Drowning on Dry Land: an erotic short story Read online

  “You need a good fucking,” she murmured.

  “Yes, Ma’am….”

  She pretended to consider her options, though of course she’d already decided what was going to happen. She’d been thinking of it, off and on, for the past few days. How to make this last, but more than that, how to make him come.

  Chastity play had never appealed to her before Damian, because Bette liked cock too much to deny herself. What she’d long known about herself, though, was how much she got off by providing pleasure. To her, orgasms were a tribute, an obeisance. They were the physical proof of the worship she expected, and from Damian, received. So, as far as Bette was concerned, if locking up his dick in a metal cage and keeping the key around her neck gave her boy pleasure, she was willing to play with it. Besides, it wasn’t like she didn’t get her own orgasms whenever she wanted them — from his mouth. His hands. If she wanted his cock, she took it and locked him back up, afterwards, sometimes without letting him finish. It had become fascinating to her, this long-term denial. Still, nothing was as sweet to her as making him explode, and she needed that worship and adoration tonight, to chase away the lingering melancholy.

  Getting on the bed behind him, she bumped her cunt gently against his ass. She dug her nails into the meat of his hips, then smoothed her fingertips over the crescents she’d left behind. “Tell me how that plug feels.”

  “Good. Really good.”

  She reached between their bodies to grip the emerald base of the toy, rocking it gently inside him. She didn’t fuck him with it — they had other toys for that. But she did pull it out the tiniest bit before seating deep inside him again. He pushed back against it when she did, and when she reached around to stroke his cock at the same time, Damian cried out. A plea. A prayer. She eased back, teasing him but also herself. After four weeks without climax for him, it could be over in a minute or so. She needed it to last longer than that.

  She ran both her hands over his ass cheeks, feeling the firm muscles. Smooth skin. She let her tongue follow the path she’d made with her fingers, nipping and nibbling his sensitive skin. He cried out again when she bit at the backs of his thighs. His hips thrust. His cock leaped.

  “Please!”

  “Please, what? Please let you come? Or please keep teasing you?” Bette laughed and tugged at his hips. “Turn around.”

  He did with a rueful laugh of his own. Both kneeling, they faced each other. She put her arms over his shoulders, linking her hands behind his neck.

  “Ma’am, I’m not going to last very long if you keep doing all of that.”

  She kissed him and took his lower lip between her teeth to tug until he winced. She licked the spot she’d bitten. “You’ll last as long as I want you to.”

  “Yes,” Damian said. “Yes, I’ll try.”

  “On your back.”

  Bette crawled up his body with a trail of kisses and bites and licks and reveled in Damian’s symphony of sighs and moans. She made her way up to straddle his face and brushed her cunt against his open, eager mouth. She gripped the headboard, looking down at his face between her thighs. His eyes were closed. He palmed her ass, pressing her closer so he could feast. She thought about holding back. Making him work for it…but she wanted this orgasm. She needed it to chase away the lingering memories that had plagued her all day without reason. Lost in this pleasure, here and now, what was real would have to replace what had ended. It had to, she thought, and then let the pleasure push away anything else.

  Bette slipped her hand down to tangle her fingers in the softness of Damian’s blond hair. Guiding him. It was too short to really pull, but she did her best to hurt him a little. Just enough to make him squirm. His hands moved over her body, and behind her, she could feel him thrusting upward, into empty air. She laughed, knowing how frustrating it must be for him. How much he wanted to climax, but couldn’t…quite…manage.

  His tongue flicked against her clit, light pressure. Tantalizing her. He switched to a steady rhythm with the flat of his tongue, and that was it. She couldn’t hold back, she didn’t want to, the building ecstasy flooded through her, overwhelming, and she came hard, shaking and crying out a name she bit in half before it could make its way past her lips.

  In one smooth motion, she shifted to move down Damian’s body so she could slide him inside her still-clenching cunt. She cried out again, wordless this time. No matter how many times they fucked, she’d never gotten used to the size of him.

  Riding him, she kissed his mouth. Softly at first, then hard enough to bruise. She fucked him faster, grinding herself onto him so that her clit rubbed his taut belly. He filled her so deep it was almost painful, but the pleasure outweighed the discomfort.

  She came again, slower this time. Ripples of pleasure washed over her, and she arched. She pulled him close to kiss him again, stroking tongues. A gasp for breath. A moan.

  Damian kissed her, slowing the pace. He rocked inside her with shallow strokes, teasing her and himself with the tip of his cock before pushing back deep inside her. He closed his eyes, mouth thinning in concentration. Bette gave herself up to this moment and to this man. She opened her body to him. What had been fierce and fast became gentle. Making love, not just fucking.

  “Come for me, love.”

  He opened his eyes at the command. Damian came, shuddering and murmuring not Ma’am, which was how they’d both agreed he should address her whenever they were alone, but her name. The sound of it was foreign in his voice and caught her by surprise, enough to send another rippling aftershock of desire through her. She bent to kiss him again, then collapsed onto him with a long, contented sigh.

  They stayed that way for a moment or so, his arms around her. He stroked her hair, down her back. Her face pressed to the side of his neck, Bette closed her eyes and breathed him in. Wishing, wishing that he could be enough.

  She moved off him to curl at his side. Damian pressed his lips to her shoulder and rested one hand on her belly for a moment before he moved it down to cup her pussy. She smiled at the protective gesture. She might own him, but there was no doubt that Damian thought of her as his.

  They lay in silence, dozing. She’d begun to slip into a dream when she roused herself to look at him. She watched him smile with his eyes closed.

  “I didn’t think you’d…” he murmured without opening his eyes.

  Bette waited a second or two, wondering if he was sleep-talking. “What, love?”

  “I didn’t think you’d let me inside you.” Damian looked at her.

  She wasn’t sure what to say about that at first. She stroked his cheek, her heart leaping when he turned his face to press a kiss to her palm. “After four weeks, I needed you inside me.”

  His smile lit him slowly from the inside, like watching a pile of tinder catch fire, but there was an edge of sadness in it. “That’s not what I meant.”

  She didn’t answer him.

  “I should take a shower,” Damian said after a moment. “And…do you want me locked up again?”

  He sounded hopeful. Bette reached between them to stroke his cock. “Can you make it to five weeks, this time? What do you think?”

  Damian shivered, pupils dilating. He wet his lips with his tongue. “For you, Ma’am, for you, I’ll try.”

  Chapter 3

  The second time he kissed her was in a shadow-dark hallway, both of them edging forward and away from each other, until finally she let him pull her close.

  They danced, the way they’d done the first night they met. His mouth found the curve of her neck, and he nibbled there, making her sigh. Then, moan. His hands on her, moving, restless.

  And she, oh, she could not get enough of him. Up against the wall. Her hands on his belt, tugging. Unzipping. She needed him in her hand, her mouth, she needed him inside her. His fingers slipped beneath her dress, under her panties, finding her slick and wet and ready for him, and he fucked into her.

  It was not enough.

  With him, she would learn, it
could never be enough.

  Chapter 4

  The email pinged through to her inbox stealthily, no warning, one amongst a half dozen others that she was also not expecting but that would not take her so disgustingly unawares. Bette glanced at the screen through the glasses she’d started wearing to work at the computer, and paused. She traced her fingers over the track pad, hovering the cursor over the familiar name.

  It couldn’t be, she thought, but knew it was.

  After all this time, of course it would be him. No warning. Nothing to prepare her for whatever it was that he’d at last decided to say.

  She did consider deleting it unread. For a time, she’d had her email program set up so that if he did send her a message, an automatic reply shot back to him. It said, “Your message has been received, but will not be read.” She’d even, in a fit of strong self-discipline, created a filter to send him straight to the spam folder — but after a time, a year or so, she’d switched email programs and hadn’t bothered with that setup. It had been so long since she’d heard from him, after all, that it had seemed she was never going to.

  Yet here he was, the bold, black text of his name like a squatting spider in the list of all the other messages. Bette’s fingers traced circles again on the track pad, every other second sending the cursor to hover over that message. Finally, she clicked it. She drew in a breath, steeling herself.

  Saw this. Congratulations. I knew you were going to make it.

  Attached was a link to the interview in Agile Technologies Today that had come out a few months ago, just after she’d been promoted to VP of Programming for Syntec Industries. Lots of people had read it, of course. Agile Technologies Today was the definitive trade magazine in the business, and he’d been the sort of man who kept up with things like that. She’d thought about that when she was answering the questions, formulating her answers in a sort of half-code that would mean something only to him.

  This is my new phone number. Give me a call if you’d like to catch up.

  A laugh forced its way out of her throat, closing with the swell of emotions she was tired of fighting. She closed her eyes to lean back in her chair. Thinking. Remembering. She pressed her fingertips to her lips at the bitter-salt taste of the tears that slipped free, and then she swiped away the wetness roughly. Angry with herself at letting him affect her, even now.

  Call him to catch up? She shook her head, opening her eyes. As though it were that simple. Like they could meet for coffee and swap gossip, two casual friends who’d part ways at the end of the hour with a press of cheek-on-cheek and the promise to get together again soon.

  Her fingers danced on the keyboard, replying.

  I have lots of words, but no voice to say them with. I’ve thought a lot about what I want to say and how to say it, and mostly, my pride has kept me from it. Because I’ll be honest – I’ve given you a lot of me, and I don’t really want you to have any more. No matter what path my life takes, I would’ve been willing to find a place for you, but there is never going to be a place for me in yours. I listen to you when you say you can’t go all in with anyone. I listen to you when you say how you can’t make it work with anyone. I pay attention to your busy, busy life and I know that you make the things that are important to you important. I told you more than once, I should never have to doubt my importance to you. Not as a friend or anything else. Well, I don’t have any doubts about how important I am to you. Not anymore.

  Bette sat back, her fingers curled. She closed her eyes and drew in a breath. Then another. She deleted the message and began again.

  We used to talk to each other, every single day.

  And then...not.

  So, you know, there's that thing where I said you lead, and if you lead by not talking to me, the only thing I can do is let you.

  It's really hard.

  It's for the best.

  And I just pretend it doesn't matter that I never really got to say everything I wanted to that night in Las Vegas or at your house or on the phone or in person. I pretend it doesn't matter, but it does.

  Sometimes, the thing that's for the best is the one that feels the worst.

  Practically, I know none of what we had was "real." It was bright and shiny and based on air; it was not meant for permanence. Made of sand, not brick. I know it wasn't real, and it wasn't right, but all along I guess I never cared because...because I needed something, and I didn't know what it was until I met you.

  More words. Another pause. She stared at what she had written, and again, she deleted it. Again, she typed, this time faster, a little mermaid walking with steps like knives, though it was her fingers on the keys that stung and burned with every word.

  You can’t just skip in and out of my life when it suits you. You might have forgotten, but I remember that you dismissed my feelings and made me feel stupid for trying to tell you how I felt; I remember that I don’t feel like I can talk to you because of that.

  I remember that I don’t trust you, anymore.

  There was more to be said, but then, there always would be. She, however, didn’t have to be the one to say them. She deleted everything she’d written, one last time.

  Then, she erased his message.

  Chapter 5

  The third time he kissed her was on the dance floor in the place where they’d first met. She’d gone suddenly shy, but he pulled her close and eased her into it, mouth on mouth, the sweet slip of tongue, the grip of his hands on her hips. She blushed. He kissed her, and they danced, and later still in that same place, she fell in love with him.

  Chapter 6

  There was no dinner waiting for her when she got home, but it was unfair of Bette to be annoyed by this, as it was Damian’s night to go to the gym after work and it had all been agreed upon ahead of time. Usually on these nights she liked being able to prepare a meal for him, one of his favorites, and to have it ready for him when he got back smelling of soap and water and the slightest hint of sweat. She liked caring for him in that way, as he did for her so often.

  Tonight, however, she couldn’t face defrosting, measuring, chopping, cooking. She ordered pizza instead and set the table with paper plates and plastic cups. She poured herself a glass of wine and went onto the balcony to smoke a cigarette, a habit she’d never quite acquired and therefore could indulge in every now and then without later having to break again. Neither the wine nor the smoke soothed her.

  Damian was late from the gym. The pizza was cold by the time he got there. Bette had lost her appetite. Too many glasses of wine. Too much thinking.

  She turned her face slightly when he bent to kiss her. “You’re supposed to text me if you’re not going to be on time.”

  “I was driving,” he said. “I don’t text and drive. But I’m sorry, you’re right. I should’ve let you know.”

  She snagged his wrist as he moved away. Offered her mouth for a proper kiss. It wasn’t Damian’s fault the past had hit her in the face with a shovel this morning.

  He stroked a hand over her hair. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Eat,” she told him. “It’s already cold.”

  Damian, sweetly tempered as usual, didn’t complain, but helped himself to a slice. “We haven’t had pizza in a long time. This is perfect, Ma’am, how did you know I was in the mood for pizza?”

  “Lucky guess.” She picked at her own slice but put it down without taking more than a bite. She studied him while he ate. His pale hair was still damp, slicked back from his high forehead. “How was the gym?”

  “Crowded. Lots of people there I don’t usually see. I might like to change my routine a little.” He wiped his mouth and sipped from the wine she’d poured him. He hesitated, looking as though he meant to say more, but didn’t.

  “Why?”

  “It’s just that…well, it was more crowded. I had to wait for the equipment longer. And the locker room…” He paused again.

  She watched his throat work. “What about it?”

  “Not as
private.”

  “Someone saw you locked up.” She smiled, thinking of it. “You were embarrassed.”

  “A little. Yeah.”

  “So don’t wear it to the gym,” Bette said without sympathy.

  Damian tilted his head to look at her. “But…Ma’am…”

  “It’s not like I think you’re going to stop in the middle of your workout to jack off,” she continued, watching his face. Damian wore his emotions all over his expression. Easy to read. It was one of the things she liked so much about him, how different he’d been than that past lover who’d made a habit of inscrutability. “If you’re uncomfortable wearing it where someone might see it, then take it off.”

  “But…” He put both hands flat on the table, one on either side of his plate. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  They finished the meal in silence. Bette got up from the table and left him to the cleanup. In the shower, she bent her head beneath the spray and succumbed to the exquisite agony of grief. She stifled her sobs into a curled fist, not wanting Damian to hear her weeping for the loss of someone else.

  He somehow knew, though. When she came into the bedroom, her hair wrapped in a towel and wearing her terrycloth robe, he’d already turned down the bed. He’d changed the sheets, replacing the cool cotton with soft and comforting flannel. He’d lit the gas fireplace, too. He waited for her, on his knees, facing away from the bathroom doorway.