Fearless (6 page)

And I sat down on the couch and put my head in my hands. I was finally able to acknowledge my pounding heart and butterflies that were dancing around my insides. I was going to have to pull it together if this project was going to be successful.

Pulling it together was going to be more difficult than I had originally thought.

Chapter Eight

Dalilah

Well, that was interesting.
Luke was not quite what I was expecting. I mean, I didn’t really know exactly what I was expecting, but I guess that I wasn’t imagining a guy who would be so…young. He wasn’t much older than me. And he was really a cute guy. Loved the dimples, and the sandy blonde hair that didn’t quite behave. He tried hard to make it all lay down, but he still had a few tufts here and there that went every which way. Which was kind of adorable, really. He was tall and lean and had eyes that weren’t quite blue, or green, or hazel, but a combination of all three. Depending on how the light hit, they would change color, so I wasn’t quite sure how to describe them. Except to say that they were beautiful.

But I wasn’t quite sure how to take him. He was so quiet. I knew that was partially because he was concentrating, and he was a consummate professional. That was plain, even though his studio left much to be desired. Not that it was uncomfortable accommodations, but it was apparent that he was a squatter. The fainting couch was a nice touch, though. I wondered if he got that for himself¸ or Nottingham had sent it over. It seemed so out of place in the grungy surroundings. Like a Victorian lady in the middle of squalor.

I found myself feeling eager about actually seeing him again, which was unusual for me. I didn’t feel excited about much anymore, it seemed. My senses had been so dulled for so long that the feeling of anything other than utter boredom was an alien one for me.

Still, the feeling was still nascent, undefined. It wasn’t quite enough to make me feel excited and alive just yet.

Excited and alive…those were two words that I hadn’t used, in my head, to describe myself since I was young and idealistic and composing my cutting-edge art. I used to get the feeling that I couldn’t wait to get to my canvas, because there were so many ideas that were in my head, I just had to get them out. I was so prolific, I could complete three paintings in the span of a few weeks, sometimes days. I wanted to tackle different mediums, including sculpture. I also wanted to try some fusion, blending urban expressionism with some of the more traditional genres. I was so creative then that I felt like I had heightened senses. Everything around me was magnified, and I drew my inspiration from the most banal things.

I used my art as my voice, to show my sensibilities to the world. To make commentary about the injustices that I perceived, and about some of the dichotomies that were inherent in our society, yet were constantly ignored. I juxtaposed images that were related to poverty, and blended them with images that were representative of wealth. Images of living our comfortable existence, blended with the images of what made us comfortable – including slave labor and animals suffering. That sort of thing. I wanted to be provocative and make people think. That motivated me even more than the very feeling of putting the paint on the canvas, which was a high in and of itself.

Then, once the artistic inspiration ran dry, so did my very essence. I was really repressed. Perhaps I was even depressed. I didn’t really know. All that I knew was that I was on rote, and had been for a long, long time. For longer than I cared to remember.

Unfortunately, that kernel of a feeling didn’t last too long. I got home, and sat down in front of my canvas, hoping that something would spring forth. When nothing did, I got up in frustration, and did what was familiar for me by then.

I went to my usual watering hole.

Chapter
Nine

I was on my fourth drink of the night, when I turned around and saw him. Nottingham. He was there in the bar, looking over at me with interest. There wasn’t a hair out of place, as usual, and he was perfectly clean-shaven. As usual. There was none of the casual insouciance of Luke in this man. He was very buttoned-up, and I could just tell that he was afraid of how others would perceive him. Unlike Luke, who dressed in tattered jeans and couldn’t control his hair, nor did he seem to want to.

I looked away, not wanting to engage him in conversation, but he was soon sitting next to me anyhow.

“Dalilah,” he said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Yeah. Fancy,” I said, calling bullshit in my head. The guy was a stalker. That was all there was to it.

“How did it go today?”

“Fine. I have to email Luke later on and find out when he wants me again. In fact, I think I’ll do just that.” At that, I brought out my phone and prepared to text Luke. But Nottingham took the phone away from me.

“Text him later. I really would like your full attention.”

I raised an eyebrow, and put my hand out, palms up, wordlessly.

He just shook his head. “You’ll get this later, when you’ve earned it, Dalilah.”

Earned it? He did not just say that.

Still, I just let it slide. There wasn’t a point in getting upset about it. I was never one to be tied to my phone, anyhow.

“Whatever. Okay, you have my attention. What would like to say to me?”

He took a sip of his drink, which appeared to be some kind of whiskey, and peered at me with those cold blue eyes of his. They weren’t full of life like Luke’s were. Or my father’s. Or even my mother’s. There was clearly something wrong with him.

“Dalilah,” he said. “I’m rather taken with you. I’d like to see you on a more private basis.”

“Thanks, Mr. Nottingham, but, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather keep things between us professional. And I’m having a difficult time remembering how you first came to see me. I mean, you’ve obviously been following me, or something of the sort. But how you first encountered me…I’m sorry, but that escapes me.”

He looked quite hurt. “There was a party in the Hamptons. You were living with Nick O’Hara and his wife, Scotty. You were wearing a white sundress and sandals. I had never seen such a magnificent beauty in my entire life. I asked around the party about you, as casually as I could, as you were not yet 18 at the time. I was able to find out enough about you that I was able to….”

“Follow me,” I said, perplexed. And it didn’t take a rocket scientist to now know exactly how Nick found out about me and my drunken escapades and the rand
om men that followed. My guess was that this weirdo had been in these bars all along, and I just didn’t notice him before because I hadn’t yet met him.

He said nothing, but took another sip of his drink. Thus confirming that he was, in fact, following me.

“So,” I said. “How do you know Nick and Scotty?”

“My company does business with his firm. O’Hara, White and Stroker has been my company’s architectural firm for years.”

“I see. And you’re on a first name basis with Nick, I gather?”

“I am.”

“And you have been reporting to Nick that I’ve not exactly been living a pristine life out here.”

“Well, my dear, it doesn’t suit you to leave with men you don’t know, after you have been over-served. I think that you know this. I was only trying to look out for your best interests.”

“My best interests will be determined by me. And nobody else. Because of you, my parents are going to move into the area to keep a close eye on me. So, thanks a lot. Thanks a fucking lot.”

“Language, Dalilah,” he said. “You’re a well-bred lady. It would do well for you to remember that.”

“Oh?” I said. “Huh. You know, I was being respectful today with Luke, and I covered up a tattoo I have on one my breasts. I covered it with my hair. I’m going to make sure that this tattoo makes it into the actual portrait now. Then you can always look upon me and remind yourself just how classy and well-bred I really am.”

He looked a little bit shocked, but only for a moment. Then he smiled, and reminded me of a jack-o-lantern in doing so. “Actually, I find that rather intriguing. I would really love to see that tattoo.”

I narrowed my eyes. Was this guy for real? One second, he’s lecturing me about not being lady-like. The next, he’s salivating over my tattoo.

“No offense, but I really don’t see that ever happening.”

Famous last words.

Chapter
Ten

I ended up in Nottingham’s penthouse that night, after drinking a few too many whiskeys. He had left me to my own devices for awhile, as I drank one shot after another. Then, at the end of the evening, he guided me gently into his limo, and, before I knew it, I was laying down on his couch.

I was in rare form, too. My eyes were crossing, and everything was spinning and blurry. I vaguely wondered if the guy had slipped some GHB, because I was feeling very woozy, even moreso than usual.

“Dalilah,” he said to me. “Let me see your tattoo.”

I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that. Did he want me to show him, or did he want me to allow him to see it for himself? I wasn’t sure, so I just laid there, and I soon found that he was unbuttoning my shirt. I laid on his couch, feeling that I couldn’t move my limbs, and his hand was soon on my bra. He pulled it down, and then marveled at the little Pooh Bear tattoo that I had inked on my left breast.

“That’s an adorable tattoo,” he said. “Please display it in the portrait. I believe that would so capture your essence. Your sense of whimsy and playfulness.”

I wanted to tell him the real reason why I got a tattoo of the Pooh Bear. Besides the fact that the bear was always my mother’s favorite, I got the tattoo to represent the childhood that I never had. I skipped right over reading about Pooh Bear, in favor of reading more complicated books such as
In Search of Lost Time
by Marcel Proust, and
Crime and Punishment
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Both of which were interesting, intriguing and involved, but, really, I would have liked to have been normal. So, getting the Pooh tattoo was my way of somewhat representing that which I had lost.

I didn’t tell him that, though. I just nodded my head dully, and laid on the couch while he continued to undress me.

“Oh, Dalilah, you’re such a beautiful woman. I don’t think that you realize what you do to men who encounter you.”

Oh, right. Yes, I supposed I was a quote unquote “beautiful woman.” One would think that being considered beautiful and desirable would be a good thing. One would be wrong. I couldn’t stand that I had so many stalkers in my life. I mean, if the right guy would stalk me,
than that would be one thing. But 99.9% of the men who bugged me, and the boys, too, would fall into the category of the wrong guy. And I wasn’t flattered by the attention, either. I frankly wasn’t the kind of girl who would be flattered by such a thing. In other words, I didn’t consider myself to be vain. So, being considered beautiful did absolutely nothing for me. Zero.

Well, unless you considered the fact that I got jobs because of the way that I looked. And well-paying ones, too. That would be the o
nly plus to being a thing that was desired. But even that was a bit humiliating for me, because I really wanted to be making a living through my art and creativity, and that was completely extinguished. No, not extinguished. Dormant. That was a better term. Dormant. God forbid that my art ability was gone. God forbid. I didn’t think that I could live for the rest of my life without it. It was bad enough living through these past 8 years without the muse guiding me.

My mind drifted, as it usually did when I was with a guy, alone. I questioned what it was that I got out of these encounters. It certainly wasn’t for the sex. I didn’t much get into that, to be honest. I guess because my mind was never engaged with these men and boys, and for me, even more than probably most women, I had to connect to someone intellectually before I could feel anything at all below the waist. Thus far, no member of the opposite sex,
or Alaina for that matter, had been able to reach my intellect, so the sex itself was something that was a bit boring.

It certainly wasn’t that I was searching for love. I knew well enough that sex, especially casual sex, wouldn’t lead to love. Nor did I want it to. I had standards, even if they were double standards,
and any guy who wanted to jump into bed with me, without knowing me, would not be a guy that I would want to be with in the long term.

So, what was I searching for in these encounters? Was I searching for a way to feel? To overcome my numbness? Was I just trying to not be alone? Did I fear being alone, because being alone was like death to me? After all, the only thing that I could do, when I was alone, was contemplate my failures. What was going to bring me back into the living? Sometimes I despaired that I would ever be brought back into a place where I actually felt like waking up in the morning.

I could vaguely understand that I was now naked on this man’s couch. This stalker man, who I never would have thought I would be alone with, was with me, about to be on top of me, and all I could think about was when I could get out of that place and get back into my bed. Not that I was entirely unwilling. No, I would not consider this to be a rape. But I wasn’t engaged, either. It was kind of a netherworld, really. A disturbing netherworld.

I took a deep breath. I tried to put it out of my mind that this man first encountered me when I was underaged, and he apparently had been obsessed with me ever since. I was Dolores Haze to his Humbert Humbert.
Lolita
was actually one of the books that I devoured when I was in kindergarten, and it was a book that I have constantly referred to in my mind, as I had encountered many, many men like this Nottingham throughout my life. Creepers, every one of them.

Not that Nottingham was particularly old. On the contrary, he appeared to be only around 30, maybe a bit older or a bit younger. But 30 would be the median that I would assume him to be. But, when he first saw me, I was apparently 17 and he was around 28. So, yeah, if you put it that way, he was a bit of a creeper.

Now, he was naked. His lips were on mine. He wasn’t a bad kisser, considering. I certainly had worse in my life. His hands were caressing each of my breasts, and, then, well, he got out the handcuffs.

Oh, great, one of those guys.
Well, I’ll play along. Sometimes it was a little bit fun. A guy would get a bit rough, and, to my surprise, these were actually some of favorite encounters. Probably because it wasn’t the same old same old. I appreciated the creativity, if nothing else, although handcuffs were certainly pedestrian in the big scheme of things. But there was a hope that maybe this Nottingham might show a little bit of creative effort that might make this particular encounter a bit more enjoyable.

He handcuffed my hands behind me, putting the handcuffs behind the posts that were on the arm of the couch. It was one of those modern couches that were ever-so-slightly
avant garde
, and the arm of it was metal posts that were connected to the couch arm. He raised an eyebrow, and then did the same thing with my legs on the other couch arm.

Hmmmm, okay. Never been completely immobilized before. This might be more interesting than I initially thought.
I felt myself actually start to warm up to this odd man, who really would be considered to be extraordinarily handsome by most of the world. I knew that objectively, so, if I could just concentrate on that and the fact that he had the ability to take some kind of creative initiative, I might start to enjoy myself.

I laid there, completely immobilized, wondering what was next. I was curious as to what this man might do to me now that he had me completely where he wanted me.

“Oh, Dalilah,” he said, as he ran his hands completely through the length of my body. “You’re so submissive. I never thought that you would be so submissive to me. Your eyes are so beautiful and passionate. I thought that you might give me a go. But you let me bind you without even a peep. You’re such a contradiction. A beautiful, beautiful, contradiction.”

Ha.
The man actually saw passion in my eyes. Well, he was going to see what he was going to see, but I knew that there wasn’t passion in my eyes, and there hadn’t been in a long, long time.

“I wonder,” he said. “If you would let me lay you on your stomach and bind you. I would really like to try some things with you, but I can’t leave marks on your front side. That wouldn’t do, because I know that Luke is going to be painting you for a long time to come.”

Ooooh, marks. He wants to do something to me that is going to leave a mark.
I nodded my head, and said “yes, please. I would really like that.” And, I meant that. I had been roughed up before, and even had guys who were really into the sadism thing, and I didn’t mind it one bit. I liked it, in fact.

And my curiosity as to exactly what this man wanted to do to me was overwhelming. So, I actually rolled over on my own and let him bind my hands and my feet, and I eagerly anticipated what was to come.

At first, I was a bit disappointed. He had taken the belt off of his pants, and whacked me a few times on my back. I felt the delicious sting, which woke me up out of my ennui, but the creativity of such an act was clearly lacking in my book. It was such a cliché, really. Rich handsome man, into whacking young women on the back with a belt.

Then, he got out the ice, and rubbed it along the parts of my back that he had clearly marked with his belt. It felt a little bit soothing, although I was quite sure that he was still trying to get me to cry out. After all, it was completely cold on my skin, and it was something that should have been
totally uncomfortable. But it wasn’t to me.

And then he got on top of me, plunging his manhood deep inside of me while simultaneously melting something hot on my back. I had no idea what it was, but he started licking it off while he rhythmically thrusted, so I would imagine that it wasn’t hot wax.
Maybe some hot fudge. In which case, I was completely envious that he wasn’t going to share it with me.

Some more thwacking with the belt came next, and some heavy-duty spanking. This guy wasn’t at all trying to go easy on me. He pretty much got down to the stuff that was really painful. But I appreciated it all the same, because it was making me feel. It was waking me up and putting me in a place where I wasn’t so comfortably numb.

Of course, I would have preferred to be woken up in a manner that wasn’t quite so self-destructive. But it was a start.

Anal penetration, sans lube, was next. That hurt like hell. I squirmed a bit, but the pain didn’t last that long. After a little while, even that was more pleasurable than painful. I felt myself breathing hard, the alcohol wearing off
, along with just a bit of the veil that had been covering my emotions for this long. I started to cry out, but he tied a scarf around my mouth so that I couldn’t make a sound. He thwacked my butt hard with his open hand while he plunged himself in and out, and then pulled on my hair so that my face was up in the air.

He removed the scarf from around my mouth, and eagerly started kissing me from behind. I actually started feeling something below the waist, which was something that I never thought that I would. It was tingly and warm, and the pleasurable sensation spread throughout my body. My breath
ing started coming heavy again, and I started groaning a little. But the groaning brought the scarf over my mouth again, and I had to suppress the urge to cry out in pleasure and pain. Which actually made the pleasurable sensation grow even more powerful. It got to the point where I really couldn’t contain it, but I still had to, for I was completely silenced. Because the sensation could not be dissipated through my crying out, it grew so powerful and intense that it became almost painful. So, that pain, mingled with the general pain of the belt that was once again whacking my bare back and butt, coursed throughout my body. Waking up every cell that had been lying dormant. I could almost feel every hair on my body standing up, even moreso when Nottingham reached around to my bare breasts and clamped the nipples with something hard and metal.

That was the final straw. That pain was what made me finally started shaking my head ferociously, trying mightily to somehow will that scarf that was around my mouth to disappear.
But I still couldn’t cry out, so I actually felt hot tears rush down my cheeks. Which made Nottingham bring out another scarf and tie it around my eyes.

By the time he actually stopped his urgent thrusting, which signaled to me that he had his orgasm, I was actually confused about what I was feeling. But it was something that was wonderful to me, because feeling, period, was a welcome change. I was just happy that I finally felt something that was powerful enough to confuse me.

He unfastened the handcuffs on my hands and feet, and then untied both the blindfold and the gag. “Just keep laying there for a little bit, Dalilah,” he said. “I’ll be right back with the salve.”

Oh, right. The aftercare bit. I somehow had forgotten that aftercare was supposed to be a part of the S&M ritual. It was fine, just lying there, though. I really had no desire to move. I had felt the energy drain out of my body again, and I felt myself retreating back to the shell that I was in before all of this began. Which disappointed me greatly. I had imagined, I had hoped, that the awakening that I had felt when Nottingham was inflicting pain on me was something that would somehow survive the night. That perhaps I would finally feel the tingle of excitement that I was so hoping to feel all along.

But it was not to be. I felt the veil once again cover my sensations and feelings, and I was, once again, comfortably numb. So much so that I hardly felt Nottingham’s fingers gently rubbing some kind of balm on my back and butt. “Mmmm, Dalilah, you look even more delicious to me right now. It’s almost like I have branded you as my own possession.”