by Lily Harlem
This man did things to my body without even having to touch it.
He was close, his breathing steadying now, but not close enough for me to feel his body heat. Time went slowly, as though I was suspended, where the world had stopped and fate was deciding where to take us next. I wanted him again, wanted him inside me, his hands all over me. My skin hummed with the need for his touch. Still gripping the table edge, I lifted my face, raised my body, the whole of me wrung out and unsteady. He’d reduced me to exactly what I’d wanted him to – a fatigued mess who was more than ready to be used and abused again.
He could do anything he wanted and I wouldn’t mind. That stop word – I wouldn’t be using it.
A smudge of sound had me holding my breath, then a creak of floorboards. I sensed him coming closer, and the hairs on my arms bristled at his approach. Was he ready for me again? So soon? Was that what he’d been doing? Jerking himself back to hardness? I held my breath, tightening my hold on the table, and waited for him to ram inside me without warning.
He didn’t.
The sharp trilling of a phone jangled my nerves, and Liuz sighed. The ringing stopped, and he spoke in rapid Polish, his tone angry. A slap to a piece of furniture had me tensing, pressing my fingertips into the underside of the table. Although I’d been speaking to him for a long time online, I didn’t know him, not really. That had been the attraction, the thrill, meeting up with a man who was potentially dangerous and had the ability to harm me, with no one knowing a damn thing about it unless I chose to tell them. I was here, though, at his bedsit, and that had to count for something. He wouldn’t risk doing anything too bad because I knew where he lived. I could have told someone where I would be tonight, for all he knew. No, he wouldn’t take his anger out on me.
A snap brought me back to the here and now – the phone closing?
‘That is all for tonight, you dirty bitch.’
His words didn’t make sense, and I frowned. We were supposed to spend all night together, weren’t we? He was meant to pleasure me until I couldn’t stand, couldn’t even walk out of here. I would stay the night, curled up beside him in his bed, and leave in the morning, my clothes and the state of me leaving no doubt in people’s minds as to what I’d been doing the night before.
‘What?’ I said, my throat dry, legs going to jelly. If my heart beat any faster I thought I might be sick.
‘I said, that is all for tonight.’
I knew what he’d bloody said, but this wasn’t how it was supposed to be! ‘What? No, we’d planned on me staying here. You were going to fuck me all night. I came here thinking –’
‘The wrong thing, Aniolku. Did I ever make these promises? Did I ever write them down? Did I say that tonight you would stay?’
‘No, but –’
‘Then it was what you had assumed. Never take things for granted, Hannah. You said you wanted to come here and be my slut. That is what has happened. Nothing more and nothing less.’
I was confused, so damn confused my frown hurt my head. The blindfold hurt too, tied as tight as it was, a steel band that made the skin around it throb. What had happened to make him change? He wanted me to stay; he still had more fucking energy in him, I could tell. So why did I need to go home? I knew I sounded like a whiny female, but God, I’d waited so long for this. It wasn’t fair that my fantasy was going to get cut short.
‘So this is it? I go home now? You’ve fucked me so now I leave?’
‘I’ve fucked you, as we planned I would. Yes, this is it. For now.’
I wanted to embrace what he’d said – for now – and loved the idea of me returning here whenever he instructed, him fucking me in bite-sized episodes. But at the same time, my idea of being pummelled all night wasn’t going to happen, and I didn’t think I could process it fully right now. I’d pinned all my hopes on it. Damn, it was what I thought he’d wanted too. That phone call had cut short our plans, that was it. If he’d never gotten that call, I’d be staying here, I was sure of it.
His voice deepened, became harder, as if re-confirming our relationship. ‘You are nothing but a slutty whore, here for me to use whenever I want. Whores do not call the shots. Whores come running when they are told, ready to spread their legs for payment. Your payment was orgasms. You ask no questions when you are here with me. Online is a different matter. This is how it is with us, Aniolku. I thought you knew that.’
‘I did, I do, but I thought –’
‘I will untie you now. You will keep the blindfold on until you have left my place. I will email again.’
‘When?’ I asked, panic seeping into me.
What if this was it? What if he was lying and never intended contacting me again? Now he’d fucked me, I was more hooked on him than ever. I wouldn’t allow this to be a one-time thing. No damn way. If he thought to just brush me off, then, God, I could be a bitch if I wanted.
‘When I feel like it,’ he said.
When he felt like it? He was letting me know he was the boss, no doubt about it. I wasn’t in any way allowed to make decisions while here. It was him, all him. I’d liked the idea of that before I’d met him, before he’d done things to me tonight no other had done, no other had made me feel, and I was hungry for more. Greedier than any other time in my life for the touch of a man. And not just any man, either. It had to be him. I was hooked, I knew that, unashamedly hooked.
The bindings on my legs loosened then fell away, leaving the site of where they’d been numb. He was sure not to touch me, and there I was, wishing with every bit of me that his skin would brush mine, that I’d get that zing through my veins and tingles all over my body when he did. Feeling absurdly lost and bereft, I stood upright, patting down my body to draw up my thong. I pulled down my skirt, then reached up to remove the blindfold.
‘Do not take that off. I told you: keep it on until you leave my place. I do not want to say this, Hannah, but if you cannot obey me, I will be forced to say the stop word. I do not screw disobedient women. It would be a shame to find out now that you are just like most others, a girl who cannot take instruction and wants to rule everything. You said you were not like that, that you wanted me to dominate you and actualise your fantasies. Did you lie to me?’
My heart sank along with my stomach. ‘No, I didn’t lie. I’m sorry. I’ll do whatever you say. It’s just that I wan–’
I stopped myself from doing exactly what he’d just said he didn’t want. Whining. Wanting more than he was prepared to give. Taking a deep breath through my nose, telling myself to just do as I was told and leave the room, I stretched my hands out in order to find the door. He gripped my wrist, firm but not too rough, and led the way.
‘This is the exciting bit,’ he said, thumb rubbing circles on my inner wrist. ‘This is where you get to feel like a real whore. You leave, you walk down the street, and you wait at the bus stop with other people staring at you, knowing you have just been fucked. You stink of sex. You look dishevelled. Is that not what you wanted?’
I agreed that it was, but the sting of being thrown out like this when I’d wanted so much more…
It didn’t matter what I wanted. It was all about what he wanted. I was his slut.
I nodded.
‘Good girl. Here is your bag.’ He pressed the strap into my hand. ‘Now go. I have things I must do.’
Things more important than me. I clenched my teeth. Stop it, I told myself. Stop being such a … a needy woman! It’s not who you are when you are here.
He pushed me in the back, and I stumbled forwards, arms outstretched ready to brace a fall. I didn’t smack into anything and regained my balance, the quiet click of his door closing the last indication that he’d meant what he’d said. I was going home. I lifted my hands, tugged off the blindfold, and stood facing the main door to the street, blinking, unable, for a moment, to take in what had just happened. I’d been fucked well and good, but here I stood, cast away like some nasty piece of rubbish. I was nothing more than a prostitute tonight, ju
st like he’d said. I’d wanted that earlier, wanted to experience what it was like so much, and it had been wonderful, but now? Dare I say I was falling for him, or at least falling for the way he made me feel? I knew obsession and love were two completely different things, but weren’t they two sides of the same coin? Who said you couldn’t love someone and be obsessed with them at the same time?
It stung that I stood out here, a probable mess to look at, here for anyone to see should they come out of their bedsits. They might look at me with pity. Who knew how many times Liuz had done this? How many times he’d shoved a woman out the door with the promise of an email ‘when he felt like it’.
Suddenly something inside me fell into place. I realised I was happy to be used as a slut but I wasn’t about to be cast aside like this. Oh, I’d play his game all right, acting as though I was doing what he told me and taking all the deliciously depraved pleasure he could give me, but I’d also make him depend on me. I’d make him want me and need me the way I did him. I’d do that if it was the last thing I did. I was going to make it so that if I wasn’t around, he’d miss me, want me, need me.
Mind made up, I straightened, hung the blindfold on his handle, and walked towards the main door, deliberately not looking back at his. I’d accepted them but I didn’t like the new feelings inside me, ones that spoke of me wanting more than just fucks with him. That wasn’t how this had started; it wasn’t how it was meant to pan out.
I admitted, as I swung open the door and the night air clutched at my bare legs, that I had fallen foul of the one thing some men detested in a woman. Subconsciously, I had wanted a relationship, a relationship that was more than the one we currently had. When had that changed? When had me just wanting any fuck he offered, whenever he offered it, become not enough?
The minute he sunk his cock inside me, that’s when.
Angry at myself, I hoisted my bag strap onto my shoulder, shut the door and began the walk to the bus stop. This pipe dream of mine had to stop. I couldn’t be doing with a serious relationship anyway. They hadn’t worked in the past, what with my job taking me out at all hours sometimes, chasing scoops and hoping to catch a break on the biggest story London had ever seen. No, what Liuz offered was perfect. He’d cater for my dirty fantasies whenever it suited us both. I’d just expected a longer time with him tonight, that was all. But it was OK, because I’d use him like he was using me. I’d let him think he didn’t care for me, but by the time we were done – if we were ever done – he’d wish he’d never said the stop word. One thing was for sure, I knew damn well I would never say ‘Kilimanjaro’.
As I sat on the cold metal of the bus stop seat, a woman with her young son gave me a filthy look and moved away to stand on the other side of the rain shelter. I thought about what I must look like, lipstick smeared, hair a mess from being tugged. And Liuz had said I stunk of sex. That it was obvious what I’d been doing.
Maybe I looked like a real prostitute.
I didn’t care.
Ignoring the woman, I stared up the street at house windows lit from within, at lampposts emitting amber glows that splashed onto the pavement beneath. I rubbed my arms and shivered a little from the cold. Yes, this was how a prostitute would feel, all hunched up in a bus shelter, bare legs pimpled with goose bumps, nipples hard and hurting from the biting autumn weather.
If this was how Liuz wanted me to feel, then I would feel it as part of the game.
If this was how our relationship was to be, then I’d take it, with my own private terms kept firmly in my head, a secret.
I was too far gone on him to back out now. Too obsessed with him to allow the small matter of staying the whole night to upset the balance.
Mind more settled now I was back on track, I squinted into the distance to wait for the first sign of the bus that would take me home. I’d slipped my return ticket into my skirt pocket earlier and stood now to check it was still there. It wasn’t. It must have fallen out as Liuz fucked me. Landed on his floor. Had he found it? Was he holding it now, thinking of what we’d done? Or had that damn phone call taken his whole attention? There were things he had to do, he’d said. What were they? Just what the hell could have made him angry enough to cut short our night?
I was determined to find out what was important to Liuz.
The bus appeared down the street, coming closer with a slight sway, the top deck empty, only two people occupying the lower. It stopped with a hiss and the sliding open of doors, and I waited for the woman and her child to board first. As I stepped on, she shuffled up the aisle, seating her son then sitting beside him, a mother’s instinct protecting him from my taint, what I was.
I paid the fare and took the stairs, sitting at the front so I could better see when my stop approached. The last thing I needed tonight was to miss it. I wanted to go home now, to check if Liuz had emailed already, to get back to our normal pattern. One I knew well. One that made me feel safe. I didn’t like how I’d felt back there, needy and out of control. Maybe that was his intention, to wear me down until I couldn’t function without him. I was a strong woman; he knew that from our emails. Maybe he liked the idea of turning a usually self-assured girl into a begging wreck.
However much that appealed to me, a journey where I’d lose myself bit by bit, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand it. I’d play the game, if that was the way he wanted it, but I’d still be in control.
Was that what I really believed? The way I felt about him, the way I went off on tangents just at the thought of him?
I knew I’d become fixated the moment I’d decided to go to Brixton and spy on him. Knew it when I painted him on my wall and spread those pictures of him on the floor. It was irrational, not the usual way women behaved – not any women I knew, anyway. If I was honest, I was well aware of how this would look to someone else, to me at one time long ago – before Liuz, before those filthy emails – but at the same time I didn’t care. He swam in my veins, had burrowed deep inside me, and I was damned if I’d let him go without a fight. Do as I was told, exactly as I’d been told. I couldn’t imagine not having him in my life now. No more emails. No more fucking. Now this new phase had started, I couldn’t risk it being taken away. I wanted more of his cock inside me, and if it meant I could only have it every so often, then so be it.
My stop came, so I got off the bus and headed for home, safe in the knowledge that if anyone I knew saw me they wouldn’t think I was me anyway. Not with this hair, these clothes. They’d realise who I was eventually, of course they would, but for tonight I was safe to slip inside and mull over what had happened in the past hour or so.
I went straight for the mural and stood staring at it while memories filled my head and sexual excitement set my clit to throbbing. I dropped my bag to the floor and walked forward, brushing my fingertips over the painted cock I yet had the privilege of seeing for real. The way it had felt as it jammed in and out of me somehow matched the way I had painted it. I leaned forward, pressed my nose to it, and inhaled deeply. Wishing I could smell it. Wishing that when I dashed out my tongue I’d be met with soft skin encasing hardness, not a cold wall that yielded nothing.
I stepped back, semi-appalled at what I’d just done. I glanced about, as though someone was here to witness my act: then rushed over to the window to snap the curtains closed. I felt across my desk for the lamp and switched it on; staring at the mural now lit a muted yellow. This man, God, he’d wormed his way inside me, and now that I’d had him, his hands touching places I’d only dreamed and hoped he would, I wasn’t letting him go for anyone or anything. So what if I was a little fanatical? I wasn’t hurting anyone. He would never say the stop word, I’d make sure of that.
Chapter Six
The following day, I called the office early, feigning sickness. I wasn’t lying, when I thought about it. I was sick, just not ill. Sick with wanting Liuz. I said I’d be OK tomorrow, back out in the field in search of good stories, and the editor had sighed. There wasn’t much he could do about
my absence, really. I was freelance. I just had to hope I stumbled on a good story soon, otherwise he might drop me, decline future stories I submitted, and I didn’t think my landlord would appreciate having to wait for his rent until I earned more money.
I hadn’t slept too well, annoyed to hell and back Liuz hadn’t sent an email last night, not even a thank you or ‘Sleep tight’. I felt a huge dose of the grumps coming on, feelings of rejection swamping me whole, and pressed my lips together so tight I imagined they’d gone white.
‘I’m not going down that road,’ I said to the mural, pulling a dressing gown around myself. ‘You’re not going to turn me into a needy, simpering wreck. I’m going to make you want me so much you can’t think, can’t breathe.’
It was all very well me saying that out loud, but could I really do it? Liuz was a strong man, in body and in mind, and I doubted very much he would be easy to break. But everyone had a chink in their armour, didn’t they? Everyone had an Achilles heel. I just had to find his. Once again it came to my mind – what was important to him?
I thudded into my office, booted up the laptop then went in search of coffee. When I came back, my palm curled around a steaming mug, I checked my mail. My heartbeat kicked up a notch.
There was mail from Liuz, and to my surprise there was an attachment.
I gnawed at the inside of my cheek as I waited for the message to open.
‘Hey, Aniolku. I have sent you a present to remind you of our wonderful evening together, though you must tell me exactly how it makes you feel, for as you know I am eager to learn more about how to best realise your fantasies.’
