Forking Paths

Now is not the time for difficult questions

There is a magical incantation to make you successful in love, as reliable as any love potion of yore. But to wield it, you’d have to believe something contrary to your deepest instincts, a credo you’ve spent your whole life denying. Even if I told you everything, you might still refuse to believe it.

Do you really want to know my secret?

Choice disturbs us.

Your reflex is to disagree. You regard free will as your greatest liberty. But you have deceived yourself. Choice makes you a stranger in a strange city, trying to find your way home through countless unsigned streets that go anywhere yet lead nowhere. In your heart you know you’re lost amid a proliferation of alternatives that are as baffling as they are overwhelming. 

The Apple and the Serpent. Mythological history dawns with an infernal choice that damned us. An eternity of ignorance in paradise, or the liberty to chase everything in the wilderness. 

Even long after escaping the Garden, we still police ourselves and those we encounter. We regulate each other, ensuring no one wanders too far from the approved paths of social convention. We embrace a life of docility and convince ourselves the track with the most footsteps must be the best way forward too. 

The judges of normality are everywhere. Sometimes we invite them into our bedrooms. They’re such fun to seduce. I much prefer running out of bounds to walking on the grass. Life is far too short to pretend otherwise.

I wish you’d been standing there, watching everything unfold. You’d see how I did it. How I ran off in the direction of outrageousness. How I grabbed his hand, and whisked him away for a night he’ll remember for the rest of his days. Then you’d understand.

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He had invited me here. I had followed him in. Picture us on his plush grey sofa in the soft low light. We sidle together, simmering in each other’s body-warmth. A few minutes ago, we began kissing. Now our tongues touch for the first time, with an electrifying jolt. We have entered each other’s bodies, and it feels sublime.

But this is still not the right time to tell him my secret, or explain where I want to take him. Weren’t you told? It’s rude to speak when your mouth is full.

As our kisses intensify, his hand lands on my thigh. Tentative at first. Like an explorer stepping ashore on a mysterious island, wary of the reception that awaits. Now his hand is venturing upwards, towards the tideline where two worlds mingle. It lingers at my waist. I love how his fingertips hover over the little ridge of my knicker elastic, lurking just beneath my flimsy dress. I want him to pull them down. All the way down. To expose me utterly. But still, I tell him nothing.

His hand is moving upwards again, along the curve of my flank, as inevitable as a rising tide. His palm reaches my breast, and we kiss like lovers do. Wantonly, uncritically. Gulping down each other’s breath, smearing our mouths with our collective drool.

I respond by placing my hand on his lap, and immediately feel the bulge in his smart trousers. I’ve always loved well-tailored suits: school uniforms for big boys. 

Life is a succession of moments. Choices. Pivots. Forking paths. In my mind’s eye I can see them all, as vividly as memories that’ve already happened. They surround me like doorways, glowing portals into alternate futures. There’s the one where I broke away from our clutch, whispered some sweet excuses to assuage his shattered ego, left his place and went home alone. Or the one that led to the bedroom, that began with his tongue exploring me, and ended with a well-stretched cunt and a condom filled with cream. As we kiss, my feverish mind sees dozens more possibilities in between.

I see one particular path most lucidly of all. Though I know the route can be tortuous, with treacherous tumbles awaiting the unwary. It will be easier if I grasp his hand and guide him there. The warm bulge beneath my fingers suggests he’s happy to accompany me. This way please, my dear.

I back away from his kiss, just enough to speak again.

“Stand up,” I tell him. I don’t bark out the order like some impatient headmistress, I whisper it coyly, a sly invitation to join my conspiracy. 

He seems surprised. So many dismiss surprise as mere bemusement, a momentary feeling of confusion over what they expected. But really, surprise is far more profound. It is our sensitivity to the harmonies of providence. It is our innate sense of the future changing. It is our ability to feel our own fate shifting all around us, barely perceptibly, in dimensions unseen.

He does as he’s told. I’ve been so demure in our prior conversations, I doubt he was expecting me to be so abruptly assertive. I’d hate to be predictable, people love surprises.

Now he looks down at me, as if expecting an explanation, reassurance is our natural instinct when we feel the direction of our lives subtly change. 

But I tell him nothing. I don’t explain how I want him to actively hold himself upright, and feel like a God, not slouch in a heap. How I want him to look down upon me with lust in his eyes.

“Pose,” I tell him, “like a heroic statue”.

He indulges me, his muscles ripple like chiselled marble beneath his tight white shirt. He could be an emperor, or an ancient athlete taking the adulation of a crowd. More, I tell him. Heroic and glorious. He had kept his desire politely hidden, now his masculine energy radiates like a flaming beacon, I can almost feel its glow on my face.

I rise from my own seat with an unreadable smile. I kneel before him, and loosen his belt. I do not ask for his permission. Right now, he no longer needs the burden of choices. The path ahead is clear, it has been chosen for him. He will be grateful to have the pressure relieved.

It’s so hot how men walk around with implements of flagellation strapped around their waists. Literally in plain sight, worn just above their cocks too. It’s not even subtle. I doubt any truly realise the effect they have on an aficionado like me.

I pull the belt from its hoops. Fine leather, wide, yet thin and supple. Made from quality hide, strong enough that the hole that’s habitually notched isn’t obvious. Its smell is evocative, reminiscent of places I’ve never visited, like the straps I imagine deep in dank dungeons, or on the disciplinary benches of cruel reformatories.

I bend it in half, snapping both sides together to seize his attention. I tell him to put his hands behind his back. I do not bother explaining why. Pleasingly, he obeys.

I create a loop with the belt and slip it over his wrists, closing the buckle and binding his hands. Escape would not be difficult, but my intention is merely to keep his hands out of the way, not to make him my prisoner. Those who walk this path with me must be good boys, and resist the temptation to veer off into the thickets.

I remain on my knees to unbutton his trousers and open his fly. The navy fabric is a fine cotton, luxuriously soft to the touch. I guide it reverently down to his feet. The descent provides ample opportunity to admire his athletic thighs, kept taut by his perfect posture. He is quite aware he is being seen, and being admired.

He is wearing tight white briefs, the brand subtly embroidered onto the waistband. I scrutinise the stretchy material, simply because it turns me on, and spy a little spot of dampness, one even more conspicuous by the bulge swelling beneath it.

I wonder if that little leak was caused by our canoodling, or the result of the uncharacteristically lewd message I sent before we had dinner. I dab the spot with my fingertip, it’s still damp to the touch.

“Naughty,” I observe.

Big boys get hard before dates. I know, because I ask them. Those who refuse to admit to getting aroused are inevitably dour and underwhelming table companions. In a totally candid world, prospective couples would send messages to each other like: I know you’re getting dressed up right, but I can’t help imagining you without anything on at all. In reality, the best time for candour is when he’s literally unbuttoned. Loosen his trousers, and loosen his tongue.

I stroke his protuberance, gently - barely touching really. Every circuit of my fingertip is taking us a few steps further along my intended path. 

“You thought about me, before our date, didn’t you?”

His coy nod confirms my suspicions. I shall extract the lurid details later. I want to explore the shadows of his filthy mind. I find interrogation such a turn-on. I can be extremely persuasive.

“And I made you hard?”

To deny it would be to imply he doesn’t find me sexually attractive. He nods again, one more piece of corroborating evidence for my little theory. I reward him by tugging down his underwear. It falls to his ankles so easily.

“Ooops,” I deadpan.

My audacity has revealed his penis. Turgid, not quite erect, still dangling under its own swollen weight rather than pointing crudely at my face. 

“Don’t move,” I tell him. 

To reach my intended destination, we must take the right turns. It is important we do not get carried away and hurtle forward, blinded by lust. I must lead the way, for now, lest his ego feel the silence had to be filled with a thrusting crotch. My careful plans could easily degenerate into unseemly chaos. 

I move my mouth closer, so he can feel my hot breath on his cock. I inhale, and exhale, in slow measured breezes. Beyond the tip of my nose his appendage stirs, as if I’m breathing life into an enchanted statue, or charming an awakening snake. 

"I'm so naughty, teasing you like this.”

There’s that word again. I use it quite intentionally. It is a power word. Being naughty is sneaking off the beaten track, and venturing down the paths few others dare to tread. Naughtiness is a choice, a transgression with consequences. A hungrier slut than me might begin to suck him eagerly, running their tongue along its length, tasting the dew on its glistening tip. But I have my own particular path in mind.

I watch his blue veins bulge, it’s like witnessing a miniature hydraulic system raise a heavy contraption upright. His own lust triumphing over gravity. 

I open my mouth to its widest comfortable extent, and move my head forward. I surround his tip with my lips, but even now, I’m careful to ensure neither touch. I must be able to talk. Words are the medium of my magic. I let my hot panting breath blow across the head of his cock.

“Such. A. Tease,” I reiterate, over the course of three gasping breaths, my tongue flicking against the base of his erection as I speak. One’s voice sounds so slutty when almost gagged by a thick cock, but not quite.

I want him hard. I want him to think of me as a mischievous little minx. I want him to remember how I teased him, and how it took all his self-control to hold himself back. Whenever my name glows on his phone I want the very first thought that materialises in his horny mind to be taking hold of my wrist, and the desire to deal with me. This is the territory to which I’m taking him.

His erection rises above horizontal, and for the first time I can feel his tip tap against my upper lip. Still, I do not close my mouth. Instead, I reach around his hips, and cup his muscular buttocks in my palms. 

Then I slap his bum with one hand, not because I want to discipline him, but because I want him to put the pieces of the puzzle together for himself. 

“What a bad boy,” I whisper, just loud enough to be heard. I like bad boys. 

I’m getting closer, waiting for just the right moment. When I can utter something outrageous that’s also so unequivocal he can’t possibly object to it.

I move a fingertip between his cheeks, and rest it against his wrinkled dimple deep inside. 

"I am such an awful tease,” I confess.

I feel him flinch as my fingertip intrudes further into his tight little hole. Why pretend to be a naughty girl, when you can so easily actually be one too.

“I deserve such a good, hard, spanking." 

There, I said it.

Context changes everything. A statement that seems shockingly scandalous in a cold moment, hits just the right note in a hot one.

We fear speaking bluntly, afraid of scorn and rejection. We humbly wait for the perfect moment. But the time to risk expressing our most precious desires is never during the idyllic silences, when time itself appears to stand still. It’s not when walking hand-in-hand, or dining by candlelight. The time to dare is when you're both standing on the very precipice of vulnerability.

At this most crucial moment, I have absolutely no fear of rejection. Because what's the worst he could do? Berate me for saying some so unforgivably filthy, pull up his trousers over his stiff throbbing cock, and ask me to leave? Any man who baulks at my finger intruding into his bottom is far too uptight for me.

You can say what you want with your finger in someone’s bum, or your lips around a cock. Or better still, both.

I think it’s because we’re conditioned to regard everything in life as a test, where there’s a wrong choice and a right choice. Scepticism becomes our survival strategy. In the absence of knowing what option to choose, we instinctively take the seemingly safest path instead. 

What a shame most strangers stop talking well before they reveal what really turns them on. I think most “bad” dates would turn out quite differently if the participants asked each other questions that would really make them shine. But we’re on such high alert, we regard each incoming query as a devious test, and agonise over what it really reveals. Anxiety makes us underestimate just how besotted our partner is with us. Yet the reality is, if we're candid about what we really want, it might lead to one of the best evenings of our lives.

Instead, we become experts at defensiveness. Deflecting enquiries in case they embarrass us, dismissing others as offering no chemistry when they simply weren't unwrapped enough. Because everyone is interesting, in one way or another. 

But when we reach the threshold of intimacy, we cease our silly sparring games. When our hands are in each other’s underwear, or on each other’s most private places, we can speak with complete honesty at last. At that point, there’s no longer any need to hide our desires. 

We owe it to ourselves to verify that we’ve entered through the right door, or we risk spending the rest of our days living in the wrong room. Yet we can be so stubborn sometimes, numbed by our own insecurities and wishful thinking.

I am keenly aware of the dark unexplored regions in the hinterlands of my life, ones I never visited because I walked the other way, too afraid to venture down what seemed, at the time, to be the scarier paths. My life could have been an anthology of daredevil memories, but I chose too many safer, more boring routes instead. Then I convinced myself that mediocrity was fine, or at least better than suffering embarrassment and discomfort. I will never be so stupid ever again.

Candour makes me drip, much more than cock, much more than anything. 

I close my lips around his shaft, and massage the underside with my tongue. Warm zephyrs from my nostrils blow against his crotch. My palms remain on his enviably firm buttocks, occasionally I lift a hand to deliver playful smacks as I suck. A little nudge towards my own expectations.

Everyone thinks I'm so sweet, but I long to be put over someone's knee. I want someone authoritative to grab me, to tell me they see through my cutesy disguise, and beneath I'm really a filthy slut. I want him to bend me over and reveal my wet pussy, and spank me with the vigour that I deserve.

I pull back for a moment, clearing my mouth to speak again, conspicuously slobbering.

"This is so naughty. I'm going to make such a filthy mess."

And then I swallow him again. I tease him by sucking him languidly, making it obvious I’m relishing his taste, all whilst pinning him against my intruding fingertip. Deep down, everyone yearns to be seduced, because everyone wants to be wanted.

His deep baritone voice scolds me, calling me a naughty girl, which is poetry to my ears. There is nothing sweeter than hearing one’s own convictions from another’s lips.  

“Do naughty girls get spanked on their bare bottoms?” I respond coyly. Now is not the time for difficult questions. 

He replies quickly, and affirmatively, almost automatically.

I escalate the stakes, assuming the sale.

"You're not going to spank my poor bum too hard, are you?"

He tells me that’s exactly what I deserve. Oh Sir, you do know how to make a naughty girl drip. I hear the leather creak as he tests his bonds impatiently, that belt might come in handy soon.

"I know I deserve such a sore bum,” I echo back, “I've been so, so naughty."

I have no idea whether he likes spanking. But I like him, and all the evidence so far suggests he rather likes me. And I’ve left him in no doubt that I like spanking. What he does with this information is up to him. Here is a junction, straight ahead. I’ve made the direction I intend to travel obvious, whether he accompanies me is entirely up to him.

Some say love is so complicated, but that’s why taking charge is so erotic - even if, at heart, you’re submissive like me. I think of it as an investment, a down-payment in taking control now, for the windfall of not having to think at all later. 

Everyone yearns to turn the volume of their mind down. Sex should be fun, not a precarious challenge with complicated decisions that leave its players wondering if they've made the right choice, or made the object of their affections cringe.

It would be cruel to make unfamiliar lovers worry they’re offending me. So I’m not just going to teach him how to do it, I’m going to show him exactly how I like it. When I bend over for him, I will tell him to put his free hand on my mound before he smacks my bottom. His hand will inevitably slip downwards, until his hot palm cups me between my legs. He’ll grip tight and feel my slick excitement ooze between his fingers, and my encouragement will be vocal and unequivocal. I will leave him in no doubt I want everything I’m getting.

How silly to make sex a game of riddles, at the very time when our minds are fuzziest. There’s no need to stumble through the maze if one of you already knows the way.

I don’t think he’ll hold out much longer. I feel him beginning to quiver. Decision time looms. I withdraw to speak, readying my most irresistibly seductive submissive voice.

Time to offer him one final choice, even if it’s the illusion of one. His answer isn’t important, the destination will be the same.

“Are you going to spank me before or after I make you come?”

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@spankingtheatre 2024