The change in angle rubbed her just right, driving her higher, higher. An inferno exploded inside, setting all of her to flame. Pulling him closer, she locked her arms about him as he slammed into her, each thrust heavy and deep, each growing shorter and more unsteady. Burying his face in her neck, he muttered something, but the words were muffled, indistinct. Clutching him to her, she tightened her legs and fought his retreat as sensation gathered, building to something, something that would burst, had to burst, before she -
Orgasm broke through her, rushing in great waves. She froze, body arched and her whole being full of him and the emotion he brought. He stiffened as his own orgasm overcame him, his body shuddering as it overwhelmed him. It crashed and swelled and crashed again, and she followed it all, holding him tight as the maelstrom subsided.
Slowly, slowly, the world returned. Lifting her hand to his hair, she stroked the dark strands while she trailed the other over the strong muscles of his back. Buried still in her neck, his body shuddered once more, and then he was still.
Time passed, had no meaning. She was here with him, his body heavy on hers. His lips brushed the skin of her neck, and she couldn’t remember ever feeling so content.
A knock sounded at the door. Tension froze her, and he stiffened in her arms.
“Elena, you in there? You’re up.”
Her guitarist’s voice brought the return of reality, and the fading sound of his footsteps as he continued on down the hall took all her stupid hopes with them.
“I have to go.” She didn’t want to. She wanted to stay here, with him - with Max - and learn all the things she didn’t know, but…did he want the same? He’d had her now. They’d fucked. Maybe that was all he wanted. Maybe his words had just been words.
Fearful - God, so fearful - she asked, “Will you be here when I get back?” Her voice stumbled out, hesitant and unsure.
He said nothing. He lay tense in her arms, his body still inside hers, and he said nothing.
A kind of panic rose. She hated this. She hated this. Why him? Out of all the men, why did he matter so much?
And she knew the answer was simple, and pointless, and frustrating, and true.
Because he did.
It seemed the whole of eternity passed, and she wanted to take it all back. The hope that he wanted what she did. The wish for a shared future. The promise of love.
God, please let him think it a casual question. Let him believe it to be an offhand comment. A desire for more sex. Anything. Please. Don’t let him rip out my soul.
He pulled back. His eyes searched hers, and she couldn’t hide. It wasn’t casual. It wasn’t offhand.
The question meant everything.
His thumb traced her cheekbone, rubbed away the moisture he found there.
“Yes,” he said.
Relief crashed through her, a wild kind of joy. Placing her forehead against his, she framed his face with her hands, her thumbs dragging against the roughness of his beard, and didn’t care that they called her name again, that the crowd was waiting for her.
Because his eyes were hazel, flecked with green.
The Conjurer
By Tabitha Rayne
(For Scarlet, who loves red even more than I do)
“I can make you see again,” he said. And so I took his hand.
Lights streak by me; reds, yellows, whites, roll and merge in my peripheral vision making me dizzy and unsteady on my feet. Without my cane I look, or at least I imagine I must look, normal, but with it, with it, you will mark me as different. Incomplete. And that’s how I feel.
It’s as though I could just close my eyes, rub them, and they would be clear again. Free of this blind spot that has me disorientated. It started with a tiny piece missing in the very centre of my vision, but it grew day by day and now my sight has been banished to the outer edges. I crave images and colours and roam the streets, hungry for night when the city comes alive with lights. It’s my solace, my chance to hold on the woman I once was. Does that sound strange? To want to be surrounded with noise and chaos while I stumble about unsure of my footing, bumping in to random strangers who turn angrily towards me, ready with a reprimand until they see my cane?
Tonight though, tonight I am without it. I clasp a compact mirror in my left hand using it to deflect images of the world straight in front of me, up into the side of my lens. I feel cunning in my mirror image world. I have on my best shoes that clack loudly as I go. They are high and I feel mighty in them. My dress is tight enough to impede my stride in bare feet but in these heels, it is positively airy around my legs. Car lights race past in all directions, I must be near the crossroads. I adjust my mirror to find the crossing and press the button.
Wait.
I do.
Eventually the beeping comes and I put on my most confident gait hoping that I make it to the other side before the flashing green man disappears.
Safely across, I take a moment to congratulate myself at this small victory. It’s the first time since it got so bad that I’ve crossed this road without a stick or a helper. Just a normal woman out for an evening walk. Maybe I’m off to meet my friends. I flick my mirror this way and that until I see a brightly lit bar, right opposite the art gallery. I am suddenly disconcerted as to which way to go if left is right and right is left in my new world. A slight seasick feeling threatens to well in the pit of my stomach but I make a decision and start walking. After all, what’s the worst that can happen? I turn and go back the other way, that’s it, I tell myself calmly, deliberately evening out my breathing which has quickened slightly. I begin to notice the sound of the city and as soon as I give it the slightest attention, it roars into my consciousness, raucous and hectic. It is at once exhilarating and terrifying and I’m glad when my hand grips the large handle of the bar. I made it. Push or Pull? I pull and the door slides open effortlessly. The place isn’t very busy, it’s still early. I’m guessing things will heat up in the next hour or so. Plenty time for me to settle in, or go home. I make it to the bar only hitting my hip twice on chair backs. I smooth my palm over the velvet seat of the bar stool and lift my heel onto the rung, hoisting myself to sitting as gracefully as I know how.
“What will it be?” A voice from straight ahead addresses me and I’m a little surprised. Only a little, I am always expecting things to be straight ahead. I flick my gaze to snatch a look at him from the side, but not for too long or he might suspect.
“I’ll have a vodka martini, please,” I purr with my best temptress tone and snap open my red evening bag to get my purse. There, see? Just a normal woman out and about.
I sip my drink as slowly as I can, which as it turns out is not slowly at all and suck on ice and thin air tuning in to snippets of conversation going on around me until I think enough time has passed to order another without appearing like a lush.
The barman hands me the drink and I slurp it down in one go. Have the guidelines on measures changed? I’m sure a libation in a tall glass used to last longer than this. I’m nervous. I always drink quickly when I’m nervous - then when I’m not nervous anymore, I’m totally plastered. I will take a lemonade next time; I don’t want to be reckless.
“Waiting for someone?” A low silky voice slides into my ear and nestles there as I keep my gaze ahead but see a tall, suited man sit on the stool next to me.
I consider lying. Then don’t. “Actually, no. I’m just out for a drink, enjoying the evening.” I turn and smile at him hoping my eyes are meeting his when all I can see is dark blurry space where his features should be.
“Care for some company?” he asks and my heart rate slows a little - I must have got away with it.
“Why yes,” I say, feeling the two shots of vodka beginning to work their magic, “I would.”
He pulls his stool closer to mine and motions to the barman. “Two of whatever the lady’s drinking.” I smile and pretend to watch the barman while I take in the stranger from the side of my eye. He is most certainly what I would cal
l hot. I blush as his warm hand brushes mine when he passes my glass. I feel him looking me up and down, studying me, working me out. “What’s your name?”
“Carla,” I say using my middle name as I always do. I was named Elsie after my grandmother and while I love my granny, I’ve never felt the name suited me much - especially while trying to pick up sophisticated suited gentleman in a wine bar. “Yours?”
“Joel.”
“Mmm, that’s unusual,” I say, feeling more and more relaxed in his company. We fall into easy conversation until he tells me he’s a lawyer (yawn) who studied law in order to dutifully take over the family business (even bigger yawn). I start losing a little interest until he tells me what he really wants to be ‘when he grows up’.
“I am an artist at heart,” he says and my ears prick. How suave!
“What kind?” I ask crossing my fingers hoping he is a painter.
“I paint women.” Jackpot! I’ve always fancied myself as a muse. I lift my ribcage and check my posture hoping he might consider me for that very role. “Nude women.” Heat prickles up my neck and flushes my cheeks. I’m no prude but the way he says it draws a certain excitement from me. I sense my nipples have become visible through my sheer dress. I make no attempt to hide the fact and actually reach seductively for my drink so that my upper body twists slightly towards him.
“What part?” I purr. I have never been this forward before but especially since I began to lose my sight. As soon as it got bad people began to treat me differently - even old friends and lovers. It made me want so scream at them all that it’s my sight I’ve lost not my fucking sexuality. I’m still the lustful kinky girl I always was, only now, men treat me like I should be wrapped in cotton wool. I’m sick of it. Really. He seems to take a moment to consider my question carefully.
“The eyes,” he barely whispers. I recoil into my seat and look away with a sudden sickening feeling growing in the pit of my stomach. Of course he knew. It must be so obvious. I don’t even really know what my eyes look like - they might be swirling madly or rimmed with red for all I know. Panic rises and I want to run away. My skin bristles and heats, pulling sweat from my pores. I begin to gather my things, trying to stuff my purse and keys into my bag but somehow everything spills onto the floor and I hop off my stool to retrieve it. He does too and we bump heads. The kind of bump that if I was on my own, I’d hop around cursing in rage and smacking the thing I’d bumped it on, but I’m not alone. I pause in a semi crouch as he retrieves my things and hands them to me. There is an awkward moment as he puts my bag in my hand but then instead of letting go, his thumbs stroke my skin. I pull away tucking my bag over my shoulder and quickly down my drink before turning to leave. He leans in. “I can make you see again,” he says offering his hand. I take it.
***
“How did you know?” I am lying naked on what feels like a velvet lined altar - though he assures me it’s simply a platform for best viewing his subjects. “Was it obvious?”
He pauses, I can see him from a mirror placed serendipitously on the wall so my eyes can look right at him while he paints and I am able to catch a woozy reflected glimpse from the side.
“Perhaps not to everyone,” he says very gently, “but I study things. Everything. I can’t look at even a glass without being fascinated by how the light strikes it - both piercing and reflecting, causing shadows to make it look whole.” He pauses to load up his brush and perhaps, I think, he might be a little embarrassed about what he might say next.
“Go on,” I urge.
“Well, it’s just that, most people can’t handle my scrutiny. Most people find it… me… creepy.”
My skin bristles and I’m suddenly panicky. What the hell and I doing here, naked, in a strange man’s flat, drunk and almost blind? I feel a little sick. Creepy? I hold my breath and the air grows static between us. He must see the change in my posture. Self preservation screams at me to shatter the suddenly weird atmosphere. He beats me to it.
“I mean, I can’t help staring that’s all,” he says, the slight uneven tone in his voice alerting me to the fact that he knows he’s said something to scare me. “I’m still like a child in that way. It gets hard to cultivate good social skills when you’re talking to someone and all you want to do is study the way their skin skates and moves over the bones beneath.” He manages a soft nervous laugh, trying to soothe me. “I’m not really… I mean… I shouldn’t have said the word creepy.” He is terribly flustered now and through the mirror I see he is mixing colours frantically on his palette.
“It’s all right,” I say, choosing to stick with my initial impression of this man. I hesitate, desperately wanting to ask him the question that no one will answer, but not wanting to hear the truth either. I have to know. “So how exactly did you know?” I ask the question in a way that I hope he understands what knowledge I’m seeking and that I don’t want to admit that I want to know. I brace myself, thinking he’s going to give a description of my strange looking eyes.
He puts down his brushes and steps out from behind the easel walking quickly towards me. Before I can work out what’s going on, he lifts my face by my chin and through my blinkered vision I feel him looking right into me.
“Because you didn’t look away,” he whispers and his hot breath caresses the skin around my mouth. The words cause a lump to rise in my throat and tears threaten to well in my eyes. He has been made alone by his need to see - and so have I. I kiss him. He lets me.
Before I know it I am lying back and he is kneeling between my knees, tearing off his shirt. He is smiling. I can tell by the way the air moves inside his puckered cheeks and out through his teeth. It’s subtle but I know it. I smile back and he crawls up bringing his knees to the outside of my thighs and wriggling them together. He lifts my arms and places them over my head holding them there in one hand while the other trails down to my arm pit, then side, then over my breast.
Tiny hairs all over my skin rise and tug beautiful sensations in tiny waves as they go. It’s like a flash of colour being painted over my body in one long stroke. He follows with his tongue, gently lapping down to my rib cage then slowly, slowly up to the underside of my breast. He licks it hard, forcing the mound of flesh up onto my chest, then releases, blowing on the moistened skin as it falls, quivering back into place. It is thrilling. I am becoming more aware that he must be watching every little thing that he is doing, the effects, the way the light dances over my skin, the way a tiny touch can cause such a reaction. I feel detached from him, like I am not really a person to him that he wants to connect with - more a thing he wants to study. But as he now grazes his thumb over my nipple and lets it ping back into place, I sink further away from him too, and into myself, just languishing in pure sensation. Pressure on my wrist is released as he becomes completely absorbed in playing with both my nipples now. He thumbs and kneads them and I arch my back giving him full access to the rising tight nubs of puckered flesh. His head dips and he begins to suckle me, at first feathery nibbles, then he engulfs me with his hot wet mouth, biting, sucking, flicking his tongue hard. A groan escapes his throat and a pulse of pleasure shoots to my pussy. I am wet. God, I can feel my own heat and I splay my legs allowing the air of the room to cool it. The windows are open allowing the sounds and smells of my beloved city to circulate around me. I imagine the night air is my lover too and spread my legs wide for its cooling caress.
My painter lets go of my breasts and kisses me once ferociously on the mouth. “You are fucking beautiful,” he says and I know he means it. My pussy is twitching now as he presses down on me, letting me feel his hardness through his trousers. I reach down to his waist and wrap my fingers around his buckle, relishing the cold metallic clink as I unhook it. He falls out into my hand, heavy and hard with longing. I begin to massage his cock in long languid stokes, feeling the flesh glide over his turgid mass, up and down. He growls in his throat again and desire makes me break my rhythm. He pulls away from me and stands, his body looming
over me casting shadows all around. The sound of fabric falling is punctuated with the soft thunk of his trousers dispersing the air as they land just next to me. I turn my head towards them.
“See?” he says, “You do see.” I keep quiet. It was a flippant thing for him to say. Turning your head towards a disturbance in the air hardly constitutes a cure for blindness. I perch up on my elbows as the shadows over me disappear and I hear him padding back behind the easel. No, he’s turning the lights down.
“Wait…” I stop myself. What does it matter really if the lights are on or off? I relax into my elbows and listen to the night, teeming with life just below the open window of his apartment. Lovers loving, fighters fighting, life being lived. The atmosphere has changed once again and the room has taken on a flickering rosy hue. Scented candles fill the air with their heady scent and I’m a little disappointed that it diminishes his. “Please, come close.” I say softly when he has stopped pottering and taken his paints back up. The swirling heady smell of roses is making me giddy and I need to be grounded by his earthy manly musk. I shift onto my knees as he approaches and I reach out and catch him by the hips, pulling him in towards me. My head falls into his groin and I grip his buttocks inhaling the thick feral scent of a man. I bury my face in his pheromone-laden curls and steady myself there as he lays down his brushes and spreads his fingers into my hair. The nerves in my scalp become electrified as he massages and works my tension away. My mouth is watering and I butt my nose into the very point where his succulent cock begins.
I release my grip on his bum and trail my touch around to his balls, cupping them and fondling them as he murmurs. I smell and sniff all the way up to the polished smooth tip of his cock where a dewy bead is my reward as I flick my tongue over him. I am so hungry for him. I open wide and plunge onto him, taking him deep into the fleshy pocket of my mouth, undulating my tongue and cheeks around him as he grips my hair tighter. I want to tear my nails into his body and own him all. I want to see the look on his face as I possess him with my whole being, just for that moment. I stop. Suspended once again in the knowledge that that won’t happen.
Smut in the City (Absolute Erotica) Page 8
