A Complete Absence of Anxiety by April Would

Author's Note: A few months ago, I took a poll asking which fiction story idea most of you wanted to see. The winner was: "An engaged couple experiments with D/s kink at a sex hotel." Here, finally, is the result. I hope you enjoy it, animals. 

A Complete Absence of Anxiety by April Would

The Empire Inn lived up to its advertising. A perfectly innocuous building on the outside, one that might have belonged to offices or apartments, it did not reveal itself once you walked through the door. Nothing about the décor suggested a sex hotel.

Discrete, as promised.

Everything looked deliberately shabby—a location that begged to be forgotten as soon as you left it: wood-paneled walls, shallow ceilings, dim light. A green runner with faded fringe stretched from the entrance across a pale linoleum floor to a small hole in the wall where a deeply disinterested woman about two decades years older than us sat perched behind a window of thick, smudged plastic. It looked exactly like what I had pictured: paused and a little sad; a place stuck in time, like a VFW hall.

We entered off Tenth Avenue, trailing in the November cold as we walked to the lobby window. I cleared my throat. The woman did not look up.

“We’d like a room,” I said.

“One, two, or three hours?” she said, still not looking up. These were the only options.

Laura stood close to my elbow, not touching me. Her eyes stayed low. “One?” she murmured.

“Please?” I said, and immediately regretted it. I had spent some time thinking about the character I was supposed to be playing: a guy, much more confident than me, who couldn’t bring the women he picked up back to his home, so he brought them here. That guy didn’t say please.

Laura was nervous, I could tell. Worse than nervous. Her breathing wasn’t steady. She couldn’t stop moving, shifting her weight, picking at her thumbnail. For the first time since we decided today would be the day, I thought she might really be scared. I wanted to take her hand, reassure her, but that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted us to look like strangers, or at least, people who had just met. Maybe in a bar after work.

According to the hotel’s ancient website, we had to arrive together. No one was allowed into a room alone, and two people was the limit, minimum or maximum.

Cash only, of course.

Key in hand (an actual key, not a plastic card), we walked down the hall to Suite 4, past a series of identical green painted doors. The hall echoed with the sound of couples, theatrically enjoying themselves, as if by staying in a sex hotel, they had given themselves permission to let go. The volume and proximity were startling. It felt familiar, but uncanny, like I had wandered into a dream.

Walking down the hall, I remembered a time in high school when I was staying in a hotel during a debate tournament. While walking to the elevator, I heard a couple fucking inside one of the rooms. I had only ever heard the sounds in porn, and I stopped to listen until they faded. It was so close. Not just the woman moaning, urging the man to keep going, or the man telling her how good she felt. I could hear walls reverberate as the bed moved. The slap of skin against skin. The air between them.

At the time everything about sex, at least with another person, felt so far away from me it might as well have existed on a different planet, and now here it was, just on the other side of the door. So close and not close at all. It had left me with a feeling of loneliness so intense it was physically painful. Like a kind of grief.

To say nothing of the hard on.

I wanted to touch Laura. Hold her. But it wasn’t time yet. She would tell me when.

As I started to unlock the door, she leaned in, whispering, “Are you sure? Absolutely? Because if you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to.”

She had asked me this many times, over many months, and every time I had said yes. Now we were finally doing it. On instinct, I took her wrist and pulled her close. Her breath caught.

“Stop it,” I said. “Now.”

We looked each other in the eye, and I waited for what felt like a very long time before her body relaxed, and a rosy flush consumed her face. She smiled slowly.

I started to breathe.

It’s fine, I thought. We’ll be fine. I turned back to the woman in the window, knowing that if she’d seen that, she’d know for sure I was an asshole, but she still wasn’t looking.

The room was an oblong awash in a neon lavender glow. The bed was round with a violet comforter, four clear posters, and a mirror directly above it, for the sake of subtlety. The carpet was off-white shag. A crimson leather loveseat unfolded beside a black-painted Formica desk bolted to the wall, as if to say: don’t let the bed have all the fun.

A TV grew out of the ceiling beside the single large window. Far down below, cars zipped back and forth along West Side highway. The bathroom door stood open, revealing a lighted heart-shaped mirror and circular bathtub.

“First things first,” I said. “Let’s close the blinds.”

“I’m surprised we’re allowed to,” Laura said. She sat down on the foot of the bed and used the remote to turn on the TV. There were only six channels, all of them porn.

“What do you think?” she asked.

I set my briefcase on the desk, trying not to take in any of the sights and sounds on the screen. “You decide,” I said.

She ran through the options a few times before settling on a scene in which a brunette in a cavegirl costume sat on the edge of a hot tub while a blonde—a scientist, judging from her white lab coat and glasses—ate her out. Spectacular.

Instantly, I had a boner, and hated myself for it. We were here because she had a fantasy in mind, a fantasy in which my boner would be of little use, and if I was feeling this way already, it was going to be a long road.

“What wild plot twists do you think led to this moment?” Laura said.

“Have we started?” I asked.

She smiled. She moved her hands to either side of her ass, leaning forward so I could see her cleavage. She stretched her legs out in front of her. The only sound in the room belonged to the cavegirl. “No. Not yet.”

I wanted to take her in, but I couldn’t get enough of her. Her curly brown hair, her dark eyes, her breasts. She was wearing a suit she might have worn to work: striped blouse, black skirt, black blazer. Sensible heels. She moved back resting on her elbows, letting her small round belly stick out.

She was self-conscious about her belly. Her mother had pressured her to lose weight for the wedding, but Laura was stubborn. She wanted to prove that she didn’t have to lose weight to be a beautiful bride. Still, no matter how many times I told her I loved her body, she tried to make herself look smaller when we were alone, especially in bed. Seeing her this confident thrilled me.

“Okay,” I said. “Tell me when.”

“You need to get everything ready first.”

I brought the briefcase into the bathroom. I opened it and took out a pair of black wrist restraints, purchased the week before at a boutique sex shop.

“You ready for these?” I asked, unsticking the Velcro.

“Not yet.” Her smile twitched. “You’re hard, you know.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“I guess you want to fuck me, huh?”

We both knew what I was and was not going to do while we were here, and she was doing all of this on purpose.

“Is that what you think?” I said, dropping the restraints on the bed.

She uncrossed her legs and rubbed her knees together. The sound her tights made punched me somewhere below the belly button.  “Well, do you?”

“You should take off your jacket first.”

She sighed. I’d seen her pop a mint during our walk here. Now I could smell it on her breath. I knew I’d probably be able to taste it, too. “Why don’t you tell me to?”

“Take off your jacket.”

She took it off, never taking her eyes off me. “Now?”

“Now take off your blouse. Slowly.”

She started working the buttons, watching her fingers. “I like when you tell me what to do.”

“Do you?”

“Oh, yeah. You’re good at it. Better than you know.”

I stood at the foot of the bed. “Scooch,” I said, spanking her thigh.

She scooched back, until she was sitting back against the pillows. There was a charge in the air between us. It felt easy now to pretend we were strangers, but then she moved to slide her ring off, and something in me panicked. “Stop.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Really?”

I stood straight. Let her see how hard she was making me. Let her get into character, too. “I want you to wear the ring your fiancé gave you while I make you come.”

She stopped smiling, watching me. Then, ring in place, she closed her pocketbook with a neat click, and handed it to me. I put it on the desk beside the briefcase.

“Now lie down,” I said.

She didn’t move. “What are you going to do?” she asked. Her voice was an octave higher, working with mock confusion.

I grabbed her wrists and forced her onto her back, pinning her down. We stared at each other. “What do you think?” I asked.

I watched her swallow. She nodded. I let her go. I picked up the restraints and tied one wrist carefully around one bed post. What did this guy do? I wondered. Carry the restraints around with him on the chance he’d stumble into someone’s fantasy?

She watched the mirror overhead.

“Okay?” I asked.

She took a deep breath. “I’m okay.”

“I’m right here,” I said.

She laughed, but even her laugh sounded nervous. “I like watching you do this, but I’m trying not look at your face.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m supposed to be scared and ashamed.”

I walked around to the other side of the bed. Now the cave girl was in the hot tub and fingering the scientist. I dipped briefly into euphoria and forced myself to look away. I knew the best course of action would be to ignore the porn as best I could.

“Did you picture yourself fighting back?” I asked, binding the other wrist.

“No, because deep down I want to be tied up.”

I was relieved. I didn’t know how I’d react if she started to struggle. I might have crumpled, which would have been bad, but it might have turned me on more and I didn’t know what that would be.

We had met in college, members of the same film club, but nothing ever happened between us. We were acquaintances. I thought she was cute, but I didn’t know how to talk to her, or any girl, back then. We had stayed in touch online, but again, only as acquaintances. Familiar names. Then one day, fifteen years after graduation, she messaged me to ask if I still played D&D, and could I recommend an online group to her? I remember staring at the message on the screen in my office. Did you actually tell her you play D&D? Jesus Christ.

So, I invited her to join my group, and she did.

Over the next three years, living on different coasts, we’d fallen in love from a distance, slowly. When we finally met again in person after about a year of correspondence, there was some concern over how our bodies would fit together, whether the vibrant sex life we’d enjoyed virtually would translate to the new medium. We’d gotten lucky.

She told me this fantasy early on, even before we met in person again. It was one of the first things she told me after things turned sexual. We were texting back and forth during the workday about longtime sexual fantasies, things we’d never told anyone else. I remember seeing her text hit my phone: Can we talk? It’d be easier to just say it out loud, and I want to hear your reaction.

So, I called her.

“Don’t judge me,” she said.

“Never,” I said.

“Promise?”

“Try me.”

“I think about meeting a guy. Maybe in a coffee shop or a bar, and maybe he’s married, or maybe he’s just a dick. Or maybe I’m married, and he’s a co-worker, but we’re attracted to each other, and one day, we can’t deny it anymore, and he takes me to a sex hotel.”

“A sex hotel? Do those really exist? Outside of Vegas or Tokyo?”

“Oh, sure. I think they advertise as hourly hotels, but people use them for sex.”

“Really? Cool.”

“Cool?” She sounded pleasantly surprised. Nerves momentarily abated. “So, he takes me to a sex hotel. Because he just sees me as a slut and doesn’t care. He’s not trying to impress me. I’m just available. But at the last minute, I have second thoughts because I’m so guilty.”

“Because he’s married?”

“Or, I’m married. Or something. But he overpowers me and ties me up.”

“And fucks you?”

“No, that’s the thing. He doesn’t fuck me. He decides that he just wants to make me come. So, he does. Over and over and over. He doesn’t care about coming at all.”

“So, he never actually fucks you?”

“He does. But not with his cock.”

“How?”

“You know,” she said, her voice low. “Mouth, fingers. Toys.”

We started talking about this guy, the guy I would play, a guy who was as unlike me as it was possible to be. We never named him, only referring to him in the third person.

“Where did this idea come from?” The whole exchange was turning me on, and I hoped the conversation could segue into some fantastic, mutually gratifying phone sex, but it didn’t. Not just then.

She was quiet. “I don’t know. It’s existed in some form since I was in high school. I think I saw something like it in a movie, but it cut out before anything happened. And I wanted to actually see it. I’ve tried to find it in porn, but it’s never quite right, you know? Never me. I thought maybe it could help me.”

“Help you how?”

“Sometimes I get so in my own head, I can’t focus enough to come. I get anxious, and nothing happens, no matter how badly I want it. But in this, that’s not an issue, because it’s not up to me. It’s up to him, you know? That’s the appeal. It would help me lose myself.”

We roleplayed this scenario a few times over the phone, but now we were doing it in person, together, in the same room. With a mirror on the ceiling.

She wasn’t looking at me.

Her family would be in town tomorrow. Mine was flying in this weekend. Pretty soon, our lives would be swallowed up by obligation that seemed to be for everyone but us. Neither Laura nor I said out loud that it was crucial that we act out the fantasy now, but we both knew it was, as if the next phase of our lives couldn’t begin without it. Because I wasn’t going to fuck her as my wife without doing this first.

I looked at her lying on the bed, arching her back, straining the bonds, her face scrunched in shame. I wondered how much of it was acting.

“My nose itches,” she said.

I reached down and scratched her nose. “Ahhh,” she said. “I think I’m nervous.”

“Well, sure.” I said. “I’m being a dick.”

I reached down and moved her hair out of her eyes. I took two fingers and traced the side of her face, and then her I traced her mouth. She shivered. I stuck my fingers further into her mouth, felt her tongue start to suck on me.

She opened her eyes wide and looked at me. I slowly parted her lips and stuck my fingers in her mouth. I moved them slowly. She squirmed again, pulling against the restraints. Watching them grow taut, hearing the sounds they made against the bedposts, the way they looked around her wrists. My cock strained, wanting her. It felt good. Frustrating, but good.

She was 41. I had just turned 43: a pair of lost causes, barely redeemed. As happy as I’d been since we reconnected, I wondered what we might have had if we had gotten together when she was 18 and I was 20, back when all I needed to get hard was a strong breeze, before we had both been scarred and molded by heartbreaks and disappointments, age and weather. She told me her anxiety hadn’t been as bad back then, that it had gotten worse with each new adult responsibility.

I thought maybe if we’d seen each other then, I could have helped her through it. As good as life was now, it could have been better.

But right now, I felt grateful. I felt like a virile young man again, only infinitely less stupid. I didn’t want to fuck her. I wanted her to be fucked. She was an object that needed fucking, but I was just as much of an object, one that had to give that to her.

That was all we had to be.

She opened her eyes, looking deep into mine while I fingered her mouth.

Seeing her like that, restrained, was doing something to me, stirring something primal. Something wrong. I knew that I could, if I wanted to, just take her. I wasn’t going to, but I could, and knowing that I could made me feel capable of anything. I even felt capable of hitting her. Which didn’t feel like an accomplishment.

We had discussed this. She wanted it, but I didn’t think I would be able to do it. “It’s hitting me, but it’s not abuse,” she said. “It can’t be abuse if I want you to do it.”

But every time I imagined doing it, I felt sick. I heard my father’s voice: what kind of man are you? “I just don’t think I can,” I said.

She’d looked at me, gently, smiling. “I don’t want you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with.” I hoped she wasn’t as sad as I thought she sounded.

I pulled my fingers out of her mouth. She gasped for breath and wet her lips. I moved my hand down between her legs. “Now we’re starting,” I said.

It sounded like both women onscreen were coming. Probably scissoring, because porn, but I didn’t look. Laura did. Her eyes went wide while she watched them. I pushed her skirt up around her waist.

“Please don’t,” she said. “Please stop.”

I placed my hand on the mound between her legs, still safely shrouded by her tights. I’d hoped she would wear a garter belt, something fun to surprise me, but of course she just wanted to dress like an ordinary workday. I ran my fingers up and down the seam of her tights. The seam lined up perfectly with the panties underneath.

I didn’t recognize these panties. Black lace. She usually didn’t wear lace because it irritated her skin. These must have been new.

I desperately wanted to touch them. I held her tights on either side of the seam and started to rip.

She sucked in her breath. “Please, don’t,” she said. “Just take them off. Please. Don’t rip them. I can’t go home like this.”

It was the character, I told myself. We had a safe word. If she really wanted me to stop, she would use it.

“Just tell your fiancé you ripped them like the careless slut you are.” I said. “Or buy another pair. I’ll give you the money.”

The material tore with surprising ease, filling the room with a rough, harsh sound. She was still wearing her work pumps, and we both wanted them to stay on. I slid what was left of the tights down her legs, removed her shoes long enough to dispose of them, and then put them back on her feet.

She was breathing hard, staring at me.

I touched the panties. The lace was stiff; they were very new. I bunched the gusset and held it between her lips, teasing her with it. She groaned and squirmed, tugging at the restraints.

“Fuck,” she said.

“You like that?”

“Fuck!”

“Is this what you wanted when you started talking to me in the bar?”

“I didn’t,” she said, her eyes flashing.

She was performing well. To see her right now, you would think she hated me.

I dropped the panties and put my hand around her throat. She gasped. I clenched tighter, my fingers firm on the sides of her neck (avoid windpipe!). I bent down so that our faces almost touched.

“You did. You know you did. This is exactly what you wanted. A slut like you? Any man could smell it a mile away.”

She pressed her lips together.

I let go of her throat. I pushed her bra up, exposing her. I slapped one breast and then the other. I pulled one of her nipples, began to twist.

“That hurts,” she spat at me.

“Shut up. You like it rough,” I said. “I can tell. You’re the type.”

My hands went back to her panties. With one finger, I lifted the waistband and let go fast, letting it smack against her belly. The soft skin jiggled. I smacked her there, lightly, making her jiggle again. She moved, responding, moaning lightly. She was biting her lower lip, which she knew drove me crazy. I lifted the waistband again and slowly started pulling them down.

She squirmed, pretending to struggle. Her ankles weren’t bound because she thought that might be too restrictive, but she held them still as if they were.

“No, please.”

“You want it.”

“I don’t, please.”

This new pair of panties was very damp now. Once removed, I held them close to my face. I put the gusset in my mouth and sucked. The familiar taste of her clung to the fabric. My cock throbbed inside my pants, wanting her.

She turned her face up to the mirror and took a deep breath. Still holding the panties, I stuck two of my fingers deep inside her. I fucked her like that for a few minutes, while she writhed under me, moaning.

“You sure are wet for someone who doesn’t want it.”

That doesn’t mean she’s aroused, a tiny voice chimed in the back of my head. She had explained this to me herself; wetness had nothing to do with wanting. And it worked both ways. I thought of all the times when we had tried to have sex, but she couldn’t get wet. I want it, she told me. I really do. I just can’t shut my brain off.

It almost always took intense concentration and time to get her wet, but now here she was, soaking. I loved how it felt.

“If you don’t want it,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, “why did you agree to come here?”

“Please,” she said. Her body pushed down on my fingers, rocking against them. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I just…”

“Just what?” I said.

“I thought I wanted it.”

“You do,” I said. “You do want it.” I rubbed her clit with my thumb, and slid a third finger inside her. I put my free hand back around her throat. “Want another?”

“Oh no,” she said. “No, please. You can’t do this. Please. Please?”

She was almost too good at making me believe I was forcing her, though her body was wonderfully responsive, incredibly eager. There were actual tears in her eyes.

I went faster until I was fucking her with half my hand. I didn’t go too fast, but I never broke the rhythm. I treated my arm like machinery; I was a device. Laura lifted her hips. The heel of one pump got tangled in the bedsheet, and I used my other arm to tear it off her foot. It fell to the carpet with a soft thud. Her breathing became sharp. Shallow. Her nipples were so hard now, they seemed to tingle. Her stomach rose and fell faster and faster.

“I think you’re close,” I said, mostly as myself.

She was. She came for the first time that night with my hand still inside her.

I didn’t want to rush through the moment. She had come. I slowed and stopped. She was staring at the mirror, her face stained with tears, her mouth open, her eyes wide. She was panting. Wherever she was in that moment, I wanted to be there with her. But we weren’t done.

My fingers came back impressively wet. I licked one, relishing the homey, familiar taste. “I knew you wanted to come. Do you want to taste yourself?”

“No,” she said. Her face was flush. She closed her eyes and shook her head.

I walked back to the front of the bed and forced them back into her mouth. She didn’t resist long. Her tongue slid around them, and she began licking eagerly.

“Can you taste that?”

She forced her head free, away from me. “Fuck you!”

I knew what had to be done, what the guy would do, and I didn’t have a moment to doubt. I pulled my hand back and slapped her.

She gasped. She flushed again, looking at me.

My hand felt like it was on fire. “Okay?” I asked, my voice hoarse and uncertain. I couldn’t help myself.

She blinked at me.

“Orange,” I said quickly. “Are you okay?” I hated how I sounded. Angry. I wasn’t angry, so why did I sound angry?

“Are you?” she asked.

Her face was red where my hand had been. I looked at the mark, willing it to become abstract. I had hit a woman. Hit Laura. My skin felt tight and very cold. “Yes.”

She nodded. “I love it. Really,” she said in a small voice. “Please don’t stop.”

Even deep in character, she smiled at me.

I slapped her again. Harder. “Answer me, slut.”

“I can,” she said. “I can taste it.”

“Tell me you want more.”

“I want more.”

I thought of the first time I had seen her again, in person. How it didn’t seem like she could possibly be real, be herself. Be the same girl I had known without knowing back in college. She was older, obviously, a little heavier. Her hair was brown instead of red. But she was still herself, and she had been herself back in college, too. Only I didn’t know it yet.

I took her vibrator out of the briefcase. I switched it on, filling the room with a low hum that almost drowned out the performers on screen.

I laughed. A vibrator and restraints? Who was this guy? There was clearly a lot we didn’t know about him. Laura laughed, too, in spite of herself.

“Oh my god,” she said. “Where did you get that?”

“I had a feeling I might need it today. Or someone would.”

“No, please,” she said. “Please don’t.”

I was amazed at how she managed to make each no sound fresh. And real.

With the vibrator on its lowest setting, I pressed it against her pelvic bone. I had watched her use it many times; I knew she liked to start like this. I wanted her to know I paid attention.

She inhaled sharply. Her eyelids closed. She released a deep, guttural moan.

“Does your fiancé ever do this?” I asked. “Does he even know you have a toy or are you too chicken shit to tell him?”

She giggled. “Not fair.”

I moved the vibrator down until it hovered right over her clit without touching it. I turned up the setting. She threw her head back on the pillow and shut her eyes.

When we were planning this, talking out every step, not as part of a fantasy, but as something we were going to do, I noticed that every time she mentioned a detail, she wouldn’t look at me. She’d apologize profusely. She’d ask if she was going too far, being too much. Finally, I asked her what was bothering her.

“It’s selfish,” she said.

“What makes it selfish?”

“It’s all for me. It’s literally all about a guy making me come, with no thought for himself.”

“It’s not selfish,” I said. “How many times have you made a guy come and he’s just passed out after?” I’m sorry to say, even I had done it once or twice.

“It’s different,” she said. “This is something that’s all mine. It’s my fantasy, not yours.”

“But you have experience,” I said. I didn’t know if it was a dick move to mention it, but I couldn’t understand her nerves. She had been a sub for other guys. I knew that; we had talked about it. She had even been tied up before, though never in this context, playing out this fantasy. When we did it, I would be the one in brand new territory. I’d enjoyed the occasional bondage porn. A million years ago, an ex-girlfriend wanted to try out a pair of those fuzzy pink party cuffs. But I’d never had a woman tied up under me, completely at my disposal.

“Not with you,” she told me. “Not like this. I want this to be with you, but I’m afraid you might look at me differently after.”

Now, looking at her, seeing her in her element like this, I hoped she was seeing herself differently. I saw only Laura. But now I began to worry how she might see me after. I’d had moments where I felt jealous of the guy, whoever he was. He was a fantasy, and therefore, perfect, as only a fantasy can be. How would I be able to fill that role? Would I ever satisfy her as myself after this?

I turned the vibrator up to a higher setting.

“What were you thinking when you went to the bar? You were trying to find another man, weren’t you?”

“No,” she said, desperately, shaking her head.

A little bit more. “Are you sure?”

“I swear. I love my husband. I really do. I just…” She didn’t finish the thought. She had started to move her hips against the air, wanting the vibrator.

I didn’t know if she realized she’d said husband, not fiancé.

“Look at yourself right now. Look at what a nasty slut you are.” She listened to me and opened her eyes, looking at herself up in the mirror. I wanted to ask what she was seeing, if she was making eye contact with herself. I pressed the vibrator against her clit.

“Oh,” she said, the sound lodged deep in the back of her throat. “God.”

I knew she didn’t like too much pressure directly on her clit, so I never held it there for too long. I moved back and forth, quickly.

Her clit was swollen and her eyes kept moving.

“Oh, fuck,” she said.

She lay back, her eyes wide, looking up at the mirror. Then she threw her head back and made a sound like she was trying to gulp the air. Her back arched, she went still, and she collapsed. She lay on the bed, shaking. Her fingers dangled limply in the restraints.

I watched her catch her breath and turned back to the TV. Now a man and woman were fucking in a Jeep. He sat in the driver’s seat, while she rode his lap. Her ass kept hitting the horn, making it shriek in short little bursts.

“Orange,” I said. She opened her eyes, raised her eyebrows. “You okay?”

She nodded, breathing deep. “Yeah, I’m fantastic.”

“You need anything?”

“Maybe some water?”

I went into the bathroom and filled up one of the complimentary glasses from the tap. I held up her head and poured it into her mouth slowly. After she finished, she took three deep breaths in a row: her calming breaths.

“Are you sure you’re ready to keep going?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m not upset. It’s just a lot. It’s intense.”

I checked her hands to make sure her fingers weren’t turning blue. Then I went back into the bathroom, filled the glass, and drank it in one pull. I had a spectacular hard on. I knew that if I started right now, I could probably finish in under a minute. I considered it. Maybe, I thought, I should bang one out real quick, just to calm myself down? Be more present for her? She probably wouldn’t blame me, or even be able to tell.

I poured another glass of water. “No,” I said out loud. That wasn’t the plan.

When I came back out of the bathroom, the man and the woman were still in the Jeep. The woman hung half out the window while the man plowed her from behind.

“You want to try that sometime?” I asked, joking, unsure of who I was supposed to be at that moment.

“You have to let me go soon, please,” she said. “I’m supposed to be meeting him for dinner.”

“Meeting who?” I asked, grinning, running my hand down the inside of her thigh. Goosebumps prickled her skin.

She rolled her eyes, a veneer of theatrical fear across her face. “You know who, all right? Let me go, you son of a bitch.”

I spread my palm over her pussy, drawing out a long, thick moan from her. “I didn’t know you were so bold, sweetie.” I looked down at the folds between her legs. “I’ll let you go, very soon,” I said. “I have to be home for dinner, too. But first,” and I almost didn’t recognize my voice, “I want my mouth on that cunt.”

I didn’t eat her out as much as either of us wanted. She wanted to like it, but she didn’t. She said she felt too much pressure to come, which made me nervous to do it, which produced an endless cycle. But now she had no choice. I’d tied her up. She was going to get her fucking pussy eaten.

“You can’t do this,” she said. “Please. Not this.”

She was nervous and trying to hide it, but she still hadn’t used the safe word. I felt guilty that I had.

I moved to the front of the bed and slapped her again. Once. Twice. Old hat now, apparently.

“God,” she said, in a low voice.

She was looking at herself up in the mirror, wriggling but not too much. I returned to the foot. I held her legs firm, apart. She didn’t fight me.

“Look at me, cunt,” I said.

She looked down at me, on the verge of tears. Her breathing sounded desperate. A bead of sweat ran between her breasts. Her nipples were still hard.

“This is going to happen,” I said. “Whether you want it or not. So shut up and take it.”

Her head fell back on the pillow. I kissed her labia, gently at first, then with increasing force. I breathed on her clit and started licking her with the tip of my tongue. She tensed around me, breathed deep, and sank lower on the bed. I could feel her unwinding, coming undone. She didn’t look at me. She hated the look of a head between her legs.

Ironically, I’d done this the night we finally met again in person. I’d been ridiculously enthusiastic, and after about five minutes, she broke into a peal of giggles that I thought had been her coming. She told me later that she hadn’t come. The laughter had been nervous laughter.

“I’ve never been more anxious about anything in my entire life,” she said. “There was no way I was going to come that first time.”

Now she was quiet, except for a series of staccato whimpers. She looked like she was chewing her lip. I wanted to feel her hands on me, in my hair, raking my shoulders. Then I remembered her hands were tied.

“I want to hear you,” I said. “Right now. And I mean really. Hear you.”

“Oh,” she cried out after a pause. “Oh, I--I can’t believe you’re doing this to me. It’s….so…good.”

I was drooling all over my chin. I loved the smell of her, the taste. She was all immersive. I wanted to stay here forever.

By now, I was almost humping the bed, and she was crying. Here in a sex hotel, surrounded by it, she must have felt no shyness about being loud. She started cursing and moaning. She was losing herself. I didn’t stop. I didn’t slow down. I just kept doing what I was doing. I didn’t ask her if she was going to come. The guy wouldn’t ask. He would know.

She pushed herself hard against my head, gasping and panting. “Oh, fuck,” she said. And then she said my name. I don’t think she realized she said it. We had agreed we wouldn’t use it, but there it was, and I was happy to hear it. She said it a few times with no space between, as if it were one long nonsense word. I still held her legs roughly. I pulled back and slapped the inside of both thighs a few times, watching the flesh jiggle and redden, before going back down.

I lost time a little while I was down there. It felt like I was doing it for the first time. I remembered how I used to fantasize about going down on a woman, how it seemed almost more intimate and more unattainable than fucking.

When she came this time, I felt it in my mouth, in her thighs, in her whole body, and my whole body. She screamed so loud this time, it scared me a little. It was louder than I’d ever heard her scream.

Once again, I flashed to the memory of my teenage self overhearing those people in the hall. Of course, this was a different city, a different time, but I felt a surge of pride: Don’t worry, kid. I got you. This is waiting for us. She is waiting for us.

She shook all around me, her thighs trembling around my face. Breathing hard and sobbing. Ripple after ripple of aftershocks.

I walked over to her, put my hand on the side of her face. “Babe?”

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” she said. “I just…didn’t think I could come from that.”

I smoothed her hair out of her forehead. Her face was wet with tears. “You just needed it done properly,” I said.

I bent down and kissed her, hard and deep, forcing her to taste herself. She kissed me back. Then, finally, she used the safe word.

“Can you hold me a little bit?” she asked.

I took off the restraints and sat down on the bed. I rubbed her hands and wrists and she curled against me, weeping. I thought we might talk about it, but then decided I would just let her unwind. If she wanted to talk, she would talk.

The scene on the screen changed yet again: this time to a scene of a teacher unethically discipling two of her students, one young man and one young woman. A scene like this would usually be a go-to for me, but right now, I stared at it blankly, feeling slightly nauseous. It was moments like this when it truly felt like I might never get hard again.

The timer on my phone went off, warning us that we only had fifteen minutes left until check out. I returned the restraints and the vibrator, folded her panties, and took a pair of replacement tights out of the briefcase. Our coats were still where we’d left them.

I didn’t know how to end it. Certainly, she and the guy wouldn’t leave together, although the Empire Inn’s rules stated that both members of each party had to leave together.

“We better get going,” I said. “So, I guess I’ll…”

“Wait,” she said, sitting up. “Before we leave, I want to give you a blowjob.”

And of course, just when I thought my boner was gone forever, it returned with adolescent eagerness. Boners are funny that way.

“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “That wasn’t part of it, remember? I know that wasn’t part of it. I’m not expecting it.”

“I know,” she said, smiling, her face still blotchy and red from crying. “I don’t want to make him come. I want to make you come.”

“Um, okay,” I said, all too aware that the teacher was going down on her female student while the male student fucked her from behind. As happens to all of us in detention.

All it did was remind me of how Laura had tasted. How she felt and sounded.

She undid my belt and my zipper, spat once, and started.

I did not last long. I knew I wouldn’t. That was painfully clear. I was not him. I was myself. I rocked my hips and fisted her hair with both hands.

One perfect point and then.

Done.

My knees buckled and I fell down on the bed beside her. I looked up at the mirror, at us, and we kissed for a while, slowly.

“We should get going,” she said.

We were both still mostly dressed, so there was nothing much to do. Laura put her panties back on and then her new pantyhose. She stood in front of the lighted mirror, pulled a travel brush out of her pocketbook and began fixing her hair. “Let the spirit move you,” she said, quoting the old commercial as she stepped back into her pumps. She kept giggling.

Even here in a sex hotel with porn playing in the background (the teacher and female student were now riding the boy at either end), being here with Laura felt so domestic and intimate, it almost hurt. How would it be this time next week?

“Just so you know,” I said. “I do see you a little differently now, but that’s a good thing.”

“Really?” she said, grinning. She washed her mouth out with the travel Listerine provided by the room (a nice touch, I thought).

“Really,” I said. “How was it for you? Was it what you wanted?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, without pause. “Exactly.”

She was calm now. Calm and happy. Her body settled. With perfect confidence, she touched up her lipstick and switched off the TV.

She walked beside the bed, pulled up the covers, and fluffed the pillows.

“So, you feel good?” I asked.

She looked up one last time at the mirror. “Yes,” she said, and snorted, still laughing at something private.

Then we went to dinner.

THE END