K is for Kinky (14 page)

The holy belief that flesh and therefore life is mutable is whispered like a prayer or a mantra on the stainless-steel and starched white altar, the white linoleum prayer mat, with me as the priest, reciting the liturgy with my scalpel and my hands. So as the unwilling holy man of such a movement, it only makes sense that I should sample its communion wine. Offering my devotion unto the god of medical transfiguration.

And all God's children have interchangeable parts.

ALISON TYLER

 

 

 

 

 

K
NIVES AREN'T EASY. They're more difficult, say, than palming an apple, the rounded red fruit cupped under your hand in an arc as you slide between the automatic glass doors of the neighborhood grocery. Far more complicated than lifting a lipstick. Those short, cylindrical tubes always fit so easily beneath the edge of a cuff before disappearing up the sleeve in a reverse magic trick. Trust me, knives take skill. And more than that, they take will. You have to want to steal that shiny, mirrored blade, to conceal it carefully, so that you don't cut yourself to bits in the process.

The cutting, of course, comes later.

That said, I'm the type of girl who gets an intense rush from any type of thievery. From absconding successfully with a single piece of fruit that I know I'll never eat to taking lipsticks and glosses and tints that simply gather dust on my bathroom shelf. The art of stealing is enough.
It transforms me. A heart-pounding energy fills my brain when I realize that, fuck yes, I'm going to do it once again. I'm going to walk out of this store with something that I haven't paid for. Fear freezes into a pleasing numbness as I grip an item tightly and make my way to the nearest exit.

But knives are the best, because blades turn me on.

I've been at the game for a number of years. I know what I'm doing. You'd never guess my sexual hobby from looking at me. I've mastered the nonchalant expression that I wear as I cruise the cutlery section of a gourmet cooking store. I'm no cat burglar. You won't find me robbing a place after hours, scuttling through deserted racks of silverware accompanied only by my shadow and the red light on the video camera overhead. What's the fun in that? I like the challenge of working when there are people present. Security guards. Overly attentive shopgirls. And other customers.
Especially
other customers. Those housewives who trundle along after a new paring knife, one with a handle that won't break off this time, thank you very much. The atrocious newlyweds exchanging a set of butter knives for a fancy blade that will cut through the slimy seaweed skin of homemade sushi.

“We're making it ourselves,” they gush in saccharine-sweet voices, eyes on each other rather than the prices of the expensive weapons displayed before them.

But my eyes are focused on the razor-sharp edges that can do such damage in the hands of those less experienced, and even more damage in the hands of those who know what they're doing. I like the high-end knives, often imported from Europe, with black handles made of heavy-duty rubber. Usually, these blades are trapped behind glass. You have to ask for permission to touch.

“That one,” I nod to the helpful pink-cheeked salesgirl. “The small one.”

I get wet as soon as the slick rubber meets the flesh of my palm. My thumb works up the edge slowly, to dance lightly over the ridge of the blade. It's a tango between steel and flesh, and flesh, I know, will always lose. In my head, I can already visualize the heartbreakingly lovely hue of that first drop of blood. Cherry red, the little pinprick of liquid will dot and then swell, blooming—

“Oh, gosh, Miss,” the honey-blonde salesgirl murmurs. “You've cut yourself.”

And I have, which is shocking, to me as much as to her. I've never done something like this before. Never let myself slip up so badly in public. She is rightly concerned, taking me firmly by the wrist, hurrying the two of us to a back room, where I see a half-filled coffeemaker, a box of donuts that grow staler as I watch. My dark brown eyes are clear and sharp. Everything is in perfect focus. That line of blood as it trickles now, pooling—

“Raise up your arm,” she says, lifting my hand to show me what she wants me to do as she rummages a cabinet in search of bandages. The knife, I discover, is still in my other hand, and I slide it secretly into my pocket without thinking. Blade first. Down my thigh. If I sit, I'll stab myself.

“Here we go.” Her voice is calm, and I recognize in it the exact same tone that the nurse at my pediatrician's office always used before bringing out the shot. “It'll sting,” she warns, “but only for a moment.”

Rubbing alcohol is poured in a clear river on a puffball of cotton. I don't feel the pain as the girl swipes the damp fluff across my thumb.
My head tilts back and I look at her. Soft golden hair, a wisp over her forehead that she blows out of the way with an exasperated breath. Flushed cheeks, dark gray eyes, lips colored as red as that first drop of blood against my pale skin. She notices me watching, but says nothing, applying pressure, careful and steady. I'm sure that she'll take out a Band-Aid next, warn me about my carelessness before ushering me back into the real world of the busy store.

“What did you take the last time?” she asks, surprising me so greatly that I take a step back from her. I don't get far because she hasn't let go of my wrist. She's holding tight, and her eyes, not just gray now but the flat color of wet pavement, are gazing fiercely into my own. “It was a display knife, I think,” she says, nodding in agreement with her own statement. “Am I right?”

Her fingers grip tightly into my wrist, holding on to my pulse point. I can feel my heart pounding where skin meets skin. There's the sound of a fire burning in my head. Rustling. White noise. I'm so confused that I can't speak.

“A Classe, from Italy,” she says next, and the name is like a dirty word to me. Something hot and exciting.
Talk to me about knives
, I want to whisper to her.
Describe the rough edges of a serrated blade. The sleek lines of a parer. Whisper longingly to me about my favorites: the little ones, sharp and dangerous, like the dagger in my pocket.

“I saw you,” she says now. “And I waited for you to come back. I knew you couldn't stay away.”

She'll turn me in, I think, picturing my first arrest ever. I see myself taken somewhere stark and frightening where I'll have to confess. I stole an apple, I remember. That was my first time. Lifted the
sweet, ripe fruit from the pyramid of Washington red globes and got away before anyone could see
. I took a lipstick next,
I imagine myself saying—the words will pour from my lips in a rush. No one will be able to stop me. I took a lipstick, and then I wrote twisted things on my bathroom mirror. Perverted fantasies that looked as if they were etched on that frozen glass in blood.

“The back way,” she says, “follow me.”

I move without thinking, having to do as she says since she still hasn't released me from her powerful grip. As we hurry down the metal stairs of an employee exit, I notice the fresh scent of her shampoo, the sweet smell of her skin. Then we are suddenly in bright sunlight, walking out of the mall and to the parking lot. She takes me to a pickup truck, shiny and black, and soon we're inside together, on the leather seats. I squirm slightly, so as not to sever anything serious with my hidden prize. Simply knowing the knife is still in my pocket gives me strength.

Speaking in a voice that sounds nothing like my own, I hear myself giving directions to my apartment. I understand that when we get there, she'll see my loot. The blades in a row on a metal board, all of them pinned up there like prized butterflies in a lepidopterist's collection. This vision turns me on more than I can describe.

In silence, we drive the short distance to my place, and once she parks the truck, we move quickly from the empty street to the stark metal stairs to the bare patch of concrete outside my front door. My hands shake as I fumble with the key, until finally I make it work in the lock, and then we're inside in my Spartan living room staring at each other. Without a word, she reaches into my pocket and comes up with the stolen goods. I sigh as I see her fingers close around the handle.
It's like watching a porno movie, something sexual and tangible, raw and rough. And then she's turning me, slicing easily through the thin fabric of my long-sleeved black T-shirt. Tracing the very tip of the blade against my naked skin. Not cutting. Just letting me know how it's going to feel.

And it's going to feel like this—

Magically, the light grows brighter. Objects so often fuzzy in my vision take on clean edges. The knife presses harder and I hear my skin humming with the precursor to true pain, the only thing that clarifies my life and makes me come. She's talking now. I hear bits of sentences. While my vision is brighter, my hearing is focused only on the sound that a blade makes when it kisses skin. But I get snippets, and I make out certain key words:
Waited. Searched. Needed.
She needed to meet me as desperately as I needed to get caught.

There is an artistry to what she's doing. Teasing me with that sharp, true point of my favorite sex toy: a knife. I'm contained in my black jeans, black boots, shreds of fabric that once made up my shirt. My long, gleaming dark hair is in a high ponytail off my neck. I can feel her breath on my skin, and I sense the moment before she presses harder. Before she brings the pain home where I will really be able to feel it. I hold myself steady, feeling the wetness seep from between my nether lips, and I realize that stealing is nothing compared to this. The rush of taking something pales against the experience of being caught. And being punished.

The blade connects. My eyes close. My chin lifts.

With each flinty metal bite against my skin, my cunt contracts firmly. It pulses with a strong, regular rhythm, beats as if it has a heart
of its own. In a flash, I know that if she works me long enough, hard enough, I will need nothing else. Pain enhances pleasure in the wet heat between my thighs. There is a perfect bliss each time she touches unmarked flesh. Every stolen item I've ever hidden away in my clothes has been practice for this.

She says, “Strip for me now. I want you naked.”

As she steps back to give me room, I peel off my jeans for her, feeling my hand trembling at the button fly. Where is my calmness? Shivers ripple through me, but I manage to obey her command. In seconds, I'm nude, my clothes a discarded pile on the floor. Then I wait. She walks around me, observing in silence, and finally she comes forward and kisses me on the lips. Once. Again, I smell the different fragrances of her body that combine into one sweet scent. Breathtaking, almost overpowering. I close my eyes, drinking her in. With a single gesture, she demonstrates for me that she knows everything I want. Holding the blade in her hand, she gently rests the flat edge of it against my cheek, letting me feel the cold steel on my hot skin. I concentrate on that feeling, learning it, memorizing it.

Bending in front of me on her knees, she uses her free hand to part my pussy lips and she presses her mouth to my cunt, tasting me almost casually with a probing thrust of her tongue. A lick. A flicker of her wetness against my wetness. She's searching, quickly finding out how excited I am already, in the short space of time, from the teasing lines alone of the blade on my back.

The knife is still in her hand, and as she presses her lips against my waiting cunt, she starts to trace again, to sketch designs with the point of it. To illustrate for me how well she knows her craft. A blade
pressed firmly into skin will leave a white mark, a momentary etching that lasts for several fleeting seconds without breaking the skin. Try it yourself. Drag one nail against the back of your hand and see how pretty the lines can look. They quickly fade. Too quickly. In order to make them last, you have to use something else. Something serious.

I look down and see her working the knife along my inner thighs, taking her time. She will mark me all over, I think. She will plan and diagram and then make the first cut. Can I wait? That's the question. The only question.

In the full-length windows across the room, I see the mirrored reflection of the two of us. I am naked; she is clothed. Her blonde hair is still in her face, effectively pushed out of her eyes every second or two with a practiced puff of her breath. My sleek, slim body appears so well-contained in comparison. Everything about me—my pale skin, dark hair, deep brown eyes—radiates an inner cool, a quiet steadiness. Cutting through that surface shell will finally release me.

She works me steadily, alternating between the teasing lines of the blade against my flesh and crimson-smeared kisses with her parted mouth. The sensations match each other in their ability to thrill me. Her wet warm tongue trips between my parted pussy lips, spreading me open, pushing me wide. Her tongue makes circles, then diamonds, up and over my clit. A whisper-soft tickle, gently, so gently, followed by a more resounding lap of the flat of her tongue. Alternating motions have me groaning fiercely. And I shudder and bite down on the sounds that threaten to escape.

“Tell me,” she says, her breath a rush of warmth against my wetness.

“Tell you what?” I beg.

“Confess—”

I close my eyes tighter. I can hear the words in my head. It's all about the wanting. Not possessing. Not owning. But the wanting before. And the knowing that I can have whatever I need if I only have the strength to take it. Yet all I manage to whisper are those last words. “Take it—”

“Look at me,” she insists, and I open my eyes and stare down at her. “That's what you'll do,” she agrees, sounding pleased. “You'll take it for me. Whatever I have to give. Everything I have to give.”