Lament

by Stewart, Lynsey M.

  ‘Step forward once.’ I palmed my cock as she complied. ‘Are you giving yourself to me?’ I pulled her cunt apart as she nodded, my fingers sinking into her wet flesh, exposing her clit. So intimate. So personal. Glorious. I looked up, my nose close to her arousal. She moved her bound knuckles and brushed them against my cheek, a move so soft and gentle I almost broke. ‘You’re art.’ My tongue flicked and lapped as she moaned above me. The tip finding the bundle of nerves that tasted so fucking good. I blindly felt for the ropes, wrapping them in and out of her legs, the knots forming of their own accord, intricate and beautiful. I pulled the braid across her cunt, between her rich folds, stretching them before securing it to the binds across her back. I was breathless and exhausted. I wanted her to touch me, knowing that she couldn’t. I was bouncing between the exhilaration of looking at her bound and submissive and the desperate need of contact. Her softness. Her hands on my face, nails in my hair. That moment. The one where I thrust myself into her and foreplay dropped away.

  ‘Sit,’ I said. ‘Spread your legs and wait for my cock.’ She bit her lip and did exactly as I’d asked.

  Unbuttoning my shirt, I slipped it from my shoulders, dropping it to the floor. I took a condom from my pocket, stepped out of my trousers and ached as she watched every detail of movement completely enthralled. What had I done to deserve this? To deserve her? She was cracking open the person I was before, encouraging out the man I was before life had been tainted, teasing out the man I’d forgotten after guilt took over as quickly as a match being struck.

  Her hooded eyes watched me as I rolled on the condom and knelt down before her, placing my hands underneath her thighs and pulling her forward with a hard tug. I caught her shocked gasp with my mouth, kissed her like she was going to vanish at the end of the night and positioned myself at her opening.

  ‘Watch,’ I whispered, kissing her nose. I was a contradiction, the hard-dominant interspersing commands with delicate kisses. I’d never done that before and as I curved my fingers along the wet rope at her cunt and slid myself inside, I stopped driving myself insane with thoughts of why? She cried out, her moan matching mine as I started to drive my cock, savouring the friction of the rope against my own sensitive and needy flesh.

  I fixed my eyes on Nat. Head falling, cheeks blushing, Nat. A frown line appeared across her forehead before it deepened as her orgasm crashed. She let me consume her, like my grief had consumed me, breath for breath until our bodies were tired. Hers before mine, but she let me continue, knowing that this was an exorcism of my demons through the highest pleasure. I didn’t have room for guilt, questions of what this meant for us, or what she would expect from me once I removed the ropes.

  She knew in this moment that I needed to feel the fire.

  The rope was like a reminder of how far I’d come over the last few weeks. The snag and pinch of it against my cock was like an alarm ringing, a flare shooting into the sky telling me I was veering towards the biggest orgasm of my life. I upped the rhythm, lifted her leg around my waist, felt the tight wall of muscle banging against my tip.

  ‘Alex…I’m going to come again.’

  ‘Fuck, you’re perfect.’

  She lifted her bound wrists and placed them around my neck, drawing me closer to her. She smelt so good, everything was a knock to my senses. I licked her nipple, flicked it with my tongue. The rope scratched against my face, dragging it down and she gasped out as it pinched back into place.

  ‘Give me your orgasm,’ I rasped, deeply aware that my own was tightening.

  ‘Take it,’ she replied, her eyes locked on mine. I noticed that a deep line appeared at one side of her mouth when she smiled a lot and it was there, failing to mask her embarrassment despite her confident words.

  ‘Dirty fucking girl.’ I moaned, frantic with need, my thrusts unforgiving and she met me on every one. I pulled the braid tighter and her back arched; we rocked together, the pull and push giving us both the extra we needed to detonate. ‘I’m going to come so hard I’ll obliterate the condom.’

  She took my ear in her mouth and pressed down as her walls fluttered around my cock. The nip of pain so sexy, I almost flooded her as I came.

  22

  Alex

  Mornings could bring more than just the light.

  I fell asleep not only with her wrapped around me but trapped inside of me. My thoughts, my heart. I couldn’t let her go. She was like a piece of music I couldn’t get out of my head. Occupying everything until there was no room for anything else.

  I thought the guilt would have invaded by now. The visions of Lisa, the usual pitiful sorrow that it wasn’t her body I was slipping inside of. I’d never felt the rush of need to tie another woman before, but with Nat it was an ache that had only grown bigger. Twisting into my body until I finally gave in to the fight.

  It wasn’t that I hadn’t had sex since Lisa passed. I’d taken the route of using one-night stands to forget the pain, but all they achieved was a feeling of disgust so potent it choked me. On one harrowing occasion I woke up to hear Elise crying, shouting for me as a bad dream woke her. A woman was curled up naked on the floor, her head on a cushion. She had a badly tattooed panther at the bottom of her back. It was crude and ugly, like the sex had been. I threw clothes at the stranger in my bedroom and told her to get out. We didn’t exchange numbers or make false promises to keep in touch – we had used each other and I spent the rest of the day counting down the hours to Elise’s bedtime when I could finally drink away the self-loathing, forget the stabbing pain that I’d tainted Lisa’s love for me. Damaging something precious like painting a thick red stripe across the face of the Mona Lisa.

  I vowed never to bring a woman to the house again. I fucked in hotels, fucked in dressing rooms at the most prestigious concert halls around the world. I fucked the nameless, the insignificant. The ones I knew wouldn’t demand more and the ones who slid away without a word when my rudeness shattered their illusions of the good man, the poor widower, the devoted single father who had a talent for making them come with the strength of an avalanche.

  It all became overwhelming and seedy, an itch that could never be scratched. I was looking for Lisa, knowing I would never find her again.

  But that wasn’t the feeling I was grappling with now. It was something different, unknown and unfamiliar. The expected trauma of betraying Lisa by practicing Shibari with another woman wasn’t there. I was feeling something I hadn’t felt for a long time.

  Contentment.

  Happiness.

  Closure.

  All the time I’d spent feeling that I wanted to disappear – it was wasted. Futile. Because really, all I ever wanted…was to be found. By her…Nat. The woman who I’d kept in my bed. The woman so captivating I couldn’t get enough. I felt her body stirring. Her head lifted further into the pillow, content and sated. I’d removed the binds before carrying her to bed. She fell asleep immediately and I missed her just the same.

  ‘I have a thing for your back,’ I whispered, stroking my fingers across the tight definition of muscles. ‘The dip here,’ I trailed my fingers in the hollows at the bottom of her spine. ‘Beautiful.’ Every touch was an ache. Every caress a need.

  ‘I’m glad you have a thing for my back,’ she whispered, a smile lingering before she turned to me, a grip of hesitation in her eyes. ‘How are you feeling this morning?’

  I took her hand and pressed it against my face. ‘Good,’ I said, trying to reassure her.

  ‘Tell me now if you have regrets,’ she said softly.

  ‘Nat–’

  ‘I’d rather know.’

  I kissed her hard on the mouth, pushed myself into the curve of her neck and whispered against her, ‘You make me feel like I’ve never done this before.’ She narrowed her eyes in confusion. ‘Sex…love.’ I noticed a small friction burn underneath her nipple. I kissed it and it made me wonder if she was sore elsewhere.

  ‘Small words for such big meaning.’

  I nodded,
glancing at her reaction. She was smiling, but there was something filtering through the smile. A look of disbelief, that my words didn’t register, or didn’t make sense to her. I understood that wary smile. Knew my messy contradictions had elicited it.

  I’d always been cautious when it came to love. Serious when it found me, but sensible in the descent. I never believed in love at first sight. Was always astonished when love came into the equation after such a small amount of time. Surely that made love meaningless? I was wary of declarations of love early in a relationship because you hadn’t seen the full potential. Time was necessary to value the feeling of discovering that you wanted to spend the rest of your life together. Wasn’t it? I didn’t know anymore. Nat was making me question everything.

  I knelt above her, changing the direction of conversation. ‘Are you sore?’ I asked, kissing the mixture of burns and love bites across her breasts.

  ‘What answer would make you happy?’ she replied.

  ‘The truth.’

  ‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘I’m very sore.’

  ‘Let me run you a bath,’ I said, wrapping my hand around her neck. Perfect and elongated. I forever wanted to hold my hand there, have a fucking sculpture commissioned. ‘Come on.’ I placed a long kiss on her mouth. ‘You can soak, and I’ll dote on you.’

  * * *

  ‘I could get used to this,’ she said as she entered the bathroom. I’d lit candles and put on music I knew were her favorites, the ones I’d watched her dance to, transfixed and captivated. Classical music was her power source. It allowed her to release her demons. ‘Is this what they call aftercare?’

  I laughed, and her smile nearly broke out of her face. ‘No, I just like taking care of you.’

  ‘I’ve always said you’re a softy underneath it all,’ she said as I helped her get into the bath.

  ‘Possibly.’ I smiled, watching her eyes close in pleasure as the bubbles covered her body. She lay back, the water dampening the short pieces of her chocolate-coloured hair on her neck. She ran her hands through the top, slicking it back in long lines.

  ‘I want to know about all the sides, not just the ones you only allow me to see,’ she said, her eyes still closed in bliss. I put body wash on a sponge, squeezing it together to foam up. The scent of vanilla bursting on the movement. ‘Tell me something about you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The most caring thing you’ve ever done.’ The sponge stilled as I went to soap her shoulders. I batted around the truth versus staying quiet, making something up and moving on. But the heavy feeling in my stomach I’d tried to ignore returned and a little voice reminded me that I didn’t want our relationship to be based on lies. Or at least, no more than what had seeped through already.

  ‘I closed my wife’s eyes after she passed.’ Her smile faded. ‘They were open, they stayed open…after.’ She bit her lip. ‘I wanted her to be at peace, so I placed my hands above her eyes and slowly closed them.’ The memory hit me out of nowhere. The last time I saw the light of Lisa’s eyes. The last time I saw her. The moment remained significant in many ways. My last act as a loving husband but my first act as a grieving one. ‘It was important to me,’ I said, waiting for her reaction. ‘I wanted to be the one to put her at peace.’

  Taking the sponge out of my hand, she dropped her gaze. Her broken look killed me, but I couldn’t lie to her. I had to start being honest before old lies shattered the relationship we’d already started to form. ‘I’m sorry if that’s hard for you to hear,’ I said. ‘I want to be truthful with you.’

  She shook her head and reached for my hand, linking our fingers to reconnect us. ‘Thank you for sharing it,’ she whispered. ‘Such a precious moment. A sacred memory. I’m honoured that you wanted to tell me.’

  I stared at her brown eyes, the ones I’d fallen into. The little flecks of gold suited her so well. She was bright and indulgent like gold. Prized and treasured by all who knew her.

  ‘Let me take care of you,’ I said. She handed me the sponge and let me draw it across her arms in comfortable silence.

  ‘What was she like?’ she asked, breaking the quietness.

  I thought for a second, smiling as she entered my thoughts. ‘Strong. Confident. Determined. She was aloof when you first met her, but loved passionately when she let you in.’

  ‘Like someone else I know.’ We laughed lightly, both enjoying the feeling of raking up memories without the accompanying stab of hurt.

  ‘What was your mum like?’

  ‘Beautiful,’ she sighed wistfully. ‘Funny. Intelligent. A magnet for good.’

  ‘Are you like her?’ I don’t know why I asked, I already knew.

  ‘I hope so.’ She smiled. ‘Elise makes me think of my sister. Headstrong and funny. Laughing without restraint. I can still hear her now.’

  ‘Are they still strong in your mind? There are times I think Lisa has faded. I forget things.’

  ‘Time takes them away from you. But she’ll always be here.’ She placed her hand on my heart, leaving it there. I liked that she was so open. Not afraid to acknowledge that Lisa would always be an important part of my life. Normally I’d be awkward and uncomfortable, not wanting to share my memories of her. Acknowledging the preciousness of them and how they should only belong to me. But I found myself talking about her to Nat, even liking it. She wasn’t asking to be polite or because she thought she had to, she wanted to know about her, wanted to know her legacy, the one she’d left with me. ‘I don’t have a living reminder of Mum or Bec. But you do. Elise is a part of Lisa, Alex. Cherish her.’

  ‘Her name’s Eli,’ I whispered, dropping my head. The name Lisa had given her on a bright summer day in the garden. The one shortened from Elise as she held her on her knee, so small and smiling already. The name I couldn’t bear to use when Lisa died because I felt it belonged to her and no one else had the right to use it. A deluded symptom of grief that I never should have allowed to happen. ‘Lisa shortened it. I shouldn’t have stopped using it. It was just too hard to hear.’

  ‘Alex,’ she said, trying desperately to lift my head, get me to look at her, but I was ashamed. I’d denied Eli her identity because of my own selfish reasons. ‘You will make her so happy. That’s all that matters now.’

  ‘I’ve been a mediocre dad at best.’

  ‘She loves you.’

  ‘I’ll be paying for her therapy until she’s fifty-five,’ I replied.

  ‘Pay for dance lessons instead. Far cheaper and better results.’ I laughed, and she proceeded to tell me countless stories about Eli from her dance classes that made me feel like the best father in the world. She had a habit of doing that. Making me feel good about myself when I could drown in the bad. She made me believe that I’d done a good job of raising Eli myself, juggling grief and a demanding career with the privilege of being her father to the best of my ability.

  In the comfortable silences when I adored her body with scented bath oils and soaps, she noticed the bruises scattered across her breasts. She let me wash them tenderly, before dragging the focus of our conversation to a different topic altogether.

  ‘Where did you learn to do Shibari?’ she asked. ‘It was fascinating to watch you. So quick. A true craftsman.’

  ‘I attended classes in London.’

  ‘Classes?’

  ‘With an expert,’ I replied hastily. ‘I picked it up quickly. Probably because it mesmerised me.’

  ‘I would never have guessed how long it had been since…you did it last,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

  ‘I enjoyed it,’ she said quickly, like she didn’t want to be heard. ‘More than I expected.’ She wrapped her arms around her body defensively. I pulled them away.

  ‘It’s OK to admit you liked it,’ I replied. ‘There’s no shame.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But is it what you want to hear?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve only done Shibari with Lisa,’ she
replied. ‘Does it cause you too much pain?’

  ‘No,’ I whispered, pushing her chin up as I poured water over her head. I let my fingers massage her scalp as I washed her hair. ‘I didn’t feel pain. I didn’t feel guilt.’ She moaned on the contact. ‘I only felt…aroused and…content.’ Her eyes flicked to mine. ‘You looked beautiful, Nat. So beautiful.’

  ‘When you bound me, I felt safe,’ she said, finally giving me her full attention, nervousness washed away with the bubbles on her skin. She looked exquisite as she opened herself up, offered me her vulnerabilities. ‘I liked that you were in control. My life has always been the total opposite of that. I’ve never felt in control, not after the car accident, or the failed auditions. I think…I think I need those boundaries.’

  ‘How else did it make you feel?’ I asked, tracing the small bruises on her breasts with my fingers.

  ‘Empowered.’

  My cock twitched.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Safe to be your possession,’ she replied, biting her lip. It trembled, and when she finally let it go, she started to cry. She tried to smile through but gave up and covered her face with her hands instead. ‘It made me feel less alone.’

  ‘You hold all the power,’ I rasped.

  ‘I felt like I trusted you more than anyone else in my life.’ I wiped her tears away with my thumb. ‘I was putting my life in your hands.’

  ‘Such a beautiful gift,’ I replied, kissing her tears. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I feel like you know me better than I know myself,’ she whispered.