Obsession

"Take it."

He held my shoulders, ravaging my mouth with his, then, unapologetically. The force of his body bent mine into submission, moving me with him, like some staggered dance until my back was up against the wall. All of this animal lust seemed appropriate: fast, messy, spontaneous.

"Baby," he sighed, spreading fire wherever his hands wandered down my back, up my arms. Biting, licking, passionate kisses- tearing something from me, demanding I answer it with equal fervor. Running his fingers over the black leather as if in disbelief, he pulled away from the suction of our kiss. Sighing, his stormy, gray eyes traced the contour of my face. His warmth, his muscle and skin pressed against me, his firm, strong hands pushing up my tank top, revealing quivering skin. Raising it over my head, he allowed it to fall behind me. I stood there, my white lacy bra, looking up at him, needing his touch, those hands, that confidence. He seemed to approve with his look of pure need dusted over his attractively sharp features, strong like it was carved from marble. We seemed to melt together, with kisses that seemed frantic and needy, his hands finding their way to my breasts, achingly tender. My head was swarming, buzzing. I felt completely and totally intoxicated with him- his strength, the sureness of his touch. This is what he wanted and he made me want to give it to him.

"Cadence," he trailed his kisses from my mouth to my chest, he spoke into my skin as though the touch was torture for him, too, "I understand. Those dark, unspeakable things you wish someone would make you do, the things you try to ignore about yourself, you're afraid to ask for. I can give it to you if you let me. Whatever it is this makes us, I understand it and, I feel it, I see it, I taste it in you," the sound of my name in his mouth rang like a bell, reverberating over those thrilling words he poured into my ear.

I looked at him, totally lost, totally encompassed by this need for him, but still. . . I could barely respond, taken by the mere shock of pleasure that came from his dominance, his soft, powerful dominance. He could have destroyed me then.

His hands slipped into the front of my jeans, rubbing the soft fabric of my panties with a methodic pressure that forced my hips out to him.

"Ohh!"

"You have to give me everything, though, baby, everything. You can't hold anything back, do you understand?" finding my clit through the cotton, he drew quick circles against my humid warmth, "Do you?"

I bit his shoulder as he pushed the fabric aside and made direct contact with my slick, shaved skin, pressing against me in a steady, quick rhythm, eliciting gasping pleas for his calloused touch. I was both ashamed and shameless, my face flushed, my hips rocking, forcing myself against his touch as he slowly sunk his finger into me, biting me.

Whimpering, I begged, "Julian, fuck! Please!"

"Master," he corrected.

Writhing against his hand I was humming with waves of pleasure, mindless and never more in tune to my desire.

"Master!"

"What do you want?" He continued the movement of his hand; fucking me, his thumb finding my clit.

"Oh, oh, God!" I mewled into his chest.

"No, you have to tell me," he slowed, his touch slowing, pulling away. Off. Away.

I growled in need, squirming against him.

"Cadence!"

"Please, Oh God! Please, Julian, you have me! Oh, fuck, all of me!"

He pulled his hand completely out of my panties, making me whine in protest.

"Stop."

I looked up at him in disbelief.

"Do you mean it?" He looked down at me, cruelly making me focus in my trance, forcing clarity in a time of blurring lines.

I looked into his eyes, more sure of it than anything else in my life.

He stared for a moment, taken aback by my conviction, and kissed me.

Pulling me away from the wall, he used his strength on me like it was a weapon.

"Here," he picked me up as though I were a part of some last-minute interior design, lowering me onto the cold-sheeted bed.

He paused to look over my body like a predator over its prey, the generous repose of my chest in my bra, the dark-wash of my tight jeans contrasting with soft, pale skin. Pulling off his t-shirt, he exposed his strong, though lean frame. Climbing over me, he worked at the button of my jeans, unfastening and unzipping them. My sighs of anticipation and tawdry pleas dripped a lewdness that seemed perverse against the silence settled over the room, yet his agonizingly slow movements required it.

"Hold onto the headboard," he nodded at the row of vertical bars, "don't let go."

I complied without question as he worked my jeans over my hips, sliding them down my legs and off of me.

"Hmmm," he groaned at the sight I had become, prodding my thighs apart, playing his fingers over the thin scrap of fabric that was the last thing protecting my sex from his touch.

"Close your eyes."

I felt his weight leave the bed, leaving me stretched out, spread, waiting.

"Now, try not to make too much noise, sweetheart."

The unmistakable swish of leather didn't register until I heard the loud SLAP it made between my thighs.

"Oohhh!"

"You can open them now."

Looking up at him, I had never seen something so terrifically erotic. He looked totally different, overcome with his new possession, perhaps. His whip proud in his grip, he looked over me with a look I couldn't translate into any single emotion.

"Bitch," he spat, hitting me again with his biting leather- again, again.

My knuckles had turned white with effort, clenching the bars towering above me as I groaned for him. It didn't so much hurt as light me aflame with need for him, teased me of the fury he was holding back. Not exactly sure what I wanted, knowing he would sate that amorphous need. I lay there, my legs splayed, accepting his wrath, welcoming it.

"Please," I whimpered, "fuck!"

His face was drawn in a grimace of effort as he swung that awful, beautiful strap directly between my legs.

"Please what, slut? Please more? Please harder?"

I was surprised at his cold tone but reveled in it, juxtaposed to his earlier gentler self, his cruelty turned me on like a switch. I was even more surprised at how intensely I wanted it- that same fury, that same thrill. I wasn't used to begging, though. I had too much pride. I broke in one strangled note:

"Please!"

The hot, searing pain exploding onto me did little to extinguish the fevered need for him, rather dousing gasoline on a fire. I squirmed, hissed, growled, arching off the bed.

"Look at you! Hot bitch!" he seemed genuinely surprised as he gave another flick of his wrist, a mocking slap.

With jagged breaths, I hadn't realized that he stopped until his easy grip on my cotton panties worked themselves down my legs. He looked entranced, tossing them aside, glancing at the reddened flesh. Climbing over me, his lips bit into my skin, marking my chest and neck, my legs parted to accommodate to him, his hands gripping my ankles, folding my limbs like a doll. My legs forced apart, exposing myself to him. Open and vulnerable, I sighed, closing my eyes.

"Cadence," his voice softer, "Don't close them, look at me."

I couldn't, but I had to. His eyes pierced into me as though he anticipated just how I was going to look to him. The embarrassment swept over my face, I was more than ashamed. I was owned.

He ran his finger in an idyll, teasing pattern down my slit, gathering moisture with his confident touch, as though he had known me for years. He touched me with such intimacy, such sureness, control I didn't possess over my own body. The blushing reality of the moment made me squirm, tighten my grip. I couldn't look at him. He knew what he wanted from me, what it would take to get it, and he knew it was already his. It was as if he had a loaded gun held to me, promised me eden in leather and chains.

Unzipping his jeans, he looked down at me as he undressed. My arms were stretched above me, my hair disheveled, my makeup smeared. Nearly naked before him, I buried my face into my forearm, looking away as he slipped out his cock. His thumb found my clit and it was as though he could feel me tense, like he were trying to inebriate me with ecstasy, melt me again into a pool of submissiveness instead of raw nerves.

"Baby," he cooed dangerously, fitting the head of his cock to me, and even then I was sure he wasn't going to hurt me. I felt him, then, though nothing could have prepared me for his thick insistence. His low, growling groans filled me, body and soul.

"Please?" I whined; this was all happening so quickly, it was almost shocking. As if I were painting until that moment and then somehow on my back, spread open for him, accepting his hard, throbbing dominance. He had me impaled by his need.

Then, the night boiling to a fevered frenzy, this whole night had come by way of crescendo and he began to rock into me, dragging his dick out of me and then sliding back in, making me sigh, the warmth filling me. Every time he pulled out of me I whimpered with need, feeling empty. I needed him- needed. It surpassed all want or superfluous pining. I needed his masculinity to define what made me a woman, his dominance to my submissive. His face was contorted in pleasure, making me want to reach up and touch him, I wanted to kiss him but was afraid to. He growled and cursed at me, blending his pleasure into expletives. The motion of his hips, his body pushing against me, the blushing sounds of sex filling the room. He bit my mouth, stabbing into me with his cock, rewarding me with a kiss when I gasped in pain and surprise. Then, pausing, his whole body tensed.

He cried out, blind, moaning. He shot into me- strings of liquid pearl painting me from the inside out. Emptying himself into me, he bit down on my shoulder, making me wince. It came in jets, filling me with his warm come. Slowly pulling out of me, this brazen cockiness replaced that sense of intimacy, like he was pleased at my discomfort.

He dropped onto me, crushing me, began reclaiming a steady rise and fall of his chest, he pulled his face from my neck and hair and laughed at what he saw.

"Cadence, you can let go now."

I smiled sheepishly. I was dually weak and enflamed. My hands slipped from the bars, sliding down so my face was framed by my arms.

"Julian . . ." I couldn't look at him.

"It's okay," he smoothed my hair back, "it's okay," he kissed me gently, once, on the forehead, looking down at me with a warm, glowing look. He slid his hand between us, slipping down the plane of my stomach, kissing the exposed skin of my chest. The gentle touch felt so reassuring that I swallowed my protests.

"You're good, so good," he covered my mouth with his, slipping his tongue past my lips. Probing gently, he ran his knuckles over my labia like he was trying to placate, to reassure me. He brushed his lips against me, his eyes intent on the pleasure he gave me- that oozed from me, "you gave me so much more than you know."

He slipped his fingertip between my lips, knowing I'd yield, that I'd open for him. These caresses were too much. I was already so close, on the brink. He seemed to sense this and pulled back then, returning with a loud slap to my hyper-sensitive skin. I whimpered into his mouth, surprised at how my back arched, how my body reacted, how I wanted more. Firmly kissing me, almost to remind me who I was, he toyed with my clit, rubbing in quick, light strokes, I growled for him, begged for him.

"Come! Come for me, Cadence. Can you come?" he ordered gently, speaking lightly, rapidly increasing his speed, he was determined to own my pleasure, masturbating me, making me groan and tangle my own hands in my hair, "Do it! I won't let you leave until you do it, give me your fucking nectar, let go!" He chanted, the words cascading down around me.

I was trembling, shaking, clinging to him and pulling away from him all at once, but there was nowhere to hide. I gasped, trying to retreat into the comfort of predictability but it was just so overwhelming, his urgency, his warmth, the way he demanded my obedience. It built up, all of this euphoric, tantalizing pleasure. It erupted. I clung to him, thrusting my hips against him, grinding against his touch. I bit and licked and kissed his chest, all of my consciousness centered in his hand. I was so gone, I was so his.

I whimpered, biting my bottom lip, my head thrown back and shaking from side to side. I needed this release. It was as though he had access to a whole other world, his manipulation of worldly pleasure at its apex. He forced me to feel every iota of reluctance and guilt by inverting it and washing it in a ripe, sumptuous gasp of feeling I didn't know existed. I clung to him, my frantic need subsiding, sated.

"Honey, honey, you're shaking! Are you okay?" he scanned a look of concern over my face.

"No, I'm . . . well, yes." I opened my eyes, not fully aware when I had shut them so tightly, "yes, I'm great," I gushed, reveling in the powerful orgasm he gave me, or rather, forced out of me.

"Hmm, God, sweetie, that was really something,"

I blushed, peeling myself away, suddenly very conscious of my nakedness.

"Are you always that passionate in the throes of ecstasy?"

"Well, generally I'm usually not that forward."

"Well that's good," he kissed my neck where the leather met skin, watching my heaving chest, the way I attempted to relearn the concept of breathing., "I can't have you calling all the shots, where does that leave me?"

I was warm and shy now, inexplicably shy. He had taken something from me, but filled it with something new- something of vague fecundity, something blind and presumptuous for hardly knowing me.

"Baby," he breathed in my hair as he pulled me back against him. In his arms, he nuzzled my neck. Kissing me, he dragged his tongue from the base of my neck to my ear in a swoop of his tongue, playfully out of character.

"Hmmm," I smiled, squirming in his lap. I felt bold in this moment, a dangerous intimacy that was post-coital bliss. The truth just spilled out of me, and I was helpless to babble like this profession was poison I needed out of my system. Did people actually do this? Was this a lifestyle and not a secret? I sighed and warbled overtures to him, my affair with masochism and the shame that kept me from acting on it. I felt his grip around me and I felt safe, safe enough to spill out all of my dark, odious past lives.

It's hard to explain how honesty felt like the only answer to someone that could have easily been using me in the moment, but it felt like the only rational response- I felt his whip redeeming me, absolving me of my guilt, of my shame. The only man who had ever seen me so vulnerable was owed something; I suppose, an explanation, maybe. Perhaps it was in his passion that I recognized the same kind of hurt I carried around with me- pain that I thought he could explain to me. All I looked for in my dizzied journeys of the self all I wanted was proof, answers to why I felt so deeply, what the pain was worth and where it came from. If he could inflict it and not exploit the woman beneath him, I felt he could translate the world of pain. What it meant to want it, and appreciate what it was I'd be willing to give him. I whispered to him in the warm dark room about my past of abusive relationships, the curious allure to self harm, and the cage I lived in that was an eating disorder. He listened quietly as I unraveled myself, leaving myself totally bare. I was overcome with something, then; his warmth, his knowledge of me. I stuttered something in complete blindness that I wasn't even sure I meant- some welter of emotion, some tangle of will and humility.

"Oh, Julian. That was so intense, so beautiful, I've never experienced something like that. . . I . . . I just love you."

He stiffened, his arms sliding from me, retracting. I felt the floor crumbling, the foundation of the building disappear, "Oh, Cadence," maybe he didn't mean to be patronizing, but I felt a mad blush blooming hot on my face.

"Oh sweetie, I'm sorry."

I couldn't look at him.

"No, I'm sorry. That was stupid of me," I got up to pull my clothes on in whatever state they were in and wash the night out of my skin, but he grabbed my arm.

"It's not like that," he looked at me, "I can't do something like that. I can't get involved."

"No, I get it," I retreated back into myself, the vulnerability gone just like that. I tried to get up and save as much face as possible, but he wouldn't let go.

"No, you really don't. Honey, I'm engaged."

I shook my head laughing, "No", feeling sick.

"Well what about you? Where's your boyfriend?" his tone laced with accusation. Glancing at the alarm clock, I rolled my eyes, "Probably asleep. Where's your fiancée?"

"We're not going to move in together until we're married . . . we don't believe in living in sin,"

We looked at each other for a moment of tense silence and miraculously broke into laughter. Although it was more horrible than anything we needed the excuse to be horrible and grabbed it.

"Oh fuck, Julian, it's all your fault."

He nodded, "Yeah, right, all me. You're the one that came barging in on me."

Groping for a pack of camels, he lit one and offered a drag.

I took it from him and stared, studying him. He looked weak, his handsome face, his confidence, it all infuriated me. I hated that we were making light of the situation, but then, what did I want?

"I have to go." I took it and smothered the cigarette in its own embers and ashes.

He stood, leaning against the wall, watching me dress. He studied me as I buttoned my coat. I was almost out the door when he called out for me.

"Cadence," he walked up to me, lifted my chin to him easily and admonished; "you can't go out like that."

"What?" I looked up at him, impatient.

He reached for my neck, unbuckling the collar, and kissed me forcefully.

"Goodnight."

Later that night I was a tumult of guilt and lust. My hands busy on my body, frantic for the same sort of release he granted me. I was rocking, my hand between my legs on the mattress on the floor that served as my bed. I closed my eyes: he was on top of me again, his cursing encouragement. I worked my finger in tight circles on my clit, pumping another in and out of me, but I could do nothing but growl in frustration, whine into my pillow. It wasn't the same. There wasn't any humiliation involved, there wasn't the unpredictability I needed; there was nothing dominant about the way I touched myself. I had tried to get Ethan, my boyfriend of five years, to do something similar to me, but it was a joke. He couldn't hurt me in the same way and I didn't expect it from him. It was the fuel of something so intrinsically right but so conventionally wrong. The sense of betrayal I felt for his being attached and fucking me anyway and the fact that it made me a bad person for wanting him so badly in spite of the fact. I couldn't find the warmth and fire-licked lust of dominance, and so I gave myself to a heavy, dreamless sleep.

My life at that point was nothing extraordinary. I was dulled down, working for the most part and painting for the rest. All of the ambitions I had for myself in school were far from accomplished. I had always felt as though I was meant to be something special, I felt it in my bones. I thought, certainly, I would be discovered, that my art would be recognized and appreciated as something remarkable at one of my shows downtown. I hung around with the lot you'd associate with pretentiousness, connoisseurs of bullshit. Everyone I knew had a purpose in life, they were driven, they were drunk, they didn't know it but they would all be broke and jobless as a result of their unwarranted entitlement- we were all foolish, young enough to believe that one of us might make it. Surely with the undeniable talent and obvious passion, the odds would be in our favor. Although we didn't realize it at the time, you don't have to have to lack confidence, skill, or charisma to be cast aside, rejected. So what does one do with a failure that isn't supposed to belong to you?