I tried to move about like everything was normal inside of me, but that was a lie.
The deepest throbbing had taken root in the pit of my stomach. It was persistent, staying with me, day and night.
Awake or asleep, I couldn’t escape the fact that my body had straight up turned on me.
It was the most delicious sort of agony, to be constantly throbbing from within. Every single one of my senses had been brought to life.
He arrived, got one look at me, and became very formal, almost stiff.
I was taken aback, because without even so much as a kiss on the cheek, he asked to be shown some specific photographs in the current featured collection, as though he’d done research on it. His interest in the art seemed genuine, like that really had been his reason for arranging this torturous meeting.
And that’s when I knew that I hadn’t thought this meeting was anything more than a charade, not for one second had I even considered it.
I was not a good sport about being so mistaken. And the state my body was in, which was unequivocally his fault, only antagonized the matter.
The throbbing inside of me, which had been bad enough when it was contained within, slowly, insidiously, was spreading. One look at him, one slight feel of his presence sharing my same air, and that flimsy container broke.
I tried to work with him as I would have worked with anyone who had scheduled a private showing like this, setting up the photos that caught his interest in what we called the black room, where we could adjust the lighting to best show off the range of colors in this particular photographers crystal imbedded paper.
I set up one particular red canyon piece, doing a quick mockup of what the actual framing would look like. He sat on the long couch at the back of the room, and I backed in his direction as I played with the lights, illustrating how even the fading color tones could be brilliant.
But that feeling, that throbbing, had made its way to my thighs, my br**sts, my lips, my belly, until I could barely move without grimacing, and sometimes, even moaning out loud. Within a few minutes of being in his presence, I was willing to fold, once again, just for another brief taste of relief. It became not an issue of resisting him completely, but a matter of folding gracefully, and hopefully, to save my pride, to make it seem like his idea.
But he hadn’t even coerced me. No seduction whatsoever this time. And that was so much worse.
I acknowledged that some perverse part of me just had to know that he felt it too. I’d worn a dress open practically to my waist for him tonight, and he’d barely looked at me. Somehow, that was the fastest seduction of all.
His indifference feigned or otherwise, undid me completely.
“What do you think of this one?” I asked, moving to sit beside him as I adjusted the light in the room to play across the photograph. I started it on bright, then faded it to near dark, then repeated the process, showing how vibrant it could still look without full lighting.
I sat too close to him. It felt like a desperate move, but I could acknowledge that I was desperate just then.
He grunted. Grunted, like a caveman. It was bizarre, and I had no idea how to respond.
“I’ll try another. I know you liked the red in this series. I have another with a beam of light in it that really plays with the color.”
I stood, moving past him toward the door. He stopped me with a hand on my hip, then slowly turned me to face him, gripping my waist in both hands. I stared at him, breathing hard, but struggling not to show it. I was panting like I’d run a mile.
It was insanity.
He didn’t look up at me. It was still dark enough that I could just make out the top of his head. I tried to be quiet enough to hear if he was breathing like I was, but my heart was beating so loudly that I couldn’t make out anything beyond it.
“Turn the light back on,” he told me, voice low and hoarse.
I had to move away to grab the remote, my hands fumbling, trembling as I slid the lights back to bright.
“Come here,” he ordered roughly.
Some sarcastic remark tried to make its way out of my mouth, but the look in his eyes stopped any sound from leaving my lungs. I moved to him, my hands not so much clenching as folding in on themselves with the effort to keep from touching him.
He had no such qualms, dragging me close to straddle him the moment I was back in his reach. He slid my tight skirt up to my hips, hauling me on top to straddle him. His hands were all over me, hungry touches that took a bit of everything, his ravenous eyes taking so much more.
“How do you do that?” he whispered roughly. “How do you keep talking, keep moving around like you don’t feel it, too?”
I shook my head, finally unfolding my fingers and digging them into his scalp, gripping at his silky hair.
He moved my h*ps with his hands until my sex was flush against his erection. Through my panties, and his pants, he moved us together, grinding against me until I moaned and shook.
“Tell me you feel it and I’ll give you relief. Admit I’m not alone here.”
I shrugged out of the sleeves of my top, leaving me bare from the ribs up. I arched my back, my br**sts pushed up high for him, like an offering. They were slightly fuller than they’d been all those years ago, and I wondered if he’d noticed. I was still in good shape, but I’d filled out a bit. I wasn’t dancer skinny anymore, and my br**sts now overflowed a C cup. The curve of my waist was just as small as it had been, my stomach just as toned, but my h*ps had a slight curve to them now that wasn’t all hipbone.