Slow Surrender

by Cecilia Tan

  “Tell me if anything goes numb,” he said, pulling me close to him again and running his lips against my hair. “Or if anything hurts. I want to know. Sometimes it might be intentional.”

  “Okay.”

  “You know you’re not supposed to say that.”

  “Agh! You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “Bend over and place your hands flat on the bed. I’ll give you one swat on each cheek for each lapse.”

  “Yes, yes,” I forced myself to say. I bent over with my hands on the bed.

  I heard the rustle of the bag behind me. I couldn’t see what he was doing back there, but the next thing I felt was the rounded tip of the glass dildo, touching the spot where I was wettest. He moved it back and forth. “You’re very slick,” he said as he coated the glass with my juices. “This should go in easy.”

  It did. He slid it in and then I felt his thigh press against my backside, between my legs, holding it in place. “One spank on each side,” he reminded me, and then let a heavy smack fall on the right cheek. I yelped in surprise. Before the sting from the first one could fade, he struck the other side and I yelped again, resisting the urge to reach back and rub the sore skin.

  “Now, let’s put you in something to keep this in place,” he said, steadying me with one hand on my tailbone and pushing on the glass dildo with the other. I could only groan with pleasure as the bulb of glass moved back and forth inside me. “Crawl forward onto the bed.”

  I did as he asked, and he looped the rope around one leg and then the other. The rope was much smoother than I expected, no rough spots at all, almost like satin. I couldn’t quite follow what he did, but he wrapped it this way and that, knotted it here and there, and when he was done, my lower lips were spread by crisscrossing lines, while a knot sat right under the base of the glass dildo. He showed me with a mirror so I could see the ropes and how spread open I was. I was much more interested in looking at him. His shirt was mostly unbuttoned, giving me glimpses of the toned muscle of his chest and abs.

  “Gorgeous,” he said, with a light and loving touch of his lips against my hair. “You look incredible. Now get up on your knees, and I’ll make a matching top to go with your bottoms.”

  He climbed onto the bed behind me and this time crisscrossed the ropes between my breasts and around my torso. He worked methodically, brushing his fingers up and down my skin between setting knots and running his lips down my neck or over my shoulder, often telling me to lift my arm or move a certain way. The music had changed from violins to some kind of world music—African drums with Celtic-sounding harps—and I swayed almost like we were dancing.

  When that was done, my breasts were framed by the rope and squeezed enough to make each one come to a point. He retrieved the mirror again and held it for me to see his handiwork. “It matches like a bikini,” he joked.

  I giggled at that. “It’s very stylish.” The black of the rope stood out against my skin.

  “Bondage is art,” he said as he set the mirror down.

  “And art is…” I tried to recall his exact words. “Art is making ideas visible.”

  He climbed behind me again and ran his hands over my stomach, from the edge of the ropes around my hips to the ropes across my chest, making me tremble. “Ideas and feelings.”

  “And which is this?” I asked, reaching my arms up and back, hoping to pull him down for a kiss.

  He growled a bit as he gave in, kissing me harder than before, then ran his hands down my front again, sucking on the back of my neck as he brushed over the tips of my nipples, down past my belly button, and then to flick lightly over my very exposed clit. “What’s visible here?” he asked, flicking again and making me jump. “What’s visible is my desire to control you. My desire to pleasure you. My desire to beautify you. Not necessarily in that order. Lie down. On your back.”

  Rather than answer, I did as he asked. He wasn’t finished tying me yet. The next step was wrapping and knotting rope around my right wrist and attaching it to my right ankle, then my left wrist and my left ankle. My knees were mostly bent.

  “Now, show me if you can get to your knees,” he said, standing back and watching.

  It was a bit tricky, but I managed to roll to one side and then get up without using my arms.

  “Good. Now face down and show me your ass.”

  That was easier to do. Flopping over onto my side wasn’t that difficult, and then it was just a matter of rolling and getting my arm out from under me.

  “Very good. Now on your back again.”

  I returned to the first position, a little out of breath and throbbing from the constant movement of the glass inside me as I moved around. My breasts felt extra sensitive as well, brushing against the duvet and my skin as I moved.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Horny as hell,” I answered.

  He grinned. “Make your desire visible to me. Make art.”

  I looked at him, hesitating while I thought about that. Could I sing? Recite poetry? Dance? Well, I couldn’t exactly dance while tied up like this, but I could move a bit. The music was unfamiliar but beautiful, some kind of flute playing a melody over the drums and strings.

  I was self-conscious as could be, but he was waiting. He crossed his arms.

  I kept my eyes locked with his and folded one knee across my body, hiding my bare crotch from him.

  Then I extended one leg toward him. I had to sit partway up so my arm, which was tethered to it, could also move. I pointed my toe like a ballet dancer and moved my leg and arm in a circle, turning and exposing myself to him again.

  I continued to move like that, the world’s slowest burlesque, except that I was already naked before him. I arched my back, thrusting my breasts upward, my hair crackling against the pillowcase as I moved.

  Then suddenly his hands were there, sweeping over my breasts and pinching the nipples. I gasped at the sudden flood of sensation, sharp and hot, then again as his tongue soothed the hurt he’d made. His hips were between my legs and I could feel the hard length of his erection against my pubic bone, through the denim of his jeans.

  I whimpered, wanting it. Wanting him. He moved his mouth to the other nipple. I tried to squeeze him with my thighs but that was pretty much all I could do besides whimper.

  Or beg. “Please, oh please, oh please,” is what came out.

  He reared up, holding himself on his arms, and thrust himself against the knot, pushing the glass phallus into me. His voice was as deep as I’d ever heard it. “Is that what you want?”

  “Fuck, yes, no, I mean…yes.”

  He chuckled. “It was a simple question,” he teased, thrusting again. “Was such a complicated answer necessary?”

  “Well, it depends what you mean by that,” I whined. “I…oh…why won’t you fuck me, James?”

  “Mmm, when you beg like that, it nearly makes me give in and do it,” he said.

  He pushed in a rhythm that felt so much like sex, and yet not like the mediocre, sometimes painful intercourse I’d had before. It felt like what I’d imagined sex would be like when I was younger. Being overwhelmed, filled up, and ready to burst with my own pleasure. That it took a pound of glass, a hundred feet of rope, and this eccentric man to feel that way? I tried not to think about that. Instead, I pushed back, my hips moving in time with his.

  My clit felt raw and exposed against the denim ridge of his fly, but suddenly that was exactly what I wanted, and I sped up a little, rubbing myself against him.

  “Uh-uh,” he warned, and pulled back. “Did I give you permission to come?”

  “I didn’t come,” I said. “I only wanted to get closer to you.”

  He leaned over and kissed my neck, then breathed in my ear. “I’m going to make you wait for it, Karina.”

  “Oh!”

  “Unless you can come from the thrusts inside you. Turn over, ass in the air.” He pulled back quickly, all the way off the bed to watch me reposition myself. “Move back until your fee
t are over the edge of the bed.”

  He came up behind me and I heard the sound of cloth rustling. He was taking off his shirt. I felt his warm hands on my hips. “Here we go.”

  He rubbed himself against the knot, thrusting slowly at first, dragging his bulge up and down. But he quickly moved to a sharper push, one that drove the head of his cock against the base of the dildo, pushing the glass into me again and again.

  Deep and heavy and sparking something on every motion. I couldn’t help but push back against it, wanting more, needing that feeling so deep inside me. As he picked up the pace, I could feel my arousal sharpening, focusing, even though my clit was rocking against nothing but the empty air.

  “Oh my God,” I heard myself say. “Oh my God, I’m…almost there.”

  “Only if you get there before me,” he said through gritted teeth. Then he cried out, an animal bellow, thrusting wildly and his hands jerking me toward him even as he spasmed hard. A second cry followed the first as he held still, pressing hard against me, and then finally one last groan, and the tension left his body limp.

  I listened to his rough breathing for long seconds, the music in the background having changed again to something with spacey violins. Then he patted me on the rump and said, “Thank you. I’ll take the glass out now.”

  “Must you?” I asked.

  “Will you feel terribly unfulfilled without it?”

  “Maybe. If I can’t have you…”

  “I promise you, dear Karina, that if you let me, I’ll place many more things into your body that will bring you pleasure in the future. My cock included.” He tugged a bit on the ropes, moving them aside, and drew the dildo out of me.

  I let out a long sound as he did, a cry of longing. He kissed me on the hair, patted my back, and told me to turn over again. I shifted, the ropes still tethering my wrists to my ankles, as I moved onto my back.

  He lay beside me, and I turned my head to take in the sight of his bare chest, glowing with a slight sheen of sweat from his exertions. I wanted to lick the sweat from the sculpted planes of his torso. There was a sodden spot on his jeans, but he ignored it. He held up a few feet of the silky black rope. “Your clit seemed to like the friction of cloth. Let’s see how it does with this.”

  I let my legs fall all the way open, the bottoms of my feet touching and my wrists at my sides. He suckled one of my nipples and I pressed toward him, eager for more.

  He drew back to watch my reaction as he tossed the rope down by my feet and then began to drag it slowly upward, touching my clit the entire time. So slowly, a fraction of an inch every second, his hand climbing up my body and then past my lips, my forehead. I kissed the rope as it went by, and it was damp from my juices.

  Then the knot on the end jolted me as it grazed over my clit. He kissed me and it felt like a reward. His lips looked as deliciously swollen as mine felt.

  And then he repeated the traverse of the rope again, the length traveling up the center of my body, a constant source of friction right where I was most sensitive. He massaged my clit a little with his knuckle and I ground against him, groaning with need, until he quieted me with a look and began another slow, upward journey of the rope over my nerve endings. By the time it had gone all the way up my body a third time, I was panting and short of breath, which made the kiss at the end heady and dizzying.

  “I have something even better than rope for this,” he murmured, and climbed off the bed. When he returned, he held whatever it was where I couldn’t see it. He nestled close, his body touching mine along my side. I felt something cold and smooth touch my thigh lightly; then he laid something long and cool along my clit and down the center of my labia where the rope had been. What was it?

  He drew it up my body like he had the rope, and I felt smooth nub after smooth nub bump over my clit. I thrust my hips up, trying to get more friction, but instead of friction this new toy tweaked my nerve endings in an even more delicious way.

  His hand slid low again, one finger massaging my clit for a moment before he once again dragged whatever it was—a string of beads?—upward.

  I was trembling by the time he had finished. “What is that?” I asked, breathless. “Can I see?”

  “Can you guess what it is?”

  “It feels like a string of beads,” I said. “Glass beads?”

  “A good guess,” he said with a pleased smirk. “You know me well, but no, sweetness, it’s a string of pearls. A very long string of pearls.” He began the next pass, dragging them through my juices and over the center of my pleasure.

  And again. And again. After the seventh or eighth time I lost count, and by then I was letting out a series of whimpers and moans as the pearls climbed. It was too much and not enough at the same time. I tried to close my legs reflexively and he trapped one knee under his own and spanked me on the cunt, making me squeal.

  “Lie still,” he whispered. “You seem to enjoy a very light touch, Karina. Would you like me to try something even lighter?”

  “Yes, please,” I whispered, forcing myself to relax.

  He kissed my cheek, climbed off the bed, and came back with something I didn’t expect. A paint brush, the artist’s kind, not the kind you paint a house with.

  He settled at the foot of the bed, and I felt the bristles tickle at the opening of my vagina. He wet the brush with my juices and then, very gently, painted a swipe on my clit.

  I made a noise of surprise. I barely felt it and yet the sensation made my arousal jump.

  He did it again, lightly brushing around my vagina, and then crisscrossing my clit with the barely there bristles. “What do you suppose went through the painter’s mind when he painted King Cophetua?” he asked casually, as if he were painting my toenails and not my most intimate place.

  “I…well…” I couldn’t form a coherent sentence.

  “You and Martindale both believe the painting borders on the pornographic. Do you suppose Burne-Jones was aroused while painting?”

  “I…I’m sure he was.”

  “Indeed? What do you suppose turned him on so much that he created such a masterpiece?”

  “The…the idea…” He was flicking the brush back and forth now, up and down, a moth wing making me so very, very close and yet still not enough. “The idea that the beggar maid was so available to him. Naked, the king falls for her.”

  “Helplessly in love, one might say?”

  “Yes.”

  “But then he exalts her?”

  “Yes. He has to. Because if he truly loves her and doesn’t view her as gutter trash that he can fuck and discard, he has to.”

  “Fascinating. And you think Burne-Jones was aroused by this idea? The idea that a highborn man could pick a naked peon from the gutter and not just fuck her but also have such feelings for her that he puts her on a pedestal? Do you suppose the artist fucked the model he had sit for the portrait of the beggar maid?”

  “Maybe.” The idea was a heady one, that Burne-Jones might have been embodying his own lusts and perversions into that piece of great art. “One of his models was his mistress. But not that one. I wonder…?” Was the woman in King Cophetua someone he lusted after but could never have?

  “Yes, one has to wonder,” he said, and I felt his other hand tug at the ropes, spreading me even wider. “Come for me now, Karina.”

  “Now?”

  “Now, before I rescind the offer.”

  I cried out then as he switched the flutter of the brush from up and down to side to side, and it was somehow, inexplicably, just enough to trigger my climax. That should have been even less stimulation, but maybe that was the secret, as my body seemed to reach for the orgasm, needing it so much after the entire long afternoon of the teasing, the shaving, the glass, the conversation, and the bondage. I started screaming before I was even there, and it was as if I willed myself over the edge, screaming even more as I took the plunge into a long, slow-motion explosion. I felt it all the way to my fingers and toes, the sensation taking its time t
o flood me so fully that it reached my extremities.

  And then, as it was tapering off, he slid the glass inside of me, and this time the explosion came in real time, another orgasm blasting through me, and then a third as he jiggled the glass inside me with his hand in a wholly unfamiliar but incredible sensation.

  When he pulled the glass free, I was too spent to protest. He pressed a gentle kiss against my ravaged clit. “I’ll free you in a moment,” he said, then draped the pearls across my body and climbed off the bed.

  Nine: Face the Strange

  He returned with a warm, wet cloth and a dry towel and tended to me gently, without removing the ropes. Then he began to let them go, loosening the ones around my hips first. That allowed him to wipe me down completely between my legs, and then he kissed my shaven mound reverently before folding one of my knees over to touch the other, like closing the covers of a book.

  “You are a gorgeous tangle of rope and limbs,” he said, framing the imaginary shot with finger Ls.

  “Take a picture,” I said, too spent to do anything but smirk.

  “Are you serious?”

  “I am. I mean, not a dirty one. You know.”

  He chuckled and retrieved his phone from the parlor. His fingers brushed softly at my hair, hiding my face, and then he snapped the photo. “There. And I’ve texted it to you.”

  I heard the chime of the new phone. “Is that for me to keep?”

  “The photograph?” he asked as he sat on the edge of the bed.

  “The phone, silly.”

  “Ah. Didn’t you say you wanted to get rid of your piece-of-junk phone?” He grinned. “It’s all yours…if you’ll answer it when I call.”

  I raised my head to look at him, shaking the hair from my eyes. “Why wouldn’t I answer it?”

  He picked up the pearls and set them aside, then rubbed my calf tenderly. “I didn’t say it would be a difficult price to pay, necessarily.”

  “We have a deal, then.” I giggled suddenly as he touched a ticklish place on my leg.

  He grinned but laid his hand, firm and warm, over the spot. “Did you enjoy your shopping trip?”