(In this sample chapter, I’ve finally met a young woman that I had noticed since moving to Albany. She walks into The Lark Tavern one night, and we start dating, staying one night at her place, and the next date at mine . . . which is where this chapter begins.)
“Awww, you spank like a little boy would!” Kristin laughed. She started this, and now it was her turn. We’d been lying naked on the mattress on my living floor when she smacked my ass with her open hand. Then, still grinning, she did it again—so I rolled her over to return the gesture. It was another two nights off spent with Kristin, and she’d been acting frisky the whole time. Evidently, this had been building up. Now she lay flat on her stomach as I slapped her bottom.
“Big strong man,” she teased, “that’s as hard as you can hit?”
So I began spanking her sharply until her bare cheeks started to redden a little, but she didn’t protest. She remained on her stomach and seemed to relax. If she’d been a kitten, she would have been purring.
“I like it when you’re aggressive,” Kristin said after we’d finished screwing again. We had ended up doing it just about everywhere in the living room. The spanking seemed to have set something loose in her. “Some night, you should tie me up and put a blindfold over my eyes,” Kristin said. “Then you can do whatever you want with me.”
Asking to be tied up? Anything I wanted? It sounded hot, so I started to think where you could buy the stuff to do that. Albany had a small D/s boutique on Western Ave, just down the street from The Outside Inn. It was a secretive little shop, and once inside, I realized I had no idea what I was doing. The racks displayed bondage masks, whips and chains, thigh-high vinyl ladies’ boots, and fancy black leather corsets.
“Can I help you?” a girl with heavy makeup asked from behind the counter. Despite the adult cosmetics, she looked like she might be fresh out of high school. She was a young girl but a lot more experienced than I was in this, and she knew it. Beneath the glass top, the counter held an assortment of dildos, some huge with knobs and ridges, while the smaller ones were battery-operated.
The girl waited with an amused smile. “Just looking,” I told her and left the shop after a minute without making a purchase or asking questions. Maybe the necessary items could be found at a traditional department store. At Flah’s department store, I looked through the racks of scarves, choosing a colorful one that might work as a blindfold. The next item was ten feet of fancy, designer cord probably meant for interior decorating. Instead of picking up something a bit dark and sexy, I returned to the basement apartment with a bag of vanilla stuff. I had no idea what I was doing.
Digital “pencil drawing” of Kristin
I tied the scarf over Kristin’s eyes on the living room mattress that night. Wrapping her wrists gently with the designer cord, I secured the cords to one of the couch’s short legs. But as we began to do it, the rocking movement made the scarf slide off her eyes. She kept turning her head to the side, trying to push the blindfold back in place with her shoulder. We continued to screw, but the cords on her wrists began to loosen and slip, so she was holding her arms straight back on her own. “Fuck me hard!” Kristin said, nudging the scarf with her shoulder. “Fuck me good . . . you know you want to!”
Kristin lay with one closed eye exposed by a pink-and-cream scarf angled across her face. She was determined to go along even as this first effort unraveled. Kristin finally pulled both hands completely free, rolled over onto her forearms and knees, and I spanked her ass as I thrust from behind. “Spank my ass!” she called out as the scarf swayed around her neck. “Slap my bottom!”
Resting on the mattress afterward, Kristin still hadn’t said anything about the wayward blindfold or a rookie attempt at bondage. I had some catching up to do. But while it might take time to master the accessories, lying on my back beside her, I could understand why she liked it. The new options, slightly relaxing the rules, somehow made it a little more raw and exciting. In any event, everything seemed to be working out. I had a steady girlfriend, and she could be kinky, although one unexpected turn lay ahead.
______
Kristin and I always saw each other now on both my nights off. It wasn’t only sex. We’d end up laughing at something on a shared trip to the supermarket or waiting at the corner bus stop. We had a great time. I looked forward to our two days all week, the way most people wait for their weekends. Then, after about a month of regularly meeting, Kristin was clearly upset when she arrived at my apartment. “I don’t want to talk about it right this minute,” she said. “Let’s go to dinner first.”
Since it was Tuesday, we headed to the Irish bar for spaghetti night. It was usually relaxed and lighthearted, this start of our time together, but something else was going on tonight. Kristin finally felt ready to talk when we each had a glass of red wine in front of us and waited for our meals. “I’m being evicted from my apartment,” she said. “My landlord has decided to sell the building, and I’ll have to get out by the end of the month.” She sat quietly, looking so bummed out. As a tenant-at-will, there was nothing she could do about it. She’d lose the small studio in just four weeks. “God, I hate the idea of moving again,” Kristin told me. “And what kind of place am I going to find on such short notice?
“I may end up living in the park for a while,” she said with a half-laugh.
While she talked, a thought crossed my mind, but I hesitated before saying it. It felt a little strange as if this might be presumptuous, and I wondered about any complications. Finally, I spoke up. “If you don’t find a place right away,” I said, “you can always stay with me.”
She smiled and seemed to suddenly relax. I should have stopped there, but I kept talking. “Stay with me until you find the place you want,” I added.
“And then move again?” She had an accusing glare.
“Or just stay all the time,” I immediately came back. The ball was rolling, and even if everything felt a little out of control, I wasn’t sure I wanted it to stop. “Why look for another place,” I said as we sat at the bar. “If you can put up with a basement apartment, you can move in with me.”
She looked straight at me. “Are you sure?” she asked.
“Why not?” I answered. I was warming up to the idea, although also beginning to think it’s what she expected all along. But even when we weren’t together, I thought about her every day. “Sure, why not?” I said. I was so caught up with her, a little head over heels, and then there was the thought of spending every night in bed with her.
“Of course, you’ll have to do all the cooking and cleaning,” I said with a straight face.
“You’re such a jerk,” Kristin smiled, “you know that, don’t you?
“Let’s talk about it,” she went on. “Let’s think it over for a couple of days.”
Instead of thinking it over, we began moving some of her stuff the following afternoon. She didn’t have much, so we decided to make a series of short trips, carting a few boxes from her place to mine. I carried over the little end table she’d bought at the second-hand store, and she put it beside my couch, arranging a white doily and small lamp on top of it.
During the next two days, we carried over more of her clothes, a box of books, and a record collection she’d kept even though she didn’t have a stereo. Soon I was making trips back and forth by myself while Kristin stayed at the basement apartment, straightening things up. She already had the place looking much more like a home with small changes, a few things added here and there. Then before I left for work on Thursday evening, we stopped at the hardware store to have a spare key made for Kristin—and just like that, we were living together.
