“If you wanted to torment me, blindfold me and tie me to the bed and force me to have an orgasm with the (Hitachi Knockoff) vibrator, I wouldn’t mind,” the request is made as coyly and casually as he can manage, couched in terms that let him pretend he’s not asking for a very specific scenario.
He doesn’t like to ask for things- but then again, neither do I. For me, I deal with it by hinting, coaxing or just flat out taking. He’d been toying with trying to seduce me, little misbehaviours and touches for the last day or so. I’d noticed, but I’d been careful about the bait- he’s been under the weather and I’ve started to second guess myself, not sure if he’s doing this courting because he’s ready or because he feels like he should be ready because he cares about me. (Holy first world problems, Batman!)
At times like this, my body is at once throbbingly libidinal and jealously guarding that same energy. I certainly wanted sex. I’d spent the morning of that day intermittently wandering out onto the sun warmed back balcony, looking at down at where a pair of young men were pulling apart a brick patio- gloves, t-shirts and well fitted jeans on slender, muscular bodies. They didn’t seem to notice that I noticed them, the handsome one in the grey shirt, kneeling and pulling up red rectangles from the spring damp ground.
I thought about something cliche, taking him for an anonymous fuck that made him feel used, working out the logistics in my head: the condoms, the communication, the nail scratches on his work dirtied skin. Then I put these thoughts out of my head because something, beyond the challenge of the chase, is off. I don’t typically tell Wildcard about these momentary distractions because I don’t know how to convey that when given a sexual choice that doesn’t mean either/or but also, I still want him more. The presence of attractive men makes me grumpy that they are not him, and I don’t like admitting that. Given free reign to fuck any man I want, I find myself recoiling, not even mustering up the enthusiasm to flirt. Even weirdly resentful.
But that night, after a morning of fuzzy headed domestic productivity and little in the way of writing, I’ve put those thoughts away. I feel, and dismiss, the sort of pressure that suggests a migraine is looming, a throb in my sinuses and behind my right eye. I’ve been moody again, slow moving and prone to looks of introspective sadness that leave him asking: “What’s wrong? is there anything I can do?”
He feels responsible when I look that way, like he has to find out how to take me out of my head and back into the moment. It’s the sort of relationship thing you discover is important when you’re an adult. But my mood is my mood, and I don’t want to deal with that, for the moment, and so I find the wound up cloak of my aggressiveness, the thing that blankets comfortably around me when I dominate. Casually, I select a candle from where it’s resting in the clutter on his bureau and tell him to take off his shirt. White paraffin lit with a red lighter is then tipped over his bare back.
The little drops cast a shadow before they land, making it easy to guess where you’ll see a splat materialize. I test them on the back of my hand, and pepper him with wax drops. I know he likes the sharp, quick and hot pain on his skin. It’s a cheap trick, but all fetishes are cheap tricks and easy shots, the sex version of knowing where someone hides their spare key so you can rifle through their home unmolested.
His back is like leather, for whatever reason, probably just one of those genetic quirks. When we were first discovering each other’s bodies I wanted to hurt him, to see if he could deal with my level of sadism, and sunk my sharp nails next to his spine. He gave a deep sigh and relaxed, his taut shoulders loosening. For Wildcard, that was just the right amount of pressure to deal with his constant knotted state.
Watching the wax fall, it lands clear and hardens in white, fuzzy edged blots. He shifts a little, and I know he’s enjoying it. This is light BDSM, nothing terrible or complicated, no fearsome scourges or complicated rigging. He’s not even tied down at this point, although his arms are held up and well out of the way, but his head’s going to the right place. It is, as it should be.
When he drops, it’s always very subtle and achingly vulnerable. He lets the tightness of his body’s assembled parts relax and folds down, head dipping and nuzzling against me. His large eyes will half lid- decadent, his guard down. I flick and peel most of the wax off his back and make him stand to brush the rest off, and I can feel the lightest pressure of the connection I’ve just built.
If you were into woo, or magic or tantra, there would be some poetic insertion here about energy, or sacredness, or waking the goddess in me. I’m an atheist and left stumbling around with half remembered undergrad psychology lectures and the sort of inaccurate drug metaphors that hint the closest I’ve been to getting high is wrinkling my nose at someone else’s pot smoke.
Nonetheless, I feel in control, and push him back onto the bed, climbing on top, my eyes meeting his as my hands find and capture his wrists to pin him. He doesn’t like meeting my gaze when I get like this, as much as he likes the dominant part of me- it’s like looking directly into a light.
I tease him that I’ve never really hurt him, and he tells me that just my eyes are scary. He knows I can be mean, but I never force him past what he can handle, and yet the way my eyes look are a reminder that this rigidity is always there.
Wildcard’s a switch- he knows what it’s like from the other side. He’s made those eyes at me and dealt with the fact that I don’t look away and I don’t inherently find I want to, not with anyone. We navigate it as a power game. I know from experience with him that one session like this will discharge his submission and he’ll flip the other way, joking about spanking me and possibly doing his best to make that happen. I look forward to the play scraps in the future, but tonight, wriggling up against him, I can feel the hints that he’s aroused by what we’re doing and still hoping for the reward he hinted for before we started.
I tease him, threatening to not carry it out, tasting the power to say no, but I enjoy it, tying my soft red scarf over his eyes and buckling him into dark leather cuffs and clipping those above his head so his cock is mine to tease. We use slippery, cool lube from the pharmacy, Life brand “Intimate Fluid”, less viscous than ordinary KY, trickling it into my palm and in a wet glaze over his penis, pink and shiny like he’s just pulled out of my cunt or he’s breaking a world record for volume in pre-cum. I use my hand first, before I find the toy. I watch him wriggle and tell him I miss seeing his vulnerable eyes, now hidden away under the scarf and he tries to assure me I can still see his mouth.
The strong pulse of the wand works best squashed flat against the middle of his penis, my other hand curved to cup around, so I can feel the tremors and better jerk him up and down. When he comes he utters three sounds, starting with “Oh…” the two other words too garbled to make out.
When we started doing this he used to utter “Oh fuck!” just as semen started to fountain. Like he was holding a particularly awkward and fragile object that just slipped his grip, or he was startled to suddenly be aware he’d came under these circumstances, his whole body jerking forwards. I don’t know if he’s consciously decided to change what he says, but it’s the selfsame ejection of warm cum, three strings spurting, onto his furred stomach and my fingers.
I let him relax, and sort out the business of the cuffs that are holding his wrists. Kleenex blots away the evidence except for a little residue, and I wash my now slimy hands as lube and cum cool and curdle. The icky part of sex- but not a bad part. Sex is not supposed to be sterile or dignified.
He wants to be a good lover, so he does his best to try to make me come, touching and stroking my body, bringing his mouth and tongue to my nipples. He knows how to do this, but I never got rid of the migraine. Instead we talk a bit, and then my headache spikes and it’s his turn to dig into my back, massaging until the stab behind the eyes fades.
Tomorrow, he’ll help make me come, selfless about his own pleasure as the wave pattern of my own orgasm builds and my mind still carrying the lingering traces of the things I did the night before, but right now he gives me what I need in the moment and exactly what I want. The pain in my head fades and in the dimmed lights, bouyed by the warmth and the weight of the blankets, I sleep with him, in his bed, nested like lego bricks.
BDSM can be a lot of things for people: structure, an escape, release or catharsis, a way to be someone or something different. For me, it’s intimacy.