In the commercial edition of Morsels, which I plan on launching in late November 2024, I'm including two chapters from my published novel, Ancilla. The two chapters introduce my characters and subject material without providing plot spoilers.

Here is the first chapter in which the protagonist's main love interest appears. It comes after the world's longest prologue.

Content advisory: Graphic description of lovemaking, and the lovemaking includes power exchange, bondage, and impact play.

The man standing next to me in the Classic Literature section of the bookstore has interesting taste. Surreptitiously, I'll look up every now and then to see what else is in his stack of books; I can't see all the titles, but from what I can tell, it's an eclectic mix of occult philosophy, poetry, history, and something I can't quite make out. Some kind of fiction, maybe. Given the section we're both browsing, that seems to be a reasonable assumption to make.

He's also very good-looking, for an older man. Hair dark sable, with strands of silver – a shade of brown so dark that it's almost black. On second glance, maybe it is black. I can't tell in this lighting. Nice wool dress trousers, silk shirt, both slightly rumpled, both in dark hues. Slender – unusually so – I suspect he has muscle, but of the wiry sort. Pale skin, a bit on the olive side. Almost my height, so he's tall. I'd say he's probably about six feet one or so, maybe six-two.

There's something compelling about his hands, although I can't for the life of me say exactly what. Maybe it's because of the way they're held still, but seem full of pent-up energy. Maybe it's the fascinating way they're gnarled and lined. I look at his hands and think of the grove of birches that was on the lawn in front of my college library.

He's interesting.

His books look interesting, too.

Heck with it.

"You buy books the way I do – in bulk," I say to him. "What have you got so far?" It's been a long while since I've been able to buy my books rather than just read them in the store while soaking in the bookstore ambiance, but I don't feel like talking about that.

Without a word, he holds out his books for me to see. Books on the Golden Dawn; the complete poems of William Butler Yeats – all right, I saw those earlier. A rather outdated text on the supposed religion of the Etruscans written by Charles Godfrey Leland. Saw that. Then I see the titles I didn't catch earlier. An issue of Gnosis. An issue of Yellow Silk. Nice. Umberto Eco's Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language. Jung's Red Book. Some paperback with a plain yellow cover and the title in understated black lettering; the author appears to be French. So does the book's title, which means whatever the book is he's reading, it's in the original French, unless it was written in English, in which case he's reading a French translation for whatever reason. The first scenario seems the more plausible one. Hmm. Histoire translates as "story," if I remember correctly from my very rusty lower-school French classes. It's fiction. Other than that, I've no idea what it is, and I can't puzzle it out.

At the bottom of his pile are a couple of Julia Child cookbooks.

"You cook?"

"It's one of my hobbies."

He has an accent. I can't place it, though. His voice is too quiet. The only thing I can determine is that it's not Midwestern, so he's possibly not from around here.

I want to hear him talk more. It's not just that I'm hoping I might be able to place the accent if I listen to it more. It's also the fact that his hushed voice is warm and velvety and seductive. It needs to be on a recording. (Ideally, that recording would be a romance novel).

Cute. Unusual voice. Multilingual. Broad taste in reading, including some stuff I've heard of or read, and some stuff I've never heard of that looks like I might want to hear of it at some point in the indefinite near future... and he cooks? Very interesting.

"Leland's not considered very reliable," I remark. "He had a pronounced tendency to embellish or to just make things up. His writings are classics, as far as the Western mystery tradition is concerned, but they're not good primary resources for mythological or anthropological research."

I'm so good at making polite small talk that I amaze myself.

"True. Of course, Aleister Crowley made up more than half of what he wrote, but he's a classic in his own way, as well." He's so quiet. Shy, or just reserved? I can't tell.

"Haven't read him yet. He's on my get-around-to list, though."

Silence.

"You like poetry?"

"Yes. Although I'm also reading Yeats as part of my study of the philosophy of the Order of the Golden Dawn."

"Oh."

More silence.

"Where did you find the magazines and the books? I've never seen these in the New Age section." His selections look way too esoteric for a little shopping mall bookstore like this one.

"I put them on order."

Our hands brush as I hand him back his books.

I think I just made him blush.

Shy. Definitely shy.

I've spotted him again. Funny how I'd never noticed him here before, given how I practically live in the downtown library when I'm not selling magazines – a part-time telemarketing job that I hate, because no matter how good I am at it, I'm always afraid one bad week will get me fired. Also, faking being an outgoing "people person" is exhausting, especially since they have me assigned to a day shift right now, which means I also have to fake being a "morning person," and no amount of free coffee seems to completely do the trick for that.

It could be I've never spotted him here because I don't usually use the reference section. Most of what I read is in circulation even when it's not fiction. Today, though, I'm looking for books and journals on archaeology related to the Trojan War. Rereading Lattimore's translation of the Iliad made me curious, and of course, I couldn't let the subject rest once it had lodged itself in my mind (well, reading it completely for the first time, really; like many books I was assigned for courses, while I was taking the honors tutorial on Bronze Age Greece I couldn't bring myself to read the assigned material from cover to cover, and only skimmed it, only to rediscover it later when I had more time on my hands and when the reading was not compulsory, and part of a heavy course load that competed with several other classes, all of which had their own homework). Translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey are in circulation, of course, as are some books on ancient history, including a couple that focus exclusively on the Trojan War, but aside from a coffee table book by Michael Grant that seems to be the book form of a PBS miniseries, there's nothing on archaeology in circulation. So now I'm here.

He's one of the reference librarians.

I walk up to the desk. "I don't know how to find the journals Manfred Korfmann published his findings in. Could you help me, please?"

"I can check the print index. You'll have better luck finding those in the university library, though. What we have on classical civilization and archaeology is extremely basic. If you like, we could order some materials through interlibrary loan... But I think you should use the classical collection at the university library. It's well-stocked, plus they currently have an exhibition of documents on loan from the Blegen Center archives, including excavation records from the Palace of Nestor and some of Carl Blegen's original papers. They also have some first-edition Schliemanns. You'd love it."

And then his face lights up.

"You again!"

"Me again."

We act quietly flustered at each other, including some obligatory awkward conversational pauses.

Finally, I blurt out, "Want to go out on a date with me?"

Another awkward pause.

He smiles. "All right. Yes."

This more than makes up for my not having found the journals I was looking for.

We sat in the cloud club section of the university auditorium for a traveling repertory company's performance of Die Zauberflote. What we miss in a close-up view we gain in good acoustics, which is just as well because neither a telemarketer nor a librarian can easily afford the more expensive seats. This, I think, had to have been as perfect a first date as one could get. A bonus is that I have established that he likes opera. Most of my acquaintances think my love of opera is insane, or at least a sign of some deeper character disturbance.

"I thought Monostatos was a bit much. So was the Queen of the Night, for that matter."

"You should have seen the libretto before Mozart edited it," he replies.

"It was worse? How could you get much worse than an evil, lustful Moor saying his blackness made him ugly, so he wanted to rape and kidnap the pretty white girl who wouldn't be interested in an ugly guy like him, which sounds like the plot of Birth of a Nation only too early and wrong setting, and a malicious queen with too much power telling her daughter that she'll disown her if she doesn't subjugate the hero, and oh, yeah, an occult brotherhood admonishing the hero and his sidekick to avoid women if they want to be enlightened?"

"It was worse. Rather in the same way The Taming of the Shrew was far more misogynistic before Shakespeare wrote his own version of the play, and The Merchant of Venice was even more anti-Semitic when it was Il Pecorone."

"Oh, well, at least the music was good," I say with a sigh as we climb the stairs to his apartment. I like the street his apartment building is on. It's a quiet residential cul-de-sac on the west side of town, without many other houses or other buildings on it. His section of the street is right across from a cemetery, and there are lots of trees, so the overall effect is almost park-like.

"That it was." He unlocks the door and lets me in.

I am now perched on his couch, drinking peppermint tea and feeling the unseasonably warm, cherry blossom-scented breeze that blows through the open window. I take in details of his apartment while he bustles in the kitchen – I'm failing dismally to be subtle about it, but he's in the kitchen, so that's all right, I guess. The living room decorations consist of bookshelves. All the shelves are used for books. Some shelves are double stacked, including all the shelves on a bookcase that appears to be dedicated to science fiction and fantasy trade paperbacks. I wonder if he would loan out his books if I asked nicely.

There's a magazine called Prometheus, lying on top of the issue of Gnosis and the issue of Yellow Silk. It seems to be a literary magazine of some kind. It looks interesting.

I pick it up off the table – which is really an ornately carved chest – and flip it open at random.

On the left page is a poem. On the right is an exquisitely rendered drawing of a bound and gagged woman. The placement of the ropes is elaborate enough that it makes me squint and turn my head, trying to figure out how everything was set up. In real life, it would be a sculpture with rope. My eyes flick left; the poem – which is beautifully written – seems to go along with the art. As I turn the pages, I notice a distinct and recurring theme to them.

Of course, it would be just this moment that he emerges from the kitchen carrying a tray of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

The awkward silence between us this time is very awkward indeed.

"Very artistically done," I say at last. No, I am not blushing. And I'm not stammering. That is not a stammer. Not at all.

He puts the tray of cookies down on a side table. In a quiet and careful voice, he replies, "That's the literary journal of the oldest BDSM society in North America."

"Oh."

There's a literary journal?

"Have you read the poetry of Swinburne?" I finally ask. "Some of his poems combined eroticism and pain."

"I'm quite fond of Swinburne," he replies.

"Same here," I murmur, willing my mug of tea to calm my hands, which are shaking. "It's amazing the things you can find in libraries."

My eyes lift and wander back to his shelves. Aside from the bookcase devoted to speculative fiction, there is also a stack of history and archaeology books – heavy on prehistory, early Near Eastern and Egyptian history, and classical Greece and Rome – and two cases contain texts on philosophy and comparative religion. A tall case in the corner nearest the couch is crammed with occult lore of various backgrounds.

One shelf at eye level has several books on Tantra and ceremonial sex magick. It also has a couple of non-occult-related texts relating to different activities also starting with the letters "S" and "M," which, while not mystical and esoteric, are nevertheless fairly mysterious, at least to me.

"You filed them with your occult books?"

"Yes."

Silence again. These silences are getting painfully tense.

I swallow past the dryness in my throat. "Why?"

"Because they go together. It's not unheard of; for instance, Gerald Gardner and Aleister Crowley were both notorious for it, each in their own way. Also, if you get into the histories and philosophies of various parts of Asia, you'll find a strong note of mystical asceticism."

"And you?" Stupid voice. Stop croaking.

"I follow an established Western mystery tradition, but there are some things that I make up as I go along."

I look down as I sip my peppermint tea. It's gone cold.

The quiet of the room descends again. My heart rattles against my chest. I breathe deeply and try to think about nothing, to let my feelings flow past and away, as they do when I sit zazen. I listen to myself breathe. I make my breathing slow and calm until the quiet of the room no longer hurts.

I'm extremely surprised that my reaction is so violent. There really is no reason for me to be shaken by the mere mention of sexual kinks in a conversation, or by their portrayal in written and visual art. It's not like I only just now found out such things existed. Of course, the man whose living room couch I am sitting on seems rather more involved in such matters than any other love interest I've had so far. No doubt that has something to do with it, although it once again raises the question of why I am trembling from nervous excitement. Why be nervous? That's silly...

Oh.

Not quite meeting me in the eyes, he asks in a small voice, "Do you still find me attractive?"

I put down the tea and rise from the couch. I walk over to where he is standing, put his face between my hands, and pull him close to me until his lips are touching mine.

"Yes," I whisper against his mouth, and as he reaches for me and encircles me with his arms, the room's silence becomes a heat I can almost touch.

I turned twenty-one today. We didn't have enough money to go out to eat, and there were not enough ingredients in the larder to bake any kind of dessert from scratch, so we are sharing some packaged cupcakes we got from a convenience store in lieu of traditional birthday cake.

We've been seeing each other for several weeks now. I hesitate to call it "dating," or to call him my "boyfriend," because he's twice my age, and "dating" and "boyfriends" seem inappropriately adolescent as ways to describe an affair with him – and it is an affair. We aren't boyfriend and girlfriend, going steady and making plans to attend the prom. We're lovers.

He gave me a birthday present: a rare used hardback copy of the poems of Emily Dickinson. It's an antique first edition – maybe not of the poems themselves, but certainly of that particular anthology, which was printed in the very early part of this century. And it's in mint condition. This is probably the reason my "birthday cake" consists of plastic-wrapped snack food. I'll take the book over cake any day, though, especially when part of my present involves his reading aloud to me.

Wild nights, wild nights,

were I with thee,

Wild nights should be

our luxury –

He punctuates the verses with kisses: my forehead, my cheeks, my hair, my neck. My lips. My lips are burning under his. He has such soft, warm lips, to take my breath away.

Futile the winds

to the heart in port –

Done with the compass,

done with the chart –

Time to screw my courage to the sticking point.

I lean back into his embrace, and interrupt him by whispering in his ear, "Master, teach me."

His breath stops, and I feel his body suddenly become as tense as a bowstring. Any more tense and he'll be jumping out of his skin.

"What?"

"I know what you want. And I know what I want. Master, teach me."

He groans quietly and closes his eyes. He's closing them against himself, I think. That can't be very effective.

"You don't know what you're asking."

"I ransacked your personal library on our last few dates, remember? Then there was that little game of Twenty Questions we played last night. Good heavens. I know what I'm asking."

"Do you have any idea what kind of effect you're having on me?"

"Yes. Yes, I do. I know because I can see you. Silly. I can reach out and feel you, too, where you're threatening to burst out of your pants. Master, teach me. I want to apprentice myself."

I can feel him trembling. Am I trembling too? I must be. My voice is. But all I feel is him.

"Is this something you really want, or do you just want to learn how to be a dominant?" Shaking. God, he's shaking. His raw need rips through me. "You did mention your former girlfriend wanting you to play the dominant. I can advise you without actually asking anything of you if that's the case. Or is this about that conversation we had a while back about studying magic –"

"If I only wanted advice, I'd ask for advice. I don't just want advice. I want you. Master, teach me." I take a deep breath.

Silence falls.

"I want that very badly," he says at last.

"I'm yours for the taking. Please. Take me."

The room is still. Too still. The very air is holding its breath.

"Please."

The only one trembling now is me.

He seizes my wrists in one of his hands and pins them to the futon, behind my head. My nose decides now, of all times, to itch, and I try to scratch it, but of course, I can't, because he's pinning me down. I can't get loose. I had no idea he had this much strength. He's only slightly built, but he has me caught. He's unbuttoning me with his other hand, freeing my breasts, and he squeezes my nipple until it is hard, and I moan with desire, arching against him, nearly lifting him off the futon with me as I do so.

"We need to negotiate. Is there anything you absolutely do not want to do?"

"I don't know."

"Of course. Rather silly of me to ask, if you don't know what my specific quirks might be. I probably have you at something of a disadvantage, as well." He smiles. "Should I stop?"

"Oh, no. Please don't stop..."

He's teasing my nipple with his fingers, kissing and nibbling my neck, and licking around my ear in slow, careful circles, making me cry out and writhe and buck up against him. I am made of fire and need. Such little things – of course, he's kissed me and used his fingers to pleasure me before, and done other things as well, leading to the usual denouement, but somehow it was never like this. What is this? Being pinned down makes everything different? That doesn't make sense; I've been pinned down in martial arts, many times, and never responded this wildly, not even when it turned me on. His personality, maybe? Something he's doing? I am being consumed. I had no idea it would feel this way. So delirious. Oh, so beautiful.

Raggedly, he asks, "What do you dream about doing?"

That's harder to answer than it might initially sound. The things he's doing to me almost make me forget how to speak; I just want to moan. I find it oddly comforting that he's struggling to keep his composure as well. Let us both be consumed by the same fire. "Um. I've never actually been tied up before, myself, although my last girlfriend had me tie her up once. The end result was a bit awkward. I told you about that. I saw a riding crop in a novelty store in the mall that looked really interesting. I get turned on thinking about Vulcan mind melds."

He stares at me incredulously. "Vulcan mind melds?"

"They're romantic."

"Hmm. Unfortunately, I don't think I can help you out with the Vulcan mind meld thing." He takes his free hand, wraps it around my jaw, and presses his mouth to mine. Now my mouth is as trapped as my arms are; he opens me and devours me with his tongue. Meanwhile, his body is still pressing itself on mine, grinding into mine. He's hard – incredibly so. It feels good. I start to moan.

"First lesson: you do not speak until I give you leave. You do not cry out. You do not moan."

Rats.

"Noise releases energy; I want you to keep your energy inside until I ask for it." He takes his hand off my jaw and, moving aside slightly, reaches down under my leggings and underwear to rub his fingers against me. I'm soaked. I almost whimper, but I have to stay quiet. Not being able to make noise hurts. I feel my hips rocking of their own accord.

"Be still."

Now that was not even remotely fair.

His fingers continue to play with my nether lips as he works off my clothes, rubbing wet cotton back and forth against my genitals as he pulls my panties down. I can't move. I can't moan. I gasp desperately on the edge of orgasm.

"Open your legs."

I do my best to comply. It's not difficult; I am burning up with my own need. At some point he must have removed some of his own garments; I never even noticed, and for some reason, I find that eerily disorienting.

He still has me by the wrists.

"Wider."

No, no, I can't scream when he enters me, I can't. I can't move. I have to contain this. I bite my lip, trying not to make noise.

His mouth on my mouth, his lips on my lips. "Mine," he gasps. His free hand is in my hair, holding me fast. "Mine, now. Mine." Suddenly he yanks me back, hard, and I feel his teeth wrap around my exposed throat. Biting. He moves down, down all along my neck, covering me with bites, seizing my skin, and pulling on it as if he could suck my soul from out of my flesh.

"Mine."

Driving into me, violently; the futon is soaked with the juices of my desire, the sweat pouring from me as I strain to avoid crying out in ecstasy, avoid wrapping my legs around him to move things to my own pace. Too much –

He bends down and murmurs into my ear, "I am going to kiss you again. When you need to scream, scream into my mouth. Give your scream to me."

His voice is shaking.

It doesn't take me long; within seconds, I am screaming. I am also writhing, bucking, thrusting madly against him as my orgasm overwhelms both of us.

"I need to grab a couple of things. Wait right there, please. Don't move."

Right. I'm not going anywhere.

He is only gone for a couple of moments – it's not exactly a large apartment – and when he returns, he has some unfamiliar items in his hands. They're black and leathery. I stare in fascination; my imaginary idea of being "tied up" has so far been limited to things like scarves and curtain ropes, because those things are a normal part of my daily life, whereas articles made of black-dyed leather are not. The smell of the leather is intoxicating. It's not a shoe store smell at all. It's sharper. It's almost narcotic. It goes up into my nostrils when I breathe, down through my lungs, and out places to which I never expected lungs to have any connection.

"Hold out your wrists."

I hold them out obligingly. I want to see what these things are and how they work.

They're a pair of leather manacles, cushioned and lined with some kind of velvety soft fabric, adjusted with holes and buckles, shiny silvery things that look as attractive to my perverted magpie eyes as the leather itself. He uses the tightest setting.

Then he puts my wrists over my head and affixes them to something that goes click. It appears to be a clip, attached to a chain, attached to an eye bolt screwed into the futon frame. I had no idea that it was even there. How interesting.

"Your wrists are almost too thin for these to properly restrain you." He looks down at me with a concerned expression. "I've always noticed you were slender, of course, but goodness, that's thin. Are you getting enough to eat?"

"Yes."

"Hmm."

The other black, leathery thing is a riding crop.

"Riding crops are very versatile," he says, as he settles into a kneeling position and picks up the crop. "You'll want to have one of your own eventually. The one you saw in the mall – if it was the same store I'm thinking of – was cheap and shoddy and would not have been good for much other than show; you'll want something a little more high-end if you want to use it as a whip. The cheap version you saw will also be hard to clean because it's braided suede, and whatever soap or other cleaner you use on it will tend to get lodged in the braided parts – another strike against it."

My voice is an octave higher than normal when I ask, "So, what do you do with it?" I hadn't intended on that. Oops.

Sangfroid apparently isn't one of my more reliable virtues when I'm facing a riding crop.

"Attend." He takes the handled end and thrusts it gently under my chin, forcing my head back. "Many people find this a little intimidating, especially when they are immobilized or otherwise helpless, possibly because of the threat of the riding crop itself being used."

"Um. Yes, I can see that."

"Your voice is shaking. Did you know that? By the way, I remind you that you are to be silent and still until I give you leave when you are receiving lessons. From now on, be quiet, please. Another use for the riding crop: you can gently stroke a slave's nerve endings to provoke arousal. If you are knowledgeable of such things as pressure points and nerve paths, the effect can be quite explosive. Different people, of course, can have different sensitive spots. I haven't had a chance to find all of yours yet; in time, I imagine I will."

Do I get to return the favor? I wonder. Practice makes perfect, after all... The possibility intrigues me. Then thought ceases as he pushes the flap of the crop gently behind my ear and trails it along my jawline, down to my collarbone. Then down and around my breasts, circling my nipples, first one, then the other. Then back again. Up and down, until he strokes my cheek with the shaft and places its length against my lips. There it rests. Eventually, I figure out that I'm supposed to kiss it, so I press my lips against the leather, imagining that I am kissing not an inanimate object, but flesh. The crop is an extension of my lover now, and I kiss it fervently.

"Good," he says, and once again the shaft moves along my cheek until the flap is again stroking my skin, moving down to trace the outlines of my breasts, small circles that spiral in until he is rubbing my nipples back and forth with the leather. He gives my left one a light smack. I gasp and force myself to hold still. I want to groan; I want to sway into the motion of the strokes. But that is forbidden to me.

He trails the flap down my abdomen slowly until it is hovering between my legs, stroking my clitoris, rubbing up against my labia with the shaft end, back and forth in a massaging motion until I feel a cry building at the bottom of my throat, escaping my mouth as a faint, high-pitched keening despite my best efforts to remain silent. He taps me on my clit, and I gulp. It wasn't even a very hard tap, it didn't hurt me at all, and yet suddenly I am terrified.

"Shh, now," he murmurs, leaning down to touch my cheek. "I've got you. Are you all right? You may nod or shake your head."

I nod.

"Is this still what you want?" He caresses my face with his free hand.

I nod again.

He leans over, covers my lips with his, my body with his body, and my world becomes stable again. It had been shaking, or I had been shaking, but I hadn't even fully noticed until I felt his flesh against mine, reassuring me with its warmth. I relax into him as he grounds me with kisses and heat.

Don't stop. Please, don't stop.

"I'm here," he says, and he buries me under his weight. His lips are so soft, his breath so delicious. We sigh into each other as our tongues duel.

When he pulls away, I notice he is slightly breathless. I, on the other hand, am oddly full of energy.

"Let us continue. Various parts of the riding crop can be used on the genitals, in various ways, depending on whether your slave is male or female, and on whether that person is into pain. Not all submissives have a masochistic streak; not all dominants are sadists. If your objective is to produce pleasure that does not involve pain, you might try using the handle for penetration... Hold still, please. And I remind you again, do not make any noise. I want you to keep your sounds, and energy, inside." He would have to illustrate that one. "Until I say otherwise." Of course, he tells me this as he proceeds to do everything possible to make me writhe and cry out.

Pressure, little nudges. Oh, God.

It's very difficult to keep still and silent when the head of his riding crop is pushing at some of my more sensitive areas. I glare at him. So far, that's still acceptable.

"Consider this honing your willpower; you'll need it when you're the dominant. Willpower is important when your submissive asks you to stop doing something, and you don't want to stop, but have to stop anyway. That is what the social contract demands. Scene etiquette requires consent, even when you are perpetuating the illusion of non-consent. Speaking of which, since many submissives like to have you pretend that they are being forced to submit, they may scream 'no,' or 'stop,' or 'mercy,' or something like that, without meaning it literally, which is one reason why safewords are important. A safeword is a word that all parties agree on that means 'I really do mean stop.' The other major reason safewords get used is that dominants are as human as the next person and are as likely as anyone else to get carried away in the heat of the moment if things get very intense; a safeword sounds a bit incongruous and is more likely than 'no' or 'stop' to get an impassioned dominant's attention and halt the activity, should that be necessary. What would you like to be yours? You have leave to answer."

I think. I try to think, anyway. Martial arts. "Mate," I reply, a bit unsteadily, partly because what he's still doing with the head of the riding crop (good grief, he never even paused. Not once) is nothing I want to associate with the word "stop."

"That would work well," he muses. "I studied aikido some years ago, also ninjutsu and a couple of other martial arts; hearing the word mate would make me stop automatically. It's almost Pavlovian. When not given leave to speak or make noise, meanwhile, please pound three times with your fist, or flex your hand three times, or grunt three times in succession. I will be watching for it. When you are in a position of power over someone, you should do the same. It does not have to be the three thumps or grunts, of course; it can be anything the two of you agree on. Are you getting all that?"

I nod yes.

The handle of the crop continues to push against me with an impatient sort of stiffness and weight. I gasp, choking on the screams of pleasure I'm holding inside. So close.

"Good. Roll over."

He hasn't moved the head of the riding crop yet. It's still shoved inside me. Rolling over proves interesting; the fact that I can't use my arms doesn't help much, either. I hope I look cute when I'm flopping around like a fish and humping myself on the head of a crop.

Unfortunately, he stops what he's doing before I can come again and pulls the crop handle out. The loop of the wrist strap trails, teasing me, and brushes my thigh on its way out, leaving me covered with the evidence of my need.

The near edge of orgasm hurts me like a knife.

"There are two other standard uses for a riding crop," he says, wiping the crop handle off with his shirt tail. "One is rather obvious. And today happens to be your birthday. You're twenty-one today, yes? Let's round it up to thirty and give you a few to grow on. It builds character. Would you like that?"

"I don't know. Maybe. There's only one way to find out."

"Yes, that's very true."

He slowly trails the tip of the riding crop down my back until it reaches my buttocks, caressing me with the shaft in slow circles until the crop rests in perfect alignment with what I suspect is the only part of my posterior to have anything resembling curves.

He lets it hover there for one long moment before he lays into me.

I don't scream. I don't grunt, flex my hand, or tap out, either.

He lies on top of my back. It doesn't hurt as much as it could. Part of this might be distraction; his hand is underneath me, working the wet spot between my legs. It might also be more accurate to say that yes, it does rather hurt to have him draping himself on top of my backside, given my injuries, which are not major but are just raw enough to sting, but what he's doing to me is distracting enough that I don't really care that it stings to have him lying on top of welts.

And no, I still can't make noise.

He has hardened again. I suppose that shouldn't come as a surprise.

"I will not repeat the experience if you didn't enjoy it; you did say, however, that you were interested in riding crops. Was that... welcome? Or was it too much?" He has that shy sound in his voice again. I think I like it at least as much as the steel that came out tonight. "You have leave to speak."

I smile, although he probably can't see me do it. "Oh, don't worry. It was welcome."

"The other standard use for a riding crop is as a gag," he says as he rises from his position on my back. "Open your mouth. Good. Bite down."

Now he's gagging me? Why not before? Oh, right. Energy.

"Do not make noise. You may, however, move. Lift, please."

He slips a pillow underneath my hips as I rest my weight on my elbows and knees to raise myself. Then he leans down to whisper in my ear, and I feel his hand slide between my legs. God, I'm gushing.

"Ride my fingers."

He has them inside me now – I'm not sure how many – more than two, less than five – I think. Maybe. Maybe he does have all five of them in there. I can feel his knuckles against the bones of my pelvis. Pressure, fullness, my nerves stretched like tightrope. One of his fingers gently massages my clitoris. His thumb? Maybe. No, that's not anatomically possible, is it? I can't tell. For all I know, he might be using both hands. I'm wet enough that the sensation of being stuffed gives me no discomfort, only pleasure. I rock, I rock, and I am drowned in wave after wave of orgasm. Dear God, keep doing that, whatever it is. I'll ask you what and how later. Not now. Oh.

Want to scream. Can't.

Arching back. Biting down; pushing hard against the hand inside me. So good, I want this forever. I don't want it to end. Ever.

When my body relaxes, and I collapse in a heap on the pillow, he says, "Open your legs again. You closed them."

I was expecting him to immediately slide inside me and take me the way he did before, but instead, I feel his fingers, which are still covered with the juice of my orgasms, sliding up into the smaller orifice between my buttocks. Lubricating me. I hope he's gentle. The last time I tried this with a boyfriend, it was somewhat awkward and painful. What he's doing with his fingers is certainly nice enough. It almost seems a shame for him to stop.

When he slides into me, I find myself biting down on the riding crop, but not because of any kind of pain. He's very good at what he's doing. Astonishingly good. I didn't know it could feel this pleasurable. I want so badly to make noise. To move.

Maybe he won't notice if I twitch my hips against him just a little.

Ever so slightly, he groans.

I wonder if I can also get away with making a few small noises. Just little moans. Surely little moans would be all right?

Gasping, he reaches for me with his other hand, the one he did not use to lubricate me, and I do my best to entwine my fingers around his.

Then he shudders and lets out a loud sigh as he spends himself, collapsing on top of me.

His weight is warm and good. Breath hot against my skin. Kisses on my neck and cheeks; he can't quite reach my lips.

"Happy birthday," he says.

He leans in to kiss me on the cheek; I rub my nose against the pillow, because I'm itching again, and his kiss lands on my ear.

"I presume I can talk now?"

I hear him smiling, although I can't see it from this position. "Yes."

"My wrists are starting to get uncomfortable. Could you please let me out, now?"

"Oh. Of course. Sorry." He does.

It occurs to me that I also desperately need to use the bathroom, both to empty my bladder and to clean off; I stumble in that direction, knees wobbly from exhaustion and pleasure, and when I return, it's his turn to use the various facilities.

I burrow myself into his arms when he lies back down beside me.

"Was that what you were looking for?"

"It was what was necessary. I look forward to learning more. That, and... yes. Yes, it was." I pause, not quite sure how to phrase all the words and feelings that are rolling in me like large waves. "Thank you, Master." That wasn't coached. It did, however, seem the polite thing to say.

"Hold me," he whispers. "Hold me."

Rowing in Heaven, ah, the sea; might I but moor tonight in thee.