Continued from The Bathhouse: Part 9

It retreated again. That insufferable, maddening appendage that had slid inside me in my sleep, wriggling and expanding until it filled all my secret crevices, had, once I was writhing and yanking my shackles and pleading for release, remorselessly slipped out of me, leaving me panting and shaking, with tears leaking from the corners of my eyes.

How much fucking longer.

“How much fucking longer!” I shout. This outburst is met with a smattering of grumbles.

“God, shut up,” a woman’s voice mumbles.

“Hey! She’s new. Be nice,” another reproaches softly. It sounds like Alice.

There are several women in the room with me, so it must be nighttime. Not that I can tell with the hood Alice had, with an apologetic smile, pulled over my head earlier that day. Stupid Alice and her stupid stories about “loving” this experience. If I could see the ceiling right now, I’d be burning holes in it. The dildo begins snaking back into my slit - not again - and I bite my lip. My nerves are screaming. I am no stranger to edging, but this is the most extreme version I have ever experienced.

“We could gag her-”

A door clicks open and the room hushes, bated breaths replacing whispered conversations. A slow, heavy tread crosses the room, and stops by my bed. With a creak of leather, I sense that the figure is leaning over me. The tentacle dildo retracts.

“You mustn’t cause a disturbance for the other girls,” comes the barely audible whisper. The voice is still strange. He must be wearing a mask again.

“Vlad,” I hiss. He growls.

“Take a walk with me, my pet.”

He unshackles me. I sit up and rub my wrists and ankles, glad to be rid of the restraints. He catches my wrists as I start to push up the hood and holds them tightly.

“No.”

I glare at him from behind the hood.

“Get down on the ground,” he purrs. “On all fours.”

I make no move to comply.

“Always so stubborn,” he murmurs, with a touch of amusement. “Would you prefer I tie you into position?”

“No.”

“No, what?”

I know what you want. But no to that, too. Fuck your “sir.” I remain silent, eyes needling the darkness of my hood in his direction.

He seems to weigh to what extent I should be punished for my petulance.

“Well, then. On all fours like a good girl.”

Hot-faced, I slide off the bed and kneel on the cold marble. My juices slither down my thigh.

“All fours. I won’t say it again.”

Begrudgingly, I drop to my hands.

“Spread your knees.”

I do, feeling exposed as the cool air tickles the fork of my legs. Just like that day at the bathhouse, splayed out on the bench, when I was a consciousness rotating with the surface of the earth, body trailing behind. When two warm arms held me tight against a naked chest and a happy smile peeked through a brown beard. Tears sting the backs of my eyeballs. I had a life. I had Dan. Now, what am I doing? Crawling like a dog on cold marble with a desperate, wet cunt waving in the air behind me.

Something firm and thick and rubbery penetrates me, driving all thought from my skull. I suck in a breath.

“Is it too much?” my handler asks quietly.

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Continued from The Bathhouse: Part 8

There are faces everywhere.

I read once that humans seek out faces, seeing them where they are not, inventing eyes from drywall, lips from rippling ponds. There is a species of crab native to Japan, whose shells resemble the faces of samurai warriors and when fishermen would encounter those crabs they would throw them back into the sea. The faceless crabs were eaten and the faced crabs were left to reproduce, which meant more faced crabs in the ocean.

Something prods my awareness. I break my gaze from the face that has materialized in the soft whorls of woodgrain above me and find another at the foot of my bed, wearing an expectant expression.

“What?”

“This place. You get used to it,” the face repeats. “Like it, even.”

I want to be nice to this wide-eyed new acquaintance, but am feeling uncharacteristically ungenerous. I suppose getting kidnapped, taken to an undisclosed location, locked in a room with strangers, and shackled naked to a bed will do that to you.

Seemingly unbothered by my reticence, she bounces closer.

“Mind if I sit?” she asks, plopping down before I can reply. “I’m Alice. What’s your name?”

“…Phoebe.”

“Phoebe! Oh, I love that name. It’s great to meet you. I would shake your hand but, well…”

She laughs and gestures at me, then scratches a patch of skin beneath her collar. With her sharply drawn eyes and angular jaw, the movement is strongly reminiscent of a cat.

“So…is this…normal?”

I flap my hands a little, indicating my restraints.

“Oh, yes. We all start out like that. But don’t worry, it doesn’t last long. I mean, if you ask me, it doesn’t last long enough.” She nudges me with an elbow and winks.

“What does that mean?”

“Oooohh, you’ll see. I’m so excited for you!” She bounces on the bed to illustrate her point. “And a bit jealous! But-”

At that moment, she breaks off and her eyes roll back in her head. She gasps sharply. As though in a trance, her hands find her breasts and squeeze. A faint, pulsing buzz emanates from her neck. She moans and rolls her nipples between her fingers. The pulses grow longer and she arches her back, lips parted. One of her hands begins to snake toward the fork of her legs but stops, clenching at her abdomen. The buzzing grows into one continuous vibration and as it does her hips rock into my mattress and her hand scrabbles against her belly. She cries out, making little hiccuping gasps of pleasure. The buzzing dwindles back into silence, leaving her to catch her breath with one hand still gripping her breast.

Well. That was fucking hot. My cunt clenches around the dildo inside me, an apparently ever-present feature of my new life. The Courtesan peeks out from behind a pillar, wary but intrigued.

“Did you just…?”

“Oh,” Alice replies breathlessly, “yes. Mmmmm. That was a good one.”

She looks up at the far wall, where a list of names and numbers is displayed in red alphanumerics. “Alice” flashes and then jumps up the board. “00:37 is displayed next to her name.

“I’m getting better,” she says proudly.

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Continued from The Bathhouse: Part 7

The ship rocks and sways over cresting waves. I see Vlad on the deck, facing away from me toward the blue horizon, shirt billowing in the wind. He adjusts his stance effortlessly with the ship’s movements. The picture of a seasoned seaman. I approach him unsteadily. With every step, my body bounces absurdly and my feet leave the deck. Long enough to make me wonder if they will return or I will be carried away.

I place a hand on his arm, his skin hot through his cotton shirt.

“Where are we going, Vlad?” I ask.

His hand covers mine and he turns toward me with a playful smirk on his lips - that are not his lips. They are Dan’s. Dan’s smirk, Dan’s dancing eyes, Dan’s bushy beard.

“Dan! I’m sorry, that was the weirdest thing -”

“We’re not going anywhere, love. We’re already there.”

My eyes crack open to lights flitting by in Morse Code, faint as though seen underwater at a great depth. My body is jiggling bonelessly, head lolling side to side. Am I on a boat? I try to sit up, but am unable to. My first thought is sleep paralysis, but there is no shadowy figure looming over me as there usually is during those episodes. The vessel bearing me takes a sharp right and I slide to the opposite wall. I don’t hear any other objects sliding with me so I must be alone in the container. A finger of panic pushes through my grogginess. Why can’t I move? What’s happening?

With an effort, I try recollecting the most recent events. The fragments of memory are slippery. Meeting Vlad on the street. Going to the coffee shop. Our kiss. The cab. His apartment. With an obscene mixture of shame and pleasure, I recall the orgasm he suckled from my breasts. And then what? I fell asleep? The last thing I can remember is the tender way he laid me on the bed. Would he have drugged me?

Fuck.

He must have.

FUCK.

I curse my stupidity. How could I have trusted a man who records naked people getting massages without their knowledge and sells the recordings on the black market? And to go to his apartment with him? That’s…unhinged. At this point, I deserve whatever I have coming.

And, of course, I can’t expect Dan to rescue me. He has no idea where I am. I don’t know where I am.

The vehicle turns left and I slide back across the floor. At least some things are coming together. I’m in a van. It’s nighttime. I’m blindfolded, but it’s not thick enough to block out the streetlights still flashing by. My wrists and ankles are bound. Without knowing how long I’ve been out, we could be anywhere. At one time, I might have found this situation terribly erotic, but it doesn’t feel that way now.

The van lurches to a stop.

The front door slams and there are footsteps outside. My stomach roils in trepidation. Am I to be thrown over a bridge? Gang-raped in an alley? Sold into sex slavery? Maybe that last one wouldn’t be so bad, if i had a nice master…

No! Shut up. What am I thinking? This is absurd.

The rear door of the van swings open and someone grabs my feet and pulls.

What’s going on?! I try to demand. But what comes out is -

“Nggnghhhn!”

Great, I can’t talk either. My probing tongue is met by the smooth surface of what could only be a ball gag. I realize my jaw is aching from biting into it.

“Morning, gorgeous.”

It sounds like Vlad, but strange. Muffled.

“Hngghgg.”

“How was the ride? I know you like it rough.”

“Ngghnn!”

A chuckle.

“We’re almost there.”

He hauls me onto his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. Like he’d done after our naughty cab ride, carrying me up the stairs. It had seemed so daring and exciting then.

Rain is falling lightly. It mists my hood and shooshes gently on the pavement. Vlad carries me up a flight of stairs and there is a sound of large doors being opened.

“Sir,” another voice says.

Vlad steps through the doorway, his footsteps echoing as though we have entered a grand ballroom. My head swings with each step. Still no muscle control to speak of. Vlad carries me across the ballroom and we enter a closer space - a hallway. Then we take a right and another man greets my bearer.

“Sir.”

A door clicks shut behind us and I am lowered onto a chair. I slump forward uselessly. My wrists are uncuffed briefly before being fastened to the arms of the chair and my ankles are given the same treatment. Finally, my hood is tugged off.

The low light is warm, giving my eyes time to adjust. When they do, I can see that the room is clean and minimalist, with wooden shelves on the wall and an oak desk crouching in front of me. Seated on the other side of the desk is a woman in a leather mask. She wears an immaculate charcoal suit, complete with silver cufflinks - the initials BT. Were it not for the mask and the black leather gloves I would have thought we were at a business meeting.

A stone block engraved with the word “Processing” sits on the corner of the desk, facing me.

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Continued from The Bathhouse: Part 6

A deep purple blotch covers the knuckles of his right hand. Like a Rorschach with only one answer: the one he’s giving. I wonder if his hand is broken, but he doesn’t seem to be favoring it. Other than his knuckles, there is no visible evidence of what took place between him and Nikolai, which is both gratifying and makes me feel worse for Nikolai. Had he even tried to throw a punch?

He notices me eying his bruise and covers it with his other hand, espresso untouched.

I have no idea where to start.

Vlad clears his throat and I dare a look at his face. His black eyes are large and searching, the irises so dark they are indistinguishable from his pupils. The effect is both feral and alluring, like a wild dog who seems at all moments to be absorbing every detail of his environment.

“I did not know about Nikolai,” he begins. Of this I have no doubts whatsoever.

“I believe you,” I reply, indicating his knuckles, almost laughing at the absurdity, but the smile fades before it’s formed. “But he knew about…us…”

Vlad looks pained.

“Yes,” he says simply. I wait for more, but none is forthcoming.

“And? How?” I prompt, although I already know the answer.

“The rooms. They are not private,” he says. He takes a deep breath. “You deserve to know the truth. There are cameras in the rooms. We record and…sometimes the recordings are shared. Yours should not have been.”

“Why not?”

His expression is contrite, with a hair’s breadth of pride.

“Because you are mine,” he says softly. My breath catches and my cunt tingles. I want to dispute this, perhaps slap him for such insolence, but instead I feel myself opening, my energy orienting to him like the needle of a compass. I avert my eyes and take a sip of my latte, but my inability to deny his assertion is itself a burning proclamation, bold as a proposal in a crowded restaurant. I feel suddenly angry at this vulnerability.

“So you and Nikolai, you hang out at night, swapping videos of the different girls you fucked that day and masturbate together,” I burst out, wanting to provoke him. He looks hurt, but there is a sharpness there as well. A danger. My eyes flash to his bruised knuckles.

“It is not so simple. It is part of our business.”

That, I was not expecting.

“Excuse me?”

“What we did, many people like to see,” he tells me, voice even, but his brow is furrowed. “It can be very lucrative.”

My skull feels tight and my stomach roils. I wonder if I might be sick.

“So, you sold the video?”

He shakes his head.

“Not me,” he replies firmly. “Management.”

Great.

“So basically,” I say, struggling to keep my voice low, “I’m an unpaid prostitute.”

“I should have deleted the video,” he says bitterly.

“Yeah, you should have,” I retort. “Better yet, you should never have recorded it. Or any of them.”

He nods.

“You are right,” he replies, offering no excuse, which takes the steam out of me a bit.

“Well. Yeah,” I say, wanting a fight but not getting one. “Alright, then.”

The corners of his lips quirk at that, briefly. His gaze is soft.

“So,” I press on. “Nikolai. Presuming he’s not a friend of yours.”

Vlad’s eyes darken.

“That is complicated,” he says slowly.

“Complicated how?”

Vlad sighs, and takes a sip of his espresso.

“It is too much to get into now,” he says. “I have known Nikolai a long time. I never thought he would do such a thing.” His eyes close and his mouth twists into a grimace, then he looks at me again, black eyes shining more than usual. “I am so sorry for what he did.” A pause. “He has paid.”

His words settle between us for several moments.

“I saw. I went to the bathhouse to find you. To get some answers. To end this.” Those last three words leave my lips so softly, so unwillingly, I wonder if he heard.

“What is ‘this’?” he asks, folding his napkin and dragging his finger down the edge, forming a sharp crease. I can’t help remembering that finger trailing lazily down my abdomen, pulling his seed to my slit.

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Continued from The Bathhouse: Part 5

I swirl the spoon around in my mug of tea, watching the shimmering oily splotches shift and combine, then separate again.

“I’m sorry it didn’t go like you wanted,” Dan murmurs from across the table. I had forgotten he was there.

Understatement of the century, I think, but I can’t fault him. He doesn’t know the extent of my disappointment. Or my violation. If he did, he would insist on reporting the…what? Rape? I had wanted it, at least a little. I know how it would seem to everybody else, though, and maybe they would be right. Still, I can’t bring myself to involve the police in this matter. Any investigation would lead, inevitably, to Vlad and I. And what are we, after all?

“Well, you see, officer, I actually kind of wanted to be raped, because I thought it’s what this other guy wanted after I’d decided to bestow upon him my entire being.”

My guts feel like they’re being vacuumed.

“Yeah, well…” I say, forcing a smile. “It’s probably for the best.”

Dan nods slowly, forehead still creased in concern.

“Now I have all the time in the world for you,” I continue, pushing my chair away from the table and moving to his side. I straddle him and take his face between my palms, kissing him deeply. His beard is soft against my skin and our tongues play together like curious puppies. I catch his lower lip between my teeth and pull it gently as I grind my hips into his, feeling him harden between my thighs.

The shower is scalding, barely within the realm of tolerability, but I like it. Dan’s seed slides down the inside of my leg in a slippery stream and I watch its journey to the drain, feeling something symbolic in it. I rub my hand over my slit, more of Dan flowing out of me. Nikolai had left me tender and although the soreness is mostly gone now, I still feel it with penetration. Another thing I’ve been hiding from Dan. I haven’t orgasmed with penetration in longer than I care to recall. Not since before Vlad first laid his hands on me. I probe myself, wincing. My throat aches and I have a moment to wonder why before a sob is yanked out of my chest. I slide to the floor, hot water pummeling my face, suffocating in a savagely pleasing way. I asked for this. What the fuck did I have to cry about? This was my fault. My fault for not telling Dan everything to begin with. My fault for concealing Nikolai’s transgressions. My fault for giving myself to Vlad, then to Nikolai.

“Fucking slut,” I spit, and this time The Courtesan doesn’t correct me. She looks heartbroken as well, staring into her pool with an empty expression.

I curl into a ball and let the water beat me until it turns cold.

‘At least you resisted in the end,’ The Courtesan says softly, plucking at her pillow as I step out of the shower and wrap a towel around myself. I snort.

‘Yeah. Well. I suppose that’s something,’ I reply.

‘And Vlad didn’t seem too pleased himself,’ she offers tentatively. True. Although I had fled as soon as that simpering fuck, Nikolai, was out of me, I had seen the two of them against the wall, Vlad’s arm across Nikolai’s throat, looking like he might kill the smaller man right there. His reaction had pleased me. And it begged certain questions.

‘Yeah, which means I let that asshole fuck me for literally no reason,’ I say, aggressively toweling my hair. ‘And I kind of liked it.’

The Courtesan gives me a sympathetic look and shrugs.

‘What can you do?’ she asks.

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Continued from The Bathhouse: Part 4

Vlad breathed deeply, as though he might suck in the knowledge stacked around him. The pages beneath his fingers stirred lightly at the warm air blowing from the vents in the ceiling. The thick tomes moored him. Gave him hope. As long as there remained books unread, some scrap of wisdom might be lingering among these shelves that could be his salvation - the solution to the long string of fucked up events that was his life. Here, among the stacks of books, the tang of decades-old paper, the muted scrape of turning pages, he worshipped weekly with a ferocity bordering on zealotry. Except today was different. The words in front of him refused to attach themselves to the page in any meaningful order.

“Nonetheless, paradoxes emerge from the legislative history of Article 15(4) of the 1993 Russian Constitution. Generally-recognized principles and norms of international law are an integral part of the Russian legal system but without a place designated in the hierarchy…”

How many times had he read this fucking paragraph? He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes in frustration, then tried again. “Nonetheless, paradoxes emerge-” Her image filled his mind again, blue eyes wide and brimming with inexplicable trust - the kind of look to melt his horrid heart. He could feel the smoothness of her skin against his hands, the absolutely crushing openness of her, inviting him closer. His chest rose and fell rapidly.

Fuck this, he thought. I’ll never get anything done like this.

He needed to clear his head. Apparently, losing himself in these books would not be the antidote to this particular toxin. He snapped the book shut and began collecting his things.

He still didn’t know what had possessed him to take things so far with that girl. Sure, occasionally he’d get a client who wanted more than a massage. They’d catch his wrist as he moved around them, or guide his hands to their breasts with a soft moan, or flutter their eyes at the end of a session and whisper “thank you” before reaching for his hips. Occasionally. Vlad wasn’t one to turn down such advances but, unlike Nikolai, whose questionable methods were infamous among the bathhouse employees, he had never before been the one to instigate them. Until he found himself staring into those soulful eyes. Although it had only lasted a moment, that expression of unfathomable trust made him believe he might truly be deserving of it. Him. Vladimir Baranov, refugee of mistakes wrought by his own poor judgment, a dead man according to some (and good riddance), trusted by a complete stranger. Perhaps what had happened next was inevitable, like the exhalation following a long-held breath, a yang craving yin. With a single look he knew, as if their futures had collapsed into that one moment, that she had already laid herself before him, would do anything he asked, and gladly. She had placed the weight of that trust at his feet like a bloody, beating heart. And one does not refuse such a gesture.

Vlad scrubbed his face with his hands. If the quiet of the library was failing to bring him serenity, he would have to settle for numbness. No problem. This was New York City, after all, the anonymity of a crowd always within reach. He slid his stack of books into his backpack and returned the unborrowed volumes to their shelves, then slung his bag over his shoulders and made his way back to the lobby and into the crisp evening air. Without thinking much about where his feet might take him, he turned left and began walking.

Every step was plagued by thoughts of the girl from the bathhouse. He had never wanted to claim someone like this before, had not even considered what he was doing before he had gathered his seed and pushed it inside her, or what it would mean. He only knew that it was true, and that he had no ability to make it otherwise.

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Continued from The Bathhouse: Part 3

The water sounds fill the reception area of the bathhouse, echoing from the floor below where a hundred semi-nude bodies splash and drip sweat and wipe their brows. As my boyfriend checks us in, I feel nervous. I glance around, half expecting to see the man with the shaved head standing in a corner with dark eyes fixed on me. The results of this cursory investigation are unsatisfactory. He’s probably downstairs, I think, while simultaneously attempting to convince myself that I am not here for him, that I will have a perfectly transcendant experience either way. The Courtesan blows a kiss at me and winks, amused. I feel fidgety. I run my thumbs up and down my backpack straps.

“Something of value?” asks the man behind the desk, holding out an empty metal tray. I stare dumbly at him for a moment, then recall that in order to get a key to a locker I need to exchange one of my own possessions. Otherwise I would continue using the locker for the rest of my life to foster a colony of guinea pigs. Or something like that.

My mind blanks. I don’t have my phone or my wallet on me. I glance down at the watch on my wrist. It cost $10 at Wal-Mart, not exactly a high monetary value, but having purchased it in Hawaii for a sailing trip it has sentimental value. How tenderly the man with the shaved head had slipped it onto my wrist, how carefully he had tightened the strap, as if my skin might tear. My heart flutters at the memory, shooting tiny pink tendrils of anticipation into my nervous system like a miniature lightning strike. I quickly tear off the Velcro strap and drop it into the metal tray.

“Alright. You’re number one-fourteen,” he says, sliding the tray into a port on the wall to his right. He secures the tray behind a small door like a post office box then locks it with a key dangling from a plastic bungee, which he hands to me.

“You’re all set,” the man says. “Enjoy.” Something about his tone startles me - a subtle knowing lilt. My eyes snap to his of their own accord. He is wearing a half-smile and soft eyes, the practiced expression of a Customer Service Professional. Nonthreatening. Impeccably neutral. I’m sure he just means the whole out-of-body experience we’re all having here, I think, and return his smile.

“Thanks!” I say brightly, but as my boyfriend and I move away from the reception desk, an undercurrent of suspicion resurfaces. How many of the employees here know of my little indiscretion the other day? I imagine the man with the shaved head going around high-fiving everyone after our tryst, and heat floods my cheeks. He wouldn’t do that. Would he? I ask The Courtesan, panic rising. She shakes her head firmly, sending flecks of light from her golden earrings to dance on the surface of the pool. I think she’s right. He seemed more the type to revel quietly in his conquest than to celebrate openly, but he is still a stranger. I can’t trust him. Yet, I have already decided to do just that. Attempting to reconcile my rational and emotional minds is like trying to force two pieces of broken glass to mend by rubbing them against each other: pointless and a little painful. My boyfriend gives my arm a squeeze and I look up to find his crinkling eyes. I can’t help but smile back.

“You getting nervous?” he murmurs conspiratorially, drawing out the last word and nudging me with his elbow.

“Um, yes,” I reply under my breath.

“Hey,” he says seriously. “It doesn’t matter, right? We’re going to have a great time no matter what. Worst case, we have an extremely relaxing time.”

“I like those odds,” I reply, nodding. “You’re the best.” He grins and pecks me on the cheek.

“Meet you here after,” he says.

“Yep, see you in a few.”

We part ways to enter the gender-separated locker rooms. I push open the door to the women’s changing room and turn the corner. Two women are brushing their hair and chatting in front of the mirror. I nod to them and they smile back.

“Hi!” they chorus, before returning their attention to each other. I find my locker and open the door.

“I swear, every time I leave here I forget something,” says the shorter of the two, a petite woman with almond eyes and smooth skin. “Bathhouse brain!” They laugh. I can’t help smiling too. I sit on the bench in front of my locker to remove my shoes and pull off my shirt.

“Ohmygod I know,” says the other, a thick brunette with dark eyes and a straight Italian-looking nose. She has the build of a crossfitter. I remove my jeans, and bundle them with my shirt into my backpack. “I can’t make any other plans on bathhouse days, I am so out of it,” she continues. The other nods.

“You ever get any of the treatments?” asks the petite one. My ears perk up. I rummage through my backpack for nothing in particular.

“Nah, they’re so expensive,” replies the Italian. Accurate. “Plus, I dunno, I get weird vibes,” she adds in an apologetic tone. Yikes, I think, heat flooding my face and neck. The first woman nods in agreement.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that,” she says.

I groan inwardly. I must be the only woman alive who’s take on a “weird vibe” is, “this is hot.” The Courtesan raises an eyebrow. ”Besides you,” I amend, and she smiles in a pleased sort of way.

”Although I don’t know why you would take pride in that.” She looks at me patronizingly.

”And I don’t know why you wouldn’t. It’s literally the definition of kinky,” she retorts.

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Continued from The Bathhouse: Part 2

Wednesday.

Two days ago I let a stranger lick my pussy, finger me with cum-covered hands, and fuck my face with a large uncut cock.

And I would do it again.

Not only would I do it again, it’s taken significant self-restraint on at least a dozen occasions since Monday not to return to the bathhouse for a repeat performance. Although my efforts to keep my body out of the bathhouse have succeeded, my mind travels to that dim room constantly, dropping me onto the table where brusque hands rub tirelessly and black eyes shine lustfully. He raises his head from between my legs to smile mischievously, then rises to his full height, his manhood exposed and thrusting proudly. He leans his hips toward me to push the tip of his cock against my slit and I am trembli— I fling my eyes open and fill my cheeks with a deep breath to banish the image. The fantasizing is getting out of hand.

Returning to the bathhouse was never a question. I knew as soon as I melted against his beating heart that I would accept whatever he would be willing to give.

No, that’s wrong. I may have been in denial until I offered my kiss, but in truth I knew as soon as he spoke. Simply recalling those words, “Top off. Lie down.”, sends a shiver down my spine and into my deepest parts - the secret cave that he has only just begun to explore. I want him to know all of it, every cranny. I want to be absolutely filled with him.

Fuckkk, I think, feeling wetness seep between my legs. I debate changing my panties again, but I have gone through too many pairs already this week and at this rate I’ll be out by the evening.

Which is perfect timing, if you go back this evening, a voice in my head prompts with a smirking wink. I roll my eyes inwardly at this, but I have to admit she has a point. “She” being my slutty (she prefers “provocative”) alter-ego who lounges at the back of my mind on a large satin pillow like a sultan’s most prized courtesan, seemingly always with a knowing smile and sultry eyes, trailing a finger over the edge of some crystal pool of infinite depth. She has been piping up a lot over the past two days. I rub my legs together in frustration. I am afraid to appear overeager - both to him and to my boyfriend. Two days might be too soon. But it is not too soon to visit the sauna and cold plunge again. I could do that every day.

“And I don’t have to see him just because I’m there,” I reason. The Courtesan nods sagely, but I know she’s being facetious. She’s right. She’s always right. Of course I would try to see him if I went, and it would be wrong to do so without my boyfriend’s approval. Better to stay away from the bathhouse entirely and keep the man with the shaved head in my fantasies.

But he did tell me to come back, I think. The more I replay the memory, the more certain I am that it was a command, or at least that I desperately need it to have been a command. I feel giddy just imagining the sweet relief it would be to abdicate responsibility and simply succumb to his desire. How good it would feel to not merely yield to his lust, but manifest it - to embody its every expression: the sharpness of each inhalation, the golden radiance of each singing nerve, all at his whim. I feel the tightness of my secret walls building and grind my pelvis against my chair in vexation. It’s too much.

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Continued from The Bathhouse: Part 1

Surprising myself, I do not hesitate. Of course, I think, clothes are dumb. Still facing him, I pull off my sports bra immediately but am unsure where to put it. I look for a hook nearby and see none. The man with the shaved head holds out his hand, and I hand him my bra. He hangs the wet fabric from a hook on the opposite wall. I consider taking off my panties too. Continuing to wear them seems silly to me, but he didn’t tell me to take those off so I don’t. I sit and then lie face-down on the massage table.

“You want salt scrub or clay?” he asks.

“Salt scrub,” I reply. I came here to be cleansed, not soothed.

“I give little of both,” he answers. Okay a little soothing is fine, I think. It is a massage, anyway…

“Okay.”

I had expected his hands to begin their journey over my body slowly, introducing themselves politely and exploring gently before gradually increasing their pressure. This is not the case. His hands meet my body with the same rapid assertiveness he expressed with his first words to me. Top off. Lie down. My gut clenches at the not-so-distant memory as I try to walk my wayward mind away from any erotic interpretations. This is not seductive, I tell myself. He’s a professional. He touches a hundred bodies a day, he’s not seducing everyone. The nonchalant way he is handling me seems to affirm this interpretation. He lingers on no part of my body, rubbing an oily substance that is probably lotion just as roughly into my shoulders as the tender flesh where my breasts meet my sides. I feel simultaneously disappointed and relieved. And skeptical. Despite my rationalizations, I cannot ignore the eroticism, prowling like a third person in the room with us. I wonder if his rough handling of me is a way to disguise any lustful thoughts on his part. Or maybe it’s a test, I think, to see if I like it.

Having finished their journey down my back, his hands have returned to the top of my left shoulder. He presses it away from my ear. Under the light tension, my ligaments thrum pleasurably. His hands travel down my left arm, squeezing as they go. A tender spot on my triceps spikes my awareness, but I suppress the flinch. I want him to think me strong. Continuing down my arm, his hands find the watch on my wrist. He tugs at the Velcro strap to loosen it, and slides it off my hand. I cannot see where he deposits it. Walking around my head, he gives my right shoulder and arm the same treatment. His movements are brusque. Returning to my back, his hands are kneading deeper into my flesh as they move down my body, reaching the waistband of my panties and then my butt-cheeks with no apparent change in tempo. He yanks up on my panties, pulling them into the seam of my arse like a thong. With more of my bum exposed, he continues at the same pace, grinding his palms first into my left cheek and then into my right. His fingers brush against the space between my bum cheeks and my labia but his movements are too hurried to discern intent. I feel tightness at my crotch. The tugging of my panties has pulled the fabric up between my lower lips, and I wonder to what extent I am on display, given his vantage from behind. The bunched up fabric is pressing against my clit. I can feel the subtle swelling of my privates at this stimulation. I press my hips into the massage table for some relief, hoping that I am doing so in an imperceptible way. The increased pressure only heightens my arousal. Fuck, I think. I still can’t tell if this cavalier stimulation is by design. His hands are now moving down the backs of my thighs, squeezing as they go, pace unchanged. I am half-expecting him to slap my ass and demand to know if I have been a bad girl.

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I feel gravity not as a force pulling me down to Earth’s surface but as a pressing against my left side that must be consciously overcome. It is similar to the sensation I had as a child being swung round and round by my big sister, our hands clasped together and her feet planted firmly on the ground while mine flew through the air as she twirled. Only now, instead of my sister anchoring me in space, my brain is performing that operation once a microsecond. How real is this feeling? I wonder. I attempt to force myself into reality enough to remember what cardinal direction I am facing and what direction that means the earth is supposed to be spinning. I get as far as sun rises in the east, sets in the west before another wave of pristine relaxation smothers me. Fuck it, I think. It has been months since I had an experience like this. I may as well enjoy this instead of turning it into a science experiment.

As the wave of contentment ebbs I become aware of my body. My back is leaning against wet tile and my legs are splayed open, straddling the bench beneath me. My head is tipped back, eyes closed, lips parted. In my sports bra and panties, I wonder briefly how much of my pubic hair is revealed by my splayed legs and if the way my lips are parted is alluring or simply goofy, then decide it doesn’t matter. There seems to be no point in checking - all that matters is the tidal thrum of utter ease. It sweeps and sways and tugs me out of myself and into the moment, the place where everything simply is. There is no me, no body, no self-referential concerns. Inhalation and exhalation are indistinguishable. No boundaries exist - my limbs do not occupy space but are the space.

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