Page 20 of Once Upon a Dream
His hands brushed along her waist, slowing to explore her navel through the leotard. “But you do like it?”
She couldn’t explain it, she didn’t even want to try. “I do,” she admitted.
“You like bad things.”
“I wanted…I’ve wanted bad things for a long time. But it’s never felt bad here, just safe. Not until you.”
She couldn’t believe she was confessing all this and yet the thrill she felt when she saw Cal’s stubbled jaw relax in understanding was worth it all.
“I think I get it now,” he said, leaning back in the chair, as if to enjoy the view. He idly plucked at a nipple through her leotard, and she nearly had a heart attack. The pleasure shot to her center like a lightning bolt.
“Get what now?” she whispered.
He stared up at her. “Why you close your eyes when you dance.”
That’s not at all what she expected him to say, and she slowed the motion of her hips as he continued. “You close your eyes so you can pretend you’re not alone.”
Her breath caught.
“And,” he said, his hands settling on her hips. “You close your eyes to dream that someone will take care of you.” He flipped her around with those large hands, lifting her as if she weighed nothing. Settling her so she sat in his lap again, facing the stage, her legs open and hooked around the outside of his knees.
“And I bet you thought you’d be taken care of here,” he said, one hand holding her hip steady as the other reached around to stroke along the lines of her inner thighs. “Isn’t that right, princess? Find other people who liked the same kinds of wrong?”
She nodded. It was all she could manage. He was right, of course, so very right. If there was anything she thought Persepolis could promise, it was that there were people here just like her, lonely and hungry for the same things she wanted. But it was all so predictable here. Pain and bondage. No one cared about the grittier kinds of power exchange…like being spread open and touched by a man twice her age. Like fantasizing that he was making her do it or else he’d tell her father everything.
God, she was fucked up. But she already knew that. What she didn’t guess was that there was a man like Cal around who would see it so clearly.
“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me the kinds of wrong you are thinking about right now.”
She squirmed in his lap but couldn’t make the words come out.
“Don’t worry,” he said gently in her ear. A pair of blunt fingertips skated up her center, skimming across the fabric stretched over her pussy, and she tried to move closer to them, closer to the pressure, but they moved back to her thigh. “I’m going to take care of you, sweetheart. I promise. But first I need to know exactly the kinds of bad, wrong things my little ballerina is wanting.”
So she told him. About the age difference and how it turned her on. Her blackmail fantasies. And more things too—how she wanted to be forced to crawl across the floor like a pet, how she wanted to look down and see a man’s bare feet next to the pale pink of her ballet slippers, how much she wanted to watch him fuck her friends, every single cheap and tawdry way she wanted to be used and see others used around her. When she finished, she became aware of how much harder he was underneath her now, how the probes of her breasts and cunt had gotten harder, more insistent.
“You are so brave telling me such bad things,” Cal whispered in her ear. “And brave girls get rewarded.”
His fingers nudged along the crotch of her leotard, pushing underneath, and she almost came, she was that worked up, but then his fingers moved to her soaking wet folds, and she knew for sure she wasn’t going to last long. His other hand moved to her breast, kneading the small curve of flesh as his other hand began exploring her in earnest now, dipping just inside her wet hole, rubbing up to her clit, which was swollen and hard.
“Oh, little ballerina,” he groaned in her ear. “It’s been so long since someone’s taken care of you, hasn’t it?”
“Yes.” It came out as something like a whine.
His voice was soft when he asked, “How long, princess? Since you’ve had what you need?”
She tried to think. “I’ve fucked a couple people here at the club—”
“But that’s not what we’re talking about and you know it,” he cut in. “How long since someone has given you what you need?”
And the honest answer to that was never. “They haven’t,” she said, her voice sounding unaccountably sad.
Cal tsked, big fingers starting to gently twist their way up inside her now. “What a fucking shame. But I’m almost grateful because—” his fingers slid in even deeper and she squirmed in his lap “—it means—” He slid up to the second knuckles and curled his fingers, driving pressure against her soft front wall. She gasped, her head dropping back onto his shoulder “—that you are starving for it right now.”
And she was, oh fuck, yes she was. Starving like she hadn’t eaten in days, empty like she’d been hollowed out and filled with air instead. “Please,” she whimpered. “Please love me.”
She didn’t have to explain herself to him, she knew from the growl behind her and the way his hand cupped her possessively that he understood. He knew she didn’t mean love like a feeling, like a commitment to a future, like red roses and musical greeting cards and dinners full of small talk. She meant love like a verb, a very specific verb. She meant care for me, make me feel good, stay with me tonight. She meant come inside me, hold me so tight I can’t breathe, touch me, touch me, touch me.
“I’m gonna,” he said into her ear. He twisted her nipple sharply through the leotard and she cried out. “And I’m not a fancy guy, sweetheart. You want me to stop, you say ‘stop.’ You want me to wait, say ‘wait.’ Got it?”
