Claire, taken unawares

“Excuse me, Miss?”

A sunny morning, the park; it’s quiet; air cool, but warming up.

The man’s voice is pleasant, light, with a distinct— if mild— overtone of cheerful appreciation of the world— an encouraging voice, the young woman decides.

She has been walking, purposefully but not fast, toward the large building in the centre of the park— a prestigious art gallery, where she works as a librarian, but she has plenty of time, and so, having just passed him— having registered nothing more than a man sitting on a bench— she turns her head, stopping.

The speaker is middle-aged, trim; well dressed— expensively so, if rather casually. He is leaning back, his attitude relaxed, an arm along the back of the bench, the sun on his face. A business paper lies folded on the bench beside him, his ‘phone on top of it.

His smile is as pleasant and lightly pleased with the world as his voice, but he is not pretty, and, in spite of herself, she stares, just a little; shaved bald, his ears, while not large, seem solid, almost blocky, his pupils very, very pale, his nose also a block— a boxer’s face, perhaps; prominent cheekbones, mouth on the large side, with full, heavy lips, and an ugly scar on his right cheek— dark against his light tan. The overall impression not ugly, just unusually strongly characterised; not a face to forget quickly.

He waits as she assesses him, accepting her eyes on him, his own eyes unashamedly on her, his smile if anything increasing, and she is conscious of feeling a little flustered.

It occurs to her, as she registers this feeling, that there is something interesting about this man; that she would like whatever this little exchange might be to go well— to be more than just inconsequential. That she is pleased he has stopped her; pleased he is smiling at her; pleased, too, that he is looking at her— noticing her, it seems, as more than a passing stranger who might prove helpful with some trivial matter— assessing her as a person.

He doesn’t speak immediately, but continues to look at her with interest; unhurried, unapologetic. It becomes a little awkward, the silence, the obvious inspection— she could very easily have taken this as rude— creepy, even— from another man, but she finds herself happy with this, too; smiling back at him until he decides to speak, his accent hard to place— immaculate, relaxed pronunciation, but with something beyond it— as if other things are being said— or implied— in other languages. She wants to hear more of it, despite the rasp which suggests that it can be a forceful, domineering voice at times.

“I was wondering if you’d do something for me?”

This is unexpected, but not shockingly so— and immediately she knows that this, too, is welcome. Any simple request, such as directions to the nearest way out, say, would have been direct. This must be more complex— and so there will be more chance to expand on the moment. On this moment, on this encounter.

She finds herself smiling more than necessary to signify willingness to consider his request, takes a couple of steps toward him, hears herself saying;

“What’s that? I’ll help if I can.”

Far too eager, she chides herself; but at the same time she is nothing but pleased to see him sit up a little straighter, his smile become a touch more serious before he speaks— he is giving her something back in return for her response.

And then comes the moment which replays, again and again, in her mind. The moment her life changes, irrevocably.

“I’d like you to lift your skirt— lift it right up, hold it that way. Show yourself to me .”

This is so unexpected, so not what a pleasantly smiling, relaxed middle aged man in a public park could be expected to say on a sunny morning (not what anyone would say!). His voice, too, is just the same as it had been before— there is no indication that he considers this a strange, or risky, or provocative thing to ask.

She freezes, momentarily, simply unable to process.

Her body reacts before her mind can— she feels herself, stiffen, flinch, her heart first skipping a beat, then kicking back in with a thump, at a much faster pace. She hears herself emit a weak, shocked, meaningless noise— something between a sigh and a gasp, all before she can actually start thinking.

When she can get her mind to work, she finds that everything is emotion; shock, a tinge of fear, audible in her voice despite her intention to convey firm confidence and justifiable outrage— her words, too not as strong as she intends;

“Why … Why would you ask me that? You … you can’t say that!”

And then, doubting how clear she has been;

“No!”

She wants to leave, but the remnants of her hopes for some sort of meaningful exchange with him are still with her, and her legs seem fixed in place, so that she has to bear his eyes on her, even though she feels his gaze now as entirely too intimate, as if she is unable to prevent him from seeing her naked.

This discomfort isn’t made easier by the complete lack of effect her words have produced.

If anything, he seems more confident than before, although his head has straightened further, and his eyes are more intently focused on her.

She’s preternaturally aware of her pulse, insistent, hard, fast; at her neck, and in her groin, too. It’s as if she has become her heartbeat, and nothing else— other than the subject of his calm, inescapable, cool but smiling eyes.

His reply is unhurried, confident, conversational;

“Well, I just did. Say it, I mean. No lightning bolts so far. And as for why— well I’d hope you know it, but you’re a very lovely and sexually attractive young woman, so I imagine it’s a common enough desire. The difference, perhaps, is that I am direct enough to ask. I’d very much like to see your pussy; will you show me?”

She can’t be so shocked this time— although it’s shocking enough that he dares repeat— intensify— his request. But she can hardly make a big fuss again about the idea that he wants to look up her skirt— since that’s all they are talking about. And since she’s still here.

Her problem is that she hasn’t walked away.

Her problem is that she doesn’t want to, even though she knows she must. This man is clearly dangerous.

Why is she still here?

Why? Why must this beautiful morning, this— she has to admit it— oddly fascinating man, possessed of such an unusual feeling of powerful ease with the world, with himself, with her— why must it have gone this way— pitching her into turmoil, presenting her with this rift in the fabric of normality that she cannot ignore?

That she cannot ignore because, from somewhere inside her, comes an unavoidable conviction that this man is— must be— important to her.

That to walk away would be a loss to her; a lost opportunity, that she would always feel with regret, should she walk away now.

And yet— what he is asking is outrageous— impossible!

Compelling. Fascinating. She can, right here, do something that will change her life, change her— just in the fact of doing it. Nothing else need happen— this is the park, in broad daylight, people within earshot, if not quite in sight. Just this simple thing could break herself out of the trap of averageness— of an average life— a comfortable but meaningless existence— a living death she has been sleepwalking into, even as she knows she is doing it. Her heart thumps ever louder; something is fizzing inside her.

His smile, broadening and growing slightly lopsided, tells her what her conclusion is before she can think it herself, and it is suddenly urgent that she not let this moment pass.

Out through her lips, a warm current of air accompanies a breathy, bemused, but clear acceptance;

“OK …”

Nothing happens— he doesn’t look any more or less pleased, doesn’t get excited, hardly acknowledges her— as if he doesn’t care, or perhaps takes her for granted.

It’s an affront— he has asked for something outrageous, and she, for some crazy reason, has seen fit to say yes— and yet there is no gratitude, no recognition, nothing!

They are as if marooned in time, then, looking at each other. She’s said OK, but that — that isn’t what he wanted— he wants her to actually do it. She has said she will— but … can she actually manage it?

It turns out that all it takes is a fractional lifting of one eyebrow from him; the tiniest nudge of expectation. That’s all.

Somehow, her hands are at the hem of her dress, trembling but purposeful, and she’s doing it— lifting the light fabric, up; up and up some more, to just below her breasts, and her mind is filled with wonder at the feeling of doing this, in public— not even having looked to check for strangers (this man is a stranger himself!)— the incredible feeling of baring herself like this, for him, of needing him to like what he can see (intensely needy, she realises; after all, to flash your panties at a man and have him dislike what he sees would be shaming indeed)— mind scrabbling for certainty as to which panties she had chosen this morning, relieved to recall that, plain as all her underwear is, the ones she picked are among the newer and prettier of her collection.

And then she is suddenly, simply, filled with happy gratitude. She’s offering herself— for sex, obviously— to a man whom she would like to fuck her. It’s all so beautifully clear, for a moment, that he’s going to fuck her without any bullshit, without restraint, without doubt or fear or fumbling, and it’s going to be glorious; simple, easy.

And then, it seems, it’s over; he ends it— without her really being able to tell if he has even looked at her (so nervous has she been that she could not, actually, look at him)— ends it by speaking; leaning back, smiling still, lightly satisfied, but nothing stronger— not looking as if he intends to touch her, even;

“Thank you. You are as delightful as I imagined you might be.”

After the intensity of emotion, the roaring of her pulse in her ears, the rush of unlooked for heat, desire and neediness in her belly, after her surprising herself by doing that for him, this casual dismissal is almost more shocking than his request had been— she’s deflated, thrown into confusion. What was that all about? How could he— push her, trick her, hypnotise her, almost, into exposing herself so shamelessly to a stranger in public— so close to her work, where she might easily have been seen by a colleague? Just for a casual compliment— nothing more? These thoughts are bubbling up inside her now, uselessly, when it’s too late.

Lowering her skirt is awkward, feels pathetic, all the emotion washing around her system needing something, some resolution— but from his body language, he’s clearly not expecting anything else to happen. It’s like throwing yourself off a cliff only to land on a mattress that had been there all along, just out of sight. Later, she will see just how much this feeling added to her destabilisation, but now, she is simply confused, shame building rapidly, her cheeks beginning to feel hot.

She wants to get angry with him, now, but somehow cannot find a way to make it real; tears seem more likely, but she desperately, desperately does not want to cry right now. Why can’t she move? Do something? Anything, rather than simply stand here, blushing, agitated but frozen, looking at his knees— since she is unable to face him directly, she has discovered, for more than a fraction of a second, before lowering her eyes.

She is a slut. An easy slut. Has revealed herself to be a slut, surprising even herself— and so being forced to accept she knows nothing about herself. He has done this to her— a stranger— with a few casual words in a couple of minutes. She can’t breathe, so tight is her chest with shame and unmet need.

She is about to wrench herself away, start walking again, force herself to accept that something terrible has happened to her— that the promise of change, of a breath of life had been a mirage, a trick, a projection of her own mind— force herself to accept this and scurry away to see if she can repair herself, when he speaks;

“If I walked with you, would you tell me a little about yourself?”

It’s like a breath of clean, good air. Pathetic as it is for it to be possible for him to do this to her, she cannot help but respond, gratitude rising in her at being offered a lifeline, offered hope.

She can hardly speak, still can’t look at him properly, shaming herself further, but with conscious effort she manages some sort of response;

“Yes, yes, please … That … that would be … Thank you.”

He stands, easily— lithe and cat-like despite his solidity. The idea of a panther comes to her; calm, lazy-seeming, reserved, smooth, but all the time terribly, lethally dangerous.

She trembles, but then they are, simply, walking. Perfectly normally, not even particularly close together— just two acquaintances, walking in the park.

He asks her simple questions, unthreatening, vanilla— about her work, where she lives, where she grew up, her ambitions …

And she … quite quickly, she finds that she is telling him everything. Going into detail— wanting to tell him— wanting him to know her; his silence and reliable look of intelligent, attentive interest, the thoughtfulness of his short questions, which only come when she has really done with a response, encourage her in this, so that, by the time they are approaching the Gallery, she realises that he probably knows more of the important things about her than most of her friends, and dries up, shocked, once again, at how easily she can be encouraged to give him what he wants.

She is overwhelmed, then, by a wave of shyness, faltering to a stop, mid-sentence, her feet stopping too, experiencing a sensation of almost total vulnerability to him— this stranger, who can get her to act like a slut, can have her tell him deeply personal things without restraint, for whom she is experiencing a strong undertow of quite shocking sexual desire.

At no point during the walk has the feeling been far from her mind of how it had been to be standing there, skirt lifted, displaying herself to him so blatantly. Also, a mounting sense that she wants to feel like that again, to have him look at her; to have him thinking about fucking her.

He stops beside her, exerting no pressure— projecting, rather, an almost tangible force field of acceptance, of enclosure, of safety that is as soft as it is powerful, within which she is granted perfect freedom— freedom to decide what it is that she wants— all of which makes it eventually possible for her (necessary for her), after what might have been minutes or hours, to look up at him, eyes soft and round, body language equally soft, but at the same time very openly sexual, and say, quite quietly and carefully;

“Are … Are you going to fuck me?”

She tries, tries very hard to keep her eyes on his, but cannot manage it for long, so steady and impenetrable is his friendly, calm expression, so all-seeing do his eyes seem. Offering herself like this had become necessary to her— to make it explicit to him that she is … that she wants … that she is available, if he wants— but it wasn’t easy for her to say out loud.

She tries, too, not to tremble, but cannot hide her tremors, either, as the silence extends, until she is possessed by the need to tell him how much she wants … and raises her head again, to look at him and begins;

“I … want it. I … I really want …”

His finger is on her lips, stilling her. It’s the first time in the whole history of the universe that he has touched her, and her entire body reacts, a surging sensation, eager to have the closeness of their conversation reinforced by contact.

“I know. I know just how it is with you, do not fear. You will not be misunderstood.”

And she is silenced; allows herself to be silenced, blushing at the memory of her words, grateful to him for having limited her embarrassment.

“You, though, need to understand a little. As I said before, you are very desirable. I may decide to take you. But you will need to know what this means, so that you can choose for yourself.”

“I am greedy; selfish, ruthless and utterly uncompromising with the women I take. You— you are delightfully innocent, although we have seen, this morning, that there is that inside you which will respond to usage. If I take you, it will not be as an innocent, but as a woman who has made a choice. So I will ask something of you— something very hard; much harder than simply lifting your skirt— you may choose whether to do it or not. Even if you choose to try, you may fail. You will discover things about yourself in this way, and, if you decide to share them with me, then perhaps we will both choose again; me to demand something from you, you to comply. This is how it will go— if it goes at all.”

Her knees have turned to jelly. The words ‘selfish, ruthless and utterly uncompromising’ are burning themselves into her; she feels dizzy with emotion— although she can’t be sure what emotion it is. But this is it; proof of her earlier certainty that this man would change her. Because those words— so far from what all the novels, all the films suggest a young woman might want to hear from an interesting stranger, those words have captured her, even as they terrify her.

How can it be that the idea of this stranger— older, utterly different to anyone she would ordinarily meet or make a relationship with— a man who can say these frightening words to her, describing his sexual appetites— how can this make her want to let her knees give way, let herself sink to the ground and give herself to him?

She’s trembling, uncontrollably— visibly— she watches her hands literally shaking like leaves. She can’t bear to be wearing clothes, can’t bear it that he cannot see for himself how rigid her nipples are, that his hands aren’t on her, between her legs, on her body; can’t bear that she’s going to have to go in to work now, that he’s going to leave.

At the same time she wants to run, run into her office, hide; hide from these feelings, hide from him, hide from the yawning abyss of possibility that has opened in front of her; It’s too much! I’m not strong enough! I will lose myself!

She has been staring at him, helplessly, eyes wide, face revealing all these emotions, these thoughts, as they race through her, chasing one another so fast she hardly has time to feel them— not seeing him, even, dimly aware that he is watching, that he can probably read her like a book— he has seemed to understand how she can be got to do just what he wants from his first sight of her. Which is both glorious and deeply, deeply frightening. It makes no difference, though, what she feels about him, she thinks— nothing about her will ever change him.

That’s the wonder and the pity of all this.

That it’s all her, really.

He’s just the rock against which she is being smashed— is smashing herself— a rock whose secret ability it is to show her the most perfectly jagged corners against which to break herself, offer her the cleverly shaped crevices in which she might trap herself.

Crazy— all this thinking— crazy! I … I …

Now his finger is, very lightly, but relentlessly— lifting her chin. It’s such a simple thing, but it helps her calm herself. He wants something of her— her attention. He’s requiring it of her; she is relieved of responsibility for herself— just a little. She is, once again, awash with gratitude.

She hears herself whimper, like a little girl; her hands fall limp, the shaking stopped. How can he do these things to her? Why is it so welcome?

“I see that, perhaps, you are understanding, a little. This is not something lightweight, inconsequential. Almost certainly, you should, over the next weeks, think hard about this morning, and decide it was an aberration; you met a strange man, who behaved very badly, who said some frightening things, that unaccountably affected you a little too much. You should tell yourself that it was just one of those things that serves to point out how important it is to lead a safe, decent life— that madness is a terrible trap against which you must guard yourself.”

“If you can’t do this, though; if the thought of me having you, to use as I wish, is not something you can rid yourself of, then you will need to do something to engage my attention. You will need to get yourself raped. Probably here, at work. The details don’t matter, but you will provoke someone into demanding sex from you, get them so carried away that, when you deny them— which you must— that they will find themselves unwilling to take no for an answer, and force you. Preferably they will be violent— hurt you. If the way that they use you is degrading, so much the better. Perhaps you can do something that will make that more likely, from the start.”

“I will be here— yes, at your gallery— in a little over two weeks; the award ceremony. You can talk to me then, if you wish. As I say, you probably should not— stay away, even— but you must make your own decision.”

“If you decide to talk to me, it will, of course, be pleasing, but you must understand that it doesn’t matter much to me what you choose. For you, this will be a unique, possibly life-defining decision, while for me this is just one of many encounters with interesting and desirable young women. I have always, too, a number of girls under my control— always accessible to me; available for use in any way I might desire. You are an interesting and lovely candidate, Claire, certainly— but nothing more than this— and even if I should decide to take you, it will be for a year or two at most— again; nothing more, before you would cease to be of interest.”

“It is your fate that is at risk, here; not mine— it is you that must decide. If you decide to attend the ceremony, to approach me, talk to me, then you can tell me anything you like, of course— perhaps that you hate me, that you have reported me to the police, to the trustees, to a reporter— whatever you wish. You are free. But if you want to remain under consideration, you will tell me how it has been with your attempts to get yourself violently raped.”

“If what I hear from you interests me— and the mere fact of you having been raped and hurt and degraded will not be enough— then I may ask something further of you— which you may or may not choose to give me.”

She is crying now— not sobbing, but simply letting the tears roll down her cheeks, soft, warm, gentle— crying and trembling again at the shame and savagery of this speech, at the heartlessness of him, at the way his voice is just the same as always, even as he says such terrible, cruel things, still smiling slightly, looking into her eyes with the same calm but focused interest as he had used a few minutes ago when she had been talking about the mundanities of her existence.

He lets her cry for a minute or two, watching her, unreadable. She can’t understand why she is still with him, still feeling protected by his closeness, by his strength, still not wanting to run, to get away from this madness. Why her sadness is not for her shattered, foolish imaginings of what he might mean for her life, but for her future self that she knows will allow him to do these terrible things to her. For her future self that is condemned to such outrages by the neediness, the helpless desire, the fatal weakness of her current self.

Karsh: a modern Incubus

The Incubus (as he came to see himself) realised early on that he wasn’t like other people. Not most people, in any case. He never had the slightest trouble knowing what he wanted, and usually very little trouble seeing how to achieve it.

He also realised that he didn’t really care about other people— at least, not in the way the books he read suggested that most people did (he was a voracious reader, in his youth). Interestingly, it seemed that the way he cared about other people— which was mainly concerned with them feeling pleased to help him because he helped them feel good about themselves— was not considered truly ‘good’. That in fact his way was often associated with a whole range of negative attributions.

He didn’t care about this negativity— and had no trouble realising that this was exactly because he didn’t care about whether other people considered him to good or bad (or indeed anything else, really), but only about whether he felt good about himself. Which he did, when he made sure he got what he wanted. And as he grew through his childhood, and getting what he wanted depended more and more upon getting other people to do what he wanted, he realised that he should probably get good at the business of making them feel good when they helped him.

This simple clarity made things generally rather easy, and he sometimes wondered why so many people seemed so troubled, and to find life so difficult (this included all the members of his immediate family, from whom he soon came to the conclusion he was distinctly and radically different). Mostly, though, he thought about himself, and how he could achieve his larger goals— for as he grew, and found many things easy to get, his world widened and he saw more things— things outside his small town and the TV, things beyond even the books he read (why was the range of fiction so narrow? He found so little that was of use to him, and began to read more non-fiction; science, psychology, history, finance).

He discovered that people thought him incredibly intelligent. This was strange, since in fact he was frustrated by his inability to immediately comprehend various issues that interested him. Mathematics and physics, computing, philosophy, ethics— despite seeming to be able to excel in all the tests his high school threw at him in these areas, despite the great value attached by society to achievement in these areas, beyond a certain point he found them simply too much effort for the reward, and concluded that he must be nothing special in the brains department.

The finance system, on the other hand; people’s minds, sociology, politics, marketing, languages— all those things were both entertaining and easy to excel at— and these chimed nicely with his increasing ambitions.

He relinquished all interest in academic excellence or intellectual achievement for its own sake without regret or a second thought.

At fourteen, he sold his first business— a simple online shop which he had launched as an exercise in marketing and psychology— it sold nothing useful or valuable, but instead quirky trinkets, silly things, a little oddball. The aim was to get people to buy these despite their uselessness, their intrinsically low value, simply as a response to the marketing— and it worked. But actually delivering physical goods rapidly became extremely dull (even paying other people to do it was boring) and he sold it as soon as its upward curve was established. A year later it was shut down— the magic had been in him, not the site.

After some time to reflect, he decided that he should become a con artist. This seemed to him to be the line in which engagement with messy stuff like delivery was reduced to the absolute minimum— success meant that you did the money collecting side of the bargain, but sidestepped everything to do with doing anything at all for the ‘mark’. And so for the next few years he ran various online cons, being careful always to arrange for direct cash payments in one way or another to minimise traceability.

His ability to manoeuvre was limited by being both underage and stuck in a small town, which chafed him. At the same time, in his country, it became clear that doing too well at shady stuff would attract attention from serious criminals. He had already decided that it would be a good idea for his future ambitions not to stand out too much in any obvious way, not to have too unusual a history, and thus knuckled down to high school.

To make best use of this time he explored local and school politics for entirely selfish, self-educational ends, caring nothing about the issues, but fascinated by the way people made the decisions they made, how they operated in herds so differently from their behaviour as individuals, but observing clearly how it was that herd considerations could be brought into play in affecting individual choices on a statistical level, and vice versa.

His ability to concentrate had been aided by a fairly gruesome plague of teenage acne and a lack of attention paid to the reality that people cared about looks. Since he didn’t care about other people, this had not mattered to him much, until his sexuality awoke, and by then he was already labelled as a pizza-face, and way behind in the game. Girls clearly weren’t interested in exploring sex with him, and he simply gave up on the effort until he could see some new angle, and concentrated on developing his capacities.

He had made good progress by the time he really got into politics, paying more attention to clothes, hair, body language. He took a course of dance lessons, and discovered that he had a previously unrecognised but undeveloped capacity for physical co-ordination, and actually found himself trying hard at something that didn’t come easily for the first time (he’d never been interested in team sports). The heightened awareness of how he used his own body, the development of his proprioceptive awareness wrought a transformation— his walk changed, his posture changed, his whole presence became different, and now girls began to notice him, without him even trying, and despite the fact that his face, even with the acne receding, was still often described as ‘looking like a bag of spanners’.

And then the politics— even meaningless local fluff politics (as he saw it), gave him access to something that changed his plans, something that gave him full reign to use all his abilities, yet involved delivering nothing.

Even better, it was invisible— because it wasn’t the surface aspects of politics— the campaigning, and the debates and the policies; he discovered that none of that mattered, really (which was what he’d intuited from the start, but had to experience from the inside to really be certain about). What mattered was the deal making, the brokering of power and influence. He had found his metier.

Because although money could bring power, he had discovered since he had had plenty of money that it didn’t bring the sort of power he wanted— the power to get people to be happy to help him get what he wanted.

When people helped him only because he had money, they were to some extent or another always resentful, never as willing as he wanted them to be— and he understood why; he felt exactly the same himself— he had a life; it was his life; he would get no other. Every minute of that life he spent helping someone else was time wasted enjoying his own life; and money was simply too thin a compensation for that loss.

But real power— the power to offer people what they wanted— directly— that was different. For one thing, as with the con jobs, you could get money without delivering anything; but that was just the start of it. The deep realisation was that he could finally operate in exactly the way that came most naturally to him, that got him what he wanted in the easiest way possible— by getting other people to give it him, or work to get it for him— and to do this for him because it made them feel better— because through helping him they were getting (or felt like they were getting) what they wanted directly— rather than in the form of money (which so often failed to fulfil its promise of getting you what you wanted).

And what he wanted now— rather frustratingly, given that there seemed so many obstacles in his way, given that it was somehow the hardest puzzle he had come across— was sex.

Sex with beautiful, willing, uninhibited girls with good sized breasts who dressed to please, sex with girls who would smile and giggle and kiss him as if they meant it and look at him with dirty eyes to let him know that they wanted more sex with him. Sex with girls who would let him tell them what he wanted to do with them and think about exactly what that meant for them, before asking him did he want to do it now, and what position would he like them in. Girls who understood that sex was about intensity, not fluffiness— who knew that pleasure and pain, control and submission, aggression and softness were all counterpoints to play with in the service of achieving maximum intensity, and who were willing to play without reserve.

This was what he wanted. He had thought about it a great deal (it had surprised him how much energy he was prepared to put into such thinking, and went back to his psychology, biology and evolution studies with increased attention and curiosity)— and he was fairly certain that this type of sex, and this type of girl was what he wanted (he freely admitted to himself that since he had managed so little in the way of actual experience with girls as yet, that this might change— but anticipated that would be more in the detail, than the overall shape of things).

It took him some while to realise that he was not going to find such a girl in his own age group— not with the small sample size he could approach; that they were all too caught up in traversing the nuances of social nonsense around sexual conduct (to him ridiculous, although easily understandable as a historical cultural evolution) to have much chance of really engaging on the terms he had decided upon.

This was the source of some (much) frustration. He went through a period of considering whether the use of force was a viable method to achieve his desires. He had no moralistic concerns about this course of action (of course, he understood all the arguments against, and considered that some of them had actual merit, but in the end, those were just arguments, and for him, arguments always came second if they conflicted with a clear desire that needed satisfying)— but after some time he came to the conclusion that although many of the things he wanted to experience did indeed involve force, would likely involve inflicting some pain, suffering and humiliation, and would almost certainly be considered inherently degrading by many women, that it would not finally be satisfying to do these things with (to) a woman who was totally unwilling.

The breakthrough came at age 18, when he decided to try older women— older than him at least. It was a revelation. 22, 24 year olds, fresh from college, were easy, it turned out. All he had to do was do the political thing, dress a little older, and be clear about what he wanted. He began to have a lot more sex. And he began to get thrown out of women’s apartments at 2 in the morning, too, when he was clear about something he wanted that went down badly.

He didn’t care, took it all as learning. And it didn’t always go badly. It turned out that some of these women were also interested in intensity, and were less inhibited. It also turned out that some of them were inhibited, but quite liked him pushing their boundaries.

He got thrown out, too, for pushing boundaries too far. One threatened to call the police. He smiled at her and apologised, knelt on the floor, smiling at her, kissed her toes, making a joke out of it but radiating deep sincerity at the same time, and she let him back in, and, ten minutes later, asked him if he really wanted to do that to her. And so he had; afterwards she had cried, and rather annoyingly decided that she had fallen in love with him.

By the time he was in his second year in college, he’d become bored of college girls. And bored with small town politics too— and had given up ambitions for larger politics, to boot. Majoring in business, he’d begin to put his political skills to work in a different arena— deal making.

He’d been cultivating looking a few years older than his actual age for a while, and now he took some of the rather large fund he’d been managing (the proceeds from his earlier business ventures / criminal activities, all shelved / sold), and launched a business consultancy with a pretty and street-smart ex fuck-buddy, now a part-time escort girl, as his receptionist/assistant. There were no other staff— and no clients, either, to start with. He began calling all the business types he’d met at political fundraisers, and talking to them. He did this solidly for three weeks before he smelled his first deal.

Within two days, Anya, his receptionist, had come to dinner with himself and a local property developer; she’d gone to a hotel with the property developer (she complained bitterly the next day about how his fat dick had hurt her backside, but had taken a fat bonus with a sad, resigned smile), and he’d gone home with some very interesting nuggets of information. Within four months of that he’d netted a half-million finders fee in relation to some sites the city administration had been intending to sell on the open market, sold to his contact on a sweetheart deal, and he was in business.

He deferred his MBA place for the following year, sent Anya on a holiday to the Black Sea with the developer (they later married— it lasted three years), and turned over more than 2 million in the next financial.

He discovered, too, during that year, just how far the underworld intersected with his chosen sphere of operations; discovered the hard way. He had been abducted, mildly tortured, had his face nastily cut with a doubled-up utility blade, scarring him horribly. Only money and his inner coldness had made it possible to get out of that one alive, together with a promise to pay for ‘protection’.

He had accepted this, never cheated on it, until, two years later, after both pushing himself through an aggressive martial arts training and selecting and hiring some muscle of his own, he had killed the local gang boss (and done it in a way that got him protection, too, from a big city organisation).

Those had been hard lessons— he had actually been frightened, for weeks at a time in those years— another first. He had learned, though, and learned to put himself in harm’s way without caring. It was his body, he discovered, that was frightened— frightened of pain, yes— but that was just a matter of willpower; the real issue was the fear of dying. Once he realised that, it became easy— because he, Karsh, was not in the slightest afraid of dying. Without life, there was no Karsh. Without Karsh, there was nothing to live for— where was the problem? Karsh would fight to live. When he was no longer alive, there would be no Karsh to care.

Getting what he wanted without fighting, though application of strategy, tactics, force of personality— that was the first line of attack; his expertise. Then came fighting those who forced fights onto him, then winning those fights; everything was clear.

Once he had got through those difficult and dangerous years, he had his own small army, a reputation for cruelty and fearlessness, and everything began to roll faster (he never took his MBA). Scale came easily to him— he had been planning for enormous personal power since he had been a teenager. He could do most things he needed doing himself, if he had to, so he could choose people who could do these things well, reward them well— terrify them well, too, if he needed to.

Now, still only 27, his mind turned to new sexual horizons: he decided to move up the food chain with women, and after finding it almost too easy to pick up aspiring models and debutante types at fundraisers (his main business cruising ground)— but discovering them less adventurous than college girls (although far better arm-candy value, which was always useful), he decided to start fucking starlets.

Having schmoozed the film funding board for the city by raising them a generous grant from a grateful client, he set up a film development company and discovered that it was laughably easy to get all sorts of writer/director/designer/actor types to work for essentially nothing in the hope that their project might get funded, made and distributed. It was also quite profitable when a film did get made (since unless all three of these happened, none of them got paid a penny). Armed with these unassailable credentials, he went into the European movie production arena in a big way, and for the first time started picking up and fucking girls significantly younger than himself. And it was easy. It always surprised him when men his own age seemed awestruck by the women he turned up to events with, as if he’d done something incredible, or been exceptionally lucky. They were just women, and he knew what to do.

Starlets, it turned out, were a mixed bag, but some were very definitely the type he was after— and he went a bit wild with a few of them, because, it seemed, they would take it. Going to breakfast with a girl with a black eye and a big bite mark on her neck, who still smiles at you and flashes her tits when you ask her to was a first for him, and he decided he liked it.

In the years since then, he could honestly say that he’d been enjoying himself immensely. He now turned over hundreds of millions each year, operating across eight countries, appeared on various ‘rich lists’ as having net worth in the low billions. He’d made half-a-dozen films, too, one of which was even half good and had won some prizes.

He was bored of starlets now, and started in on young corporate lawyers. This was his best move yet, he discovered. Buttoned up as they were all week, the girls who responded to his approach were definitely up for intensity, and since they’d mostly been working like dogs for many years they were often not that experienced sexually. He was their teacher, and he taught them his way.

Girls were now easy to get, but he had little time for niceties, any more. He decided to tell all his current girlfriends that they could sign a year’s contract, to be his, controlled, or they could say goodbye. He didn’t bother to sell it to them nicely. Only two said yes— and one of these served him better as, effectively, a sex-slave, than she ever had as a girlfriend— and seemed happier, too.

This has been his pattern, now, for almost two decades. He picks up young women that he senses are the type, and plays hardball with them. Most can’t take the heat— but that can be fun, too— and helps him sharpen his intuition. Nowadays he spends less and less time on getting to know them, instead refining his skills at the art of what he calls ‘rapid subordination’.

As always it is his own needs that matter. But as he gets older, he has discovered in himself a curious and increasing tenderness for the women he chooses. And this has changed the game he likes to play. Increasingly, the challenge he sets himself is to get a girl to submit to him— submit herself fully, in full knowledge of just what he is— what a savage he is, what a monster— without either trickery or coercion; seducing them into extreme sexual subjugation with nothing more than words and his personality (the money helps, but is not allowed to be more than a help)— these days, he half falls in love with the girls as he does this to them.

It seems to help with the subjugation, interestingly, but it surprises him, too, because these new feelings (new to him— he has not experienced anything like this in regard to sex before) do not soften him, do not at all incline him to mercy, to gentleness— but instead add a strong savour to the harshness with which he treats the girls he falls for the most.

One of these girls— one or another— called him an ‘incubus’. He understood the word, of course, but had never thought of it in relation to himself (religion was just another manipulation tool as far as he could see). But the idea tickled him, and he got hold of some books, interviewed some nutty priests, and decided he liked the concept, even shorn of the bullshit demon stuff. He has begun to call himself an Incubus, sometimes; think of himself that way— just for the way it makes him smile.

This, then, is Karsh — the man who has introduced himself into Claire’s life, and violently disturbed her equilibrium, with nothing more than mildly voiced words, in less than an hour.