Reckless Games

by M. J. Lowell

  “I’m a particular fan of Faust,” said Rhys, moving to stand behind me. I could feel his warm breath on my neck. “You know the story?”

  “Mephistopheles tells Faust he’ll be his servant on earth and make all his wishes come true, and in exchange Faust promises to be his servant in hell after he dies,” I recited from my Introduction to Opera textbook.

  “You’re forgetting the beginning,” said Rhys. “It starts with a wager between God and Mephistopheles. God bets the devil he won’t be able to tempt Faust, God’s favorite mortal, into sin. That’s the part I like best.”

  I laughed. “Because it’s about gambling?”

  “No. Because God is so human. He’s bored, and like any human when he’s bored, he can’t resist the urge to play games.” Rhys slid his hands down my arms, leaving a shimmering trail of sensation in their wake. I stifled a shiver. “To me it’s God who’s the villain here. He’s the one willing to destroy his favorite mortal merely to entertain himself.” His warm breath caressed my neck. “Not to mention, it’s hardly fair that he has someone else do his dirty work.”

  “Maybe he takes the bet to teach Faust to stop underestimating himself,” I offered, distracted by the feel of Rhys’s hands circling my wrists, his proximity. “To encourage him to break free of his narrow, scholarly world. Maybe it’s a gift. The gift of experience.”

  Rhys went still. “I hadn’t considered that,” he said, the surprise in his voice audible. He paused. “I look forward to discussing it further, another time. I’m afraid I’ll have to leave before the opera’s end today.”

  I started to ask why but stopped myself. Of course, I thought, a tight knot forming in my stomach. With three acts and two intermissions, the opera would run well over Rhys’s three-hour “session” limit. And you agreed to that rule along with the others, I reminded myself.

  The overhead lights flickered twice, signaling the final stragglers to take their seats, before dimming completely. There was a burst of applause as the conductor stepped to his podium. Rhys leaned closer and whispered in my ear. “I want you to experience opera as you’ve never experienced it before.”

  I heard a soft click.

  He released my wrists, but I couldn’t move them. They were locked together behind my back. The intricate detailing, the stitching and buckles on the gloves suddenly made sense.

  “Did you just handcuff me?” I said in disbelief, twisting to face him.

  He only smiled. “Silk-lined lambskin hardly constitutes handcuffs. And after your performance the other night, I clearly need to take precautions.”

  “What performance?” I asked as the first strains of the overture began to play.

  “On the terrace.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That performance.”

  “Exactly. That was quite something. I owe you. And I always settle my debts myself.”

  His cool assurance combined with the sly way he’d bound my wrists together should have made me angry, left me demanding to be freed, but I was shocked to realize it had the opposite effect. It was exciting, even more so when I thought about the deliberation with which he’d made his plans for me. Me.

  The thought made me bold. I let him lead me to the chaise, and he sat down alongside me. There was a tall lacquered box before us that I assumed was a drinks table, but when he removed the lid I saw I was mistaken. Inside were three golden rods in graduated sizes, each resting in its own velvet nest, and an assortment of other objects – a skein of beads, a brass pineapple, lengths of black silk.

  I felt a rush of fear, and the boldness seemed to drain away. Maybe I didn’t want to know what Rhys had planned. Maybe this was too much. Maybe I wasn’t ready. My heart began to pound. “You’re going to use all of this on me? Here? What if—”

  Rhys put a finger to my lips, tracing their outline. “Do you want to leave?” he said, his voice low, almost tender.

  That simple touch fanned the flame into a blaze. Mutely, I shook my head.

  “Then we’ll need to take one other precaution.” Before I knew what was happening he’d pulled one of the pieces of silk from the chest and, parting my lips with his finger, threaded the material through them, tying the ends securely at the nape of my neck. “It wouldn’t do for you to disturb any of our fellow music lovers.”

  On stage, the curtains rose on the Prologue. In our private aerie, with my arms pinned behind me and unable to speak, I couldn’t believe I was doing this. Letting this happen. But I didn’t know how to stop it. And if I was being completely honest with myself, I didn’t want to.

  Rhys pushed me gently back against the cushions, lifting the hem of my dress so it pooled up around my waist, revealing a pair of his Tuesday panties, emerald green today. He smiled at the sight and removed them slowly. Then he spread my trembling legs. “Let yourself enjoy this while I enjoy you,” he whispered.

  He lowered his lips to trace a trail of heat from my right knee up to the smooth skin at the very top of my inner thigh. He paused to let his tongue draw a lazy circle there, then nipped gently with his teeth. I gasped, the sound muffled by the black silk.

  His head turned and rested on the leg he’d just teased while his lips began a torturous journey up my other thigh, feathering kisses, tiny kisses, butterfly kisses that enflamed me. His hair was soft on my skin, and this time when his lips reached the valley between my legs, he let them brush against my own inner lips, sending a jolt of longing through me.

  I was throbbing, stretching toward him, hungry for his attention. My wrists pulled uselessly to free themselves from the gloves. I ached to thread my hands through his hair and drag his mouth over my body.

  The first act began.

  Powerful music spilled over me. Head resting on my thigh, his warm breath breezing over me, he slid one hand up the front of my dress. His palm moved smoothly over my stomach, up to my breasts, and then pushed my bra aside to find my nipple beneath. He rolled it between two fingers softly, then a little harder, each subtle grinding motion producing a reciprocal sensation between my legs. He squeezed my nipple harder, and I felt his tongue on my clit.

  Lightning flashed through me. I bucked into his mouth with a stifled moan. He’d barely touched me and I was about to come. As if reading my thoughts, he lifted his head to say, “Today you can come as often as you want, sweet,” and wrapping his lips around my clit, he sucked the entire swollen orb of it into his hot wet mouth.

  He alternated, hard then soft, hard then soft, each suck pulled me closer to the edge. A soaring aria rose from the stage and I teetered there, hovering, until he brought his hand from my nipple and used it to spread me open.

  The music and his fingers filled me together, swelling inside of me as his teeth raked over my clit. My orgasm burst from me like hot wet juice from an overripe cherry. It was gorgeous and sweet and went on and on like the music pouring in waves from below.

  He kept sucking, relentless, and I wanted to beg him to stop, but before I could another orgasm overtook me, shaking my entire body with its power, arching me up from the chaise. His mouth didn’t leave my clit, just shifted slightly, his lips squeezing more gently now, as if it could read every pulse that went through me.

  The music roared, filling the theater and our box, setting a baseline against which my pleasure vibrated. I lost track of everything, floating in a cocoon of perfumed air and divine music and soft velvet and expert lips and fingers making love to me. I was entirely, utterly under his control, losing all sense of time and place, losing all sense of anything but the pleasure sweeping over me, again and again.

  On stage Faust was taking his beloved to bed when Rhys lifted his mouth from me. I looked down and he grinned up at me, his lips glistening with my wetness.

  I wanted to kiss him. To taste myself on him.

  He reached into the lacquered chest, removing the smallest of the golden rods. He was going to put it inside of me, I realized, and I began to shake.

  He put a hand on my thigh to still me and then slowly, deft
ly slid the rod between my legs and into me. It wasn’t thick, but it was long, and when Rhys braced its flat bottom against the cushion it jutted deeply, fantastically, into me. I moaned, the gag sending the sound back into my throat so it reverberated in my chest.

  “Wait, my sweet,” he whispered. Then he touched a button at the base and it began to silently vibrate.

  My hips moved seemingly on their own, rocking over the rod as Rhys stroked me with one finger. The familiar throbbing resumed, in time to the music. I rocked again and again, and the throbbing became a drumbeat. This was completely different than the feel of his lips on me, multilayered and intense, the sensation coming from deep within me.

  Rhys added a second finger, and then another until he was tugging and massaging and pressing the tender nub with all five fingertips. He used his free hand to pull the hood back, exposing its shiny, sensitive pearl, tickling it gently, sinuously, as I moved my hips up and down over the vibrating rod.

  I glanced down and Rhys’s eyes met mine. I saw the dark flicker of raw desire there, unrestrained, and the thought of that, that he wanted me, and that I’d broken through his reserve, excited me almost as much as his touch. I moved more quickly, painting myself in hot, sweet strokes inside. I heard Rhys’s sharp intake of breath.

  “Come for me, my sweet,” he said, the arousal in his voice was unmistakable. He put his hands on my thighs, stilling me so that the throbbing was buried at its deepest point inside of me, and brought his mouth where his fingers had been and sucked. I lost track of all feeling, all thought, everything except the shuddering staggering explosion of pleasure.

  I don’t know how much time passed until the waves finally subsided, but suddenly I was aware of applause, filling the theater like thunder. It took me a moment to realize the sound wasn’t in my head, that the curtain had fallen on the first act.

  “My God, you were made for pleasure,” Rhys said, reaching to untie the black silk scarf. “But it’s a good thing I took this precaution. Nobody would have heard a note otherwise.”

  “That—” I stopped. I didn’t have the words to describe what had happened.

  “—was just the beginning,” he finished for me. He was busy unhooking the clasp on the gloves, but I had the strange sense he was avoiding my eyes. “This is only the first intermission.”

  “I don’t know if I can handle another act,” I said, willing him to look at me. He’d felt something, I knew he had.

  Or that’s what you want to think.

  A phone buzzed again.

  “I believe that’s yours,” Rhys said, still not meeting my gaze. “Someone seems to feel strongly about getting in touch with you.”

  I found my bag and pulled out my phone. The screen told me I had three messages – all from Nico. As usual, Rhys had managed to drive thought of anything but him from my head, but now everything came rushing back.

  “I just need to check this,” I told Rhys apologetically.

  I dialed into voice mail with fingers that were both eager and nervous. Maybe Nico had already found out who filed the patent before my dad, and I was about to learn the name of his killer.

  But when the first message began playing, Nico’s words came in jagged bursts, barely comprehensible. “Lulu— bad— the lab— hurt— help me—”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. Rhys was watching me. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Something’s happened to my friend—” My mind was reeling. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”

  “I understand,” he said. He reached for his own phone and then frowned. “I wish I could have Davies take you, but he’s busy on an errand. At least I can see you into a taxi.”

  In a fog of worry, I let him help me into my coat and lead me out to the plaza in front of Lincoln Center, where he flagged down a cab.

  He opened the door, but before I could get in, he put a hand on my arm.

  “Tuesday—” He stopped, thinking twice before he continued speaking. “Come to me later. Once your friend is settled.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll be able to—”

  “Ah. You have another engagement.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “No, it’s nothing like that, it’s just that—” I didn’t even know where to start. I didn’t have to work that night, but I couldn’t think straight, not with Nico’s frantic message still playing in my head. “It’s hard to explain,” I finished lamely.

  Rhys pulled a card from his pocket and began writing on it with quick neat strokes. “If you change your mind, you can call Davies and have him pick you up.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I- I’ll see.” His hand closed over mine as I reached to take the card.

  “And Tuesday?” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “I can’t remember ever enjoying an opera more.” This time when he smiled, it felt real, genuine. Whatever had been missing, the hollowness I’d felt earlier, was gone.

  I was smiling to myself as I got into the cab and gave the driver the address of the lab, but the smile faded as I dialed Nico’s number over and over, getting voice mail each time. Traffic seemed to crawl down the West Side Highway and through the Battery Tunnel to Brooklyn. Stay calm, I ordered myself, but it was futile.

  When we finally reached the lab, I shoved cash through the slot in the partition and jumped out before the taxi had fully stopped. I told myself that the lack of an ambulance out front was a good sign – if Nico were badly hurt, he would have called 911 as well as me – but that did little to reassure me. I was fumbling for my keys, cursing myself for not having them at the ready, when I realized I didn’t need them.

  The door was ajar.

  “Nico!” I yelled as I pushed through it and stepped onto the catwalk. “Nico, where are you?”

  I heard a groan from below. I flew down the stairs, sidestepping the books and papers scattered everywhere, the overturned kitchen table, the splintered handle of the oar that had hung on the wall.

  Nico was sprawled on the floor, barely conscious, blood gushing from a deep gash over his eye.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Nico refused to let me call 911 or take him to the emergency room, so I did what I could to staunch the bleeding and fashioned a bandage with gauze and tape from the first aid kit my father had always insisted we keep well-stocked. “All sorts of things can go wrong in a lab,” he’d said. He’d probably been worried about shattered test tubes, though, not about anybody breaking in and beating up his assistant. The place was a shambles, too – equipment smashed, drawers pulled out and emptied.

  Nico’s teeth were still chattering as I got him up and seated in a kitchen chair. I took the blanket from the cot and draped it around his shoulders.

  “What happened?” I asked, righting the kitchen table and taking the seat across from him.

  “You look nice,” he said dazedly, as if seeing me for the first time.

  “Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to go to the ER?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”

  “What happened?” I asked again.

  “I tried to fight. I did. But they took me by surprise.”

  “They? How many were there?”

  “I don’t know. Two? Maybe three? I came home from the market, and right away I noticed the place was a mess. I ran down the stairs and saw your father’s paperweight, the one you made for him, on the floor. I bent to pick it up and” – he swallowed – “someone knocked my feet out from under me and bashed my head on the floor. Then somebody had his foot on the back of my neck, holding me down so I couldn’t get up or see anything.”

  “What did they say? Could you tell who it was?”

  “No, only one of them spoke, and the voice wasn’t familiar. And all he said was to stop asking questions.”

  “Stop asking questions about what?” I asked.

  “About the patent. He said if I didn’t….” Nico’s voice trailed off.

  “If you didn’t?” I prompted.

 
Nico was silent for a long moment and when he spoke there was a note of raw fury in his tone. “He said they’d hurt you. And that if I went to the police they would hurt you. Then they smashed my head on the floor again.” He reached up to touch the bandage. “I think I passed out after that.”

  I was horrified. “Nico, forget what they said. We should go to the police. Tell them what happened.”

  “No!” he said. “It was bad enough when I called and couldn’t reach you before— I thought maybe they’d already— already done something. I’m not going to risk them laying a finger on you.” He looked up at me. “Don’t you understand? These must be the people who murdered your father. Why else would they trash the lab and threaten us for asking about the patent?”

  “All the more reason to call the police.”

  “No,” Nico said flatly. The dazedness was gone, and the color had returned to his face. “I refuse to make you a target.”

  “And I refuse to let you get beaten up and not do anything about it.”

  “I’m the one who got beaten up, Lulu,” he said. “So this is my decision. And I decide no police.”

  “Nico,” I protested.

  “I mean it, Lulu. We’re also not going to tell anybody else about this. Not a soul. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Not even Val?” I couldn’t help teasing in spite of everything.

  “Especially not Val,” he said, alarmed at the idea. “She’ll—”

  “—completely freak out,” I said, finishing his thought.

  Once Nico seemed steadier, we got to work cleaning up. I traded my dress for one of my father’s old coveralls, catching the familiar scent of him on the collar. Tears pricked my eyes. I was roiled, buffeted by a mixture of rage and fear, but the rage was winning out.

  How dare these people, whoever they were, hurt Nico and threaten us? And if everything was linked, if they had killed my father and stolen from him, from us, then I wanted them caught. I wanted them punished.

  I will find you, I vowed. And when I do, you will pay.