She looked at me for a moment, and I could sense what was going on inside her mind, her wondering, marvelling. I ran my fingers over her nipples, pinching them slightly, and desire overrode any lingering concerns she held. I pulled her towards me and she climbed onto the chair with me, slowly lowering herself onto me. I moaned as I slid into her, watching in the mirror as she rocked her hips backwards and forwards. I threw my head back, reveling in the sensation, and no longer cared about the mirror or watching us. I no longer needed it. I could feel my entire body from the inside, knew it exactly, perfectly. I wrapped my arms around her waist, and stood from the chair, slowly lowering us to the carpet. I kissed her fiercely, and then, supporting myself on my elbows since my wrist would give out, began rocking my hips, pushing deeper into her. She moaned with pleasure, her fingers grasping my shoulders tightly. I began to build speed, exploring deeper inside her with each thrust, reaching for those spots which would thrill her most. I was quickly hurtling towards orgasm, but held back, an almost painful sensation as each thrust brought me closer and closer. And finally, just when I could not restrain myself any longer, she arched her back and cried out as we pushed over the edge into orgasm at the same time. We laughed, kissed once, and collapsed in each other’s arms, spent.
It’s somewhat ironic that now, after she’s pushed me from defining myself by words to showing me what I truly look like, I am writing about it. But in a way, it’s exactly what I should do. It shows how I have grown so far. My body of work was much more familiar to me than my own body. Now, having explored my body by sight, by touch, to the point where I truly know it, from the inside, the only thing remaining was to explore it once again, in words, to make the two bodies one.
Mrs Fox
Michael Crawley
Eleven days after I broke up with Angie I ran into Jeff, sitting in a booth at Sombrero Jack’s. He was with a woman, so I tried to make it “Hi and Bye”, but he insisted I join them.
“Paul, this is Mrs Fox – Cynthia Fox. Cynthia – Paul. We worked at Blackstock’s together, years ago.”
I half-stood and reached across to squeeze limp fingers.
“Call me ‘Cyn’.” Did her fingertips drag on my palm for a fraction of a second? I wasn’t sure.
I knew straight away why Jeff wanted me there long enough to get a good look at her. He’d always been joking-jealous of me. I was bigger, and had all my hair. Some of the women in the old office had hung around my desk during coffee breaks, playing at flirting. It hadn’t meant anything, but they hadn’t done the same at his desk. He’d resented that.
Now he was with this woman – an older woman who was quite lovely – and I was alone. He wanted to make the most of it. I could live with that.
He said, “Cynthia and I live together.”
I said, “You’re a lucky man,” and meant it. Her age showed in the laugh-lines around her big dark eyes, but her black hair was crisp and short and her body looked lithe, with hard, high breasts, half exposed by the shawl neckline of a sweater in clinging black jersey. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She didn’t need one.
Jeff ordered a round and poked the gold card he’d left on the table from side to side, to make sure I saw it. I resolved that when the time came for me to pay my shot I’d use cash. It’d spoil it for him if I used my gold card.
Jeff did the talking. It was impressive stuff – big deals with Chile and so on. He was selling prefabricated buildings or something. Maybe he was working hard. He had dark bags under bloodshot eyes. I half-listened and kept my eyes on “Cyn”, which was what he wanted me to do.
When she excused herself to go the ladies’ room I watched her hips slink away into crowded darkness.
“What do you think of her?” he asked.
“Very nice. A sexy lady.” I couldn’t comment on her personality because she’d hardly said a word.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
I was supposed to ask for details. I didn’t. I’m no prude, but some things should be kept private.
Cyn seemed jittery when she came back. Her arm stretched halfway across the table to fiddle with the little glass ball that held the candle, to adjust the condiments, to take a napkin from the holder and shred it. She had nice hands – longish fingernails – very pointed – painted deep pink. Her fingers were slender. Tiny blue veins showed inside her wrists. Higher on her pale arms I noticed some bruising and broken skin, as if a bracelet had caught in something and yanked off, or like a rope-burn maybe.
It was none of my business.
Her collar seemed to gape more now, or perhaps it was just her leaning towards me. There was a purplish mark above her collarbone and another mark, the size of a thumbprint, on the slope of her right breast.
It was still none of my business.
It wasn’t any of my business when Jeff’s hand dropped out of sight and she winced, still looking straight into my eyes.
They stood to leave, with Jeff leering, “Bed time, Cynthia.”
She took my hand in a proper shake, not that “fingertip” thing. Something pressed into my palm.
I gave them five minutes before I looked. It was a note, written on that tan paper they use for towels in washrooms, and a key. The note read, “I must see you. I need your help. Midnight.” There was an address and a lipstick kiss. The paper was damp. Tears, or moist palms?
They were supposed to live together, but maybe Jeff had lied about that, or perhaps he was flying to Peru to do another of his multi-million dollar deals.
I thought for a while, but it had been eleven days since Angie, and I’ve always been a sucker for a “damsel in distress”, even when I’m not horny.
I knocked on her apartment door, but too lightly for anyone inside to hear unless they were listening for it. I still could have turned around, but I didn’t.
I used the key.
The hallway was dark. I said, “Cynthia? Mrs Fox? Cyn?”
There was a line of light under a door at the end. Something swished and cracked. A soft voice yelped. I strode on the balls of my feet and cracked the door. The bedroom was lit by candles. Cyn was on the bed, on her face, spreadeagled and naked. Her wrists and ankles were tied to the four corners of a scrolled brass frame. Jeff was stripped to his waist, his belt doubled in his hand, raised high. It came down hard, across her bottom.
When I see abuse something cold takes over. I did things to his wrist and his face and then he was whimpering on the floor. I prodded his thigh with the toe of my shoe and told him, “You have five minutes to get your things and go.”
It took him three, with me watching him. Cyn needed me but I wasn’t going to turn my back on him.
As soon as the front door closed I bent to the cords around Cyn’s ankle.
“Please? There’s some salve in the bathroom?”
It seemed obscene to leave her tied like that, but she knew what she needed first better than I did.
“It’s awkward for me,” she said. “Would you mind very much if you did it for me?”
I was as gentle as I could be. Thank goodness I’d got there on time, for there were only four weals, one high across the backs of her slender thighs, one crossing her bottom at an angle, and two, close together and parallel, blooming into darkness across her cheeks where they were fullest. There were other welts, faded to just pink lines under the translucent pallor of her skin. I smoothed ointment over those as well, though it was too late for it to do much good.
“Could you rub it in?” she asked. “It’ll sting, but it does more good if it’s worked in.”