Free Katie In Love: full length erotic romance novel by Chloe Thurlow

hard to please, I had become disposed to do everything I could in order to please him.
    Black Spires was like a set on a film lot, the sky sapphire, the light soft and hazy. The gravel crunched beneath his leather shoes as he walked away from the car. The camcorder whirred.
    I make up my mind whether or not I want something by taking pictures.
    The eye of the lens was on me. The nuance was unclear. But the elasticity of words, the intricacy of words, the supremacy of words, is like the invisible power of the wind that bends the trees and acts as a drug, a soporific. Why else would priests develop that deep resonant voice that calls to your soul; or tries to?
    He looked directly into my eyes.
    Just pretend the camera's not there. Can you do that?
    By posing the question and my agreeing, we were now complicit.
    You have to be strict with door locks, show them who's boss.
    The word strict reminded me of school where I found it easier to obey than rebel. He asked if the piano was included, implying that he was serious about buying the house. He then said he hated quibbling over small things .
    Those small things were peeled off one by one, starting when we reached the garden.
    Take your shoes off, I want to get one of those barefoot in the grass shots.
    This was a direction, not a suggestion. He said the camera liked me, that I could be a model and, with those words, like a spell, I played the model. I thrust out my hips, stared back over my shoulder, eyes widened, lips pursed, bottom tensed, the object of desire I tried to create alone in front of the mirror performed for a man with a camera that formed a barrier and a bridge between us. Being barefoot is sensuous; tactile. I was reminded of the gardener staring at me in my bikini, toes tended by the prickling blades of grass, perspiration veneered on my back. The air was motionless. It felt new; unbreathed, and I watched two twirling butterflies on wings the same shade of pink as my skirt.
    We climbed the stairs. He didn't tell me to undo my blouse, he asked: Will you do something for me? To which I readily said yes, and once you undo one button, it is only a question of time before you undo them all. He had tapped into my fantasies. He swept aside my social programming and made me conscious of what I believed I wanted or, indeed, did want.
    Girls, most girls, want to please. They answer yes to those men who know how to pose the right questions. What I didn't know at the time, and was shocked to learn, is that there is a guide for men who want to seduce women called The Game, an allegedly true memoir of how Neil Strauss, a shy, inhibited guy, turns himself into a smooth-talking womaniser of the Roger Devlin school.
    The technique is basically this: when a man meets a woman he desires, he doesn't look directly at her and speaks to her with indifference. Strauss suggests that in this way, the woman grows anxious to please; programmed little Pavlov's dogs that we are. At the appropriate time, he touches her in a casual way (Devlin's hand on my leg in the car), and turns the situation around by giving her something – it's called anchoring – a glass of wine, his phone number, some attention. He pays her a small compliment (the camera likes you) and uses 'trigger' words (will you do something for me?) to show that he is agreeable if she responds positively to his requests.

6
    Svengali
     
    There is a lot more to The Game , of course, but the message contained in the book swept into my mind that New Year's Day after lunch at Pinchitos and we returned to my flat.
    Tom took my keys to open the door and, after the cold tramp through the frigid streets, I bathed in the warmth pumping from the iron radiators. I had left the heating on and the living room at three in the afternoon was as hot as that summer's day ten years ago. I tossed my coat on a chair and was about to unbutton my jacket.
    'Wait,' he said. 'Will you do something for me?'
    My breath caught in my throat.
    '...what did