Curio Vignettes 04 Confession (3 page)

Chapter Two

When the dishes are clean and put away, the leftovers
stored, the wineglasses empty and the sky outside dark, the atmosphere shifts.
All our tiny, playful touches have added up, leaving me stoked and hungry and
wanting more. More intensity, more contact, more of Didier in every way.

After he dries his hands on a kitchen towel, I link my
fingers with his and lead him silently into his dark bedroom.

Watching Didier lighting candles, I smile to myself, a
thought filling me equally with happiness and fear.

If I hadn’t had the ridiculous notion to pay a prostitute to
put my virginity out of its misery…

If I hadn’t made it to his door and found the balls to ring
the bell…

None of this would be mine, now.

If I hadn’t chanced upon portraits of him at the galley next
to the museum where I work, if my friend hadn’t caught me ogling and told me
who he was. So many ifs. Yet here I am. In love with a man I never could have
met just waiting to pass him in the street. All of this so easily could have
never been. I’d still be terminally afraid of the men I desire and he’d still
be trapped in this flat, three years of imprisonment creeping steadily toward
four.

And yet here we are. Together.

When he shakes out the final match, at least two dozen
pillars flicker from the table, bathing the room in skittish shades of gold.
Didier joins me on the bed, both of us still dressed. We lie down together,
locking our legs at the knee. For a long time we don’t even kiss, simply
touching one another’s faces and hair, watching each other’s eyes. He feels
utterly new. Yet it feels as if I’ve known him forever.

I run my fingertips along his jaw, up the curve of his
cheekbone, down his nose and across his lips. The charms at my wrist jingle.

He asks, “What do you have in mind for tonight?” What sort
of lover would I like him to be, what woman’s appetites do I wish to explore?

“Nothing. Well, far from nothing—plenty. But only you. Only
you and me.”

His smile is broad, revealing his slightly crooked teeth,
the only imperfect thing about the surface of this man…and even those hide
behind his lips. He didn’t shave today, and I love the brush of his stubble.
The other women don’t get to feel this soft scrape against their fingertips.

“We can do that,” he says, and catches my wrist so he can
kiss my knuckles.

I imagine other things Didier’s clients don’t enjoy—his bare
cock during sex. I don’t enjoy that either, but maybe someday, if his
intentions reap the real and major changes he claims to want. I know the
thought excites him. Surely it’s been years since he’s done that.

“Do you really think…” I start over. “All those things you
said you wanted. Just you and me, and no more clients.”

“I meant all of it.” He kisses me softly. “And I wouldn’t
say such things if I didn’t believe them possible. That would be cruel to the
both of us.”

Shy, I stare as his chin as I say, “I want to feel you
someday, inside me, without anything between us.” And to be able to hold him
tight in the wake of his surrender for as long as I like. He and I, completely
and utterly stripped, on our bed, just ours. To know without a doubt I’m not
sharing him any longer.

In a heartbeat his lids are heavy, lips parted, eyes glazed.
Didier wears his lust like a heat wave, and I long to know what exact thoughts
have him looking so sultry and hazy now.

He swallows. “I want that too.”

I hug our legs tighter, tempted to reach between us and find
out how hard the idea’s made him. But I don’t want to rush a thing tonight—

Lightning flashes. The curtains are open, and the window.
The pigeon silhouettes of the three Perverts rise as one beyond the screen,
thin with alarm. They’re just settling back into fluffy drowsiness when the
thunder rumbles. They confer in anxious coos as the rain picks up, falling with
a great rushing sound, the odd fat drop pinging against the metal fire escape.

I must have gone as stiff as the birds, as Didier strokes my
hair, reminding me to relax. Reminding me that I’m in the easiest, most
surrender-worthy place in the world. We kiss, and I melt. Everything we were
speaking of bobs back to the surface of my consciousness, the storm just
another atmospheric element in this two-way seduction.

“Tell me,” I whisper against his lips. “About how you think
it would be, without the condoms.”

He kisses me first, a slow, sensual tease. “I want to feel
you around me, with nothing in the way. And to be able to lie with you after,
no rush to tidy up.” Another kiss, deeper. When he speaks, his lips brush mine.
“And to come inside you. More than anything.”

Now I feel it, the heat wave. It’s not merely from the
notion but from knowing the idea gets him so worked up. This man who’s done
everything in bed with who knows how many different women, yet there’s still
something left to him that’s taboo. And I’m the one who might enjoy the chance
to give him that gift.

“I know it’s a small thing,” he says. “But the thought makes
my blood hot like nothing else.”

We always want what we can’t have.
My nervous,
noisy-headed self of a month or two ago would have extended that sentiment to
Didier. Once he’s mine, only mine, will I still want him as I have? When I’m no
longer scheduled into his life, when perhaps I wake with him every morning and
call all his things my own? But I’m not her anymore. And I want Didier more now
than I ever did when I was his client. The more I get of him, the more attached
I become. And though it’s a revelation I never saw coming, the more attached I
get, the less fearful I am of losing him.

Though perhaps I’m just high from the words he spoke up on
the roof.

“I hope I’ll get to give you that,” I whisper.

As we kiss, my mind races with to-dos that are still months
off, surely. We’d need blood tests. I’d need birth control, who knows what
sort. All that stuff most women are versed in by college. Soon maybe I will be
too. How grown-up.

His mouth turns needy, tongue seeking mine with deep,
explicit sweeps. I grab his backside and pull him closer, feeling his erection
at my thigh. I tug at his hip and he does as I’m asking, moving with me in
small, subtle thrusts. In my head, I imagine the same moment Didier surely is.
Only I see it from my perspective—that beautiful face strained at the moment of
release, disbelief and excitement in his eyes as he finally gets what he
craves. I’ll draw it out, when the day comes, make him crazy and desperate, so
wound up he’ll come like his sanity depends on it. The notion brings a smile to
my lips, disrupting our kiss.

I reach between us, closing my hand around his cock through
his slacks. Simply feeling his arousal spurs my own, drawing warm, dark energy
into a ball in my belly. He covers my hand, squeezing. His moan warms my cheek.

“I’m thinking about it too,” I whisper.

“Someday. Not so far from now,” he promises.

“I believe you.”

Another squeeze, another moan. “I love you. So much, you
can’t possibly know.”

“I bet I do.”

He rubs the tip of his nose against mine, smiling.

I let his cock go and turn my attention to his shirt,
pushing the hem up until he helps me peel it from his chest and arms. He opens
my dress one button at a time, spreading it like a robe. My underwear is still
a touch damp from the rain, but it’s his gaze that has goose bumps rising all
over my skin.

“
Très jolie
,” he tells me, studying my bra. It’s new,
bought with his male approval in mind, like so many others. The only man I’ve
ever let see me in my underwear and, unexpectedly, still the only one I’d want
to. I never used to subscribe to the idea of a one-and-only, a Mr. Perfect. I
only knew I wanted beautiful men and nothing less, despite the fact that I’m
less than stunning myself. But now I want so much more than Didier’s beauty. I
want what he’s given me—his heart—and greedier still, I want his fidelity. In
time.

“You really want just me? Only me?” I ask.
Only me, for
the rest of your life?
That’s the question in my mind, but I’m too new at
all this to voice the concept of permanence. As of a half-hour ago, I have a
boyfriend. My first ever. What do I know about commitment and devotion and
monogamy?

He says simply, “I do.”

“When I first met you, you made monogamy sound silly. Some
American delusion. Like a fairytale.”

His grin is warm and sheepish. “We’re all foolish enough to
dismiss fairy stories, until we find ourselves face-to-face with a dragon.”

I laugh.

“Forgive the man you met this spring for being so naive.”

“I’d forgive him most anything,” I say, stroking his neck
and shoulder.

“He was a fool, and a coward.”

“I loved him even then.”

My mouth welcomes his, the kiss ripe and sweet and fierce,
promising so much more. I want his hips pumping between my thighs, his hard,
thick cock taking pleasure from my body. I want his grunts and moans in my
ears, want his smell and taste and the fire in his brown eyes. Last weekend he
let me do the darkest things to his body, let me see him crazed and whimpering
from the most sinful submission. I watched his back muscles knot with
pleasurable strain, watched his hips tremble, watched him welcome my
penetration. Watched his profile as anxiety softened to surrender, and as surrender
sharpened to the wickedest ecstasy. For days afterward I could fantasize about
nothing else, but not now. Not tonight.

Tonight I want our bodies dancing—his leading, mine
following, both moving together to the same beat. Partnered. Let the power play
resume some other evening, but not now. Not with those words so freshly uttered
and echoed.

I reach between us to unbuckle his belt and draw the leather
out slowly. Just as slowly, I free one of his trouser clasps, then the second,
and ease the zipper down. His erection is at his open fly, eager behind cruel
silk. I give it the briefest stroke of my knuckle through his shorts then turn
my attention back to his clothes. It must be interesting to have a cock. Like a
greedy, nagging, ill-intentioned creature always begging to be let out of its
pen and lavished with attention. I’ll make it wait, for just a little while
longer.

Didier shifts to let me push his trousers down his hips. I
pause to admire the dip and swell of muscle there, possibly my favorite part of
his body…aside perhaps from his talented hands. I strip his pants to his knees
and he finishes the job, kicking them to the floor. When our kissing resumes,
his erection is warm and stiff against my belly. I can sense it begging for
freedom from his underwear, and for the indulgence of my touch.

“When you have a night off,” I murmur, “from clients and
from me…”

“Yes?”

“Do you usually… You know. Relieve yourself?”

“Yes.”

I’d always wondered that. I’d wondered if it was like
working at a bakery and losing your craving for sweets, or if he just…saved it
up, I suppose. The way you fast so you’ll enjoy Thanksgiving dinner all the
more.

“I have a strong libido,” he says. “And professionally it
behooves me to keep it under control. For longevity.”

“Oh, right.”

He smiles. “I often would do that before you came over.”

“Really?”

“After that first night, I didn’t know what superhuman feats
of endurance you might demand of me,” he teases.

“I like watching you lose control as much I enjoy an
impressive performance.”

“Good to know. I’ve had clients who’ve ordered me not to,
however.”

My pleasure deepens, darkens, the way it so often does when
he tells me stories.

“But you asked for only you and me tonight. Forgive me for
mentioning it.”

I rub his shoulder. “No, tell me.”

His smirk is wicked and he smoothes my hair back, tracing my
ear thoughtfully before he grants my request.

“More than one client wanted to dictate when I could come.
Or enjoy the illusion of that power. We would pretend I didn’t come unless she
was present, and when I could, I’d schedule our dates with a day or two off
beforehand, so I really could deny myself. If I felt particularly inclined to
suffer, I’d touch myself, but stop before I lost control.”

“You’re a very dedicated lover,” I say with a smile. “You
could have just lied and acted extra wound-up.”

“Sometimes I had to, as scheduling demanded. But I liked
that game. It was my pleasure to make it real, when I could.”

“We’ll do that someday. We’ll do everything.”

He kisses my lips. “I suspect we will. We have so much
time.”

“And so many stories.” I could choose to feel insecure about
Didier’s experiences, and to resent those patrons for what they enjoy with him.
Or I could continue to borrow their tastes and come to appreciate this man
through the fantasies of a hundred different women, and view his experience as
an enrichment, not a dilution. People are afraid of what a lack of variety will
do to their attraction when they settle down, but Didier is countless lovers in
a single body, all mine to peruse and sample without even so much as ogling
another man. I hope I’ll be the same to him.

But tonight… Tonight I still want nothing more than the two
of us.

The lightning flashes again, but a soft, tardy grumble of
thunder tells me the storm has moved off.

“You told me once, after I’d just started coming to see you,
that you thought about me,” I say. “When you touched yourself.”

“And I still do.”

The flattery heats me like a gulp of brandy. “What do you
think about?”

“Often, whatever it is we last did together. And this week,
knowing my plans to buy you that gift, and say those words to you… I imagined
you saying them back and us going to bed, as we are now.”

“Has it happened how you fantasized?”