Being Eloise (An Erotic Romance Collection, Books 1-3) (12 page)

“You asshole,” I said to that still-contorted face.

He came out of the mask in a laugh. “What? Just following orders.”

“You don’t come on me. You know I don’t allow that.”

He shrugged. “I thought you’d loosened up. I mean, hell, you have.”

“Not in that department,” I said. “It’s debasing.” (Hey,
he
didn’t know I’d nearly asphyxiated tied-up Terrance. Everything is relative.)

Sam climbed onto the bed and scooted back to the headboard.

“Your turn,” he said. “Cause it’s going to take me half an hour. Maybe twenty minutes.”

Now it was my opportunity to laugh again. “I think you’ll find time flies.” I left him for the kitchen, returning with a bunch of paper towels which I thrust in his face. “Clean up your mess,” I said.

“Let the maid do it.”

“Is that a joke?”

“Well yeah,” he said.

“Am I the maid?”

“Hey, I said it was a joke.”

“It doesn’t even make sense,” I said. “Now clean it up or this robe stays closed.”

Good boy.
He even went back for another couple of sheets, wet them, and rubbed at the fabric of our—my—dining room chair.

By now I had a half dozen possibilities running through my head: I could send him out into the cold with a hard-on that would last hours, I could let him fuck me, or I could fuck him–semantics perhaps, but not the same thing. My mind made up, I told him to lie down on the bed. I dropped my robe and stood beside him, for the moment like a million other naked couples. I went into the closet and pulled down a shopping bag and removed a sleep mask.

“Put that on,” I said, tossing it to him.

He held and examined it as though he’d never seen one before.

“The eyes,” I said.

“Pink?”

I gave him a stare.

“Okay, okay,” he said.

My hands back in the bag, I pulled out the soft nylon rope that Terrance had brought me months ago. There was already a slip knot at one end and I took Sam’s right hand and placed the rope around one wrist. I slapped his other hand as he went for the blindfold.

“Uh-uh,” I scolded. “No peeking.” I crouched beside the bed and ran the rope around the outermost leg of the bed and tied it off in a knot Terrance had shown me how to make. Sam had his left hand over his armpit, as though the worst I was about to do was tickle him. I pulled out another rope and tied off his other hand.

“You’ve gone all kinky,” he said.

“Mmm,” I said, noncommittally. That Sam was now chewing on his lip drove me nuts. He was nervous and vulnerable: two facets of him I’d hardly ever seen before, though he’d seen those sides of me plenty, thanks to his doing. There were two more ropes in the bag for his legs, but I knew I had to do this in stages or I’d scare him off. He knew that I still hated him on some level. He had to.

“Relax,” I said, and ran my hands inward down his arms, over his shoulders, pausing to touch his cheeks, then down his chest.

“You’re hard as a rock,” I said, when I reached his penis.
Playtime
, I thought. I wished that this was Terrance here, now, instead of my ex-husband, but in the state I found myself in, a schlong was a schlong, no matter its owner.

“I’m so turned on,” he said. “I mean, we were never like
this,”
he said.

I grimaced at the back-handed compliment and ran my hands down to his legs. I lifted his legs up at the knees and quickly placed the ropes underneath for later, then lowered his legs. “I’m going to put on some music,” I said. “Don’t move.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Sam said. Truer words were never spoken.

I put on an old R&B best-of CD in the living room, stopping once more in the bathroom and returning with a tiny tube of gel I’d bought a year ago for a toothache. I grabbed a pack of dusty condoms as well, ones I’d bought after the divorce in a moment of imagined, and ultimately unfilled, possibility. I returned as quietly as I could, fastening the ends of the ropes I’d placed under his legs earlier to the feet of the bed. Then I climbed onto the mattress.

“That okay?” I asked.

“Whatever music you want, babe,” he said. I’d always hated that
babe
thing.

I unscrewed the cap from the tube of numbing gel and squirted several beads onto the underside of his penis, then rubbed it in with the tip of one of my fingers. He groaned a little.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” I said.

“I am,” he said, the dumb (soon numb) prick.

I closed my thumb around him and he started bringing himself up to me and for the hell of it I squeezed the rest of the tube out and over him.

“Why are you stopping?” he asked.

I ripped open a condom wrapper with my teeth then unrolled it over him.

“You need protection,” I said.

“Uh, did you forget the vasectomy?”

Sam had had the procedure done mostly because he
hated
condoms. Also, one kid, we quickly realized, was all we could handle.

“Ever think of the diseases?” I asked.

“From you?”

“From you,” I said and flicked my index finger against his penis, hard.

I expected him to protest, but the thing just bobbed back into place. “I don’t know where your little lady’s been,” I said, teasing, but quickly feeling conciliatory. I stroked his condom-ed penis. “How’s that feel?” I asked.

“I hate rubbers,” he said. “Can’t feel a thing.”

“Better safe than sorry,” I said.

It was only then that I climbed onto him and put him inside me, reverse cowgirl (I didn’t particularly want to see his face), slapping him once when he moved up into me. He wasn’t following directions. Oh, I remember thinking, how I’d missed this, that fullness, that soft warm fullness. I leaned forward and brought myself down onto my elbows, pulling his cock down with me.

He groaned in a way I think expressed discomfort, or—as a real part of me wished—dissatisfaction, too. I was being bad, really bad, and a part of me wanted to drag Olivia right here into the room with me so I could point out what I’d done and was doing. I’d show her that she didn’t have a monopoly on bitchiness and strength and power.

“You’re gonna break it,” Sam said, his hips arching as he tried to lessen the angle.

“Shut up,” I said. I moved back and forth on him and while I still had my wits, used this time to quickly tie off his ankles. The last leg, realizing it was being restrained, kicked a little at the air and I tackled it and tied it off more tightly. Then I climbed off of him and stood beside the bed and Hard Sam. Tied down Sam. Helpless Sam. Numb Sam.

“Babe? Eloise?”

Oh the things I could do, I thought. He had hurt me by leaving for another, but he’d been hurting me for far longer with emotional neglect. Still, he was a decent father to our son, and he had, I believe, loved me in a way that was once true and seemingly everlasting. But had I believed that more truly—or perhaps if it had been more than an illusion—then surely I wouldn’t have tied down my ex-husband, doped him up, and desensitized him from any pleasure he’d derive from me. Right? The little red devil on my shoulder beat the shit out of the angel on the other side.

I got back on.

There was something so liberating about fucking Sam this way, too. How unabashedly I could touch myself at the same time and all he could feel was…”

“How’s this feel?” I asked.

“I can’t feel a damn thing,” he said.

That.

“You gotta loosen these,” he said, his limbs pulling on the ropes. You’ve hit a nerve or something. My dick’s tingling. And not that far down,” he admonished. “You’re gonna snap it off!”

I leaned forward even more and came then to his pleas. Not earth-shattering, to use a tired phrase, but I had time on my side.

Just to show you I’d done no damage, after a minute he said: “I can’t come yet. I need another fifteen minutes.”

“It’s not about you,” I said, climbing off. I picked up my robe from the floor and stood there watching him. I leaned over and kissed him on the mouth, withdrawing every time I felt his tongue wander upwards. There was a knock, then, at the door.

Even though he was blindfolded, Sam looked at the hallway with a snap to his movement. “You expecting someone?” he whispered.

I shook my head.

“Eloise?” he said.

“No,” I said. “Maybe.”

“Get me out of these things,” he said, pulling on the restraints.

“No,” I said and headed to the front door, closing the bedroom door behind me.

It was FedEx with some manuscript pages. I signed and took the bundle and opened it in the kitchen with a knife. It was the middle chapters of Mr. Irldale’s autobiography, back from my dinosaur editor who didn’t believe in tracking changes in Word. There were lots of comments, but thankfully most seemed to be minor, easy-to-fix, or easy to argue against making. And thankfully only a few structural changes. I read a page, then got sucked into two, three, twenty.

“Eloise?”

I pushed the bedroom door open, a cold soda in my hand.

“Who was it?” Sam asked.

“None of your business,” I said.

“I just care if they’re gone.”

“Yes,” I said, eyeing my husband’s penis. Was it larger than usual? I’d never really examined it all that much when we were married. It was much easier to do when the owner was blindfolded. Honestly, it was usually a blur, from movement or proximity. I took a sip of my soda and felt the carbonation burn down my throat. I held the can against the condom-ed penis for a moment.

At first, nothing. Then, “Hey!”
So cold gets through,
I thought.

“What
is
that?”

I read the label. “Carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup and/or sugar, citric acid, sodium benzoate, glycerol ester of wood rosin…”

“Okay, okay,” he said.

“Citric acid, caffeine…”

“I
get
it.”

“
Caffeine
,” I stressed, “Yellow 6.”

“Fine,” he groaned, his resignation turning to a surprised “hey!” when I placed the can against his balls. No delayed response there.

“Now let me finish,” I said. “It’s rude to interrupt. Where was I? Yellow 6, ascorbic acid–that’s a preservative, Red 40.”

Sam was mute. I drained the can of soda (orange, if you’re wondering), and looked Sam over. He’d gotten a little droopy with age, too, like I had. Everywhere, that is, except that cock. I though, wasn’t ready for more yet. I checked the clock.

“I’ll be back,” I said.

Time rather escaped me, though. I put on my headphones to my editing soundtrack of choice: a recording someone had sent me after my breakup, of nature sounds. I put the beach one on repeat—the crashing of wave after wave—and set to work on applying the editor’s suggestions. An hour later Sam’s voice broke through the crash and hiss of surf. I turned, startled; I’d honestly forgotten he was still in my apartment, in my bedroom, tied up.

But would he still be hard?

I knocked.

“Come in,” he said.

He was. Jesus. He looked groggy. His blindfold had come off his eyes and was plastered askew on his forehead.

“You okay?” I asked, tightening the robe around myself.

“I fell asleep,” Sam said. “But I’m still hard,” he said, then laughed, his voice so incredulous and still so ignorant that I couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “We should have done this
years
ago,” he said.

“Hmm,” I said. “Maybe.”

“Untie me, though. I gotta take a whiz.”

“Can you? I mean, with that erection?”

He stared at his own penis; we both did. You would too if you were there. I mean, it’d been hours, and yet it was indefatigable, despite the gel and condom.

“I really got to go,” he said. “I shouldn’t have had so much to drink.”

I untied my robe and let it fall off my shoulders to the floor.

“Hey, okay now,” Sam said, happily. “In a minute. Just untie me so I can…”

“Shh,” I said, and pulled the blindfold back down over his eyes. I had him within me in seconds, dry, wet, so wet. He was panting.

“No, no, no,” he said.

“Don’t like?”

“You’re on my bladder,” he said.

I rode him harder. This was good. Really good. And by that I mean really, really wrong. I liked fucking my tied-up ex-husband. Loved that he was in some distress. Enjoyed his little whimpers now. Who was I becoming? Another Olivia? Is this what I wanted? Those thoughts stayed in my head about as long as it takes the heart to beat a dozen times, and were gone long before I orgasmed, which didn’t take long. I sat there straddling him, his penis still within me. He hadn’t come, poor guy, not since ruining my chair.

“C’mon now,” he said. “You gotta untie me. My left hand is tingling and I really have to…”

“I’m not done,” I said, as something flared within me, something that felt dark and wrong and absolutely thrilling, like shoplifting.
Criminal
was perhaps the name for this thrill. I moved up and down slowly and then reached forward and pulled the mask down off Sam’s face until it was under his chin, then climbed off him and walked forward on my knees until I could bring myself down over his face.

“Hey,” he said, beneath me. “You know I’m not a big fan of going down on you.”

“
I’m
going down on you,” I said, and I think I laughed then. I’m sure of it. It was hilarious.

At first he was unwilling, turning his head, giving me an ear or a chin. Thank god he’d shaved that morning. I held his head straight and rode his lips for a few minutes and I swear I felt his tongue then, felt it venture out. I’m not certain. You’d think I’d know, but I was on him so hard, rubbing across his lips, even assaulting–and it’s embarrassing to admit it–his nose for a while. I was not the picture of decorum. I mean, imagine yourself with someone who won’t do you the decency of a good licking, then add in your hatred for the man, then put him in ropes in a bed and yourself on top. What would you do? Oh really? C’mon.
What would you do?

He didn’t have space to talk. I rubbed myself against him faster; I was sweating by now. And then I could feel it. I was going to get much wetter. I was going to squirt. I didn’t hesitate: I came right on Sam’s face. And I was instantly euphoric, more so even than any of the times with Terrance. Sam was soaked to the curled ends of his hair. And then he groaned and I climbed off his face quickly. His jaw was open wide, that look.