Exhibitions and Adventures Ch. 02

It was on my mind over dinner. Sex, that is. We agreed to meet for a meal at the pub next door to the Travellodge. I'd downloaded the pics to the laptop, and resisted the urge to masturbate over them. I'd showered and shaved, and changed into evening gear; black shoes, black jeans and a black teeshirt. New batteries in the camera, condoms in my wallet, and I was ready for dinner.

So was Joss. Initially I was disappointed; another ankle length skirt; the high lace up boots again, a black silk top and a black leather jacket. New for the occasion a silk choker, with a jet brooch she'd worn during the week pinned to it. Time for my eyes to take in the detail as she walked towards me, controlled and unhurried, as if making her way along a catwalk only she could see. The skirt buttoned up from hem to waist, or rather it would have done if all the buttons from just above the knee downwards hadn't been undone.

The silk top didn't reach the waist of her skirt; if she were fashionable there'd have been two inches of bare skin. There wasn't though, just, from the front an underlying layer of black. As she turned to hang her jacket over the back of the chair there was a momentary glimpse of bare flesh, laces and the surrounding black material of a corset. Erect again, I resolved to try and maintain some degree of cool.

The conversation between us was easier now. Not a surprise really; there is so much more you can say when you've exchanged some degree of intimacy. Joss talked about the principles of non invasive archaeology, about how so much of what she wanted to do was about the history of artefacts, the relationship of the object to the built environment and the people. I talked in turn about my love hate relationship with texts, and the stories they didn't tell. We even seemed to have common ground, looking for texts and objects that told stories that were more reliable than human sources. (Yes, I know all texts are human sources, but legal charters and records are accounts that have to conform to an external framework. Read my thesis if you don't believe me.)

Once the food was on the table and the second glass of wine poured we started to put some flesh on the intellectual bones. It's a poor historian who can't find parallels between what he does and how he lives.

"Were we communicating via images this afternoon Joss? Creating artefacts that tell a story we don't trust voices to do?" She laughed and wagged a finger at me.

"Those pics are art, not artefacts Ed. You made them, I posed for them. They have no other purpose than to turn us on. So they might be fictions themselves. Have you looked at them again?" I thought for a moment that a coy response might be the right thing to do, changed my mind; honesty might be more productive.

"I didn't want to wank over them when the real thing might be a possibility later." Her turn to consider an answer.

"A couple of years ago I used to think that that was the ultimate in sex, to make boys want to wank over me. I used to get them all hard and turned on, watch them coming. The I started to wonder if the boys I was at school with would have wanked over any girl who got her tits out."

"You mean your preferred them wanting Joss for who she is, rather than what gender she is?"

"Precisely. You're a man; you know about how other men are. And of course, there's your reputation around the uni..." Swallow the piece of food that's suddenly the size of a bowling ball in my throat.

"My reputation?"

"Your reputation. The women's grapevine grades post grads who teach as well as lecturers. Letches, sexists, gays, misogynists... You have this reputation of being fair and honest; a friend of mine called you the Wysiwyg tutor."

I recognised the nickname straight away; I'd taught a woman called Sam the previous year, when I'd filled in for a tutor on sabbatical. Joss kept on going.

"And you've proved it this week. You've been honest and fair. And even today, when I've made a pass at you, you've been how I want you to be."

"Which is what Joss?"

Why do any talking when she was willing to do all the work?

"Well, confident but not arrogant. I get the impression you're enjoying this, enjoying waiting to see what happens."

"Enjoying it Joss? One of the best looking women in the uni strips for me, and I'm not supposed to enjoy it? I know we both know that you were taking your clothes off to please you, and to turn yourself on, but it wouldn't work without an audience and you decided I was this week's audience. Of course I'm enjoying myself."

"The first audience Ed. I had a girlfriend paint me once, a portrait to prove she could, but you're the first person I've posed for like that. It's about trust and desire – I've ached to feel that way for years, but.... Why does it matter who the audience is?" I was struck by the pause and the change of direction, turning the conversation back into a dialogue, cutting off the flow of information about herself.

"It's a power exchange Joss. You may be the one doing the explicitly sexual things, but you're depending on me to do the right things to make it sexy." She looked as if she was going to disagree, but changed her mind. Instead she just stared at me. Shared insights? Or just gathering our thoughts?

I sat back, as if waiting for the moment to pass. Joss flicked some hair off her brow, fussed with the neckline of her top.

"So if it is a power exchange, what's this conversation about?" I offered her more wine before I went on; she declined, and we settled on a bottle of mineral water.

"Have you ever studied theatre? There's a power exchange between audience and performer; it's like the actor is saying to the audience 'this will only work if you respond appropriately. I'm putting myself in your hands.' That was the deal this afternoon; it was only going to work if I responded appropriately. Would it have worked better if I'd been more assertive and overly sexual? I don't know. So now, tonight, we talk, and I try to work out what's appropriate next, and you try to tell me..."

"What's to tell? You've told me I turn you on, and I've told you..." Her voice trailed away.

"Not quite Joss. You did something exceptional this afternoon. I might want to know where it leads, where we go..."

She shook her head, the colour of her hair shifting as it caught in the light, a strand of brown hair amongst the black.

"You think I haven't thought about that?" She took a sip of water, then went on.

"I was the clever girl at school who liked to dress differently and knew odd looking boys who were grateful for whatever they got. At uni in the first year I was the girl who didn't fancy attending an extended club 18-30 holiday with added books. So I ended up having a girlfriend rather than a boyfriend until I realised I was sleeping with somebody I didn't like because of the things we both didn't like about college life. And this year? This year I've had a vibrator, a head full of thoughts and a drunken fumble with an impotent lecturer who wanted to know if I could get him some viagra for the next time."

I hadn't expected such an outpouring.

"And then along you come; Mr nice guy, smiling and charming, intelligent and handsome, with a big smile, a camera and all the right attitudes. Except..."

"Except what?"

"Except what if you're not the right one?"

"Then I'll have a good friend in the Arch department and some memories. And you'll be closer to knowing what works. What works down here as opposed to in your head that is."

"There's the rub, if you'll pardon the expression. In my head my little spell of lesbianism should have been perfection. She wanted glamour, I provided it. She wanted to take the lead, I let her. She was superb in bed, but it was always on her terms. God could she lick.." I knew she was putting on the shoulder shudder for effect, but it was still sexy.

"...but ask her to be different, to step outside her preferences or to think about who I might want to be. God she was uptight..."

"Are you scared I might be uptight?"

"I don't think so, but the refinement of taste in post modern culture means that sometimes people's tastes are exotic but narrow. So people are into the sexual equivalent of musical subcults – happy trance with a touch of handbag or emo rock with a death metal twist."

I tried not to smile at the sardonic tone to her voice even as she slipped back into an almost academic mode of speaking; I didn't want her to think I was being patronizing.

"Do you not think those boundaries are about safety Joss? Let me hazard a guess. Was your ex troubled by the role of the dildo? You said she loved to lick but..." She laughed out loud..

"Precisely right. Penetration was a male defined act, and she was a woman who loved women, so how could she use a dildo? Or have one used on her?"

"So she was happier to leave you unfulfilled than to risk asking herself if the politics of sex as she understood them were right?"

A nod of the head, a direct look from Joss, head tilted slightly to one side. Answer not required, but maybe an indication too that the conversation was straying too close to the emotional as opposed to the erotic. She turned the point back on to me.

"Which would you do?"

"I have a theory; the more I make you come, the more likely you are to do what I want. Part of the negotiation process is finding out whether I tell you what you want, or you tell me what you want, or I explore you until we find out what you want."

That smile again, broad lipped, open and generous.

"What if I say you have to guess?"

Under the table her foot had moved between mine so that the arch of her right foot was resting against the back of my left calf.

"Guess? Not me. If you don't tell me, and I have to guess with too little information to go on, then I'll just do what pleases me and see if you like that. If you do I'll keep on doing it. If not, I'll do something else that pleases me and see what your reaction is to that."

I moved my right leg to push her left leg away from the right; to push her legs open, in effect. She moved slightly forward on her chair.

"Experimental sex then?" I smiled and laughed.

"Call it dialectic sex. My thesis, your reaction as antithesis, move onto the synthesis or try another thesis. Sex as a debate perhaps."

"So it's an intellectual exercise..."

"Of course..."

"What do today's photo's say?"

It genuinely was quickfire conversation. Challenging and intriguing.

"Defining glamour on your own terms. Gothic is a form of romanticism, but you're trying to connect it to eroticism that doesn't depend on a love interest. It asks questions as well. Are you playing with images from pornography, or are you saying that those things can have other meanings than the ones we traditionally attach to them?"

No movement from the leg resting against mine, no change in facial expression that you could describe, but a sense that we'd made the transition from flirtation to something else.

"Traditional meanings?"

"Traditional porn, if it's visual, doesn't tell you about the model's intelligence. We always attribute the intelligence to the photographer, or the consumer. But the intelligence today was yours."

"So who was in charge?"

"Do I tell you I was in charge, and risk offending you? Or tell you that you were in charge, and risk disappointing you?"

"Would you rather be a voyeur or be in charge?" Deep breath time; a moment to place my cards on the table.

"When I'm in charge I can be both. And I'm sure that can make space for what you want to be..."

"You know what I want to be? I don't know that I do..."

"So I create the space. Right now, based on what I know, I think you like being submissive. I don't think you like being led so much as being in a place where things happen. I didn't tell you to bend over the boot of the car; you did it, to see what happened. You weren't submitting to me; you were putting yourself into a place where you might have to submit to me. Where you are now...

I think you love yourself being glamorous. I can arrange a coincidence of glamour and sex for you."

"So when does this start? This adventure in submission for me?"

I know mocking ironic enthusiasm sounds like a cumulative contradiction, but that was what her expression conveyed.

"It can start as soon as we've finished these drinks. You can take your jacket into the toilet, put your top and any panties you're wearing in your handbag, unbutton your skirt almost to the top, then come and pose for some pictures on the way back across to the hotel."

And she obeyed.

As simply as that.

Picked up her coat, walked to the toilets, and returned. The pub was almost empty; she saw me waiting for her, camera in hand, and paused at the step up onto our raised seating area, her left leg on the step, her right leg at floor level, coat half open and the skirt falling around her raised thigh. I took the first photo, then gestured to her to hold her coat wider. She did. She reached down and held her skirt wider apart as well, not revealing any more of her groin, but showing more of her legs, turning so that her thigh was more clearly visible.

She turned as I joined her, smiled at a barman who was trying to work out what was going on, left her coat undone as we made our way through the porch into the car park. I held out my hand to her.

"I'll take your coat."

Again no question from her, or indeed, any visible reaction.

I folded the coat over my forearm as I took in the view of her, began to direct her to pose.

The corset, tightly laced, the neat bows hanging from the middle of the back, the bare landscape of her shoulders, the black fall of hair along the line of her spine.

The skirt, plain and undemonstrative from the back, provocative and wicked from the front, a frame for thighs divided along their length by suspenders..

The boots, gleaming in the flash light as I made her pose with one foot up on a plant pot as if adjusting the laces.

The silver ring on her second finger, almost as pale as the skin of her mound, sharply contrasted when I demanded she stroke her clit while leaning back against the fake pillars of the portico of the pub.

And the whiteness of her teeth against her cherry lipstick as I took the final shot, of her licking that finger.

She was relieved when I gave her the coat to drape round her shoulders. She would have been happier if I had allowed her to put her arms in the sleeves. But then the hotel receptionist wouldn't have got as clear an impression of how lucky I was to be with such a sexy woman. Joss smiled at that. She smiled too, but more nervously, when I made her repeat the clit stroking for the camera in the lift, the door held open by her foot, her head bowed a little by the awkward pose, while I stood away from her. I could see around the corner, could see the receptionist and any guests making their way to the lifts. Joss had to trust me. She didn't stop touching herself until I lowered the camera, not even when her face flushed and her mouth pouted around a murmur of arousal.

She had to trust me. If she were to obey, as she wanted to, she had to trust me. I started to say that sentence as the lift doors closed, and she finished it for me. Between the ground floor and the second I unfastened her skirt completely, took it off her and folded it over my arm. Try as she might her coat wouldn't close completely from the waist down. I told her to stop trying.

Our rooms were around a corner of the corridor, the last two on a south facing wing of the hotel. At the bend in the corridor I stopped, gestured at the coat. She understood, took her card key from the pocket of the coat, then added the coat to the skirt draped over my arm. She walked away from me toward her bedroom door, and I called to her to slow down so the camera could get another shot of her buttocks, athletic but pale against the black of the corset.

Something inside me expected the spell to break when she opened the door. It didn't. She hung the coat on a hanger in the wardrobe, the stood in the centre of the room, hands by her side. Waiting.

So I instructed her to pose. In front of the mirror looking at her reflection. Seated on the only chair, looking at her legs. Spreadeagled, legs over the arms of the chair, hands behind her head. Kneeling, buttocks raised, on the bed. Kneeling on the bed with her hand between her legs, her fingers entering herself. Lying on the bed, one knee raised, a parody of the recovery position, one hand on her buttocks. The same pose, with the hand straying lower on the buttock, closer to her crease. On her back knees apart, no pretence at art, except perhaps the languid way her hand draped over her pussy, one finger parting her lips and probing. Not the index finger but her middle finger, stroking and pushing at herself. I took pictures selectively, waiting for the flash to recharge, waiting for her breathing to become more ragged, her face more flushed. She came, with the camera pointing at her face. As she caught her breath she called me a bastard. A lovely cruel bastard. And stayed in her pose on the bed, waiting to see what happened next.

So I did what I thought a lovely cruel bastard would do in that situation. I found a discarded stocking in her laundry bag, and tried her wrists together. I posed her at the bottom of the bed, kneeling, hands above her head, bottom raised, knees wide apart. I took pictures of her in that position. Then I stripped, standing one side so that she could turn her head and watch me. I took care to make sure she watched me take my belt out of the loops of my trousers. I didn't speak, didn't comment on my obvious erection, didn't offer it to her or try to sexualize my actions. Only once I was naked did I walk to my position behind her, wrapping the buckle end of the belt round my hand.

"This will hurt."

She didn't flinch, not from any of the six blows with the belt. She gasped a little at the fourth and six blows, and let out a tiny sob when I told her it was finished. She flinched as the flash went off, as I recorded the reddened state of her cheeks. She sobbed again, and sagged at the waist, as I pushed my cock into her pussy. I reached under her, stroked her clit, pushed harder and faster at her. She came again as I came, arching my back.

She let me strip her of her clothes, putting them away as she would, the corset on a hanger in the wardrobe, the boots neatly placed under, aligned with her other shoes. She let me unfasten her earrings and place them in her jewellery box. I offered to unfasten her wrists, to undo the knotted stocking. She shook her head. 'Not yet'. So I lay behind her in bed, her bound arms stretched out in front of her, while a late night radio station ran the gamut of emotions from A to B, from Will Young to Air Supply, and listened to her talk, and answered her questions.

"I've wanted to feel like that since I was sixteen. The moment you hit me with the belt? The first time? Better than any fuck ever. Will you do it to me regularly?" There was no hint of fear in the question.

"It depends; judging by your reactions so far, yes, I will."

"I've wanted to feel like this as long as I've known about sex. To feel possessed, to feel that I'm wanted. Not a girl, not a woman, generic, fucking for the purpose of, but Joss, a woman who gets what she wants." Her nipples were still erect under my fingers, her breasts malleable but full. I laughed at her words, and kissed the nape of her neck.

"Welcome to your brave new world Joss."

"It is a brave new world Ed. I don't want to be some kind of little girl, dreaming of how bad she can be, or some jaded housewife wanting to transfer responsibility to somebody else. I just want these feelings..."

"Domesticity would be a waste Joss. You are attractive because you're the complete package."