A Stranger's Touch

The air felt heavy, as if there was something weighing down on my shoulders that I couldn't shake off. It might have been my own fear. I didn't know. Odd how dark everything was, in spite of the torch I'd remembered to bring. It was shining at my feet, and the narrow band of light only increased the sense of darkness. I could hear the sound of my breath, though sometimes I fancied there was a faint hiss behind it, and I imagined someone else might be in the room with me. Someone who was pacing his or her pulse to mine. It made me shiver and I forced myself to regulate my breathing again.

I couldn't remember why I'd agreed to any of this.

No. I did remember. It was what Robbie had wanted. And the money. That always helped. The chair beneath me pressed into the back of my legs, and I shifted my position to try to get a little more comfortable. This assignment wasn't turning out to be quite as straightforward as Robbie promised me it would. And he tended to tell me the truth. Which wasn't bad for a pimp. In fact, it was one of his great strengths. He was pretty stylish in bed as well, I had to say. He was so damn good at knowing what tricks broke me open every time.

Whereas my great strength was doing whatever I was told to do.

Robbie had ordered me to dress sexy and tight--it had pissed me off to hear him as I always dressed sexy and tight. That was my job, wasn't it? But I hadn't let any of that show. I knew my trade, knew when to act pretty. He'd told me to come here, an empty house in the west of London. He'd said the door would be open, but the lights would have been cut off. He'd been right, too. I had to admit I'd been spooked as I'd followed his instructions--using the torch he'd given me to find my way upstairs and into the first room on the right, where, as he'd promised, I found a chair in the middle to sit on. I even wondered whether some crazy guy might leap out at me with a knife, or worse, but I kept telling myself that some clients liked the weird stuff, and Robbie had checked everything out. In the four years I'd been working for him, he'd looked after me and he'd never let me down. So I got on with the job and here I was.

Waiting for whatever was going to happen next.

And waiting.

It struck me that I had no idea how long I'd been waiting. Maybe the client wasn't going to show? That happened sometimes. Oh well, I'd chalk it up to experience, ring Robbie when I got out into the street and see if he had anything else for me tonight.

With a small sigh, I began to reach down for the torch at my feet, and it was then that someone spoke.

"
No
, don't move," the voice said, and I froze.

Male, soft-spoken. Confident, too. I hadn't had any idea there was someone else here, not really. I hadn't seen him when I'd come in--he must have been in the shadows at the edge of the room. I thought the breathing had been my imagination. I'd been wrong.

Slowly, I returned to my sitting position.

"Hello," I said into the blackness. "My name's Red. I'm named for my hair, though it's more golden than red. Robbie sent me."

"I know who you are."

I licked my lips. "What would you like me to do? I'm here to please you."

A sound almost like laughter. "I'd like you to sit. And wait for me."

"As you wish." I tried to stare into the corner to my right where the voice came from, but I couldn't make out his shape. No light at all came from the blacked-out window. I'd known from the outset that this job was going to be weird, but I hadn't realised how weird.

What happened next was the strangest of all.

Something in the air shifted, and when I next heard his voice, he was standing right in front of me.

"Open your legs," he said, "as wide as you can."

I did so. He moved in closer, so he towered over me, between my legs. I breathed in deeply, catching the spicy smell of him. He reminded me of the sort of herbs my mother used to cook with, a long time ago. And limes, too. He smelt of limes. Another memory.

"Do you like the way I smell, Red?"

"Yes," I said, my heart beating faster at the way he'd guessed at my thoughts. "Yes, I like it very much."

"Good. I spent a long time choosing it. I chose it for you."

Questions crowded my tongue, questions it would, of course, be impossible to ask him. What he did next took them all away.

Slim fingers began to massage my skull. To my surprise, I groaned and my cock tightened in my jeans, straining against the zip. I thrust up toward the man. Our legs rubbed together. I shifted to keep the contact.

Another sound like laughter. "Are you hard? Already?"

Mesmerised by the slow and regular stroke of his hand through my hair--back and forth, back and forth--I nodded before I realised he couldn't see the gesture, though, of course, he could feel it. "Yes."

"Are you always so easily turned on?"

"Yes. I like my job very much. I enjoy sex."

"But I don't intend to touch your genitals today, or allow you to touch mine."

A throb of disappointment powered through me. "Can I touch you anywhere else? Please?"

This time his laughter was obvious. "A prostitute begging to touch a client? You are already doing so in any case, though not with your hands, so your question is unnecessary. You're an unusual man, Red. Robbie was right about you."

"What did he say?"

The man didn't answer at first. Instead, he simply continued to massage my head. I felt the tension begin to drift away, and breathed in the scent of him once more.

"Oh, Robbie said many things," he answered, when I'd all but given up hope of hearing his voice again. "Both in his words and in the silence of his thoughts. He said you were special, perfect for what I wanted to do with you. He said how much he enjoyed your body, touching your penis, entering your mouth and anus, and making you reach orgasm. He seemed to take a particular pleasure in that."

"You talked about it?" I had no right to feel betrayed, of course I didn't. I was Robbie's property--he could talk about me to whomever he wanted to. Still, it felt private. And it was unusual to share so much with any client, especially a new one.

"Oh, yes," the man replied. "I wanted him to tell me everything about your body, and he did."

"Why?"

"Because I want to heal you."

"But I'm clean. I'm not sick."

"Hush," he said, as if he was soothing a tired child. "There are more diseases in the world than merely physical ones. Can you not feel them inside you when I stroke you like this?"

His hands continued to work their magic on my scalp. From ranging over the whole surface of my hair, his fingers began to concentrate on one area alone--the right side of my head, toward the front. I gasped and my cock leapt once more in my jeans. Unable to help myself, I rubbed my crotch more powerfully against his leg. I was panting, desperate for him to touch me there.

"You see," he crooned. "Your skull is divided into three essential parts. This area, on your right, is the seat of your lust and it consumes you."

"Please,
please
," I begged him, astonished to find my body already driving a path through to orgasm. And he only touched my hair. No other part of me.
How could he be doing this?
Any moment now, I was going to come, here where I sat and trembled, without removing one single article of clothing, without a shred of self-control.

"It's all right, Red. Let it out. The power of it needs to be gone from you. For this, I am forbidden to touch you where you wish it, but you are permitted to touch yourself to help you on your journey. It is not ideal, but I will allow it. And there is so much of shadow in your soul."

As he spoke, his hands upon me moved faster and faster. Needing no second bidding, I tore at my zip, my cock springing out, heat pulsating down the length of me. Only two strokes took me over the brink and my spunk shot upwards, landing, I imagined, on his body and splattering the chair and floor around us. I cried out as the pleasure of it broke me, something I tried never to do. Not even with Robbie. Not words, just a great shout and a falling gasp as I kept on coming. Over and over again, until there was nothing left inside me, and my fingers were thick with slime. A heavy salt smell hung in the air.

His hands stopped working my scalp, but he held my head, steadying me until the shaking stopped.

"I'm sorry." I said. "Your clothes...I must have ruined them. Forgive me. I couldn't help myself."

"No matter. I accept it, Red. And consider yourself forgiven, deeply forgiven. You have done well tonight. Better even than I anticipated. You have given me everything you could and your lust is no longer your master."

Then he let go of me and stepped backwards.

I was still unsure what this meant, if it meant anything, and what I should be doing. "Please? Can I pleasure you? There must be something I can do for you. Something you need."

He laughed. This time the sound of it made me smile in a way I hadn't smiled for too long a time. It was like cold water refreshing my face on a hot summer day.

"You have already given me everything I asked for," he said. "Your assignment is over for now, my friend. You have earned the money I have spent to hire you."

"But what..."

"Hush. I will leave you now. Behind you are tissues and a towel. Use them to clean yourself before you go. And thank you for your time, and for the beauty of your glorious hair."

I did not understand why he had not wanted to see me in the light if it was my hair that had brought him to me, but I made no comment on it. Each client was different. However, I couldn't help my question as I sensed him withdrawing from me. "Will I meet you again?"

"Oh, yes," he said. "Do not doubt it."

"What did he do to you then?"

It was Sunday night, the day after my strange experience in the dark house. Robbie was lying on the bed, face up, as naked as the day he was born, but many times more beautiful. There was always something about the green of his eyes and the blackness of his hair that drew me. I stopped where I was kneeling between his legs, ready to start doing the things he liked me to do. I didn't know why he was asking the question now when he hadn't asked before. I sat back on my haunches and cupped his balls in my hand.

"You want to know that right now? Or later?"

He gasped when I touched him, but his eyes were shadowed. "No, tell me now. I can fuck you any time."

I nodded. That much was true. From the very start of our partnership, I'd put myself entirely at his disposal. In every way. Frankly, yielding the responsibility for my own sexuality to someone I knew I could trust had been a relief. Up until then, I'd been battling with it, to little avail. The police had cautioned me for having sex in public toilets once, and I'd been up before the courts for soliciting twice. Even though there'd been many, many times they hadn't caught me when I was desperate for sex, prepared to take any chance I could to get it. Before I met Robbie, it had, in fact, all but overwhelmed me. I'd needed a firm hand, someone to control my life and my needs. I was more grateful to him than he'd ever know.

I told him what the client had done, leaving nothing out. He laughed when he heard about how I'd achieved orgasm.

"God, that must've shocked him. Honestly, Red, when you let go, you
really
let go. Your spunk goes everywhere."

"Yes, well, I cleaned up as best I could, like he said. But it was strange. Not what I expected at all. And all that pseudo-spiritual stuff about forgiveness. That was odd as well, though I have to say he was right about one thing--I do feel different now."

Robbie sat up on his elbows and began to massage my knee with his foot. "In what way different?"

I closed my eyes, partly to concentrate on that glorious sensation of his skin touching mine, partly better to answer him. "I don't know. I feel lighter, I suppose. As if whatever he was up to, he took something away from me."