There are details that make it not exactly the fantasy I expected. He isn't blond-haired; on the other hand, his calfskin boots do indeed go up above his knees, as they should. He has a dagger, and, yes, its jeweled hilt is buckled to a thick leather belt at his waist. Though it cinches the deep green jerkin properly, that belt accentuates a chest broader than prescribed. The broadsword is also there, as is the long leather paddle.

The sight of the paddle gives me pause. I'd forgotten that detail until I saw it. My eyes dart up to his; I stare open-mouthed at him from where I kneel as it really hits me. It should be brilliant blue eyes looking back at me with amusement but the ones that stare into mine are more of a stormy teal green and are much too knowing.

No man has ever come into the book with me before and not been transformed wholly into the male character. Only this man seems to have defied the book's ability to envelop me and a man into its story.

As he raises his leather glove-clad hands to his hips, I wonder at his refusal to obey the book. Even when the inn's mistress hisses at me to drop my eyes to the ancient wooden floor beneath my knees, I disobey. He smiles at me, slowly; transforming his look to one of understanding.

The inn's mistress says she had thought he might enjoy my "succulence" that evening. He tells her he doesn't want to wait that long; to have me scrubbed and brought up to his room. At least he's following this part of the book's narrative, but still my mind is already racing with concern.

As the mistress forces me to my feet and out the door, I am now wondering if he is going to defy the book's definition of the character he's been transported into, then what might he defy of this story? I have no guarantees; I did tell him his own fantasies were more than allowed, they were needed for it to be a full experience for us both.

What was I thinking, inviting him into the book with me? I should call it off! But ... no. With the way my heart races, how could I turn back now? I have to see this through. After all, we agreed: one night, one trip into the book, no strings, no repeat, the one and last time we'll have sex.

And what happens here will stay here, in the book. Never to be spoken of or acknowledged in the real world.

Jesus.

What am I doing trusting Ben Wade with my soul? Ah, but the truth is this: I knew what I was doing. No matter the cost, this will be the greatest adventure of my life in the book.

The lounge was carpeted. The music that thrummed as I entered was jazz, a recording. The bartender moved in time to the beat, as if its rhythm had mesmerized him as the evening had worn on into night owl late.

Looking neither left nor right, I walked slowly toward the bar. The cocktail waitress was off duty, as I knew she'd be. If the bartender remembered me as I ordered a glass of Chateauneuf du Pape, he did a good job pretending. As he poured, I pulled cash from my wallet and gazed openly at the men gathered at the bar.

There were four of them. One was with a woman so he was off the board. The others were too old and looked too far gone into their cups. Missed the boat, fellas.

Even if I'd also picked the wrong place to hunt, there was one more bar I could visit that night before resigning myself to another solo trip into the book. That would be a pity; I had come to enjoy participating in the story. But I could only participate if I brought a man with me. If I went alone, I just watched. Only a step or two above reading, in this case. Still left me searching for relief when I'd come back, hoping the batteries were still fresh enough.

I took a sip from the balloon glass as I waited for my change. Now I was able to check out a few of the tables and the booths to my right. I didn't mind them seeing me looking. How else would the bold ones know I would not want a lot of bullshit come on lines if they approached me?

There was one who caught my eyes. I liked the way he held my gaze for only a flicker before he checked out my legs and breasts. He was handsome, younger than me, thin, dressed in a suit. His tie was mustard yellow with a swirled design in pale olive. I smiled at it. It was the kind of insouciant touch that I looked for in these encounters.

I left the bartender an excessive tip. If anything odd happened with any of the men in here, it was good to have a bartender watching out for you. Not that I expected trouble in such an upscale place.

It didn't take too long after I'd settled in at a booth before the first man approached me. It was one of the guys from the bar. I pulled the book out of my bag and pretended to read before he reached me. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him stop, scratch his head, then turn on his heel and climb back on his stool. I looked over my shoulder at yellow tie guy. Gave him a smile. A minute later, he slid in across the booth from me.

His name was Peter. He was in San Francisco for the Giants game, an advance producer for the network carrying the broadcast in two days. The rest of the crew came in tomorrow so he was just grabbing a quick drink before he had to get down to the heavy work to come.

So far, it seemed, so good.

We talked about his life, traveling around so much, every city seemed the same. At some point, he grew bored with the recitation of little facts about his job. Other men like to brag; he seemed about to leave now that he'd just got me interested in what he did for a living.

"Have I done something wrong?" My voice was even but I tried to sound concerned for his feelings. I guess maybe I was, if I have to admit that I'm not really heartless.

"Things become more jaded, the more you travel for work." He looked me right in the eyes. "If you're not going to reciprocate, tell me something about you... well, I guess I've had enough conversing with myself after all this time. I was looking for something a whole lot less tame than a passive night listening to the sound of my own voice."

Was that a challenge? Was this him getting ready to excuse himself? Had I lost my touch? No way. Not when I considered the way his eyes snapped to the rise of my breasts the moment I shifted and began playing with my top, riffling it out away from my skin as if trying to get a cool breeze further down the cleavage that was already generously exposed.  I waited until he'd had a good look, until his eyes finally drifted back to mine. "Sometimes the best thing for boredom is for a novel experience to present itself with no warning. Something that you'll always wonder if it was real or just a fantasy."

"You have to wonder if there's anything new that's not inherently dangerous nowadays." He leaned in over the table. His hand touched mine but it avoided the book. "Seems like we have to be so careful. Especially when we're away from home.'

"What if I told you I could give you one night that transports you out of this world? Do you have a fantasy?" I let that linger between us as we looked at each other for what must have seemed to him to be forever. "I'm not teasing."

"No, I didn't think you were."

"Would you like to dance while you think of your next question to me?"

"Dance? Now?"

"It gives you the chance to check if I've got a weapon on me. In case you're thinking I'm taking you out of here to hurt you. Or a badge, in case you're thinking I'm setting you up for a bust." I laughed when I said it. I bet my eyes even twinkled. After all, I'd heard about every question a man's going to ask when you offer him something he knows is about sex but isn't the ordinary pick up situation. "Besides, I really like to see how a man dances with me. Tells me about the kind of lover he'll be."

We danced mostly in silence. He was pretty good if just a little self-conscious. Another drink or two, he'd be much looser and easier to talk into going with me into the book. That's all I wanted. It was only the third time I'd done it this way, picking up a man as opposed to a college boy out for any kick he could get. Men had been on my mind so much more lately.

Back at the table, he regarded me over the new drink he'd got at the bar on the way back from the dance floor. Putting it down, he looked as if he'd made up his mind. He leaned across the table, this time taking my hand in his to examine my palm with the forefinger of his other hand. I felt a light shiver in reaction to the way his finger skimmed over my skin. He smiled in response. He was about to say, 'yes.' I know he was. The word was formed on his lips; reflected in his eyes.

But instead, he touched the book, hesitated just as he was about to say 'yes.' He glanced away from me then excused himself to go to the bathroom.

I'd seen fine, misty beads of sweat above his lips when he'd leaned in close on his way out of the booth. I watched him walk away with mixed emotions. I didn't want him to think this through - I wanted him to be loose enough to get into the erotic adventure that would require a leap of faith. I didn't want him to sober up too much - I also wanted it to be his choice. So if he was having second thoughts after only a light brush with the book, then this wasn't promising.

When I turned back to my table, I noticed a man was approaching. He was dressed in neat black slacks, a black blazer that moved with him in a way only the most expensive ones do. His shirt was mottled grey, tiny checks. He wasn't wearing a tie. His hair was neat, chestnut brown, longish but styled just so fine if a bit on the old-fashioned rakish side.

"Don't tell me you followed me." This was my greeting to him as he slid in across from me in the booth. "And don't get comfortable. My companion will be back any minute."

"Is this the big secret?"

"What big secret?"

"The big thing you keep from Ralph," Ben Wade said. He studied me slowly. "The thing that worries him when you take off overnight."

"Did you follow me here?"

His eyebrows arched; I pursed my lips, unconvinced. "I'm here on business. Nothing to do with you, Ann. Just in the right place at the right time. In time to watch you pick up tonight's candy man?"

"You should leave, Ben."

"I should stay."

"What? No. Go away."

"I'll stay. No way I'm letting you go home with him. He looks a bit off."

"It's none of your business."

"Maximus drilled into me that we promise to watch out for each other. Especially the women."

"He did not! And if he did, this isn't what he meant."

"You surely aren't suggesting I simply leave when you're about to disappear with a stranger who could be a brazen criminal - someone who may do you harm once he has you alone? Imagine how disappointed Max would be in me? No, I simply must insist on watching over you tonight."

Of course, he hadn't budged when Mr. Yellow Tie returned. They eyed each other up. Yellow Tie looked at me, then back at Ben. I opened my mouth to tell Yellow Tie I'd be leaving with him but Ben put his hand on my wrist, pinned it to the table and proceeded to tell Yellow Tie to get away from his woman.

Ben watched me as I watched Yellow Tie leave. When I looked back, he had the coldest expression. "You come here to pick up men? All the way to San Francisco just to pick up a man for the night?"

I felt my skin flush. "This is none of your business."

"If you were looking for a man to fill your bed, all you had to do was ask me." The way he said that, a soft purring growl, was intoxicatingly latent with a combination of fury and curiosity.

It was the sexiest thing anyone'd said to me in a long time. Maybe forever. 

"I come here to stay anonymous. I keep my private life very private." The words were out of my mouth before I censored them. Too frank. Would he guess? "Don't tell Ralph, okay?"

His hand on my wrist moved up to my elbow. His thumb stroked inside the crook there. I imagined him feeling my pulse beating in the big veins there, the ones nurses use to take blood for tests that say if I'm healthy or not. His eyes grew serious as we studied each other in silence that stretched long enough for us to each look over every inch of the other's body visible above the table.

"I won't say a word to your little brother."

"Thank you." He licked his lips; something in the way he did it made me lick mine. "And I wasn't looking for just any man to fill my bed tonight."

"That an invitation? Or maybe you think I'll apply for the role?"

"Never. You know I'm not interested in you."

"That why you watch me when I'm in your shop?"

"You're a criminal. I watch to be sure you don't shoplift."

He chuckled. His eyes left me and drifted over the top of the table until they landed on the book. Before he could touch it, I grabbed it, pulling it away. But Ben is lightening fast; he makes up his mind on his actions in the instant they come into his mind and he knows instinctively they are the right moves to make. And that is why he was able to reach all the way across the table before I could tuck the book in my bag.

When his hand seized the book, a spark zapped into my own hand holding it; I let go instantly, stunned. That had never happened before. Never. By the time I looked at his face, his eyes were hidden, looking down at the book, eyelashes swept down so low they touched the soft skin under his eyes.

My own instant reaction was to observe him as he leafed through the book. To examine for any hint that his fingers tingled or his palms itched. Anything. 

I had often studied him when he was in my shop; he was right about that. He has an unmistakable charisma. There always felt to be a connection between us that I put down solely to the way we'd come into each other's lives. He acted as if there was unfinished business between us, all these weeks. It was never anything major, just a certain quality of familiarity he presumed but that wasn't really there.

Every woman I saw him with felt the pull he exerted without obvious effort but with knowledge of its power he never tried to hide. I'd see them together, at the restaurant being wined and dined. Or at my book store, brought in for the evening's reading or brought in to wander with him through the erotica section. He did it to test them, tease them, prepare them for going home with him. They were all of a type, really. In a league he must have found easy pickings for a man of his intelligence and obvious charms. They came and they went; disposable and uncomplicated.

The only one I saw him linger with over coffee was the girl Franki. She was also the only one he seemed to hang on to for any length of time. I presumed they were an item, which made Ralph and me very cautious around her.

She sometimes would watch me watching him. Her eyes sullen, smart; aware I was assessing what I could not begin to understand. Truth be told, they fit each other - both comfortable with a criminal life, a certain aura of distrust of those of us living a seemingly more conventional role in society.

In my heart of hearts, I admit, I always had wondered why Ben Wade wasn't going after a woman who'd be a real challenge to him, someone in a different league. Someone more cultured to fit in with the way he dressed with such fine attention to fashion, style and expensive taste. Like he was dressed this night, sitting across from me in the booth.

Scanning through the book, he made it easy for me to look at him much more closely and more at my prurient leisure than I had ever had the chance to do since we'd first met.

"You like to dance close with a man." His rich voice broke into the silence between us. "Pity you didn't have a better partner tonight."

"He was all right. Least he didn't step on my toes."

"Would you care to dance with me - see how it feels in my arms?"

He was still examining the book. I let time march on, refusing to answer until he glanced up at me. He closed the book, rested it against his chest, as if claiming it from me.

"Do you want to ask me about the book?"

"In time. Right now, I want you to dance with me."

"In your arms." 

When I said it, he nodded once. His eyes held mine; his lips formed a smile that felt at once charmingly inviting and sexually latent. Did he mean for me to imagine more than just dancing in his arms? Did he mean for me to get that instant mental picture of his arms around my naked body, leading me in a tango between the sheets?

"Let's just see how good you are, Ben."

"And then we'll talk about the book."

"You may regret that discussion."

"You won't regret the dance, Ann."

A moment after we stepped into the rhythm of the slow jazz number smoking its meandering way through the bar, I knew he was right: I would never regret the dance with him.

Uma once described this kind of slow dance as vertical virtual fucking. The memory of her words made me blush when his arm around my lower back brought me in close enough to concentrate on how aligned our sex organs were at that moment. That thought had never really entered my brain before. Not this solidly.

He was a confident, giving dancer. Leading me every step but relishing any independent flare of my response to his moves. He created intimacy. His breath on my ear, neck. His lips glancing over my temple. His hand inching down my spine, stopping at the slope of my buttocks. Would he continue down? No. He would never be so vulgar with me in public, I knew instantly.

My fingers played with the hair at his nape. It was soft, thick. It invited touching, stroking. His breathing seemed to deepen when I rested my nose against his neck to relish the aftershave he wore. It was musky, dense, lush, expensive; and worn understated so you'd be drawn in this close if you wanted to really experience it.

He mimicked my exploration, his nose wedging first into my hair. He whispered to me, an approval of the clean, clear scent of my shampoo. Before I could reply, he bent over me slightly so he could slowly run the edge of his nostrils up the side of my neck. The erotic feel of his lips glancing along in the wake of his nose made me rise on my toes and pull myself further into the planes of his body.

"Very nice." His mouth lingered at my ear. His hand holding mine twitched. "I love a woman who knows how to wear her scent. Alluring but never overpowering her own natural perfume."

"I was just going to say - I love men who wear cologne. This kind of cologne, I mean."

"If I'd known that, I'd never have kept my distance."

"Have you? Been keeping your distance from me?"

"You have made it patently obvious you wish nothing to do with me."

"True. But not in a mean sort of way."

"Is that how you view it?"

"You're just a man. I told you before, I don't need one in my life."

"I only once asked you out on a date, Ann. Why'd you think I was interested in romancing you? In being in your life?"

"Then why would it matter that I don't want anything to do with you?"

"Yet, we find ourselves enjoying this dance. Perhaps there's hope after all."

"It's just a dance."

"Then, there's the book. Of course."

"It's just a book of erotica, Wade."

"Is it, Ann? I find that hard to believe. In fact, I'd say you're lying to me. Why would you do that? What secret are you really hiding about that book?"

"It is just a book of ..."

"No. It's not, Ann. I know just what it is. Remember? I'm part of the group. So I know all about your other books. I can tell - this one is like the travel books."

I would have stopped dancing with him at that moment; I did try to pull away. But he held me pressed inside his arms, against his chest and groin. There was no escaping this confrontation.

"Don't be silly, Wade. It's only the travel books that allow you to enter them."

"Except for this one. This is the exception."

The song ended. I waited on him to release me. But he held on until the next song came smoothly along. He simply moved us into the rhythms of that one. I said nothing for so long. Not until his tongue licked lightly over the lobe of my ear, encircling it, playing with it; his teeth tugged it gently into the press of his lips.

"You can't come with me." My voice had been meant to be hard, biting. But it came out shaky, feathery. 

"Why not? Any man should do, right? That's why you come here. Pick up anyone who's not one of our group - but wouldn't you be safer with someone in the group? Something about the book embarrasses you." He moved us in a lazy circle, dipping me when the music swelled. Our eyes met. The corner of his mouth lifted in a sly grin. "No, that's not it. The book embarrasses you for how much you want to go inside it, keep the experience for yourself."

I closed my eyes as he swept me back up into the dance. I put my forehead against his shoulder. His jacket was made of rich, soft, finely woven wool. It felt both rough and fine against my skin.

Cort's continual warnings about Ben came back to me. That Ben had learned something about me in our first encounter. That he read something inside me that would keep him curious to know the details, to gain the advantage he'd need so he could manipulate me. Had I been lulled into a sense of calm that Ben didn't seem to have ever truly bothered me in so long? He might glance at me from time to time, but he never seemed to be making a strong effort to get my attention. He might flirt with me but only as much as it took to get a little rise out of me - or out of Ralph.

And now I'd given him the invitation to controlling me. He knew now I'd taken deliberate steps to keep anyone in our group from learning about this book. He knew I went inside it, brought men I picked up with me to act out the scenes that titillated me; and, most of all, kept going back to experience the way it felt to do the forbidden. It would only be a matter of time before he understood why - and used it against me.

At just that moment, he released me. Had he felt me react?

I returned to the table, swaying, knowing with certainty I should take the book and run out of here. But I found myself instead sliding into the booth, not at all surprised when he slid in next to me, prodding me to give him room. Our hips touched. I could feel his heat as he reached around me to put a finger on the book's leather spine so he could slide it into place before us.

"Is this why they all think you prefer women to men?" When I turned, ready to launch into an angry tirade, he put a finger on my lips. "You date them once, when they're new, and then walk away. Never seem interested. They wonder. And Colin has ..."

"Colin?"

"... has supplied a ready answer. That you'd prefer your own sex to ours."

"That is so ..."

"... not true?"

"... insulting since he knows different!"

"Interesting, don't you find, that only I never had any confusion about you? But then, the circumstances of our meeting and all - you certainly showed by your unbidden reaction to me. You could have demonstrated otherwise to the others, though, just by inviting one to come into the book with you ..."

"It only got here after you came to this world. No one was interested in me. And this seemed too personal to share or to invite complications with people I already knew."

"Did you mean to tell me that?"

"No. But it's the truth and the truth is so simple."

"It arrived when I did? A herald?"

"A coincidence."

"You don't believe that. Perhaps it was meant to prepare you for me. Or, perhaps it was meant for us to share?"

"It wasn't. And take your hand off my thigh, Wade."

"Which of these stories is your favorite?"

"Stop it. Stop acting like this is something for us to talk about, as if... Never mind. Just stop it. Give me the book, let me go. I'll burn it now that you know about it. I won't let you have something to hold over me."

"Take me into the book with you. We don't have to do anything but watch. I just want to experience this."

"No. Never."

"But don't you owe me a date? Every other one who's come over, you've gone on one date. I hear the jokes about it, about you as the 'serial dater' who never goes further than that."

"It's not my duty. It was just always that I'd hoped ... but not you."

"Why not me?"

"Because of how we met. Because you ..."

"Were abusive."

"Yes."

"I told you that wasn't the real me. Give me a real chance to prove it."

"No. I don't trust you. I never will. I know what you're up to and it won't work with me."

"What if I make a solemn vow to you? That I will never tell anyone. Ever."

"It would make no difference. And I said take your hand off my thigh. Stop whispering in my ear. It does nothing for me."

"Doesn't it? I'm looking right down your enticing little blouse, Ann. I say I'm very much having just the effect I want on you. Just like that first time. Remember how prettily your nipples reacted to me?"

"It doesn't take much to bring out the mean streak in you, Wade."

"Call me Ben. I long to hear you whisper it against my ear while I'm buried deep inside you."

That husky whisper of his. The intimacy of the way he held me inside the circle of his personal space. The unyielding charisma. I closed my eyes at the instant visual of him, the one I'd been bombarded with when he'd touched the book while I was holding it: him half clothed, sheets around us, his hands on my hips, my mouth on his.

"You never will be. We'll never be together like that."

"Not in this world, maybe. But what about inside the book? What if I come in there and make a fantasy come true for you?"

"It doesn't work if it's only my fantasy." It was at that exact moment I knew he'd won. It was just then I heard myself consider letting him inside the book with me. He did, too. I turned my face and watched him savor the moment.

He leaned an elbow onto the table, propping his head there, his hand cradling his cheek, smiling at me. Amusement glittered in his eyes. "Imagine that, Ann. Imagine us together in there. I've thought of having you, knew the time would come eventually."

His other hand stroked lazily down my arm before coming to rest on the book.

"You're thinking it over so carefully, Ann. What worries you about letting me in there with you? What if I promise I won't cause you even a moment's pain?"

I swallowed hard and put my hand atop the one he had on the book. "Look, you'd not enjoy this. And I really don't trust you enough to ..."

"Here's the deal. If I don't go in with you, then I will take this book back and tell the others what you've been up to. They will be anxious to read what kind of things turn you on and ..."

"It's not that it necessarily turns me on but it was an opportunity to ..."

"They won't believe that. You know they won't."

"Don't do this. Please. Can you really be that cruel? Oh, wait. I forget to whom I'm speaking."

"But if you let me come in with you, let me be with you inside here, then I will vow to you never to say a word to anyone."

"That's not enough. I don't trust you on so many levels."

"What other restrictions would you place, Ann? Tell me. I'll agree."

He pulled the book away, slowly going from chapter to chapter. It was when he reached the one about the Captain of the Guard that I must have made a small noise. He stopped there and began reading. I watched the smile tingle his lips. Almost evil but shadowed by curiosity and even a bit of preening. I put my hand over the pages to make him stop reading. But when he looked at me, I already saw him in the role. And I wanted to experience it with him as the Captain. I always wondered when I'd meet a man capable of being the Captain.

"No one ever finds out." He nodded his head. What other restrictions did I need to place on this man who'd find a way around any rule? "This only happens this one time. We never repeat it. And we never talk about it once we leave the book."

"All right. I'll agree to that."

"And, finally, you must agree this is the only time we'll be together. I don't want anything to do with you in this real world. No sex, no romance, no strings. It's this one night, this one time - and that's it for us."

He shifted in his seat, frowning, his lips pursed tightly as he considered. His eyes studied me. I wondered if it was the way I sat, straight and uncompromising, that made him snap back at me. "What makes you think I'm interested in ever having you again? I've got my fill of any woman I want - why'd I go after a woman so frigid with a real man she can only have sex inside a book with paper men?"

It stung. Maybe because it was too close to the truth. Pitiful. I know I reacted to his words. I felt the blush, knew I'd flinched as if he'd slapped me.

"I'm going to choose not to trade insults with you, Wade. I think this was a mistake anyway."

"Deal's a deal, honey."

"So you agree to the conditions?"

"Absolutely. One night. Only in the book. Never talk about it. No repeats."

"And no sexual or romantic involvement once this is over. Just to be explicit."

"Wouldn't be anyway. So, agreed."

At the door out of the lounge, he put a gentle hand on my elbow and leaned in close. "You will never be the same," he said softly, like a promise. My pulse seemed to almost explode. The tension between us crackled. He held the book, tucked under his arm.

We went to my hotel. I felt safer there, more in control. I leaned against one of the walls of the elevator while he leaned against the one opposite. This late at night, we were the only ones aboard. He glanced at the pages of the book again as we ascended. Once, his eyebrows rose, as if in surprise. I blushed and was glad he didn't look up just then.

There was silence between us as we walked from the elevator, over soft carpeting, toward my room. Inside, I made him the drink he requested, bourbon on the rocks. I made myself a vodka tonic. He sat at the small table, still in his blazer, reading the rest of the chapter. I stood at the window waiting on him.

No other man I'd brought in the book had ever asked to read it. In fact, I was rather oblique about the book. I didn't really tell them we were going inside it. I just said we'd recreate a scene from it. They would sit listening to me describe what the scenario was. Our roles. And by the time I'd open the book and slip us inside, they were too far gone to think it was anything more than the mildly hallucinogenic experience I told them it was after we returned. Then I'd guide them out the door, into the elevator and propel them across the lobby. And out of my life. I'd go back up to my room, take a long bath, and relive the experience. Never once had I been disappointed. If I had, I'd probably have stopped long ago. It had become the only sex life I had. And it was uncomplicated if there were no repercussions. Or was it?

The truth is, once Ben Wade exploded into my life, I did make the connection that the book had shown up at the shop the same day we now knew he'd come into our world from his. I knew the book was there for a reason. My presumption, after much thought, was that his trip to join us had shifted something that caused all the bad things that'd been building for months before he came over. And this book's reason for appearance, it seemed to me, was to shake up my staid life by seducing me into sexual adventures that still allowed me to go on avoiding entanglements with men but had me wanting hits as bad as any drug. I took it as one more sign we'd missed that he was going to disrupt our futures.

Oddly, he'd not really shaken up that much, once Maximus got him in line with at least trying to be part of the group. Well, no more than any of them did as they would begin building their lives.

The toughest thing about Wade was that he was still leading a criminal life from what we surmised. What could we expect? The other men watched him but he stayed ahead of them. We did not know what he was planning but they were convinced it was a big score and that they'd need to stop him.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, Maximus said to me once when I asked what could be done to stop him. Ralph had snorted and then said there was a lot to be said for Max taking him to his place and locking him up tight until Wade would realize he had to go straight. Max had simply gazed at Ralph, placid and stoic. And then said something about the object should not be to incarcerate him but to give him the reason to join us more fully - to work for the group and not the individual.

All this time, I observed how little Ben Wade changed. He was no more interested in conforming to the group than Sid had ever been. What he wanted was to find out what it'd take to manipulate enough of us to where he'd conquer the group, getting enough of us on his side until whatever resistance there was would be inconsequential.

But there had also been moments when he let his guard down. Like when Uma would get up for her reading on Literotica Liberation nights. Invariably, she would start out promising but it would not take long before all the men were squirming along with most of the women. Ben was like all the other men, girding his loins when she'd approach the mike. And in the aftermath, I thought he looked more boyish than anything else, giggling in his drink as others would protest whatever travesty she'd wrought on the man in her story.

And like the time he'd stepped in between some guy and his girl on the patio outside the restaurant. I'd been walking in to have dinner with Ralph and Bud when we heard a man's voice loudly call a woman with him 'bitch.' Before anyone could react, the man's hand had gone up, obviously intending to smack her. Ben Wade came from nowhere, standing right in front of the guy, shoving him back. He told the guy he'd have to leave - that "we" didn't want his sort around causing problems for everyone else. He walked with the guy to his car, Bud told me later. Ralph said it wasn't all he did - that he'd given the guy a solid parting shot to remind him not to come back to the compound. Now, I know violence is not good, but I have to admit it stuck with me to this day to hear Ben use the word "we" as if letting out that he felt a member of the group already.

Even the way he chuckled when I'd say nasty things to Skinner every time he dared come in my shop had made him part of the group dynamics to me. Sometimes, I'd catch Ben's eyes as Skinner would sniff in that twitty way of his. And we'd both be biting our lips to keep from laughing out loud at the jerk.

But I never trusted Ben Wade. I never forgot his intelligence. I always knew he was looking for a way in so he could manipulate people. I knew he was honest but sometimes his charm made you hear one thing when if you really listened, he was telling you a truth you thought was him joking around.

In just that moment, thinking about that, with him sitting there in my hotel room - it dawned on me hard: I did trust him.

Didn't I? I trusted his honesty. He'd never once lied. It's just that we didn't always want it to be the truth.

I looked over at Wade, sitting there reading. It wasn't that long a chapter. Surely he was finished? Take your time. Give me grace to adjust to this new revelation that I trust you, Ben - that if you say you have agreed to the conditions, you really will. That taking you inside this book may be the one chance I'll ever have to take someone in who'll be a totally equal participant. Who'll have the guts to put in his own fantasy in tandem with mine - and in keeping with the book's setting and conventions. Who'll challenge me, make me guess, make it less safe, more adventurous.

Maybe he really was why the book came into my hands.

"Is there anything to discuss first?" I watched him take his time to answer me, his eyes on the book for a long moment before he finally closed it and looked at me. "Are you still willing?"

"How do we start?"

"Give me your hand and the book."

"How do we come back?"

"That's under my control."

He smiled just then. I smiled back. "So I have to trust you, Ann?"

"Yes. Can you believe it?"

He never answered in words. He did in action: rising, nearing me, handing me the book, holding out his other hand.

And we were gone, inside the book, shoved headfirst into the action of the scene. Me, on my knees, scrubbing the floor of a rough inn set sometime in a vague past where kings and queens still ruled, where villages set up near castles supplied the homes of those who toiled the lands and town. A fantasy world about the coming-of-age children of the castles, learning submission and discipline that trained them to rise above their own inhibitions to become neither slaves nor masters - but fuller sexual beings, albeit with deviant attitudes more openly appreciated in a book of erotica than in real life.

It was the scene after the woman and the Captain had first laid eyes one on the other, when he'd escorted her and other children of the castle who'd been cast out to the village for harsh discipline as part of their training. And next they see each other, he enters the inn to find her being disciplined in the rough work under the tough eye of the inn's mistress. He was the Captain of the Guard, the one man in the entire book who needed no games to capture the woman's interest. It was the first time she understood what it was like to lose herself into another's raw and uncompromisingly masculine sexual power. The lessons of the Captain gave her the fuller view of her own desires to be conquered and overwhelmed. Up to that point, she struggled against the restrictions and rules even as she reveled in discovering sex and fetishes. Once faced with a man so masculine as to need no artificial rules in order to command a woman's interest, she lost her heart the first time, even as he unleashed her own understanding of her powers over a willing lover.

Thrust into the scene, I felt the cool water on my hands, the slickness of the suds I used to brush over the wood flooring. I felt my damp knees, my long hair along my spine spilling over my shoulders, the sharp curved angle of my lower back, the wide space between my thighs. I also felt the woman's constantly alert and eager sex.

But looking up, seeing Ben Wade as the Captain, I saw what I didn't expect. He was still him, still Wade. Not the Captain as in the book - who was blonde, commanding but not built this solidly; the book Captain was younger than Wade, prettier in some way I could not define - for the sight of Wade took my breath away. He had a rough majesty and intelligent command that infused this Captain with life and power so distinct and defined by Wade that I saw him replace the character wholly, in that one instant, changing this in a way totally personal to me.

Every other man I ever had taken into the book turned into how he was described in the book - same features, accent, clothing. All that Ben Wade took on was the costume.

After the initial encounter with him in this guise in the area of the inn where customers came in the evenings to eat and celebrate, I was led out through a back door to the place where the inn's slaves were washed, watered, fed and rested. Occupying my mind during this time was this one thing: that Wade had somehow changed the way the book dealt with those who came inside.

It took a long while to get absorbed in the things that had always absorbed me when I first got into this character - the heightened sensuality, the fire of sexual want that could not be slated until I'd walked through the scene as prescribed but which kept me ever on edge, ever in need, ever greedy for relief. In my entire life, I had never felt that kind of lust for slating the sexual need to be filled. It had led me to try fantasies I'd never conceived before the book came into my hands. I sometimes thought, when I left and reflected on the experiences, that I would have given anything to have felt that way once in my life - to let myself feel that particular kind of sexual madness about someone else.

So I stepped into the wooden vat to be scrubbed until my skin sang. Each stroke of the bristled brush concentrated my attention to the experience. When I did not move quickly enough to leave the vat, I jumped at the sharp sting of a leather strap across my buttocks. It was the one aspect of the involvement in the book I truly hated. I just didn't get the spanking bit. But as it came part and parcel with the set up of the book's world, I felt its sting as the character would have. I just never found it as stimulating as she did.

Before long, I was existing inside a body with clean skin, freshly washed hair, newly perfumed nether regions, lightly oiled limbs. Only then was I led back inside the inn by its mistress, who hissed at me as we rose up the stairs that the Captain was not a man to put up with my little tricks and tempers.

I kept my eyes on the wooden stairs but I resisted her by going more slowly than she wanted. The character always resisted the inn's mistress. It'd been a while since I'd read this chapter but I shouldn't have been surprised when she responded to my resistance by yanking me by the hair when we reached the Captain's closed door. And I really should have remembered that when she opened the door to the room he now lodged in at her inn, that she would shove me in and down so hard I'd be on hands and knees, my hair falling before my face, my gasp coming out surprised and resentful of the rough treatment.

But this is when the scene as written flashed whole into my memory. So I stayed on my knees, my eyes down, my face hidden by the lustrous hair of the woman. I waited for his touch, the way his fingers would play in my hair almost gently before grasping a handful and pulling me slowly up to my feet.

Which is what Ben Wade as the Captain did. He pulled until my face rose in response, until we looked the other eye to eye. "You're not you."

"I'm the character. The woman."

"Where are your green eyes?"

"She doesn't have green eyes. Hers are blue."

"I thought it would be you I'd be with here."

"No. You're with her. As I'm with ..."

"Me."

"You should be him."

"But you said this was about my fantasy as much as yours."

I swallowed hard and would have looked away except the look in his eyes held me much more securely than his hand in my hair. "Is that why you're here? To be the Captain this distinctly?"

"No. My fantasy was to be with you, Ann."

"That's not my name."

"If I'd known I'd be with this girl you're inside of, I wouldn't have been very interested."

"That's not the point of this."

"Or maybe it was. You don't expose anything about yourself to me this way. Wonder why you'd need that?"

He let my hair go and backed up until he sank down into a large armed chair. "Aren't you supposed to be totally submissive?"

I was not supposed to even be talking without his permission, I suddenly remembered. This was always my toughest lesson - to become mute in the face of the men inside here. I dropped my eyes and closed my lips.

"Spread your legs."

This command I remembered being next in the chapter; I moved instantly to obey him before remembering that the woman disobeyed his every command until ... until he took total physical control of the situation. The memory of what would come made me sweat.

"Get on your knees and come to me."

Again I disobeyed, as she had in the book. But I added my own deliberate defiance by slowly looking up through my lashes until I was looking him in the eye. He slouched in the chair, one leg tossed over the arm, his chin down as his eyes watched me. This was the stance from the book. He conveyed the overwhelming sense of the Captain's appreciation of the woman before him as a sexual being he wanted. And the feeling rolling off of him in waves that, though other men might have needed to engage in paddling or humiliation, all the Captain needed was his own masculinity to charge the air around them.

This was when he moved.

He stood and reached for the body I was operating. In an instant, he'd plopped me atop the table next to the chair he'd been in. He'd shoved my knees far apart and stepped inside them. He'd pulled my face to him and kissed me hard. Showed me who was in charge, the one with physical strength to match his desires to possess her.

I waited on the next part from this chapter - for him to unzip and shove himself inside her body. To pull her from the table and proceed to fuck her, standing in the center of the room, needing nothing but the power of his thrusts and the brute show of his demands to make her melt around him. To pound his way past her defenses until she clung to him, wrapped her knees around him, kissed him back. And came under his assault that forever marked her as a full participant in what happened between them.

But Ben Wade wasn't the Captain in any mind but mine, I suppose.

He possessed every attribute and more - but he was, as he'd just been honest enough to tell me, in this as much for his own fantasy as mine. I just hadn't really heard what he'd said in the straightforward way it was stated.

Rather than continue the scene as prescribed, he stood between my knees and just looked in my eyes after he kissed me.

"Why do want this from me in such a brutal way?" His fingers released my hair and slowly ran down my spine. "Why do you really come inside here?"

My face flushed. My breathing grew shallow, fearful. I sat watching, waiting for something to happen that would lead us back to what was supposed to be going on inside the chapter. Desperately searching for a way away from the shadows he would suck me into if I let him.

"If we do this, give me my part of the fantasy, Ann." He dropped his voice low, soft, as if doing his own desperate search.

I looked away, still silent as the woman.

"Please let me see you. Let it be you here with me."

I shook my head, glancing up but only able to look at his chin as his hand dropped still further on my back; now drawing me gently toward him. 

"She's too young. Too uninteresting. Too vapid. Okay for some - not for me. It's you I want to experience."

"Not here," I whispered. He stroked and petted; I shivered as a moan escaped me.

"But here is where we are."

"I can't here."

"Do you want me, Ann? Want me enough to give me what I want?"

His thumb rubbed slowly in time to the woman's internal rhythm. It rubbed over her sex but I felt it somewhere I never knew could be reached from inside the book.

"Your power."

"That's what you find in the Captain?"

"It's so simple. He wants her. He makes her want him. He takes. She does, too."

"That's why it's a fantasy to you, is it?"

I put my hands on his face. "Come back into the fantasy with me."

"Be in this with me as you."

"Will you take me then?"

"I can't do it here the way I'd want to do it with you, Ann."

"What would it take?"

"Let me take you - not her."

I put my hand over the one he kept stroking me with, not to still him but to increase its pressure. He caught the rhythm I prescribed. This was when he kissed me. The first real kiss between us changed everything.

Our hands were together and maybe this is really why the next instant I'd taken us out of the book. When I realized we were not there anymore, I looked up to find him sitting on the edge of my hotel room's bed. He was fully clothed as he had been before we'd entered the book. I wore nothing at all. Open fully to his eyes, just as he'd wanted. Was this obedience to the Captain only possible in this way?

The look on his face was the Captain. I wondered what I looked like to him now that it was really me and not the woman in the book. He held out a hand and I felt my own power over him just in the way he breathed so deeply, as if steeling himself for me to come over there and touch him.

When I reached him, I put my hands on his hair even as I stepped inside the space he created by opening his knees and arms to me. I stroked his hair as he looked up at me. And then I kept stroking even as he dropped his mouth to kiss over my breasts, taking so long to explore that I thought I might go mad waiting for him to come inside me. My lust for him was all about the power he had to be so in charge and yet so unfazed by all that had been happening to him that night at my hands.

Before long, I wrapped my arms around his head and bent over him as he kissed inside my cleavage and then down as low as he could go with us locked inside the embrace.

A moment later, he picked me up and pulled me into the bed, rolling in over me, one thigh between my legs. I brought him in closer to me, wrapping my body around his, enjoying the feel of his clothing against my bare skin.

I felt lost in another world, a new place that was not so cold and deep as I'd have imagined it to be with him. Before long, I was tugging at his shirt and he was helping me get it off of him. And then my fingers explored his chest and bare back even as my knee gently caressed under the bulge between his legs that he rubbed over any part of me he could come into contact with.

Then we got his slacks off his body.

His mouth worked its way across my neck until it was over the pulse point. Then he shoved it into the hollow where he could feel me swallow in response to every place he stroked and touched as he learned my body's desires.

Like I knew he would.

I knew he'd be trouble.

Even as I gave myself up to this, I felt the fantasy dropping away, only I ignored the honesty of it all. We gave each other the time and opportunity to touch where we wanted, taste what we craved, lick and suckle wherever it felt good. I think the only thing I ever said to him was how good he tasted. Even the light sheen of sweat that I caught on the tip of my tongue, there in that seductive dip at the base of his spine, even that tasted good. I suppose if I'm honest, it tasted good because it was evidence I'd made this man work for me and he'd liked doing it.

When he could take no more, needed more than he'd taken yet, he put me on my back and climbed between my legs. I slid my knees up until I'd accommodated him. I felt the pressure of his tip as he lightly thrust along my wet folds. It was a moment to hold my breath, close my eyes and remember to forget everything but what he felt like about to come inside me. And how slick our bodies were as they moved together, how we weren't talking, just breathing hard, mouths open. How I could feel the strength in his back, my hands noting the play of his muscles, the way they flexed. How it felt to run my ankles up the back of his thighs, his breath coming out in a moan when I pulled him inside, my heels now tucked under his ass as it tightened in response to my wanting him to pound inside me while he resisted the urge, held back until he slowed his breathing. His hands came under me, pulling me up to accept him.

"Open your eyes. Let me see."

"Kiss me when you do ..."

I kept my eyes open and on him as he entered so slowly I felt he was crawling inside me with the only aim to make me scream when he did finally grind in at that ultimate hitch of man taking woman over the edge.

He kissed me the moment I arched back in response, whispering his name as if it was an ache that I'd held onto for years and years - only now able to speak it aloud. The truth was, he felt so good inside me I wasn't thinking. His kiss swallowed my pleas - the ones I dreamed once I'd make to him to fuck me.

Thank god for that favor.

With a blistering heat, I remembered every dream I'd been having about him since I'd met him. Every one I'd tried and succeeded in forgetting or rationalizing. When he pulled from the kiss, we were both gasping as we danced against each other.

Sheets came loose. Pillows were thrown away when no longer needed. Bodies rolled. I was in his lap. He was behind me. We climbed back on the mattress and got deadly serious about bringing the other to a point of no return. No more learning about each other. No more teasing, building up to it. Now it was down and dirty, let me come, you come with me, this can end only one way.

He was on his elbows. His hands were bunched in the sheet on either side of my head. My hair was everywhere. His was in his face, a lot of it plastered against his forehead and temple. I felt his knees behind me, seeking whatever purchase it took to thrust up. My hands were on his butt then on his shoulders then on his face then on his butt. I struggled and muttered something quite profane. But when it came right down to it, I felt the coming at the one moment when I could decide how I would most want this to finally happen. And my heart slowed, my hands cupped his face so I could watch him as he came, kiss him as I came and feel him collapse in my arms in those incredible, insatiable, dying moments of my own orgasms.

For so long, we couldn't move except to breathe. His face was buried in my throat. My cheek was pressed into the top of his head. And we just stayed that way until he moaned and slipped himself from where I could have held him forever. I love that kind of feeling, when the sex has been that good you don't want to lose him from inside you. It'd been forever for me.

Instead of rolling away from me, he simply laid his head back down atop the rise of my breasts. And I reached my leg up over his hip to keep him securely with me. His arms went around my back; mine went around his head and shoulder.

This was how we held each other as we calmed from the high of sexual release.

This was how I held him as he fell asleep half atop my body. I could feel the rise and fall of his chest against mine. While he slept, I kissed the top of his head and comforted him for I felt he needed comforting just by the way he clung to me. Perhaps he felt that way about me, too, but I don't believe men think that way about women they're not invested in.

When I woke, I was alone.

I suppose it was good to be alone after that. How little did I want to find him there with me, to spend that awkward time when all you really want is to take a shower and not have to face a strange man over breakfast.

I did not feel empty or lonely.

Just alone.

And satisfied for having had the experience of that one night of sexual abandon and adventure with Ben Wade.