*****
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.
And as it fastens he kisses the soft skin at
and down to my neck where he has just placed his mark on me,
arms around me, he lazily stroking me. After a long while, he speaks
shouldn’t, but I have to ask you this…. Are you still seeing anyone else? I know when we met that you were. And because of
Not anymore. There was someone, but, he wasn’t right and…. I don’t even want to now.
“The clubs? What clubs?”
my big
er…. I used to go to clubs a lot for, er….” I chew my
you want to be
Don’t fuck it up….
me. What
er, sex clubs. I used to go a
stares at me. My
God. Have
smiles. “You used to go to sex clubs,
because
you for telling me this.
You were worrying?
me to have met in the first place,
you do to me, what we do together. You have me thinking of you all the
is hard, penetrating and possessive; and it sets my heart pounding again. Then he pulls
you went often? You have friends there? You would like to go again,
only if you’re comfortable with it. There’s something about the atmosphere, watching people
“But….?”
but, you realise that
I realise that. What I also realise is that they will
*****
to do right now except sit here and look alert, I gaze out of the panoramic
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