77 Days

By Kabochon

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Summary:      Well…you decide.

Timeline:         Outside canon; response to a fanfic challenge.

Rating:            NC-17

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Day 1

When I first meet him, I am in the grocery store, searching for fruit.  He’s standing at the juncture of the strawberries and grapes, holding several of the former in his hand, smelling them.  I guess I notice him because of his state of dress.  He’s wearing a beautifully cut dark suit and a white fedora, dark sunglasses hiding his eyes.  He is small, sleek, immaculate and very dapper.  I myself am squeezing plums maybe three feet from him and couldn’t help but watch him.  He’s better looking than my plums and I slyly think about putting him into my basket instead.  Then he looks up, right into my eyes and I look away quickly.  I feel a heat rising in my cheeks as I sigh.  Busted.  But I had to look back at him and to my surprise, he is still staring at me.  So I have to meet his gaze and he summarily slides the strawberries back into the container and comes over to me.  Wiping his hands with a silky white handkerchief, he extends his left hand, capturing my right, and raises it to his lips to kiss it.  “Good afternoon.  My name is Hannibal…”

Day 3

I am in his bedroom, lying on his bed.  His room, his entire house in fact, is beautiful, with masculine overtones and rich accents.  His taste is exotic, extravagant and foreign.  I am in the presence of a cultured man.  He comes into the room carrying a tray, wearing gray slacks and a gray overshirt, which sets off his hair and his odd maroon eyes.  I smile at him, thinking how attractive he is for an older man.  The tray contains fresh fruit.  He knows how much I like fresh fruit.  In the short time I’ve known him, he has figured out everything that I like and has made all of it available to me at any time.  He does everything and I rather like the idea of being waited on by such a handsome man.  “Sit up,” he tells me.  I do.  “Close your eyes,” he says.  I do.  “Open your mouth,” he instructs.  I do.  I am rewarded with the sweet taste of globe grapes and then a decadent strawberry.  The juice from the strawberry runs over my lip and I stick out my tongue to lick it off and he says, “No,” in a tone that demands I obey, which I do.  “Do not open your eyes,” he says and I keep them closed as I feel something warm and moist dab at my lip.  I grin because it feels good.  “You taste like this strawberry,” he says, his breath warm against my cheek.  I must know if the effect I have on him is similar to the one he has on me.  “You like strawberries?”  “Yes.”  “Good.”  I do not open my eyes and I feel my lips as he finally claims them, ripe with fruit nectar and my own honey.  I like what I taste.

Day 4

The first time we make love, he pins my hands down above my head.  I like it.  I like him.  He is cultured and interesting, extremely intelligent and he pleases me.  The second time we make love, he asked me if he could blindfold me.  It is a new experience and one that I like.  I couldn’t stop smiling at work today.  I have found an extraordinary lover in this man.  The third time we make love, he teases me and repeatedly brings me within a nanosecond of climax.  I all but beg him to please continue after five times of such occurrences.  This time he obliges and I knew I was falling in love.  The fourth time we make love, he ties my wrists together with a fabulous Hermes scarf.  That morning, he sent a dozen white roses to my office.

Day 7

I go to his house after work.  It is a ritual now.  He has taken the liberty of transplanting my clothes and other affects.  I only go by my apartment now to pick up my mail and feed my fish.  He is there, waiting for me and I never think how odd it is that he is so wealthy yet does not appear to work.  I have time enough to say “Hi” and then he is all over me.  We make love with most of our clothes on and it is so good and I think ‘Where have you been all my life’ and then we eat the dinner he has prepared which turns out to be tenderloin and saffron rice.  The meat is exquisitely tender and delicious and I cannot place the taste yet I know it is not beef.  I do not ask him what it is; early in our conversations he revealed to me that he was a protective cook and would tell nothing of his culinary secrets.  We finish the excellent meal with glasses of Batard-Montrachet and soufflé and I am near to burst.  We sit on the edge of his bed and he holds my face in his hands for so long I think I could drown in the mysterious pools that are his eyes when he slaps me.  He then produces a mirror and shows me my face and the spot on my cheek that is reddening from the blow.  I stare, transfixed.  He traces the blossoming blemish tenderly.  The next day, I am addressing my supervisor, one Jack Crawford, and I flashback to last night and the image in the mirror and desire floods me in intense waves and I have to sit down.  Mr. Crawford asks if I am okay and I nod yes but the reality is that I want to cry when I think that it will be at least six hours before I see him again.

Day 10

And so it went, one piece at a time.  I am with him every night and he makes love so very very well that soon I was crazy about him and not just physically.  I found myself in a situation that most would deem pathological but I myself never thought to label it at all.  Later I come to see it as being in a dream state or a serious phantasmagoric episode, but never pathological.  Never that.  It just lacks implication.  I can say that now.

Day 12

We go shopping today; for what I’m at a loss until he tells me when we arrive at Hammacher Schlemmer and head for bedding.  “What are you looking for?” I ask.  “A bed,” he says.  “A bed?  You’ve got a great bed!”  “Yes, my dear.  A great bed for one person.”  I shut up on hearing the tone of his voice and I realize he doesn’t like to be impudently questioned.  We look at beds or rather, he looks at beds, searching for whatever will catch his eye.  The one he chooses is so not like the other furnishings in his very elegant abode that I am inclined to think it garish.  I almost say this, but the imperceptible glint in his dark eyes silences me.  I should learn to control my impudence.  The bed is brass, with opulent curved head and footboards and I stare at it.  “Lie down,” he says to me. I give him a look and he says it again.  “Lie down on the bed.  I want to see how you look on it.”  I do as he says and lay primly on the decorated coverlet.  We are in the middle of the store I realize but it doesn’t matter.  “Grab the headboard, my dear.”  I do as instructed.  He comes closer.  “Spread your legs,” he says to me.  To the attendant, “When can I have this bed delivered?” She replies, “Your delivery area is…hmm, three days.”  He nods and directs his gaze back to me.  “Wider.”  I open my legs wider, mindful I’m wearing a dress at his request.  “Wider, my dear.  Throw your head back.”  The attendant stares at me as well as errant passersby too nosy to pay attention to themselves.  “Open your mouth.”  His voice is velvet and how can I resist?  To the attendant, “Please select for me the highest quality Posturepedic and box springs to go with this bed and four fat large goosedown pillows.  I will be expecting the delivery in three days’ time.  Good afternoon.”  He turns back to me, dismissing the goggling attendant.  “All right, my dear.  You may get up.”

Day 15

The bed arrives and we go shopping to find linens for it.  I am on his arm, dressed in clothes I could never afford.  I can’t help but wonder if I’ve ever been this happy.  After buying linens, we are both carrying parcels when we stop into an obscure sports shop.  I wait by the counter, sitting my parcels on the floor and began flipping through a circular on the counter.  He goes ahead with the clerk and I hear, “That one.  May I try it out please?”  I do not look up from my circular until he comes over to me, a riding crop in his hands.  “Lift your leg and put it here.”  He points to a footstool in front of me.  I bend my leg, he lifts my skirt, exposing my leg and thigh, uncovered by pantyhose.  He steps back and strikes me across the inside of my thigh.  The pain is blinding, exquisite and with it comes the heady wave of lust and I cannot even draw breath to whimper.  My eyes are locked with his and I do not notice the shock on the faces of the clerk and the few customers that are milling around the front.  He covers my leg with my skirt and turns to the clerk, who is beet red, and hands him cash.  “I’ll take it.”

Day 16

What he did:

He fed me.  He did all the cooking and all the cleaning.  He dressed me every morning, undressed me at night and had my clothes laundered right along with his. He even kept up my shoes, having them polished and buffed and resoled if necessary.  He read to me endlessly and not in English.  I was treated to his hypnotic voice reciting beautiful words I don’t know the meaning to in French, Spanish and Italian.  He washed my hair every other day and dried with my hair dryer.  He bought an outrageously expensive hairbrush to brush out my hair and beat me with it.  The bruises stayed longer than any I’d had while with him, but every night he brushed out my hair for long periods of time and my locks have never looked so good.  He bought tampons for me and inserted and extracted them.  I was taken aback the first time and his explanation was simple, “I eat you while you menstruate and there’s no difference.”  He ran my bath every evening, using expensive bath emollients and creams to keep my skin lustrous and soft.  It never occurred to me to wonder what his housekeeper thought of the whip that lies on the dining room table, or the several pairs of handcuffs that lie sporadically throughout the house and at either end of the brass bed, or the pile of thin chains that lay coiled in a corner of the bedroom.  I did wonder what she thought of the large number of shampoos, conditioners, the various bath salts, gels, bubbles and creams that overflowed the cabinets and lined the side of the tub.  He took off my makeup using a cotton ball dipped in lotion, running it gently over my forehead and cheeks and lingering it over my eyelids.

What I did:

Not a damn thing.

Day 20

I am standing, my heels raised, almost on tiptoes, across the room from him.  My hands are handcuffed over my head and I am hanging from a hook in the wall. I am in darkness watching him read by the light of a lamp.  I was told to be quiet what seemed like an eternity ago.  My arms begin to hurt and then ache and then my whole body begins to ache when I finally give in and say, “Please, it hurts…really, I can’t stand it any more…”  He glances up at me, his maroon eyes unreadable from this distance.  Then he rises, goes into the bedroom, and then comes out holding a handkerchief and another one of my Hermes scarves.  “I thought I told you to be quiet, Clarice.”  He stuffs the handkerchief in my mouth and ties the scarf across it.  I taste the cleanliness of the cloth.  The news comes on and the reporter drones on about the two murdered individuals whose corpses were missing organs.  He looks up at the television, enraptured.  I try to listen to the news, try to concentrate in order to take my mind off the pain.  It doesn’t work.  My arms are screaming now and I ache all over and I can do nothing because of the handkerchief stuffed in my mouth.  Finally he comes to me and turns on the light.  I am blinded, closing my eyes against the light and the tears that have begun lighting my cheeks.  He stares at me, small sleek man in dark clothes.  In one hand he holds a bottle of oil that he uses to rub me with after my luxuriant baths.  He does so now, beginning with my armpits and my neck.  I can’t even register this, my brain is overridden by the involuntary spasms my muscles undergo.  He massages my breasts and I let the tears flow, beginning to choke on them.  He rubs my belly and tears run up my nose and I can’t breathe at all now.  I barely feel his fingers sliding into me because I know I’m choking, I’m asphyxiating, I’m dying.  He stretches my legs apart and it hurts like bloody everlasting hell and I can take no more and the tears flow harder.  He finger-fucks me while staring at me…he is blurred through my tears…and everything is transformed and I come, my cries muffled by the handkerchief.  He releases me, frees me and then fucks me standing up.  Then he bathes me, lotions me down and rubs my wrists, shaking his head slowly.  “Pity, my dear.  You’ll have to wear long sleeves tomorrow, what a nuisance, it’s going to be a scorcher…”

Day 23

I am blindfolded and all I know is that I’m sitting on the floor, in front of something cool.  I have since learned not to question his methods or motives, just go with the flow.  “Open your mouth,” he tells me and I do and my mouth is filled with the taste of ripe strawberry.  I chew slowly, relishing the flavor of the fruit.  I open up again without waiting for his command and soon as I think that I have erred, he fills my mouth with…a peach!  The juice dribbles down my chin and I go to lick it away and he says,  “Wait…” and I feel the warm sensation of his incredible tongue dabbing at my chin.  I open my mouth again and this time I get…olives, rich and succulent, a sharp salty contrast to the taste of the peach.  I chew and swallow, loving this experimentation.  The next time I open up, my mouth is filled with a rich, sweet mushy substance that I do not recognize.  “What?” I say as I chew the marvelous morsel, “what is it?”  “Figs, my dear…Anatolian figs.”  I open my mouth again…this time a draught of ice-cold water slurries down my throat and it is magnificent.  It is magnificent.  My body sensation has been channeled into my tongue, making this experience as rich as any other one he has given me the three weeks I have been with him.  I open my mouth again…pineapple!

Day 27

Our evenings rarely varied.  He ran my bath, undressed me, handcuffed me to the rail, bathed me and then allowed me to soak while he starts dinner.  When I was ready to get out, he uncuffed me, lifted me out, dried me off with fabulous plush towels, dressed me in what has become my in-house gear…an oversized Brooks Brothers shirt in either blue, pink, gray or white…shirts he does not wear but likes on me…and he handcuffs me to the kitchen table leg while he finishes dinner.  We had endless talks…my days at work and his memories of Florence.  When dinner was ready he made one large serving and fed me from his fork, alternating between his lips and mine.  He held the wine to my lips and allowed me to drink when I was thirsty.  Sometimes he would push my head between his legs and I would fellate him as he ate, trying to see how long it would be before I could make him drop his fork.  It was a good game.  We talked more than anything and I felt as though I’d known him all my life.  We never went out and only saw coworkers and friends at lunchtime.  Most evenings, I was handcuffed to the table or couch or anywhere, just within touching distance of him.

Day 30

I have known this wonderful man for a month.  We are having dinner at a posh upscale restaurant and I am happy.  I am with him.  I am blabbering on about my day at work and my instincts telling me that my boss, Jack Crawford, has the hots for me when he places his thumb across my lips.  “Tell me later,” he says, “but leave your mouth open.”  He takes his hand and dips his thumb into the glass of wine we have been sharing…it is Batard-Montrachet and it is exquisite. He wets my lips with his thumb, my mouth becomes slack under the gentle pressure and he rubs it against my teeth.  Uncaring I am that we are out in public, at lunchtime, in broad daylight.  I begin to suck his thumb languidly, enjoying the taste of him underneath the wonderful wine he has made me grow accustomed to. My eyes close and at some point he removes his thumb, his maroon eyes unreadable and he presents his hand to me.  “Dry me.”  I wrap his hand in my napkin and ever so gently pat him dry.  “I want you to remember how it is with you, with us,” he says and when we part, I have an image of myself handcuffed and hanging from the wall, my back an acre of pain from the whip he beats me with, tied and stripped and reduced to a single passion: wanting more, needing more, craving more…

Day 32

I realize that my life is split neatly in two: with him and without him.  Day and night.  I could go to work and be the consummate professional but everything had become bland, tasteless.  Nights were fierce and sharp, like razor edges…all my senses acute and in intake mode…keening…day and night.  I think how my boss will never know the true me.  He thinks me lovely during the day…but I am such at night…and not how he would think…

Day 36

“I have to go out for a while,” he says, “but I’d like for you to do something for me.”  “What?”  I ask as I watch him dress.  I am handcuffed to the bed.  “Lie down.”  I do so and he sits beside me, his hand on my stomach.  “I want to watch you make yourself come.”  “What?” I say.  Masturbation is an intensely private thing with me.  He looks at me and I am stammering, “I can’t…it’s…I’ve never…it embarrasses me.”  “It embarrasses you,” he drawls, his eyes pinpoints of light in the dark room.  “Maybe you haven’t figured what this is all about.  Tell me, my dear, that you aren’t that dense.”  “I’ve never done that in front of anybody.” “But I am not just anybody.”  He rises and leaves the room, leaving me on the bed.  My face burns at the thought of him watching me masturbate.  This is the first time that I have told him no.  I wonder why and what about this request makes me want to deny him when I never have before. What is my aversion to him watching me masturbate?  Surely it is no worse than being chained and led like a dog, handcuffed, or even being whipped and then raped.  I can no longer really say what I will and won’t do.  Not after everything I have done.  If he asks me to have anal sex I would, even though I have previously said I would never do such a thing.  I guess that is the difference between who I was and who I am.  But this is my one hang-up.  When he returns sometime later I am still in the same position.  He sits back down, his maroon eyes covering me.  “I want you with me.  I will not force you to stay.”  He touches my cheek.  “But when you are with me you will do as I say.  As. I. Say.  Is this at all unclear?”  His voice is harsh, hard…totally unlike the silky auditory velvet he wraps me in.  “Please,” I beg, “anything else and I’ll do it…I can’t do this…” He rises and goes to the closet and to my disbelieving eyes he begins gathering my things and placing them in the large suitcase.  Patiently.  Methodically.  His face is devoid of expression.  He unlocks me and rubs my wrists, takes off the shirt I am wearing and slips on a sweater of mine.  I am so used to being dressed by him that I do not help him in any way…he slips a skirt over my hips and gently pulls me to my feet.  He reaches for the phone and calls a cab company.  I am unable to speak.  Minutes pass.  He has put my shoes on my feet. “Please,” I beg.  “I’ll walk you to the taxi, of course and if I find anything else of yours, I will most certainly drop them off at your  place.”  He brushes my hair and I feel the tears welling in me.  More minutes pass and I hear a horn blowing.  He goes over to the window and asks for another moment.  The cabbie replies that the meter’s running.  “Please,” I say again, my hands slipping into the waistband of my skirt and he looks at me.  “Wait.”  He rents the skirt off so that his view is unobstructed.  Tears slide down my cheeks as I begin to masturbate, the humiliation of doing that in front of him colors my face crimson.  “Harder,” he says as he goes for his wallet.  I am squeezing my clitoris as hard as I can as my other fingers slide in and out of me.  “Spread your legs so I can see.”  I move faster and in spite of my embarrassment I feel myself about to come.  He removes a fifty from his wallet and holds it between two fingers.  I am crying freely, silently, my breath escaping me in harsh little gasps and then my knees buckle as I come.  He holds me up, kissing my face.  “I love watching you when you come.  You stop being beautiful and you turn into this hungry ravenous creature…you eclipse beauty.”  He kisses me again and then turns to go outside and pay the cab driver.

Day 38

I was never prepared for what I was going through.  Years ago, a friend of mine had talked about being a sadomasochist and had me repulsed.  We stopped speaking as I had no wish to consort with such a person.  I wonder what she would say if she saw me now.

Day 42

Today he comes in with several parcels.  I love it when he comes in with bags…usually it’s something for me and today is no different.  “What is it?” I ask.  “All good things to those who wait,” he says, which draws a frown from me.  But as it stands I don’t have to wait long.  He allows me to open the bags and in one, I find a Dolcis shoebox and inside, a pair of suede dove-gray pumps with arch-killing, insanely high, fuck-me-til-I-cry stiletto heels.  I look at them in shock and place them to the side.  In another bag, I find a black garter belt and pale gray thigh-high stockings…seamed, no less.  In the final bag, there are four Brooks Brothers shirts…one gray, one white, one pink and one blue.  I give him a look.  He smiles at me, his maroon eyes twinkling.  “A fantasy of mine, oh I don’t know how old…is to see a woman wearing a black garter belt and high heel shoes…would you indulge me, Clarice?”  I inhaled and exhaled.  I have never owned such articles and tell him so, but I will indulge him…he knows I will indulge him.  He waits for me to go get changed.  I decide to match it up and wear the ensemble with the gray Brooks Brothers shirt.  I brush out my hair and put on a little makeup.  It is difficult to get the seams straight but I manage and then I put on those ridiculously high heel shoes.  They are a perfect fit.  I don’t question how he pulls this off.  He is sitting in the chair, anticipating my approach and I can tell when he sees me that he is impressed.  “Walk towards me.  Slowly.”  I do so.  “No, walk like a woman.”  My face scrunches up.  He gestures with his hands.  “Like you’re on a runway” I get it and slunk towards him, keeping my balance although I can’t see how because I feel as though I’m ten feet tall.  I stop in front of him.  “You are…exquisite, my dear,” he says, his eyes on me.  “Get on all fours.”  “What?”  “Get on your hands and knees.”  I look at him.   “All fours, my dear.  And pull your shirt up so I may see your ass.”  I know I’m looking stupid as I stare at him.  But I manage to drop to my knees, staring at the carpet.  “Crawl,” he orders.  “Crawl around on the floor.”  I shake my head.  “I can’t do this.”  He sighs.  “If you feel stupid, my dear, just say so.”  He rises to his feet and walks over to the far wall.  “It’s not like we haven’t been through this before.  I hate to pack.  I hate to unpack even more.  You remember how long it took me to unpack your bags that last time?”  I want to cry.  “Please,” I say again.  “What I cannot understand is why you don’t get what we’re about? Why do we have to negotiate anything when in the end you always do what I say?”  “I’m scared you’ll make fun of me.”  “Oh really, my dear…if I were to do that I’d let you know.”  He leaves and comes back with the riding crop.  “I can make it so that you can’t even get out of bed.  But I don’t want to do that…today.  Crawl.”  I look up at him, my tears staining my face.  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a fat wad of cash.  I dimly notice the denominations are hundred dollar bills.  I have never seen such a fat roll of hundreds.  He flicks one off the roll and throws it at me.  “Crawl.”  I drop my head.  He comes closer, beginning to drop hundred dollar bills on the floor in front of me. “Crawl.”  I look at all the money in front of me and I am eat up with shame as I reach for one of the bills.  “Crawl.”  I take it between two fingers and slowly crawl towards the next one.  He continues to flick them down and I realize I am following him, picking up the money…shame a scarlet letter covering me.  “Crawl…just like that…”  I crawl and crawl, my right hand fat with hundreds until the delicate stockings tear in the knees and runs begin trailing up and down my legs.  I get back to the couch and he overtakes me and turns me on my back, entering me in one movement and it is the first time we come together.  I dimly acknowledge through my tears and his kisses that he could have and would have beat me anyway.

Day 46

No one saw my body except him, another woman, and some kid whose name I can’t remember.  When I did check my reflection, I would see my bruises as belonging to another, never to me. My body had nothing to do with me.  I still do not know how I was able to maintain that distance.  It was as though my body was a decoy to be used whichever way he decided to be used as a form of excitement for us both.

Day 49

I get a call from him while at work one day.  “Go to the Ritz-Carlton.  Room 227 is yours.”  I start to ask and he says, “No questions, my dear.  Room 227 at the Ritz.  Be there by five-thirty.”  I get off work at five and drive downtown to the Ritz, check in, receive my room key, take the elevator and enter Room 227. I do not expect him to be there and I am not disappointed.  The bed is piled high with packages and there is a note stuck to the phone.  “Open them.  Take a bath.  Get dressed.”  In one of the bags I find more opulent bath emollients and I take a luxuriant bath, opting not to shampoo my hair, which I have forgotten how to do, at any rate.  I dress in the hotel robe and open the other packages: a blonde wig…expensive, human hair, very soft; a dark blue man’s suit cut for a small framed man; in the hatbox, a white fedora; small black wingtips in the shoebox; a white handkerchief, socks, a tie…in the last package, a beard and mustache.  I dry myself in the same sequence he dries me: face, neck, thorax, abdomen, back, thighs, calves, feet.  The only thing missing is underwear.  I don’t worry.  The trousers fit perfectly…socks, the shirt and vest combination hides my small breasts effectively…tie and suit coat.  The shoes feel a bit weird, as I have never worn men’s wingtips before.  In the bag that contains the beard and moustache is a small pot of glue.  I don’t want to smear it on my skin and opt to spread it on the back of the beard in a thin layer.  The mustache took two tries but the beard was much harder…twenty minutes later I had it reasonably attached.  I  pin my hair and slip on the wig, adjusting and adjusting until I was satisfied.  Then I hunt through the paper and find a fake pair of eyebrows…he knew just as I’d found out that they would be necessary.  I glue them in place and when I look at my watch it is seven-o-clock.  I put on the fedora, rakishly tilting the way he does his and look at myself.  I look like a young man, unseasoned, who perhaps took after his mother.  The phone rings.  I answer it.  “Good evening, my dear.  I am in the lobby.  Bring the room key.”  I go downstairs, enter the lobby, my eyes anticipating seeing him.  I spot him sitting on a sofa, his maroon eyes locking with mine.  He motions for me to come over and I force myself to walk slowly, evenly even though the wingtips are starting to hurt.  He is wearing a suit identical to mine, fedora included.  “You look great,” he says and my heart is light.  We go to the bar and have drinks…I am nervous and have two past my normal limit.  We sit downstairs for a while and then he ushers me upstairs and we look into the mirror: two men, both small…one sleek, the other fey.  “Take off your belt,” he says and I do.  “Get on the bed, hands and knees.”  He unfastens my slacks.  “Pants down over your ass.”  I do as bidden and he beats me, making me hold a pillow over my head to stifle my cries and then takes me anally.  It hurts, the pain is severe, incredible but yields in him and me a powerful orgasm quite like nothing we’ve experienced prior to this.  He stuffs Kleenex between my cheeks.  It is soaked with semen and tinged a dark pink when he removes it later.  Curling against me, he says in my hair, “…so tight, so hot, you cannot fathom…”

Day 53

I wonder to myself how pain can be so exciting, exquisite.  If I hurt myself, say stupidly stubbing my toe or barking my shin, I was no good, needing comfort like a baby.  But when he inflicted pain…the line between it and pleasure was blurred to the point of unrecognizance.  Sensations differed in quality but were similar in effect…equally intense, equally able to arouse me.  Pain was always a prelude…sometimes hours earlier…but it always led to orgasm.  I longed for it because to me it was as sensuous and as integral to our lovemaking as having my breasts caressed or my clitoris stimulated.

Day 55

Am I civilized?  I wonder as I stare at myself from outside of myself at work.  I am a federal technical agent, all prim and proper, cold to my male coworkers, never smiling, never giving them any more fodder than they already had for their wet dreams.  But with him, I am nothing less than a wild, a dirty girl, an out-and-out horny bitch…cuffer then cuffee.  Am I civilized?  Am I?  Is he? Are we?  So easily I change from “work” to “home” that I must wonder if this was in me all along.

Day 58

Today I woke up, feeling like seven layers of hell.  I don’t feel any better by lunchtime and go home—to my apartment.  My apartment has been vacant almost two months and dust is everywhere and it is an oven.  I fall into my bed, unable to draw the blinds I feel so bad.  The phone wakes me from delirium.  “What is it?”  “I must be coming down with something. I’m never sick.”  “I’ll be right there.”  “No, don’t…” and I know no more until he is there, carrying me from my bed.  “I want to stay here,” and he doesn’t even reply and I am too weak to argue or move.  We go back to his place, in his car which I’ve never ridden in before and I am too sick to appreciate its beauty.  He puts me to bed, takes my temperature…and everything becomes hazy…

Day 63

The haze goes away and he is standing above me.  “Clarice?”  “Yes,” I say, my mouth like cotton.  I feel so disoriented.  “You have the flu.  You’ve been abed for almost a week…today your fever just broke.”  He had been feeding me aspirin and all sorts of other medication, bathing me, giving me rubdowns, made a hot blend of tea for me to sip…as I got better and could hold down more food…homemade soups, brothy and creamy…sitting on the couch wrapped in blankets and afghans, him massaging my feet and legs…then homemade milkshakes and finally real food.  My head was finally clear but my body felt broken. He stayed with me, reading to me, talking to me, teaching me ways of internally amusing myself and he slept on the couch.  I have not been nursed this way since I was five years old.

Day 69

“I’ve hired a masseur tonight,” he tells me.  He runs my bath and I relax in it as he bathes me.  He dries me and dresses me in a robe and we wait for the masseur who arrives at eight o clock.  He’s a cute thing, around 25 or so, blonde and chiseled.  “I’m going to watch you,” he says to the boy.  The boy’s hands were slick with oil and began at my shoulders.  They are large and warm and soon I am limp.  I begin to grunt when he grabs me…I had no idea I was this stiff. “Let me try,” I hear and I feel his hands, cooler and smaller, lightly touching me in comparison.  I am lulled.  Both of them take a foot in hand, applying wondrous pressure and then I am turned over, unable to contain the bliss within me.  My muscles are limp and in a state of suspension.  I hear conversation. “No.” “Twenty-five extra.” “No. I don’t hit women.” “She likes it.” “You got the wrong man.” “I’m telling you, she likes it.  It arouses her.” “No.”  “Thirty.” “No.” “You will not hurt her.” “I can’t.” “Forty.” “No, dude.”  I feel the slight sting of a belt or whip or something across my back and I don’t even flinch. “See?  Fifty.” I am struck again, and then again and again and he cradles my face to look at the blinding pain in my eyes. “A hundred…harder…” The blow that comes after that makes me bite my lip in agony and in ecstasy…he kisses me and the final blow makes me scream inside his mouth.  “That’s enough,” he says, rising and handing the boy a crisp hundred-dollar bill.

Day 72

Throughout the entire time, my daytime life went unchanged.  I supported myself, did my work and kept up my apartment.  I made my own choices.  My nighttime life was 180 degrees opposite.  I was helpless, dependent, taken care of.  No decisions were expected of me, no responsibilities, no choice.  I loved it, I loved it, I loved it, I loved it, I loved it!  Once I got to his place, nothing more was needed for me to do.  I was there to be done to.  It was true emancipation…no adult worries, nothing of the sort.  The first question he asked me was the last question he asked me, “Would you let me blindfold you?” Nothing since was a matter of my acquiescent or protest, even though my qualms at certain things were highlighted to make my addiction distinctively clear to me.  This was the phenomenon of being an observer in one’s life, a surrendering of individuality, a total desertion of self.

Day 73

All I know is that I’m in a hotel of some sort.  I don’t know anything else due to the blindfold that covers my eyes.  He has led me in and I imagine we are in an extravagant suite…his taste, if nothing else, is impeccable.  He sits me down and from the lack of real resistance and no back to support me, I assume it is the bed.  He undresses me and then slaps me, making me fall to one side.  He tells me not to cry.  After some time, I feel myself being touched again and due to the softness of the hands that are touching me, I assume it is a woman.  At first I do not know how to feel and then I hear his voice.  “Relax.  It’s all right.”  She touches me more firmly, her fingertips making circular patterns and her hands cover my breasts, stimulating my nipples.  I felt something wet touching my nipples and realized that this woman is going to make love to me.  She parted my legs and I felt her mouth between my thighs and I tried to be appalled but I could not. I  heard him talking to her in low tones…instructing her what to do, how to do it.  The pressure of her mouth increased and I felt it on my clitoris, stimulating me and I began to get into it despite the fact that I’d never been into being with women.  Her fingers penetrated me and then her tongue and I heard his instruction for her to spread me wider, lift my legs over her shoulders, deeper…harder and I began to groan as she licked and sucked on me and I could not picture how I must look to him…is he jealous that she is making me groan like this?  But the slow pleasure arising from her fingers and mouth is halted when she is pulled away and I am raised and thrown over something.  The blindfold is taut around my eyes and my forehead bumps something solid and I cry out in surprise.  I feel his hands on my upturned ass, hear him say, “Give me my belt,” and all I can think is that I will not cry out, no matter how hard he beats me, I will not cry out.  I clench my teeth, blood roars in my ears and tears squeeze out of my eyes until I do cry out.  He stops beating me and says, “Give me the petroleum jelly,” my buttocks are spread, his finger is in my anus, another on my clitoris and I am so tense the finger in my ass hurts.  I clench my teeth again, frantic and overwhelmed with a need to orgasm.  I twitch and move, even though it hurts but I need to come and I begin to beg him to make me come.  He pulls his finger out of my anus and smacks my upturned bottom with his hand, hard and I wince.  I am then picked up and thrown on the bed, and I feel her hands and tongue between me once again, the blindfold is removed and she is orally pleasuring me.  His fingers are in my mouth, painfully yet pleasurably and finally I achieve release.

Day 75

Tonight some blood stained his sheets.  He touched his finger to it and then tasted it.  “You really do crave this, don’t you my dear?  You love it just as much as I do.  I get so aroused wondering how far we’ll go…”

Day 77

I woke up this morning, tears in my eyes.  He went about our morning ritual and I could do nothing but sit on the side of the bed and cry.  “What’s the matter?” I could not answer him.  All I could do was cry.  He walks away and I could not follow.  I just cried.  I could not stop crying.  He puts on my sunglasses and leads me to his car.  All the while, I cried.  He asked me again and I would not answer.  I could not.  He smoothes my hair, kissing my cheek, asking me to tell him what was wrong.  I could not.  “What the hell is going on?”  Nothing but my tears.  “Talk to me, please!”  My sobs answered him.  I cried all day and when I was still crying at four-o-clock, he took me to the hospital and I was sedated.  The next day, I began a period of treatment that lasted several months.

I never saw him again.

When my skin returned to its natural complexion, I slept with another man and discovered I did not know what to do with my hands.  They lay on either side of me, awkwardly and uselessly.  I’d forgotten.  I’m a responsible adult again, all day, every day.  What has not changed is that my sensation thermostat has been thrown off kilter; it’s been years and I wonder if my body will ever again register above lukewarm.

Fin

Copyright 2001, Kabochon