Descend to Heaven Ch. 02

[NOTE: The character named Anamaria in the first chapter has had her name changed to Arianna. Often in the course of writing a long story, a better, more appropriate name suggests itself as the character develops. Such was the case here, as 'Arianna' conveys a womanliness and level of sophistication that the more youthful 'Anamaria' doesn't suggest.]

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There's something that goes on between a man and a woman that's deeper than sex, maybe even deeper than love, and possibly even deeper than words can express. It includes love and sex, but also something more, a kind of magic that changes our world and realigns our stars, and makes us bloom in colors we didn't even know we had. It's something built into us as human beings on a fundamental level, as deep as our sense of self and deepest, unimagined desires.

It's a longing, a need. You might say it's a need for love, but that doesn't do it justice. We long for the opposite sex like the dark longs for the light and like fire longs for fuel. I don't want to disparage the gay world, and those who find what they want in the same sex, but n my case, at least, I long for the feminine, for the world she represent and the quality she supplies. God bless gender equality, but thrice bless those gender differences that make masculine and feminine possible: a man's hardness and physicality and even his oafishness; a woman's nurturing and comfort and welcoming softness.

The difference between male and female isn't one of status or ability. It's one of quality, such that either consciously or not, we all divide the world into masculine and feminine, and yearn for that which we don't have.

All this came to me during my dark days after I'd lost my job, when things between me and Dana hit the skids and I spent my time immersed in magic and mythology, searching for a way out of the prison of rationality and reason. The differences between male and female saturated the pages of what I was reading, the longings and conflicts and complex relationships; the division of nature into him and her, light and dark, positive and negative, aggressive and receptive.

And the more I studied, the worse things got between us. I needed for our love to be deep and our sex even deeper, complete and impassioned. That was more than the kind of routine vanilla affection Dana and I'd fallen into. I needed her to be the archetypal female to my male, and to be respectable yet seductive, pure but whorish. I needed her to fill this hollowness I felt and with warmth and acceptance, faith, trust, and giving.

But that was more than she could give, and probably more than I could accept at the time. As I said, those feelings are beyond words and therefore hard to grasp. They're best expressed through the language of sex, through the pleasure and pain and longing and violation, the tenderness and healing that speaks to us more directly than words. But by the time I realized that, Dana and I were finished. Our well had run dry.

And now I was involved with a girl I was sure was fluent in this language, even down to the dialect she spoke. Our one sexual encounter had been brief and unplanned, but even so had given me a glimpse of Arianna's hidden passion and an intensity of feeling that I desperately wanted more of. This was the language I wanted to speak, and this was the woman I'd been waiting for, I was sure of it. She only needed to be prodded and provoked and taught how to release this energy and there'd be no telling how far we could go. I couldn't let her get away.

Everything I'd learned of her said that Arianna Zamora was sexually submissive, but in a state of denial. That's not surprising. As I said, those feelings can run deep and strong and are often fiercely repressed, to the point where a woman might bury all erotic feeling rather than expose these threats to her self-image.

The significance of her being submissive wasn't that I could use and exploit her. The significance was that Arianna contained an entire, unexplored world of repressed female sexuality that no one had as yet tapped into or even begun to reveal. She was a stranger to herself and only marginally aware of those things locked up inside her, things that I perhaps possessed the key for. And that sense of erotic potential was enough to invoke that bigger change in me, realigning my world and stars and offering me a path back into the land of the living again.

But I'd have to be careful. I'd have to be tender with her. I didn't want to shock her or scare her off. The sexual part of this relationship still meant less to me than the friendship part. That, I didn't want to jeopardize.

I gave her a couple of days, then called. Nothing about the sex and what had happened, just a friendly call to see how she was doing. I didn't mention that night, and she didn't either. She'd been busy, looking for a lawyer to handle the divorce, and also beginning the search for an apartment so she could move out of her parents' house and start her new life as a single woman.

And on top of all this, there'd been her Christmas shopping. She still hadn't found the right gold bracelet for her mother.

"Well then come down here," I told her. "There's jewelers and import places all up and down the street. I'll be your guide. I know just the place."

I did know a jeweler who made gorgeous stuff, but my real reason for asking her was of course to see how she felt towards me now, and whether she'd come or keep her distance.

"That would be great David, but I couldn't do it tonight. Maybe Friday?"

I smiled into the phone. "Friday night? Sure."

"I'll come over about seven? Is that okay?"

"Perfect."

"Great! I'll see you then."

I know that in most stories of dominance and submission, the dom just takes control of the sub by virtue of his compelling presence and commanding personality, but I assure you, that's not how it works in the real world. BDSM is just like love, only more so. And unless she's just playing or showing off, you're going to have to earn her submission by establishing bonds of trust, respect, familiarity, and affection, and those don't just happen overnight, no matter how good your Svengali face is.

It can happen, though, that breaking through someone's defensive shell can trigger a reaction that's way out of proportion to the deed. Sexual repression takes a lot of energy, and the repressed sub can be like a straining wall or a baited bear trap, ready to spring. Remove the right brick or touch the right trigger and you can set off an avalanche of feeling and freed emotion.

That's all I could figure when I met Arianna that night. I went down to meet her when she rang the bell, not wanting her to come up and revisit the scene of the crime until I could gauge her mood. It was a good thing too, because her mood was something I'd never seen in her before. She was actually happy, even almost a little giddy as we dodged shoppers on Clark Street, chattering away about everything she saw. She clung to my arm so we wouldn't get separated, and for once that aura of constant sadness seemed gone.

Part of it might have been the excitement of Christmas shopping and all the people and decorations. But part of it was something else, something inside her. She felt like a person who had a future again. And she was wearing a skirt too. Her little pink knees were visible between her coat and her suede boots, something I couldn't fail to notice. I'd never seen her wear a skirt outside of work, and that seemed significant to me.

"You seem in an awfully good mood tonight." I pulled open the door to Kramer's Jewelers so she could enter. "What happened?"

"Happened?" She smiled cryptically as she breezed past. "I can't imagine. Maybe you can tell me?"

And then we were inside and she turned all business, as if I wasn't even there, until it was time to model a gold bracelet on her slim wrist for my opinion.

Maybe it was the heightened perception she evoked in me, but I'd never been so aware of the message a bracelet can send before. Or maybe it was just that I wanted those messages to be there to fulfill my own fantasies. But the bracelets Arianna tended to like all seemed to be slave-like, either chains or bands of woven gold. She'd try them on and push up her sleeve, then raise and lower her hand so I could watch the bracelet slide on her arm and get caught around her hand.

I was supposed to be looking at the bracelet, but several times I noticed a coy, self-satisfied look on her face as she watched my reaction.

But it wasn't till the third place that she found what she was looking for: a delicate yet dignified bracelet suitable for her mother, totally unlike what she'd been trying on. She managed to get the jeweler to knock off thirty bucks and promptly bought it, a smug, satisfied look on her face as we walked out the door.

It was a strange night out, an unusual warm snap despite the snow on the ground, and not expected to last. But while it did, the air was full of mist and fog that made the whole street look like a smudged pastel drawing, all soft grays and deep blacks and misty pinks, with halos around the lights all up and down the street.

"Where to now?" I asked her. "Dinner? I'm buying."

Arianna pointed down the street to a sign. "Cajun Jimmy's. Isn't that the chicken place you told me about? Why don't we just get some chicken and take it back to your place?"

I stared. "Yeah? Yeah, sure. That would be great."

Eight o'clock on a Friday night and Arianna was inviting herself to come home with me. It was almost too good to be true. We got two chicken dinners and carried them back to my apartment and climbed the narrow stairs.

Inside, Arianna took off her coat and threw it in a chair, and for the first time I got a good look at what she was wearing: a short but not scandalous black leather skirt and a black sweater over a white silk blouse.

I stared. She looked incredible.

But of course she wasn't posing for me. She'd already gone to the kitchen cabinet and pulled down some dinner plates, then opened the right drawer to collect some silverware, as if she'd been living here for years. Ms. Domesticity. No questions asked.

I stood in the kitchen still in my coat and scarf and watched her as she began to set the table, rather shocked. She put down the plates and silverware, laid down paper napkins, and got glasses from above the sink.

When she finished, she turned to me and grabbed both ends of my scarf like I was a little boy. "Aren't you staying, David?" she teased. "Why don't you take your coat off?"

This was a side of Arianna I'd never seen before, or even suspected, playful, flirty, and surprisingly bold. All I could do was stand there and stare.

Of course I'd been hoping she'd come back to my apartment and that we'd end up in bed again, but I hadn't expected to be actively seduced. This was too weird and outrageous. If she'd gone into the bedroom and started taking off her clothes I couldn't have been more surprised.

"Arianna? What's going on?"

She pulled herself closer, so close that I automatically put my hands on her hips to maintain a modicum of personal space.

"You asked me before what'd happened," she said. Her eyes were wide and deep and looking right into mine. "I need to ask you the same thing. What happened? What did you do to me the other night? I asked you then and you said it was nothing. But it wasn't nothing. It was something, and I need to know."

I wasn't sure what to say but her face was close to mine, so I thought maybe I'd just kiss her, but she wouldn't relent. She pulled her head away and continued to press me.

"No one else has ever made me feel like that. Is that what Ethan meant by responding? It is, isn't it? Now I can see it."

When I still didn't answer she impatiently flicked the two ends of my scarf as if they were reins and she could make me go. She said louder now and more insistent, "Why do you have those chains on your bed? And those things on the wall in your living room, those brackets, like for tying someone up? What do you think I am? What did you think you were doing to me?"

I lost patience then and grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands from my scarf. I pushed them up so they were against her chest and forced her back against the table. It was supposed to be a joke gesture, but the ease with which I took control of her had an effect on me.

"I didn't think anything, goddamnit," I said to her. "I wanted you and we made love. I took you. And don't tell me you didn't like it! You came like a little slut, didn't you? Over and over. Unresponsive my ass!"

Her eyes suddenly blazed fire and for a second I thought she was going to slap me, but she didn't attempt to move her hands. I could feel her anger and outrage, but I could feel something else too: a wall starting to crumble, a spirit trying to break free, but frightened of what she might find. A woman begging to be forced.

And suddenly I understood. Arianna was trying to provoke me. She was trying to call forth the fierce male lust that had led me to ravish her the other night. That fire in her eyes was desire, not anger. She wanted to be ravished again.

"Come with me." I said. I backed off but held onto one wrist and led her into the living room.

"David? What are you doing? David?"

"We're going to play a game. I want to try something with you."

"What do you mean? What kind of game?"

"Take off your sweater. I need it off. Do it!"

As I said it was warm out. It was warm in the apartment. Arianna kept her eyes on me but she lifted her sweater off over her head and let it drop. Her silk blouse was white and shiny like a pearl, and with her sweater off, made her look even more radiant and ethereal.

I turned her around and took off my scarf, then wrapped it several times around each wrist, leaving her about a foot of slack between them.

"David! What are you doing?"

She pretended to be surprised and a bit irritated, as if she didn't know what was happening, but she wasn't fooling me. She reminded me of a feral cat I had once, who was too proud to admit that she liked being petted. She'd come around, trying to act casual when what she really wanted were strokes.

In the same way, Arianna'd come over on the pretext of Christmas shopping, when it was fairly obvious that what she really wanted was to feel what I'd made her feel the other night, and the scarf was part of it.

I sat down in the same chair I'd sat in when I'd played with her hand, and I pulled her down into my lap. I caught her by surprise and she fell heavily, stiff and a bit awkwardly, but she didn't resist.

"The rules of this game are this," I said. "I can touch you but you can't touch me. You're not allowed to move unless I tell you to. Understood?"

"What? Why?"

"Because that's the way this game is played. You're my prisoner, and those are the rules."

"I don't understand."

"No? Well then that's why we're playing this game. Just don't let go of that scarf."

I pulled her tighter against me and she gave a little gasp. Her skirt slid up a few more inches, and I had a sudden vision of us together in that chair and our age discrepancy. Arianna was very young and fresh and as yet an unknown quantity, and I was well-flecked with gray and old enough to be her father, holding her in my lap with her arms tied. We might have been some sort of wickedly perverse Santa Claus and little girl, but there the similarity ended.

She sat tense and expectant, excited at being held helpless, but frightened too that her real desires might be exposed, and not yet sure what they'd be. But there was something in the tension in her body that told me that being held in just this way was something Arianna wanted and wanted badly, whether she was aware of it or not.

"David—"

She squirmed a little, already sensing danger. I reached up and caressed her face, causing her to close her eyes, then let my hand slip down over her silky blouse to her breast. The blouse was thin and smooth and made her breasts maddeningly tactile, living sacks of human treasure. Their soft weight and gravid mass made me moan out loud when I felt them.

I popped the buttons on her blouse and pulled the tails from her skirt, but the real excitement wasn't her revealed flesh, but her tense acceptance of what I was doing, her willing helplessness as I undressed her. If she was going to pull away or try to stop me, she would have done it now, but she didn't.

I threw the blouse open, exposing her snowy white bra, and I plundered her breasts, my hand greedy for her, violating her, selfishly gorging on her flesh. I showed her through my touch how I wanted her and what I wanted to do to her. She couldn't help but move now, her body twisting away, her shoulders coming up to protect her breasts.

She was lush, over-ripe, swollen with the years of her husband's neglect, and despite her instinct to protect herself, I could feel her body begging to be taken and used for what it was so obviously made for. I felt her arms moving behind her back but she wasn't freeing herself. She was wrapping the scarf tighter to restrict her freedom even further. She was getting into this game. She was learning that she liked it.

I pulled her bra down and revealed nipples already peaked with excitement. Arianna whimpered and gasped and her writhing took on a different character. No longer trying to escape or protect herself, she began to twist and turn in response to my touch, jumping when I touched someplace ticklish, pushing back or leaning into me when I touched someplace where she wanted more pressure. I played with her nipples, running my fingertip lightly around them and then seizing one and slowly pinching till she began to whine and grind her ass into my lap. I could feel her go from demure resistance to the hungrier urgency of feeling herself used for my pleasure: despoiled, ravished, and molested.

I pinched her nipple harder and she tried to pull away.

She wasn't used to being treated like this, like a common slut or sex toy. My rough treatment shocked her but excited her too despite herself, and she began to thrash and pull at the scarf.

"Did I tell you to move?" I asked. "Did I give you permission?"

I released her nipple and gave it a little slap to set her breast bouncing, grabbed the back of her hair with my other hand and tilted that angel face down to mine. Her grimace of pain from the slap faded quickly and left her with lips parted and eyes half-closed. She'd turned on with amazing speed.

"Kiss," I said. "You may kiss me."

No words, no comments. Her lips came down on mine soft and molten in a begging, beseeching kiss, her breath shaky in her throat. I knew what had happened: the pretty girl's first taste of disrespect, her first realization that her looks wouldn't save her. I took her nipple again and tweaked it, rolled it in my fingers, worried it like a terrier with a bone, and her kiss just got hotter and more desperate, melting over my lips like hot butter, her voice full of little sounds of helpless submission.

I was learning her. I was learning what she liked.

I released the kiss and turned to her breasts, lifting one to my mouth and sucking and kissing the nipple I'd just tormented and Arianna leaned back so she could stare down at me nursing on her with a look of wild fascination on her face, enraptured by the sight of her body being violated, her breasts devoured. Her arms were still behind her back so she was helpless to stop me and could only watch.

When I released her breast her nipple was hard and shiny with my saliva. When I pulled her down for another kiss she opened her mouth wide, inviting even further depredation, moaning with the thrill of it.

I was amazed at how quickly she turned on. A pinch, a slap, an attitude of disrespect, and suddenly it was like she couldn't get enough. She turned into a little she-beast there in my arms, beside herself with lust.