31 Flavors of Kink (2 page)

But we have a strong relationship. Internally I pump my fist in the air to accentuate it. We don’t need sex. We have love, a foundation, commitment.

But no orgasms, my libido is quick to point out.

I sigh and briefly wonder if there’s a section in the phone book for “Dom Trainer.”

A hand snakes under my shirt and around my waist, warm against my bare skin. Nick’s breath sifts across my ear. Every muscle in my body tenses. I know what he wants. His cues are not so subtle.

I am in a constant state of guilt for always denying him. Tonight I will give it the old college try. His hand reaches my breasts and kneads one gently. I feel a tingle between my legs. Yes, that’s good. I can do this.

His fingers tweak my nipple, stimulating me in an uncomfortable way. I stiffen, then squirm a bit, reflexively, before forcing myself to remain still. Nick takes this as excitement. He kisses my neck. I melt into the mattress, looking up at him as he turns me onto my back. My neck, my ears, my collarbone—those are my erogenous zones. I wish he’d bite me. Just the thought of it makes my thighs clench. For some reason, I think the pinch of pain will help somehow. That’s based on instinct, not logic. How could pain make me relax?

He pulls my nipples again, and all I can think of is a cow being milked. I groan, but not in bliss. It’s really more of an irritated growl. But I can’t find it in me to say no. Everything from that point on makes me more and more uncomfortable. I’m ticklish and sensitive. It doesn’t feel like my husband’s loving hands on me but grating sandpaper. I want to crawl out of my skin. I tense at every touch, every kiss. I can’t help it. My body is a ball of anxiety. I will it to calm down. This is my husband, I yell in my head. He won’t hurt me!

No, but you want him to
, a voice inside me yells back, smirking.

Ugh!
This is so frustrating, I want to cry. And the worst part…it isn’t just me who’s suffering. It’s Nick, the man I love.

He enters me, and I fight to keep my thighs open. My face scrunches in pain. He stops and looks down—so much love and concern in his eyes that I choke on my guilt. I wish I could beat myself with a paddle. I’d deserve it.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Uh-huh.” I give a shaky smile.

He ponders me for a moment. “I know what you need. Lube.”

I sigh as he reaches under the bed to get it. Yes, I am that woman—the one who’s as dry as a desert. Cold. Impassionate.

“Better?” he asks, rubbing his erection at my opening after lubing up.

I nod. I hate lying, but I’ve ruined this too many times before. I’m petrified he’ll cheat on me if I don’t put out. So I grit my teeth and take it. The lube doesn’t help the pain much, but it keeps me from tearing. I stare at the ceiling and wait for it to be over. He finishes inside me. I am blank. Numb.

He rolls off me, then goes to clean himself.

I turn on my side and curl up in a ball under the blanket, hiding this horrible wrongness clawing at my soul. He climbs in beside me. If he hugs me, I’ll cry.

“I love you, honey,” he whispers in my ear.

I hate myself.

I fall asleep with the salty taste of tears in my mouth.

* * * *

Bethany Morris is doing far better than I. Bethany is twenty-three and having the time of her life with Mike and Mistress Helvetica. I’m just past thirty, and I’ve never had an orgasm with my husband. Bethany is a size zero with long blonde shiny hair and bright blue eyes. Lucky bitch. I’m a too-curvy plain Jane with unmanageable brown hair I keep cut in a bob and dull brown eyes. Though I used to be cute and perky, now my boobs sag, and I found a few gray hairs in the mirror the other day.

It’s nine at night, and I’m in bed reading
Training the Dom
. I hate Bethany Morris. I hate her and I admire her. My lips are pursed as I read. Sure, the Kate Moss look-alike can get her man to go Dom. I sigh in frustration and click to a different book. Nick comes upstairs and sits on the bed.

“Whatcha reading?”

I open my mouth to spout a generic answer I know he won’t question—romance—but Bethany Morris screams in my head.
Do it!
she says.
Tell him the truth!

I consider it a moment. What would he say if I told him I’m reading a naughty book? It’s only a book. If he looks at me in disgust, I’ll just say I didn’t know what the book was about when I bought it. Yeah. That’ll work. This will be a test. An experiment. Like when Bethany told Mike her friends were going to a BDSM club to see what he’d say.

I look up. “Um, an erotic novel.”

His brows pop up to his hairline. “Really?”

Figures he’d be interested. He is a guy after all. “Yeah. It’s about…” Does he know what BDSM is? “Bondage and stuff.”

I stop breathing as I study his face. My heartbeat pounds in my ears. My fingers shake as I clutch my Kindle. It all comes down to this.

“
Hmm.
” He lies back against the pillows and grabs the TV remote. “That’s hot.”

I’m reeling. Hot? Did he say hot?

We’ve been married for five years—five years of bad sex. Half the time I end up in tears. Nick comforts me, always, but I can hear his frustration. I can see his disappointment. It isn’t easy for me to talk about. Sex is shameful. I know it’s supposed to be joyous and beautiful and magnificent, but I only ever feel pain, shame, and guilt.

Nick’s frustration has gotten the better of him in the past. We went on a romantic weekend getaway a couple years ago. It was dark in the bedroom of the hotel. He was on top of me. I started to moan, loudly. He covered my mouth and shushed me. I panicked. Tears welled in my eyes and sobs escaped my throat, even though I tried to contain them. Nothing like a crying lump beneath you to kill the mood.

“How long do I have to keep living with your trauma?”
he asked.

It was a valid question. One I had no answer to. I was just as tired of it as he was. The rape happened when I was thirteen, yet it felt as though I were living with it every day. The endless therapy sessions had helped me get on with life, but this, my sex life, was still in ruins.

I give my head a shake, leaving those memories behind. He just told me my erotic bondage book was hot. I have to go with this while I can. I scoot closer to him.

“You think it’s hot?” I ask.

He doesn’t take his eyes off the screen when he answers casually, “Yeah.”

“Well, what else do you think is hot? Do you have fantasies?” Maybe if I do one for him, he’ll do one for me. It’s a good strategy, I praise myself.

He shrugs and looks down at me. “I don’t know.”

I fight the urge to roll my eyes. He’s never been the creative type. Why did I expect him to divulge some dark, sensual fantasy?

No, I’m the imaginative one, as evidenced by my habitual kinky dreams.

Still, I urge, “Nothing? There’s absolutely nothing you’ve dreamed of that you’d like me to do?”

He pauses the TV and turns to regard me quizzically. “I’d be happy if regular sex pleased you.”

My gaze drops to my hands that are fumbling with the elastic on my Kindle cover. Regular sex. What does that even mean? But yeah, I’d be happy with that too. I have no answer for him. Again. But I’m desperate to please him. I’d do anything. Maybe if I tried harder.

I sigh. I know these thoughts are useless. I can’t make myself enjoy something so carnal, so intimate, despite it being attached to what should be feelings of safety and love. But I’m not ready to give up. I recall my mother telling me men hit their sexual peak in their early twenties; women do in their early thirties. I turned thirty a few months ago. Maybe there’s hope for me yet.

I put my Kindle down and snuggle in close to Nick. I bury my face in his chest, unable to look him in the eye. Inhaling a breath of courage, I mutter softly, “What if I want more?”

I close my eyes and wait.

He shifts underneath me. “More?”

I nod.

“Sit up so I can see you.”

I shake my head.

He sighs. “What do you want more of? Sex?”

No, I want you to order me around, tie me up, and beat me.
That will not go over well. One step at a time, I tell myself. “Well, maybe we could try some bondage?” It comes out as a meek question—strange for me because usually I don’t do meek.

I wait with bated breath for his response. Worst-case scenario—he makes a noise of disgust and calls me a freak. But that’s not Nick. And I am kind of a freak.

“Okay,” he says.

My eyes fly open, and I look up at him. “Okay?”

He shrugs. “Sure, we can try it.”

Inside, I am grinning. Outside, I take his cue and shrug. “Okay.”

Chapter Three

Nothing happens for far too long. I’m impatient. I dream of my Nick turning into a fictitious Dom overnight. Even in my dream, I snort in disbelief. I’d be happy if he yanked on my hair once in a while. I have no expectation that he’ll become the knot-tying, whip-wielding, stern-talking quintessential dominant male. Does that person even exist outside of erotic novels?

A week later, I bring it up again. He’s got his laptop in bed. It’s ten at night, but he’s most likely doing work. The man could challenge the president for a hardworking award. I’ve told him on more than one occasion that his job is his second wife. But he makes a good living as marketing manager for a corporation, and I’m grateful for his work ethic.

I interrupt him. “So do you need some ideas? For the bondage? I can help you.” I start to ramble. “I’ve read a lot about—I mean, I’ve read some things, and I can get you started…”

I trail off when he types “sex toys” into the Web browser. My stomach flutters like a butterfly, and my mouth drops open. We surf online for a while. It’s a good gauge for me to see what he’s into. I eye the ankle cuffs and the paddles. He eyes the vibrators and the cock rings.

My heart sinks. We are into completely different things. This will never work. I have resolved myself to the fact that we are not sexually compatible. An optimist I am not.

Why do I want kinky sex anyway? Being tied down, helpless, at the mercy of another. It doesn’t make logical sense for someone who’s been raped. But something deep inside me wants to be dominated. Controlled. And even more disturbing, I crave pain. I am a walking paradox of messed-up sexuality.

But I will never tell him that. It’s my deepest, darkest secret.

“Read me a scene from one of your books,” he says after we’ve purchased a vibrator.

I blanch. “What?”

“Read me something. I wanna know what turns you on. Because what turns you on turns me on.”

I’m horrified by the thought. “No.”

He gives me his megawatt, four-hundred-thousand-dollar smile, and my will melts away. It’s just not fair.

I think through my list of books and find one that’s relatively tame. An alpha werewolf ties his mate to his bed with silk ties. Then he punishes her by bringing her to the brink of climax but not letting her come. It’s a delicious power play that has me hot and bothered. I realize the word “punishment” is used a ridiculous number of times. I flush at each one. By the end of the passage, a shirtless Fabio-type has threatened to spank the feisty heroine before she submits; then he takes her roughly from behind as he bites her shoulder and declares that she’s his. My voice is tight by the time I’m through.

I look at Nick. Are his eyes glittering? Even more telling, I look down and see his erection straining against his boxer shorts. He’s turned on?

I’m perplexed. I thought men were turned on by visuals—porn and strip clubs. His mouth turns up at the corners; then he pounces, pinning me beneath him. His hands thrust mine over my head and hold them there. He is strong. He is powerful. I am in heaven.

He looks down at me with lust-filled eyes. “So you like this?”

My heart is thudding so loud I know he must hear it. I swallow hard, then answer, breathless, “Yes.”

He narrows his eyes. “
Hmm.
I can work with this.” He bends down and sucks one nipple, then the other through my shirt. They harden. The wet heat from his mouth engulfs them. As he keeps sucking, the heat seems to swirl up into his mouth, then shimmy deliciously down to my core. I gasp and arch and try to squirm away. He adjusts his hold on my wrists and keeps me pinned.

Mmm…

I should be in a panic. I’m trapped, and I hate my nipples being sucked. When I tug to free my hands, testing his grip, I realize he isn’t letting me go. I have no choice but to accept it. The thought makes me shudder, and liquid floods my underwear. I shouldn’t want these things. My mind knows this, but my libido is screaming,
Bite me, spank me, pull my hair! More, more, more!

I tell my libido to shut the hell up.

He kisses me hard, distracting me from my contrary thoughts. Then he releases me far too soon. This time, I’m sure it’s my eyes that are glittering.

His grin makes me smile. “This has definite possibilities.”

Joy bubbles up in my chest, and suddenly I’m the one with the megawatt four-thousand-dollar grin.

* * * *

The day my new vibrator comes in the mail, I have my period. Bloody sex is off the table for me. I have a lot of aversions, I am told. My mind rebels at this thought. Surely refusing anal and oral isn’t uncommon either? Maybe one day I’ll work on this. Not today.

Nick is beyond excited that our package came. His grin is infectious as he walks into the living room and snatches the laptop, where I surf for new books, from my hands. The pink penis-shaped rubber device is daunting, considering I have a hard enough time accepting his actual penis.

This must be evident on my face, because he says, “Relax. We can play with it outside first.”

I know he doesn’t mean outside the house. My clit tingles at the idea. He switches it on. It has three settings. Shaky, really shaky, and whoa-hold-on-tight.

His attack catches me completely off guard. One moment I am admiring our purchase, and the next he is on top of me, his hand in my hair, pinning me in place on the couch. The vibrator touches my nipple, and I whimper.

His voice is at my ear. “Later this week, I’m gonna tie you up and torture you with this until you scream my name.”