by A. J. Downey
Ally was on her knees, legs parted, seated back on her heels, hands resting on her thighs in the slave rest position I had taught her, and I felt my cock stir. Her submission was beautiful to me and I had every intention of rewarding her for the gift she brought to my heart which swelled with a fondness and love for her like no other.
“Stand up for me,” I ordered. She did, and I gave a further command: “Turn your back to me, Bright Eyes.” She turned away from me. “One giant step to the left.” I needed her away from the bed so I would have the room I needed. She obeyed beautifully, and I set the rope on the foot of the bed. The mask I retained, and went up to her back, pressing a light kiss to her shoulder. She sighed out and I murmured, “Close your eyes,” against her skin. I felt more tension ease from her as she submitted to my will.
I gathered her hair down her back‒ it reached nearly to her waist now. I loved her long hair, her supple skin, her light breaths as she waited in anticipation of what I would do to her next. I slipped the mask over her eyes, and she sucked in a sharp breath before letting it out in a trembling sigh. She was so stressed, so distraught, that this was going to take some work.
“Put your hands behind your back, palms together, lace your fingers, like this.” I guided her arms gently to where I wanted them to be and pressed her forearms together, doing some light stretching. “Is that too much?” I asked.
“No.”
“Are you comfortable holding this stance, like this, for a while?”
“I think so.”
“You know your safewords, tell me if at any time it becomes uncomfortable.”
“Yes, sir.”
I undid the first bundle of rope and flung it out to the side. It unraveled and slapped the carpet and she jumped slightly at the unfamiliar sound. I made a soothing sound and started a loop at her thumbs, holding the rope at the bight. I smoothed the length between my hands and wound it around her wrists, creating a wrap-cinch, binding her wrists together. I used the extra rope to bind her in a double column from wrist to elbow, her shoulder blades sharply pulled together. It would have a similar effect when I got to fucking her from behind that as it would if I pulled her arms back to drive into her. This would only be slightly less intense and would leave my hands free, though.
I turned her and she went willingly with the motion. I shoved her forward and she yipped slightly as she fell face-first into the mattress. I helped her up onto the bed and said, “Wait for just a moment. I’m still here; I’m not leaving you or going anywhere. Just hold that thought.”
I went and grabbed my wedge pillow from just inside the closet door and brought it to the bed. I helped her to her knees, set it in front of her and laid her back down. The wedge, under her lifted her hips and took some of the pressure off. It also allowed her to breathe a bit better. Just flat to the bed she would be face-planted into the mattress, which could be claustrophobic or unpleasant.
I was going for bound, helpless, and at my mercy, but I didn’t want to go too extreme for our first time engaging in serious rope-play and bondage. I went to the foot of the bed and unfurled the next set of rope, mimicking what I’d done to her wrists with her legs, binding her from ankle to knees, so she was trussed and safe. So she would just need to take what I gave her, feel everything, with no other choice.
God, I was hard. I admired my handiwork, how she lay helpless, her head turned to the side, her lips parted as she took deep, steady breaths. She was calm and sinking fast into sub space, as if her overwrought mind had simply switched off, finally.
I smoothed a hand over her exposed skin, touching her lightly but firmly, sweeping my fingers and palm over her body and watching the goosebumps raise on her. I took my time stripping out of my jeans, undoing my belt, letting her hear everything. Letting her listen as I opened the drawer on what had become my side of the bed when she was here. The sound of tearing the condom packet off the string of them. The crinkle of the wrapper as I tore it open. The subtle sounds of me rolling it down my length.
Every bit of it was more erotic than the last. Every subtle noise, every shift in air current against her skin, every shift of the mattress as I straddled the backs of her thighs, ramped up the anticipation. The tension so thick with what next you could slice it with a razor. Her breath was already coming in soft, short little pants the more I touched her.
I pressed on her glorious ass, pressing it out of my way to her entrance and, of course, found her body slick and wanting me. She never disappointed me on that front. I pressed my fingers inside her and massaged her walls, finding and exploiting that rough patch just a few inches inside and down. She whimpered and writhed against my hand as much as her bonds would allow and I smiled to myself.
“I’m going to fuck you,” I told her, and she clenched around my fingers. I grinned and went further, “I’m going to fuck you and you’re going to come all over my dick. I’m not going to stop fucking you either. I’m not going to stop until I’m satisfied.”
I slapped her right ass cheek with a sharp report and she let out a low, gasping cry, and came lightly around my fingers. I felt a wicked grin curve my lips and said to her, “That’s it. That’s my good girl,” as I teased another orgasm out of her. A stronger one, this time, with my fingers. She bit her bottom lip, whimpering, body relaxed and languid beneath mine. When she reached that point and she was super wet and ready, I plunged my cock into her warmth.
I wasn’t easy on her, but I wasn’t as rough as I could be, either. I stroked inside deeply and thrust just that little bit more and she cried out, a wailing, begging sound that was music to my ears. I set a rhythm that was just this side of punishing and rode her body into the mattress and wedge and she screamed, “Yes!” and angled her hips as best she could to both accept my body into hers and thrust hers back onto me.
It was hot, she was so far gone from her worries and concerns for the moment, and I had successfully gotten her there. I sighed out and worked my body into hers and let myself go and really feel her; let my body make the decisions for me in a pale imitation of what I had already stripped her down to.
The pressure built, things tensed and I thought I would explode and then I did in the best way possible. My balls contracted, my cock jumped inside her and I filled the damn condom so hard I thought it might very well be to the damn brim.
“Oh, god! Ally!” I cried and collapsed over her, chest and belly scraping over the ridges of soft rope holding her at my mercy.
We panted, lying spent for several minutes while I tried to find the strength to push myself up and work her bonds loose. Slipping the rope free from its quick-release knot at the top and loosening things from elbow to wrist, I managed to pull the lot of it free, sliding it off like a sleeve.
I took my time, massaging life back into her hands and admiring the lattice of rope imprints in her delicate skin. She moaned softly, groaning when she took her arms back and moved them forward to lay flat on the bed.
“I’ll get your legs, just lay still.”
I pressed fingers to the root of my softening cock and slid out of her, holding the condom on and walking backward on my knees to either side of her so that I could step off the end of the bed and deal with it quickly before I got to unbinding her the rest of the way. She lay limp and in a perfect state of bliss while I threw the condom in the trash and wound the rope from her arms back into a neat bundle. I unlaced her legs and wound that rope too, while she basked in her afterglow. She didn’t move once she was free and I smiled to myself, glad she’d liked it.
I set the rope aside on the nightstand and pulled back a triangle of blankets and sheets, saying “Come on Bright Eyes. I need you to move under the covers with me.”
She pushed herself up slowly, languidly, and I pulled the wedge out from under her and set it aside. She stretched luxuriously, like a cat, and crawled to the top of the bed, sliding beneath the covers. I chuckled and got into the bed with her, reaching up and switching off the bedside lamp, plunging us into darkness. She
sighed and settled against me, cuddling as close as she could get, putting as much of her warm, silky skin against mine as she could.
“I love you,” she breathed and I kissed the top of her head, understanding the importance of sharing those three little words. Understanding the importance of sharing them back, as quickly and as often as possible.
“I love you, too, Bright Eyes.”
You never wanted to waste the opportunity to tell the ones you loved that you did, or just how much. You never knew when it might be the last opportunity and what’s more, the world we lived in needed as much love and positive energy as anyone could muster to put out into it.
The truth was, I needed this as much as she had. The briefs and case-files scattered on my desk in the next room weren’t going to soon be far from my thoughts, just as the pile of funeral arrangement paperwork for her grandmother wasn’t going to be, either.
32
Ally…
Damien helped me so much in the next few days. He helped me fill out the funeral paperwork and to pick the best option. My grandparents had believed in cremation and so we’d done that. I couldn’t help but wonder if that was what it was because it also happened to be the vastly cheaper option between cremation and burial.
When we went to the funeral home to give them the paperwork, he’d held my hand, and when they asked me if I wanted to see her, he had been the voice of reason, turning me to him and saying softly, “Speaking from experience with numerous families whose loved ones have died victims… you don’t want to do that, baby. You want to remember her alive and vibrant. Don’t let this be the memory of the last time you saw her.” The pleading in his eyes convinced me and I told the funeral director, ‘no.’
Likewise, the funeral director asked if there would be a service and I shook my head dejected. I couldn’t afford what they were asking, and I honestly didn’t see anyone but Dawnie, Mr. Comey, and myself attending. Even with the candlelit shrine in my grandmother’s garden, the Point Side residents and funerals were a fickle thing. They were likely to turn out and show up for a banger killed by another banger or the cops, but when Mr. Dodds had had his heart attack? It’d just been his family, my gran, and Dawnie.
Damien had taken me home after that. Had fixed us lunch while I quietly sulked on the couch and tried not to let myself fall completely into the pit of my despair. He’d brought the two plates of sandwiches and chips to the living room and handed me one, taking up a seat in his favorite chair.
“Turn on the news for me, babe?” he’d asked since the remote was closer to me. I took it up and turned on the television and the midday news flickered to life on the screen. More terrorist attacks overseas. More hate, more tragedy, more despair. I broke down and cried softly, overwhelmed.
The remote was taken from me, the television switched off, and gentle hands smoothed my tears away while intense dark eyes tried to assess how to help. Problem was, I didn’t know the answer to that.
“Okay, I want you to eat and then I want you to take a nap while I get some work done,” he said. I nodded, ate, and he tucked me in, laying with me until I fell asleep. It was one of the sweetest, kindest things I ever remembered a boyfriend doing for me.
When I got up, he was dressed in jeans and a tee, his biker jacket and motorcycle vest on the back of one of the dining room chairs opposite the wreckage of my latest sewing project that was under construction.
“Did you go somewhere?” I asked.
“Nope. It’s where we’re going.”
I frowned and he said, “Dress to ride. Casual, comfortable.”
“Okay,” I murmured.
I was curious and it was a Friday night, so why not? Maybe the ‘wind therapy’ of a ride, or so he called it, would do me some good. Who knew?
I dressed carefully, in jeans and boots, a thick sweater, and over it all, a more fashionable than functional leather jacket that I owned. When I came out, he smiled at me and said, “You’re lovely.” He held out his hand and I took it and we went down to the garage together. The ride was soothing, the cooler fall air a balm to the constant burning ache that had taken up residence in my soul.
He pulled into the alley by the 10-13 and tapped my knee. I got down and he backed his bike into the line of them that always seemed to be there. I sighed and he took my helmet from me and grabbing up my hand, we went around the corner.
A printed sign hung in the front glass of the door that read ‘Closed tonight for a private event’ which made me falter, tugging on Damien’s opposite hand as he reached for the door.
“The sign,” I said, and he turned to me.
“I know, we’re good,” he jiggled our combined hands reassuringly and pushed open the door, leading me in past him.
“I smell Yale, is Ally with him?”
“I’m here,” I told Dawnie, blinking in surprise.
“Just so you know, you’re supposed to wear cologne, not bathe in it. At least if you don’t want the blind girl calling you out,” she said, past me, in Damien’s direction.
Oz, who was beside my best friend, started cracking up laughing, and I admit I kind of laughed too. Dawnie turned in Oz’s direction and said pointedly, “I don’t know what you’re laughing at, buddy. You’re guilty of it, too.”
“Oh, you’re funny!” Oz declared, his amused grin intensifying rather than diminishing.
“I’ll be here all week,” Dawnie declared sarcastically, “No, really, I will. That seems to be how long it’s going to take me to get a drink around here.”
“Relax, sweetheart. Leave the salt on the glass,” Skids said, pressing a margarita into her hand.
“Thank you,” she said happily, and sipped from the rim, ignoring the two little straws. “Mm, Skids, was it?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s some good shit, thank you.”
“Anytime,” he said, laughing, and made his way back around behind the bar.
“What is this?” I asked softly.
“This, is your grandmother’s wake,” Damien said gently in my ear and I blinked, realizing pictures were playing on the bar’s television. Photographs of my grandmother. Well, photographs of photographs…
“How did you?”
“Took pictures of the pictures in your photo albums you brought with you,” he said gently. “Robbed some out of your phone when you weren’t looking.”
Different tears sprang to my eyes and Chrissy, who was standing nearby, said, “Awww! Don’t cry.”
“Precious, it’s her grandmother’s funeral,” Youngblood pointed out, and she turned and gave him a light smack against his chest. I laughed through my happy tears and Damien led me to a seat at our familiar tall table.
“I got a story for you,” Golden says after swallowing a sip of his beer and setting his bottle down and I said, “Okay.”
“Oz, you can back me up on this one,” Golden says, and Oz hung his head, shaking it laughing and said, “Oh, Lord!” like he knew what was coming.
“Okay, so we pick up this guy, a drunk and disorderly call, and as we go to put him in the car, dude’s like ‘I call shotgun!’ and the first responding unit let me know, ‘Hey, we ain’t searched him yet’ and me, I’m like ‘Thanks, assholes’ ‘cause now I gotta do it. So we search him, we ain’t find nothing on him, and I go to shove him in the back of our patrol car and dude be like, ‘Hey, I’m like 100% sure that I just called shotgun! Why are you shoving me in the back?’ Of course, that’s how arrest works, right?”
Already people were starting to laugh, and I could already tell this was going to be pretty funny. Golden says, “So my partner, being the dumbass strait-laced motherfucker he is, tries to explain to this guy he’s being arrested, right? Without missing a beat, and as drunk as this fucker is, he turns to Westin and is like, ‘Yeah, I know I’m being arrested, but the rules of shotgun are pretty clear, man!”
The table laughed, and I couldn’t help but join them. Oz just sat there shaking his head, laughing and said, “No, look! No, l
ook! This guy bitched about this all the way through central booking. It was crazy, man. That dude was funny as hell, though!”
“I have a pretty funny arrest story…” I said and the table turned.
“Oh god, the one with your gran?” Dawnie asked.
“Your grandmother got arrested?” Golden asked, frowning at me like I was crazy.
“Okay, you have to understand, this was like a long time ago, the fifties or the sixties or something, right? So my grandmother and my grandfather had just gotten married, they hadn’t been married for very long, and my granddad was this troubleshooter for this hotel downtown here in Indigo City.”
“Okay, what’s a troubleshooter?” Oz asked.
“It’s like a bouncer,” I answered. “So, anyway, my grandmother is a seamstress, right? And she’d lent money to a girl staying at the hotel. So she goes to the hotel to get it back and she’s sitting with the woman at the hotel bar when the police swoop in and arrest her. She was a prostitute, and my grandmother had no idea. Well, they arrest my grandmother too, and she’s screaming at my grandpa, ‘Mace! Tell them who I am! Oh my, god, Mace! Tell them I’m your wife!’ but my grandpa is laughing so hard he can’t say it and they got her all the way into the back of the paddy wagon about to take her to jail!”
Everyone erupted into laughter and I glanced up at the television where a picture was sliding by of me sitting on my grandmother’s knee, my mom next to us on the couch. They were all gone now and I missed them all so much… My heart swelled so big with my pain that I felt like some of my ribs cracked. Tears sprang to my eyes and I crumbled around the edges and Damien was suddenly there, propping me up, holding me tight until the rainstorm passed.
“Sorry,” I said, at the pleasant but somber faces around the table.
“Don’t be, it was a good story,” Golden said, and held up his glass. “To Mace! Poor bastard probably slept on the couch for a week after that shit.”