by Dae, Harlem
“Whoops,” she said, standing and giggling. She placed the spoon down and turned, a bit unsteadily, towards me.
“Careful.” Quickly, I caught her elbow in my palm, slipped my other hand around her waist. “You all right?”
“Head rush,” she said, pushing her bubbles of blonde hair behind her ears. “A tad too much wine, rich food, and now this…”
“This?”
We were close, very close. The jasmine-fragranced perfume she always wore seeped up my nostrils. I could see a sprinkle of freckles just trying to show themselves over the bridge of her nose, and in her eyes, her pale, ghostly blue eyes, I could make out tiny stripes of indigo.
“Yes, this. You here, in my house.” She smiled, batted her eyelashes, creating small shadows on her cheeks.
“I like being in your house.” I ran my hand up her back, felt the dip of her spine, the rise of her shoulders. She was about the same height as Zara, and not much between them in their weight either by the feel of Catherine now settling into my embrace.
“I like you being here, Victor, a lot.” She put her hand on my chest.
It was a confusing gesture. While it was like holding up a palm to stop someone coming closer, it was also intimately pressed over my heart.
The heat of her seeped through my shirt onto my flesh, travelled downwards, to my groin, waking up the beast again, who was full of hope that he’d be let out to play.
I suspected the best way forward, to avoid confusion, would be to ask her what she wanted. “Catherine,” I said quietly, almost a whisper. “Do you want me to stay the night, with you?”
She slid her hand up to my collarbone, added the other one to my chest and then linked them behind my neck. She rose onto her tiptoes, so we were almost nose-to-nose, and spoke onto my lips. “If you would like to.”
“Yes, I want to stay,” I said, squeezing her closer, but not so much that she’d feel my solid erection. “But just so I don’t get the wrong end of the stick, am I in the spare room or your bed?”
There, I’d done the honourable thing. I hadn’t presumed, as Zara had always done. I’d gone ahead and checked. Discovered boundaries and expectations.
Catherine giggled; I felt the vibration of it dissipate through her body.
“Oh, Victor, I think I can find room for a gentleman like you in my bed.”
Her mouth suddenly sought mine, the kiss not as soft as the other few we’d shared. Her tongue was right there, probing. I opened up, fed her kiss for kiss and pulled her tight.
A groan leaked from me as her belly pressed against my dick. Damn, it felt good to have a female form within reach again. I ground against her, just a bit.
She broke the kiss, gasped and pulled back.
For a moment I thought she might break free, run away, slap my face, something I wasn’t expecting. Because the expression she wore was surprise. But I couldn’t work out why. She was a sexy woman. I was a red-blooded bloke she’d invited to stay the night. Surely if there was no damn hard-on the whole thing would be a disaster.
“Victor,” she said, pushing up against me again, allowing her abdomen to tease my cock. “I think we should forget the coffee and go straight upstairs to bed.”
Chapter Two
Catherine’s bedroom was like the rest of her house—a tumble of mess that was at odds with her being an interior designer. I’d always thought they were OCD, neat freaks. Still, you learnt something new every day. I also learnt that she didn’t bother to make her bed after she got up in the morning—unless she’d been in a rush today and hadn’t had the time. She had plain yellow bedding, and the bottom sheet was crumpled where she’d tossed and turned. Her pillow still had the indent of her head, and I thought of my bed at home, made to within an inch of its life, army style.
I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about a messy woman. Zara had been tidy, a place for everything and everything in its place, and I supposed I should really stop making comparisons and get on with a life without her. The problem was, Zara was more a part of me than I realised. She may well be gone, but she was still inside my head, directing how my cock behaved. Damn her.
Catherine didn’t seem in the least bothered about the state of her room. Not an embarrassed facial expression to be seen. She stood beside the bed, whittling her fingers and eyeing me in what I assumed was her come-hither look. I didn’t know what to make of it really—it didn’t turn me on and certainly didn’t tell me anything about how she’d be in bed other than very similar to Helen. God, there was another one from my past. My ex before Zara, Helen had been…vanilla was the word Zara would have used. Until, of course, she’d met up with Zara’s ex, Geoffrey, and changed into a submissive who liked having him slap his hard cock on her head while she acted like a dog on all fours, collar, lead, the lot.
I still couldn’t get over the change in her.
“So,” Catherine said, batting her eyelashes again.
I found it a little annoying. Coy didn’t appeal to me these days.
“So,” I said, wishing I could go over there and take her roughly and know that she’d love it that way. Sadly, I didn’t think she would. She screamed insipid, and guilt nipped at me for that thought. I had to give her a chance. She was a lovely woman and didn’t deserve me making mean assumptions. I couldn’t help it, though.
She wasn’t Zara, and no matter how hard I tried to get that vixen out of my head, it seemed she was hanging around for the duration, the ghost of her lingering, reminding me of what I could have had. But I couldn’t have had her, not for the long-term anyway, and staying with her to see out our month-long teacher-and-student agreement would have sent me insane—if not to the grave.
Like I’d said to her, she was bad for my health. Literally.
Catherine giggled.
I chuckled.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
“Shall we…?” I gestured to the bed.
She climbed onto the jumble of sheets, quilt and pillows, rolling onto her side and clamping her mouth shut as though she dreaded what was about to come. I kind of knew what she might be feeling—felt a bit like that myself. What was I doing here if I sensed this wasn’t meant to be? Yet my body had other ideas. The thought of a woman waiting on a bed for me set my cock to throbbing, and no amount of telling myself that this wasn’t right could make it be any different. I wanted a fuck—and there I was, thinking of Zara again. She’d called it fucking. I’d called it making love.
I got onto the bed and settled beside Catherine, unsure whether to start undressing her or what. I’d been reduced to who I’d been before Zara—dickering in my head with what to do and when to do it instead of just getting on with things. The gentleman in me urged that I let her take the lead, to make the first sexual move, but the beast in me—the one Zara had taught me lived deep inside—was roaring to come out. Telling me to reach across and touch her, take off her clothes, flip her onto her back, and sink into her, balls deep.
She breathed unsteadily, the kind of exhales that shuddered, and I imagined her heart was going like the clappers. Nervous, I supposed, seeing as this was really our first intimate moment. I’d waited long enough, been good and just…well, waited…and now we were actually at the point where I could get my reward, I wondered how the bloody hell it would go.
“Are you all right?” I asked, concerned by the high colour on her cheeks.
“Yes,” she said in a gush of breath. “I’m fine!”
She sounded less than fine. I wouldn’t take her if she wasn’t completely up for it. I might have a hard-on that was causing me discomfort, trapped as it was inside my trousers, but I wasn’t the type to just dig in without making sure she was okay first. I’d gone for it once before with Zara, just taken what I’d wanted, and I’d felt a total bastard for it afterwards. No, I wouldn’t be repeating that with Catherine.
“Are you sure, Catherine? You seem a bit… Look, shall we leave this for another time, maybe? I don’t think you’re—”
She
kissed me, lips pressed hard to mine, and lifted one hand to rest it on the back of my head. She’d startled me, and I blinked several times before settling in to return the kiss. There was no passion, no raw desire, and although my dick was still raring to go, my libido raging, my mind wasn’t totally on the task ahead.
Task? I shouldn’t be thinking of it that way.
I closed my eyes and, God help me, imagined I was kissing Zara. It was an awful thing to do, but I couldn’t stop myself. Despite her ardour, Catherine seemed clumsy, ill at ease, going for it like a bull at a gate. No finesse, as if she hadn’t had much experience in the bedroom. And perhaps she hadn’t.
Could I teach her? Did I want to?
The Master in me yelled yes—but I hadn’t had any indication from time spent with Catherine as to whether she wanted a Master, whether she’d even be willing to experiment with that kind of thing. Hell, I was relatively new to that game myself, didn’t know all the ins and outs of it, only what Zara had taught me. How did you know if someone was into kink? Christ, I hadn’t even known I was until my Mistress, that wicked, sexy little Mistress of mine had revealed that I was.
As Catherine opened her mouth and played tonsil tennis with me, I entertained myself with visuals from the not-too-distant past. Zara had taken me to live sex shows where she worked as a Domme—to broaden my horizons, she’d said, show me what I’d been missing—and they had not only shaken me to my core but had made me come so hard I hadn’t known what had hit me.
The Harlequin had been a man with tits who’d played with a snake. Zara had performed with Carlos, her slave, shoving a dildo up his arse. Julie—dear Lord, Julie, who enjoyed self-flagellation. And the Swedes—they had been the beginning of the end, my last night with Zara because I’d collapsed from my sodding dicky heart going wonky on me. The man of the duo had fucked himself up the arse with a glass phallus while his wife had ridden him—and that hadn’t been the worst of it. Before that, she’d flogged his backside with a toy that had beads on the end of the strips—beads with little spikes on them. Had drawn blood too.
I had, quite literally, entered a den of iniquity those nights, and I was buggered if I could get them out of my mind. I’d keep them with me forever and, it seemed, the visuals wanted to stay with me too.
Kissing Catherine with a passion that had jumped out from nowhere—I was lying to myself if I believed that—I let instinct be my guide. I began undressing her, pressing closer, kissing deeper, all the while waiting for her to stop the flow and say she couldn’t go on. I peeled off her top, ran my fingertips over the cotton of her bra—where was the silk, the lace, the PVC?—then reached to unclasp it. She pulled her mouth from mine, breathing heavily, then slid her bra straps down her arms, a clumsy, fumbling effort that made impatience rise inside me.
Stop it. You chose to walk away from the madness your sex life had become. It isn’t Catherine’s fault she isn’t…that she isn’t…
She scooted onto her back, and we both went to remove her lower clothing at the same time, hands smacking into each other, fingers a tangle of lengths like a doodle made while taking a boring phone call. I eased back a bit to let her undress herself, damning my absent beast for leaving me in the lurch this way. I reminded myself of how I’d been as Zara’s Master, how I’d taken command and she’d obeyed, and couldn’t for the life of me summon up the little sod now. He’d run for the hills.
Naked, Catherine remained on her back and opened her legs. I gazed at her body, trying not to compare but failing. She was sexy enough, but the dark-blonde thatch covering her cunt… I’d been used to bare.
I sighed inwardly, cursing myself, because, damn it, I was still rock hard. I wanted her—or what we were about to do anyway—and she was willing to give herself to me. Quickly, I shucked off my clothes and settled between her legs, our closeness, our skin glued together, sending messages to my brain that yes, I could make love now.
But making love wasn’t what I wanted, and the difference between that and sex, a fuck, finally dawned on me. Zara had said that it wasn’t a bad thing to just take what you wanted—providing who you were with was in agreement—to be determined to get an orgasm no matter who was there helping you along with it. But Catherine? She was so gentle, such a good soul. Could I use her that way? Because that was what I’d be doing. A means to an end…
I pushed the guilt aside again and dipped my head, kissed her, roved my hands up and down her body. Closed my eyes and lost myself in sensation. Skin. Breaths. Tongues. The incessant pulse banging away in my cock. Her tits, nipples, the dip of her belly—all of it combined made me lose my senses and enter her sharply, one thrust that shunted her up the bed.
“Oh!” she gasped, putting her hands on my arse. “That was…unexpected.”
I withdrew until my tip was only just sitting in her entrance then pushed inside again. She was hot, wet, tight and clinging to me as if her life depended on it. I started up a fast rhythm, drowning in the fact that I was having sex but not who I was having sex with. A small part of me acknowledged that was wrong, but she was enjoying herself if her tiny pants were anything to go by, so what did it matter?
“A condom,” she said, flinging out one arm to fiddle around in her bedside drawer.
Her words had the effect that a bucket of cold water would. I’d gone inside without protection, without asking her if she was on birth control, and I felt a complete and utter bastard for it. I pulled out, fast, before she had a chance to feel that I was rapidly going soft, and took the condom from her. Wondered how the devil I’d get it on too. I didn’t think she was the type to put up with me wanking myself back to hardness, nor did I think she was the type who would do it for me.
I played with the packet, taking my time, while she stroked my back and waited patiently. Closed my eyes and imagined what Zara could be doing now. I’d heard she’d left the sex den at Eden Street, had got herself a loan to start a dungeon of her own. I could just see her lording it about there, lead Domme, or would she be a Madam now? The thought of her dishing out orders to employees, slaves and customers alike had my cock ready to go again. I rolled the condom over it then slid back inside Catherine. Saw Zara flogging Carlos. Saw Zara with Fifi sitting on her face. Saw Zara whipping Julie. Saw every bloody thing I’d ever seen with her, felt those feelings all over again. I pumped in and out of the willing pussy beneath me, Catherine running her hands up and down my back, her mouth seeking mine.
I lowered my head and kissed her again, licked her top lip, bottom lip, accepting her pointy tongue and letting the slide of it over mine send a note to my cock and mind that this was okay, I could come.
Forging in and out at speed, with Catherine groaning, I thought only of myself and what I could get out of this. It crossed my mind for a brief moment that I was a player, making Catherine think she was the one who filled my mind while I filled her cunt, but I batted it away. We were adults, for Christ’s sake, consenting adults. What did it matter that I wasn’t solely concentrating on her?
I came, hard, fast, the hole in the end of my cock stretching to the point of pain. She moaned, dug her nails into my arse, but her pussy didn’t spasm and clench my dick—she wasn’t coming, but I wasn’t able to stop. I kept pumping, grinding against her to catch her clit, give her some friction, and gritted my teeth as a series of throbs pounded, more cum spewing out of me until my balls ached.
“Zara!” I said, the word strangled
The aftershocks weren’t as severe as they could have been, but being with a woman had been better than me wanking alone. I slowed, opened my eyes and found Catherine looking up at me with such suspicion in her eyes that I was hard pressed not to tell her she shouldn’t waste her time on me. That I was a bastard. That I hadn’t given her proper attention.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“What?” I thought back. Shit. “Oh, argha. You know, ‘argha’, as in, it was good, so I, uh…”
“Oh, that’s all right then,” she said, her suspicious l
ook turning into one of adoration.
I decided to change the subject. “Did you? I mean, was it all right for you?”
“Yes,” she said, sliding her hands up and down my chest. “It was lovely.”
Lovely.
“Did you…?” I couldn’t even bring myself to be open with her, to just say it outright. Did you come?
She smiled, offering no answer, and I smiled back.
It was fake.
Just like me.
Chapter Three
I stared at Victor’s cousin. Or that’s who he’d said he was anyway. “Ollie did you say your name was? Ollie Partridge?” I wasn’t in the mood to make small talk with him, not in the reception of my brand-spanking-new dungeon.
“Yes,” he said, giving me what he may well have thought was a sexy smile.
It wasn’t.
He resembled my Victor all right, but he looked more like the bloke I’d seen in the coffee shop the other week. I’d gone there to see if I could pick up a new one-night stand for after me and Victor had finished playing, and I was sure it had been this man here who had come over to chat me up. I remembered thinking back then that he was similar to Victor, and he still was, except there was a harder edge to him. Where Victor had a softness about his blue eyes, this Ollie didn’t. It made me wary of him. I’d been in this business long enough to spot a dickhead when I saw one.
And I saw one.
“And why have you come here?” I asked, glancing across at Fifi, who had left Eden Street to come and work for me. She was busy filing her nails into those dangerous points she favoured, so I returned my attention to Ollie. Cocked my head, wishing he’d hurry up and answer, state his business and leave.
