Once Upon a Time

by Luna Doerr

  She has a real feel for Erica—and the same need to be desired by a man that Erica has. That’s the core of the story, Erica’s need to be desired by her husband and Charles’ growth as a man as he found his way to meeting that desire.

  Charles sat on the edge of the bed, his legs spread, his trousers unbuttoned. The whore kneeled before him and ran her hands along his hard length. He always waited as long as he could stand before coming here. It was like a game to him, to see how long he could tolerate the urges of the flesh before giving in to his basest needs. He was not proud of his visits to the brothel, but his fear was greater. He was afraid of being overcome by lust when he was at home, when his sweet Erica was the only outlet available. For she was of the sweetest temperament, full of grace and refinement. He would not subject her to his broken body, his ruined face, his wanton desires. Already he regretted the consummation he had forced upon her, taking her from behind like a common whore.

  Just like the common whore kneeling before him now, stroking his cock with her palms, circling his head with her fingers. When she dipped her finger into his weeping slit, he closed his eyes and let his head fall back. The next thing he felt was the whore’s tongue gliding along his skin, the wet heat of her mouth as she engulfed him.

  I reread the passage. I find it hard to write blowjob scenes. Getting one myself short-circuits my brain and thus my memories of them tend to be fuzzy. My most recent one was a gift from Caterine, in the hotel in Virginia. I hadn’t wanted her to do it, but she had defied me and done it anyway. Not that I entirely regret that but now that I’ve experienced it, I want her mouth on me again. Looking at her wine-stained lips at dinner had proved almost more than I could bear.

  She was so fucking good at it, too. I hate that. I positively despise the thought of all those college frat boys she had blown, and not gotten an orgasm in return. I gave her the first orgasm of her life. The second one, too. Then Sim was number three.

  Fuck. I’m hard just thinking about her rosy lips on my cock, the soft strands of her silken hair falling over my thighs as she worked me up and down. Even so, I’m having trouble conjuring how it had felt when she deep-throated me. At that point, I was unable to pay attention to the details. Hell, I was unable to think, period.

  She wouldn’t be able to deep-throat Sim. Sim is one hung motherfucker. I should have asked her at dinner whether she was sore. I can’t afford to give her a day off if I want to finish this book before my old man kicks the proverbial bucket, but I could skip a day of penetration for her if she needed to. It was probably a wise idea anyway. There’s no way she isn’t sore from the way Sim had pounded into her on the desk.

  We’ll do Charles’ blowjob in the morning, then maybe another session of cunnilingus in the afternoon. If I were Charles—and really, I pretty much am—I’d have an entire repertoire of fantasies where I devour Erica’s pussy.

  22

  Caterine

  “No, keep the dress on,” Alaric says.

  I button the bodice back up.

  “He’s at the brothel. He’s fantasizing about Erica but his mind is lost somewhere between the whore sucking his dick and the woman he’s imagining,” Alaric adds.

  “So who am I?” I ask, confused. “Erica or the whore?”

  “You’re both.”

  I take a deep breath and wonder how Sim is going to play this.

  “Where am I?” Sim asks.

  “You’re sitting on the bed. She’s between your legs.”

  As soon as Sim settles himself on the bed and spreads his legs, he’s hard. I take a deep breath and run my hands down his cock. I wonder whether Alaric is thinking of our night together in the hotel. I’ve been thinking about it. Too often, in fact.

  Sim is bigger than Alaric. Hell, Sim is probably bigger than ninety-nine percent of men. Not that I have much to compare him with. Sim’s size is going to be a problem, though. I wonder whether he’s ever had a really amazing blowjob because of it. There’s just too much of him to really do justice to.

  I stroke him a few more times, then lean in and flick my tongue over his slit. His hips jerk and I caress him again.

  “Fuck, sweetheart. Wasn’t expecting you to do that.”

  I smile and run my tongue from his base to the crown. He grows harder in my hands. I open my mouth and swallow as much of him as I can fit. I’m not sure I’ll be able to make Sim come this way, not that I’m sure I’m even supposed to. I close my lips around him and begin to suck. I tighten my fingers around his base, cup his balls with my other hand.

  Sim waxes. Alaric doesn’t.

  I wish I were blowing Alaric. Sim is a nice guy, and his body is pretty fucking amazing, but this has to be par for the course for him by now. Ho hum, another pretty woman sucking his dick. I had blown Alaric’s mind back in the hotel room. I’m certain of it. I liked knowing I could, too. Just the thought of it is making me wet.

  I ease up on the suction. My cheeks are aching from the effort. Sim is quiet above me and I begin to worry even more about making him come. I lean back and glance over at Alaric, who is watching us closely, his eyes narrowed, forehead creased.

  “What’s the matter?” he asks.

  “I don’t know if I can … do I need to make him come?”

  Alaric exchanges glances with Sim.

  I rub at my cheeks. “I’m sorry. He’s so big.”

  Alaric nods, then says, “Switch places with Sim.”

  I sit on the bed, while Sim stands in front of me. He rubs the head of his cock against my lips.

  “Let me do all the work,” he says.

  I open and let Sim push himself into my mouth. After a few shallow thrusts, he grips my head and begins fucking my mouth. I close my eyes tight so Alaric won’t see the water welling up in them, but it’s no use. Tears stream down my cheeks.

  Just hold on until he’s done.

  I try to think of other things but it’s difficult when a man is slamming his hips into your face, when his cock is hitting the back of your throat.

  “Hurry up, Sim,” Alaric says, his voice tight.

  I’m ruining this. The whore in the book wouldn’t be crying like this. Alaric should have hired someone more experienced. He was going to fire me. That’s all I can think of. He’s going to fire me. I’ll be packing my bags as soon as Sim is done.

  Suddenly Sim yanks himself out of my mouth and begins pumping his cock with his fist. Streams of come hit my lips, then my cheek and neck.

  Alaric is quiet. I sneak a quick peek his way. Anger glares in his eyes. Shit. He is furious with me. I close my eyes and try to breathe.

  “A whore’s not gonna swallow, right?” Sim says.

  Alaric slaps his laptop shut. “Sim.” His voice is low, barely controlled. “Can you leave us alone for a minute?”

  I look around for a tissue as the door shuts behind Sim. In an instant, Alaric is kneeling by my side, holding out a towel. I take it and wipe off my face and neck.

  “I’m sorry,” I say quietly.

  “Sorry for what?” He takes the towel back and drops it on the floor.

  I wave my hand in the air. “For not being able to do that. I’m not … you should have hired someone with more experience.”

  Alaric cups my face in his hands and looks into my eyes. “Caterine, I would have been worried if you’d been able to take Sim all the way in. I hired you because you don’t have that kind of experience.”

  It’s impossible to decipher what’s behind the glow in his eyes.

  “I tried to think of you instead.”

  “You did?”

  He caresses my cheeks softly and his touch draws out a quiet moan from deep in my chest. I nod.

  “When we were in the hotel.”

  “Ah. Did you enjoy sucking me off, Caterine?”

  I nod again.

  “I enjoyed it, too.”

  “Are you going to let me go?”

  “Let you go? As in fire you?”

  I nod. Alaric stills his caresses and li
fts my face.

  “No, Caterine. I’m not going to let you go.” He presses a gentle kiss to my lips. “I want you here more than I’ve ever wanted any assistant.”

  23

  Alaric

  Charles was straddling his wife’s head, his own head thrown back in ecstasy, his mind lost in the pleasure of her lips around his aching cock. He thrust himself in and out of her soft, warm mouth, slowing occasionally to hold off his release. He was dreaming, he was aware of that. He would never fuck his wife’s mouth the way he did the whores at the brothel. But in his dream, it felt so damn good. So sweet. So real.

  A choked sound beneath him snapped his head forward. Tears were streaming down Erica’s face, soaking the pillow beneath her head. He pulled his cock out of her mouth.

  “Oh sweet.” He cupped her face in his hands. “I am sorry. Oh Erica, please forgive me.” He wiped the tears from her face but fresh ones fell faster than he could dry the old ones. He hurried to button up her bodice, button his trousers. He hated seeing the tears in her eyes, tears he had put there with his own body, pain he had caused her as surely as if he had slapped her. He hated the softness he was seeing in her eyes, too, the willingness to endure his desires even through her own discomfort. It wasn’t right.

  I tap my fingers next to the keyboard.

  What the hell was he thinking, treating his Erica like this? She deserved better, even in his dreams. Forgive me, sweetheart.

  I tap my fingers some more. What the goddamned hell was I thinking?

  24

  Alaric

  The knock on my door is soft and wary. It know it’s Caterine. Sim would have pounded out his demand, then barged right in. I don’t want to see Sim right now, but Caterine is a different matter. She can interrupt me any time.

  “Come in, Caterine.”

  She had changed into a white tank top and faded cutoff shorts. It makes her look both innocent and deliciously fuckable. Her feet are bare, her toes polished a pale pink. I have a sudden image of those feet wrapped around my waist.

  “Sim and I were wondering if you need us this afternoon?”

  I glance at the clock on my computer. Three o’clock. I was planning to have them do another one of Charles’ fantasy scenes but after the morning, I don’t have the stomach for it.

  “Come here,” I say. “Close the door.”

  A look of surprise flashes over her lovely features as I pull her onto my lap. I run my thumb over her bottom lip. It’s still swollen.

  “I apologize for this morning.” In my peripheral vision, I can see her chest rising and falling, unevenly. She liked me touching her lip. I like it, too. “I’m giving you the rest of the day off.”

  “Oh.”

  Is she disappointed? Annabeth would have run off to the carriage house to spend the rest of the day fucking Sim anyway. Not that Annabeth would have been sitting on my lap.

  I cup her denim-clad bottom in my hands. “Are you sore anywhere else?”

  “A little.” She bites her lip.

  “So you could use a day off from Sim.”

  “I’m here to work. That’s what you hired me for.”

  Unfortunately.

  But now that she’s here and Sim is doing what Sim does so well, I’m having second thoughts. Caterine is so perfectly Erica, sweet and innocent and guileless. But when I write “the end,” Erica will still be all those things. Caterine will not.

  She will leave here knowing exactly what it’s like to be fucked seven ways to Sunday by a man like Sim Toro. The right thing to do would be to let her go. Not fire her, but release her from the contract. Write her a generous severance check, buy her a plane ticket home and drive her to the airport. That would be the morally right thing to do.

  But then I would have to find someone else to be Erica, and I know I’ll never find another woman who can embody her innocence and freshness the way Caterine does. It took me a year to find her.

  I just have to get the book done as quickly as possible, for her sake and mine. My sister’s texts and voice mails are coming with increasing frequency and urgency already.

  I look at Caterine on my lap, more trusting than she ought to be. Her blonde hair falls in loose waves over her bare shoulders. Her lips are pink and parted, aroused, aching to be kissed. Sitting on my lap is doing to her exactly what it is doing to me.

  I slide my hands up her back and into her soft hair. I pull those rosy lips down to my own and proceed to kiss the hell out of her.

  Forgive me, sweetheart.

  25

  Caterine

  “Caterine?”

  I look up at the sound of Alaric’s voice. He’s leaning against the doorway of the kitchen, staring at me, sexy as fuck in his jeans and linen shirt. I hand him the mug of coffee I just poured. Yesterday was awkward all around and neither me, Alaric nor Sim have addressed it directly.

  “I have to go out of town. I’ve been asked to fill in for another author on a panel at a writer’s conference in California and do a book signing there,” he says.

  “Okay. Is there anything you want me to do while you’re gone?”

  “Don’t fool around with Sim.”

  I pour myself a cup of coffee. “Besides that, is there anything you need me to do? Any research? Organize your files?”

  “If you could print out what I’ve written so far and proofread that, it would be a tremendous help.”

  He makes no move toward me nor says anything about the kiss in his office yesterday. That hadn’t been for a scene. There had been real desire in it, tempered by something else. Regret, perhaps? I don’t regret the kiss, that was for sure.

  “When do you get back?”

  “Day after tomorrow. I’m on the redeye home tomorrow night. It’s just a quick trip. Someone else got sick and the conference organizers called my agent.”

  “Well, have fun.”

  I’m pouring a second cup of coffee for myself and walking down the hall to his office when I hear heated voices coming from outside. I stop to listen. Alaric and Sim are arguing. I inch over to an open window. After a moment, I realize that they’re arguing about me.

  “Can I take her to dinner? You haven’t even let her go into town, Alaric.”

  “Dinner. Nothing else.”

  “Understood. Relax.”

  “She’s not like the other ones.”

  “Got that too, Alaric. I’m just offering to show her around the island a bit. It’s probably not good for her to be cooped up in the house all the time.”

  “All right. Fine. You can play tour guide. But that’s it.”

  I shake my head and push open the door to Alaric’s office. Yesterday’s scene hadn’t gone well but that was my fault, not Sim’s. He couldn’t help it if he was hung like a horse.

  I turn on Alaric’s computer and open the manuscript file. At last I’m going to get to read this mysterious story about Charles and Erica. Maybe that will help me next time around.

  I sip at the coffee while the printer spits out page after page. When the machine falls silent, I gather them up and sit down at my desk to read.

  Charles lay on his bed, his thick cock in his hand, trying to imagine what Erica’s body looked like. He’d only caught a quick glimpse of her breasts when she came into his office that day. And he had consummated their marriage quickly and unthinkingly. He hadn’t taken the time to look at her cunt. Now he wanted to see it. He knew from the women at the brothels that cunts were remarkably different. He wanted to know what color Erica’s was, was it a soft rosy pink or a deep dark wine? Were her lips fleshy and succulent, or small and reticent, in need of coaxing open? Every day in his study, he imagined—no, hoped—that she would knock on his door again and unbutton her bodice. And this time, he would let her. Let her strip down to bare skin so he could inspect every inch of her. Pinch her nipples until she cried out with a lust that equalled his own.

  I sit back and fan myself with a manuscript page. I can see why Zoe likes these books.

  He woul
d spread her open on his desk and memorize every crease and fold of her pussy. He would find her tiny nub of pleasure and map its exact location for future explorations.

  I look over at Alaric’s desk and imagine myself lying on it, my legs open for Alaric’s inspection. My panties are soaked just thinking about it.

  Damn it all. He shoved himself back into his pants, hard and throbbing. If she were to do that again, he would turn her over his knee and spank her until she couldn’t sit for a week. She musn’t tempt him that way and appeal to his worst weaknesses.

  I walk over to Alaric’s mini-fridge and pull out a bottle of water. I hold it to my forehead before uncapping it and taking a long swallow. I’ve never really thought about being spanked before. Yeah, I read that famous book but it hadn’t sent me running out to the nearest sex shop.

  But the thought of Alaric tossing me over his knee, pulling up my skirt and pulling down my panties … I’m going to have to go change panties now, they’re so sopping wet.

  When the door opens behind me, I spin around so fast I nearly drop the water bottle.

  “Everything okay?” It’s just Sim.

  Face it. You were hoping Alaric changed his mind and decided not to go.

  “Sure. Just proofreading the manuscript for Alaric.”

  Sim leans over the desk, flipping through the pages. “How much does he have done? He’s trying to get this thing done quickly.”

  “He is? Why’s that?”

  Sim hesitates. “Publishing schedules and all that. They want this book done soon.”

  Sim’s answer sounds less than truthful. Maybe Alaric really isn’t happy with my work so far and is just too polite to say so. Or too far into the book to fire me.

  A low guttural laugh rises out of Sim’s throat. He’s reading the last pages I proofread.

  “Hah. He’s writing spanking into the book, after all.” He looks up at me. “Have you ever been spanked, love?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll go easy on you at first, then. God, Annabeth loved it.” He laughs again. “Come down to the carriage house later and I’ll show you my punishment collection. Annabeth always wanted me to use my leather paddle.”