Gagged (9 page)

That thought sits with me for a while, lying there in the dark: the idea that I could definitely get him in trouble if he’d touched me inappropriately instead of giving me the kind of gift that bold men give their lovers.
 

I’m not Caspian’s lover. So can I tell on him somehow? No matter how I slice it, I can’t decide who might care, because I don’t think anyone would.

But still … the gall. It’s aggressive, what he did, and my anger at the man is keeping my headache alive. I thought I hated him before, and then I met him and saw how he batted us around like a cat toying with injured mice. Jasmine was willing to do anything for that interview, and combined with her crush on the asshole, she was going to do pretty much whatever he wanted.
 

You say I should wait an hour until you damn well feel like showing up? No problem, Mr. White.
 

You say I should accept the five minutes you’re willing to give me and thank you for it? Of course, Mr. White.
 

I toss. I turn.
 

You say I should slip my panties down to my ankles and lift my skirt so you can use sex toys on me, and I should thank you for the gift? Why, yes — I’d be delighted to, Mr. White
.
 

My back hurts. Probably because I’m sleeping on my side without anything between my knees. My friend Iris, who’s majoring in anatomy, says to sleep with a pillow between your knees so your pelvis lines up straight. So I put a pillow between my knees. My thighs, really. It’s a bit too high. I squeeze it.
 

You say you want me to spread my legs so you can put your penis inside me? Well … if you say so, Mr. White
.
 

I’m between sleep and wakefulness. Consciousness is gossamer thin. I drift, still feeling the headache, feeling like it’s because all my muscles are tight and I’m tense and I need a massage.
 

If I had a massager, I’d use it.
 

I think of my mother’s back massager, when I was younger. I used that.
 

And I flinch because of all those old memories, but this time the associations are distant. I’m rocking before I realize it, and the pillow is brushing me where I seem to need relief most.

My hand slides downward. I’m half-inside a dream, half-outside. I feel like I’m two people. One isn’t responsible for my actions, deep in the partial dream, doing what I’m told because there’s really no two ways about it. The other is watching me. Shaking her head. Reminding me of how pleasure quickly departs, leaving the shame and pain.
 

I remember the massager.
 

I remember the pain.
 

But still I can’t stop being irritated by Caspian, who was such an ass yesterday, who’s infiltrated my thoughts all day, and had the gall to drop a vibrator off on my doorstep: a command, a gift, a prescription.
 

Do you own a vibrator? For therapeutic reasons, I mean.

Who says something like that? He didn’t even know us. He
really
didn’t know
me
. I was just some girl who accosted him in a coffee shop. He doesn’t know me from Eve, except that he sure seemed to know me just fine. We weren’t even talking about anything remotely sexual — not that
that
would have been okay if we had been. I was in the middle of yelling at him for his obstinance while he played with us, and somehow he decided that made it okay to ask me about my sex life — or total and complete lack thereof.
 

What a total asshole.

I’ll bet he shouts at women when he has sex with them. Tells them exactly what to do. They’re probably not allowed to have orgasms because it’s all about him. He probably puts them into position then takes his dick out. The next thing you know, he’s sticking it wherever he wants: in her mouth, inside her, just worrying about getting off.
 

My hand slides over my panties, cupping the place between my legs. I never do this. But there’s no question that’s the trigger point behind all my aching, not a potential source of more pain later like in the past. If my hand stays where it shouldn’t be, my headache will improve. I’ll be able to sleep. My back will probably stop aching.
 

But really: Thinking of Caspian White?

Inside my head, Caspian says,
Touch yourself, Aurora. For therapeutic reasons, I mean
.
 

My finger moves to the cleft, pressing the sensitive spot through my panties. I breathe in. There’s no question that’s the problem right there. That spot exactly.
 

Inside your panties, Aurora. With my cock in your mouth. And I’ll make you a deal: I won’t come in your mouth until you come first.
 

I’m about to slip the first of my fingers below the elastic when a car’s brakes squeak outside. My eyes pop open, and reality returns. I want to do this. It’s nobody’s business if I do. My door is closed; Jasmine is asleep; even if it surprises me and I cry out again, my mother won’t come in and catch me, shocked and ashamed, and hand me over to my father for punishment.
 

I’m twenty-three. I’m an adult. There’s something wrong with a virgin my age. And people my age who can’t bring themselves to masturbate when they feel like it? People who are
afraid
to and haven’t done so since the age when orgasms first became possible? Well, those people are
truly
screwed up.
 

Fuck it.
 

I slide out of bed and go to the hallway bathroom, past Jasmine’s room. She sleeps like a brick, but I still stop and listen after I flush the toilet and the water stops running. Then I pad down to the kitchen and listen again. I open the fridge and close it. If she comes out now, I can say I’m getting a snack. But I wake in the middle of the night all the time and can count the number of times I’ve run into Jasmine — or heard her stir — on zero hands.

On cue, I hear snoring from the front bedroom.
 

The door is beside the fridge. I turn the thumb lock slowly, followed by the knob. The offending item is right on top. I don’t even have to take the pretty white box with the flower tangled in its bow. The black-and-chrome vibrator is right there, right on top, not even returned to its inner box.

I slip it out. Touching it, I feel a charge. My pussy tingles like a kid realizing she’s going to be allowed that special treat after all. I feel devious. The house is so quiet, it’s like I’m a thief stealing what was mine to begin with.
 

I stuff the paper down around the box then push the box a bit farther down in the garbage can. I slip the vibrator into my pocket then decide to empty the kitchen trash. I actually manage to do it without waking Jasmine, and two minutes later Caspian’s gift box isn’t even visible in the can. We’re done with that bullshit. I put garbage on top of it so no one would ever want to go looking for the box again. And why would Jasmine look? I told her to throw it out, and she did. Now that stupid, gross thing is buried. She doesn’t need to know I took it out first.
 

Standing in the kitchen with only moonlight to light my way and the garage door closed again, I can’t resist slipping the slim thing from the pocket of my robe. I realize I have no idea how to use it and think I should have at least taken the little manual that came with it, but how hard can it be? I can see the power switch, and it moves through various speeds. The batteries seem to be rechargeable. I figure you touch wherever feels best. Or you slide it inside and …

Oh God. Am I really going to do this?

But of course I am. Because dammit, I’m an adult and horny as hell. I’m so worked up right now, looking at this stupid little device as if it’s the cure to all that ails me. Maybe it’s not such a horrible gift. It came from a terrible man, sure, and I don’t like what it says that he sent it — what he might do to others if this is how he treats girls he doesn’t even know. But on the other hand, it perfectly fits the definition of an ideal gift: something I need (and, right now, desperately want) but that I would never get for myself.
Never ever ever.
 

I figure I should wash off something that’s meant to go inside me, so I use normal dish soap in the kitchen sink, wondering too late if I should be using some sort of specialty cleaner. But it’s hard to care; even the simple act of rinsing the thing reminds me that this is serious, that I’m actually going to use it. I’m going to slip my panties off and touch this to my …

Holy shit, I feel like I’m going to come on the spot just thinking about it.
 

I rush as much as I’m able. If Jasmine wakes up I’ll snap right back into my usual self and away from this new, strange Aurora. Even after Jasmine goes back to sleep, I’ll never be able to do it. I’ll probably take the vibrator back out to the kitchen and toss it back in the trash, probably rubbing chicken drippings all over it to make sure I’m never tempted again.
 

But Jasmine doesn’t wake. I’m back in my room seconds later, locking the door, which I never do — another reminder of what’s to come, and it makes my eager pussy squeeze and grip and throb. I take off my robe. My sleep shorts. My panties. I’m so wet, it’s almost like I peed my pants. I get the courage to put a finger there first, and there’s almost no friction. My finger comes away slick.
 

I turn the vibrator on. Another shiver. I feel like I’m about to have sex, and the anticipation thrills me. I think I’ve had orgasms in dreams, but I haven’t had one while awake, on purpose, since I was in my early teens. There was too much guilt to enjoy it. Too much surety that girls who did that were nasty and dirty and shameful, and that they were punished and deserved it.
 

But there’s none of that now. I touch it to my clit. I barely have time to wonder what I should be doing — move it around, press in one spot, or slide it inside — when all of a sudden I
come
, out of the blue, just like that.

I think I shout out. It lasts for long seconds, and all I can do is hold on. I lose track of where I am, what I’ve done to enter this bliss, or why I had such a problem with this concept before.

As it abates, I wait for the guilt. Now that I’ve masturbated — though it was so quick, it’s hard to believe it merits a name, let alone requires such a fancy device — I’m sure I’ll feel awful. How will I look myself in the mirror? And the next time I see my mother, will she know just by looking at my face? When I see my father again, will he get out his belt?

But there’s none of that. I don’t want to fall asleep. Jasmine always jokes about it being that way for guys, but although I feel satisfied, I’m
more
interested in giving myself attention.
 

So I do. I touch the same spot, jump a bit because I’m oversensitive, and move the vibrator around the hot button rather than touching it directly. The thing is phallic, but I don’t feel ready to try slipping it inside me, though there’s enough curiosity there that I slide it along my pussy lips, the bare tip penetrating me.
 

Then back to my clit.
 

Then around it.
 

I come again, harder.
 

But again, afterward, I’m somewhere between satisfied and wanting more. So this time I put the tip inside me just a little, and my other hand joins it. Either this is instinctual, or I’m remembering my old technique with Mom’s back massager, because I know just what to do. With the edge already shaved by two orgasms, I take my time, savoring. My mind turns to fantasy.
 

What if I let a man touch me this way?
 

But Caspian White is the man in my mind. With my eyes closed, he’s in front of me, touching me. His fingers stroke my wetness. He leans forward and licks long strokes across my sex.
 

What if I let a man inside me?
 

I slip the vibrator deeper. I know I won’t bleed; that happened when I was sixteen and rode a horse, changing later to find my white underwear smudged with red still weeks from my period. The fit is strange and tight, but I’m so hot and bothered that it doesn’t matter. It takes some squirming before my insides understand and relax into the penetration, then it starts to feel good with the buzzing quietly inside me. I don’t like it as much as the buzz on my clit, but I keep it inside anyway, using my other hand to rub my button. I keep the vibrator inside because in my mind it’s a man who’s slipping himself into me, sliding in and out, my wetness more than enough to lubricate his thrusts.
 

But still I can think only of Caspian. It’s his cock inside me. His thick tip that pauses at my entrance each time before sliding inside. His girth holding me open, and his breath on my neck.

I come a third time while thinking this, and this time I sort of let the orgasm claim me, head to toe. I exhale too loud at the edge of a moan, knowing I might be heard and not caring. I roll to the side, hands still between my legs, vibrator slipping out as my pussy grips and pulses.
 

I stay that way for a while, feeling the aftershocks, knowing I’ve done enough — too much, probably — and that I’ll finally be able to sleep. Though I wonder if in the morning I’ll be able to look in the mirror.
 

I think I doze a little, but eventually I sit up and realize there’s a titanic wet spot in the middle of my sheets. I’m sure that changing sheets in the middle of the night will give me away, so I grab a towel and lay it down. Then, feeling strange with my bottom half-naked, I pull my clothes back on. Then I look back at the bed and see the vibrator there by the pillow, its black surface slick with my juices in moonlight.
 

I sigh, feeling strange, and take it to the bathroom to wash and towel it off. I look at it for a long few seconds then turn the stare on myself. I’m still the same person. I’m not bad. Nobody has come to punish me, and no one will. I’m an adult. I can do what I want.