Story of Us trilogy 01: TouchStone for Play (11 page)

He glances over at his cork notice board
and the faded photos, contemplating his next move. “Maybe we should tidy up a
little Honey. Make this a palace fit for a princess. What do you think?”

Taking no notice of his address and having
eaten the food, Honey saunters over to the cat flap and makes her escape. She’s
had what she came for and wants nothing more from him, which is just as well as
he has nothing to give. He only has room in his heart for one female and, once
he catches up with her, she’ll need more than a small hole in a door to make
her escape.

The TV lights up the dusty room, but it’s
still unwelcoming and oppressive; the net curtains are held together by dust
and cobwebs, even the coffee table wobbles and is sticky to the touch. This is
not a home, it’s a store room. An overcrowded storage depot inhabited by
memories and endless nights searching, longing for sexual gratification at the
hands of a helpless, blond haired woman.

Feeling somewhat sedated by the lager in
his bloodstream, Dan drops off to sleep. The newspaper on his lap slides down
his thighs, over his knees and lands on the floor. It lies open, four pages in.
There is a picture of two businessmen; one is wearing a grey, pinstriped three
piece suit. The other is tall, wearing a well-tailored designer suit in
midnight blue and smiling. They are shaking hands and the headline reads:
Big
Apple Agreement for Stadler & Stone.

The sound of his snoring drowns out the TV
and echoes around the shadow-filled room. There’s no-one to nudge him into
wakefulness and he sleeps until dawn.

When he stirs, it’s with a burgeoning
sense of arousal. He breathes deeply, letting his senses resurface. Before his
shower, he strolls over to his favourite place. A lewd sneer slithers across
his face. “Not long now princess, not long now …”

Friday
morning sunlight drizzles through the
curtains and makes its way across my bedroom, bringing light to every gloomy
corner and crevice. I rise from my bed a good half hour before my alarm goes
off, still tingling from the after effects of my fingers, his words and his
gift: what a wicked combination.

After a morning’s teaching, I spend my
lunch nibbling a sandwich and typing up stickers for seats in alphabetical
order. I have to help with the planning of a presentation evening that’s three
days away. All the students who have completed exams are returning to collect
their certificates. It’s a night of celebration. By the time the bell rings for
afternoon lessons, they are done and ready to go.

Making the most of a free period at the end
of the day, I’ve headed into town. I’m enjoying the sunlight on my face and the
bustling crowds remind me of just how I’ve been hiding myself away for too
long. Like a character from a fairy tale, my self-imposed exile has kept me
safe from harm: insulated but alone. Not anymore.

I head in the direction of the local Ann
Summers shop in search of something suited to the role of a Dominant, what
exactly, I have absolutely no idea. Something will come to me. I’m starting to
take my role seriously and finding shopping for such a man a real eye-opener.
Who knew these kind of toys existed on the high street, tucked away behind
dare-devil lingerie and dildos.

I buy all the basic provisions: Danish
pastries and orange juice for breakfast, on the off chance he stays the night.
I’m secretly hoping he’ll be overcome with Jet lag and collapses in my arms,
but he travels first class and I shouldn’t rest my hopes on sleep deprivation.

When I arrive home with my selection of
goodies, I struggle to place the bags down, hearing my phone ringing in my bag.

“Hello.”

“Hello to you too.” It’s Charlie. “I’m on
my way over, should I bring anything: wine, ice-cream, tissues.”

“No, just yourself.”

“See ya, in five.”

Her call triggers my dilemma. Do I reveal
who my secret lover is or not? I decide to tell her, she will be the one to
catch me if and when I fall. She’ll be my shoulder to cry on, as she has been
for the past nine years.

***

“It’s 6.30, it’s Friday night, and it’s
wine time!” Charlie announces. She is in the mood to party and has better
things to do that listen to me fawning over my beau, but I sense another
inquisition.

“So are you ready to tell me yet? I’m
losing sleep wondering who the hell he is.”

“Ok, it’s Ayden Stone.”

“Who?” I hand her the print outs and the
info. She reads through his biography, captivated by both words and pictures,
stopping only to herself with his photographs. “He’s friggin’ gorgeous. Where
did you meet him? It must have been at school or at the supermarket because you
never go out?”

She’s stunned and I’m not sure I should
tell her any more but, what the hell. “He was a guest speaker at school and we,
kind of hit it off.” That’s not entirely true but it’s close enough.

“And he asked you out, just like that?”

“No he sent me flowers and a poem.” The
memory of the poem brings a smile to my face.
‘Desire is love’s pure flame
…”

“A poem? What is he, bi?” She tucks a
flaming strand of hair behind her ear.

“No, he’s not bisexual, he’s straight,” I
retort, coming to his defence much too readily.

She takes a closer look at the
photographs. “He looks too …” I wait for the rest of it. “… Too well groomed to
be straight.”

I start to laugh. “Charlie, I can confirm he
is definitely a hot blooded, heterosexual male.”

“You’ve been laid!” She calls out clapping
her hand together. “My God, I take my hat off to you Beth, you’ve been holding
out for someone special and here he is.” She lifts up one of his photos and
plants a noisy kiss on his face. “You’re a very lucky guy Mr. P.”

She passes me my glass of wine. “Let’s
toast to you getting laid and me finding my Mr. Right tonight.” Our glasses
clink and we revel in my good fortune.

I haven’t the heart to tell her our
relationship has yet to be consummated, why ruin my fun.

By 7.30, she’s out the door and on her
phone to someone securing VIP tickets to a fashionable club. She leaves in a
flurry and it’s like waving off a whirlwind. I love her like a sister but
sometimes watching her leave is the best part of a catch-up.  I’m soon in
familiar territory and have three hours to clean, cook and calm down. It’s only
7 o’clock but I want everything to be perfect.

I scroll down my iPod nestling comfortably
in the kitchen dock and select Kate Walsh, I need a remedy for my anxiety and
her soothing tones are like valium to the senses.
Animals on Fire
is a
fair assessment of the state of play. The gentle distraction is momentary. It
occurs to me, I know so little about the man I’m so eager to have in my life.
I’ve read his biography, but that can only tell me so much. He was my best kept
secret until an hour ago and I wonder how many of
my
secrets I’ll be
able to keep to myself after tonight.

I make a mental list of the things I know
and I smile when I admit to myself, it’s purely physical: his breath on my
throat, his hands on my skin, his mouth on my mouth. With every recollection of
him comes a breathless sigh and a flicker of desire that cannot be
extinguished. I want to touch myself and to have his hands touch me, to fulfil
a yearning I have repressed for so long. But thoughts of the flesh must be
shelved for now: coq au vin won’t make itself.

Next on my ‘to do list’ is my bedroom.
With reluctance, I strip off the sheets, clutching them to my chest like a sail
from an ailing yacht. I catch his scent and I’m all at sea. The wicked combination
of feral masculinity and sex reignites the embers and my head spins. I quickly
bundle the linen into the washing machine with his boxers and start a hot wash.
Every trace of him is locked away behind tempered glass and soap suds, for now
at least.

With a visitor’s eye, I carefully scan the
whole apartment, it’s so small and compact and doesn’t take more than five
minutes. It isn’t much, but it’s mine, my world and his welcome invasion is
fast approaching.

***

By 9.50, I’m ready and waiting, showered
and shaved. I sit on my sofa with my hands on my lap but my thumb nail keeps
finding its way to my mouth. I stand, then sit and stand again. Why am I so
friggin’ nervous? The external buzzer sounds at 10.10pm and I stumble to answer
it. “Hello?”

“Hi Beth. It’s me,” he declares, sounding
unsettled.

“Who is it?” I ask, for my own sadistic
pleasure.

“Just
open
the door!” An invisible
smile finds its way to his voice.

“OK, push.” I press the release button and
move to open my front door. When I see him standing there, he takes my breath
away. He’s come straight from the airport, suited and booted with a tie roughly
pulled from his collar. How could I have forgotten the colour of his eyes and
the shape of his mouth. He’s exquisite. For a split second I cannot move, I
cannot speak.

“I can’t come in if you don’t invite me,”
he says with a devilish grin.

I tip my head to one side and find my
voice. “I thought that only applied to blood sucking, over-sexed, stunningly
attractive vampires?” I can’t hold back a smile.

“Darling I’m home.” He throws down his
overnight bag and walks me backwards to the wall, a picture wobbles against my
back and the door slams shut, courtesy of his fancy footwork. Without so much
as a ‘Hello’, his hands are on me; hot palms move upwards from my neck into my
hair, finding their resting place on my warm cheeks.

“That has got to be the longest flight in
history. Ten hours with a fucking hard on!” Each word is spoken between hurried
kisses.

I become aware of his physical longing and
pull his body into mine. “You smell delicious.” I lift my hands to his fragrant
hair and inhale his luxurious cologne.

“I showered on the plane.” His passionate
kissing hitches up a notch, and his tongue wraps itself around mine.

“They let you do that?” I ask, still
unconvinced about actually being able to shower on a plane.

“First class Beth. First Class. Forget the
shower, focus!”

In need of no further prompting, I melt
into him and nibble his bottom lip. He groans and, the reverberation from that
groan, arrows its way to my core and beyond. The sounds this man makes do
something to me.

How can this be happening? We’ve only had
one date and we’re acting as if we’ve been doing this for months, forever. I
give myself to the moment and feel my breathing starting to quicken. I become
aware of urgent hands descending to my bottom, grabbing, lifting me so his
straining fly is pressing against my moist panties.

Oh Christ!

He leans back and is about to speak. “I
know I said I wanted you to take the lead but right now all I want to do is get
down and dirty with you.”

He sounds so desperate, I want to say, “Me
too!” but something I cannot fathom is stopping me. He continues to press his
rigid mass into my crutch and the folds of his trousers find my clitoris. It
would be so easy for any woman to say ‘yes,’ but I’m not any woman. I have
issues and fucking me now, really is not an option.

“Undo me,” he urges, still taking my
weight on his muscular arms.

 I can’t

“Undo me Beth.”

I can’t. I’m suddenly breathless, not out
of desire but with blind panic. My heart’s racing, muscles are becoming rigid
and knotted: I’m afraid.

Sensing my shift in focus Ayden lowers me
to the floor, but is so wrapped up in the moment, he forges on at an
unstoppable pace.

Shit!

He’s undoing his zip. He’s pushing down
his trousers. He’s devouring my mouth with his ravenous tongue. I want to say
stop, but he’s sucking every breathless word from my lips. Only when I feel him
hitching my skirt do I find the strength to say his name.

“Ayden!”

I feel the tip of a rigid mass against my
flimsy underwear and I want to push him off. My fingernails press into his flexing
shoulders through his jacket. I start to push harder, but I’ve tried this
before: he is made of granite. I look at him. All I can see are eyelashes and a
man driven by a savage urge to penetrate me. I tell myself, ‘I want you’ but my
silent assurance is no match for my darkest fears.

Misreading my frenzied embrace, he takes
my hands, bends my arms at the elbows, and slams them left and right, either
side of my head. It’s all I can do to stop myself from screaming. Instead, I
fight him with all I have. I call out his name and so wild is my cry it stops
him dead.

“Ayden. No!” Panting and frantic our eyes
lock. He sees horror and I see disbelief.

“No?” Never has a man been so stunned by a
single word.

“I can’t. I’m sorry.” With a heaving
chest, I look away. I feel such a fraud.

It takes several seconds for things to
register. He pulls down my skirt and the noise of his zip fastening is a
sobering sound. He cannot take his eyes off me.

“No?” The word has a fierce inflection.
This is not a man who ever hears the word ‘no’ from anyone, especially not from
women. His face is expressionless.

I shake my head, struggling to come to
terms with my own behaviour. “I thought I could, but I can’t.” I take his
serious face in my hands, hoping he can hear the sincerity in my words and take
pity on my plight.

“There’s a word for women who play this
kind of game,” he points out, lowering my hands from his face and straightening
his jacket. “And it isn’t very complimentary.”

My body sags at the thought. “I’m not a
prick tease, if that’s what you’re suggesting, and this is not a game.”

“No?”

“No.” I’m having to choose my words very
wisely. He’s come here straight from the airport after a long flight, expecting
‘entertainment.’ What a terrible disappointment I must be: me with my issues.
Before he comes to his own conclusions, I swallow hard and try to explain
myself. “I don’t want you to simply fuck me Ayden, not like this. I’m better
than that, for Christ’s sake you’re better than that.”

He looks lost, disbelieving my assertion,
unconvinced. Risking rejection, I nervously raise my hands to his face. “You’re
very special Ayden, there’s so much goodness in you. It’s all I see.”

He manufactures a half smile. “Then maybe
you’re not looking hard enough. It’s all smoke and mirrors.”

What a strange thing to say …

“There’s no smoke and mirrors here, just
us.” I hold him so close to me I can feel his heart still fluttering against my
shoulder. With his desire contained and affection returning to his eyes, he
smiles and brushes a strand of hair away from my face.

“Something smells good, I’m starving.” A
chase kiss, and he takes my hand. “Let’s eat.”