And I’m almost successful. I stand my ground, which is definitely an improvement. But the tensing isn’t. I know what the tensing looks like. It looks like I’m bracing myself for a blow, quite obviously. My eyes scrunch shut and my fingers curl reflexively around a fistful of duvet. I can feel the muscles in my thighs snapping to attention, and all under his ever watchful gaze.
It’s no wonder he doesn’t bring the cane down. He must think I’m mad to want something and not want it all at the same time. Or is that the state he’s aiming for? Perhaps that’s why he’s waiting and waiting like this, hinting at a touch he never quite gives. And a blow he never quite strikes. He wants me to go mad before it happens, torn between wanting it and not. He wants me to sweat and shake and foam at the mouth, and it’s not as though he’ll have to work very hard for any of it.
I’m already sweating and shaking and foaming at the mouth. His hands now feel like fire every time they glance against my skin, and the burn is nearly too much to bear.
And then I feel it.
I feel something else … something that isn’t his hand. There’s no flaming fiery heat from this thing, as it draws so slowly along my side. It’s ice-cold and barely there, like he’s caressing me with an icicle – or maybe a knife he sometimes stores in the deep freeze.
Yes, yes. That’s what it reminds me of: the cold edge of a blade that doesn’t quite cut, just ever so slightly suggesting violence. In a second he’ll lift it, I’m sure, and then whoosh and crack … followed by the split of my skin. I even hold my breath for it, eyes so tightly squeezed shut I can feel tears forming in the corners. It’s here, I think, it’s coming, it’s now now now.
Only it isn’t. I hold my breath for so long I start to see spots, but no blow falls. No sharp sting comes after it. That sharp suggestion of a knife’s edge disappears, as though it was never there at all. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if it wasn’t. Everything’s so tense and taut I could have imagined it. I could be imagining all of this. Maybe I’m bent over in my bedroom, dreaming of a man with a face like granite and a teasing hand like the side of a knife, and in a moment I’ll wake up.
Is it OK if I want to wake up? This is far too much for me – I was wrong, I was wrong. I’m not a secret masochist at all. I’m something else, though I’ve no idea what. And I keep on having no idea until the sensation suddenly shifts, from cold metal to something far softer, and finer.
At which point, I start to understand. It’s easy to, when every muscle in your body suddenly relaxes as one. Relief like running water floods through me, so sweet I could weep. This is what I want, I think at him. This is exactly what I want.
But he already knows. He probably knew all along. Why else would he raise the stakes so high, then let them drop just as I’m dying for them to? Just as I’m crying for them to? I bet he saw the shake in my pointing finger, and decided then.
He’s not going to cane me.
He’s going to tease me until I go insane.
But if so, he has to know: I’m halfway there already. All he has to do is whisper that silk scarf over my skin, and I squirm and twist like a creature caught on a hook. I need more of it, I need more. Or am I trying to get less? I don’t know – but I do know that he doesn’t care either way.
‘Stay still, Alissa,’ he says, and somehow it’s better than every sweet nothing I’ve ever received. His voice is as firm and smooth as a newly planed surface, with just a hint of that insanely good accent around the edges.
It’s no surprise that I struggle to obey. But it is a surprise that I want to. Oh, I want to be firm and resolute; I want him to be impressed by my ability to be both. And the more I fail the keener this need gets, until I’m mired in it. I’m up to my neck. My body trembles with the effort of resisting, even as it strains to give in. Move towards the feather-light stroke of that scarf, my body demands.
But when I do he simply whispers the silk away – like some secret message. Stay still, and I will be rewarded. Move, and I’ll get nothing.
Though following this set of rules is easier said than done. I manage to remain motionless for a full thirty seconds, as he dances it over my side – so deft and sure it’s like being stroked by a third, achingly soft hand. Then he just barely lets its trailing end ease down, over the curve of my right breast …
And suddenly I’m a mess. I fumble towards it without even meaning to, too greedy for more. The very tip of the scarf almost catches my stiff little nipple, and I just can’t help myself. I react instinctively, like a flower seeking the sun – only violently. Oh, God, I jerk and stutter towards him so violently, oh, Jesus can’t he see how much I need it?
If he can he doesn’t care.
He does the same thing again on my left side – only this time it’s worse. This time he gets so close to that one swollen bud I can almost taste the sensation. It clogs the back of my throat with sounds I don’t want to let out, and warms through my insides in so intense a way I hardly realise he’s stopped.
And then it hits me in a rush, and oh, the absence of that sweet feeling is brutal. A space opens up inside me where it was supposed to go. I actually attempt to claw it back with both hands, though rationally I know the duvet isn’t going to make anything happen. If anything, me tearing at it like an animal is only going to make things worse.
He’s laughing at me now.
He’s laughing, but I find I don’t mind as much as I should. I can’t mind. I’m too preoccupied with the other sound he’s making – the one that nearly makes me turn around and grab him.
He’s taking a couple of steps backwards. I know he is, despite the soft carpeting and my position and this insanity I seem to be suffering under. I can hear it as keenly as I would a giant’s footfalls on a stone floor. It’s almost like the coming of my impending doom, though I know that’s kind of the wrong way around.
He isn’t coming towards me.
He’s moving away.
And I have to do something about that. I have to lift a hand or make a protesting noise or just anything, anything to make him keep doing this. But, of course, the second I make a real move, that smooth voice comes out again, like he’s pulling a gun.
‘Remember what I said. Hands on the bed at all times, please.’
I think the ‘please’ is the most upsetting part. It’s completely sincere, but there’s something about the clipped, cool nature of it. Something that reminds me of that student-and-professor feeling I had when I first saw the cane. It’s a ‘please’ that expects no refusal, polite in its own way but so definite you can’t really refuse.
And, dear God, I want to clutch it to me. I want to write poems in its name. Ode to a please, I’ll call it, and everyone will understand. They’ll get why I obey him so quickly, palms flat again before I’ve even had a chance to think.
I don’t want to think. I just want him to do all of this all over again – and he does. After a moment of my patient waiting, he comes in for another pass.
Only this one is so much sweeter than all the others. This one is my reward for following orders. It has real substance and real weight to it, heavy with the hint of his actual fingertips. They just hover by my side, close enough that I can sense a presence but not close enough for me to be sure.
The heat could be emanating from something else. He might have found another toy to tease me with, more diabolical than the items I’ve already seen. This one has the power to make me bite my lip and wriggle around, too tense to look. And when I do, I’m not sure what to think. There’s nothing new in his hands – he’s just threading the scarf beneath my body, the way someone might do if they wanted to dress me with it. He’s going to create a sort of makeshift bra, I think, then I almost laugh.
Until I realise that’s exactly what he’s doing. He’s letting the material bow beneath my breasts, the ends clasped tight on either side of my body. And as soon as I understand this, I understand what the intention is. He’s going to raise the scarf until it’s touching my most sensitive
places – or else he’s going to tease me until I beg him to.
And I suspect he won’t have to wait long for the latter. My arms are already shaking with the need to bend, because bending them will give me what I want. I’ll get to feel that bright length of silk against my breasts, if I just lean down a little.
But I can’t, I can’t. He’ll take it away if I do. I know he will. I have to be patient, and wait for him to do it his way – even if his way is absolute agony. He raises that material slowly, so slowly, inch by excruciating inch, drawing out the tension until I’m a plucked string. Until I’m moaning and rocking and oh, God, I can feel my own wetness sliding down the insides of my thighs. I can feel my clit like a second heart.
And then the silk just barely grazes my tight nipples. Just barely – nothing much, when you break it down. It isn’t as firm as a fingertip, or as insistent and slippery as someone’s lips. It’s probably the same thing I feel every day when I pull on a sweater or hook my bra together.
So it’s a shock when the sensation hits. It almost swallows me whole, intense enough to qualify as an orgasm but without the crescendo. I get one thick burst, and then nothing. No peak. And more importantly: no relief.
I can’t sink into bliss just yet, apparently.
He’s got more of this torture to carry out.
He lets the silk drop the second I cry out, then just as I’m sobbing with frustration I feel him start to lift it again. I feel it inching closer and closer, almost touching but not quite, before finally, oh, finally, oh, thank Christ … he actually allows it to touch me. He brings it up tight to my too sensitive breasts – so tight it’s a kind of shock. I expected a softer touch, and suddenly he’s giving me full-on fondling.
And he follows it with something even more startling. I’m sure he’s about to stop it there, but instead he slides the material back and forth – the way someone might if they were positioning a ribbon around a gift they wanted to wrap. He’s going to tie me together in a second, which I suppose is a rather unpleasant idea to have.
But it’s also an idea that sends me insane. I think of myself all neatly bound – with that silk for ever rubbing over my stiff nipples – and I say his name. I say his name even though I’ve hardly said it before, and I don’t stop there. I rub myself back and forth against the silk, other words bubbling up to follow that first verboten one.
‘Yes, please,’ I say, ‘yes, yes, go on.’
So he does the opposite. He drops the material as abruptly as he brought it up, cruel enough to almost make me shout. I turn my head, all this sudden rage and frustration forming a kind of bottleneck in my throat. I can actually feel something thick and heavy forcing its way up, ready to kill him for his coldness and his calm and his endless rules.
Only to have the feeling die as quickly as it came.
Of course it dies. I can see his face now, and his body language, and neither of them inspire anger. They inspire a sharp dart of lust – and maybe some other complicated emotions – but not anger. How could it possibly be anger?
He isn’t aloof, like I thought he’d be. He’s not some cold, implacable statue. His shoulders are going up and down with each breath he takes, the way mine are. His lips are parted, showing teeth. And oh, his eyes … they’re like dark fire. They burn right through me, destroying any words I might have wanted to say. I was planning on something like ‘Just fuck me, you fucking fucker,’ but I end up with a kind of dying whimper.
And I don’t care. I’d sacrifice a lot to see him like this – as lost as I am. I’d give up my dignity if it meant he let go of his at the same time, and suddenly … suddenly I know what I have to do. I know how to get what I want, without endless hours of relentless agony. He’s going to put me through it, I can tell.
But I can stop him. I can make him.
I might actually have some power over him. In fact, I’m sure I do. I think back to the first time we were together, when he’d seemed to reach a certain point before falling into absolute chaos. He hadn’t meant to pounce on me like that.
I pushed him over the edge.
And I can push him over the edge now, too. All I have to do is watch for what he likes, the way he watches me. It can’t be that hard, when he’s already halfway there. He’s actually a little red around the cheeks, even though he’s the sort of man who scorns things like blushing. And his hands are definitely trembling a little as he reaches for me again.
It should be a cinch.
But oh, it isn’t, it isn’t.
How can it be, when he doesn’t like the things other men like? I lick my lips at him and get nothing but a sardonic smile for my trouble, and when I give him my heaviest, most sultry stare he goes one better. He takes a step back, like he knows what I’m trying to do and is intent on heading me off at the pass.
Either that or he thinks my efforts are pathetic.
Oh, Lord, I bet he thinks my efforts are pathetic. I have the seductive capabilities of a peanut, and now all of my shortcomings are on show. I can’t be sexy, and I can’t seduce, and I don’t know how to persuade. All I can do is blush and shrug around inside my own embarrassed skin.
But apparently that’s all it takes.
He doesn’t even wait for me to try my next move. He just steps forward again, so close this time I can feel his suit purring against the backs of my thighs. No fussing around with the scarf beneath my body, either. Now it’s his hand on the small of my back, and the material trailing down from that one point of connection.
Like a tail, I think.
But I’m only doing it so I don’t have to consider what that tail is touching. I can’t bear to think about what that tail is touching. I need to create a separate body for all the feelings that spread out from that one soft, wet place, and when the laws of physics refuse me I’m forced to choose some drastic measures.
I have to try to escape, for a start. I can’t stick around for this. I thought I wanted it, but wanting and getting are two different things. Wanting is something far away, abstract, based on seduction techniques I don’t know how to do. Getting is the almost unbearable sensation of that silk dragging over my swollen sex.
And it’s not just the sizzling feel of something touching me there, either. It’s his hand on my back, slowly sliding upwards. His fingers are all spread out so I get the most benefit from each and every one, and oh, that benefit is glorious. My spine is on fire. It keeps sending flaming messages to my brain, like He Is Touching Us With His Bare Hand and even better:
He did this because you blushed.
It’s obvious, I think. But its obviousness doesn’t make it any less exciting and strange and unfathomable. He should prefer a sophisticated woman who knows exactly what she’s doing, but it always seems to be the opposite. He likes it when I’m clumsy and awkward and all over the place, fumbling towards feelings I’ve no name for.
When I do the silliest thing possible – rocking back and forth to get a little more contact – his hand tightens on my back. It makes a near fist and, when he speaks, his words suddenly seem to mean something else.
‘Stay still,’ he says, just like he did before.
But now the sentiment is brand new and really wide open. He’s not saying it for me, I realise. He’s saying it for himself. It’s what he needs, to negotiate his way through the tangled tension between us – my calm, my composure, my resistance to this onslaught.
And when I am none of those things, he isn’t either.
I squirm with abandon, and that hand gets tighter – before leaving altogether. Only now it’s not a punishment for my disobedience. It’s a challenge. He’s thrown down the gauntlet and I have to come back with something new.
And I do.
I keep wriggling, full of self-consciousness at first but gradually growing more and more uncaring. What does it matter if I look silly? He likes silly. He likes it enough to let out a soft sigh when I get bolder, even though a soft sigh from him is practically a shout from anyone else. It strikes a spark in
side me, bright enough to let me ignore him when he says those unbreakable words: ‘Palms flat on the bed.’ He even repeats it, with my name on the end.
But still I don’t obey. I’m right down on the duvet now, the aching tips of my tits finally finding relief against something. If I rub just so, I’m almost sure I could orgasm, though I don’t think I’m ready for that quite yet.
I think something better is coming.
In fact, I can almost feel it building behind me. ‘I’m warning you, Alissa,’ he says, in a voice like breaking glass. He’s splitting down the middle and his insides are almost all over the floor – I just have to push a little harder. I just have to get him into that state of not giving a fuck, and if his panting breath is anything to go by he’s close.
Though now I’m wondering:
Close to what?
Close to burying his face between my legs, again? Close to touching me with his hands? I don’t think I could take it if he did. I’m so sensitive I can’t even rub my pussy against the bed the way I want to. The tiniest brush of the covers against that smooth glossy swell is enough to make me jerk and stutter like a broken puppet.
Yet still I keep squirming. I must look absolutely shameless by this point. I feel absolutely shameless. I’ve never been so willing to be so bare in front of someone, and certainly not at my own behest. He doesn’t tell me to turn over.
I do it. I sprawl out on my back, legs spread for him. Hands all over everything I can bear to touch – which is mostly my elbows and some space I didn’t know I had behind my right ear. However, he doesn’t seem to care what kind of innocuous places I’m touching. His expression is still a flame, and it burns more fiercely by the second. It licks over my hips and my tits, devouring greedily as it goes.
I should really know what’s going to happen next.
Only somehow I don’t. I don’t expect him to grab me. I close my eyes for the briefest of moments and suddenly his hand is around my ankle – though that’s not really the startling part. He’s grabbed me before, after all. And this is what I was aiming for.
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