Paul Theroux - Blinding Light

There was a catch in her throat as she bent over, and then came the faintest burr of silk on her leg as she drew up one stocking and then the other. She showed him, holding his hands, how to fasten the stockings to the clips. He loved fumbling at her thighs and failing, his knuckles against the textures and temperatures, as though creating a lover out of skin, elastic, and silk.

“Tighter,” she said. “Yes, that’s nice.”

Still his face was against her, still he knelt, half naked himself in her panties, in a posture of adoration. He was excited that she was so much taller than he was, and that even when he stood, as he did when he finished clipping her stockings, his face was level with her breasts.

“What shall we wear?”

She led him to the other side of the room and opened a closet door. He groped a little until she took his hand and let his fingers roam through the dresses.

“Chiffon,” she said. “And that’s watered silk. Taffeta. Feel them — aren’t they delicious? You choose better if you’re blindfolded.”

His inquiring fingers moved through the closet. He hesitated and began stroking slowly one hanging garment.

“This one,” he said.

“That’s a pleated skirt,” she said, sounding doubtful. “But okay, if you like it I’ll wear it for you.”

Rattling the hanger off the rod, she shook the skirt as she removed it and then spun the hanger out of its waistband. She lifted the skirt over her head, tangling herself in it, then worked it down and shimmied into it.

“Now zip me.”

He used two hands to squeeze the zipper seam together, to lift the slider and inch it upward, sensing the skirt fitting closely, letting his fingers glide through the deep pleats.

“That’s nice. You did that so well you can help me pick out a blouse.”

Already he was touching the clothes, tugging at sleeves, guessing which ones were blouses. A fold of sliding cloth fell across his hands, so cool and smooth it felt like liquid in his fingers. He raised it to his face and inhaled, saying, “This.”

“I love this blouse,” she said, and lifted it. From the way she spoke, straining a little, he could tell she was slipping the blouse on. “But it has very small buttons.”

He touched them. They were small and fixed tightly to the blouse. They were cool, too.

“Seed pearls.” She turned away and knelt down now and let him lean over her. “Button me up.”

His blindfold was no hindrance; it made the game luxurious. He aligned the edge of the open blouse against the groove of her spine and worked from her neck down, fitting button to buttonhole. The seed pearls were tiny but his fingers were deft — more than deft, they were knowing, taking their time with each patient insertion. This sensual challenge enthralled him, all of it, for he had loved cupping her breasts in his much smaller hands, and he had adored the suffocation of his face against her panties. But buttoning the silk blouse, tugging each pearl and fixing it into a hole, this was the most pleasurable duty of all, for the tumbling of her hair over his fingers, the fragrance of her nape, the warmth of her shoulders at his palms, the way the buttons matched the pretty bones that ran down her back.

“You’re a doll,” she said. “You know that?”

He was smiling. And after that he chose her shoes, picking them for their slender heels, and when she stepped into them she was even taller, a warm giantess, her voice altered by her height. Still he stood close to her pleats and silks.

“Want to take your blindfold off?”

He shook his head. He could not say why he wanted it on — perhaps to prolong the intensity of her odors, to feel the fabrics more keenly, or to be blameless, for he felt no shame in the delirious in-between dream state where darkness was so revealing.

“Isn’t this fun?”

Fun was not his word; for him it was unimaginable rapture. Having all this time to touch her, to attend to her, serving her. Yet he couldn’t describe it, and he could only thank her by being ever more willing. He wanted to tell her through his obedience: I will do anything you ask.

“Have a seat, honey,” she said gently, and helped him in the right direction.

But it was not a chair. It was much softer than a seat cushion, and springier. It was the edge of the bed, he guessed, but before he could be sure, her arms were around him, the soft white giantess enclosing him, her body against him. He was wooden, blind, inert, yet joyous from the crush of her clothes, the blouse he had chosen, the pleated skirt, the straps and softness of her lingerie, and her skin so damp where his fingers clung.

“Baby,” she was saying, “baby.”

He allowed himself to be stifled in all the textures of her embrace.

“Hold me, baby.”

He did so, limply at first, testing her, then fiercely.

Her hungry mouth and soft lips were on his face. He had never imagined being been kissed like this — urgently licked, her flower-scented saliva on his lips and tongue, the heat from her nostrils on his cheek as she breathed and kissed him again. Her loose blouse slipped against her curves. He could feel her flesh beneath the cloth, her tight bra and the stiff cups of her enclosed breasts. He knew every stitch of her now, the skirt, the stockings, the panties, the garter clips he had fastened, the fringe of lace he had explored with his fingers.

She took his hand and eased it between her thighs, guiding it to the heat beneath all those tangled pleats, the pleasing roughness of lace, the straps and clasps. Everything he touched counted as her body, all the clothes, the silky hair, and, at its deepest, delighting him even as his wrist ached from the angle of his reaching under her, he knew he had found her secret self. This part of her body was not dark at all but highly colored, blood red and gleaming, a squashy pocket of lace and flesh, with something warm and damp alive inside it, like the secret of life.

She began to cry, at least it seemed as though she were sobbing, as she pressed her body against his face, rumpling his blindfold, so that he felt the silk and stitching against his lips. He remembered — not in words but as a yearning — how he had wanted to chew on her beautiful clothes, almost frightening himself with his memory of how he had wanted to eat her.

“Let me, let me,” she said.

He did not know what she meant until he sensed the panties go loose on him, and she worked them free of his legs with her long arms.

Then he was naked, blindfolded, climbing on her as she toppled backward onto the bed. She pulled him nearer, balancing him and finally opening her legs for him, and as she snatched at her tumbling clothes to receive him, he marveled at how they fitted, his body on hers.

He was not raw anymore. Her cool fingers had enclosed him, and there was the cooler sensation of her silks as she stroked him and used him to push more deeply inside, to the hottest part of her body. She tightened on him until he could not stand it and could only whimper, as if among all the lips, silks, and flesh he were penetrating a flower, scattering rose petals. And after it ceased, the last petal falling, and he shivered and gasped and went cold, she was howling into his mouth for more.

He slept a little and woke drooling on her breast. His blindfold was off but the room was in darkness. He couldn’t see, he had no idea where he was, he didn’t know his own name. The woman’s body was an island where he had washed ashore, cast up and saved by a furious wave.

He remained perfectly still, trying to remember, afraid to speak.

She said, “Playing isn’t wrong.”

The kindness in her voice gladdened him.

She said, “We can do this every day.”

He wanted to say yes, but did not dare to say anything, fearful of how his voice would sound, for she had turned him inside out, and now he was at his nakedest.