Waiting

When I was with him I was happy, at least in part. I wanted him so. I wanted to touch him, to embrace him, to sleep the night with him. Any advance from me seemed impossible. I spent endless amounts of time speculating on what he wanted, how he saw me, where we were going. What I would not do if asked.

Some weeks later, in his office, after we'd discussed work issues, he told me that the next day he was leaving on a trip to visit our far eastern suppliers in India, Vietnam, and the Philippines. I was devastated at the thought of him being gone. Then he asked me to meet him at the end of the trip, to spend a week with him seeing a part of the world he loved.

I was so happy I couldn't speak. I stammered, reddened, and finally managed that there was nothing I would like so much.

"David," I said suddenly, "Would you like me to quit my job here? I would love to be with you openly."

He looked at me for a moment, all I could decipher in his gaze I thought was some amusement. "You're doing an excellent job and I'd hate to lose such a good employee."

I did not feel that was a great answer. However what I said was, "Then how about a raise."

That night he took me to dinner at an exceedingly expensive restaurant. French and fancy American. There was wine which I only sipped, preferring my water, and countless courses and at least three waiters hanging over us at all times.

We chatted about work.

I wore my best dress, a thin beige thing, my shoulders were bare, I was always conscious of my hair brushing them. I was intensely aware of my breasts, their tops a shelf in my peripheral vision, I could just see the lace of my one strapless bra, it had set me back $94 but when I'd looked at myself in the mirror wearing just it and my briefs I felt I looked so good. I had on my red pumps with moderate heels. My legs were warmly encased in ivory stockings, they too looked very good. I wished the table wasn't there, as he could only see part of me.

I was quite aware that men at neighboring tables kept glancing my way. As always David looked me in the face and his eyes didn't stray. Myself, as always, I could barely ever lift my eyes to his. I watched his hands manipulating knife and fork, lifting his wine glass, moving in the air as he talked.

After all the dishes were eaten or at least tasted on my part, after the salad, after the desert, coffee and cheese and fruit were served. David had espresso, I had just a regular.

I was steeling myself, I was not going to leave him that evening.

David said, "I am thinking of something you're wearing, guess."

I looked at him with wide eyes. "Why."

"Just guess."

I was silent a moment, the slight bit of lace caught my eye, sandwiched between my skin and the low neckline of my dress, I said in a low voice, "My bra."

He smiled and shook his head, "You lose. I was thinking of your earrings. Take them off."

I removed them, glancing at the neighboring tables, and dropped them in my purse. My breath was coming hard.

"Guess again," he said.

"My bra," I repeated.

"You win," he said.

"What? What do I win?"

"A reprieve. Guess again."

"My bra," I whispered, I did not want to take it off. My dress was so thin and light. My breasts would shine through it.

"You can only guess the same thing twice."

"You are making up the rules to please yourself."

"Indeed."

"You would not ask me to remove my dress, not here," I whispered. He said nothing. "My panties."

"Your," he paused, watching me with amusement. "stockings."

"May I use the ladies room?"

"However you like."

I got up. When I came back, I murmured, sipping my water, "They will think I'm having some kind of a problem."

He smiled. "Guess."

"Can I spend the night with you?" I asked, "You're leaving tomorrow and I cannot bear to be parted from you."

He nodded and my heart leapt. He said "Guess".

"My bra."

"Your panties."

After another trip to the ladies, I murmured without prompting, "My bra."

"You win," he said, "Guess"

"My, my, my shoes."

"Your ring," I wore only one, on my right ring finger, it had been my grandmother's. I took it off and put it in my purse.

I looked at him. I wanted to get him home. I stood and whispered, "I guess my dress and you're thinking of my bra and I lose and you win and when I come back we should go". I went to the ladies. My three trips had made me something of an object of curiosity so my trip back was an agony. I could see my nipples plain through the material and though I walked as smoothly as I could those breasts bounced and rubbed against the thin fabric. I worried that they would come out altogether.

He'd paid the bill and stood as I came back. We went to the cloak room and got our coats. Though it was May, we were having a hard cold snap, the TV weather guys had been agitated about the possibility of a killing frost. They'd tried to talk it up into a hurricane in importance. He helped me into my coat. He put his lips to my ears and whispered, "Guess."

I stared at him trembling.

"The rest," he said when I was unable to speak.

"Not the coat," I pleaded.

"As you please."

To the ladies room. I came back out with the coat buttoned to my neck. My thighs brushed its edge with each step. I had to stay ramrod straight.

"Your shoes," he said.

I stood on one leg, balancing by placing my hand on his arm. The coat room attendant watched us, me rather. Disapproval on her face. My face and arm and hand flamed. I pulled the shoe off, a red pump, then the other. I dropped them in my coat pockets. I kept my hands in my coat pockets, trying to push it down.

We left. The concrete froze my feet. It was cold enough so my breath steamed. I was aware of every inch of my body and I felt that he must be too. Tears leaked down my cheeks. A cab waited for us and we climbed in.

As I sat I felt his hand on my rear, holding the coat. My rump plunked bare on the plasticy fabric of the cab's seat. I imagined it to be none too clean. Tears flowed faster. I leaned against him and he put his arm around me. I could feel the wool of his pants leg against my thigh. I smelled the wine of his breath.

He put something in my hand. It was the collar. The leash this time was a linked chain, it flashed silver in a passing streetlight. Tears flowing faster, I put the collar about my neck. He held my hair up for me.

We climbed out at his place. The red brick and the white woodwork of the old building, partially hidden by the leaves of the trees, hardly green at all in the street light, looked stiff, formal and elegant. My breath rose in front of my eyes.

We went in. He helped me out of that coat and hung it in the closet. There were lights in the living room up the stairs, lights from outside through the glass that lined the doorway. I hoped Celeste was someplace else, I didn't even know where she lived, I realized.

My skin shown pale in the dimness. I had not known there was so much of it. I leaned forward to embrace him. I wanted to tell him I had been waiting for this for so long, but the words wouldn't come. I took the chain, a streetlight shining through the little front window made it gleam, and put it in his hand. He bent and kissed my neck. He let the leash hang down my back, I felt it against my bottom. He shifted it so it hung down in front. He put his hand to the small of my back and propelled me up the stairs and into the living room.

Three men sat drinking whiskey. They stopped talking. I stood next to David, stunned. They were formally dressed in tuxes with black ties. They spoke in some guttural language, but fell silent when we entered. Their drink glasses were variously full.

David sat me on a chair. I felt limp and sick, but sat stiffly upright, thighs together, one hand in my lap, the other arm across my breasts. The silver linked leash falling down my cleavage, falling further against my stomach, then mingling with and glinting in my pubic hair before vanishing from my view.

David set a glass of wine beside me. He touched my hand, the one hooked on my shoulder. He took it lightly, his fingers burned where they touched the back of my hand. He set my hand on my thigh, my breasts stood free.

He spoke to the men in what sounded like the same language, he clearly stumbled a bit. One said, "In English. You Americans are such ignorant bastards."

David took a pair of silver earbuds from the drawer of an endtable. He leaned over the arm of my chair, slipping one into each of my ears. The wires were silver, ending in a small silver heart which hung just over my breasts, cold against the bone. There was a faint hiss and the sounds of the room vanished. I was alone in my head. One of the men said something to me, I just looked at David pleading. The men laughed, I could see their mouths move but could hear only the faintest hint.

They were certainly the same 3 men that Zenia described, the 3 Vanyas.

They all sat and engaged in an animated friendly conversation. There was much waving of drinks.

I closed my eyes and sat in misery.

I opened them again, I felt too exposed with my eyes closed, the air on my skin the only thing I directly sensed.

They were now talking seriously. David listening without expression.

I hung my head, my hair dropping over my face and stared at my knees, at my bare feet on the oriental carpet. Cigar smoke wafted over me. I saw movement through the curtain of my hair. I looked up. Celeste was setting out fresh drinks. She said something sharp then moved and opened a window. I felt a tendril of cold air.

A hand touched my shoulder. One of the men took my arm and pulled me up. I put my hand between my legs and I saw him laugh. He led me to the couch. I sat stiffly, feet and legs together, bent forward in misery. He pushed me back, my head rested on a cushion. He took my right leg and lifted it so it was against the couch back, then sat, his tuxedo coat against my thigh, his shoulder leaned against my knee. He looked down at my sex, slid a finger along it, pried at those lips. I shifted my thighs. I saw the other two were silent, watching. I couldn't see David.

The man undid his zipper and pulled his penis out. He took something from his pocket. I saw it was a thin leather ring, feathered. I thought it looked like the throat of a crow. The man slipped it on, pushing it firmly so it was flush with his crotch.

He leaned over me, touched my ear, shifting the earphone. He spoke, his breath a waft of cigar and whiskey. "Was grandfather's. Very special treat."

"Is all his father left him," says one of the others and they all laughted together.

Using one hand to guide himself he nudged between my lower lips and fumbled about for my entrance. I felt him at it. I closed my eyes, throwing my arm over my face. I just wanted it to be over. I was going to go home, quit my job on Monday and go home. I heard my Mom's voice say "At last some sense!"

He slid in and my God what a sensation! Those delicate feathers seemed to find places I didn't know existed. I started under him, my disgust and indifference blown away. I saw him smile and nod. He slapped my flanks possessively. Hard enough to sting. I came within a minute. He paused, feeling my sides, caressing my breasts, he bent and licked my nipples. Then he began moving again. I raised my legs and rubbed them along him, feeling the confusion of tux and silk shirt. I felt his straining legs, his contracting ass. He moved faster and faster, I believe I screamed from pleasure, the sound curiously distant and hollow. I felt wild and abandoned by reason. I had never felt anything like it and never wanted to again.

He slammed into me and came, his weight was on me for a moment, his shirt against my nipples, the edge of his coat on my arms. Then he was up, searching about for his drink.

Another of them came over. He gripped my bottom, lifted and shifted me so my rear rested on the couch arm. My head dragged along the couch cushion. He stepped between my thighs, lifted them so they were around his hips and entered me. I looked to the side, David and the first guy were sitting on two chairs close to each other, deep in conversation. Now and then they glanced at me. Soon I couldn't think of anything but the surprising pleasure rising within me. To David my face must have been contorted, my eyes wild and straining. My, well, my assailant slapped my bottom hard and ground himself against me and I felt him coming. My climax came an instant later. My whole body shook, I was suddenly not sure I'd ever had orgasms before. Certainly nothing to compare. I wanted no more.

The third helped me sit up, put a glass to my lips. It was whiskey. I drank then choked and spluttered, drops of liquid fell on my thighs and breasts. I felt him laugh, he had his arm about me, supporting me. Celeste handed him a glass of water and he held that for me. I drank gratefully. He bent and kissed the whiskey from where it'd fallen, from the tops of my breasts, from my thighs, from the couch, I saw that got a laugh from his comrades, from my sex. How I squirmed!

He kissed up along the chain, his tongue in my navel, under my breasts, up to my neck, under my chin then around my neck under my chin above the collar. He cupped and fondled my breasts and kissed them again. He put my hand between his legs and I felt how hard he was. I jerked my hand away.

He knelt on the couch, turning me and lifting my legs so they were on either side of him. He swiveled so that my face was to the back of the couch, my back to the other two men and David. He tipped me backward, down and down until my head and shoulders rested on the rough wool of the carpet, my bottom rested on his lap, my knees high, my feet tucked between the cushion and the couch back. Upside down like that David and the two men looked strange, my breasts tipped toward my chin. The chain was flung to one side. He crouched and bent his member way down and entered me. I thought it must be uncomfortable for him if not painful. He could not get it in very far. I felt exhausted and strangely clear headed. He was clearly showing off to the others.

After a few minutes of sliding me up and down his legs, he lifted me off him and rolled me onto the carpet. He pulled me onto all fours and entered deeply and easily from the rear. I closed my eyes and worked at supporting myself against his efforts. "This time", I thought, "I will not come". The sudden cramping in my calves as a climax came caught me by surprise. I bucked against him. I felt him ramming hard against me, clutching me fiercely, painfully. I felt I was dieing. I collapsed.

I woke in the morning. It was still early. The sun was just shining through the windows, it's rays almost horizontal. I lay on the couch. A blanket covered me, rough against my chin, my nipples, my legs. David stood over me. He was dressed. I could see a large suitcase on the landing through the door.

He touched his ears and I pulled off the earbuds. A wave of morning sounds rolled over me, birds and occasional muffled car sounds. There was the sound of hot water ticking in the radiators. The door bell rang.

"That's my cab," he said. He bent and kissed me lightly, his hand on my bare shoulder. "In two weeks then."

The evening before I was to fly I had dinner with Celeste. She handed me an envelope, it contained the key fob and a note with the address and what I was to do when I got here.

Would I go? I thought not. The thought of him arriving at the place, expecting me inside, finding nothing, sent a thrill through me. I felt my mother happy in my head. I would find some nice guy, possibly that sysadmin who still left messages on my cell, I heard my mother's imagined voice saying she now thought he was quite the catch. We'd set up shop in the burbs not far from my sister and mom'd soon have more grandchildren.

On the way out of the restaurant Celeste said, "Come with me, there's something I want you to see."

"Oh, I'm very tired," I said.

"I insist. It will only take a minute. The cab can wait then take you home."

We got out at David's townhouse. I had not been there since David flew out. If there had been lights on in it I would have fled, but it was dark.

Celeste opened the door and flicked on the light-switch.

"Tell me," I asked, "Do you live here?"

"I do seem to be always here don't I? I hated coming here as a kid. I'd feel like I was betraying my young self if I lived in that old room I so loathed."

She led me up the stairs into the living room. There on the wall was a painting of me.

"That realistic enough for you?", she asked.

It was quite amazing. There I was, standing next to a hard mahogany table, next to a dark red conference room type chair, behind me through the windows was open space and another office tower and blue sky. Serge had gotten me just right I thought. I looked surprised, nervous, eager, and fearful. The sun did just hint at my body through the blue of that dress. The sun glowed in my hair which was certainly a bit of a mess, it's unruly tendrils on my shoulders. It needed shaking and pushing back. I felt myself pushing my real hair back. I had never seen myself so lovely. There was even the hint of goose pimples on my bare arms, nobody but a newbie would venture into that conference room without heavy winter gear. I felt tears on my cheeks. I felt so happy. I felt I was reliving that moment through David's eyes, seeing myself as he'd first seen me. It was certain he felt such affection for me.

My eye moved to the painted conference table top. There was that cup of water with its reflection gleaming on the hard polished surface. There was the little spill even with just the hint of reflections in the bright little beads of water. There were other reflections in the wood, vague, twisted, reflections of things not in that room. I could make out my face, wide eyed, scared, my hands at my neck attaching the collar. There I was, sitting, tense, so ready to bolt, naked, the leash resting on my leg, waiting for someone to take hold. There I was looking surprised, shocked and stupid on that first cab ride. There was a hint of a man's face, actually a hundred different hints here and there, I saw, mingled in the dark veins of the wood, watching expressionless. There were other distorted images in the wood, but I looked away, looked at Celeste who was watching me with an amused half-smile.

The breathless knowledge that I would go filled me. The thought of me waiting would set us both on fire. When he arrived, we would take it from there. Our life together would truly begin, I thought, whatever it was to be.

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What will happen when he comes? I do not know, my best hopes are far darker than when I first opened that door!

Writing this has not helped. It has been a waste of time. There is nothing to do but wait.

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The door opens to the darkened apartment. There is a bustle of activity. Shoes echo on the hardwood floor. The light switch is flipped. It reveals two women trailing luggage. One is older, she has a squarish disappointed disapproving face. The other is young and pert. How young you have trouble telling. Not so young that you'd be surprised to see her behind the wheel of the family car driving to visit a friend, not so old that the sight wouldn't make you feel that time was slipping by.

The girl has a round eager face framed by short bouncy blond hair. She is short with a soft rounded figure, energetic. She wears low slung jeans. Her midriff is bare and as flat as one could want. If only she were stretched on the bed, you imagine resting your head on her stomach, looking one way you admire the rise of her breasts, partially hidden by her halter top, turning your head so your other ear is muffled against her soft flesh, you gaze at where her warm skin vanishes under the hard blue edge of her jeans, pushing against it as she breaths.