The Theory of Attraction Read online

  “Get dressed.”

  * * *

  I had never been in Ivan’s bedroom before. It hadn’t really occurred to me, but it struck me as I stood in the doorway that he never invited anybody upstairs. Given that, I was happy not to see anything appalling, like severed heads of former lovers. Or half-eaten sandwiches lying around. Or a wall covered with news clippings, photos and deranged scribblings. The room was meticulously clean, like the rest of the apartment. Like everything in Ivan’s life, or so I had always thought.

  “When we’re in this room, you’ll be naked unless I tell you otherwise.” He nudged his shoes off his feet and picked them up to place them in his exceedingly tidy closet.

  We’d covered some basics in the car, the stuff that was necessary but annoying to have to talk about. Condoms would be used. I was not on the Pill. Neither of us was diseased. Neither of us had engaged in any high-risk behaviors like unprotected sex or sex with gay men. As for other stuff, I took Ivan at his word that he didn’t do anything hard-core, what he called edge play, or anything that might involve blood or other vectors for the transmission of disease. He always wore a condom, he said, and I believed it. He was too finicky and regimented about stuff not to be consistent with something that important. And I knew his stance on lying.

  But before my clothes came off again, I still needed a bit more information. Or maybe I could sense he was a little on edge, too, now that we were finally in his room. This seemed much more real, somehow, than the incident in the data lab.

  “How many other girls have you done this with?”

  He took a minute to answer. While he considered, he removed his shirt slowly, toying with the buttons as he ruminated. “It’s hard to say. I go to a club, usually, and I’ve had a lot of play partners there. About three I’ve played with more frequently over the past few years. But I’ve never brought any of them home with me. And you would be the first submissive I’ve trained for myself.”

  “I’m still not too sure about that,” I admitted. “That whole submissive thing.”

  “The label or the requirements?”

  His shirt came off, and my mind flew away for a moment. I really did wish I’d known much sooner what stellar shape Ivan was in. His abs were like something from a magazine.

  “Both, I guess? I don’t think of myself as submissive, and I don’t have rape fantasies. The whole alpha-male thing has never really had that much appeal for me.”

  “Do I seem like an alpha male to you?”

  He had a point. “Well, no. Not really. Not what most people would think of that way.”

  “Have I asked you to submit to anything without consenting to it first?” Ivan was pacing around behind me again. It seemed a standby mode of sorts for him.

  “No.”

  “I don’t have a rape fantasy either, Camilla. What I do have is a fondness for experiments. To me, all this is just a way to experiment with our own bodies and minds. To test the boundaries of what we can do with ourselves, what we’re willing to do. A chance to be both observer and subject.”

  That made sense to me. “And to control your variables.”

  Another soft chuckle. And then a pair of hands tugging gently up at the hem of the pullover shirt I still wore. “Even I know I can’t really control all the variables. But this way…it’s as close as I’ve been able to get. If you’re staying, take your clothes off.”

  I let him complete his motion, pulling the shirt up and off over my head, stretching my arms up to help. Then I took my pants off for the second time that night and, because it seemed like it might be the right thing to do, I knelt down.

  “Good girl.” Ivan’s fingers tracked across the top of my head as he walked past, heading across the room where he laid my clothes neatly across the back of a barrel chair.

  I scanned the room, still not seeing any evidence of Bluebeard activity or anything else ominous. All I saw were a sturdy Mission-style bed with a forest-green duvet, a pair of matching nightstands with drawers, and a bureau on the opposite wall. The two tall windows were covered in plain, sheer white curtains, glowing gently with second-hand illumination from a nearby streetlight.

  “I’m amazed you’re allowing me into your room, Professor,” I ventured. “Do you ever let anybody up here?”

  “No,” he confessed, returning to stand in front of me. “People might move things around and look at my stuff. They’re agents of chaos, basically.”

  “I’m an agent of chaos? Good to know, Sir.” I was getting the hang of the whole title thing, I thought.

  “Oh, you are. You definitely are. But two things, you want to hear them?”

  “Yes, please, Professor.”

  “Good, I’ll tell them to you while you go take the covers off the bed and then get in the middle of it and present for me.”

  That wording would take some getting used to. I popped up and scampered over to yank the duvet off in one quick motion, before realizing how overeager and extremely uncool I probably looked. Ivan kept talking. “First, you should keep your friends close but your enemies closer, and chaos is the enemy. Fold that, and put it on the chair. So if you’re an agent of chaos, maybe I need to keep a closer eye on you.”

  “I’m the enemy?” I gave up trying to fold the slippery down-filled coverlet neatly and wrapped it up into a semi-tidy lump on the chair before proceeding back to the bed.

  He gave me a cockeyed grin, dimpling all over the place, and nodded his head. “Chaos personified. I have to keep you closest of all, obviously. Second, I may not let just anybody up to my bedroom—you’ll never see Ed up here, for instance—but popular opinion notwithstanding, I’m not actually a total freak, and I am a guy. I’ll let somebody up here if I think there’s a good chance the end result will be sex.”

  Since I was currently in his bed, rear end in the air and ready for action, I guess he had good reason to feel assured of that outcome. It was much more comfortable to assume that position on the bed than it had been on the hard, coarse-carpeted floor of the astro lab.

  Ivan made a slow circuit from one side of the bed to the other, finally ending near where he’d started, up near my head. “Beautiful,” he murmured, and out of everything that had already happened, that was the first thing to make me blush.

  “One of the intangible benefits people often say they get from submission is a sense of having permission to do things they wouldn’t normally do. You’ve given the choice of activity to the other person, so the responsibility is on that person if he or she exercises their power to make you do something you’d otherwise be too ashamed or shy to do. It’s also why some people like to be bound. They can’t blame themselves for their responses then. They can allow themselves to react freely in a way that regular, vanilla sex wouldn’t provide.”

  I nodded, thinking about this. It sounded like a lot of rationalization, but I knew that human brains were brilliant at rationalizing, and that tricking yourself as Ivan described was actually pretty easy to do. That capacity was kind of a feature of our brains, more than a bug.

  “Have you really never been spanked? In bed, I mean. I have no interest in learning about your childhood at this time.” Ivan sat on the bed, one leg dangling over the side, the other tucked up under him. Casual. Relaxed. Very at odds with the way I was feeling.

  I laughed. “No, I haven’t. And don’t worry, my childhood is the furthest thing from my mind right now.”

  He smiled and started to caress my back in those long, slow, measured movements, ending each stroke with a trip down to the crease at the bottom of my buttocks. Nerve endings fired and sparkled, as if they remembered good things from his last visit and were eagerly anticipating more.

  It was a long few seconds of silent petting, and I had relaxed a little when Ivan said, “I’d like to put you over my knee and spank you, Camilla. But I won’t do it tonight if it will scare you off.”

  The way he said “tonight” made it sound as though he expected there to be subsequent nights, and I found tha
t reassuring. “You’ll stop if I say to stop?”

  “I’ll stop if you say red,” he clarified. “If you say anything else—no, or stop, or please don’t—I’ll keep going and probably spank you harder for it. I’ll spank you harder for struggling or trying to block my hand or get away. I’ll only stop for the safeword. But if you say it, I stop, that instant. Red for stop.”

  “But why—”

  “Some people like to struggle and be prevented from escaping. Some people like to plead but be forced to submit to it anyway. That’s why your safeword should never be something you’re liable to blurt out accidentally. But I really wasn’t planning anything that drastic, my little newbie. Come over here and assume the position, and try to keep an open mind. Science experiment, remember?”

  “Right,” I said, though I harbored grave doubts about the validity of any of this as a scientific endeavor. Still, I crawled over and lowered myself over Ivan’s lap, feeling awkward and foolish and wildly aroused all at the same time.

  He petted first, exploring every contour of my ass and dipping between my cheeks to play with my pussy. “Even your external labia are wet, Camilla. Are you craving penetration by now?”

  “Oh, God yes, please,” I moaned as his fingers acted out his words. He slid two of them deep inside me with one quick thrust, and then withdrew almost as quickly. I didn’t feel the first smack coming, and when it did, it jolted me out of my sexual daze.

  “You didn’t address me properly.” He slapped his hand down again on the same spot, bringing fire and heat to the surface of that buttock.

  “Professor. Please, Professor,” I corrected myself, breathing through the sudden pain.

  He rewarded me with another caress, this time teasing along my slit until he found my clitoris. “Name four characters from the movie we saw tonight, Camilla.”

  I got two of them, but drew a blank when I tried to think of any others. A series of quick whacks this time, connecting with the zone where my ass and upper thighs merged. His hand was flat, firm, inescapable. And then his fingers were inside me again, pumping slowly in and out. I moaned and started to writhe back into his hand as all the punished nerve endings tingled with a new kind of sensation, nothing remotely like pain. It was like sex magic.

  “Remember the science?” Ivan said, obviously amused at my sudden transformation from reluctant victim to enthusiastic participant. “You just learned something about what endorphins do. Let’s see, what else have you been a bad girl about lately? Hmm…”

  “Cleavage?” I suggested.

  “Cleavage, Professor.” The hand wreaked its havoc again, harder this time, but when I tried to squirm away as the pain intensified, Ivan tightened the grip of his non-spanking hand around my waist. “No, Camilla. Stay right there. You’ve been teasing me all week, first with that dress at the restaurant, then today with the shirt. You’ve been bad, and you’ll take your punishment.”

  More whacks, until I was near tears, and a breath away from saying the safeword. The only thing that prevented me was the hope that at any second he would relent and—

  Oh my God. The softest touch imaginable against my clit and pussy, as Ivan cupped his hand against me. I was so sensitive from the spanking that I could swear I felt every tread in every fingerprint, each crease on the palm of his hand. Suddenly I was throbbing, nearly panting with want. I lifted my bottom, trying to push into the touch, but he wouldn’t allow it. Only when I settled back into his lap did he press his hand closer, toying with me only enough to tease, not to get me off.

  “Have you learned your lesson, Camilla?”

  I nodded. I had certainly learned a lesson. “Yes, Sir.” I hoped I sounded suitably repentant, as I wasn’t really up on the appropriate etiquette for this situation. Strangely, it really hadn’t arisen in my research on how to conduct oneself at a fundraiser or similar event.

  “And will you let me spank you again if the occasion calls for it?”

  “Yes, Professor.” I planned to make the occasion myself, as soon as possible, if need be.

  “Hmm. Down to the floor, then. Kneel up between my knees.”

  I was confused for a second, then realized what he wanted when I recognized the hot, firm lump that had been pressing into my hip. Scooting off his lap, I swung my legs around and under me and slid to the floor, waiting for his next move.

  It was a surprisingly cozy place, that spot on the carpet at Ivan’s feet. I was close enough to him that, had I wanted to, I could have rested my head on one of his thighs. His hands were already busy unfastening his jeans, working them down his hips and his long runner’s legs along with his boxer briefs, and finally kicking the whole mess aside. He left the discarded clothes on the floor, my first clue that he wasn’t quite as calm and in control as he seemed.

  Apparently Ivan had been hiding more than just a nice set of abs under his clothes all this time. He took his cock in hand and pumped it a few times, but even with his hand obscuring the view I could see he was more than adequately equipped for whatever happened next.

  “Hands behind your back, Camilla. Only use your mouth.”

  I could do that.

  “Yes, Professor.”

  He slipped his free hand behind my head to pull me closer, and I licked at the tip of his cock as soon as I could reach it. Then I sucked the smooth, mushroom-shaped head between my lips, rolling my tongue over the surface until it was slick and hot, and Ivan was making noises of approval and encouragement.

  I liked his smell, musky and genuine, and the salty tang of evening and arousal on his skin. He was rock-hard, and seemed as ready as I felt. When I dipped my head and took as much of his cock in as possible, then slid my mouth up and down his length, he cursed once, very softly. It was one of the few times I’d ever heard him use a bad word. I tried the trick again, flexing my tongue up to rub against the sensitive bundle of nerves right behind the head of his penis.

  “Enough.”

  Ivan didn’t give me a chance to push any further. He stood and moved to the closest nightstand, pulling the top drawer open and scrabbling inside for a few seconds before coming up with a condom.

  “Bed,” he snapped, as he smoothed the sheath down on himself with quick, practiced movements. “Present.”

  I did what he asked and waited. Knowing how turned on he was, I expected penetration and was startled to feel his hands on the back of my thighs, his thumbs parting my labia. And then his tongue, unexpected and warm, slicking inside me as his clever fingers found my clitoris. I would have thought it might take me some time to work myself back up, but after a few seconds of Ivan’s attentions I was the same wriggling, eager bundle of overtaxed nerves I had become on his lap.

  “Don’t come,” he reminded me. Which was good, because I’d forgotten I wasn’t supposed to, and I was damn close. I wanted him inside me too, though, almost more than I wanted to come. So I exhaled one, two, three long, deep breaths, and willed my body to be patient. But he kept going, working my clit in a steady, inescapable rhythm that I couldn’t resist for long.

  “Please, Ivan,” I finally cried out, desperate for release.

  The mouth of delightful wet wonderment went away. “Professor,” he said patiently, and for a moment I thought he was going to start spanking me again.

  Instead he positioned his cock at my entrance and pushed halfway in on a single thrust, seating himself fully with the second. A little rough, and faster than I’d expected. And perfect.

  I was made for this man to fuck.

  It was the kind of thought I would toss aside later, treating it as a byproduct of hormones and delayed gratification. But that future dismissal made it no less true in the moment. I opened myself up, and Ivan claimed me like I’d been his all along. Claimed me for science, perhaps. For himself, certainly. I wasn’t sure I could bear it, the sweet bliss of him inside me, his hands steadying my hips. And then he started to thrust, and I could feel my legs shake and my stomach clench with the effort to hold off, hold back.


  Might as well try to keep the tide back with a plastic bucket and shovel from the dollar store. The orgasm seemed to gather from all over my body, traveling slowly but inexorably toward the place where my body and Ivan’s were joined. He had reached around me to keep stroking the hypersensitive nub of my clit, and after a few beats I was done for.

  He could feel it, or maybe I was more vocal than I thought, because even as the pleasure crested and started to suck me under, I heard him laugh. “We’ll need to work on that, then.”

  And then I was drowning, swamped with delight from my head to my toes, thrilled to the core of my soul by the possessive thrumming of this man’s cock inside my body and his skilled hand against my clit. Ivan cursed again and sped up, finally giving up his words in favor of a sweet, inarticulate cry of triumph as he lost himself in me for the first time.

  Chapter Six

  When I felt fully conscious again, I opened my eyes to see Ivan lying on his side watching me. I was flat on my stomach, head still pillowed on my arms, body still pleasantly humming with delight.

  He didn’t say anything at first but reached out a hand very slowly as though he thought I might pull away. He brushed a few hairs out of my face, tucking them carefully behind my ear, and then ran his fingertips down the contour of my cheek to my chin. Proving my shape to all of his senses, perhaps, finding a new way to see me. With his hesitance came a vulnerability, and I could read more than I usually did in his expression. The boy he had once been, the man he had become, the one still shaping the other day by day whether he acknowledged it or not.

  “I’ve never done this,” he whispered, seeming concerned.

  “Done what?”

  “Post-coital demonstrations of affection.”

  Turning my head a little, I caught one of his fingertips between my teeth for a second, then let it slide free from my lips with a pop. “You’re doing fine.”