The Control Enthusiast

We were driving around somewhere, in a pickup. Which was strange enough to start with. A red pickup. It was hot, and for some reason I thought we were in Italy. Somewhere.

We went to pick up the amphora vase, and it was huge – like about five feet tall, and maybe four feet around at it’s widest point. It didn’t taper as much as I would expect, the base of it was quite wide. It was painted white with some abstract designs on it that almost looked like arabic script. We tied it to a dolly, and rolled it up into the back of the truck. Drove off. I think we bought it.

Next thing I remember, we were rolling it up some steps into a first floor walk-up kind of apartment. Kept rolling it into a large room, with not a lot of furniture, most of it covered in white sheets. Like someone was just moving in. Whoever that someone was, I don’t think it was either of us. We rolled it into the middle of the room, eased it off of the dolly. I pushed the dolly back out to the truck, and when I came back into the room you were standing sort of pressed against the vase, checking it out.

I could hear someone yelling outside, talking to someone else in Italian as I walked over to you, and the vase. I ended standing very close behind you. Pressed into you, like you were pressed into the vase. You were holding on to the handles on either side of the vase. And you were wearing something sleeveless – I know ‘cos I can remember running my hands slowly down your arms until I got to your hands. And sort of held them there, gripping the handles. I remember you looking over your shoulder at me, and grinning. Your tongue sort of caught between your teeth.

I moved my hands back up your arms, up to your shoulders, then closer together until they were rubbing the back of your neck. Slowly pushing up, to the base of your skull, then down again. You sighed and dropped your head forward, resting it on the body of the vase.

I reached around to the back of my belt with one hand and unhooked one of the two pieces of rope I had attached there. It’s red, hemp, soft. My favourite rope, right now. Why I had it attached to my belt, I can only guess. I doubt I was going to be using it for moving – obviously I was going into the dream with something else in mind. My other hand kept working on your neck while I uncoiled the rope.

My hand moved off of your neck, and down your right arm, now holding one end of the rope. Your head was still down, against the amphora – I don’t know if you knew what I was doing. You sort of shifted against me, raised your shoulders as if stretching them.

I slipped the rope around your right wrist, using the one-handed cuff tie I’ve been practicing. The Highwayman’s Knot. It worked, smooth and easy, almost before you knew what’s happening. Either that, or you did know what was happening, and you were just staying still, swaying slightly against me, and letting me do it. The red of the rope stood out stark against the pale white of the vase, the burnished richness of your skin.

Soon both hands were tied to the amphora’s handles. You still gripping them, but your wrists were secured there, coils binding them, tight and immobile. I watched you pull against the ropes, sort of testing them. Muscles in your shoulders tensing and relaxing. You made some kind of a sound, low in your throat. To me, that was a sign, a sort of understated prompt.

My hands moved up into your hair, gathering it in a knot and lifting it up, exposing the back of your neck, which I started biting, softly. I’m a big biter – hell, anything to do with mouths, I love. Your back arched more and more with every bite.

The yelling was still going on outside – strange to have an argument in Italian be the soundtrack to my playing with you. One hand still held your hair up, and the other moved down your neck, to your shoulders, and then slowly slowly down your right side, fingers skimming along ribs, tracing a slow line down to your right hipbone.

You said something to me, then, quietly. I wish I could remember what it was. You didn’t move your head, just said something, with a bit of a laugh in your voice. Whatever it was had me moving my hand to the waistband of your shorts – like cargo shorts, probably clothes appropriate for heat & moving things. I pulled them open, slid the zip down about halfway, then moved my hand up and under your shirt, letting it rest lightly on the flat of your stomach. You said something else, and I actually think you were speaking Italian. And in the dream, I understood it. And whatever you said, made me move my hand lower.

I opened my hand against you, inside your shorts, feeling thin fabric and the warmth of you just at the tips of my fingers. My hand came out of your hair, moved quickly down your body and slid under the back of your waistband. In one swift movement my hands yanked your body backwards, pulling your arms out straight and taut against the ropes. You fell forward again, chest against the clay, your head turned to the left, your right cheek now on the outward curve of the vase. The smile was still there, but now more open, a contrast to your eyes, half-lidded. I watched the muscles in your shoulders move again, against the ropes – the flex of your ribs as your breathing got deeper and deeper.

My hand at the back of your waistband slid back up your spine and back into your hair, gathering it into a knot and holding it tight. You made to turn your head again, to look back at me, but my hand pressed down slightly, keeping it still. That slight pressure, the promise of more, made you open your mouth a little more, your smile widening. The other hand moved slowly across the smooth plane of your hips, thumb lifting out to the outside of your shorts. A light push, and they started to slide down your hips. You shifted your weight, the shorts slid down more.

I slid my hand across your back, now, easing the shorts down your body as I did. You shifted your hips again, helping me. I wanted to just stand back and watch you move, but I was concentrating on the slow travel of the fabric over your tanned skin. My hands seemed very pale against you. My thumb smoothed over the two dimples in the small of your back, and then finally came to rest on your left hip. You shifted again, without any prompting from me, the shorts slid down further and then dropped right down your legs. White underneath, low and tight across your hips.

I opened my hand flat again, this time on the small of your back, and you arched your back up against it. I took my hand out of your hair, moved it down and lifted your shirt, exposing my hand. I leaned down, and softly kissed the patch of your skin between my thumb and forefinger. I lifted my mouth off of you, dropped my head to your back. And in the dream, in this moment, I was outside of myself and looking at us; your head resting on the curve of the vase, my head resting on the curve of you.

I could have woken up then and been happy. Thankfully, though, I kept dreaming.

Slowly I knelt down behind you, drawing my hands slowly down your legs as I did. First the outside, then the inside. One pass of my hands was too light and turned ticklish; your laugh changed, higher, and you twisted your leg, breaking the contact for a moment. A sudden light sound, cutting through the room and ringing off the walls.

The hands slid up again, firmer against your legs. Reaching your hips, my fingers hooked under the waistband there, gripped you tightly for a moment, then started easing back down your body. Pulling the thin white with me. You shifted your hips again, same as before, and again I wanted to just watch you move. Instead I smoothed my hands down your thighs, your shins, and tossed the white & shorts away across the floor, freeing your legs as I did.

I settled behind you and reached a hand up between your open legs and started tracing my fingers in slow circles over your flat stomach. The mix of that sensation, slightly sharp nails and my forearm pressed firmly between your legs made you shiver. Feeling that I pressed my forearm against you tighter, tensing the muscles there as I did, fluttering them against your heat. Your knees bent – or buckled – and you pressed yourself harder against my arm. My hand on your stomach opened flat and sort of pulled you back, closer to my mouth while I kissed the skin of your lower back, the dimples there, the smooth warm skin above the curve of your ass.

My hand started to move down your stomach, and you opened your legs a little more, probably knowing, on some basic level, what was coming. Instinct.

I slid my hand down just that little bit more, first feeling the heat of you against my palm, then carefully letting my middle finger slip between your lips, just grazing you with one long slow stroke. That brought a louder gasp from you, some words again, and a tighter grip on the handles. Another sudden buckling of your knees. I finished pulling my hand towards me, drawing to a stop just as the tip of my finger would slip away from you… then just as slowly pushed forward again, at the same speed. A stroke that ended with my whole hand cupping you, just holding you and feeling new heat, a new wetness, against my palm.

I did this back-and-forth stroking for what must have been a long time, building up pressure and tension in you with just that lightest of touches. I know it was a long time because when next I looked up it was dusk, warmer light coming through the windows. Everything in the room seemed warmer, but that could have been the light or it could have been our bodies.

I slid my hand forward one more time, then when I was cupping you whispered in a low voice, to take a breath and hold it until I told you to let it out. as you slowly inhaled I pulled my hand backwards, making sure my fingers touched you the whole time. your inhale stopped, i stopped my hand, the first two fingers still touching you. my other hand still on your back, i held myself still and felt your heart beat, felt the breath tense & held inside of you.

I told you to let it out slowly, and as you started to let the breath out I moved my hand forward and slid the two fingers up inside of you, matching the pace. Your exhale turned into a long loud moan and I could feel you tighten around me, delicious shock and joy. My hand on your back controlled you moving your hips too much, keeping them still as my hand slowed to a stop, still inside.

Again I told you to inhale slowly. As you did I slowly pulled my fingers towards me and out of your body, just the tips left inside at the top of your breath. At a word from me, you held it, and then let it out again, the same slow start and then sudden loud rush and sound as my fingers pushed back inside.

I kept this rhythm for a time, just enjoying listening to you breathe, then cry out, then breathe again. I enjoyed listening to the words coming out of you with the breaths: something in german, something with laughter. I enjoyed watching you push your hips down against my hand as I pushed it forward, holding my fingers inside you for longer in the stillness between breaths.

I enjoyed watching you.

Soon I could feel you close to coming, your body jerking against and tight around my fingers. A muscle on your inner thigh jumping. Your breath starting to reach that frantic place. And as much as that sound was exciting me, bringing a smile of anticipation to my face, I was not ready to let that happen yet. I wasn’t ready to let you go. Not just yet.

I leaned back, keeping my one hand moving in you, a steady firm contact keeping you gasping, maintaining the feeling but not pushing it. Wet moving slowly down into my palm. I reached out behind me, hooked a black duffel bag with a finger and pulled it towards me. The click of it sliding across the stone floor was lost under your gasps and my heartbeat thick in my ears. As quickly as I could, I pulled the zipper open, and that sound pulls a sudden reaction from you, another knee buckle and a growled word.

I pulled what I wanted from the bag, two lengths of thick rope, dropped them to the ground beside me and shoved the bag away, skidding it across the floor. You could see it then, and with it the realization that the sound you’d heard was not the zipper on my pants. Seeing it, your let out a low laugh with a slight flavour of regret in it that, when I recognize it for what it is, immediately makes me hard.

Moving quickly now, I picked up one of the lengths of rope, thicker than what I had wrapped around your wrists, and I could tell by the thread knotted on the end, it’s long enough for what I want to do with it. I didn’t want to take my hand out of you, you felt too delicious so I used my free hand and the same tie as before, coils looped loose around your leg, just below the knee, then pulled suddenly tight with a jerk of my hand. A flick of my wrist and the hanging length of rope was tossed around the other side of the amphora.

For a moment as I shifted my focus to your other leg I had both of my hands playing between your legs, one moving inside, the other stroking you, still keeping the same pressure and rhythm, not wanting to send you over yet. The hands switched positions, and the one that had been inside reached down, picked up & uncoiled the length of rope, slid up your leg with it. I kept my face pressed against your slowly moving hip as I tied you. Quick loops, my thumb pushing and hooking and the end once again tossed around the body of the vase.

As quickly as I could, I stepped away from you, not wanting to be out of contact with your skin and your heat for any longer than I had to. As my fingers slipped out of you, you gasped, cried out, and moved your hips backwards as if reaching for my hand. I stepped around the vase, grabbing the two lengths of rope as I did. Holding one in each hand, I pulled them back, pulling your knees against the body of the vase. From my angle I could see them tight around the curve, dark against the white clay.

I secured the ropes with a quick knot, flat against the vase, then stepped back around and very close to you. Hearing me come back, you turned your head and looked up at me, dark-eyed and open-mouthed. Your hips strained backwards again, a high moaning coming from your mouth.

I slid my hand up and into your hair again, grabbed all of it in a tight knot and pulled your head sharply back. My other hand moved quickly down your body, ending up pressed against your lower back. I pressed down, slowly but firmly, and started pushing you against the curve of the vase, rubbing you against the slightly rough texture of the fired clay. Up and down, contact and release – the same sort of steady rhythm I was using with my fingers in you. I could hear your breathing start to get faster again, see your eyes darken even more.

I leaned down, then, and kissed you, long and hard.

Someone outside started singing, some quiet stringed instrument playing along with him, his scratchy voice a counterpoint to your moans as they got higher and higher, as you moaned against my open mouth. I kept my hand on you, kept pushing your hips down against the vase, hard, keeping the contact for a breath, then releasing it. You raised yourself up on your toes, bent your knees, giving yourself more room to move. The strokes grew longer, slow drags along the clay.

The fist in your hair grew tighter, holding your head still. I moved my mouth lower, bit and licked your neck, my mouth moving slowly over that sweet skin, tasting you and your arousal there. I licked a line up your neck and back to your mouth, swallowing your moan as I kissed you again.

The pressure of my hand got lighter and lighter on your lower back. Without realizing it, you had started moving your hips on your own, grinding yourself against the vase. I was still kissing you but barely touching you. I lifted my hand until just the tips of my fingers were on you, moving with you.

I could hear the sound of your wet skin rubbing, loud suddenly, and you started shuddering, your eyes closed and head tilted back. Your hands gripped the handles, arms straining against the ropes, your voice got higher and higher, oh and yes and oh again and my name is in there, somewhere, amidst the gasping and heavy breaths. My touch was featherlight on you at that point, the slightest connection but I could feel heat rising from you in waves. I took my mouth off of you, pulled back and you were still moving, still writhing and pushing. I slowly lifted my hand up away and then I wasn’t touching you at all. And you, beautiful, you kept moving. I took a step back, and then another, and I watched, in the dimming light, your half-naked body moving on it’s own against the smoothness of the amphora, your arms and legs tight and muscular against the pull of the ropes, your head to one side, your eyes open but not seeing. Caught up, and running deep. Pushing yourself, hard.

Then your breath pitched up in that sudden familiar rush, your eyes opened wider. I had stepped back to the door to the room now, leaning against the frame, looking at you from behind. I stood smiling and watched you come, shaking and crying out, the vase glistening under you, the sound of your release drowning out, for a sweet moment, the low music drifting in from outside.

- Control, 2007