. She was wonderful in some ways, very free and exciting, but also I knew no single man could keep her attention forever.”
“Did either of them ever ask you to stop, you know…”
“Only the first woman, the jealous one. She offered to help pay for my flat and expenses, if I gave it up.”
“But you wouldn’t?”
He sighed. “It’s hard to explain why I wouldn’t. Why I still won’t. Part is pride. I’m not willing to be a kept man. But more so—and I fear it sounds like a lie—but this work is important to me. It sounds as if I am trying to elevate it, pretend it’s more than the thrill of sleeping with a lot of women and getting paid for it. But I really think what I do is noble, in its seedy way.”
“I believe you.”
“I also do not know what else I might do, for money. Modeling is nice, but the wages aren’t comparable.”
“No, I’m sure they aren’t. But could you see things ever changing? Like you meet a woman you want to marry and all that? Someone who changes your priorities? Sorry, I’m not saying you should—”
“No no, I did not think you were.” Another sigh, and his forehead wrinkled in frustration or bewilderment. “I do not think that will happen. Not the way things are now. I have not organized my life in such a way that there is any room for a wife. I can’t offer that.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
He met my eyes, smiling an apology. “That depends on whom you ask, I suspect.”
I nodded, ready to abandon my interrogation. I could sense I was putting him on edge. Like earlier in the evening when I’d asked him about fatherhood, a wall rose between us.
“I should get going pretty soon,” I said, swirling the last swallow of wine in my glass.
“That is a shame. Will I be seeing you again?”
“Yes, I hope so. Maybe Friday?” I held my breath, wondering if Fridays and Saturdays were, I don’t know, reserved. For premier clients.
“Friday is fine.”
“Oh good. I was thinking…and forgive me, I don’t know if you have policies about dates or anything. But would you ever be interested in maybe meeting for a meal or a drink somewhere? On me, obviously.”
His smile faded and my heart sank.
“Sorry. Are public things against how you…operate?”
“It’s not quite that. And trust me, I would be happy to be seen with you at a restaurant or a bar, on a date.”
“Oh.”
Didier’s lips quirked in the tightest, saddest smile. “My hesitation has nothing to do with you.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself. I was just curious.”
“No, I owe you an explanation, for that question and others. And please believe me, I’d very much like to go out with you somewhere for one of our dates, but I can’t.”
“Okay.”
Didier swallowed and met my gaze squarely. “I haven’t left this flat in nearly three years, you see.”
I stared at him for I don’t know how long, struggling to make sense of what he’d said.
“I’ve lived in Paris for two years…” I trailed off.
“Then I was already a year into my exile by the time you arrived.”
How on earth was that possible? The time since I’d moved here had been the most vibrant and exciting of my entire life. All those months and more, and he’d not set foot outside this apartment? I pictured him here, snow falling past the windows in the dark winter, sun beating the panes at the height of summer. Generations of pigeons marching past and Didier never leaving these walls.
“Really?”
He nodded.
I remembered what he’
d told me about the pet shop and the fish. What was he really, aside from an isolated, pretty distraction, anyone’s to possess for the right price? Was this flat just Didier’s ocean, reduced to a tiny tank, his meals bestowed by kind acquaintances? Did he fear he’d die here, some routine inconvenience for whomever was in charge of handling such unpleasant inevitabilities?
“You look upset,” he said.
“I’m… I’m surprised. Okay, and upset. It’s a very sad thing to hear.”
“Apologies.”
“What set it off? Or was it gradual?”
“Gradual, throughout my life, but then all at once I couldn’t leave at all. The last time I left, something terrible happened.” He emptied the last of the bottle into his glass. “I was waiting to cross the street, a half a block from here, and so was a woman and her small child. Before the light came on to tell us to walk, a friend passed by and I started talking to her. And when the woman and her son crossed the street, they were struck and killed by a car that didn’t stop for the red light.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yes. It was very…graphic.”
“I’m sorry. That’s horrible.”
He spoke to his glass. “It was also barely a week after my mother passed away, and for a long time, checking on her had been one of a very few things that got me out of the flat. I’ve always been anxious about being outside, in big spaces, with traffic and busy sidewalks, in the Metro… The accident took everything I feared and avoided, and multiplied it so greatly, I simply haven’t been able to leave. Even talking about it now…” He held up his free hand and I could see it trembling.
“How do you get the things you need?”
“I have friends and clients who pick up groceries and other things for me, and take my laundry out, go to the bank. On a good day, I can make it downstairs to collect my own mail. Every other day, perhaps.”
“What if you need to go to the doctor?”
“I pay a steep surcharge to have my doctor come to me.”
“No offense, but that’s no way to live.”
He met my gaze. “No, it’s not. But if you don’t have that fear, it’s impossible to understand it.”
