‘Beautiful night, isn’t it?’ he asked as we walked, while I was bursting with questions. Should I go cash the cheque immediately and make sure it doesn’t bounce? Does he proposition women like this all the time? What’s the most he’s spent on a call girl? Did this make me a hooker? What did he want to do first? All of them seemed uncouth to even think about. Would a real hooker think these things? Did that even matter because I wasn’t one?
I mentally paused even as I kept walking arm in arm with him, using my yoga training to centre my mind, and asked myself the most important question of all: did I want to go back to his hotel room? Did I want to offer myself up to him on a figurative silver platter, my body his for being the highest bidder? What was the true difference between a hundred dollars and what he’d offered me? The tingling rush of arousal in my pussy told me everything I needed to know. The money was like the icing on the cake, but it was the bold gesture, the way he’d swooped in and charmed me, without the arrogance of assuming that simply because he wielded a big chequebook I’d bow down before him. He’d seemed 90 per cent sure I’d say yes, but it was that other 10 per cent that made me want him.
‘Penny for your thoughts?’ he asked as we stopped at a red light.
‘Just a penny? No longer a big spender?’
‘Well, what would you like instead?’ he asked, his gaze piercing me as suddenly the lights and commotion around us slipped away. I stared into his eyes and I was the one who leaned forward for a kiss. It was a soft kiss – at first. We pressed our lips together in greeting, in acknowledgment, in anticipation. This wasn’t about the money, or even the power; yes, Clay had bought me, but clearly he didn’t want me simply because he ‘owned’ me or because I ‘owed’ him. He wanted me because I was a woman, because, right now, he sensed something brewing between us that wasn’t going to go away even if I ripped up the cheque.
That made me hot; I’d always fantasised about sex with a stranger, but stopped myself before it went that far. Flirting, yes, making out, sure, even a little groping, but some nagging part of my mind had stepped in before I ever went back to a stranger’s apartment – or hotel room. First-date sex I’d had plenty of, but there’s a lot more you can tell about a person after a two-hour dinner than a twenty-minute drink. So this was new for me on several levels, including the intense heat coursing through my body, from where his tongue met mine on down. Clay Barker knew how to kiss, and when he felt me melt against him, felt me surrender to him just enough for him to take control, he did, winding his hands through my hair and gripping it tightly enough to make me gasp. One hand moved to cup my ass and draw me closer, right there on the street, where anyone could see.
I loved the way his body felt so close to mine, and I also loved that everyone could see us. I wondered what they’d think if they knew I was getting paid $50,000 for this. Would they wonder if I was worth it? Would they want to try me for themselves? Then Clay’s lips pulled me back completely into his embrace. ‘Maya, Maya, Maya. I don’t deserve you.’ How could he know whether or not that was true when we’d barely said five sentences to each other? I didn’t interrupt.
‘What made you say yes?’ he continued, tracing my cheek.
‘I don’t know,’ I said honestly. ‘I’m really not someone who’s usually swayed by money. I mean, I do OK, I get by, and I’m happy with that. I can go out with my friends and indulge in drinks and dinners and the occasional fancy dress but mostly what I want are art supplies. My day job is the opposite of artistic, but it pays for my other love. Sure, fifty grand can buy a lot of art supplies but the truth is, I was intrigued. I wanted to know why a man would offer up so much money without even asking me what I’m into, what I’m like, what I’ll do.’
‘OK. I’m asking now. What are you into? What are you like? What will you do?’
I blushed as I let the questions wash over me. I’m into, well, slightly deviant things. I like to be tied up. Spanked and slapped – on my pussy, my ass, my tits, anywhere, really. Choked. Ordered around. Verbally degraded. Tickled, even though I have more of a love/hate relationship with that. Painful sensations and being put in my place. But I’d never told a stranger that. I’d only told two lovers, one of whom got it, one of whom didn’t. I keep my kinks fairly close to the vest, or low-cut blouse, as it were.
Somehow, though, this whole episode, in all its heightened surreal nature, made me want to tell him everything. Not half the story, not a verbal gambit to see if he’d pounce on it, not what I thought he might want to hear. I had tried all those things in the past and while sometimes I’d wound up with some beautiful bruises, with my breath catching in my throat, with my body alive with the thrill of submission, it had never gone as far as I’d wanted. It had never gone all the way. I’d always held something, some vital part of myself, back, waiting for the moment to be right, and it never was, not exactly. This moment, maybe because of the money, maybe because I had nothing to prove – who cared if he liked me when this was done? – felt safe.
‘I’m into spanking. Slapping. Choking. Kinky stuff. I’m the kind of girl who likes to please; I get off on it. I get very, very wet when I get down on my knees and if you put a cock in my mouth, well, I could stay there all night. I like to cry. I like to go somewhere else entirely, but be grounded right here while I’m being used. I like to be a little scared, a little nervous. I like for the guy to be in charge and to own that. To guide me. To use me completely for his own pleasure.’ I was trembling by that point, the tears already waiting to be unleashed, my cunt suddenly painfully tight as the light turned from red to green and back again several times while I told Clay everything I could think of.
The words poured out of me, yet rather than feeling nervous, I felt calm, because I could see in Clay’s eyes that he wasn’t just listening passively, wasn’t just filing away my words for in-the-near-future reference, but he fully got it – and liked it. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said, raising an eyebrow. ‘If I were a betting man I’d say that we should head to Atlantic City, because those are all things I like to do to pretty girls like you. But a man in my position can’t be too careful; I’m sure you know how easily a thing like this –’ he gestured at me, running his fingers along my side from my ribs to my waist ‘– could get in the papers. And I don’t think you want anyone to know that about you, do you, Maya? Anyone but me?’
We’d veered into dangerous territory, the leap from awkward to intimate jumped in mere moments. Suddenly it was as if he could’ve demanded I pay him $50,000 and I’d have done so in a heartbeat. It sounds crazy, in a way, but it didn’t to me. I’ve always been a leap-before-I-look kind of girl, the one who follows her heart, or her pussy, occasionally both working in concert, far more than her head. What was even crazier was that as he said it, he made it true. Just as some guys can walk into a strip club and be instantly mesmerised by a certain girl, maybe because of the way she smiles at him, the way her lips glisten, the size of her breasts, the promise contained within her sweat-slick, shiny body, making him forget that they’re in an alternate reality, I too chose to sustain disbelief. Well, ‘chose’ makes it sound like I had, well, a choice. I didn’t, not really.
I was standing in the street, dripping wet, wishing he’d grab me and shove me down onto the dirty sidewalk. This wasn’t about the money, though we both knew he couldn’t rescind the offer. The money was simply the gateway to our real purpose, a calling card a man like Clay used the way other men used pick-up lines or killer smiles. Clay took my arm and pinched the inside of it, about halfway between my wrist and my elbow. He held my flesh until I looked up from where our skin touched into his eyes. If he’d grabbed my ass, tried to spank me in the street, copped a feel, anything clichéd or ridiculous like that, I might’ve walked away. But what he did told me that he knew he could have me any way he liked. He could pinch any part of me and I’d respond with need.
But he only pinched that part, then settled his hand on my arm as we walked. He hummed to himself, almost as if I wasn’t there, yet I was sure he was just as aware of our being together as I was, of this unexpected journey we were about to take. The more we walked, the more focused I became on the heat of his fingers warming my arm. My