A Bestiary of Unnatural Women
Ashley Zacharias
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2010 Ashley Zacharias
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Contents
Notes from Roissy, Cleveland, Ohio
Portrait of a Wife as a Middle-Aged Woman
This is an anthology of short stories that I wrote between 2008 and 2010. What species are these kinky women who willingly submit to bondage, humiliation, and pain? They have their reasons. But one must wonder why they chose to solve their problems in the ways that they did if each didn’t have at least some tendency toward masochism.
These stories are not presented in the order in which they are written, but in the approximate order of the development of an intimate relationship, from stories about the first date to stories about mature marriages.
Like many relationships, they get darker toward the end.
In “A Most Surprising Date”, a young woman hypothesizes that the most desirable man is the one who is best able to compete against other men. Being a good experimental psychologist, she puts her hypothesis to an empirical test.
In “Suzie’s Lessons”, a woman with an odd breast fetish submits to a nerdish young man for his use and abuse. But he can’t satisfy her until someone tells him how to act dominant.
In “Riding the Devil’s Horse”, a woman is intrigued by medieval torture devices. She asks the man she lives with to build one of them and torture her with it, all in the name of research.
In “Notes from Roissy, Cleveland, Ohio”, a young wife is shocked when she reads her parents’ diaries and discovers that they acted out scenes from The Story of O. Can that kind of thing be done in the Midwest?
In “Topper” a dinner party with the boss turns out differently than anyone expected. It’s hard to tell who is the most surprised.
In “A Wife of No Small Promise”, a woman decides to give her husband the sexual adventure of his life. Her mistake is that she thinks that he still loves her. His mistake is that he thinks that he does not.
In “A Necessary Beating”, a young wife rues her infidelity to her husband and will do anything to win back his trust. She takes it upon herself to introduce him to a new sport.
In “INR”, a woman thinks that she can make her rape fantasies a reality by unleashing the beast in her husband. But she is more successful at organizing her own rape than she planned.
In “A Portrait of a Wife as a Middle-Aged Woman”, a wife agrees to spend an hour letting her husband do anything sexual to her that he wants. She thought she knew him but is shocked to discover what kind of sex he desires most of all.
I hope that you enjoy reading this collection of fantasies as much as I enjoyed writing them.
Ashley Zacharias, 2010
When Felicity answered the door, Roy was surprised to see the way that she was dressed. Though he had only seen her once before, this was not the first time that she had surprised him.
The first surprise had been two weeks ago when she had given him her phone number.
He had invited researchers from a number of local companies to his laboratory to discuss collaboration on a grant application for the development of new human-robotic interfaces. She had come in the company of two engineers from the Barton Kinematics Group so he assumed that she was part of their team. She had not said a single word, but from the moment that he sat down until the meeting ended, she had maintained almost constant eye contact with him across the boardroom table.
He assumed that she was part of Barton’s strategy. Their engineers had been arguing that he should investigate an interface model that was compatible with their latest product to the disadvantage of their competitors. Their model had some good characteristics – not surprising since they had already based their most successful product on it – and he had been fighting valiantly for a neutral model that would allow others to compete on an equal footing in the marketplace.
He wanted Barton onside but not at the cost of driving everyone else away.
Barton, expecting a tough fight, had apparently brought a beautiful woman along to flirt with him across the table on the oft chance that she could distract them. It had almost worked; Roy had had a hell of a time keeping his mind on the details of the two competing models.
She had said not a word, but as everyone was leaving, had slipped a piece of paper into his hand and had whispered, softly, “I’m Felicity. Please call me at home soon.”
That was considerably more distraction than was required or expected. In fact, the head of Barton research team, the redundantly named, Tom Thomas, had appeared somewhat taken aback to see the young woman pressing close to him and whispering intimately into his ear.
For a moment, he wondered if maybe she was some kind of industrial spy, but he shrugged that idea off. He might be a university professor, but he was worldly enough to know not to discuss proprietary information with anyone until they had been straight jacketed with the most restrictive possible non-disclosure agreement.
He got his second surprise when he phoned her the next day and she had suggested that he come to dinner at her place rather than going out somewhere. That seemed inappropriately intimate for a first date. He had almost balked but she bluntly told him that her invitation was strictly personal. She said that she did not want him to get the wrong idea just because she had met him at a business meeting. She said that she didn't normally attend research-planning meetings but had gone to his only so that she would have a general idea about what was happening. When he probed her a little about which model she supported, she insisted that she didn't give a damn which model he wanted to develop if his grant was approved.
With that assurance, he had agreed to let her cook dinner for him. She said that she wouldn’t be free until the following weekend and had taken his number and then called back yesterday to give him her address and exact time.
He had been further reassured by the delay. She was not pressuring him to move quickly but seemed to be in no special rush.
And now, the third surprise: her dress.
In the meeting, she had been wearing a conservative navy business suit with a pale beige blouse and low, practical heels.
Tonight, she had answered her door in rather different attire. When she turned and stepped back from the door, to admit him, he had a chance to appraise her from the floor up. She was wearing black patent-leather stiletto-heeled pumps over black boldly-patterned stockings with a seam up the back. He black miniskirt was so short that it did not cover the clips where her garter belt held up the tops of the stockings. That was the reason that miniskirts did not become the fashion until after pantyhose was invented. Miniskirts and stockings made a wildly immodest combination. When she turned back toward him, her white silk blouse that was so sheer and tight that he could see her pink nipples pressing against the material. No bra constrained her full, round breasts.
He wondered if she were a junior engineer looking for romance on a Saturday night or a call girl on assignment? The thought of industrial espionage flashed into his mind again. This new millennium Mata Hari was going to be sorely disappointed. While there would be considerable value in his research on human-robot interfaces when it was complete, his work at this stage did not merit this degree of seduction. It was still early in the planning stage and was neither all that secret nor all that important.
“Don't just stand there enjoying at the view, come on in,” she said, smiling coyly.
He blushed to realize that he had been standing on her threshold, staring at her, too openly for too long. He told himself that if she were going to dress like a sex object, then she should expect to be appreciated as a sex object, but that logic did not trump the deeply-ingrained social taboo against staring at women's tits and drooling.
This was no way to start a relationship with a nice girl.
Then, when he was inside the apartment, he was surprised for a fourth time; and, for the first time, not so happily. He heard low voices coming from the other room. Male-sounding voices.
She pulled him gently inside, reached up and kissed him lightly with soft lips slightly parted, holding the kiss for long enough to promise much more to come. “Mmm,” she murmured. “You taste good.”
Was she saying that just to make sure that he understood the meaning of her perfect kiss?
She took the bottle of wine from his limp hand and led him through a sparsely but tastefully furnished living room into a dining room.
The round dining table was set for four; two other men were already seated at their places. They looked at him with expressions of ill-masked displeasure. What kind of romantic date was this?
“Stan, Timothy, this is Roy,” Felicity said. “He is the third player in our game tonight.”
“Game?” Stan asked, frowning darkly.
“Not really a game. More like an experiment. There are only a couple of ground rules. Not enough structure to really be called a game. It'll be a kind of interesting life experience for all of us. I’ll explain the details while we eat. First, let me get dinner on the table. Roy, you sit here.” She gestured to one of the empty chairs. “I'll be right back.”
Roy shrugged and sat down, ignoring glares from the other two men. “What's up?” he asked casually.
“I don't know,” Stan replied. “I was invited here for dinner. I expected to be dining with Felicity alone.”
“Me, too,” Timothy volunteered.
“How do you know her?” Roy asked.
“I met her at Starbucks last week,” Stan replied. “I was minding my own business, negotiating a deal on my Blackberry and, as soon as I hung up, she started talking to me. She didn't tell me much about herself. She just gave me her number and asked me to call her. Before I could chat her up, she said that she had to get back to work and left the store.” He frowned. “She didn’t even stay to buy a coffee.”
“So you don't know her any better than me,” Roy replied.
“How do you know her?” Stan asked.
“Almost the same story, but it was after a business meeting. I’d never seen her before. She gave me a card and asked me to call.” He looked at the third man at the table, “Do you know anything about her?”
The man who had been introduced as Timothy shook his head. “Nope. I was working out at the gym last Sunday and she came up to me when I was cooling down and gave me her number. She wasn't wearing sweats, just jeans and a sweater. I'd never seen her there before so I think she came as a guest.”
Roy nodded thoughtfully. Timothy looked like a gym rat. Not an over-developed body-builder but a real athlete under his off-the-rack polyester suit. Stan, on the other hand, had more of a vice-president-of-sales look. His suit was properly tailored and, from it's slight sheen, Roy guessed that it was probably a blended silk-wool worsted that would be light and comfortable in the summer heat but wouldn't be particularly durable. Stan looked like the kind of guy who wouldn't wear the same suit for two seasons in a row.
The three men at the table couldn't have been more different from each other. Felicity didn't seem to favor any particular type when choosing men for her group date.
Or maybe she was very particular about getting exactly the right assortment of men for whatever “experiment” she was planning.
He didn't have long to think about it before she bustled back into the room with plates of food. She set one in front of him and another in front of Stan. Both men waited politely while she went back to the kitchen to retrieve two more plates.
When she sat down, she said, “Okay, gentlemen. Bon appetite.” As soon as she lifted a forkful of mashed potatoes to her lovely lips, the three men dug in themselves.
Each plate was appointed with a half dozen baby carrots, a scoop of mashed potatoes, already dressed with gravy, a slice of roast beef with a spoonful of horseradish next to it, and a large spoonful of cole slaw. Simple, hearty food that was easy to cook and easy to eat.
Roy noted that she had not opened or served the wine that he had brought, nor had she offered drinks of any kind except for the glass of ice water that had already been set at each place.
As soon as the men began eating, Felicity began to speak. “Gentlemen, welcome to my home. I know that you are feeling a little confused right now, so let me explain myself. The situation is simple enough. I recently met each of you and was strongly attracted to you. I would like to spend the rest of the evening making love with one of you. This is unusual for me. For the most part, I have had a fairly average sex life. Tonight, though, you will find me rather adventuresome in bed. No reasonable consensual sexual act is off limits, except for group sex. I will be available to only one of you. It's now six o'clock. There's an alarm clock in the living room that's set to ring at seven o'clock. If there is only one man in my apartment when the alarm sounds, I will give him a night that we will both long remember. If there is more than one man here, then I will ask you all to leave and I will spend the night alone and disappointed. That's it. Oh, except for one other thing. I will absolutely not make the decision about which man will spend the night here. In fact, I will not contribute to the decision in any way, direct or indirectly. It is entirely up to you to decide which one of you gets me and which two will leave empty handed. I don't care how you make your decision, only that you decide before seven. The clock is ticking, gentlemen, so I suggest you get to work.” She fell silent and began eating her dinner.
The three men sitting at the table looked at each other in shock, the implications of her rules slowly sinking in.
After a minute, Roy looked at Felicity with amusement. He had come prepared to seduce her. Undoubtedly, the other two men had come with exactly the same intention. But, under her rules, seduction was irrelevant; no one had to convince her of anything. She had presented herself as nothing but a passive prize, leaving it up to the men to devise their own game and honor their own rules.
Felicity broke the silence. “Eat up, gentlemen. I hope you like the food because this is all that I have prepared. Dessert won't be served until seven. That will be me and only one of you can partake. But I will do my best to make sure that I'll be the most enjoyable desert that one of you ever had.”
The men ate their food in silence, each thinking about how he might win the prize from the other two.
Roy appreciated the woman's wisdom of not serving alcohol with the meal. A drunken brawl at this point would be a stupendously bad idea.
The meal did not last long. Maybe five minutes, tops. When Felicity began clearing the table, Timothy stood up as well and said, “Okay. This is pretty clear to me. We clear the furniture out of the living room and get to it. Last man standing gets the girl.”
Stan replied, flatly, “And you're sure that you're going to be the last man standing.”
“I can press two fifty.”
“You think you can take both of us together?” Roy asked.
“One at a time would be more reasonable, but I'd give odds that I could take both of you weenies at the same time in a fair fight,” Timothy sneered.
“But can you take on four cops?” Roy asked. “They don't fight fair. They use nightsticks and tasers and handcuffs.”
“Huh?”
“You assault one of us and the other one is going to call nine one one. The cops will have you out of here before you can blink and that will give Stan and me lots of time to flip a coin for the girl.”
Timothy flushed with anger. “You pussy. Only an asshole would call the cops on a fair fight.”
“Whatever. Just put the whole free-for-all brawl idea out to pasture. It's not going to happen. The first guy to throw a punch will be the first guy out the door.” Roy glanced at Felicity. Her face was flushed and her eyes were sparkling. Then he glanced at Stan. He was smiling confidently.
There was a minute of silence, then Stan said, “If it's up to us, we can make a rather different decision than the one that she gave us.” He spoke as though Felicity were not in the room; or maybe as though she were an object with no volition of her own. Which was exactly how she had presented herself. “Her rules don't have to be binding. There's nothing to stop us from deciding to stay and share equally. The only question is who gets which hole first. I think a couple of coin flips will decide that.”
“Oh, no,” Felicity said quickly. “I made that clear. Only one guy gets dessert. The other two get nothing.”
Timothy looked back at her with flat, reptilian eyes. “You don't get to set all the rules, lady. You've had your fun; now we're going to have our own kind of game.”
Stan nodded. “It'll be your word against ours. And, considering that you invited three strange men to your apartment all at the same time, your word won't carry much weight.”
Felicity smiled enigmatically. “It's not about my word, it's simple physics.” She stood and stepped back from the table to give all three men a clear view. To their surprise and joy, she unbuttoned her blouse and shrugged it off. As Roy and the others had already realized, she was not wearing a bra. Her breasts, full and round underneath the silk, proved to be wonderfully nubile when exposed to view. He heard Timothy gasp and Stan chuckle softly.
Roy waited for the hammer to fall. She wasn't offering herself to them without a plan.
Her plan was revealed when she unbuttoned, unzipped, and then dropped her miniskirt to her ankles. As Roy had noted, her stockings were supported by a black garter belt. But he had not guessed what she would be wearing in place of panties. He laughed. Felicity was no fool.
“Is that metal panties?” Timothy's voice sounded confused.
“It's a chastity belt,” Roy replied. “Nobody gets into the lady until she unlocks it.”
“Who's got the key?” Stan's calm demeanor had taken a sudden turn to the nasty.
“She's got it herself,” Roy replied. “Contrary to popular myth, medieval ladies were not locked up by their husbands against their will for long periods of time. They locked themselves into the belts during dangerous moments to keep from being raped. They were free to unlock themselves any time they wanted to make love. She's using her chastity belt exactly as intended – to protect herself from violent rape.”
Felicity smiled. “To make this perfectly clear. If there's only one man in the apartment at seven o'clock, then I'll give him the key and he can unlock my treasure.” She gestured to the small radial lock that was set into the front of the belt. “If you haven't made a decision by then, the belt stays on until everyone is gone and I can go to bed alone.”
There was another minute of silence while the men thought about the implications of this latest development. Again, it was Stan who broke the spell. This time he addressed the half-naked woman directly. “What if you decide that you don't want any of us and welch on the deal? If only one of us is here at seven, there's nothing to stop you from keeping yourself locked up. Any time you've decided that you've had enough fun for tonight, you can slip away and leave us here with our dicks in our hands. In fact, that was probably your plan from the beginning.”
“I gave you my word that one of you will have me. If you can decide which one, then that one will get the key.”
“Like you said, yourself, words don't count as much as physics.”
She smiled again. “Okay. I'll give you a little more physics to make my promise irrevocable. Come on, boys.” She walked through the arch into the living room. The men followed. Roy looked at the metal strip that passed between her buttocks. It would chafe if she tried to walk too far because it was wide enough to ensure that nobody used her back door without the key. The only orifice that was available was her mouth and that was guarded by her lovely white teeth. He did not doubt that she would Bobbit the man who tried to take her mouth against her will.
In the living room, Felicity walked to the mantel and picked up a light silver chain with a key attached. She draped it around her neck so that the key hung down between her breasts. Then she walked to the couch where there was a pile of chain and leather waiting.
She buckled one wide leather cuff about each wrist, threading a metal loop through the straps near the buckle. She threaded the hasp of an open padlock through one end of the short chain. “If one of you gentlemen would be so kind as to lock the chain to my cuffs.”
Stan took the lock and threaded the hasp through the two loops. When he snapped the lock closed, her wrists were locked into the cuffs in front of her and the cuffs were locked together at the end of the chain.
She walked to the far corner of the room. “Now, if one of you would like to hook the last link of the chain to the ceiling.”
Roy looked up and saw that there was a heavy hook screwed into the ceiling above her head. He would bet that a hanging plant was sitting in a spare room right now. Looking down, he saw a two-step stool next to the wall. She had thought of everything, but the stool was overkill. Timothy was tall enough to reach the ceiling without the stool. When he took the end of the chain, she obligingly raised her arms over her head so that he could reach up and snap the last link over the hook. When she was secured, her hands were held loosely together over her head, elbows bent slightly and breasts pulled upward in a most fetching way.
She looked down at the key that was hanging between her breasts, rising and falling with every breath. With the chain and leather cuffs keeping her hands above her head, there was no way for her to reach it herself. It was almost cruel that she had made herself wear the means of her release where she could see and feel it but not reach it.
Timothy took the opportunity to caress the perfect curves of her tits. Despite his eagerness to brawl with the other men, he touched the woman with surprising gentleness, giving the impression that he genuinely cared about her feelings. She closed her eyes and moaned softly at his touch, giving every man in the room the impression that she was looking forward to an evening of hot sex.
Roy noted that the hook in the ceiling had a spring-loaded safety latch on it that prevented the chain from slipping back off unless the latch was held open. Felicity was not tall enough to reach the latch herself. It would be impossible for her to pull the chain off the hook. She was trapped until someone released her.
Stan kicked the step-stool away just to be certain that she could not hook it with her foot and pull it closer.
“The key to the padlock is on my necklace,” she said. “I trust that the winner will release me after I tell you where to find the key to the chastity belt.”
There was no question that Roy would unlock her. She would be a lot more fun lying on her back or bent over a table than standing in the corner with her arms stretched over her head. The other two men had undoubtedly already reached exactly the same conclusion because they both nodded eagerly.
“Okay, guys, let's get down to business,” Stan said. “How are we going to decide who spends the night with the maiden and who goes home frustrated as hell?”
“Draw lots,” Roy said.
“Nah,” Stan replied quickly. “I don't want to leave it up to pure chance.”
“Me neither,” Timothy replied.
Roy knew what they were thinking. Stan didn't like the one-in-three odds. He wanted a sure thing. Timothy wanted to lobby for some kind of physical game so that he would have the edge.
“Then what?” Roy asked.
Predictably, Timothy said, “Let's arm wrestle for her. That's what real men would do.”
Roy and Stan replied, simultaneously, “No!”
Timothy laughed. “Wimps.” He turned to the woman hanging in the corner. “You really want to spend the night with one of these chickenshits?”
She smiled but said nothing. It was clear that she was a spectator now. She had finished her part in the game and intended to spend the next hour just watching the fun.
Stan gestured toward the couch and easy chairs. “Let's sit down and discuss this in comfort.”
The three men sat but none of them felt comfortable.
“So how about a game of poker. Winner take all.” He gestured toward the half naked women. “She's All.”
The three men looked at the beautiful siren, each feeling more lust than they had ever before felt in their entire lives. The woman was practically in their hands. In one of their hands.
The object of their lust looked back at the men impassively, apparently content just to wait and see which one would claim her in the end. Roy had the impression that she had specifically chosen men who were equally attractive to her so that she would have no preference for one over the other.
“I don't know how to play poker,” Timothy said, keeping his eyes on Felicity's lovely breasts.
“Wimp,” Stan replied, turning back to look at the other men and laughing. “It's easy. We'll keep it simple. Five card draw. I can teach you in a couple of minutes.”
Roy shook his head. “We have only about a half an hour left to decide. If we only play a couple of hands, winning will come down to luck. We'd be no better off than drawing lots. If we try to play a proper game, we won't be finished until ten at the earliest. I've got nothing against playing a game for her, but it'll have to be a game that doesn't take longer than half an hour.”
“Rock, paper, scissors?” Timothy suggested.
“Same as drawing lots,” Stan replied. “Pure luck.”
“I don't want to play games,” Timothy said. “Not gambling games. Maybe find a court somewhere and shoot hoops for her.”
“No time for that, either,” Roy said.
“I know,” Timothy replied, sadly.
The men were silent for another couple of minutes. It was clear that they would never agree on a game of chance or skill because each of them would want a game in which they had an advantage.
A clock on the mantle ticked loudly.
Finally, Stan said, “Okay. Tell you what. I'll pay each of you three hundred dollars to get lost. Cash, right now. You can call her back and set up another date some other time and use the money to take her out for a first-rate dinner and a concert or whatever she wants. We can all have her eventually.”
Timothy looked tempted. Roy glanced at the woman to see how she felt about being bought like a side of beef but she continued to look impassive. He looked at her more closely and thought that he detected dry amusement under her poker face. “I'd rather have the woman than the money,” he said. “I'll pay you.”
“I don't need your money,” Stan replied, contemptuously. “How about you, tiger?” He asked Timothy. “You want a quick five hundred in cash, tax free, to walk out that door and not come back?”
He licked his lips. Timothy would not be a good poker player. But he wasn't a complete sucker, either. It occurred to him that five hundred might not be Stan's final offer. “Not for five hundred.”
Roy wondered if Stan would be willing to go as high as a thousand to reduce his odds from one in three to one in two. But Stan had a different idea. “I'll tell you what. It's not about the money. The money is just for a show of good faith. Let's just auction her off. Who ever bids highest gets her and the other two can split the money and then just split. Free enterprise is the American way.”
Timothy grinned. “That sounds good to me.”
“If it's really not about the money, then we shouldn't care who gets it. I say, if she's the one for sale, then she ought to get the money,” Roy replied. “That's true free enterprise.”
That proposal cooled Timothy's jets considerably. “She's giving herself away for free. It's us who lose out, so we ought to be the ones to profit from our loss.”
“How much cash do you have on you?” Roy asked.
“I don't know, exactly. A hundred bucks, maybe,” Timothy answered.
“How about you, Stan?”
“More than that,” Stan admitted.
“Are you going to take a personal check?” Roy asked.
“I don't think so,” Stan replied. “Anyone can write a check for a million bucks and let it bounce like a rubber ball. The NSF fees would be worth it.”
“So this auction'll come down to whoever has the most money in his pocket right now.”
“That's not fair!” Timothy cried.
“No, it sure isn't,” Roy answered.
The three men sat silently for another couple of minutes. The clock ticked. Felicity shifted her weight restlessly from one foot to the other. Standing for a long time with her arms above her head in those high-heeled pumps couldn't be all that comfortable.
Finally, Roy said, “Okay, this is like some kind of reality game, let's do what they do on television. Let's vote for the winner.”
“Yeah,” Timothy said, enthusiastically. “This is a democracy. Let's vote.”
“You have paper and pens?” Roy asked.
“In the kitchen by the phone,” Felicity said from the corner of the room.
Roy left the living room. “Hey,” he shouted from the kitchen, “I've got to use the can. I'll be back in a few minutes.” The other men waited impatiently, silently watching the mantle clock tick off the time from six thirty-two to six thirty-eight. There was about twenty minutes left when Roy finally returned with three pens and a small notepad. He tore off a sheet for each of the three men, handed them the pens and said, “Okay. It's simple. No voting for yourself. Just write down the name of one of the other two men who you think most deserves an evening of mutual pleasure with the lady in the corner. Let's try to imagine who she might want.”
After a minute, Roy collected the ballots, unfolded them and spread them out on the coffee table. There was one vote for Timothy and two votes for Stan.
“That's it, then,” Stan said, standing up. “It's been interesting. You guys can let yourself out. Be sure to lock the door behind you.”
“Damn,” Timothy said with a tragic look on his face, standing up and starting to walk across the room.
Roy stood up as well, but made no move toward the door. “Not so fast, Stan,” he said. “We have a problem, here.”
Timothy stopped moving and turned to look at Stan and Roy.
“No problem,” Stan replied. “We agreed to abide by the vote. We voted. I won. You leave.”
“The rule was that we couldn't vote for ourselves. Otherwise everyone would vote for himself and it would have been a three-way split. I voted for Timothy. The only way that you could have got two votes is if you got both Timothy's and your own. You voted for yourself so the vote is invalid. It doesn't count.”
“We all agreed to vote,” Stan argued, “But not voting for yourself was just something that you said. I never said that I agreed with it.”
“I agreed with it,” Timothy said, moving toward Stan menacingly, “otherwise I would have voted for myself, too. He's right. The vote doesn't count.”
“So there we are,” Stan said. “I guess we have to vote again.”
The next vote was one for each of them. Roy had voted for Timothy, Stan had voted for Roy, and Timothy had voted for Stan. Roy was shocked He fully expected that, after Stan had cheated the first time, Timothy wouldn't vote for him on principle. And Roy had already said that he preferred Timothy. That meant that Timothy and Roy should have exchanged votes and Stan provided the majority for one or the other of them. Apparently Timothy had figured that out and decided that Roy did not need his vote, he preferred a standoff to losing if Stan voted for Roy, which he had.
The men stared at the ballots for a long time, as though they could change the outcome just by wishing it. Felicity laughed softly from the corner of the room.
“We could vote again,” Timothy suggested.
“Are you going to change your vote?” Roy asked.
“No.”
“Me neither. It'll be a tie vote every time, now.”
Stan laughed loudly. “Looks like we're snookered, guys.”
Timothy glanced at the clock on the mantle. “Ten minutes to go.”
“Are we just going to wait it out?”
“I don't see what else we can do,” Stan replied. “Short of fisticuffs, I don't see any way out.”
Roy nodded. He understood exactly what Stan meant. They had arrived at the point where all three men would rather see the prize go unclaimed than see one of the other two win. “Look,” he said, “if we're still here when the clock strikes seven then we're all going to feel like fools. Why don't we just leave now and save ourselves the embarrassment of hearing the damn clock ring?”
After another few moments of silence, Stan said, “Yeah. That sounds like the best idea, all right. What about you, Tim? You on board for getting out of here now?”
“Yeah. I'm good with that.”
The three men stood and began walking toward the front door.
“Hey, guys, what about me?” Felicity asked from her corner.
“What about you?” Stan asked.
“Are you going to let me down from here?”
“I don't think so,” Stan replied. “You're so smart, you figure out how to get down. I'm sure that you have another trick up your sleeve.”
“I don't have sleeves,” she said wriggling her arms in their cuffs, her little dance making her naked breasts shimmy most agreeably. “I meant it when I said that I wasn't giving myself any way to keep from being claimed by the winner. I keep my promises.”
Stan shrugged. “It's your game. So it’s your fault that your rules didn't let one of us claim you. Good night.”
Roy looked at her, shrugged, and followed Stan to the front door.
Timothy didn't even look at her when he followed the other two men.
She whimpered miserably at their backs but they were unmoved.
Stan opened the front door and gestured to Roy and Timothy. “After you, gentlemen.”
Roy stopped dead in his tracks, Timothy almost bumping into his back. “After you, Stan.” He gestured to the open door. “I insist.”
Timothy looked at the two men, suddenly realizing what was happening. “You think that you can get us out of the apartment and then slam the door on us, leaving you alone inside?” he growled.
All three men heard Felicity laughing at them in the living room. Then they heard her say, “This is the Hotel California. You can check out but you can never leave.”
Stan took a step back toward the living room. “I'm gonna pound that bitch.”
Roy put a hand on his shoulder. “I wouldn't advise it. She's a planner. She knows who we are. If she did to you what she did to me, then she got your phone number so that she could call back and give you a final time and address?”
“Yeah,” Stan said. “So what?”
“So that means that she made sure that we were who we said we were. I guarantee that she left a letter somewhere with our names and phone numbers on it in case anything happened to her.”
Felicity's voice rang out, “You're a smart man, Roy. Nobody puts anything over on you, do they?”
He laughed and called back, “At least I'm not hanging helpless and almost naked in my living room waiting for someone to discover me.”
“Unlock me and we can all be friends. The key's on the mantle. I can see it from here.”
“Yeah,” Timothy said. “Let's unlock her and then she can do all of us.”
Roy shook his head. “She doesn't mean that kind of friends. She means friends like when your girlfriend breaks up with you and 'friends' is a code word that means that she doesn't want to fuck you any more.”
Timothy looked wistfully at the doorway that led to the living room, then said, “What the fuck. Let's just get out of here.” He snatched Roy's wrist in his left hand and Stan's in his right. He was quick as a cobra and powerful as a python. Before either of the other men could react, he was pulling both of them through the open front door.
Roy didn't resist. “Come on, Stan. Don't fight it. The game's over.”
Stan pulled but couldn't get his hand back from Timothy. “What the fuck,” he said with a note of resignation and let Timothy lead him out into the hallway. As soon as Stan released the spring-loaded door, it began to close. There was no sense trying to stay inside when Timothy was determined to keep your hand in the hallway. By the time it slammed shut, all three men were outside.
“Is it locked?” Timothy asked.
“Yeah, it locks automatically when it closes. A lot of doors in high rises do that for security,” Stan said.
Timothy tried the knob. It was locked tight.
Roy shrugged. “That's it, then. She wins, we all lose.”
“I hate to lose,” Stan said bitterly.
“Me, too,” Roy said, but added, philosophically, “but at least you didn't have to lose to one of us. It was a rigged game from the start.”
“You got that right.”
The three men rode the elevator down to the lobby and then exited the building together, the outer door also locking behind them.
“You parked on the street?” Roy asked the other men.
“No,” Stan replied, “I parked in the first spot that I found empty. It belongs to someone but I figured that if they weren't using it, then I might as well take it.”
“I got a visitor space,” Timothy replied, looking at Stan with disdain. “There were plenty of open spots.”
Roy said, “Well, I'm parked on the street around the corner. I hope that I don't see you guys around.”
“Me, too,” Stan replied.
Roy walked away from the other two men.
A few minutes later, Felicity heard her front door open, heard someone walk in, then heard the door slam shut. She watched Roy walk into the living room. He was alone. “You didn't go to the bathroom, did you?” she said.
“No. I looked around a little and found your purse by your vanity in your bedroom. I hope you don't mind that I borrowed your keys. I came back to return them as soon as I could.”
“I hoped that you'd win all along, you know. I love a smart man.”
“That was why you chose me,” he said dryly. “Timothy was the strong guy, Stan was the handsome, charming one and I was the smart one.”
“You sounded like a genius in that meeting a couple of weeks ago. That's why I gave you my number.” She rattled the chain that held her in place. “Now, are you going to unlock me so that we can start having some real fun? You've earned it.”
“I'll unlock you in,” he glanced at the clock on the mantle, “another four minutes when the alarm goes off. I won't have won officially until then and, when things are going so well, I'd rather not disturb them.”
“That's smart. I guess I'll just hang around here and wait on your pleasure,” she said with the cutest little pout.
“You know, when I got your keys out of the purse, I had a quick look in your wallet.”
“Naughty boy. Nobody likes a nosey parker.”
“You don't mind if I call you Barbara, do you?”
“That is my name, so you can call me Barbara if you like, but I don't think it sounds nearly as much fun as Felicity.”
“You're a student at Irvine.”
“A graduate student, actually. I'm just starting my Ph.D. thesis.”
“Which department?”
“Psychology.”
“Is this some kind of experiment?”
“Life is just one damned experiment after another. But if you are asking if you have been a subject in an official scholarly study, the answer is, 'Of course not.' The ethics violations alone would be staggering. Not only could I not get it published, but I'd risk my entire academic career if I tried to submit a report. No, this is just a game I decided to play. It was a one-off experience. I've never offered to have sex with strangers before and will probably never do it again. I didn’t come up with this game out of thin air, though. I began with the hypothesis that a woman would find a man more attractive if he was successful in competition against other men. I proved that hypothesis to my satisfaction. I can hardly wait to fuck you.”
“Me, too, but we’ve got a few minute left before I can unchain you so why don’t you tell me why I got the impression at that meeting that you worked for Barton Kinematics?”
“I don't even know who they are. I just walked through the engineering department and noticed your meeting. Everyone looked like they were strangers because they were all introducing themselves, so I went in and sat in the nearest open chair. It happened to be between those two guys so everyone else thought that I was with them.” She giggled. “It was no big deal. What was the worst that you could do? Politely ask me to leave. That wouldn’t have been all that traumatic.”
“Hmm.” Roy paused for a minute to digest that little chestnut. Then he said, “One other thing, I noticed that you have a different address on your driver's license. Your real apartment is a lot closer to the university than this one.”
She shuffled her feet a little, trying to get more comfortable in her heels. “Yeah, well, I'm sure you understand why I borrowed this one. I didn't exactly know you guys so I wasn't keen on you all knowing where I really live. This is my officemate's apartment. She's at a conference in Alaska and won't be back until tomorrow evening. I've got to get the place cleaned up before then.”
“I can understa–”
The clock on the mantle began dinging loudly and repeatedly, cutting Roy off in mid-sentence.
“That's it!” Barbara shouted over the dinging. “You've officially won the key to my most intimate parts. You'll find it taped to the bottom of the clock.”
Roy looked at her for a minute, then said, “So if I just walk out of here without unlocking you, then you'll have to stay like this until your colleague comes back tomorrow night.”
She stared hard at him for a moment. “You wouldn't do that to me. I've held up my part of our bargain and I trust you to do the same. Now you owe me an evening of wild, passionate sex. That was the deal.” She rattled her chain impatiently, giving Roy the impression that she was anxious to get the cuffs and chastity belt removed so that she could make wild love to him for the rest of the night.
“You're right. I'll play fair with you, too.” He reached out and stroked her tits for a minute. “You feel great.” Then he hugged her and gave her a kiss. He expected it to be a slow gentle meeting of the lips, but she was fierce in returning it with as much passion as he had ever received. She leaned forward to press the length of her body hard against him. If her hands had not been locked over her head, she would have tried to squeeze him breathless.
He hugged and kissed and caressed her for a couple more minutes before he moved his hand to her chest to get the padlock key.
As soon as he unlocked her, she proved that she was telling the truth that she was desperately horny for him. She almost ran to the mantle clock, ripped the key free from underneath it, and unlocked the chastity belt from her waist.
She guided his hand between her legs and let him feel that she was dripping. She gasped at his touch and parted her knees to give him access.
After letting him stimulate her manually for a couple of minutes, she dragged him back to the bedroom and spent the next few hours showing him that she was as inventive in her lovemaking as she had been in her gamesmanship.
He proved to be her equal in bed.
And on the dining room table.
And in the bathtub.
Their evening did not end at midnight, as her rules specified. The next morning, she made him breakfast; then he helped her clean all the evidence of their passion from her friend's apartment. It was the first night of a beautiful friendship that lasted until she graduated.
And it wasn’t the I-don't-want-to-fuck-you-any-more kind of friendship. It was the happy, lusty kind.
Suzie's Lessons
It began as a day like any other for Rob. He was sitting in front of his computer, typing up a storm, writing code as fast as his mind could think. And that was pretty damned fast.
Then, a strange woman walked into his office. That was not odd in itself. That happened to Rob all the time.
This woman was a little older than most, but not old enough to raise any red flags. He was not good at guessing women’s ages. If forced, he would have said that she was about thirty. Maybe thirty-five. Probably not late twenties, but he could be wrong about that. Like I said, he was not good at women’s ages.
But he was good at predicting women’s reaction to him because it never varied. They looked at his rumpled clothes and unkempt hair, rolled their eyes, dismissed him as a nerd, and walked away. Then, before long, maybe in a day or two, maybe not for a few weeks, they’d come back and ask him to fix their computer.
He would always agree to help and spend an hour correcting the problem, hoping that the woman would be impressed with his knowledge and skill. Not that he normally had to use much of his extensive knowledge or skill. Nine times out of ten, the problem was something that the woman had caused and something that she could have fixed almost as quickly as him if they’d only read the fucking manual.
But the women would never sully themselves by deigning to read a manual – that was beneath their dignity. Nor would they stay and watch how he fixed their computer – that was too boring. Nor would they listen to his explanation about how to avoid the problem next time – he was too boring. Instead, they’d gush a quick thanks and send him away, not thinking of him again until the next time they screwed up their computer. Chivalrous nerd errants garnered few real rewards in this world beyond hearing a few quick, empty words of insincere flattery as the no-longer-distressed damsels showed them the door.
It was not surprising that Rob's social skills tended to the perfunctory. Having a narrow range of experience, he gave back what he received.
The woman currently darkening his doorway looked distressed. Again, that was no surprise; every woman who came to his office was distressed about her computer. And they let their distress show because they believed that Rob would be more likely to help them if he could see it on their faces.
They were right.
When this woman spoke, she said about the same thing as the last dozen women who had come to his office. “I have a problem. I need your help.”
“What’s wrong with your computer?” he asked with a sigh.
She looked at him oddly and said, “My computer? Nothing. As near as I know, my computer’s fine. That’s not the kind of help that I need.”
“Oh.” That was Rob got his first inkling that there was something different about this woman. “What kind of help do you need?”
That was the moment that Rob’s day became a day like no other. The woman blushed. No woman had ever blushed in his presence before. Considering some of the stupid things that they had done to their computers, many of them should have blushed, but this was the only woman whose face actually turned red. “This is kind of embarrassing.” She paused for a moment then said in a rush, “I need you to remove my bra.”
“What?” He could not believe that she had said what he had heard.
She spoke more slowly. “I need you to take my bra off for me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What word don’t you understand?” she asked in frustration. “Bra or remove? A bra is a piece of underwear that a woman wears on her chest to support her breasts.” She raised her hands to her chest but did not actually touch her breasts. “Removing it requires unfastening it at the back.”
“I know that,” Rob snapped back. He interpreted her sarcasm as implying that he had never removed a woman's bra before. He never had – a fact that he would have been embarrassed to admit – but, if given the opportunity, he was sure that he could figure out how it was done. His technical competence was not limited to software but encompassed hardware as well.
Though woman’s breasts looked more soft than hard to him. Not that he had ever touched one to know from first-hand experience.
At this point, I should tell you a couple of basic facts about Rob. He’s a young man, a month shy of his twenty-second birthday, who had just begun his master’s degree in computer science. He was not ugly but no one would call him handsome, either, especially when they saw him in his usual stained and rumpled attire. Even if he cleaned himself up in strict accordance to Esquire rules, he would still look quite average.
His appearance did not bother him, though. His main obstacle to happiness was that he had almost no social life. He liked people and would have liked to hang around them more, but had no idea how to relate to other human beings. Not all computer geeks are nerds, but some are and the nerd stereotype could have been based on Rob.
The only thing that was really wrong with Rob was that he was relentlessly boring. He could speak about little apart from computers. He never read books or newspapers, watched little television, and didn’t know one end of a football from the other. Worse, when he started talking about computers, he was excruciatingly pedantic, especially if he was speaking to a woman. He should be forgiven for that, though. In order to get him to fix their computers, women invariably acted like helpless children around him. Then, when he spoke to them as though they were children, they felt insulted.
It was a no-win dilemma.
It was not surprising, then, that he had never had a date with a woman. I was probably the only woman that had any kind of friendship with him and that was pretty much limited to a few dinners with groups of students in the computer science program. I was more likely to talk to him in an Internet chat sessions than in real space. I let him be one of my Facebook and Twitter friends mostly out of sympathy.
This woman, though, acted completely differently from any other woman that he had ever met. Rob as flabbergasted when she closed his office door and then began unbuttoning her top. She was wearing a heavy, shapeless, plaid flannel shirt that was probably the least sexy item of clothing that any woman had ever worn in the history of fashion. Her breasts were large enough to make their presence obvious but the shirt completely hid the fine details of her shape. And he was soon to discover that the details of her shape were exceptionally fine.
Despite the unsexy fashion, the fact that she was voluntarily stripping it off in the privacy of his office instantly made the lumberjack shirt the most sensual piece of clothing that he had ever seen on a woman. He might well spend the next decade fantasizing about plaid flannel.
As the buttons were released, one by one, the flannel began to gape open, revealing shiny black leather cups on either side of the woman’s lovely milky cleavage. When the final button was released, the woman reached up to pull the shirt off her shoulders, a movement that thrust her full breasts forward hard into the stiff cups. The bra cups were large but her breasts were big enough that they filled them completely. As the tender flesh pressed into them, she could not suppress a gasp. She moaned softly as she lowered her arms and relaxed her shoulders. It was a ragged, breathy moan.
Rob didn’t know if women normally wore leather bras or not. But he did know that he had never heard such an erotic sound as that moan in his life. This was the stuff of his dreams.
“Why don’t you take your own bra off?” he asked.
“I can’t,” she replied. “I need help.” She turned to present her back to him.
He was astounded to see that, instead of a simple hook and loop clasp, the bra was fastened with a small black in-line combination lock, exactly like his bicycle lock. Most likely someone had made this bra by taking a bicycle lock apart and re-riveting the lock to the reinforced bra straps. Now he understood why the woman had been wearing the oversized flannel shirt; the lock would have made a noticeable bulge if she had been wearing a lighter, tighter blouse.
As well, he could see that the geometry of the straps in the back made it impossible to remove the bra until the lock was unfastened. The shoulder straps converged just below the nape of her neck to form a single strap that came down her spine to split again right above the lock where it was attached to the cross strap at either side of the lock by loops. The cross strap could only be pulled from the loops if the lock was unfastened. Furthermore, the cross strap curved upward to put the lock in the upper part of her back where it would be difficult for her to reach. It was a fiendish design.
“Do you know the combination?” he asked.
“Yes, but I can’t see to work it. I can’t use a mirror because the numbers are too small and I can’t get close enough.”
Rob could see what she meant. The numbers on his bicycle lock were painted white to stand out against the black rings. On this lock they had been repainted black so that they no longer contrasted with the background. You had to get within a couple of inches of the lock to read the numbers.
She explained further, “Besides, I can barely reach it. I can force my arms up there briefly, but I can’t hold them there for long enough to try all combinations. That’s why I have no choice but to get someone to release it. Please unlock it for me. The combination is five eight six nine.”
“Five eight six nine?”
“That’s right. That’s the combination. Five eight six nine.”
“Five eight six nine.” Rob wrote the numbers on a piece of paper. He noted that all the numbers had a similar shape that would make it even more difficult to read the right combination unless your eyes were within a couple of inches of the lock.
The woman’s predicament puzzled him and, when he was puzzled by anything, Rob automatically shifted into problem-solving mode. Rob’s insistence on being methodical was one of the characteristics that made him so good at debugging computer programs but which made him so boring around other people. Rob’s first step in solving any problem is to gather as much information as possible; a process that can be long and tedious, but is critical for success.
“Why is your bra locked on?” he asked.
“It’s a punishment bra. It’s locked on so that I can’t remove it myself no matter how much it hurts.”
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