The Spur Ch. 07

I can't live without my kitchen man!

Billie Holiday

JILL

Far be it from me to criticize a man who cooks for me. But I'd begun to notice a pattern I didn't know what to make of. The first time he made me shish barak--an incredible, but labor intensive, Lebanese dish of little meat dumplings cooked in a delicious yogurt sauce, he substituted chopped spinach and onions for the meat, painstakingly filling each dumpling with the mixture. (I helped with this part; it was tedious, but we always had fun in the kitchen.) This was shortly after we met in August.

When he made it again in early October, he substituted store-bought spinach tortellini for the dumplings. It was still good, of course, but not nearly as good as the lovingly-hand-crafted version. I might have put this down to a lack of time, but I had noticed that most of the dishes he made that involved a lot of fiddly preparation, like stuffed grape leaves or samosas, were either disappearing, or being simplified. And again, I'm not complaining--I'm sure I was the best-fed subbie in the Delaware Valley, even if it did mean more time at the gym--but Steve didn't seem like the type to pour it on until he'd got the girl, then slack off complacently once he was sure of her. It wasn't until he began complaining about typing being more difficult than it used to be that I started thinking he might be developing some kind of peripheral neuropathy. But since his work continued to go well, and I continued to be fed much more lavishly than I'd ever fed myself, (not to mention all the wonderfully filthy fun,) I didn't dwell on it.

When we weren't going to Thursday night contradances (which I had grown to love) or to Steve's musician-friends' gigs, we spent most of our out-on-the-town time watching Jamila dance at various Middle-eastern restaurants. Which was fine by me, of course, though it took me a while to get over the awkwardness of lusting after the same person as my date. I still got self-conscious when we double-dated with work friends--usually either my co-workers, or faculty from the Performing Arts College, where Steve taught a class on Psychology for Performers.

On one of these belly-dance evenings, we folded our legs under a low, ornate brass table at a Moroccan place in South Philly. We talked about work, the war in Iraq, the amazing Moroccan cuisine, and other ordinary things, but I was in story-time mode. So during a lull, I came right out and asked him why he hadn't gagged me since my birthday.

"Do you want me to?" he asked. I kind of thought I did. I liked being rendered unable to mouth off--the brat's mainstay--but since he had never brought it up, and since the whole situation was so different then, I had kept my curiosity to myself.

"I dunno; have you ever done it to anyone but me?" His smile showed immediately that he was onto me--which I liked. Sometimes I need to feel caught to feel seen.

"Only one--and for a specific reason."

"What was that?"

"Thin apartment walls." I laughed out loud.

"You can't stop there!" I said.

"OK, Grasshopper. Story time!"

"Yay!"

"In grad school, I dated a girl named Lana."

"'Lana' with an 'n'?" I said.

"Yes, Lana with an 'n'."

"Not 'Laura' with an 'r'?"

"Did I ever tell you about the eagle that was shot by an archer, and the last thing it saw were the eagle feathers the arrow was fletched with, sticking out of its chest?"

"Are you saying I am oiling my own whip?"

"Without question."

"Sorry. Please go on."

"Well, being an impoverished TA, I slept on a futon on the floor, so the only thing to tie her to was the legs of the radiator."

"Ouch! I hope it wasn't winter!"

"It was not. We explored crab-ties and frog-ties, and others that didn't involve stationary objects when the radiator was hot."

"Oh, good," I said.

"So one evening, I had tied her down, and we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves. Now, you know how I love a noisy wench." I smiled, almost managing to keep down my blush.

"I hadn't noticed."

"Well, Lana was robustly noisy; a very gratifyingly enthusiastic lover. Suddenly, we were startled by three loud knocks on the wall. My neighbor, Carol, a painter, had complained before about being able to hear everything--she always accentuated that word, *everything* --that went on in my bedroom. Lana's eyes went huge with embarrassment, but I couldn't bear for her to worry about 'keeping it down' while we made love. So I whispered to her, 'Listen; I love your enthusiasm, and I adore how noisy you are. I don't want you to have to be self-conscious about staying quiet--I live for the way you let yourself go in bed. I want you to always fuck me with reckless abandon. So I'd like to try something; do you trust me?' She nodded, and after a very sad withdrawal, I went to my closet and grabbed a handkerchief--my father had insisted on giving me several, thinking men my age still carried them, or ought to--and then withdrew a roll of white, four-inch surgical tape from my desk drawer."

"Seriously, why do you even have a desk?" I asked.

Before he could answer, the music started, and Jamila came floating into the room in a stunning Moroccan-blue costume, and we both sat, silent and mesmerized, as she performed. God, she was beautiful. You could probably have fried an egg on my forehead when, instead of draping her veil over Steve's neck as usual, she draped it over mine!

She visited us at our table after her set, and taking hold of both ends of the scarf around my neck so that it felt a little like a collar and lead, said slyly to Steve, "You'd better keep an eye on this one; I may need to steal her from you." A hundred feelings washed over me all at once: surprise, excitement, self-consciousness, anxiety about whether Steve knew how attractive I found Jamila and what he would think if he knew; it all made me a little swoony.

"Thanks for the warning," Steve replied with a faint smile. "I shall be vigilant."

"You do that," she said. "See you in twenty?" The three of us had arranged to walk to a nearby bar together to meet some friends after her last set.

"Absolutely!", Steve and I said simultaneously and, smiling archly, Jamila retrieved her veil and glided toward her changing room.

"So these are people from your work we're meeting?", Steve asked, for once choosing not to tease me about my blushing.

"Yes, they are," I said. "But don't change the subject!"

"Oh, right. So, anticipating what was coming, Lana opened her lovely mouth, and I popped the handkerchief in. I applied the tape, and holy cats, there were her full, sensuous lips distinctly outlined. I could have just looked at her all night. I applied another piece just below her lips so that it folded under her chin and jaw, and smoothed it into place. I asked if she could talk, and when she plainly couldn't, I put my keys into her hand, instructing her to drop them in lieu of a safeword if she needed to. She nodded her understanding, and I let my fingers do the walking for a while to bring her back up to speed.

"So the gag was working brilliantly. We were getting closer and closer, and she was moaning harder, but no louder; just a muffled mmph. Crazy sexy. We came simultaneously, and it was wonderful; big, wracking orgasms all around."

"Nice!"

"Then, after we'd caught our breath, I knocked on the wall and yelled, 'Hey, Carol--was that better?'"

"You didn't!"

"I did! Lana's eyes got as big as silver dollars--and when Carol yelled back, 'Much better; gag her every time!'--they got even bigger."

"You bastard!" I said. He laughed.

"And even though she wasn't a blusher like you, Grasshopper, she turned colors I'd never seen before. I kept her bound and gagged and ran cool washcloths over her until she'd calmed down enough that I judged it was safe to free her."

"You are so evil!"

"But I'm the evil you devotedly serve!"

"Yeah; what's up with that?"

* * *

The old nursery rhyme is right; three on the sidewalk is a lot, especially on a crowded weekend evening. So we fell into an inverted triangle formation, with S and J in front and me between them--which I liked--but a couple paces behind, which I could have done without. At one point, Steve asked her softly if she'd heard anything from "Doug." I didn't catch the next few words, but from her tone and gestures, I guessed she was waving the question off. When Steve persisted, I heard her say, with an edge of annoyance and a tone of finality, "He's not a part of my life anymore, OK? I'm fine." We walked the rest of the way in silence.

"What's that?" I asked over the hubbub of music and people-being-people. I wasn't sure I had heard her right.

"I said, 'Is he taking too much care of you?'" Jamila said. The two of us were on the tiny dancefloor, where she might have made me feel totally inadequate if she hadn't been so attentive and in sync with me.

"What do you mean?" I asked as the song ended and we walked toward a quiet corner away from the bar.

"I've known Steve forever," she said, "and I say this with love--but I've seen him too many times with damaged little damsels in distress he could play rescuer to. I call it his Larry Darrell Syndrome."

"From The Razor's Edge?"

"Exactly--some kind of dating Messiah complex. But Jill, I've haven't seen him this happy since I've known him, and you are nobody's D.I.D. Maybe our boy is finally growing up. Anyway, I'm really glad you two found each other."

"So am I!" I said, gratified at what she had told me, and flattered that she had made a point of doing it. Then, hoping the barroom lighting would hide my blushing, I said,

"Hey, I've been meaning to ask if you're taking any new bellydance students. Steve has evening clients on Wednesdays, and if you're free, I'd love to take some lessons."

"For you, sweetie, I'd love to. I'll have to move some things around, but we'll make it work."

"Oh, thank you!" I gushed. "I am so excited!"

"It will be my pleasure!" Then, looking over my shoulder toward the bar, she said,

"It looks like your colleagues want you to do a shot with them."

"Oh, God; I hope it isn't tequila," I said. "I hate tequila." (It was tequila.)

After a few drinks and a lot of refreshing laughter, the two of us walked back to Steve's place. It was a lot of walking, all in all, but even though I was the one wearing heels, he was the one who got the foot massage. (But I'm the brat, remember.) At least I knew I could pump him for information once he was in his happy place.

"Is everyone who works in events that effervescent?" he asked.

"How effervescent is that?"

"Like the world is running out of seltzer."

"Yeah, that sounds about right."

"How exhausting."

"Come on, Mr. Grumpypants--you had fun! Admit it!" I said, wringing out a washcloth in a bowl of warm water. (He liked me to run a washcloth over his feet before massaging them.)

"I did and I do. I just can't imagine going directly from a day of work to a pep rally."

"That didn't seem to stop you from flirting with Anaïs." My boss Anaïs is a six-foot blonde Amazon who throws axes for fun. I don't think I saw Steve's irises all evening.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, suppressing a smile.

In the same way that men in movies can shut mouthy women up by kissing them, I could take Steve's brain offline by massaging his feet, so that was the last I heard from him for a while, except the occasional moan of pleasure. When the time seemed right, I made my move.

"So, can I ask you something?" I said nonchalantly, working the arch of the first foot.

"Ask anything you wish of me," he said dreamily, "even unto half my kingdom."

"You and Jamila were once a couple, weren't you?" He sighed, resignedly.

"Yes, we were."

"Why don't you ever talk about it?" A pause.

"It's complicated, Grasshopper. She doesn't like to talk about her past, and has more or less asked me not to talk about it either."

"Is that what you and she were arguing about on the sidewalk?"

"Well, 'arguing' is a big word, I think, but yes. She had an abusive boyfriend situation a while back, and I occasionally try to check up on her about it, but it only seems to get her hackles up when I do."

"I can imagine her being hyper-vigilant for anything resembling 'rescuing'."

"That's it exactly. She regards checking-up as a foot-in-the-door for rescuing behavior." I thought about what she had told me in the bar, and decided against bringing it up.

"She doesn't seem to want to let anyone close," I said. "It's sad."

"That it is, Grasshopper. But she is not to be trifled with."

"On that!" I retorted. I wished I knew more about her; why she wrapped herself in mystery like those veils she danced with. She came off as such a straight-shooter and a hold-nothing-back kind of person, but the longer I knew her, the more sure I was that that was at least part persona.

"And speaking of trifling with people," I asked, "when you finally untied poor Lana, did she rip you the new asshole you so richly deserved?" Steve smiled--a rare smile of almost pure affection.

"Lana was complicated," he said. "She was far too much of a guitar-strumming neo-peacenik to rip anybody anything, so no, I escaped with the same number of body cavities I was born with."

"A 'guitar-strumming neo-peacenik'?" I asked. "What did you do, sing folksongs together?"

"As a matter of fact, we did, among other things. We were both in the university chorus, so music was certainly at the center of our social relationship. Funny thing is, though I was unquestionably attracted to her, she made the first move. Locked her big, beautiful brown eyes on mine over pizza one night with an unmistakable 'take me home and fuck me' smile."

"Girl knew what she wanted," I said.

"But that's the thing; she was undeniably a sub, but it was like she didn't know it yet. Told me later that she'd read some Edwardian bondage porn during high school, and although she liked it, she didn't think bondage and spanking and what-not were things people actually did in real life."

"And you showed her otherwise, of course."

"I did. I introduced her to mild kink on our first night together--tied her wrists behind her with a necktie."

"I can't imagine anyone letting you do that on their first night with you," I said, with as straight a face as I could manage.

"I opted for a leather necktie," he said, ignoring me. "I love the way they creak when a sub pulls against them."

"A leather necktie?" I began. He held up a hand.

"Any remarks of a geriatric-baiting nature will result in the immediate termination of this story."

"I wouldn't dream of it," I lied. "So how did she respond?"

"A little disconcertingly, actually. Although she told me later it was a big turn-on, she played it very cool at the time; she said that she had wanted to appear sophisticated, so she muted her response so as not to look surprised. So I took a long time stroking her back, gently tickling her ass, running my fingers over her bound hands, before I was confident that she was into it."

"Why didn't you just ask her?"

"Didn't know to. We were so naïve back then, Grasshopper; it's much better now that people just come right out and talk about this stuff. But when I had pulled her up on top of me, and saw her captivating eyes half closed, her full lips parted and her exquisite bosom heaving, I took that for an all-systems-go."

"She trusted you," I said. "I did, too."

"I know you did, and I love that about you. But you were an experienced sub, and knew what to look for. Lana just had an almost immediate, preternatural trust in me that I still can't account for. She would have done just about anything for me, and let me do just about anything to her. Except ice cubes; she didn't like ice cubes for some reason. But anything else was good." He paused, gazing inward with a gratified smile. "Very good!" I bent his little toe back till he yelped.

"Hello! I'm still in the room!" I loved his reminiscences--that's why I was always pestering him for stories--but you can't let a man forget you're there while you're actually giving him physical pleasure. I'm nobody's feather-fan slave-girl.

"How much more foot massage do you have in you?" he asked.

"How much more story to you have in you?" I countered.

"Well, it was actually because of Lana that I changed my career path to psychotherapy."

"When I'm done your feet," I said. "I'll do your hands."

"Treasure in heaven, Grasshopper," he said. "You're heaping up treasure in heaven!"

"I'll take it in information right now, thanks."

"Suit yourself. It was actually a couple years after we broke up..."

"Why did you break up?" I interrupted. After a minute or so, he said,

"Oh, we just went our separate ways when our expiration date was up, I guess." And maybe it was because of what Jamila had told me, but I decided I was having none of that.

"Steve!" I said, exasperated. "That's what you always say! I'm not wearing a wire, you know! If I can do your feet and hands, can't you at least confide in me enough to tell me the whole story? Who are you protecting?"

It took him a while to process that, but when he finally had, he sighed.

"It was my fault. She, for some reason, developed this insecurity--this fixed idea that I was going to leave her. So to prevent that happening, she became increasingly clingy. And it won't do to just say 'men don't like clingy women', because people do things for a reason. But instead of trying to find out what she was feeling that was making her behave that way, I just got annoyed, and started putting up barriers around my psychic personal space, if that makes any sense."

"Well, yeah, I get that--but that poor girl!"

"I know; I was selfish and insensitive. I broke up with her, though we kept in touch. And one evening on the phone, she told me two things that, together, set up a sort of chain reaction. First, she said she wasn't sure she was actually submissive. That surprised me, until she told me the second thing: that she didn't feel like she was allowed to 'take up her own space' in the world."

"Well, yeah--her and half the women I know."

"Exactly. And she had the common misconception that being a strong, intelligent, educated, capable woman was somehow at odds with being submissive. And that gave me an idea."

"Oh?"

"I told her to make a list of at least ten ways in which that feeling of prohibition to take up space manifested itself, and to call me two days later, naked from the waist up, and with a package of brand-new clothespins at the ready."

"Why brand-new?"

"They're pinchier right out of the package."

"Of course."

"So when the night came, I asked her to read me her list, and it consisted of all the things you'd expect: didn't feel empowered to disagree with or confront anyone, didn't feel the right to assert herself, didn't feel the right to express anger, felt uncomfortable spending money on herself, didn't feel entitled to ask for what she needed sexually or in relationships--all those sorts of things. And after each item on the list, I instructed her to clamp one of the clothespins to her body, anywhere but on the nipples, and to save the two most serious items for last."

"That isn't obvious or anything."

"Of course it was, and it heightened the suspense. So when she got to the main item--didn't feel the right to take up space--I told her to clamp a clothespin to a nipple. With a sharp intake of breath, she said, 'That hurts so much!'

"'I know,' I reassured her, 'but try to stay with it; it won't harm you.'"

"'I know', she said, and I could hear her breathing through the pain. I asked her what the last item was, and when she said it was the persistent message that her opinion wasn't valid, I had her clamp the other nipple. Then, as she lay there processing the pain, I told her a story. So this is a nested story routine; are you ready?"