by Jenesi Ash
They stared at each other until she looked away.
“Eve,” Lane said in a low voice that drew her gaze back to him as surely as honey drew flies.
She pushed her chair back the tiniest bit, just enough to move her knee away from his shoulder. This was crazy. Crazy! His gaze went to the place on her thigh where her skirt pulled up, and his hands dug into the carpet briefly but fiercely. Heat flared in Eve’s face and along her throat. Hell, through her entire body. And Lane leaned forward…
“Lane?” Debbie appeared in the doorway. “Now mine’s doing it, too. My chats are all frozen.”
“I’ll be right there.” His tone was pleasant and gave away nothing.
Eve didn’t move. She couldn’t. She was as frozen as her computer.
Lane didn’t move, either, not until Debbie made a quizzical sound, and then he got up off his knees. Up, up and up, the entire length of him, and then Eve was alone at her desk.
Her computer chose that moment to go back online. Her queue blinked for attention. From Debbie’s pod she heard the low murmur of Lane explaining something, but not what he was saying. Her hands shook a little as she started typing. She thought he’d come back to check on her, but he didn’t.
This is what I want.
My dress spreads out around me in layers of satin and lace. The skirts are heavy, but when I’m seated their weight causes me no trouble. My silken stockings whisper when I rub my legs together, though it’s more a feeling than a sound.
I have listened for hours to supplicants begging me for favors. To ministers admonishing me. To suitors attempting to woo. But what do I want, more than anything? I want to rid myself of the weight of this dress and the crown on my head. I want not to be a queen, but a woman.
Your hands hold clear glass globes, three in each palm, and the subtle motion of your fingers is enough to send them dancing. Back and forth they move, astonishing all who watch, though many in this court are too jaded to admit it. No magician, they sniff. It’s all parlor tricks. I’m thrilled to study the ease of your movements, to lose myself in the grace of your performance.
I dismiss the others, but bid you to stay. You do, of course, for though I phrase my command as a request we both know your only option is to obey. Somehow, I don’t think you mind.
You’re on your knees in front of me without me having to order it. Your hands, those graceful hands, push up the dreadful heavy skirts. Your fingers make whispers of their own up my legs, which I part for you with a gasp at your audacity. Nobody touches me.
You touch me. The backs of my knees, the insides of my thighs, the small curve of my belly. And finally, you touch the soft, wet slit of my sex. Without asking and without my command, you kiss me there. You lick. You move my body forward on the chair until you can suck and stroke me with your tongue until I writhe.
The sound of footsteps should make you leave me unfulfilled, but instead of springing away you pull the folds of my dress down over you. It’s full enough to cloak you entirely. Your face presses between my thighs until I have to bite my tongue to keep from crying out.
They’re back again, the ministers and beggars, the suitors. I could turn them away but I owe them my time in exchange for their allegiance. Today I fail to listen properly. Today you lick me in secret until my body clenches and convulses, and I have to fight back the cries wanting to tear from my throat.
You use the thrust of your fingers as you would your cock. As you will use it later, when I take you to my chambers, but for now your tongue and hands move in tandem until I can’t keep from squirming and pushing against you.
“Are you well?” ask my ministers. “You look flushed.”
I climax again and again through the long hours under the attention of your talented tongue and fingers.
No magician, they say, but I know differently.
You’ve certainly worked your magic on me.
Eve still replied to all her comments, but she’d given up the pretense she was writing for any other reason than the replies from Tell_me. Her fingers flew over the keys as she wrote her latest entry. She sat back when it was finished and waited. Her reward came a few minutes later when her instant message icon bounced.
How was work today?
It wasn’t the response she’d been expecting, and so her answer took a moment.
Fine. You?
Frustrating.
Why frustrating?
He didn’t answer for so long she thought he’d gone, though he hadn’t signed off. Then, You liked me on my knees for you?
I always like a man on his knees for me.
Another long, long pause. Eve’s heart thumped and her tongue tasted like metal. What, exactly, was going on? The casual, sexy banter had disappeared. The words looked the same, black on white, but something had changed.
Her in-box filled with a few pleas from the abandoned Puppetboy. The shuffle function on her music program played her some interesting songs. Her fingers clenched into her fists as she leaned forward to stare at the screen and willed him to answer.
Any man? Or me?
Eve didn’t know how to answer. She blinked at the rush of sudden, unexpected emotion. How had they gotten to this conversation?
I don’t really know you.
Five minutes passed, then another five, before Tell_me went off-line without saying anything else.
In the pause between customers, Eve gave in to temptation. She’d read the memos and knew the consequences, but now…she had to. She had to see if he’d commented since the last time she’d checked, just before leaving for work.
With an eye on her queue, she logged in quickly to her blog. She didn’t have access to her personal e-mail here and would have to be content with refreshing her browser. She opened her last entry and experienced the familiar roller-coaster drop of her stomach when she saw the number of comments had risen by a few, but she had to take the time to enter a new customer chat before she could check.
Back and forth she went, cutting and pasting responses to stupid questions that made her jaw ache and her head pound. Refreshing her browser. New comments but none from Tell_me.
Her stomach hurt.
She cursed herself. It was an online thing, nothing more. She had lots of comments from lots of people. What was so important about his? About him?
At long last his familiar icon appeared and she held her breath, almost too afraid to read what he’d written. The counter clicked on her queue, her response time to the current client too long. It would show up on her performance stats, but Eve didn’t care. Let the moron who couldn’t figure out how to hook up his printer wait a minute. Maybe he’d get a clue in the meantime.
What makes it magic?
Her fingers flew. Magic can’t be defined, can it? Or it loses what makes it magic.
Would knowing me make it more magical?
He was replying in her blog to the private instant message exchange they’d had the night before. Eve imagined a tone of dry sarcasm, but that was the problem with written words. Without the benefit of inflection or facial expressions, they could be so easily misinterpreted. He could be angry, not amused or curious.
Part of the magic is the mystery, don’t you think?
She expected him to agree. She wanted him to agree. After all, he’d always given her what she wanted.
No. I don’t.
Eve didn’t know how to respond. Her queue wasn’t getting any shorter, and she had to finish off her open chat. She stumbled on the keyboard, making too many typos. She inserted the wrong text into the chat and had to apologize. It wasn’t the first time she’d had a “no” from a client when she asked if she’d been helpful, but it was the first time she knew she deserved one.
I want it to be that way.
And it’s all about what you want. How could I forget?
There was no mistaking the tone this time.
If you don’t like it, she typed before she could stop herself, you don’t have to read this blog.
Eve closed her br
owser abruptly so she wouldn’t know if he replied, and told herself she didn’t care. She got back to work, but it was a long, long day.
She wouldn’t IM him. She just wouldn’t. Not if her house were on fire and he really was a fireman.
She was going to ignore the bouncing yellow smiley face of her instant message program. Absolutely. In fact, Eve was going to do something unheard of. She was going to get away from her computer and do something else tonight. Read a book. Take a bath. Watch bad TV.
Anything, anything, but talk to him.
She made herself some dinner that didn’t come from a box or a can. She threw in a few loads of laundry. She read a magazine, but restlessly, flipping past ads for “sexual intimacy” videos and articles on how to please her man.
When she got back to her desk, the yellow smiley chastised her. She clicked on it and read his message to her. He’d sent it hours ago. Surely he wouldn’t still be waiting?
You didn’t post tonight.
I didn’t have any inspiration.
Because of me?
Yes.
I’m sorry. I just want you to know me, that’s all. For real. Not just words on a screen.
I don’t think it’s a good idea.
Why not?
That was a good question. Too bad she didn’t have a good answer. He didn’t wait for one.
I can make you happy.
What makes you think that?
A minute passed.
Because I know what you want.
Reading a blog isn’t the same as real life.
You could let me try.
But she couldn’t, could she? She didn’t know his name, or where he lived, or what he looked like. And wasn’t that what she wanted, really? An anonymous, faceless lover who gave her what she wanted, all the time, without needing anything from her? As long as she didn’t know who he was, for sure, she could still have that.
Right?
Her mouse hovered over the small X in the corner of the chat window, preparing to close it without answering him, but she couldn’t do it.
I’m sorry. I can’t.
What are you afraid of?
Being disappointed, she typed. Being let down.
I won’t disappoint you.
You can’t know that. Nobody can.
I can be what you want.
Eve closed the window. He didn’t ping her again. She stared at the computer screen for a few minutes, then opened her blog and began to type.
This is what I want.
Far away there is the sound of machinery. A mower, or a tractor. But inside the barn the only sound I hear is the rustle of the hay as you thrust the pitchfork into the pile, the sweet chirp of nesting birds high in the rafters, the quiet snuffle of the horses pawing at the earth with sharp hooves. The occasional hitch of your breath as you work.
I spy on you from the doorway. I don’t want you to turn around yet. I like to watch the easy way you move. How strong you are. My eyes follow the bunch and curve of your muscles as you strain.
You wear low-slung denim, low on the hips I want to bite. Worn work gloves protect the hands that have moved so often over my body and brought me such pleasure. You grunt, teeth caught for a moment in your lower lip as you concentrate on your task. You haven’t seen me, and that’s all right.
For now.
Dust dances in the shafts of sunlight, golden, buttery, that have found their way through cracks and crevices in the walls. The barn is old, made of stone quarried a hundred years before you were born. A hundred and almost thirty before we ever met.
Yet here we are, inside it, in the sunlight. A horse neighs from a stall far down the aisle and you turn.
And smile.
You straighten, bare-chested and gleaming. I could reach forward and pluck the stray piece of straw clinging to the rim of your collarbone, but I leave it for now. For now, I don’t touch you.
You say my name and the pleasure in your voice is so rich I feel as though I can reach out to touch it. You’re glad to see me; I want you to be glad to see me.
You lean on the pitchfork to stare, and I can guess what you see. My dress is white, sheer, with thin straps of lace that will tear when you tug them. If I let you tug them. I haven’t yet decided.
You don’t ask me what I’m doing here, which would be a foolish question, indeed. You already know. You knew the moment you turned and saw me standing in the doorway; when your eyes caught the shape of my body, outlined beneath the white eyelet. When your gaze traced the curve of my hip, the place your hand fits so perfectly.
You knew.
The barn is silent but for the soft chirping of nested birds and the far-off drone of the tractor, for the occasional stomp of a hoof…and now, for your breath as it catches in your throat and trips on the syllables of my name.
There is a room in the back, fragrant with the scent of leather and horses. Momentarily blinded, I blink against the shadows. I don’t need to see you to know where you are.
Inches apart we face one another. Now is the time for me to reach for the single, lonely piece of straw stuck to your skin with the sweat of honest work, and I let my fingers skim up your side, over your belly. The straw bends between my fingertips when I pull it off you, and it’s dropped, forgotten, to the floor.
I like the smell of you. Sweat and effort. It reminds me of how you smell when I’m done fucking you, when you can’t stand, when you can only lie like a broken doll on the twisted sheets. When I’ve used you up and worn you out, that’s how I like to smell you.
“Put your hands on the wall.”
You hesitate, of course, not expecting this. The jingle of metal is like a melody to my ears as you press your palms flat to the wall between the hanging bits and bridles. You could have fisted your hands against the wood, but you spread your fingers wide. Your shoulders, those broad, muscled shoulders, hunch just a little.
Are you afraid I’m going to hurt you?
I won’t, love. Not too much. I just want to see you this way, giving me what I want without asking me why I want it. I am unaccountably pleased at how you move at once to obey my request.
And it is a request, because I don’t want it to be an order.
You must want this as much as I, else the point is lost. I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. You’re bigger than I am. Stronger. I know because you’ve pinned my hands above my head, bruised my flesh and soothed the hurts with kisses and the flat of your tongue, though in truth I didn’t mind the marks that served so well to remind me of how it felt to have you holding me down so tightly.
You wait for me to speak, and I hear the sound of your breath again as your shoulders rise and fall.
“Spread your legs. Wider.” Impatient, I nudge them apart with my foot, though my slipper-clad toes are no match for your thick leather boots. Boots made for work. Your legs move easily enough, though.
Your head dips, emphasizing the way your shoulder blades protrude. For a moment I imagine you as an angel shorn of your wings. An angel in dirty denim.
You are an angel to me.
Behind you, my hands find a place on each side of your belt. I hook my fingers in and pull your hips back until my crotch bumps your ass. I love the sound you make. Mingled surprise and arousal. I picture your eyes closing, those straight white teeth tugging at the softness of your lower lip again.
If I were a man I could fuck you. I could fill you with my cock, make you groan, reach to stroke your erection in my fist while I moved in and out of your body until we both came. But I’m not a man, I don’t have a cock to fuck you with, and I have to be satisfied with running my hands down your hips and around the front of your thighs.
You groan again when my hands find the front of your belt and undo the buckle. When I unzip you. When I ease the worn denim and the blue cotton of your boxer briefs over your thighs and down past your knees, my cheek presses the hot, damp flesh of your back, and I feel the muscles there quiver.
Yet you make no att
empt to turn or move your hands from their place on the wall, and this makes me smile.
I pull my dress to my waist. I’m bare beneath. I have to go on tiptoe to press my bush against your ass, but a hand thrust between your thighs moves them apart just enough to bring our bodies together. My fingers dig deep into your hips at the places I want to put my teeth, but later. Later for that.
Now I rub myself against your ass, your back, your thighs. I rub your belly with the flat of my hand and pretend to ignore the tap of your cock on the back of it. When you push your hips forward I dig my nails deeper. The groan you make is one of mingled pleasure and pain, and my clit pulses at the sound of it.
Metal jingles again and leather swings as you lean forward. For a moment I think about putting you in a harness, a bridle. Leather crisscrossing your lean body, straps molding to the curve of your head. I could hook you to a carriage and make you pull me. I could snap the thin whip of braided leather against your thighs and ass to make you run faster.
I laugh when I tell you this, but your head turns and the look in your eye is not of pleasurable contemplation, but alarm. Yet your cock taps again on the back of my hand, pressed flat to your rising and falling stomach, and your hips jerk, just a little.
“Would you like that?” I whisper. I can’t reach your ear. You’re too tall. But I have no doubt you hear me.
“Do you…want me to like that?”
It’s in me to say yes, that I would like to hook you to a carriage and make you my pony, but I don’t. I let my hand tell you what I really want. I cup your balls. I stroke your cock. I say nothing until you shudder and groan and duck your head again, and I know that you’ll do whatever I want…which is what I want, anyway.
“I want to fuck you.” It’s not the first time I’ve said it, and I doubt it will be the last.
I stroke harder and you push into my fist the way you’ll soon push into my cunt. I’m still behind you. I’m still rubbing myself against you. My breasts feel heavy. My cunt aches. I want you so much it’s like burning.
I slip into the small space between you and the wall. My arms go around your neck. I use the pressure of the wall behind my back to climb you like a tree. My legs go around your waist. My dress bunches on my hips.
