The Hash
Part 4: #One #DesertIsland #Triggers #Humiliation #Markers
“I think it might be better to wait until you get home for some things,” Eric said with a smirk,but didn’t look away as Jen finally managed to unbutton her shirt enough to get it off over her head. She couldn’t believe she was doing this, but she wanted it so much that stopping was unthinkable. Then she looked back towards the bag, and realised she was just as helpless when it came to her words; she was still saying whatever was on her mind without any kind of filter. “Is it any kind of embarrassment that does this to you? Were you getting turned on when we first met, and you wanted to hide what was in your shopping?”
He held out a box from the top of the shopping bag, and Jen snatched at it. Marker pens, with big chunky barrels. Something a little kid could grab, ergonomic shapes or whatever they called them. They were just pens, she knew, but maybe they were thick enough to function as something else.
“I thought you’d think I had little kids,” she mumbled, finding it hard to get her thoughts straight. “I don’t know why that’s embarrassing, maybe because I feel like I’m not old enough to have kids. But even that, once I start blushing, it’s way too easy to get all flushed, turned on by nothing.”
As she opened the pack of pens, Jen’s attention was drawn to a brightly-coloured splash on the front. A part of the logo had been designed to look like someone spilled slime on the cover, pronouncing the different coloured markers to smell like different colours. She hadn’t seen pens that did that before, so she pulled the cap off the one in her hand and sniffed at the tip. There was a scent of deep woodland; dirt and leaf mold, freshly mown grass and a few floral hints. Of course it was a green pen, and she had to agree that if green had a smell, this would be it.
She drew a tiny spot, and then sniffed that. The perfume was much stronger now. The ink came out like a thick gel, and dried in a second so it was completely opaque. It was like drawing with liquid rubber, and the scent of the ink only really stood out once it was exposed to the air. She took out the other pens then, overcome by curiosity, and made little doodles to sniff. The red smelled of ash and spice, the kind of breeze you could imagine passing through some exotic spice market to add fragrance to the desert. Blue somehow gave an impression of clear skies and ocean spray, though she couldn’t have identified any specific ingredient. Purple was lavender and heather, a rich mix of the scents of purple flowers. She drew a little flower with that one, and then tried to remember the shapes of any of the blossoms that it actually smelled of. It irked her just a little that the flower on her shoulder probably didn’t look right for the perfume.
She sniffed, and then held her breath for just a moment. She hadn’t even thought about it, had just started doodling without thinking. Long lines and curves of colour, drawn on her skin and across her bra. The gel ink had stayed better than she expected, and showed no sign of smudging. It smelled so good, but she was sure that wasn’t what she’d been intending to do. She looked down at the lines, and realised that she couldn’t make out all the little figures she’d drawn. There were tessellating patterns, flowers, geometric shapes, spirals, long lines, and she was sure she’d written words as well, but she couldn’t see what they said. She could try to guess, compare the words in her mind to the lines on her body, but every guess just aroused her more and more, thinking what people would think if they saw.
“What have I…” she started. “I can’t… Can you take a photo, so I can see it all?” She offered her phone to Eric, and he nodded graciously. Took a few steps back, and snapped a single image. He passed the phone back to Jen with the picture still on the screen, and she gasped in surprise. In among the flowers and simple shapes, she’d drawn the crudest images she could imagine. A cartoon cock between her breasts, and sketches of the things she was dreaming he might do to her. The words between them were no less explicit. The red message across her abdomen said simply ‘SLUT’. Elsewhere on her body were messages as ambiguous as ‘desperate’, ‘must obey’, ‘horny toy’, and ‘fuck me now’.
She looked down again. The same lines were there on her body, the same words. But she couldn’t read the words, and she couldn’t see the obscene nature of the graffiti she’d drawn over herself. It seemed perfectly innocent, even now she knew what she’d done. She was helpless, and anybody could see that. Anyone looking at her now would see the scale of her depravity, and there was nothing she could do about that. She knew she should try to wash the ink away, there was water all around, but she couldn’t even try without bringing herself into sight of all the innocent boaters.
She picked up one of the pens again, a weird knobbly shape that was designed to be easy for a kid to grasp. This time she wouldn’t need to take the cap off; all she needed was the perfect uneven shape,and maybe the added girth of all the ergonomic bulges. She lifted her skirt without hesitation, and…
And felt Eric’s hand on her shoulder.
“We need to be going,” he said. “Plus, there are some things you shouldn’t show someone you just met,”
“You don’t want to…”
“Oh, believe me, I’d love to play the voyeur for your antics today. And I’m sure you’d love it too, but I don’t want to take advantage of your enthusiasm. You’re not quite in control of your own actions, you might have noticed. And there are some lines I wouldn’t push you past until you’ve had time to think about it, to think _clearly_ and decide what you really want. So if that’s where you want to go, and you’re still certain when you’re thinking more clearly, then you can let me know next time.”
Jen nodded. She knew he was right, but she was dripping now, she needed to get off as soon as possible. It took all her willpower not to jump him right there, but somehow she managed to get dressed again, the writing on her body barely visible as coloured smudges under the thin fabric. Eric was already moving, picking up some of her bags and gesturing for her to check for anything she might have left around the bench.
Jen clambered into the boat and then realised that she had no idea how she was supposed to get it moving again. But Eric played the rugged outdoorsman, bracing his shoulder against the plastic body of the thing and driving it sideways against the sand until it started to drift backwards. Jen couldn’t catch her breath, she just kept staring, not knowing what was going to happen next. First it was moving sideways, and twisting, and then somehow moving forwards over the sand. And then Eric was leaping aboard, his feet sailing over shallow water, and his face appeared just an inch from Jen’s as he landed with a thud.
The whole boat tilted, and that was when Jen realised that they were in the water again. She dragged her eyes away from Eric’s shoulders long enough to realise that he was waiting for her to act. She pushed her feet back into the pedals, and started to push. It was easier to move than she thought they had been before, but that only lasted for one revolution, and then the pedals jolted to a halt. The boat was still partly resting on the sand, and the paddles weren’t in the water. But Jen couldn’t see anything else to do, so she pushed harder and felt the obstruction give way. The paddles spun freely for a second, and then splashed, and then they were properly in the water, turning slowly back towards the shore.
Eric picked up his pace once they were facing the right direction, and the tiny vessel moved back towards the little jetty, and the boat shop. Returning the boat, and whatever paperwork was required there, felt so pedestrian that Jen couldn’t keep focus. Her mind kept drifting back to the letters and symbols on her body, wondering if passers by might be able to make out the shapes through her clothing.
As much as she loved the feelings of shame, and embarrassment that she knew should be something to avoid, Jen still wasn’t an exhibitionist. She had to find a private space, so she could stop dreaming about all those people seeing her and actually do something about it. That was the only thing on her mind now, how to get home as quickly as possible. Or would Eric invite her to come back with him? It might be closer than her own return journey, and she wouldn’t mind anything he wanted to do. Her mind was already filled with the possibilities, knowing she’d be completely helpless. Who knew what kind of depraved things this stranger might be into, once they were behind closed doors…
“Should we…” she stammered as they approached her car. And then she looked over her shoulder and saw that Eric was no longer there.
“I had a great time!” he called, waving enthusiastically. “Already looking forward to next time. Right?”
“Yeah,” Jen answered, her brain not quite managing to get a message to her lips in time. And then Eric was striding briskly away, whistling, and she was standing alone with a couple of shopping bags, next to her car.
_Next time._
It felt like a rejection, like he didn’t want to touch her, but she already knew the reason for that. And those two words could be construed as a promise, teasing her with what he might do when they met again. He could call her any time, to do whatever he wanted, and Jen knew she wouldn’t be able to resist even if she…
She paused, rolled the train of thought back a moment. He could call her; but she didn’t remember giving him her number. She hadn’t even thought about it in all the excitement. So the next time she was trapped following this mysterious stranger’s commands would be the next time they managed to reach a hash point on the same day.
She thought about it again and again on the road home. Tried to tell herself that she’d given him her number and then forgotten about it, and he was going to call her without warning to drag her off on some erotic adventure. But as thrilling as that thought was, she knew it was too much like a fairy tale. The real world wasn’t known for letting a young woman be swept off her feet by a dashing stranger, live out all her fantasies, without having to put any effort in. And she was sure that wasn’t something that would appeal to Eric.
No, he was the type who liked a balance. Today had been a lot of fun, but a part of that was the pride in finally reaching the hash. The things they’d done there were maybe some kind of reward; and it would be easy to believe that Eric would refuse her any satisfaction until she was willing to put in the effort again.
“Got everything?” Simon asked with a smirk. Of course, he was sitting in the kitchen as Jen opened the door. She would have run straight up to her room for some much-needed privacy, but he was there to intercept her at the first hurdle.
“See for yourself,” she riposted, and tipped the shopping bags out on the table. As well as the markers, there were packets of food, tins, a huge bag of pasta, and something called polenta. Jen didn’t have a clue what that was supposed to be, but she was sure that if it was edible, Simon would have a recipe to use it.
That was one of the benefits she’d found in living with Simon. He always told her how strange it was to come home with a bag of shopping when she didn’t even know what half the items were supposed to be, but he always knew what to do with them. He was a natural.
“Wow, I didn’t even know they sold this stuff outside Italy,” he muttered, “You really have a taste for the strange, you know. What are you going to pick up next, a…”
What came next was bound to be a killer burn, it always was. His wits were as sharp as his cooking skills at times, and she knew that whatever he said would have her blushing in a completely different way than she already was.
“Something wrong?” she gasped, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Had he seen the writing through her shirt? Did the obscenities extend farther up her neck than she’d realised? Or was the nature of the marks on her body obvious from her posture somehow? Was it so obvious that she was trying to hide them?