I am Pleasure

Now she was returning from the kitchen with two refreshed wine glasses. Landing one of them carelessly, a splash of crimson leaped free and fell to its final reward on the nightstand.

"Oopsie daisy." She began to settle herself precariously on the edge of the mattress next to me. 'Oopsie daisy,' I mumbled to myself. That would sum up the whole of my life at this point. That would be all I could imagine now to have engraved on my tombstone. 'Oopsie daisy'.

Steffie began to burrow one arm underneath my shoulders, urging me up. Cradling me, she lifted the other glass to my lips. As I accepted it and drank, I suddenly felt the pathetic foolishness of my situation. I wasn't a helpless child. I'd accomplished so much to be proud of in my life. I'd traveled, created so many pieces I loved, discarded countless more, fought for friends and family I loved, discarded countless more, overcome a myriad of hardships, succumbed to countless more.... I wasn't meant for this, didn't deserve this. So how the fuck had I become this?

Withdrawing the glass Steffie eased me down again. "Close your eyes, sweetie," as she rubbed her fingertips over them. Then in a whispered hush against my ear, "Just release yourself. Do nothing. I want to take care of you. Please let me do that?"

She grazed her lips along my ear, nibbling briefly at my earlobe. Then I sensed a movement and heard the cap of the massage oil flipped open. After a moment there was a vigorous rubbing of her hands and the slightly sexual slurping of the wetness against her palms. And then a gliding of those welcome hands about my chest.

There was none of the urgency in me now that I'd felt moments ago in the bath. She spread the oil languidly about my sternum, upward to stroke along the muscles behind and beside my neck, then down along my shoulders and in again to cup my breasts, gliding her fingertips back and forth across my nipples like a piano. My mouth parted as I inhaled deeply the vanilla and citrus odor of the oil, my chest heaving up to meet her touch. Tracing circles around my areola, that touch moved its way down below my ribs and pushed in underneath me, pulling up firmly. I heaved upward and there was a small pop in my spine, then she was moving up to play across my lower ribcage. After a pause to refresh the oil, I felt tentative, light circles around my solar plexus that widened and traveled until they wound in clockwise whirlpools around my stomach, gingerly movements that opened up until they brushed against my pubis. Insistent circles spun themselves excruciatingly lower now, brushing through my hair until they stroked flittingly against the upper crease of my mound, threatening but never touching my clitoris. Then in a flush they were gone.

There was another sharp plick from the cap on the bottle of oil. Now cool beads and streams were raining down my upper thigh, then dribbling their way from one knee and up along the other. Tickling rivulets trickled downward, inward. Then they were quickly replaced by warm, kneading, persistent and exploring hands. I felt a fluttering in my chest for the first time in ages, and the beginning of a different fluttering much lower.

"You know Olivia," Steffie's voice was low, "I actually remember the first time I met you when you were moving in." She pressed into the tops of both of my thighs with the heels of her hands, then gripped them firmly and stroked downward again. "I was in the back-yard by the pool cleaning up bottles and shit after our Labor Day party, and you were out back taking pictures of that hops vine along our fence line." Both her hands were now pressing up the inside and outside of one thigh, then down again. My eyelids were shut, but her voice took on a playfully suggestive tone. "But you weren't just shooting the hops were you?" Fingers worked insistently up my thigh again. "You were taking photos of me." She paused on the upward stroke to knead the muscles. Her inner hand brushed occasionally near my mound. "Weren't you?"

I felt my eyelids tense. I felt my Kegel muscles tense. With an effort I coaxed them both to relax.

'Yes,' I answered hesitantly, 'but not what you think.'

She raised my knee into the air, and began vigorously working at my thigh from all sides. "Oh no, no hon. I didn't think you were doing anything - you know - indiscreet or anything." One hand pushed its way confidently below my buttock as the other braced it along the top of my pelvis. "I actually was kinda flattered." She began to work the muscles around my butt, stroking strangely but not unwelcomely close to my anus. "But then I think I might be kind of a narcissist."

'Steffie,' I found myself saying, not willing to open my eyes to her as I wanted to. 'Can I tell you something?'

Her attentions slowed, but didn't stop. The gentle stroke of the side of her hand against my anus was distracting.

'Sometimes I like to take pictures of people who are normal. But not, like, 'normal' normal people. People who are normal, but like...who are normal like I wish I could be.'

Even as I said this I felt myself tense inside, feeling that I'd just insulted her. It wasn't polite to call anyone 'normal' was it? But after the briefest pause she seemed to lower herself a little, and I felt a warm breath against my leg.

"Oh sweetie pie!" she moaned almost pitifully. "That's so flattering." I was greeted by urgent kisses and tongue lashes against the inside of my knee. These were soon followed by the soft-sharp feel of her teeth once again nipping at the sensitive skin.

I realized Steffie was a biter.

I suddenly knew I wanted to be a biter.

Her other hand was now working its way under my other butt cheek, until both were squeezing and pulling me toward her advancing mouth, now teasing its way in soft tongue strokes along the inside of my thigh. Her lips moved in slow waves up toward my own nether lips, punctuated now and then by the occasional grazing of teeth. As I anticipated the meeting of her lips with mine, she pulled me slightly forward, her fingers making their way firmly up between my buttocks, lightly teasing against my hole. Her mouth, however, now shifted to my other thigh, kissing and licking its way slowly up toward the cleft. Finally, pushing one fingertip firmly against my butthole, she began to glide her teeth and tongue upward to nuzzle in my hair. Her breaths were warm against my labia and I tried to will my sex forward to meet them. But then suddenly, she pulled herself away. A confused moan escaped my throat.

"Oh don't worry honey," Steffie gently reprimanded. "I'm going to take care of you." Her hands moved reassuringly up the insides of my thighs until I felt the too-brief shock of a fingertip brush my clitoris. "But not until you let me pleasure you first. Not 'til you accept pleasure into you again. Not 'til you are so overwhelmed with pleasure you can't take any more because it's stopped being pleasure and it's become everything you are."

Another small moan escaped my throat, but this one was unsure, frightened.

I sensed the weight of Steffie's body crawling upward and looming over me. I couldn't overcome the desire for her touch, yet worry crept over me. Who had I let into my home? And then she was settling her full weight onto me, releasing a pleased sigh into my ear and kissing at my temple, my earlobe, the nape of my neck. As my chest began to heave against hers in quickening breaths, she paused her kisses to whisper against my ear.

"So are you going to let me do this for you?"

I knew wanted to, knew I had to and I would, but couldn't find the courage to say so.

"It's scary, isn't it? Allowing pleasure into you?" Steffie grasped one of my wrists gently and began coaxing my arm up over my head. "Because once you let it in, you know it's just going to leave you again." I felt a hand against my other forearm, and she began urging that one up as well. "So it starts to seem like a good idea to just never let it in again at all." Steffie was beginning to sit up, her knees straddling my waist, her hands now working something softly around an upraised wrist. I opened my eyes to gaze up at her, her face half hidden in undulating shadow as she attended to her duty. With a gentle tug she was pulling the terry-cloth belt from my bathrobe tightly around one of the rails on the headboard of my bed, then beginning to fasten it carefully about my other wrist. Satisfied, she straightened up and looked down on me with a compassionate, hungry smile.

"You're like a scared little animal honey. Frightened of pleasure." She pushed the fingers of both hands into my hair, scratching her nails lightly along my scalp. "Always running away from it. So I'm doing you a favor, really. I'm letting you know that you can't run anymore." Her fingernails scored their way down my neck toward my breasts, until they tickled their way lightly around my hardening nipples. "No. Not anymore. Because pleasure is coming for you. In fact it's already here."

Steffie left off the teasing to settle her face downward closely into mine. In the orange-golden light, she searched my eyes with an unsettling confidence that made me feel I'd slipped scarily out of my depth. Involuntarily I tested, uselessly, against the strength of my bonds. She grazed her lips along my own.

"Because Olivia. I am Pleasure. And Pleasure is about to eat you alive."