04/07/10  12:58 GMT

Well Carlotta—

My strategy is about to pay handsome dividends. Come Monday 12th, you’ll be making good on every rash promise you’ve made. I have here a text message from the divine Miss Jordan, suggesting supper at my apartment this evening. My lovely Neely has been strangely moved by our recent interaction and has decided, it seems, to take a monumental step. Oh ye of little faith, Lotta. I’m about to bring this one home.

One thing—I thought there was honour among debauchers? You’ve always trusted my word in the past and you know I believe in earning my pleasures, so surely there’s no need for photographic evidence. To be quite frank, it strikes me as tacky. I think we can allow the girl some dignity, don’t you? Let’s forget the pic.

Ray

04/07/10  09:17 PST

A tad premature, Raymond. It’s not over till the Jesus-girl comes. On your cock, to be precise. And my ‘tacky’ request—this from a man who bangs freshman students in public showers for the common entertainment? Give me a break.

Let’s say I do trust your word. That you’ll be scrupulously honest regarding your degree of success this evening, based on whatever kinked sense of honor you still possess. Maybe I want the photograph as a memento of our game. The before and after—Neely Jordan, saint to sinner. Or maybe I want confirmation that your predatory instincts aren’t being blunted by sentiment. Either way, the photo is a stipulation. I have it, or you never have me in this life, and this all has been a waste of both our time.

You’ve fucked around too long, Ray. Do this thing tonight and send me proof. While she’s still in your bed.

Carlotta.

~~~~ 

Neely received the phone-calls simultaneously. She heard her mobile’s buzz even as she answered her landline.

“Hey, beautiful girl,” Ray said, and her renewed conflict eased at the warmth of his tone. “I’m in tonight, for you and no one else. You’re sure about this? If you’re suggesting what I think you are, that is.”

Neely paused. The sacrifice she was contemplating was too huge without additional confirmation. “Did you mean everything you said last night, Ray? I mean everything?”

He paused as well, to show his response was no reflex. “I’ve never said those things to anyone before, Neely. I meant them all.”

She closed her eyes in gratitude. It made her decision so much plainer. “Then I’m sure. See you around ten?”

“I’ll see you then, Neely J.”

There was something luxurious in ceasing to struggle. It was decided and simple. Relatively speaking. She checked her missed call and set about dealing with one of the complications.

“Jonas. Hi. You’ll want to talk about tonight.” The relationships workshop was due to happen with such immaculate timing, she thought wryly. How had it all come to this?

“Well, yeah.” That same sheepishness in his tone, which had replaced the good humour of old. “Just wanted to check you’re … eh …”

“Down with the plan? Well unless it’s changed since we discussed it last.”

“No, no, it’s the same. And I put all the details in an email if you want to go check it. I’ll rig up all the audio-visual stuff before the service and we’ll be good to go. Look, Neely, I appreciate you doing this with me. More than you know. I mean you could have put the kybosh on the whole thing. On me, for that matter.”

“Jonas, I …” She fought for words amid her bewilderment. What a pair they were, if only he knew. “You’re a good guy, I haven’t stopped thinking that.”

“Look, we can still help these kids make good choices, right?”

“Good choices …” Her mind drifted to an oily encounter with a certain borderline atheist and of their imminent follow-up liaison. “Yes, Jonas, we can do that. I’m sure. Hey, I’ll see you at the service, okay?”

As she clicked off, the weight of moral compromise threatened to crush her. “I can’t do this,” she breathed, not believing it. “This has got to stop—” She focused hard on her responsibility that evening: to provide the Alton Bridge youngsters with an alternative to self-gratification. How could she do that while embracing her own desires? However enticing. However delectable …

Her hand drifted towards Odyssey of Lust, and she let it drift, wanting to feed her fantasies, wanting the book to act as psychological lubricant one more time. She thumbed past the seedy father/son encounter to the chapter beyond, tantalisingly entitled Sapphire’s Release. There she found the heroine returned to her bedroom-prison in Castle Buchenwald, awaiting her next ingenious sex-trial at the hands of the duke and his debauched guests. Of course, Neely was in no such prison …

Sapphire sat bolt upright, pulling the silk sheets and heavy quilt around her freshly bathed naked body. “Who’s there?” she asked, trembling with trepidation, and peering into the darkness. “Duke Buchenwald, is that you?”

“Hush my darling,” said a voice she recognised from the few times she had heard it. “The Duke does not know I am here. It is I, Prince Sven.”

Sapphire’s heart leapt. Prince Sven—the rogue member of the Swedish royal family, Neely recalled, renowned for his womanising exploits all over Europe—had been the one guest of the Duke’s not to lay a finger on her. Each time she had been taken he had stood back and observed with an enigmatic expression on his strong handsome face. “How did you get in here?” she gasped.

“I foiled the Duke’s secret locking mechanism and drugged his guard dogs,” he told her from the shadows beyond the window. “In face I have drugged everyone else in the castle. I have come to rescue you, my Princess.”

This was already one of the daftest passages in the book, but it still caused Neely’s heart to accelerate.

Sapphire heard a rustling sound and then he stepped into the moonlight that poured through the huge, barred window. She saw his cock first, standing before him like the flagpole that stood proudly outside his father’s palace, then the rest of him. “Eh—Prince,” she inquired, staring in awe at his massive erection, “if you’re here to rescue me, then why have you taken off all your clothes?”

“Because first, my darling, I must fuck you,” he answered with fever in his voice. “Claim your body as my own, then take you away from this place forever. Do you like this plan?”

“Very much,” she said, letting the bedclothes fall away and coming to him in the center of the room so that he could see her naked beauty in the moonlight. “I think it’s a wonderful plan!” She ran a hand through his blond hair, then trailed it down his muscled chest to where his thick staff trembled before his stomach.

“Oh heavens,” Neely moaned. Blond and beautiful, huge member all primed. Ready to take the woman he loved, then spirit her away.

“That feels so good,” groaned the Prince, as her fingers fluttered all over his cock. “Now get to your knees, my beauty, and take me in your mouth.”

Sapphire obeyed gladly, kneeling before him with pale moonlight splashing all over her curvaceous body and lighting up the splendor of his. She gripped his firm buttocks with both hands and claimed his splendid tool with her mouth, slavering her tongue all over the salty head and enveloping him completely.

Neely emitted a delirious moan as the taste and sensation of the previous night came back to her. To be reading this, now …

“Suck on me, my Princess,” he urged, stretching his fingers through her curls and drawing her further down onto his shaft. “Suck on my royal sceptre, feast on a cock born of kings.” Neely would have snorted with laughter on any other afternoon. “I will shaft you mightily on this bed, then take you away with me and ream you in all the capitals of Europe.”

She felt herself lifted from his dripping shaft with a slurp and raised to her feet. He seized her gently with one hand on her face and the other gripping her waist and walked her backwards to the great four-poster bed. “However you have been fucked before,” he told her, his stately attachment brushing her soft stomach, “now you shall receive a princely fucking you shall never forget. Tonight, Sapphire, you will be a virgin deflowered all over again.”

Neely set down the book, heart drumming. Didn’t need to read that. Did not need to read that. She couldn’t bring herself to look at what came next. What point was there when that night she would have the reality?

“I’m going to do this.” She rocked back and forth where she sat, fingers knotted. “Oh gosh, I’m really going to do it.”

She set about the practical aspects of the business, commencing with a judicious pruning of her pubic zone. It was the most tormenting part of the whole sequence. All else could be passed off as regular ablutions; the trimming and shaping of this thick grove into a neat red triangle, however, underscored her intentions. She was preparing herself top to bottom for a grand unveiling.

Her shower was perfunctory; no need to indulge in soapy flights of fantasy. Towelling and moisturising was similarly functional, but she dried and brushed out her cascading red locks with love. If she really were going to be tumbled, she wanted that hair, chief source of sinful vanity, to look amazing.

Now what to wear …

Since she would go straight to Ray’s from church—assuming something divinely wrathful didn’t happen on the way—she had to dress for both. Cosmetic additions could be made after she’d left Alton Bridge, but the thought of having a sexy item tucked in her purse appalled her. A change of dress, say the demure pale-blue one with the pleated skirt, would do. And under it … She opened her bottom drawer, the one where she hid her vibrator, and searched out the lilac bra and panty set. Jasmine’s present to her last Christmas and not yet given a proper airing. The night for which her sexiest lingerie had been stored was upon her.

There was a thrill in drawing the embroidered thong up her thighs, feeling it snug around her tidily groomed pussy. She felt a similar frisson encasing her breasts in the pretty half-cup brassiere, adorned so tastefully with a silk bow. The result in the mirror provided a rush of guilty satisfaction. Surely Ray would be pleased at this. He’d relish reversing the manoeuvre she had just performed, whether tenderly and slowly or in a burst of wild desire. The thought moistened her, and she broke away to cover up in the modesty of her dress. No cross to be draped around her neck that night. She wondered if she’d ever bring herself to wear that necklace again.

A few touches of make-up and she was all set to leave. Then she bumped into Jasmine in the kitchen doorway.

“Hey babe, off to church?” her roommate asked, before noticing a peeking bra-strap. “God, in the lilac number?”

“Well …” Jasmine’s interest in Neely’s love-life had resurrected at an inconvenient moment. “Can’t I look pretty to church then?”

“Well sure.” Jasmine slipped past her into the kitchen. “God created ‘sexy’ and all that. But you’re not wearing that lingerie for the Lord, are you?”

“Jaz …” Please don’t do this, I’m begging you.

Jasmine looked around from where she was pouring a glass of water at the sink, her expression more serious, make that concerned, than Neely might have expected.  “I’ve got a feeling, to quote Black Eyed Peas, that tonight’s gonna to be a good night. Am I wrong?”

“It’ll be … fun, you know,” Neely replied weakly. Jasmine’s well-tried radar was at work, but Neely played innocent, nonetheless. “Hanging out with Ray, want to look nice for him.”

“Oh you will do,” Jasmine assured, smiling minus her trademark tease. She gave one of those new lengthy pauses. “Well … you have a nice evening.”

“Thanks, Jaz, I will.” Neely broke for the door, before the situation could become more excruciating, but Jasmine was too quick.

“You don’t have to do this.”

She froze in the doorway and turned, face flushing. “Sorry? Do what?”

“What you’re thinking of doing tonight with Ray. Neely, you don’t have to do it.”

“What makes you think I’m planning on doing anything?”

“Because you’re terrified.” Neely gripped the door handle and stared at the linoleum. So her intentions were that obvious. “And,” Jasmine said, “there’s all that extra preparation.”

“Well if I am, it’s my choice, right? Same as always. I wasn’t expecting you to try and talk me out of it. See you later.” She made to leave a second time.

“Neely, I’m sorry!”

The words arrested Neely, let alone the urgency with which they were blurted out. She stared around with vague foreboding.

“What for?”

Jasmine looked more abashed than Neely felt. She was twisting one foot against the other in her unease. “I shouldn’t have kept pushing you.”

“What?”

“Teasing you and trying to push you into something against your will. Saying Ray would expect to sleep with you.” The words were now rushing out. “I mean, who the hell am I to go telling you to sleep with anyone? What good’s it ever done to me? My relationships are rubbish, they always get messed up one way or another. Maybe your way’s better. Are you sure Ray’s right for you? He seems a nice guy and everything, but maybe you should wait to meet somebody in the church. Somebody who gets you, who’ll wait. I don’t want you to get all messed up on my stupid account, or because he puts some kind of pressure on you.”

Neely rushed to her friend, trying to stanch the flow of words along with the tears that threatened. “Jaz!” She gripped her by the shoulders. “Stop, okay? Whoever that guy was, he really messed up your head. I’m not doing anything because you’ve pushed me or because Ray’s pressuring me. I’m capable of making my own decisions, you know that?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Jasmine mumbled, still looking forlorn.

Neely hugged her friend close, surprised to find herself being the strong one. “Look, there are things I have to work out for myself, you know? And maybe I am scared, maybe I hardly know what’s going on in my life right now. But I make my own choices and I’m the one who’ll take responsibility for them. I won’t expect anyone else to, I promise.” She planted a kiss on Jasmine’s forehead and smiled at her bravely. “Now wish me luck. Kind of figured you’d be cheering me on here.”

“I am,” Jasmine said, smiling through her glumness. “I want you to be careful, okay?”

“Careful?” Neely almost laughed. “Listen to you. You sound like my dad.” Then a care-related issue clouded her thoughts, a worry on which she had yet to act. Ray might be prepared, but she shouldn’t assume. And ducking into a pharmacy on the way to church would be a nightmare too far. “Jaz, you haven’t got any—any—”

“I’ve got a packet in my purse.”

“Wow. Modern woman.”

“Much good it does me. Shall I fetch them?”

“Would you? That’d be helpful.”

Jasmine returned a moment later and pressed the cellophane-wrapped packet into Neely’s hand, a moment of girlish conspiracy uniting them. Neely looked at her friend in gratitude. It was nice to have this moment without the sly humour.

“You sure you’re doing the right thing?” Jasmine asked simply.

“No.” She squeezed her friend’s hand. “Not remotely. Bye.”

Prophylactically equipped for the first time, Neely made the trek to Alton Bridge. The embarrassing item she had zipped safely into a purse compartment, to avoid a rerun of her birthday vibrator incident. Locked in a similarly safe mental compartment were her wicked plans

 “Hey, you got the email? All set for later?” Jonas approached her in the entrance hall, as chattering worshippers filtered past them into the main part of the church. His discomfort with her seemed to have increased.

“Yeah, I got it,” she told him softly. “Same as what we discussed. It’s all fine.”

“Look,” he said confidentially, “if we approach it as, well, providing them with a bit of guidance … we’re still on the same page about that, right?”

“Sure we are,” she said, trying to smile reassurance through her unease. It wasn’t Neely’s place to make her co-worker feel more awkward than he already did.  “Really, Jonas, I’m okay about the workshop. We’ll do it like we planned. It’ll be great, I’m sure. I’m cool with everything.”

“Good. Right.” He went off bemused to sit with Leona, and Neely found space beside some church newbies, with whom she didn’t especially have to chat. The worship band kicked in and she let the service happen around her. She mumbled her way through the songs, forced a smile any time the pastor made a joke and bowed her head for prayers in which she felt no right to join. She had to mask a cringe when called on to stand up and remind the teens about the after-service workshop.

“Yes,” she said, voice wobbling along with her legs, “I’m sure you all know about it by now—you’ll have seen the posters and you know what we’ll be discussing in the coffee bar at eight o’clock.” Every eye in the church was upon her and she felt sure the evening sunshine would somehow cut through her opaque dress, exposing her sluttish lingerie along with her intentions. “It, eh, promises to be interesting and hopefully valuable for us all. Thank you.”

“We’re very blessed,” Pastor Simmons announced once she had hastily resumed her seat, “to have two such likeable and hard-working young Christian leaders as Neely and Jonas at Alton Bridge, each of them committed to upholding a vibrant witness and holy lifestyle. I hope you’ll all stick around afterwards as they lead you in what I’m sure will be a lively presentation and discussion on the vital subject of human sexuality.”

Sheesh, Neely thought, I wonder who’s coping better here, Jonas or me.

The church’s coffee bar was crammed with young people post-worship. Either she and Jonas were as popular as the pastor believed, or the buzzing roomful of teens wanted the opportunity to talk about sex. The interaction between her and her co-worker was business-like from the start, manifestly lacking in the banter they had once enjoyed. Leona, who usually tagged along with her boyfriend, had tactfully absented herself.

“Hi, everybody, welcome to the first of our ‘sexuality workshops’,” Jonas began, once the montage of subject-related film and music-video clips he had put together had played out on the flat-screen TV above the bar. (Neely could not even look at the footage of the JLS boys, Rhianna et al writhing sexily on the screen. She felt sure she should be up there as well, Whore of Babylon emblazoned on her shimmying ass.) “We hope the film hasn’t got you too excited …” A burst of laughter from the assembled teens. It was a comment Jonas could get away with when the pastor was absent. “Of course, the whole point of showing it is that you’re all well-used to such images, right, Neely?”

“Yes,” she affirmed, working from the loose script they had put together almost two weeks previously. “We’re all bombarded with sexual images in the media …” not to mention when we look inside co-workers’ cars “and there’s a great deal of pressure on us to adopt the attitudes and practices which we see in the world around us.” Like getting naked with our boyfriend and playing with his beautiful erect cock. “We’re all human and naturally we want to …” get ridden senseless “… to express our God-given sexuality. To enter into a full expression of that sexuality.”

“Yeah, like Danny Woodward did, in the room next door,” Luke Simmons snickered from a nearby table. The odious little shit was taking a prurient interest in the proceedings. A responsive ripple to his comment spread through the room.

“What we’re not here to do is to judge other people,” Neely said defensively. “Especially when we don’t know the whole story.”

“I saw the whole story,” Luke grinned, looking around to gain a reaction from his peers.

“Yes, well we don’t need to hear−”

 “It was certificate eighteen. He’s got a new career in porn.”

“Shut up you little prick,” Neely said, “or Jonas and I will kick your ass out that door.” There was a stunned hush. “Won’t we, Jonas?”

“Eh, yes. Yes. We will,” he replied, struggling free of his own awed silence. “Another word, Luke, and you’re gone, okay? Right … You were saying, Neely?”

“I was saying that we’re going to be trying to look at sex in a kind of wider context and to see how we can best cope with our sexuality as Christians in the modern world. Okay, Jonas, over to you.”

It was a contender for the weirdest evening Neely had ever experienced. Jonas introduced the Adam and Eve story and they rallied back and forth about the nature of the Bible’s premier male/female relationship. A sliver of trust seemed restored between Neely and her colleague, enough to make the evening manageable.

The workshop went well on a purely practical level. She might have relaxed, had it not been for the imminence of her liaison. Then Pastor Simmons showed up as she and Jonas were wrapping the event and hijacked proceedings. “It’s so important,” he said, earnestly addressing the group, “that we embrace the Bible’s precepts when it comes to our sexual behaviour. There’s such temptation for you young people to succumb to your urges, but you must resist at every turn. Resist in the name of Christ, or you’ll fall victim to your own lusts and all the cunning of the Devil.”

I can’t stand it. Neely subsided into gloom as the pastor continued his impromptu sermon.

“You must think I’m the biggest hypocrite in Christendom,” Jonas muttered to her with a sheepish grimace.

“Oh, I think that prize is still up for grabs,” she replied, and he shot her a questioning glance. She was sure he wanted to talk further once the pastor had closed in prayer, but she excused herself with a quick “Gotta run,” and made for the door, slightly more desperate to flee the church than scared to approach her evening’s final destination.

“Rushing off, Neely?” Pastor Simmons asked.

“Yes, sorry, I’d love to stay but I’ve got to see a friend about …” being divested of my virginity “… about ten o’clock.”

“Well thanks again, Neely, it’s a wonderful example you’re setting here. I—”

“Well, you know, I try.” Tried. “Gotta go.”

She went through the church and ducked into the ladies’ room, where that morning she had dealt manually with her frustration. There she brushed her hair, adding flounce around her shoulders, and applied lipstick. Her phone buzzed a text and her heart jumped in response. Of course it was Ray. I’M ALL READY FOR YOU SWEETHEART. Her stomach and chest seized with galloping scared excitement, which she could scarcely control. It took several moments to regulate her breathing and send the reply: JUST LEAVING. THERE IN HALF AN HOUR.

She caught her own glance in the mirror and stood a moment, trying to recognise the pale red-haired beauty before her. “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” she breathed. Neely left the sanctity of the church before it could condemn her any further.

Not twenty minutes later she stood orphan-like, clutching her purse before Ray’s door. She rang the bell and waited like a harlot for hire, imagining the curtains’ twitch all along this tree-lined terrace, as residents checked which new strumpet was calling at number forty-four. Her boyfriend had made no secret of his amorous past; could he have told her which number she was in his string of conquests? Shouldn’t she have chosen a paramour with a notch-free belt before offering up her chastity? Oh God, what in suffering hell was she doing there?

The door opened and Ray stood before her, gorgeous in dark jeans and white cotton shirt. His smile melted her fears like sunshine on wax. She floated into his hallway in a thrill of happiness, and he shut the door behind her, sealing them both from prying eyes. Even God would deflect his sorrowful gaze, she felt, from what might go on within those walls. It was enough consolation for her guilty soul to get by on. Repent after the event, right?

She turned to say “Hi,” and he gathered her to himself, sealing his mouth to hers in extravagant French-style greeting. Instantly she reciprocated, letting her tongue glide all around his, while her arms linked about his strong neck. His touch was warm and sensuous, but different from before. He was taking her boldly in that opening hug and she was freely giving; there was luxury in no longer holding back. His hands clutched the snug-fitting bodice of her dress and pulled her tight to him; she could feel his maleness thicken as desire pumped it hard. Ray’s hold was territorial, and she knew, pressed close against him, how literally he would stake his claim. Her loins were already juicing in preparation.

The kiss extended and softened into a lingering dance of their tongues before Ray broke away and smiled. “Yes. Hi.” She laughed through her haze of desire. “Come into the living-room. I’ve something we can relax with.”

His hand slid around hers without their bodies breaking contact and he led her into the room’s ambient lighting. Two fluted glasses and a Moet and Chandon champagne bottle awaited her on the table. It gratified Neely that he wasn’t simply going to haul her into the bedroom and throw her flailing onto his mattress. Yet as she sat down, she was troubled by the significance of the beverage her boyfriend was uncorking. Rather presumptuous perhaps? A touch self-congratulatory? As on dates past, Ray appeared to read her mind.

“You’re wondering exactly what we’re celebrating,” he said, easing out the cork with a hearty pop, then catching the translucent liquid in one glass after the other as it frothed. She looked at him solemnly as he passed her a crystal goblet. “Whatever happens this evening, beautiful girl, I’m drinking to us.”

A fizz of warmth ran through Neely before the bubbles had even landed on her tongue. He did have a knack, her guy, of saying exactly the right thing. “Me too,” she said, beaming. “To us.” They clinked their glasses and drank, the champagne fizzing down her throat like liquid reassurance. “It’s delicious.” She giggled at the unfamiliar sensation and pondered what an insular existence she must have led till now.

“You’re delicious,” he responded, and his sudden intensity suggested he was planning to enjoy her to the full. Her gaze faltered as she sipped again from the glass; she felt silly and girlish before him, all her womanly flourishes from the previous night having apparently deserted her. “Pretty dress, don’t think I’ve seen it before,” he said, in an effort to rescue her from embarrassment. It didn’t work.

“It’s one I … wear to church.” She had hoped they could negotiate their way around that particular C-word and trembled at its mention.

Ray was equal to the moment. “You could wear that anywhere. Maybe we could take it on a day-trip next week. Somewhere outdoorsy if the weather holds.” She leaped on the topic, and they swapped potential destinations, Neely throwing out places she had never been, to which Ray could spirit her. It was reassuring—to envisage a world beyond first-time sex, the two of them all the more tightly-bonded, exploring their new lives together. And as they chatted the champagne levels slowly sank, till the glasses were drained. Somehow, she did not envisage a refill. Not till much later at any rate.

The conversation lulled and Ray reached to brush back a strand of her hair, then lightly cradled her jaw with his palm. Neely leaned into his caress.  “I know how huge this is for you,” he told her. Her heart fluttered at all the connotations of ‘huge’. “And I don’t take it lightly.” She met his eyes again and drew comfort from how his charged stare had simmered into something more gentle. “I need something, Neely. I need to hear from your lips what it is you want this evening. What you meant when you asked to come around. I don’t want to be in any doubt.”

“I … I …” She couldn’t quite force out the words.

“Tell me, Neely, I want to hear you say it.”

It made him hot, she could hear it in the huskiness of his voice. He wanted her to articulate the enormous step she intended to make. Well, what if it did arouse him to have fun with her precious chastity? She had made him wait long enough and it was causing her to soak her knickers, so she could scarcely reprimand him. She returned his blue-eyed stare and summoned up courage—played the game once more, the crazy-sexy game of giving him exactly what he craved.

“I want …” It was real. She was doing this thing. Whatever guilt might come crashing down next day, tonight it couldn’t touch her. “I want you to do with me whatever you want. Whatever you’ve been dreaming of. Don’t censor yourself.” She had used the same words with Danny one week prior. “Be what you want to be with me. I won’t back off.”

“You change your mind at any point, I’ll understand.”

“I know. But I won’t.”

With that, she committed herself, like once she had committed to her faith. Fleetingly she recalled her promise to God as she walked away after lunch with Danny—I won’t go there—and dread rushed upon her. But Ray was already taking her at her word, easing the champagne flute from her hand and setting it with his own on the table. Then his mouth was on hers once more, fingers plunging into her thick hair to draw their lips tighter. He released her from a hard urgent kiss that left her gasping, then his lips were caressing her ear, neck, collar bone, as she fought for breath. His fingers clutched her through her thin dress, and she knew that this scary, blissful assault had no brakes. She had ventured down this road before, but tonight there was no returning.

He kissed her again, firm on the mouth. “My room, let’s go there.”

“Mm-hm.” She was agreeing almost desperately but broke from him so she could dig into her purse. “Ray … Please …” She plucked out the condom packet and pressed it into his hand, feeling stupid for not having broached the subject before.

He smiled and kissed her more softly. “Clever girl. I have my own, but these’ll do. Not that we need them yet a while. Come with me.” He took her hand, raised her from the sofa and led her lamb-like into his bedroom.

The curtains were drawn, bedside lamp casting a pale glow about his dark sheets. Candles flickered on the dresser, suffusing the room with what she was sure was frankincense. A Biblical fragrance, how choice. “Wait here,” Ray urged, setting her onto the edge of the duvet. She perched there, fingers entwined, heart drumming, staring at the European cityscapes on his walls, trying to make out the titles of his book collection. There would be other less distracting occasions on which to study the trappings of his room, she thought. Right now, she was more taken up with Ray as he darted about the bed, lighting further candles which had stood prepared on either side. Nice touch, she thought weakly … He had been in no doubt, it seemed, that she would follow through on her inclinations. Tonight was incontrovertibly Fuck Night.

“I resisted the urge to play R and B,” he told her, as the final candle ignited.

“Classy, not cheesy—you’re good at that.” Neely’s smile could not quell her rising panic.

“And that,” Ray said, drawing her lightly from the bed and pulling her body tight to his, “is the only urge I’m going to resist tonight.”

She gasped to be encased in his arms, the terrifying sexy promise lingering in her ears. His mouth resumed its undulation on her neck, and she let her head drop back so that her hair’s tresses swung free behind her, hands clinging in near despair to his muscular frame. His hands slid gradually down to the small of her back, then beyond, spreading outwards to claim the flesh of her buttocks and pulling their loins into proximity. The amazing organ she had explored so brazenly one night ago was pumped for her—she could feel it, robust and ready through those few inconsequential layers of clothing, straining like it sensed the time had come.

Ray drew the hand that cradled her ass all the way up to the back of her neck; he guided her to where he could speak lightly in her ear, words that shuddered her to her centre. “You make my cock so fucking hard, sweet girl …” Like she didn’t already know it. “You’ve done it all this time and tonight you’re going to feel it.” As his tongue flickered in her ear, she felt sure she would pass out, more so when it trailed silkily down the curve of her neck till his teeth bit lightly at the apex with her shoulder.

She uttered a moan she was sure sounded inhuman, by the end of which he was unhooking the back of her dress and drawing down the zipper. He introduced space between them, so the garment would have easy passage from her body. A slight drawing aside of the shoulder straps and the blue cotton fabric rustled all the way to the bedroom floor, leaving her trembling in scraps of pretty lingerie.

“Sublime,” Ray breathed, taking time to absorb her slender form. He caught the fingers of both her hands in his and she stood, eyes dropped, body heating under his shameless gaze. “Look at me.” It was the gentlest of commands and she stared, finding herself trapped by his pupils’ piercing blue, as he brushed her shallow cleavage with his fingertips and traced the lacy border of one brassiere cup. “You’re exquisite, Neely. Beautiful in every way.” She felt her panty-crotch bloom once more with moisture, pussy melting along with her heart. “Now am I going to have to take my own shirt off as well?”

Neely gave a faltering laugh. He made her feel adolescent and womanly, cherished and silly at the same time. Shakily she reached out and undid his buttons from the top, gaining confidence as she descended, holding his gaze and rediscovering some of last night’s tease. She paused each time she tugged apart each new section of shirtfront, admiring his torso all over again. Finally, she arrived at the tails and pulled them apart to expose him in the flickering candlelight. Boldness rose within her as she swept the shirt off his back and ran her hands over his gorgeously defined upper body. She felt like she was illicitly touching a Michelangelo sculpture; any second the attendant would bark at her. Or maybe the divine, omniscient museum curator.

“You’re so beautiful too.” Her voice ached with guilty awe. “I want you so much, I can’t take it anymore.”

“I knew that night I saw you standing in the church.” Ray brushed her cheekbone with the back of his hand and slid fingers through her hair, their tips grazing the back of her neck.

“What did you know?”

“The passion stored inside you. How privileged any man would be to see that passion come flooding out.”

She shivered again under his touch and his words and wondered suddenly how much seduction there had been from the start. Whether his sexual pursuit had stemmed from mounting passion as they dated, or whether on some level, regardless of all his protestations, he had planned to bed her from the day they met. A scary thought, maybe unworthy, but one she could not shake. Nor was she sure, at that point, if it mattered. Right now, she wanted him too damn much. “I don’t know if I’ll be all you expect.”

“You’ll be everything,” he said, drawing her barely clothed form to his naked chest. “I know women, but I’ve never known any woman like you.” His mouth descended on hers and claimed it like a prize. She responded, wrapping her tongue around his in a coiling dance, the passion he had spoken of leaking from her along with her juice.

They kissed for an age, the muscles of his back flexing under her grip, his arms crushing her to him. The sense of skin on skin thrilled her and she could not help but crave more; she throbbed with excitement to feel his fingers deftly unclipping her at the back. He brushed the lilac brassiere from her shoulders, and she stood with him, meek in heels and panties.

Ray touched her face again and his eyes reassured. He drew the trimmed nails of both his hands over her neat, exposed mounds, across nipples which stood proud, even as the rest of her quailed. His fingers stretched out, hands flexing to palm the pliant flesh which no other man had been allowed to touch. “Such pretty handfuls,” he said, and he massaged her gently, thumbs teasing over pointed areolae. “You’ve made me wait so long to touch there.”

“I’m sorry.” Now he had her apologising for her Christian convictions.

“Don’t be.” He squeezed more concertedly on her tits. “It makes this all the sweeter.” His hand shifted and seized behind her, tipping her, so his mouth could drop hungrily onto her right breast.

Neely cried out as he closed on her nipple and kissed, rotating his tongue on her engorged bud. Then he sucked hard, just to the point of pain, making her start and squeal. He transferred to the swollen hub of her other breast and provided similar exquisite treatment, his free hand steadily kneading the mound he had left unattended. She could scarcely catch her breath at having her bosom so freely molested. “Oh God, oh God …” If this was a prayer, it wasn’t one for him to stop. Her head was too full of wild excitement, her knickers far too sodden. The latter would not remain on her much longer, she sensed, and Ray’s next move showed her prescience.

Her lover eased her backwards, laying her onto the bed and dropping to his knees before her. She sat up, propping herself on her elbows and breathing hard, needing to see his next move. He was panting in his desire, staring at her levelly as he raised her leg and cradled her sandal-clad foot. “I want you naked. Not a stitch on your beautiful body.” The V of her sheer lilac knickers provided little modesty, but the thought of her final uncovering still shocked. She watched with stilled breath as he undid one sandal after the other, slipping each from her foot with loving attention. Then he ran his palms about her thighs, poring over her, mapping her svelte contours. He smiled to see the steady leak of arousal into her panties’ saturated fabric.

Neely held her breath as Ray slid both hands upwards to her hips and wriggled his fingers under the waistband of her final paltry garment. He balled his fists to claim it and paused, relishing the moment. “Baby …” He drew the panties smoothly away, guiding them around the junction of her knees and free of her ankles in virtually a single move. Then she lay, stripped bare before him.

He surveyed her in a kind of reverence, then rose onto the bed, slithering hands over her thighs, stomach and breasts, till he loomed above her and kissed her gasping mouth. “God, I want you,” he breathed, “but I’m still going to take my time.” She reached with her mouth to kiss him again, but he receded down her body till he knelt at her thighs once more, parting them gently, opening her up as he had done on her birthday. “You know what’s coming now.” His mouth homed in so that she felt its heat on her naked pussy. She knew, and her nipples peaked some more at the thought. “As I recall …” His lips were almost brushing hers as he spoke. “… You ran scared before I’d finished. Not this time.”

His hands slid beneath her upper thighs to scoop around her buttocks, as he put his mouth to her and plunged. She cried and fell flat onto the covers, shocked to be tongue-fucked lustily. He gripped her ass and thrust his muscle urgently in and out of her like a statement of intent. Then he withdrew and flickered rapidly on her clitoris, making her moan more loudly still. Oh God, oh yes … There it was, like before—hot threads of sensation shooting out from her groin to net her body in ecstasy. Only this time she submitted completely, arching and writhing on the bed with no restraint. His moist tongue was working her expertly, darting on her hot focal point, slithering deftly up and down her slit, then thrusting once more to penetrate deep, flexing and lapping all around her inner walls.

So good, so good I can’t stand it. Don’t stop, please don’t stop, please … She joyed in the sense of riding on her lover’s tongue, all inhibition draining away and lust filling her up to replace it. Her body was in his control like never before. Her hands clutched at the bedspread, to earth the electricity at loose within her. One palm strayed to her breast to massage it, to tug on her hard nipple and relieve the passion with which she was charged. When she glimpsed him, the sight of his sweating face crammed between her legs overwhelmed. His eyes bored into hers as his tongue persisted in its thrashing. There was fierce intent there, to get her off, to make her explode as he continued to feast.

Neely’s head fell back and rolled on the bed as her pleasure mounted. She was shifting and bucking spontaneously, but Ray gripped her ass harder and locked into her, never letting up with his mouth’s wet friction. Then one hand reached up and seized her by the tit she had left unsqueezed, kneading her firmly, bracing her with a joint hold on bosom and shunting rear, while his tongue savoured her cunt. Like he wanted to enjoy all the parts together she had kept wrapped up. She felt deliciously controlled—naked for him more than physically. Groans issued freely from her throat, bouncing off his high ceiling. She was at the mercy of his desire and her own, surging to a peak of excitement. Oh God, I’m going to come … I’m going to come all over his damn face!

There was a flash of mortification at this thought, of total exposure before him, but it only served to augment her excitement and send her into thrashing ecstasy. His hands clamped fast and his mouth sealed itself to her cunt as she came hard, flowing all over his tongue. In the throes of excitement, she knew that he could feel, smell and taste her, hear her screams, see her body shudder under his oral endeavours. Neely—the total sensory experience. Her climax was long and shuddering, intensified by his continued intimate presence. When it tailed off, the tide of vulnerability rushed on her once more, like she was Eve in the Garden, perceiving her nakedness afresh.

The moment did not last. Ray relinquished her pussy and drew himself up beside her on the bed, rolling her off her back and clutching her to him. “Sweetheart, it’s okay. It’s okay.” His words and their tone made it so. When he kissed her, she responded instantly before catching the exotic tang and remembering where his mouth had been. His fingers entrapped her curling locks, and held her mouth to his, however, so that she had no choice but to explore her own sharp-sweet flavour. His mouth broke away and he stroked her face, their lips brushing. “See how sweet you taste?” She could not help but admire his erotic daring. “Everything about you is beautiful.”

He made her feel sexy and desirable, and it was no huge shock to realise that his trousers were unbuttoned, cock bulging tight against the fabric of his briefs. Her sneaky guy had been unfastening, eager to release that pulsing beast from its prison. Her heart thudded against her ribcage, but something kittenish had been set loose akin to what she had felt during the massage, and she reached down, running her hand over him, feeling his bold erection through the briefs, while looking meekly into his eyes. See how playful I am? I’m not frightened of you, not frightened at all …  His expression intensified into a challenge and she almost gulped. Who was she trying to kid? Trepidation raged, but she did it anyway—thrust her hand under the band and felt all the way down the thick throbbing dimensions of his cock.

It made her gasp, last night’s exploits notwithstanding, for tonight she knew where this beautiful length of manhood was destined to go. Ray’s look was taunting. He clapped his hand to hers, trapping it on the hard shaft. He guided her down to the base and over his heavy shaved balls, cupping her fingers there, then brought her slithering up all his inches to the perfectly defined head. He kissed her mid-gasp and she succumbed to his mouth’s caress, palm still laid on his erection. Their lips parted and he toyed with a strand of hair that lay across her cheek. “It’s going to be amazing, Neely,” he assured, his gaze regulating her breath and calming her. “For both of us.”

The moment extended long enough for his words to penetrate her mind. Then he flipped onto his back and set about getting stripped. Neely watched, her reverie equal to that of the night before, as he slid off his footwear and divested himself of trousers and briefs. His cock slapped against his stomach as he completed the manoeuvre and, once again, she ogled that great excited member. She was still looking when he rolled back and took her to him.

Neely’s breath caught as their fully naked selves closed together for the first time. Her upper body was pressed to his so that her nipples brushed his chest. His hand was light on her bare ass and his knee had inveigled its way between her thighs, the swollen head of his cock pressed to her lower stomach. She shivered in fearful pleasure, those final inhibitions not as easily shed as her clothes. To have her goose-bumping flesh so close to his, the two of them covered by not even a quilt, luxuriating in mutual exposure that warm July evening … She could hardly bear it.

Ray’s lips caressed her neck. His face nestled into her thick hair. She felt his hand chart a concave from her rump all the way to her shoulder and back, a touch so subtle it made every downy hair on her body prickle. “Isn’t this nice?” His cock prodded into the taut flesh of her belly. “You and me together like this. You like it?”

“Mm-hmm,” she groaned, reaching her arm around her lover’s waist, and embracing his hard body in response to his gentle attentions. “I love it, Ray.”

“You’re imagining what it’ll be like when we’re even closer?” The velvet caress in his voice made her shudder. It engorged her with longing.

“Yes. Yes, I am.” She trailed fingers from his upper arm to his collar bone. He continued to mould his hand gently to her curves, tantalising neck and jaw with his mouth.

“Are you wet for me, Neely? Wet and ready to take me inside you?”

“Oh God, I … I …”

Before she could form an answer, Ray reached down and slipped a finger between her legs, teasing it into her slit. She sucked in a sharp breath at his intrusion. “Question answered.” He withdrew the finger from her slippery entrance and used it to trace her cheekbone. “Seems we’re both ready.”  

Competing reservations surged upon Neely; as he pressed himself to her, she restrained him with her fingertips and voiced the most urgent. “Ray, you’ll remember to … to put …”

“Of course I will. But it might be more sexy if you helped me, what do you say?”

“I … I … You know I’ve never done that before. I don’t want to mess it up.”

“It’s okay. We’ll do it together.” He released his tender hold and swung off the bed, so that he stood before her naked and proud, none of him more so than the pole which swayed before him. He reached to where he had set the condom packet on the dresser. “Help me, darling.”

Neely sat up on the bed, shyness overtaking her. She was being toyed with now, in her flame-faced innocence.  “It’s okay,” Ray cajoled, tearing away a plastic strip at the side of the sealed package. “Come on, sweetheart, come play with me.”

Masking her nerves with a show of compliant sexiness, she slid her naked form off the bed and dropped to kneeling.

His phallus hovered before her, robust and thick-veined, tip winking in the candlelight. She paused in fearful veneration before this miracle of Creation, before setting about her task. When she reached for the condom, however, Ray drew it away. She stretched further, the shaft of his cock hardly an inch from the tip of her nose, but still he held it shy of her flexing fingers. “Taste me first. Go on.” She balked at the instruction, feeling more a plaything than a lover. Then she saw his face, more eager than demanding, as though the memory of her mouth on him was too much to resist. He was pleading, because that was how much he wanted, maybe needed her. She leaned in and planted her soft lips on his shaft. The result, as he twitched to her mouth’s touch, was her own surge of excitement. Wasn’t it nice to make him feel good? Wasn’t he worth the secret Neely, the one beneath the church girl who thrilled to erotic fiction in her room? And wasn’t that part of why she was here? It seemed appropriate, almost a blessing, when his hand lighted on her face, encouraging her to taste.

She granted his wish, repeating the soft kiss all the way up the underside of his quivering length, then licking under the hooded summit. He groaned deliciously in response and, when he guided further, she could not resist capturing the spongy head between her lips and sucking. The wrapping of her mouth around her boyfriend’s hard penis shocked her anew, yet she embraced the task more wholeheartedly than during the massage. The time for moral squeamishness was past.

Gripping Ray’s upper thighs she bobbed on him, so that the bulged salty head of his cock glided back and forth over her taste buds. Now she was Sapphire (minus that heroine’s colourful sexual history), kneeling before her own Prince Sven to service him with her mouth. Yet when she gazed up at Ray’s taut body, at his face straining with pleasure, she wondered a moment who controlled whom. The thought thrilled her and she applied more succulent oral attentions than before, taking him deeper, shaping her mouth around his head and sliding her tongue lavishly about his shaft. It produced a grating response in the back of his throat, suggesting intense gratification.  

Neely recalled the actions of Sapphire’s many lovers at such moments, and it struck her that Ray’s might be similar—to abandon all control, grab her head and plunge his cock down her throat till she choked. His touch upon her remained soft, however, fingers weaving through her locks and stroking her as she sucked. “Perfect, sweetheart, so fucking perfect …” His voice achieved perfection too in its fusion of tenderness and lust. She was cared for and desired. Encouraged by the thought, she skated her tongue down to the cleft of his balls and all the way back again, recapturing his head, all on her own initiative.

He groaned appreciation and gripped her harder, fingers curling more insistently into the roots of her hair. “Look at yourself, baby. See how fucking hot you are.” The words drew her gaze sideways to the dresser mirror and her mind reeled at what she saw—the naked girl on her knees, red hair mussed, lips stretched into a pink O around her lover’s stout pole. This was a whole different Neely. The God-fearing church-girl had turned wanton cocksucker and the sight shocked her. “Such a sexy angel.” Her cheeks burned, mouth still full with cock. The ‘angel’ felt more a slut and she wondered how much the thought would haunt her later. Right now, the pulse of Ray’s organ on her tongue and its connection with her swollen cunt overrode all guilt, but surely that effect was temporary.

“It’s time, sweetheart,” he said, drawing her away from him. A strand of saliva linked her to his head and, self-conscious, she broke it with her tongue. He was reaching down now with the unwrapped condom, pinching at its tip and fitting it over the glans her mouth had released. “Go on, you do the rest.” A hands-on sex-ed class. Her heart thumped as she unrolled it, the lubricated rubber making a rustling as she guided it—from underneath the hood down all his thick standing inches to the shaved base. There she kneeled, wrapping up her boyfriend’s cock in that tight-fitting sheathe so he could stick himself inside her.

The fitting complete, Ray embraced her once more, enfolding her within his arms as though protecting her. “It’s okay,” he told her gently, covered phallus flat against her stomach. “It’s all okay.” She stood holding his muscled arms for a moment that seemed an aeon, waiting and yearning. “Tell me what you want,” he whispered, as he cradled her. “Tell me what you want, Neely. I want to hear you say it.”

Was he flattering his ego, or urging her to own the moment? She chose the latter interpretation, such was the tenderness in his eyes.

“I want you to make love to me.” Oh God, did she. “Ray, I want you inside me.”

TO BE CONTINUED