Free Ecstasy in the White Room by Portia Da Costa

 
    This is a gorgeous room. So white and tranquil and
glamorous, like something from a thirties movie set. I half expect Fred Astaire
to come dancing out of the en suite bathroom, dressed in white tie and tails,
and almost floating on air, ready to charm me.
    Instead it’s Simon who emerges; not quite Fred, but a nifty
mover all the same and, to my eyes, infinitely more handsome. He’s not in
evening dress, but he is wearing an achingly good suit. It’s charcoal-gray, with
just a faint sheen of midnight, and it makes his eyes gleam and flash like a
pair of polished sapphires and the rest of him just look like a sex god.
    I feel as if I’m in a movie too. At a pivotal moment, with a
thousand eyes watching me. They’re waiting for the drama to begin, and the men
are admiring my body. Maybe the women are, too? Perched on the upholstered
dressing table stool, I add a little more tint to my lips, leaning forward
toward the mirror and self-consciously graceful, both for the unseen audience
and Simon’s intent gaze.
    Those eyes of his narrow, noting my studied elegance. Or it
could be the fact that I’m not actually ready yet, and thus presenting him with
exactly the excuse he needs—if he ever needs one—to
initiate one of our special games. The ones we learned from a certain book of
naughty Victorian photographs, the Blue Book we once discovered while on
holiday.
    Simon doesn’t castigate me though. He doesn’t need to. He just
gives me the look that makes me melt and fall to pieces in helpless lust.
    Everything flutters inside me. Everything’s agitated and needy.
I’m chaos incarnate in this calm sea of white. The setting is cool and
exquisite, but I’m all hot and excited. My cheeks flush with a pink to rival my
lip tint, and I’m glad I didn’t apply my blusher now. My throat and chest color
up too, and that dizzy, revealing pink, combined with the dramatic chic of my
black lace underwear, makes me into a creature of contrasts, stark and vivid in
our snowy, creamy suite.
    “I...I’m sorry, I was daydreaming.” I glance toward my black
velvet evening gown, hanging against the front of the fitted wardrobe. It’s a
slender, formfitting tube, a style I’d never even have contemplated at one time,
but seeing as how I’ve been a star once already today, and I’d been dieting to
get into quite a different dress, I might as well show my figure while at its
most svelte. Simon flicks a look at the dress too, and quirks his sandy eyebrows
in a significant gesture I know all too well. “It won’t take me but a moment to
slip my dress on...sorry,” I twitter on, too keyed up, and roused up, to think
straight.
    “Oh, there’s plenty of time, my love,” he drawls. He’s
affecting nonchalance, just as sophisticated Fred might have done, but I know
him. He’s as excited as I am, and I can plainly see it, even though he’s become
a past master at masking his emotions. Strolling toward me, he draws out a
length of narrow black satin ribbon from his pocket, and when he reaches where I
sit, at the white painted dressing table, he slips the dark band around my
throat and ties it in a soft bow at the back of my neck. I feel a finger, then
another, slip between the ribbon and my skin, testing my comfort. Simon’s always
thoughtful in little touches like that, even though other things he does to me
are far from comfortable.
    I snatch a look at myself in the mirror. My hair’s up, so the
bow is an eloquent symbol around my neck, perfectly clear to those who would
recognize it for what it is. My heart thuds, and desire rolls slowly in the pit
of my belly, acknowledging the significance.
    If all those eyes were really watching us, they’d know this is
the moment.
    “But I do think we ought to remind you of the virtues of
punctuality, perhaps? This’s the second time you’ve been late today, isn’t it?”
He gives a little tug on the ribbon, urging me to my feet. He’s not rough; it’s
just a minute increase of