This story is my entry for the 2014 Valentine's Day Story Contest so, if you like it, please remember to vote! I also greatly appreciate any and all comments and feedback, and hope everyone has a great Valentine's Day!
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Eric and Daphne pulled into the underground parking lot and he knew she was watching him as he circled deeper and deeper, until he reached his stall.
He backed his black Saturn Sky into his parking space and the thumping beat from the speakers died as he killed the ignition.
In the silence, before he could unbuckle his seatbelt, he felt Daphne's hand on his leg.
"I really appreciate you driving me home from work every night," she said.
Eric looked down at her hand and then met her eyes, knowing he'd see the same look of longing he always saw there. "Daph, we live in the same apartment building. I keep telling you, it's no trouble."
"I just wish you'd let me pay you back by giving you money for gas...or something."
As she slowly stroked his thigh, he said, "I don't need anything, just having your company for the drive home is enough."
"Well, why don't you let me pay you back by taking you out to dinner...maybe this Saturday?"
Eric raised an eyebrow. "Isn't next Saturday Valentine's Day?"
Daphne blushed and squeezed his thigh. "It doesn't mean anything, it's just a Saturday to me. I'll make the reservations, and we can -- "
"Daph, I've told you I just want to be -- "
"Don't say it," she said, pushing her fingers against his lips. "You drive me crazy every time you say you just want to be friends. Why can't we be more than friends?"
Eric felt her other hand sliding up his thigh, and she rubbed her palm across his crotch; her fingers wrapped around and squeezed his half-hard cock when she felt it through his pants.
"Whoa!" he said, pulling her hand away from his quickly stiffening shaft. "Daph, I mean it, I just want us to be friends. Can't you accept that?"
"Yes, of course, friends..." But Daphne wanted to be more than friends. If she had her way, Eric's pants would've been around his ankles with her head bobbing up and down in his lap.
Ever since she'd met him when he'd moved in nearly a year ago she'd been infatuated with him, but he just wasn't interested in her. And Daphne couldn't understand that; every boy she'd ever met had been interested in her.
But no matter how many times she'd tried, Eric had resisted every move, every seduction, and always kept the buffer of friendship between them.
"If you really want to take someone out on Valentine's Day, why don't you ask Saul?" he said.
"Saul? Saul from work? He's nice I guess, but -- "
"He's crazy about you, give him a chance."
"You won't give me a chance..."
Eric reached over and put his hand just above Daphne's breast, near her heart. "I mean give him a chance here, not in bed, and I think you'll be surprised."
Daphne trembled beneath Eric's touch; she didn't know why it drove her so crazy. "Okay," she whispered, reaching up to hold his hand in place. "I'll give him a chance. But if it doesn't work out...you owe me."
* * *
Daphne returned to her apartment and Eric returned to his, a small bachelor suite on the nineteenth floor.
For the price he paid, the apartment was painfully small. But what Eric was paying for was the view. From here he could look down on the city as if from the heavens. At night it looked like a sea of lights, with lives crisscrossing back and forth below him.
As he held his hand up to the window, feeling the cool night air on the other side, he caught his reflection in the glass. He'd love to have given Daphne a chance. She was the most beautiful girl he knew, with an amazing body and a touch that was electric.
When they'd got off the elevator Eric knew that she'd glanced down at the bulge in the front of his pants, and knew he was still stiff from her touch in the front seat of his car.
But how could he explain to her that when he dreamed he didn't dream of her, he dreamed of pain.
And now that he sat at his desk, looking at his laptop, his cock was hard again. But this time it wasn't from Daphne; it was from the black and white images sliding across the screen.
Images of women bound with ropes, twisted into every possible position, gagged and blindfolded as they submitted to their masters, and let them use their bodies for their pleasure.
Eric was sure that if he told Daphne his secret she'd eagerly submit to him, letting him bind and dominate her, using her body in any way he could imagine.
But he wasn't sure if that was what he really wanted. When he dreamed of pain, he dreamed of his own pain. And wondered what it would feel like to be bound, to be at the mercy of another. Never knowing if they would give you punishment or pleasure.
He was determined to make a date with a dominatrix, wanted to learn the art of submission...and pain...from an expert. And he'd been googling ads looking for one nearby that could fulfill his needs.
Images of men bound, their bodies being teased by beautiful latex-clad mistresses...being punished beneath their high heels and whips. These were the images that filled his head as he undressed, neatly folding his clothes before he crawled naked into his bed.
Sleep came swiftly and Eric dreamed, but tonight the dream was different.
There was a storm outside and he could hear the rain beating against his window, but above it he heard a dreamy voice singing, calling to him like a siren.
Eric sat up in his bed and rubbed his eyes, trying to cast off the shackles of sleep. Like a prisoner he rose from his bed and was pulled toward the siren's song.
Was it coming through the walls? He didn't feel like he was asleep, he felt like he was awake and the music was coming from the apartment next door.
But the song was too beautiful, too dreamlike, as if it came from another world. And now he heard more than one voice singing.
The sirens' call pulled him to the wall of his apartment, and he saw himself standing naked in the full-length mirror.
The sweet sound seemed to be coming from beyond the mirror. Eric stepped forward and in the semi-darkness banged against a small end table.