by Blake, Laila
"Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir."
I should have been exhausted; I should have wanted nothing better than to stay in bed and fall asleep by his side, but he wasn't done with me and that thrilled me to my core. I didn't want him to be done with me, not ever, and I had yet to find a moment when I stopped wanting more of what he had to give.
My knees were shaking when I stepped into the shower, just to wash away the sticky mess around my cunt and thighs, the remaining lube around my crack. The hot water was invigorating, and I groaned at the sting when it hit the fresh welts on my thighs. That, too, felt good—all those reminders he'd left all over my body.
I didn't waste too much time, before I stepped back out and gingerly toweled myself off. I tied my matted hair up in a bun and then washed my face, moisturized and reached for the washcloth he wanted.
Paul was sitting on the bed when I came back. He, too, had moved because he had a fresh glass of wine on the bed stand he'd made for me, already half-empty. I smiled, held up the cloth. When I came closer, he nodded to the floor in front of him and I sank down to my knees.
"I don't like that stuff they put inside condoms, pet, I want you to clean me off—gently. It's still tender."
"Yes, Sir," I whispered reverently. There was a sense of gravity to the moment and I bit my lip as it washed over me. Carefully, I held his softened cock in my hands, weighed it and caressed it, as I brushed the warm water over its length, then down to his balls. Allowing me to touch him in this way, made him feel precious and vulnerable and I was humbled by his trust. My heart went out to him as I touched him, worshipped him with my fingers and the piece of cloth. He hummed his approval from time to time, and patted my hair.
After a while, Paul grasped my wrist and this pulled the washcloth from his cock. He shook his head, his breath came shallow.
"With your mouth now, pet," he whispered, patting my lips. "I'm sure you can fit me all inside your mouth now."
I sucked a sharp breath between my teeth at the soft, thrumming sensation in my clit. I inched closer, tilted my head into his lap, kissing the side of his shaft. He still smelled a little like spermicide, and like me, but I had washed most of it away, leaving only soft and tender skin, rippling in tiny wrinkles. I shivered at the sense of reverence that came over me.
"Yes, Sir," I whispered, exhaling against his shaft. I opened my mouth as far as it would go, then carefully wrapped it around his cock. It was no longer soft, but had started to grow taut and hard under my fingers. I had to hurry, cramming it all into my mouth until my nose rested against his stomach and his fingers threaded through my hair, holding me there.
I could feel him growing, faster now as his hips moved back and forth a fraction of an inch in unconscious imitation of thrusting. And still he grew fuller and fuller in my mouth, and Paul held me in place as I choked for air. I didn't struggle, not where I could help it. I couldn't stop my throat from revolting, but I kept the rest of me still, pressed against his stomach.
"Play with my balls, pet."
They felt tighter now as well, and I cradled them in my fingers, massaging them until my airway was blocked completely and Paul angled my face up to look at me, while my throat contracted, fought against the intruder and drove involuntary tears to my eyes. We looked at each other, for seconds I think, but it could have been hours, until my body started to shake. And then he released me and I let my head fall onto his thigh, coughing and catching my breath, never straying from the closeness of his cock.
He curled his fingers behind my ears, ran them though my hair.
"Good girl," he whispered, touching my cheek. "My beautiful girl."
One more time he lifted me from the ground. For the first time, I could feel the strain of the evening in his grip, the toll it had taken on both our bodies. When I opened my eyes again, he was leaning against the headboard, and I was straddling his lap, smiling down at him.
"You've been such a good girl," he whispered, lined kisses along my throat and shoulder. "Beyond my wildest expectations. I want to reward you, pet. Sit up."
His fingers on my hips guided me upwards and when he sat me back down, his cock slid inside me so easily, so slippery full that tears filled my eyes again. Tears of rapture or the divine. His hands lifted me up and down, up and down and soon I could adopt the rhythm myself.
"There's my girl. Show me how much you've wanted me inside you, fuck yourself on me, harder, there you go..." his crooning voice groaned against my neck as his fingers found my nipples to twist and tweak into hard, aching pebbles that drove me to greater speed. It wasn't long until he pushed up into me, too, until his body was compelled to meet mine stroke for stroke, until he brought my arms around his neck and we moved as one, one body, one entity, one mind.
I lost all sense of time, then, only knew that this was a gift that lasted maybe an hour, maybe all night, in moans and trembling thighs, until he reached between us to rub my clit and I whimpered intelligible pronouncements of gratitude, before I screamed his name and came hard and fast over his cock.
I hardly heard his own grunt against the dizzying fireworks in my head, but I felt it when his fingers curled hard against my sore ass, and he held me so tightly against him, I didn't think he'd ever let go.
And then there was no time. Or space. Only us. Only jumping, galloping hearts and panting breaths.
"I love you," I breathed against his neck. "I... I love you."
XII
The words echoed like in empty halls. In truth, the pillows, blankets and wardrobes in my room soaked up any noise, nothing threw it back to sound again in the silence. Maybe the echo was in my head, my empty, empty head. I love you. Love you. Wuv you.
Experimentally, I tilted it this way, then that—almost expected my brain to slosh around in there, my head to lose its tether to my neck, snap off and roll away. Maybe it was his hands that stopped it; just then he cupped them over my cheeks. The pads of his thumbs ran slowly over the red, paper-thin membrane that held my eyes. Like synchronized dancers, they moved at the same speed, crossed the same distance, described the same symmetrical figure—a set of wings on my face. They soaked up the tears that had started to leak over, the supply of fresh liquid too fast, too strong to hold.
I love you. Love you. Wuv you. The Echo roared back. In the absence of a response, a counterpoint sound, it seemed to develop a life of its own, growing louder with each rotation. At that point, it didn't even sound like words anymore, or like truth—it sounded like fear. It sounded like a plea for mercy: Say something. Anything. Please, Sir. I LOVE YOU. Love you. Wuv you.
I closed my eyes then; the motion squeezed a few fresh tears out at the ducts, running down the side of my nose before his thumbs caught them again. I felt this, knew this despite the darkness I was wrapping myself in. He was still warm, still here, and he pulled me closer until my face rested in the crook of his neck. When I inhaled his scent, it clothed me like a blanket against the cold.
He didn't smell quite right though, I hadn't noticed that before: like dry cleaners and smog and Indian food, like sweat and like me, but without the salt, without the wind, and the wood. I don't know why that made me want to cry all over again, why it stirred me so deeply.
"I'm sorry," I breathed finally. My eyes fluttered open again. He hadn't moved, still sat upright against the headboard, holding me against his chest. It felt wrong to be straddling him now, but I didn't move until he made me. His hands touched my shoulders and pried me from his skin, inch by inch until he could look at me. He looked ancient, then—just in his eyes—ancient and exhausted.
"Don't apologize."
I soaked it up, the sound of his voice. It wasn't enough; it didn't quench my thirst—it was a drop, just a drop, and it left me aching. How could I not apologize when something I said had made this happen, had created that look on his face.
"I just meant..." I held my breath and a second later it exploded with a hiss when I opened my glottis again, shaking my head in frustration. I was still his pet
, I couldn't quite think straight, couldn't figure out where the filters were, what purpose they usually served. "I just missed you so much."
It sounded weak, as weak as his smile. But he reached up; his fingertips were dry now and he touched my cheek so softly, they were hardly there at all.
"I think I just... when I was with you by the sea, it was like a dream. Like a fairytale and the longer I didn't see you, the more... the less real it felt, you know?" He didn't answer, but I could tell from his eyes that he was listening. Why I was talking, I still couldn't quite figure out, but I didn't seem able to stop, not before it was time.
"I was back home and I went to work but everything felt... colorless. It's like I was lost in a book, a really good, absorbing one that comes and owns your life for a few days, doesn't let you sleep, or hardly eat. And then it's over and part of you just stays... bereft. That's what it was like... all the time. And I didn't... I only saw it now. Now that you were, now that you're here. And you're going to go home and... And please, please make me stop talking."
It wasn't a long way for his fingers to travel when he moved them over my lips. I thought I saw a sense of hesitancy in his motion, but I could have been wrong. We looked at each other. His eyes were bottomless and huge, glinting in the candlelight. There was a world of answers in them, a million words he'd thought of and processed, a thousand love stories he'd read, hundreds of scenes, patches of dialogue he'd written—and now he had nothing to say. It hurt him, I could see that, and I wished I could take it back. All of it.
I kissed his fingers, and he pushed them harder against my lips. I felt the sting of my teeth behind them, and still our eyes were locked. He was weighing behind them, responses he was thinking through and discarding. I was terrible at reading him though, and in the end, I closed mine again and nestled my face back into the crook of his neck. Wrong smell or not, his skin was warm and familiar—and by tomorrow he'd be gone and I would berate myself for not soaking him in every minute, every second of time I had. I didn't want him to say it back, not now. I didn't need him to, either. He didn't have to be as crazy and stupid as I was. I just needed it to be okay.
I breathed against his chest, and after a while we moved in unison. I felt his breath hot on the back of my neck, making hair flutter, and with time, the tension in our muscles started to loosen. His fingers, soft again, travelled over my shoulder blades and down to the small of my back and there, he held me, kissed the top of my head.
"It's... this situation," he finally whispered.
I didn't draw back to look at him. I had the feeling that this was easier for him, without having to look me in the eyes. I wasn't in sub space anymore, that's what I realized. In sub space, I wouldn't have thought that. In sub space, he had no flaws, no weaknesses. Something had yanked me right out, root and stem.
I thought, maybe, I liked him even better outside of it, when I was Iris, when I was myself and he was Paul—and we were both breakable, fallible, stupid little humans.
Still, I held my breath, waiting for him to continue.
"It's an emotional thing, you know, getting in touch with the submissive in you for the first time. It's intense, it takes you places so much deeper than you thought you had. The distance, too, it... it can enhance already intense feelings."
I nodded against his shoulder, kissed the thin stretch of skin over the bone, nuzzled against it and tried to stop the water from filling my eyes again. It had to have shown somehow, in my breathing or the tension I held, because he rubbed my back, warmed it with his large, calloused hands, and waited, waited until I breathed again.
"That's why you shouldn't apologize, baby girl. It's normal. It's a vulnerable, intense place where we go together, and you feel things you don't understand. That's part of it. Don't worry."
"Okay." That was all I said. It was enough. For a while we relaxed; I moved one leg over to sit in his lap properly and he kissed the top of my nose. I tried to feel what I was supposed to feel—intensity and clarity of mind, the cathartic moment of coming back from a scene with him. But it wasn't there; I think we had both slipped right out of the moment. It hurt.
"When do you have to work tomorrow?" he asked after a while. I tried not to frown, tried not to hear it as a bad precursor to leave.
"Eight-ish. I mean, usually I have some leeway but with the project..."
He nodded; one corner of his mouth jerked up in a crooked smile.
"How's that going?"
"Good. Pretty good. Same. I don't know." I wrinkled my forehead, then disentangled myself from his arms. I didn't want to do this, have a pretend conversation. "I'm thirsty, how about you?"
He nodded, but then I knew he would and I got out of bed. There was something about the washcloth on the bed stand that made me falter, sway on the spot, but I moved past it.
There was soda in the fridge; I didn't want to make tea. I would regret it later, but in that moment, I didn't want to come up with reasons that would make him stay if he wanted to go. I could be stubborn that way.
"Thank you," he said as I handed him the glass. Our eyes met for a moment and everything felt off. I wasn't angry yet, not then, I would have said anything to take it all back, to make it better—I just didn't know what that was.
"I should probably let you get a good night's sleep at least," he said after a while. I had seen that one coming a mile away. "Good for me, too, drive overnight. Beat traffic."
I had to bite my jaws together to stop myself from saying something catty, and in a way that shocked me more than the rest. I wasn't that person; I wanted to tell him that this bothered me, that he wasn't treating me right, that being dominant was one thing—but he was acting like an ass. But I didn't. I was afraid, I think, afraid he'd call an end to this experiment of dating that I had proposed with no idea of what I was in for.
I told myself that I'd take a few days, write him an email—thoughtful and generous. I was always better at writing my feelings down; talking could so quickly slip out of control.
"Do you need anything? Coffee or something? You... I mean, it's late, are you sure it's safe?"
He nodded his head. "It's okay. I have everything I need."
He took my hand for a moment, and I thought maybe, just maybe I was making this up, that everything was fine—but then he turned around and slipped into his jeans. When our eyes met this time, he looked away. I don't think I was able to hide how much that hurt.
"Look, Paul. I..."
Looking up from his attempts to locate his shirt, he turned towards me. I had the distinct feeling he was looking at the wall just over my right shoulder, but maybe it was spite that made me think it. And of course, I didn't actually know what to say—just that something needed to be said. Anything. That I couldn't let him leave this way. But I didn't know. I always avoided drama in relationships, I don't know what to do with it.
Up until Paul, up until I knew what I'd been missing, any relationship I'd had was stable and simple—maybe a little boring, but there was no need for fleeing out of my bed in the middle of the night, for stupid premature declarations of love and awkward attempts to patch them over. I didn't know how to fix this, I didn't have a clue.
"Are you really sure it's safe? At night I mean... driving? With the wine and stuff and..."
He'd found his shirt and smiled at me. He touched my cheek, patted my lips and I held my breath.
"I'm American, remember? We do that kind of stuff all the time."
He didn't even sound like himself; he sounded like a parody, like a crap movie full of badly written lines.
Was I supposed to ask him to stay? To talk about this? Of course it was talking that had caused it all and I didn't know what I could possibly say to fix it—except take it back, and however easy that would have been given the way he was acting, I didn't want to anymore. I didn't want to start saying the things he wanted to hear instead of the ones I felt.
And so I let him leave. I even brought him his shoes.
In the doorway, he c
upped my face between his hands, and I forced myself not to cry again.
"We're okay," he said. It was his low, convincing voice—but it didn't make me feel better. In a way, I think, it meant he was worried, too, convincing himself as much as me.
"Yeah, of course." I tried to smile genuinely. "Always." He could read me too well to actually believe it, and I think what hurt the most was that he kissed me and left, without making sure I believed it, without believing it himself.
I could taste him on my lips for another minute or so; then I found the wine.
NOW
I've heard people described as reeking of alcohol, but I don't think the phrase has ever been filled with much meaning for me. Not until Paul stands in front of my door leaning against the frame. It's the total lack of context, I think, that makes the smell flood into my apartment with such insistency, and I instinctively lift my hand to my nose, staring.
"I'm sorry," he says. He doesn't slur the words, not like in movies, or maybe the drunks you sometimes avoid on the tube—but there's a different quality to the sound, something slow and dragging.
I don't know what to say. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I am staring at his face, not sure I believe he's actually there. The stubble of his chin looks sad now, where I'd found it rugged and attractive earlier, and looking up into his eyes sends a sharp pain somewhere down into my stomach.
"I thought you were probably home by now."
He shrugs, sways his head and then nods past me into my apartment. He's had almost five hours out there in the cold.
"Can I come in?"
I realize then, that my arms are folded across my chest, that I haven't moved and am effectively blocking him. There's a freezing draft in the hallway, but I'm pretty sure he's too drunk to feel it. I close my eyes, exhale a deep sigh and then step aside.
This is when his state really becomes apparent, that lilting walk that looks nothing like Paul at all. He slumps down onto the sofa, rubs his hands over his face. It is so quiet that I can hear the stubble of his beard rasp over his rough skin.
