How Not To Fall (13 page)

“Oh.” I try to mask my disappointment, my frustration, but clearly, he sees it.

“I'm not putting you off,” he says.

I huff at him. “Well, it definitely feels like you're putting me off. It definitely feels like this is another ‘Annie's a beginner, she doesn't know what she wants, I have to keep the brakes on,' blah, blah, blah.”

“You can't know what it entails.”

“Have you done it before?”

He says, “No.”

“Then you can't know what it entails either. I'm
ready,
” I insist. “I want to try things. I want to do your fantasy. Are you gonna decide what we do the whole month?”

His eyes close briefly, and his jaw tightens.

“Careful what you wish for,” he says, and I'm not sure if he's saying it to me or to himself.

We make love there on the futon, then. He pulls me over top of him, and we push aside the minimum amount of clothes to get him inside me, and when I try to find the rhythm, he shows me, guiding my hips until we're moving together and kissing and I come, panting, peripherally aware that the lights are on and we're in the living room.

“I want you to come,” I whisper, my mouth against his lips.

“Let's go to bed,” he answers.

We reassemble our clothes, and I lead him upstairs to my room, where he closes the door behind us. He undresses me fully, undresses himself, with a quiet, focused energy. Then, very gently, he takes my hand and looks into my eyes. I smile.

“We'll have to talk through a plan for tomorrow.”

“We can do that in the morning,” I say. And then I start to giggle. He smiles. My giggle turns into an all-out laugh, inexplicable, joyful, excited. His hand tightens on mine, and in a sudden rush he tugs me toward him and then pushes me backward, pinning me against the closed door and pressing his body against mine.

“You are unbelievable,” he breathes against my neck, and he shoves into me, fucks me hard against the door. I wrap a leg around him, claw my hands into his shoulders to stay upright. The door thumps a little with each thrust, and I think vaguely of the noise and Margaret across the hall, and then his hands are on my ass and he's shifting the angle of his pelvis against my clit, and when I make a sharp grunt, he breathes, “Shhhh,” into my ear, and fucks me harder, faster, which just makes the door thud harder and makes me grunt again, louder. He presses a hand flat over my mouth, and says, “Shhh,” again, and bites my jaw.

I don't want to come again—I want our ratio to be equal tonight—but the more I try to hold off and let him come without me, the more my arousal grows, until I can't not come. And when I do finally, with piercing, wild throbs and a desperate moan, he comes with me, nearly silent, breathing through his nose, with the three hard thrusts I'm learning to recognize.

“You are unbelievable,” he whispers again when we're lying together naked in my bed.

“We'll make a plan in the morning.”

A
fter Charles goes into the lab the next morning, I spend Wednesday checking things off the shopping list he and I made, half-serious, half-giggling, over breakfast, and then I take all the stuff to his apartment. I nap in his bed in the afternoon, and by the time he walks in the door, I'm well rested, freshly showered, and vibrating with anticipation.

He suggests we eat, but neither of us has any interest in food.

“Come and see the stuff,” I say instead, and I lead him into the bedroom. “We've got”—I begin piling things on the dresser as I name each item—“black stockings, the garter kind not the stay-uppy kind; a blindfold—this is actually just a black scarf I had anyway; earplugs—not sure what those are for; some high-tech lube; and my one vibrator, yours for the asking.” I show him the remote-control vibrating Ben Wa balls I bought on impulse, thinking to strengthen my pelvic floor muscle. “Sorry I don't have more to choose from.”

“It's more than enough,” he says, returning my smile. We lock eyes, and I find I can't smile anymore. My heart is thumping, and my knees are unsteady.

He says gently, “You sure about this?”

I nod mutely and kiss him on the lips.

He puts his hands on me—one on my face, one on my trapezius—and says, “The plan would be, I take off your clothes, I tie you to the bed, I do anything I like, for as long as I like. My intention. . .” He pauses, eyes still on mine. “I'll make you come until you tell me to stop, or until you can't move, whichever comes first. And then, when you're exhausted to immobility, I'll fuck you.”

I nod and we stand, looking into each other's eyes for a moment. Then he begins to undress me with quick fingers as he says, “What will you say if you want me to stop doing what I'm doing?”

“I don't want you to stop.”

He pulls my shirt over my head. “I'm saying, all night—all month, if you like. If you want to stop for any reason at all, whether it's because you want a glass of water or want to go to sleep or just don't like what's happening, what will you say?”

“Uh . . . ‘stop'?”

“That's fine.” He undoes my shorts. “That means that if you say, ‘That tickles' or ‘Uh-oh' or ‘No' or ‘Are you sure?' or ‘That's too much' or ‘Don't' or ‘I can't' or anything else, I
might
ignore you.” He pushes my shorts and my panties in a bunch to the floor. I step out of them, and I'm naked in front of him, beginning to recognize I've taken on something that might be a little more than I bargained for.

I ask, “Um, can we have a ‘slow down' one too, rather than a full stop? Like a yield sign?”

“Sure.”

“Then that one's ‘wait.' ”

“Right. ‘Wait' and ‘stop.' Are you ready?”

I nod and bite my lips between my teeth, heart thumping.

He stops. “You're sure about this? You must be utterly clear with me.”

I nod again and take a deep breath. “I'm totally sure.”

“Then lie on the bed.” Something in his voice is different. It sounds like his teachery voice, but . . . different. I lay myself on the bed. He starts ripping open packages of stockings. “Now, young Coffey, I want you to recall your neurophysiology for a moment.”

“You want me to
what?
” I say, turning my face to him in disbelief.

“You'll recall that different types of receptors in your peripheral nervous system respond to different types of sensation. Please, Miss Coffey, recite for the class the common types of receptors.”

And then he begins to tie my wrist to the bed, using a stocking.

“What?”

“Shall I start? Thermoreception . . . There—is that comfortable? Too tight?”

“No, it's good. Uh, thermoreception . . . chemoreception, mechanoreception, uh, photoreception . . . Is that all of them?” I tick through the sensory modalities in my head. “No, wait! Proprioception? And nociception.”

“Full marks, Miss Coffey. Well done.” He's tying my ankle to the bed now. “And tell us, please—is this comfortable? Good—tell us, please, four kinds of sensation perceived by the mechanoreceptors.”

“Light touch, deep touch, temperature, and vibration.” That one's easy.

He moves on to my other ankle, and now my legs are far, far apart, my feet right at the edges of the mattress. “And, for a bonus, which of those sensations is pleasurable?”

“Well . . .” Hang on—it's a trick question. I feel inordinately proud of myself for catching it. “You jerk, all of them or none of them potentially, depending on stuff like the affective keyboard in the nucleus accumbens. Is this supposed to be turning me on?”

“No.” He grins, focused on tying my ankle. “It's supposed to remind you, young Coffey, that any sensation, from vibration on your clitoris to a blade at your throat, can feel erotic in the right setting,” he says, tying my remaining wrist to the bed.

“Okay, that turned me on,” I say, utterly sincere.

He comes up to my head, puts a hand on top of my head, and kisses me briefly. “Good.”

When I'm fully bound, spread eagle on the bed, he pauses, standing beside the bed, and looks me up and down. “I've never seen anything more erotic than this. Never. There can be nothing in the world sexier than you tied to my bed.”

I feel aroused and sensitive just from the sensation of his eyes on me. “No blindfold?” I say.

“Not yet. You'll need the sensory deprivation later.”

“Ohhhh,” I say. “That's what the earplugs are for?”

“Clever girl. Ready?”

I nod. I'm pulsing with it, edgy and restless.

He lies beside me and kisses me simply, softly . . . slowly. With one hand tracing circles over my throat and my collarbone, he kisses my mouth comprehensively until I sigh and writhe, inviting his hand downward toward my breasts.

But he doesn't move to my breasts. He moves his mouth to the palm of my hand and then to each of my five fingers, kissing and sucking and licking. His movements are leisurely, unhurried, involving his mouth and his hands. Even the pressure of his body beside mine feels orchestrated, an orchestrated rallying of every inch of his body and mind to the stimulation of mine.

“Whoa,” I say.

He's still kissing and licking his way down my upper arm to my shoulder. He puts his mouth on my armpit and kisses and licks, and I am astonished that an armpit can feel erotic. He kisses his way from there down along the outside edge of my breast, and farther down along my rib cage.

“I like that,” I say. I'm flexing my spine restlessly.

“Good,” he says quietly with that teachery-but-different tension in his voice.

And then he starts the whole thing again, this time from my foot up. Sucking my toes, licking and biting at the arch of my foot, running first his fingertips, then his palms, and then his fingernails over my calf, my knee, my spread thigh.

I had no idea that the sensation of a tongue rolling around and between my toes could feel instantly and immediately like heat and wetness against my clit, but that is absolutely what it feels like, and I roll my pelvis in response, breathing in struggling huffs.

“Holy crap, dude, how does that feel so fucking good?”

“Your homework for tomorrow will be to draw the somatosensory homunculus,” he says with a wicked little chuckle.

“What?”

He doesn't answer. From my foot, his mouth travels up my calf, up my thigh—first along the outside of my thigh, up to my hip, then along the inside of my thigh, almost to my clit, almost. I want him to lick me. I push my hips down and whimper. He avoids me.

I try a direct approach: I say, “I want you to lick me.”

“Good,” he says.

And he stands up and moves away from the bed.

“Hey!”

I watch him walk leisurely around the foot of the bed to the other side. He sits beside my knee and leans over . . . and begins again with my other hand—each of my fingers, my wrist, the inside of my elbow, my armpit, down along the inside of my breast. He's still moving slowly, like he has nothing in the world to do but touch and taste my body. And I'm getting a little more impatient with every passing minute.

He turns to my foot and begins again there. He sucks and licks my toes. He runs his fingertips and palms and nails over my leg. He bites the arch of my foot.

“Fuck, dude, oh my god.” I squirm on the bed and wish I could rub my own clit, rub my own breasts, but with my hands bound, all I can do is flex and arch my spine. His mouth makes its leisurely way up my calf, over my knee, and then up my thigh—first the outside again, up to my hip, and then at last, at last, up the inside, almost to my clit.

And then he stands up again.

And starts to walk away.

“Where are you going?” I call wildly.

He pauses, his hand on the doorframe. “To brush my teeth. I'm going to kiss you, and I haven't brushed my teeth since this morning.”

“I don't care! You kissed me before!”

“I don't care that you don't care.” He steps through the doorway, then looks back. “Don't go anywhere,” he grins, and then he disappears.

And he literally does go brush his teeth, the motherfucker. I hear water running, hear his electric toothbrush.... I lie there, all my attention trained on the faint sounds of him. He strolls back in, bringing the buzz of his toothbrush with him, and stands at the corner of the bed, his eyes traveling over my body. I'm half-frustrated, ready to tell him I want to call it off, and half-wild with arousal. When his eyes meet mine, he raises his eyebrows and points—hilariously—to the erection in his pants. I laugh and roll my eyes. Then he strolls back out. The toothbrush turns off. I hear more water running....

He comes back, toothbrush in hand. He leaves it on the bedside table and then kisses me thoroughly, his minty tongue in my mouth. I want to wrap my arms around his neck, but of course I can't.

His lips and the palms of his hands travel all over me then, making a gradual journey down my body. I make
mh
sounds and breathe into the sensations of his touch. The farther down my body he goes, the more I lift my pelvis up, calling for his attention. When at last he arrives at my mons . . . he stands up and walks away again!

“Hey, fuck you, buddy!” I call.

He laughs out loud. “Don't worry. I'm just getting the lube.”

“Uh, pretty sure I don't need lube at this point.”

He retrieves the lube and the vibrating Ben Wa balls from the dresser and begins brushing the lube onto my vulva with two slow, circling fingertips.

I shift my hips and groan. I raise my head to watch his face. “I get to come soon, right?”

He grins. “Maybe.”

I give him a stern frown. “I hope you're enjoying this.”

“I really, really am.” He's brushed lube over every millimeter of my vulva and mons and inner thighs. “I want you to pay attention to how this feels,” he says, and he's pressing the weighty little pair of Ben Wa balls gently against my vagina. He pushes and withdraws, pushes and withdraws, the way he did the first time we had sex.

“How is it?” he says quietly.

“Nice,” I sigh.

“Do you want it inside you?”

“Yeah.” I press my body downward, trying to push it in. The first bead goes in. And he turns on the vibration.

“Whoa,” I say, and he tugs against the tensed muscle that holds the fat, heavy bead inside me. I squeeze against the pressure and draw the bead deeper. Through this delicate tug-of-war, he gradually lets both beads settle inside me, vibrating, pressing, slippery . . . and then, kneeling between my thighs, he slathers his hands with the lube and begins massaging my breasts, my ribs, my belly, with his slick, glossy hands while the toy buzzes deep in me.

I writhe, aware of a certain indignity and greed in trying, trying to get some direct clit stimulation when he's giving me gorgeous sensation everywhere else, everywhere but my clit.

“Charles, I want you to lick me.”

“I know.”

“Well, would you please?”

He laughs a little in response and then lies beside me, his whole length pressed against me, his clothes pressing against my skin, and he kisses my mouth. The beads buzz steadily inside me as his hand travels from my throat, over my breasts, down my belly, to between my legs, just the lightest touch of my labia, and my hips bolt up off the bed, my breath stopped as he kisses me some more.

Then his hand is gone, wandering with light fingertips over my body, over my armpit and arm, over my thigh, my hipbone.

My body softens gradually down into the mattress, beyond my volition. Every movement changes the vibration inside me, so tantalizingly close to where I want it, so achingly far.

“Charr-ulllles . . .” I groan.

He pulls away from me, sits up, and I arch again, harder, rising off the bed, and whimpering. Charles puts one warm palm low on my belly, just above my pubic bone, as my body lifts and falls.

“Tighten here,” he says, and I do, my belly going almost concave in the pressure of my muscle contraction. Still I don't come, but I roll my body against the sensation and feel my arousal inch closer and closer to the peak. His hand travels over my moving body to my breasts, caressing them softly, a warm palm brushing over the desperately sensitive areolae, and then down, over my belly, over my hipbone, along the inside of my thigh, a light touch that jolts me, pushing me another level higher.