The Smile

She comes to me, trusting, loving, willing. Cupping her chin, I lift her face for a moment to tenderly brush my lips across hers. Her eyes closed, I search her features for fear.

"Open your eyes and look at me" I whisper.

Her eyelashes quiver for an instant before they slowly rise. Eyelids lift, revealing what is beneath like a curtain revealing the bare stage of her soul. Smooth white corneas slightly bloodshot give her away, she has been crying. The sky bright blue of her iris is almost missing, fear has dilated her pupils. The prey has reverted to instinct, primal responses have her ready for flight from the predator. I am that predator, but she does not flee.

I smile for an instant and her lips begin to curl upward. My grip on her jaw tightens and her nascent smile vanishes. I release her chin and gesture for her to kneel. As she does, I lift the worn black leather cuffs from the bookcase.

"Give me your wrists," I command gently.

I revel in the delicate traceries of blue veins under the white skin of her wrists as she lifts both hands to me. I brush the length of her arms with the soft fleece lining of the cuffs, raising gooseflesh in their wake. The silver of the buckles winks tiny stars at me in the candlelight as the straps tighten.

A new scent perfumes the air. Before, only the sharpness of fear marred her normal sweetness, but now the heavy musk of lust begins to add it's voice to the chorus.

Cuffed, kneeling, eyes downcast as she waits to learn my will, her breath starts to come more rapidly. A faint sheen of sweat glistens on her breasts and shoulders in the warm yellow light. Trailing my fingers across her shoulders, she trembles under my touch. My palms come to rest on her biceps and I grasp her arms tightly as I lift her to her feet.

"You are very beautiful." I breath into her ear as I cup her breasts.

"Thank you, Sir" she whispers almost inaudibly.

The slick leather of the blindfold slides across her forehead, shuttering the lights of her eyes and locking her into her head. Blinded, she sways slightly as I step back to gloat at the glory of her.

She stands heels together, palms forward, breasts proud, and nipples erect. Her light brown hair crowns her in a halo of sensuality, it's loose curls and windblown styling a promise of awakened lust. I circle her, pausing to lean in and breath hotly on a nipple, run a fingernail down her spine, a feather touch of tongue on the nape of her neck. She moans softly and locks her knees as they weaken.

The first touch of the rabbit fur mitt as it brushes across both nipples brings a sharp intake of breath, followed by a shudder as I bend to nip at her neck. That delicate flesh at the base of her neck tastes like a new wine, no great depth or complexity of flavors, but crisp and sweet. I hold a fold of that sweetness between my teeth as I close my lips around a wider expanse of her neck and gently suck. I flick my tongue back and forth and wrap my arms around her waist as her knees buckle. She is ready.

Lifting her off her feet, I take the few steps to the platform of the St. Andrew's Cross. I thrust my leg between her parting thighs to support her while I lift each arm to the dangling chains. Her head falls forward into the upper crotch of the cross as I crouch to pass a silky smooth length of rope around each ankle and secure them to the lower eyebolts of the cross. I pause to reach forward between her legs and run my thumbnail across her sex from front to back. She shivers and moans deep in her throat.

I leave her for a moment to push the play button on the stereo. As the slow sensuous beat of the electronic dance music swells, her head rises. She knows I am about to begin.

The butter soft falls of a pigskin flogger drape across her shoulder to her breasts and glide across her fevered skin as I slowly pull them back to me. The music leads me as the dance begins; the tips of the falls just brushing her back as I perform figure eights with my wrist. The first track ends and a faster one begins. I let the music lead me on con allegro and I move my arm faster, letting more of the falls contact her skin. The soft whip makes a music of it's own in counterpoint to the driving dance beat, the smacks of contact resounding like passionate kisses.

She groans and joins the dance, her hips moving as I lower my aim to the lush buttocks shining in the candlelight.

The music fades and as the next track begins I drop the flogger and draw the paired light paddles from my belt. The percussionist in me takes inspiration from the music, but enhances it by embracing the idea of this woman as an instrument to be played. She has become my xylophone, responding to the impact of my drumming with rhythmic moans and sighs. As I reach the coda of this sonata for sub and paddles, I punctuate the phrase with a hard stroke across both cheeks of her ass wringing from her the sharp intake of breath that rings in the sudden silence of the room.

The skin of her back and butt has taken on a rosy pink tinge that means her body is responding as I wish, bringing blood to the surface and a new supply of transmitter chemicals to the nerve endings. I smile at her back as I clink the ice in my glass of tea. She shivers and tenses. As the music starts once more I loom over her and as she feels my hot breath on her ear, I strike. An ice cube run gently across the inflamed areas feels like a knife cutting flesh, but brings a momentary relief.

The heat of her back and buttocks melt the ice like summer sun and as I cup the remnant of the cube to her sex, she let's a wordless cry escape. The small amount of ice can do little to quench the heat of her loins and my hand is warmed by her sex as I linger, caressing. The kiss of her lips on my palm is piquant and I withdraw my hand reluctantly, pausing to rake my nails across her buttock and back. She flinches away, then moves back into contact with my nails. Acceptance.

I continue my raking of her flesh, moving on to her arms, legs, breasts and belly. She twists in her bonds, her body betraying her desire to accept. I end the raking and take her erect nipples between my fingers and thumbs, applying a slowly increasing pressure until she pushes her body back in a futile attempt to flee the torment. She only succeeds in pressing her back against my unyielding chest and placing her earlobes in reach of my lips and tongue. Seizing an earlobe with my lips I suck and give it a rapid series of tongue flicks. Her hips thrust forward to the cold painted wood of her cross of pain, but I will not allow her upper body to escape. A guttural groan rises from deep within her and she clutches at the chains that hold her upright.

She has crossed the threshold of sub-space and is fully centered. Now her exaltation is palpable and the incandescence of her power seems to light the room as I slowly release her from my embrace. I step back from the cross to pick up the tool that will take her to the heights she and I crave.

The cord wrapped handle of my heavy flogger is rough against my palm as I heft it. The forty falls of half inch wide oil tanned leather drag at my wrist as I lift it for the first stroke. I feel the shock of the falls impacting her back as I see her flesh indent and ripple under the leather. Her breath is driven from her in a whoosh and before she can refill her lungs I deliver two more hard flat blows to her back. I move in to stroke her as she gasps and draws in a shuddering breath, soothing her trembling with gentle caresses.

Slowly I draw the dragon's talon pommel of my flogger down her reddened back, leaving a trail of raised welts across the puffed flesh. She writhes and moans when the claws reach the base of her spine. I draw the flogger back and change my grip to the base of the falls. Her legs part as the rough cord wrapping of the handle slides up to her sex. Slowly the corduroy texture is rubbed forward and back across her lips. I apply more pressure, reaching around her torso to grasp the butt of the flogger in my left hand. I saw back and forth, lifting her toes from the platform as she rides the flogger. She convulses and screams as the orgasm takes her. I am relentless, continuing to lift and grind her, her face and neck flushed in the throes of ecstasy, her cries roughen as her throat becomes raw.

Ever so slowly I lower the flogger until it leaves contact with my lover, tossing it aside. She sags in her bonds, limp and spent. I quickly bend to undo the quick release knots on her ankles and run my palms up her legs, back and arms to the cuffs on her wrists. I then tenderly wrap her in a velvet cloak reserved to that purpose and cradle her in my arms as I release the snap hooks on her wrist cuffs. I cradle her to me as she collapses against my chest. Half carrying her, she stumbles to the sofa and melts into the cushions. I wrap my arms around her and caress her cheek.

The source of the enigmatic smile on Leonardo's most famous subject is a mystery no longer, for now I see it's twin on the lips of my love.