Trading Tides (3 page)

His smile was weak, knowing. I didn't cringe. However often I was scared he'd see right through me, each time he did, I was glad. It turned my insides into something warm and writhing and happy.

I gulped down a sip of wine, the sharp taste making me shudder.

"Put your hand on your cheek."
 

His voice went quiet and rasping, and I would have missed it, had it not been for the headset. It fed even the softest sounds straight into my auditory canal.
 

He was watching me intently, and—like every other time he'd uttered an instruction, a command, a request—my body reacted on auto-pilot, short-circuiting the rational, questioning part of my brain.

"Close your eyes," he went on, "That's my hand, isn't it? Tonight it's mine. It's me who's touching you, pet. I'm right there."

I felt it, too. For one glorious, suspended moment I was with him. I smelled the sea, the wood polish, the salt, and my hand—
his
hand—felt stronger, more calloused than just a second before. It radiated heat and safety, all the way into the pit of my stomach—and then tears welled up in my eyes and the sensation was gone.

"Are you okay, pet?"

I nodded.
 

"I'm fine. I miss you."
 

Two contradictory statements, but he didn't correct me. This time, I kept his gaze, and maybe he felt it too, the rope that spanned between us, and how hard it was to keep it taut and strong the further we were apart from each other.

His lips curled into a sad smile, and I was grateful that he didn't try to make me feel better, didn't say anything. In my mind, I was back at that little train station; in my mind, I'd cared less about standing my ground, about declaring my independence and I'd returned with him to his cottage, leaning my head on his shoulder on the way back, not allowing this distance to seep between us, until the time we spent together in his world was like something that happened to somebody else, intangible and out of reach.

"I miss you, too, Iris. I miss having you here."

I looked up, and it didn't matter that it was what I'd needed to hear. It still wrapped iron bands around my chest, made it hard, made it painful to breathe. I licked my lips, rubbed my face.
 

This is what I do: if it gets too intense, I run from it.
 

"So, this cooking thing," I started, putting on a brave, fluttering smile. "I hope we're starting on a pretty basic level here, because I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing."

III

There was a mountain of dishes in the sink; the entire flat smelled like lemon, cilantro and spices, and I was drunk and full, swaying as I carried the laptop over to the bed. It came down hard on my nightstand, and I giggled as I tilted the screen up.

"This is really not a flattering angle."
 

I scrunched up my nose as I inspected the little moving image of myself next to his face, the way I stood there, hands awkwardly on my hips. "I just thought you should, you know, know that before..."

Paul chuckled, shaking his head and I fell silent. He'd moved, too, and settled himself on the living room floor. I imagined him sitting cross-legged, his spine straight and strong, his fingers just out of frame maybe rolling up a rare cigarette or resting on his crotch. The thought filled me with envy, with longing like a constant, persistent ache that lodged itself under the arch of my ribs, pressing on my diaphragm and making it hard to breathe.

I knew what his expression meant, too. I was supposed to stop talking, or at least to stop criticizing myself, but as I’d discovered before: back at his cottage that day, I’d reached a mindset I just couldn’t access over the phone. It was a place where all I’d wanted to do was please him, where his command was literally impossible to deny. But I wasn’t at his cottage; I was drunk and both feeling bittersweet and lonely, and well aware that the best I could hope for that night was a lackluster orgasm at my own hands. I hated that it changed things, diminished their intensity, but it did.

“I also just ate a lot…” I added, fingering the hem of my shirt.

“I know what you look like, pet.”
 

His reminder was uttered gently, but I still fell silent, bit my lip as he went on. “I held you. I bathed you. I felt your flesh quiver under the impact of my hand. I didn’t ask you to strip in order to judge your appearance.”

I knew that, of course I did. It was easiest to blame the wine and the absence of his hands on my skin; I didn’t like to think of myself as a person with body issues. It felt so beside the point most of the time—until a bad webcam was about to film me stripping off my clothes, and the man watching was someone I really wasn’t done trying to impress yet.

“Here, let me just…” I picked the laptop up again, plucked a few books from the shelf and set it back down at the height of my chest. It was better that way and I breathed in deeply.

“Are you ready, pet?” he asked. I recognized the tiny stress on the last word; it stirred the part of me that wanted to sink to my knees and call him Sir. I shuddered and took a step closer to the camera.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Then remove your clothes for me. Now."

I shivered, but not from the cold. His Thai food was still keeping me warm from within, and the radiator was on. Outside, a few snowflakes plummeted to the ground; they were wet and too heavy to fly. Sucking my bottom lip between my teeth, I closed my eyes. He was still watching, and I was still
his
.

I pushed my fingers under the hem of my shirt, pulled it up over my stomach and held my breath. My hair crackled with dry winter air static. The shirt fell to the ground. In the one suspended moment that it blinded me, I slipped a rung deeper into his gravitational pull. My breath came slower now, more audibly, and the tingling between my legs intensified.

"Come closer, pet," he whispered. I could hardly hear it, even though I'd turned the volume up to max, but while I was undressing for him, the headset was in the way. I took a step closer to the camera, then another. My face, my shoulders, the swell of my breasts filled the frame.

"Close your eyes."

I nodded, memorized his face one last time and then let my world go dark. I sucked in a loud breath; there was a breeze that ran through the apartment; somewhere below me, a door was slammed. I listened hard for each change in the crackle of the speakers, waited, swayed on the spot as the wine swirled in my head.

"Imagine I'm coming up behind you," he whispered, and something like relief, like need, like longing shot through my system. "Reach into your hair and pull it up... yes, like that. I want to kiss the back of your neck, run my fingers down your spine. Can you feel my breath on your shoulder?"

I nodded without thinking. Of course I couldn't and yet, I could, too. It was warm and smelled of wine; it ran up my neck and promised lips and teeth that would fall on my skin at any moment.

"Good." He was silent while my breath picked up, while goose bumps rose on my skin. "Take your free hand and brush your bra strap off your shoulder. That's where I want to kiss you. Bite you. Can you feel it?"

"Yes, Sir." It was the brush of my own fingers, I think, or the memory of it, the aftershock of touch that was magnified by the darkness in which I held myself. That was the rational explanation, but I could only half believe it. The rest of me was sure, somehow, in some metaphysical way, that he really did stand behind me. Not Paul's physical body, of course, but still Paul—in thought, like a ghost. He couldn't touch, not directly, but he was there and I could feel him. He drove my heartbeat, labored my breath.

"Take it off for me now. Drop it on the floor. Don't open your eyes."

The bra left my fingertips. I heard the flutter of lace as it hit the carpet. The breeze hardened my nipples, and I think the first hesitant whimpers invaded my breath.

"Are you thinking of me?"

I nodded again. "Yes, Sir."

"Tell me about it."

I hesitated, not sure what he wanted to hear. My mouth opened once but then I closed it again, realizing I was about to repeat only what he had told me.

"In your imagination, pet, what happens next? What do I do to you?"

Swaying again, I licked my lips once. The answer to this was easier, almost shockingly so. I'd done little else the last few weeks: thinking of him, imagining what he would do, how he would kiss me, hold me, how he would hurt me.
 

He was with me in my morning shower, in the bathroom stall at work and the small bistro at lunch. He rode the tube home with me and took off my work clothes. He ate with me, read with me, slept with me. Imagining what he would do to me had become my peaceful place; it was where my mind slipped off to whenever I didn't force it to think of other things.

"Your hand, you hold me by the back of my neck," I whispered; then I realized that the microphone had to pick up my voice, and stepped closer to the laptop, tried to raise my voice a little. "You push me against the wall; my cheek rubs over the wallpaper. You pull up my skirt, find me... find me wet."

"I always find you wet." He was smiling, I could tell by his voice. It was raspy and wanting, and I smiled, too, because more than ever, he was with me now.

"Show me. Get rid of that skirt and show me."

This time I lost my balance, staggered out of frame. My knee bumped against the bed and I whined, wriggling out of my skirt and tights. I still smelled the laundry detergent in my sheets, the lavender-scented candle that was supposed to help me sleep.
 

"Are you okay?" He was trying not to laugh and it struck me as so funny, I tried to barricade my throat against the giggle that was brewing in my stomach. It was no use though, and he joined in, loud and barking. His laughter was like a physical sensation, I don't know how else to describe it, but there were only a few things that made him feel closer, more like he was right there with me.

"Yes, Sir," I finally answered, beaming at the camera. I realized then that my eyes were open and that wiped the smile off my face so fast, his laughter doubled. Maybe we were terrible at this Skype sex thing—or maybe, just maybe, we were amazing.
 

"Leave your eyes open. I want you to see this, too. Show me."

I exhaled an audible breath, then reached between my legs. Even the passing touch that brushed over my clit made me moan. I wasn't usually so loud, but something in Paul brought it out of me. It heightened the sensation—to vocalize it like that.

When my fingers reemerged, they were both coated thickly in viscous fluid. It glittered in the overhead lighting and Paul told me to hold it closer to the camera. I could see him smiling wistfully, and I was almost sure that we were thinking about the same thing: that evening at his house when he'd spread me out on his kitchen table to feast on me.

I shivered at the memory.

"Taste it," he whispered. Again, I could hardly hear him, but it wasn't necessary. I'd read his desire in his eyes. "Lick them clean for me, pet. Like you'd lick my cock clean."

I held my breath, relished that moment of anticipation, of imagining him here. I would kneel, not stand, and he would be bigger, better—he would smell like Paul and then he'd push his cock deep into my mouth and all thought would stop.
 

My mouth watered and when I finally brought my fingers to my lips, my mind was ready to accept the pretense with ease. I sucked them into my mouth, tasted salt and need. It was my kind of salt, not his, but in my state of mind the difference was negligible.

"Am I still there with you?" he asked, and I looked up at the hoarseness in his tone. There was an aching quality to his eyes, it flickered past, hurt somewhere deep in my chest, and then he smiled again as though it had never been there at all.

I nodded.

"What do I taste like?"

"Me..." I whispered. "You taste like me, Sir."

"Yes, I do." There was a pause, a long one, and I let my hands fall back to my sides. The tips of my hair brushed over my shoulders, then my neck, like a feather in his hand. "Pick up the laptop again, take me to bed with you. Don't forget the headset."

I took a deep breath, nodded and a smile crossed my face. It was the way he phrased it, of course, that brought the ache again.

Paul's face came to rest by my pillow and I curled up on my side, facing him.

"Hi, baby," he grinned, and I had to restrain my hand, curl it into a fist and hold it against my thigh to stop myself from reaching out and caressing his face on the screen. I had enlarged it to cover it all, and he was now as close to actually there as I could make him—his face almost life-size in front of me, his voice, his breath in my ear.

"Hi," I purred back. My fingers inched to the corner of the laptop.

"Tell me how much you touched yourself last week."

I hesitated, but only for a moment. The hint of a grin spreading over my face was clue enough, I suppose, but he asked me because he wanted to hear, because he liked the way my voice went brittle and nervous when I confessed. It had been a long week, aching for him between texts, guilty each time I sent a new one because it might distract him from his work. I knew how I was with deadlines.

"A... lot, Sir" I started, rubbing my nose.

"Every day?"
 

I nodded. My tongue snuck out to lick my lower lip. "Sometimes... not just once."

"And you did it... here in bed?"
 

I nodded.

"Where else?"

I was getting better about blushing, but the nervous, delighted feeling in my chest was still there, almost like the first time he'd interrogated me like this. His voice was always calm and collected, and sometimes, it went a little raspier and then I knew he wanted me badly. When he questioned me, though, he acquired a hint of an officious tone that went right through me, tingled in confusing places.

"In... in the shower." I swallowed down a lump in my throat. "And... at my desk, um. At work once... in the bathroom, but I didn't come there, I was too nervous. I just needed... I just needed..."