Struck By Lightning: Slow Satisfaction Part 18

"I leaned down and whispered it to her. 'What do you want?' And she leaned upward to speak the answer in my ear. 'To be tested. Just like you're testing me now.' Bam. We stuck together like two magnets from that moment forward."

"I can imagine. So what went wrong?"

"Many things. For one, she had a deep-seated need to be the 'weird' one in the relationship."

"What did she mean by that?"

"She thought I was nothing more than a boring, rich businessman at first. Meanwhile she was the artistic, daring, part-time fashion model who had achieved a modic.u.m of fame, and therefore I was supposed to fawn over her. I did fawn over her, but not because of that. Eventually I revealed who I was, and at first she was delighted. We were very much alike and we made a kind of matched set, tall and aristocratic and kinky. But the secrecy began to chafe her, and although I did much to help her career, I wouldn't do the one thing that she wanted me to, which was to come out publicly at her side. She wanted to star in my videos. She wanted to be in all the tabloids photographed with me. It was very difficult to get her to understand that being in the tabloids would be my idea of h.e.l.l."

"Wow."

"She accused me of holding her back. Of not understanding what it was like to still be struggling to reach a certain level of fame. Of being jealous of her and sabotaging her success to keep her from eclipsing me." He shook his head. "Nothing could be further from the truth. It was those discussions about fame and celebrity that started me thinking I had to get out of the business. At first my thought was to step out of the spotlight and let her eclipse me. But a person paranoid and neurotic enough to believe that I was sabotaging her was not someone I could get along with in the long term. Our worst fight-the last fight-came when we were arguing almost constantly... except when we were having s.e.x. We were still having fantastic makeup s.e.x, which allowed me to think that deep down we were okay; we just had to work on the relationship a little harder. I truly believed that I couldn't have such fantastic s.e.x with someone I couldn't love."

"But you told me you had tons of s.e.x with groupies."

"Tons of s.e.x. Not particularly fantastic s.e.x."

"Oh. I see."

"So there it was. I was convinced because of how great we were in bed that our differences could be worked out. And there we were in a fight, an epic one, and I confessed that I didn't want to fight, I didn't want to have all this strife, and she burst into tears and told me it was all my fault for not being dominant enough."

"Wait, you? Not dominant enough?"

"Yes. Because apparently what she wanted was for me to dictate every moment of her life. She felt if only I could control her enough, she wouldn't even feel the urge to argue with me or fight! Therefore the fact that we were having a fight was clearly all my fault!"

"That's... twisted."

"I know. She really believed that if I were more dominant, she wouldn't ever be unhappy, because I'd control her happiness like a faucet I could turn on and off. She confessed she was horribly disappointed by the fact that I didn't require her to walk two paces behind me at all times, and that I didn't spank her if she left the milk out instead of putting it back in the refrigerator."

"Wow."

"I told her that kind of twenty-four/seven role playing would be impossible to keep up."

"Says the man who maintains a secret ident.i.ty."

"Yes. And you see why I am ready to leave it behind. She told me if I was a real dominant, I wouldn't feel it was role playing. I'd 'really' be like that."

"James, I'm pretty sure you are really like that."

"I know. At any rate, we split up. By then I had already introduced her to the society, and of course she had a crowd of suitors filling her dance card. She ended up in a relationship with the society's regional director and they do, as far as I know, maintain something like a twenty-four/seven relationship. Then again, I only see them at society functions, where of course they are in role. She seems happy. That's what matters."

We listened to the cellos playing for a few minutes while I digested that. "So you have women like Lucinda at one end, and you have women like Juney at the other end."

"Juney? Oh, in London."

"The one you dumped out of your lap."

"Of course I did. Submissives, slaves, servants, whatever you want to call them, should have better manners than reaching into anyone's trousers without permission."

"What do you call them?"

"Lucinda considers herself the director's property. I suppose that makes her a slave, being owned that way. Different people use the words for different things. These owner/owned relationships may have a more equal standing as partners, though, than some who consider themselves servants or service-oriented. In those the inequality of the relationship can be part of what works for them."

"Hmm. So not all slaves are submissive or even servants; not all submissives are servants either."

"And not all service is s.e.xual. Though there's always that undertone, I believe. Juney thinks she wants to be a s.e.x slave, owned more like a pet than a person. And pampered like one, too. Hmm. And I don't mean a pet like the people who play at being puppies or ponies. I mean it metaphorically. She wants her master to play with her and whap her with a rolled-up newspaper when she's bad, but generally just enjoy her. A Persian cat has no duties other than to lie around looking beautiful and to be a source of affection and amus.e.m.e.nt for her owner. She'll likely find someone whom that suits."

He fell silent again and then I asked what I had been trying to think about for a while. "In other words, labels are complicated. But they have meaning. At least personal meaning."

"Yes."

"So what am I, then, James? I'm not like either of them."

"No, you're not. We don't do what we do because we get off on the roles of master and slave, Karina. We do what we do because we get off on each other."

"You didn't answer my question, though."

"You're mine," he said simply. "You're mine, and I am so lucky that the woman I love fits me like the key to a lock."

I sucked in a breath. "You say that word so easily."

"Which one? Love?"

"Yes."

"You said it first," he pointed out with a smile. He shifted onto his side so he could look at me. "You've worked hard to get me past my fears. You showed me I shouldn't fear to speak the truth. Are you surprised I can say it so easily now?"

I kissed him. "No. Not when you explain it like that."

"Tell me a secret, Karina. What are you afraid of? What do you fear?"

"It's a silly fear." I combed his hair back from his forehead with my fingers. "Because I feel confident it's not true."

"Fears don't have to be rational. What is it?"

"I fear that I'm going to someday discover there's one more layer of mask, one more layer of you, and when it's peeled back I won't like what's underneath after all."

He touched my chin softly, tracing the outline of my bottom lip. "That's not silly in the slightest, given our history. But, Karina, you have gone all the way to the core."

"I know. I told you I didn't think it was likely." I let out a long sigh. "I'll tell you my worry, instead then, which is a little more rational. I think." I hadn't, until this moment, realized what my worry was. My heart began to beat a little harder.

"What's that?"

"I worry I'm not really going to fit into your life." I sucked in a breath, hoping he wouldn't be hurt by what I was going to say, because my chest and throat suddenly ached as I began to say it. "I worry it's not going to work between us if we don't keep the distance, if we take it beyond you whisking me places in the back of your town car."

He opened his mouth as if to protest, but I didn't let him.

"I worry that no matter how much you love me, you're going to decide you like me best as a plaything, that it worked better when you could simply text me an appointment and snap your fingers to have instant wet p.u.s.s.y on demand."

"Karina," he said darkly, "if you have a problem with me demanding your body-"

"No! I don't have a problem with it! Listen to what I'm saying. I'm saying." I sat up and bunched the duvet in my fists. "Just because I'm the submissive in the relationship, I don't want to be taken for granted."

He moved slowly, sitting up beside me and unclenching one of my hands enough to take it into his. "Listen to me. Karina, if I wanted someone who was merely 'wet p.u.s.s.y on demand' I could have Juney-or a million other women, for that matter. The reason I want you, the reason I want to claim you again and again, is because I need your heart and soul, too. I'm incomplete, otherwise." He kissed the back of my hand and I felt a thrill whip through my core like a gust of fresh air. His voice was quiet, but his words pinned me. "If I decide I'm going to f.u.c.k you on the foyer floor every time you walk into the house, it's not because you're a s.l.u.t who does what I say. It's because I need, beyond all reason, to have you. And I need, that badly, to know you need me, too. I need you beyond all reason, because I love you. Love is the only possible reason for me to be this out of my mind."

I kissed him then, and found myself pressed back into the bed by his body, the thin layer of satin between us. When his lips moved from claiming my mouth to my neck, I said, "Love is the only possible reason why I never resist you. Why I never get enough of you. Even if I'm mad at you. No matter what you want to do, I leap in and try it."

He held himself above me and looked into my eyes. I could feel his c.o.c.k hardening against my leg. "The day will come when you'll refuse me. But as long as you aren't refusing me because you've ceased to love me, we'll survive."

"Today is definitely not that day," I whispered, rocking my hips against him. I sucked in a breath and trembled a little as he slipped his pajama pants down and slid the searing hotness of his c.o.c.k along my thigh.

"Are you sure?" he whispered back.

"I'm just... sore."

"I'll be gentle."

Those were the last words we spoke for a while, as he pressed against me slowly until he was between my legs. The slippery head of his c.o.c.k nudged between my lips and he moved his hips in a small circle, not teasing so much as doing exactly what he promised. Soon the first inch of him was in me, pumping back and forth, and then another inch, and another, each time penetrating slowly before he resumed the undulation of his hips.

I don't think s.e.x had ever felt so good, not even with James previously. Where our bodies met was a fusion of liquid pleasure, nerve ending against nerve ending feeling nothing but a frictionless glide. The sensation of penetration had always sent sparks through me, but this was like the sparks had turned to a white-hot glow, edgeless and growing the longer it went on.

We didn't kiss. He didn't play with my b.r.e.a.s.t.s or change my position or anything, nothing to distract me from the pure pleasure of his penetration.

I began to quiver once he had worked himself all the way in. It was as if the ceaseless, gentle rubbing had erased the soreness of earlier, had taken away the stinging marks of the whip and the places where I was abraded and bruised from being f.u.c.ked so hard. And on and on and on it went, too, until I realized I was having an o.r.g.a.s.m that had blossomed so gradually I hadn't felt the usual blast of fireworks at the beginning of it. Instead it was like the middle of one, stretching on and on. I let out a long "aaaaahhhh" as the pool of pleasure spread from my center all the way to my fingers and toes.

I opened my eyes as it ended, as the pleasure of him moving inside me had not lessened but my peak had pa.s.sed. He kissed me then, and pulled free, and finished himself with a few very quick tugs, spattering hot droplets on my stomach. He kissed his way down my breastbone, then a few extra-gentle licks to my c.l.i.t.

Our next kiss was salty with my sweat. "I love you," I said.

"I love you back," he answered, his forehead pressed to mine. He held my gaze for another long moment.

And then a gentle chime sounded from nearby.

"You had best get back to Becky," he said. "You're going to work with Sabine six days a week now, remember."

"I remember. Wait. Are you not going to be there?"

He shook his head. "You proved today you fit in just fine with the others."

"Does that mean no audition?"

"We'll still have an audition, to pick who the princ.i.p.al dancer will be from among the women in the troupe."

"I still don't think I'm that good..."

"Which is why we planned an audition in the first place, right? It'll still fulfill that purpose. You'll see how you measure up. But there's more. I need your help to keep her in check, Karina. I need you to do this."

I gritted my teeth. "And I do love a challenge."

"Yes, you do."

"Okay. But what's this about you won't be coming to practice at Sabine's anymore?"

He looked down into my eyes as if he were reluctant to move or to let me go. "I have to leave in the morning for London."

"Already? I thought you weren't going until next week."

"So did I. Right before you arrived, I discovered I can't wait. We need to grab the studio time now."

"How long will you be gone?"

"At least a week, maybe two."

"Well, it's going to take me a week to recover from tonight anyway," I teased.

"I am going to be desperate to have you by the time I get back."

"Maybe it'll have to be one of those f.u.c.k first, talk later kind of greetings, then," I said in as sultry a voice as I could muster.

He growled and rocked his hips against me. "You're lucky I'm completely spent, or I'd take you again right now for inflaming me with talk like that...!" An evil glint came into his eye. "Leave the case here."

"The case? Oh." Of the gla.s.s toys.

He pressed me back into the bed with a flurry of kisses across my neck and under my chin. "You can share my deprivation. Nothing into you until you have my c.o.c.k again, hmm?"

"Evil! But fair. Am I allowed to come?"

"Yes. In fact, be sure to send me video of yourself masturbating. That is, unless you can catch me live."

"And if I do catch you?"

"Then I'll join you."

It was nearly midnight when Stefan dropped me off, by which time I was starved again. Becky and I got our last Chinese takeout meal in the apartment. We prepacked a little but mostly we talked. She told me her parents had started pressuring her to get married, and that the only reason her mother didn't go wholeheartedly into arranging a marriage for her was because she and Becky's father (who had been an arranged match) were fighting a lot. Meanwhile, back in Ohio, my own mother was doing well. Tera convinced her to buy all new curtains and bed linens, she said, and there had been no sign of Phil.

The movers came the next day. Stefan himself met us at the gallery with the keys and supervised the men a little, but they were unfailingly efficient. It was going to take us ten times as long to unpack everything as it had for them to pack it up. They had even labeled all the boxes, and they piled the ones full of books by the floor-to-ceiling shelves that lined one side of the living room, put the ones from Becky's bedroom into the room she picked, and the ones with my name on them into the front bedroom with the windows overlooking the street. They set my futon up as a bed instead of a couch, and the room had a somewhat worn-looking but huge antique dresser, so for the first time in years I had somewhere to put my clothes besides in shelves made of milk crates.

I quickly slipped into a routine of sleeping late, having a quick breakfast of a little granola and yogurt, and then taking the subway up to Sabine's dance studio. By the end of the first week, the group had grown to eight or nine dancers. The first hour was almost always the same: warm-ups, isolation exercises, moves that built strength or flexibility or both. In the second hour Sabine would change what we did, though, sometimes making us learn short routines, pushing us. One exercise we did every few days involved crossing the floor. She wouldn't tell us what to do here: it was up to each dancer to improvise what moves to do as we crossed from one side of the empty floor to the other. Ballet-style jetes, spins, jazz sidesteps, you had to make it up as you went along. We usually went three or four at a time, one group, then the next, and then waiting on the other side until everyone had crossed and then going back. It was one way to build stamina and also keep your brain sharp, and it was a chance to be creative after a solid hour of doing nothing but following instructions and imitating moves.

One day she introduced a new twist, which was that we had to make the floor pa.s.s in pairs instead of solo. Sabine called that "pa.s.s de deux," a bilingual pun. Sabine was from Martinique and could pun-and curse-in several languages. The goal was to make it look like we were coordinated with our partners, which was a fun challenge, even if we weren't all that coordinated.

Ferrara came by about once a week to check on our progress. She didn't appear to recognize me at all, which didn't surprise me given that she'd seen me only once. That night she hadn't given me a second glance after Vanette told her I was a society trainee, as if I weren't even there. The dancers as a whole spent a fair amount of time hanging out together but Ferrara didn't join us, which suited me fine.

The only complication of hanging around with the dancers was that-as Annika had told me-they were an incestuous bunch. Everyone had slept with someone there, and it seemed like the possibility of hooking up with one another was always alive. I brushed off a few advances and then stopped spending a lot of time with them beyond grabbing a bite to eat after Sabine would throw us out each day to make room for her students. Not that some of them weren't nice-not to mention attractive-but I was very, very off the market, thanks to the one person I couldn't tell them about.

James and I talked or texted every day. I gathered that things at the recording studio were going slowly, sometimes badly, but he did not want to talk about it. I imagined he was something of a perfectionist in the recording studio and I knew beyond any doubt he was a control freak. So it didn't really surprise me that three weeks later they still weren't done.

A little over a week before the audition for the role of princ.i.p.al, he told me that each dancer needed to prepare a solo dance of no longer than two minutes. He advised me to adapt what I had done at the ArtiWorks. "Adapt" was putting it mildly since everything about that performance had involved interacting with a ma.s.sive installation of gla.s.s sculpture that would not be present in Vegas. But it did give me an idea, which was to build the dance around an absent partner. At first it didn't go very well, but then I hit upon the idea to use an empty stool as a focus and that went much better. Fortunately, the living room was mostly empty in the new apartment and there was still the large s.p.a.ce where a dining room table should go, so I had room to practice. The date of the trip grew nearer.