“You’ve never done this before,” she said, “but you’ve fantasized about it.”
Steadman lay helpless, still like a doll, a bit awkward because of his tied hands, excited under her confident gaze. He had needed her to dominate him tonight, so he could see her charged with desire.
She kissed his lips slowly, licking his mouth, licking his face and neck, then painting him again — painted his nipples then kissed and sucked them, painted his belly and licked it, rubbed her face against him. She put her mouth on his ear and, breathing warmth into it, whispered that she was wet between her legs.
She lay beside him on the bed, tracing her fingers over his body, down from his face and chest to his stomach, moving them to where the panties were binding him, scratched the texture of the panties, and the stiffness beneath them, his engorged cock, like a snake thickening in a silken purse.
She toyed with him, saying nothing, so single-minded and meticulous that it was ritual, not play. He found the pressure, the tracings of her fingers, unbearable, he wanted more, he pleaded for it, but she did not reply. At one crucial moment she stood up, slid off the bed, walked across the room, and watched him, sipping from her wineglass. She had positioned herself so he could see only her reflection in the mirror. She peered back at him from the glass, lowering one hand, touching herself, and he strained to see better as he murmured and sighed.
“Look at you.”
Her legs parted, she stroked herself with two fingers, watching his face. The room was hot, his face was damp, he could hardly breathe, now he was truly captive. After a while, teasing him from a little distance, she went nearer and put her damp fingers on his lips, ordered him to taste them, and then placed her hands on the panties, enclosing him, then clutching.
“Do you like it?”
“Please don’t ask me that,” he said.
He was fully aroused, his cock trapped in the tightened silk. And he had the sense that it was not his body she wanted. What she loved was touching her own panties on him, as though making love to herself again.
She lowered her face, nuzzled his thighs, pressed her lips and cheeks to the panties, groaning against him, speaking to his stiffness, murmuring into his crotch with a vibration that made him harder.
“Please,” he said, half lost in delirium.
She knew what he wanted. She was still moaning, her face against him, telling him a long, incoherent story, like a fable of regret, her lips working, making him moan.
“Please.” He could barely speak, his tongue was so heavy.
He longed for relief, he pleaded for her mouth. She delayed some more and then gave him what he wanted, and when she was on him she freed his cock from the panties and sucked it, holding it with her lips. Her mouth was hot, her fingers were stroking him through the silk.
But that was not the height of Steadman’s pleasure. Just before he came in her mouth he felt her two hands throttle him, pumping hard, making him cry out. She was eager, sighing and swallowing with pleasure.
He sank into sleep just afterward. He dreamed, tumbling into dark depths, and just before he drowned he woke, gasping and helpless, but unbound, his hands untied, and he was canted sideways, like a man washed ashore, dumped on a beach, almost lost, regaining consciousness, remembering. He could see Ava seated next to him, seeming demure, her legs crossed.
“It’s late. Work tomorrow.”
She was being stern again, but distant and prim. Her primness aroused him as much as her sensuality.
“Time for bed,” she said, and helped him to his feet.
As she propped him up, he muttered helplessly. All his vitality was gone, and drained of it he could hardly see anything at all — he never could in this state. Ava led him to his room. Again he slept. He hardly dreamed. He woke to a dimmer light, a different sunrise, another kind of wakefulness.
He had been blind. He had chosen to be blind. Now, on waking, he could see clearly, but was dissatisfied and impatient with the washed-out colors, the ugliness beyond the window, hideous midsummer with wind-tortured leaves, a sky like cat fur — the old world.
At breakfast, averting his eyes from the sickly light, he found the jug of datura tea. As he gagged — the concoction was clammy and cool, like a jungle in its darkest dripping hours — the day telescoped, all the sunlight flattened into shadow in just under a minute. He waited, knowing what was coming. Still at breakfast, his eyes dimmed, twilight fell, and he was ready for dictation, a blind man again.
2
FOR ALMOST EIGHT MONTHS he had prepared himself with the datura, the controlled blinding, a mask as exquisite as a falcon’s hood, keeping to his secluded house. That had been a typical day: a whole day, including night. Darkness was a zone Steadman entered in order to know his mind and advance the narrative of his book. Daylight was unhelpful and ambiguous for seeming to be true, yet it was shabby and misleading. He spent his days dictating the revelation of his nights, which were bright and long and Active. Engrossed in both sides of the day, dark and light, and both sides of his life, work and sex, he at last felt complete.
On this island he wanted no interruptions. He had never encouraged visitors to his house on the Vineyard. And few people came here in the bleak off-season months. For most mainlanders the island did not exist in the winter, nor even in the spring, which like the past one could be sleety and cold, the raw northwest wind scooping across Vineyard Sound and along the ponds and banks, flattening daffodils, tearing through his trees to claw at his windows. For Steadman it was writing weather.
In summer the island was full — more than full, spilling over, people clinging, harbors crammed with jostling boats, the roads dense with big slow cars. So in summer especially he had hid himself in his up-island house. And he had reflected that the Vineyard had not always been like this. He had fled to the island for solitude in the first years of his fame, when he had felt the need to hide, crouching like a hunter in a blind.
Time had passed and made the better places busier, and sometimes destroyed them. The Vineyard suffered, its beauties trampled for the very fact that they were beautiful — crowded and pawed by too many admirers. Even Steadman was sought out, like any other Vineyard curiosity. On his arrival he had announced that he was withdrawing, and the announcement had been like a challenge to the people who had pestered him. But the Vineyard was full of hiding places. He had found one in the green heart of the island, down a country road, behind a perimeter stone wall and high hedges.
Because he had bought the large estate with the merchandising and TV profits from Trespassing, the purchase was classified as celebrity news and reported in the newspaper columns listing hot properties. His scheme backfired. His very wish to be left alone made him a target. His taste for seclusion had singled him out, made him specific, a greater prize. It seemed the press was not interested in anyone who was accessible. A person who cooperated in publicity or agreed to be interviewed was regarded as a self-promoter and an easy mark. So reporters looking for a story tried to sniff him out because he was unwilling, a recluse.
To be first with the Steadman story would be a coup. No one succeeded, but that failure was a greater goad. Isolated, unwritten about, Steadman was more obvious, and was talked about more, speculated on, the subject of gossip. For some years his desire to remain out of the public eye became as much the basis of his fame as his book had, but the title Trespassing was like a dare to readers who wanted to know more about him. He was mentioned constantly, conspicuous by his absence, his name still attached to that one book.