Chapter 8: The Toybox Trials
The velvet darkness of the living room was shattered by a sudden, jarring snort. Delilah woke herself up, blinking against the glow of the television now showing a test pattern. She shifted on Barney’s lifeless legs, and he bit back a whimper as fiery needles of sensation flooded back into his limbs.
“Up,” she grunted, heaving herself off him. “Bedtime. You’ll join me.”
The walk to her bedroom was a slow, processionary shamble. She leaned on him, her arm a dead weight across his narrow shoulders. The hallway smelled of lemon polish and something older, something musky and deep-seated in the carpets.
Her bedroom was a temple to a forgotten era of vice. Crimson velvet drapes swallowed the walls. A king-sized bed, a mountain of satin and tasseled pillows, dominated the space. The air was a thick soup of cloying perfume, jasmine and tuberose, fighting a losing battle against the underlying notes of body powder and spent flesh.
“The cabinet,” she said, pointing a tremulous finger towards an ornate, lacquered Chinese cabinet in the corner. “Open it.”
Barney obeyed. The doors swung open to reveal not clothes, but a museum of sexual archaeology. It was a riot of latex, polished wood, yellowed plastic, and discolored silicone. Dildos of impossible girth and length lay stacked like cordwood. There were harnesses, feathers, paddles with cruel-looking holes, and things he couldn’t even name.
“My souvenirs,” she said, her voice softening with genuine affection. She waddled over and ran a hand over the collection like a curator. “This one,” she plucked a foot-long monstrosity of veined, flesh-toned rubber, “was from a director in Munich. A poet, really.” She dropped it on the bed. It landed with a soft thud.
She shed her caftan. It pooled around her ankles, revealing the full, shocking landscape of her body—the shelf-like breasts in a straining lace bra, the stomach a soft cascade of wrinkles, the monumental hips and thighs. She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her thong and pushed it down, stepping out of it with a sigh.
“Start with the blue one. The glass. It’s cool.”
Barney’s hands were trembling as he reached into the cabinet. His fingers closed around a heavy, cobalt-blue glass phallus, smooth and shockingly cold. He turned, the object feeling alien and dangerous in his grip.
She had arranged herself on the edge of the bed, legs spread, a continent waiting to be explored. The hair was sparse, grey. The flesh there was a different texture, darker, a complex map of folds and softness.
“Go on,” she whispered, her eyes glazing over, already watching a memory on the ceiling. “Nice and easy.”
He knelt on the plush carpet. The perfume was choking here. He guided the cold glass tip to her. It met resistance, then, with a soft, wet schtuck, yielded. He pushed. The glass disappeared into the warm, slick heat. Schlorp. An inch, then two, then half its length was engulfed. Her body accepted it with a series of soft, sucking gulps. Gluck. Schlorp.
“Mmm. Yes. That’s the spot.” Her hands came down, not to guide him, but to cradle her own breasts. “Now the green one. The rubber. Alternating. Keep it interesting.”
For what felt like hours, he worked. He became a machine, retrieving toys from the cabinet, feeding them into the wet, consuming maw. Each had its own sound. The thick rubber one made a low, squeaking skweesh as it pistoned. A knotted, twisted thing of polished wood elicited a series of sharp, wet pop-pop-pops as each knot passed the threshold. Her reactions were theatrical, a performance for an audience of one. She groaned, she praised her own elasticity, she farted—a sharp pfft that vibrated against his wrist.
“Enough of that,” she announced suddenly, slapping his hands away. She rolled over with a seismic heave, presenting the vast, pale moons of her buttocks. The cellulite shimmered in the low light like the skin of a stirred pudding. “Hands. I want to feel your little bird bones on me.”
He stared. “What?”
“Spank me, Barnaby. Don’t be precious. Make it clap.”
He raised a trembling hand. The first slap was a timid tap, the sound a faint pat.
She growled. “Put your back into it, you pathetic creature!”
He swung again. This time his palm connected solidly with the lower curve. The impact sent a shock up his arm. The sound was a deep, resonant THWACK, and the flesh rippled outwards in a slow, undulating wave. A cloud of fine powder puffed into the air.
“Yes! Again!”
THWACK. THWACK. He fell into a rhythm. His hand stung. The sounds grew louder, wetter as his palm grew slick with her sweat and the room’s humidity. CLAP-PAP-PAP. The cheeks jiggled and trembled with each impact, a seismic display. She moaned into a pillow, urging him on, her voice muffled. “Harder! Show me you’re alive in there!”
He was crying, he realized. Silent tears cutting tracks through the sweat on his face. But his arm kept moving, a piston of despair. SPLAT. THUD.
Finally, she held up a hand. “Stop.” She was breathing heavily. She pushed herself up on her elbows and looked back at him. Her eyes were black with a need that was bottomless, geological. “Now,” she panted. “The main event. I want you inside. But not there.” She reached back and pulled a cheek aside, revealing the pucker, dark and clenched. “There. I need to feel every one of your skinny bones. I need to ruin you.”
Barney froze. The cold seed that had formed in him during the endless kissing on the sofa turned to ice. It was a core, hard and clear. He looked at his red, stinging hand. He looked at the grotesque, demanding landscape of her body. He looked at the open cabinet, a tomb of forgotten pleasures.
He didn’t move.
“Now, Barnaby,” she demanded, her voice losing its playful edge, becoming a drill sergeant’s bark.
He slowly got to his feet. His knees popped. He looked down at his own thin, naked body, then at the bottle of powder on her nightstand. He picked it up. It was cool, porcelain.
“What are you doing? Lie down. Get on with it.”
He unscrewed the lid. The sweet, talcum smell filled his nostrils. He poured a little into his stinging palm.
Then, with a calmness that felt utterly foreign, he knelt back down behind her. He didn’t position himself as she demanded. Instead, he placed his powdered hands on the small of her back, just above the tremendous swell of her hips. He leaned close, as if to whisper.
His movement was not an entry. It was a shift. A preparation.
She sighed, expecting compliance. “Good. That’s it. Finally.”
He said nothing. He just stared at the path ahead, his breath steadying, the ice in his core spreading outwards, chilling the fear, numbing the disgust, leaving only a silent, focused clarity. The night was not over. But the terms were about to change.