Seduce Me

by Georgia Le Carre

  He stops smiling, his eyes change, darken. Very deliberately he pushes his glass of orange juice to the middle of the table, reaches for the carton of milk and, holding it right in front of him, slowly tips it sideways until the milk in it pours onto the table. I watch the puddle grow on the table. At some point well before the carton is empty he stops pouring. I lift my eyes from the spill and look at him. His eyes are expressionless, watchful. The silence stretches. I break it. ‘Well?’

  ‘Clean it up,’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t need to repeat myself, do I? It is a punishable offense.’

  For a moment I feel confused. Was this the thing that has everybody hot under the collar? Do I want to be his little slave? The answer is obvious and immediate. I don’t. Definitely not. But I’ll let it play a bit more and see where this game goes. I turn towards the paper towels.

  ‘Not with paper towel.’ His voice cracks like a whip.

  I turn towards him slowly. Our eyes clash, a look of impatience about his. What does he want me to do? Clean the table with my tongue? The thought is unsexy, off-putting. ‘With what, then?’

  He leans back and folds his arms across his chest. ‘With your sex.’

  And suddenly I am wet. The idea is shocking but incredibly, unbelievably erotic. I hook my thumbs into the scrap of white lace around my hips, push it all the way down and step out of it.

  ‘Give them to me.’

  I bend down to retrieve them and walk towards him. I look into his eyes as I drop my bunched up knickers into his outstretched hand. He puts them into his trouser pocket.

  I hop onto the table with my legs apart so he can see what I am doing, I bend forward and, flattening my thighs, slowly drag my sex across the liquid. Something flashes in his eyes. The milk is cold on my warm skin. When I have swept myself across the spill I stop and look to him.

  He nods slowly. ‘You,’ he says, and there is a touch of admiration in his voice, ‘are an excellent pupil. You never do more than what you are instructed to do.’

  I say nothing. Just hold myself in that position.

  ‘Now spread your legs,’ he orders.

  Silently, I open my thighs, sliding them not one by one but at the same time, knees straight and holding them aloft from the table the way a dancer would. My pussy opens out like an oyster, glossy and gooey and unashamedly lewd. Milk drips from the hairs onto the surface of the table.

  ‘Wider.’

  I spread out farther. I am so supple I can open wider than most girls. Totally exposed, I wait. The intensity of his gaze makes my flesh tingle. Makes me feel wanton and brings on such an intense craving to be filled and taken urgently that I feel myself creaming right before his eyes, and he hasn’t even touched me.

  ‘Spread the labia and show me the pink insides.’

  Blood pumps into my clit. I take the plump lips in my fingers and pull them apart, exposing the glistening hole that seems to have a one-track mind. It is desperate to be stretched open, to swallow some rigid meat whole.

  He taps his fingers on the table. ‘Are you turned on?’

  He knows I am, big time. ‘Yes.’

  ‘BDSM 101. The game where you are punished for no good reason, and then blissfully rewarded for following instructions and for waiting like a good girl for it. Do you know what your reward is?’

  I shake my head.

  He sinks two fingers into the soaking folds and, crooking them, begins to stroke that inner nerve that beckons the delicious whole body climax. I throw my head back and moan.

  ‘You like that, pretty puss?’

  ‘Yes, oh God, yes,’ I rasp.

  He laughs wickedly.

  I move my hips so his fingers will enter deeper into my pussy and he suddenly removes his fingers. I open my eyes and look at him. ‘Who told you you could move your hips?’

  ‘Sorry.’ I have never wanted him more. I look down to his pants. They are bulging with his erection. I know if I touch that rod it will be hot and pulsing. And the tip, my favorite part, that bit that looks like a miniature bum, will be satiny.

  ‘Go and lie face down over the arm of the couch.’

  I slide off the table and go drape myself over the armrest. Brazenly I flip my skirt up towards my waist and present myself with my bare ass pushed high up into the air. I try to arrange my legs to be as alluring as possible, think of my bottom as a heart-shaped offering, but it is an odd position—exposed and vulnerable.

  Perhaps even a little humiliating. Definitely a ready, begging position.

  I am his to ride or do with as he pleases. I feel like a slut, his slut and love the fantasy of it. The loss of control and responsibility for my own body is strangely exhilarating and fantastically exciting. I have the sensation that we are no longer equal, that I have become nothing more than a faceless, anonymous body, an object for his pleasure, to do with as he pleases.

  The fantasy of being taken and used selfishly by him makes heat pool between my legs. My own juices are leaking onto my thighs. He doesn’t move.

  The anticipation is killing me.

  Finally, the chair is being pushed back. A delicious shiver. I hear him come and stand over me. For what seems like ages he stands motionless looking down at me. The flat becomes very still. Nothing moves. It is as if time has been suspended. I want to speak, say something, but somehow I know I am not allowed to. I must not move or shift.

  ‘Spread open.’

  Two words. Hard like pebbles. I obey instantly. I have to. I have become in the blink of an eye his little sex slave. Now I am splayed open like a starfish with an open pink eye. I feel the air around me move as he bends down and runs his fingers along the wet slit of my pussy and pushes two into the hole. The rush of hot blood into my head is amazing. I feel dizzy as if I am going to climax. My eyes close involuntarily, but he takes his fingers out.

  ‘A Chinese philosopher once said, ‘Beat your woman often—you may not know why, but she will.’

  While I am trying to get my lust tangled mind around the philosophy of that phrase his palm crashes down hard on my butt. Only when his hand leaves and the cool air touches my skin do I feel the sting and scream. I try to wriggle away. His hands grip my legs hard, not with affection but the way my mother had, once, when I was a child and had unthinkingly tried to run across the road. So hard I cannot move an inch. My cheek is squashed into the cushion.

  ‘A relationship is the opportunity to try out shameful fantasies.’ His voice is level, reasonable and so dispassionate that I quit struggling.

  He runs his tongue along my spine, kisses my shoulder blade. ‘Up to you. Want to see the fantasy through or want to quit now?’ His voice is now silky, delicious.

  I am aroused, terribly so. At the same time I am not enjoying this new pain aspect that he has introduced, and yet I must see it through for the reward at the end of it.

  ‘See it through.’

  ‘So no more bullshit screaming and pathetic whimpers?’

  Gosh, that was a flip. That he can turn his voice so suddenly cold and expressionless. I turn my cheek and look into his face, so close to mine. The eyes are beautiful, unsmiling, unfathomable.

  ‘No,’ I say softly.

  He moves his face away and I feel his large hands gently stroke the soft burning skin of my butt cheeks. Then it is gone and the next crack on my left buttock is like a jolt of electricity. The air leaves my lungs. I bite the cushion and grunt. Fuck, how can this pain be sexual? My bare flesh is sizzling. I am no longer aroused but more alive than I have ever been. My bum is stinging so much. Tears are flowing from my eyes. Stop, stop, I am dying to cry out, but I don’t. It will stop on its own and I will be rewarded.

  I begin to count them. Six. The tips of his fingers strike my vagina. I feel an unexpected and powerful spasm go right through me. Seven. I want a repeat of that strike. The urge makes me squirm and rearrange my butt. Eight. But he now confines the spanking to the base of my cheeks. The vibrations drill through into my groin.
I am quivering with nerves. My ass is on fire. Concentric circles of pain are radiating out of it. My skin is bathed in perspiration. I’m not going to be able to take much more and yet I am still waiting for another strike from the tips of his fingers. Nine. Maybe he will stop at ten. He must stop at ten. Ten. That’s it. Surely that’s it. Eleven.

  And then he stops. I don’t move. I actually feel humiliated. The tears will not stop flowing. But I wanted this. I asked for it, but tears will not stop. I feel used and abused. Feel like a slut or a whore. Even worse, the knowledge that I enjoyed it all—the attention, the pain, the fingers—in a sick, perverted way.

  I hear the sound of the foil then his trousers being dropped, and suddenly the tears stop and my pussy opens out like a flower, oil drips from it, and shivers of strange pleasure shoot from my trembling sex. I remain quite still, unconsciously holding my breath as the rounded thickness of his cock forces itself into my dripping cunt.

  It is such relief to feel it sinking into me, ending the punishment in the best way imaginable. It is what I have been waiting for. I always knew it would end this way. To be filled like this. I feel complete. I push my pelvis upwards and towards the hot, throbbing cock, ignoring, no, welcoming the pain of brushing my raw tush against his skin.

  The ramming my soft center receives that morning.

  The friction of my clit rubbing against the sofa mixes with the pain of his flesh striking my sore bottom, and his cock slipping and sliding in the sloppy, creamy excretions makes me ready to burst. Dizzy with erotic pleasure I bite the pillow and sob through the long, rippling climax.

  I don’t feel him come, I know only my own intense pleasure. My reward. And an amazing reward it is, heightened and illuminated by the raw emotions and beating my little bottom endured that takes me to new textures, heights and depths.

  I feel terrified and I feel incomparably and totally alive.

  I feel sated and soiled.

  Twenty-seven

  I take the Tuesday afternoon off and spend the afternoon naked and sprawled on Vann’s day bed. As he paints me I watch him. He pouts when he paints. His concentration and dedication to his art is such that I am no longer a person, but an object. But when he finishes, smelling of turpentine and paints, he walks up to me, and with dark, passionate eyes, ravishes me. And each time he has found me ready, a match for his rough needs. I enjoy lying here, my mind drifting, his eyes on me. Being the object of his total attention. My phone rings. Without shifting my body I twist my eyeballs in the direction of the phone.

  Lana.

  I sit up. Vann frowns.

  ‘I’ve got to take this.’

  ‘Julie?’

  She sounds panicked. ‘Yeah…’

  ‘Listen. I don’t want you to panic or anything, but Jack has been wounded.’

  My bottom drops out of my world. ‘What?’

  ‘He’s all right. Blake has flown him back home. He’s been shot, but he’s all right. He will be all right. He’s in hospital now. And he’s being taken care of by the best doctors. Would you like to see him?’

  ‘Of course.’ My voice trembles with emotion. She gives me the address.

  I end the call and look at Vann. He is staring at me with a look of almost fear in his eyes. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s Jack. He’s been hurt. He’s in hospital. I have to go and see him.’

  I jump up from the day bed. Vann has my wrist in his hand. ‘I’ll drive you there.’

  I look at him. That sounded fucked up. I experience a pang of guilt. Oh God. I love Jack. What the hell am I doing with this guy? While I have been fucking him and enjoying myself, poor Jack could have died. I step away from him as if he is the Devil himself. I can’t help it. ‘No, you can’t come with me. I couldn’t bear it. I feel bad enough as it is.’

  He pales. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong.’

  I feel tears start rolling down my face. ‘Yes, I have, but that’s not important now.’ I pick up my robe, shrug into it, and run out of his studio.

  The journey to the hospital is one of the worst I have ever had. I should have asked Lana how bad Jack was, where he had been wounded, but I didn’t at that moment because I was so shocked, and now I am stuck in the Underground with no reception.

  When I get to the hospital, Lana is waiting for me. The sight of her standing there doesn’t make me angry; in fact, I feel glad that she is there. I run to her and throw my arms around her. I want to sob, but I can’t.

  ‘How bad is he?’

  ‘He was shot in the shoulder, and he lost a lot of blood. He could have died, but he didn’t. Blake got him out of there in time.’ She shakes her head. ‘I didn’t know. Blake had a detail on him the whole time.’

  My mouth drops open. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he is my best friend.’

  I separate from her and sit down on one of the plush chairs. Such a love. Such a love. Even with the addictive foot massages and all the techniques, will Jack ever love me like that? I close my eyes. I feel cold.

  ‘Would you like something to drink?’

  I nod. ‘Coffee.’ I never drink coffee, but I feel like it. I watch Lana walk up to the counter and ask for some coffee. I had thought it would be a vending machine affair, the way it is at the hospitals I go to, but an orderly comes with a trolley, a coffee pot, two proper cups, sugar bowl, milk jug and a plate of biscuits on a tray.

  I take the coffee, the cup rattles on the saucer. I take a sip and feel sick. I return the coffee to the tray.

  I swallow hard.

  ‘When can we see him?’

  ‘Now. Come.’

  She takes off down a corridor and at a door, stops and pushes it open. We go in. The first thing I notice is how pale he is and the second thing I notice is the way his eyes fly to Lana first and then come to rest on me.

  ‘Hi, Julie.’

  ‘Hi, Jack.’ I walk up to the bed. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘I’ll live.’

  I feel Lana’s hand on my arm and I am propelled forward. She pushes me into a chair beside the bed. ‘I’ll leave you two for a minute. I have to call Blake,’ Lana says, and walks to the door. And I experience the strangest sensation. I don’t want Lana to leave. I don’t want to be left alone with Jack. Probably the guilt. Because of what I have been doing with Vann. All the dirty things I have been doing with Vann. The way I take Vann’s cock in my mouth and the pleasure I get from sucking it until he spurts his hot cum in my mouth.

  ‘So what have you been up to?’

  Shame flushes my face.

  His eyebrows rise. ‘So what have you been up to?’

  ‘Nothing. How did it happen?’

  He looks away from me towards the window. ‘I was careless.’ His voice is flat, far away.

  ‘Are you going back?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thank God. It’s too dangerous out there. You could have died.’

  ‘I could have, but I didn’t.’

  The way he says it shocks me. Makes me think that he would have preferred to die.

  I open my mouth to say something, what, I don’t know, and the door opens and his mother walks in. She does not see me; instead she rushes to the bedside with a sob. Jack puts his arm on her hand, and I stand up and walk out. Outside I feel lost. I am not sure which end of the corridor will lead me out of the place. I go down one direction and it leads to a dead end so I turn back. I don’t see Lana anywhere so I go into the lift and out of the hospital. Outside the light seems too bright, the noise level too high. I look up and see two very fat pigeons sitting on a roof. I head for the Tube station. I feel shattered. A text message comes through on my mobile phone. Vann. I don’t even open it.

  When I unlock the door to my room and open it, I am oddly shocked by my own room. How pink and childish it is. It is the room of a five-year-old child. I think of the red satin sheets I have ordered from the Internet. I wanted silk but they were too expensive, so I settled for satin. Vann will wonder what they are about when th
ey arrive at his place. Will he know to put them on his bed or will he leave them unopened?

  I look at the wall full of Jack’s photos with surprise. He looks more alive in these two-dimensional photos than he did in the hospital. I remember his saying, ‘I could have, but I didn’t.’ What has happened to my Jack? And the despair and grief in his eyes as he turned away from me and stared unseeingly out of the window.

  I go and lie on my bed and look at a pink rabbit that I have had for years. What the hell was I thinking of? It is so fucking ugly.

  That night there are no stars in the sky. Jack is in London, anyway. I think of Vann in his empty flat. And I feel sad. I won’t go back to him again.

  I’ve fucked up. I’ve fucked up big time.

  Twenty-eight

  ‘Ouch!’ I cry, and drop the rose stalk. I bring my finger to my mouth and suck it.

  ‘Are you worryin’ about your boy in hospital?’ calls Ziporrah from the front of the shop.

  ‘He’s not in hospital anymore. He insisted on checking himself out,’ I mumble automatically, and then I take my finger out of my mouth and look at it. I was not thinking of Jack. A drop of blood grows on the surface of my skin. I stare at it without really seeing it.

  At that moment I feel as if I had been walking on a road and all of a sudden the road had stopped and I was standing at the lip of an abyss. When I look back the road that seemed so clear minutes ago is dissolving into nothing.

  There is no road! There never was a road.

  I finish de-thorning the roses, cut the stems diagonally, put them into the metal bucket and store the bucket in a dark corner. Then I clear the tabletop and leave the cool dim back for the sunlit shop. Ziporrah is adding calla lilies into a sophisticated red and dark pink arrangement.

  ‘Zip, do you mind if I leave a little early?’

  ‘How early?’

  ‘Like, now?’

  ‘It’s Friday, but we got no deliveries scheduled so I suppose you can.’

  ‘Thanks Zip. I’ll make it up next week.’

  Ziporrah waves her arms. ‘Go, go, go see him.’

  I take my mobile out of my apron pocket and dial Jack’s number. Jack answers on the first ring. He sounds grumpy.