Eat Me (9 page)

‘Nothing,' I gasp.

‘Nothing, Madam,' she says, a severe tone coming into that lush and husky voice.

‘Nothing, Madam,' I repeat, chastened, trying to quell the rebellion in my hips.

‘That's better,' she says, and rewards me with a kiss. A long, wet kiss that teases me and vibrates through my soul, making me want her even more. And then, suddenly, I feel a sharp pain in my right nipple as she attaches the clamp. My body arches. There is another sharp pain, in my left nipple, and I hear the minute clicks of the chain that she attaches to each clamp. The weight of the chain pulling on the clamp intensifies the agony. Is she pulling on it? Sensation billows through me; I am a surfer on the swells of my own torment. I try to breathe more slowly, more deeply, but my breath comes fast and shallow. I am trying desperately to centre myself, to find a quiet place outside the pain. Ohmygod, she's got her fingers on my thighs. She's drawing her nose up the inside of my thighs…she's planting chaste, maddening little kisses up and down the outside of my pussy, separating its folds with her tongue. And now—clamps on my labia. There are two of me. There's one that's riding up and down on the bucking pain like a rodeo star, and there's another who has dissolved into pulses of pure, floating sensuality. They meet and fall away, rush together and are torn apart. What's this now? Cool metal insistent against my lips. The chain, of course, that's it. I take it obediently between my teeth, though the pull of the chain re-ignites the fire in my nipples.

She is kissing my neck. Her warm lips travel down over my collarbone to my breasts, as her hands rove my stomach.

I hear her strike a match and a delicious burst of sulphur fills my nostrils. She is picking up a candle, I am guessing. A new layer of sensation—slender loops and crosses of shivery anticipation—covers me like tulle. The first hit of wax, just above my navel, makes me jump. By the third and fourth, on my breasts and thighs, I am writhing, out of control. As though from a distant place, I hear her voice, and feel her soothing touch on my arm. She is asking if I am all right. Tears of mortification and of gratitude come to my blindfolded eyes, and I nod. Her mouth closes over mine and I pull on it as hard as I can. Our tongues intertwine and her hand moves down to my pussy. She spreads it open with her fingers, pushing on the clamps, and now, pulling away from my kiss, she bends over my hips and breathes into that hot, wet yearning crevice. I move closer to the edge of insanity. Touch me, lick me, bury your face in me! My head twists from side to side, I beat the pillow with my cheeks. At last, her tongue enters me, swift and probing, and I am fractured and whole, all at once, a lit and sizzling fuse.

I think she's really enjoying this. Philippa smiles to herself.

I know the rhythms of her body well. I can feel that she's on the edge of explosion. But it's too soon. Reluctantly, I remove my mouth from that sweet, salty cavern and stand back. I love to watch her writhe and moan and strain against her silken bonds.

There's that child again. How long has he been looking for his mother? How much time has passed? It feels like a nanosecond and a century. What shall I do to her now? I walk over to the fire and put in a fresh log. A burst of new warmth ripples across the room as it ignites. It is getting dark outside. I light another candle and place it by the bedside. Perhaps it's time for the riding crop.

Removing the labial clamps, she strokes her slave hard now, to a point just short of orgasm. As the slave arches her back, teetering on the edge of the threshold, the mistress bends over and kisses her deeply. At the same time she slides the head of a large dildo into the slave's widened sex. The slave thrusts her hips violently in a vain attempt to swallow it. Constrained by her silken ties, she only succeeds in pushing the tool out by a millimetre or two. Panicking, she tries to stay still, but she so desperately wants it in her to the hilt, to pump on it, to have it fill her up, that she is frantic. Her mistress removes the blindfold. The slave blinks, though the light is low. She can just see the heavy pink toy extending out of her. The head of its Siamese twin nods in the air. This only doubles her desire, if it's possible to double something that is infinite, and she longs for her mistress to mount the dildo's other head. Her carnal craving is so strong she forgets momentarily the pain that continues, a bit more dully now, to emanate from her nipples. Then her mistress gives her nipple clamps a gentle squeeze, and waves of pain cascade over the shores of her consciousness once more. But it is the dildo, with its tantalising presence inside her and yet not enough inside her, that is really driving her mad. The mistress, seeing her misery and her yearning, smiles again, and places a light kiss on her cheek. With a slow, sexy gait, she ambles over to the closet and removes a hooded velvet cape which she puts on. Her slave's eyes widen. You're not leaving me like this? Her lips tremble. She has not even had a chance to give voice to her question when her mistress exits in a lush swish of fabric. The door shuts and she hears the click of high-heeled shoes echo and fade down the corridor.

Helen stood anxiously in the queue at the business counter of the post office, compulsively twirling the strap of her purse around the fingers of one hand, unwinding it and doing it again. Her no-nonsense eyebrows knitted together on a face that forecast imminent rain. The old man who is always standing in front of you in bank queues with bags of coins to be counted, a worn passbook to be replaced, and a complicated answer to the teller's innocent question, ‘And how are you today, Mr. Green?', was now just ahead of her arranging for a postal money order and trying to figure out whether to send his package air or economy air and, if air, whether he should take out the box of chocolates to bring the weight down to 500 grams. His wife's brother had always loved chocolate, but wasn't supposed to have them any more. But he did, sometimes, anyway. Not that these were for him. Oh no. But you had to sympathise.

Helen began to hyperventilate. She was so stressed that when she heard her name ring out from behind, she jumped.

‘Gee, you're edgy, aren't you?' Philippa observed. ‘What's wrong? You look terrible.'

‘Oh God, Philippa, you wouldn't believe it if I told you.'

‘Next, please.'

Helen grimaced apologetically to Philippa and leapt towards the counter. ‘How do I go about getting some letters back that were posted yesterday?'

The clerk patiently explained that they could put out a search, if she could provide the time and place of posting, but that there was no guarantee that they could retrieve them. Especially so late in the piece. Completely destroying Helen's cosy view of the postal service as a lumbering wombat, incapable of high speeds, he described how in all probability her letters were whizzing off to their destinations at that very moment. He did say he would try and find out what the chances were, and asked her to fill out a form. He then disappeared into the back room with it.

‘What's happening, Helen?' Philippa was most curious by now.

Helen outlined the problem. ‘And so,' she concluded tensely, ‘it could be in any of those envelopes. I will die no matter which person gets it, but I will die a thousand deaths if it goes to my parents. Especially with my father's heart condition. But the worst of it is, I won't know whom it's gone to until it gets there.'

‘Could you ask your mum not to open the next letter she gets, to just send it back?'

‘Oh, sure,' replied Helen. ‘Would your mum not open the letter under those circumstances?'

‘Hmmm,' Philippa reflected. Her mum would definitely open the letter. ‘You've got a point.'

‘Miss Nicholls?' At the booming sound of the postal clerk's voice, Helen spun back to face the counter.

‘Ms,' Helen automatically corrected.

‘Ms Nicholls, sorry. They'll check for you. Don't want you to get your hopes up, though, given that the letters are probably already at the central sorting place. If we do find them, there'll be a fee of $20 for each one recovered. In any case, there's no point waiting here any longer. We've got your phone number. We'll call you if we find any of them. About the $20, is that all right then?'

Helen stared at him dumbly. Philippa intervened: ‘I'm sure she'd pay $200 under the circumstances. Come on Helen, let's go get a cup of coffee.' Philippa wanted every detail.

About an hour later, at Cafe Da Vida, Philippa was sitting back appreciatively and Helen was chasing crumbs of carrot cake around her plate with her finger, pressing them into the white plate and licking them off her fingertip.

‘What are you doing off work on a Tuesday anyway?' Helen suddenly asked. She'd just noticed what looked suspiciously like a lipstick smudge on Philippa's neck.

‘Flexitime. I saved up enough for a whole day off.'

‘Great. What have you been doing?'

‘Oh, you know, the usual.'

‘Writing?'

‘You could call it that.'

‘What do you call it?'

‘Playing. Working. Sex. Whatever.'

‘Interesting way of looking at it,' Helen smiled. She was debating whether or not to raise the subject of the lipstick when a passerby caught her attention, and she looked up towards the pavement. She cocked her head to one side. ‘I could swear,' she said, ‘that that was the poet, you know, whatsisname, the punk that Chantal had a fling with ages ago.'

‘Bram?' Philippa twisted her neck round to look, but he'd turned a corner. ‘Missed him. But wasn't he supposed to have moved to L.A.? Or ODed or something?'

‘I'd heard he'd gone into advertising in New York. That was probably a malicious rumour, though. Anyway, he certainly hasn't been spotted round these parts in ages. He was such a waster. I certainly never liked him. It's always been a mystery to me how our gorgeous Chantie ever ended up with such a character.'

‘Love moves in mysterious ways.'

‘So I hear,' Helen said. ‘So, have you shown any more of your novel to anyone?'

‘Just Richard.'

‘His reaction?'

‘Whisky a go go.'

‘Meaning?'

‘Meaning, he seems to like it.' Philippa changed the subject. ‘Have you seen Chantal or Julia recently? I haven't caught up with either of them for a week or so.'

Helen told Philippa about her dinner with Julia. ‘She's off to China soon. She's really psyched. She's just a bit nervous about leaving the new boy so early in the game. Seems totally rapt with him.' Helen leaned towards Philippa over the table. ‘Apparently,' she revealed, ‘the sex is mega-hot.'

‘Excellent,' Philippa smiled. ‘What's his name?'

Helen slapped her forehead with her hand. ‘I'm so bad with names,' she said after a pause. ‘Jason, I think. Yeah, Jason.' She wiped a bead of sweat off her forehead. ‘It's like summer already,' she commented. ‘I'm so nervous about that letter. I need to keep distracted. Do you want to go to Nielsen Park? Have a quick dip?'

‘Sounds tempting. But I really have to be getting home,' Philippa apologised. ‘I've a friend waiting for me there.' She added, after a pause, ‘I'll probably be tied up for the rest of the day.'

ALCHEMY

‘No,
you never can tell,' echoed Alexi. ‘Not these days. But I do suspect he's straight. In which case, gorgeous, he's all yours.'

‘Oh God, darling, I couldn't possibly. Not this morning anyway,' Chantal moaned.

Alexi glanced at his watch. ‘Arvo, darling,' he corrected.

Chantal rolled her eyes. ‘Do me a very big favour, sweetheart, and get me some Eno. In a champagne glass. No one will notice.'

‘Of course, Fabulous One. We'll be most discreet.' Alexi leaned over to give Chantal a peck on the cheek and wove his way through the other guests to the back door of the house. They were at a Sunday arvo garden party in Paddington, at the large terrace house of a wildly successful painter who signed his paintings '
', and was known as Finn—short for ‘infinity'—to his friends. Finn's sculptor wife Myrna occupied the fourth floor and his gay lover Craig (who doubled as Myrna's live model) ruled over the third. Finn's work, with its kitsch retro themes and vivid day-glo colours, had recently formed the backdrop to a fashion shoot for Chantal's magazine (‘Nothing more Today than Yesterday!'). The back yard of the terrace was lushly planted with trees and flowers and dotted with bird baths into which stone angels pissed copious streams of water. A gay boy in a floral frock chatted animatedly with a seventy-year-old matron in an electric blue suit, the author of a hot collection of gothic-erotic fiction currently climbing the bestseller list. Well-dressed art dealers sipped champagne cocktails and complained about the gallery scene in London or Paris or New York or wherever they'd just flown back from. Artists in ripped t-shirts concentrated on heaping their plates with yabbies, caviar and other luxury tucker from the buffet.