(A standalone short.)
*
She put something in her drink. But not to take advantage...
*
Someone must have slipped something into her drink. Beyza was usually so careful.
Never would she leave her drink unattended in a public space. That was just inviting disaster. And never would she accept a drink from a stranger; only from her closest friends, and even then she preferred to accompany them to the bar, to witness the bar staff actually prepare it. Some might call her paranoid. She just considered herself risk-aware. There were so many awful men out there, predators who would dose a drink with something debilitating to subdue a woman and abuse them.
But this time she had no idea what had happened. Perhaps it was because she had become hot and bothered, enticed into a conversation about orgasm denial, and had become distracted.
It was at an art gallery launch party. The invitation came from a friend of the artist, although Beyza knew a few of the usual crowd who would attend. Some were even aware of the fringes of kink, so she could share a knowing look with them when conversation edged towards the arousing. Most, though, were tamer. Like the man who was staring at her with something akin to horror, now their conversation was flirting with the idea of tease and denial.
The canvases were erotic impressionism, all reds and pinks, suggestive lines and enticing half-detail. The lights had been set low and spots picked out the artwork giving the launch a hushed and sensual undertone. Now, huddled with a small group in a corner with the free drinks emboldening everyone, conversation had strayed from aesthetic appreciation of the art to its themes and then on to sex and kink in general. Someone had noted that they found the ritual of flirtation more exciting than the eventual act of sex. Someone else had countered that they found foreplay more arousing than the inevitable fucking. Beyza found herself suggested that being teased was sometimes more exciting than climaxing. This seemed to have been an outrageous idea.
"But... why?" the man was still saying, a bemused frown on his face. He sported a wispy beard and a colourful bow tie. He looked rich and a little drunk. "That's like ... I don't know ... unwrapping a chocolate bar, looking at it, smelling it but not eating it."
It wasn't a particularly good simile but Beyza found herself a little excited by the idea.
She herself was fascinated by the concept of denial, to the extent that she had spent some time online reading erotic stories about it, following discussion groups about it, even chatting online to people who did it.
But she let herself down. She had tried edging. She enjoyed it. Yet every time she found herself in the blissful throes of passion, she couldn't help herself. She kept rubbing and toying with herself, tipping over into the throbbing release, her hips thrusting, her fingers a blur, gasping and moaning as the orgasm washed through her. Afterwards, exhausted and sheened with perspiration, she felt spent and disappointed that she had failed to hold herself back. The pleasure was delightful, yes, but it was so brief and faded like a dream.
She had shared this disappointment online and received various replies of support, urging her to persist, outlining the benefits. She even received a few odd anonymous replies telling her that she was "not alone" in her inability to hold herself back and that there were people out there who could "help her". Bitterly she confessed that she would do anything to achieve this control.
Nothing she could share with this group, of course. Instead she tried to skirt around the subject.
"It's, I don't know, all about control," she said quietly.
"Self control?" said the man.
Beyza shrugged, shyly, unsure of how to express it. She set her drink down on the low table around which they had gathered and tried to explain.
"Yes, self, I guess," she said. She felt everyone's eyes on her, now. Usually timid, she felt her heart thudding in her chest at the attention and particularly the subject. "Just, you know, it's good to be ... controlled. To have control I mean." She felt her ears flush as she came too close to exposing her hidden desires to these strangers.
One woman, though, was regarding her with a slight smile. She was slim, youthful and had her dark-hair up in a bun. But she carried herself with a grace and power that suggested maturity.
"Would you let yourself get all pent up and frustrated," the aghast man asked of the various women in their little circle. A few tittered. The woman, however, took a swig of her drink and spoke. Free from the infantile amusement of the others, she was self-assured.
"There is some scientific research that suggests delayed gratification is beneficial," she said.
"Yes! Thank you!" said Beyza.
"Beneficial?" the man scoffed. "How?"
"You've heard of the marshmallow test?" said the woman.
"When you're toasting them on a campfire, if they puff up they taste delicious?"
She indulged him with a sardonic smile.
"No. It was a study conducted a few years ago. Psychologists offered children a choice between eating one marshmallow sitting on a plate before them straight away or waiting and getting two some time later. They tracked their lives for some years after the initial study. Those children who had sufficient executive function to choose the greater rewards later tended to do better in life. Which is to say, those who could delay gratification thrived."
"Huh," he said.
"So some might surmise that exercising the delay of a base drive for gratification would have powerful effects upon one's life," she continued.
"Well, I guess that makes sense," he muttered. "Seems like a strange way to go about it but if there's some concrete benefit at the end..."
"Well, of course. I can't think of any other reason someone might do it. Can you, Beyza?" The woman's tone was innocent but the way she slightly raised her eyebrow, slightly curled her lip into a smile, suggested much.
Beyza felt her chest flush warm with blood and her belly flutter as the woman stared directly at her. She could think of many reasons to prefer an edge over an orgasm and it seemed the woman very well knew this too. Perhaps she herself practised edging? Beyza wondered if she could take her aside and quiz her about her methods. She already fantasised about the benefits. To kindle a burning desire that flowed through her veins all day. To make every touch upon her skin exquisitely arousing. To find that she went through the week aching and wet.
Nothing she could talk about in polite company, of course.
"Of course," continued the woman, "some people find it difficult to assert their own will. I don't know if there is any research on the benefits of ceding that decision to other people. If being ordered to wait for those two marshmallows in the future allows one to exercise self-control or whether it requires one to take that decision oneself. But some people would do anything for a helping hand, so to speak."
It was as if the woman were quoting her own online confessions. This was another fantasy that had been flitting through Bezaya's mind of late. Meeting some sweetly cruel dom who would make that decision for her. He would order her to stop touching herself. He would drive her to the edge but no further. Sometimes, he would promise her release, promise to take her over the edge, and he would; but only to ruin it at the last moment to keep her built up energy and increased sensuality intact.
"It would be an interesting experiment to undertake, wouldn't it?" The woman was talking to the group but Bezaya felt like the words were meant only for her.
There was something very exciting about the dark-haired woman. Something about her knowing look. A little part of Bezaya began to fantasise that this woman was a domme. That she could see into her mind and desires, that she would corner her later at this very party and propose that she would tease Beyza. She would deny her. She would make her beg. Propose to control her completely.
She wondered if she would say yes.
Staring into the woman's eyes, she found herself mouthing the word "yes". Whether it was to herself or to the woman, she couldn't be sure but the woman's smile grew ever so slightly and she seemed to nod, slightly.
"Here's to delayed gratification," said the woman, raising her glass.
Beyza picked up her own glass from the table where she had set it down and raised it to drink to the toast, along with the rest of the group. The room had become loud and busy by then and as the conversation moved on and people ebbed and flowed, the dark-haired woman seemed to melt into the crowd. Hoping to get a moment alone with her, Beyza tried to follow, nudging her way through the throng, scanning people's faces. But she had disappeared.
"Who was that?" she asked their host, when she came alongside her later in the evening.
"Who?"
"The woman with the dark hair. We were talking to her earlier in the corner, you remember."
The host shrugged. "Thought it was a friend of Charlie's," she said. Charlie was the artist whose sensual canvases adorned the walls.
But on pressing Charles, Beyza found he didn't know the woman either. It seemed no-one did.
