The Room
ONE
The first time it happened it came so close to disaster that it still scares the pants off me. And it made me think.
My cousin Ken grew up all the way across the country from me, but being of similar age and spending the summer months at our Grandparents farm, we became fast life-long friends, though in Ken’s case that was tragically short. He was the smartest person I have ever met, and I did well enough in an accelerated program through school, so it was painfully shocking to learn of Ken’s car accident and though he held on long enough that my family had thought a full recovery possible, infection set in and “there he was, gone”. Both only children, we were fast pen pals, later graduating to email and video calls from the time we first could hold crayons.
I was finishing my masters in the psychology of music when I first heard about the crash, he was passing a double long trailer in his newly restored 1967 MGB, the wind caught and the trailer swatted him off the road like a fly. The truck driver didn’t even notice, but the next person along saw it all and called for help. My attitude in deciding what rules to live by when the normal moral guides are rewritten on tissue are, in part, a tribute to the people who stopped to help Ken, not expecting a reward, but because it was the right thing to do. I love them for it—when I feel bad after watching the news or angry at my fellow humans, I think of them and it eases the pain, somewhat.
Not that I don’t have a temper and sense of outrage—I had come to the graduate degree late, with Ken’s encouragement, I had been touring playing keyboards in a couple of bands, one that almost broke big, but after a particularly slimy manager, who I won’t name, but his initials are JOHN JEFFERSON WATKINS and his equally slimy assistant/girlfriend SHEERI GOOTCHER (honest) signed our mildly talented but very hot lead singer to an exclusive contract and fired the rest of us on the eve of recording our first major label Cd, which became a solo album for the singer, Ken was bedrock as I poured my disappointment and anger out - it didn’t help that the singer was my girlfriend at the time, and I had walked in on J,S and her all naked and high and giggling at me, then the firing the next day, not just me but the drummer—the best in town IMHO—and guitar player as well. Not that I’m adverse to naked women, but may I just add for the record that SHEERI is a lot better looking with clothes on than off. Just want to make that clear in case any of you run into her and are tempted. Not that I am bitter. Oh, and the CD stunk and sunk too.
To be fair, there was enough of a golden parachute to buy out our contracts for me to return to school, at least for a year.
Ken wasn’t musical at all, but he could draw like a fiend. He tore though design school, and ended up working for a company that built government institutions, where his genius started to really shine though. He never talked to me about his work that much except in a general way, though he was very interested in how spaces have psychological effects. I think he had a mentor who pushed him into specializing in things like waiting rooms, interview rooms, courtrooms, anywhere an effect on someone inside is desired. The way Ken explained it, Churches and Temples were the original psyche spaces, they were/are designed to inspire and intimidate, in psychiatric hospitals there are methods using wall color and room shape to calm down the disturbed—not blue as you may think, but a particular shade of pink, though the lighting must also be correct, Court Rooms are designed to keep respect and order to the bench, and so forth. And if local police budgets were ever raised, interview rooms could be built where the cops could get confessions twice as fast, though there is a danger with suggestibility... and with this thought like a door slamming shut Ken changed the subject on our sole conversation on this topic.
But he had a plan that we could work together to improve the effects of the rooms and spaces he was designing through sound sculpting, subsonic and supersonic tones, and perhaps launch a consulting company together. But he felt that he had neither the time nor ear to explore that direction, and would a return to school to research and train psychology and sound be of more interest than starting another band? To sweeten the pot, he offered to help fund my masters for any years after the first, to be paid back out of my salary once we were partners. I have to say the offer snapped my funk, I’m not sure where he had found the cash, but I knew he was much in demand, flying hither and yon and had started to build a new house as a retreat on one corner of our grandparents farmland, now poised to be swallowed up by the city, but still perhaps five to ten years away. My parents and his now jointly owned this land and leased it to other local farmers, save the area for the lot that Ken purchased near our grandparents old house, which had been turned into cold storage as outdated for habituation and not worth fixing on their death, as many in the area were. I was planning to buy a second lot there when the money started rolling in, which Ken assured me would happen more quickly than I could ever dream of. And after a few years of seedy green rooms and fast food eaten in the back of tour buses, the dream of money was pretty strong.
When Ken’s will was read, I was still heavily in mourning, my whole body ached as if I was in the crash with him. I wasn’t particularly surprised to have been left his just-completed house, but the amount of money that went with it was far more than expected, he referred to it as his “first year business loss” fund in the will, but it was a lot more than I had made total in five years playing gigs.
I had split amicably from my latest girlfriend, a fellow student who ultimately was more focused on her degree and career than us, so on graduation I packed up and headed for Ken’s house—it is forever Ken’s house to me, not mine.
TWO
On first inspection Ken’s place was a pretty normal large modern suburban home, the fact that we were still “country” meant a larger yard, some additional security—no I’m not going to detail that here, but trust me it’s not a good idea to break in anywhere—with a fairly dirty above ground pool out back—no pool service, Ken’d skimmed his own leaves and dosed his own chlorine, and it hadn’t been done in the two months since Ken’s accident.
The only odd part of the property was right off the lobby by the main door, a separate parlor, or waiting room, big enough to be comfortable, but no windows despite one wall being exterior, and the shape of the room and the lighting arrangement being unusual, with a desk and a couch, both fastened in place and not moveable. In a bowl on a shelf casually tossed in were a pair of top-of-the-line Nautica sunglasses. I popped them in my pocket and headed back out to start to clean the pool. It had a partial cover, so the leaves weren’t that bad, but between removing them and evaporation I needed to add a fair amount of water before I could turn on the surface level filter and chlorinate. The sun was just poking over the trees, but even if it wasn’t up to temperature, I thought a fast swim would be a nice way to work off the tension from travel and with luck the hot water tank I had fired up in the house would have had enough time to warm up for a shower.
Being too far from the city to not be on public water utility, the house tapped into the farms old well to store in an above ground tank, sufficient for daily use and then some, but not an unlimited supply, and every few days the pump would need to be run to refill off the aquifer, though Ken had ingeniously added a rain collection option to the mix. But water was not in unlimited supply, so as I put a hose in the pool I set the timer on my watch for an hour to remind me to check the level—should be about full but not over the top by then.
I was making a sandwich in the kitchen from the cooler full of supplies I had brought with me—hadn’t explored the ‘fridge yet and wasn’t looking forward to it, when the doorbell rang.
SEX!
It screamed from me as I opened the door. Now I’d been a road musician and seen worked up to a fever-pitch of horny-glory many beautiful women, eager to party all night, but in front of me was the living projection of sex, hot and cool ad all temperatures in-between. Venus in the flesh in a business suit. A perfect but not innocent smile. The gray skirt and jacket cut to perfection, legs fleshy and shapely but not thick. Enough creamy breast showing up top to entice a peek, but not enough to be an invitation, or rather an invitation to embarrassment for being caught peeking.
How did I take all this in at the doorway on first glance. I didn’t. But the force of her unexpected presence was like being blown over in a hurricane of French perfume and crushed Viagra tablets. The details came to mind later.
“Hello,” I said as I attempted to pick my jaw off the ground and try not to look like the biggest jerk in the world, as someone who had thought a lot about how to create emotion though non-verbal cues, it later came to me that this was a master at work here before me. Hair not quite blonde, not quite brunette, perfect skin, big brown eyes that pierced me to the core. “Can I help you?”
Her age? At first glance I’d have pegged a sophisticated 25 or so, but when she spoke, like melted butter over honey, I revised that five to ten years upwards. “Hello, are you Bill N___? I’m Susanna Forks and I’d like to talk to you about this property.”
The opportunity to invite this goddess inside seemed too good to resist—but other than the kitchen and the front parlor I hadn’t yet had a chance to explore in any depth, and didn’t want to unexpectedly come across a pile of dirty underwear or porn collection or any of those things a bachelor like Ken may have left lying around—I certainly wasn’t going to invite his parents over until I had a chance to clean up—they don’t need to think anything unpleasant about Ken - and I had some suspicions that there may also be confidential business documents on his computer and file cabinets—I’d just been burnt by a major babe—did I mention that rumor has it that after her singing career flopped she’s been seen working car shows as eye candy for Volvo—thought you might want to know, and something about the timing and overwhelming presence of Susanna set off bells that wouldn’t have rung even a year before.
I offered her a beverage and escorted her into the front parlor. She declined the drink and we sat on the sofa—it seemed too formal for me to sit behind the desk—count that as mistake number one—two if you count inviting her in at all.
We started with a few minutes of small talk, I told her I had just graduated, talking about my music experience and not the psychology masters—in my experience the music talk was much more interesting to the women I meet than the psychology, which is somewhat geeky, though I’ve heard from classmates who continue studies in that field that their expectations of female interest would change once they added Dr. to their names.
I told her that I had only just arrived, she mentioned being recently transferred to the nearest city from the east coast. Susanna complemented me on the place, but commented on how far from the city it was, and that waiting on the property, and the rest of the land would be a major tie up of capital that I could have now. “Real Estate Sales” was my first thought, but she offered her card from her breast pocket, flashing not quite accidentally a bit more skin in the process—a tease, and not a particularly subtle one at that—her first false move, enjoyable as it was. On reflection, perhaps not false, but a hint of greater intimacy taken too far, a stroke of unbelievable luck, but to me it felt like one of those emails about a dictator who needs a bank account to move a zillion dollars into—too much, too soon, too “yow gazongas!”
But though my mind was screaming this, I sat there and took her card, it smelled subtly of lavender. It read, “Susanna Forks, Augustine County Developers, Acquisitions Manager” in gold on white with a vaguely blue swirl pattern in the background which I couldn’t quite focus on. I held it and looked for a good couple of minutes, unable to look away until I blinked and then looked up at her. She hadn’t spoken as I took the card in despite how long it had been, weird.
She had moved closer along the couch so our knees were touching, and she was saying how much she would like it, how “pleased” she would be if I sold the property as is today. And that I should please her. She had the papers in one hand and was reaching out to me with them, pen in the other hand offered forward as well. " You will find that this offer is very reasonable, then we can have some fun,” she purred—yet no price was mentioned. No matter how I tried, the thought of pleasing her seemed like the best idea in the world, second only to having some fun with her, and then I was saved by the bell.
Or rather the buzzer that I had set on my watch to remind me to check the water in the pool—I leaped up like my pants were on fire, “Don’t move, I’ll be right back!” Well there was no disguising how aroused I had become, I made a quick excuse about needing to deal with running water and told Susanna I’d be right back after I’d shut it off.
My where whirling a million times a minute—I had to please Suzanne, there was no way I could not do so. But I recognized that she was scamming me somehow. So there I was confused and angry—all the last few months of the band replayed in my mind, the cheating bitch - did I mention her problem of staying on pitch through a whole song unless there was an auto tune in the PA chain—and now I’m for it again and I can’t seem to stop myself.
The sun was over the trees and bright across the water on the pool, I looked in and pulled the sunglasses from my pocket and took a deep breath. Well, I hadn’t signed anything yet. And did she know that I only had the house, the majority of the land was still in the hands of my and Ken’s folks, why hadn’t she gone after them? Dad wouldn’t have fallen for it, probably, but Uncle Frank certainly would have sold this world and the next for the titty flash I’d already been treated to.
I slipped the glasses over my eyes and the fog wrapping my mind cleared—I still lusted after Suzanne, no big surprise, and I really wanted to please here because she told me that is what I wanted, but I didn’t feel as driven and other options began to present themselves to me as I shut off the water and stopped in the kitchen to pour a couple of glasses of beer from the supplies I brought earlier—she declined a drink earlier, but I needed to do a test or two, and I’m sure she would prefer wine, but using beer instead was to the good as well.
I opened the parlor door, glanced in and said, “Drinks!,” closed the door again, grinning and thinking “Ken you bastard.” For Suzanne was posed contract and pen in hand on the couch exactly where I had left her with the words, “Don’t move, I’ll be right back!” And she hadn’t moved an inch, arms outstretched and grin frozen on her face.
I needed to think quickly.
THREE
I’m not a total dope—I’d had some idea that the odd front room was a Ken experiment, and I also was pretty sure that Suzanne wasn’t who she claimed to be—she didn’t necessarily know about the room or could count on being led there for it to work it’s magic on me, that came from the card she handed me somehow, that and her own magnificent presence—how I wanted to please her. I ached to please her. But I knew if I wasn’t careful I’d fall into her web.
The smile on my face when it occurred to me the best way to get free of whatever she had done to my head was to literally follow her instructions and please the hell out of her, in the hopes that this would fulfill the command was one of the grin wonders of the modern age, you could have taken my picture for “Dentist Today” magazine for the toothy mug.
“But don’t get cocky and do this right,” this thought sobered me up until I realized the “cocky” pun, and the impossibly wide grin widened as I entered the room with the beer in glasses on a tray. I had kept the sunglasses on. Suzanne was still frozen as a statue. I wrapped her hand around the cold glass and said “Bottoms Up”.
She unfroze and looked somewhat confused, “I’m not really thirsty.”
“It’s imported—it’s really good. No wine, sorry. But don’t mention selling the place again, I’m not interested. Drink it all up.”
She gulped down the beer in one pretty swallow, her head back and throat stretched. Test one—pass.
She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. She started to talk about how hard it was to live out here where the shops are far and the non-farming jobs are few and far between, and each time as she approached the subject of selling the place, instant laryngitis.
“Don’t lie to me, ever,” I said. “I don’t like it and I’m smelling a very attractive rat here. Tell me honestly, are you trying to cheat me on the property?”
“No, my company will pay a fair price for the land.”
“Well, blow me, I thought that was it.”
And with that she got down on her hands and knees, unzipped my pants and gave me the best blow job of my life. She started slow and put her tongue everywhere a little at a time, soft kisses and hard sucks, until she took me in her mouth and slowly took me deeper and deeper with each dive to my crotch—until I exploded as much as I ever have. She rocked back off her heels cross-legged, breathing hard, she wasn’t getting anywhere near enough oxygen there near the end! I had the presence of mind to say “Thank you, that was wonderful, don’t say a word and let me look at you.”
FOUR
Something was going on. “Blow me” wasn’t a slip of the tongue on my part, it was test two disguised as an interjection. From what I could tell phrasing was important, I didn’t sell the house to her when she pushed me because she hadn’t made it a direct command, the command was to please her, which I still hadn’t done. But I really wanted to, it took all my control not to grab the deed and sign the house over to her right there, I knew that would itch the increasingly insistent scratch. I needed to please her and in a hurry.
No rest for the wicked.
“Stand up and undress, slowly, I want to drink you all in”
She started to try to say something as she stood, but I reminded her of the last instruction I gave her, “Hush, speak no words. Relax and enjoy this, feel the animal pleasure, until you release you are in heat, I can tell from how you’ve been acting.” Actually I’m not sure of the last, in fact I think she was playing the sexiness up, but at some level she must have enjoyed it.
She was gorgeous all the way through. Hot dressed, hot half naked, spectacular nude. Even the singer who’s name I refuse to use improved onstage in full makeup and strategically ripped clothing—yes, we were that kind of band. But Suzanne just kept getting better. The need to please her remained strong, but my lust, which was all me and no mind games, was in overdrive.
I lifted her onto the desk, spread apart her legs and pushed my tongue the length of her slit. She tensed briefly, but then went limp - I guess that was her interpretation of “relax”. I kept at it sucking one and then two of my fingers slick and rubbing inside her as I licked. She started to moan, I had said no words, not no sounds, and the “heat” and “enjoy” parts of the instruction must have kicked in as she tensed again and started pushing back against my fingers in time to my snappy wrist movements—“keyboard players do it with their fingers!”—I need to get some bumper stickers made up, OK so I had a hot writhing woman bucking against my face, and I’m making lame jokes. “That’s good,” I thought, “I’m pleasing her”. And with that thought it was if a weight was lifted from my being, I felt satisfied to have completed the task—I no longer had any desire to sign her papers to make her happy, though half a beat and a semi-painful collision with the edge of the desk reminded me of my members full and pressing revival.
I grabbed her hips and brought here to the edge of the desk and plunged into the wet cavern. In retrospect even though I was no longer being led by the command to please her, I was still being led by good John Thomas—she was respectable looking enough that I was pretty sure that she was clean and as SEX ON WHEELS she’s pretty sure to be on some kind of birth control, but at the time neither consideration was made, just the long strokes into her moaning depths. As I quickened I whispered in her ear, “Come, then come again” and she stiffened as I shot my load, and writhed for a second time as I withdrew.
FIVE
After a long drive, some yard work and some of the most enthusiastic and energetic fucking I’d ever had, I smelt more of myself than anything else, and there was a sheen of sweat and fluids leaking out of Suzanne that needed taking care of. I guess you can say I’m a bit fastidious—or perhaps a little more so than some bachelors, and a shower seemed like a good idea—the problem was I didn’t want to let Suzanne out of the room until I had sussed out all the angles of what was going on.
“Wait here,” I said as I ducked into the hall and took a rubber boot mat with raised edges from the front door and brought it back into the parlor.
“Stand on this with your legs apart about one foot and your hands clasped behind your back. No talking”. I’ll tell you that disheveled as she now was, she was still a site to see, and that posture thrust her chest out wonderfully. Still, I was coming back into myself, I no longer felt that I had to do any one thing or another.
“Plop,” something wet and sticky fell from her onto the mat. I guess I had been staring, this prompted me to action, “Wait here like this, I’ll be back soon.”
I entered the master bedroom and got in the shower in the attached bath. The water still wasn’t heated all the way to comfortable, but that was OK as controlling the raging hard-on wasn’t the worst thing when thinking has to be done.
I wasn’t in the shower very long, but I had come to some conclusions while away from Suzanne, firstly that she had tried to manipulate me into signing, but not just as a real estate rip off. Exactly how and what she was really after I’d need to know. Secondly that the parlor was perhaps Ken’s masterpiece, not just an experiment—nothing I’d seen before was as strongly effective—my studies with sound made me think in the terms of hours for any kind of minor effect, we were in there for less than twenty minutes before I ran out to get the water stopped for the pool and both Suzanne and I were completely under. Sure my music days taught me how to get people up to boogie, how to sink back into a calm relaxation, how to set nerves on end, but this was to a different degree. Thirdly, it was no coincidence that the sun glasses were stored by the parlor door, they seem to neutralize the effects of the room. Fourth, that Suzanne didn’t really know what she was doing, had her phrasing been more of a command and more focused on me signing the deed rather than pleasing her, it’d have been all over and done before I had a chance to think - actually let me rethink number four, perhaps what she was doing was the correct path for what she was using, the combination of sexual allure and whatever was on that card and any other as-yet unknown tricks may have not been strong enough for a direct approach—that the room overwhelmed her method and skewed the results enough to work against whatever system she had developed. Fifth, that I needed to know more.
My suitcase was still sitting packed in the hall. I opened it and found a bathrobe, and in a hall closet found a stack of washcloths. In the kitchen I filled a bowl with mildly warm soapy water and one with cold clear water, put them on a tray and carried them to the parlor along with the suitcase.
Suzanne’s eyes followed me but she didn’t move as I put the tray on the desk—after giving it a good wipe with the first of the clothes. I gathered up all her clothes, her briefcase and put them in the hall.
“Remove all your jewelry and hand it to me.” I said. “You can have it back later.”
She relaxed her stance, and opened her mouth but no sound came out. “Silence command still working,” I was pleased to observe. She removed earrings and bracelets, and then reluctantly two rings and handed them to me.
“Good. You feel good about that,” I wanted to reinforce my commands to her whenever possible with positive feelings. “Now stand as you were.”
I took the jewelry to the kitchen and put them in a closed jar on the shelf—I didn’t know if any of the items were part of her tool kit, but I didn’t want them within easy reach if she had the chance, or that easy to find if it came to it. I was very careful not to look too closely at any of it—and remembering the card, I moved her briefcase to an upstairs closet.
Still in position when I returned, I dipped a cloth in the soapy bowl and started to stroke Suzanne with it, starting with her sex, then discarding it on the tray, another cloth for her face, “This will probably muss your make-up, but that can’t be helped.” I wanted to get rid of any scents or hidden patterns or whatever that may have been part of her technique, and short of tattoos or internally released pheromones or such this was the best I could do now. I think at least I could say that I was no longer being manipulated, but I was feeling righteously paranoid.
Besides, this was fun, I soaped her high, I soaped her low. I had her lift her arms above her head as I washed her under arms and paid special attention to her breasts. The cold water raised some delightful goosebumps and made her nipples stand out invitingly—I had to tweak and twirl them and give them a flick of my tongue, not through external compulsion, but internal desire.
And then we repeated the process with clothes dipped in the clean water to remove the soap.
OK, perhaps I’ve more than simply fastidiousness, my cleanliness habits borders on a fetish, but you have to have seen some of the places the band played to appreciate my love of squeaky clean, and by the time the last cloth was used, Suzanne squeaked like a just rinsed plate under a critical thumb.
SIX
The temptation was to play with her some more, perhaps a lot more, but that started to seem cruel—after all she had deliberately caused the intense desire in me in the first place, so the sucking and fucking so far was fair enough, but I knew from my recent experience that there is a certain degree of terror in the loss of control—and I wasn’t sure that she deserved it, yet. I needed answers more than another orgasm.
I opened my suitcase—actually a large duffel with a hard bottom and wheels, “We are going to play a game.”
“I am going to ask you some questions and you are going to answer them. You are not going to tell me what to do, to tell me to take any action implied or explicit including interjections that can be taken as such, like “Fuck Off”, and not raise your voice, cry, scream or talk off the topic of the question asked. If you understand, nod.” She nodded.
“You are going to tell the truth. If you don’t know, you can say that, but if you don’t know, but on thinking about any answer, if you have a good guess or two, you should say “I suspect” and tell your suspicions. If you understand, nod.” She nodded.
“When you have completed your answer, say “Done”. Then think about what you said. Grade yourself as far as completeness and lack of deception. If you feel in your heart you have given a full and truthful answer, you may take one item of clothing out of the suitcase and put it on. This will give you pleasure, like eating an expensive chocolate. If on grading you remember something more that can be added you can then add it with no penalty, then say “Done” again and regrade yourself. If you realize that you have been deceitful in any way, explicitly or by omission, or deliberately shading to lead to wrong conclusions, then you must say “Sorry” and take off all clothing and we will start again. If you reach this conclusion and are naked, then there will be other penalties. If you understand, nod.” She nodded.
“I’m not going to hurt you, and I’m not going to do anything more to you than you would have done to me, but I don’t know what that is yet,” I said. If your purpose is relatively benign to my person—and I’ll include theft in that category for now—you should be able to leave and sleep in your own bed tonight. I promise”. I could see that this relaxed her shoulders, I hadn’t noticed how tense they had become - so I concluded that she wasn’t here to kill me, or make me kill myself, or even cage me and put me in a sideshow as a Geek or a Wild Man of Bonaventure or anything too life changing.
I thought of one more item that would be useful, and dug my digital recorder out of the suitcase’s side pocket, setting it recording on the desk.