Tantalized Page 12

  He unbuttons my blouse just under halfway. I feel his breath on my exposed skin and it drives me wild, but I throw a look at the table with the needles and wonder just how severe his punishments might be. His mouth doesn't make contact, though I can feel the condensation from his breath beading on my breasts, chilling in the cool, disinfected air. “Until then, I forbid you to touch yourself without my express permission. I will be the one to satisfy your desires.”

  “Yes, Professor.”

  “Alexander,” he says, freeing the final button of my blouse. “I told you to call me Alexander.”

  “Alexander,” I repeat, closing my eyes as the rough pads of his fingers graze me. Is he going to fuck me in front of all those people? He just told me we wouldn't be spending the evening together. But surely he wouldn't pass me off to someone else—

  Cold air plays upon my breasts as the last of my modesty slips away with the lace. “You will walk back to the car exposed,” Alexander is saying, “so everyone knows you for the brazen you are.” He snaps his fingers and the man hands him a leather collar, which he fastens around my throat. He takes one of the ribbons from the man's tray and binds my wrists behind my back. “You will walk with your head held high knowing that where their eyes burn and blaze across your naked skin my hands and mouth will soon follow.”

  “Yes, Alexander,” I say, voice choking with need.

  “Good,” he says, “Now, come. Walk with me.”

  He parades me back the way we came and I hold my head high, as instructed. The other club-goers appraise me and I don't feel as self-conscious as I thought I might. Not too much. It's a thrill, having these jaded libertines look at me with desire in their hollowed eyes. Delacroix tightens his grip on me, reminding me—and the observers—that I am his.

  Will he touch me now?

  We draw more stares at the bar on the ground floor. One man drops his drink when he sees my bare breasts, and I smile to myself that the sight of me half-naked could have such power over a man.

  But then, that's precisely what got me into this place from the start. When I look at Delacroix his expression wipes the triumphant smirk from my lips, and I lower my eyes again. We have arrived at the car.

  “You enjoyed that,” he says harshly. “Little slut.”

  “You told me to enjoy it. To imagine that their eyes were your mouth and fingers.”

  The corner of his mouth lifts a fraction. “And did you, Miss Abrahams? No, don't answer. I can see that you did.” He lowers his head, kissing each nipple as we stand on the sidewalk. I shift, afraid someone will see and he says, “But you are not so confident now?”

  “I'm cold.”

  “So I see.”

  He breathes across my ribs.

  “Let's get you warmed up.”

  Delacroix straightens and opens up the car door for me. With some difficulty, since he hasn't unbound my hands, I get in. I expect him to fasten my blouse and untie me, but he merely pulls the seat belt across my open blouse, so that it settles between my exposed breasts, and slips the blindfold over my eyes.

  “Aren't you going to button my shirt?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” I cannot quite quell my unease.

  “Because it pleases me to see you like this.”

  “What if someone else sees me?”

  “They will wonder,” he says, “and they will desperately hope.” He kisses me lightly on the lips but I can feel his eyes on me, and the ghostly eyes of countless others. It is as sweet as the anticipation that precedes imminent satisfaction, and so I laugh.

  When he finally opens the door to let me out, about a block away from the dorms, my body is burning with the brand of his lips and tongue. I a letter, affixed with his seal, and inside are all the insidious whispers and promises he has made to me.

  3829 Willow Crest Lane

  Wear that little skirt with one of your blouses.

  And nothing else.

  Delacroix lives in a secluded residential area set back behind a well-manicured lawn. The houses on either side look smugly suburban. I wonder if he's personally acquainted with his neighbors, perfectly average middle class families with 2.5 children and 1.5 cars. I wonder what they would do if they knew what sorts of activities occupied his nights. Move, probably.

  My heart is going a mile a minute. I zip up my jacket to my throat as I ring his doorbell, nervous that I'm about to get what I want. Because this is what I want, isn't it? I can hear footsteps approaching the door and my mouth goes dry.

  “Miss Abrahams.”

  He wipes his hands on his jeans before taking mine and pulling me over his threshold and into the lion's den. “How very punctual.”

  The carpet is beige, the walls white. The décor is surprisingly banal. There are some Chinese vases by the door, both in red and blue, and a few rosewood accents, but nothing more exotic than that, although I think I can smell incense. Patchouli, which I've never cared for. It reminds me of hippies, and weird specialty shops.

  “I thought I'd succeeded in scaring you off.”

  “Were you trying to?”

  “I'm a difficult man to please. Sometimes my intensity frightens people. Women.”

  “That's not what your comments on Rate My Professor say,” I point out.

  Delacroix looks irritated. “Schoolgirl fantasies. Nothing more. They want a boy to cosset and caress. Not a man with real appetite, who knows what he wants and orders it. Commands it. And I don't have relationships with my students, as you well know.”

  “I know.”

  “Can I get you something to eat? Drink?”

  The very mention of food makes me feel ill. “You have any alcohol?”

  “Choose your poison,” he says, waving at the drinks cabinet.

  I watch him pour me a shot of tequila, neat. I gulp it down as he watches. “Another?”

  “Yes.”

  So he pours me another, and I down that one too.

  “Ready?” he asks, fingering the zipper of my coat. I nod, and he leads me into his bedroom. I don't realize I've been holding my breath until I hear it escape my mouth in a hiss, as if my lungs are deflating like ruptured balloons.

  There are restraints bolted into his bedposts. Several candles are lit, hence the incense smell. On the nightstand he has a chilled bottle of wine, ropes, scraps of silk, weighted clamps, handcuffs, and a box of Magnum XLs.

  “How romantic,” I say.

  “I'm going to fuck you, not romance you, though when I'm through you might not know the difference.”

  When I turn around, Professor Delacroix is in the process of stripping off his shirt. One of his nipples is pierced, which surprises me. He has a tattoo on one of his shoulders and that surprises me, too. It's quite well done: a single blooming rose with vines curling around the petals in an interlocking pattern.

  “That's amazing.”

  “It's a Rose of Jericho.”

  “Does it mean something?”

  “Yes,” he allows, lips twisting into a smirk, and when I look closer I see that there is what looks like the entrance to a female's genitalia hidden among the folds of the flower. It strikes me as tacky, and for a moment, I'm disappointed in him.

  “Are you allowed to have tattoos and piercings if you're a professor?”

  “It's never been an issue. I don't make it a habit to display them. Take off your jacket, Miss Abrahams.”

  I unzip the jacket, and toss it on a nearby chair. Delacroix takes off his watch and sets it on the nightstand. Then he takes me by the shoulders and slides the blouse off, stretching it taut across my breasts. One of the buttons pops and I curl towards it instinctively, but he tightens his grip.

  “How much do you like this blouse?” he asks me.

  “I like it okay, I guess. It's…um, not my favorite.”

  “Good.” Another button rolls across the floor. “Because I intend to tear it off you. You know, your essay rather led me to believe that you didn't read the book.”

  “Wha
t book?”

  “Lolita.”

  “What does that matter?”

  “I told you to keep up with the reading. Did you finish Lolita, Miss Abrahams? You've had ample time.”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh? What did you think of Humbert's death?”

  “Poetic justice. Obviously.”

  My blouse comes off with a loud tear, catching painfully on my skin. As I cry out, he says, “You didn't read the book. I suspected as much, but now my suspicions have been confirmed. And your disobedience is not limited to that, either. Why were you wearing that jacket, Miss Abrahams? I don't recall telling you that you could wear that.”

  “I had to take the bus to get here. You could see right through my shirt.”

  “So? That didn't seem to be an issue at the club. Nor in my class, either. Do you have any idea how many of my male students were caught in the crossfire of that wanton display you put on for me? My own TA included.”

  I remember the way his hand shook when he handed my essay paper back. Now it makes sense. “Did he say something to you?”

  “In passing.” His breath tickles my neck. “I like it when you play the whore for me, Miss Abrahams. I want you to play the whore, to wear your red letter proudly. I thought I made that clear. Which reminds me. I still need to punish you for your … research.”

  “Punish me? Punish me how?”

  He takes one of the clamps from the nightstand, pinching it open. My belly clenches like a fist. It's like he read my mind, to see into my deepest, darkest desires. I cry out as the metal teeth bite into my nipple.

  “What do you think?” he says, giving the vise a little squeeze. “Was Lolita the wicked temptress or the tragic victim?”

  “I don't know,” I gasp, as he lets the weighted end swing free from his fingers.

  “The first blush of youth.” His mouth closes over my other breast as he teases the clamp between his fingers, tugging on the weight, increasing and decreasing the pressure as he stimulates me with his teeth and tongue. “It is a foolish man who plucks fruit from the vine before it has ripened and expects it to taste sweet.”

  “Also, he was a pedophile.”

  “That is the lazy answer. You aren't using your imagination, Miss Abrahams.”

  He kisses my breast, laving his tongue on the glistening tip before replacing his lips with the second weighted clamp. Then he turns his attention the scraps of my blouse still clinging to my shoulders.

  I hold onto the fabric stubbornly when he tries to bare my arms. “Don't.”

  “What's the problem?” he asks, halting his tugging without releasing his grip. “Are you a virgin? I should hope not, with that mouth of yours.”

  “No. But I want to leave it on.”

  “I want it off, and you will obey me, or I will punish you more than I already have. I have another set of clamps, Miss Abrahams, made for a woman's clit.”

  “Professor—”

  “I'm not your professor.”

  “Alexander—couldn't you turn the lights off?”

  “I don't do it in the dark, Miss Abrahams, and as long as you're with me, you won't, either.” He's succeeded in baring another half inch of my upper arms and I see his eyes catch on the top of the 'h' in 'whore.' “Do you cut yourself?”

  He's put two and two together faster than my own parents.

  I hear him suck in a breath as he sees the pink and white marks crisscrossing my skin, his lips moving as he reads them aloud with quiet reverence. “My fucking God,” he whispers, “look what you've done.”

  My parents sent me to Cherry Hill when they found out. I was there for six months, supervised even when I took a shower. For half a year, I had no privacy. None.

  I wait, shivering a little in the semidarkness, as I wait for Delacroix's reaction.

  “You twisted little girl.”

  “Do you hate it, Alexander?”

  “I love it,” he growls, slamming my arms over my head. “You have managed both to surprise me and to please me, in one sweeping gesture. I'm going to fuck you for it, Miss Abrahams. Fuck you hard. But first I'm going to tie you up. When I release you, I want you to get on your knees and arch your spine as if you're bowing, so your torso is suspended.”

  “Yes, Alexander.”

  “Good girl.”

  He undoes his fly, sliding his jeans low on his hips without taking them off. His erect cock springs out, magnificent, at least nine inches long. The last two inches or so are a deep rose, verging on purple at the tip. I've never had anyone this big inside me before and I know it's probably going to hurt.

  That knowledge makes me feel a little dizzy and it takes me a moment to register that Delacroix has a piercing in the head of his cock. A diamond stud, simple but classy. He swells under my admiring gaze.

  “Like what you see?”

  “Oh yes. But didn't the piercing hurt?”

  “Most things in life do. At least the ones worth doing. Why else do you cut words into your skin?”

  “Every one of these words is something that someone called me.” I trace the word 'freak' along my thigh, where the hem of my skirt has slid up. “The more it hurts, the deeper I carve it in, so that by the time I've finished, the name loses all of its power.”

  “Words never lose their power, Miss Abrahams. They can wax and wane, but never to the point of complete impotence. Why else do you think we have the classics? If anything, you ascribe them more potency by writing them down somewhere you cannot escape from—yourself.” He leans back, giving me space. “Turn over.”

  I feel his cock brush against the base of my spine.

  “Turn your head. Don't look at me. Stare at the wall.”

  His hands slide up my skirt, baring my ass cheeks. He spreads them wide and inserts two fingers into my pussy from behind, sliding all the way in to the last knuckle. Delacroix thrusts with them, using his thumb to rub my clit, hard—harder than even I would do—and before I know it, I am panting like a dog in heat.

  “You're already so wet.”

  “I want you inside me.”

  “I am inside you.”

  “I want your cock in me.”

  “Oh?” Delacroix slides his fingers out of my vagina and inserts one into my anus instead. I tense, yelping a little. It doesn't hurt that much, but I've never had anal sex before. I always thought the idea was disgusting, on par with scat. But this—this feels good. Every time he slides his finger out there is this feeling of release.

  I know this pain. It's the kind that feels good because it means the worst is over.

  “I want to claim your ass someday, Miss Abrahams,” he says, as he thrusts with his finger. “But not today—today, I just want to play with you a little and explore what you have to offer. You are the playground of which I have free reign. I'm going to discover every inch of you.”

  “Why do you keep calling me…Miss Abrahams?”

  “If you want me to use your christian name, you must earn it.”

  That reminds me. “How did you find out my name? I—didn't tell you.”

  “I went through my roster, one name at a time, plugging them into the search browser until I found the correct profile.” I feel him get off the bed and then hear the sound of running water as he washes off his hands. The mattress indents, signifying his return, and I hear the crinkle of a condom being unwrapped. “Jessica Abrahams.”

  Hearing my full name come from his lips makes my skin prickle.

  “Yes, Alexander?”

  His response is to plunge into me, all of him at once, and the pain as I'm forced to stretch for him makes the tears jump to my eyes. But I take him in, all the way to his base, and his low moan of satisfaction makes it worthwhile. Soon, the initial discomfort fades, melting away into icy waves of pleasure so cold that they burn like the hottest flame, and I cry out with wild abandon, not caring who can hear me. With each thrust, his pelvis slams up against my ass, and I feel the momentum of it all the way inside my womb, carrying me higher.


  He fills me, transforms me. And when he pulls on the clamp as I come, imbuing my orgasm with red flashes of pain that pierce through the pleasurable blue haze like lightning in a clear sky, I think, rather deliriously, that I would have it no other way.

  I don't remember falling asleep but I must have because the sky is now a dark indigo with no traces of the sun left at all. My body feels deliciously sore, a deep-rooted ache, like an abscessed tooth. My nipples are throbbing; Delacroix hasn't removed the clamps. He is, however, shaking me awake, face creased in annoyance.

  I can't help but think that the creases make his face look a lot older.

  “Get up,” he says. “You can't sleep here.”

  “Please? Just five more minutes. That was wonderful—”

  I trail off into a scream as he takes hold of both weights and yanks the clamps off. I massage my throbbing nipples, which look as though they might now be bruised.

  “Whores don't sleep in their masters' beds, Miss Abrahams.”

  He sounds genuinely angry and I feel a thread of fear wind through me. But then I look down and see that his cock is erect, nudging my belly. This is playacting.

  I hope.

  I'm not sure, and that uncertainty makes me begin to get aroused again, because that fine line between safety and danger has a siren call I've never been able to resist. I lower my hands from my breasts and I slide out of bed, naked, while he watches.

  I bend down to reach my blouse, presenting him with my ass. Since it's ripped, I take the tails and tie them beneath my breasts. The fabric is uncomfortable on my tender skin but I ignore the pain.

  “Where's my skirt?”

  He flings it at me from the bed, where he is leaning back like a king. I see that he has taken himself in hand and is now stroking himself with an absentminded lust as he watches me.

  “I don't want you to shower tonight. I want you to sleep in your own bed, covered in my scent and seed, so that when you arise, you will smell me all over you, and awake with the knowledge that you are mine.”

  He gestures for me to come closer.

  “I want to fuck your tits.”