Chapter Twenty
Isobel did not know how to feel as she cycled back home, whether to be pleased that she had been spared the possibility of a second betrayal, or to be angry with herself for allowing an obvious womaniser like Lance into her affections. At least she could congratulate herself that she had kept his interest in her a secret from Maria—how foolish she would feel now if she had boasted about his pursuit of her. Now his name need never cross her lips again.
As she approached her porch she halted to examine a silver motorbike with high handlebars parked at a right angle to the pavement, squeezed between her own rental and the neighbour’s familiar Dodge. She ran her hand along the black leather saddle and onto the shining chrome of the gas tank, decorated with the wings that were the maker’s logo. She could feel the heat from the engine; if a visitor had called then he only recently arrived, and it could only be a “he”, for this beast of a bike belonged squarely in the boys’ toys category. Well, it could not be Rudy, since she had not told him where she lived and he, she hoped, still sat in some emergency room nursing his privates. Could it be Greg? She knew he had Maria’s number, if not their address. Had he dropped in for another taste of what he had had the night before, a second course, or more probably a third?
Bizarrely, she found herself knocking at her own front door. If Maria had invited Greg over, she did not want to stumble into the two in flagrante across the kitchen table.
But neither Greg nor Maria opened the door.
“Ryan!” said Isobel, her exclamation betraying shock more than delight. “Wh–what are you doing here?”
“What sort of a greeting is that?” He stepped onto the porch and embraced her, planting a kiss on her lips. She stole a glance over his shoulder where Maria stood in the hallway, dragging her finger across sealed lips.
“Is it okay if I come in?” asked Isobel, looping her arm around his waist.
“Not until I’ve shown you my new baby. I only bought her yesterday and I wanted you to be the first to see her. I’d have driven down last night if I could have got hold of you.”
Isobel glanced at Maria, who raised her eyebrows in a silent signal that the fibs had not gone unnoticed.
He led Isobel out to the bike, Maria two paces behind. “A beauty, isn’t she? And brand spanking new. You want to go for a ride?”
Isobel, despite being an accomplished horsewoman, could think of nothing less appealing than spreading her legs across this icon of the American male identity crisis, but she also took pleasure in the joy it gave Ryan showing her the bike.
“Maybe later, when I’ve gotten a bit more used to the idea of joining a Hell’s Angels chapter.” She rubbed her hand over the bulky frame. It reminded her of the bikes that she saw on posters in boys’ dorms back in her university days, except this one came minus stars and stripes.
Ryan threw his leg over the saddle, turned the key, and the classic V-twin engine roared into life. In his black leather jacket and white T- shirt, he reminded Isobel of a young and wild Marlon Brando, which she supposed might be Ryan’s intended effect. “Pure muscle, goes like stink,” he said, revving the throttle and raising his voice to make himself heard.
She flapped her hands up and down. “Please, Ryan, you’ll have me thrown out of the neighbourhood making all that racket.”
“No chance of that with F-16s screaming overhead every ten minutes. This is the sweetest sound you’ll ever hear.” But nevertheless he cut the engine, patting the fuel tank like a trusty steed.
“It doesn’t look that practical,” said Maria sceptically, making her first contribution to the exhibition.
“Who wants practical?’ said Ryan. “That’s the whole point, we don’t do practical in LA, at least not when we’re posing on Melrose Avenue.”
“Speaking of practical,” said Isobel, looking up from her watch and addressing Maria, “don’t you have a manicure appointment this morning?”
Maria looked from Isobel to Ryan and back again. “Why, so I have. And I’m going to miss it if I don’t dash. Let me just grab my things and I’ll be off.”
“You want me to drop you off on the Harley?” he asked as the three walked back into the house.
“It is not my custom to pass on such an offer, and another time I would love to, but it wouldn’t seem right, not before Isobel has first had the pleasure.”
Ryan and Isobel stood facing each other, holding hands.
“I’ve been aching to see you,” he whispered, nibbling her ear as Maria gathered up what she needed, no more than her purse and her sunglasses.
“Me too,” she said, throwing a glance towards Maria, who suddenly made a show of checking her phone.
“You been up to anything, anything special?”
She ran her fingers down his jacket lapels, her eyes on his chest. “Just showing Maria around. Bike riding, art galleries, museums, a bit of shopping,” she replied, as if their days began and finished at six o’clock.
“Sounds fun.” He nodded toward Maria, raising his eyebrows.
“Can I get you anything before you go?” said Isobel, well aware of Maria’s eavesdropping.
“Just going, just going. I’ll be about two hours,” she said as she scampered past them.
The door closed and Ryan threw off his jacket. “Nice friend you have,” he said, pulling Isobel back to him. He kissed her on the lips as he slipped the straps of her light summer dress off her shoulders.
She did not know what to say or do, his arrival being so unexpected. What had caused Ryan to shoot down from LA unannounced she had no idea, nor where the money had come from for a new bike, something he’d never mentioned wanting. And, she couldn’t help thinking, What about my three thousand?
“Maybe we should talk first,” she said, “just so we can both catch up on things.”
He pressed his fingers to her lips. “We’ve only got two hours, talking can wait.”
As Lance’s pursuit of her had gathered pace, Isobel had determined she needed a heart-to-heart with Ryan, to discuss where their relationship stood and what they both wanted out of it. But the sight of Lance with Chrystal Brakeley had wiped away that resolve. Her feelings for Ryan she knew fell short of love, but what of it? She had not loved him, or he her, the first time they had jumped into bed together.
“I’ve been aching for you this past week,” he said.
Now she put her fingers to his lips. “Then show me,” she said gently. “Show me you’ve been aching for me.”
He undid the buttons on the front of her dress and pushed the cloth down to her waist. She put a hand behind her back and unclasped the strapless bra, and it fell to the floor between their feet. He pulled his T-shirt over his head, pressing his skin against hers. He had not washed since his ride down from LA and she could detect the slight odour of perspiration from his body.
“You smell,” she said, kissing his chest.
“You want me to shower?”
“Don’t be silly, I love the way you smell.” She pulled at the buckle of his belt and undid the front of his jeans. She slipped her hand inside his pants and cupped his testicles, dragging her nails along his scrotum and up to his erect shaft.
“So absence makes the cock grow harder?” she said, drawing her fingers up to the tip of his pleasure.
He laughed. “You did ask me to show you.”
She smiled back, pushing his jeans and pants down his thighs. “We’d better move to the bedroom, we don’t want that one-eyed monster frightening Maria when she comes back.”
“Nothing she hasn’t seen before.”
“That’d better not be true,” she said, holding his testicles in silent threat, a playful hint of nails pressing into his flesh.
He stepped out of his pants and she led him to the bedroom, stepping backwards, one hand round his fingers, the other around his shaft. “I don’t want to let that thing go down on me,” she said with a giggle, “if you know what I mean.”
“Quite the comedienne today, aren’t you?”
“I try my best.” She had left that morning without making the bed. “Sorry,” she said, “the sheets might still be warm from the last person in here.” She pulled the duvet off and leant over to smooth the creases from the sheets. He clasped her hips from behind, the weight of his body pushing her onto the bed. Kneeling across her he tugged her dress up around her waist.
“At least you’ve got your panties on today,” he said.
“I think you might be confusing me with someone else.”
“You deserve a good spanking, you know that?”
“Have I been naughty?”
“Very naughty.”
She wiggled her bottom as best she could. “And do you want to spank me?”
“Have you been spanked before?”
“Not since boarding school. One of the prefects did it across a desk in the library.”
“What’s a prefect?”
From where she lay she could see a row of American classics left by the landlord tucked under the TV, all of which she had polished off within the first month of arrival. It briefly occurred to her that she had yet to see Ryan reading anything more demanding than a screenplay.
“Think of the class bully with a tin badge and you’re pretty close.”
“Did she pull down your panties first?” he asked, seeming intrigued by whatever schoolgirl antics Isobel referred to.
“She wanted to. But I pulled them down for her.”
“Well, pull them down for me now.”
Isobel did as he told her, hooking her thumbs into the cotton. “Be gentle,” she said, realising for the first time that Ryan had every intention of spanking her.
Her buttock a stung as his palm hit her flesh. He used no great force, but neither did he administer a playful pat.
“Ouch,” she said, but remained prostrate, with her thumbs in her panties, either to dare him to strike a second blow, or to encourage him to deliver it, of which she could not be sure.
“That’s for not taking my calls.” He brought his hand down a second time with similar force. “And that’s for not returning them.” Again she let out a shout to fuel his passion. He brought his hand down twice more in quick succession, the last with more weight than the blows before. “And that’s for not coming to LA and taking down your panties for me there.” Two more blows fell with greater might behind them, and she let out two more cries, this time without willing them. But still she did not ask him to cease, nor did she move to cover her cheeks. “And those last two are to remind you what’s in store if you don’t come to LA this weekend.” And with that he pulled her hands away from her pants and tore them from her.
She had never been spanked before. For her unadventurous husband, Peter, kinky sex did not extend past leaving the light on. Her lover, Jay, had pushed her past her own forbidden boundaries, exploring every part of her body, but he had never laid a hand on her. But if today having her cheeks reddened was the price for stoking Ryan’s lust for her, she did not mind it.
“You’ll pay for those blows,” she said, “and those knickers.”
“We’ll see who pays for what.” He bent over her and began to work his tongue across the redness on her buttocks. She craned her head to look over her shoulder and took satisfaction that her suffering had, if anything, fanned the flames of his desire. His hands parted her cheeks as he ran his tongue up and down the length of her, flicking the tip in and out around her sphincter. She turned her shoulders as best she could, her lower body pinned helplessly to the bed.
“Don’t get any ideas in that department,” she said.
He spun her over onto her back. “Or you’ll do what, you shameless hussy?” He fell forward onto her, grabbing her wrists, pinning them back to the bed at shoulder height and bending to bite her nipples, holding each one in turn between his teeth as he pulled on them. She struggled against the hold he had on her wrists, but his grip only tightened, and he continued his pulling and biting, her own passion rising with his fervour.
“You’re hurting me,” she said, now not caring that he was.
“Teaching you obedience is what I’m doing.”
“What the devil’s gotten into you?” she shouted, liking whatever possessed him.
He didn’t answer, just shifted his body, dragging it upwards till she was pinned at the shoulders by his shins. He took his member in his hand and thrust it forward to her lips. His eyes were locked on hers, his desire burning behind them. She tossed her head to the side, but he grasped her chin and turned her back to face him.
“You’re taking a chance with that, after what you’ve just been doing to my nipples.”
He rubbed the tip, along her sealed lips. “Do your worst,” he said, smacking the shaft against her cheek before returning it to her lips. Again he moved back and forth but now with more pressure against her. “Take it.”
Her wrists no longer pinned, she took him in her hand. “When I’m ready,” she said. She stroked and caressed him, pulling on him, and rolling her fingers over the moistened end, holding his eyes as she did so. She went on working him, rubbing her cheeks against him, but continuing to deny him her mouth. When she could tell his need for her was approaching its peak she quickened her hand movement. His grip on her shoulders grew stronger, and when she sensed he was at his end, she parted her lips and took him inside her.
He fell back on the bed, his body spent, and she left him to rest. When after a while he did not rise to continue, she got off the bed, slipped off the dress still crumpled around her waist and took a pair of stockings from the dresser. She returned to the bed and stood beside him in all her beauty and nakedness.
“You getting dressed?” he said, reaching out his fingers to brush down her belly, but giving no other encouragement to stop her.
She said nothing but took his wrist, first one, then the other, and bound him with the stockings. Moving onto the bed, she straddled his chest and secured each stocking to the iron frame.
“Isn’t this type of stuff supposed to be consensual?” he asked with a grin.
“You get back what you give out. Just be thankful you aren’t gagging on your boxers.”
He watched her go about her task, not speaking or resisting, until she gave a last tug on each stocking and nodded. She moved higher on his torso, her shins against his shoulders, as his had been on hers. First she sat back, resting her weight on his chest and folded her arms, as if to consider her options. She said nothing but took her right hand, the same hand that had so recently given him such pleasure, and slapped his cheek, first one, and then the other. Then she rose back up, seized his highlighted hair in her hand, and lowered herself onto his face.
“Now your turn,” she said, her voice quietly demanding. “You’re going to eat me like you’ve never eaten a woman before. Got it?”
She slowly gyrated her hips, searching out his nose and his mouth and his chin, now and then slightly lifting herself so that he had to stretch and strain with his tongue to find her, when necessary jerking his head up by his hair to enforce her demands. His mouth and his cheeks were soon bathed with her wetness as she rolled her lips over him, and she liked that several times he needed to swallow to continue his efforts. Her breathing became shorter and heavier as aching desire took over; eventually she became incapable, letting go of her grip on his hair, and she sank down on his face, as her loins shuddered with pleasure.
“You’re turning into a slut,” he said, but in a way that made it sound like a good thing, as she finally untied him.
“A slut? Are we really that alike?”