Hot Properties (53 page)

“Not hard, though,” he hurried to say. “I don’t think I’m into any real pain. It’s all pretty psychological.”

“Of course,” she said. “I wouldn’t expect you to be into pain.” She sipped her brandy. She smiled, a thin, bitter, mocking sneer. “Yet,” she snapped. “Have you ever fantasized about anal penetration or worship?”

“No,” he said very quickly, scared.

“All right,” she said soothingly. “Anything else?”

He shook his head. She put her glass down and spoke in a clipped voice: “Stand up there”—she pointed to a spot in front of the wall of devices. He did so and noticed two metal cuffs attached to the bottom of the wooden platform above him, and then saw two round metal “eyes” bolted to the floor below them, presumably for spread-eagling. “Look straight ahead at all times,” she said, moving in front of him and fiddling in a drawer at a table he hadn’t noticed that was underneath the wall of objects. “You will address me as mistress. You will speak only when spoken to, except to tell me if something is too painful. If you feel you are about to come …” She turned back to him and suddenly he felt her touch his balls, and then there was a mild tug. He looked down and saw she was tying a white rope around his testicles and the base of his already semierect penis. “Tell me if this is too tight,” she commented as she knotted it. The effect was to bunch his genitals together, keeping the penis thrust forward. “If you are about to come, say, ‘Mistress, I am going to come,’ so that we can stop that. Orgasm is boring,” she finished, speaking right into his face. He felt the warm stale breath of brandy, and smelled her perfume: sweet, overpowering, infiltrating his “nostrils. “Put your hands behind your back.” He did, imitating the man he had seen on television. “Good,” she said. “Do you understand everything I told you?”

“Yes … “he said in a whisper.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Good. Don’t force me to punish you.” She moved at him, pressing her body absolutely flat against his, running her hands down his back—he felt the sharp edges of her nails just barely, enough to know they were there without any hurt—and then squeezed his buttocks, pushing his groin at her. “Today we don’t want to punish. We’re going to play the Queen Spider and the Fly. The queen is going to suck all your liquid. She wants all of you. And you’re going to give her everything.” A pause.

She smacked him on the ass.

“Yes, Mistress,” he answered quickly.

“Good,” she purred. “I don’t want you to enjoy this. If you become aroused, I’ll have to spank you.” She moved away and her fingers lightly held his penis. “You would look pretty in women’s clothes. Have you ever fantasized about dressing up?”

“No.”

She pressed against him, reaching behind, and smacked him on a buttock. “No what?”

“No, Mistress.”

“That’s better. You have to learn to please me, slave. That’s what you’re here for. For my pleasure. Do you understand?” She was hugging him, her long hair in his face, the perfume smothering him, her hands running over his back, her nails possessing him as they lighted on his body. He was an object. A helpless thing.

“Yes, Mistress.”

A smack. “Say it with a little enthusiasm, slave.”

“Yes! Mistress.” The slaps on his ass didn’t hurt at all.

“You want to worship me, don’t you?” she insinuated in his ear.

“Yes, Mistress,” he heard a strange version of his voice. “You are beautiful. Mistress. I want to worship your ass, mistress.”

She stepped back and he felt his whole groin pulled. She had him by the ridge of hair above his penis. He stood on his tiptoes to reduce the tension. She spat her words at his face, an inch from his mouth: “You don’t tell me what you want! That’s for before we begin. If you do that again, I’ll slap you across the face and beat your ass until it’s bloody. I enjoy doing that. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Mistress,” he babbled. “I’m sorry. I understand, Mistress.”

She let his pubic hair go. She looked pleased. “Good.” She sat down on the couch. “Put yourself across my knees. I’m going to have to spank you.”

So it was real—she really did rule. He was hard down there, evidently enjoying it. He laid himself over her lap.

“Keep your legs spread,” she said, a finger touching the base of his testicles, “so I can stroke your balls if you deserve it.”

She slapped one buttock. He didn’t feel it. “You’re hard! You’re not enjoying this, are you?” She slapped his other buttock. “Answer me!”

“No, Mistress.”

“No?” She slapped each buttock in rapid succession. And then ran her cool fingernails on the underside of his balls. His prick flexed with excitement. “You should be flattered I deign to punish you, slave! Thank me for each spank!”

Smack. “Thank you, mistress.” Stroke, Smack! “Thank you. Mistress.” Stroke. “Get up.” He did quickly, surprised that he was sorry the spanking was over so soon. “Get on your knees. Put your head on the floor and beg to worship my ass.”

He spoke to the floor, his lips almost kissing it. “Please let me worship your ass. Mistress.”

“A little more enthusiasm, slave!”

“Please, please let me worship your glorious ass, I beg you.”

“Why?”

For the first time he knew his line: “For your pleasure, Mistress.”

“Very, very good. You’re going to make a good slave.”

Slowly, but surely, he lost any sense of himself. He became a series of sensations. He heard his voice saying unreservedly what she wanted, his sexual longing sustained by the slaps and by the passivity. She had him press his face into her ass, raising her skirt to reveal black leather panties. She held and stroked his penis a lot, lecturing him, running her fingernails down his chest, once bending to lick his nipples and tug very lightly at them with her teeth. She had him stand facing her back and press his penis against her, his hands behind him, ordering him to make fucking motions, the desire for her growing, but never becoming a true want. He didn’t really want anything to change, but to say his lines and let her move him around, always sure, no matter how many reproving slaps on his ass were delivered, that he remained hard.

Finally she grabbed his prick and started to walk, as though it were a leash. He stumbled behind her to the leather-cushioned table. “Lie down facing up,” she said.

He did. He watched her fasten his wrists into the cuffs, trustingly, not afraid anymore.

“Spread your legs,” she said, a hand touching his inner thigh. “So I still have this to punish.” She reached for something. He glanced down and saw a tube of ointment. She put a dollop on his hot sore yearning penis. The small area it touched felt cool and delicious. “Maybe I’ll just leave it there,” she said with a giggle. “Should I leave it there, slave?”

“Oh God,” he heard a voice wrench with agony. “God no, please. Mistress!”

“Do you want me to spread it on, slut?”

“Yes, Mistress, please, I need you to.”

“Need!” she shouted. Her hand came down on his thigh with a hard smack that stung. “You don’t need! I don’t care what you need! You only do things for my pleasure!” And her, hand smacked him over and over, really smarting, until she finally stopped and then he could hear what the deep male voice was saying:

“Please, no. Mistress … please, no, Mistress. For your pleasure. Mistress … for your pleasure. Mistress—” He stopped the devastated fragmented sound of himself.

He felt a coolness at the very tip of his penis. “Push!” she said.

He looked down and saw her thumb and index finger curved together to form a narrow circle above the head of his member. His thigh was pink from the blows. He pushed up, his penis moving through the hoop she had made for it, and the sweet ooze bathed his overheated sex in comfort.

“Push! Work for it, you slut!” Now, for what seemed an eternity, she kept at him, pausing whenever he warned her that he was about to come. She lectured him tirelessly on the superiority of women: how their beautiful sex was hidden, their climaxes dainty, not the sloppy disgusting mess men make. He babbled senselessly in agreement, pleading for more pleasure, until finally she said:

“You may come, you slut!” And she held her hoop for him to jump through, thanking her as he splattered all over himself, hearing her laugh at it, saying, “You shot right up to your chin, slave.”

Afterward he stared up dutifully, adoringly at her.

“It’s good to surrender to a dominant woman, isn’t it?”

“I loved it. Mistress.”

She nodded at him seriously. “You’re going to make an excellent slave.”

“Thank you. Mistress,” he said.

He left happy—spent. Free from all the stupid dreary constipated fantasies: his body loose with unabashed power. I loved it, he said to himself, and flagged a cab to report in at
Newstime.

CHAPTER 15

Fred moved back in with Marion a few months later. Many of his friends were surprised. His career seemed to be in the second stage of a stellar flight: the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Literary Guild were both interested in his novel;
Town
magazine had hired him, on Tom Lear’s recommendation, to write a monthly interview with a sports personality; and Bob Holder had proposed an idea to him for another novel. He had lifted off, it seemed to Fred’s friends, and had a clear trajectory to a new planet; why head back for the tedium of Earth?

“I’ve grown a lot,” Fred answered them, looking shyly away from his interrogators. “Marion and I have been through too much stuff not to give it another try. First I discovered how much resentment I felt toward her—then I learned how much I loved and needed her.” He appeared more fragile than anyone had suspected. He grew more modest, almost timid, as the publication of
The Locker Room
neared.

In the summer he and Marion rented a house in East Hampton with Tom Lear. She came out on the weekends; Fred stayed at the beach, palling around with Tom, playing in the chic softball game where his skills as a pitcher and clutch singles hitter were highly prized. He went everywhere with Tom: the pleasant friend who smiled a lot, spoke little, made self-deprecating comments about his work, and was always available for favors or chores.

In late August they held a barbecue to repay others for all the parties they had gone to. Fred found himself the center of everyone’s attention when Bob Holder arrived beaming with news—Book-of-the-Month had bought Fred’s novel as a featured alternate for a guarantee of thirty thousand dollars. To his bitter surprise, he was asked all over again by everyone the subject of his book, although he had explained it all before—as though the sale had somehow made it a real novel. He saw something he had never seen before in the eyes of the other well-known writers—a flicker of worry and envy. He drank a lot, consciously asked about their work, and kept Marion at least within view, if not actually close by. Despite these precautions, he still managed to make a fool of himself.

“What are you gonna do with your first million, Fred?” Holder shouted at him when they were all quiet for a moment after serving themselves dessert and coffee.

“Think it’s gonna be that big?” a senior editor of
Town
magazine asked Holder.

“The
book of the season. This year’s
Carp.”

“Give him a break,” Marion called out cheerfully. Fred was grateful, but he worried anyway that her comment was wrong. He shook his head at her.

“Have you started on your next book?” Paula Kramer asked. She was one of the hottest writers in the country, successful as a journalist, screenwriter, and novelist. Her personal life was as famous as her written words, she had been married to two powerful and influential men, her life had been as glamorous as Fred’s had been dreary. During the course of the summer he had been in her presence a dozen times; he had nodded pleasantly at many of her observations, but this was the first question she had ever addressed to him.

And he blew it. He stared at her for a moment. Her black eyes seemed alive with intelligence, her long narrow face with its full lips and strong chin loomed at him in the red glow of sunset. He was drunk. He had trouble keeping her in focus. He looked down at his paper plate resting unevenly on the grass. “I don’t know,” he mumbled.

There was explosive laugher from the crowd. Someone, away from his area, said to Holder, “Haven’t you told him yet. Bob?” And there was another round of guffaws.

Fred looked up, shocked, at all of them. There was foreknowledge in their reaction to the joke that Fred wouldn’t know if he was writing unless his editor told him. Holder shook his head at the laughter, his eyes closed, his head shaking, a parent irritated by misbehaving children—but a parent who seemed to confess they were right, that their fault was tactlessness, not stupidity. Is that what he had told them? That he had created the book, not Fred?

“I meant …” Fred stammered and most of them suppressed their amusement, looking with exaggerated solemnity at him. He was frozen by the horrible feeling that he had been naked all along and everyone had been too polite to say so.

“I know exactly what you meant,” Paula Kramer said in a kindly soft voice. She addressed the crowd. “It’s the worst feeling in the world. You worry so much about what you’re going to do next.” She returned her glance to Fred and put out a hand sympathetically, touching his knee. “My worst depressions are right after finishing a book. Now you know what postpartum feels like.”

She had covered for him, rewritten everyone’s motivation by misidentifying his confusion. He assumed she had done so consciously, that it was an example of the skillful manipulation of people that the successful always seemed capable of. God, he wished he had that talent. He knew that Paula Kramer would somehow make Holder’s bragging (obviously his editor must be telling everyone he wrote Fred’s book) seem like self-aggrandizement, whereas everything Fred tried, such as his summer tactic of being self-effacing, worked against him. He had abandoned his previous habit of talking about his work to every stranger (having learned that unless you are famous, no one really cares) just when he should have begun such narcissistic ramblings—just when the world would feel he was justified. Now his modesty seemed like incompetence. The summer had been hell, an endless suppression of natural urges, and now it seemed it had been for nothing.