Free Thrill Seeker by Kristina Lloyd

agree?’
    Jeez, he understood what I wanted so well.
    ‘What’s the plan, then?’ I asked. ‘How do we do this?’
    ‘You want to hear what I have in mind?’
    I was almost home but I didn’t want his voice inside my house, didn’t want him that close again. A short flight of stone steps cut into a low wall led to a tarmac path edged with straggly grass and a rusting, municipal handrail. Up there, an expanse of cloud-veiled darkness lay over a shabby football pitch, a hut selling tea and ices, and one of the designated routes to the ruined, cliff-top castle. I hunkered down in the steps, hidden and safe, protected by slumbering stone and by the silence of the centuries.
    My voice was a whisper. ‘Yes, tell me.’
    ‘I intend to kidnap you and hold you prisoner,’ he repeated. ‘I’m going to snatch you when you least expect it and take you far away from your life. I’m going to take you over completely. I’m going to lead you down dark paths where you’ll meet someone you don’t know: yourself. This isn’t about handcuffs or pain or roleplay. Those are just props I use to reduce you to a deep state of submission. And when you’re there, you’ll let me do anything I want. You’re so gone you can barely even speak. You’re not my prisoner at all. If I told you to walk away, you’d beg me to keep you safe. Not safe in my arms but safe in my sadism. That’s where you want to be. That’s where I want to keep you.’
    I gulped nervously. He seemed to know what he was doing. His confidence alone excited me, not to mention the content of his words. For a moment, I forgot my strategy of honesty and self-assertion. I wanted him to take over entirely and give me no say in the matter. Then I remembered it wasimportant to let him know we were matched in our desires, and that I agreed to this. ‘I think I’d like that,’ I said, speaking softly in my stone-step nook.
    I strained to catch the sound of him breathing. Was he aroused on the other end of the line? Was he jerking off?
    After a pause he said, ‘Listen. And listen carefully because you need to understand this, Natalie. I don’t give a single fuck what you like.’
    With that, he ended the call.

Five
    For days, his parting shot echoed through my mind. I told myself he did care, of course he did. He was merely roleplaying the bad guy, assuming I’d find it horny. And oh boy, did I ever. I loved the idea he’d be rough and cruel, that he’d make out my desires were of no significance and he’d fuck me this way and that, using me to satisfy his own unrestrained hunger.
    Den was a far cry from nice-guy Grant who would instruct me to lie back and enjoy. And that’s what I was searching for, wasn’t it? A dark, twisted dominant man who’d be part of my journey towards my Northern Lights. Those lights, my shimmering destination, didn’t reside with an individual. They were the glow of me understanding and accepting my weird, kinky self. Den was a train ride on that journey. So at last, it appeared my luck was in.
    Nonetheless, I longed for concrete details. I figured Den was withholding practicalities to add realism to our kidnap scenario. I simply had to do what I’d said and trust him. Or more accurately, take a chance on him.
    Mostly I was prepared to take that risk. Just sometimes,alone at night when the house was taunting me with its creaky, old bones, I feared he might break in, carry me off to an unknown place and I’d never be heard from again. In the clear light of day I dismissed the notion. I had a job to go to, a cat to feed, friends who would notice my absence.
    One evening, watching a band play in a local beer garden as part of a mini festival, I grew convinced he was in the audience. Moths flickered in the halogen glow of floodlights while chatter burbled below the music. The air, warm and still, smelled of cigarettes, beer and a pungent, heady perfume, night-scented stocks or honeysuckle. From a tangle of foliage, a small,