Coercion Read online

  Caroly’s gaze moves about the room, as though she’s never been here before, never changed the records on my phonograph or played cards with me on the carpet, never laughed so hard she wept, sitting where we are now.

  I move my wine to my right hand, laying my left arm along the back of the couch behind her, edging my hip closer. “Don’t be nervous.”

  “I’m not nervous.”

  “Has it been a long time since you’ve let a man bring you back to his flat?”

  She nods, and I wonder if the gesture’s tight hesitance is acting, or her own shyness at taking up the role. She drinks deeply.

  “Do I make you nervous?”

  “A little.”

  “I want you. You can feel that, can’t you? You’ve forgotten what it’s like, to be wanted by a man. To be looked at like a woman.”

  Another nod.

  “Let me remind you.” I switch to French—seduction sounds best in French. I lower my face, speaking just above her ear. “Come to my bed.”

  “I shouldn’t.” Both hands clutch her glass, so accurate a gesture a shiver strokes cool fingertips down my back.

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “I don’t want to move that quickly.”

  “I bet there are things you want that you won’t even admit to yourself.” I kiss her temple, then her ear, letting my breath steam against her skin, letting her hear the moan lurking in my throat. Between my thighs, my cock grows, a hungry animal rousing. I enjoy being this man, one with no crippling fears or cowardly compulsions, only confidence and simple, selfish wants. I curve my arm around her, cupping her shoulder, kneading. I let myself become a seducer whose cock leads his actions, who feels lust so strongly he forgets courtesy and lets the predator inside him roam loose.

  This close, I watch the color rise in her neck from desire and alcohol. This close, I see the pulse ticking there. I lean in and draw the tip of my tongue along the vein.

  She pulls away, sipping her wine with trembling hands. I can read Caroly like a book, any fear and anxiety plain as letters spelling the names of her troubles across her face. But behind the shaking hands and the distance of her body, I find no true misgivings. Her fear is manufactured, and she wants me. So funny to think such a thing, knowing the man I’m playing feeds himself those sentiments, lies twisted into permission so that he may take whatever he wishes. We are not so different, he and I…except where I trust, he presumes.

  I scoot even closer, slipping the glass from her hands and setting it on the table along with my own. “Surely kissing would not be too much.”

  She lets me cradle her jaw and accepts a light brush of my lips against hers. I pull back and smile. “That was not so bad, no?”

  “We can kiss.” She’s breathless, false nerves and true excitement. “But that’s really all. I need to go slowly.”

  Leaning in, I caress her cheek with my thumb and speak against her temple. “If it is slow you like, I can make love to you for hours. Slow as honey. Just as sweet.”

  “No, not tonight.”

  “You’re cruel, to make me want you so badly. To smell so good…” I breathe her in, that faint lavender scent of her shampoo, the amber and vanilla perfume she dabs behind her ears each morning. “Do you taste as good as you smell?”

  She wriggles when my hand drops to cup her breast, and she plucks the offender away, moving it to her knee. I run it up her thigh, halted when I upset the hem of her skirt.

  “Don’t.”

  “I can’t help it.” Though she blocks me from reaching higher, I easily slide my fingers between her thighs. I have half a breath to marvel at her warmth before she pulls my hand away, setting it on my own knee this time. I cup my stiffening cock, leaning back so she’ll see. “You make me so hard, I can’t control myself.”

  “Just kissing tonight. Please.”

  The please reminds me of other clients I’ve known, with harsher desires still. So many fantasies to reenact with Caroly…and happily so many nights ahead of us to do so, for as long as my novelty lingers.

  I stroke myself lightly, as a hesitant woman might, and in this game it heats me as no aggressive, appraising touch could. “Let me show you how much I want you.”

  “No. Just kissing. Really.”

  I sigh, the lazy sound of a womanizer’s petulant, feigned defeat, and let my throbbing cock go. “Just kissing.” I hold her face and sample her deeply, fingertips as possessive as my tongue and lips. The wine tastes ever richer from her mouth, as warm and dark as the secrets she keeps between her smooth, pale legs. Perhaps I’ll kiss her there as well before the night is done, and feel her fingers in my hair, clutching in time with her moans.

  I draw my tongue along her jaw, finding her perfume. Such a bitter flavor to offer so sweet a scent. The palm she sets on my neck is cool and unsure, and I shiver from how right it feels, how easily she’s slipped inside this other woman’s being. Caroly disappears. I disappear. The people on my couch are strangers now, seducer and resister. I feel this man’s desire rising from deep in my body, consuming me, a hot, growing force in need of an outlet.

  I pull away, take her glass from the table and urge her hands around it. “Drink.”

  “I’ve had too much.”

  “I chose it for you. And the evening is still young. Plenty of time to indulge before the morning.” The morning—the hateful pulse of a hangover, soured further by regret.

  “I have to be at the office early…”

  “You work too much,” I tell her. “All this struggling only to keep your head above the water. Let yourself go under, just for one night. One glass.”

  “I’d drown.”

  “Drowning feels good, I promise.” I coax her hands to her mouth, and she drinks.

  “Good. In a minute you’ll feel how fine an idea this is. Worry about work some other day, but not here. Not with me.” There is a silk tie at the collar of her blouse and I slip its bow free, revealing creamy flesh and the shadow of her clavicle. Her hand covers mine, telling me to stop.

  I fan my fingers across the bare vee below her throat. “So soft.” And so cool, the only thing that can quench the heat beating under my own skin. This torment would go if I could just be inside her.

  “Don’t.”

  “You’ve forgotten how to let a man be male.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You make us into your rivals, and forget what we really are.”

  “What are you?”

  “Animals,” I tell her, and slide my fingers under her shirt and beneath the strap of her brassiere. It slips from her shoulder when I push, her chest swelling with a gulped breath. I’ll hold her this way in my bed, watch her breasts rise as her back arches, watch her flesh quiver, echoing the impact as my cock claims what it’s owed.

  “I don’t need an animal in my life,” she tells me, forcing my hand away and righting her strap. “I don’t need any man, but if I wanted one, I’d pick a gentleman.” She clutches her collar closed.

  “A gentleman is nothing but a dog on a leash. Take away his tether and you’ll meet the beast as he wishes to be.”

  “I should leave.” As she rises, I grasp her wrist. She tugs. “Let me go.”

  “I’m sorry. Stay, just to finish your wine. I’ll be good.”

  She doesn’t move, and I tug again at her arm gently, once, twice, until she bends her knees, sits once more. I pick up my own glass, letting her think me well behaved for a minute or two.

  “I’m sorry if I offended you.”

  “You have, a little.”

  “The way you looked at me at the bar, I took you for a different kind of woman.”

  “What kind of woman?”

  I picture such a scene, myself a man capable of prowling so easily in public, among strangers. Her, a sophisticated professional longing to escape the cage she’s made for herself, if only for a night.

  “You looked so…hungry,” I tell her. “So much fire in those eyes.”

  “I never me
ant to lead you on.”

  “It was your eyes that led you here, to my flat. Your eyes, and other forces…” I drop my gaze to her breasts, her lap, then smile at her. “I’d give you anything you desire, if only your mouth would admit what those things were.”

  “I just want to finish this wine and get home to bed.”

  “There is a bed here. A fine one, big enough for two.”

  “No. Really.”

  I walk my fingers up her forearm, careful not to cross a line and invite another flight. “How long since you’ve let a man be a man with you, and let yourself be a woman?” When she doesn’t reply, I lean closer. “How long since you’ve enjoyed a man’s mouth or hands or cock?”

  She swallows. “I’ve kissed you tonight.”

  “With your lips, yes. I would kiss you elsewhere, even more deeply.” The mere idea makes my mouth tingle and water.

  She shakes her head.

  “How long since a man has made you come?”

  Another blush, but she doesn’t rise to leave. “A while.”

  “I would give you that, with my tongue. With my fingers or my cock, whichever part of me you wished to invite.”

  She bites her lip, and I lean forward to splash the last of the bottle into our glasses. Her eyes widen as though I’ve served her blood still hot from a sacrifice.

  I turn to her, my knee pressed to her thigh, and drop my face close to whisper, “I want you.”

  She exhales with a tight, sharp huff, as if she’s been struck.

  “I’m hard for you now,” I murmur. “Let me show you.”

  “No.”

  I feel the need as such a forceful man would, desire careless as a tidal wave, eager for the thrill of the crash. Her body is rigid as I reach for her jaw, holding her face as my lips brush hers. Hands push at my shoulders, their pressure pleading, not fighting. They tell me to stop, but in such a quiet voice, so quiet I know it’s not meant to be heard. I push too, gently, telling her to lie back and let me have my way. She doesn’t obey. But it’s my wine, my home, soon to be my bed and my needs. Everything within these walls is my possession, and she’ll be no less. I will use her—as is my right, since the moment she chose to step across my threshold. In her body I find proof of the desires her lips won’t admit to.

  Some women will never ask for the pleasure they want, and they must be given it, by force if necessary.

  Or so that is how I imagine such a man would think.

  And though I am not such a man outside the bounds of this game, to borrow his greedy delusions ignites a lust, hot and coarse and cruel. It’s chased by the shame—that spice too delicious to resist, yet nearly too strong to suffer. But why eat grapes when one can drink wine? Why behave when sin feels so natural?

  Tar me with shame in thick, hot strokes, leave me blacker than midnight.

  I suckle her lip, coax her open so that I may come inside and taste her. Against my mouth, I feel her soften. When I slide my hand across her throat and down to hold her breast, she covers it but doesn’t move it away. Her flesh grows hot under my palm, her lips plump and likely tender from what I’ve demanded. It reminds me of Caroly’s sex, swollen with desire, welcoming me into that slick sanctuary where only I have yet been invited. My throat is all at once thick, remembering how she tastes, how her legs tremble against my cheeks when my tongue teases her toward release. How thick I feel when I slip inside her.

  This forceful man’s urges tug at me, bullying me to guide her hand to my cock, to open her blouse, to push her down and feel the warm junction between her soft thighs against my hard sex. But her cooperation would make this seduction far easier, so I hold back.

  She lets my hand go, moving hers to my shoulder. Yet she doesn’t push me away as I expect—she squeezes, finding something of interest there. Then my arm. I wonder if she feels my triumphant smile as we kiss.

  “You’re so beautiful,” I tell her, words tumbling straight from my mouth to hers. So beautiful and all mine. The man I play could never claim such a prize.

  “Th-thank you.”

  I move my lips to her ear, letting her hear how my voice has grown deep and strained, as rigid and needy as my cock from the lust. “I want you. I wanted you at that bar—for everyone to simply see us together. To think maybe this stunning woman was mine.” And for a night, she will be.

  “I don’t usually do this…”

  Unseen, I grin sly as a wolf at the surrender in her tone. I nip at her neck and fondle her breast, and though she tenses for a breath, the exhalation leaves her soft and receptive.

  “But I won’t go too far,” she tells me.

  Good. I was not ready for the coercion to be done. There are walls yet to scale and locks to be picked, so much more fun than strolling invited through open gates.

  “Come to my bed,” I say, letting my words caress her skin. Soon that steam will warm her elsewhere, and I’ll feel her own heat at my lips moments before I taste her sex. I will wait until I know I’ve coaxed a wealth of that honey between her thighs—and then I will feast.

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “But you should. I want your body in my sheets, so I can breathe you in after you’ve gone and remember everything we’ll do tonight.”

  She’s stiff once more, so I graze my palm across her breast, gathering all her attention into the contact, into whatever pleasure she feels as her nipple draws tight.

  “You won’t regret any of the things I’m dying to show you.” I drag my teeth softly along her throat then kiss the same spot. “My body will please you, I know it.”

  I do know such a thing. I wasn’t born with an extraordinary voice, but my body and face make women shiver as they might while listening to some divine aria. I’ve seen proof of this since I was perhaps fourteen and first realized that people look at me differently, that I am wanted in people’s photographs and paintings and beds.

  My caresses draw her out, and I feel her hand at the back of my head, fingers clutching my hair.

  “Come to my bed, and I’ll ask no more than just this, what we’re doing now.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Please.” I say it once more, then again, a kiss to punctuate between each word. “Just this, I swear.”

  She doesn’t reply, but when I stand and take her hand, she rises from the couch willingly enough. I feel desire open inside me, uncoiling like a snake, tongue and tail flicking, a writhing mass of restless, predatory muscle.

  Caroly’s hand in mine is smooth and cool, and I imagine it on my naked body. She used to be cautious, lately far less so. But tonight, who knows? I will have to see how far she takes this wicked tourism.

  Chapter Two

  I lead her to my room, lit only by what glow the city has slipped through the crack in the curtains.

  “We need light.” I speak to both Caroly and the woman she plays. “I need to see you.”

  I gesture and she sits on my bed as I fetch a metal card table from before the window, a dozen or more pillar candles fused to its top.

  I light them one by one, the room enlarging with each dancing flame. Her gaze drinks me in, telling me things she’s uttered aloud, though only when a glass of wine too many has spurred her to. You’re so beautiful, it tells me. A look I know well, warm as sunshine and mischievous as twilight.

  Beauty is a queer and unearthly power.

  I was born of my father’s infidelity and my mother’s consumptive infatuation. I’m a bastard and a prostitute, crippled by agoraphobia…but I am beautiful. My deeper flaws seem to go unnoticed, all cracks in the stained glass, lost amid the dazzling colors of the whole.

  I inherited my father’s dramatic Portuguese face, his strong nose and widow’s peak, his dark hair, his cowardice. Like his, my eyes are deep brown, but they are unmistakably my mother’s. She gave me her fine complexion, her romanticism and her fear of the unfamiliar. My parents’ affair lasted only a summer, but they must have been a sight to behold—exquisite young lovers set loose in Paris, giddy with
forbidden lust. Or in my mother’s case, love. A love that stayed with her like a whispering ghost until the day she died.

  Had I not been beautiful, who knows what would have become of me. I might be as I am now, shut away in some garret with my projects and my view and my wine, but no women would call on me, certainly none willing to pay for the luxury of sharing my bed. I might be forgotten, left in a cupboard to grow pale and soft and unmissed, unable to escape of my own volition. But I can never know, just as I may never know what it is like to not be beautiful.

  Caroly, she is the opposite. I watch her pale gaze roam my bedroom in the multiplying light, pretending to regard all these familiar objects for the first time. She knows nothing of how it feels to be beautiful, though plenty of people might say she is. A beguiling, androgynous face worthy of a Dutch painting, high, rare cheekbones softened by those feminine curls. All of it even more enchanting in the candlelight.

  Sometimes I see her touch her hips when she dresses, as though wishing there were curves there to accentuate. But with her angular body and her unusual face, she could buy the clothes off a couturier’s rack and be mistaken for a model. So utterly photographable and yet so terrified of being photographed. True, she is no classic American beauty. She is a single black pearl in a strand of the expected white, and so much lovelier for her difference.

  I blow out the match, staring at her over the flickering flames. There’s fire burning in my belly as well, and I hope she can see it in my eyes. Sentimental thoughts leave me, darker ones taking their place. Our two bodies fucking on that bed, in this light, as we’ve done dozens of times. I’ve watched us in the wardrobe mirror and put myself to sleep nights later, recalling how we looked together.

  More often I conjure other memories—moments of deep intensity, the two of us discovering what gives her pleasure. Her body is an exotic instrument in my hands, one I hope to never finish mastering. To never cease to find new, thrilling, heartbreaking notes to coax from her with my fingers.