Prisoner Ch. 01

"Shooo," she said, laughing as her hands made waving movements from her wrists. The laughter of her companions made the hair in his neck rise. He stepped outside and was drowned by the pouring rain.

***

After coming home and peeling the drenched clothes off his limbs he took a shower. It soothed him. He loved to shower when he felt miserable -- letting the hot water soak his naked body through and through. The fragrant clouds of steam mercifully cut off the world. He closed his eyes, while his hands spread bathing oil over his slippery torso. He felt the hard nipples against his palms, hidden in their nests of hair. He also felt his rib cage and the hollow of his tightly muscled stomach. He avoided his cock, spreading the oil on his thighs and calves. Going up he kneaded his ass cheeks, pulling the muscles tight until they felt like well-polished wood.

Fuck, he thought. He had a man's well-trained body and he should be proud of it. It was hard and hairy in all the right places; a woman's dream and yet he cursed it. Standing under the cascading water he dreamt how his massaging fingers turned the skin and muscles into creamy softness -- slick and hairless, curvy and sweet. A wave of sensuality engulfed him. He cursed again as he felt his cock stiffen. His eyes opened; a trembling sigh left his mouth.

It was all so goddamned unfair. Here he was, prepared to put women, any woman, on a pedestal. He worshipped them, adored them, lay down his life for them. In return, all they did was refuse him, ridicule him -- making him feel like the vilest turd. And the most humiliating thing was: he loved them even more for doing it.

After turning the water off he stepped out of the cubicle. He grabbed a large white towel and rubbed himself dry. The steamed-up mirror showed glimpses of his body; it made him look like a ghost.

"You idiot," he said to his reflection. "What on earth did you think? Haven't you learned yet that peasants don't get into the castle?" He hated how even now he tried to use metaphors like the silly romantic fool he was.

All thoughts of drowning himself in alcohol were gone.

Drinking herbal tea from a huge glass at the counter of his kitchen, he decided to give up his preposterous ambitions to be with the black haired woman. He chuckled at the word "decided." As if there had been even one moment where it had been up to him to 'decide' anything. He was masterfully reeled in and dumped, humiliated, ground into the earth under the cruel but elegant heel of a woman. He should count his blessings -- he'd been worthy enough for her to crush him.

The bitterness of the tea suited him nicely.

The next days were awful, but they were heaven compared to the nights. At daytime he could work. He could drag himself out of bed and into the office. He could loose himself in writing articles, in doing research, making phone calls, listening without hearing to the innate chats and gossips at the coffee machine -- about sports, women, the sizes of tits, the firmness of asses.

While the days dragged on, he got better at forgetting. By day three an entire half hour could pass without him thinking of her. There was just this background ache left -- throbbing. But then there were the nights he spent in bed alone, staring into darkness, unable to sleep. Or waking up from dreams filled with seas of emerald, ghostly pale skin and fat, swollen lip flesh stretching into mocking smiles. He'd wake up sweating, flipping on the light to try and read a page or two in vain, scared to return to sleep -- his eyes hurting from the lack of sleep.

On day four there was a phone call.

He was at his desk, right in the middle of writing how torching an eggplant could improve the taste of baba ganoush. Her voice was a breeze -- a gush of hot air crawling into his ear. It felt intimate; too intimate. It licked at the ear's insides, swirling through its convoluted passage -- invading his brain. It felt like rape.

"Hi, honey," it breathed. "Did you miss me?" He didn't hear what she said; not the words as such. What he heard was 'open up, let me in.' Her words were almost like a physical force, pushing, penetrating. They made him feel dizzy. They also made him perfectly helpless.

When he failed to answer, she laughed. It was a throaty chuckle, merrily mocking him.

"It is all right, honey," she said. 'All right?' He couldn't agree less. His throat seemed strangled by a fist, his eyes burning. His brain was an empty, airy attic.

"Tonight around seven," she whispered. "At the Seventh Cloud. It is a cute Thai place. I love Thai. Make reservations, please, honey, and be on time."

A metallic click and a string of beeps told him she'd hung up. A gush of fresh air invaded his mind. His throat opened again. He coughed. Only then did he know what to say, or rather: found the power to say it.

"No!"

It took him all of the rest of the morning to consider if saying 'no' would be the right thing to do. It would be the wisest, no doubt, and the healthiest for sure. It was the thing a real man would do, wouldn't it? But he knew that for him it would also be the shortest road to misery, to lying awake at night, endlessly doubting his decision and ending up regretting it. A once-in-a-lifetime chance would have slipped away, although he had no idea what chance. He knew she would humiliate him again. She would play with him, and ridicule him without a doubt. But he felt he didn't care. Even the fear of being crushed tasted sweet.

It took him another hour to admit that his resistance was just make-belief. He craved to be with the woman at any prize. Amidst fear he found the courage to be honest. And when he did, a weight was lifted from his shoulders.

He took the phone and made the reservation.

The restaurant was already packed when he arrived, ten minutes early. He wore his one good suit over a white dress shirt. He'd polished his shoes. Their table was in the back, a small two-person affair tucked away in a corner. He smiled. There were candles and dark wood paneling all around.

He sat down at the table, facing the entrance. After fifteen minutes that felt like an hour the nagging feeling returned: she was late again. Would she come at all? At twenty minutes he shrugged. He'd been early. It meant she was only ten minutes late. Anything could make you ten minutes late. His throat was dry. He ordered a glass of mineral water. Another five minutes passed. The volume of the voices around him rose. He watched the smiling faces, the happy people. Detracted, he almost missed her entrance.

She was dressed in a simple black dress under a short black coat that she wore open. She showed some cleavage. Her black hair framed her pale face. It wore a blood red smear where her mouth was. She smiled seeing him. And she was not alone. Beside her was one of the tall African fashion models he'd seen at the hotel -- willowy thin and over six feet on heels. Her dress was made of salmon silk, tightly wrapped around her night-black body. Her glossed lips were painted salmon too. They stretched in a dazzling stage-smile.

When they arrived at his table, things got awkward. He rose, not quite knowing what to do. His hands swam useless in the space between them. He couldn't hug her, could he? He tried smiling. He tried faking a relaxed attitude -- failing.

"See, Tasha?" the pale woman said to her dark friend. "This is the one I told you about." Her green eyes sparkled. He reached for the African girl's hand, feeling it slip in and out of his like a limp fish. He murmured his name.

"Ah well, to each his own, I guess," Tasha said after looking him over. She sounded disinterested. Then she sat down on one of the two chairs. The pale woman (he still didn't know her name) took off her short jacket, handing it to him while her eyes stayed on her friend.

"Now watch how he takes this to the wardrobe," she said. Without looking she dropped the jacket; he could just about catch it. Then she slid past him, sitting down on the other chair, the one he'd occupied. He stood with the jacket in his hands, wondering why he didn't run.

"And you know, Tasha..." she said to her companion, ignoring him, "on his way back here he'll bring us each a nice dry white wine. I'm sure he knows what we like."

After he returned with the wine and a blush, he put the glasses in front of them. Only then did he realize his predicament. The women occupied both chairs at the small table and even if there had been a spare chair to borrow from other tables, he'd never find the space to put it down. He stood, awkwardly, and was ignored by the women who'd stuck their faces together in vivid talk.

After a minute he cleared his throat. He had to do it again before the white woman looked up. She smiled, pulling up her eyebrows. His hands tried to point out his predicament while he searched for words.

"I, eh, I thought," he said, staring into the emerald eyes; they looked at him in silent expectation.

"I assume," he tried again. "I assume that ehm, Tasha will..." His voice petered out. The green eyes were a sea now in which he swam around, kicking helplessly.

"Will she stay?" he blurted out.

Dark long lashes closed over the green expanse once, twice. Then she returned to her friend, ignoring him.

"Could you believe this?" she said to Tasha, her tone of voice a mixture of surprise and annoyance. "I invite you. You are my best friend. And now he wants to send you packing. How rude can you get?" She laid her hand on Tasha's.

"But," he tried again, perplexed. "But where do I sit?"

His question seemed to honestly surprise her. She looked up to him and back to Tasha, laughing. Tasha seemed bored. When the white woman repeated: "Can you believe this?" the other just shrugged, muttering "men."

"You are so right," his date for the evening said to her friend. "Let him stand where he is now. And while he's at it, he might as well get the waiter's attention. I'm starving and so are you, no doubt."

He should have left; he knew he already should have left twice before. He felt a hot, bitter rage; it tasted of bile. But he didn't leave. What he did was raising his hand, signaling for the waiter. The man stared him into the face. Then he turned away, and started cleaning a table. He waved again. When the man at last arrived, he brought them two menus. After the women studied them, they ordered each a simple salad and water. The waiter collected the menus. Then he turned to him, leaning in and whispering: "I'm afraid you can't keep standing around like this, sir. Please sit down."

He looked at the waiter feeling beyond ridiculous.

"But there is no chair," he said, looking around.

More and more people turned and watched. The two women at his table never looked up; they kept gossiping intimately as they had done before. He shrugged, spreading his arms.

"Okay. I guess I'll leave," he said. When he turned to go, he felt a hand on his arm. Looking down he saw that it belonged to his date. He grimaced at the qualification. She waved him closer. He bent at his waist until his head was a few inches from hers. He smelled her perfume. Then he felt her breath on his ear.

"Don't leave, please," she whispered. "I know you can't keep standing around and you can't sit either. But you can kneel, can't you?" She turned her eyes to her African friend again.

"Tasha," she said, "would you very much mind if he knelt beside me?" Tasha shrugged. He groaned and started to rise, withdrawing his face. But the pale woman's hand stopped him again.

"See?" she went on addressing the other woman, while shoving her chair an inch to the left. "He can kneel here, beside me, so he won't stick out and get all this embarrassing attention. I bet the waiter won't mind."

His face was like a furnace. Her mouth smiled and she nodded in encouragement while moving another inch or two. He knew it was all a set-up. He knew he was being played and had been ever since he saw her at the editing room. Every step he had taken these last few days had been engineered by her. And yet he believed he had taken each decision by himself. How could she have known him so well? Was he that transparent?

Waves of disgust overwhelmed him as he stood there, half-bent, his eyes moving around the room. Then his knees gave. They touched the floor and the tabletop was just below his shoulders. He felt a hand against his back, nudging him to get even closer to the table. His chin was right above the top now, a whine glass and silver cutlery very close, as was a small vase with a sprite of orchids. He hated orchids. Looking up he saw the waiter had gone. People all around were watching though. Hot embarrassment made him sweat. A soft hand patted his head.

"Bravo," a voice -- her voice -- breathed. Then there was giggling.

When the food arrived, she started feeding him, picking up morsels with the tips of her chopsticks while talking to her friend.

"Can't have him starving, our big boy," she said, keeping a straight face. "He might need his strength later on." Both women chuckled. She let a small piece of chicken fall before it arrived at his mouth. He reached for it to pick it off the table, but the chopsticks landed hard on his fingers.

"Tssk," she said, pursing her mouth and shaking her head. "Such poor manners. I suppose he should keep his hands behind his back, don't you think, Tasha? Mommy will feed him. Can't have him messing up this fine restaurant!"

He felt awful. He also felt miserable, humiliated, embarrassed and very, very angry with himself. No one forced him to kneel at this table in a restaurant full of people, being fed like a nestling. His hands weren't tied; he could just rise and leave and never come back. But he didn't. He'd waited in the hotel lobby. He had let himself be ridiculed at the bar. Now here he was again, stripped of the last threads of dignity by a woman and her friend who didn't even bother to include him in their conversation.

Of course he knew why he'd stayed. He knew why he held his hands clasped on his back, shaking with tremor. He knew that, under all his rage, there was a deeper layer pulsing with the pace of his racing heart. It was a pulsing he also felt in his crotch, although he knew he wasn't hard at all. He didn't have to check; there was a warm, tingling sensation, but his cock felt soft, like a sponge. It might leak. It sometimes did when he suppressed his arousal. He wondered if maybe the front of his gray pants would be stained. Another wave of shame shook his body.

The African woman chuckled as she watched his flushing face.

"Regarde," she said in her contralto voice. "Il est si mignon. Je t'envie, chérie." His French was good enough to feel pissed off by her words. He was cute, she said? He looked at her, almost ready to spit out his anger. But it just as soon melted away. She was too damn beautiful and so very much aware of it -- the sheer elegance of her slender wrists; the self-evident haughtiness of her long, bare neck stunned him into silence. One of her fat-laced eyelids closed over her liquid eye. She winked at him, pouting generous lips. A squirt of liquid hit the crotch of his boxer short. He knew for sure they would smell it.

"Honey."

The word pulled him out of his trance. He turned his face in the direction of the pale woman he still didn't know the name of. Had she talked to him? His eyes searched for hers, but before he caught them, he felt a hand between his legs -- her hand, he supposed. It slowly rubbed the place where she might have expected an erection.

"Oh my," she said, her eyes widening. Her rubbing became more intense, but she might as well have massaged his shoulder or leg. His mind buzzed, taking him to the brink of fainting, but the soft cotton ball between his thighs stayed as numb as ever.

"My God!" she cried out. "He isn't even hard."

She said it loud enough for the closest people to hear. The shock of her words sent new pulses into his brain -- and a gush of piss from his bladder. The sheer humiliation forced tears from his eyes, running down his cheeks. He saw heads turn. If there was ever a perfect moment to die, it was now. But the woman wasn't yet done with him.

"Eeww!" she exclaimed, bringing her hand above board. She shook it theatrically. "He is soaked -- drenched like a slut." Bringing her fingertips to her nose she faked gagging.

"It is piss!" she cried out. Then she started laughing, pointing her finger. Between two fits she gasped and said to Tasha: "He is wetter than you and I ever were, honey."

He felt a second hand reach for his crotch. From the way Tasha leant in, he could tell it was hers. Long-nailed fingers scratched his bulge before closing around it. Her hand was quite a bit more vigorous than when she'd shaken his upon entering.

She truly jerked him off.

He looked from the pale woman to the African one and back. He begged them mutely to stop. But they didn't see him; they just looked at each other eagerly, their mouths half open. Their chests heaved in obvious excitement. Tasha's shoulder and upper arm moved with her ministrations. He did know what she expected, but all she achieved was a wider-spreading numbness -- and a growing tightness in his throat. He gasped. His consciousness retired into a glowing pinpoint at the center of his head. Then he fainted. He sagged sideways against the woman's chair, only held up by the jerking hand of her friend. She tired of her pointless exercise and let him slide under the table.

His lights went out. He heard a voice murmuring: "He's worthless, but he's such a sweet boy. I guess I'll allow him to love me."

When he came to he felt a hand shaking his shoulder. Through a dark mist swam the face of the waiter. "Sir?" it said, or mimed, as he didn't hear him. He turned his head to find himself lying amidst a small forest of chair and table legs. As he tried to get up, a spell of dizziness attacked him. He closed his eyes again, but the hand kept shaking. There were audible words now.

"Sir? Are you all right?" He groaned and got halfway up, testing the floor beneath his elbows; it seemed solid enough. Then he saw the big dark stain at the crotch of his pants. New flashes of embarrassment shook him as he scurried up, trying to cover it.

"Where..?" he asked.

"I suppose you fainted, sir," the waiter said. "Should I get a doctor?"

He looked around.

"Where are the..?" he asked.

"Ah," the waiter said. "The ladies left, informing me where you, eh...were. They said not to worry, it happened often. Oh, and they said you'd pay the bill."

He looked at the waiter, hardly understanding what he meant.

"I, ehm...," he said. "Where are the washrooms?"

***

Next day he called in sick. That whole night he'd been unable to sleep. His head was a cinema with pictures projected on every wall. Pictures of him kneeling and being fed in public while shrill female voices cackled their delight and hundreds of people watched him. Then there were pictures of him running through a packed restaurant, clutching his crotch to keep people from seeing the very present blotch of piss on his pants. There was the waiter smiling condescendingly while his finger pointed at the sum total on a bill. It is hard to sign a check while trying to cover yourself. He saw people pointing and laughing before he could tear himself free and burst into the street -- where he found more people staring.

Why didn't he just take a pill and doze off? His nightmares surely couldn't be worse than the ones he had while awake? But he knew better from the one or two moments he'd nodded off. As soon as he closed his eyes, hers opened. A blast of emerald penetrated the crevices of his mind, mercilessly blowing away every cobweb or veil of gossamer that might flatter his self-image. Her gaze exposed each wrinkle and blemish, all of his failures and weaknesses. He stood naked; he was his own mirror, his own reflection. And he knew he could never escape this woman. He got stuck not because he couldn't leave, but because he didn't want to.