The Experiment (3 page)

And she was not without some tricks of her own. When she grew uneasy just standing there, she raised her hands and combed them through her hair, which raised her breasts invitingly, then shook her head to make her hair fall free, and in so doing, made her lush breasts shake enticingly on her chest.

If he was going to play with her, she would show him that she could play right back. Let him eat his heart out.

She stood proudly in front of him, letting him see that she wasn’t afraid, wasn’t ashamed. She stared boldly and defiantly into the darkness over the desk and said, “Would you like me to turn around? Would you like to see my ass too?”

“As you wish,” he said softly.

Zoe turned around and let him see her high, round ass, which was one of her points of particular pride, invitingly firm and tempting. She looked back at him over her shoulder.

“Well? Am I worth it?” she asked. “Do you like what you see? Are you getting your rocks off looking at the naked lady?”

He didn’t say anything for a while and Zoe wondered if he were masturbating or playing with himself. But she saw that his hands were still on the desk.

“You’re a very beautiful woman, Ms. Alexander,” he said finally. “Very beautiful. I mean that quite sincerely.”

She knew very well that she was beautiful, she’d been told so many times. But the honest appreciation in his voice, devoid of any hint of salacious lust or desire, moved her somehow and she almost felt bad for mocking him. Poor, old, rich man. Maybe she was teasing him too much.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

He sighed deeply. “The money’s yours.”

She realized that to go and take the money off the desk now would make her look cheap, as if she didn’t trust him. Worse, it would make it seem that she had taken her clothes off only for the money, that she really was some sort of whore. That might be true, but she didn’t want to call attention to the fact. She saw now how the money that changed everything.

Zoe sat down in the chair, as naturally as she could while keeping her knees discreetly together. The leather was warm and very supple against her skin, almost like
another body. She felt very vulnerable sitting naked like this and her vulnerability was strangely arousing to her.

She cleared a strand of hair from her eyes and said, “You know, if you’d just approached me as a regular person, as a man, and asked me out or shown some respect… Well, you might have gotten your peek for free. Or at least a lot less money.” Now she heard him laugh, a warm and open laugh.

“Oh? You think so?” he asked.

Zoe shrugged. “I’m not ashamed of my body. I enjoy being looked at, actually. I just don’t like being told what to do. I don’t like being made to feel like a whore, like I can be bought and sold.”

“I see.”

She remembered now there had been a time when what she had just said had been true, that she had liked to show her body. She had enjoyed it when men looked at her, desired her. She had known just how to use clothes and accessories to show what she wanted to show, to keep them looking.

But all that had changed after her breakup, when she had decided that her beauty was a liability, attracting the wrong kind of men and frightening off the good ones.

Now, without any clothes on, she was a bit nonplussed. She didn’t quite know what to do with herself, how to sit, what to do with her hands. One thing was certain, she was determined that she wouldn’t appear to be the least bit self-conscious or embarrassed, no matter how she might actually feel.

She crossed her legs, one knee over the other and sat up straight, showing her breasts, and it occurred to her that being naked and defenseless like this gave her a certain moral advantage. After all, she was merely unclothed. Unclothed, but natural, while he was the one stricken by salacious urges and lusts. He was the one who was paying her.

“Is that all?” she asked. “May I get dressed now?”

There was a pause in which she knew that he was looking at her.

“As you wish,” he said.

She felt bad for him suddenly. Now that it was done, it hadn’t been so hard. She felt like she had cheated him. She left her clothes where they were.

“Why don’t you put the lights on?” she asked. “Are you so very bad-looking that you have to pay women to undress in front of you? Is there something wrong with you?”

“No, I think, on both counts,” he said.

“Then why don’t you show yourself? I’d like to have a look at you. I mean, fair’s fair. I’ve certainly shown you enough.”

He said nothing for a time, but she could feel him sitting in the shadows looking at her and she began to grow uneasy.

“Do you just like looking? Is that it?”

Again there was no answer. She could see his hands still on the desk, relaxed, unmoving. Her fan of fifties was still there too.

“I mean,” she said, “I know some men are into that. Just looking, not wanting to touch. Is that it?”

Silence. He didn’t move. She couldn’t imagine what he was up to, sitting stock-still like that. He seemed to be waiting for something.

“Maybe you’d like to see more?” she asked. He didn’t answer and she added, “Free of charge?” It was a joke, but he didn’t laugh.

The silence was truly unnerving now. She could feel his eyes upon her naked body, but she didn’t know what he was doing. She sensed that he wasn’t looking at her with lust or desire, the way men usually looked at her. He seemed to be looking at some part of her that she herself was unfamiliar with, seeing something she didn’t know existed. It made her very uneasy.

“Here,” she said. “Is this what you want?”

She opened her knees slightly and slouched down in her seat, giving him a perfect view of what she’d been hiding. “Do you want to see my pussy? It won’t bite.”

She put her hands down in her crotch and pulled her labia open for him to see. A thrill of dangerous pleasure shot through her as she exposed herself so lewdly. She knew she shouldn’t be doing this—he’d said no sex—but she didn’t know what else to do and he seemed to be waiting for her to do something.

“Do you want to touch?” she asked the darkness. She began to stroke herself, running her fingers lightly up and down her slit, curling the hair around her fingers, watching the shadows. The hands on the desk didn’t move.

“I don’t mind if you want to touch me,” she said. “I like to be touched.”

At last he spoke. “Touch yourself,” he said. His voice was thick. She was getting to him.

It was such a relief to finally get a response, to have him break his oppressive silence, that she almost smiled. She understood him now. She began to stroke herself harder, the way she did in private, pleased to be on familiar ground, ground she understood. He was a man, after all, and men were such predictable creatures. She knew what he wanted to see.

“Mmm,” she sighed, closing her eyes. She made no attempt to hide her pleasure, knowing that this was what he wanted and feeling she owed him at least this much. And in fact, her fingers did feel unusually good on her flesh. She was surprisingly aroused.

“Do you touch yourself like this often?” he asked softly, afraid to break her spell.

“Yes,” she sighed. “Sometimes. It just feels so good.”

Feeling suddenly defensive, she looked at him. “Everyone does it,” she said. “Not just men. Women do it too. Everyone does it.

“You do it too,” she challenged. “Don’t you?”

He didn’t answer.

She didn’t like him ignoring her. She didn’t like the way he was playing with her, making her feel like she was the perverted one while he was the one who was enjoying it. She didn’t like the way he hid in the shadows, pretending he wasn’t there. But she could play with him as well. She would get to him, she would show him. If he wanted to see smut, she would show him smut.

She raised her left leg and hung it over the arm of the chair, opening herself up wider. She was no longer stroking herself softly. She was aroused now and she wanted more stimulation. The movement of her hand was more impatient, insistent, harder. Her fingers vibrated against her clitoris and her other hand moved up to her chest where she took her breast in her hand and began to stroke it. She wanted to show him how she played with herself, how she gave herself private pleasure. Let the pervert look. Let him get green with envy.

“You like watching me do this, don’t you?” she asked, a smoky look in her eyes. “You like watching me rub myself. You’re sitting there hard, getting off on me, aren’t you? You can’t keep your eyes off my pussy, can you, you son of a bitch? Are you beating off now? Are you pulling your dick? You sick bastard. You pervert! Can’t you talk? Can’t you say anything?”

“Yes,” he said softly.

“Ohhh!” the cry of pleasure burst unexpectedly from her mouth as a sudden thrill sparked inside her, a lewd and dirty thrill that came from being watched like this, watched as she exposed not only her body, but her secret desires.

“Oh yes! Watch me! Watch me, you bastard! Your big cock is going to come too, isn’t it? You’d love to shove it into me, wouldn’t you? Fuck my little pussy, fuck me with your big cock!”

Her hand was moving faster now, sending spears of irresistible pleasure through her. Her body heaved in the chair as she panted loudly, her hips rocking up against her fingers. She had been exaggerating what she felt for his amusement, but she had fooled herself too, and now her excitement was real and running out of control.

Occasionally, an especially keen bolt of pleasure would make her body jerk and bring a cry from her lips and she would have to leave off masturbating for a second until it passed. Sometimes she would stop and spank her clit with a sharp little blow, as if it were a naughty little pet that had nipped at her. Her other hand stroked rhythmically at her breast, sliding around the ripe hardness to her nipple, which she took between her fingers and twisted. She pinched her tender flesh with her long red nails, seasoning her pleasure with sharp stabs of delicious pain.

Her eyes were closed, her hips and thighs trembling as she brought herself to the peak of pleasure. She opened her eyes and stared up at the bright spotlight above her. There was no sound in the room but the sounds of her fingers working wetly against her flesh and her own labored panting.

“Oh God!” she moaned. “You bastard! I’m going to come! I’m going to come! Please let me come! Please tell me I can come!”

“Come then,” he said softly.

“Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! Oh! Ohhhh!” Her voice ran from a breathless whine to a full-throated shriek as she convulsed in orgasm, twitching and thrashing in the chair. She shoved two fingers into her vagina and felt her empty sheath spasm hungrily around them as her eyes rolled up into her head in a delicious, full-body orgasm that hit her with jolt after jolt of shattering release. The intensity of her climax took her completely by surprise and her convulsions were so intense that she felt her juices flood out around her fingers and run down her hand as the nails of her other hand made deep marks in her flushed breast.

All she could think of was her own nakedness and the man sitting there, calmly and intently watching her make a shameless slut out of herself. The image filled her with lewd and bitter pleasure.

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh fuck yes!” she whined, feeling the throbbing ecstasy fade with each dwindling spasm of her body. Slowly all her wire-taut
muscles relaxed. Her limbs began trembling as she continued to reverberate like a great bell with the fading echoes of her orgasm.

Slowly she returned to reality. This strange reality. She saw her clothes folded on the table, the desk, the cone of light, the hands lying calmly in the lamplight.

“Are you all right now?” he asked softly.

She could tell from his tone that he had not orgasmed. Whatever she had thought he was doing, he hadn’t shared her climax—she had come alone with him watching her.

Zoe was still gasping for breath. “Yes,” she said, deeply ashamed and confused.

“I’ll have Ms. Liu bring you a warm towel,” he said.

“No. No, that’s all right. I’m fine,” she said, awkwardly trying to move her legs.

“As you wish,” he said.

He said nothing more for a minute, then she heard him stand up and go to the same door by which he’d come in.

He stopped. “That was excellent, Ms. Alexander. An excellent first session. I’ll look for you in three days, same time?”

Before she could say anything she saw the door open and he stood there for a moment in the wedge of light, in silhouette, a shadow regarding her.

“Don’t forget your money,” he said, and was gone.

Chapter Two

All the next day, images from the night before came back to her, as from a dimly remembered but disturbing dream. The Doctor’s shadow in the dark, the feel of the leather chair on her naked skin, the money lying on the desk, her orgasm—shameful, yet tinged with a strange sort of perverse pride. She went through her day in a state of distraction. She could not forget what happened last night, she could not understand it.

Her initial feelings of embarrassment changed as the day wore on and she slowly convinced herself that she’d been manipulated into doing what she’d done and she was, therefore, not entirely responsible for her behavior. The only way she could explain it to herself was that it hadn’t really been her, the strange circumstances and unusual surroundings had so disoriented her that she was no longer herself. But at the same time she was aware of a lingering thrill at what she’d done. She was pleased to discover that she could still surprise herself with her own behavior, that there might still be sides to her and potentials that she didn’t yet know.