Sweet Agony

by Charlotte Stein

  Until I actually see what he has underneath those neat little shirts and jackets.

  Christ, why did I not realise what he had underneath those shirts and jackets?

  It should have been clear, considering how well cut they all are. I knew he had big shoulders and I’ve made out the hard, heavy, smooth lines of his chest. I somehow didn’t connect that with muscles, though. He seems so slim, even slight, most of the time. He’s the very embodiment of some harassed man from a gothic novel about ghosts, and they are always, always gaunt.

  But he isn’t really that at all.

  He looks like a boxer underneath his clothes. He looks like he rowed for Oxford – which he probably did. He spent his university days heaving boats up rivers, and now has a great big slab of a chest that makes me want to cover everything back up again. If I cover it, then I don’t have to be even more excited than I am already. I don’t have to imagine how hard it probably feels, and how probably smooth too because oh, God, yeah there’s that too.

  He has just acres and acres of porcelain skin, and all of it begs me to touch it. I can see him tensing a little now and his mouth has become a mean line, but there’s no going back. He was right to push me, right to say those filthy things. If he hadn’t, most likely I would have stopped here, instead of letting my fingers trace oh-so-lightly over the planes of his chest. I would never have made it to his taut belly, or known the pleasure of seeing the muscles there jump at my touch.

  And I wouldn’t have heard the sound he makes when I do.

  God, it was worth it just for that sound. Almost pained, but just at the last second, just as it finishes hissing from his lips, it turns into something else. Something hot, and sweet, and desperate – though not the sort that says he wants me to stop. No, this is a different kind of desperation. One that all but begs me to go further, even as his hands make fists at his sides.

  So I lean down and lick where my hands just were. Just a little at first, like I want to experiment. I want to try it out, maybe taste him a little and see how he responds. I honestly don’t intend to flick my tongue over one tight nipple. And even if I did intend that, I definitely do not mean to go on doing it. His back arches and he makes more of that odd pained-pleasured sound and then I seem to be doing a lot more than licking with the tip of my tongue. I seem to be sucking him there and maybe making circles – the way I know I would like, if things were the other way round.

  Though of course, I get that it’s different for men. Probably he feels almost nothing, I tell myself, as I draw my teeth together around it. The throttled sound he makes is just him clearing his throat, and his head going back has nothing to do with me.

  It just looks like it does.

  And feels like it does.

  I think it makes my toes curl to see it. I have to take a few deep breaths to keep myself from doing eight more things all at once, but whether I succeed is a matter for the jury to decide. At least four filthy things follow his thrilling response, and all of them are enough to convict me. I practically assail his chest with my face and hands, groping in places I know I’m not supposed to.

  Like between his legs.

  How did I end up between his legs?

  I was confined to his upper body a moment ago, yet suddenly I seem to be attacking his belt. I just cut through a section of it, despite all kinds of reasons not to. He’ll never be able to spank me with it again, my mind reliably informs me, and yet that’s not even the worst of it. The worst is when I just start hacking at his trousers, so frantic I don’t even stop when I hit underwear. I just keep going and going in some kind of lust-driven frenzy, until finally there’s nothing left. Not a single sock; not a stitch of suit.

  He’s just spread out in front of me, surrounded by the ruined remains of his clothes. They form a strange halo around him, shredded beyond recognition but still serving as a reminder of what I’ve done. I’ve stripped him down to nothing, left him bare in more ways than one. That line between his brows is now four fathoms deep. I can’t even see his lips – that’s how tightly they’re pressed together. And his whole body is so tense it seems to be minutely trembling all over, in a way that suggests I should probably hold off.

  Even though holding off is torture, oh, my God, it’s torture. Just the sight of him turns the place between my legs to liquid. Just the look of his cock out in the open, instead of half-hidden by his hands or cloaked in pitch-black darkness. It’s just as thick as he said it was – so thick in fact that parts of me clench, thinking of him forcing his way in – and unbelievably stiff.

  Too stiff for my libido to take, in fact. I had no idea he could get like this, and as soon as I see proof that he can I go all hot. My cheeks feel stuffed with molten lava and my pussy seems about to burst, and that’s before I take in the rest of him. I’m busy marvelling over how rude it looks, how heavy and swollen and so unlike every other elegant part of him. I don’t get the best bit until a moment later – but God, when I do. I see the gleam of it on his belly, where the tip of his cock has kissed. I see it glistening on the curving underside of the shaft, so copious that for a second I think he might have come.

  He might have climaxed over you cutting off his clothes, my mind informs me.

  And then I have to beat my mind up and stuff it in a cupboard somewhere. I have to, because if I don’t I’m going to do some very disgusting things. I almost immediately want to rub my face all over that slick, sticky mess, and that just seems like a little too much at the moment. What I need now is restraint, because that tension seems to have doubled in the last thirty seconds. I can almost see his jaw clenching, and of course I understand why it does.

  He knows I’m looking. He can feel my feverish eyes all over him, drinking in that big, fat, slippery cock. He probably even knows what I’m thinking: that he did it all over himself like some eager teenager, creaming in his pants over next to nothing. No doubt he’s just dying to correct me, but really he has no need to. I can see for myself what’s actually happened here – he just got so worked up that his cock drooled precome everywhere, in great slippery bursts.

  Though to be honest I don’t know if that’s better. It still makes my clit swell and become stiff. It still makes this hot, wet pulse go through my pussy, so intense that I have to squeeze my thighs together just to keep it under control. He gets wet when he’s really excited, I think, then really and seriously wish I hadn’t. I’m supposed to be focusing here. I’m meant to be slowly easing him through this.

  And all I want to do is do myself until I orgasm all over my hand. I want to rub my swollen cunt all over various parts of him, from those long, thickly muscled thighs to his still tense face. I want to come in his mouth just like he came in mine – so I suppose it’s good that I just settle for stripping off my blouse. Just my blouse, so I can get some air on my overheated skin. Then maybe my bra too, to stop the material sliding all over my nipples. They’re so tiny and tight that the slightest touch sends me to some pleasure-stuffed brink of insanity, so really I think it’s for the best.

  Or at least I do until I’m down to just my stockings and suspenders, and then I wonder what the fuck I was thinking. Now I look like such an eager little slut that it turns me on just to see myself. I make the mistake of glancing down and see my spiky nipples pointing skywards, red and aroused and rude. And then there’s my cunt, framed far too neatly between those bloody things he bought me, and so soaking wet I can see it. I can see it all over my puffy pink lips, and in the curls of the hair there. I can see it on my thighs, all slippery and glistening.

  I’m twenty times as bad as him, I think.

  But doing so doesn’t make me want to stop. It just makes me want to go further. Open your eyes, I imagine myself saying, so he can take in just how horny I am. How eager for a fuck – because oh, God, I can think of nothing else. After a second I actually put a hand between my legs and ease a finger into my wet and wanting hole, just to assuage that urge to climb on him. To straddle him and sink down on that big, th
ick cock, feel it stretching and filling me in a way I’ve never experienced.

  The most I’ve had is three fingers, in the back of some boy’s car. The handle of my hairbrush, when I knew everyone was out for the night. I’ve never had someone that big sliding into me, and it excites me more than I can say. More than I can reasonably cope with, in truth, because I can feel myself starting to lean towards him. I know the hand I lightly run over his thigh is not going to stop there.

  Though God knows I try. I try to make do with the finest of touches – just the tips of my fingers over the curve of his cock, or the ghost of my lips around the head. Once or twice I almost use my tongue, but at the very last moment I resist. I maintain a respectful distance, still so mindful of how slow he might need me to go that I never once think of the opposite. I don’t imagine what a terrible tease this must be, my mouth ever so slightly grazing his cock. I don’t fully consider my hot breath all over him and my hands barely touching various parts of his body – parts that have never known the burning bright sensation of someone else’s skin.

  I just think of his agony.

  And forget all the parts that are so sweet. I don’t even notice the way he’s shuddering, or how close his hips are to a long, slow roll – like he just wants to rock into my eager mouth, or maybe flip me over and fuck me there. And when I feel his hand in my hair my first thought is that he wants to pull me away. I don’t even remember why he did it the last time, all of me so at war with my own desire that I start to say sorry.

  But of course that only makes it more shocking when he explains.

  ‘For God’s sake just suck my cock,’ he bursts out, so clearly full of frustration that it almost does me in. I think about him lying there waiting and waiting for me to do it, stewing in a great mess of desire and arousal so thick he actually brings himself to say it. He tells me to do it – more than that, in fact. He tugs my mouth to the heavy head of his cock, and when I just hang there stunned he goes one further. He uses his free hand to ease himself past my parted lips, working and pushing until I’m full of him, until all I can taste is him and that slippery precome and oh, God, oh, God, I just can’t cope.

  I go limp and lax, as though someone pulled all the stuffing out of me.

  But that’s OK. That’s fine, because he’s suddenly full of all the urgency in the world. That hand is tight in my hair, and he uses it to almost work me over the head of his cock. And when that isn’t quite enough, he lifts his hips. He fucks my face as I just crouch there half stunned, body on fire and mind a blank. I can’t even think about the fact that I need to get off right now – though I don’t have to.

  I think I’m going to come anyway. Just hearing him grunt is enough to do it, and even if it wasn’t there’s all the other stuff. Like the way he tastes, so sharp and clean and sweet. Like the way he tells me, ‘Take it, take it, you come-hungry whore.’ That’s what he calls me: a come-hungry whore.

  And oh, my God, I’ve never loved anything more.

  The words practically lick my stiff little clit. I feel that aching pulse thicken and deepen, like I’m going to do it. I’m going to go over because he said filthy things to me while fucking my face – and when I do, sweet Jesus, it feels fucking fantastic. I hear him gasp that he’s going to come and feel the flood of it in my mouth, and then my whole body simply seizes up. It lights a spark that was already on the verge of burning, and I go up like a bonfire. I groan and buck just as he’s doing, nearly choking on the liquid ribbons spilling over my tongue but loving every second of it.

  Loving every second of him giving in. Giving it all up to me, in one great glorious burst that leaves us both gasping and flailing and only really understanding in the aftermath. I come around from an orgasm so intense it almost knocks me out, to find myself sprawled halfway over him. My body is all over his body, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

  In fact, when I start to sit up he stops me.

  And his arm goes over mine.

  Chapter Twelve

  I wait until he’s sleeping to have a look around, which doesn’t take long. After whatever that was he nearly lapses into a coma. He hardly seems to care that he’s got no clothes on, and he doesn’t pull the covers over himself as he drifts off. He just sprawls there on his stomach, one hand trailing off the bed in a way that strangely affects me even more than all the rest of it. I see his fingers curled about an inch from the floor, and a second heart just starts beating inside me.

  And this one is only for him.

  Him and all the things he is, from the man I know to the one he clearly was. The one I find in a thousand places in this worn old cottage in the woods. It’s smaller than I imagined, this place. Much smaller and poorer, though I suppose not all upper-crust families had money to match the titles. They must have lost a lot of it along the way, because everything here screams of falling to ruin. The furniture is rickety and mismatched; the carpets threadbare and dusty. I find earthenware riddled with cracks and the bathroom suite definitely needs replacing. The toilet flushes thanks to a lengthy chain. The tub has rust around the plug.

  Though none of this means anything to me.

  The keys carved into an end table mean something to me. I see them underneath a greying, lace-edged cloth, so carefully concealed that I nearly miss them. Anyone would miss them, if they didn’t know what they were looking for – but of course I do. My heart is already shivering before I go over to it and lift that frayed cloth. I see the C and the D and the F dug deep into the wood, the letters shaky, as if written by children, but the lines surrounding each one as straight as though a machine made them.

  He must have used a ruler, I think.

  A ruler and a pen-knife, to make a mock-up of the thing he was forbidden. To create something he could practise on or simply enjoy, so often that the letters are worn down. I run my fingers over them and can feel the lack of sharp or splintery edges, too obvious for my heart to take. I have to cover them up again and pretend I never saw them, though by the time I do it’s too late.

  I turn and there he is in the narrow doorway. Face nearly expressionless, hands loose at his sides, so still and silent he could be a shadow of himself. Or maybe a shadow of someone else, because he seems like that too in those clothes. The ghost of himself past, I think, too small and thin inside a too big and too worn jumper, pyjama bottoms so overused the stripes they once had are barely visible.

  Plus his feet are bare.

  He always looks extra vulnerable when his feet are bare. As soon as I see them I want to clutch at myself, or at the very least apologise. I’m glad I don’t. If I had we might have descended into a conversation so painful he would never return from it, whereas in silence he can just go over to the table and sit down. He can point to the space beside him so I can sit too, and see his ritual. He reaches underneath first for a packet taped there – old enough that the words on the front are faded, and the cigarettes inside taste terrible. He lights one with matches that shouldn’t strike and grimaces, before he slowly dissolves into a kind of bliss.

  And then I watch, as he shows me just how good he is.

  So good, in fact, that I can hear the song without the sound. I lean against his arm and feel it through the muscle there. I get it in every thump of his fingers against wood, more lovely than anything played on a real piano. This is a real piano, I know – the one that lives inside him. The one that keeps him going until late in the morning, barely sensible of the cigarette I take away when it starts to burn his lips.

  And which tastes like him, when I touch the tip to my own.

  So sweet, I think, and just a little bit bitter.

  Just a little, so little, and less every day.

  I learn later, much later, after copious quantities of bread so thick it takes forever to chew and jam too sweet to be legal, that it isn’t just the cottage. There are grounds attached, extensive grounds. ‘I own most of the woods,’ he tells me, as though he’s talking about a small allotment instead of an enormous enchanted forest.
Most of the trees are so tall and sprawling they look like gnarled and knotted dragons, and when I stand at the bottom of the garden of this tiny cottage I can’t see where they end or begin.

  I even go to the top of the nearest hill and am none the wiser. All I can make out is an old barn that probably once belonged to a farm I can only assume is long gone. Though, when I press him about it, all he will say was that he rarely went in there. He doesn’t suggest that they owned that too, or that they once had animals or fields full of barley or anything of the sort.

  But when I head towards it, he doesn’t try to stop me. He just follows, mildly indulgent and surprised, as though it had never occurred to him that anyone could be interested. And once we step inside, it’s the same. ‘So, as you can see, the contents are just as thrilling as the outside,’ he says, and actually they are. The whole place is like something out of a fairytale, faintly grimy and dappled with hints of fading sunlight.

  And I tell him so.

  I tell him with excited words that this is the place I would have loved to play as a kid, trapped in tower blocks that stank of piss. Then I tell him with my actions, too giddy to contain. He calls after me as I climb the ladder to some upper level, but still I don’t stop. I can’t even hold back when he tells me he never played as a child, because somehow that makes it seem more important. We were both cut off from things like this, for different reasons.

  Me in my stripped-bare life, and him in one ringed with barriers and boundaries. He doesn’t even understand why I go up, or reach for the rope that dangles over the great hills of hay piled to his right. He just knows that when I take a running jump off the edge it turns him momentarily upside down. The second my feet leave that upper level he shouts – he actually shouts – the fear in his voice so real and raw it thrills me.

  But not as much as swinging through the dim darkness of an abandoned barn. I let go at the highest point and damn near soar through the air, arms and legs flailing and every part of me full of the joy of it. This is what it must be like to live, I think. This is what it must be like to have fun, of the sort that makes me giggle. I hit the hay in a great whoomp, a million strands of it puffing upwards and most of it burying me almost immediately, and then I laugh out loud.