CHAPTER TEN
(Charlotte)
One of my favorite things about California was how on the ground it was. Sure, there were skyscrapers in L.A., but I never had to deal with those buildings. They were fine. I was fine with them.
New York was an entirely different story.
I was not fine with the buildings, specifically because I had to deal with them.
I woke up in the air, briefly touched down for our commute, then it was right back up for the workday.
My therapist wasn’t even on the ground floor, though she was, thankfully, in a much shorter building. I didn’t even have to take an elevator.
“I spend most of my life in the sky, now,” I’d mentioned at the appointment I’d left, and she’d advised me not to minimize that change. Our bodies noticed things like suddenly living a thousand feet above the ground, and that could cause emotional stress we didn’t expect.
Maybe, I’d run back to California not out of a fear of commitment, but a deep, primal terror at being yanked off the ground. My brain probably thought I’d been swooped up by a prehistoric condor. That’s not exactly what she’d said, but I vibed with it.
I couldn’t wait to tell Matt this momentous breakthrough that I would use to ignore my actual issues, but when I got off the elevator into the apartment, I skidded to a stop.
“Uh...” I walked slowly through an entryway crammed with big pink and purple and blue balloons. Had I gotten off on the wrong floor? That shouldn’t have been possible, with the security code, but clearly, I’d intruded on someone’s gender reveal party. “Hello? I think I got off on the wrong floor.”
“You didn’t,” Matt called back as I carefully made my way under a balloon arch, along a path outlined with winding pink tulle and scattered wrapped taffy pieces.
And glitter. So much glitter.
“Are you having a birthday party for a unicorn?” I asked, looking around for him.
“It’s for you.” He stood on the huge, curving, suspended nightmare staircase a floor above me. The magical candy and balloon trail led to the foot of the stairs, but he instructed, “Come up in the elevator.”
Usually, a big, showy surprise from Matt would have filled me with giddy anticipation. This one seemed to involve the stairs, though, so I chose suspicion, all the way.
The elevator opened, revealing that the cotton candy fantasy decor didn’t end at the bottom of the stairs. It stretched all the way to our bedroom door. Puffy, pastel clouds seeded with twinkling lights hung high above. “Matt... this must have taken all day.”
“Maybe? I didn’t do it.” He came to my side and pulled me in for a quick kiss. “They came in and set most of it up while we were at the office. I added the final touches.”
I followed the direction of his gaze to the staircase. The thing was an evil, serpentine creation of shallow steps and long bridges, like some diabolical 3D gameboard.
I’d mentioned as much to Matt before, which was probably where he’d gotten the inspiration for what the thing looked like, now.
Each step that I could see had been covered in single color blocks. The tops of the glass railings had been made up to look like hot pink candy canes. And on each space...
“What are those?” I asked, pointing.
Matt grinned. “Part of the game. I got them custom from a company that does fantasy creature dildos.”
Every one of the life-sized game spaces sported a different toy. From where I stood, I spotted a long, suction-cup textured tentacle, something with a massive, flared head, and one that appeared to have scales.
“Is that one—”
“A dragon?” he finished for me with a smug grin. “Yes. Yes, it is. Although not the dragon. He’ll be waiting for you at the end. Come on. Let’s get you ready and I can explain the rules.”
“Get me...” I decided not to question him further and settled for letting everything be revealed to me at this madman’s leisure.
He led me into my dressing room and ordered, “strip.”
I began taking my clothes off without hesitation, letting myself sink into the comforting mental space of not having to know anything or decide anything. He wanted me to take off my clothes, I would take them off.
He approached me with an obnoxiously pink, way too-small crop-top t-shirt that didn’t entirely cover me when I put it on; the bottom curves of my tits showed beneath it, and I knew this wasn’t something I’d purchased for myself.
It said “princess” in paler pink rhinestones across the chest.
“Here.” He handed me a ponytail holder with a huge plastic candy piece on it, and I pulled my hair up and secured it while he took me in. “Perfect.”
“Perfect?” I gestured to my missing pants.
He snapped his fingers. “Right!”
I didn’t get pants, but I did get a pair of super-tall, hot pink, patent-leather stiletto pumps.
“Now, it’s perfect.” He gestured for me to follow him.
There was a small, decorative bench between the elevator and the stairs, and Matt sat on it, motioning for me to stand in front of him.
It put him basically at eye level with my pussy.
On the bench was the wand vibrator and a bottle of lube.
He picked up the lube and poured some onto his fingertips as he spoke.
“The rules are basic. You already know how to play the game. Pick a card. There’ll be a color on it.
You advance to the next space of that color. ”
“Simple enough,” I said, gasping as the cold substance touched my labia. He didn’t bother to tease or arouse me. He applied the lube with a few brisk, matter-of-fact pumps of his fingers inside of me before taking more from the bottle.
“You’ve already noticed that the squares have little friends waiting for you,” he went on. “When you reach your square, you’ll follow the instructions left for you.”
“This is great and all but...” I waved at the staircase. “I’m terrified of heights, remember?”
“That’s the point. You’re going to have to be a very brave princess to make this journey.” He fixed me with a stern expression. “Unless my princess doesn’t want to please her dragon?”
I began to protest, then stopped myself. I did want to please him, and I had been clear that I wanted to submit to him all the time. Here, he was presenting me with a sexy game that he’d gone to a lot of trouble to plan, and it was clearly intended as some kind of unlicensed exposure therapy.
He slid his fingers into me again, coating me inside with more lube. Judging from the shape and size of the toys waiting for me, I would need it, especially since everything in me was drying up from terror.
“You’re a brave princess.” He brushed his thumb over my clit, back and forth, and pumped his fingers. “And an adventurous one. Surely, you can travel this enchanted path to get to your dragon.”
“My dragon isn’t going to come with me?” I asked, biting my lower lip.
“Your dragon plans to watch—and listen—from afar. I have every faith in my princess’s ability to complete this challenge.” He held up the wand vibrator. “It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’m pretty sure that’s a nerdy reference.”
“You are pretty correct. And just plain pretty.” He pulled his hand away from me and said, “the game starts now. Don’t forget your cards.”
He handed me a small deck of cards, then stood and physically moved my fear-frozen body toward the entrance to the staircase, helpfully marked out with a big “START” arrow on the floor.
I put one foot experimentally on the first step.
The staircase was wide enough that at least three people could stand across side-by-side, but it felt too narrow and precarious up close.
On either side of me, the glass rails revealed the long, long drop to the bottom, while the apartment’s huge windows loomed on two sides.
I might as well have been on the wing of a plane.
Matt helped me out by taking the cards from my trembling hands and turning the first one over. “Ah. Blue. Right out there.”
I swallowed. The blue space was the third one out.
I put my hand on the railing and slid it as far forward as I could before stepping down from the start space.
Pink. The bottoms of my feet tingled. I reached out again, never taking my hand from the railing, and forced my shaking knees to cooperate.
I moved across the wide square and down to purple.
When I looked over my shoulder and saw the amount of space I’d already crossed, I almost rushed back. But Matt was waiting there, totally pleased with my progress. He gave me an encouraging, “Good job, princess,” and it was all I needed to move on to the blue space.
Once I got there, though, my confidence faltered, because I had to lean down to pick up the instructions.
“‘You meet a centaur in the Gum Drop Woods. He demands a sacrifice of your tight little cunt. Do your best to satisfy him, and don’t move on until you’ve orgasmed. PS. The centaur loves it when his maidens are loud’,” I read, and rolled my eyes in fond amusement. My dragon was such a nerd.
“What’s a centaur doing in the gum drop forest?” I called back.
“Don’t question the DM,” he responded.
I eyed the “centaur” waiting for me. The dildo was suction cupped to the floor, which meant I would have to get on my knees and ride it; it appeared most of the challenges were set up that way.
All well and good but getting on my knees meant getting lower to the floor, and somehow, that felt like being closer to the edge. Closer to falling.
On top of that, the toy was ridiculously huge, at least two feet long, and the flared head was as big as my two fists clasped together.
There was another bottle of lube beside it. I briefly considered how unsafe the floor would be smeared with it, but that wasn’t my problem, so long as I didn’t step in it. We would have to leave word with whoever cleaned it up and—
Well, I hoped that person wouldn’t be Matt. I would feel wretched if he got hurt picking up all these toys himself.