Driftwood Deeds(18)

“Good,” I said, quietly against the raw quality of my throat and voice. “Really good. Like I have a new body.” And not just a new body, a new mind as well: a reboot that cleared all the junk in my temporary files. There was peace in the way I regarded the moment, a lack of immediate judgment and instead an ability to stay open and vulnerable to the world around me.

The satisfaction in his face was obvious. He reached for some food himself, piling it on his plate without sharing my compunctions of appearing too greedy before looking back up at me.

“Is it supposed to be so... meditative?” I asked, but wrinkled my brow. “I don’t know how else to say it, that doesn’t seem like the right word.”

Paul chuckled. He tilted his head to the side.

“Because most meditation techniques don’t include either sex or pain?” There was no need for an answer but I nodded anyway. “They do exist—there’s nothing pure that religions haven’t tried to co-opt for their purposes. Pain, submission, utter surrender of the self is part of many religions.”

I thought about this while tasting his prawns and bread. He was a good cook, but clearly my state of mind was doing its part to add to the sensory experience of taste and texture. To speak and eat at the same time seemed like sacrilege, but with that thought I was back at our conversation.

“So you think it’s... like a religious experience, this kind of... you know?”

Smiling that knowing little smile, Paul shook his head. “That’s not quite what I said—that would be awfully grandiose of me. Particularly in regards to my own role in the experience.” Snorting a little, he reached up and reset his glasses in a way that always made him so gentle and thoughtful, all those little lines around his eyes still crinkled in a smile. “I just meant that these stimuli are powerful, for anyone but especially for people like us whose sexuality draws from them so much.”

I thought about this as I pushed a prawn tail around the plate with my fork. I tried to feel into myself, forging paths into these newfound countries that were blossoming out of my emotional landscape like snowdrops in spring.

“Tell me what it felt like for you,” he asked, his eyes focusing on me with that intensity I was beginning to associate with him. He just had a way of regarding me that seemed to blend out the rest of the world as though nothing else could be interesting enough to be worth interrupting his focus for. It made me shiver and blush, too. Holding his gaze was not the easiest thing to do, especially now that my mind had left the place where each word of his was a rule to live by, but I was practicing—several seconds each time.

“It was like... I was floating,” I tried, “like every care in the world had been taken from me. There was only one thing left.”

“What was that?”

I hesitated, then looked down at my food and shrugged. “You,” I all but whispered, then quickly shook my head. “I suppose not you specifically, just you—the person putting me into that state. All that mattered was... pleasing you, doing what you wanted me to do, making you happy.”

My face burning, I tried to turn back to my food but it was hard to swallow and I had to reach for my glass, doing my best to avoid his glance. Maybe I wasn’t quite as removed from him as I had thought, because once out of my mouth, I could hardly believe I had uttered all those words. Paul didn’t seem surprised, though. He just had that mild smile on his face and nodded.

“That’s why I brought you out of it,” he explained gently. Surprise must have registered on my face because he reached over and brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “I was surprised you went down so hard. It’s not something most first-timers reach, especially since you hardly know me.”

I blushed and my mouth fell open but he quickly shook his head and corrected himself. “Oh, that’s nothing to be embarrassed about, it doesn’t say anything bad about you. I was merely surprised. Pleasantly surprised, Iris. But usually by the time a woman is so open and so vulnerable in front of me, I know more about her, her wishes, her limits, her fears. You said it, all that mattered was to make me happy. It’s a state in which you can be manipulated quite easily... and I wanted to make sure you got a break from it, got to reassess and talk about it.”

He was speaking for a long time and I admired him for the simple and casual way in which he discussed matters of such delicacy. Manipulation, sex, submission—it still made no rational sense in my head but my body was responding to him even then, even when he was just explaining the theory.

“Thank you,” I answered and reached for his hand. Smiling, he squeezed it and then turned it around until my palm faced the open air and he could trace the curved lines with his rough fingertips.