Game

by Justine Elyot

  I am grateful for the limited cover darkness affords me, but the light soon returns on the other side of the park. The hotel frontage is awash with golden light and I negotiate the steps and the lobby as quickly as I can, avoiding all eyes until we reach the lifts.

  Upstairs on the top floor I can breathe again. My mystery man has the penthouse suite. Somehow this makes me uneasy. All the worst excesses at the Luxe Noir take place in the penthouse suite – some of the things the maids have had to clear up in there make even licentious little me shudder.

  I could still walk away.

  I pat my jacket pocket, looking for the rectangular reassurance of my mobile phone. Lloyd wouldn’t put me in danger. Oh! Perhaps it’s Lloyd in there! I know he’s pretty friendly with the guys at this hotel. Though he’d have had to fly down the fire escape at the gambling den to get here before me.

  This burgeoning hope is given extra weight when Evil Face taps me on the shoulder before I knock on the door. ‘One more thing,’ he says. ‘He doesn’t want you to see him.’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘What?’

  My escort takes a length of black silk from his pocket. ‘I have to blindfold you. OK?’

  Now I really am confident that I am meeting Lloyd in there. I assent without protest, allowing the man to cover my eyes and tie a tight knot at the back of my head.

  He knocks, but doesn’t wait for an answer. The door is opened and I step carefully in, my heels sinking into plush, Evil-Face’s hand on my elbow.

  ‘Here she is,’ he says. ‘Special delivery. I’ll leave her to you now.’

  There is no reply, again. It’s a person whose voice I’d recognise. I smile as a different hand takes my elbow, leading me onwards.

  I try to repeat my triumphant guessing game hat-trick from the Soho stockroom, using my nose and my general awareness of Lloyd’s mannerisms, but he has obviously learned from that day, because he is silent and scentless tonight.

  I need to make him talk. ‘So, how do you want me?’ I ask, running a finger down the lapel of the tux.

  His response is non-verbal – the removal of said item of clothing. He undoes the button lazily, unhurriedly. A doubt makes itself known, way down in the pit of my stomach. This isn’t Lloyd.

  The way he slides his hand into the small of my back, holding me there while he, presumably, takes in my nakedness only magnifies this doubt.

  There is something very different here. This is a man in absolute control of himself – he is scarcely even breathing. Lloyd would be at me, on me, all over me by now.

  He spins me around, and the hands that land on my shoulders aren’t Lloyd’s. Longer fingers.

  ‘Who are you?’ I ask uncertainly.

  I have this feeling … but it just couldn’t be. It really couldn’t be.

  It’s some high roller we’ve had at the Luxe Noir, an elegant stranger.

  We stop moving and his right hand sweeps its way down my side to my hip, patting it lightly, while he keeps a hold of my shoulder with the left. One of his fingers brushes my neck, a whisper of a caress.

  His lips touch my nape. Oh God. I feel like swooning.

  There is something incredibly powerful here. Suddenly, I realise that I am being Tempted. This man represents a different path for me and Lloyd has obviously chosen him very carefully.

  I cry out as he pushes me abruptly onto the bed, which is directly in front of me. My upper torso lands flat in a valley of duvet and I bury my face along with it. Any further olfactory clues are going to be drowned out by the scented pillowcases, whose alarmingly musky aroma dominates the air.

  I feel the expensive cloth of his suit jacket brush my wrist as he turns me over onto my back. Now he is breathing more heavily. I reach up, wanting to feel his skin, his height, his size, but he puts my hands over my head and presses them down briefly, indicating that that’s where they should stay.

  He sits on the side of the bed. I sense his hands, close to me, about to be laid on me. I tense up.

  ‘I’m not sure about this,’ I say.

  Nothing happens for a moment. I think perhaps he is waiting for me to elaborate.

  ‘It’s not that I’m not used to scenarios like this. It’s not that I’m scared of having sex with an anonymous stranger. If you knew anything about me, you’d know that. But there’s something deeply … wrong … about this. And I can’t even explain why. But I don’t think I can do it.’

  I hear him exhale, not quite a sigh, but almost. A cuff link, heavy and cold, makes momentary contact with my hip. My toes are curled tight.

  Am I supposed to just leave? I sit up experimentally. He doesn’t prevent me.

  But I’m not going without knowing who he is. I can’t. ‘I need to know who you are.’

  The duvet rustles – he has stood up. He walks away in the direction of the door.

  ‘No, you can’t just leave! I think I know who you are, anyway.’

  The footsteps still. I feel I could reach up into the air and touch the tension, looping across the ceiling like washing lines.

  Just speak, damn you!

  ‘Chase.’

  Terrible silence. I know I am right.

  Then he speaks. ‘Sophie.’

  I rip off the blindfold and stare. ‘Am I hallucinating?’ I ask the vision in dove grey who stands before me.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought you’d left the country.’

  ‘I did. This is a one-off, a favour to your beau.’ He says ‘your beau’ with such vindictive force that I can’t help feeling Lloyd must have blackmailed him into it. But why the hell …?

  ‘That’s the weirdest favour I ever heard of. What did he say? How did he ask you?’

  Chase shrugs. ‘Spend one night in a penthouse suite fucking Sophie or certain truths will be told. He must have worked hard to find my location, which impressed me, I suppose. And there was a quite considerable element of sweetener.’

  He raises an eyebrow at me, taking my breath away.

  All that time I spent in pursuit of him and he never gave me an inkling that he found me attractive. Why now? Why here?

  ‘Do you really think so?’ I hate myself for simpering and blushing when I should be asking difficult questions, but my body has never been much of a one for obeying my brain.

  ‘You know so.’

  There’s a long beat of silence during which neither of us can move or look away from the other.

  ‘I should leave,’ I mutter. I don’t convince myself, so I don’t suppose he is taken in either.

  ‘But you don’t want to,’ he says. He moves closer, just a couple of steps. ‘Do you?’

  ‘It’s too dangerous.’ I’m talking to myself, but Chase still answers.

  ‘Lloyd wants this.’

  I shake my head, utterly bemused. ‘Why? Why would he?’

  Chase sits on the edge of the bed, his eyes still locked with mine. ‘Think about it.’

  It’s not easy to think with the man I lusted and yearned after for years sitting so close to my naked body, but I try it anyway.

  ‘Well, like everything we’ve done lately, it’s a test,’ I come up with eventually.

  ‘Yes.’

  You’re the biggest temptation he could ever put in my way. I don’t say this out loud though. I’m still angry with Chase over the way things ended before, and I don’t want him getting ideas.

  ‘But how do I pass the test? By walking out of here unshagged?’

  ‘No,’ says Chase. ‘That’s how you fail. Lloyd’s idea was that we fuck with you blindfolded – you would find out afterwards that it was me. And then you could make your choice.’

  ‘Choice? What choice? I can’t choose you anyway – you’re a fugitive living overseas. You have no place in my life.’

  ‘Practically speaking, that’s true. But what Lloyd wants to know is if an encounter with, well, this sounds a little arrogant, but the words he used were “your heart’s desire” would change the way you felt about him. Make you
dissatisfied, restless, determined to find someone who, if not me, made you feel the way I did.’

  I pause to process this. It sounds madder than mad, but I can see a speck of rationale in there somewhere. ‘He’s insecure,’ I say. ‘I didn’t realise that.’

  ‘Well, I would say he had his reasons to be, wouldn’t you?’ He gestures at me, the prize in a gambling game. I don’t feel like much of a prize now though.

  ‘No. Everything we’ve done has been for the benefit of both of us. We’ve created our own sex life, and just because it isn’t the hetero-monogamous norm, people feel sorry for him and wonder when he’s going to meet a nice girl. But to him, I am a nice girl. Maybe only to him. But it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, does it?’

  Chase sniffs. ‘I wouldn’t stand for it myself.’

  ‘That’s why you’re wrong for me.’

  ‘I suppose it is. So. Are you leaving now?’

  I hug my knees to my chest and stare at the chandelier-heavy ceiling. ‘If I do … then I haven’t done what Lloyd wants. I haven’t put myself to the ultimate test. And if I don’t, I guess he’ll always wonder. And, perhaps, so will I. Though I’m almost sure I know what I want now. All the same … come and sit next to me, Mr Chase.’

  He allows himself a smirk, settling down to lean on the headboard at my side.

  ‘I should tell you up front,’ I say, ‘that I want to hurt you.’

  He draws back a fraction, his eyes wary.

  ‘Are you surprised? Why? You hurt me. On an ongoing basis, knowing that you were doing it, enjoying it. You’re cruel, and you’re a cheat and a liar.’

  ‘But you still wanted me.’

  ‘Yeah, but why? Why do you think I wanted you?’

  ‘Modesty forbids …’

  ‘I’ll tell you why. Because I couldn’t have you. And my theory is that, once I have had you, I’ll forget all about you.’

  ‘Theories are all very well. Practice is what counts.’

  ‘I know that. Now that you’re here on a plate, though, I have the strongest feeling that I could walk away without a second thought. I’m almost bored by the thought of fucking you.’

  This fires him up. His eyes narrow and he grabs a wrist. ‘Bored? Oh, you won’t be bored. I can promise you that.’

  The pressure of his hand on me lifts away the tension. My fight or flight response has picked fight, and my blood pumps accordingly.

  He leans down to my ear and speaks into it in that low, deadly voice that used to fill my dreams. ‘When we worked together … tell me the fantasies you had about me. What did I do to you?’

  ‘They changed over time.’

  ‘How did they start out?’

  ‘I’ll tell you if you’re honest with me.’

  The muscles in his cheek twitch. He’s not keen on the concept of honesty.

  ‘Honest with you about what?’

  ‘About your time at the hotel. And about what you thought of me.’

  ‘A truth game? You might wish you’d picked dare.’

  ‘As I understand it, we’re doing both.’

  He considers this. ‘I accept your terms. But you go first.’

  ‘OK. You don’t get to lie or cheat or squirm your way out of the deal, though. Or I’ll rat on you to Lloyd, who clearly Knows Too Much.’

  Chase humphs and shrugs. ‘Do you want me to undress?’ he says.

  ‘No. Keep your suit on. It’s kind of relevant. Cuff links and all. Are you sitting comfortably?’

  ‘Almost.’

  My eyes follow his down to the incipient erection straining against his suit trousers. ‘Comfortably enough,’ I amend. ‘Then I’ll begin. A long time ago in a galaxy pretty close to here, there lived a girl without a father. I hate to say it now, because I’ve always denied it to myself and to others, but that’s why I wanted you. You’re older than me, and you have an air of authority about you, and you were completely untouchable and unwinnable. I must have thought that if I could get you, somehow, then I would have what I’d been missing in my life.’

  ‘God, how depressing. I have no desire to be anyone’s father.’

  ‘No, just as well, because you’d be a shit one.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He smiles. ‘Can we get to the fantasy now?’

  ‘I fantasised about having your approval. Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Just a bit of positive attention. It wasn’t as if that was lacking in my life – all those men, all the time. But they weren’t special. Easy come, easy go, and I knew at bottom that they didn’t approve of me, just the ready availability of my cunt. Our relationship was different.’

  ‘Our relationship?’

  ‘I know it was employer/employee, but there was respect and a rapport between us. Wasn’t there?’

  ‘I liked you. You were easy to work with, and eager to please.’

  ‘I know.’ I wince. So eager to please. It was pathetic. ‘I think you knew that there wasn’t much I wouldn’t do, to impress you, to get a pat on the head and a few words of casual praise. My fantasy was about things going further than that. At first, it was about rewards.’

  ‘So … an outline?’

  ‘Here’s an example of something I used to masturbate to.’

  He puts a hand down to his crotch, loosening his buttons, and settles in for the tale, laying his long arm along the headboard, behind me. ‘Yes?’

  ‘After I’ve performed some super feat of hospitality, you call me into your office. I stand there, in my reception gear, fitted jacket, tight skirt, blouse, stockings, heels, waiting for your words of praise.

  ‘You sit behind your desk, fingers steepled, that stern look of yours on your face. I begin to be afraid you’re going to tell me off instead. But no.

  ‘“Come closer, Sophie,” you say.

  ‘I walk all the way up to the desk.

  ‘“I’ve heard some good reports of you. Your service has been exceptional. I’ve decided that you deserve a little token of my appreciation. Take off your jacket.”

  ‘I don’t know what to expect, but I take it off and put it on the desk.

  ‘“You’re a very good girl, aren’t you?” you say. “Always doing as you’re told. I want to see just how good you are. Take off your skirt.”

  ‘The fantasy was as much about hearing you say these things, your voice, as it was about the sex. I would hear it in my mind, telling me to do things, rude things. It turned me on without fail.

  ‘So I take off the skirt, as demurely as I can, and put it on top of the jacket. You can see that I’m wearing suspenders with my stockings now, and you can see the little white lacy knickers peeping out from the hem of my silky blouse.

  ‘“That’s very good,” you say. “The blouse now.”

  ‘I stand in front of you in my underwear and high heels, arms at my sides as if I’m on an army parade ground, head back, tits out. Not for the lads, though. For the man. For you.

  ‘I know and you know that I will do anything you ask of me.

  ‘You stand up and face me, turn me around with your hands on my shoulders, take it slowly, drinking me in. “This is your new uniform,” you tell me. “This is what you’ll wear whenever you’re in my office.”

  ‘“Yes, sir.”

  ‘Other versions of this include me sitting on your lap taking dictation while you finger me, or you fucking me while you’re taking a conference call, or me sucking you off under your desk while you’re in a meeting. But I’ll stick with this one for the time being.

  ‘So there I stand, down to my underwear, and you have had a good look at me.

  ‘“Good girl,” you say and those words “Good girl” make me so happy, deliriously happy, so warm and so wanted and loved and cared for and appreciated …’

  I tail off and look at Chase. He looks troubled, but the erection hasn’t gone anywhere. I turn my head away and continue. ‘You pat me on the head, stroke my cheek, drop a little kiss on my brow. Then you sit back on your desk, perching on it, about a foot away from me.
/>
  ‘“Now the bra,” you order.

  ‘I don’t know where this test will end, but I don’t care either. I take off the bra without demur and hand it to you.

  ‘“Touch your breasts.” You make me cup them, squeeze them, stroke them, squash them together, then you make me pinch my nipples or circle them gently. You want them as stiff as can be, so I breathe on them and then poke out my tongue and lick them delicately until they are sore and throbbing. My crotch is damp now and my clit growing fat and wanton.

  ‘As if you know this – and you probably do – you say, “Now the rest.”

  ‘I take off everything else, slowly, giving you plenty of time to appreciate the unveiling.

  ‘When I am fully nude, you stand back up and move to the side of the desk.

  “Now, lie on your back on this desk, Sophie.”

  ‘I place myself on the flat cold surface, shivering a little, but I’m feverish as well, ready for anything you want to give me.

  ‘You make me spread my legs so my toes point to the corners of the desk and raise my arms above my head. For what seems like an age, you stand looking down at my open pussy lips. You bend your head to inspect them at closer range. I feel your breath on them, but you never touch them outright.

  ‘“You’d like me to touch you here, wouldn’t you?” you say.

  ‘“Yes, sir.”

  ‘“Perhaps one day, if you’re a very, very good girl, I will.”

  ‘I moan. You aren’t going to touch me! I can hardly bear it. “Not today?”

  ‘“No, not today, Sophie.”

  ‘You can see how wet I am and you comment on it, in detail, at length, then you speculate about how tight I would be, how hard I would grip your cock. You make sneery remarks about how many other men have had me, but I feel too wildly turned on to be hurt by it.

  ‘You make me lift my hips so you can get a good look at my bum. You make me spread the cheeks and you home in close, checking my tight hole, asking me how often I’ve had anal sex and whether I enjoy it.