Control Ch. 05

"Shh."

"Let me die. Please Geoff. Let me. Let me."

"Shh."

* * * * *

It gets too hard. The next night he comes to bed after checking security. They kiss and talk, kiss and talk, and when she shifts a little her hand brushes his penis. "Geoffy? Would you like to make love?"

"No, but I want to massage you." Fucking liar. Scratch that. Fuckless liar.

"It would be okay."

"My Annie." He smiles at her and kisses her again. They've become excellent kissers. "You'd say anything I wanted to do was okay."

"Uh-huh."

He loosens her peignoir. Anne isn't wearing panties. Ah, her poor body, her poor shrunken breasts, barely starting to soften and round out again. There are still some faint, yellow bruises and traces of cuts and burns that are starting to turn into little pink scars. Her pubic hair is returning. She looks different since the docs took out the piercings. It was medical necessity -- some of them were infection sites -- but Geoffrey looks at her and wishes they'd left one in each of her nipples and another in her clitoris.

He thinks: I'm a God damned perv!

He begins massaging shoulders. He lifts and caresses them, running his hands around them. He's especially gentle with them because they trouble her so much. He warms them with light, circular strokes, then massages harder and deeper to loosen them, and after a bit Anne says "Ooooo" in a soft voice.

Down her arms and to her hands, first one side and then the other. Do each finger separately. Massage round and round each palm with his thumbs. He goes to her legs. The soles of her feet and her toes first. She can't help squirming when he begins on her soles. Then up her legs, following the venous flow upward, warming and working her wasted muscles, calves and thighs, before traveling around and past her vulva.

Don't get too close there. Skirt her breasts. You can touch them just a little. He spends a lot of time on Anne's head and neck, massaging her forehead, jaw, scalp. Pulling lightly on her hair. She's almost out by now, hypnotized from it all, but he doesn't stop. Down to her chest, using only the tips of his fingers around the outer edges, then up the middle, then around. She sighs. To her stomach.

He plays with her nipples.

He brushes them with his fingertips. Her nipples harden. He tickles the skin around them. Anne's breathing changes but she's not tense. Geoffrey runs his fingertips all the way down from her breastbone to her stomach, to her pubis. He edges them slowly down to her labia, and between them. She's slippery. Anne still lies relaxed, but her breathing is richer.

"Anne." He half whispers. "I'm going to play with your body some more. Is that all right?"

Her voice comes from some far-away place. "Yes, Geoffy. Do it." She doesn't move. She doesn't go rigid either.

Geoffrey plays with her sex as part of the massage, running his hands around her, then through her, then around and down to her thighs, then up to her labia. He pulls on her lips. Her breathing is louder and quicker. She says "Ooooo" again, in a long, smooth moan and pulls her head back.

He thinks, what of her burns? It hasn't been that long. But he looks and can hardly make anything out. So he plays with her labia some more and she moans again. Finally he thinks, to hell with the massage, and he leans down to lick her clitoris.

"Oh Geoff. Yes!" She pulls her head back as far as she can against the pillows. She puts a hand to Geoff's head. In a minute she pushes her hips at him and pulls his hair. He sucks on her and moves his mouth around and she begins moving. She jerks at him and says "Huh!" as she moves her pubis. "Huh! Huh!" and she's almost coming already.

He yanks down his underwear. When he puts his penis to her it slides in like she's greased. Fuck into her. She's pushed flat into the mattress and goes "Huh!" again. His weight has pushed the air out of her. No stopping now. He fucks again, pushing her flat again. Again she goes "Huh!" followed by a high-pitched "Oh!" Geoff's pleasure is coming on. He fucks into her hard, again, again, and then he's over the top and holds his prick hard inside her, just moving it a little bit, in and out, push, push, until he's finished coming. Finally he just lies atop her. It's another minute before he realizes she hasn't caught her breath. He lifts off her but she keeps huffing.

"Annie, are you all right?"

"Oh yes." Gasp. "Oh yes." Gasp. "Oh God, Geoff." She pants awhile longer.

It doesn't keep her from needing comfort during the night.

* * * * *

In the morning Geoffrey wakes to the feel of Anne's mouth on him.

"Anne? What are you doing?" As if it isn't obvious. "You don't have to do that." He's already completely erect and her mouth flesh moves up and down over him. He pulls her off him. "Anne. You don't need to."

"Stop it!" She seems almost angry. "You do everything for me. You have to let me do this for you, Geoff. You have to!"

He lets her take him in again and in a minute he begins to pant and pulls his hands into fists at his sides. Anne takes him deeper. Then he's deeper again. And then he feels the squeezing of her throat on him. Her mouth is all the way down to his body. She didn't know how to do that before. She holds him, then pulls up and breathes several breaths, then goes all the way down, down and up, fucking his prick with her mouth and throat. She stops for more air. Geoff has never felt anything like it. Down she goes. He can't help it. He holds her head and starts fucking up into her throat, not even letting her breath. And grunts and comes into her. Before he finishes, her hands have started to move spastically over his torso and thighs. The moment he can stand to he pulls completely out of her.

Anne coughs and gasps for a moment, but she has a satisfied look, or maybe she looks like the cat who swallowed the penis. The two stare at each other, her cheek resting on his thigh, a hand on his penis. Geoff is too spent to do anything but breath, and it's Anne who speaks first. "You have to let me do things. Okay Geoff?"

* * * * *

Coda.

That's when it happens. Anne finds everything Geoffrey had downloaded from the Web site.

You would think it was well-enough hidden. Geoff had thought so. When he gets home she is sitting before the computer, staring out the window, and her hands are in her lap. On the monitor is frozen the last image from one of her orgasm videos, waiting for her to push the "play" button yet again. Geoff doesn't know what to say.

"It's what led me to you, Annie," he tries. "It's the only way I could know to save you."

"I know. I know. But I didn't know everything you saw, or what everyone saw. You saw me when..." She has to stop. "You saw when he made me want him."

What can he possibly say? She stares down at the screen. He wonders if she will forgive him.

But Geoff begins to notice things in the room and knows that isn't the entire issue. He hadn't noticed when he walked in but now they're important. Like what? Like she's dressed only in panties and a sleeveless T, and her jeans are lying on the floor as though kicked aside. And there's a smell in the room. It's Annie. It's sex. When he's close enough she almost reeks of sex. It doesn't take long to put it together. It isn't that she's disappointed in him, at least not that way. It's something else. He can't believe it at first, but it's the only answer.

"How many of the videos did you see?"

"All of them."

"All day long?" She turns toward him but doesn't say a word. He makes his voice soft. "Annie. I can tell. It made you hot to watch them."

Geoff can connect the dots. Did she shiver when she knew what the files were? Did she wonder why Geoff kept them? Of course she did. She must have. But, there's the other thing.

How did she come to click one? Didn't that fear of Victor flow through her? But she clicked one anyway. How did she manage it, manage through the fear, afraid of what she'd see? How? Maybe it was the other feeling. Maybe she already had it, that tiny, swelling vibration in her chest that signals desire. Maybe it was there, the thing in her that lusts for domination. Maybe she was drawn to it. Still afraid. Approach. Avoidance. But she clicked one. She did. She watched one. She saw Victor control her and pleasure her and saw herself awash in bliss from it, bliss like nothing she'd experienced before him, or since, that she had to feel again.

"What do you mean?"

"Watching him do that to you. It made you hot."

"Geoff, no! Those feelings aren't there anymore. Please believe me. You have to believe me. I don't want any of that. Ever." She takes both his hands and stares him in the face. He would have apologized, but her right hand is redolent of musk. Geoff makes a point of smelling it.

"Annie, please. Even though you're afraid of him you got hot."

Her eyes get big and she drops his hands. "No! Stop it!"

"Then stop lying to me!"

Silence. He last raised his voice last year. He remembers the details. This room. After Anne's sex cries. After Victor's beautiful voice and his oily analysis, "Well Anne, love. It looks like you're going to have to explain things to him earlier, rather than later." He remembers Victor's look of satisfaction when he left. He remembers shouting at Anne afterward. Now her face has crumpled and she cringes like she cringed last year. Geoffrey can't catch his breath. Here's how it finally ends, he thinks.

"I'm sorry Anne. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He's blinking so he won't cry. He's trying to control himself. He doesn't want to be weak now. "It's just that I love you and I'm going to lose you again and I don't know what to do." He can't control himself.

Outside the window, at the edge of the yard, is a row of white pines. Just beyond is a rise, and on it are impossibly tall southern pines, and red oaks whose leaves haven't yet fallen. A blue norther is pushing through. The sky is clear and sunny and the southern pines and the oaks sway together, far over, then the tops seem to twist around each other, around and back, in a dance. A single red leaf detaches itself and dance-dance-dances across the sky until it dances out of sight.

Anne straightens up. She wipes her eyes, crying again. They both are. It's the way of the world. You go a long time without a single tear, but when the time comes there's nothing else to do. She steps up to Geoff and puts her hands on his shoulders. He's a statue. She touches her forehead to his chest, then raises her face to look at him.

"Geoff, you're not going to lose me. I wouldn't do that to you. Not again. I love you too much."

Geoffrey steps back from her.

"I believe you. But I can't give you that one thing. He could. We both know it. I'll work on it. We can try things. But if it's not enough..." His voice is high and tight and it finally breaks. "If you have to leave... it'll be okay."

She pursues him. She hugs him to her. "I wouldn't do that to you. I couldn't. Geoffy, you silly idiot, I'm with you for the long haul."

He pushes at her arms but she doesn't let him get away.

"I know you don't have any reason to believe me. I know I'm a bad prospect. But give me the chance and I'll show you." She kisses Geoffrey on his cheek, his mouth, his nose, his chin. She pulls his forehead down to hers and rubs her nose over his, and he stops crying. He wipes his eyes and she says, "No one else could do what you've done for me. For me. My own Superman. And you're still such a sweet, silly guy, so uncertain and vulnerable. There's no one else like you. Please, please, don't worry about us."

Geoff is done backing away. He wipes his entire face, then rubs his hands on his pants. The wind rattles something attached to the house.

"Well, I want you to know. I couldn't stand making you go through life feeling part of you was cut off. So I'd be your base. If you needed me."

"I won't! Don't say that, Geoff!" She breaks away from him, turns her back. Her back is stiff, her arms straight down at her sides, her hands clenched.

"Just promise me one thing. Don't let it be Victor. He's out there. He'll want you again." Anne tries to say something but Geoffrey rushes on. "I can feel it. If he calls or writes or sends an email or anything, don't respond. Don't meet him. I couldn't stand it if he got you again."

There's a long silence while Anne's hands unclench and her head droops. She pulls her hands up to her face, then drops them and turns back to him. She takes one of his hands in both of hers. Three wet hands.

"I promise, Geoff. I promise."

End.