Chapter 1: Careless Moment

Melissa had never felt like this. Desperately gasping from her last orgasm, nipples and vulva still intensely sensitive, she was starting on another.

Jon’s lips and tongue were everywhere on her breasts. His fingers rubbed one spot deep within her. His other hand rested gently on her forehead, comforting her through her agony.

And it was agony. Waves of fire crashed around her, tossing her to and fro. Then they crashed through her, flinging her into a furnace of passion.

Until it was blessed relief. She was back on her sofa. Jon was kneeling beside her, holding her and comforting her and kissing her. These were gentle kisses, on her forehead and eyebrows and cheeks. He no longer sucked on her still-stinging nipples.

“A minute,” she gasped. It had never been so complete with anyone -- nor by herself. And he hadn’t even been in her.

“As long as you need,” he replied. He caught up her hand in one of his, and kissed the back -- each knuckle, each finger. He turned away to remove something tangled around her ankle; it must be her panties. He pecked a kiss on her kneecap, another on her shaven mound.

When his face was back in focus, he was grinning. He pecked a kiss on her chin, avoiding the mouth she still needed for oxygen supply. He carefully brushed the hair back from her face, lifting individual strands from the perspiration sticking them to her skin. He kissed her forehead again, a very gentle suction, not the pecks he’d given her immediately before.

That kiss was a comfort from deep in her past. Could he know that? Could Jon know her so well? She hardly knew him at all.

The man who’d moved into the condo above hers had invited her to his first party in the new place. The drinks and snacks were a standard exchange for not complaining about the noise; Jon turned out to be a bonus. He’d been their host’s lawyer for the closing, and most of the other guests had been strangers to him just as they were to her. Attracted as much as thrown together, they’d exchanged telephone numbers. He’d called the next day.

On the first date, he’d walked her to her apartment door and kissed her thoroughly. On the second, she’d invited him in for a nightcap. The glasses were still half full. But this memory had taken her more than the minute she’d asked for.

“Want to come up here?”

He broke his kiss to answer. “Don’t think I’d fit. Here!” He rose from his kiss. “Hold the back of my neck.”

When she hugged him, he slipped his arms under the sofa cushion and pulled it off with her still lying on it. It wasn’t the smoothest ride in the world, but the only parts that really bumped when the cushion fell to the floor were her heels.

Jon straightened her on the cushion, partly lifting and partly sliding. When he was done, her hips were just at one edge. “Your feet okay?” he asked. She nodded that they were, but he went to them anyway. “Poor feet,” he said, though he kissed the ankles, not the heels.

He kept kissing the insides of her legs, moving upwards between them. By the time he had reached the tops of her thighs, she was writhing again. She was about to start the climb to her explosion, but she wanted him in her this time. She needed him in her this time.

“Please come inside,” she said. He kept licking her labia. They were exquisitely sensitive after the last series of orgasms, even the outer ones, more sensitive than they had ever been before. The licking drove her wild, but it wasn’t quite enough to take her over. After an agonizing length of time, his tongue touched -- just touched -- her clit. She tensed. “Oh yes!” she said.

He went back to the labia. “Please,” she said. She started playing with her own breasts. It couldn’t have been hours before he touched the clit again, but it felt like hours. She was so close. “Please,” she begged, “oh please, please.” When he returned to her entryway, she could stand it no longer. She moved her own hands downwards.

She couldn’t restrain her fingers at all. The intense friction was painful, but it was taking her to the top ... Then he grabbed her wrists and pulled them away. She needed, oh she needed, something there. His gentle, soothing kiss was something, but it wasn’t enough. She struggled for a moment, but he clearly had the advantage of strength. As she relaxed her arms, he returned his mouth to the spot. She was close; she was there; she was over.

And, as she started to pulse deep within, his mouth was gone again. She screamed her frustration, screamed until his mouth covered hers. Her hands suddenly released, she clawed at him until she felt him at her vulva. His hands, pressed down by his whole weight, held her pelvis steady as he eased inside. Then she writhed once more as the slow friction began.

The stimulation was entirely different, and the agony continued through three more strokes. Then she was pulsing again, gripping him within her as the fire played over her breasts and through her center. She was warmth, and heat, and fire. She was around him, she was under him, she was nowhere, and she was everywhere.

Until she was nowhere again, and nothing, and limp as a rag. Except that he was moving within her still, somehow. And, impossible as it seemed, she rose to meet him once again. She tightened one more time, though her muscles screamed that they were done. And, when she felt him pulse within her, she pulsed in response. He kept hard and moving until she was quite done, done for the night, done for her lifetime.

He was heavy, but she had no breath to frame a complaint. No mind, for that matter.

Then, with a whispered “Back soon,” he was gone.

He waked her by picking her up. Being carried to her room, being laid down on the bed, reminded her of her childhood. When she was very small, her daddy used to carry her like that. Jon even tucked her in like Daddy had and kissed her forehead. “Sleep tight,” said Jon. “I’ll take care of letting myself out. I’ll take care of everything.”

His taking care of everything. What a wonderful-sounding idea. “I wish you would. I wish you could, I mean. Take care of everything.”

He kissed her. It wasn’t erotic, their mouths were closed; it wasn’t even romantic. It was comforting. “For tonight, I will take care of everything,” he said.

The next day was a Saturday. She was profoundly grateful for that by the time she started breakfast -- at a few minutes before one. After that, she cleaned off the makeup from the night before, removed the diaphragm, and took a shower. With that preparation, she felt able to face what the living room must look like after the abandon of the night before.

The reality wasn’t that bad. Her clothes were neatly stacked on the sofa, blouse on top -- not in the order she had taken them off. She had a few minutes panic over the earrings, before finding them on her dresser in the bedroom. The necklace, which she had quite forgotten, was with them.

Her ears were pierced; the earrings were studs. When had she taken them off?

Not in the bedroom before, she always wore earrings when a man was present. She replayed the previous night. She had still been wearing the jewelry when he’d pushed her panties down. Then he’d given her that nearly-continuous string of orgasms. She couldn’t have managed the coordination to remove the necklace, let alone the earrings, during that -- even if she could have spared them the attention.

It must have been afterwards, after he had carried her to bed and tucked her in like a little girl. He had taken care of those hard objects against her skin, like he’d taken care of everything. She smiled when she remembered that he said, “I’ll take care of everything.” If only he could!

But he’d taken care of a lot. He’d taken charge of the dates: “Do you enjoy dancing?” when he’d asked her out for the second time; “do you like Thai food?” when he’d picked her up. Courteous enough, avoiding any disaster of allergy or anything like that, but he wasn’t one of those wimps who left half the planning to her. She was an assistant corporate comptroller for God’s sake; she didn’t want to control her dates as well.

While searching the living room for the earrings, she had come across the wrapper for his condom. He hadn’t needed to do that. On the other hand, she hadn’t been in much shape to communicate by the time he’d used it. It was the same sort of thing; he was willing to take care of everything. She wished that he could.

She had said that! Had she said that? Had she told Jon that she wished he could take care of everything? Had he really heard her?

She always played her role so carefully. She was the competent woman executive. She demanded total obedience in business matters from her subordinates. And, in social relationships, she played the appropriate role, a modern liberated woman. If her dates were both attractive and attentive, they could fuck her. They couldn’t spank her, much less tie her up. They couldn’t take care of her, either; she took care of herself.

And, when she needed to be spanked, needed to be tied up, needed to have another person in control, she took care of that too. But she never mixed the two roles. More than that, she never mixed the two worlds in which she lived.

And, then, she blew it on a second date. Had he heard what she’d said? What she’d let slip just because the sex was better than she had experienced in a long while. He may have heard the words, but not understood the depths of her meaning. After all, when he’d heard them, he’d been immediately post-orgasmic, too. He might have forgotten those words already.

Because, if he really understood what she’d said, really knew that she wanted him to take control of her life, she’d never hear from him again. He wanted the woman he’d asked out on the date, an independent woman, someone he could take to the movies, could take dancing, could even fuck in her apartment. But he didn’t want someone he had to take care of.

Those thoughts went back and forth. Blasé’ Jon, who shrugged off her words, traded places in her imagination with sensitive Jon -- and he had been sensitive -- who knew precisely what she had asked. She managed to get to the cleaners before they closed, leaving the food shopping for Sunday.

He didn’t call Saturday, and he didn’t call Sunday. Clearly, Jon had understood what she had said, understood what she had needed, and would never ask her out again. Worse, Jon knew about her executive life, had her business phone number, was friends with her upstairs neighbor. One slip in her constant watchfulness, one careless moment, and the dual lives she had worked so hard to keep separate were starting to come together. Or, more accurately, her life was starting to come apart.

But, to give the devil his due, Jon hadn’t simply come across her in a random weak moment. He’d brought her to a sexual peak rare in her adult life. And then he’d cared for her like no one had since her early childhood. When had her father last carried her to bed? Second grade? Third grade? Something like that.

She knew that the sensible thing was to cut her connections to the other side and bluff his discovery out. “Did I say, ‘I wish you could take care of everything’? Don’t we all wish that? Doesn’t mean I really want somebody else to control me, though.”

But her connections to the other side had never been about the sensible thing. They had never been the slightest bit sensible, only necessary for her life.

And, now when she saw everything collapsing, those connections were more necessary than ever. She went out to a pay phone to call the recording machine. “Master, this is slut 273. I beg for an appointment. Could it be Monday? I will call back later.” Nobody ever picked up the phone on a first call. Sometimes she wondered if He really had 272 others. Maybe He had more by now; she’d had that number for years.