by JR King
I drew back and slapped her across the face, saying, “That’s not what I asked. Yes or no?” She responded with a constructive yes, so I rewarded her a Good girl then kissed her, fucking her harder. I released in a cathartic flood. Unbelievably good. I claimed her mouth with good, measured force, stealing the breath she tried to catch while silencing my own cries of pleasure. When I untied her, she crumpled on the bed and lay curled up into a ball. Eyes glazed, low sounds in her throat faded.
I climbed beside her, drew her to my chest, and let my tongue trace a warm, wet path around her lips before sealing my lips over hers. I trailed the slopes and angles of her flawless features with my fingertips, running my hands through her locks. My fingers glided across her brow and temples, curling around the perfect coil of her ears, then down onto the softness of her cheekbones, petting her cheeks.
We had this post-coital ritual. Her fingertips would start drawing crisscross patterns over my chest tattoo, telling me she was ready to be fed.
“Drink.” I nudged the smooth rim of the glass against her lower lip and she took it in her mouth. I stroked her back, pleased that she’d made it through the experiment fully intact. “Did you enjoy being tied up during sex?”
She supported her chest on elbows and drank the entire glass of San Pellegrino. “I think…not.” The words dripped from her lips in a smooth accent that I adored.
Willingly, she parted her lips and allowed me to slide the spoon between them. The tautness of her mouth reminded me of a budded flower’s opening, and the locking of her bee-stung lips around the utensil’s silver neck was no less intense than the times they’d locked with my lips.
I marveled at the erotic feeding. She viciously darted her tongue out to lick the generous heap I’d loaded on the spoon. The throaty noises and the long tug I felt were deliberately overdone as she sucked the sweetness into her mouth.
When the oval bowl of the dessertspoon came out with a spick-and-span gleam, she lolled back her head and swallowed the contents of her mouth with an audible gulp, wriggling her feet in the air. “This is my favorite Three Twins ice cream,” she told me, her tongue sweeping across her lower lip. “I want larger spoonfuls, you’re being economical.” Her glassy eyes looked accusing.
“Greedy pet.” I ran a finger across her lip to gather the frothing, and hunched my back to lick the sweetness off her. I withheld the next serving, hovering the laden spoon in front of her lips. “Does this look economical to you?” I put the spoon to my mouth and licked the caramel ice cream off slowly. As I did, some gooey lumps dripped off it, onto the side of my mouth. I flicked my tongue out and staunched the sticky mess from landing on my chin, keeping it in the corner of my mouth.
Elena’s tongue skimmed her upper teeth before she started begging, nice as pie, her words dribbling like warm chocolate sauce on a crisp-cooled dessert.
Taking a long bath, we relaxed and listened to licks of water and Pavarotti. Though things were faring well between us, questioning Elena on the subject of her exes was hard for me. No guy wants to know who played with his merchandise before it arrived at its rightful destination. But, as a man, I had to swallow my pride and feign interest. When she’d worshippingly uttered Jax’s name, it triggered a tension at the base of my skull. I could feel a swell of pain in my chest, my throat violently closing off. Dodging hyperventilation, I managed to engage in sexual intercourse before accomplishing anything so undignified as breaking face in front of a girl.
I chose Agent Provocateur’s insidious Lacy Ouvert and classic pajama trousers and jacket for Elena to wear in bed while watching TV. She sat primly, her knees and ankles pressed together. Her sudden, long-winded sighs ruffled my feathers. She kept looking down at her legs, clad in silky material, her mussed hair obscuring her eyes. At hearing her expel a breath that was so long and windy as if she’d been holding it for hours, I couldn’t work any longer.
My hand traveled across the sheets to reach for hers. I took it in mine and ran my thumb across her knuckles. “What’s on your mind?”
She ran her lacquered nails up and down her legs, creating lines in the fabric that slowly faded in the 700-thread count silk. “Who was your first girl? Was she the one you loved?”
I clenched my jaw to prevent it from dropping open. We went from enjoying a nightcap to an erstwhile girlfriend? No shit, you could have knocked me down with a feather. Then again, Valerie’s story had to turn up at some point. Though, I haven’t tried your readerly patience enough, I would have liked it to last a little longer…imagine the climax.
Fuck it. Here we are, then.
I closed my MacBook’s lid and set it on the nightstand, then pulled Elena onto my lap. “Do you really want to know about my past?” I bit at her earlobe, punctuating my words with it.
She pulled her chin from my grasp and pressed her forehead against my cheek. “I do, Alex.” She sniffed and gently wiped under her eyes, as if she’d mess up the nonexistent makeup she was wearing.
I hadn’t expected to ad lib about myself, so I launched a disclaimer, “Know this before I start, and, none of it is open for debate. I don’t want to hear a smart-ass Mrs. Robinson quip and have pop morality slathered allover my story. It is what it is, and I wouldn’t want it to be any different.”
“She was…oh,” she snuffled her speech in a low timbre.
“She was a woman, quite older than me. I reckon that pedophilia exists, but this is about pain and love rather than age bullshit. Labels are there to make the sifting and winnowing of people’s proclivities more—let’s say—efficient, but this isn’t one of those cases. The past is over and done, we can’t change it. Consider this: the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there. So, would you like to listen?”
“Hartley was brilliant.” She paused and frowned. “I ain’t faint of heart and I’d never judge your life experiences.”
I’ll summarize and expound that particular bond you call love I once shared with a woman. I lost my virginity to a neighbor when I was fourteen years old. Valerie was twenty-five years old. It isn’t justifiable, and this isn’t a how-to guide. This here is my life story, so treat it with a little respect.
I first laid eyes on her at a garden party my mom organized–a ladida fundraiser for some worthy cause, damned if I could remember for what. For the alfresco event, Valerie was dressed in a simple ivory lace dress, hair upswept in a chignon, lilac lips and cheeks. Tall, lithe, with soft brown eyes and thick raven hair that seemed a little frizzed up by summer humidity. Imagine it pinned up, curled tendrils waywardly trailing down the nape of a slender, feminine neck. With a body mired in attractive apartness, every man that walked past her lusted after her assets. She didn’t have a huge rack that protruded nastily; she had modest, perfectly proportioned breasts. I couldn’t see her ass yet. In her own unique manner, the less than perfect hairstyle made her stunning. I fidgeted as much from hunger as from frustration as I mentally pulled out the pins and watched her dark hair cascade over her shoulders. I’m a little ashamed to admit this, but at fourteen years old, getting a boner was as frequent as taking a piss. And, since at that age I thought with my dick, within seconds it inspired me to go say hello.
I schooled the goofy smile on my face into a decent one. “Hi,” I started casually.
“Good afternoon.” Her facial expression was frozen in a rictus of ennui.
The awkward pant situation got worse. If her body was stunning, her face was angelic. Plump red lips made to, I imagined, give a cornucopia of hickies to a young man. I kept wetting my lips. Looking at her felt like looking at the full moon; I was completely dazzled.
She said, “You’re Simone’s son, aren’t you?”
The detached tone of her voice blinkered my confidence. Perspiration was accumulating on the edge of my upper lip. I drew a finger across it, gathering the sweat and wiping it off in my palm. I chewed at my lower lip to govern the impulse to tell her I wanted to explore her curves, and replied, “I sure am.” She took my hand wh
en I offered it, and I saw a smile coming in at the corners of her mouth.
I left off my concentrations to her when a dry voice waylaid us, “Val, there you are.”
Her dumbfuck husband—who else?—the ultimate curveball.
“Richard, this is young Mr. Turner.” Her eyes twinkled when she said that and I smiled.
“The boss’ son, eh?” He said this in a tone that mirrored discontent.
An unsympathetic look flew across my face. “The one and only,” I snipped, my tone just shy of arrogance.
A brief irritation passed over his face, in return, before he smiled. “Already charming the ladies, I extrapolate.” His smile was a little too woodenly. He eyed me with a pitiful glint, as if I were a disembodied piece of goods. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
I stifled a snort of pure disgust. Fuck you, asshole, I thought. However unmannerly my behavior was, that right there was the most staid, clichéd means of approach. So what if I’d gotten ahead of myself? I wasn’t going to admit it, not even on pain of death.
Valerie’s voice dropped to a gentler tone when she spoke again, “C’mon, Rich, he wasn’t badgering. The boy’s too young to be familiar with these games.”
Not really, I’m familiar with every intricacy of sexual games, was the answer on the tip of my tongue. A blatant lie I wished was pure fact. From thirteen years onward I’d had my balls and my mind blown regularly, but I still hadn’t fucked a girl in the truest sense. And yeah, teabagging doesn’t count.
Richard’s hands hovered midair before he held them aloft in playful surrender. “My bad.”
I opened my mouth to stop my breath from hissing through clenched teeth. God fucking dammit, I was fourteen years old, not four! “Nice to meet you both,” I clipped polity, walking away.
Disappointment and horniness acutely spiraled into anger. I went to the mansion’s eastern terrace. Luxuriating in the early evening light helped bottoming it out. I stood there a long time, waiting for myself to admit something I didn’t want to admit.
If I went for an employee’s wife, I’d be disappointing my parents. There would be hell pay if they found out—I’m talking fire and brimstone and apocalypse here—and don’t ask me how, I just knew they’d find out. My inclination to please them took precedence and outraised my desire. Apart from my introversion, dad assumed that unigeniture should instigate perfectionism and maturity beyond borders in me. By putting me in situations with little regard for how uncomfortable and restricted I felt, he pushed my limits, and mom soothed me with her tenderer ways. My father was the genius and I was the protégé, my mother my muse. I couldn’t disappoint them. Maybe that’s where it all went wrong later: I wanted to reach every goal they set for me. Parental pressure ended up sinking my knees faster than the Titanic, and I took to cocaine for mental relief. A story for another time.
No Valerie, I told myself. Know that this wasn’t the worst realization. From where I was standing, I saw Richard guiding her toward one of the garden alcoves. Watching their unremitting sex shenanigans, the capillaries of my eyes were nothing if not ready to burst, becoming the most eye-popping pyrotechnics of the century.
I strictly avoided meeting Valerie, but no thanks to propinquity we sometimes did, so I acted as if I felt lifeless to boot in her immediate presence. As life would have it, living in ostentatious surroundings and worldly excess became deadly for Richard, he crashed his Porsche and got killed in the process.
I attended the funeral. After it I sat glumly in her immaculately organized living room that smelled of lavender. Each tick of the Imperial Chinese ormolu clock felt like a hammer blow driving a nail into my soul. Hushed voices of family members penetrated the walls. Thoughtfulness began forging inside me when I saw ache and dejection lancing through Valerie. Heck, I didn’t want her to be bereaved. Long story short, newly widowed and no longer employee-related, she wasn’t a predator chasing me, it was rather I who chased her because she could provide me sexual experience, and maybe even teach me…things. Already at that age, I had a strict sense of propriety, as an only child it stands to reason that I had no notion of sharing. Most days, I sat on her balcony, just to show her I was there for her, which inevitably escalated into disturbing, stalkerish behavior. I acted like a lovesick puppy. To be more specific, I acted like a dumb slut who’s in love with her handsome boss and his red Ferrari. I gave Valerie longing glances, hopeful smiles, and shy answers, as though I were ultravulnerable. I called girlfriends and flirted with them just to make her jealous, there were—supposedly—accidental collisions, profuse compliments about her appearance—however middle-of-the-road. Casual walks past her were intended to brush up against her taut behind, and when she fastened her jewelry, I offered to pass the diamond studs through her earlobes and clasp her necklace.
She had a Fazioli. I started playing whenever she cried. On those days she always wore a Vanity Fair bed jacket in white chiffon and lace. Conscience warring, she opened up, and I started caring. Liaisons, abortions, and ongoing professional failures haunted her, and now her husband’s untimely death had sort of crushed all her hope. She went through rough days, tried slashing her wrists a couple of times, and I found her crying over yet another failure in the bathroom. One way or another, I made her sit with me and watch me play the piano. I wanted to help her get back into the swing of life. I listened when she told me which chords and scales I needed to improve on, and then I started playing for her. Chopin’s Berceuse in D flat major on gray days, Bacarolle in F sharp major on sunnier days. On days she felt happy we played Clair De Lune together. She played the lower scale and I matched her notes on the higher scale. There was the occasional mistuned note, but for a fleeting, golden sliver of time she managed to lose herself in music and forget about the grim reality. The mistimed notes made her laugh, and so I erred on purpose.
First loves are insanely heady; you know that. Mine was soaked with raging, combustible teenage hormones. Lust so hot it started searing patterns into my brain. Seasons unfolded, and Valerie and I became great friends over the summer. A Friday afternoon, I found her in the bathroom, yet again. Spotting a few drops of blood on the razor, the internal warning bells I possessed clanged as fast and as hard as the beating of my heart against the wall of my ribs.
“What the fuck, Valerie!”
“I’m fine,” a tight sob fluttered out of her. She wept some more, taking shallow, strangled breaths.
“I will reiterate it one last time,” I began with a friendlier tone. “Keep up this shit and I’ll tell my parents. Wanna be institutionalized?”
“Get to it, Alex.” Her eyes were limpid, clouded with undisguised misery.
I choked down the lump of emotion and shook myself free from the haze just in time. I considered the facts before acting. Fending off my own fear, I held out my hand in silent query at her. It had no effect.
I squatted next to her. She was taking shallow, rapid sips of air, like someone trying to breathe while drowning in water. I caught her jaw in my hand and forced her to look straight into my eyes. “Valerie, I’m right here. Take bigger sips of air, for me.”
A cry of dismay fluttered out of her.
I wanted to help her get out of the woods, so I dutifully sat shoulder to shoulder with her. In this kairotic moment, I was patient and waited for her to reanimate, a case of serving who stood and waited.
“Don’t waste your time on me.” She smiled at me and the stuttered stream of air she let out grazed my forehead.
“I don’t think I am,” I told her with a strangled little squeak, sniffling a certain way so she’d take mercy on me.
Closing her damp eyes, she came closer and rested her forehead against mine. She kept wiping at her face and I moved in to kiss her. Her lips did part, but only because she gasped in horror. Don’t ask me how, I just knew she wanted me, and her reluctance made it all hotter. Perhaps it was the ruffled trim her teddy had that lured me to kiss her, or perhaps it was the silence of the flawlessly coiled ribbon
sewn to the neckline. I kissed her until she slapped my cheek, which also almost made me come.
“This is sick,” she burst out across me. Her eyes were wide and she pulled away from me sharply. Suddenly she had mundane reflexes and acumen, gave a speech about how wrong all of it was, how young I was and how lovelorn she was, her hands fluttering in the air as she spoke. “Sick, you’re sick, Alex! We can’t sink to such a low.”
My hands fisted reflexively. “And this isn’t sick, Valerie?” I picked up the razor.
A harsh, cutting sob rose in her throat. She scurried off to the kitchen and started making tollhouse cookies. It was something she was good at, her grandmother’s recipe. If you’re wondering, the answer is yes; Valerie is the reason why tollhouse cookies were my favorite.
When she took out the first batch, I snatched a cookie and let the gooey bits of chocolate nearly burn my tongue, just so she’d kiss and soothe me. She didn’t. We had dinner and I listened to her as she told me that I should initiate with a girl my age. Why flog a dead horse? Why fill perfect silence with the sorrow of useless chatter?
I want to fuck you, was my answer.
Let it die on the vine, was hers.
I ran my forefinger around the rim of my flute, then down the crystal stem and back up, insistently. The family crest engraved on my signet ring caught the flickers of candlelight. She kept opening her mouth to criticize me, so I silenced it with mine. This time her tongue slipped past my lips, coddling mine, sending fresh jolts of pleasure to my core. Regrettably, she soured my hope by pulling back. I didn’t discourage because she didn’t take to her heels, she started clearing the table as if nothing monumental had happened.
Rolling my shoulders, I blew out deep, steady breaths. I couldn’t decide whether I should spend the night or go home, or what the ramifications would be of either decision. An employee’s widow. In retrospect, looking back at that moment of indecisiveness, the glassiness in Valerie’s eyes was the deciding factor. I was taller than her, stooped a little to brush my lips lightly against her neck then gave her a quick bite. I don’t know who removed it, but I watched the pink pleated teddy nightie flutter to the ground. She shivered and moaned loudly, closing her eyes and dropping her head back, and it was settled.
