#readwhenalone

Three soft circles and a tap-tap-tap

Little cherry nub

Fingers dipped in silk

A tiny rose bud

Three soft circles then a tap-flick-tap

Silken fold’s part

Breath as humid dew

Just one finger

Just to start

Still, as well

Three soft circles and a tap-tap-tap

Fingers say, come hither

Rising from the sheets

With a clench

And a shiver

Of hands that want and knead

Nails that’s find their purchase, plead

Toes that curl and crease

With a sigh, satisfied

Night.

When I tell you it’s hot I mean to say that clothes are not an option.  Neither are sheets for that matter.  You have to just lay there, spread-eagled.  Whether face up or face down, that’s your preference.  But it is hot.  Stifling.  Sweaty. Hard to breathe and harder to distract yourself from the itch of sweat bubbling to the surface and running down your sides.  I’m not usually one to complain about soaking the mattress… but this is not in the right context.  This is ridiculous.

It was the worst time for the AC to spark into an untimely death.  Yes, even that box of humming and dripping machinery gave up the fight.  So did the fans, both of them, which I stared at with envy and malice that they no longer could feel the hot air blowing through their outstretched limbs.

It’s the worst kind of heat. It’s not fogging up the backseat of a car on a fall night.  It’s not straddling atop a lover in a steaming bath.  It’s certainly not swimming naked in a heated pool as you see your partners swirling, shimmering body just beneath the surface.  It’s none of those things at all.  It’s just misery in the shape of you.  Glistening, yes.  Panting and heaving, yes and yes.  But you didn’t earn those labored breaths and you certainly got no satisfaction.

I can’t stand it.

So, I peel myself away from the sheets that pull like a lover who isn’t ready to let go.  I make my way in the dark because I can’t stand to think of adding any more energy to this stifling air.

Even my feet slip on the kitchen laminate. Fuuuuck.  If I fall, if I land in a pool of my own damp footprints I might just lay there a half an hour, groaning and moaning and not in the way one hopes to.  But that’s not what happens, thankfully.

I make it to the sink and run the water as cold as it will go, forgoing any glass, face beneath, head beneath, hands cupped and rising to my mouth to drink and splash and make a mess all down my chin and neck and chest and all the way to my toes, which causes me to almost slip once more.  But this cool water, it’s not enough.

My god. This heat. I can't get cool enough.

It’s then that I hear a clink in a glass.  I’m bracing myself against the kitchen island like a lost shipwreck in a lake of fire when I hear it.  A tumble and a crunch that, for some reason, triggers a sensation in memory and shivers run through my hot, wet skin.

-Stay there.

You’re up.  You can’t sleep either, can you.  You need just what I need.  Some way to stifle back the heat.

-Stay right there.

I don’t know if I can move anymore, even if I tried.

-Try this.

It’s then that I understand what you have, what salve or offering drew you out of bed and down here as well.  It’s cold, shocking in this heat but soothing in all the right ways.  It’s wet and melts against my warm body.  I imagine steam rising as it does.

You start at my neck, just below my hair, moving side to side across my shoulders, a cape of melting ice flowing down my back, before running it down my spine, slow, diminishing and warming as it falls into nothing but streams of lukewarm sensation.

Your cold fingers glide through my hair, guide my head forward as you bend me over, chest down to lay flat and breathless in this heat.  Still so very hot.  Still needing so much more.

-Let me help.

The glass clinks again. Your hand returns.  The ice is so cold at the start, three cubes in your hand as you draw them across my back, tickling across my sides.  I squirm under your touch, held down with your hand still in my hair, lifting their dampness from my neck.  The water pools along the valley of my spine.

I ask for more. Please, more.

You spread my legs, bare feet guiding bare feet apart.  With tussled hair atop my head your hand slides down.

If you don’t help break this heat I don’t know how I’ll get through this night.  This oppressive, steaming air and suffocating, miserable -

Ice, so much cold ice held against the back of my thighs.  I’m whimpering as I realize you’re not going down my legs.  Though the water drips and streams away, your hand roams higher.  It’s close. So very close.  So nearly what I need but the ice keeps melting so fast.

It can’t compete against the heat.

We need more.  So much more.

Together, we clear the table. The tablecloth ripped aside and sailing down to the floor.  We pillage the freezer's icebox.  Each crunching and clacking sound sends shivers of anticipation.

And then I’m lifted, laid back atop the table and splayed out.  Just as I was in that suffocating hot room where we lay night after night.

Handfuls of ice fall all across my stomach and chest, tumbling from my collarbones to rest in the cleft of my neck, firm and oh-so-cold as you glide that icy salve across my lips and press it further into my mouth to melt across my tongue.  Your hands bring even more, just beside the rise of my hips.  And there’s more in your mouth as well.  You’re breathing frigid air over me like a cold winter wind, like a swim in a glacial stream that runs from your body to mine. I shiver as a drop lands in the pool of my belly button, as the waters overflow and your lips follow where it flows. Down. Down. To where the heat comes from within.

We’re almost there. We've almost won. This heat will surrender.

Imagine silk sheets.  Soft and shining and tussled.

Imagine a guitar played flamenco on a balcony unseen.  The fingered strings rising and falling in crescendos of rhythm and melody.

Bring to mind a room lit by moonlight with fragrant gardenias and lilacs just beyond the open windows, brought in with a warm breeze.

Try to feel that breeze though it is only a small relief from the stifling hot air all around you. Feel the kiss of the breeze as it flows over and around your body.  A body unadorned but for small beads of salty sweat that glisten in the dim light.

But there is another sensation you can feel here as well.  Cool air that emanates from the ice in a small bowl beside your bed.  Ice that you are not to touch yourself, only able to ask for it … for where and, of course, for when.

Sometimes you ask and watch as your words become action.  Sometimes you simply point and wait for a hand or mouth to deliver cool relief.

Sweat mixes with rivulets of melting ice to drip and stream away from your ribs and collarbones and breasts and thighs to dampen the silk beneath and twisted around you.

The melting water tickles between your legs.  It forms pools beside your hipbones and on your stomach until, as you remember to breathe once more, your chest rises and the miniature lakes flow away.

You feel soft lips as they follow those streams of melting ice.  A mouth that rests upon those hills and valleys of skin and searches for the goosebumps that subside with the warmth of breath.

Warm to cold and warm again. Warm air against cold ice brought to pleasure by warm lips again and again and again.  A mouth that starts with your own, finding its way over your neck and collarbones, descending slow and wandering wide until you find it nuzzling between your legs and bringing a new kind of warmth with every breath and kiss and slide of the tongue.

Your back arches with the sensations that begin to overwhelm.  Hips raise from hands beneath.  A fresh breeze rushes in, sweet and rich.

And all the while the silk sheets wrap and pull and constrict around your limbs.  All the while that Spanish guitar lilts and reverberates through the air. All the while you feel the warmth within growing into a white-hot light, an electricity, an overwhelming fire that steals your breath and tightens your muscles into spasms of satisfaction and joy.  The waves of it all, of hot and cold, of tension and release, of pleasure, wash over and through until, with your breath returning once more, you fall back into those silk sheets.

It’s dark.

There’s light to be seen, but only through the cracks that obscure and bind your eyes. You’re still spinning, slowly in the air.  A glow is there, pressing itself through the small fibers that protrude from the coils of jute. The air is fragrant with the oils embedded in the twine, mixing with the perfume of damp sweat from anticipation and exertion.  The efforts to hold oneself aloft prevailed for so long despite the coils that laced across your legs and arms, across your bust and torso, that writhed their way between warm thighs to support you all on their own.

It’s dark, but in those moments of brief illumination you can see a shadow that moves through the darkness, aligning with the presence of fingers that pull and prod at the elaborate tapestry you have become the center of the point.  Eventually you let yourself relax into the cradle of rope and balanced tension.  You feel the pressure like many limbs gently grasping all over your bare form.

And then there’s a quiet breath nearby.  The gentle padding of feet beside your hovering body as one line of rope is pulled, slowly at first, until, as if with a shift in gravity, the coils of jute ease across your shoulders to become slack across and slide over your breasts. In the same moment you feel a tightening all over your thighs as the rope becomes taught once more, moving a millimeter in a moment all across your bare ass to lift you just a little higher in the air though you can’t tell how far.

And then the pressure is released.  Just as the slap upon the cool dirt below registers you realize that what seemed a whole afternoon to assemble has begun to unravel.  The sound of another length of rope fills the space as it also tumbles down upon he ground.

The air is damp with the cool earth below.  You remember the opening to this cavernous space which you entered not long before, a tall slit that split a large tree wide to expose the interior cavern you now reside in.  A break in the natural order.  A seam into an interior world.

And then another coil of rope tumbles onto the ground, slips from your bound feet which tingle with the returning rush of blood just beneath the surface.

The cocoon you’ve been suspended within is coming apart.  With each rotation and stream of light there is more slack before your eyes to see through and beyond.  The figure that obscures the opening as it circles around you makes its way towards your back, a single hand slipping between the jute and your tensing muscles, raising you up once more as fingers reach down the back of one leg, uncoiling the rope slowly, dragging the rough fibers across bare skin like slow moving fire. Then, with just as slow and deliberate movements, the other leg receives similar attentions.  The corsetry of rope around your waist, once constricting like the death grip of a python now releases its grip upon you as each breath you take fills your body more fully, chest heaving deeper and deeper.

Then there’s a new sensation, cool and forgiving as, at first, your toes press down gently into the cool damp of the earth below.  There’s the sensation of your muscles tensing and firming up as you are lowered, onto the tops of your feet, then further onto your shins, ending just before your hips can rest down upon your own legs.  The ropes tighten again as the hand upon your back slides away into the darkness.

You’re left there, breathing deep and inhaling the scent of damp pine that drifts into this space.

A hand slides beneath the ropes on your chest, feeling the swell of your body with each breath, pressing down to slow the pace ever so slightly until each inhale becomes almost euphoric before the eventual release of air resumes once more.

And the light is still there, peeking through the cracks.  Giving glimpses of the body that walks around you, bare as you are, muscles backlit in a repetition of tension and release.  Arms that reach towards you just before you feel the hands caress and untie the binds further.  Fingers that graze against tingling skin, smoothing out the indents caused by the rope, the tension and constriction. 

Your arms begin to fall with their own weight as more coils stretch and pull free.  Your hands, once held as if in prayer behind your back are now guided, slowly by gentle but firm hands, up into the air to rest upon tense shoulders that begin to carry your weight independent of the coils of jute. You feel the sensation of your body sliding down and onto the shadowy figure that you’ve only known through scent and sound and glimpses between waxing and waning darkness for the last few hours. By instinct your arms coil over their shoulders, delicate at first.

Once more you are lifted up into the air, legs and feet held above the cool dirt as, all at once, you feel a tumble of rough rope unwind and fall all across your body, giving way with a loud thump that almost shocks you with how loud it sounds in contrast to how quiet your world has been until that moment.  Once more your legs, just as your arms did moments before, find purchase around the tense muscles.  You squeeze tight with a strength that the tingle of nerves promises the return of and hold yourself so close to their warm body. Everything feels electric just below the surface as you grip hard to press through the overwhelming sensations, a coursing from the tips of your toes to the top of your chest. You press yourself harder and harder into that other person with each moment, still not fully seen as of yet.

As the last strands of jute finally uncoil from around your eyes your hair falls, tumbling like sheets of rain down and over your face, across your shoulders, and onto the chest of the other in your grasp.  It is then that you realize with each breath you take that there is an equal and opposite force pressing back against your own.  There is warm breath that mingles with your own as each exhale sends waves of relaxation back to the tips of your fingers and toes.

             There it was, blinking and blinking. Vibrating incessant.  Wanting and needy.  That it was in my lap, tucked in between my thighs, far too high up to ignore the spreading vibrations with its rhythmic hum-hum-humm, wasn’t helping.  

             The missive was simply stated:  Show me.

             Not a please.  We were far past that point.  Not a demand, either.  I had started this and I reminded myself that all this, the distraction and fluster, how my blood raced and pulsed-pulsed-pulsed to the point of heavy breathing and muffled sighs, was my own fault.

             I want you to show me.

             I asked for this.

             Tonight.

             I asked for all of this.

---

             The drive home was distracted, to say the least.  I had prepared and made a list, a few things added to the usual sundries, but last minute, as the seconds tick-tick-ticked by, my imaginings grew and it was better to have and not need than have not and be left wanting.  I wasn’t going to be left in a state of unfulfilled distress.  Not tonight.

             I’ll admit, I’m not sure I needed the extra bath oils, or the small flickering lights that mimicked candles without the chance of setting one’s hair on fire, or the flowers whose petals would be plucked and left to float atop the bathwater.  But when one is setting a mood, the little things are everything. Massage oil for later, perhaps. Beeswax candles returned for paraffin just before arriving at the counter.  Chocolates, I don’t know why, because, chocolate.  And last, a pack of batteries, just the right size for my …

             It was then, standing at the counter with all the assembled items on full display for the cashier to see, the cashier whose cheeks reddened as a smile grew upon their face with each beep-beep-beep of their scanner, that I really wished I’d opted for the self-checkout.  They held the Lavender Aromatherapy Sensual Massage Oil for Couples far too long for my comfort before they leaned forward, face pressed to their microphone to speak over the PA system, and declaring PRICE CHECK.  My breath caught in my chest as I’m sure my own cheeks became as colorful as a ripe cherry atop a sundae.  They paused.  They furrowed their brow before turning the Lavender Aromatherapy Sensual Massage Oil for Couples over in their hand to find the tag, folded in half on itself and sticking to their finger.  NEVERMIND, I GOT IT.

             “Have a good night.” She said, with a smile that knew more than it should.

             I finally took a breath, only after the bill was paid and I returned to the cool air that greeted me outside.

             There were no near misses or swerves upon the road as I drove, only mildly above the speed limit, back to my home.  The place where everything would be laid out as it had been in my mind.  Bath drawn and warm.  A glass of wine chilled with the bottle on ice and waiting.  Fragrant oils added to the bathwater with flower petals drifting atop.

             There had been one other request.  Something that seemed silly and impractical at the time but now playful and filling my imagination.  After everything had been brought inside, returning to the car five minutes later to shut the door that was left wide open in my haste and fluster, I found myself with dresser drawers open and lingerie spread out across the bed. There was red silk and black velvet. There was the new green set that I’d sent photos of less than a week ago.  But it was the blue, the lace and sheer blue, that stood out to me today. No pushup.  Nothing more than a simple floral stitch in a few opportune places to conceal for imaginative effect.  The bottoms of which fit low on the hip and narrow in the back and with just enough stretch to pull and play to feel the soft lining tense against my body but not slip and give too much of a show before it was time.

             The phone remained silent.  No call.  No text. Not even a smoke signal or white flag or pebbles pinging upon my windows for my attention.

             In that time, I had tried on the blue lingerie, shimmying and spinning before the floor length mirror and taking in how the light and lingerie moved across my waist and chest.  Of how it would appear later and if it would bring pleasure at first sight. Next, I threw on a hoodie and thigh high socks.  I had snacked upon red and orange cherry tomatoes with oily hummus and soft pita.  I had checked my phone a dozen times as I imagined that there had been messages missed despite the thrum-thrum-thrum of the ringer.  There had been two unknown calls, a text from a friend about dinner plans the following night, but nothing regarding tonight’s plans.  With a huff and a sigh, I plucked the flowers from their stems, drank a glass of wine, and listened to music.

             Thirty minutes.

             There it was, hum-hum-humming, as the screen glowed with the name and message.

             Twenty-eight minutes.  The bath is running hot.  Oil, fragrant and slick, is poured in to shimmer upon the surface.

             Twenty-two minutes.  Little electric, flickering, candles line the base of the tub and all along the back and sides.

             Eighteen minutes.  The laptop is set up on a small folding table just beyond the edge of the tub, powered up and logged in.  Lighting checked and angles played with, sliding the table and computer left and right, imagining how I’ll be seen, lying or kneeling within the bath as the oily water drips down and sticks wet lingerie to skin.

             Fourteen minutes.  The wine is drunk and refilled with the bucket of ice and bottle placed nearby.

             Ten minutes.  The bath is filled, water turned off, steaming into the air as I breathe in the fragrant mist and feel the warmth of the room.

             Nine minutes.  Wondering if it’ll start any sooner.  

             Eight minutes.  I dip my toes into the hot water, let myself glide down into its warmth.

             Seven minutes.  Shit.  The flower petals!

             Six minutes.  I slide back into the tub, with less grace but now with flowers dancing upon the ripples of water.

             Five minutes.  I sip wine.

             Four minutes.  I wait for the computer screen to blink to life.

             Three minutes.  I’m waiting.

             Two minutes.  I’m so warm and ready to begin.

             One minute.

             There’s a ding.  The screen goes from black to a hazy reflection of the scene before it. The video on the other side is still black.  As was expected.  As was planned.  This is what I asked for, to be watched and to listen to their voice upon the other end.

             Tonight.

             The words came.  There’s a soft gravel to the voice and I swear I could hear the smirk behind them.

             I want you to show me.

             I smiled and obliged, rising from the bath, wine in hand, flower petals sticking to my skin, as I drank and stretched up with a deep breath and tits up.  I looked good in this light, flickering and soft, as did the lingerie that hugged and deepened in hue with the bathwater.

             Show me more.

             I winked and obliged, turning slow, hand upon the lip of the tub as I spun to give him a view of the other side, of how the small fabric clung to my hips and the curve of my ass.  Sitting on the edge, the lingerie bottoms stretched with the pull of my fingers, teasing, imagining his face in this moment.  I gave a little shake before slipping back down beneath the water.

             I imagined him sitting there, lips parted, only able to ask.  To see but not touch, not yet.

             The wine was sweet and cold to my lips.  I imagined him watching as they part and him wanting to slide his fingers across my wet lips, after he would bring them to his own mouth to taste.  I imagined him wanting to slide a finger inside.  Wanting to slide his tongue in next.  Wanting to slide something else in deep, back and forth across my tongue, as my lips held soft around him.

             Without seeing, I knew I had his full attention. I took another sip, slow and with pleasure.

             This was all my fault.  If I hadn’t told him about the bath, how the jets of the jacuzzi were positioned just right if I lay a certain way, and how the showerhead sat upon a long snaking hose that I could use to apply the necessary pressure… If I hadn’t shared how I missed being touched, missed being kissed, missed the feel of his tongue exploring and probing and sliding and flicking…

             Show –

             There was a quality to his voice.  As if the words caught in his throat and for a moment he forgot how to speak.

             Show me more.

             I wanted him to be unable to look away.  I wanted him to want so much that his voice went from what sounded like a request, a command, to that of a beg.  I wanted him to beg me to continue.  To let him watch.  He was starting down that path, voice softening with heavy breaths, already and it filled me with a warmth that the swirling, lavender scented, bathwater couldn’t compare.

             With a hand moving slow before the lens of the camera I flicked on the waterjets.  I could hear how his breath stopped just before I hit the button.

             He watched as my back arched, mouth open, with the glass of wine tilting in my grip.  He watched and listened as I began to moan, as the wine tilted further in the glass and small streams fell down over the edge.

             Show me more.

             The glass of wine was left to fall into the bath, mixing with flowers and oil.

             Show me where you want my hands to be.

             One upon my waist, trailing and weaving its way under the bra to cup my breasts, fingertips to pinch my nipples.  The other against my cheek, fingers upon my lips before descending towards my throat.

             The water began to sway, flowing back and forth, across my body like a tide.  Below the surface, below where he could see, my hips rocked in rhythm with the jets of water. I could hear his breaths, the excitement in his voice as he made his next ask.

             Wait.  Not yet.

             The water subsided and I felt like whimpering, just for a moment, as the rising tide ebbed away from the waterfall of sensation that had been growing between my legs.  As the jets were turned down to a gentle flow.

             I want you to show me more.

             Not yet, I told him.

             Please.

             I wanted him to ask.  I wanted him to beg.

             Please.  Show me more.

             The lace was drawn down over my nipples.  I kept them covered as I teased with fingers slick with lavender scented oil.

             There was a sound just outside the door.  A shifting of weight and the house responding in kind.

             My hands drew down, flickering light glowing in the shine of oil on skin, to delve under the water, and under the blue lace to slide in long gestures up and down.

             Imagine my hands are your hands.

             A finger part the lips above and below.

             Imagine I’m there with you now.

             A finger went inside.

             Close your eyes.  Show me.

             There was only the sound of water lapping upon the edge of the tub, of my own exhalations of pleasure and rising moans.  I imagined him here with hands roaming where lips would follow next.  I imagined him inside and pulsing with desire.  I imagined feeling the warmth of his touch as water dripped from his fingertips like an anointment of lust.

             Show me.

             The voice was no longer tinny through the speakers of the laptop.

             Show me…

             The words were warm across my cheek, his lips touching the edge of my ears.  His hands were cool only for a moment as they found my own, fingers interlacing and following the rise and fall, merging with my own as they found their way across and inside.

             … everything.

             The wine glass was retrieved from between my legs. The jets returned to their prior settings.  Once more the bath bubbled and swirled.

             Keep your eyes closed.

             His mouth found my own, lips parting once more as our tongues danced a slow tango, as our fingers continued their own dance across my thighs.

             I felt his hands wrap about my waist, lifting me from the water and onto my knees, my hands upon the edge of the tub, eyes still held shut. I could smell his cologne as it mixed with the lavender and wine.  He slid his hands along my hips as the lace fell down, back into the bath, to my knees. And then I was spun once more, water splashing over the edge, to rest back down, properly placed before the streaming jets of water.

             With hands that slid beneath the lace of my bra, that wrapped gently over my neck, I began to ride the wave of sensation.

             Please.

                          Show me.

                                        Don’t stop.

                                                      Don’t open your eyes.

                                                                    I want to watch.

                                                                                  Please.

                                                                                  Please.