Straps

It had been a long week. She'd been away on a work related trip, calling periodically to relieve her own boredom. The apartment had been empty of her presence for the first time in as long as I could remember, and it all felt off kilter. Her voice on the other end of the phone line helped, but only did so much to fill the empty chair I ate across from or the depression in our old futon next to my own.

I fell asleep each night dreaming of her warm presence beside me, of the way she would turn over in the night, sleeping, but lips pursed, as if waiting for a kiss. If I obliged her parted lips, it was as if a motor had been started somewhere, with her body slowly coming out from slumber, wrapping itself around my own like a vine. Sometimes it would stop there, and we would both drift off to dream. Sometimes as she wrapped herself around me, she would rub her nipples up against my chest, or accidentally press her sex up against my thigh. She'd wrap herself around me even tighter, burying her head in my chest and starting, almost automatically, to kiss me lightly - a prelude to a bout of gentle lovemaking.

She preferred it when her responses were automatic - when her mind was able to disappear and let her body act only on the emotions and feelings of the moment, welling up from sleep or welling over from intense of mental and physical foreplay. Getting to that point had always been somewhat of a problem, though, no matter how much she loved it. Given our busy working schedules, long hours, and hectic if fun-filled social schedules, our love life had been pushed to these liminal trysts. Perhaps being male, or just having an overactive libido, I had no such problem in being able to let go. I knew she'd be exhausted once she returned, but knowing her, she's also be just horny enough to be frustrated at her lack of ability to let go. I, however, had a plan so that this would matter not a jot.

She arrived home very late with the typical look of one who has just exited an airplane - her body had a sheen of dried sweat, her clothes pressed into odd wrinkles, and the muscles of her neck looked taught as a pair of steel cables. She dropped her bags and collapsed against me, mumbling greetings, how much she had missed me, how the flight was tortuous, how she just wanted to stay there in my arms for the rest of the evening. I savored the feel of her firm small frame against my own, then sat her at our kitchen table. I had whipped up some duck in a cranberry and port reduction accompanied by a bottle of Amarone.

We sat across from each other in the dim kitchen light, sipping our wine and chatting about our week - how boring her seminars had been, how she and some colleagues had snuck out of several sessions to go to local cafes, bars, museums, about the planned housewarming we were attending this weekend, the various gossip of our friends - but our words meant nothing. We sat, swirling the wine in our glasses, and re-acquainting ourselves with each others' faces, our hands periodically touching and exploring each other. I let my fingers run across the lines of the tendons in the back of her hand, stroking slowly back and forth. She ran her fingertips across the length of my palm.

As we finished our meal, I put a kettle on, ostensibly for tea. She corked the bottle and walked up behind me, inhaling my scent as she wrapped her arms around my waist. "Oh, let's just go to bed. I'm kind of tired, and that wine didn't help. That, and maybe you could help me relieve some of this tension that's built up," she said as she pushed her fingers between the buttons of my shirt, grazing my belly with her fingernails. I turned the heat to low, not off, turned around and gave her a long soft kiss.

"Don't need to tell me twice. I'm going to hit the loo, but I'll join you in a moment, my dear." She chuckled and padded softly back to the bedroom. I went to the bathroom and quickly undressed. As I walked towards the bedroom I saw only the dim lights of our bedside lantern from the doorway, just as I had wanted it. She was still looking at the bed, her head cocked to one side in curiosity. "Just what is this?" she asked quizzically without turning around. She was looking at the tangle of dark green crushed velvet straps that lay down the sides of the bed. I came up behind her and wrapped by bare arms around her.

"This is for you," I said in a low voice, kissing her neck. "Something so that you can let go, loose yourself in the pleasure that makes you glow so beautifully. If you don't want, just say so, and we can try this again another time, or not do it."

She was stroking my arms, pressing herself against the warmth of my naked body, my erection lodged up against the thin skirt covering her butt. She turned her head back and kissed my cheek. "Oh, I want. I want."

I took off her glasses and placed them on the adjacent bookshelf, grabbing another strip of the soft fabric that I had left sitting there. I lifted it slowly over her head and bound it around her eyes as she inhaled sharply. Swiftly I unbuttoned her blouse, keeping myself behind her. I pulled it back over her shoulders slowly, pausing as it reached her elbows to run my hands up over her stomach, cupping her breasts still enclosed in the silken material of her bra and softly biting her neck. She moaned softly and pressed against me. Stroking her arms, I pushed them down and let her blouse fall off. I unzipped her skirt and let it fall the ground. I turned her around and reached behind her, bring our chests together as I unbuttoned her bra.

I kissed the top of her head, her check, paused and lingered over her lips, just barely brushing them, then moved down to her neck and her upper chest. I began a slow trail of kisses down the top of her breast, and just as I was about to reach the cup of her bra, I pulled it down, off her shoulders, and latched my mouth around her right nipple. She reached up and ran her hands through my hair I slowly circled her other nipple with my thumb as I let the rest of my hand close about her warm small soft perfect breast. She bit her bottom lip as I resumed slowly kissing downward, licking her belly button, and then kissing my way down the soft trail of hair that lead from her belly to her panties.

I was kneeling now in front of her. I pressed my face against her sex, a thin layer of fabric separating us, and inhaled. I could smell her growing damp, the stale sweat from the airplane, the smell of the soap she had used that morning, and it all aroused me as I breathed her in. I hooked my thumbs in her panties and pulled them down. As she stepped out of them, I held each calf for a moment and planted a kiss on the inside of her thigh. When she had finished I buried my face in the soft tangle of hair in front of me and kissed her moistening sex gently as I heard her groan lightly before biting her lower lip.

I stood up next to her and picked her up, sweeping her legs into one arm while I cradled her back in the other. She let out a whoop and we both cracked up. Then I leaned over and kissed her. Were my arms not to tire, I could have stood there all night in the half-light, holding my lover to me and kissing her. I carried her to the bed and lowered her right in the center.

"As we've never done this before, I'm not actually going to be tying you up. Rather, these straps will limit how far down on the bed you can go. The further you scoot down the bed, the tighter they'll be. Similarly, if you want to loosen them, just scoot up a bit. They should do the job of holding you in just the position I want, though, " I told her as I looped the straps around her limbs. I had secured each arm strap to a slat in the head of the bed with a bowline and similarly tied a bowline at the end through which I put each wrist. The straps were short enough that her arms lay back behind her angled towards the corners of the bed. To complete the effect I closed her hands around the loose loops of the straps, giving her something to pull and bear down on later.

"My god I love you," was all she said.

I had tied one end of each leg strap to the upper corners of the bed as well. I looped each down and underneath her knee, then back up to the corner of the bed. I pulled each strap tight enough to pull her knee up to nearly her waist and out, spreading her open before me on the bed before securing it with a clove hitch. As I would lean up and across her to tie each new knot, she would raise her head to kiss whatever portion of my body that passed overhead - my chest, stomach, arm, or anysuch. As I finished I stopped and kissed her back. I didn't expect the ardent intensity of the kiss that she returned. I noticed she was breathing hard through her nose and her face was flushed already. I returned her ardour for a few moments, enjoying it as she sucked in and bit my bottom lip, then I pulled back quickly leaving her trying to still kiss me as I chuckled. I stood up and went to the foot of the bed and gasped.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Holy shit, you're just so...so fucking beautiful." There before me she lay. The light washed sepia over the normally ivory curves of her breasts, her ribcage, her thighs, and the rest of her body. Her stiff nipples cast small shadows, and I could see the beautiful red lips of her sex glistening, already wet from so little contact. "I'll be right back," I told her, running lightly out of the bedroom, my erection jangling in front of me.

In the kitchen I poured the hot water from the kettle into a large bowl and put a small bottle of oil in the bowl. I pulled out another bowl and filled it with ice and water from the tap, letting the ice melt ever so slightly. I returned to the room and set these on the table next to the bed. "What is that?" she asked.

"Never you mind," I replied, chuckling, and bringing my hands together so that they would return to body temperature. I leaned over again and kissed her swiftly, pulling away just as she began to kiss back. I repeated this two or three times, and she began to pre-emptively try and put her head up to kiss me. I reared back and dove into her neck, kissing and licking, nipping at the tendons down the side. She let her head lean back enjoying the attention, and I pulled away. She growled at me, and I placed my hand on her belly, slowly and lightly stroking my fingers back and forth. I leaned over her and let my hair fall forward, brushing back and forth along her torso. I moved my hand down, letting it run along the top of her left thighs, then over to where it squeezed and massaged her calf.

Periodically I stopped and kissed whatever patch of skin my face was hovering over. With my other hand, I stroked her earlobe. Then I stopped. I continued in this manner of random kisses, strokes, licks, and bites - stopping whenever she started to relax into whatever I was doing too much. She groaned and growled at me at first, then began to whimper, wanting my touch even more. I glanced down and saw that she had grown wetter with anticipation. A damp spot was beginning to spread on the sheet beneath her. "Please," she whispered, "please, I want more."

I stopped and leaned my head over one nipple and began to suck with abandon. She gasped and arched her back, crying out. As I sucked harder and harder, I reached over to one bowl and pulled out an ice cube. I released her tender swollen nipple and breathed softly over it. Then kissed it, swirling my tongue around it as I brought the ice cube over, cupping it in one hand to make sure it would not drip on her. As I released her nipple, I angled my hand letting the cold water drip onto it and bead down off her areola. She gasped and bit her lower lip with each drop. As my hand emptied of water, I brought the cube closer and closer to her nipple, letting it drip, and letting her feel the cold aura of the ice.

Her breathing was increasingly rapid as she knew what might come next. The ice kept dripping and her nipple grew increasingly hard. Just as the cube was about to make contact with her nipple, I withdrew it, placed my mouth over her nipple, swirling my tongue around it, letting her groan for a moment before I instead placed the cube on her bellybutton and ran it up towards the center of her chest. She let out a yipe and I sucked harder on the one nipple while beginning to circle her other breast with the cube.

I pulled back and set my head on level with her breast, letting my breath flow over the top of her warm wet nipple and watching my hand zero in on the other nipple. As it reached its goal, I began lightly brushing the ice back and forth across her nipple. After a few strokes, I leaved over and let my tongue run across. She squirmed against her restraints, and I pulled back, running the cube now across the other nipple. I alternated rubbing and sucking as she moaned and whimpered more and more, her hips and head slowly grinding against the bed, her chest raised in anticipation of each next dose of cold or my warm mouth.

I began to run the ice up across her belly to the base of her neck. With each stroke she pulled, twisted or turned. After a few, I followed the trail of cold liquid with my tongue until I reached the base of her neck. I chased the ice cube with my kisses up around her neck until I reached her lips. I lowered it to her lips and let her suckle it in, then kissed her over, taking the cube back into my own mouth. She playfully fought, holding it with her teeth, but all it took for me to take it back was one lazy stroke across her clit. She released it, either in surprise or desire for more.

The cube grew smaller and smaller until it became a mere sliver with a hard edge. I scraped it once more across her nipple, then covered it with my tongue and lips, feeling the rumbling growl of her moan in her chest one more time as the sliver melted away in my hand. I reached back and fished out another cube, my hand dripping and cold. I swiftly brought it over the engorged lips of her sex and let the water drip off.

She never knew what hit her. She let out a cry and pulled hard against all four straps. The wood of the bed creaked loudly, and I swiftly moved my head down between her legs and placed a warm wet kiss where the water had dripped, sucking just a little bit. I heard her breath pick up in pace fivefold. Just as soft moans began to escape her lips I stopped and looked up the wet gooseflesh of her belly, admiring the curve of her neck as her head slowly rolled from side to side, the bones of her jaw lit delicately. "No, not quite yet," was all I said. Her response was nonverbal, but I could tell the frustration in her breathing.

Instead I took the cube and ran it up her inner thigh. I painted slow circles of cold with the cube until her thigh was cold enough that she noticed the cold less and less. I put my hand in the hot water at the side of the bed and came back, letting it trickle down her numbed thigh. The effect was calming. Her breathing deepened as the warmth relaxed her. I traced across her other thigh and calf lazily with the ice, licking and suckling her soft delicious flesh. Each application of ice brought and intake of breath. My kisses elicited soft sighs or even moans.

She had been brought up and down the scale of passion, and now it was time to go in for the kill. Slowly, imperceptibly, I began tracing further down her thigh towards the cleft in her legs. My kisses became more nibble, bites, sucking in the flesh hard. Her breathing picked up pace again, her hands twining in her straps, her knees starting to pull down. I made sure it seemed I had some space to go when I stopped, and pressed the ice cube directly up against her moist slit. She cried out, pulled against the straps hard, a mixture of pleasure and shock. Just as I had done before, I removed the cube and pressed my mouth to her, suckling and running my tongue up and down her sex.

She began keening as her legs shook. I sucked harder and harder. I heard her orgasm approaching. It was not there yet, but from the sound of just its approach, I knew this would be marvelous. I began stroking the cube up from the base of her sex, running up and across her clit and following it rapidly with my tongue, splayed wide to warm her entirely. With each stroke her hips rocked more and more, she pulled tighter and tighter on the ropes. Her rhythmic cries grew more and more urgent. Five, ten strokes, and then she was there. The cube was almost gone. I put it in my mouth, and pressed it with my tongue against her clit, letting the last bit of cold melt into my warm loving mouth latched around her taught little nubbin.

I'm not really sure how long her orgasm lasted. It may have been more than one. I heard half gasped invocations to deities. Pleadings of love for me. Hard breaths of passion. And wordless moans of release and pleasure. Her neck arched back, each tendon standing out, and her mouth was forced open into a wide 'o'. All the while she pulled so hard against the straps I feared she might split the wood of the bed. I kept up the mild suction and gentle movement until her hips returned back to the surface of the bed as she relaxed back from her orgasm.

"Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Oh, dear, that was amazing," came her hurried breathless praise. I moved up between her legs, and hovered over her chest, bringing our faces together, and planted a long soft lingering kiss on her lips. She had just the strength to respond, but I could tell this had worn on her quite a bit, as I had anticipated. I reached across and untied all of the ropes, and she collapsed back against the bed, still breathing deeply. I stood up and looked down at her. As before, she was an amazing sight in the dim lamplight. Now, though, her hair was disheveled in a halo about her head. Her skin was wet, covered with moisture from the ice and my mouth. Her limbs lay akimbo, and the straps and twisted sheets littered the bed casting small rippled shadows. There was a large damp area underneath her hips, a mixture of melted ice and her own juices. The blindfold remained in place, however, a talisman of the eroticism of it all. Just looking at the whole scene would have been enough to make me hard if I hadn't been in the first place.

As her breathing slowed, I poured the warm oil into my palm and began rubbing it in at the tops of her shoulders, lifting her pliant arms and rubbing it in, eliminating any tension I found and concentrating on her wrists and palms, where there were marks from her pulling on the straps. I kneeled between her hips, and began rubbing my oiled hands down the sides of her ribcage. She moaned softly, this time in comfort and relaxation. I rubbed slowly across her belly, then with the bottle, anointed her breasts with more oil. I leaned forward kissing her slowly, with a building passion as I rubbed the oil into her breasts. I rolled her slick nipples between my fingers, pinching them lightly. I could feel the life come back into them. Her ardor began to return as the kisses grew less languid. I ran my fingers around the edges of her breasts, then let them rest lightly atop, my thumbs circling her areolas. She was regaining her composure, no longer a lump collapsed against the bed. Her kisses intensified, and her arms circled me, nails digging lightly into my back.

At this I twisted her slipper nipples in my fingers, making her gasp, then sucked her neck hard. I slid down across her slippery chest, and sat back on my heels. I could see the red marks around her knees from the straps. I poured out more oil into my palms and massaged these, straightening her legs out and rubbing across her taught thighs and calves. All the while, though, I ran my fingernails of one hand up and down behind the other soothing massaging hand. I could hear her starting to gasp and groan again, sighs mixing relaxation and pleasure. I stared up her oily glistening body, admiring the way the light made her breasts almost glow. Her belly looked even more inviting, and while I continued massaging one thigh, I began slowly, then more quickly showering it with kisses. It was a silly gesture, but I couldn't help myself. We both laughed, and I leaned back, returning to my ministrations, now just running my finger lightly up and down her inner thighs, drawing closer to my goal.