A Scribner’s Tale
Brooke leans forward, her eyes softening with a deep, empathetic warmth. She reaches out, gently resting her hand on my arm. “John, when you told me about those bitches from the previous agency who took the belt to you, I cried for you. Just thinking of what that tough leather on your soft bottom must have felt like made me wince. John, know that I will never try to force you into a career mold by brute force.”
I shift uncomfortably, my gaze dropping to my hands clasped tightly in my lap. “Like their namesake flower, those belladonnas enticed me with beauty whose touch was poison.”
Brooke tilts her head, her brow furrowing in genuine confusion. “What drove them to such cruel measures?”
“They felt like I discredited their program by turning down their job offers which were pathetic for a college grad like me,” I reply, my jaw tightening at the memory. “Their caveat was that if I didn’t submit to their sordid penance no other agency would take me.”
Brooke shakes her head slowly, her expression resolute. “You need not have capitulated to their sick game. Here I am, living proof that another job coach was always waiting in the wings for you. Know that if you ever need correction from me it will never be meted by pain.”
I look up, offering a small, cynical smile. “Presumably human females are unlike those of bees whose women are the sole stinger bearers.”
Brooke chuckles, a soft, musical sound, and waves a dismissive hand. “Women, like queen bees, mostly reserve their stingers or tongues for their other catty queens.”
I relax a fraction, nodding. “Brooke, you have my complete cooperation in all things job-related and otherwise.”
She taps her chin thoughtfully before standing up. “John, I know we usually meet at the coffee shop. But for me to understand your book clearly, I need quiet. So, this time let me take you to my apartment where we can work together without all the noise.”
Upon arrival, Brooke gestures warmly toward her living room. “John, my couch will go easy on your derriere. I know the bed provides more relaxation to your body overall. But though I feel we are close in many ways perhaps we should not yet share the intimacy of my bed. Let’s get as comfortable as possible while not engaging in bedroom aerobics which could inflame your still tender and swollen flesh. There is no need to be uncomfortable when getting down to the work at hand.”
She sits beside me, crossing her legs elegantly. “I usually help people get on a payroll but for you, I am doing something different by helping you get your book published. However, after having read it I am trying to figure out how the pieces fit together and how the plot works.”
I quickly thumb through my manuscript, eager to please. “Here is a passage that brings it all together.”
Brooke scans the page, her eyes darting back and forth before she sighs softly. “That chapter fascinates me. Your evocation of a female having coffee with her girlfriend was clearly written by a man. The emotions you describe are not those of a woman.”
I rub the back of my neck, feeling a flush of embarrassment. “I just based it on movies and reading women’s prose at poetry websites.”
She touches my shoulder gently. “I hope being with me here at my pad doesn’t make you nervous. Now be quiet while I finish reading the scene.” She reads for another minute, then closes the folder with a definitive snap. “All done. Your imaginary trip down the river of womanly camaraderie was clearly based on a studious reading of authentic female authors. Yet your description of women talking about their men friends was clearly written by a male. Don’t feel bad. You have to be in our skin to feel what we feel. But I’m all sweaty. Do you mind if I take a shower?”
“Not at all,” I say, watching her retreat down the hall.
She walks out of the shower a short while later, towel wrapped and dripping, with her skin pinkened from the hot steam. I am on edge, my foot tapping nervously, worried about not disappointing her with my writing. But her questions remain focused on plot structure, though my female characters clearly hold her interest.
Her hip sways so closely to me that I can feel the ambient heat radiating from the hot water of the soaked towel she wears. She says, “Let’s shed some light on the subject.” When she reaches over me to pull the light cord, the droplets that flow from her thinly veiled delta down her inner thighs are near enough for me to lick them up with my tongue was I that daring.
I clear my throat, trying to regain my focus. “This passage should pull it all together for you.”
She wipes her damp hands casually on her derriere and takes the book from my outstretched hand.
Her hand rests naturally on my knee as she reads, but soon it travels up my thigh. I let out a sudden, startled laugh. She slaps me playfully on the back. We laugh together, the tension breaking. She smiles, her eyes crinkling. “Sorry, just wanted to make you feel more at home in my abode. You seemed a wee bit tense.”
“I know you are just trying to help me relax,” I say, exhaling a long breath. “Your hand is welcome.”
She turns fully toward me, her expression turning serious and analytical. “John, tell me if I am correct, one of the key elements of successful fiction is to suspend disbelief. Well, there are some pretty surreal scenes in your book from what I’ve read of it. So let’s act out some of your scenarios just as you described them in your stories. Here I am speaking of the confessional scenes.”
I blink, taken aback. “Which ones are you referring to?”
“The most unreal ones are the ones that involve wives sharing their secrets about their old flames though they are in fact married,” she says, gesturing with the manuscript. “Those are the ones we should focus on. You’ve told me about being horsewhipped by those bitches from hell. But most of all the silver-tongued devil that you use to seduce the hearts of lasses through prose has never been properly exorcised by a woman in real life. So, this will be your opportunity to make your prose more believable by getting out of your intellect and into your emotions.”
She stands up, her gaze locking onto mine with a fierce intensity. “I want to see with my own eyes what those brides of Satan did to you.”
Before I can protest, she reaches forward, undoing my belt and slipping my 401s and the Fruit of the Looms off in one fluid motion. Then, her hands firmly grab my hips, guiding me into a kneeling position on the sofa with my knees sunk deeply into the plush cushion.
Her fingertips begin to move in lazy, agonizingly soft circles round and round my bare derriere. She murmurs, her breath warm against the air. “The welts that strap left on your tender flesh are almost healed but still pink.” She traces a line lightly. “With my fingertips, I can read the Braille of your punishment barely legible like scars from childhood. Are they still sensitive to my touch?”
“Just enough to enliven my skin like the pelt of raindrops,” I whisper, shivering under her ministering hands.
She traces the pink stripes of my psychedelic zebra haunches with her velvety fingertips. She smooths out my memory pillows for a fresh impression wherein the ache of love replaces the sting of the lash. She caresses me lovingly like a woman does her hair, and I can feel my temperature steadily rising.
“Now, tell me truthfully,” she asks, her voice a low purr. “When you felt those she-devil’s leather bite into your flesh, did you get turned on?”
I swallow hard. “To the point of no return.”
She replies, a soft smile playing on her lips, “I’ll paddle those buns but just enough to give them the palest rosé wine blush and only with my hand so as never to leave welts. Belts are made for holding up britches. Besides, I’m just a kitchen witch whose bitchiness is limited to the subliminal sabotage of a soufflé.”
She pauses, her fingertips dancing playfully along my skin, sensing the fine tremor in my muscles. A wicked, teasing smile colors her voice. “Oh my, you’re shaking, John. All that delicious tension, all wound up from those nasty girls who didn’t know how to treat a writer right. Come here. Lay across my lap. Let me show you how a real muse handles her subject.”
She leans back on the sofa, patting her thighs with a sly, inviting smirk. I comply without a second thought, my body eager for her brand of solace. I carefully drape my torso over her warm, damp lap, my face resting against the far cushion.
As soon as my weight settles against her, her hand descends on my bare derriere. Smack. Smack. They are crisp, teasing little love pats, stinging just enough to send a wicked rush of blood to the surface of my skin.
“Getting your attention, handsome?” she purrs softly, delivering another rhythmic, playful pat.
“Yes,” I breathe out, my voice slightly muffled by the cushion. “It’s… it’s more than alright, Brooke.”
“I bet your scroll roll could tell many tales of your epic solos in bed. Here let me tuck that novel between the bookends of my inner thighs.” Her feathery fingers trace the cleft of my derriere and follow the pilgrim path of my perinium only to insert my cock snugly in her muscle vise. “Does that feel comfortable?” she purrs like a film noir starlet after a shot of bourbon.
“Snug as a bug in a rug.”
She shifts her hips to tighten her grip on me. “Oh, you made a funny with your simile.”
Soon, her playful pats transition into a firm, possessive knead. She cups my glutes in both of her hands, her grip delightfully unapologetic, holding the flesh securely. As my arousal begins to surge, an undeniable heat pooling heavily in my groin, she senses the shift in my body. With a mischievous hum, she begins to rock my hips back and forth. The friction of the movement against the cushions, combined with the commanding grip of her hands on my backside, sends a wave of electricity through me.
“Brooke…” I gasp, my hands gripping the fabric of the sofa. “I need to tell you what this is doing to me. My body… I can’t ignore it.”
“Oh, don’t hold out on me now,” she whispers, her tone dripping with coquettish demand as she continues the rhythmic sway of my hips. “Talk to me, writer boy. You need to get out of that big brain of yours and into your emotions, remember? Tell me exactly what my hands are making you feel. Make me blush.”
“It’s overwhelming,” I confess, my chest heaving. “When you patted me, it was like a spark igniting a fuse. Now, with you holding me, rocking me like this… the blood is rushing south so fast it makes me dizzy. I can feel this incredible, tight swelling, sandwiched into the folds of your bath towel where you clasp my pickle between your thighs.”
“Your cucumber feels well marinated tucked between my thighs. Mmm, keep going,” she murmurs, her thumbs pressing naughtily into the muscles of my glutes as she sways me. “Give me the juicy details, John. What does it feel like?”
“It’s a heavy, throbbing ache,” I tell her, my voice growing hoarse. “Every time you pull my hips back toward you and rock them forward again, the friction sends this jolt of lightning straight up my spine. It’s like my entire body is narrowing down to this one point of absolute tension. My pulse is hammering so hard I can hear it in my ears, and it beats in perfect time with the throbbing down there.”
“You are burning up under my hands,” Brooke teases, her voice a sultry purr. “Practically melting into me. Is it a good kind of torture?”
“Not a bad hurt,” I pant, closing my eyes tight. “It’s a desperate kind of tension. My skin feels hyper-sensitive. The way your fingers are kneading my glutes… it sends these cascading shivers all the way down to my toes and all the way up to the base of my neck. It feels like every nerve ending is completely wired to your hands.”
She gives my left cheek a playful, sharp squeeze, rocking me a little faster. “And what about those awful belts? Tell me my touch is wiping them right
out of your head.”
“It overwrites it,” I groan, shifting my hips instinctively with her rhythm. “They made me feel ashamed of the arousal, like it was a trap. But with you… it just feels like pure, unfiltered electricity. It feels like I’m expanding, like my flesh can barely contain the pressure building inside. The front of my body feels so flushed, so incredibly rigid.”
“Good boy,” she whispers, leaning down so her lips brush the shell of my ear, sending a fresh shiver down my spine. “You’re supposed to be wild for me. Describe the tension. Where is all that naughty energy hiding?”
“Deep in my core,” I answer, my breathing turning ragged and shallow. “Right at the base of my stomach. It feels like a tightly wound spring that’s just vibrating, begging to snap. And the friction… Brooke, the friction of you rocking me is pulling that spring tighter and tighter. I feel this liquid heat gathering, pooling heavily. My mind is completely blanking out; I can’t think about words or plots or chapters anymore. I can only think about the pressure, the incredible stiffness, and the weight of your hands holding me.”
“Let the intellect completely short-circuit,” she commands with a playful giggle, her hands sliding over my skin to deliver three more brisk, teasing pats. Smack. Smack. Smack. “I know how overpowering my womanly touch, my female scent must be for you. Feel that sting? Let it drive you absolutely crazy.”
“It is,” I gasp, my hips bucking slightly against her hold. “It’s pushing me right to the edge, Brooke. The sensations are blurring together—the softness of your lap beneath me, the firm grip of your fingers, the friction against the cotton fabric of your beach towel. It’s a localized inferno. I feel like I’m burning up from the inside. The throbbing is so intense it’s almost blinding.”
“Don’t you dare hold back on me, John,” Brooke whispers, her voice turning dark and deliciously risqué, anchoring my hips and rocking me with deliberate, sinful intent. “You’ve been so pent up for so long. Tell me what happens when you finally tip over the edge.”
“It’s… it’s pulling all the air from my lungs,” I stammer, my body trembling violently under her hands. “The pressure is unbearable now, in the best way possible. It feels like a wave of pure heat is rushing up from my legs, meeting the tension in my core. It’s bubbling over. I can’t—I can’t hold it…”
“Then give it to me,” she urges, her thumbs drawing wicked, teasing circles into my flushed skin. “Come on, John. Climax for me. Show me exactly how good my touch feels.”
“Brooke…!”
The tight coil inside me finally snaps. The rocking, the heat of her hands, the intimate confession of my own desire—it all crashes over me in a blinding flash. I cry out, my hands fisting into the sofa as wave after wave of intense, shuddering release washes through my body. The throbbing tension bursts into a cascade of euphoric warmth, radiating from my core outward, melting every ounce of residual fear and pain I had carried into her apartment.
I lie there, breathless and trembling, utterly spent across her lap.
Brooke slows the rocking, her hands trailing feather-light, ticklish caresses along my backside. “Mmm, just look at you,” she murmurs playfully, her voice laced with honey and mischief in the quiet room. “I’d say that’s a bestseller right there, John. A definite page-turner.”
