Smart, Mean Girls Part 1

There are many reasons why it is better to be feared than loved, but my favourite is that the other person can’t control when the fear stops.

The world runs on it. On a Monday morning it’s the barista’s trembling hand as I hand back the travel mug and suggest we check her work. Later she brings me a cappuccino so perfect it looks poured from a stock photo. My boss, you’d think it was love that made his voice go syrupy when he called me his ace, but the way his pupils shrank, I recognized the old panic that I set in those eyes. My mum, fluent in every variety of blackmail, spent my entire teenage-hood teaching me what she had learned.

We would sit around the kitchen bench discussing strategies together. How to get men to talk about their secrets, how to have them do things and think it was their idea. Mum gave me some great examples: “First, you need to get him bragging,” she said, tapping the stem of her wineglass. “Every man is a child inside, desperate to tell his mother that he built a sandcastle all by himself. The trick is to be the mother and the sandcastle both.” I was eleven, but I understood.

“Second: There’s nothing men like more than thinking they’re saving you. If you give them a puzzle or a problem, make sure it’s one they think they can fix with money.”

“Third: Always have an exit. Not just literally, though I once shimmied down a fire escape in stripper heels, but also in the heart, financially, your reputation, and in every other way.”

On top of these strategies I added a healthy layer of slut. See Mum might have flirted and smiled to get what she wanted, but I was happy to go so, so, so much further.

Actually the nastier it got, the more thrilling.

Like tonight, I’m wearing a dress that could be mistaken for cling film if you squinted, six inch daggers on my feet, no underwear. Every guy coming up the stairs behind me gets a free show. But I am here for one in particular.

I glide through the bar and every man clocks the see-through fabric, the shape of my breasts, toned legs, tanned skin, briefly convinced, against all his prior experience, that a girl like me just might be his tonight.

Tyler is waiting at the back booth, large, muscles swollen and taut in his expensive shirt. He’s been sending me texts sprinkled with deftly deployed poetry; that’s how I know how badly he wants to fuck me. And I need access to his sexy bank accounts and stock portfolios. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

I sit down and he slides a hand over mine. A corner of his mouth tugs up. He’s got those piercing blue eyes that make me feel nice. I let my leg drift against his. He’s had a few drinks already, beneath the cologne, the smell radiates off him, a little wild and juvenile, like a rugby locker room after an ugly win. I let him talk about his new job, the bitch ex, something about a boat. I keep my eyes up, wide and bright, laser-targeted for maximum flattery uptake.

When he leans in, his voice low and serious, I know the moment is coming— the little trembling confessional. “You ever feel kind of… stuck?” he asks. I run my thumb over his pulse point, tilt my head, become instantly more interested than air. He tells me about his shadowy, mysterious investment firm with all its cutthroat politics and untraceable profit pools, the sabotage and the secret group texts where everyone is plotting ways to take the alpha dog down a peg.

“Oh my god,” I say, palm to chest. “You are that guy from Succession but hotter!”

He laughs, flattered, and I see him growing a little in the booth, his self-image inflating, like I’m blowing him up with a bicycle pump. I sip my vodka lime, dragging the straw across my lips in a way that will make him think of he penis meeting these lips. I pretend to listen, but I’m counting out the stages in my head.

With men like this if you keep it intellectual, he’s at risk of losing interest; if you go slut too quickly, he will take it, but maybe not come back again. It’s a balancing act.

“So what do you do. I mean, really?” he asks

I smile slow, just the edge of my teeth. “I’m in compliance,” I say. “It’s deadly boring unless you enjoy watching grown men cry when I tell them their bonuses are delayed.”

He does a fake wince. “So basically, you could ruin my life?”

“Ruin, maybe not,” I purr, “but I can definitely complicate it.”

He laughs, a little too loud, and refills my glass without asking. “Complication is nice.”

He puts his hand firmly on my leg and then move up to the thigh.

Looks like slut time starts now.

It’s only a second before Tyler’s hand migrates from thigh to hemline. I don’t feign resistance, just glance down to acknowledge his boldness, then raise my glass and knock back the new pour. His thumb strokes against my labia, a slow drag, as if the venue, the crowd, the possibility of the waiter approaching, mean nothing. A man so sure he can bulldoze through protocol that he doesn’t have to check if I’m on board. His gaze drags over my face, searching for a flicker of surprise or protest. I give him none, only the glassy-eyed pleasure of a whore on the clock.

“You busy after this?” he asks, like a joke; his hand is up the dress already, fingers sliding along the silk seam and then between my legs. I let my hips open a little, let him feel warmth and wetness, and keep my face marble-still, mouth slightly open, as if nothing about this is unusual.

Somehow we finish the drinks, and he doesn’t even try to say goodbye to the bartender. The night air is cold and wet, the clouds sickly green from the city’s backwash, but Tyler’s hand is clamp-warm on my wrist as he drags me towards the curb. There’s a car service, because of course there is, and the back seat is upholstered in something that costs more per centimetre than my rent.

He immediately starts finger fucking me as soon as we are in the car. The driver doesn’t even flinch. He must see this every night: the city’s infinite loop of greed and rut. Tyler’s other hand fists in my hair, gently, but with the confidence of a man who assumes he could get away with far worse, and his breath saws at my neck as he rubs my clit until I begin to moan against his palm, soft and gasping, a good girl performance for an audience of one. One-hundred-odd city blocks blur past and I don't remember turning or stopping, only Tyler’s hands pressing and plundering, like my body is a present he’s decided to unwrap before even getting it home.

In his building, the elevator jerks and groans under the weight of our anticipation. He’s got his hand wedged in my hair again, his other thumbing my nipple over the plastic wrap of the dress. I let him run the show, because I know where this is going, and anyway, who cares if security is watching.

He yanks me down his hallway with a victorious grin. His apartment is all expensive emptiness: glass, cold steel, surfaces so clean they could reflect your failings back at you. I decide to hate it.

By the time we reach his bedroom I’m in high heels, goosebumps, and nothing else.

He keeps one big hand locked around both my wrists as he unbuckles his belt. The pants drop, and his cock is everything I’d previewed in my mental slideshow. Long and thick, hard and angry.

He shoves me face first onto the bed and immediately I feel that severe, angry penis ramming my soft, trembling folds apart like a truck through saloon doors. He pounds me, no warm-up now, just the mean, greedy hard piston of flesh, like he wants to split me into two parts. I rock back onto his cock eagerly, play the part of wanton slut, because I am. My hair is wound taut in his fist, a leash for him to pull, my head back, his whole body arched over me.

I moan for him, low, guttural, exactly how they want, animalistic. I feel his hand trace my ribs, up to my throat, where he squeezes.

Wet slapping sounds fill the room. He is massive and God, he’s rough; he’s relentless, like a drill sergeant or a dog off leash and amped on the smell of red meat, but I play into it, bucking back, meeting every thrust with a tight, panting gasp. I let him choke me, squeeze just the right amount, so that fireworks ricochet in my skull and my hearing collapses into a cartoon tunnel. There’s a lot to be said for being wanted, even by a man who only wants his own need reflected back at him.

I let him, because there’s no thrill like giving someone your body and seeing what they do with it. His sweat drips onto my back; his cock is a white-hot rod, splitting me with every thrust. My face is mashed into the pillow, but I manage to turn and catch our reflections in the smoked mirror above the bed. I see my ass jacked up, his hands gripping deep red prints into my hips, his teeth bared in a grimace of pleasure. There’s a sick satisfaction in how I look: completely slutty, dominated, owned and loving it, exactly the kind of girl men are warned about.

I take him all, every inch, over and over, until my eyes sting with the pain and my brain is numb. I cum, loud and hard, because I can, because in this world, the way for the smart, mean girls to win is getting to the climax before the other person even notices they are close. He comes seconds later, bellowing, whooping, fucking deeper as if intent on making some permanent impression of himself inside me. Afterwards, he collapses on top, pinning me like a trophy kill, his breath stuttering against my shoulder.

It takes him longer to recover than me. When he finally rolls over, he’s red and panting, his cock already softening against his thigh. “Damn,” he says, reverent. “That was even better than I thought it would be.” He grins, puts his arm behind his head, and regards me like I’m a stuffed toy he won at the fair.

TBC