by Violet Blue
She smiles. “Yes, please.”
There is the rustle of silk as she leans forward to accept his offering. A soft, warm weight rests against my belly and I have to work to maintain my calm breathing. Her kimono is not at all traditional, and it is tied very loosely. A glance down shows me her beautiful pale breasts resting against my skin. They glisten with oil when she resumes her seat.
Lady Jasmine carefully plucks the last eggs from my right side, collecting them one by one and eating them with little sighs of pleasure. Each time her chopsticks come teasingly close to my nipples I hold my breath, longing to feel the touch of the cool, lacquered wood. But she manages to avoid even brushing me. Her control is maddening. My breasts are bare now. Only a thin sheen of salmon oil remains.
“Shall we start again?” her husband asks, circling his chopsticks over my flesh. An empty dish.
“We haven’t finished the ginger,” Lady Jasmine says, and something in her voice sends a little thrill of anticipation through me. The ginger is merely a condiment. I suspect she has something else in mind.
Ayame carries the little dish over to them. She gently lifts out one thumb-sized piece with a clean pair of chopsticks. For a moment I think she is going to feed it to our guests, but then she lays the thin slice over my left nipple. I almost gasp at the unexpected cold shock of it, but I manage to keep silent and still. A minute shudder is all the reaction I allow myself to the intense stimulation. She places a slice on my right nipple, and again I resist the urge to respond.
I lie still and obedient, a good little platter, while they admire the way the ginger clings to the hard buds of my nipples like sheer, wet silk. But Ayame isn’t finished. My heart pounds in my ears as she moves down to my splayed and bound legs.
“Perhaps a little wasabi as well,” she says. She meets my eyes as she says it, a mischievous smile playing on her lips. Then she dabs a larger slice of ginger into the little ball of green wasabi. Immediately I imagine the taste of the hot green mustard and the tang of pickled ginger. But Ayame doesn’t intend for anyone to eat the combination. Carefully she maneuvers the spicy morsel between my open legs, drawing it gently up the dewy crease of my lips before pressing it firmly against me. She pats it into place with her chopsticks, sending little electric jolts through my body. Then she steps back and waits.
For a moment I feel nothing. I know how both would taste in my mouth, and I try not to imagine the same burn in such a tender area. Before long I don’t have to imagine it. It begins as a soft, warm tingle, almost a vibration, then builds slowly to a steady burn. My sex clenches in response, but this only intensifies the prickly heat. It’s all I can do not to squirm and roll my hips.
“She’s very good, isn’t she?” the man says admiringly. “Very well trained.”
I close my eyes, taking pride in his words as I try to focus on anything but the building heat in my sex.
“Oniyuri is one of our best girls,” Ayame says, playing her chopsticks up and down along my inner thighs, teasing me.
Lady Jasmine follows her lead, circling my right nipple with her chopsticks. After several agonizing seconds she captures the slice of ginger and lifts it to her mouth. Her husband follows suit and my nipples ache from the peppery feel of the ginger, the teasing and denial. My skin has never felt so alive, and my composure has never been so challenged.
The tingling warmth between my legs is building to a powerful burn I’m trying desperately not to respond to. I press my toes together, using muscles the guests can’t see to distract me from what is fast becoming very intense.
The man gazes down at my breasts. Then he lowers his chopsticks to my nipple, pinching it like a bite of salmon roe. He manipulates the chopsticks gently, rolling the sensitive skin between them and exerting pressure. When Lady Jasmine does the same I have to bite back a little whimper. The sensation is almost too much. My skin tingles all over with the stimulation, raising gooseflesh and making me tremble.
And when Ayame presses her chopsticks against the last piece of ginger, intensifying the contact with my delicate sex, I can’t help it. I cry out.
Immediately the room is silent, heavy with disapproval. I choke back a sob, along with the urge to beg forgiveness, to ask for another chance to prove my complete obedience, my training and my ability to endure. But I know it is too late.
“Oh dear,” Ayame says softly, and the subtle reproach from her is the worst torment of all.
She plucks the ginger from my nether lips, but the sting is not lessened by its removal. If anything the sudden current of air heightens it. I moan softly, my control already lost.
Lady Jasmine shakes her head sadly. “And she was doing so well.”
“Yes,” her husband says with a sigh, and I know exactly what he’s going to say next. “She will have to be punished.”
A hot blush floods my face at his words, and my sex pulses in response. He stands over me, his chopsticks in one hand. He holds them loosely at the widest end while with his other hand he pulls the tips slowly back as though drawing a bow and arrow. The suspense is its own special torment as I hold my breath, waiting. At last he lets go and the tips flick down across my breast, striking the sensitive nipple with perfect aim. I yelp at the sudden sharp pain, all pretence of silence and serenity abandoned.
He leans forward and repeats the treatment on my right breast, making me hiss with pain. I barely have time to process it before he returns to the other side to deliver another stinging stroke. I writhe on the table, but the ropes hold me firmly in position. All I can do is whimper and grit my teeth as the makeshift implement whips my tender breasts again and again, striking like a snake. And even as each stroke elicits cries and vain struggling from me, I find myself admiring his precision and my sex throbs with the excitement of his absolute control. I have no idea how many times the slender little chopsticks deliver their sharp bite but my nipples are sore and inflamed when he finally moves away.
But he isn’t finished with me.
He gazes down at my sex, presented like an offering in its frame of orchids. And when he aims the chopsticks again I gasp and yank at the ropes binding my legs. There is no escape, however, and I am helpless as he aims a cruel stroke down across the swollen knot of my clit. My sex explodes with sensation, every nerve ending wildly alive and burning with wanton excitement, the pleasure all the more stimulating for the pain. Lady Jasmine and Ayame watch, their eyes glittering with pleasure at my situation.
I close my eyes, feeling each sharp stroke more intensely than the last. Exhilarated, I writhe helplessly in my red silk bonds, gasping and crying out with complete abandon. Before long I feel myself climbing, my sex throbbing with desire so intense it soon becomes unbearable. I barely realize it when the punishment ends. My body resonates for long moments after the last stroke, savoring the echo of the torment. Lady Jasmine presses her cool fingers against my burning nipples the climax breaks over me like a wave and I throw back my head with a wild animal cry.
Sharp, hot little pulses surge through my body, swelling and receding, making me dizzy. There is the sensation of floating, of flying, of falling. I feel both detached and profoundly connected to my body and all its tumultuous sensations. I can hear voices, the rush of blood in my ears, the distant shamisen. The taste of salmon is still rich in my mouth, the scent of jasmine and ginger in my nose. All my senses are on fire.
“Well, well,” someone says, the smile evident in his or her voice. Is it my tormenter? His wife? I’m so lost in bliss I can’t tell.
But I recognize Ayame’s touch as she strokes me softly, as though waking me from a dream. “Oniyuri,” she whispers, bending down to kiss me. “It’s time for dessert now.”
I open my eyes and am a little surprised to see that the guests have resumed their seats. They are watching Ayame expectantly.
With a soft wet cloth she cleans me, wiping away every trace of fish oil, teriyaki and soy sauce. I sigh with pleasure at her cool, gentle touch. My skin tingles with the memory of
pain even as it savors this new pleasure. When she is done she dips her fingers into a little bowl and sprinkles my body with powdered sugar. It falls like a light dusting of snow. Onto the newly prepared surface Ayame arranges little scoops of green tea ice cream. My body is so warm it begins to melt almost at once but I still strive not to shiver at the cold.
And as the guests enjoy their dessert I think of winter, of white-capped mountains and icy lakes and a single brazen tiger lily pushing up through the snow, heralding the return of spring.
BLAME SPARTACUS
Laura Antoniou
I see them all the time now, blockbuster movies filled with preternaturally handsome twentysomethings masquerading as teenagers in some futuristic dystopia, or manly hunks in skimpy loincloths and sculpted armor hacking away in CGI-rendered stadiums on giant screens or via my deluxe cable-TV package. It’s so very chic today, to enjoy tales of epic personal battles for the pleasure of a bloodthirsty audience. This is quite an improvement from the time when the very phrase “gladiator movie” was a not-so-sly comedic reference to homoerotic diversions.
Erotic, yes. And while I appreciate the fact that my gay male friends also enjoy the scenery—and the scenario—I am not a member of that team. I’m straight, if someone as kinky as I am can be called that. And I’m definitely a woman. I can show you proof.
But only once the battle has been fought and won.
I blame Spartacus. Specifically, I blame Kirk Douglas. Not that there’s anything wrong with the current crop of Sparticanni, they are all quite handsome and well worth the subscription to premium channels. But I can remember the exact instant I became alive and aware of my fascination with men who would enter combat for my pleasure.
It was on a Saturday night when I was around fourteen or fifteen, on the threshold between going out with groups of friends and being invited on solo dates. That night, though, I had no planned adventures, and wouldn’t have wanted to go if I did. I was home aching with my period, feeling uncomfortable and bloated; tired, cranky and unloved. Flipping channels on television, I saw images stream by second by second, not even really registering anything on my way to find MTV or some other usual distraction. Then, my brain picked up on something and I clicked back and back again…and there he was. A broad-shouldered man with an enormously cleft chin, barely dressed, scuffling with another man in the dust.
I lingered, watched. Even then, there was a spark. My period aside, I was a healthy girl with a solid interest in the male form. One of my girlfriends had shared some pictures she’d found online and saved, in those days before we all had smartphones, on a disk. The two of us eyed the men’s bodies with curiosity and immature longing. Men were so much more interesting than boys our own age, we agreed. And for me, unspoken, a little additional twist. Men who would do what I liked would be the most interesting of all. What I actually liked was still academic. It was the nature of obedience that turned me on, even back then.
That night, watching the men fight on my television screen, I realized something else.
I liked to watch men grappling with each other.
I kept the television on that channel and wound up watching all of Spartacus, the 1960 film directed by Stanley Kubrick. Oh, it was filled with stars of enormous magnitude! Laurence Olivier! Peter Ustinov! Charles Laughton! Even skinny little Tony Curtis. And while the older, less shapely men draped themselves in bedsheets, the fit and muscular ones stripped down to leg-baring loincloths and leather straps across their upper arms and chests. But even better—they stripped down and picked up weapons and fought each other for the amusement of the better-clothed, aristocratic spectators who wagered on the matches.
I remember holding the remote in my hand, frozen in place, watching the screen flicker. The training regimen; the small dark cells where the gladiators lived, the casual way a woman was thrust into a cell like a hotel housekeeper delivering extra pillows. The different styles of combat—with a short sword and shield, or curved sword and greaves, or spear and net!
Oh. Oh, to be a spectator there, leaning elegantly over my seat to pluck crisp, cold grapes from a tray; to sip blood-red wine while I watched men pant and growl and circle each other like animals. To own one of those men and place a coin down while laughing, betting with my friends who would fall first. To see my man, my property win, and take my winnings and take my gladiator home, and…and…
I must have been fourteen. I don’t remember actually imagining what would happen beyond kissing him. But in my mind, he would be a much better kisser than Terrance Galbraithe, my on-again, off-again, almost boyfriend.
The gladiatorial fights end early in the movie and then it becomes a vast adventure tale that ends badly for all the slaves. But it didn’t matter; I was hooked. I no longer wanted just any good-looking man to populate my nascent fantasies; I wanted a gladiator. I wanted a man who would fight for me, because I told him to. Or because he wanted to please me and gain my favor.
I became a fan of boxing, wrestling and martial arts in general. Fencing became so much more interesting when I fantasized knights and musketeers dueling for the opportunity to woo me. As my body and tastes and experiences became more mature, my fantasies remained solidly in that realm. And the first time a boyfriend of mine actually did vow to kick the ass of any other boy who looked at me, I must admit it was thrilling for the moment.
And then I decided he was a posturing ass. Shortly after that, I realized I would never actually experience this fantasy. I truly didn’t want a real man who would go out and hurt someone else and risk harm to himself, arrest, shame and the reputation of a macho jerk. I scolded myself for even harboring such fantasies and tried to write them off as the longings of a girl-child unaware of real-life values. They were as foolish, I decided, as lusting for vampires, or pirates.
Cody is slender and carries himself with the precise grace of a tightrope walker; his unstylishly long hair is fine and colored like honey fresh from the comb, run through with strands of corn silk. He wears it clubbed for Revolutionary War reenactments and most of his friends and coworkers think that’s why he has grown it out.
But I love trailing my fingers through it when he is on his knees in front of me or leaning against my leg while I read or watch a movie. I also enjoy watching him run across dusty fields in period uniforms, a Hessian mercenary or a Redcoat. I never lost my taste for costume dramas, and he always has a movie or a series or a book for me and can regale me with folklore and amusing tales like a modern Scheherazade.
And he looks so appealing in the wrestling singlet I ordered for him online, nothing but cobalt-blue Lycra cupping his cock and balls and his sweet, pale ass; with straps framing his body, curling over his shoulders and crossing his back. His stomach and chest are bared for me, shorn even of the light, pale hairs that barely dusted them. Low, light boots are on his feet and a soft suede collar, the same color as the singlet and lined with a layer of brushed cotton, is tight around his neck. It fastens with Velcro, because it’s just for decoration. He might earn the chain if he rises victorious.
Cody came in answer to my ad on one of the alternative sex websites. Sorting through dozens of poorly written notes, hundreds of messages from men who hadn’t bothered to read my actual ad and thousands of pictures of penises yielded me exactly one man who had lasted beyond my layers of getting-to-know-you filtering. Cody not only wrote complete sentences in English, he addressed me respectfully and included in his first note to me not a picture of his gonads taken while standing at his bathroom mirror, but the shot of him holding a trophy and wearing a gi. He had a bruise under one eye and was grinning madly.
He read my ad.
I discovered the world of alternative sex and BDSM where everyone else has—online. Idly browsing one day, I had put “sexy gladiators” into a search engine and expected the usual array of photos from old Italian sword and sandal movies. Instead, I found a gay porn website of men wrestling and then getting it on. The clips I saw had me as frozen in place as my teenage s
elf years ago. But this time, I had a credit card. This time, I could stop the action, and start it again and see the whole thing. Every glistening inch of manly flesh displayed for me in the privacy of my home, as they rolled and grabbed and grunted and growled…and then…
And then they fucked.
Usually the winner got his cock sucked or got to use the loser doggie style, but sometimes that seemed to shift into mutually pleasurable acts. I knew my preference at once. The winner had to get something, yes, but the loser had to suffer.
And by the way, I still needed to be in charge. How to manage this took a while to figure out. It took my discovering that I wanted more than an acquiescent lover in my bed. I wanted—I desperately wanted—two men, competing to please me: one to win, and the other to suffer.
For my pleasure. And while there is nothing aesthetically displeasing about watching two men engage in enthusiastic sex with each other, I would prefer that at least one be paying attention to me. While the other suffered.
See the theme?
Alvaro was a furry man, but not with the wiry, bristly, coarse fur I personally find unattractive. His was jet black and straight along his forearms and down his calves, dusted across his chest and then down the center of his hard stomach like a cross, to expand in a bush around his cock and over his balls. I had him clip that area short, but not shave it. The fur there and across his round asscheeks was just as pleasing to me as the silky hair on Cody’s head. Alvaro, older than Cody and shorter, was also more stocky and muscular, and the hair on his head was receding. This he also kept short, along with the line of hair along his jaw, a sexy strap of a beard and a mustache to match.
Alvaro did not take me to war-games or regale me with tales of Revolutionary derring-do. But he made me caldeirada, brimming with chunks of lobster and whole tiger shrimp, he found rich red wines to entice my palate and rubbed my feet and temples and back with consummate skill, humming lullabies and love songs under his breath.
