A Fear of Falling

A Fear of Falling

A storm was coming.

Standing on the balcony, Renata watched the thunderheads cycling up from the east, rifting the evening sky with brilliant, twisting arcs. She hugged herself against the crosswinds, feeling the approaching gale whipping at her clothes. The air was charged with the electric tang of cold rain, she could taste it in the dark breath of the night.

Her hair flailed about her face in a tangled, blond cloud. At this elevation, the breeze became a freezing jetstream. Westside Tower was not the tallest building in Chamberlain, but the view was spectacular nonetheless. Lurid neon fire cascaded through the streets, fissures of light fractured the skyline almost as far as the eye could see.

Shivering with a melange of cold, fear and excitement, Renata placed a hand on the thick, steel tube of the safety rail, glancing tentatively over the edge. Her gaze plumbed the gulfs between the skyscrapers. She pushed back after a second's hesitation, her heart cantering in her ribcage. Too close, as always. Heights hadn't really bothered her since childhood, but she'd never completely conquered her fear of falling.

Closing her eyes, she could see herself tumbling though those endless, concrete depths, her sheer, satin skirt billowing around her tapering thighs. It was a remote and strangely sensual image. Renata frequently dreamed of falling, her clothes peeling away as she spiraled into some everlasting, moonlit darkness. She always woke up trembling like a child in an unfamiliar place, feeling both aroused and terrified; a sweet, moist heat glowing between her thighs.

Leaning hard against the freezing mistral, she looked back into her apartment.

A tall, slouching figure was framed in the doorway; a brooding, masculine silhouette in faded black jeans and a creaking leather jacket. He was leaning nonchalantly against the wall, watching her with an expression of amused indulgence.

Jason Hirst was an ex-boyfriend and casual lover of five years acquaintance. Moody and restless and brutally attractive, he was an irresistible womanizer who inspired love and sorrow in equal degrees. The sort of infuriating, indomitable stallion a woman returned to long after the initial relationship was finished.

They'd had a string of on-again, off-again liaisons since her university years; brief, passionate sorties spanning the fleeting interludes between 'serious' partners. Renata thought of it was a way of immunizing herself against his overwhelming, charismatic sexuality. Like most men, Jason could be inexplicably cruel in his dealings with women - particularly those who cared for him the most.

Still, they'd made some progress over the past twelve months. He was spending more time with her nowadays, talking through the silent hours of the morning - something he rarely did with any girl outside the bedroom. He'd even been willing to admit that she was his closest (and only) female friend. Renata supposed that this was the highest compliment he could pay a woman, though she couldn't help reminding herself that friends didn't normally sleep together.

Struggling to control the waves of tension flooding her system, Renata walked towards him, holding down her fluttering hemline - an oddly childlike gesture of modesty, considering the circumstances. It was one of those inexplicable quirks of her personality; she'd shared Jason's bed too many times to number, and yet his presence invariably left her feeling small and vulnerable - almost defenseless.

Precisely how she felt in her dream.

Renata had discussed her fantasy with him some weeks ago, exposing her soul during one of their periodic post-coital D&Ms. It had taken her two months of procrastination and half a bottle of Tequila to finally broach the subject with him. He'd listened with calm, meditative interest, absently stroking her breast while she'd confessed her desires, her voice faltering with anxious, guilty yearning. She'd talked, he'd listened, and a deal had been struck.

A wave of humid expectation began to surge over her.

Her fantasy would come true tonight.

Stepping out to meet her half-way, Jason moved with the easy, confident grace of a man who can have any woman he wants. Her sight swept down the long wedge of his figure, admiring his lean, sparse proportions. He had huge, clever hands that could encircle her tiny waist in a single span; rough, powerful fingers that could play a woman's body like some delicate musical instrument.

"Looks like a storm..." she began, unable to think of anything else to say. She wavered in momentary indecision, wondering how she'd come to this point, why she was willing to take such a tremendous risk with a man she'd never entirely trusted. But then, wasn't that the reason why he was here? Wasn't that why she'd chosen him over all the others? She supposed it was: danger was an essential element of her fantasy.

Jason acknowledged her remark with a silent nod, his face running with shadows. His lips curved in a thin, sharp line. It was an easy, careless smile, one which always set her pulse racing like a jack hammer. She despised him sometimes, loathed his jagged beauty and casually disdainful manner.

His blunt, heavy fingertips touched her hand.

A rash of gooseflesh buzzed across her neck and shoulders.

"You sure about this?" he asked, speaking over the wind.

Renata hesitated, staring out over the chaotic skyline, feeling the earth rushing up at her with devastating, concrete force.

"Yes," she replied. Her head began to whirl; she suddenly felt small and weak and terribly vulnerable. I must be crazy, she thought. What in God's name was she doing here, tottering at the edge of the abyss while a force-five cyclone thundered down from the merciless heavens? She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, contemplating the dizzying heights over which they were standing. A vague tremor rippled the length of her thighs.

She was frightened.

Very frightened.

"Jason..."

"Yeah?"

"Don't let me fall. For God's sake, don't let me fall."

"I won't."

"Promise me."

"You won't fall, Babe."

"Promise me."

Jason brushed her small chin with the side of his hand. Renata flinched at his touch, her gaze darting up as if expecting a blow. He lowered his head towards hers, his eyes dark and serious. All the amusement left his voice as he put his mouth to her ear, speaking in carefully unambiguous tones.

"I promise I won't let you fall," he said, and kissed her on the right temple.

Good, she sighed, allowing herself to melt into his chest, taking comfort in his hard, dry warmth. His massive biceps surrounded her, encasing her in ancient black leather. The tantalizing scent of man seemed to smother her from every side; a potent cocktail of Jim Beam, Tuscany and rampant testosterone. Her mind was reeling with anticipation; a nameless, carnal exaltation flooded her consciousness.

Draping her arms around his neck, she glided her lips over his, leaving a moist red smear at the corner of his mouth. His stubble rasped her soft, ivory skin; she lolled her neck to reveal her creamy white throat. His hands slid roughly down her back, roaming the slim arabesque of her waist in search of her lush, ripe bottom. Jamming herself firmly against his muscular, rolling torso, she felt the jutting prong of his masculinity bulging through the black denim.

Jason...

They kissed; her tongue delving into the back of his mouth, flitting and finicking like a tiny rose fish. Fluid, rushing delight deluged her nervous system. His hands roamed up her slender figure and closed around her face. His touch was urgent, insistent: Renata felt herself dissolving in a torrent of delicious lust.

She broke off, moaning in delight as his teeth descended into her cleavage. Her low-cut blouse suddenly felt too tight, too constrictive. The fabric was sheer, nebulous, but now it seemed as weighty as a straight-jacket. She had to free herself, denude her arms and stomach and thighs, force her bare flesh into the press-mould of his body.

Sensing her thoughts, Jason reached down and ripped the blouse from her lithe form; she heard stitches give as the material parted in his hands. An expensive piece; cost her close on a month's salary. It flitted along the balcony like a discarded sweet wrapper, vanishing into the shadows at the far end. She kissed him again, groaning impatiently as his fingers explored further south.

He located the zipper at the back of her skirt; a moment later, her legs were naked in the biting wind. He threw the gleaming satin wisp over his left shoulder; Renata watched it cartwheel over the safety rail and sail away into the night. The image from her dream returned to her: hurtling down from unthinkable heights -

Excitement blazed through her tummy like liquid silver.

She kicked off her high-heels and snaked one of her legs around his denimed shank. She kissed him again, darting her tongue and stinging his mouth with a series of loud, staccato smacks. His sandstone palms wandered across her frail, petite figure, bruising her ribs with a passionate violence. He was hurting her: Jason could be terribly rough in his loveplay. She bit his lip in swift, feline revenge.

He broke off with a low expletive, holding her by the shoulders.

"Want to get started?" he asked, inclining his head towards the railing.

"Yes..." she replied breathlessly, forcing herself not to look over the verge. Her face was damp; a fine, sprinkling rain was sweeping the Tower. The storm had arrived; the furious, dark eye of the night was revolving above them. The fever struck with catastrophic force, Renata was almost collapsing with desire.

Jason's fingers grooved her waist as he lifted her gingerly onto the railing, sitting her precariously on the brink. The safety rail was roughly ten centimetres in diameter. Set slightly higher than waist level, it ran the length of the balcony. The chrome felt cold and smooth under her bottom. Bending lightly from her left hip, Renata looked down over her shoulder.

A frenzied bolt of panic tore through her with the impact of a guillotine. She drove her teeth into Jason's shoulders, snared his hair with her fingers. Adrenalin blazed through her bloodstream; she was wavering at the edge of the chasm; her spine arching back over empty space.

"Jason, JASON", she shrieked, "Don't let go, DON'T LET GO -"

Lightning flashed overhead, splitting the sky with brilliant, blinding forks. An immense, overpowering concussion followed immediately, shaking the building to its foundations. The deck quivered beneath them; Renata felt the balcony shift and rock, threatening to spill her into the dark. She wailed in absolute terror, her hair trailing out in golden streamers. Jason held her rigidly in position, his body an immovable, granite statue braced against the wind. Tendons bunched and clenched along his forearms like high-tension cables.

"Oh God, I'm scared," she sobbed into his neck.

"You want to stop?" he asked, his tone astonishingly calm.

"Yes. No. I don't know, just hold me."

He held her.

The storm continued its approach, circling the tower in a thundering, midnight vortex. Ragnarok descended over the Westside, thick obsidian clouds hurtled across the sky. She snuggled herself in the valley of his shoulder, willing her pulse to slow. Reaching down with a shaking, white hand, she crept her fingers below the waistband of her underpants, furtively probing her femininity. She was wet - incredibly wet.

And she wanted to get naked.

"Hold me tight," she whispered. Slipping both hands behind her, she closed her eyes and leaned back in Jason's arms. She unclipped her brassiere with the ease of long practice, feeling the cups shift and loosen. The straps slid off her shoulders as she removed the lacy remnant, revealing her breasts to the frigid night air. Her nipples tingled and began to stiffen; she flicked one with a gloss-red finger tip, enjoying the way it puckered and popped.

The bra whipped about in her hand like a translucent white flag. Another costly piece: Italian lingerie was so expensive these days. Renata released it to the winds, dismissing it from her mind with a flick of her wrist. She looked up at Jason, squeezing her breasts together directly below his gaze. The tips were wide and dark and suffused with blood.

"Touch me," she said, "put your hands all over me."

Jason muttered his agreement, brushing aside her luxurious fall of golden blond hair. Her skin was pale and milky, as faultless as English marble. He nodded in frank admiration; she was an amazingly beautiful young woman. Lightening streaked across the city, illuminating a million points of frozen rain.

He turned his attention to the soft band of muscle immediately below her full, luscious breasts. Raising them slightly in palms, he began to stroke the secretive white flesh hidden beneath. Renata closed her eyes, stifling a high, gasping moan that ballooned up from the pit of her diaphragm. His caress was sweet, maddening torment.

"Uh. Uh uh - yes."

He took her nipples in his fingertips, carefully stretching the dark, sensitive skin. Renata trembled in breathless silence, her pulse racing in her throat while he slid an index finger around each aureole, slowly drawing out the points. She was almost swooning with pleasure; her belly swarmed with teasing, tickling little fingers. Her heart skipped a beat as he turned the engorged nips up with his thumbs, tweezing and tugging with a slow, gentle rhythm.

Rocking back over the precipice, Renata parted her lips in a long, wordless groan; a searing fireball of ecstatic pain exploded in the well of her belly. She lapsed into a timeless void; the fondling and stroking and teasing went on forever; her mind whirled in a thunderous limbo until she was certain she would implode. Her vision strobed and flared; a low, shuddering vibration rolled through her tummy.

"OOOHHHHHHHH Jason..." she whispered, locating the ghost of her voice. The rain gained intensity, showering her bare flesh with liquid needles. She hardly noticed.

"Jason" she whispered breathlessly.

"Yeah?"

"Take - take them off."

"What?"

"My pants. Take them off for me".

Pause.

"OK. Hold on, Babe."

Renata teetered back on the rail as Jason's fingers snagged the fragile lace traceries of her underpants. He began to work them carefully down her legs. His fingers moved with microscopic precision, as if he was skinning a grape with a scalpel. Renata clung tenaciously to his jacket, her knuckles as white as ice-cubes, squirming her hips over that unthinkable drop.

Should have done this before we started, she thought ruefully, wriggling her derriere as Jason drew her panties over the dimpled bulges of her upper-thighs. They should have thought this out completely, anticipated all the problems, prepared for every eventuality. They hadn't, of course. They simply couldn't have treated this as an exercise in logistics; they would have seen the errant, suicidal insanity of the whole venture. And they never would have -

!!!! Jason!!!!

Lightning careened past them, close enough to raise the fuzz on Jason's wrists. The rail shook as the voice of the tempest thundered down, and the slick, gleaming leather was torn from her grasp.

JAAAASON!!!!

Renata felt herself falling backwards, her arms wheeling for balance in that awful, infinite nothingness. The balcony slipped away: shrieking in utter despair, she clawing hopelessly at the air. Thunder crashed, buildings lurched, the world upended itself. A thousand glittering stars flew by; her mouth stretched open in a rictus of terror:

I'M FALLING OH GOD I'M FALLING

Jason dived after her, somehow managing to lock his elbow around her tiny waist. The longest five seconds of Renata's life passed a year at a time, then the world began to right itself. Jason hauled her back from the verge, swearing under his breath, boots slipping on the concrete. He finally placed her back on the safety rail; his fingertips digging into her armpits. Her panties were dangling serenely from her left ankle. She leaned limply on his chest, her face a mask of blank, white shock.

"Mother of God," she whispered.

"Yeah," Jason agreed, placing his hands on her knees. He lulled her as he would an unhappy child, soothing her with gentle baby-kisses on her dripping forehead. The rain was sheeting down in vicious bursts, drenching them both. The deck was as slippery as an oil-slick underfoot, a sudden movement would pitch her over the wall again in an instant.

I'm going to die out here, she thought.

And incredibly, she didn't care. Thunder was roaring, the apocalypse was imminent, she was about to fall to her death, and she honestly didn't care.

"I'm all right now," she whispered, pecking his cheek.

Jason wasted no time.

Spreading her legs, he disclosed her cleft by gradual, teasing degrees. Her vagina was clenching with excitement, releasing a viscid spray over her smooth inner-thighs. Her clitoris throbbed eagerly; despite the fear and the dark and the driving, arctic wind, she'd never been more aroused in her life.

Jason released her knees, leaving the girl swaying on the tube. Renata watched in wordless fascination as he unbuttoned his Levis. It was a ritual she never missed; the unveiling of Jason's manhood was a spectacle of equestrian proportions. His colossal genitalia came into view, the head jutting from the foreskin like a plum. Her breath caught at the base of her throat; she wondered - as always - how she would ever accommodate that monolithic projectile.

All the weight seemed to drain from her body. She felt intolerably light, as if she were no more than a mist fading before the dawn. Closing her eyes, she floated on a nimbus of erotic bliss. Jason was about to impale her on his long, goading shaft. She felt him stepping in towards her, wedging his slim hips between her thighs. His breathing was husky, shallow. He was impatient to sheath his sword in her damp, yielding passage.

But Renata wasn't ready.

"Wait..."

She laid a restraining hand on his chest.

Jason waited, straining with concentration.

Renata hooked her knees around his waist, then reached down to part the complicated folds of her labia. She touched herself with a small, wet finger, using her natural lubricants to stimulate the nub. An earthquake began to build up within her, she could feel the seismic pressures trembling deep in her belly. She sighed in throaty exhilaration, turning her face to one side.

The hard, rounded knob of his penis prodded the hood of her clit, rubbing back and forth with a vague, undulating tempo. Renata shivered and lowered her hands to the rail. Jason shifted her hips into a new position, taking care not to dislodge her from her perch. His gigantic member was resting against her vestibule, poised to enter. Its proximity was torturous.

"Jason," she murmured between slightly parted lips, "Jason, yes, mm, yes..." She rolled her head from side to side, reveling in this sensuous new cruelty. His voice touched her, little more than an arid whisper in her left ear:

"Now?"

"Yesssssss."

His erection sank into her, inch by monstrous inch. Renata's eyelids flickered open; her entire frame wrenched in gasping, round-mouthed shock.

"Jasssson -"

Renata floundered as his shaft filled her tummy. Whipping her head from side to side, she beat her flanks with small, dense fists, shrieking with all the force her lungs could contain. Jason clasped her by the arms to prevent her plunging off the rail. It took all of his strength, but he had prepared for this moment. Renata invariably became superhumanly powerful in the last few seconds. Most women did, in his experience.