*****
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.
he whispers, reaching behind me to clip it closed. And as it fastens he kisses the soft skin at
strokes my cheek, the line of my jaw and down to my
he lazily stroking me. After a
you still seeing anyone else? I know when we met that you
I’m not. Not anymore. There was someone, but, he wasn’t right and…. I don’t even want to now.
“The clubs? What clubs?”
and my big
used to go to clubs a lot for, er….” I
found someone you want to
Don’t fuck it up….
to me. What are
used to go a lot before I
me. My stomach
Have I
used to go to sex
because of
“Thank you for telling me this.
You were worrying?
sex is important enough for you and me to have met in the
are ‘enough for me’. I love what you do to me, what we do together. You have
penetrating and possessive; and
friends there? You would like to go again,
comfortable with it. There’s something about the atmosphere,
“But….?”
but, you realise that you would be
that they will see you with me, and know that while they had you for an hour, with me, you have
*****
except sit here
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