The music thudded and pulsed through the private party. Female escorts provided for the evening mingled with executives and local politicians who networked and chatted in the bar area, or who clustered round the raised stage, waving paper money and begging for the dancer's attention.
Raven was so used to this, but delighted in the knowledge that it was her lithe body, curling, twisting and looping round the pole that was having the most impact that night. To the urgent beat of Natalia Oreiro's "No Soporto" she did everything but mount the men closest to the stage. She was a wanton slut teasing the men and promising a night of decadent coupling, and they responded by throwing their manhoods at her in increasingly bigger denominations.
Although by day a professional, working in an office, sober and professional, at night she turned her skin inside out and danced and displayed her way into men's fantasies and lustful dreams. But like her more sober life, this too was just a game she played. Even as she posed provocatively as a slave to these men, she knew it was her body and her sex that had them in her chains, and the knowledge amused and frustrated her.
When she did private lap dances she would tease her clients almost to the point of them creaming themselves, delighting in the bulges they would beg her to touch with soft fingers, or rub with her thong displayed bottom.
But when she was ready to slake her sexual thirst, she would saunter past the macho executives, the alpha males who worked out as hard as they carved deals, with their expensive suits and gold watches. She ignored the self centred self assured men who saw her body as a right, or a reward for their attention. Instead, she would choose a more diffident man, someone who stayed in the back ground, who didn't try because he assumed he wouldn't win.
The look on that chosen man's face would amuse her too; puzzlement, a touch of fear mixed with hope, and eventually a barely concealed lust that tonight they were the one would be playing with the exquisite creature.
And in turn, she would encourage their dark side to join the games.
"Shy boys always have a dark side." she would tell her friends. "They have so many frustrations and wounds they need to express, but they are usually so nice about it too."
So, grateful for her attention, yet persuaded by her urging, they would ensure that as they spanked, cropped, bound and used her, that she would also have her pleasure, her needs fulfilled with pain and pleasure both.
For even as she played the femme fatale, even as she targeted a man and reduced his self will to empty dust in her claws, even as she slaked her sexual hunger on some anonymous cock buried in her body, she would also feel the need for a form of penance, for a masochistic absolution.
For all that she embraced her slut side, yet part of her wanted to be punished, to be chastised, to pay for her sinful pleasures.
She was as good as she could be with her appetites...she was honest, truthful, brutal in her openness about her needs and desires as a nymphomaniac. She never promised what she could not deliver, and so, when her hunger for punishment was at its sharpest, she sought out the pain of redemption.
Whatever her "confessor" for that moment decided, she would accept and suffer for his sake, and for her soul's healing. Any and all pain was embraced, as long as it was sincere in its turn. Her moans, her cries, her tears were then a both a sign of her desire for wholeness, and a gift to the one who healed her as he hurt her.
And tonight? Tonight her lust for absolution was particularly deep.
Later at that party, after her dancing was over, she went looking for her next father confessor. She wore a tight little dress that on any other woman would have screamed whore..but on her served as the bow to an expensive present. She prowled the rooms looking for her saviour, not knowing yet who it was, but trusting her instinct to find him when she saw him.
Graciously evading the pick up lines of the men who bored her with their interest, she watched the edges of the room, the margins where the dark things hide, and saw him.
He was tucked into a corner, but as a watcher, not a hider. Older, slim, bald, wearing glasses and dressed casually but smartly. His body language was relaxed, yet carried a nervous energy, as if he would suddenly decide he had seen enough, get up and walk out. No one sat near him, yet he filled his space with just being.
She felt her interest piqued, and sauntered over, watching him notice and track her with his eyes. She saw his soft smile as she walked towards him, and felt herself being assessed, judged, and yet accepted.
"May I?" she asked boldly, indicating a space that was further into the corner. Her first rule was always to take the initiative, to see how far she could seize control.
"He smiled, stood up and beckoned her into the place she had indicated."
She liked his height, 6 foot, matching her 5 ft 8, lifted that night with 4 inch heels which in turn made her exquisite legs that much more devastating.
He waved a waiter over and ordered drinks for them both, a cocktail for her, a scotch for him,and then turned to her.
"Your dancing was really the most impressive performance I have ever seen."
His English accent was educated, clear, but not with a particular accent. His voice invited you to listen, and to respond, gentle, but with an edge waiting to command where necessary.
"Thank you," Raven smiled her winning smile, "though I don't remember seeing you paying me for the pleasure."
Just a little bitch to test his mettle, to see if he was worth her supplication.
He smiled as if at a private joke.
"And I'm amazed that you remember one less honey bee clustered around your flower. To be honest, though, I was only watching from afar, I've never been fond of rugby scrums. However, I would be more than happy to show my appreciation in more concrete ways later if you wish."
As a chat up line it wasn't bad, and he wasn't cocky. Maybe this man was the type she was looking for.
"Well, " And Raven leaned forward and almost whispered into his ear, "I am certainly very open to the idea of being appreciated in any way you choose tonight"
He turned his face to her, his lips only inches away from hers and almost laughed.
"And you really think it's that easy? Granted, you are an exceedingly attractive young woman, and by far the sexiest here tonight. But I don't think you are quite ready to leave with me just yet."
Raven sat back, slightly startled. This wasn't right, he was changing the rules. Even as she offered herself, she normally still had a hand on the leash, and yet he had pretty much put her back in her place.
She was starting to like him, he was more of a challenge than she had expected.
"Let me tell you something about yourself. And then, after you have heard me out, you can decide whether you still want to leave with me. The choice will be yours, but what happens afterwards will be determined by me. Do we have a deal?"
Raven arched a perfect eyebrow and smiled back.
"Certainly sir. I will listen, and then decide if I want you to take charge of me tonight"
And even as she said it, her sex tingled a little at the thought of what he might say, or propose. There was something restrained, something dark and intense about him, as if, like her, he wore a public persona as a wolf wears fleece, to walk more freely among the unaware.
At that point, the waiter arrived, and deftly placed coasters and drinks in front of them, and slipped away as silently as he had arrived.
"You are at war with yourself."
He paused, measuring his words, and Raven sat, startled by this brusque assessment.
"You are deeply sexual, incredibly attractive, and you delight in it. You could beckon your finger and have almost any man in the room at your service, and yet you choose not to. Having flaunted yourself and excited the lust of almost every male in the room, (and I do include at least half the gays here), you then come and sit with one of the few men who hasn't been drooling over you half the night."
He paused, and sipped his scotch, his eyes still fixed intently on her as if inspecting a rare butterfly or fresh cut gemstone.
"You crave to be in control, yet you are trapped by it, and you also know that. And that tells me that you are honest with yourself, even brutally so. You chose me because you want what most men can't give you...freedom to be yourself."
"You chose me despite our age difference, despite my somewhat some less than film star looks, and despite the fact that I don't seem to have either riches or lots of friends. You chose me because I am a loner, because I am apart. And that is how you are, alone in your successful world."
"And yet, here I think we have a slight touch of self deception. I imagine you thought you chose me because I would be more "grateful," yet also someone who would understand your own dark side...the part that you cannot share with most people."
"But, the truth is that whether you are aware of it or not, everything you do is controlled by you, even the times when you give up control, and that always leaves you frustrated and empty"
"You are offering me a deal, an "arrangement". You are offering me your body, and I suspect a lot of freedom with it, and I, in turn, am expected to show the proper appreciation for it."
Raven sat still, staring at him, her drink as yet untouched. In a few deft sentences, economical with his words yet abundant in insight, he had opened her up. Her games and her tactics; dissected, analysed and presented back to her.
"However, I also sense that you need something more than whatever darker pleasures a loner like me might have on offer. Oh yes, I am well aware that we "quieter" types tend to be a bit kinkier, a bit darker; as the saying goes 'still waters run deep.' But you need to do more than just lose control, you need to have it taken from you. You need to know that your control is only an illusion, to see that you have no control whatsoever.
"When you know that, when you are finally helpless and hopeless, then you can truly experience what you crave...to be used for someone else's pleasure, to let go of your ability to feed yourself, and be wholly dependent on another's choice."
He paused, then leaned forward into her lips.
