*****
And afterwards, as we lie together, naked in the half-light, he says, “I have something for you if you will accept it.”
He seems a little uncertain as he produces a small satin bag from a side-drawer, the kind that usually contains jewellery. I open it to find a narrow, black velvet choker, with a dewdrop pearl suspended.
“Will you accept it?” he asks, a trace of anxiety in his voice. “Will you wear it?”
Am I being collared?
I think I am….
I finger it, rolling the pearl in my fingers; so small and delicate a thing, and yet, so laden with significance.
“You understand what you are asking of me?” I say. “When you give me something like this? When you ask me to wear it?”
“Yes, I understand,” he says. “And yes, I am asking that you wear it for me. Will you do that?”
His voice brims with hope and worry; desire and unease. “Am I asking too much of you? Or too quickly?”
The pearl, opalescent with pale, swirling, beautiful colours, sits between my fingers.
Is this too soon?
No, I want this too….
“No, I don’t think you are. It’s just that no-one before has ever wanted me like this….”
“I want you like this. Isn’t that enough?”
Unravelling the velvet, I place it around my neck, fumbling with the catch at the back.
it fastens he kisses the soft skin at the nape of my
line of my jaw and down to my neck where
lie together, entwined, his arms around me, he lazily stroking me. After
else? I know when we met that you were. And because of the way that we met, I don’t really have the right to
I don’t even want
“The clubs? What clubs?”
and my big
to clubs a lot for, er….” I chew my words, wondering
finally found someone you
Don’t fuck it up….
Talk to me. What are
er, sex clubs. I used to go a lot before I met
at me. My stomach
God. Have I spoiled
used to go to sex clubs, but
yes… because of
for telling me this. I have
You were worrying?
that sex is important enough for you and me to have met in the first place, but that perhaps I could
do to me, what we
pulls me to him again and kisses me. The kiss is hard, penetrating and possessive; and it sets my heart
you went often? You have friends there? You would like to
something about the atmosphere,
“But….?”
but, you realise that
realise is that they will see you with me, and
*****
to do right now except sit here and look alert, I gaze out of the panoramic
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