The Theory of Attraction (8 page)

Of all the possible outcomes I might have predicted for our little field trip, this was not one of them. Not in my wildest dreams. But I was beginning to think my dreams had not been nearly wild enough.

Chapter Five

If Ivan was surprised that I’d not only agreed but shucked all my clothes off in the middle of his deserted workplace, he hid it well. The impassive mask stayed in place, and as the cold of the room started to seep into my skin I could feel my body flirting with panic.

He took a step back and then circled me slowly, seeming to consider me from all angles. I straightened my spine automatically, pulled in my stomach, and forced my hands to unclench from where I was leaving fingernail marks on my bare thighs.

“Have you ever done anything like this before, Camilla?”

He was standing right behind me, but when I turned my head to look at him, he spanned the top of my skull with one hand and gently turned me back to the front. Even that touch, short and efficient and nowhere near an erogenous zone, made me yearn for more.

“No, I haven’t, Professor.”

It sounded like he was pacing back there, in the narrow space between me and the wall. I kept my eyes straight in front of me, trying to count all the many LEDs in my field of vision. Green, blue, red, they winked from the bases of monitors and power strips, from the DVD player and TV in one corner of the room, indicating the readiness of all these machines to be turned on and used. I felt a certain kinship.

He cleared his throat very pointedly before speaking again, and I grinned. He was putting his learning into practice, even now. “Have you ever heard of a safeword?”

I shook my head. I had no idea. But that was all right, because he explained it.

“A safeword is what you say if you want to stop. If something is too much for you to handle. It’s a get-out-of-jail-free card, and if you use it, everything stops. If we’re going to do this, you’ll need to choose one. Something you aren’t likely to say accidentally in the, ah, throes of passion.”

“Are there going to be throes of passion?”

“Oh yes, Camilla. You can count on that. If you can’t think of a word, for now you can just say red. Or red light. Red means stop. You understand?”

His pleasant baritone voice had grown even deeper, almost hypnotic. He spoke slowly and carefully, enunciating very clearly, sounding very patient but very much as though he had a clear destination and meant to get there on schedule. It was like listening to the hottest lecture ever.

“I understand, Professor,” I said after a moment. “Does that mean you’re into S and M?”

“I’m not a sadist, no. But there are other reasons to mix pain and pleasure. Have you ever been beaten in an erotic context?”

Was this a real conversation I was having? Surely it had to be an especially odd dream. “No, I can’t say as I have, Professor. It doesn’t sound all that erotic.”

But when he crouched down behind me, his trousers and shirt brushing against my naked back, his hand pulling my hair to one side so he could murmur in my ear, now
that
was erotic. I was aware I had a personal wetness issue of possibly embarrassing proportions going on. Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to move, or to stop him.

His lips brushed the tiny hairs along the ridge of my ear as he spoke, and I shivered in a way that had little to do with the chill in the air. “Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.” Then he went on, though I was having trouble attending to what he said, given the proximity of his mouth to first my ear, then my neck right where it was most sensitive. “The position you’re in right now is ‘kneeling down.’ Your knees need to be wider apart.”

Widening meant that squirming would be less useful to ease the growing tension between my legs, but I decided to play along. I’d come this far, I might as well see where the path led. And I was already sitting there naked, so I’d pretty much already crossed the Rubicon as far as sane decisions went. I could always use the safeword, I reminded myself, as I scooted my knees outward.
Red means stop.

“Better. If I tell you to kneel down, this is what I want to see.” He stroked down my flanks on both sides, letting his hands come to rest at the creases where hips met thighs, and delicious heat followed his touch. “Say ‘yes, Professor.’”

“Yes, Professor.” Was that my voice? I sounded so needy. He had barely touched me. He hadn’t even kissed me yet.

“Now I want you to kneel up.” He pressed up on my hips, coaxing me to rise until I was upright on my knees. “This is ‘kneeling up.’ It’s a useful position, particularly for fellatio.”

I gasped and tried to mask it with a cough. Lame. Transparent. Why did it sound so much filthier to hear Ivan say ‘fellatio’ than it did to hear most people say ‘blow job’? I heard him laugh gently behind me, and it relaxed me a little. Made me feel less freaked out. Which was short-lived, because what he asked me to do next freaked me out even more.

Shifting one hand up between my shoulder blades, he pushed very gently and said, “Now, bend over until your head and shoulders are on the floor. But leave your hips high, like they are right now.”

“Okay, wait, hold up. Wait. You haven’t even
kissed
me yet. Can we do that?”

He had seen me naked and molested my breasts, so why this missed step seemed so significant I wasn’t sure. But it was. It was something I needed. And at twenty-eight I’d learned that sometimes you had to ask in order to get what you needed.

He eased up but left his hand there on my back, making soothing circles with his fingertips. Then he shifted his grip to my neck, cupping it firmly and tipping my head back as he leaned over my shoulder. I caught his smug, intent expression for a fraction of a second before his mouth closed over mine and my eyes closed to savor the kiss.

Like drowning, that kiss. Like taking in water and giving back a piece of my life in return. Ivan tasted like bananas and secret surprises. His tongue seemed to know mine already, seemed to know precisely how to stroke and flex and play and assault my mouth until all I could do was cling to the arm he’d thrown around me at some point in the misty dawn of the kiss.

“Now,” he said once he’d pulled away, while I was still trying to catch my breath and figure out which direction the ceiling was, “bend over and put your head and shoulders on the floor for me.” This time, his push was a little firmer and against my neck. It didn’t need to be. I went over, not really caring for the moment how exposed the position made me feel. The kiss had somehow really brought home to me that Ivan knew things I didn’t. They were things I wanted to know. If this was what I had to do to learn them, I’d do it.

With my ass in the air and everything exposed, the cold bit more harshly against my very wet pussy, and I felt a tiny flicker of embarrassment about what that must look like. But it was tiny and fleeting. I got the impression he’d seen that sort of thing, and much more. I doubted I could do or say anything to shock this stranger I’d known for two years without really knowing him at all.

Ivan, calm as ever, continued his lesson. “This position is what I want to see when I say, ‘Present.’ You’re presenting your anus and vagina. For inspection, for penetration, discipline, play. Whatever I choose. Are you still following me?”

Oh, and there went my comfort level again. But with the ghost of panic came a fresh wave of arousal, made all the more keen by the knowledge that I couldn’t hide it from Ivan.

“Yes, Professor,” I moaned. I was more turned on at that moment than I could remember ever being, during four years of being a live-in girlfriend. The actual sex, assuming we ever got there, might give me a heart attack.

“Do you know anything about BDSM, Camilla?”

“No. Is that what this is? Professor,” I added hastily. Up until this evening I’d felt pretty sophisticated for knowing what the letters in BDSM stood for. Most of them, anyway. None of the initials stood for anything like this, that I knew of. Ivan ignored my question and continued the sexy lecture.

“In BDSM terms, I’m what’s called a Dominant. A Dominant plays with a partner called a submissive, and they engage in what’s called a power exchange. The submissive grants power to the Dominant to do whatever he chooses, within boundaries they agree on. In return, the submissive gets freedom from having to make decisions, and usually also pleasure or other intangibles they can’t get on their own. But ultimately the submissive has the real power, because the submissive can safeword to stop the proceedings.”

“Like a veto.”

“Exactly. Everything that’s done to the sub happens with the sub’s consent.”

“Can…can I sit up while we talk about this?”

“No, I don’t believe that’s necessary.” He put his hand on my back again, petting my spine from nape to tailbone and back again in long, soothing strokes. “I like you this way. At my mercy.” After a few more strokes, he continued the motion over one buttock and down to my damp, needy sex. I couldn’t hold back a whimper when he slid a finger inside me and began to tease in and out. “You like it too. You’re so wet right now. So ready. Do you always get this lubricated so easily?”

“No,” I admitted. He pulled his hand back and brought it down on my ass with a smack that sounded loud as a gunshot in the empty room. I yelped and raised my head, staring back at him in shock.

“No,
Professor,
” he reminded me. Calm. No expression. Watching. Waiting to see what I would do. The sting was already fading on my butt, leaving only a spreading warmth in its place.

I considered getting up right then, pulling my clothes on and demanding a ride home. But if I said “red,” I firmly believed he would stop and never make another move on his own. In the end I lowered my head back into place, let my shoulders settle, and let out a deep breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, before whispering, “No, Professor.”

“Good girl.” And the finger was instantly teasing again, slipping between my folds and down to make a hot, slow circle around my clitoris. I groaned and arched my back a little more, but he withdrew again.

“Let’s see, that’s three lessons for you so far. And I’ve had what, four? Five? I think maybe we need to keep it even. If you want to continue this. Do you want to continue this, Cami?”

He was walking around as he talked, and I could hear clothing rustling in the background. Was he taking his clothes off?

“Yes, Sir,” I answered, keeping my head and shoulders down.

“The next lesson is that you don’t get to have an orgasm unless I say so.”

“As long as I do eventually get to have them, I’m cool with that, I guess. Um, Professor.”

More rustling noises, and then a zipper. It sounded too long for pants, more like a bag being zipped up. Which turned out to be the case.

Ivan appeared in front of me, his shoes right next to my forearm. “Kneel up, Camilla.”

It felt strange to be upright, strange not to have my ladyparts on display. How quickly I’d adapted to that exposed position. I suspected that adaptation said things about me I hadn’t really considered before. Or at least not chosen to examine in detail.

I was face-to-face with the bulge in Ivan’s pants, and although I had never been a tremendous fan of giving head, I found myself half hoping that was next on the menu. If I made him come, I supposed was my frustration-addled reasoning, he would return the favor. Instead, he just held out my capri pants and the shirt that had started us down this trail to insanity.

“Get dressed. We can pick up where we left off at home.”

No underwear, no bra. For about three seconds I looked for them, and even got as far as opening my mouth to ask where they were. Then I saw Ivan’s mouth twitch at the corner, invoking the dimple. And saw that he was now carrying his laptop bag, one hand resting possessively over the outer flap. He had confiscated my undies.

“Get dressed.”

* * *

I had never been in Ivan’s bedroom before. It hadn’t really occurred to me, but it struck me as I stood in the doorway that he never invited anybody upstairs. Given that, I was happy not to see anything appalling, like severed heads of former lovers. Or half-eaten sandwiches lying around. Or a wall covered with news clippings, photos and deranged scribblings. The room was meticulously clean, like the rest of the apartment. Like everything in Ivan’s life, or so I had always thought.

“When we’re in this room, you’ll be naked unless I tell you otherwise.” He nudged his shoes off his feet and picked them up to place them in his exceedingly tidy closet.

We’d covered some basics in the car, the stuff that was necessary but annoying to have to talk about. Condoms would be used. I was not on the Pill. Neither of us was diseased. Neither of us had engaged in any high-risk behaviors like unprotected sex or sex with gay men. As for other stuff, I took Ivan at his word that he didn’t do anything hard-core, what he called edge play, or anything that might involve blood or other vectors for the transmission of disease. He always wore a condom, he said, and I believed it. He was too finicky and regimented about stuff not to be consistent with something that important. And I knew his stance on lying.

But before my clothes came off again, I still needed a bit more information. Or maybe I could sense he was a little on edge, too, now that we were finally in his room. This seemed much more real, somehow, than the incident in the data lab.

“How many other girls have you done this with?”

He took a minute to answer. While he considered, he removed his shirt slowly, toying with the buttons as he ruminated. “It’s hard to say. I go to a club, usually, and I’ve had a lot of play partners there. About three I’ve played with more frequently over the past few years. But I’ve never brought any of them home with me. And you would be the first submissive I’ve trained for myself.”

“I’m still not too sure about that,” I admitted. “That whole submissive thing.”

“The label or the requirements?”

His shirt came off, and my mind flew away for a moment. I really did wish I’d known much sooner what stellar shape Ivan was in. His abs were like something from a magazine.