Paolina is Pleasure

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Before we begin, I'd like to ask my reader to imagine a fictional world where semen and unprotected sex are incapable of causing harm.

The characters in my story exist in that happier world. One can dream.

***

"Congratulations!"

"Yes, congratulations! I don't know you, but Paolina is such an extraordinary person. I wish you so much happiness together."

Congrats and best wishes came at me steadily throughout the early stages of the evening, from virtually every corner of the crowded house. I had met none of these people before, and few of them knew each other. But they all seemed to know me.

"You know, I really admire you for this," said an earnest, mild-looking man pushing fifty. No name on his name tag, only the number "12." He put me in mind of someone's pastor.

"I couldn't do what you're about to do," he continued, "but it's such a brilliant choice. Are you nervous?"

I was fielding several variations on this theme from various guests. (Paolina preferred the word "congregants.") It wasn't enough to make me question my... correction, our decision, but I did feel the floating chill of performance anxiety in my stomach. Irony, anyone? It wasn't as if I would be doing anything.

The gathering was beginning to hum now—a small miracle, seeing as we were mostly strangers. The blend of music and rising chatter set me more at ease. It was a bass chatter. Of the roughly thirty invited guests (a drastically limited guest list) only two of them were female—not including our hostess Heidi. Heidi had arranged most everything, right down to the numbered name tags.

In another context, so much male energy and so few women could have been a problem. But there seemed to be nothing but chill vibes and good will in Heidi's house tonight.

As for Paolina, Heidi had spirited her away to an upstairs bedroom before the first of the guests arrived. Paolina had spent the morning at a pricey salon, and she returned looking drop-dead gorgeous. Wardrobe and makeup were next. She too, felt the butterflies.

"It's only natural," I noted. "After all, you are the star of the show."

"Ah, but you're the guest of honor," she replied. "You know... in your own inconsequential way."

Heidi shooed me out of the room, and I went downstairs to greet our arriving guests. Four weeks from that night, I would see Paolina in her wedding gown on our wedding day.

***

It all started several months ago, when I'd asked Paolina to marry me. She said yes, making me a very happy man. But a difficult hurdle remained.

"You know I love you with all my heart," she said, "more than anyone I've loved before. I will be willingly yours for the rest of my life. I can forsake all other men for you. But half of me will die a slow death if I can't be dominated when I need it. Dominated by a woman."

"You mean Heidi."

"Yes," she said. "It might change someday, but Corey... can you really live with that after we're married? I don't need it often, but I do need it."

"I can live with it," I said gently. "There's nothing much I can do about it. But I do wish I could provide it for you myself."

"I know."

I would have preferred to have been everything Paolina needed. But how would that have been possible? How is it possible in any relationship?

Paolina enjoyed—fully enjoyed—so many others. She loved men, but she never took men seriously. (Paolina called them boys.) To Paolina, males were just irresistible playthings. Somehow, she saw me as an irresistible exception.

Had there been a few dozen clones of me to keep up with her needs, monogamy just might have been an option for us. Our open arrangement was a solution—imbalanced though it must have looked from the outside. It just made sense for Paolina's happiness, in the way that wings make sense for birds. I'd reached my fill of other partners. I didn't desire anyone else. Paolina did.

Even when our relationship was first inching toward serious commitment, a couple of years ago, I hadn't asked Paolina to give up her liaisons with other guys. It gave her such joy, especially coming home to "us" afterward. To ask her to stop would have been cruel, like asking a musician to renounce her instrument because her partner preferred silence.

I'd never had much use for the dramas and heartaches of jealousy.

Not that I was immune. I'd never seen Paolina fuck another man before (though she'd asked once or twice if I'd be interested) because I strongly suspected that would be too much for me.

But! The mere thought of Paolina's sexual history flipped a switch deep inside me. Whenever she shared with me the details of her past encounters, from years ago or the night before, she knew I'd give her the fucking of her week. I would turn into an animal. Paolina had only to bait the hook with some random recollection, and I'd end up fucking her like the world was about to end. That she had an inexhaustible supply of stories only added fuel to my fire.

But now I had asked her to sacrifice a part of her life she really loved. For the sake of my happiness, she agreed to it. I could easily make room for Paolina's need for female domination, but in my bones I knew I could no longer be happy sharing her with other males. Not in the context of marriage.

"You won't miss them?" I asked.

"I'm sure I will, from time to time. But I know what it means to you. I'm making you this vow, and I'll keep it."

My throat tightened at this. Best to lighten the mood.

"Does this mean I finally get to watch you and Heidi together?"

"Shut the fuck up," answered Paolina.

A few weeks after my proposal, I came home to the sound of laughter. Heidi and Paolina were in the living room. While I had been working late, the two of them had enjoyed a bottle of wine. In fact, they were well into their second bottle. Paolina was explaining how neither she nor I wanted a bachelor or bachelorette party.

"I'm thirty-three years old," explained Paolina. "How many more vibrators do I need?"

Heidi laughed.

"What's your excuse?" she asked. "Don't you like blowjobs from strippers?"

"How would I possibly know a thing like that?" I answered innocently.

"Yeah, right," said Heidi. "I know all about you. If you were alone in a room with a hooker, you'd pay her to sit down and tell you about all the guys she's fucked."

Paolina burst out laughing. "Sorry," she said with mock contrition. "I talk too much." She stifled a further giggle.

"Oh my god, I've got it!" exclaimed Heidi. "You know what your bachelorette party should be? Oh, this is too good. You need to text all the people you've ever fucked before—"

"All of them?" responded Paolina, in feigned horror.

"—all of them, even the nameless randos, and here's what you do. You tie Corey to a chair and make him watch you fuck them all over again, just for old time's sake!"

Heidi all but squealed at the thought, but Paolina caught the look in my eye.

"Heidi, you're awful," she said. "There's no way I could do that."

"You're right," admitted Heidi. "You couldn't afford to rent the Civic Center."

"I could if I charged admission!"

The two of them broke into helpless laughter. That was my cue to warm up some leftovers.

Heidi stayed late. I went to bed, exhausted from my long day. As I edged toward sleep, I noticed their sporadic laughter had dipped into an extended murmur, a quiet conversation I couldn't hear. My last thought, as the fog of sleep rolled in, was to wonder if they were making out on the couch. My cock felt good as it swelled, and the pleasant mental image of the girls downstairs opened the door to sleep.

I woke, aware of Paolina rustling beside me. The glowing digits on the clock read 2:40.

She snuggled close. "I can't sleep," she said. Something in her voice felt urgent, and I could hear (and smell) that the alcohol hadn't quite worn off. She ran her hand lightly over my chest, her thumb grazing one of my nipples.

"I can't get it out of my head. It won't go away."

"What won't go away?"

"What Heidi said. About the bachelorette party." Her hand wandered down my abs. "Fucking all those people while you watch me... fucking all that I'm saying good-bye to, with you watching me...."

I knew a ploy for cock when I heard it. Normally I might have been testy, awakened from a sound sleep to listen to nonsense. But I knew what she wanted, and there are worse reasons to be awakened.

She had already pulled herself into my thigh. Her wandering hand found my cock. I thickened in her hand. She rocked her bare pussy against the firm quad of my thigh. I could feel the difference between the outer part of her that was warm skin and the part of her that was wet.

All the while she pleaded in a girlish voice, as if seeking approval she couldn't find:

"I'll show you all I did. I'll show you all they did to me. All I did for them. That I won't do anymore, because it's your cock I want. It's you I want now."

She'd swung over my hips, and with a warm push her ambush was complete. My penis strained as I pushed far up inside her. I could make out her face in the faint glow of the clock, so close to me her hair brushed my face.

"You could watch me, you could see me, really see me, see that part of me... see what I needed from them...."

She pulled gently at my nipples in the way that melts me.

"... and you could know what it all was. You'll know why I loved it. You could watch me say good-bye to it all because I love you so much..."

She'd increased our tempo. Our slapping skin punctuated the words tumbling from her mouth.

"You could see every thing I ever did... every boy I ever needed... and all the cocks I needed...."

Her voice was rising.

"...while I was searching for you... for your cock... for this big cock...."

Her orgasm hit. She lost her words. Paolina curled sharply, like a fist clenching. My baritone growl came out of nowhere, and I was transported by pleasure.

She collapsed into my chest. In the aftermath I felt my penis wilting in the stickiness of her pussy, which pulsed now and then. When she rolled off me, our heads touching at an angle, she continued to burble. I cupped a calming hand over her vulva.

She was saying "It would be so happy. I want this for us... so you'll have the real picture....so you'll know what I'm giving up for us. And you could file away everything you'd see for later, and I could ball up all the sex I've ever had without you and just throw it away like a piece of paper...."

I felt my semen drip through my fingers as she talked herself to sleep. I lay awake until dawn.

***

I was beyond tired the following night, when she brought it up again. She seemed stuck on the idea. I had a hard time following the logic. What did a crazy gangbang scenario have to do with how much she loved me?

"It's not like that! You're not seeing the way it could be." Paolina seemed almost sad I couldn't quite grasp the thing she found so compelling.

Paolina reminded me I had a pre-wedding "hall pass" of my own if I chose to use it. Was there someone I'd like to enjoy one more time? Someone I should get out of my system before our wedding day? Not really. My breaks had always been clean, and I liked it that way. But I wasn't opposed to the idea in principal. I told Paolina I would think on it.

I hated the feeling of standing in the way of a joy she so fervently wished for. And yet.

One night I found a folded note tucked into the book I was reading. It was from Heidi. Heidi had written:

"Here's what you don't understand.

A) Paolina sees it as a joyful goodbye to her past, in a joyful space, to make room for her joyful future with you.

B) She loves you that much, you idiot.

C) It would be so fucking hot . Even you would think so."

***

With a little digging, I unearthed Gina's email address at her current place of employment. I sent an email asking her to call me some evening, if she'd like. I wanted her take on something. Gina would be surprised to hear from me, but it would be nothing compared to the surprise of learning just why I was getting in touch with her again.

Gina worked with me almost eight years ago at the television station, before finding happier employment at an ad agency in another state. We had grown very close under the daily pressure. By day we were up against the idiots in charge. By night we were up against the crazy dramas that made up our respective sex lives.

We were both a mess at the time. Which was too bad, since she was such a sweet girl. It bonded us in a big way, but we never took it beyond our much-appreciated friendship. Our dramas at home were complicated enough.

One of the last things she'd said to me was "How come we never hooked up?" I didn't have an answer then. Maybe because destiny might line that up for us later? What would she have said to that? We eventually lost touch.

Gina called that night. I hurriedly grabbed a rock glass and some bourbon from the cabinet. "Gi-na" I mouthed to Paolina, and took the call in my office. I closed the door.

I was suddenly embarrassed as hell. But Gina was genuinely happy to hear from me, and to my relief we soon fell into the old easiness between us. How was her career going? Surprisingly well. Her love life? She was in a relationship that had run its course. She knew it, he didn't. Our conversational ease didn't keep me from my glass of courage... after all, the hard part was coming up.

When the time came to spill my guts, she listened in attentive silence. The silence continued after I'd finished. Fuck! I knew this was a mistake!

"Let me see if I've got this right," she said. "You want me—me—to be the entertainment for your own one-man bachelor party. While for her bachelor party, your fiancée wants permission to fuck everyone she's ever fucked before, in front of you, to show how much she wants you instead."

"I know, I know. But it won't be everyone she's fucked before," I reasoned. "The venue can only hold so many people."

I'd hoped for a chuckle. I got silence.

"That's the hottest thing I've heard in years," said Gina.

***

Paolina was over the moon when I finally caved in to the idea. She and Heidi threw themselves into planning the event, which they were now calling a ceremony.

"Don't call it a party!" Paolina insisted.

Paolina was in charge of the creative concerns, the mise en scène of it. She discarded a couple of over-the-top ideas at my insistence, but only a couple. The blueprint that remained still felt like a three-ring circus. Heidi, who was a specialist of sorts, nominated herself to guide the proceedings on Paolina's behalf, in the role of ringmaster. Sorry, ringmistress.

"It won't be good to have lag time between guys," I overheard Heidi explain to my fiancée. "If someone is doing his thing with you, the next guy needs to be on deck and ready to go. We'll need a fluffer."

"Brooke?" suggested Paolina.

"Oh yeah. Brooke, for sure."

Sadly, I had never met Brooke.

Heidi was in charge of the logistical headaches. Who would be invited, who wouldn't; how many to invite, how to track down people Paolina hadn't seen in years, how to track down people whose names Paolina had forgotten (assuming she'd ever known their names). Planning our wedding had been a breeze in comparison.

We'd hold the "ceremony" at Heidi's house. She had almost enough room, and the home dungeon she'd built in her basement was a no-brainer. The date would be one month in advance of our wedding.

"Don't you want it closer to the wedding?" I asked.

"You've seen her body after I've played with her," Heidi answered. "She'll need four weeks for any marks to disappear, and she'll probably rack up some bruises. We want her lily white on her wedding day."

I guess it made sense.

"Be prepared to be very gentle with her the day after the ceremony," Heidi advised. "She'll be in a weird place, mentally and physically. Hey Paolina, remember the party at that lake house?"

"The sex swing museum?" Paolina said sardonically. "How could I forget?"

"It was a couples party, lots and lots of couples," Heidi explained to me. "Everyone fucked everyone. And for dessert, they all wanted to fuck Paolina again. The next day her pussy was so swollen, I swear it looked like it had gone twelve rounds in a boxing ring. We were concerned."

"It went away in a couple of days," said Paolina, seeing the alarm on my face.

"Just so you know," said Heidi.

As for my own event planning, I was shocked when Gina called back to agree to my insane invitation. "I won't make any promises, but I'd be a fool to miss out on being a part of something this crazy. If I get cold feet... I don't know, I'll pour you a drink and pull up some porn for you."

"Fair enough," I laughed. I hoped it wouldn't come to that!

"And Corey... any chance you could wangle me an invite to this ceremony of yours? Would Paolina be OK with that? I promise to behave myself. This shit I gotta see."

Paolina and I paid for Gina's flight.

***

The closer the date drew, the more excited I became. My pulse would race just thinking about it. It wasn't simple trepidation. It was the raw thought of knowing, at the end of the night, I would claim my bride balls deep in her sopping pussy, in defiance of every man who'd mistakenly thought he'd satisfied her.

Because I would be a raging animal by the time they untied me. Paolina was mine. I would fuck all their cum out of her, once and for all.

For that was something else, something I'd never told anyone, not even Paolina. Deep down inside I secretly thrilled to the idea of sloppy seconds. I'd mostly experienced it with my own semen, when I would fuck Paolina a second time after blowing my first load. The sensation was heaven... a frictionless, slip-sliding thrill ride. No lube in the world came close.

***

So here I was at last at the ceremony, mingling with all the strange rivals I would soon best. It was a fascinating group, each man so different from the next. Who could guess their common denominator? There was a muscular bald Dom in boots laced up to his knees (Number 26 by his name tag, Stuart otherwise). I met an elementary school teacher, Trinidadian-born. There was a Ph.D. here, a dog walker there, factory workers, paralegals, hospice workers all represented. A well-spoken older man (with a younger male partner in tow—Numbers 10 and 11) was vague about himself. I later learned he had served in diplomatic service.

The stroll through Paolina's memory lane was a trip and a half.

The ambience playlist Heidi and Paolina had put together was surprisingly good, alive with erotic promise. Though for a few minutes the color of the music changed, leaving me vaguely unnerved. Behind the wall of male chatter, Sheryl Crow was asking a would-be lover if he was strong enough to be her man. 'Cause you can't change the way I am.

Something in the air was changing as zero hour approached. A heightening of testosterone. It wouldn't be long now.

My pulse was elevated. I wanted some air. I passed through the kitchen to let myself out into Heidi's tiny back yard. A small group of guests had already found their way outside. Some passed a joint around. (Heidi had banned alcohol for the night.) The short-cropped body builder with gauged ears offered up the joint with a little gesture.

"No, thanks. Need to keep a clear head."

The bodybuilder nodded sagely.

"Corey! Come here!" called Gina. Gina had been delighted to mingle with our guests on her own. She understood how tonight belonged to Paolina and me.

"Look who I've found!"

Gina had been chatting with a fresh-faced young woman who looked no older than twenty-five. She gave off the fresh air vibe of someone in a ski resort commercial. Sexual preference indeterminate.