Beyond Limits Ch. 04

"Yeah. Right."

Was she going to say it? Was she going to say she would have let me dom her? No. Of course not.

Why was she calling me? Why was she saying these things?

What did she want from me anyhow? Why was she still even talking to me? She had another man. He gave her more than I had. What did she need from me?

I was an absolute glutton for punishment; a masochist. "Tell me what it is about him, Lexi. What does he have that I don't."

"Oh, Russell, I can't say. I don't know. It's not like that, that he's better than you or you're better than him. Everyone's different and you can't compare people."

"No. Try."

She sighed. "I don't know. There's an edge to him. A sense of danger. He scares me somehow..."

I suddenly didn't want to hear anymore. I felt stupid and was sick and sorry I'd asked. I suddenly felt winter through the window glass, sere and cold. This was horrible. I couldn't listen to her anymore.

"Lexi, I have to go. April's over here. I have to go. We'll talk later. Bye."

I hung up the phone and stood there. He was dangerous. He scared her. I was weak and predictable Russell Backus.

For the first time it seriously occurred to me that she might be doing this to me on purpose, that the tables had been completely turned and that I needed her far more than she needed me and she might know this and be jerking me around just because she could, that she might have some deep sadistic streak I'd never noticed before. I didn't think she would. I really didn't think she would. She had no reason to. But why else would she be saying these things? Why couldn't she give me the courtesy of the lie?

I felt alone, totally abandoned. I knew I was obsessed, emotionally ill, possibly paranoid. Should I cut things off with her entirely? I knew I should and I knew I couldn't. How could I anyhow, with all our connections through the play, the work we still had to do together? How was I going to hold out?

And it was then that I finally admitted the truth I'd been ignoring all this time: I was dependent on her. I needed her, she didn't need me. In what was left of our relationship, I was the emotional submissive. I'd put her in a position of dominance over me, and here I now was, pitifully running after her demanding she let me dom her as if that would re-establish the old status quo. It was she who was domming me and me on my knees, struggling for breath.

This realization hit me so hard I sank down into a chair in the kitchen. There were more kinds of submission than sexual submission. There was emotional submission as well, and in that regard, I was already wearing her collar and didn't have the strength to break free. It was pitiful.

Where does it hurt? Where does it hurt? It hurts in your mind and your soul and your heart, which is torn and crushed and bruised. It hurts on your skin which can't stand the feeling of the world against it, all that emptiness. It hurts behind your eyes from what you've seen and from what you can't forget, and deep in your throat where the urge to cry out is always there, and it aches in your empty, useless hands.

I went to the stash of heroin I'd cut for her. All this time I'd resisted it. I'd held out against the pain and let myself face it raw and undiluted but now I cut two fat lines and snorted them up, my tears melting them on the mirror almost before I could inhale them. The numbness couldn't come on fast enough for me, and I stared at the surface of the mirror on which lay the heroin dust and the reflection of the stars from the window, waiting for the dull nauseating euphoria in which nothing mattered, in which Lexi was just another face in a hallucinatory parade. I watched her, knowing there was terrible pain associated with her, but the pain was like clothes she wore in my vision. They were a part of her and I couldn't feel them. They were of no consequence.

* * * * *

I went to the opening of The Given high, and only for the intermission. There was no way I was going to sit through the play and watch Lexi reciting the lines I'd written for her when we'd been in love, her speeches now directed by her new lover and master. April accompanied me and John Meyerowitz, a lawyer who was acting as my agent and his wife Candy, and Bud Carlton was there to help hold me up but I did all right. I shook hands and accepted congratulations from all the alums and other money people, but this was just a local opening and not much of a big deal, and we slipped out into the cold as soon as the bell for the curtain sounded. I went home and vomited.

I just threw up without stopping, still in the rented tux. April was with me, thank God, and she kept on bringing cold cloths and at one point she wanted to call an ambulance because I started throwing up blood but I talked her out of it and took some more heroin and that calmed me down. It was like everything had to come up—the play, Lexi, Cormac, my own pain, my death, everything I'd loved and lost was still somehow attached to me inside my stomach by ropes of blood and love, and as I hunched over the bowl and puked I realized that. I realized I was always carrying those losses around with me, losses from my childhood and losses from my infancy; loss of joy and loss of promise, and that I simply couldn't do it anymore. I had no more hope; I had no more strength. I knew now I'd never be healed. I'd never be the one to command a woman to take my pain or my love, to take it from me and leave me pure and whole again. I didn't have the certainty or assurance to be a dom, to impose my love on anyone. I wasn't man enough. I wasn't scary enough. I wasn't selfish enough. I was contaminated with understanding and mercy. Lousy with it, rotten with it; weak, loving, needy.

I wrapped my arms around April where she sat on the edge of the tub and I pulled her to me. She cradled my head.

"You don't always have to be stronger," she said. "It's not always a competition, Russell. What are you always fighting about?"

I shook my head. "It is a fight. It is a competition. When someone has their hands on your air line, your jugular vein, itis a fight, even if you've put them there yourself."

"And whose hands are on your air line? Whose hands are on your jugular vein, Russell? Who's strangling you?"

I couldn't tell her. I couldn't tell her it was Lexi because I didn't know how it was happening, how she was doing this to me.

"Come on," April said. "You're drunk. You're high. Let's get you to bed."

She helped me into the shower and she was right. I was in terrible shape and could only lean against the wall as she cleaned me up and then dried me off. I'd lost everything and at this point my fall was complete. I'd reverted to infancy, to impotence. It felt almost good to let go, to stop struggling to be a man, to give up the pretense of dominating anything or having any effect.

I let April put me into bed, then she went back and straightened up the bathroom. She was still wearing her gown and heels from the opening and she looked ridiculously gorgeous.

"You're still awake?" she asked me after she'd finished. She was standing in the doorway of the bedroom with the hall lights on behind her. "What's so funny? What are you smiling at?"

"With the light behind you I can see through your dress. You're just incredibly beautiful."

She smiled and walked over to the bed.

"Stay with me, April. Please, baby."

She sat down on the side of the bed. "If you want me to."

"I do. Very much, though sometimes I wonder why you bother with me."

"Oh? Why shouldn't I?"

"Because you'll never have me. Not all of me," I said. I was drunk and high and I said it. "You know that, don't you?"

She shook her head. "I don't believe that. Lexi's not right for you, Russell. Any woman who won't give you what you want isn't right for you. And besides, what choice do I have? What choice do any of us have?"

I looked at her.

"You're stuck on Lexi. I'm stuck on you."

"I'm sorry," I said.

She shrugged. "People change. All the time. You'll come around."

"You're too generous. I don't deserve it."

She rubbed my chest. "Listen to what she's done to you. Turned you into a beggar, apologizing for yourself. You used to take things, now you apologize for what you want.

"You were generous too, Russell. Generous in your lust. That's a kind of generosity. We can't help what we are. Some people are generous and some aren't and it's not that big a mystery, really. You, you're blessed. You always get what you need from somewhere. You think you have to be some super-macho dom, someone likehe is and take it from people by force, but you don't. You get it a different way, Russell. Women give it to you because of your hurt. They give it to you because they trust you to know what to do with it, and you don't even know what you're being given. You don't even appreciate it."

I knew what she was saying. I did and I didn't. I get stupid when people talk to me about love and I was already stupid enough with liquor and dope. I felt like a sucking black hole of need.

April smiled at me, a "don't worry about it" smile, and leaned over and kissed me, letting her kisses grow thick and slow and languid, lingering on my mouth and melting there as her hair fell and spilled around me, and I felt myself growing limp. I no longer knew if I were worth it or not, if there was anything of value left inside me, anything anyone would want, but April seemed to think so, and so I let her take what she could find, a kind of rummage sale of what I had left.

"I know what you need," she said, and she stood up and took off her black dress, opening the back and lifting it lightly over her head. Silhouetted by the light from the hallway, she was a terribly dramatic sight, her blond hair and pearls spilling over her fair skin as the dress came off, her hair standing out from the static electricity in the dry apartment. Her bra was gray and sheer and seemed to melt from her body as she unhooked it and let it fall, and with some quick manipulations of her garter belt she soon had that and her panties off as well, leaving herself in her shoes and stockings, the long strings of pearls and her jewelry.

She seemed intent on teaching me a lesson of some kind. Her actions had the deliberation of a demonstration. She pulled down the blanket and stripped my shorts down and stood looking at me for a moment and my cock responded. That seemed to be what she was waiting for, because she turned, put one hand on the nightstand and got on top of me, straddling my body, the smoothness of her nylons sliding against my thighs. She moved down till the heat and humidity of her pussy was over my prick and she kept her torso levered horizontally over me as she fit herself against my semi-turgid cock and sighed with pleasure. Then she lowered herself down and held my face in her hands and began gently biting at my mouth—soft, urgent nips, as if my lips were filled with honey and she was desperate for sweets. I had my hands on her bottom and felt her muscles tighten as she began to move against me, her naked pussy sliding against my tool, and that's when I realized with horror that I felt nothing there, no excitement, no pleasure at all. I felt the pressure of her body against my prick, her sticky fleshiness, but there was no animal heat, no electricity, no sexual arousal. It was like I was dead. I was totally impotent.

I was sick but I wasn't surprised. I wasn't even embarrassed. Given the way things had been going, I should have been expecting this. How many insults to my pride and my manhood could I take before this happened?

I turned my face from her kisses. "April, I can't," I said. "There's a problem."

She stopped, her arms around my neck. She looked at me. "Yes. I thought so," she said. "It's okay, baby. After what you've been through, it's okay."

"No, it's not okay, and I feel terrible."

"Russell, you're not Superman. You've been through the fucking wringer. It's okay."

"No. For God's sake, don't patronize me."

"I'm not patronizing. I just want to ask you something though."

I sighed. "Yeah?"

She bent her head down and kissed me, sliding her lower lip against mine and following it with her tongue, then biting me gently. She touched my face and I felt her breath on my lips. Her pussy was still pressed against my flaccid cock.

"Does that still feel good, baby? Or would you rather I didn't do that?"

"No, April. That feels good."

She kissed me again and smiled.

"Okay. Then let me ask you this:" She took my hand and put it on her chest, moved it so my hand cupped her breast and squeezed my hand around it and left it there. I could feel the warmth, the fullness of her tit, her heartbeat in her breast, her nipple stiff against my palm. She released my hand and readjusted it so that just my fingertips were on her nipple, which was peaked and turgid and seemed somehow to throb under my touch. The contact made her gasp and when she did, her pussy spasmed against my useless cock.

"Does that still feel good in your hand, Russell? Is it still nice to touch me? Or should I put my bra back on and get dressed?"

"God, April. Don't be crazy. You feel wonderful to touch. You know that."

She took my fingers from her breast and kissed them, then put them back on her. She leaned her head against mine. "Then would you just kiss me and touch me and tell me what to do while I get myself off on you, Russell? That's all I need from you, is that you be with me and tell me what to do, because I want to get off, and I want to get off on you."

"April, I can't—"

"I already told you: I don't want you to. I just want you to touch me and hold me and tell me what to do."

"Tell you what to do?"

"You know what I mean."

She'd already gotten up on her knees over me and was kissing my chest and she looked so absolutely decadent in her stockings and shoes with her bare breasts hanging below her that I forgot about my reluctance and my inoperational equipment. I took her breasts in my hands and began to stroke her nipples, and April sighed. I raised my leg so she could press her pussy back against my thigh and she shuddered.

"Russell," she sighed, and she kissed me as she began to rub her pussy against my leg.

It was a terrible feeling. I was horny and I wanted her but my cock wouldn't stir, wouldn't twitch, wouldn't do a damned thing. I fondled her breasts and April groaned, kissing me hotly, licking my mouth, her nipples stiff like peppers in my hands. "Oh God!" I moaned in frustration. "God, you're so fucking hot!"

"What do you want me to do, baby," she whispered. "Tell me. Tell me!"

I knew what she wanted. I knew it and it had never made me so hot before. She wanted me to take control of her, to tell her how to touch herself and where. She wanted me to make her do it, to become her will and her desire, take responsibility for her, and by doing that, to set her free so that she could experience everything she was doing without guilt or shame.

"Play with yourself," I said. "Reach between your legs and play with your pussy."

She was kissing me drunkenly, her eyes closed as if in a trance.

"No, baby, don't make me do that! That's so dirty! That's so wrong!"

"Do it, April! Do it!"

"Oh Master, please! No! Please!"

"Do it!" I gave her a swat on the ass and it sounded loud in the little bedroom.

"Okay, Master. Yes, okay. Look. I'm doing it. Just for you, baby. See? Just for you."

I didn't have to look. I could feel her fingers working against her pussy where she was pressed against my leg, masturbating herself, in her stockings, her jewelry, her manicured fingers moving with the expertise of one who knows exactly how to pleasure herself, who knows the private intimacy of her own body, her fingertips describing a tight oval over the mouth of her pussy.

"Faster," I said. "I want you to get yourself off."

"Oh no, Master! Don't make me! Please!"

She turned her head to the side and whined with embarrassment but she did as I said. I knew she'd do whatever I told her no matter what it was, as long as I was the one who gave the orders, as long as I took responsibility for it, and she did. She became mine as I ordered her, she became mine as I took control of her, and she lit up with incandescent excitement, and as she did, I felt my own cock suddenly spring to life, filled with power, filled with my own life and strength.

"God, April! God, yes! Yes, baby"

I grabbed the back of her head and kissed her, kissed her wildly and slipped my hand down between her own fingers and her leg and stopped her masturbation, dragged her fingers away and pushed her down so her wet cunt was against my cock, soaking me, drowning me in her juice. She tried to raise up to take me inside but I didn't want to break the spell and I didn't want to be inside her. I wanted to be outside, pressed against her, a foreigner, a bully, her boss.

I didn't want to stop. I just kept her pushed against me like that and rocked her, pushed her, shoved her against my dick as she rubbed against me, frantic to feel me all over her pussy, smearing me around, making me harder and harder, and when I couldn't stand it anymore, I grabbed her by the back of the neck and around the waist and just flipped her over on her back like a capsized boat in a storm of sex, right in the bed so her jewelry and her pearls slid across her chest as I turned her over and her stockings sighed along my flanks and I had her poised on her back with her thighs open and me above her, my cock hard and pointing down like the spear of doom, and I just plunged myself into her like a sword into a scabbard, like fate itself, drilling her.

"Oh April! God! April!" I seized the back of her neck and crushed her to me and exploded into her just like that, like that; the touch of her flesh too intense, too private, too thrilling as I violated her, took her, fucked her once again.

April wrapped her arms and legs around me and held me fiercely, and her own spasms made it feel as if she was swallowing me in huge, hungry, peristaltic gulps as I unloaded into her. Her legs held me tight, the heels of her shoes digging painfully into my ass.

"I knew you could," she cried in something like rapturous joy. "I knew it! You're still my master! No matter what she did to you, you're still my master!"

* * * * *

The Given ran its two weeks in Belpierre and then the principles moved down to Chicago. I stayed with Sandra, Cormac and Lexi took an apartment that belonged to someone Cormac knew. I don't know. I didn't see them much. There rally wasn't much for me to do anymore except give interviews and I wasn't very good at that, though Bud Carlton insisted.

What I remember most was the January weather, drear and icy gray, the sky and lake the color of cement and the wind like a wall of ice. Sandra's building was right on the lake and all the buildings down there were nothing but massive slabs of concrete and walking down there I felt like a little felt man on a huge gray building-block space, the park blasted and empty, not a soul around.

At night the city lit up clear as the milky way and the buildings looked sharp as syringes. The play got great reviews but it would take a while for the crowds to build.

April came down and saw me on the weekends and we even stopped by to see the rehearsals but it still hurt too much seeing Cormac and Lexi. They gave no sign of being together, and though it didn't mean anything like what it did at Belpierre, for me it was still sheer pain, I could never recover from what she had done to me, from what she'd taken from me, and the terrible part was, there was still something I needed from her. I still needed that validation in her eyes.

"You've got to let it go," Sandra told me. "My God, I've never seen anyone so obsessed! Is she really worth it?"