by Lilly Black
“So you do have them?” I ask, ignoring his threat, or perhaps inviting it.
“Yes.”
“And a riding crop?” I ask. I want to get my hands on one, probably because the woman in that image on XP.com was holding one over the blonde man.
“No.”
“Why not?” I ask, disappointed.
“It’s a woman’s whip.”
“I agree,” I purr.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you,” Cain says in feigned exasperation.
We talk and finish dinner with the whips on the table between us, and it’s as if we’re just a normal couple discussing normal things as we talk about tethers and chains.
After dinner, Lucy brings in a tableside service and makes Bananas Foster for us. It’s positively decadent, as are my thoughts in this room. I had always assumed I would have to have the most normal, straight-laced sexual relationship possible to make me feel untainted, yet here I sit, learning that a fetish might be what I’ve needed all along. I’m anxious, afraid, and disturbed by it, but I want this. I want it all.
“Can’t this thing go any faster?” I ask as Cain drives us back down the 94 to my house. I put my hand on his knee, ever-so-gradually inching it upward, and he hits the gas pedal, the car suddenly flying. When I reach his zipper, I try unsuccessfully to get it down one handed.
“If you don’t stop that, I’m going to pull off the road and fuck you right here,” Cain threatens, and afraid of what could happen fucking in a car on the side of the 94, I sit back in my seat, keep my hands to myself, and pretend to pout.
“If you need something to do with your hands,” Cain says reaching for my left, bringing it to his lips, and kissing the tips of my fingers. “Lay your seat back and pull up your dress.” I warily comply, lifting the hem with my free hand to expose my black g-string, and he glances down with a smile before sucking my index and middle fingers into his mouth, getting them wet before shoving my own hand into my panties from the side, pushing the small triangle of fabric out of the way. I freeze, lacking the confidence for an act like this.
“I wasn’t asking,” Cain informs me, and with his hand over mine, he guides my fingers to my clit, lightly teasing as he shows me what he could do if he were the one touching me. I’m even more uncomfortable with the idea of him freely touching me there than I am at the thought of masturbating for him, but he’s found a loophole in both, getting the show he wants while absolving me of the responsibility for performing it. Thankful for the sparse traffic and the darkness outside, I lay back and close my eyes.
“Uh-uh. Look at me,” Cain orders, and I comply, afraid that he’ll stop if I don’t. I don’t want him to stop, but there’s something more to it. He’s giving me directives and not asking my permission. Is it beginning for real? Is he acting as my master now?
I haven’t been watching the road, and when Cain stops and turns off the engine, I’m surprised and disappointed, afraid that after so much teasing, I might not be able to come, but as soon as the front door to my house is locked behind us, he strips me impatiently, pushing me onto the couch to finish the job with his tongue - his un-fucking-believable tongue. I get a flash of guilt as we break Nicole’s “no fucking on common furniture” rule, but it’s quickly chased away as Cain’s mouth covers me, his tongue stiff and relentless, forcing me mercilessly toward a magnificent end.
I shatter the silence, my sudden, uninhibited cries urging him on, his beautiful face boring into me, driving me as far as my body is willing to go, and when I can take no more, he drags me into the floor like a ragdoll, bending me over the couch, his cock rushing into me. Clutching my hips, his body crashes into mine hard and fast, and as he hits that perfect spot inside me as if his cock was made for me, I come so quickly I’m overwhelmed, my body shaking all over as I grasp at the couch to steady myself.
“Oh, fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I curse, and he pulls me upright to lean against him, holding me there through the aftershocks, his cock twitching inside me as he kisses my neck.
“God, Cain,” I exhale. “How do you do that to me?”
“Making you come is all I’ve been able to think about since the moment I laid eyes on you,” he says, and as his words tear through me like an electrical charge, I wonder greedily if he could do it again.
“Making you come is all I can think about right now,” I whisper as I stand up, forcing him out of me. I turn and push him onto his back on the floor, straddling him, working my way down until I’m lying on my stomach between his legs. I don’t just want to get him off. I want to blow his mind.
I slowly lick him from base to tip, loving the power I have over him at this moment as I glide my tongue over his smooth, stretched flesh.
“I love tasting myself on your cock,” I purr, emboldened by the look in his eyes as he watches me. He moans, rigid and flexing in my grip at my first successful attempt at dirty talk, and proud of myself, I keep going. “And I love your cock…feeling it…sucking it…”
“Oh, fuck,” Cain breathes as I slide it deep into my throat. Then working his shaft with one hand, I take my mouth lower to carefully and gently swirl my tongue over his balls. Very gradually I increase the pressure, letting his reaction help me gauge how much stimulation he can take there, discovering that he can take anything I’m willing to give. I suck them one at a time into my mouth until I feel him grow impossibly hard in my hand. Trading my tongue for a couple of wet fingers, I take his cock into my mouth, my head and hand twisting in unison as I move up and down his shaft. He moans, writhing beneath my elbows as they rest on his thighs, his end so close his body is shaking.
“Come for me,” I command, and it instantly has the desired effect. He calls out my name and thrusts into my mouth, filling it as I urge him on, gripping him with both hands and tightening my lips until I’ve given him all he can handle.
“Fuck, Evan,” Cain exhales the words as he lies on the floor, utterly spent. When I lie beside him, he puts his arm around me and kisses me softly atop the head.
“Just fuck,” he says.
September 6
“What’ll it be?” I ask Cain Friday night as he approaches the bar, looking as sexy as ever in faded jeans and a forest green t-shirt.
“One hot serving wench,” he says, leaning over the bar to kiss me.
“Serving wench? That’s going to cost you, Playboy.”
“Should have ordered an Ice Queen,” he says, sitting down to wait for me to finish closing. I don’t want to finish now, and I don’t even question it when Nicole suddenly volunteers to do it for me, shooing Cain and I out the door. When we’re standing in the elevator, just as the doors close I see a man still sitting alone in the back of the bar. I think it’s Caleb, but neither Cain nor I got a good enough look. Downstairs, I scan the parking lot but don’t see his silver BMW.
Cain and I decide to get something to eat while we negotiate tonight, and he surprises me when, instead of driving through somewhere, he takes us to a grocery store. Inside, not only does he know his way around, I learn that he intends to do the cooking. I had envisioned him growing up with nannies, maids, and chefs to do these things for him, and as I question him, he admits that he did, but in grad school, he learned to take care of himself by choice and still likes to do his own shopping and cooking sometimes.
“I’m impressed,” I say.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t have my assistants pick up a few gifts for me here and there, but I’m not completely useless.”
“Please tell me Veronica did not buy the gift you gave me last week,” I say as we approach the checkout stand.
“Flowers are one thing, but I would never let anyone else select my gifts for you,” Cain says, looking into my eyes with an intensity that makes my knees feel weak, and I wonder how I will ever manage to usurp the dominant position from this man who stands a foot taller than me with knowing eyes that shine like emeralds, reflecting the green of his shirt under the florescent lights. That strand of lighter blonde hair in his face, his
beauty is not lost on the open-mouthed clerk as she scans the ingredients for Linguine alle Vongole. All I really know about it is that it involves clams, which I haven’t had since I left Louisiana, and though I don’t know how Cain talked the manager into getting fresh seafood out of the case at this time of night because he sent me for the vegetables and a lemon, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had talked her into selling him wine, too. But he brought wine with him. I saw it in the car.
When we get to my place, the Jaguar is parked out front, and Nicole’s bedroom light is off. I knock lightly to ask if she’s hungry, but I get no answer. She must already be asleep. Good. I wouldn’t want her to overhear what Cain and I will be discussing.
I go to my laptop to print out the list I’ve been compiling as Cain makes himself at home in our small, poorly-outfitted kitchen. We don’t even have a garlic press, but anticipating that, the lemon isn’t an ingredient but a tool to get the garlic smell off his hands after he chops it. He’s definitely covered. I grabbed an entire bag of them out of habit.
“Can I do anything to help?” I ask upon my return, having switched the red patent leather skirt of my work uniform with a pair of jeans.
“Yes,” he says, holding his hands up from the cutting board, our only sharp kitchen knife in one of them. “I have my own list in the front left.” I walk over to him and slowly fish the list out of the pocket of his jeans. Comparing it with mine, I find that they’re not all that different, and I pray it means we’re in harmony on everything so I can finally see what pleasures await at the end of his whip.
While Cain cuts the vegetables, I read off the first few categories on his list that I think need to be discussed more in depth, and when he notices that I lower my voice on words that make me uncomfortable, Cain turns toward me, leaning against the counter, his look a mix of amusement and impatience.
“Evan,” he says. “I’m noticing that you seem to have trouble saying certain words, so let’s get this out of the way right now. What do you call it?”
“What do I call what?”
“Your…” He trails off, looking between my legs.
“Now who can’t say the words?”
“I don’t want to influence your answer.”
“I don’t know. What do you normally say?” I ask.
“In the dungeon? Cunt, but that’s a disrespectful word, not right for you, Evan,” he says.
“Surprise me, then,” I say, charmed by the way he differentiates me from his past lovers.
“Surprise you?” Cain asks, leery.
“With the C word off the table, you can call it whatever you want. It’s not like I have to say it.”
“When you are under my command, little girl, you’ll say it if I tell you to,” he threatens.
We’ll see who’s under whose command in the end, Playboy, I think with a dirty look, but he just laughs at me and turns back around.
“Next category. Master/slave contracts,” I say with a scowl. It’s on his list, not mine.
“Since I can tell you aren’t crazy about the idea, I might be willing to consider foregoing the formal contract.”
“Good, because you’re not getting one.”
“You always know just what to say to make me want to put you over my knee,” he scoffs.
“That’s the real purpose of the contract, isn’t it?” I ask.
“Yes. It protects me in case some disgruntled, little bitch decides to use the marks on her ass against me, but the paper is just a formality. I usually require these negotiations to take place on video.”
“I don’t know where to begin listing all the things that are wrong with what you just said,” I scold him. Making them admit on video to all the naughty things they agree to allow him to do to them is bad enough, but calling any random one of his ex-lovers a “disgruntled, little bitch”?
“What’s wrong, Evan, is how much you enjoy hearing me refer to the women in my past in insignificant terms because you know how meaningless they all are to me now compared to you.”
Fuck me. I stare at him for a long moment, wanting to say something to punctuate his words, to make them more tangible, reciprocal, but in the end, I can’t bear the gravity.
“So is there a hidden camera recording us?” I ask.
“I would never record anything without your consent, negotiations or otherwise,” he assures me.
“Hmmm…I didn’t even think to add making our own porn to the list.”
“Well, since it’s on the table now, I am one hundred percent in favor of making porn with you.”
“I’ll bet you are,” I say with a laugh.
“That’s not an answer,” Cain says.
“I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that.”
“I’m not putting it on the hard limits, Evan.”
“You will if I say to,” I demand.
“We’ll call it a soft limit.”
“But doesn’t that mean you can try it and see how it goes?”
“Not necessarily. With something like that, it would mean that we’ll revisit it at some point, and as it is with anything, if we begin and you’re uncomfortable, you can always use the safeword.”
“Do we really need a safeword? Can’t I just say stop?”
“A safeword isn’t just for telling me to stop. It allows you to tell me that I am moving into an uncomfortable area without having to dampen the mood. Think of it this way, if you were in control, I wouldn’t want to have to tell you that I don’t like what you’re doing because I wouldn’t want to rattle your confidence, not that mine could be rattled.”
“Of course not,” I say, feigning shock at his boasting, though in reality he’s probably being completely honest.
“Where do you keep your pots and pans?” he asks. I indicate the cabinet, and he sets a pot of water to boil for the linguine.
“So what safeword do you normally use?” I ask.
“We need our own words.”
“Words?”
“One for yield, one for stop.”
“I don’t know…” I say trying to think of words, but I can’t come up with anything remotely interesting. “Grey for yield and black for stop?”
“Almost everything in the dungeon is black.”
“Then white for stop. It’s not like it matters,” I say boldly. “You’re never going to want to use the safewords when I’m in charge.”
“You know what? Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I do need a contract with you,” he teases.
“Voilà !” Cain says as he sets my plate before me. It looks amazing and tastes as good as it looks.
“I think you’ve missed your calling in life. You should open a restaurant.”
“I already have,” he says with a sly grin.
“Are you talking about the vampire country club?”
“Would you like to know more about it?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“I’ll arrange a tour for you.”
“A tour of a restaurant?”
“There’s much more to it than what you saw. How’s tomorrow? I can set it up for early afternoon and join you there for a late lunch before you have to be at work.” I don’t recall telling him that I work tomorrow night.
As we eat, we talk more about lists, rules, and contracts, and when I rise to carry my dish to the sink, it pleases me when Cain stands automatically, a habit that has been ingrained in him by his upbringing. I’ve only seen men like him in the restaurants I’ve worked in, so chivalrous and romantic, and though I don’t need hearts and flowers, it’s nice to be treated like a lady.
When we’re finished, it’s almost 5:00 am. Cain stretches and yawns.
“I’m tired, too,” I say.
“Let’s go to bed,” he says as if we’re already set in our ways together.
September 7, Afternoon
When Lucy arrives at 2:00, I’m ready for anything. I have to work tonight, and though I am supposed to wear my red, patent leather dress uniform on weekends, I decide to brea
k the rule, putting on a low-cut, red mini dress instead. Wearing one of the push-up bras Cain bought me underneath, I wouldn’t normally leave the house during the day in something so revealing, but no one will see me before the sun goes down other than Cain and Lucy.
“Shall we go, Miss Lucien?” she asks, looking down at me, still taller than me even though I’m wearing 5” heels and she’s wearing flats.
“Please call me Evan,” I say as I grab my purse. I tuck my cell phone inside and follow Lucy to the curb. She’s driving a Rolls Royce that I’ve never seen before, but I’m relieved. It’s less impersonal than the limo, and if I am ever going to accept Lucy’s weird relationship with Cain, I don’t need yards of car between us.
Though we try to make small talk on the way, I’m thankful when we pull into the parking garage. She opens my door for me, and though it feels weird for another woman to cater to me like this, I know Cain must want it this way or he would have instructed her otherwise. His attention to detail borders on obsession.
“Are you ready?” she asks as we walk toward the elevator.
Ready for what exactly?
“Lucy, what is this place?”
“You’ll see.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” I ask.
“Oh, yes,” she says with a mischievous smile as she slides the card key, and the button for the 11th floor lights up, leaving me full of curiosity and trepidation. Upstairs, she leads me down the dark hallway to the black dining room.
“Could we talk for a minute first?” she asks.
“Sure,” I say, uncomfortable as hell as I take a seat opposite her in the booth.
“I just want you to know me, Evan. Every woman Cain dates wants me gone,” she says.
Of course I want you gone. You’re beautiful and utterly devoted to Cain. My Cain.
“I actually kind of enjoyed it…until now,” she says. “I don’t want you to hate me, Evan, because if there is anyone in the world you can trust with Cain, it’s me.” She’s calling him Cain, not Mr. Ballantyne.
“Lucy, I…”
“Please don’t. I know what you’re thinking and I get it, but I swear I don’t want Cain and he doesn’t want me.”
