The New Rakes (12 page)

Kara had always seen Jon as an appendage to Ruby, one skinny half of a couple, never looked at him directly. Now he stood in front of her, vulnerable and exposed, and she let herself consider him as a man. He had a body full of nerves and muscle and sensation, and for sure his sex drive didn’t begin and end with Ruby.

Lina looped rope around his wrists and his body became something other than Jon – a man’s torso, a man’s flesh, bound and restrained. With his hands crossed over each other, Lina wound the rope back and forth, pulling it slowly under itself and tying it finally to leave one long trailing end.

Jon tugged, but his wrists were pinned fast. With that one knot, Kara was disarmed. She imagined herself pressing against Jon’s soft, glowing white skin. Now he was tied, it seemed he could finally look at her and when their eyes met
it
shocked her. His expression held nothing of the soft affection or the playful sexiness when he looked at Ruby, but instead was full of the dangerous, predatory look of raw desire. His doe’s eyes were wet and his long lashes drifted down as Lina pulled on the rope to lead him back to the sofa.

‘Now, get on your knees,’ Lina was instructing again, and Kara was already rising to stand in front of him. They didn’t need to be choreographed any more; it seemed entirely natural for her to reach down and bury her hand in Jon’s short, choppy brown hair. She rubbed his head, as if stroking a pet, and could almost convince herself it was just a friendly gesture. Even when Jon sagged against her and Kara felt the heat of his body through the rubber dress, his cheek pressed into her stomach and his chin digging into her hip, she didn’t let go.

Meanwhile Lina murmured encouragement, Jerome took picture after picture and the music continued to pour into the room. Kara moved as her body dictated, arching her back and pulling Jon closer to her crotch, letting him squirm against her and struggle to stay upright. Lina still held the end of the rope and she circled the two of them, winding the length around Kara’s waist so that Jon’s hands were pulled upwards and held tight against her, his knuckles pushing on her pubic bone. He wriggled a little and his fists locked in place, a hard welcome press that Kara wanted to lean into.

She was sticky now, the dress rubbing against her where she’d sweated and pinching under the arms. Lina was pulling the rope around, trailing it over Kara’s shoulder and binding the two of them together. She handed the end to Kara.

‘Up to you how hard you pull,’ she said, letting her hand trail up Kara’s arm and squeezing her shoulder. ‘But if you keep the rope tight, it’ll look better in the pictures.’

‘Move slowly,’ Jerome called from behind the camera. ‘I want these crystal sharp.’

Kara held onto the rope, contemplating what would happen if she gave it one hard tug. Jon was slipping, the shiny and oiled surface of her dress not giving him enough purchase. If she didn’t help him, he’d be on the floor any minute. Thoughtfully, she pulled on the rope, dragged him up and felt the smooth rub of the rope as it slipped over her shoulder.

‘Careful,’ Jerome said. ‘You don’t want rope burns.’

Jon’s face was against her crotch now, breathing heavily, his shoulders heaving. They moved together, bound by the rope but separated by the dress, able to feel only the heat and undefined pressure of each other. Kara was grateful for the barrier between them. Without that dress, Jon’s skin would be against hers and they would cross a line that she knew wasn’t right.

‘Safe sex,’ she whispered to Jon, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice, ‘always wear rubber, right?’ He didn’t laugh, and Kara felt his bound fingers scrabble against her, searching for the outline of her pussy under the slippery surface. They could play-act, she thought, of course. This was just some dumb photo shoot. Just so long as nobody admitted her good friend was feeling her up. And nobody mentioned Ruby.

‘Wait,’ Jerome called, and ran to her with a large pair of shears. ‘Just an idea,’ he said, leaning down and cutting from the hem of the dress up towards Kara’s stomach. Jon watched, the blades dangerously close to his face. The rubber stretched under Jerome’s large hands and cut easily, the edges pulling back as the point of the scissors moved upwards, the blunt side of them cold against Kara’s skin. ‘There,’ Jerome said, peeling one half of the dress away.

Kara’s thigh was bared, the slit stopping just short of her pussy. She now felt keenly naked next to Jon’s face. This is when everything falls apart, she thought, even as exhilaration buzzed through her.

Her skin was still smeared with lubricant. Moisture matted the dark curls of her pubic hair and the cold air of the studio was fresh against her clit. Jon’s hot breath passed back and forth over her most tender spot. Her face burned and she held on to the rope so tight her hand hurt.

‘Damn,’ Jerome said, fiddling with his camera. ‘Run out of space. I never blow a memory card. You two are good.’ He started dismantling the camera, unscrewing it from the tripod and flipping open the side, while Kara and Jon tried desperately to hold the pose. ‘Give me a minute,’ Jerome told them, backing away towards the other room.

‘I’ll download the other pictures while we’re waiting’ Lina said, following him. She shook her head as though any hitch in her day was unforgivable.

And then Kara was alone with Jon and there was nothing to stop him from sighing and rolling an inch closer to her. It could have been an accident.

Neither of them spoke and Kara didn’t crack any jokes. She just tugged at the edge of her dress slightly so that she was exposed. So that Jon could dip his head down and press his mouth against her clit. One soft warm kiss. So slight she might have imagined it, just a brushing of his mouth against her. No tongue, no sucking, no licking or biting. Just a chaste and heated kiss. Jon groaned and Kara felt her heart swing in her chest, knowing it was wrong but tipping forwards all the same, winding her fingers into his hair and rocking against Jon’s face.

She was half praying for his tongue to dart out and curl into her. Fuck, fuck, fuck, she swore to herself. His cheek was smooth and cool against her thigh and her legs were so weak they were trembling. Kara gritted her teeth and let go of the rope. Jon slumped onto his knees, letting out a long shaky breath.

‘OK, all fixed,’ Jerome said, walking briskly back into the room. ‘We can start again.’ He looked back at Jon and Kara, now inches apart, the rope lying limp on the floor between them.

Kara clenched her teeth together and held herself very straight. She nodded at Jerome and moved back onto the couch, waiting for Lina to start shouting out directions again.

For the rest of the morning, as they moved through a variety of different poses, with rope wound around them and Jerome’s music playing faintly in the background, Kara remained silent. She and Jon touched and brushed against each other sometimes, but she held it back, refused to let the elecricity flow, closed her eyes and bit her lip. Play-acting, she repeated to herself, just play-acting.

When she and Jon left Jerome’s studio in the late afternoon and stood outside in the street, Kara felt a rush of relief and regret. Something clutched in her stomach and her skin was clammy from lubricant and sweat. Though she was back in her denim skirt, she could still feel where the dress had clung to her body.

‘Well, that was crazy, huh?’ she said to Jon, who was swinging around, looking for a bus stop.

He nodded. ‘The others’ll be glad they missed that session,’ he said, a note of forced humour in his voice.

Kara’s shoulders sagged. ‘They don’t … They don’t need to hear about it, Jon,’ she said. ‘Not all of it.’

Jon looked at her with his limpid eyes and now there was a touch of blue sadness in them. ‘No, you’re right. They don’t.’

‘Where are you heading?’ she asked.

‘Uh, back to your, to Ruby’s flat.’

‘Right.’

‘Are you going that way too?’

Kara shook her head and gave him a tight smile. ‘No. I think I need to cut loose. Besides, we’re recording tomorrow. I’m going to go and blow off some steam.’

With that, they parted. Kara watched Jon’s back as he disappeared down St Vincent Street, his hands jammed in his pockets as though he was carrying their secret buried deep within them.

Kara set off across the red tarmac of George Square. Tired, dazed and horny, she didn’t have a destination in mind, but her feet seemed to know exactly where she was going. Dusk had already fallen and the sky was dark turquoise over in the west, the traffic inching in that direction almost slower than she was walking. As she fished in her bag for her phone, Kara saw the red marks on her wrist, indentations where the rope had been coiled. The lines were perfectly even, the pattern as neat and delicate as a bracelet. As she called Mike’s number, she walked faster, cutting across the street by the station and dodging cars.

‘Mike,’ she said, raising her voice over the growling engines, ‘I want to see you.’

Up ahead, Kara recognised a guy she knew from basement gigs. She swerved up a side street before he saw her, slipped down the alley where the sound was muted and the lights murky.

‘Now,’ she said into her phone, ‘I need to see you right now.’

She sawed back and forth on her heel as she listened to Mike’s reply.

‘I’m at the studio. Come round.’

‘No, not there.’ Kara threw herself against the brick of the alley wall and sighed out loud. ‘Come and pick me up.’

‘Where are you?’

Kara looked around and found a street sign. ‘Heckler’s Wynd.’

‘Bad timing, Kara. The traffic’s awful.’

‘I’ll owe you.’

With her free hand, Kara rubbed her belly. She pressed her shoulder into the wall, in need of something soothing, or something to rub up against, she hardly knew any more. The whole afternoon had been sticky and difficult and maddeningly, strangely sexy and the rough dirty bricks at her back were at least solid and reassuring.

‘Something wrong?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ Kara leaned her cheek against the stone.

‘Lina sorted out the promo stuff?’

‘Yes. Some twisted kind of publicity that is.’ Her eyes darted up and down the street. She held the phone close to her ear, like it was a lifeline. Only Mike was playing out the line, not reeling her in. She took one deep breath and asked him straight out. ‘Mike, please come get me.’

Kara hung up and closed her eyes. The poky little alley was a dodgy hiding place, but out in the street she had felt the city closing in around her. She kept imagining the hurt expression on Ruby’s face that morning, and then Jon, nuzzling at her, kissing her, crossing that line from friend to potential lover. It gave her a pang in her heart and a tingle in her clit at the same time. And Mike’s voice was like honey poured in her ear, soothing her but also leading her into dark and tangled fantasies. Woven through all the fantasies she had of what he would do to her and what she would do to him was the spectre of Lina, smiling that poisonous smile and running a black silky rope through her hands.

‘I’m stuck in a sex farce,’ she said out loud, shaking her head. She would almost have managed a laugh, if her next thought
hadn’t
instantly been the one she’d been trying not to have for the past twenty-four hours.

Among all the bit players crowding out the feverish theatre of Kara’s imagination, there was one that hovered on the edge of her mind, in the background but never far away. One sullen and petulant guitarist with his hair in his eyes. She could never quite manage to forget Tam, the weird mix of irritation and glee and desire she felt every time they were together.

This time, though, she wasn’t just thinking of his nice fat dick and his Michelangelo mouth. She could see him with his three-day-old stubble and those hard angry brown eyes, walking off into the sunset like he never cared if he saw her again. It wrenched something inside her, felt so wrong that she pushed the memory aside into some shadowy place where she didn’t have to think about it.

Mike was on his way with his big swish car and a whole evening of dirty lavish sex already planned out. She wouldn’t have to think at all once she saw him, just let her worked-up, sticky, tired and rope-marked body take over. Kara knew what she needed – huge, mind-blowing, breathtaking, bone-crunching orgasms. Mike couldn’t get there fast enough.

11

‘
DO YOU OFTEN
call people and demand they drop everything to come and fuck you?’

‘Only when I’m horny,’ Kara said, leaning back into the warm air-conditioned bliss of Mike’s car.

‘You’re recording tomorrow.’

‘I know.’

‘You need to be on form.’

‘I need to be fucked.’

Mike shook his head and pulled away from the kerb, sliding the long car smoothly into the stream of traffic.

‘What, I’m too crude all of a sudden?’ Kara said, noticing the way Mike’s jaw flexed as though he were chewing a piece of gristle.

‘I might have had other plans,’ he said, slamming the gear-stick into third. ‘I do have things to do that don’t include doing you.’

‘Such as?’

Mike’s mouth was set in a thin line. He concentrated on the road and, for a moment, Kara had the urge to fling open the door and jump right back out again. She sighed and rolled her head against the seat.

‘I’ve had a long weird afternoon and I just want to get … oblivious, you know?’

The boiling mess of worry and excitement that had been rolling around inside Kara all day wasn’t calming. She was wired and jittery, and she knew that a stiff cock hammering
into
her would help, at least for a couple of hours. She reached out to feel for Mike’s zipper, tugged it open and slipped a hand inside his trousers. His prick was curled in there, warm and half hard. He might be pissed off, but he wasn’t pushing her away. The heavy handful of his flesh in her palm was already reassuring and she worked at him steadily, bringing him to life.

‘So I’m your therapy, am I?’ Mike asked, even as he shifted his legs further apart to give her more space. They were merging onto the expressway now, turning under the massive concrete columns of the Kingston Bridge onto the road that snaked along the riverside.