Paul didn’t smile. He watched me and when he came to my thumb, he sucked it into his mouth in turn. Within a moment, it was engulfed in warm, unexpectedly intense wetness. My eyes bulged and I uttered an involuntary sigh that rang through the silent room. His tongue curled around it, flicked at it and then he suckled hard. Just when the first moan broke through my chest, he let it slip out, though, causing a sudden and stark difference in temperature.
“You have a tape recorder with you, don’t you?” he asked, more hoarse than before. Numbly, I nodded.
“Fetch it for me.” When I was about to get to my feet, he continued, “There’s no reason for you to get up.”
I stared. For a moment, I couldn’t move but he simply looked at me as though he had said nothing extraordinary at all. Before my brain could catch up and make my face erupt in heat, I nodded, and leaned forward, letting my palms meet the floor. The pressure that rolled over my kneecaps made me grunt, but once I was settled, it wasn’t so bad. I looked back up at him one more time, checking if this was indeed what he meant and when he smiled approvingly, I started to crawl around him and towards the door. The moment I left the threadbare carpet, I could feel my tights snag on the wooden floorboards. I stopped, managed to disentangle them but after a few feet it happened again and this time, I could do nothing to prevent the ripping sound. Immediately, I was more aware of my ass swinging, of exposing myself, of the humiliating posture and every time my thighs moved against each other I thought I was even wetter than before.
By the time I reached my bag, I was out of breath from the unfamiliar style of movement. I sat back on my heels and looked through my things until I found the recorder. It was an old model, faux metal with quite a few scratches. It lay comfortably in my hand but when I tried to crawl with it, I realized it wouldn’t be that easy. More long than broad, I knew I could fit it into my mouth and the movie flashed through my mind. It was what he would expect, but when I opened my lips to push it between my teeth, the shape and width was so suggestive, I could feel the blood rush to my cheeks so hard it made me dizzy on the way back.
He didn’t immediately take it from me when I was kneeling back by his side. He looked at my torn tights, the hint of saliva in the corner of my mouth, the red pressure marks on my open palms. Finally, he stroked my cheek and gently extricated the tape recorder. He weighed it in his hands and opened it. A tiny little cassette sprang out and he laughed.
“Where do you even still get these?” He took it out to examine it as if it were one of his shark teeth or a dinosaur bone.
“Ebay.”
He chuckled again, putting the cassette back into place. “Good girl. Thank you.”
My mouth opened but nothing came out. I had not expected that and with each time he did this, made me pause and reassess the constant mind-movie of expectations, I wanted him more. His knees were so close, I wanted to climb up onto his lap and start undoing his shirt, I wanted to kiss his neck and find out if his hair smelled like salt and sea. Instead, I just trembled under his gaze.
“Do you know why I asked you to bring this?”
I shook my head.
“You sound beautiful when you’re aroused. I want you to hear that, your moans and cries, when you aren’t so distracted by what I’m going to do to you.”
I stared at the recorder, remembered my mother giving it to me when I started university. I didn’t tell her how far technology had progressed in the field. I still haven’t.
“And maybe later,” he added with a knowing smile, “I’ll take a picture of the beautiful way you blush.”
Before I could think about that statement—the warning?—he had put the recorder on the table and scooted back a little with his ottoman. Patting his lap once, my face split into a smile but again he stopped me when I tried to get up.
“Ah-ah-ah,” he chided, shaking his head even as his voice never rose over a gentle and friendly murmur. “Over the knee, not on my lap for now. See—you know what I mean, that’s why you are feeling your muscles seize up around your chest, why you are growing dizzy. I bet you found some of those corners online, looked at pictures—didn’t you?”
I nodded. Of course I had—was there really anyone left who hadn’t? My hands were trembling like leaves in a storm when I tried my best to lean over his lap. It wasn’t enough and I knew it as I felt my breasts squish against his thigh and my back lay straight over his lap.
“Go ahead,” he said, gathering my hair to the far side of my neck to give him a better view and I tried to rise to my feet only to scoot my body further over his knees until my hands could reach the ground on the other side. At this point I could only expel fast gulps of air and was clenching my jaws against each other to keep them from shaking with nerves.