Trading Tides (9 page)

I stopped rambling when he chuckled and came closer. I wanted to tell him how beautiful he was to me—not handsome, although he was that, too—but beautiful. That was different, it went deeper than just his looks, it was something about the way he smiled and looked at me, as though he was trying to spy something at the bottom of a well. It was in the way his hand curled around my cheek when I closed the distance between us with one last step, and in the scent that gently emanated from his sweater.

"Do you want to sit down?"

I nodded. He squeezed my hand and we walked over to the table together. He pulled the chair out for me and, I think, at first I hardly knew what to do with that—nobody had ever done that for me.
 

"I hope this is good, I didn't have time to drive all the way back to your favorite one."

He sat down and I shook my head.
 

"It looks perfect." He'd bought something of everything; laid the different dishes out in their boxes and he smiled when I started to pile chicken and tikka sparingly onto my plate. It was Indian food, it would keep—and I didn't want to feel bloated for what he'd promised me for the rest of the evening.

"How do you feel now? Does it still hurt?"

I shook my head. He poured us each a little wine into water glasses. It made me feel like a student, but he didn't seem to mind. I made a mental note to invest in some prettier ones.

"You're here. I still can't... you know. I'm happy."

My breath caught in the middle of the sentence though, and I could see his brows tightening on his forehead.

"You don't like surprises, do you?"

I looked up sharply, shook my head, but he smiled and waved it off before I could say anything.
 

"It's okay. I think I'm getting to know you—I like getting to know you. I think you need to have things just so, in order to feel safe and comfortable."

I couldn't meet his eyes at first; I looked away, bit my lip, but finally I nodded. It had been different on my lunch break, I'd been so happy and hadn't really had much of a plan for how I'd spend it, anyway, other than waiting for his instructions. Coming home with him was different. Coming home to dishes in the sink and an overflowing laundry basket, in clothes I wouldn't have worn for him given a choice, and feeling sticky after a long day.

"I want you here," I whispered, raking my fork through a bit of spinach paneer. "More than I want to feel safe and comfortable."

He smiled again, raised his glass and took a sip.

"I know. That's not why I asked. What do you need to feel comfortable?"

"A shower? Different clothes?" I tried to chuckle but it was a wheezy little sound and I stopped immediately. I looked at the dishes, the laundry, but I realized I could let that part go, if I could be sure that I wouldn't smell funny or have hair in places I didn't want any. "That's... that's it, I think. But it's not necessary, I..."

I stopped when he reached across the table for my hand. He placed it in his, and then turned it around so that he could run his finger over my palm.

"I know. But I want you comfortable, I want you happy and calm. I want to be the one making you squirm tonight, not your clothes or the lack of a shower." And there was that smirk that made his eyebrows wriggle and when I laughed this time, it sounded better, fuller.

"That's my girl," he whispered; then he let go of my hand and speared a bit of chicken onto his fork.

IX

I didn’t shower for long, kept my hair reasonably dry while I scrubbed myself down with the organic rose-scented shower cream I only used on special occasions. I ran the razor over my legs and under my arms and hesitated at the wiry fluff of dark hair at the V of my legs.
 

There was the impulse to shave it off for him. I’d seen as many porn clips as any other woman of my generation, but having been single for a while and getting into feminist theory, I hadn't rid myself of the hair there in years. I pushed the thought away. It hadn’t bothered him last time. Still, the idea that he might tell me to do it made my clit tingle.

With that thought, I pushed the shower curtain aside and climbed out of the tub, dripping and steaming. I cleaned any remaining hint of make-up from my face over the sink and then moisturized, rubbing the cream carefully into my legs and ass, arms and breasts. It was the ritual more than anything, and it calmed me much like Paul had predicted. I wondered momentarily if it should have disconcerted me that he was getting into my head like this, but there was a sense of warmth in the fact that it didn't.

I wanted him to know me this way. I wanted him to crawl inside of me, know me inside out, and let me live inside him in return.

Shivering slightly, I opened my hair, brushed it out one more time so that I could keep it open, and then reached for the clothes I’d laid out. He’d watched me do this, hummed approvingly at the comfortable, flowing maxi skirt and blouse, but had snatched the knickers and bra away before I could take them into the bathroom with me.

“Not tonight,” he’d whispered and sent a whole battalion of shivers down my spine.
 

When I came back out, still a little damp but refreshed, I found him lying on top of my bed. He was fully dressed, except for his shoes, and had piled another pillow from the couch against the wall behind him so that he could lounge comfortably with a book resting on his chest.

He looked up, marked the page with his finger and smiled.

“Feeling better?”

I took a deep breath, as though to check, but the tension in my body had lessened, and the smile came more easily now.

“Yeah… yeah, a lot. Thank you.”

Shrugging as though it was nothing, he set the book aside and looked me over. Finally, he motioned to the side of the bed.

“Come here, baby girl.” The change in his tone caught me almost off guard, and I sucked a sharp breath into my lungs before I could comply, taking careful, silent steps across the room. He looked at the floor again, and it just took the smallest motion of his eyebrows to make me sink to my knees.
 

Tension alleviated, it was easy to smile and lower myself to the floor, fold my legs carefully under the skirt and look up at him, lounging on the same bed where just the night before I'd lain yearning and unable to sleep.

“Good girl,” he whispered, reaching for me and threading his fingers through my hair. “You look beautiful.”

I glowed under his praise, leaned against his touch and sighed. He looked good in my bed—strange, but good. He brushed the fleshy part of his thumb over my lips, took his time as he let his eyes roam over my face, my hair and down to my body, prone and waiting just for him.

"Open your blouse, don't take it off, just undo all the buttons. Then place your hands palms up on your thighs."

"Yes, Sir," I breathed, voice pressed forth with the power of air escaping from a balloon. I had no idea I'd been waiting this eagerly, but my hands shook as I tore at the buttons.
 

I could feel the brush of cooler air against my stomach, against the swell of my breasts. Swallowing hard, I placed my hands where he had indicated and then I waited, pressing my cunt against the heel of my foot.

"Why did I come here today?"

I looked up, frowning. There were moments when I could read his face already, like an old familiar book—but this wasn't one of them. He looked gentle, patient, but there was something else, something I had no access to.

"Because I... because you knew I needed you?" I asked. He waited and I took another deep breath to continue: "To fix me?"

"That's what I told you over lunch." His finger ran along my cheekbone but this time, I was a little too nervous to lean into the touch, to chase it and beg for more. "What does it mean?"

I didn't try to read his expression. I looked down at my palms, at the way my fingers were curling in on themselves when I relaxed them. It had made sense to me when he'd told me, it still made sense in a place deep inside, but here, on the outside, where my tongue was searching for words, it did not. I frowned in frustration.

"Take your time," he said. He pushed a swath of hair off my shoulder and gently peeled my blouse to the side. It brushed over my nipple, hardened it instantly so that it stood to greet him when he laid it open. A lazy smile flickered across his face, the kind of smile that settled at the bottom of my stomach, radiated deep into my cunt.

"I think... I think what it means is that..." I huffed a breath of frustration, licked my lips and tried again. "Back by the sea, the first time, I... something happened inside of me. And now I need it?" It sounded bad, like an addiction, like a disease that needed constant care and I shook my head, trying again. "Now I want it. I want it so much. And part of it is just being with you, and I got that even just phoning, but..."

"But?"

"But there's a part that I can only have when you're actually with me."

I was shivering now, my voice shaky with emotion. I marveled at all the words that suddenly tumbled from my mouth, like a truth I'd known for a while, just waiting to be said.

"What part is that, baby girl?"

"Your touch, Sir. Your voice, your breath—your hands, your eyes." I swallowed, knowing what came next. We both knew; I read that in his face, and suddenly I even knew why he needed me to say it, too. "The part where you make me hurt and... and cry. And where you hold me after." I waited a second or two until my voice stopped cracking. "You came to give me a fix for that. That part, Sir."

His fingers tightened around my breast, and I steeled my jaw.
 

"Put your hands behind your head."

I had only just interlocked my fingers there, when he trapped my nipple between his. I gasped, then held my breath as he squeezed and pulled. I watched my skin grow taut, like rubber, and still he pulled, then twisted. Finally, I allowed myself to breathe, to moan and squeeze my eyes shut.

"Like this, pet?"

I whined in answer, then nodded. Already, I was breathing fast and shallow, and when he let go and my skin unraveled and jumped back into its natural position, I found myself shaking for more, leaning forward, bodily begging him to go on. I opened my eyes to find him watching me, glowing embers burned under his storm-colored gaze. He didn't break eye contact when he shifted his position. He was now sitting on the edge of the bed, his legs both pressed to the sideboard. He patted his lap and I scrambled to my feet.

"Take that blouse off and then come here."
 

It slipped off my arms like water. I took one more step forward and draped myself across his lap. Smiling, he handed me a pillow to cling to before he ran his hand down my spine, one knob at a time.

"I missed spanking your ass, pet. I enjoyed it so much the first time."

I held my breath, but nothing happened. When he touched me again, it was gentle, cupping the curve of my ass in his hand, rubbing it through the fabric of my skirt. The barrier was hardly existent, just one tiny layer of fabric and I could feel the hardened calluses along his fingertips all the way through it.

"I'm going to warm you up with my hand, pet. Until your ass is nice and red. Then I'll use the strap. Then I'll fuck your ass, make it mine, make it hurt. Is that what you want, pet?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Then reach back and pull your skirt down for me. Let me see."

I pushed it down as far as I could, rolling the fabric over the swell of my ass. For a moment or so, I let my fingers rest on my skin, virgin-white again before he'd turn it red, maybe so red I'd have some purple-brown bruises to remember him by for the next few days. The thought made me wriggle against his thigh, and then his hands clamped around my wrists and pushed them up into the small of my back. I sighed against the pillow, breathed against his hard grip.

"Good girl," he said quietly.
 

The first slap came without warning. I hadn't even heard the swish of displaced air, but his hand cracked down on one cheek hard and loud. The sound seemed to reverberate in my small apartment, but it was too late to worry about the neighbors now, and when he went on, harder with each time his palm connected with my flesh, I pressed my face into the pillow to stifle the moans.
 

He was warming up, amping himself into a comfortable swing as he smacked me again and again, setting my ass on fire. There was no counting, no idea how long he would keep at me, how long it would hurt, more with each impact.

I took it well, at first. I was too proud not to, wanted to show him how much I could take for him, but he wanted more. He wanted to show me what I had signed up for, what I had asked him to do to me, and his hand marked me hard, again and again, until I lost control over my body, wriggled and squirmed, until he really had to restrain my hands, until even the pillow couldn't muffle the noise I made, not moans anymore or grunts of pain, but sustained wailing and short, sharp cries with each slap. He came at me until I couldn't distinguish between the impact and pause, until my head was in a haze, on fire, buried deep under water.

And then he stopped, just as sudden and unexpected as he'd started. It felt like my ears had popped and I lay panting, gelatinous over his lap letting the pain radiate out in waves.

"There's a nice blush to start with," he growled, then brought his hand back to rub over the tendered flesh, rubbing, massaging the pain into deeper layers of tissue, while I moaned and grinded against his thigh. I heard him breathing almost as hard as I was.

"That's my girl."

My mind was soft now, tendered by pain. I could feel him rubbing, spreading it out, pushing it deeper and calming it all at once. But it also felt far away, immediate and yet not quite on the forefront of my mind. I pressed one hand against his stomach, feeling the warmth, the hardness there, his heartbeat somewhere above. His breathing, like mine, was fast and a little ragged, making his stomach extend and shrink back, extend and shrink back faster than it ordinarily did. I craned my neck back to see, but I realized soon that I didn't need a visual to feel this close to him. He was there, wrapped around me, touching me, breathing the same air that I breathed.