Waiting

David called out for dumping, that is if we'd gotten far enough along so dumping was the right word. I didn't care though. It would've been fine with me if he couldn't put two words together without swearing. It would've been fine if he only talked sports. He could've ridden a motorcycle and I wouldn't've cared. He could've played the lottery or taken me to Las Vegas and I wouldn't've cared. He could've been married.

I felt sure I'd be sleeping with him that night. I wanted it more than anything.

When it was over, he put me in a cab, gave the driver my address and prepaid.

I sat by myself in the dark backseat, crying silently. After a time I pulled myself together, tossed my hair about and checked my cell. There was another message from my ex-boyfriend, the guy who'd turned into an ape before my eyes the evening after I met David. I listened to it. He wanted to see me again, he didn't understand, he thought about me all the time, and so on. The only time I thought about him was when he called and then it was just gaseous annoyance.

I heard my Mom's voice in my head, "This is so bad. You are being stupid. You have to stop this!" I knew she was right but it didn't matter.

I felt my nakedness under my skirt, under my blouse and wondered. I wondered if I was, if I could be anything more than an amusement to him. Wondered what I would do if asked. Wondered what he would ask. Above all I wanted to be asked.

Friday a week of frustration later, I met with him in his office to discuss a troublesome partner, just the two of us.

The week had been a horror, he'd been in the office but I hadn't seen him, not to speak to. Even the staff meeting got canceled, the quarterly investor's conference call was that Friday morning. One evening I was so desperate I hung around the entrance to the building waiting for him. When he came out he was in a gaggle of exec types, talking and laughing, if he saw me it didn't show.

He sat behind his desk, me on a chair facing him. I started to explain the situation with the partner. He opened a drawer. I stopped stunned. He held a collar with a leash attached. A simple leather collar, the leash attached to it by a simple stainless steel ring. He laid it on his desk. It seemed to swallow the light. I was wearing a light blue sleeveless knit dress, a turtleneck, with a knee length skirt. I leaned forward and touched the thing. I swallowed. "I can't wear this," I said, "Not in the office. Not, not in public." I felt hot. Anything that sentence promised about places that weren't public was true.

"Under your clothes is fine," he said lightly.

I felt his eyes on me. I wanted to look up and understand all that was behind them, to see myself as he saw me. To understand. I could not of course. A glance was all I could manage from that collar. Amused interest, I thought.

"Maybe if it doesn't show," I whispered.

The collar was black leather, as I said, almost an inch wide, with two stainless steel buckles. I undid the buckles and put it round my neck, pulling my dress's collar down so the leather was against my skin, pressed to my throat. I glanced up at him, my eyes must've been so wide. I fumbled with the buckles, the leather was stiff and resistant. Fastened, it was so tight. With difficulty I shifted it around so the buckles were in back, against my spine. It seemed to cut my breathing, I felt lightheaded.

I held the dress neck and front out and dropped the leash down, it hung between my breasts, I could feel it against my collarbone, against the sides of my breasts through my bra and against my belly. I stood. The dress had a belt. I had to loosen the belt to let the leash slip down, it's loop touched my knees. When I sat back I felt it through my panties, along my thighs, brushing my calves. I fiddled with my turtleneck, covering it, making sure with my fingers that it wasn't visible, I hoped my thick hair hid the bulge of the buckle in back.

I sat feeling stunned and hot.

"Go on," he said patiently.

I stared at him without understanding.

There was just the slightest smile about the corners of his lips. I couldn't take his eyes. He nodded to the folder I had set on his desk when I stood.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. I looked at him and met his gaze briefly then looked down. In a voice that faltered at first I explained the situation with the partner, finishing with "They want us to do a lot of work for little return. They have nowhere to go besides us and they should be welcome to go there."

"You're certainly right," he said, "So what's the problem?"

"The problem is Rich," (the sales/marketing type who'd engineered the partnership), "Nothing is too good for them in his opinion. He says our doing all that work for them is relationship building. But we're just giving and they're just taking. He told me the deal was going through and to just get on board."

"But you haven't," he observed.

"No. I think it's a stupid deal. Bad for us in every way."

He nodded. "I'll deal with Rich. You call our buddies and tell them it's no go," then he added, "I'm having a gathering, mostly family, at my place this evening. You can join us?"

I flushed and said yes, the sharp line of that leash seemed to cut a line in my flesh.

"Meet me outside the Starbucks on the corner at 7."

I spent the rest of the afternoon absurdly happy, despite trying to hold my arms in such a way that my dress was loose in front, hiding the line of the leash. Whenever I had to get up, the leash loop would swing against my knees, barely hidden by the hem of my skirt.

Though I know I must've taken the elevator and sidewalk like a normal person, I have no memory of it. When he stepped beside me outside the Starbucks, I felt I'd slid through the air on a highwire stretched along the long steep diagonal from our offices to that corner. I felt breathless and happy.

We walked down the street in the warm early evening air. The leather swinging against my knees and brushing my thighs seemed to tie me to him. He said that it was a fine evening and that we could walk. I was glad my shoes were flat and sensible. I wanted to talk but could think of nothing to say.

We left the business district and crossed the park. The air became cooler and the trees were gorgeous. Dogwood, forsythia, tulip trees were in bloom. Daffodils glowed in carefully tended beds. The neighborhood was fashionable, red brick rowhouses with decorative columns lining their doors.

He led me through a wrought iron gate and up the steps of one.

Inside was a narrow stair, the kind of attractive stairway you only find in old places, dark hard wood risers, dark varnished railings with attractive molded bars, a satisfying creak under your step. We climbed the stairs to a landing and entered a long narrow room. There were windows on either end. One end looked upon the tree lined street and the brick row houses across it. The other looked out through trees to the back of another rowhouse. The room was furnished with several old fashioned couches and chairs. There were books and magazines on the coffee table and strewn about various endtables.

Celeste sat on a couch. A man, possibly young, quite tanned, almost impossibly handsome stood beside her drinking a cocktail.

David vanished on up the stairs. I stood stupidly, feeling abandoned.

Celeste stood up, she was wearing a slip of a wine red cocktail dress, the kind that would've made me look like a cow. "So good to see you again, this is Vasily."

We exchanged greetings. Nervous and distracted on my side, bored on his. To say something I asked him what he did. Before he could bother himself to reply, Celeste said, "Oh, Vasily's always hanging about, and like contemporary realism he's right in your face and sure leaves nothing to the imagination."

Vasily frowned in annoyance. "I am often busy. I do some modeling, some acting. I am not always with you."

Celeste leaned over and bit him lightly on the ear.

He frowned with discontent and stepped behind me.

He lifted my dress from behind. I started to turn, surprised protest bubbling to my lips. Celeste caught my eye. She regarded me calmly, dispassionately. David stood in the doorway, a glass of scotch in his hand, watching with interest. I found I couldn't say anything. I closed my eyes.

Vasily hooked his fingers in my panties and pulled them down and off. He took my purse from my shoulder, dropped the panties into it and set it on an endtable. "So you won't lose them," he said in bored disdainful tones. If he'd noticed the leash, how could he not? he said nothing.

The leather rested against the vertical groove of my sex. I felt it and everything intensely.

He was behind me again, I heard a zipper. He lifted my dress. I looked out the window. Forsythia and dogwood shown on either side of the street, slanting sunlight hit them and the brick of the buildings. I knew I could walk out. If I took just one step I'd be gone. Gone and done with them.

Gripping my waist with one hand, he pushed my shoulders with the other, bending me forward. My hands went to my knees, my hair fell wild about my face. The end of his sex pressed up against me, missing on the side of my bottom. He butted up against me several times, before lodging successfully. He felt large. I thought that Celeste must have picked him for something. I wanted him to be small. I felt so nervous and miserable.

He bent behind me, his hands gripped my thighs just above my knees. He straightened and lifted. My own weight forced me down upon him part way, I was so dry and cold, it was so uncomfortable. My legs dangled in the air stupidly.

"She is heavier than you," he complained.

Celeste left her position by David. She lifted my arms and stretched them back, my hands joined behind Vasily's neck. I felt the short stubble of hair there. My dress had slid down my thighs, pooling over my sex, obstructing their view. She lifted and straightened it. I could see the end of the leash swinging like a pendulum.

Vasily butted up against me several times I was nervous and miserable. David's eyes set my face on fire. I lowered my head so that my hair curtained my face.

It was so uncomfortable. He kept pushing and I gasped and moaned. Celeste watched with a small smile, she leaned against David in a companionable way that made me jealous and forlorn, one arm behind his back her hand hooked over his shoulder.

I felt like I was being split apart. My left leg began to tremble. I felt Vasily's hips, hair and balls push against me. There was no more to come. I sagged.

Vasily began pumping up and down. The first couple thrusts were uncomfortable but then they got easier to handle.

I closed my eyes. When I opened them David was gone. Celeste was sprawled on a couch.

Vasily began to bounce me faster and faster, like a baby being burped.

I heard him grunt and I felt him coming. His spasms in me seemed to go on and on.

He held me for a moment longer, his breath hot in my hair. Then he lifted me off and set me down on shaky legs. "Inferior," he complained, "And her hair got in my nose."

"Poor baby," murmured Celeste. "There'll be better things to come shortly."

I felt Vasily's semen trickling down my thighs. I looked down and there was a dark damp patch on the front of my dress, just under the belt buckle.

The doorbell rang. Celeste vanished out the door and clattered down the steps. I stood stunned and sick, wishing for David, feeling too stranded to move. The room filled with chattering people, I almost thought they'd been hiding behind the furniture and were just now popping up.

They were mostly more or less my age. Celeste stood by me and introduced those who bothered to come near. They seemed to be mostly cousins and their friends. One older woman was introduced to me as David's sister, Aunt Julia.

A glass of wine appeared in my hand. I didn't want it and set it down. I was thirsty, but I just stood there.

I heard a shriek of laughter and saw that one of the younger of the cousins had stripped naked. She was kneeling over a large young man's lap, her back to him. She had his penis out of his pants. She dropped down and let it slide along her shaven sex. It wound up flat against her belly. "Missed again!" she called with another burst of laughter. She pushed it away from her and let it slap up against her stomach. One of the guy's hands was on her waist and he was looking down over her shoulder, drinking a beer. From his expression it wasn't clear he knew that the penis was his, he just seemed to be an onlooker.

"My cousin Rose," observed Celeste, "A high school graduate if you can believe it." She was back next to me.

The girl lifted herself again and dropped, her ass slipping down the man's belly, flattening itself on his hips. "Missed again!"

I noticed an older man looking at us. I was scared he was looking at me. He came over and laid a hand on Celeste's bare shoulder, kissed her on the neck then moved toward a couch. With a roar he sent the young people on it flying. Celeste sighed, "One of Dad's business friends," she said. She pulled the front of her dress down, the wine red shear fabric clung under her breasts, setting off her delicate nipples. She stepped without eagerness to the couch.

There was another shriek and a cry of "Cheater!" I saw that the young man had dumped Cousin Rose on her back and was fucking her vigorously.

I left the room and stood on the landing. It would have been simple to go down and out. I climbed the steps to the next level. The door on this landing opened on a kitchen and a long dining table. The kitchen was busy with some catering types. The dining area was empty.

Next up I found a study and home office. There was a desk, leather chairs, a table. The walls were lined with books and paintings and photographs. David was sitting on a chair, one leg stretched on a cushioned stool. His sister sat opposite him, bending forward talking earnestly.

I moved along the wall, looking at pictures, skipping the paintings which were all abstract. I felt the dampness on my thighs, the leash rubbing one leg or the other. The photos were mostly family groupings. In one I saw a younger David, a woman and two small children. I looked at them for a long time before drifting on.

I looked out the back window. Below was a neat small walled yard with flowering bushes along a gravel path. The back gate was not far. Beyond it was an alley and the wall with a junkier yard beyond.

I moved further and found myself looking at a photograph of a very beautiful girl. Blonde streaky hair, more of a mane really, a delicate pale intense face, a wine red cocktail dress like Celeste's showed fine boned shoulders, barely hid fine small breasts. Her legs were nice, she wore high heeled sandals with straps that were tied in fancy bows above her ankles.

"That's my daughter Zenia," a sad voice said from behind me. The sister, Aunt Julia, came and stood beside me. She was large and robust and smelled of alcohol. It was hard to see how such a delicate creature could be related to her.

"That was taken at my second wedding," she said. Then she went on, "You're wise to stay away from that lot downstairs. David is not at all good for them. He gives them too much. Whenever they need anything they just come to him. He sets them up in meaningless jobs, pays their rent, entertains them. They just idle their days away waiting for their lives to begin."

"I can't say mine has really begun either, my job isn't that much and my Mom helps with the rent."

"Your life doesn't really begin until you have children."

There didn't seem to be anything to say to that so I was silent.

"We named our girls after flowers," she said sadly, "I'm afraid they grew up weeds. Zenia could have done anything. She dropped out of school and David hooked her up with a modeling agency. Modeling! Half the men on the planet have seen her naked."

"Why are you here if you disapprove of him?" I asked.

"Zenia disappeared a year ago. She went to Indonesia and the Philippines with her photographer and never came back. Her blog described her relationship with him, a self-styled artist, in disgusting detail. I fail to understand how she could have written let alone done what she described, I mean it was so exposing. He should be behind bars now, but there is no evidence. David still has contacts in the Far East. He's trying to find out what happened to her."

The woman looked at her imaged daughter for some time. I stood feeling awkward. Finally she left the room, leaving me alone with David.

I went over to David and sat on the stool at his feet. What I'd said about my life wasn't quite true. When I was near him I felt intensely fearfully alive. He was reading.

"Do you care for me at all?" I asked.

He looked calmly at me. "That is not the right question," he said.

"I am so miserable." I said. But that wasn't true. Sitting so close to him I glowed. My legs were closed, the leash ever present in my thoughts, clamped in a hard line along my sex, it's looped handle brushing my calves. My hands rested in my lap. I longed to reach and touch him but did not. My head was bowed, my hair was a wild torrent about my cheeks and shoulders. Time seemed to have stopped.

"There she is!" a voice called from the door. Cousin Rose and a couple girls scurried in. They paused in a tight naked pack when close to David, skittish of him. When he said nothing, they took my hands and pulled me up. One of them pulled at my dress's turtleneck and with a glad cry tugged the leash roughly up my front and out. "It's really true!" one laughed.

I looked down at David, "Please," I said. He was watching, his expression unfathomable.

They led me down the stairs, I imagined myself jerking free and dashing on down and out into the cool air. I heard my mother's voice pleading with me.

They led me back into the party. People were sitting and standing in various states of undress and drunkenness. Celeste sprawled on a couch, naked except for her shoes, sandals identical, I noted, to those in the picture of her cousin. The wrappings about one ankle were undone, the sandal flapping against her heel as she dangled her foot in the air, the other sandal still remained neatly tied to her foot, the black bow of its strap just above her neat ankle. Her expression was sour and bored. A spilled glass lay on the floor by her couch. She held another in her hand. It's base rested on a nipple. She twisted the glass negligently.

My dress was pulled over my head, my breasts were set free. "WOW!" cried a man and there were several appreciative shouts. "Best of the breed! Pin a ribbon on that girl!"

They pushed me face down over the arm of a couch. A man grabbed my waist and slammed into me. He knew what he was doing, without hands, just guiding himself like a missile on a wire. He began pounding away making audible slaps against my rump. He seemed to go on forever. After a while he must've thought so too. He said, "It's just not going to happen. I'm too strung out! Someone else take a turn."

My hair was about my face, stuck to my cheeks, in my eyes. My bottom wasn't in the open long. I was being rocked forward again, my head pushed rhythmically forward along the cushion, my breasts ground against the fabric. The man's hands grabbed them and squeezed painfully.

Eventually he came or just left as well.

The next separated my ass cheeks and I felt him fitting his penis to my anus. "No," I cried and tried to get up but they held me, some girl sat laughing on my back, her ass slick with sweat. All my struggles got me was a splash of Margarita icy on my shoulders.

I shall not describe what happened next. It was horrible. I had been never had that way. That goes without saying. God it was so nasty.

I just hung limp over the couch's arm. Keeping my face to its back so I couldn't see the room. At first I kept my hands braced above my head. I gave that up, just let one hang over the side, the other I kept over my face. Sometimes hands gripped my hips, sometimes my shoulders, sometimes they reached around and gripped my breasts. Two, maybe three men took their turns, the normal way.