Trading Tides (4 page)

"What did you need, pet?"

"You," I breathed and cringed. "Sir."
 

It was the truest answer I could give, but I still wasn't sure I was supposed to say things like this. It seemed too close, too needy a thing to feel for someone I'd known for about a month, had kissed only twice. Was it normal that someone like that could live in my head twenty-four-seven already? "And... I don't know, touch? Relief... just for a moment."

He nodded, and didn't press. A tenderness washed over his features and this time, my fingers made it all the way to the bottom of the screen before I could reign them in again.

"And did you do as I told you?"

"Yes, Sir." The two words were like a tiny explosion, a popped balloon. He smiled, but didn't speak again. By now, I knew to interpret his silence as a command to go on, to elaborate and I took a deep breath, gathering my thoughts. "I kept you in my mind, Sir. Every time. I made my hand become your hand, I imagined your voice. I... called your name when I came."

"That's my good girl."

I beamed, glowing under his praise.

"What was I like in your head?"

"It changes." I bit my lip, my gaze wandering to the window as I thought about my answer. He never rushed me. I think he understood that sometimes I needed to think before I could speak.
 

The snow had grown thicker over the last twenty minutes, thicker and softer, fluttering past my window. It was late in the season for snow, mid March, but the snow didn't seem to care. I swallowed again to moisten my throat, then looked back at the camera.
 

"Sometimes I think of you as you are now, like you're there on the phone talking me through it. You tell me what to do; my hand is just, you know, your tool. But sometimes, especially when I can't... um... touch myself immediately, like on the tube or in a meeting or doing the dishes, I imagine being with you. Sometimes I just replay what already happened. Sometimes, it's all new. I think about..."

My glottis closed there, and I had to force myself to go on when the silence stretched. "I think about when it hurt."

"Did you like that?"

Another nod, and I gasped for air.
 

"Yeah. I... I liked that. I mean, liked it because you... I liked it because of you." It was another one of those answers that the logical, analytical part of my brain wasn't satisfied with. It didn't make sense, that wasn't the right way to explain it at all, but I didn't have the words to translate my feelings; they resisted clear-cut explanations that would rob them of their mystery.
 

"Try harder," he whispered as though he'd read my mind, or more likely my face. I tended to scrunch up my nose when I thought about something; he'd told me that before—whispered it tenderly just before I fell asleep.

"I... I tried, you know, doing it to myself." This time I did blush. My clit tingled at the flash of humiliation, and I still don't know why it was so much easier to confess that I had my hands between my legs every free minute, than to admit to trying to spank myself with a hairbrush.

"And?"

"It... wasn't the same." I shook my head; my ear rubbed against the pillow. "It was... hollow. When you do it, there are so many dimensions and layers to the sensation and I don't know, it made everything go quiet in my head. But when I did it, it was just that. The sound echoed through the bathroom, but..." I shrugged, shook my head. "It wasn't you."

He nodded, and I knew this time he wasn't waiting for me to go on. He, too, had to follow his thoughts sometimes. In the end, he gave me a small, deep smile.

"Don't worry, little pet. I'll give you a fix when I see you."

His words shot through me, pulsed in my clit and I sighed. Tears welled up and went away and I scooted closer to his face on the screen.

"Yes, Sir. Thank you."

"What's on your mind?" I shivered when he said it, rubbed my face with the palm of my hand. "I can tell something is."

"I guess..." I shook my head, squeezed my thighs together for some kind of relief. I wanted to cry and to come, and that heady mixture made me dizzy with need. "I just... It's normal, isn't it? I don't think I'm a masochist, I don't want to be a masochist, but I can't stop thinking about... when you..."

My voice gave out, my hand inched to my stomach and then I stopped it short.

"When I made you hurt?"

I took a deep breath. His voice was calm and quiet and the headphones fed it right into my ears, into my veins and my nervous system. My heart started to slow down.

"Yeah. Yeah... that. And, you know, and cry."

"And cry. That's part of it. If you're that kind of girl."

I bit my lip. "Do you like that kind of girl?"

He held my gaze for one suspended moment, and he chuckled, shook his head and sighed. "And here I thought you were supposed to be the smart one. Of course I do. Can't you tell?"

I wrinkled my nose at him—and could just resist poking my tongue out. But some kind of tension loosened in the set of my shoulders and my head felt lighter on the pillow. I exhaled a sigh; my fingers ran along the edge of the laptop, caressing the closest piece to him they could.

"And baby girl?"

"Yes, Sir?"

"Don't do that again. If you try to hurt yourself, you only do so at my behest, understood?"

I nodded again. My face felt hot and pulsing. "Yes, Sir."

"Good girl. No need to make things more confusing than they already are, okay?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Now, what about the other thing?" He shifted in his seat, maybe crossed his legs the other way over. Then he reached for a mug of tea. His eyes never left the screen. "Did you do as I asked you to do? I hope you didn't forget."

I shook my head forcefully, as my hand formed a small fist in my sheets. "No Sir, I... I did not forget. I did... as you said."

"Tell me."

"I... I practiced." This was ridiculous. I was a grown woman, I could say the words. "I pushed a... a finger into my," I coughed to buy time. "My ass, Sir."

"Atta girl. Was that really so hard to say?"

The answer was yes, but I shook my head, contrite enough to at least not lie out loud. There it was again, the quick pulsing sensation in my neck and my temples as my heart rate picked up.

"What did it feel like?"

"Good. Um, good, Sir. It felt... you know, good."

He chuckled, but something flickered across his face. I knew then that I was going to be punished. I didn't know how or when, but it would happen. Nothing too big, small enough to befit falling so far below my usual level of eloquence.

"Show me," he rasped then and I squeezed my eyes shut. There it was. My fingers started to tremble, but he didn't stop. "Get your lube and come back. I want to see how your practice is coming along, pet."

It was still on the nightstand, so that wouldn’t buy me any time. My heart raced and I felt dizzy when I rolled onto my back and reached for the small tube. It still had that new look to it, glittering and almost full, still with edges sharp enough to cut my skin.

Paul hadn’t moved when I turned back to the screen. He was watching me intently and I held the tube up, struggling for words. I tried to remind myself of that afternoon in his cottage. We were in his bathroom, my ass was red and sore. I’d cried a lot and felt empty and floating and all his. He’d bent me over in the shower, started to clean me there. I remembered it starkly: his fingers, the water, the smacking sound thrown back by the bathroom walls when he rubbed, fast and hard. In and out.

I’d loved it then, and later spent accumulative hours getting off to that memory, and still—it was different when I had to do it. Even doing it alone was different. Dirty. And I cringed at the idea of his eyes on me, witnessing.

He knew though. Maybe he’d seen the look on my face when he’d first told me to start practicing, or heard the flutter in my voice. But he knew. Just like I knew he was making it hard for me on purpose—because I’d seen that in his face. It seemed contradictory, but it made me miss him more, want him more.

“Are you going to be good?” He paused, let his eyes wander to the tub of lube and then up to the camera, so that it felt like he was staring directly into my eyes. “Are you going to be a good girl, and show me how obedient you can be?”
 

I nodded so hard my chin hit my chest. “Yes. Yes, Sir.”

Of course, I did. I wanted him to be proud of me—even for something as small, as embarrassing as that. I wanted to prove that I was a good girl,
his
good girl and I don’t think I could have born letting him down. He knew that, too.

“Do you… want to see?” I asked, stammering and feeling stupid, but this time he didn’t make me say the actual words. He shook his head.

“I don’t want you to move. I want you to stay right here, looking at me. Look right at the camera when you finger your ass for me, pet. Do it now.”

His words shot through me, pulsed softly in my clit. Damn him. Damn his beautiful face and his hands and his voice and how much I wanted him. I unclipped the lube with shaking hands, squeezed a bit on my finger and reached back. I was already lying on my side and it was easier when I pulled my knees up into a fetal position.

I looked into his face for a suspended moment, he nodded and I looked up at the tiny black eye of the camera.

I pushed my finger against the ring of muscles. I flinched, fought against the need to squeeze my eyes shut. I breathed through it, heady and good and wrong.

“Deeper. Push it deeper.”

His voice was hoarse, and I nodded, swallowing against the dizzying need. I moaned when I pushed my fingers past the knuckle. The camera lens blurred before my eyes.

“In and out now, slowly.”

Yes, it felt dirty, and wrong in all the right ways. His directions made it easier, though; my hand was his tool, I just moved it, and with each new word he uttered, it felt more like he was fingering my ass, not me.

“Have you tried two before?”

“No, Sir,” I coughed out, but already, I was begging him to make me try it then. Not with words, I wasn’t quite ready for that, but with my eyes and my voice.
 

He hesitated, watched me as I fucked myself. He hadn’t told me to stop and so I kept going, and each time I pushed the knuckle back and forth my breath grew shallower and another little moan escaped my throat.

“Try it for me now, pet. Two fingers.”

His word was my code of law, my world, and I obeyed. I sounded like an animal, a guttural groan that echoed through my apartment, and then I pushed harder and rolled my eyes back into my head. It felt full, and hard.

“There you go, that’s a good girl. That’s my beautiful girl.”

And so I pushed harder. I fucked myself until the world around me started to fade, until it was made up only of Paul and I and the aching, desperate need to come.

“Please…” I know I said it, whined it, gasped it between moans, over and over. “Please, Sir?”

“Please what, pet?”

“Please… I need, please, please may I come?”

It could have been a rote, trite game but it wasn’t, not then. My free hand was literally shaking, yearning to cup my cunt, to find a way to reach the apex of this swirling mountain of need. “Please?”

The words just came. They added to my pleasure and in the corner of my eyes I could see they added to his as well. He nodded, breathless himself.

“Yes. Yes, pet. Come for me.”

My fingers snapped to my clit, trapped it between middle and ring finger. Sparks went off behind my eyes. I rubbed harder, squirmed and spasmed there in full view of the camera.

“Now, pet,” he growled. “Come now.”

And so I did. His name was on my lips. Paul.
Paul.
My beautiful Paul. I howled it, and gasped it, and then it was over and I lay still while my cunt grabbed at the emptiness inside in pulsing contractions.

He groaned softly, a small, choked sound and I cracked my eyes open again, saw him reaching for a tissue, and smiled. I was jealous of that piece of paper, of his hand, stupid as that sounds. We smiled at each other, each still too far gone to speak.

He was inside of me, and I inside of him. Just a second, two, as we stared at each other's faces. For one moment there was no distance. We were one. But the orgasm faded, and like the tide rolling out, we were left apart and alone.

His arms weren't around me. His breath not on my skin. And as the afterglow cooled off, he wasn't there to keep me warm.

“I miss you…” I whispered. His eyes narrowed tenderly and he took a breath so deep I could see his chest extend all the way through the little screen.

"I'm almost done with this script," he said, "maybe you could get some time off... come be with me."

We had talked about this every time we phoned, but his voice sounded more urgent now. I found his eyes on the screen; I could hardly see him now, the lighting had gotten worse and everything felt a little blurry in my post-orgasmic haze.

"I want to," I breathed, knotted my brows. "There's this project I'm going to be running the next few weeks, but..." I didn't have to finish. He nodded; he knew. I would try.

"Hey you could... you know, you could come here?"

He looked up, and nodded. I think we both felt the aching, hollow feeling more starkly now.
 

It wasn't the same on the phone, however hard we tried.

IV

There were days when it felt like Paul and I were living in different time zones, different universes, maybe, like time simply passed differently for each of us. His time went slower, or faster—I don't know which one, but it didn't pass like mine.

 
Once, he sent me a text:
My sweet pet, I'm thinking of you. Tell me how you're wearing your hair today.
 

I'd been in and out of meetings all day, had never even looked at the phone until it was almost time to go home. That was still early in this strange construct of our distance D/s dating experiment, and I knew him even less, couldn’t gauge his reaction or the gravity of my screw up.
 

The shock ran through my entire body; he had addressed me as pet, not Iris. The latter usually indicated a normal, casual conversation, but the former had already taken root in my body as a precursor to the harder voice, the commanding nature he could weave so effortlessly. And I had made him wait—not just a little bit, but almost all day.