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Swallowtail Ch. 03

By: ktmccoll



Swallowtail is a novel that traces the narrator's gradual acceptance of submission.

Previously: after having seduced the narrator at an art gallery, Dex returned unexpectedly to challenge him to make her come in his office. 

***

Dex has been absent for the last several weeks and my efforts to reach her have been met with a silence. I'm loath to admit it, but I've been bruised by her indifference and my own powerlessness in the face of it. If only I could be so indifferent, but she occupies my thoughts and dreams more than she deserves. I am weirdly paralyzed by her absence, fully expecting another chapter and unwilling to pick up another book lest the story continue without me. 

I've toyed with the idea of consigning my meetings with Dex to memory, to be trotted out in my doddering, prostate-challenged old age whenever I need the balm of remembered pleasure. I've debated returning to greener pastures, where the investment of time yields more predictable returns. And therein lies the problem—predictability. Somehow, this churlish if interesting member of Gen Y has, by design or accident, reawakened my thirst for surprise and living for the moment. I'd forgotten the aphrodisiac qualities of unpredictability. Now that I have had a taste, every other dish on the menu suggests a blandness for which I have little appetite.

It is late evening and I am home alone. I have set aside some time to slog through this month's last word on running a successful business. The book lies open on my lap but I'm not that interested. The tumbler of single malt beside me competes for my attention. The whiskey is winning. It does every time.

The doorbell rings. I'm not expecting anyone and I'm tempted to ignore it. Nothing good can come of answering it. I look at the clock and reconsider. It's past nine o'clock, which is late enough for salespeople to have gone back to wherever salespeople go to rebuild their fragile egos. 

I find myself sympathizing with them as I hasten to the door. 

I open the door to find Dex standing on front porch, apparently put out at having to wait.

"Dex!" I say needlessly and with more relief than I intend to reveal. I follow this up with: "What a surprise!" I'm just full of inanity tonight and put an end to it by inviting her in. 

"How did you find me?"

She looks at me as though she doesn't understand the question. "Reverse search."

I don't get it. My clueless expression says as much.

"You gave me your phone number."

"Then why didn't you call?"

"I don't like phones."

I want to say obviously but hold my tongue. I take her coat, which seems entirely too light for the November chill outside.

She is looking at me expectantly, raccoon eyes wide and unblinking. I've forgotten my manners, it seems.

"Would you like something? Beer? Wine?"

She opts for a glass of red and wanders through the house. She says little. Her outfit again is decidedly goth but she has managed again to imbue it with some dark sexiness. Or maybe goth is sexy. Or maybe she is. She wears her hair in a disheveled mess that works so well that it can't be by accident, but I can't imagine Dex caring enough either way. Her eyes are heavily made up and her lips sport a shade that's just this side of the witching hour. She wears a choker that reminds me of a collar that I'd once unsuccessfully tried to convince a girlfriend to wear. Everything else is enshrouded by gauzy blackness and I have to content myself with the memory of her alabaster skin. I don't know how she pulls it off or why it works for me. She is the opposite of the sleek and stylish elegance that usually catches my attention. She somehow manages to evoke more with a multitude of dark layers that other women manage with generous displays of flesh. It's like the dance of the seven veils performed by a Morticia. Whatever else it might be, it's interesting.

I go to the kitchen to fetch her wine. I'm wondering again whether Dex is somehow psychologically unbalanced or even dangerous. I know nothing about her and her propensity to fall off the radar for weeks at a time is irksome and disrespectful. She's either ignorant or contemptuous of the niceties of interpersonal relationships. We've been together twice now, and while this does not constitute a relationship by any stretch, it does imply some kind of attraction or interest on her part. I realize also that although anonymous, no-strings sex with an attractive stranger is a staple in the larder of many a male fantasy, it's a lot less carefree and easy when it actually happens. I've never been one to refuse an interesting liaison, but, evidence to the contrary, I feel that this one has possibly more strings attached than I can see. 

Confronted with how little I actually know about this woman, I find myself wondering whether it has been wise to succumb to her so willingly. It has been good and her visit to the office was indeed interesting (if inconvenient), but by my reckoning we are now even. One orgasm for another. Tit for tat. We could conceivably part ways with neither of us being in debt to the other. 

I find Dex walking around the place, evaluating it as a particularly anal interior decorator might. It amuses me, this act of haughty disdain for the trappings of success that I doubt she possesses herself.

I follow her back to the living room and she perches herself on the arm of a leather chair and casually crosses her legs at the ankles. I notice that she has left her dangerous-looking boots on but I decide to reserve my admonishment. I like hardwood floors but I'm a sucker for high heels too.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your presence?" I ask, sitting in the armchair opposite her.

There's a glimmer of a smile. "I was wondering whether you'd do me a favor."

"Ah," I say knowingly, though I know nothing.

She approaches me, tall in her heels. She squats down and leans her arms on my thighs. I can gaze down into the valley between her breasts but allow myself only a moment to do so. Her eyes study mine. "I hope you're up for it. I think you might be but I'm not sure."

I don't know how she does it, but I'm on the defensive. Again. I feel control slipping away. I'm used to being in charge, yet somehow this woman manages to nudge me into the passenger seat and before I realize it, she has her hands on my wheel and her foot on my pedal and I'm left going wherever she steers us. To be fair, the journey has been interesting until now, but I miss being in control. "Depends what it is," I say. Already the hormones are kicking up.

"Would you be willing to please me?"

I detect a hint of uncertainty in the question. For all of her control and self-possession, Dex still has to ask. She's as unsure about where we're going as I am—has as many questions about me as I have about her. While she's in the driver's seat, she still needs me to agree about the destination. I'm somewhat reassured.

I hesitate. We're at some kind of threshold. A tipping point. I can feel it. Dex thinks that because she has had me on my knees the last time that I might be happy to spend more time there. Not so. I've been here before. The point at which a woman exercises her real or perceived advantage and guile to wrest control from me. It happens in any relationship. I'd seen it in my parents'. My dad, a successful, confident man, mercilessly harangued and heaped with demands and expectations by a woman (my step-mother) who recognized in love a lever with which to elevate herself.

I'd vowed never to be in a woman's debt, to ensure that my emotional balance sheet was always in the black. Some women have said that I'm an asshole, a chauvinist. So be it.

"Depends what you have in mind," I say.

"It's hard to ask."

"Best to spit it out."

"I've had this fantasy..." Her voice trails off and she sips her wine.

Our every meeting has been the realization of some kind of fantasy and my curiosity is immediately piqued. 

"If you do this... thing... I'll owe you," she says.

It's good that she says this. She'll owe me and the balance will be restored. "Any hints?" I ask.

"In a minute." She rises from her position in front of me and sits on my lap. I know what she's doing. She's softening me up, making me malleable and sapping my will. Trouble is, there's a part of me that isn't softening and the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that I'll succumb.

My hand is on her thigh. She's wearing black stockings and I feel the strap of a garter beneath my fingers. The woman, I decide, is a witch.

I'm a sucker for garters.

My hand runs up her flank beneath the skirt. She lets it roam. There's an enticing expanse of skin to explore. 

Her arm is draped across my shoulder and she nips at my ear. Her breath is hot and expectant in my ear. Jesus.

"So?" she asks. She hasn't elaborated on the nature of her fantasy. She wants carte blanche.

She can probably feel the erection pressing up against the backs of her legs. "Whatever you like," I say. "Within reason."

"Are you sure?"

I'm not, but gamely say, "I'd like to do something for you."

She smiles. There's still some uncertainty to the smile, for which I'm grateful. I know about assumptions. "Where's the bedroom?" she asks.

***

Dex leans against the doorjamb, arms crossed, head cocked to the side and legs planted shoulder-width apart. I'm surprised by the stance, suggesting strength and distance rather than the welcoming intimacy I'd hoped for. "Undress," she says. Evidently negotiations are over.

This isn't quite what I had in mind and I hesitate. "How about another kiss?" I ask, hoping to direct things along paths I'm more comfortable with.

Her eyes widen slightly. "Later." She waits.

"Just me?" I don't like the idea of being vulnerable, of being the only one so exposed.

"Why not? I've already seen you. Most of you."

"But..."

"You said that you'd do me this favor." 

"Sure, but..."

She takes a deep breath. "Have you ever asked a woman to strip for you?" asks Dex. "To perform for you?"

It takes me a moment to understand what she is asking. Then it comes to me. I have. I nod. At once I have the feeling that the shoe is on the other foot and it's tight and uncomfortable. There's no room in it for me and the hypocrisy that Dex seems to be banking on.

"I'm not going to ask you to dance if that's what you're worried about. But it does turn guys on, doesn't it, seeing their women strip for them? To play with themselves? What if I tell you that it does the same for me to watch a man pleasure himself?"

"I'd say..." I'm not sure what to say. I don't know you comes to mind. That won't do. I have a recollection of telling someone that I liked the way she touched herself. I barely knew her too. Logically what was good for the goose should have been good for the gander, except for the fact that I wouldn't the one doing the gandering. I try to convince myself that turning her on would be a reward in itself. It isn't. I'm not that selfless. Frankly, the thought of providing entertainment by masturbating for her makes me feel more than self-conscious. "I'm really uncomfortable about doing this."

"It's just you and me. There's no one else."

"I hardly know you."

"We've been intimate. We've pleased each other. I want you to please me again."

I sit on the edge of the bed. "Maybe if you start me off," I suggest hopefully.

"No, but if it makes you feel better, you can think of me while you do it," she says.

"Ooh," I say, allowing some sarcasm to slip through. "That'll be fun."

Her only response is a raised eyebrow. One only. I wish that I could have mastered that skill.

"It would make it easier if you were naked," I venture.

"It might, but you'll probably have your eyes closed, so it's pretty irrelevant whether I'm clothed over here or not."

I hesitate some more.

"Pretend I'm not here," suggests Dex.

She's becoming impatient.

She'd been a great lay. I weigh the pros and cons. Con—I embarrass myself. Pro—I turn her on and set the stage for another chapter. She'll owe me.

Am I that desperate?

I think of the last few women before Dex and have to admit that she has packed more excitement and unpredictability in two meetings than the others have, combined, over recent memory. What she lacks in refinement she makes up for in creativity and verve.  

***

I remove my tie and let it dangle between my fingers. I toy with the idea of tying her up with it. It wouldn't work, I think. Instead, I throw the tie onto a chair and my shirt soon follows.

I look at Dex who gives me a quick nod of encouragement. She's inscrutable. She licks her lips. I see this as a slip. A tell. She must like watching. Maybe this kind of thing really does arouse her. Maybe the power of it arouses her.

I unbutton my pants. I'm nearing the point of no return and I feel more uneasy now. Dex crosses one leg over the other while my pants crumple around my ankles. My underwear and socks follow and I'm standing there naked, being studied by Dex, and I'm glad that I've at least kept the middle-age flab at bay with regular squash games and running and weights.

I sit on the bed and feel like a tool. "Shit," I mutter. I think again of the times that I'd asked women to do just this. Strip and dance and masturbate for my enjoyment. I wonder now whether they'd felt as self-conscious. They must have. No one is brought up wanting to perform humiliating acts for the pleasure of others. I had told myself that I'd learn these women by watching how their fingers danced over their flesh. Learn by how they manipulated themselves. That was bullshit though. I liked to watch even though I'd never considered myself much of a voyeur. If I was honest with myself, I liked the fact that they were willing to do this for me more than the watching itself.

The thought depresses me now.

"How do you want me?" I ask finally.

"There is good."

I'm sitting at the edge of the bed and allow myself to lie back. I couldn't be less turned on by my predicament and what I've been asked to do.

I tug at myself halfheartedly. Had I known I'd be doing this, I would have bought myself dinner and plied myself with wine. The masturbatory mood eludes me.

I open my eyes. "You're not going to take pictures of me, are you? Post them on the internet?"

"What do you take me for?"

"I don't know you."

"No. You clearly don't. I'm not interested in humiliating anyone, okay? This is between you and me. Anything we do is always between you and me."

I feel somewhat reassured but whatever wispy head of steam I've built up is gone now. I settle back on the bed.

How do I do this? I wonder. I hope she isn't expecting porn star sound effects or electrocution grimaces. I close my eyes and rest my hands on my lower abdomen.

I try to focus on the matter at hand, but it doesn't work. Occasionally I hear the rustle of fabric from where Dex stands and I'm reminded of the breathtaking stupidity and humiliation of what I've agreed to do. Then my mind wanders.

It's not working. The mighty oak remains a stubborn, pathetic acorn. Performance anxiety, I tell myself. I take a deep breath.

Dex recognizes my imminent failure. "Tell me what you would like me to do."

"Come here and help me, for one."

"And then?"

"And then you'd strip."

"And then?"

"And then you'd rub your breasts across my face... You'd take me in..." 

I imagine it and feel the stirrings. I picture it. Can I be that easy? I can imagine it then, except it isn't Dex in the leading role...

***

It's Moira. There's a shock of recognition. Where has she come from. I haven't thought of her in years. She was one of the first. A flame-haired beauty who cultivated a faux hedonistic air that cloaked a choirgirl. I'd been taken in, convinced that Moira was far more worldly than I. 

I'd coaxed and cajoled and teased her over a period of months. She'd responded just enough to keep me interested.

I remember my attempts at convincing her that she possessed more colors on her erotic palette than she knew and that she owed it to herself to grow comfortable in their use—lips, tongue, hands, pussy, ass...

My hand finds my groin as I remember...

And she tries, gamely swimming against her upbringing and her nature. 

It is afternoon in my room at the residence. I deliberately leave the blinds partially open to better watch her. She likes darkness, as though the God of her parents could not see her there. She moves to close them and I beg her not to. I love the play of light and shadow on your body, I say. She blushes furiously, pleased and embarrassed by my words. Her shyness as she undresses arouses me and she leaps into bed more to escape my gaze than to express eagerness. I can still feel her skin, cool and smooth under my fingers as she buries herself into my side.

I roll her onto her back and kiss a path from her lips to her toes and back up again to the downy delta between her legs, leaving a riot of goose pimples in my wake. I coax her legs apart. They open to me hesitantly as though afraid of what wickedness exposure might bring. She freezes at the first touch of my tongue despite the heat that I feel on my lips. 

I can imagine her thoughts. Did enjoying this make her a slut? 

She tries to regulate her breathing, afraid of the admission implied in a gasp or a moan. I enjoy my perceived mastery over her. I can play her like an instrument.

Her climax is a quiet and private affair, a trembling moment of horrified breathlessness. 

She is sated and would gladly go to sleep to escape the first tendrils of guilt.

I kneel at her head, my cock shamelessly pointing at her mouth. I lean over and kiss her, my tongue imparting the taste of her. If she finds it gross I don't care. I've survived it, after all. Her hand has found me, likely by accident. Fingers weigh my balls and hold them tentatively.

I straighten and bury a hand in her fiery tresses. I pull, gently. She rolls to her side. My gaze sweeps up her pale flank to her shapely ass, past the corrugation of ribs to the weight of a pink-tipped breast. She kisses the tip of my cock with the trepidation that one would a reptile. I stroke her breast with the other hand. She has never expressed any interest at providing this type of enjoyment. Her lips part reluctantly. It's a duty, this giving of pleasure. An unreasonable expectation hatched in porn films and adolescent male fantasies. She's reminded of Genesis and of the snake and recoils at having anything even vaguely snake-like in her mouth. But my hand holds her and I push myself into that velvet heat. Her hand has left my balls and now presses against my thigh. Too much, I think, disappointed. I withdraw. She tries gamely, fighting her Catholic guilt and gag reflex.

At length I flop onto my back and maneuver Moira onto me. Here she is slightly more comfortable. The working parts are as far away from her mind as they can be while still sinning. Her hair curtains around us and we're breathing each other's hot breath and gazing at each other for meaning and reassurance and that sublime intimate space for me is completely irrelevant because she has found me and I'm poised at the gates, feeling the warmth and the promised embrace. She hesitates and drives me crazy. I don't know if she's doing this on purpose. She resumes her descent on me. It's slow and deliberate. She's wonderfully tight and I'm aching with engorgement. 

She can go no further. The length of me is buried within her. I wonder how different it feels—the possessing or the possessed. Her eyes are closed and she's sitting up on me. She tightens herself and I moan. I like to think that the contraction is by design rather than by accident. My hands support the weight of her breasts; I bracket them upon the arch of my thumb and forefinger. Moira flings her hair back and grinds into me, losing herself a little in the moment. She's thinking of herself now and the feeling of something hard and insistent within her. Her eyes are closed and it could now be me or anyone else.


Swallowtail Ch. 03



I close my eyes too to shut out as much as I can that is not my cock and the living thing that possesses it.

She raises and lowers herself, giving herself over to the Jezebel that she's secretly admired for so long.

She's frustratingly slow, as though she's reciting an Our Father with each thrust.

I've had enough. I throw her onto her back and brace her legs against my arms, pushing them back as far as I think I can. I have surprised her out of that world where she possesses me. 

I possess her now. 

Her breasts roll like waves with each thrust. Her legs are braced and open and vulnerable. She can do no more than whimper and moan her pleasure or pain. The two are related and until she tells me to stop I plan to pummel her. I've worked myself to a frenzy. She gasps with the mindless violence of it, the animal thrusting, the lack of anything intimate that would justify this surrender.

I withdraw just in time and erupt onto her stomach, hot gouts spattering wax-like on her pale skin. I don't need to do this. I know it from past experience that Moira "has taken care of things" and she doesn't like the feeling of condoms anyway. Like the hedonist she isn't.

She grimaces and expresses her surprise and disgust with the sticky mess I've deposited on her.

But I'm done and I don't care....

I'm done...

***

I open my eyes and spy Dex at the far edge of the bed. She has moved at some point and I didn't notice the addition of her weight on the mattress. She looks startled, but I'm not sure it's because of what I've done or what she has made me do. For a moment she looks a lot younger, not the worldly seductress who had me at the vernissage.

"That was different," I say.

"Were you thinking of me?"

"No." I don't even think of lying.

She nods. There's no disappointment or surprise. "You will."

Dex leans over me and swirls her finger through the drops that have splattered my torso, playing connect-a-dot with the evidence of my wasted vitality. She places her finger on her lips and spreads the liquid there.

Then she kisses me.

I'm more startled than anything else. She pulls away from me and our lips resist the departure.

She goes to the ensuite and returns with a washcloth. She wipes the wet stickiness from me. "Do you mind if I stay?" she asks.

"No. I'd like that."

She undresses with the light on. I watch with interest and regret that I'm useless to her now. I'm not an adolescent any more with superhero powers of regeneration. She slides into bed next to me.

She shivers and presses against me, sighing contentedly. She feels small and delicate and I have to admit that it's a pleasure to feel her skin against mine. That's all I will have tonight as I have spent myself on the memory of a ghost. 

_____

Thanks for reading. Comments are always welcome. 



Swallowtail Ch. 04



Swallowtail is a novel that traces the narrator's gradual acceptance of submission.

Previously: Following an anonymous coupling in an art gallery's washroom and after having met several of Dex's subsequent challenges, the narrator is given carte blanche.

***

"I realize that I've been placing a lot of demands on you."

Dex and I are meeting for a coffee. It's the first time we've met outside of whatever sexual adventure she has orchestrated for us. It feels weirdly normal after the normally weird meetings between us. Here we are, two people casually meeting at a coffee shop. It happens every day. Yet I can't shake the feeling that this simple act, arising as it has from Dex's unexpected invitation, is somehow significant. We're meeting publicly and though no one in the cafe could possibly give a shit about us, it is a public moment and I find it more exciting than the coffee that sits in front of me. I have no doubt her friends and mine would be bewildered in equal measure that we should be sitting here together in earnest conversation. We're very different. As always, Dex is swathed in layers of black and sports aggressively hued makeup beneath a crown of thorny black hair. Her multiple piercings—ear, nose, lips—glint in the artificial light. Her other piercings, those I now know of—nipples and clitoral hood—are on my mind like a precious secret that only we share. As always, I am the picture of a youngish professional—shiny shoes, pressed pants, crisp shirt, tailored jacket and tie. We're close enough in age that I would not be seen as the girl's father, but far enough that the notion of any physical relationship between us might raise eyebrows or envy. 

Her booted leg rests lightly against mine. I'm suffering the distraction of a Pavlovian lust response, which makes me feel like a teenager for whom any physical contact or random gust of wind is likely cause a tingle of carnal anticipation.

"I haven't been complaining," I say.

Yes, she has been placing many demands on me, compelling me to do things that I would have scoffed at before or with anyone else. The memories rise and then submerge, one after the other. Our first anonymous coupling at an art gallery, finding myself on my knees before her in my office, engaging in self-conscious onanism while she watched. 

She sips her beverage. I forgot what she ordered. She'd asked for something with more nouns and adjectives than a dictionary. I'm amused that her pinkie sticks out like that of someone who has been to finishing school. "Whatever," she says impatiently, as though my lack of complaint were merely an inconsequential coincidence.

I realize that Dex's simple statement masks a concession of sorts. She probably doesn't need to concede anything, but there it is. She's serious and my levity doesn't work here.

'I might not have been entirely fair to you," she says.

"I don't do anything against my will." 

She nods and her lips curl ever so slightly into a smile as though she's humoring me and knows better. She locks eyes with mine. "I'm free on Friday. If you're interested, I'd like you to take the lead. Whatever you want, I'll do. Show me what you like."

There's no coyness or come-hither subtext to what she has said. It is an invitation, a simple offer. It's said with the same intensity that one might be offered a sample of croutons or beef jerky at Costco. I'm tempted to ask her why but hold my tongue when I notice that her smile belies a certain tightness of expression. The offer represents more than a concession. It's bigger than the off-handedness of tone might suggest. I realize that it's a risk for someone who has controlled everything thus far. It isn't lost on me either that the permission to do as I please with her is a gift rather than an assumption this early in the game. I'll have to chew on that one later.

I nod solemnly and Dex relaxes. Message received.

Dex's attention is momentarily captured by one of her black-clad tribe loitering outside the coffee shop. I lean back in my chair and ponder the offer. I have carte blanche. For the first time in our relationship (if that's what you call it), I'm in the driver's seat, if only by invitation. I think of the possibilities for a moment. Various scenarios flash in my mind like erotic postcards. The license to do whatever. I grow dizzy with the possibilities. Finally, the beginnings of inspiration. "I'd like to take you on a date," I say finally. "A real date."

Her brow furrows. "A date?" she asks with the vague squeamishness of a gentile invited to a bris. "To where?"

"A nice restaurant, perhaps. Maybe a show."

Dex shakes her head. "I can't."

"You eat, don't you? You go to shows?"

She rolls her eyes. 

"What is it?"

She's angry at me for forcing her to spell it out. She huffs and fingers the stud in her nose. "I don't do nice restaurants. I have nothing to wear to a nice restaurant," she admits. "I wouldn't know what to get."

She's right. My favorite restaurants would look askance at Dex and her coven-appropriate finery. "Okay, then this'll be part of it. I'll take you shopping. It'll be on me."

"No way."

I wonder whether she's embarrassed to be seen with me. No, that can't be it. She's here with me now, after all. I put myself in her platform Gestapo boots. Perhaps she's embarrassed to be seen shopping with an older guy. I can see how the implications would make her uncomfortable. 

I mull it over. "How about Sharon? She can take you."

"Your business partner? The woman at the gallery?"

I nod. If anyone can unload a wad of money on clothing, it's Sharon.

"I don't know."

"I still have to ask her, of course. But if it's okay with her, is it okay with you?"

"No," says Dex. "I don't want to be in your debt."

"What happened to me taking the lead? I want to do this. There's no debt in a gift."

"There's always debt in a gift." 

***

"She's an interesting girl," says Sharon. It is Thursday and Sharon has just returned from a lunch hour shopping excursion with Dex that has bled far beyond the lunch hour.

I position my mouth into what I hope looks like a knowing smile. Sharon's opinion matters to me and I'm worried that she might see something in Dex that is unknown to me. I don't want to be in the position of defending myself or Dex for fear of unveiling my own murky motivations and general ignorance of the girl who has dominated my thoughts altogether too much of late.

"And a little..." Sharon searches for the word.

"Surly?" I offer.

"Young," says Sharon.

I shrug. "The wrinkly ones were taken."

"I suppose. At any rate, I've done my duty. She's all set for you. Are you sure she's a girl?"

"Quite," I say. "Why?"

"Her shopping aversion."

"Shopping aversion? Be still my beating heart. She's a keeper."

"The weird thing is, for someone who doesn't seem to care and makes a great show of that fact, she has expensive tastes."

"Oh?"

"Very expensive tastes."

Uh-oh. And I'd offered to bankroll the expedition. "What am I on the hook for?"

"Nothing. She paid for it herself."

"Seriously?"

"Cash. Didn't bat an eye."

"You sure it was Dex?"

"If it wasn't, then it was her twin."

That's as far as Sharon's willing to go. She's not convinced about Dex and has graciously suspended judgment. I mentally thank her for not adding to my own reservations.

***

I've offered to collect Dex at her place but she insists on meeting me at mine. I have no idea where or how she lives. I'm dying to see her inner sanctum but she doesn't yet seem to trust me enough to let me in.

I open the door and am momentarily paralyzed.

"Holy..." It's all I can manage.

Dex has removed the more radical pieces of metal from her face, leaving only her ears and nose tastefully adorned. The black makeup that she hides behind has been replaced by the same aggressive eyeliner, but is complemented by a hint of smoky eye shadow. Her lips appear full and red and shiny like in the commercials.

She still wears black but is now the picture of elegance. Her slender legs emerge from a black pencil skirt. They seem impossibly long, perched as they are atop a pair of Louboutin boots that I recognize, being in advertising and all, from their red soles. Sharon, it seems, hadn't exaggerated. No expense has been spared. Dex's slender torso is swathed in a grey lace blouse that is unbuttoned just enough to hint at the generous cleft between her breasts. A thick silver choker encircles her neck. 

"Are you going to let me in or do I have to stand here like we're negotiating price?"

"Sorry." I move aside and enjoy the view of her backside as she brushes past me.

"Wow," I say.

"I feel like an imposter," she says, tossing her clutch on a table.

"You look beautiful."

"Exactly," she huffs. 

I'm not sure how much is an act. "That's because you are beautiful. From the very first time I saw you, I saw that you were beautiful."

She scowls gamely, but I can tell that my words have registered. I approach her and wrap her in my arms. I sense some resistance at first but then she softens against me. Her lips part with the beginning of some contradictory statement. I muffle the words with my mouth, lipstick be damned. Her tongue finds mine and I feel the hard nub of another piercing.

The verve with which my desire bounds to the fore takes me by surprise. For all of my planning and scheming and intentions to hold to the script and comport myself like the worldly and experienced guy I am, Dex has unlocked the hormonally imbalanced inner adolescent in me. After some searching, I find the zipper to her skirt and attack it with all of the fumble-fingered ineptness of my first encounter with a bra clasp.

"Whoa," she says, twisting away.

"What? Isn't this my night?"

She laughs and takes a step back. "You're right," she says. With a little shimmy of her hips, the skirt slides down her legs and she steps out of it. "Happy?"

I gaze at her. She is wearing garters and stockings and, as is her wont, no underwear. "Getting there." My voice is muzzy with lust.

I approach and unbutton her blouse. She pushes away from me just as the last button slips the confines of the hole. "I don't want to ruin you for whatever it is you had in mind."

"But..."

"This couldn't be what you had planned, is it?"

"No," I admit.

I am the architect of my own anguish. Dex elects to tease me mercilessly by cavorting around in nothing more than garters, stockings, and four-inch heels. 

"I know you like them," she says, fingering the garters.

It's clear she likes them too.

"At any rate, you performed for me. It's only fair that I give you a little show as well." 

She goes about her business in the house dressed in this way as though it's the most natural thing in the world. She moves with a certain loose-limbed grace and an easy confidence that I haven't seen before.

Her casual partial nudity allows me easy access to her body. My efforts to heat her into submission are expertly rebuffed, although I can see by her flushed countenance that she is wavering. 

My inclinations are less easily concealed.

"Save yourself," she says.

"You'll pay for this," I growl.

I don't know where this lust comes from. It's almost adolescent in its single-minded intensity. I haven't felt the like in years. That Dex has awakened it isn't surprising but it is disconcerting. The advantage and shame of age and experience is the ability to suppress the baser impulses and blanket them in sound judgment. With Dex though, that blanket is threadbare.

There's still some time before we are to leave to the restaurant. We neck. We drink wine. I dribble some into her belly button and lick it out. Dex gives me license to be as dorky as I want to be. 

"We should be going." I say reluctantly when it's time to leave.

I watch her as she gets up and slides back into her skirt. I'm sorry to see her covered but just as excited to behold the contours of her black-clad curves.

"What?" She asks when she catches me staring.

"I'm appreciating you."

Dex actually blushes and turns away.

***

I've chosen a restaurant that is this month's place to see and be seen. The chef is someone, I've been told, whose name I should recognize. He's a knife-wielding celebrity. It seems that chefs have groupies now. I had no idea. The restaurant is crowded with beautiful people but I've reserved a secluded table. Men do a double-take when Dex passes. Their partners scowl. Dex breezes through it, studied haughtiness disguising her discomfort. She ignores the effect she is having. 

Dex defers to me when ordering. I suggest prime rib and she smiles. "I like meat," she says in a tone that causes my heart to skip a beat.

"I don't know anything about you," I say after the appetizer has been cleared away.

"What's to know?"

"How old are you?"

"Old enough to have wine slurped out of my belly button. Does it matter?"

"Why do you always answer my questions with questions?"

Another question dies on her lips. "Twenty-four," she says.

I'm thirty-six, old enough that I should be nothing to her. Twelve years her senior, I muse. Jesus. I was stealing smokes from my dad when she was puking up breast curds. 

Does her age make me a lecher? A cradle-robber? Someone to be envied? What does that make her? Weird, certainly, but I already knew that. Perhaps she's just drawn to older men. Perhaps she's attracted to success. My thinking slows at this point. I wonder how she makes ends meet. How much money is there in aerating people?

"It doesn't matter," she says, closing the matter. "I'm more comfortable with older men."

I want to ask how many there have been, but don't. Instead, I say, "And you're a piercer."

"You know that."

"Anything else?"

She shakes her head.

Maybe she is a gold digger. I have to guard against that.

"I have other means," she says, reading my mind.

I let the matter drop when the waiter arrives with our prime ribs. 

"Yum," says Dex. She's not deterred by the size of the cut.

I laugh when she eagerly tucks into the meal.

"What?"

"Nothing."

We quickly come to the end of the first bottle of wine and I order another. I'm starting to feel a glow and resolve to go easy. I have to drive home and have my wits about me later. 

Dex comes up for air and catches me studying her. Her eyebrows rise. I ask the question that has been in the back of my mind since that first time with her in the bathroom of the art gallery. "Why me?"

"I liked the look of you," she says. I frown. I hadn't expected anything so superficial. "And I felt something about you."

"That I was an easy mark?" I ask, the wine allowing my insecurities to escape. 

She surprises me by agreeing. "You had a certain world weariness that made me think that you'd be open to trying something new."

I muse about this. Of her many talents, Dex appears to be insightful as well. "Fair enough." 

We remain silent for a while. I refill her wine glass like an attentive and considerate host who hopes to get his guest drunk and malleable. It's a comfortable silence. Neither of us feels the need to fill the air with words. Dex, however, does feel the need to fill the space between my legs with her booted foot. I am happy to accommodate her.

"So what is it that we have?"

The wine glass pauses on its arc to her lips. "A beginning."

***

Over dessert, Dex asks, "How is it that you're not married?"

I'm surprised. The question invariable comes up. For some reason, I hadn't considered it coming from Dex.

"I haven't yet met the right woman."

"Uh-huh." Dex doesn't believe me. I don't believe it myself. It's my stock answer. The truth is more complicated and less flattering. Should I tell her? Would she understand? The truth is that I get bored easily and despise patterns. Life has a habit of settling into routines, patterns of behavior that lull you into numbness by their very predictability. I'd seen it in my parents and too many of my friends. I'd been on the threshold too, where life and love adopt such a predictable, banal choreography that you want nothing more than for the actors to take a bow, for the curtain to fall.

I look at my plate and I think back to my last serious relationship. The excitement of discovery for those first few months. Learning likes and dislikes, exploring new geography and discovering the idiosyncrasies. Then the moment of having discovered all that the other is willing to disclose, everything else defined by a line, a fence, a wall, that defied trespass. And then, inevitably, the establishment of the patterns that would define an eternity.

"You're relatively successful, handsome," she continues. "You're a good catch."

"Maybe I never wanted to be caught."

Dex laughs. 

"I got close once," I say. I can picture Moira again, a woman I hadn't thought of before she'd come unbidden to my mind the last time I was with Dex. It makes me uneasy, thinking of her again now. I wonder if she's married.

"Oh?"

"We were young then. Grad students, but naive. I realize now that it's easy to consider sharing yourself with someone when you have nothing. You've got nothing to lose and you think that what you have with her is the only thing of real value in your life. It skews your judgment."

"What happened?"

"Boredom. Some basic incompatibility. I don't really remember."

"And now that you're older and wiser?"

I decide to be blunt and lay my cards on the table so that there are no misunderstandings later. "Now that I'm older and wiser, I know that I'm not really marriage material. It's not that I'm against monogamy, but the institution leaves me cold. I've had too many friends who have been taken for everything. The institution has gone from whatever it was to the best insurance policy there is for the person who brings the least to it. I've been accused of a fear of commitment, but it's more a fear of losing half of what I've worked so hard for. So as I got older I saw what was happening to too many of my friends and acquaintances and decided that the risk was too great."

I've been studying Dex while I speak, looking for a sign of disapproval or disappointment. There's none of that. Only curiosity.

"You're not lonely?"

"No. Certainly never that lonely."

"You make women sound like gold diggers."

"I haven't known too many women to choose a man of lesser means."

"Men usually have greater means."

"But that's changing, isn't it?"

"Perhaps," says Dex, "I see your point though."

We make some progress on our dessert. Dinner is winding down. Dex doesn't seem put off by my diatribe.

"And you? Do you have matrimonial aspirations?"

Dex smiles. "I'm not marriage material either. And I'm also too good a catch."

I laugh.

***

Clothing litters our path from the front door to the bedroom like breadcrumbs.

I disengage with difficulty. The rush into consummation threatens to derail the plans that I've been fantasizing about for the last few days.

Dex is breathless and a little tipsy and more disheveled than usual as she lies on my bed. "What?" she asks. 

"You're not the only one with ideas."

She throws her head back on the pillow. "Jesus."

"This won't take a minute."

I root around the bedside table and finally find the spool of thread that I've placed there. Dex looks at me uncomprehendingly and I'm glad that I'm able to surprise her for a change. 

I tie a thin strand around her wrist and fasten the other end to the bedpost.

"I didn't know you were into bondage," she says quietly.

"Is that what this is?" 

She doesn't answer. 

I tie the other wrist.

Dex smiles. "I'd never have guessed."

"Don't break it," I say, trying for a playful tone but even to me my voice sounds thick and husky. "I'll be angry if you do."





Swallowtail Ch. 04



"Okay." 

I then turn my attention to her legs. I spread them and tie a loop around an ankle. I roll the spool under the bed and tie the other ankle off.

"You okay?" I ask.

Dex nods but says nothing. Her eyes are closed and she bites her lower lip.

I run a finger down the inside of her thigh and Dex squirms. "Careful." 

"What happens if I break a thread?"

"Try not to."

"But if I do?"

"I'm asking you to control yourself. If you break a thread, you give me another night like this, whenever I want."

"And if I don't?"

"Then you win. I'm yours to do with as you please, and it'll be up to you whether I get a night like this."

"Okay," she says.

She lies spread out on my bed like a canvas that I can paint upon at my leisure. I'm in a more familiar spot now. Control. I lean over her and kiss her. Her smoky lids close over her eyes and I am struck again by her effortless beauty and the delicate symmetry of her face. There's a sense of expectation about her and an undertone of tension. I kiss a path along her throat and then down to her breasts. The nipples are hard and puckered around the glinting metal that impales them. The sight of it inflames me. There's something about it—the juxtaposition of implacable hardness and sensitive tenderness. I play with them with lips and teeth and tongue. Dex takes a deep breath, careful to hold her limbs immobile. My hand drifts down her torso, following the gentle geography of her body. Silken hills and valleys, expanses of flesh I'm blessed to explore. A warm, wet chasm.

My kisses take me from her breasts to the soft well of her stomach and then to the downy hill that plunges into the precipice that draws me like a magnet. I skirt it for the moment, my lips tracing a path from the cleft down the inside of a thigh and a calf. I catch a toe in my mouth and press it between my teeth. Dex squirms and the thread that holds her ankle tightens. 

I kneel between her legs and massage the outer labia with my thumbs, spreading the inner lips as I do so. A finger traces a path from her perineum to her clitoris. 

I want to keep her at the cusp for as long as possible and slow my ministrations whenever her breathing deepens.

"Bastard," she says after several minutes of this.

"I'll give you fifteen seconds to come," I say. I'm reminded of the time with Dex in my office, when she gave me a similar challenge. "Count."

After a moment comes a breathy "one".

I unleash my tongue on her clitoris, no longer content to tease and cajole. This is a sprint.

"Two."

She pushes her pelvis towards me, offering herself to my mouth.

"Three." The number sounds strained.

My fingers spread her lips, exposing the nub of flesh that I am intent on abusing.

"Four."

Her body squirms on the bed. My face is wet with her.

"Five." 

By the timbre of her breathing I can tell that she is close, teetering on the precipice of release.

"Five." 

She's cheating but I ignore it. The hard pearl of her clitoris presses against my tongue and I lash it mercilessly.

"Six."

By the time Dex gets to eleven she forgets to count. I see that her hands are closed into tight fists. The lengths of thread are still intact. The tiniest of whimpers escapes her. It's a sound I haven't heard from her before and I'm struck by the vulnerability of it.

I bury a finger in her slick heat and then another. Muscles clench around them. I explore the ceiling of her pussy while my tongue dances outside. A loud, moaning exhalation erupts, releasing the breath she has been holding. Her hips bear down on my fingers, burying them. 

I gently lick her down from the peak, enjoying her taste and the pleasure of having exerted some mastery over her.

"Fifteen," she says after her breathing has returned to normal. "I win."

"You win," I say.

***

I straddle her bound arm and rest my cock across her lips. A slight smile tugs at the corners of her mouth before the tip of her tongue emerges to touch the tip of the glans.

My hand slides down her torso, up and over the pubic bone. She turns her head and her lips part to accept me and I lie for a moment on her undulating velvet tongue. She bares her teeth then and presses down my shaft, pinning me between their implacable hardness. I'm about to protest when she releases me and takes me in. She was right. I enjoy watching. 

There's an intoxicating power in holding someone captive, and—I realize it now, again—a responsibility. As tempting as it is to simply have my way with her, the responsibility is mine to repay the cost of captivity. 

I leave her mouth and position myself between her legs. My cock splits her lips and I pause for a moment to take in the sight. This is the moment before surrender, before I claim the woman as men have done for time immemorial. My reptilian brain is taking over and I'm tempted to be merciless in my sense of supremacy over her. I want to add my weight to the thread that restrains her, to make physical what is now purely symbolic. 

I want to take her, to possess her, but I hold off. 

The symbolism is a gift and though I'm poised to plunge into her, to make her cry out in surprise and surrender, I move with agonizing deliberateness. Dex spreads her legs and angles her hips. I hover above her, tenuously joined to her by the tip of my cock. I lower myself slightly and the tip of my shaft disappears within her. She tightens herself around me in welcome. I lower myself into her and her hips rise to meet me.

My thrusts, slow at first, become faster. There comes a point when the body obeys its own imperatives and delusions of control and patience fly out the window. I'd planned to take my time, to channel the spirit of the world's greatest lovers and reduce Dex into a gelatinous mass of carnal exhaustion and gratitude. 

I thrust my hands beneath her legs and lift them, breaking the thread. I'm beyond caring. The poets can sing my praises later. Or never. It doesn't matter.

"Fuck," she whispers. She snaps the threads that bind her wrists and wraps her arms around my waist and squeezes. I'm surprised by her strength. She pins me with her arms and legs and shudders. Her fingernails rake my ass and I press against her to escape them.

I'm overwhelmed. Dex overwhelms me. My body overwhelms me. I collapse between her legs as the last spasms course through me. I lie there and commit the feeling of being possessed to memory.

This is the time for words of reassurance, but neither of us speaks. At length I exit. I push her legs to her chest, exposing the slick and gaping hole that I have possessed. As my seed trickles out of her, I touch my tongue to her clitoris. 

I moment later I am rewarded with another gasp.

I lie beside her and she drapes an arm over my chest.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

"Uh-huh." Then she says, "That was too good." Her tone gives me pause. 

She's gone by the time I wake in the morning. I'd hoped that she might have stayed but that wasn't part of the deal. She'd agreed to the night only and her offer had expired. In her absence, I can't help feeling that while I might have won the upper hand the night before, I might also have lost something infinitely more precious.

***

Thanks for reading. Comments are always appreciated. 



Swallowtail Ch. 05



Swallowtail is a novel that traces the narrator's gradual acceptance of submission.

Previously: after submitting our narrator to a series of challenges, the mysterious Dex falls off the radar. Our narrator sets about finding her and eventually does, at her piercing studio.

***

Chapter 5 -- The owning of it

I'm sitting in my office, blind to the work on the laptop before me. It occurs to me again that I really don't understand women. As a realization, it's hardly earth-shaking; I'm sure I'm only one of three billion or so bewildered men similarly handicapped, but it doesn't make ignorance any easier to stomach. Of all of the women I have failed to understand, Dex is the one who positively flummoxes me. 

Dex preys on my mind and I berate myself for it. She materializes in my thoughts when I least expect her. I might be looking at a report or a proposal and the page will fade from awareness, replaced by the image of Dex's swallowtail tattoo, her myriad piercings, her calm raccoon gaze that challenges and invites at the same time. How such a young and inscrutable creature could possess so many of my waking thoughts is beyond me. It isn't as though I am completely without prospects, not to mention prettier and more predictable ones. 

Ever since our first meeting, this dark wraith has had me venturing into territory that I would have scoffed or cringed at before. It confounds me that I've been so willing to go along with her and that I spend her absence so looking forward to what might come next, cringe-worthy as it might be. She's an addiction, quite possibly an unhealthy one. She's a witch who weaves spells with her body and mind, each scene an incantation that draws me deeper into her thrall.

Perhaps the occasion of our first meeting set a precedent. There were no rules or patterns that I could rely on then; there are none now. The rules would suggest that she return my calls, that we communicate or see each other from time to time between our too infrequent meetings. With Dex, these norms don't apply and it's perplexing to me that I've been so willing to forgive her, as if the simple pleasure of being with someone so unpredictable and free of inhibitions is reward enough.

There are times that the reward isn't enough and my emotional pendulum swings between anger and despair. It's nudging the angry quadrant now. I stare at the phone again. I had thought that our last night together had gone well. It had been a real date—our first—followed by what I thought had been a night of mutually pleasurable intimacy.

I don't understand her indifference. 

She was gone by the time I woke that morning and I spent the rest of the day questioning whether the night before had ever happened. I called several times after that.

I vow that I won't call again even as my hand reaches for the phone.

I don't even get voicemail. 

***

It's approaching noon and I still haven't accomplished anything. It's as though I'm being pulled along by a large and single-minded dog. I haven't felt this way since high school. It's like the revenge of the hormones. After having successfully learned to control the ravening beast that so ruled my adolescence, its insistence is again driving me to distraction. I'm a thirty-something after all. I thought I was past this kind of thing, the distraction, the unnerving threat of spontaneous erections. I thought I'd sufficiently fed the beast but it seems that the taste of something new has awakened its hunger. 

This is no good, I say to myself. I decide to take the bull by the horns. If Dex won't come to me, I'll have to go to her. Maybe in her inscrutable uterine way, that's what she's waiting for—a token of my interest, evidence that I will go above and beyond the call. How hard can it be? She found my office, after all, and my home. It shouldn't be much of a problem to find her place of work. I lean back in my chair and steeple my fingers. A calm descends upon me now that I have plotted a course of action. It feels good to take charge, to take an active role in our relationship (if that's what it is).

I make a mental list of what I know of her. It's painfully short. Besides her name—what kind of name is Dex anyway?—I know that she works as a piercer somewhere in the downtown core and probably not too far from my office. A quick Google search reveals several tattoo studios within a five-mile radius of my office, two of which offer piercing services and are a short walk away. I could call ahead and confirm that she does indeed work there, but I decide to take a walk over the lunch hour instead. 

I want the element of surprise.

***

Judging by the sheer number of tattoos sported by members of my peer group, I have no reason to be apprehensive about visiting a tattoo parlor. Nevertheless, my gut flutters as I enter. I feel like an imposter, crossing this threshold under false pretenses. I have no intention of getting a tattoo. The thought of a battery of needles pushing ink into my skin does nothing for me. Now that I'm here, I also feel diminished, going to these lengths to locate a girl who clearly only wants contact with me under her own terms.

I've already struck out at the first studio I visited. I'd tried to go about my mission obliquely, not immediately letting on that I was after a person rather than a piercing or other means of painful self-expression. I'm lucky that I left with my body intact. My self-respect, not so much.

"Hello," says a striking woman behind the counter. Her bare arms sport a kaleidoscope of ink and I try hard not to stare. She smiles a welcome but appears unapproachable at the same time. 

This time I go for the direct approach. "Hi, I'm looking for Dex."

"She's with someone right now."

Bingo. 

"Are you looking for a piercing?" She looks at me doubtfully, seemingly questioning my motives. I'm questioning them too now. At this moment I realize that I've probably made a mistake bringing my personal mission to Dex's workplace.

"Consultation," I say, which seems to satisfy her.

I spend some time looking at flash in much the same way that I peruse the starlets in People magazine at the dentist's office, which is to say guiltily and hoping that no one will notice.

A girl exits one of the back rooms and the tattooed Amazon who greeted me walks halfway to the open doorway and says, "Boss, you have a customer."

Dex doesn't miss a beat when she sees me. She smiles. "Is this for a consult or a piercing?"

"Both?" I'm not sure.

"Come on back."

The room is brightly lit and almost spartan. A counter with white cabinets runs along one wall. Instruments and trays are arrayed on the counter. There's a box of latex gloves. On the adjacent wall, a television displays a slideshow of happy, smiling pincushions. I'm guessing that these are Dex's customers. What reminds me of a dentist's chair occupies the center of the room under an overhead light. The room reminds me of a medical clinic.

The door closes behind me. I cross my arms and lean against the counter. Dex appears genuinely bemused by my presence. Her green eyes take me in, betraying nothing.

"Where have you been?" I ask.

She shrugs and seems not to have expected the question. "Around."

"Obviously."

She shrugs again, not understanding.

"You disappeared without a trace."

"I'm used to my space," she adds.

Her answer infuriates me. I sputter like a caricature of someone sputtering. I gesticulate like an excited Italian. "You have nothing but space. I'm hardly crowding you. We see each other every few weeks. I thought that things worked well last time. You said that it was possibly a beginning."

Dex nods after a moment. "You're right."

"Then what?" 

Talking seems to be difficult for Dex. She pauses for a long time, choosing her words carefully. "Last time," she starts, "you were the dominant one. That's where you feel easiest. I know it is."

"Okay..." I haven't a clue what she's talking about. 

"I don't want to go back there." 

"But wasn't it good?" As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I feel like a moron. I've asked the question I had long ago vowed never to ask: Was it good for you? It's never a good question—asking it suggests insecurity, answering it puts the woman in an uncomfortable position.

"It was great," she says. "That's not the point. I can't be the bottom again." 

Her choice of words confuses me. She might as well be speaking Klingon. I wish I had a universal translator. Then it dawns on me: she doesn't want to be dominated. Bottom must be a synonym for the dominatee or whatever. 

"I thought I had your permission," I say. 

"I know. You did."

We eye each other for a while. She's wary and I'm baffled. 

"We can meet as equals," I venture.

"No."

"No?"

"No." She sits on a stool. "There is no such thing as equality in relationships. You know this. Someone will always exert more influence than the other. And you... you're older than I am. More experienced in a lot of things. You're wired to lead. There's no possible way we can be equals."

An argument springs to my lips and I bite it off. Then another. She's right, of course. Equality is an illusion and I've never been subservient to any woman, with the possible exception of the few times I've been with Dex. Any relationship I've had with a woman who professed equality or strove for it was short and, in the end, bitter. At best I am old fashioned. At worst I am a chauvinist. I've learned to live with it. I like being in charge, wearing the pants. Again, until Dex. And with Dex, the inequality has admittedly had its unique rewards. 

I move from the counter and perch myself on the chair in the middle of the room. Ever since we met, Dex has had my number. Who would have thought? Without thinking, I say, "If it's any consolation, I've enjoyed when you've been in charge."

The notion appears to surprise her as much as it does me. It has the ring of truth, though I've only just connected the dots in a tenuous web.

"Honest," I continue. "Ever since that first time, you've been one surprise after another. I..." I feel as though I've said too much but soldier on. "I wonder where we might go next. It's new to me."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really." It feels good now to have admitted so much, though I feel some of that adolescent awkwardness at having expressed myself so openly. "That said, if this really is a beginning, there has to be some kind of accountability. You can't just disappear for weeks. Among other things, it's disrespectful." I feel better for having said it. It almost sounds like I'm in charge. 

"You're right."

I pause. I've never expected to hear these words from her once, let alone twice in a matter of minutes.

"Do you forgive me?" she asks.

I feel something like what the Grinch must have felt in that scene where his heart just about bursts from his chest. The feeling surprises me. It seems completely out of proportion with what has happened, though I have to admit that this just might be a watershed moment for our strange relationship.

We look at each other stupidly for a moment and then Dex clears her throat and looks away. Now that we have some sort of resolution, neither of us is sure where to go. Dex and I, it seems, have an understanding, a point from which we can go forward. I'm glad for this but am unnerved by the implication. With other women, relationships have always proceeded along fairly predictable paths before the equally predictable ennui set in. This time is different and I am blind to what is down the road, except for the fact that I have unwittingly maneuvered myself out of the driver's seat. All for this girl I know little about. I need to think. It is time to beat a hasty retreat.

"I'm sorry I came here. I realize that I shouldn't have intruded on your place of business."

"I intruded on yours," she says.

"True." 

"It's... um... not an intrusion if you are here for business."

It takes me a beat to understand what Dex is implying. "You mean a piercing? Me?" I attempt to chortle but it comes off as a strangled gasp.

"Why not?"

I have no answer.

"Lots of men have piercings."

"Oh?"

"Ears, of course. Tongues. Nipples." She grins. "Cock."

I laugh nervously. I can't believe that we're talking about such things as though they were a possibility. "I can't." 

"Why not?"

"Very few guys my age and in my position do earrings. It's not me. Nipple rings are out of the question." I imagine the looks at the gym and grimace. "Tongue rings are terrible for your teeth—no offense."

"None taken. That leaves your cock." She rolls her stool over to me. Her hands frame my hips and she nods toward my zipper. "May I?"

"What?"

"Have a look."

"Um."

Dex unbuttons my pants and lowers the zipper with agonizing slowness. She pushes my pants to my ankles and fishes around in my underwear. Predictably, she finds what she's looking for. My unit, that lump of flesh that has so often betrayed me with its irritatingly simple motives, lies in the palm of her small hand. "You have a nice cock."

I choke. "Thanks."

"I think a piercing would look good."

The thought of a sharp object going there gives me the heebie jeebies and I tell her so.

"It's not an uncommon reaction. The pain only lasts a second. The pleasure is a lifetime."

She is stroking me now and my organ is rising to her temptation, ignorant of what might await it.

"Do you own it?" she asks.

"What?"

"Your cock. Do you own it?"

"Of course. It's mine."

"That's not what I mean. Do you own it or does it own you?"

I don't get it. She's talking Klingon again.

"Part of the appeal of piercing is owning it," says Dex.

"Like mortifying the flesh?"

Dex smiles. "Kind of. I think it complements the flesh. Lie back for a second."

"Why? What are you going to do?"

"Give you the options."

"I don't like pain," I admit as I recline on the chair.

"I can help you understand that too."

I take a deep breath. I don't trust myself to answer.

Dex grasps the base of my cock, which has risen obediently like a puppy intent on a possible treat. 

"Most guys shrivel up at the prospect of pain. Not you though. You seem excited." She studies my cock intently. "But then, I haven't fucked most of my clients."

She grins. I note that she has a dimple on her cheek, just on the right side. I wonder where she gets this matter-of-fact self-assurance from. She's almost a kid and is already as jaded and blasé as I am. She renders me speechless. She handles my cock as though it's an inanimate object and I find myself seeing it in the same way.

"I'm flattered," she says.

"Is it a problem?"

"It will be, but for now it's okay. One of the least painful piercings," she says, "is a frenum piercing. The frenum..." She pinches at the tissue that connects the underside if my head to the shaft, "...is here." She presses the area firmly. "That's not too bad, is it?"

"Your fingers aren't needles either," I observe.

"True." 

She bends over me and clenches my hitherto unlabelled anatomical tissue between her teeth. "How's that?"

I can't answer.

She explores the area with her tongue and concludes with another playful bite. "Not bad, is it?"

"No," I say tightly.

"Another option is the frenum ladder which runs from here..." She runs her tongue along the underside of my shaft "...to here."

"Ah."

"Or, of your really brave, you could try the Prince Albert, which goes in here..." She places her fingertip at the urethra. "...and comes out here." The underside of the head.

"You're kidding?"

"No."

"You don't demo the options like this for everyone, do you?"

"Just people I like."

"Ah." She likes me. She really likes me.

"There are others, of course. The ampallang, which passes horizontally, and the apadrayva, which passes vertically through the glans. The dydoe pierces the rim of the glans." Her fingers dance and weave and pinch and I grow breathless. "There are foreskin piercings and the hafada, which pierces the scrotum, and the lorum, which goes where the shaft and the scrotum meet."

"Who knew?" I say.

I watch as she kisses the crown of my shaft and I forget the name of the piercing that could go there. Her lips pass over the crown and press firmly around the top of the shaft. I feel her tongue and the ball of her piercing rubbing against the underside. Frenum, I remember. I wonder what it would feel like, having a piece of metal there. Her head descends on me and her tongue undulates along the base of my shaft. Frenum ladder...

"If you decide to go for it," she says after a moment, "the problem is that you'll be out of commission for a little while."

"Oh, well. Then..."

"But there are other options to keep us busy."

Us? I think. She thinks there's an us? An us that she wants to keep busy? "I don't know." I'm hedging.

Dex's mouth arranges itself into a pout. 

"What kind of options?" I ask after a moment.

Dex's eyes sparkle. I'd never before noticed the flecks of gold that swim in the green there. They're remarkable. 

"There are possibilities we haven't explored yet." Her hand is still on my cock. She gives it a gentle squeeze and it responds, faithfully, veins distended along its length like a boast.

Dex stands. Her eyes are on me as she unfastens the leather skirt she is wearing. 

***

She straddles me on the chair and sits astride my hips. Her pussy, pierced and beguiling, presses the length of my cock against my abdomen.

"I think you should do it. I'd like to feel it inside me."

She leans back so that I can admire her. Her pussy is surrounded by piercings, two labial rings and a clitoral ring to rule them all. My own unadorned private bits must look boring and conservative in comparison. I too wonder what it would feel like, adding a piercing to the carnal equation. I have to admit that her rings add something to what she offers me, and I understand now what she means by owning it. Her body is her instrument, to do with as she pleases. She plays it expertly. She commands it and it serves her. 

Dex angles her hips and I'm within her warm, slippery embrace. I have a mental picture of my pierced cock entering her pierced sex and have to admit that there's an exciting symmetry to it. Birds of a feather. Membership to the club. Shared experiences.

My hands rise to her breasts. She's pierced there too. I knead her breasts through the t-shirt she wears, feel that she is not wearing anything underneath, and then slide my hands under the fabric. Her skin is warm and silken beneath my hands. My fingers explore her pierced nipples, hard nubs in a field of yielding softness. 

Dex leans forward, releasing me, and presses her chest to my face. I pull up her shirt and find a nipple and pull it into my mouth. My lips and tongue and teeth explore the confluence of metal and flesh. 

She rocks back again, extricating her breast, and claims me again. She sits up on me and her hands snake up her torso to cup her breasts. I watch as her torso undulates, muscles playing under skin, each movement translated into a new sensation in that place I blissfully occupy. Her various piercings catch the overhead light. Her eyes are closed and a smile plays on her lips. She is intent on whatever feelings I generate within her. 

"You feel good," she says, more to herself than to me.

I disappear within her again. There's what I can see: lips parted and stretched around my shaft and what I can't: the warmest of embraces, muscles tight and undulating around me. Dex rides me slowly. Each deliberate thrust is an experiment in angle and pressure, as though she's mining that vein of sensation that she can exploit until there's nothing left. 

She reaches behind and cups my balls, intent, it seems, on pushing these into her as well. 





Swallowtail Ch. 05



***

Dex climbs down off me and the chair. I'm spent.

I watch as Dex straightens herself up and moves around the studio. Water gurgles in the sink. I look over and Dex is washing her hands up to the elbows. 

"You're not allergic to latex, are you?" she asks after a moment.

"No."

"Good."

I hear the snap of gloves, close my eyes and take a deep breath. She sits beside me, all business now, and washes my penis thoroughly. It has been tamed and accepts Dex's attentions, malleable and obedient. I can still put a stop to this. I can still save myself, but I no longer want to. I give myself up to Dex.

"I think you should start modestly. If you like it you can get another one. If you don't like it, take it out. The piercing will close up again."

It would sound reasonable if it wasn't about sticking a needle in my cock. "Okay," I say.

Where did that come from? Dex smiles. How can she smile so innocently with a mouth that has so led me so astray?

She reaches for the forceps and I look away. There's pinching and tugging. She hums to herself while she prepares.

"Have you done this before?" I ask.

"It's what I do."

"No. I mean—to a lover?"

"No." Dex shakes her head. "Maybe. In a manner of speaking."

I'm about to ask another question, perhaps to delay the inevitable, when she asks, "Do you want to watch?" she asks.

"No."

"Alright then. Ready?"

"No."

She ignores me, intent on my captive cock and counts. "One..."

I brace myself for it...

"Two..."

I can still call it off. I can still...

Holy...

Shit.

It's more of a sting than pain, but it rocks me anyway. It flares and then subsides into the dull ache of insult. "Three." Dex smiles.

"Bitch," I say.

Do you own it or does it own you, she'd said. I know now there's a third possibility, a third option I hadn't considered: she owns it.

"Welcome to the club," she says.



***

Thanks for reading. Your comments and feedback are always welcome.



Swallowtail Ch. 06



Swallowtail is a novel that traces the narrator's gradual acceptance of submission.

Previously: The narrator's submission to Dex has culminated in an unexpected body modification. Although he is now temporarily out of commission, Dex has other plans for him. 

***

My cock is angry with me. I hold it between my thumb and forefinger and observe the metal stud that breaches its tender flesh like an insult. It's curled around the piercing like a sad, pink snail in a pose of desperate self-defense. 

Oh well, I say to myself, it's done. Then: how will I ever get on a plane again without setting off the metal detector?

When you've had your dick pierced unexpectedly, it's certainly time to take stock. I step into the shower and feel as deflated as my erstwhile most reliable friend. Am I really so desperate as to have a virtual stranger commit such an outrage on my private bits? What does it say about me that I went along with it?

I feel morose and out of sorts when I leave for work. Dex calls me at lunch despite her professed dislike of phones and asks me whether I'd like to get together with her that night.

"Sure," I say.

"Is something wrong?"

"Just busy."

She doesn't believe me. I don't care.

We ring off a moment later. There's a hint of concern in Dex's voice but I dismiss it. I have problems of my own.

I spend the commute home wondering whether I am really so cheaply sold. 

***

Dex has come over to my house directly from work and is taking an obscenely long shower that I wouldn't have minded being invited to. The water stops and then another obscene period of time passes before she emerges. What, I wonder—not for the first time—do women do in the bathroom for so long? 

When she enters the living room, I see that she is wearing one on my t-shirts and nothing much else. Just do it, says the t-shirt. Dex flumps on the sofa next to me and lifts her legs onto my lap.

"What's up?" she asks.

"Not much," I say ruefully. 

My hand lands just above her knee and squeezes the muscle gently.

"You're not yourself tonight."

I shrug, taking a page from Dex's playbook.

"Come on, you can tell me."

I'm reluctant to open up, and it occurs to me that Dex and I are not entirely dissimilar on that count. I take a deep breath. "This whole piecing thing, as interesting as it is, got me thinking. You said that you're not willing to be subservient. I'm not sure I am either. It's not me."

Dex nods and takes a sip of wine. She swirls the red liquid and observes it thoughtfully. "Do you like it?"

"What?"

"Being in charge?"

"Yes," I say. "Of course."

"Do you like always being in charge?"

"Sure."

She does that single eyebrow raise. When I remain silent, she continues: "You're in charge at work. You have people counting on you. You're responsible for this house and the lifestyle you've built for yourself. You probably go to bed thinking of your responsibilities for the next day."

"So?"

"And in your relationships, you've always gravitated to women you can lead. You prefer to call the shots. You decide where to go, what to do and for how long. If my guess is right, you soon get bored and that's why you have no one to share your house and your lifestyle with. Am I close?"

I'm struck mute.

"Is it refreshing to not be in charge?"

Still no response comes to mind. Her words are like an artillery barrage. I feel like ducking.

"So let's say I or someone else calls the shots for a small part of your life and you trust that person to lead you and there are no decisions to be made. You just go along with it. It's interesting and challenging. Would you enjoy that?"

"I don't know."

"Have you enjoyed it?"

"With you?"

Dex nods.

"I suppose I have."

"And what's wrong with that?"

There are times when Dex surprises me, and this is one of those times. "And you want to be the person who calls the shots?" I ask. Why is this feeling like a job interview?

We fall into an easy silence there on the sofa.

"These things evolve," she says. "Think about it."

She clicks on the television. I guess I'm supposed to think about it right now. I think about it while people dance around on a stage in front of a live studio audience. I think about other things too, of course—Dex's smooth, toned legs on my lap, the fact that I need an oil change soon, the fact that I have to send out Christmas cards (I'm already late)—but it is Dex's relationship model that I always come back to. I think of whether it's wise to consciously hand Dex the keys to the carnal kingdom. 

I have to admit that Dex already has taken charge; I've simply gone along without really thinking about it. She has made it clear that she's not interested in playing second fiddle and I realize that I like the way she calls the tune. There's pleasure in the unexpected. There's pleasure in not being in charge too, although I'm reluctant to admit as much aloud.

I decide to accept the status quo. As long as there's something in it for me, I can let Dex lead the way and I will follow. Should the cost ever exceed the reward, I will exit stage left. That's all the control I really need.

The show that Dex has settled on finishes and she turns off the television. There's a long pause that I feel obliged to fill. 

"I'm okay with you leading," I say.

"That's fine."

I'm disappointed. I'd imagined a different reaction to my concession, something involving hands clenched below her chin while she looks up at me through lowered lashes in dewy-eyed gratitude. Instead, I get two words and not much beyond that.

There's another long pause. I feel like I'm talking to someone on the moon. I resist the temptation to fill the void. 

Finally, she says, "You're letting me lead because you think you know where we're going. Do you trust me enough to lead you into uncomfortable places? Will you still be with me when we come out on the other side? Or are you just letting me think I'm driving while you hold the keys?"

Damn this woman for not simply accepting her victory. Damn her for parsing the terms and conditions. "Lead," I say. "I'll go with you."

***

The piercing might have been a dumber idea than I originally thought. When Dex said that I would be out of commission, I had no idea that it would be for so long. When we get together and I suggest (gently, because evidently she's in charge) that we explore the kingdom of earthly delights that she has alluded to, she says, as she does now...

"You're still healing."

It's Friday night and she has come over to my place. She has assumed her now customary position on the sofa, reclined against the armrest, legs draped over my thighs. It has been a couple of weeks since I've agreed to relinquish control over my carnal destiny and so far she hasn't led me anywhere. I'm frustrated. She's hearty and hale, desirable and available, and I'm still healing. 

While it may be true that my body has only just grudgingly accepted the intrusion of a metal barb, the discomfort of the piercing she subjected me to has largely subsided. I feel sure, almost, that I'm ready for action. "It's been a while," I say.

"What has?"

"Since we've been... er... intimate."

"It almost sounds like you're whining," Dex says. A slight smile takes the edge off the words.

I suppose it does sound that way but I'm not about to admit it or apologize. I remain silent and wonder how it is that I hold so few of the cards, forgetting for the moment that I have voluntarily relinquished them. Even if it weren't for those brave words—I will follow—I realize that I've always been playing against a stacked deck. I've anted up knowing that I hold nothing in my hand. I'm astounded that I've allowed myself to be maneuvered into this position. In the past I've called the shots and as interesting and new as my times with Dex have been, I can't help feeling somewhat diminished. 

"What if we go out?"

Dex thinks about it for a moment, looking dubious. Then a smile creases her face and my heart lurches at the sight. She has thought of something. "Good idea," she says. 

As always, her ready agreement makes me suspicious. There's something more to it. There's a string attached but I can't see it yet. 

"I may even see how we might work around your temporary handicap. How does that sound?"

"Good," I say hesitantly.

She smiles and wiggles her toes. Her skirt has risen higher and I'm now certain that she's going commando. There's a vast expanse of flawless skin and the promise of more of it just out of my purview. I feel like an explorer, goaded by the breathtaking beauty of one vista to carry on, regardless of the consequences, to the next. 

I shift her legs off my groin.

"Am I hurting you?"

"No," I say.

She's not convinced. "Stand up."

I'm about to protest but think better of it.

"Drop them."

She tugs my unit clear of my underwear. 

"Nice," she says.

"The piercing?"

"That's nice too."

She moves me this way and that, tantalizingly close to her slightly parted lips. She rolls the piercing between her slender fingers. She then holds the base of my awakening cock with one hand and works the action with the other, a smirk on her lips as she does so. My knees are about to buckle. It has been too long. "It's healing nicely," she says.

That sounds promising. After several weeks of beleaguered abstention, coupled with a metallic reminder of that part of my body that is on injured reserve despite the strong desire to play, I'm thinking that the end just might be in sight. Her next words dash my hopes. "But there's still a little way to go."

"You're kidding?"

She shakes her head with sympathy that I'm sure is feigned. "This hurts me as much as it hurts you," she says.

I'm not so sure. I suspect that she's enjoying this.

"I do have a present for you though," she says.

"Oh?" I pull up my pants and sit back down on the edge of the sofa.

"It's a bit unorthodox. Out of the box."

"Everything you do is."

She gives me a little squeeze and smiles. "I was going to wait until Christmas but I can give it to you now. But only if you're up to it."

"I'm not sure. I don't know what it is."

Her hand is on my upper thigh and I'm about ready to agree to anything. 

She gets up and rummages around in her weathered army surplus rucksack. She removes a gift-wrapped box and hands it to me. Something rattles inside. I unwrap the box and find a velvet bag within. I open it, remove an object and stare at it. It's shiny and looks like molten stainless steel. It has a base that it can stand on and I wonder whether it's some kind of modern art. It might look good on the mantle.

"May I ask?"

"It's a butt plug."

I look at it some more. The mantle is out of the question. I turn it in my hands. "For me?" 

"You don't like it?"

"I'm not sure. It looks..." I'm not sure, but it looks like just about the last thing I want to have where it's designed to go.

"Prostate massage is stimulating," says Dex helpfully.

"Not when my doctor does it." I shudder. My doctor is a large man with fingers like knackwurst.

"The prostate is for men what the g-spot is for women," says Dex. "You've found my g-spot."

"And you want to return the favor?"

"Why not?"

"Because of where it is. If God meant for you to play with your prostate, he would have put it somewhere more accessible and less..." I search for the word "...fecal."

Dex shakes her head.

"Look, Dex, it's really sweet. I mean, no one has ever given me a butt plug before. Usually I get a tie for Christmas."

"I think this is one of those times that you have to trust me."

There it is. The gauntlet has been thrown. The line drawn. 

I see my reflection in the window. Shirt. No pants or underwear. Black socks. It's no small wonder the look hasn't caught on. I look and feel stupid and self-conscious. I'm certain it's about to get worse.

"It's big," I say.

"So are most guys who want to plumb those depths."

She's playing the double standard card. Smart. 

"Once it's in, you won't know it's there."

"Then why put it there in the first place?"

"Bend over."

I do.

"Relax."

"I am."

My jaw hurts. I'm clenching my teeth. I think loose, billowing thoughts while she spreads lube on my butt. It's cold and my anus recoils in protest.

The inserts a slippery finger and roots around. There, I think, my ass is being violated by one not of the medical community. I have crossed the Rubicon. I hold my breath.

"That..." She wiggles her finger against something. "That's your prostate." 

"Oh," I gasp.

"And by stimulating it..."

"Ohhhh."

"I'm told that orgasms are enhanced."

"Ah." 

Who knew?

***

Dex has asked me to stop at the tattoo parlor where she works. She needs to pick something up and I hope she doesn't have any new piercings in mind.

One of the artists is working on a guy's arm. They're talking politics, which strikes me as a dangerous topic given the potential for disagreement and the vulnerability of the customer.

The Amazon behind the counter recognizes me and grins. "Hello again. You were here a few months ago, right? For a consultation?" She puts ironic emphasis on the last word. 

I nod. 

A leather-clad guy is sitting in the waiting area, looking through a book of tattoo samples. Dex notices him and her eyes widen almost imperceptibly. There's a moment of recognition and both appear surprised. He's perhaps a little younger than I am but still much older than Dex. He smiles up at Dex, ignoring me. 

"It's been a while," he says.

She holds his gaze. "What are you doing here?"

He closes the book and sets it aside. "I was thinking of getting a new tattoo. A spider or lizard or something. Some bug-eating creature at any rate."

"A snake would be appropriate."

He appears to think about it and shrugs. "I was wondering what happened to you," he continues. "Not a word. I have to admit that I was disappointed. I thought I knew you better."

"Obviously you didn't."

The man nods. "By the way, your parting gifts—I still have them, some of them. They're a reminder not to assume anything."

Dex gives him a look of supreme indifference. "Good. See to it that you never need to be reminded."

The man purses his lips. His bravado fails him. Dex has somehow taken the wind out of his sails. "I've changed, Dex."

"Me too."

It looks like a standoff and the man lowers his eyes first. "I understand. And this," he says, inclining his head to me, "is your new top?"

"No," says Dex.

"I didn't think so." He says it with a look at me and a hint of disdain. 

Dex has picked up a bag from behind the counter and pauses beside me. "Let's go," she says.

I take the measure of the man who apparently has some history with Dex. I also want to knock the smirk off his face. He rubs me the wrong way.

Dex pulls at my hand. "Now," she says.

"Listen to her," the man says mockingly. "You wouldn't want to get into trouble."

"Who was that?" I ask when we're back on the sidewalk. I feel that I should have been defending Dex but I have no idea from what. I have a vague feeling that my manhood has been challenged and that I have somehow failed. 

Dex starts walking and I hurry to follow, my movements reminding me of the plug I have buried within me. So much for being the alpha dog.

"Come on, Dex," I continue. "You owe me some kind of explanation. That creep seems to know more about you than I do. Hell, I don't know where you live. I don't even know your last name for that matter and I doubt Dex is your first name. Why the secrecy?"

"Give me time, okay?"

"For what?"

"It's not easy for me to let people in."

I have a good head of steam going. "Ignorance isn't easy either. Listen, if this is going to be anything more than play, if I'm ever going to be more than a casual playmate for you, I need more." 

"Are you done?"

Again she walks away and this time I don't follow. I've had enough.

She stops several meters away. At length she turns and approaches. "I knew him a while ago."

"You were an item."

She smiles at my choice of words. "Something like that."

She turns again and this time I walk alongside.

"That's it?"

Dex shakes her head. "It'll have to be enough," she says, "for now. It's not the most pleasant of stories. I'll give you all the sordid details in time. I promise."

I appreciate the qualifier. I can live with it. "Just tell me that he has a good reason to be angry with you."

Dex winds her arm in mine. "He does. Without a doubt."

***

We stop at a Vietnamese restaurant for some Pho. It has grown colder and the first snowflakes of winter are winding their way down from the heavens and a bowl of hot soup promises comfort.

Over dinner, I try to coax more information from Dex but she easily evades my questions. I'm not used to this. The women I've been with have tended to over-share to the point that few secrets remained and I'm either completely weirded out or bored. I've never been with someone as inscrutable as Dex. 

The snow has picked up a little by the time we leave and there's a thin sheen of white on the sidewalk. 

"I know a place not too far from here," I say.

"Let's go home."

"I'd like to take you there. It's one of my favorite places." I'm hoping that sharing some of my favorite haunts will encourage Dex to divulge some information about her life.

I lead her to a pub that I've often frequented. Back in the day it was dark and smoky. Now it's just dark. There are booths of dark wood and leather. I lead Dex to one of these in a corner where it is private. The bar features a selection of single malt whiskey that is unmatched in the city. A tiny stage occupies a corner. The band is returning to start their second set when the waitress sets two glasses of Lagavulin on our table.

I'm comfortable here and, judging by Dex's smile and untroubled brow, so is she. She leans back and we touch glasses. Some whiskeys are acquired tastes and I'm half expecting Dex to wrinkle her nose and what I've ordered. Instead, she simply closes her eyes as the whiskey unveils its complexity and spreads its warmth.

"This was a good idea," says Dex.

At that moment the bassist starts a song, playing a few moody bars before the guitarist joins. The singer watches the two for a moment before stepping up to the microphone. The singer's voice seeps out of the speakers and fills the space, rolling over tables and occupying the corners until conversation stops entirely. I've witnessed the effect of the song before, but it never fails to send a tingle through me. Dex's hand is on my thigh and she squeezes it unconsciously. The song is "Cry Me a River" and the singer delivers it perfectly, a marriage of sadness, defiance, and seduction. It's one of my favorites.

I look at Dex. She's concentrating, intent on the singer. Now that I am sharing this place and this song with Dex, I feel closer to her than ever before. That she appears to be enjoying both is a pleasant surprise. I think for the first time that there might be some future between us.

"My father liked this kind of music," she says absently.

"You've never spoken of your father."

Dex places her hand on mine and directs it to her thigh. "You're right."

She remains silent for a long while and I think that's the end of it.

"He left when I was around ten. My mother had found religion in a big way. She changed. Eventually my father found another woman."

"He wasn't religious?"

"He was, after a fashion. But he was young and any rapture my mother was capable of was limited to what she could find in the church. It was a scandal when he left us. No man worth anything would turn his back on his family and a woman who'd found God. There were rumors that he'd become something of a libertine. He hadn't, of course. He just wanted the kind of happiness that wasn't defined by anyone else. But in his leaving he taught me that life's too short to settle for mediocrity. When you're healthy and able, when you have imagination and strength, to limit yourself is almost a crime. No one ever died hoping that their lives were more mundane." 




Swallowtail Ch. 06



She has edged my hand up her thigh and has sunk down a little on the bench. Her legs part and my fingers alight on the soft down at their apex. 

I still have questions but feel that my time for them is growing short. "Were you in contact with him?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, we'd meet from time to time. We were close."

She squirms in the chair. I'm grateful that it's dark, grateful that everyone's attention is turned elsewhere.

The band launches into a slow version of "Love for Sale." The singer delivers the lyrics in a beguiling mix of world-weariness and seductiveness. She cradles the microphone and gazes out at the audience and I'm taken by the beguiling vulnerability she conveys.

My finger descends, digging a furrow within the wet folds of Dex's pussy. I can't believe we're doing this, here, in a room full of people. I'm unnerved, excited, and not about to stop. Dex was right—no one ever died hoping their lives were more mundane. This is anything but mundane. Her fingers rest lightly on my wrist, present but not directing. We're in our own little world in this dark corner of the bar. There's an arousing headiness in the secret pleasure that we're sharing and I've never felt so apart in a room full of people. Dex takes a sip of scotch and observes the singer through lowered lids. I raise my finger to where the labia meet. A low hum sounds from deep within Dex.

I draw some lubrication from within her and return to the clitoris and stroke it slowly. Dex's eyes are closed now and anyone looking might think that she's concentrating on the music. Loving it. Only I can sense the quickened breathing, the response to what is happening in the darkness beneath the table. Only I can feel my growing hardness and the secret pressure brought on by the plug that I presently bear down on. Her clit hardens and she takes in a lungful of air, allowing it to hiss out of slightly pursed lips. Her hips move in time with the music. 

The band members have done their requisite solos and the song is winding down. Dex is winding up. She no longer moves in time with any music that she can hear. Her breath catches in her throat and she holds it, grabbing my hand and pressing against it. She is watching the band as she rocks her hips. A smile plays on her face.

At length I remove my hand. My mouth is dry. I reach for my glass and bring it to my mouth. I smell single malt and Dex.

***

I lock the door behind us. Dex surprises me by wrapping her arms around my neck and draping herself against me just as I turn around. Her tongue finds mine and they dance. There's a hunger to her kiss. There's starvation to mine. The low hum of suppressed desire has grown to a roar.

My hands roam Dex's body. They trace the curves and hollows. They feel the energy and the promise. 

I am reminded of the plug and am surprised that I've managed to forget it as long as I have. The undertone of sensation that it generates has become a part of me, a low vibration, an erotic subtext.

Dex disentangles herself from me. She's flushed. "There's something I've wanted to do with someone for a while."

"What?" I'd agree to just about anything.

"Can I surprise you?"

"Can I stop you?"

"Any time. You know that."

"Okay."

Dex smiles. "Do this thing for me and you can have your way with me after."

The chance of doing the things that I've been fantasizing about for weeks overrides my caution. Dex could negotiate with the devil and come out on top.

Dex asks me to stay where I am and disappears into the bathroom. A moment later she returns, naked save for a pair of leather panties. The backlighting accentuates the sinuous, intoxicating poetry of her form. Her arms are behind her back and her breasts are thrust out in offering.

Her expression is hungry and hopeful as her hands come out from behind her back. "Pick one."

Dex is holding two dildos. One is short and stubby while the other is long and slender. Laurel and Hardy in silicon. I look from them to Dex to her leather thong, which I see now sports a strategically-placed hole. I make the connection. The plug had been a prelude, a warm-up, an initiation to make subsequent protest meaningless. She has had this planned from the very beginning. "You're kidding, right?"

"Tell me you haven't thought of doing me there."

"Sure, but..."

She tilts her head. She doesn't need to say anything. "Yeah, I know. Double standard." Besides which, I've been packing a musket ball in my butt all night. To complain now would be protesting too much.

"The thin one," I say. Part of me—the strong-headed alpha ape—is horrified at what is about to happen. The part of me that Dex has awakened thrills at the prospect of something new.

Dex maneuvers the dildo into place. It looks ridiculous, frightening, and arousing jutting out of her groin like this. "Tighten me up, will you?"

I fumble with the straps until Dex approves. 

I shake my head. What has become of me? I wonder.

"Touch it," she says.

I hesitate. 

"Come on. You can do it."

I'm reminded of the first girl, older than I had been, who had allowed me access to her body when I was still young and inexperienced. She'd said the same thing, daring me.

A tentative finger reaches out, now as then. "Huh."

"Stroke it."

I feel stupid and tell Dex so.

"Humor me," she says.

And so I stroke the length of silicon that Dex has offered me.

"Ever wonder what it's like to have a cock in your mouth?"

"No," I say, affronted. "Never."

"It's just you and me," whispers Dex. "I'll never tell."

"No."

"I'd like you to suck my dick." Dex is smiling and gives her package a little shake. "Please. Please suck my dick."

Her breast jiggles as she does so and I'm caught in a moment of cognitive dissonance. I'm sure I've said and done pretty much the same to similarly reluctant partners. The wheedling insistence sounds uncomfortably familiar. "Shit."

"It won't bite."

I hesitate. I find the prospect unsettling, possibly a little repugnant. At the same time, I'm curious. I've received more than my share of oral attention. I've had certain expectations of my partners without ever knowing how realistic they were. And this thing, after all, is an inanimate object. Symbolism aside, it means nothing. 

With a face-saving show of long-suffering reluctance, I lower myself to my knees in front of Dex. The dildo looks larger now that it's pointing at my face like a homoerotic accusation. My hands find the backs of Dex's legs and I open my mouth slightly. Jesus. It's silicon, I remind myself, attached to a girl. A girl equipped with all the other things I like—legs, boobs, pussy—a girl who has fucked me in ways that I could only dream of. This thing, I think, is an anomaly, a one-off.

Dex has pressed the dildo between my lips and my mouth opens wider to accommodate it. It's bigger than expected. My lips close over it and Dex performs a few shallow thrusts.

"Ooh," she says jokingly. "Ah."

Now that it's slick with my saliva, it slides more easily past my lips. So this is what it's like, I think. The dildo presses against the roof of my mouth. Dex is being gentle. Certainly more gentle than I would have been. There seems to be quite a distance between my nose and Dex. How much have I managed? Three inches? Four? She has pressed herself to the point of discomfort. Four inches. That's it. I'm reminded of all the times, overheated and impatient, that I've forced myself upon a woman at this point. I pull at her Dex, trying to take more of her. There's an ominous tickle at the back of my throat and I release her. 

Have I been an unfeeling asshole all these years?

"Had enough?" she asks.

I nod, chastened.

She turns me around and has me sit on the edge of the sofa. Dex tugs at the plug. After having spent hours there, it doesn't leave easily and I close my eyes and grit my teeth. 

"Pull your legs to your chest."

I feel Dex positioning herself and something cold and insistent presses against my anus. Even after having worn the plug for hours, there's some resistance to this new intrusion.

"It's too bad I can't feel you," murmurs Dex.

"I can," I say tightly.

"Tell me."

I'm not sure what she's asking. Dex pushes gently and the tip breaches me slightly.

"Tell me what it feels like."

"Big," I say.

"And?"

She presses a little more and, with a gasp, I open to accommodate her. "You're stretching me."

With a sudden surrender, it's past the stubborn muscle and moves freely within me. It's a relief and I sigh and relax and pull my legs more tightly against my chest.

"I feel..." What do I feel? It's more than physical but the nature of it eludes me for a moment. "I feel occupied. You're hitting something... Right there... Oh God..."

I'm sounding like some of my lovers, those who were confident enough to articulate their desires, selfless enough to instruct me with gasps.

"Oh..."

The tip of the dildo moves beyond the site of sensitivity and I feel its progress, both within and without.

"I feel possessed," I say.

I wonder if this is how women feel—accommodating something foreign within themselves, surrendering and allowing themselves to be occupied. It's strangely more intimate, allowing oneself to be taken rather than doing the taking.

Dex establishes a slow, gentle rhythm. Her hands rest on the backs of my legs. I feel the head of the dildo against the inside of my sphincter. Then it descends again. Dex angles it so that it brushes the spot and I feel sensations at the root of my erection, more intimate and immediate than ever before.

She cups my balls with one hand and gently strokes my cock with the other.

I'm mesmerized by the motion of her hips as she thrusts into me. I'm taken also by the swaying of her breasts. Her eyes are closed, perhaps better to extract the faint sensations that might be available to her.

I grasp my cheeks and spread them. I can no longer distinguish between the inanimate thing that penetrates me and Dex. The dildo is an extension of her. I'm acutely aware of its texture as she lowers herself on me until there's no more. I move my hands to her hips and hold her in place.

She smiles and my conversion. "Had enough?"

"Stay there."

Dex does so while stroking me between lube-slick fingers. The two sensations are almost unbearable together, different sides of the same coin.

"Okay," I say.

Dex smiles and exits. The dildo feels longer exiting than it had earlier. And then I'm empty.

"I wish I could return the favor but you're not completely healed."

"What do you propose?"

Dex pauses for a moment. "You drive." She rolls onto her back and points her feet to the ceiling. "Don't overdo it."

I laugh as I position myself between her legs. 

"Tell me what it feels like," I say, echoing her request.

She does. The words are different but express similar impressions. Surrender. Penetration. Occupation. Curiously, it is the diction of war.

I'm swept away by the play-by-play of sensations, whispered breathily, punctuated by gasps and low murmurs. The time I've spent aroused, coupled with her narrative, spoken with words, muscles, and fingernails at my back, spares me the risk of overdoing it. 

***

Thanks for reading. Comments are always welcome. 



Swallowtail Ch. 07



Swallowtail is a novel that traces the narrator's gradual acceptance of submission.

In this chapter: After rising to every challenge Dex has thrown his way, the narrator is pushed to the limit. Perhaps he is pushed too far. 

***

Dex has dropped off the radar again. Not a word. It has been almost a month since I last saw her. I wonder whether I've done something to annoy her. Yes, I think, it's quite possible. There is one thing I know of and possibly other slights, real or imagined, that are lurking just beneath the surface. I consider the alternatives but return again to the possibility that Dex might have noticed me—I berate myself when I think of it—tailing her after our last meeting. I'd first thought it unlikely that she'd noticed—it was dark, after all—now I'm not so sure. Given how closely she guards her privacy, following her would constitute a serious breach of some unwritten protocol.

I silently curse myself as I remember that night.

I'd been drifting off to sleep when I heard Dex moving around the bedroom. I opened my eyes slightly, careful not to reveal that I was awake. She had gotten dressed and was leaning against the bedroom door, watching me.

After a moment she left and I heard her at the front door, putting on her boots and jacket.

I'd often wondered how she got to my house and where she went when she left. She had made a habit of popping up on my doorstep and then disappearing after making real whatever twisted fantasy her warped mind had conjured up. At first, these casual sexual apparitions were something I could deal with. They were surprises, usually pleasant. What man wasn't flattered by the attentions of an attractive woman with no apparent strings attached? 

But now a pattern had been established. Our skins, as it were, were in the game. There was now an expectation, on my part at least, that went beyond the casual. And so my dearth of knowledge about this occasional visitor had become something that gnawed at my soul.

I reviewed what I knew about Dex (painfully little) and made the obvious inferences. I lived in the middle of nowhere and I doubted that she took a taxi here. Therefore she must have driven. I'd never seen her car; therefore, she must have parked it elsewhere. The most likely spot, I decided, was by the side of the road where so many hikers began their walks on the trails that wound through the escarpment by my house. That was what I would have done in her place.

As far as deduction went, I wouldn't be threatening Sherlock Holmes any time soon, but it was enough to get me on my feet before I was even aware that I'd made a decision. Dex had been gone for a couple of minutes, long enough to have reached the spot where I thought she might have parked. 

I pulled on some clothes and hurried out of the house. In the distance, I heard a car starting and then reversing. I was right. She had parked down the road. I jumped into my old Mercedes and backed out of my driveway. I'd read enough detective novels to know not to turn on my headlights. 

I was being reckless, driving on a dark road with no lights, but I didn't care. I felt alive with purpose and the thrill of covert action. 

So far, I could see no taillights, but I knew that there was a hairpin turn up ahead. I took it a little faster than my car was used to and something groaned in protest. The road straightened out and there, in the distance, I discerned twin red dots like the reflected eyes of a predator I preferred not to meet.

I felt like a shitheel for doing this, but I also felt like an idiot for not knowing the first thing about Dex. At this point in a relationship, I should have known her birthday, for example. I'd have known her favorite color, her friends, her former lovers, just about anyone who had slighted her at any time, whether she was alarmed by the ticking of her biological clock and what she wanted to do about it. I'd have been told about the traumas visited upon her by friends and parents and absolute strangers. I'd have known what foods made her gassy. I'd have known her aches and pains. Whether she liked roses for Valentine's Day or whether she preferred the practicality of longer-lasting flowers. I'd be attuned to her menstrual cycle and know when to walk softly. I'd have known what turned her on and off and where the lines were. The list of things that she didn't particularly like about me would be just beginning, as would her efforts at rehabilitating me.

With Dex, I knew none of these things, but I did know that she'd be angry if she knew what I was up to. For all she talked about trust, she didn't appear to trust me enough to allow me behind her veil of secrecy. Perhaps she was right, given that I was now tailing her.

The traffic light she had stopped at had just turned green. I was still far away, too far to make the light. My career as a surveillance agent was over before it had even begun.

I watched as the car made the turn. It was briefly illuminated by the lights at the intersection. As I approached the yellow light, I could see that the car I had lost was a white Audi TT. The windows were heavily tinted, so I doubted I could identify the driver even if I were leaving nose prints on the glass.

I slowed at the light and watched the taillights of the Audi grow smaller. I considered an illegal left turn but decided against it, frozen as much by the red light as by the stupidity of what I was doing.

I returned home slowly, wondering where I'd gone wrong. While it was certainly possible that I'd been tailing the wrong car, I knew in my gut that it had been Dex.

How a piercer could afford a fifty thousand dollar car was beyond me.

And now I'm at a loss. I've called the various numbers that Dex has used to reach me in the past. Some are pay phones and others are out of service or direct me to voice mail. I leave no messages. 

I've even stopped at the tattoo parlor where she works. The inked Amazon who greeted me with something approximating friendliness the last time is aloof and guarded this time. She tells me that Dex is unavailable. I ask when she might be available again and I'm answered with a shrug and a look that effectively shuts down further questioning.

I'm now convinced that Dex knows that I followed her. I wonder how badly my actions have tipped the balance out of my favor. I have, after all, acceded to all of Dex's demands. I think of the things I have done and had done to me. The memories come back in incriminating mental images—risking my reputation by pleasuring her in my office, pleasuring myself for her entertainment, allowing myself to be pierced, and finally allowing myself to be violated in a way I would never have imagined. The sum of these images weighs on my heart. I fear at times that I've sold myself too cheaply. Maybe I should have exercised some control. When I unwrap these memories, I am left with a gift of anger and humiliation. 

Christmas is hard. It's not that I ever entertained the thought of introducing Dex to my family or anything. One perplexed person is bad enough. An entire family wallowing in the treacle of shared perplexity is hell. 

I know that if Dex were here, the past few months would have a context and I wouldn't feel so adrift. I am ready to flagellate myself for any slight, real or imagined, that I may have visited upon Dex if only to hear some word from her, some explanation for her absence. 

But the holidays come and go and now it's the new year. 

I begin it in a funk, a profound moroseness born of powerlessness.

Sharon and I remain in the boardroom after the meeting that we customarily hold with our employees at the beginning of every quarter. She is my friend and business partner and the person who knows me perhaps best in the world. I've performed admirably at the meeting. I've smiled and uttered uplifting words. I've exuded confidence. The troops are motivated. They laughed good-naturedly when I spoke sentences that deliberately included chestnuts like "low-hanging fruit" and "working smarter, not harder" and mouthed words like "creativity" and "integrity" and "customer focus".

And now Sharon looks at me. Clearly she's not fooled.

"I'm worried about you," Sharon says when we're alone. "You don't seem yourself."

"Who do I seem like?"

"I don't know." She thinks for a minute. "Lothario channeling Rodney Dangerfield."

"A bug-eyed seducer?"

"A seducer who gets no respect."

"Ah."

Sharon appears uncomfortable. This is a discussion we've never had before because I've never let my dalliances mar the sheen of my professional armor. 

"Is it that girl?"

"Dex?"

"What kind of name is that anyway? What is it short for? Dexterous?"

"That's good, Sharon. Maybe. Who knows?"

Her brow furrows with concern. "You've been up and down since you met her. One day you're on top of the world and the next you're like Atlas without the steroids."

"It's been complicated."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I appreciate it, Sharon, but no."

I get up to retreat to the refuge of my office.

"Anytime you want to talk, you know where I am."

I know I won't talk about it. I thank her anyway. 

***

It's Friday and I'm looking forward to the end of the workweek. I have arrayed numerous tasks before me, but for tonight, there's a bottle of single malt that I've been saving for the right moment. Tonight feels like the right moment. Here's to me and all that. For Saturday morning, there's a pile of logs by the side of my house that I've been successfully ignoring for months. My father taught me the therapy of hard work and I intend to exorcise the demons that plague me by means of axe and splitter. I want a sharp tool in my hand and the sweat from honest labor. I want to be able to wear my red and black lumberjack jacket without feeling like a knob or an imposter. Sunday, because the exorcising will have left me sore, is dedicated to football.

Earlier in the day, I'd received a call from one of my occasional bedmates whose company I've enjoyed when spousal absence made such illicit enjoyment possible. 

"The cat's away," she said.

"Lucky mouse."

Her voice held the promise of the familiar. A familiar body. Predictable choreography and spontaneous verbal outbursts gleaned from the very best internet porn. The final act would leave us both sweaty and exhausted in bed, just as it should be. There would be the usual vague emptiness that would accompany me like a shadow upon taking my leave. There would be the promise of more of the same when circumstances allowed.

I had my dreams of solitary self-sufficiency for the weekend so I begged off as gently as possible. Neither of us was particularly disappointed. 

That, I think to myself, is the very definition of ennui.

I try to keep thoughts of Dex at bay for the rest of the afternoon, but she's there at the back of my mind. I tell myself that my appetite for vanilla sexual fare is still healthy and intact despite the flavors I've tasted with Dex. I tell myself that my refusal of a sure and meaningless assignation stems from the desire for solitude rather than some vague sense of commitment to Dex. It wasn't as though she and I had formalized anything. It wasn't as though we'd held hands and proclaimed our love for each other, our earnest desire to go steady or whatever they call it now. And besides, she'd been gone for a month. The torch that I've been holding for her is guttering and belching black smoke. I'd never before felt constrained during the vast tracts of silence between our too infrequent meetings. And yet I can't dismiss the notion entirely. The void that follows any meeting with Dex is filled with such distraction and yearning that, for my part at least, there may as well be some unspoken covenant.

It seems impossible now that Dex has ever felt the same.

I've just managed to work myself into a state of distraction when I receive a text message: 

Your place @ 10. D

I stare at the screen. That's it. No apology. No kissy emoticon. Just text. I'm irritated. I'm hopeful. Then I'm angry with myself for my hopefulness. She's dropped off the face of the earth without a word and now she's texting me her imperious commands. I might have had plans. 

I might have been longing for solitude. I might have played the role of a mouse. 

I might still just to make a point. It's not too late to call Miss Lonelyheart back. But then I picture Dex, my goth seductress, my sexual Pandora. The one with the swallowtail tattoo, frozen in the skin between hip and navel like an insect trapped in amber. I know I'll be there waiting for her and I'm disgusted with myself. The thought of Dex, her depraved imagination and disquieting erotic demands, banishes everything else from my mind.

***

There's no word of explanation for her absence over the last month. I want to ask, to voice my anger and disappointment, but Dex is all business tonight in sharp contrast to her playfulness the last time we were together. She gives me a perfunctory kiss on entering my house. That's it. There's a wall around her, an energy that I'm reluctant to touch. Her demeanor takes me by surprise and makes me uneasy. In the restless hours between her text and her arrival, I'd imagined that she would playfully insinuate herself back into favor, cajole forgiveness for her unexplained absence out of me, but there's nothing like that. I don't know what I expected. I never know what to expect. Tonight she seems unapproachable, as though we have no history together, or if we do, it's largely irrelevant.

As usual, I'm reminded of how I've surrendered control. As usual, the sight of her arouses me.

"You gave me carte blanche last time. Did you mean it?" 

She's dressed in black and her pale features are more heavily made up than usual. She's strangely monochromatic, almost two-dimensional. 

I don't remember. I may have. It's quite likely that I did. Dex's question irritates me; she has had carte blanche since we've met. There's no need to rub my nose in it. I've gone along with everything she's thrown at me. I've been pierced and prodded, plugged and played. I want to remind her that the last time was a month ago and that things may have changed. I may have moved on, for example. 

Instead, I ask, "Where have you been?"

"Family matters."

The words are spoken with such flat finality that I know I've come up against a wall. There's no point in questioning further.

"Did you mean it?" she asks again.

"What?"

"Your consent."

This is where I should draw a line in the sand. This is when I should state in no uncertain terms that I am unwilling to be strung along like a dazed and exhausted fish on the line. "I think so," I say.

"We'll see."

The words, spoken quietly, almost to herself, hang there like a challenge. 

"I'm going to my car to get some things," she says. "I want you naked by the time I get back." Her eyes burn with unhealthy intent. Whatever intimate connection we have had seems to have been suspended. Maybe, I think, there's no connection. Maybe I'm just a convenient foil, a punching bag that she throws herself at when she feels the need. 

I hate myself for acquiescing again. I sit on the sofa, considering my options. I'm apprehensive. This is how I imagine a prizefighter must feel when, after a long string of easy victories, he goes one round with a fighter of greater skill and power. I'm re-evaluating. I'm alone in my corner, wondering which of the weapons in my arsenal might level the playing field again. I should send her on her way until I've figured things out. Obviously, I'm powerless when she's around.

I hear her boots on the driveway, getting louder. I stand and formulate the words that will put a stop to this. I'm eloquent in my head, stringing together the words that will show that her disregard of me for weeks at a time is an abuse far more cutting than anything inflicted on my body. My defiance flares for a moment and extinguishes as quickly, like the flame of a candle snuffed between wetted fingers. 

I shed my clothes. I've entered round two already defeated.

"Good," says Dex as she drops a bag just inside the living room. She approaches me and presses herself against the length of my body, melding her contours to mine. The pendulum swings. This is why I've acquiesced. The cold that has wrapped itself around her while she was out makes me shiver now. Her fingernails press roughly into the flesh of my ass. I move in for a kiss and she averts her face. "Later. Maybe."

My relationship with Dex has never been entirely comfortable, but my discomfort has had its rewards. Against my better judgment and natural inclination, I've allowed myself to be led by this inscrutable, dark princess. My time with her has had its share of apprehension, my absence from her is filled with a yearning curiosity of what might come next. 

Now that I've submitted again, I'm hungry for her. It comes as a pang in the pit of my stomach. Although I've never wanted to admit it to myself, with every passing week I've become more attached to Dex and the thrill she seems uniquely equipped to provide. The sexual life I've had before seems pale and mundane in comparison.

She goes to the bag and returns with a length of rope. "Hands behind your back," she says. "Spread your legs."

I comply and watch mutely as Dex squats before me, ties a loose overhand knot, inserts my cock and scrotum, and tightens it. 

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"It should be pretty obvious."

There's nothing obvious about it and I watch as she winds the rope over the original knot, over and over. Her fingers play over me, intimate yet clinical. Soon my cock and balls emerge from a growing cone of rope and I'm alarmed at how much rope is left. The ropework is tight but not uncomfortable. With each loop, my tender bits are pushed down.

"Is there a line you won't cross?" asks Dex, as though she herself is surprised that I've succumbed yet again.

I've been asking myself just that. I shrug.

"Where will you draw the line? How far will you go with me?"

"I'll let you know when we get there." The words sound stronger than I feel. She has thrown the gauntlet and I've picked it up like a child or idiot, marveling at its elegance and missing the implications. Dex smiles and I study her for any indication of smugness at our roles. I've never taken a back seat to a woman before Dex. In fact, the very notion of surrender has always implied weakness and victimization. It's not what I would have imagined for myself.

She's almost done. My groin is firmly cocooned in rope, with only my distended balls and engorged cock exposed.

Dex stands up, studying her handiwork. "How's that?"

"Fine."

"Just fine?" she asks.

"I can't help but to wonder what you're intent on creating."

"Ah."

"And?"

"I want to test the limits. Test mine. Test yours."

I nod. 

"I'm not interested in some needy slave," she says. "There's a difference between taming a lion and creating a pussy."

I don't smile. 

"I'm not sure which you are," she says.

The impact of her words bruises me. 

I'm not sure which I am either.

She cups my tightly bound package in her hand and walks me to a leather armchair. 

"You're good with this?" she asks.

"I'll tell you when I'm not." I hear my voice, cold and flat, as though from a distance.

With a hand on my shoulder, she bends me over the back of the armchair. With her foot, she taps my ankles until they align with the stubby legs of the chair.

"Stay."

I feel the weight of my tightly wrapped scrotum as it hangs, exposed and vulnerable. The thunk of Dex's footsteps on the hardwood announces her return. She ties my ankles to the rear legs of the chair.

"Put your hands on the seat."

I comply. Curiosity wars with trepidation.

Dex ties my wrists together, leaving a length of rope dangling off the chair. She runs the rope beneath the chair and around the back. I feel a tugging at my groin and it dawns on me what she is doing. The rope from my wrists is being tied to a loop she has left between my legs.




Swallowtail Ch. 07



She's done. She has taken a step back and appears to be surveying her handiwork.

I balance on the backrest, largely immobile and wholly vulnerable. 

I look up and see our reflection in the door to the patio. It's dark outside and it's doubtful that anyone will see me, but it's impossible not to imagine eyes in the darkness, witnessing my degradation. Dex approaches me from behind. She has something in her hand but I can't make it out. The distant lights of the city outside the window distort the picture of what's going on in here. I feel like I'm on display, my humiliation visible to anyone who cares to look.

I feel her as she presses against me, fabric whispers against my ass. She runs her fingers through my hair and then pulls my head up. Her other hand presses a ball to my lips.

"Open."

I'm not sure what she wants. A hand leaves my head and abruptly smacks my bare ass with a loud crack. I guess my mouth must have opened at the shock because it's soon filled with a ball. 

She fastens the straps of the ball gag behind my head. She has taken my mobility and now my voice. My dignity is long gone. 

She steps behind me and rubs my ass down to my distended scrotum. Sensation there is enhanced and despite my self-disgust at this moment I squirm under her touch. Every sensation is heightened, whether from vulnerability or trapped blood flow I don't know.

I feel the slow trickle of cold between my cheeks. Not again, I think. Something cold and metallic presses against my anus, smearing the lube over its surface. Dex takes her time inserting whatever it is. 

A gasp whispers from around the gag as the device penetrates the ring of muscle that is unprepared for this intrusion. I then feel its passage within me, easier now, until it can go no further.

Dex leaves the object and fumbles with the strap of the ball gag. It takes a moment for me to understand what she is doing. The device in my ass is a hook of some sort. Dex has tied the hook to the strap that holds the gag in place. If I tip my head forward, the hook buries itself ever more deeply into me. To avoid the pressure, I have to look up.

Dex, I think to myself, is one depraved woman.

She steps into my line of sight again. "Feeling okay?" she asks absently. 

I attempt to nod and the insistent tugging reminds me to be more careful about sudden movements. She holds in her fingers what looks like a wooden skewer. I have a panicked notion of some kind of prehistoric piercing device but she seems to have nothing of the sort in mind. Instead, she runs the pointy end of the skewer down my back and around the curve of my ass.

It feels like she's etching furrows and impaling the stick into my tender balls though I know she's probably exerting the lightest of touches. I'm about ready to crawl out of my skin. She's torturing me with pleasure and the release that feels imminent is nonetheless miles away. 

I feel her breath on the stub of my cock that emerges from the rope cocoon. She has positioned herself between my legs and presently I feel her tongue on me, ever so hot against the engorged and distended crown of my shaft.

She reaches around and rakes my ass with her fingernails. Her lips surround me now and I am bathed in heat. A thread of saliva dribbles out of my mouth and onto the seat of the chair. I don't care. My attention is torn between the play of her lips and tongue and teeth on my cock and the ache that is growing in my neck. I lower my head in an attempt at finding relief, only to be rewarded by an insistent tugging at my ass. Release is long overdue but is held in barely in abeyance by the rope. Every touch makes me want to squirm out of my skin. My breathing quickens. This is torture, I think. 

Dex stops what she was doing, leaving me hard and frustrated. The binding leaves me painfully engorged. My arousal can't dissipate. 

She rises from between my legs and smacks me hard. The whip-crack of sound more than the pain jolts me back to reality.

This isn't play anymore. This is the application of power, pure and simple. 

"You were going to come, weren't you?"

I don't know what to say.

Another smack. This one I feel.

"Answer me."

I grunt as best I can around the gag.

She walks around to the front of the chair and loosens the gag, allowing it to drop around my neck like a collar. I'm grateful for it and work the ache out of my jaws.

Dex steps back and studies me. There's a curious look on her face and I can't begin to try to decipher it. 

She pulls my head back and kisses me, pushing her tongue into my mouth which such a hunger that I momentarily forget my growing anger. She breathes into me, hot and insistent. I'd like to grab her, throw her onto the floor and take her, but I can't.

She steps back again. She's flushed and a smile plays on her lips. She's teasing me now, knowing that she's tantalizingly visible but out of reach. 

I'm better than this, I think to myself. I'm worth more than this. And yet there's nothing I want more than the temptress who has bound me.

She shimmies out of her skirt and stands before me, legs parted slightly. I see the swallowtail tattoo and the various piercings that adorn her sex. 

Dex approaches and perches one leg on an armrest while the other remains in the floor. She grasps me by the back of the head and draws me toward her pelvis. 

"I come first," she says.

I can sense that her arousal has quietly matched my own. She pulls me to her and my lips and tongue find her. Her fingers frame and spread her labia, giving me easier access. My neck is aching and I am merciless with her, partly because this is the only revenge I'm capable of, partly because her release might hasten my own. She grinds into me.

Her hand leaves the back of my head and finds the rope that is attached to the hook. She holds it like a rein, controlling me with tugs and gasped commands. 

She is taking the release she has denied me. 

I pull her clitoris into my mouth, trapping its base between my teeth. I suck hard and lash it with my tongue, indifferent to the tenderness of the area. I hear a sharp intake of breath just before a sharp, painful tug on the rope forces me to release her. 

I'm chastened and furious. I skirt the edges of violence as I punish her sex. Despite my indifference to her fulfillment, a muted gasp announces that she has somehow derived pleasure in the face of pain.

She's flushed with victory when she steps away from me, just off to the side. "Now what do you want to do?"

"I want you to untie me."

"Why?"

"I want you."

I'm jolted by a blow to my ass. The force and surprise of it take my breath away. My eyes water. What the fuck? 

"I want to make love to you," I say, though love is the farthest thing from my mind.

Another blow, harder than the last. The sharp sound seems to echo in the room, leaving a profound silence in its wake. "Wrong answer."

What does she want? What does she need to hear? "I want to fuck you!"

"Better." Another smack. "How?"

How? I don't know how to answer.

Her hand lands again with a resounding smack. The skin burns.

"Without remorse."

"I don't believe you."

"Untie me and I'll show you," I growl.

Dex laughs as though she doesn't believe me. Her laugh is a mockery of my manhood. For the first time I see something in her that I haven't seen before. There's a glimmer of superiority in how she regards me. She loosens the rope that ties my wrists together. "Make sure that you do." She leaves the room.

***

This is how I imagine a bull feels when he is taunted by the waving red cape and imagines his elusive tormentor behind it. My pulse thunders in my head, a drum at my temples. I want to get even, recover a piece of myself that I've allowed to be stolen. For the first time that Dex has been calling the shots, I feel truly diminished. For the first time, it grates on me that I have to ask permission. That this kid has made me needy to the point of having to beg for it. My old self would never have stood for it. What has she turned me into?

I fumble with the rope around my wrists until both hands are free and then untie my ankles. I then free my distended scrotum from the cone of rope that has trapped it. The hook falls to the floor. What kind of lunatic does that sort of thing? What kind of pathetic loser allows something like that to be done?

I seethe as I enter my own bedroom. 

She's lying naked on the bed, her back turned to me. My gaze traces the contour of her waist to the rise of her hips and the gentle slope of her legs, one slightly bent and tucked in front of the other. There's beauty in the arrangement of her body but it doesn't register. The sight of her enflames me. Her casual nudity and the thought that she can and probably will deny me, just to heap frustration on my hunger, swamps my reason. 

There's no stealth in my approach, nor is there any acknowledgement of it from Dex. She just lies there, indifferent to me. I grasp her by the shoulder and roll her over to face me. The haughty smile that plays momentarily on her lips dies. She sees something in my face. I feel that same something in my heart. This isn't play anymore. 

She opens her mouth. The protest or command that might have come out is trapped by my hand. Her eyes widen and she turns to roll away from me, to escape. I grab her hip, pushing it violently back on the bed. 

I roll onto her before she can squirm away and pin her beneath me. I feel disembodied, as though I'm watching myself on film. Even as I subdue her, I think: this isn't me. I'm not one to throw my weight around, to use my size and strength to my advantage with a woman.

In the process of subduing her, my forearm comes to rest across her throat. I'm applying little pressure but we both know I could crush her if I wanted to. She lies stock still. My other hand grasps her breast roughly. I want her to fight, to fan the flames of my own anger, give me an excuse for the force I'm ready to apply, but her silence and immobility is already depriving my rage of its oxygen.

All this without Dex uttering a word.

I force her legs apart. She yields to me as a doll might. Even as I penetrate her, I realize that I've lost. She has turned her head to the side and even with her face averted, I can see the disappointment and sadness etched there.

I want to punish her. I take her as violently as I can, riding the ebbing power of my rage, but release eludes me. The mechanics of fucking are reduced to snapshots—of breasts riding high on the ribcage, compelled by a violent thrust, of a cock slammed mercilessly into the hidden recesses of another, of pelvises joined. Meaningless.

I don't know if it's because of Dex's unresponsiveness or my own self-loathing at this moment, but I stop. There's no pleasure in this. No possibility of fulfillment. The act itself mocks me now.

I roll off her and lie beside her, not touching. There are long minutes of silence, my breathing labored, hers quiet. "I'm sorry," I say finally.

More silence. I dread the words, should they be spoken. We've talked endlessly about lines—those that can be crossed, those that can't. I've clearly crossed one.

"I provoked you," says Dex finally. "It was my responsibility to prepare you. I didn't. I was arrogant. You didn't consent."

Consent. I'd never thought of that. In my life consent was always assumed, a logical extension of whatever happened before. 

"It doesn't matter," I say. "It's no excuse."

More time passes. Silence stretches, pulling us further apart.

"I'd like you to make love to me," she says finally.

"After this?" 

She nods.

"I can't." Her eyebrows rise a fraction. "I don't even know how you can ask."

I can't see her face as she gets out of bed and collects her clothes. She locks herself in the ensuite. There are several long minutes of absolute silence and eventually I hear her getting dressed. I could ask her to stay. Part of me would be glad for it. Part of me recoils at the thought.

Dex leaves without uttering a word.

***

Thanks for reading. As always, I welcome your comments.



Swallowtail Ch. 08



Swallowtail is a novel that traces the narrator's gradual acceptance of submission.

Previously: The relationship between Dex and the narrator has crossed the line and it looks as though the pair might be finished. 

***

This time it is I who stay away from Dex. Although my strange liaison with her has never been easy or predictable, her absence feels like a death, a hole in my life, a salted piece of land. With Dex, there was always an anticipation of the unknown. Now there is nothing. I tell myself that it's for the best. It becomes my mantra, filling the space that she previously occupied. I am still unnerved and bewildered by the violence that I might have perpetrated had Dex chosen to resist me. It's as though she had expertly peeled away my layers and revealed a kernel of ugliness and violence that lay at my core. I hadn't expected to find it. I'd thought myself better than that. And even Dex, for all of her unreasonable demands on me, deserves better.

I don't attempt to call her and don't answer any calls from unknown numbers. There are several of these, but no messages are left on voicemail. It may be Dex, but the numbers are all different and I don't bother to return the calls to find out. If it is Dex, then for some reason she's pursuing me now. In unguarded moments, I find myself hoping that she is, and then I push the thought away. Months ago, I would have reveled in the attention. Now it saddens me. I hope that she will soon lose interest and find someone else. No one deserves the brute I appear to be.

I spend the weekend moping around the house, listening to older Coltrane, drinking single malt and trying to sort through conflicting emotions. It's my typical breakup behavior and I've wrapped myself in it like a hairshirt. If Dex and I ever had what could be called a relationship, this is the most difficult and confusing end I've ever experienced. 

After finishing what's left of my favorite bottle, I'm just as adrift as I was before. I wonder, for example, whether my sexual palate is ultimately averse to the kind of spice Dex has brought to it. I wonder whether I'm capable of bowing to someone else's will as Dex appeared to want me to. Am I a lesser man for even considering it and then resorting to violence when it didn't suit me? 

***

Monday comes too soon. I arrive at the office early, wanting to avoid the usual Monday morning pleasantries with Sharon. The messages on the whiteboards in the lunchroom strike me as intolerably bleak. I close the door to my office and resolve to bury myself in the work that Dex so often distracted me from. My eyes are gritty and my soul is empty as I sit at my desk, sorting through the emails that have accumulated in my inbox.

A reminder of a lunch date surprises me when it flashes up on the computer screen. The hours have flown by. I debate cancelling, but then my stomach growls a warning that I know I'd better heed.

My friend is already at the restaurant when I arrive. Out of duty I inquire about his family, a disinterested wife, two surly teenagers, and an incontinent dog. There's the usual litany of anecdotes, half funny, half depressing. 

I ask him, in a way guys seldom do when there are safe things like sports and politics to talk about, whether it was all worth it—whether following the well-trodden paths from dating to marriage to kids has given him the sort of fulfillment I'm now afraid I'm incapable of.

He seems surprised. "I hope I'm not detecting any regret," he says. "I've lived vicariously through you forever."

"Oh?"

He leans back and smiles. "You've never lacked for women and I've never seen you pining for permanence. To me, your grass is greener."

I tell him that I sometimes wonder about it.

He nods and sips at his beer. "Don't get me wrong, there's comfort in comfort. More often than not I'm happy. But there are moments when you wonder how the person you were became the person you are. You wonder how the marriage you had became what it is and whether it's boredom or comfort or a profound lack of energy that keeps you from wanting to make it better. Then you get nostalgic for the good old days. You remember the beginning, when you were young and carefree. You'd go at it like rabbits then, with your happy rabbit fuck-faces and not a care in the world." My friend sighs. "I miss the rabbit years.

"Then, before you know it, come the manatee years. You have kids now and you've let yourself go. You're fat and ungainly and you wallow in warm, comfortable waters. You're tired and distracted and you've obeyed the biological imperative and have seen where that has led you. If you take your vitamins or the little blue pill and get around to doing it, you have to do it quietly, otherwise you wake up the kids. You do it slowly, as though you're underwater and anything too violent or unexpected is enough to cause you to float away from each other. You do it at the edge of the bed because the middle squeaks too much. You do it infrequently because you're lucky to find yourselves in all the murk that surrounds you."

He shakes his head and this time gulps his beer. "You're one of the last non-manatees that I know."

"Why manatee?" I ask.

"Have you ever heard manatees fuck?"

"No."

"There you go then. They're like parents—you can't imagine anything so big and clumsy ever mating."

"What happens after the manatee years?"

My friend looks genuinely surprised. "There's something after the manatee years?"

***

I've made it through the week. I've gone through the motions, attended the meetings, made the decisions. 

Only Sharon, my business partner, notices something amiss. "Are you okay?" she asks before I leave for the day.

"Sure."

"You seem subdued."

You have no idea how subdued I've been, I think. I merely shrug.

"Dex?"

"I'd prefer not to talk about it."

"Okay."

"Later, maybe. Not now."

It's Friday night again. On my way home I stop at the liquor store to replenish the stock that I'd put such a dent in the weekend before. I'm feeling marginally better now and regard my tumbler of whiskey as a friend rather than a crutch.

The house is cold and empty and I light a fire. It doesn't do much to heat the house but it's comfortable and the sight of it relaxes me. 

The doorbell rings during an intermission of the hockey game I'm watching. I'm tempted to ignore it. I'm not expecting anyone and the third period is about to start. I top up my glass and listen for footsteps retreating down the driveway. There's only silence.

With a pang I realize that it could be Dex. I get very little unexpected traffic up here. There are no neighbors. My street is slim pickings for salesmen. I'd bought the house ten years ago, attracted to the view of the town at the foot of the escarpment below and the protected forest behind. I'd been drawn by the promise of solitude and the proximity of what passes for civilization. The house stands alone and is far too large for one person. At the time, it suited my ego well. Perhaps it still does.

There's still no sound from outside. Perhaps Dex, if that's who it is, has left. Perhaps, I realize, she's still standing there in the February cold.

I'm being an idiot. Again. If it is Dex, then she knows I'm home. My car is outside and there are lights on, everywhere, it seems, but my brain. I curse myself and my indecision. Dex is the injured party in this and here I am adding the indignity of leaving her on my doorstep like a beggar I'm too timid to face.

I hurry to the door and heave it open. An envelope falls to the floor, carried by the frigid night air that eddies around my bare feet.

I look for her. She's nowhere to be seen but I can sense that she's around here somewhere watching me.

I open the envelope and withdraw a card. I glance up again but there's nothing.

I read: Forgive me. Please.

My heart gives a lurch. The breath catches in my throat. She's apologizing? To me?

I look at the words again. I really, really don't understand this woman. It's almost as though, behind the sturdy battlements of her aloofness, she genuinely cares for me. It hadn't occurred to me. I'd convinced myself that I'd been an easily replaced plaything for her. An experiment. Certainly there was nothing in our last meeting to suggest otherwise.

I still can't see her. "You can come in," I say into the darkness.

Nothing happens for a moment. Then a shadow detaches from an oak that stands naked and solitary by the driveway. The lonely streetlight out front lights her from behind. She seems small and fragile as she crunches through the snow at the edge of the driveway. Her steps are slow and deliberate, as though she shares in my apprehension and uncertainty. She enters the halo of the light that spills from the house. She's all goth tonight—dark make-up, dark clothes, and clunky boots. I'm reminded of how different we are and of how much we've shared. At that moment, I realize that I've been with no one more beguiling.

Without pausing her approach, she's in my arms. At the touch of her, I relax.

"I'm sorry too," I whisper.

She leans back and places a finger softly to my lips. "No words," she says.

A command again. The tone is different now than the last time. Less imperious. I nod and pull her gently into the house.

In the light of the living room, I see how tired she is. Dark make-up can't quite hide it. I move to her and she places a hand on my chest and takes a step back. I stand and watch as she unlaces and removes her boots, losing four inches in the process. She looks almost self-conscious in what she is doing. There's no brazen exhibitionism, only a subtle vulnerability that I haven't seen from Dex before. She unzips the dress she is wearing and steps out of it. She stands motionless and naked before me. There's no sultry pose, just Dex, arms at her sides, small feet spread shoulder width apart. Our eyes lock. I can't quite read her but am aware that something significant is happening.

At length she approaches me and begins to unbutton my shirt. Still no words pass between us. My hand finds the small of her back, feeling the warmth of her soft, smooth skin and I gently pull her to me. She doesn't resist but does look up at me with an uncertain smile.

I'm soon as naked as she is, standing in the middle of the living room. 

She takes me by the hand and leads me to the bathroom. 

Things seem easier between us after we have taken a shower. The hot water has washed the residual tension away. We've touched everything there is of the other that there is to touch, explored each other without sexual imperative. Without words.

Now we're back in the living room. She's naked, reclined unselfconsciously on my sofa. I see the swallowtail tattoo low on her abdomen. She picks up my forgotten tumbler of scotch and eyes me speculatively. 

"What now?" I ask, uttering the first words spoken since she entered my home. 

She shrugs. Her eyes are wide and dark. "What do you want?" She's not dodging my question for a change. She wants to know.

This could be a new beginning. I'd like for it to be. She's leaving it to me, allowing me, perhaps, to set the ground rules. I'm not even sure that I weigh the consequences before the words are out of my mouth: "I want to be with you."

So few words to describe what I want. I want more. More of Dex. More than just the occasional visit. More accountability. More of what I've come to crave. I want the opportunity to atone.

She takes her time before answering. Is she thinking of what I've left unspoken? She looks at me, unwavering. I see that she understands. Her voice is quiet but intense. "I want that too."

I take the tumbler from her hand and study her. Her body is pale and inviting against the dark brown leather of the sofa. It becomes clear to me. It takes me a bit longer to assemble the pieces than it has for Dex. The price of being with Dex is to accept her rules. It's not something I can pretend only as long as there's something in it for me. That's what I've been doing—pretending. Strip away the thin pretense of acceptance and I'm a brute. Truly accede to her, accommodate her demands, and... who knows? 

Accept her as she is and all this and more can be mine. Someone to please however I can. Someone to please me. Whatever her pleasure, I know that I want be the one to provide it. Whatever pleasure she grants me, I'll gratefully lap it up. We've both made mistakes and crossed the fuzzy lines that have loosely defined our relationship. They're less important now, these lines. They seem more flexible and less like tripwires. If I allow it, I'm confident that she can navigate us along or over those lines as she chooses. 

I take a small sip of the smoky liquid and press my lips to hers. Her tongue insinuates itself between my lips and tastes it and I let a small amount pass to her.

She smiles."That's good."

I ask her to lie still and pour some whiskey onto her belly. A small pool of it forms in her navel. An amber rivulet spills over the edge, halting and proceeding in time with her breathing. The leading drop disappears between her legs.

I dip the tip of my tongue into the quivering pool, displacing some of the whiskey and sending another trail to follow the path of the last. 

Something has changed. Despite the submission that Dex has always asked of me, I feel less diminished at the prospect now than I did before. I could enjoy pleasing her. If I allow it and she takes the reins, we can be good together. We can be better together than apart. I feel that we might be capable of some perverse balance. 

I can trust her.

I follow the glistening trail of whiskey and lick it where it has moistened the margins of her pussy. I'm in no hurry. I lap up the smoky liquid until its taste is replaced by that of Dex alone.

She sighs contentedly and raises her legs, perching her feet on my shoulders and opening herself up to me.

***

I wake to sunlight streaming into my bedroom. I must have forgotten to close the blinds last night. I then become aware of a weight across my chest and realize that it is Dex's slender arm and that she's pressed to my side.

I close my eyes again to block out the sun and to enjoy the simple pleasure of her unexpected presence.

Dex is perched on a stool at the kitchen island. She has washed away the makeup and looks younger. More inviting and open. Almost wholesome and innocent. She's wearing one of my dress shirts, mostly unbuttoned, and nothing else. I like the look. 

I set down our mugs of coffee and regard her for a moment. "Why did you come back?" I ask.

Dex takes a deep breath. "It was a bad way to end. I was arrogant and selfish and I made a mistake with you that night. I couldn't leave it like that. I wasn't sure that it had to end. I didn't want it to end."

"We were good last night."

Dex nods and looks off into middle space. "We were."

"Is there a 'but'?"

"Has good ever been good enough for you?"

It's too early for this discussion, too soon after the night before. I haven't even finished my first coffee. I know where she's going though. I've had it good before. I have played the lover, the housemate, the affianced. I have remained deaf when others have heard Wagner. 

Life has a habit of settling into routines, patterns of behavior that lull you into numbness by their very predictability. I'd seen it in my parents and too many of my friends. I'd been numbed by it too, when life and love adopt such a predictable, banal choreography that you want nothing more than for the actors to take a bow, for the curtain to fall.

"There's a time and a place for good," I say. "Last night was a good time and place." 

Dex nods. "It was. But good gets boring eventually. You know that. We've both had good and it's not enough."

"I know."

Dex pours us another coffee. I enjoy watching her move around my place. She looks comfortable here and I'm glad for it. "You give me too much credit," she is saying. "I'm feeling my way. I don't know anything."

"You know well enough. You have me going places I wouldn't have dreamed of a couple of months ago. I think you know more than you're letting on."

She returns to the table and sets down the mugs. It's good to be talking this openly. We've never done it before. I have a hunch and play it. "Were the roles reversed?" I ask.

"Huh?"

"Before... With your last partner." 

She nods so faintly that I almost miss it.

"That guy at the tattoo parlor?"

She nods again and averts her eyes. "That's when I learned what lies beyond the play. I learned what it takes to be good and fair. Or I thought I did." 

"You do. We just took a bad turn. That's all."

Dex laughs. "It's funny how just when you think you're at the top of your game, life throws a wrench in the works and you're back to square one, relearning the lessons you thought you knew. Making you humble." 

For some reason my heart is hammering in my chest. I want the conversation to stop, afraid of where it might lead. Instead, I ask, "So what did you learn?"

She sits down opposite me and cradles her mug in her small hands. "There has to be trust and understanding and creativity. Ego is an acid. I thought I knew it before but I guess I didn't. Even before that night, I was guided by ego. I thought it was independence but..." Dex shrugs. "I know it better now. I've been floating along on assumptions and arrogance. And you've been going along with it for whatever reason, though I've done nothing to earn your trust." She sips her coffee. "Why have you gone along with it?"

It's a question I've been asking myself for months. "I've never met anyone like you."

Her eyebrows rise a fraction.

"It's been new." I'm stammering now, hunting for words. "You've introduced me to things..." 

"Awakened appetites that you didn't know you had?" she asks.

"Something like that. I like the challenge. The unpredictability. I don't like the frustration. I don't like the not knowing."

Dex sips her coffee and stares off into middle space for a moment. "I've been doing some thinking," she says.

"Okay." I'm wary.

"I think we can work well together."

"I agree."

"But there have to be some ground rules."

"Okay."

"It may be time to formalize things or go our own way."

I've never negotiated a relationship before, at least not like this. Relationships are negotiated by a multitude of tiny decisions over time, each one building on the other until the relationship has a broad shape and texture. Given what I know of Dex, she has a definite shape in mind and I'm apprehensive now that Dex seems intent on laying it out.

Her last words echo in my mind though. Go our own way. I have a choice, it seems. A relationship as Dex wants to define it or nothing. 

"You're trying to make me some kind of slave. Is that it?"

"No."

"Bullshit."

Her eyes narrow. "A slave has no say in the matter. You have. You've accompanied me every step of the way when you didn't have to. You did so of your own volition."

"So what does that make me?"

"Not a slave."

"What then?"

"A submissive. Or someone who could be."

The word has been spoken. Her wishes and expectations of me have been reduced to three simple syllables. We've been dancing around it so long that the word itself is anticlimactic. I'd more or less come to the same word myself last night. Now that the word has been spoken, carrying with it a weight of implication, I'm not sure that I can carry it, despite the fact that I've followed her this far.

"Submission is a choice," continues Dex. "Slavery is not. Submission is a gift that has to be earned. With the right master, it can be liberating. Done right, there's no greater bond."

I've had a taste and now that taste has a name. Submission. The concept of submission as the cornerstone of a relationship makes me uneasy. It's one thing to consider the idea in the abstract and to dabble in it, quite another to have it on the table as something concrete and neatly labeled. I'm all for being tied up and played, but in the end there's comfort in knowing that it's just an act. What Dex is proposing is entirely different, I realize now. It's less a role than a mindset.




Swallowtail Ch. 08



Dex adds, "You're only part-way there. You haven't really accepted it. You don't know if you want it."

"You're right."

"Then we both have some thinking to do."

"Why do you want it?" I ask.

She thinks for a long time. "I've been buried in relationships before. I don't want to be buried again. You'll always be older and more successful and exert more influence. Even if I were your equal in a traditional relationship, it would only be an illusion. You'd still bury me."

"So this levels the playing field?" 

"That's part of it."

"What else?"

"I've been on the other side. I know what it takes."

"You think so?"

"I know it. I want to test the limits. I want to do it with you." She says it with such utter conviction that I'm tempted to agree just to see if she's right. "Last time we got into trouble because you hadn't consented and really didn't have an out. You didn't know what I had in store for you. You didn't trust me. I'd done nothing to earn your trust. I want to show you what submission can be. I also want you to be secure in it and I want the opportunity to earn your trust."

"Are you asking me to go steady?" I ask.

Dex laughs. "Something like that. I want you to submit. Willingly. I want you to accept me as your dom."

"What's in it for you?"

"Pleasure. For both of us."

"That's it?"

"Play."

"Oh God." I'm disappointed that it all comes down to something as mundane as play.

"Think about it for a minute." Dex is uncharacteristically animated. She leans forward. Her eyes flash. "Humans are one of the few animals with an innate capacity for play. We build playgrounds, gymnasiums and stadiums, all for play. We devise games of skill and chance. We have complex rules that govern competition and fairness. On the other side, we have the fact that sex drives a lot if not most of what we do. And somehow, despite our innate capacity for play, we let one of the most important parts of our lives become a rote behavior and let it descend into routine and boredom. Why should an innate capacity for play be divorced from what gives us the most pleasure?"

"So you've found a playmate in me." I'm disappointed. I'd hoped for more.

"Don't be stupid. Yes, I've found a playmate. I've found someone to apply my imagination to. Someone with whom to explore the limits. Someone who's strong enough to answer. I've also found a companion and a lover. Play is the language of our relationship. It's not the relationship itself."

***

Dex leaves me to my own devices for several hours that afternoon. I think of the submission that she wants of me and wonder whether I'm capable of it. I think back to where I was and how I got to this point. It's difficult for me to take the individual links to form the chain of events that has led me here. But a chain is what I have and there look to be more links to come. I attempt to immerse myself in the mindset. I'm a submissive waiting for his dom. I wait for the image to settle in my mind, to evoke some kind of reaction. There's no incredulity. There's no great anticipation either, only a vague disbelief buttressed by an amorphous anticipation.

It's dark when she returns. I know that she has gone for a change of clothes and to retrieve the paraphernalia that I've somehow agreed to be used on my person. 

She kisses me on her return. We chat for a few minutes. It's all very normal. How was your day? What did you do? She pours herself a whiskey and sips from the tumbler. I'm mesmerized by the distortion of her lips on the glass, the glint of liquid. 

Without warning, she asks me to strip, which I do without complaint or hesitation. This is what I have agreed to and now that the next link is about to be forged I'm curious and a little excited to see what Dex has in mind. She leans against the sofa, observing me.

"Do you think me cruel?" 

The question surprises me. "No."

"Kind?"

"Not particularly."

Dex nods and approaches me.

"Both," I say.

Dex smiles. "Both." 

She asks me to bend over the back of the armchair in a way that reminds me uncomfortably of the last time we were together. This can't be an accident, I think. She doesn't restrain me there, and I understand that she's counting on my self-restraint against whatever is to come. I hear her disrobing.

I see Dex's reflection in the window. She's wearing an underbust corset, stockings, and vicious looking heels. The sight is arousing—the hourglass figure, the long legs, breasts framed by leather. She's holding a flogger loosely in her fingers. 

"Ready?"

I wonder if it's a trick question. I don't answer. I can't. The sight of the flogger has stolen my capacity for speech. 

She allows the fells of the flogger to lightly cascade down my back and over my ass. I squirm. This, I know, is an introduction to a play I'm not sure I'm prepared for. 

"Ready?" Dex asks again.

"Sure."

"You can stop me at any time. Remember that." Her voice is quiet. I would have expected some cockiness or gloating superiority but there's none. She's attentive. I'm grateful.

The first blow is light. There is a muted slap of leather striking flesh. I'm jolted more by the sound than by any discomfort. I let the breath whistle out from between my lips and tell myself to relax. I'm surprised by the pleasant solidity of the stroke. Surprised too that it could be pleasant. Dex lands a few more of the same. She's taking it easy on me. I feel a growing warmth across my lower back and butt and fall into an expectant calm at the rhythm she has established. I close my eyes. Each percussion transmits a wave that extends to my groin and I feel the first stirrings of arousal.

I'm startled by an underhand stroke that is channeled between my legs. It's a gentle swing but my knees almost buckle.

"Just so you're paying attention," says Dex.

The cadence of the blows across my back and ass increases as does the texture of each impact. I have allowed myself to be lulled into perverse enjoyment and this new intensity jolts me back to the present. Dex unleashes a rapid series of blows. I look to the window and see her reflection again and observe how she gathers the fells in her hand before launching them at me. I don't know what is worse—seeing the blow that is about to land or being caught unawares. I close my eyes.

The fells divide during a stroke and set a wide swath of skin ablaze. For the first time, actual pain registers. The pain dissipates into heat onto which another blow is landed. Dex is layering the strokes now, overlapping them, increasing their force. There's no teasing in the play; there's a statement, and each of these is answered by a noise that I recognize as my own gasps breathed out through clenched teeth.

Why am I doing this? How am I proving my strength by allowing myself to be beaten by a girl? I push the thought away. This is what I've agreed to. Pass through this test of pain and the pleasure will be that much greater. I hang onto that thought as the flogger whistles through the air.

I know I can end this at any time. I can speak the word that we've agreed upon and it will be over. Instead, I grit my teeth. 

"Three more," says Dex.

I nod.

One fast, stinging stroke for each cheek and a thundering blow across both. They come in rapid succession, each one building on the next. I collapse against the chair.

Dex sets the flogger aside. I hear the ticking of the clock in the kitchen. She gives me a moment to collect myself. I hear our breathing. I am bathed in a cool layer of sweat. I'm grateful for the respite. Dex presses herself against my flank. Her skin against my ass stings as her sweat mixes with mine. Her hand insinuates itself between my legs while the other winds around me and rests on my chest. Her touch is almost too much after the impersonal embrace of leather. The lightness of her touch has an intimacy that I've never felt before. It's now that I understand.

"Are you okay?" she whispers.

"Uh-huh."

"Do you want me to stop?"

"There's more?"

She doesn't answer.

"No," I say, surprising myself. "Don't stop until you want to."

"If it's too much..."

"I know."

She squeezes my balls before withdrawing. I miss the feel of her skin already, more so because I fear what will replace it.

A swish through the air tells me that she is not wielding the flogger anymore. The sound is sharper and more sinister. It's a warning of what is to come.

She presses the hard length of the new device across my cheeks. It feels cold and unyielding. I decide that it must be a cane or a crop. Dex runs it up the inside of one leg and presses it against my testicles before running it down the other.

As before, she starts lightly, allowing me to get used to the new sensation. There's a pattern to the strikes, a cross-hatching of blows. What has started slowly becomes sharp and intense, a whistling followed by a sharp crack as the crop lands against me. I will myself to concentrate on the patterns, allowing myself to be lulled despite the pain that flares every time the crop lands.

The anger that I have expected remains dormant. I have chosen this, after all. I have submitted to this treatment. The crop falls and a bolt of pain blazes through me.

This is my penance. 

Time ceases to have any meaning. There's sound and pain and arousal and little else.

Her hands tremble over the burning welts she has inflicted.

It's over. The room is quiet except for my breathing and hers. I am surprised by the peace that I feel now. I have come through the pain and sense a clarity that I've never felt before. A desire to possess her burns as hotly as any stroke from the cane, but I suppress it. 

***

Dex is silent as her fingers travel the Braille of the welts she has written on my body. Perhaps she's surprised at what she has inflicted, surprised that I have submitted to it as I have. If so, I am glad and submerge myself in the sensation of her cool, small hands on my skin.

I feel her rise from the bed.

"Onto your back," she says.

I comply.

"Hands on the headboard."

I grasp the spindles.

"Don't you dare let go."

"I won't."

Dex stands beside me. Her fingers move over the clasps of the corset until it opens like a shell and falls to the floor. This is my prize for the pain, my reward for submission. I have had her before but the anticipation is greater now. This time I feel that I've earned her.

She explores every inch of me in a way few woman have. She navigates me intently and unhurriedly, with fingers and lips and tongue. 

She kisses the crown of my tumescent cock. There's no urgency in her actions, no headlong rush to release. She licks my entire length before taking me gently between the fullness of her lips. Her motions are unhurried and intent, squeezing my base gently between her slender fingers as her mouth slowly descends to claim me. Her eyes are closed. She withdraws, exposing my saliva-slick length before descending again. I lose track of time, abandoning myself to the undulating bed of her tongue and the gentle pressure of her teeth.

"I want to touch you," I say.

"You are."

I don't let go of the headboard.

At length she sets her hands on my chest and straddles me. Her breasts—I so long to touch them—sway with the motion. The piercings there catch the light. 

Dex watches my face as she lowers herself. Her pussy brushes my cock. I've never been so alert. I can feel the softness of her vulva as it travels up my length, feel the dampness that she deposits there only to have it cool in her absence. She repeats the movement, harder this time, running herself along me.

With a quick sway of her hips she captures me, taking the tip of my cock within her. She places her elbows on my chest and rests her chin on her hands. She watches me as she lowers herself until we are fully joined.

I am possessed and for the first time appreciate the various meanings of the word. The meanings—all of them—excite me. She begins slowly, whether consciously or not mimicking the rhythm with which she so recently punished me. 

The wood of the headboard gives a warning pop as I strain against it. I try to relax.

"Don't you dare come," she murmurs.

Her dance, the slow rising and falling upon me, the deliberate subtlety and control of her motions, keep me just barely on the right side of her demand. If I focus on the feelings of possession, it'll be all over. So I think of the flogger and the crop and the stinging pain she has inflicted on me. It doesn't work. The pain has become another facet of the pleasure.

"Stop!" I gasp.

Dex sits on me, watching. She grins as I wrestle with my self-control. I should look away but I can't. I have one of those moments of disbelief, a brief pause during which I confront the improbability of this moment, of occupying this woman. She sways ever so gently on me. The subtlety of it is almost as profound as her more vigorous movements. Her hands have slid up to her breasts, fingers brushing the piercings of the nipples. I follow the curve of her ribs to the swell of her hips. There in the shadows rests the swallowtail tattoo. The pierced navel glints like a star to its side. Beneath it, I know, is the pierced clitoris and the tight confines that I occupy.

My mind wants to be far away from the feelings of this embrace. She's hardly moving but it's all I can feel. 

When it appears that I have some grasp on control, Dex says, "I want to be fair." She looks earnestly at me, but with a hungry gleam in her eye. 

She turns to face away from me and bends forward towards my feet. From between her legs emerges her hand. Her fingers follow the glistening contours of her sex and then up to her anus. She plays with its surface for a moment before inserting a slender finger. 

I'd like nothing more than to let go of the headboard and run my hands up the soft curves of her ass. As it is, I merely watch as her finger dips in and out of her hole. She's teasing me with the possibility.

Finally, she positions me at her anus, rubbing my head on that unyielding opening. It seems impossible that I can breach it, impossible that I should be allowed to.

This is a show for me. Her hand holds my cock poised as she presses against me. She opens to me grudgingly, a yielding that is accompanied by a gasp from the foot of the bed. The crown of my cock has entered her and her hand leaves me. Her hips swivel and my cock obediently follows the motion, burrowing itself more deeply into her. 

She raises herself and without warning impales herself upon me, swallowing my entire length. 

She sits upright on me and I feel the vibration of her fingers on her sex. Her motions begin again, slowly at first. Within a few tortured minutes she forces herself upon me, as merciless with her own body as mine. This is no longer play. There is nothing conscious about our actions now. There is only an ache for release.

I grab her hips then, heedless of the consequences and push her upon me. I am as violent with her as she is with me, but it's a violence born of desire. I press myself into her and she grinds her hips. There's a cry of pleasure or pain from one or the other of us, a swelling of pressure.

And finally surrender.

***

Thanks for reading. As always, I appreciate your comments and feedback.



Swallowtail Ch. 09



Swallowtail is a novel that traces the narrator's gradual acceptance of submission.

Previously: The narrator has given Dex blanket consent and is prepared to explore what submission to her might mean. What he doesn't expect is a surprise in surgical steel.

***

We're at a Vietnamese restaurant that has become our go-to place when neither of us wants to cook. It also happens to be our six-month anniversary. Half a year since Dex seduced me at the art gallery. And while that day didn't really qualify as a first date, was the day on which I fell under her thrall. 

Dex gives me a look of amused surprise when I mention it. "You're tracking anniversaries? Like in high school or something?"

"Um..."

"That's so sweet!" She leans over and kisses me on the cheek and squeezes my thigh under the table. "A whole half of a year. I think that's the latex anniversary."

"I thought it was leather. Or surgical steel."

I'm surprised when she places a gift-wrapped box on the table.

"And you thought I didn't care about anniversaries," she says.

"For me?" I ask unnecessarily. I'm surprised and touched. "Do you want me to open it?"

"Sure," says Dex, smiling. 

I've always liked gifts. Giving them and receiving them. Gifts that are unrelated to a holidays or birthdays or guilt are the best. They're spontaneous and unexpected, like a windfall. 

I unwrap the box, vaguely aware that fellow diners are sneaking glances my way, attracted to the shiny wrapping and glittering bow. It seems that I'm not the only one into gifts.

Dex is watching intently and I smile at her. She smiles back and there's something about it that gives me pause.

I open the box, revealing something metallic shrouded by bubble wrap.

I reluctantly lift the object out and unveil it. It's a cage of sorts, accompanied by three rings of different circumference wrapped in plastic. There's a small lock and a pair of keys. "What's this?"

"A chastity device."

I look at it, turning it over in my hands, trying to parse what Dex has said.

"For you."

I dawns on me. "Shit," I say, stuffing the thing back into its box. "Jesus," I add for good measure. "For me? Why?" I take a breath and look around the restaurant. People are either intent on their food or are embarrassed on my behalf.

"It's something I've been curious about."

"You should have bought yourself one then."

"I did. This is it." She never used to smile as much before. She's blossoming now under the new role she has carved out for herself. I wonder if I'm smiling more too. Probably.

"Don't you trust me?" I ask.

"Of course I do. That's not the point."

"Then I really don't understand."

"I want you to wear it," she says simply and I know that the conversation is coming to an end.

I shake my head.

"When you wear it, you'll think of me. You know that you'll be saving yourself for me and you'll think of when we'll uncage you... And I'll be thinking of what I hold the key to."

Dex could make the Chinese water torture sound like foreplay. I shake my head and hold my tongue. This isn't a conversation that I want to have in a crowded restaurant, so I let it drop.

On the drive home I veer from indignation to arousal and back to indignation. She shoots down my objections one by one. As a submissive, I shouldn't be objecting but Dex appears to enjoy the play. I'm sure she'll let me know if I go too far.

I'm running out of objections. We arrive at my place and I'm trotting out scenarios. "What if there's an emergency? What if I need to get out? What if I'm in a car accident or something? What if the paramedics have to perform some medically necessary procedure on my groin area and they see this contraption? They'll laugh themselves to death. Then where would I be?"

"On the side of the road with a bunch of dead paramedics." Dex walks to the kitchen and removes a water bottle from the freezer. "But if you are home, there's an emergency key in here. Melt the water and retrieve the key. The time will give you the opportunity to consider whether you really want to do it."

"Can I think about it?" 

Her brow furrows. I've protested once too much and I'll be lucky to escape the cane. I have trouble at times with the whole submissive thing. This is one of those times. I wonder if I should push it. Since the first episode last month, Dex has spared me the discipline I have consented to should she feel it necessary. The cane remains in a corner of the bedroom, a reminder of the dominion I have given her over me.

"I'm really not asking and I'm not giving you any more time to think about it." She smiles, taking the sting out of the words. She's onto me.

"And if I refuse?"

"The end result is the same. How you get there is different."

I can picture it now. There may be some pain but Dex is sure to provide some offsetting pleasure. It's certainly worth the price of a few welts. I refuse.

She rolls her eyes and retrieves the cane from the corner. "Drop them."

I undo my pants and push them along with my underwear to the ground. I step out of them and Dex uses the crop to spread my legs.

At times like this, I wonder what kind of aberrant spirit has possessed me to submit to this girl in this way. 

She taps my bare ass a few times, warming the skin.

"Let me know when you're ready to accede to my wishes."

I grunt non-committally.

I hold on for a few strokes.

"It's too bad," she says before directing a particularly stinging blow across both cheeks.

"What?" I gasp.

"I was going to give you something to remember..."

Whack...

"...before locking you up..."

Whack...

"But you've delayed so long that there's just no..."

Whack...

"...Time."

"Enough," I gasp.

Dex lowers the cane. "It's a shame. I would have enjoyed you."

I realize belatedly my error in having tried to play her.

I'm still suspicious of the device and Dex's motivation for bringing it into our lives. The device implies a lack of trust despite the key in the freezer. It's demeaning. It's an iron maiden of pubic torture. Perhaps that's the point, I muse. Of course I say none of these things.

Wordlessly I turn to face her. Despite my misgivings, I'm curious.

Dex removes the device from the packaging. There are three rings of different sizes and a gleaming silver cage, a lattice of stainless steel bands. I can't decide whether it looks medieval or alien, like some kind of exoskeleton for my beloved unit. Whichever, there is no doubt that it's a serious piece of hardware.

"The ring," Dex explains, "goes over your cock and behind your scrotum. The cage locks into the ring."

I examine the device. It's diabolical and my idiot cock, not knowing what it's getting into, is getting aroused by it. "There's no escape," I say.

"No."

Dex chooses the largest ring. It consists of a pair of semicircles, hinged at the bottom. Where the two halves come together is a flange with a hole.

Dex opens the ring and positions the hinge at the base of my scrotum. She tries to close the ring and I yelp as the open end pinches me.

"We have a problem," she observes.

"What?"

"You're hard."

"Hmm."

"We have to do something about that."

I'm game. "What do you have in mind?"

"A cold shower would do..."

My heart sinks.

"Or perhaps this."

I'm about to ask what this is when her mouth engulfs me. It's much better than a cold shower.

My libido, it seems, has a price and does not rise up again to protest when Dex prepares it for its ignominious incarceration. She lathers my nether regions in hand lotion. There's no stirring. She positions the open ring behind my balls and closes the ring around over the top of my now slumbering cock.

"Much better," murmurs Dex.

"It's tight," I say.

"It's supposed to be."

My cock meekly enters the stainless steel cage and Dex slips the flange into the slot. With a tiny click that should really sound more ominous, she snaps the lock closed that attaches the ring to the cage.

"How does that feel?" She asks.

I move my legs, testing the range of motion now that I have a shiny piece of hardware grafted onto my privates. My balls are squeezed between the ring and the base of the cage and my cock looks sad and forlorn now that it is imprisoned. I can feel it rising tentatively to explore its new home. 

Dex unclasps the chain from around her neck and slips the key to the lock onto it. The sight of the key to my release between her breasts prompts a familiar tingle of arousal.

I look at my thickening member, encased in a network of metal. No jailbreak for you, I think.

***

The first full day of chastity passes in a state of rueful discomfort and adolescent semi-arousal.

There is a steep learning curve. For one, urinating while standing is a messy affair. I have become a sitter. In addition, I have to adopt a certain wide-legged cowboy swagger to accommodate my squashed nuts. Jogging is out of the question. I move gingerly, like an old man. I make old man noises when sitting down or standing up. 

And so I spend that first day trapped in a cycle of arousal, discomfort, and limp resignation. I'm glad that it is Sunday so that I can get used to the shiny new prosthetic and I return frequently to the bathroom to gaze at it in perplexed disbelief. I poke experimentally through the holes in the cage to see if I can sufficiently arouse myself just to spite Dex and her diabolical cunning. If I can achieve release despite the cage, I will have won. There's no winning however; just cramped pain and the anguish of denial. There's no denying my submission now.

The day is replete with challenges. I have to relearn how to sit, how to walk. I experiment with clothing. However flaccid I may be, the cage nonetheless protrudes slightly. It's not codpiece-obvious, but I still unconsciously adopt a slight hunch. I discover also that my wardrobe has its limitations. Sweatpants, I learn, just won't do. Nor do my thinner dress pants. I try multiple pairs of underwear, hoping that layering will hide the bulge without making me look like I'm wearing a diaper. I debate the strategic application of duct tape. In the end, I find that jeans work the best. Chinos are okay too. Even then, I have to make sure I'm properly aligned, tucked carefully behind the zipper. Any move right or left reveals an unsightly tumescence. I turn this way and that in front of the mirror, checking the results of my sartorial deliberations. I sigh. Half of the pants I own are inappropriate now as they do little to mask the fact that my privates have been assimilated by the Borg.

Resistance is futile.

Sunday is the day on which I typically run errands. Now I'm not so sure. Despite the careful placement of my encased unit behind my zipper and my belief that no one really looks there anyway, my own focus on my nether regions and awkward gait have me convinced that I will be somehow found out, that my groin is a shiny, blinking object to which everyone's attention will be drawn. It seems inevitable that I will be held up as the object of mockery the minute I step out of my house.

There's no help for it. I have to go out. I need food, for instance. I need to do some banking. I debate it. I weigh the options and consequences. I could nip out quickly, I decide. It'll be a test drive of sorts, to see whether I can function in public with imprisoned privates.

I fidget in my car on the way to the supermarket. It's impossible to get comfortable. The lock at the top of the cage digs into me. I mutter a curse under my breath and slip my hand into my pants to adjust it. This is stupid. What kind of man accepts this kind of treatment? What kind of woman would demand it?

The internet is full of men who have demeaned themselves to whip-toting, PVC-clad women with sneering faces. I know—I've looked it up. Men who lick their boots, cry in anguish at the blows that rain on them, have their cocks twisted into pretzels. 

I can't believe I'm one of them now.

I take a deep breath when I exit my car. I'm terribly self-conscious as I walk to the store, glancing down repeatedly to ensure that my alignment isn't off. I'm grateful for the shopping cart and its hitherto unexpected powers of concealment. 

My cock rolls meekly around in the cage as I swagger among the fruits and vegetables. Its erect bravado of the morning has evaporated. Like me, it would prefer to hide now and avoid any possibility of detection. It's unnerving that I feel it. It's somehow wrong that I should be so keenly aware of its existence as I navigate the aisles and displays among the masses who have no idea of the deviant who walks among them. 

By the apples my scrotum is pinched unexpectedly and I wince and wordlessly curse Dex for having brought me to this. 

By the cantaloupes, it occurs to me that I cannot, in all fairness, blame Dex for my uncomfortable condition. Doing so, I realize, misses the point. While I may have accepted her as my mistress, she is not my jailer after all, and any anger at her for my current predicament is misplaced. I've consented to this and I have no one to blame but myself if submission isn't all sunshine and roses. It's easy, I realize, to fall into the victim trap, to forget that the dom is only dominant at the pleasure of the sub, particularly when you're tied down and being flogged, or when you're wearing a steel cage around your cock. I imagine that it's easy for the dom to forget too. For the sub to be a victim, the dom, by definition, must be a victimizer, one who preys on the weakness of others. I don't see our relationship in those terms. I'm no more a victim, having consented to this and having the freedom to stop it, than Dex is some kind of heartless tyrant. 

The key to this contraption is sitting in my freezer, after all. Freedom is a short melt away. 

If I remain caged, it is entirely my choice. Whether or not I choose to suffer the consequences and discomfort is again my choice. 

The thought, started among the cantaloupes and completed somewhere around the deli counter, where a young girl is eager to take my order, washes over me. I am a submissive only as long as I choose to be. I have it in my power to stay or leave. As Dex once said, there's a difference between creating a pussy and taming a lion.

"Sir?" says the girl.

I'm certainly no pussy. I'm still a lion, I hope, albeit one who has recognized the benefits of being tamed. It's entirely within my rights to throw off the shackles of captivity at any time and again prowl the world as I once did...

"Sir?"

"Head cheese," I say. "Two hundred grams."

The girl turns to the slicer.

...but I am not so inclined. Dex has demonstrated that she is a master of balancing pain and pleasure, risk and reward. And so the lion gladly accepts these gifts. My keeper has grown on me...

"Anything else?"

"No thank you."

...and has introduced me to a world of heightened sensitivity and unexpected pleasure. For all the missteps we've had and frustrations she has subjected me to, I feel that Dex is the one person who has understood me the best. For whatever reason, this strange woman recognized something in me that I had no idea existed. For that reason I forgive her occasional aloofness and inscrutability. 

I navigate the rest of the supermarket with more confidence now. I feel that it is incumbent on me to honor her by accepting the device without frivolous complaint. As ego is a poison for the dom, so too is diffidence for the sub. It is possible and necessary—I see that now—for the sub to be confident in his submission. Confident that his mistress is attuned to him and his needs, confident what she will respect the limits.

I buy some talcum powder to help with the chafing.

I'm less distressed and self-conscious when I leave the grocery store. Perhaps being out and about for an hour had helped. Maybe I'll even attempt the hardware store. I don't check my reflection in the windows as I walk by. I was right before—no one looks. And if they do, who cares? I can be as discreet about this as I am with other parts of my life. And if I get home without incident and the paramedics don't reveal my sad state, no one ever needs to be the wiser.

Yes, the device is uncomfortable, both physically and symbolically, but I don't believe it is an expression of mistrust on the part of Dex, nor is it designed to humiliate. It is at most a symbol of control, and because I have willingly given it up, there's little point in complaining about it now.

I get into my car with a noise, part groan of discomfort, part sigh of relief. By the time I return to my house and unpack the groceries, my nuts are chafing and there is a warning ache in my lower back. 

I won't ask her to remove the device, though I'm tempted to. I won't beg. Dex would lose respect for me if I did. I'd lose respect for myself. Inasmuch as it's still possible to have self-respect while wearing a chastity device, I remind myself again that it's something I've accepted voluntarily. 

I draw strength from my discomfort, knowing that each moment that passes brings release closer.

I invite Dex over for dinner. Although I won't ask for release, I'm not above hoping that she might have some kind of merciful pardon in mind. 

She defers until Monday night. 

That's okay with me.

***

I wake on Monday morning having had another miserable night of sleep. Every toss, every turn, is accompanied by a pinching of my swollen and distended nuts or twisting of the cage. I find myself in an array of unnatural positions that ease discomfort but deny sleep. In my dream, the cage is Dex's firm grip. 

In the shower I direct a stream of icy water at my groin but even that is insufficient to the task of subduing my fevered prisoner. I think of the movie Papillon. I think of Houdini. Neither provides any inspiration or distraction. I feel that I will forever have the imprint of metal etched on my tender flesh.

I pat myself down with talcum powder. 

I put on the thickest pair of chinos I have. Despite my near certainty that I am sufficiently concealed, I know I will be self-consciously crotch gazing all day.

We've just landed a contract for a series of radio spots for a home improvement chain. A script review is the first order of business on Monday morning.

I sit carefully in the boardroom. My balls, splayed out between the ring and the cage, rub my inner thighs and anything but a careful and considerate lowering of the buttocks might cause a painful crushing in that area, as I learned again this morning when I launched myself unthinkingly into the bucket seat of my car.

Roger, our lead writer, reads us the script. From the opening lines, I know exactly where he's going. It pisses me off.

While Roger tries to win us over with his idea, I think for a moment about fathers and sons. I try to apply the picture that Roger is painting to my father. I can't. I try to apply it to me and I can't either, but I know too many guys to whom it sadly does apply. 

I have a theory about what happened to guys between my dad's generation and mine. My dad, it should be said, was old school. No touchy-feely bullshit for him. As far as I know, he only wept once as an adult, when his own mother died. I never saw it; I only heard about it, second hand. I remember him being busy all the time, doing the things a man used to do for himself rather than paying another man to do them for him. Fixing his car, for instance. Or building things. I remember the incessant scream of the circular saw when I, as a late teen, would be nursing a hangover on Sunday morning, cursing my dad and his bloody circular saw and what it did to television reception. He was always building things, and perhaps trying to build a son in his own image, by his example.

I came around to his way of thinking and eventually asked him for help and learned some things along the way. Like how to be a man.




Swallowtail Ch. 09



Back to my theory, which I have to say my father co-authored. It all came apart in the sixties, according to my dad. The drugs. The yawning generational divide. The desire to find yourself as though what you were was all that bad to begin with. The sexual revolution. A lot of guys, he said, were blindsided by it. They went along with it partly because it was pretty heady stuff and partly because it was somewhat easier to get laid. So you had this generation of young people redefining what they were. Women, he said, had a better sense of evolution. They had clear goals. Guys, on the other hand, didn't have a clue. So while women were upping their game and moving forward and taking what was theirs, men were all too happy to give up what it was to be a man. Their fathers were men and their fathers were benighted and old and out-of-touch, everything that this generation didn't want to be. Forget for a moment that their fathers were also independent, capable, and responsible. For the young generation, men's response to the sexual revolution was to become less manly. It should have been the opposite. 

And that's why I'm irritated by Roger's script, with its shadow of a man and a spouse who could out-man him any day. I'm also irritated that I'm thinking of the nature of man while wearing a chastity device that is chafing like the devil.

He finishes and looks at Sharon and me expectantly.

"I like it," says Sharon.

Roger beams.

She would like it, I think. Any woman would. I take a deep breath. "I'm not so sure," I say. I know I have to tread carefully here and weigh my misgivings against a creative ego that is easily bruised, but the words don't come out that way. I adjust myself in my seat. "Do we have to do the emasculated moron thing?" I say. "Is that really the best we can do or what we want to say about the target audience? The script is funny and engaging and all, but it rubs me the wrong way."

Roger is hurt. He looks down at his laptop. "It works," he says. "It has worked before."

"Exactly. It's been done to death. Sitcoms, ads, everything. It's too easy. The world doesn't need another guy who thinks that a grease nipple is where the KY comes out."

"That's good," says Roger, trying to lighten the mood with a laugh that comes across as strangulation. "You should be writing this stuff." He makes a show of writing it down.

The irony isn't lost on me. Here I sit, my manhood encaged, waxing poetic on emasculation. I shake my head.

Roger misunderstands. He raises his hands in surrender. "Okay. I got it. Back to the drawing board. Swinging dicks and power tools. Recipe for success, eh?"

Roger's bitter. I feel like a shit. 

"Weren't you a little rough on Roger?" asks Sharon after Roger has left.

"Maybe," I say. "He'll get over it." The ring is chafing and I want nothing more than to make some minor adjustments. "Did you really think it was funny?"

"I thought it was sad. And spot-on."

***

It is then that my Blackberry chimes a reminder. I look at it. I'm sure my eyes widen. I know I moan. I'd been so distracted all weekend by my new situation, the here and now, that I hadn't considered its impact on my schedule, the then and there. The then is my weekly squash game and the there is the gym. Going shopping and hiding behind a cart is one thing. Playing squash at the health club is another thing entirely. I look again at my reminder. Dave, my squash partner, will have left his office already. There's no canceling, not now. Delay is not the answer, I realize. I waddle quickly to my office to retrieve my gym bag.

I get the gym early so that I can change in a vacant locker bay before Dave shows up. It's just before the lunchtime rush, when office trolls unleash their inner gladiators before returning again to their caves. I'm worried that my shorts won't sufficiently conceal the steel cage that weighs between my legs. I look around. I'm alone. I dig around in my bag. There I find my bathing suit, a tight lycra number that resembles bicycle shorts. I face the lockers and pull it on, adjust myself, and then don my gym shorts. It looks dorky with a band of lycra peeking out from the hem of my shorts but at least my handicap is somewhat disguised. I sidle up to the mirror and turn this way and that and get a strange look from a gym gorilla who has more reason than I do to be admiring his physique in mirrors. I waddle to the squash court to wait for Dave.

I whack the ball around the court. I lunge around like a spaz. This is the first time that I've done anything more physical than walking since Dex caged me. I am more aware of the weight of the device than ever. Every leap, every twist, is telegraphed to my groin. Some maneuvers—ones that I've performed somewhat elegantly in the past—now pinch my nuts and tug at me. If not for my self-consciousness I might derive some pleasure from it.

"What's wrong?" asks Dave, entering the sweatbox. "You're moving like a geriatric."

I shrug. "Stiffness."

The game ends with Dave beating me handily. His victory can be easily explained by the fact that I've tried to keep my back to him the whole game. We head for the locker room. Dave is not an exhibitionist and is suspicious of those who are. I'm thankful that he thinks nothing of it when I return from the showers with a towel wrapped around my waist and keep it in place as I maneuver myself into my underwear. 

I'll have to talk to Dex about this. This arrangement is clearly more difficult than I thought it would be.

***

"I was thinking of you all day," says Dex.

As always, the sight of her is arresting. As always, the misgivings and doubts that I've harbored in her absence flee. I'm baffled by the power she has over me. Most men would give their lives for their partners, many share their present and future financial wellbeing. I've given my autonomy. And as it is for those other men, it feels right.

"How are you adjusting?"

"It chafes," I say. "It itches. It feels like I've had my nuts switched with those of a bull elephant. Somewhere in Africa the other elephants are laughing at the poor creature who ended up with mine."

Dex kisses me then. "Don't think that I don't appreciate it."

I want to ask her why this is so important but I don't really need to. I know. It's a symbol. It's an expression of my willing submission to her. And it's far more substantial than any ring. 

I'm glad that she doesn't tease me about it, lording the fact that she carries the key. I like to think that I'd put a stop to it if she did.

After supper Dex suggests that we shower together before settling down for the night. I happily agree. Dex takes perverse pleasure in ensuring that my cage is clean. I tell her that there's no reason to worry—right now there's no room in the cage for me and a germ.

I return the favor by washing her private parts to the point of deep breathing before stopping. I want to make a point. I'm sure it's not lost on Dex.

She has borrowed one of my t-shirts but has asked me to remain undressed. She says she likes to look at me. I'm more flattered than anything else. I'm hoping that she might want to do more than look.

"You can lie down and put your head down on my lap if you want," she says.

I do. Lying on my side is uncomfortable so I'm grateful for her suggestion. Dex idly strokes my chest, seemingly engrossed in the movie that I'm unable to concentrate on. There's no indication that she has anything planned so I content myself with the feeling of her touch. 

"You planned this all along," I say during a commercial.

"No," she says. "Not all along."

"When did you realize that I was so weak?"

Dex makes an impatient noise. "You really don't understand. It's not weakness. If anything, it's a different face of strength. It takes strength to trust, to place your well-being in the hands of another when you don't need to. If you were weak, I would never have considered you."

Dex's logic escapes me and I tell her so.

"If you were weak, you'd be an unsatisfying plaything, nothing more. We'd bore each other. Your strength brings out the best in me to bring out the best in you. With our strengths, there's no end to what we can explore together."

I digest this for a moment. If this had been a conversation that I'd been eavesdropping on, I'd be rolling my eyes and pitying the poor slob who'd hitched his wagon to this particular nag. But the pieces are coming together. I'm forming a picture of where we've been and where we might yet go.

The prospect excites me.

"When did you know?"

"What?"

"When we might have something."

She thinks for a moment. "When the roles were reversed. When you tied me up with thread." 

Her hand soon finds its way between my legs. Though I can't feel her touch directly, I do feel the weight and warmth of her hand. It's a hopeful sign and I pray that she will unlock me so that I can relish my freedom once again.

"You could have used a heavy hand. You could have overwhelmed me. Instead, you showed me creativity and an understanding of what it means to be dominant. It's not about power or ego or forcing helplessness; it's about creating a comfortable place for the other to submit. You understood these things intuitively and that suggested to me that you might be receptive to having that kind of dominance applied to you." 

Her fingers investigate the holes in my cage and I soon swell painfully to fill the unyielding metal. She cups my trapped and distended nuts and I squirm. No doubt my cock will be forever embossed, so hard is it pressing against the metal.

"Will you unlock me?" I have vowed not to beg but am near my wit's end.

Dex seems entranced by the movie. "Possibly," she says absently. There's a tone in her voice that I've learned to recognize.

"May I try to convince you?" I ask.

"You can try."

I roll off the sofa, wincing as my thighs squash my balls. I kneel on the floor. I push her knees apart and pull her toward me.

For the first time I feel like a slave and find nothing particularly demeaning about it. Pleasure given will be pleasure rewarded.

Dex spreads her legs for me and I bend to my task. She's wet and I wonder whether she is as aroused by my submission as I am.

I slide a finger into her and pull her closer to the edge of the sofa. Her chest rises and I take a moment to take first one, and then the other pierced nipple into my mouth. She grinds into my hand as I do so and my teeth play with the intersection of metal and flesh.

I spread my own legs in an effort to relieve the pressure of constraint but it is futile. I'm still hard and the confinement of the cage is both painful and arousing.

I take my time with Dex. She'll know if I'm hurrying, trying to get this over with to hasten my own pleasure. I pull her clitoris into my mouth and lave it with my tongue. I close my teeth slightly, holding it as captive as Dex holds me. I feel her hands in my hair and her hips rise to meet me.

She draws her knees to her chest and takes a deep, shuddering breath. I release her from my teeth and assault her anew with my tongue. 

A hitching breath and a muted moan herald release. I can imagine her face. For Dex, climax has nothing of the seizure that I've seen on the faces of other lovers. Her face is beatific. I can think of no other word for it. If she had wrinkles, they would vanish. There's a calmness in her orgasm. A transcendence. 

My face is wet with Dex and I greedily lap her up. 

"That was good," she purrs when the last shuddering wave of climax has ebbed into the distance.

I'm hopeful.

"Come here, sailor." Her fingers walk my sides, drawing me to her until the gleam of metal is firmly planted against the moist bed of her pussy. I feel her warmth and her inviting wetness seeps into my cage. I press for the entry I feel I have earned but her hands on my hips arrest my motion.

"Nothing is so enticing as that which is denied," she says.

Oh shit. "What does that mean?" I ask, knowing full well what it means.

"It's too soon to unlock you."

I'm hugely disappointed but hold my tongue with a massive effort of will. She's watching my expression and I wonder what she expects to see there. Anger? Defeat? More submission? I force myself to adopt a look of calm acceptance. I must wait. That's all. Wait until Dex sees fit to release me. 

"But I can help you relieve some of the pressure," she says.

I'm up for anything. The world between my legs is nothing but pressure.

She instructs me to position myself on my hands and knees. I hear her retreat to the bedroom and return a moment later. "I think you'll like this," she says.

I hear the snap of latex and feel a blob of lube applied to my anus. I've grown accustomed to thinking of the ass—mine in particular—as an erogenous zone. It has been one of the bigger revelations during my time with Dex. I've learned to suppress my preconceptions and give myself over to the sensations she arouses there. Still, that doesn't prevent me from protesting with indignant manliness when her finger penetrates me.

"Relax."

I exhale and trace her path into me. She plays with me first, circling the button of my anus, dipping a finger in and out. At length I feel her knuckles against my cheeks and she hooks her finger, exploring until she finds the prostate.

"Hello," I gasp.

"Back at you." I can hear the smile in her voice.

She pokes and prods until the tenor of my whimpering arousal informs her that she has found a promising spot. She focuses on it. She presses it with an insistence that she hasn't employed before. The feeling is uncanny. I press against her hand. It's deep arousal without the external stimulus that I've forever associated with fulfillment. She works the depths of me firmly. There's a tingling at the root of my cock. It's like the slowest orgasm I've ever had. I feel fluid slowly working its way through my length, prodded along by Dex's insistent finger. It's as frustrating as it is enjoyable. 

I look between my legs and note the dribble of come that hangs from the cage, about to join the other dribbles on the hardwood floor. She continues to milk me. I still want to fuck her, but she has taken the edge off the rough diamond of desire.

I can wait.

She stays over and I am intensely aware of the promise of rapture in her body, the places of yielding softness, the places of warmth and welcome. Before we sleep, she guides my hand to the valley between her breasts and I feel the key she keeps there. 

"Soon," she says.

***

Thanks for reading. Your comments are greatly appreciated.



Swallowtail Ch. 10



Swallowtail is a novel that traces the narrator's gradual acceptance of submission.

Previously: The narrator has given Dex blanket consent and is prepared to explore what submission to her might mean. 

***

Beyond the chastity device I now wear most of the time, beyond even the fading welts from the cane that has recently assaulted the flesh of my back, buttocks and legs, there's perhaps no greater evidence of my willing submission to this woman than the fact that I am sitting on the sofa with her, a bowl of popcorn between us, watching a dancing competition on the tube. Dex, the goth princess who has claimed dominance over a large swath of my life, stares at the television in rapt attention. My friends would look at me askance for sitting here like this. Good thing they don't know the rest of it.

Dex now divides her time almost equally between my house and wherever it is that she lives. The place feels empty when she's not here and almost overwhelming when she is. We've settled into the easy rhythm of quasi-domesticity, though one punctuated by the occasional use of a crop or flogger against my recalcitrant flesh for infractions real or imagined.

A few weeks ago I bought Dex a toothbrush and placed it in the holder next to mine. She would never be so presumptuous to bring her own and I could tell that the symbolism of the two toothbrushes was not lost on her.

"Yikes," says Dex about some dance move I'm not quick enough to catch.

For the most part, I have become comfortable with submission and somewhat addicted to the intensity and creativity that Dex brings to our relationship. I remember that Dex had me figured out from the very first—the jaded yuppie who'd grown tired of the parade of easy but unimaginative bedmates whose notion of daring was fucking with the lights on and for whom an exuberant smack on the ass might have been cause for charges. No less insightful on Dex's part was the intuition that I might be willing to relinquish control. She'd recognized a possibility I would never have imagined.

It's the kind of bright Saturday in early May when the world seems to take a deep breath and stretch after a long, cold winter. Dex has an appointment at the piercing studio where she works. A frenum ladder, she tells me. I grimace.

I'm planning to do some yardwork outside while she's away. Things like raking the lawn awake now that the blanket of snow has vanished into the earth. Cleaning up the branches that litter my lawn. But Dex has other plans for me. She locks me up in my chastity device and instructs me not to get dressed. "I want to think of you like this," she says as she snaps the lock shut, securing the cage to the ring. "I have plans for you tonight."

Yardwork, it seems, will have to wait. I'm a little resentful that my plans have been delayed, but equally intrigued by the promise of Dex's return. 

When she leaves, I close the blinds throughout the house, not wanting to frighten anyone who might be enjoying a hike along the trail behind my house.

I try to work but am distracted by my nudity, the device that secures my privates and the prospect of the evening with Dex now that I have given her my consent to test the boundaries of our relationship. It's spring, after all, and while a young man's fancy might lightly turn to thoughts of love, mine turn to thoughts of the crops and paddles and leather I might face tonight. Of pain and pleasure and sweat and come. Of submission and domination. After rereading the same paragraph for the umpteenth time and realizing that I've managed to retain nothing, I close the document. 

Even though Dex and I have been together for over half a year and the strange momentum of our relationship has led us to this place, I am still relatively new to submission and from time to time its yoke rests uneasily on my shoulders. I trust Dex but it's difficult to reconcile my professional life and persona with the one that now exists behind closed doors. At work I'm the one with whom the buck stops. I decide things. I'm the boss. I possess the business relationships and the savvy that is somehow parlayed into revenue. There are times when I feel like the master of my little universe. Within the walls of my home though, I submit to the will of a dark, gothic twenty-something and am the master of very little. It's completely at odds with the guy who wears suits and attends power lunches and schmoozes with the best of them. I don't know why it works; I only know that it does. Dex has tapped something in me that has become as vital to me as oxygen. 

Although submission has become a large part of my life, I've resisted the notion that I might belong to a community of others who share the same tastes. I know such a community exists, but I've chosen to ignore it for the simple reason that I find it difficult to respect others who submit as I do. It's clear that my arrogance is hypocritical and untenable. Perhaps my hypocrisy is coming to a head. Perhaps that's why I find work so difficult today.

So I sit, my privates encased and locked in a thick layer of steel, considering my ignorance of the world to which I seem to belong. If I am truly to commit to this lifestyle, to be a good submissive to the woman I've chosen to be my dom, then I owe it to myself to do my research. 

With some trepidation I venture onto the Web to see if I can learn anything of what consent and submission might entail. I have largely avoided it until now, fearing that alternative expressions of submission might become possibilities in my own life. I've been happy to go along with Dex without considering the branches that she might take off the path we've been on. Now that my skin is in the game, I'm more curious about what might be done to it. 

I click through to various sites. I have already felt pleasure and pain at Dex's hand—the two are not as different as I had expected—but am unprepared for the pictures of degradation and humiliation that I encounter on the Web. I recognize the mechanics of some of the scenes, but the tone of them is much different than what I enjoy under Dex. I see both men and women treated in ways that make me uneasy and uncomfortable. I see them humiliated and debased, insulted and taunted. I see them groveling and crying, and though they may seem fulfilled at the end of the scene, I can't help but to hold these people with some disdain and pity. 

I can't see Dex elevating herself on my debasement, but I don't know for sure. Nor can I see myself ever accepting such treatment. I wonder whether my consent necessarily entails my eventual humiliation. Am I being diminished without realizing the extent? How would I react if I were asked to go around on hands and knees in my own house or be forced to watch as she bestowed her favors on another? I'm watching a video on my laptop and I ask myself: how different is the poor slob who is licking his mistress's boot to the guy sitting naked in his own house, locked in a metal cage, waiting for the object of his desire to return?

Dex and I have only spoken of the limits to her authority over me in general terms. So far, I have trusted her judgment and have not been disappointed. 

Now, though, I have to consider that the consent I've given her might lead us onto paths I'm not prepared for.

***

Dex returns a little after seven that evening. I stand as she enters the living room. She is beautiful and intense in her goth finery and heavy makeup. It's clear by the way her green eyes take me in that she has been as distracted as I.

She presses me against the wall and kisses me hungrily, her body hard against mine. The stud that adorns her tongue raps against my teeth. The fingernails of one hand rake my ass while the other strokes my balls. "I've been thinking of you all day."

My erection strains against the cage. "Me too."

"I've never had a submissive waiting for me like this."

The word stings, particularly since I've been obsessing about submission all day, thinking about the limits and consequences, wondering how it is that I've gotten from where I was to where I am and where I might yet go. It's not the first time I've heard the word or have had it applied to me, but having it stated so baldly now causes something inside of me to shrivel. "Do you want me to call you mistress now?"

Dex frowns, catching my less than playful tone. "It depends if we're just playing or if it's in the context of something more permanent. It means different things depending on what you want."

I'm reluctant to share my feelings with her. I guess I'm still a typical guy in that way. Strong and silent. Right. 

Dex strokes my cheek. Our eyes lock. There's a hint of concern in hers. I don't know what mine reveal. "For what it's worth," she says carefully, "I'd love to be your mistress, in play and in life. I'd be honored if you called me that."

She's serious.

"Where would you take us?"

"That depends mainly on how far you want me to go and how much you trust me to go there."

There it is. Trust. Trust that she doesn't lead me on paths that I'm unwilling to tread. Trust that she can balance the pain and pleasure, the risk and reward. Trust that the slippery slope I've been on won't plunge me into the abyss populated by the kind of beaten and desperate people I've seen on the internet. 

"I trust you," I say.

Within limits remains unspoken.

***

"Stand in the corner," says Dex. "Face the wall."

The memory comes back as fresh as the day it happened. I'm a child. Grade one or two. Accused of some transgression or another. I've been singled out by the teacher. This was back in the days where humiliation was a justified weapon in the hands of teachers who needed to keep control.

"No peeking," says Dex.

I listen to the sound of her undressing. I can imagine her naked, her lithe, pale body, the glint of cold metal at her nipples and labia, the swallowtail tattoo on her lower abdomen. I can feel her green eyes scrutinizing me. I hear the sound of leather being stretched and the sharp sound of stilettos on the hardwood floor as they approach me. I feel a crop resting lightly on my ass. 

"You can turn around."

I do so.

What I have heard has titillated me; what I see takes my breath way. Dex is every inch the dom. She wears a leather underbust corset that highlights the pale fullness of her breasts and the narrowness of her waist. Leather boots that descend from just below the knees make her legs look impossibly long and slender. The crop rests lightly against her calf.

"Wow," I say. If I am to be dominated by her, I have to count myself lucky.

"You like?" she asks.

I nod. 

Dex smiles. "Good." She turns and saunters slowly and deliberately to a steamer trunk that contains our growing arsenal of erotic appurtenances. She opens the lid and bends over, revealing the shapely curve of her hips and ass that frames the shadowed folds of her pussy.

She returns holding an assortment of leather cuffs and clips. My mouth is dry.

Dex places one of my hands on her breast and fastens the cuff to my wrist. Her skin is warm and soft under my palm. She repeats the process with the other wrist and then cuffs my ankles. Another band of leather encircles my neck. She then slips a leather blindfold over my head. "Lights out, lover," she purrs. 

I hear Dex rummaging around the trunk again.

"Open your mouth," she says a moment later.

I comply and a large object is inserted between my teeth. Straps are quickly cinched over and behind my head and under my chin. 

"You're quite the vision," she says.

I'm glad I can't see myself. I have no doubt that I look like any number of slaves on the internet. I push the thought away. How can I judge them? Certainly not when my own situation and the anticipation of play has me aching with excitement.

Although I'm intimately aware of everything in my home, I'm strangely off-balance as Dex leads me to the support column that stands between the living room and dining room. She binds my wrists behind the column. Without a word she walks away and soon returns, depositing a bunch of stuff at my feet.

I strain to hear what she might be doing. I don't have to wait long until I feel lube spread over and within my anus. 

"On your toes," she says.

I comply. The crop pressed against my balls encourages me higher still. I feel something thick and hard at my ass and I struggle to relax, knowing that tension will only make the inevitable penetration more uncomfortable.

"Good," says Dex as she patiently works the length within me. I gasp when the widest part breaches the ring of muscle.

Dex hums her satisfaction with the arrangement. "Feeling okay?" She asks.

I nod.

"Snap your fingers if you've had enough."

I've forgotten that I can't exactly blurt out my safe word.

She taps the insides of my legs with the crop and I spread them, lowering myself on the dildo in the process. I move in the smallest of increments, like a geriatric attempting the splits, knowing that the farther apart I spread my legs, the more of the dildo I have to take. She attaches a spreader bar to my ankles and pauses to stroke the insides of my thighs. 

She withdraws but I'm sure that she's not far, observing me. I'm still standing on my toes and within minutes my calves grow tired and I lower myself a fraction to relieve the pain and feel a corresponding penetration. Whatever it is, it is braced against the floor. 

"Still okay?"

I nod.

Nothing happens for a while. Only Dex's gentle breathing betrays her presence.

My calves are now aching and it's a struggle to remain on my toes. The dildo seems to widen along its length.

"Are you ready to please me?"

I've been so busy trying to find a balance between easing the ache in my legs and that of my stretched anus that her words startle me. I grunt. Anything if it means an end to my discomfort.

Dex fumbles with the front of my gag and in a moment it feels heavier. I move my head. She has attached something to the part of the ball that emerges from my mouth. 

I hear the scraping of a chair across the floor and hear it creak as she climbs onto it. She is elevated in front of me and I feel the twin globes of her ass pressed against my chest.

"You need to lower yourself."

I attempt to do so. Her proximity makes it impossible to make up the distance by bending forward. The only way I can reach where she wants me to go is to lower myself as she has commanded. The inch that I can manage feels like a foot and I feel myself stretched mercilessly.

"You can do better than that."

Her ass is at my chin and my legs begin to quiver as I lower myself yet another painful fraction of an inch.

Almost there.

I'll never make it, I think.

Just then Dex changes the angle of her hips and I can feel her heat and smell her arousal, which painfully prompts my own within the tight confines of the cage. I feel her hand on the dildo that extends from my mouth. I feel her guide it to her entrance. "You know what to do."

I marvel at the mind of the woman who came up with this scene.

I push my face to her, sensing the passage of the dildo into her with my mouth. My thighs are burning now and my ass is filled with the lube-slick device that I'm riding upon. My attention is divided between the thick length that impales me and the action that Dex is expecting. When the latter falters, the crop reminds me of my primary duty.

I moan into the gag that is stuffed in my mouth. It's difficult to determine whether it is from pleasure or pain or the uneasy marriage of the two. I redouble my efforts on Dex, not knowing how much more I can stand and praying that she will attain whatever pleasure she is after before I collapse completely.

I hear the hum of a vibrator and feel its buzzing extending to my face. Judging by her breathing and the way she is moving against me, she is clearly close to something. 

She lowers her hips which forces me lower still. My own strangled moan of aroused pain entwines with hers. I feel her spasm through the dildo.

Dex slows the movement of her hips and rises slightly. Gratefully I rise with her almost to the point where I can enjoy the feeling of my continued penetration. My legs stop quivering as they straighten and Dex disengages from the dildo at my mouth. 

Dex removes the gag and the blindfold and I am greeted by a vision of flushed beauty and hunger and incredible vitality and confidence.

"That was good, lover." She kisses me lingeringly and I want nothing more than to be able to wrap my arms around her. "Ready for your reward?"

I nod.

"Do you want me to remove this?" She taps at the dildo that still penetrates me.

I surprise her by shaking my head. In truth, it doesn't feel too bad now.

"How about this?" She taps at the cage. The sharp impact there causes my breath to hitch in my throat. I nod.

"I think we can do that," says Dex as she kneels before me. One hand explores the flesh that is exposed in the open areas of the cage while the other traces patterns on the distended surface of my testicles. 

"Please," I moan.

"Did I say you could speak?" asks Dex lightly. She's more amused that annoyed. 

"Shall I release you?"

I nod.

Dex inserts her tongue into the opening at the very tip of the cage. 

My knees grow weak and I'm reminded that I'm still perched upon a thick shaft of silicon.

"You're not going to blow up at me when I do, are you?"

I shake my head emphatically. I can make no such assurance, but the prospect of freedom would make me promise anything.

"Because..." Here she takes my steel encased length into her mouth for a moment and then releases it. "I'd be disappointed if you did." 

With her saliva cooling my overheated sex, she reaches between her breasts and grasps the key. I dare not breath when she inserts it into the lock. She can easily change her mind and deny me the release I've been craving. She has done it before. The lock opens with a snick and she removes it from the hasp of the device. She holds the halves of the device together, grinning at me mischievously.

"Will you please me?"

I'm almost delirious with hunger. "Yes, mistress."

Dex frowns. "Didn't I ask you not to speak?"

My heart sinks. I've blown it. She'll no doubt lock me up again.

"Ah well. I'll forgive you this time. By the way, I like the sound of it. Say it again." 

"Mistress." It's easy to say in play.

She stands. Still holding the device, she presses against me, her body hot and yielding against mine.

"Mistress," I say again. I want to say more at this moment but don't trust myself.

The ring of the device opens and clatters to the floor. The cage is still painfully welded to my cock.

"I hope I don't have to tell you to be quiet again." 

I shake my head. 

Dex peels the cage from me and my cock swells. I sigh loudly; it's a relief to be free.

She kisses the tip and looks up at me. "You're not going to come in my mouth, are you?"

Not if I can help it. I shake my head.

Her hands wrap around the base. "My plans don't include that," she says.

She lowers her mouth onto me. After the tight, implacable confines of the cage, the touch of soft warmth around me is almost overwhelming. I feel like I can swell to fill her mouth. Dex works on me slowly, maintaining me at the threshold without ever nudging me too far. I watch the play of her lips and tongue over me, watch as my glistening length vanishes into her. I close my eyes to focus on the sensations of this wonderfully languorous treatment and momentarily forget my promise.

A crack of the crop against my thigh arrests by slide to release.

"If I even think you're going to come before I do, you get one of these," says Dex, brandishing the cane.

I nod.

Dex stands and replenishes the lube on the dildo. She then turns and leans her back against me. At the moment I miss the freedom to reach around and grab her breasts and brush her nipples. I want desperately to feel their yielding softness. She slowly bends at the waist and plays my cock against the surface of her pussy.




Swallowtail Ch. 10



At length she stops teasing and quickly captures me. With a seductive sway of her hips she takes me in until her ass presses against me. From my vantage point, bound as I am to the column, her movements mesmerize. She leans forward, hands grasping her ankles, and arches her back. I watch the play of her back and hips, movements that are enticing and beguiling, designed to highlight her claiming of me. 

She bends her knees and lowers herself and I am forced more deeply upon the dildo to follow suit. The culmination of sensations threatens to overwhelm me.

The cane traces the inside of my thigh, reminding me of my assurance to her. My customary methods of distraction aren't helping. The sensations threaten to overwhelm me and there's little I can do to shove them into the background. My body is on a trajectory that my mind can no longer control.

"Hit me," I gasp.

Dex delivers a stinging blow to my hip.

"Again." If she's hitting me, then at least she'll have to stop her dance for a moment.

I moan but am not sure whether of pain or pleasure.

She continues to strike my thighs with the cane. I'll have welts there tomorrow. I don't care. She can draw blood if it means regaining control. With her help I climb slowly down from the peak. I take a steadying breath.

"You good?" asks Dex.

I don't answer.

Dex releases me, stands upright and turns to face me. She leans her forearms on my shoulders and presses me down until my cock aligns with her pussy to her satisfaction. She watches my face as she does so. She appears dispassionate but curious, and I wonder whether she is relishing her power over me. I don't mind if she is. I'm relishing it enough for both of us. My thighs are burning again. My calves have long ago surrendered. I suspect she has exaggerated the maneuver because the dildo occupies me like never before. She lifts herself and mounts me then and slides easily down my length until we're face to face. I'm blissfully enveloped. 

She smiles. "You feel good." 

"You too."

Her movements are small and focused, which is just as well because I'm not sure how much I can take. She angles her pelvis until she finds the spot that she wants. Her eyes are closed and she bites her lower lip as she rides me. I feel her legs flexing against mine, our sweaty abdomens sliding and feel her once again descending to envelop me. She inserts a hand into the collar I wear and thus anchored leans back. I strain not to lurch forward. She's grinding against me now and the crop she still holds taps a steady rhythm against my side.

I'm lost in a world of sensation. It's too much. I don't know what to concentrate on—the crop, the dildo that occupies me, the cock that occupies her. My mind flutters to each one, like a butterfly, alighting and then moving on to the next.

I don't even notice when she stops. But I am startled when she launches herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck and legs around my waist and the column to which I'm secured. I'm unprepared for the sudden weight and sag for a painful moment until I can marshal my strength to raise her. At that moment I give up any restraint. She rides my cock mercilessly. The crop strikes me more intensely and I respond to this crescendo with hammering heart and the oncoming mindlessness of release. She trembles against me, her breath raspy and hot in my ear. She impales herself upon me with movements that become jerky, each thrust bestowing a commensurate penetration from the dildo. Her head tips back and with one last savage thrust she comes. I too can hold it no longer and I moan my release as never before.

I'm glad that Dex has decided to spend the night and give me the pleasure of her body next to mine in bed. It's reassuringly normal and free of subtext. Her arm lies across my chest and her breath puffs against my neck.

I'm exhausted and unaccountably happy. Dex snuggles more closely against me.

"You have to promise me that you'll always test my strength," I say. "Not my weakness."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," she says sleepily.

***

Thanks for reading. I welcome you comments, so please let me know what you think. Thanks!



Swallowtail Ch. 11



Swallowtail is a novel that traces the narrator's gradual acceptance of submission.

Previously: The narrator has given Dex blanket consent and is prepared to explore what submission to her might mean. As the narrator becomes more comfortable with submission, his dom continues to test his limits. 

***

Dex has asked me to clear my schedule for the upcoming long weekend. She says that she has something special planned for me. A challenge. She says that I'm ready for it.

"It won't be easy," she says.

I shrug.

"You'll hate me at times."

"I can't imagine that."

"Then you don't really have a good imagination."

I pick her up on Thursday afternoon at the tattoo studio where she works as a piercer. She throws a large black duffel bag into the back seat and then slides in beside me. She kisses me on the cheek and squeezes my thigh. 

"Where to?"

"North," she says.

Dex is quiet for the first half hour of the drive. I sense an uncharacteristic uneasiness about her.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

It takes her a while to answer. "Plans are always abstract until it's time to realize them. Now I'm not sure about them."

I feel a tingle of anticipation and apprehension. "Your plans usually work out well."

"Usually. I don't want to make any mistakes."

"You usually don't. If it looks like you are, I'll let you know."

"Please do." 

Dex and I both know that I've never invoked my safeword. I've been close several times but I've never uttered it. I used to think that taking whatever Dex dished out was a matter of pride, but the truth is that Dex has always stepped back from the precipice before taking that last disastrous step. She has developed an uncanny sense of my limits.

"You have my consent for whatever it is you have planned. Unreservedly. I trust you. You know that."

We finally leave the city and the suburbs that ring it like an ever-growing blight. We're moving more quickly now, using the back roads that Dex knows. The sun touches the horizon and the shadows of the trees and hydro poles stretch across the road like a UPC code.

I know that Dex has committed to whatever she has planned when she reaches into her bag a few minutes later and withdraws a leather collar.

"Put this on."

I glance at it but don't touch it. I'm surprised and a little unnerved. Although we're in the middle of nowhere and alone and it's unlikely we'll meet anyone, this is the first time I've worn anything like this outside of the safety of my four walls. I hesitate for a moment longer and then drop down to the speed limit. Being stopped for speeding by some bored cop is the last thing I want. I hold the steering wheel with my knees and fasten the collar around my neck. To the ring at my throat she snaps on a leather lead that she allows to rest across her lap.

"Now these," she says, laying a pair of wrist cuffs on my thigh.

With Dex's help I manage to kit myself out without crashing and breathe a little easier. A little. In the back of my mind I hear my mother. Her voice is unexpected and unwelcome. I remember that she had this thing about clean underwear, in case I was in an accident. The logic eluded me. Certainly if the accident were bad enough, thought my kid brain at the time, it was conceivable that I'd crap myself anyway. Perhaps a drop or two of pee. Would my rescuers check my underwear? Think less of me if my Fruit of the Looms were less than pristine? I doubted it. Regardless, I can hear my mother now: See, this is what comes of ignoring my advice. See, there's a slippery slope—ignore the underwear and this is what happens. No self-respect. My mother, I'm sure, is rolling over in her grave now. Chastity device, collar, and cuffs. What if there were an accident?

Somewhere in heaven, an angel is cringing.

Somewhere beside me is a different story.

I sense Dex watching me from the shadows of the passenger seat. 

"What did you have planned again?" I ask.

"A challenge. A test."

"I haven't studied."

"I'm sure you'll do fine."

We've been driving for a couple of hours now, more or less north. There are farms that I can discern in the failing light. Fences around scrub and rocks and woodlots. I don't know whether the fences are designed to keep the scrub in or scrub bandits out. There's the occasional lake too, black as ink, and then more of the same—scrub, rocks, lakes. Darkness slowly claims the land and occasionally a car passes us, going the other way. Radio reception has gotten worse and after scanning what little is available, I turn the radio off entirely. The old Mercedes doesn't have a CD player.

"Much farther?" I ask.

"An hour. Maybe less. We're making good time."

Dex reclines her seat and she takes my hand from the stick shift and places it on her upper thigh, pushing up her skirt in the process. She strokes my fingers for a few minutes, and then there's an unmistakable nudge, an unspoken command. I ease my hand up a little. I caress the smoothness of the now-familiar terrain. She spreads her legs a little more and I take a chance and explore her. There it is—the wetness, the warmth, the promise of things to come.

I play my fingers over the yielding geography of her sex for a few kilometers.

"Beats the hell out of 'I spy'," I say.

"It's too dark, but I think so too."

I glance over to her. There's something arresting about the paleness of her moonlit legs that emerge from her hiked-up skirt, splayed against the black leather of the seat. Her eyes are closed and her lower lip is clenched between her teeth. One hand loosely holds the lead and the other rests against a thigh.

There's no hurry. She has voiced no expectations of me and so I explore her aimlessly. I divide my attention between the road and the flesh beneath my fingers. The car reels in the distance.

She gives a little whimper, almost lost beneath the hum of the tires on the pavement. My fingers have grown slick and I'm tempted to focus my efforts. I don't. Her slow burn is my reward. I might get nothing in return. Not immediately anyway. It doesn't matter. It's enough to elicit this response, to know that I can.

Besides, this might be my only chance this weekend to have her pleasure in my hands, to subject her to some of the torment that she may have planned for me.

She's smiling now. She knows what I am doing and I have no doubt that she'll exact her revenge. After a few desultory strokes I decide to bring her up again. 

"Bastard," she whispers.

Another hum of pleasure. Her hand alights briefly on mine and then retreats. She's leaving this to me. 

I see that her hands have found her breasts and are kneading them.

I pinch her clitoris between my thumb and forefinger and roll it. There's an intake of breath which is held for several seconds. Then there's a whistling moan. That's it. Quiet as always. 

She lifts my hand takes my fingers into her mouth.

"Oh," she says after she has licked my fingers clean, "take the next right."

***

I know that we're getting closer now. There's a question that's been preying on me for some time. It has been on my tongue before but I've never asked it. It might be the time, now that Dex is satisfied and before she exercises her authority over me. Casually, I say, "You've said that you were a sub before. You never told me exactly what happened."

Dex doesn't answer immediately. "Does it matter?"

"I want to know."

There's another long moment of silence. Then she says, "You're right. I was a sub before." Dex takes a deep breath and I'm afraid that she'll go no further. She's talking to the window, looking out on the gloom. "We had a no-sharing agreement. I drew the line at having him share me around. I wasn't ready for that. Not with him. I didn't trust him, which should have been my first warning. He had problems with restrictions. One day he made the mistake of thinking that his authority over me was absolute. Maybe he confused my submission with weakness. He said my refusal to please him by pleasing his friends showed an unforgiveable lack of commitment on my part. Whatever. One night I was bound and gagged when he asked me again if I'd be willing. He knew how I felt and I didn't expect him to ignore my wishes. I couldn't talk and I couldn't signal. He thought it was funny. He kept asking for the signal, even when his asshole buddies went at it with me."

"God. That's rape."

Dex shrugs. "I waited for a week. I was submissive. I made him think that I'd been broken. He thought that the dust had settled, that I'd been taught an important lesson about submission, but I had a plan." She takes a deep breath. "He liked it when I tied him up. So one night he asked me to do it—tie him up and please him. So I did. I wrapped him in Saran Wrap. This was a new one and I could tell that he thought it interesting and was wondering where I would go with it. I stuffed his underwear in his mouth. He didn't like that as much though. It was then that I asked him for his safeword. Of course he couldn't speak. There could be no signal either. Then I got a pair of scissors. I'm sure he thought I was going to cut it off."

Dex shakes her head and pauses for a moment. Her voice has become almost a whisper. "I cut a hole in the wrap and pulled his cock out of it." She takes a deep breath. "I had been piercing for a year or so by then so I gave him some. Most of the ones in my portfolio, in fact."

I shudder, picturing the scene. I'm speechless.

"I suppose he could have called the cops or come after me or something. He never did. We were finished. You must think I'm a psycho."

"No." Actually, that is exactly what I'm thinking.

She smiles weakly. "And that's why I can't be a sub any more. And that's why I promised myself to be a better dom than he was. And that's the same promise I'm making to you."

***

Dex directs me off the highway and onto increasingly small and obscure roads. It was dark before but now it's completely black and our world is reduced to what little the headlights choose to reveal.

"Slow down," says Dex.

We're crunching along a gravel road.

"Turn left, here."

Here is little more than a gap between trees, obscuring over what I now see is a rutted and largely overgrown path, barely wide enough for the car. We proceed through a tunnel of dense undergrowth until we finally emerge into a clearing. A large house occupies one side of the space and a garage the other. The headlights sweep over a dock that stretches into watery darkness.

I park the car close to the house and the motion sensing lights go on, bathing us in light.

"What is this place?" I ask.

"Looks like a cottage."

Ask a stupid question...

"Who does it belong to?"

Dex doesn't answer. "Do you still want to go through with this? Knowing what you do?"

I've convinced myself that the guy had deserved it. Still, the violence of Dex's act has given me a chill. Under similar circumstances, I might have done the same. But still, it`s difficult to reconcile the woman sitting next to me in the car with the person who had responded to violence in kind.

"Yes," I say finally. "Let`s do it."

Dex looks relieved. "Okay. Good." She exits the car and stretches. "I keep forgetting how far it is."

I join her outside. The air is crisp and clean. It's invigorating. It's quiet and the heavens are splashed with more stars than are visible from the city. I take a deep breath and relax. 

She walks around the car and faces me. "From now on," she says, "you have to obey me without question. Until I say differently, the only words I want to hear from you are yes, mistress or no, mistress. Failure to do so will result in discipline. Do you understand?"

"Sure."

Dex scowls at me.

Christ, am I ever stupid. "Yes, mistress."

"Do you have any questions for me before we begin?"

"No, mistress."

She pulls on the lead and brings my face to hers. She kisses me. "Good. Bring the bags in, will you?"

"Yes, mistress."

Dex sits me on the edge of the bed and I watch as she undresses. She does it slowly, teasingly. I stare raptly as she emerges from her clothing.

She places her hands on her hips. I take her in. I swell with pride and other things. She's mine—as much as a dom can be. "Do you like what you see?"

"Yes, mistress."

"Do you want to fuck me?"

I thrill at the prospect. "Yes."

"More than anything?"

The questions are driving me nuts. I am filled with memories of when she has offered me her mouth, her pussy, her ass. I remember the pain and pleasure she has subjected me to. There's the promise of all this and more. Whatever it is that she has planned, it promises to be more intense than anything I've experienced with anyone else. I realize that I'm spoiled now for anyone but her. There can be no one else and I'm okay with that. "Yes, mistress."

Dex's fingers brush the piercing that adorns her clitoral hood.

"Then make me want you more than I already do. Now be a good sub and run the shower."

Standing is painful. I'm already engorged and my cock fills the confines of my chastity device. 

The shower is one of those modern affairs with jets spraying all over the place. There's room enough for two in it. Steam fills the bathroom when she enters through the mist. She places a hand on my shoulder and she enters the shower enclosure. I watch as she immerses herself under the jets, head tipped back. Rivulets of water channel between and around her breasts and then down her torso. I am transfixed.

"Coming?" she asks.

I strip and enter the enclosure. Dex stands with her back to me. I step close and wrap my arms around her, one hand snaking up her torso to her breasts and the other finding the cleft between her legs. I hope that the chastity device is as uncomfortable against her ass as it is around my cock and balls. I lather my hands and wash her, paying special attention to her breasts before gliding down her abdomen, wishing the whole time that I could take her now, bend her over and bury myself within her and relieve the pressure that has been building in me since we left the city.

I kneel down and wash her feet and legs, which have spread to accommodate me. I work my way up to the apex of her legs and run soapy fingers through the neat strip of hair that crowns her pussy, the pierced folds of her labia, and then up and around between the full halves of her ass.

She turns under the hot cascade of water and raises a foot onto one of the shelves on the side of the enclosure. The invitation is clear and I touch my tongue to glistening folds of her sex.

***

She has washed away the sharp edges of her makeup and emerges from the shower looking younger and more innocent than when she entered. She looks almost wholesome, like someone you might imagine as an alto in a church choir, hands clenched at her bosom as the calming energy of spiritual benevolence infuses her. She'd be one of the pretty ones, the source of impure thoughts among some of the male parishioners. She'd be unaware of the roiling sexual tension that she unleashes, particularly when she opens her mouth wide because that's how the choirmaster taught her to sing.

"You've exhausted me," says Dex.

I'm daydreaming. I look over and see that she's wearing a silk baby doll. It's red and the fabric shimmers over her curves. 

I can sense where this is going and my heart sinks. "That's too bad," I say.

Dex nods earnestly. "I've had two," she says. "Multiples. You have a knack. You know me too well now. Another one like the last one and I might get a hernia or something."

"That would be tragic."

"So I'm afraid you'll have to wait. Can you do that?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"No."

Sleep doesn't come easily. For one, I'm tied to the bed. My restraints are loose and the ropes that attach my wrists to the headboard have some slack, but not enough for me to assume anything resembling a comfortable position. And then there's Dex, curled up beside me. I can feel the warmth emanating from her. The scent of the soap that I used to wash her wafts over me. I'm acutely aware of the pleasure that rests a few inches away. That fact alone causes me to swell uncomfortably in my cage again. 

Her breathing tells me that she is asleep. No wonder. I've exhausted her. Her indifference to my need, particularly after having attended to hers, fills me with profound disappointment. Nothing is so enticing as that which is denied, she once said. I'm immensely frustrated and the first cold tendrils of anger steal over me. I take a deep breath and try to relax. I wonder if she's simply being cruel or is exercising her control over me to make a point. More likely the latter, I concede. I remind myself that I have voluntarily subjected myself to her will and have placed my pleasure in her hands. There's no advantage to anger. If this is a test, then it is something I have to pass. I will have my reward when it pleases her. I just have to be strong. I suppress my frustration and think instead on the pleasures that she has given me. In that, at least, is some measure of reward. I've known her profoundly. It's a pale substitute for the immediacy of physical pleasure, but for tonight it will have to be enough.

***

I wake to sunlight streaming into the bedroom. My shoulders ache from having slept with my arms bound over my head. I look over and see that Dex's side of the bed has been abandoned. I can hear her in the kitchen.

Our first night is behind us. I don't doubt that Dex has the day planned. There will be new challenges and possibly new frustrations. The dark thoughts that assailed me last night have receded and I look forward to whatever Dex chooses to throw at me.

Dex returns to the bedroom and leans against the door jamb. She's holding a bowl of grapes. She pops one in her mouth and I hear it crunch between her teeth. I can see that she's wearing a corset and her breasts swell out of the top. The horn of plenty. Overflowing. There are worse sights to wake up to.

"Did you have a good sleep?" asks Dex.

I shake my head.

Dex looks genuinely contrite. "I'll make it up to you. Promise."

I shrug as much as I can.

"Hungry?" she asks.

I hadn't thought of it until now. "Yes, mistress."

She approaches the bed and places a grape between her even, white teeth. She lowers it to my mouth. I bite it and take half. Dex takes the other. 

"Is it good?"

I nod.

We do several grapes in this way. I take sustenance from her kiss.

She places a grape in the generous cleft between her breasts and straddles me on the bed. She bends over my face, burying it in her feminine softness. There's a hint of perfume. I've always wanted to be fed grapes in bed by a beautiful woman. I hadn't considered the various methods of delivery. As I burrow my face into Dex's breasts, I have to admit that my fantasies have been pale and feeble in comparison to those of my mistress. My tongue finds the grape and plucks it out and into my mouth. 

"Very good," says Dex.

We repeat the process a half dozen times. By the end of it, my face and Dex's breasts are slick with my saliva and sticky with the juice of the grapes. 

"Do you want more?"

"Yes, mistress," I say.

Dex picks another grape from the bowl and raises her leg. I watch as the grape is pushed within the delicate folds of her pussy. Dex then moves forward until she is positioned directly above me. 

I extend my tongue into that most delicate of flesh. Dex's taste floods me. I take my time, exploring her from her perineum, her labia and clitoris before finally extending my tongue within her to touch the smooth surface of the grape. Extracting it is difficult, buried as it is. I feel her muscles working against my tongue, clenching and unclenching. The grape finally drops out of her and into my mouth. 

Maybe if I please her, maybe if I'm gentle and attentive and take my time extracting grapes from her, then she might favor me with more. 




Swallowtail Ch. 11



The grapes are gone before I even near the edge with her. She seems not to mind. Nor does she seem interested in more than teasing me.

"That was a snack. I'll get breakfast going," she says.

Once again I'm left bound and alone in the bedroom.

***

Dex unfastens the ropes from my wrist cuffs and I lower my arms with a groan. She has changed out of her corset and now wears a tight t-shirt and nothing else. She toys with the key that hangs between her breasts and observes me. 

"I'm thinking of freeing you this afternoon," she says.

I'd like it to be freed now. "I'd be grateful, mistress."

"We'll see how the day goes," says Dex. "Come."Let's get you washed up."

The bathroom is already filled with steam when I enter. I step into the enclosure and immerse myself in the jets. My muscles slowly unknot and I take a deep breath.

"Let me", she says as I reach for the soap. I close my eyes when she begins, savoring her touch. If I was hoping for a reciprocal shower scene to the one the previous night, I'm disappointed. Although there isn't an inch of me that isn't touched, the business of showering is largely bereft of erotic intent. The arousal that I derive from Dex's hands is purely coincidental. She has no ulterior motives but I can't say the same. 

After the shower, Dex leads me to the island in the kitchen and sits me down. She passes me a steaming cup of coffee. It's good. Not like that burnt, ashy stuff they pass off as gourmet these days. 

"I feel underdressed."

I'm sitting naked at the kitchen table, watching as Dex, who in her t-shirt is only slightly more dressed than I am, moves around the kitchen. She stops and looks at me and then retreats without a word to the bedroom. She returns with the tie that I'd been wearing yesterday. She bends over, offering me a glimpse of her breasts, and quickly ties a half windsor. "Happy?" she asks. "Now you're overdressed."

She returns to her cooking.

I feel good now. The ache of the night before is receding in my memory. I'm showered, clean, and though I'm not yet free from my cage, I'm hopeful. The coffee is waking me up. I'm feeling magnanimous and pardon Dex for the discomfort she has put me through. I watch as she moves around the kitchen, enjoying her casual and unselfconscious partial nudity. She's humming a tune I don't recognize. The morning light streams through the window above the sink, highlighting her body like a Vermeer painting, if Vermeer were in the business of painting half-naked goths with a penchant for body modifications. The swallowtail tattoo peeks out from under the hem of her t-shirt whenever she turns to face me. 

Dex has prepared a meal of scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, and toast and I tuck into it eagerly. There's enough cholesterol on my plate to make my doctor all apoplectic. Not to mention the fact that Ms. Manners would frown on me breaking fast in the nude with a fading boner. Arterial health, hygiene and decorum aside, breakfast is great.

I look up from my plate. Dex has her chin perched in her palm and is watching me.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing."

There's a weird look on her face. I've seen it before with other women, but I'm surprised to see it on Dex. 

"What's on the agenda?" I ask after I've finished chewing.

Dex seems not to mind that I've dropped the mistress business. I'm glad for it. Dex isn't one to launch into spontaneous soliloquies and while I'm not either, being limited 'yes mistress' and 'no mistress' would make for a conversationally challenged weekend. 

"A hike maybe. Somewhere not off the beaten path."

***

"This used to be my favorite spot when I was a kid."

We've emerged from a narrow trail onto a tall outcropping of rock that extends like a tongue into the lake. I'm still self-conscious about wearing nothing but a collar and cuffs, but Dex has assured me that we are completely isolated here. So far, she's been proven right. Dex has attached a lead to my cage for the walk and the occasional tug at my groin has me aroused again. She lets the lead drop at my feet and walks out to the edge of the outcropping. 

The air is still and warm and the only sound is the lapping of small waves against unseen rocks. It's the kind of day that makes it easy to imagine that the world is pure and that you are the only one in it.

"So this is your cottage," I say.

Dex nods. "It used to be my father's. Now it's mine." She pauses for a moment, looking out on the water. "I've never brought anyone here before."

"Your father?" 

"It's not like I hatched out of a pod," she says. Then, after a moment, adds, "He died when I was eighteen. He was a great man."

I remember then. She had mentioned him before at the jazz bar. He'd left the family when Dex had been a kid. Evidently, he hadn't gone far. Questions teem in my mind now that Dex has finally pulled away the veil on her past, at least partially. 

Dex is rummaging around in the backpack that I've carried to this place. She returns to me with a length of rope. She loops an end through one of the rings of the cuff on my wrist. "After my father died, the cottage and the land reverted to me. He knew what this place meant to me." She steps carefully to a tree and ties the end of the rope off. My arm rises.

She returns and repeats the process with the other wrist, telling me that it took her years to return to this place after her father had passed.

"No one used it? No siblings?"

"I'm an only child. My dad's lawyer, my lawyer now, looked after it for me until I was ready for it."

I feel like the Christ statue in Rio, standing on this rock with my arms outstretched. That, of course, is where the resemblance ends.

Dex returns to my field of view. She's carrying a flogger. "I started coming back a few years ago. It felt right."

The sun warms my shoulders and the afternoon breeze swirls around my legs. Dex kneels in front of me and unlocks the chastity device. Whether it's the fact that I am free from my cage or the prospect of an imminent flogging, my heart begins to thud in my chest and my unconstrained cock swells. 

"Old faithful," remarks Dex, weighing my cock in the palm of her hand. She allows the fells of the flogger to stroke its length.

She retreats from view. I brace for what is surely to come.

My manhood is pointing dumbly at a duck or a loon by the opposite shore. The bird doesn't seem overly concerned.

"Ready?"

I nod. "Yes mistress."

Dex starts slowly, softly, coaxing arousal out of me by the tips of leather that caress my back and ass. I keep waiting for the force to increase, for the pain to supplant pleasure, but it never does. The touch of the flogger is intimate, an extension of Dex. Her rhythm is hypnotic. I'm lulled into the contradiction of intense exhilaration and of having been transported out of my body. The ridiculousness of being tied naked between two trees, being flogged out in the open, doesn't matter. Nothing matters.

The blows are predictable, almost comfortable. It's as though Dex feels no need to punctuate her claim over me with force. It feels stupid to think of it this way, but there's an artistry to the way in which she applies leather to me. Her colors are force, her strokes are the shapes of the blows against my flesh.

The duck (or loon) has vanished and I'm surprised that I haven't marked its passage. I'm surprised too that Dex has stopped. It's quiet again, almost unnaturally so after the steady percussion of leather against flesh.

When she emerges from behind me, Dex has shed her clothes. She unties one of my wrists as she passes and walks to the edge of the rock. She gracefully dives off, flashing me for a brief moment, a streak of white against the trees and rocks on the far side of the shore. I watch as she swims to a point not too far away. Her pale skin glimmers beguilingly beneath the surface of the crystalline water.

"Are you coming?" she calls

I divest myself of my ropes and leather and join her. The water is cool and refreshing. I swim over to where Dex has found a submerged rock to stand on. Drops bead on her breasts and cling to the rings that adorn her nipples. I find purchase on the rock and wrap my arms around her waist.

"Thanks for bringing me here," I say.

She wraps her legs around my waist and I struggle to maintain my balance on the slippery rock. She finds me under the water and I'm soon engulfed in her warmth.

"That's better," she says, nestling herself more firmly on my cock. Her arms are wound around my neck and she whispers in my ear, "This isn't dangerous, is it?"

"What?"

"This. The suction. You hear of people getting stuck." Dex rises and falls on me, disproving her point.

"I'm sure it's a myth." God she feels good. "Designed to keep horny teenagers away from law-abiding waders and skittish shore-birds."

"You sure?"

"No, but I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be stuck."

She moves slowly upon me. My hands cup her ass under the water, trying to arrest movements that threaten to overwhelm me. 

"Don't come," she says.

"Then don't move."

She stops. Cool water swirls around us. I'm warm only where she touches me—her breasts pressed against my chest, her legs, her cunt.

Shit. Not moving wasn't working either. She tightens herself around me. I can feel the rhythmic compression like a heartbeat. "Get off," I gasp.

"I'm trying."

I twist out of her grasp and swim away, trying desperately for some distance from her and the wave that threatens to overwhelm me. It's poised still. One nudge and it'll be all over. I tread water and look over to where I left her. She smiles and waves. The water is lapping at her breasts. She's a vision.

When I'm sure that I have sufficiently distanced myself from the release she has again denied me, I return to her. It takes a while.

"You're a harsh mistress."

***

For a change, Dex doesn't appear to be interested in having me coax release from her mortal coil. Maybe she's chafed and bruised. Part of me secretly hopes so. I've forgotten what the score is. All I know is that I have a goose egg on my side of the orgasmic ledger. I know that it's wrong to think of our relationship in those terms, but there it is.

I'm feeling sorry for myself. Self-pity is always something I've despised in others, so finding it in myself has left me out of sorts and cranky. I tell myself that this is what I've agreed to, but it does little to help my mood. I feel that the aborted forays into carnal heaven have abandoned tiny mewling orgasms in a sad and desolate limbo and that I'm somehow responsible.

I suspect that this has been the point of this weekend, reinforcing the notion that my pleasure, or lack of it, rests entirely within Dex's hands. It must be a test of sorts, Dex's way of determining whether my submission is total and whether I can, in the face of repeated denial, still attend to her desires with the submissive selflessness she expects of me. 

I'm sitting on the deck alone. Dex is doing the dinner dishes and I'm sipping a very nice single malt that I haven't had before. Its warmth spreads through me. I really haven't lifted a finger since we returned from the lake. Dex has been attending to me and I wonder whether she knows just how bruised my ego is. It does make me feel a little better, this attention to my physical well-being. It might be a sign of things to come. I refuse to get my hopes up, deciding instead to focus on the small tokens of affection that Dex bestows upon me.

Dex joins me on the deck. She has turned off all of the lights and has set an antique lantern on a table off to the side. The flame is low and yellow and illuminates little beyond our small cocoon of light.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Her hand is on my shoulder and I take it and press it to my lips.

"I want to do something for you," she says after a moment.

"I'd like that."

"You don't know what it is."

I shrug. "I trust you."

Dex just stands there. Our eyes lock. Something passes between us but I don't trust myself to translate it just yet. I save the syntax of her look for later parsing.

She asks me to strip and lean against the railing of the veranda. I do it without question and wait.

She leans against me, draping herself over my back and wrapping her arms around my torso. I feel her cheek resting between my shoulder blades and an expanse of bare skin to regions south.

"I've had fun this weekend. Thanks for coming." Her words blow moisture across my back. 

I don't answer, swallowing the expected rejoinder.

"May I?"

She sounds so earnest that I nod. "Please."

She runs her fingertips from my shoulders to my ass, an expanse that has borne the evidence of the crop and flogger and cane. The welts may have faded, but Dex has nonetheless etched herself into me.

She chats with me as she inserts a lubed finger into my rectum. The talk is so casual, so freakishly mundane that I want to scream. She has a finger sliding in and out of my ass. It probes, finds the prostate, and I grip the railing more tightly. She's now talking about what we might do tomorrow, our last full day here. I'm thinking of nothing more than the present.

She withdraws. I'm ready. I know what's coming next. My squeamishness of a few months ago is gone now. I've actually learned to enjoy it, though I've admitted it to no one but Dex. 

A lubed dildo brushes my ass. I know she's wearing a leather harness. I can imagine the incongruity of it—a large dildo sprouting from my waifish dom. My mouth is dry and I stare out into the darkness.

"I'm sorry if I've neglected you."

I have no answer. She's pressing and has breached me. I gasp and close my eyes.

"You've been so good to me and I've been so selfish."

She passes the point of resistance now and slides easily into me. 

"Does it feel good?"

"Uh huh."

She slides both hands up my torso to my chest and pulls me up into a standing position. She's still buried within me and the angle is tantalizingly different.

She holds my chest with one hand, stroking a nipple and the other slides down and finds my cock.

"I want to please you too," she whispers as her fingers alight on my cock.

"You are."

"I wish I could feel you," she says. "From the inside."

The tenor of her talk makes me squirm with desire. She strokes me and I feel weak-kneed. My breath hitches in my throat before exploding in a gasp.

"Don't yet," she says. "I have a question for you."

Oh no. Please no questions. No talk now. Please. The dildo and her hand move in unison. The sensations and the denial of the weekend are swirling together now, churning. 

"If you need me to distract you, let me know."

"Yes."

"You'll let me know?"

"No. Distract me. Now."

The blow from the crop blazes across the outside of my thigh. I'm grateful that she has hit me hard. Anything softer would have sent me over the edge.

"Okay now?"

"Maybe. Wait. No."

Dex adds another pair of welts to the first.

"Thanks."

"You have a decision to make. Come now, like this, or wait until tomorrow."

Damn this woman!

"What's tomorrow?" I gasp.

"Tomorrow night I'll give myself to you, to do with as you want."

My need for release is a living thing in my head, driving me to distraction. It's crying for immediate gratification, like a child or a junkie.

"Either or? Not both?" I gasp.

"Not both."

Shit.

"Tomorrow I give you my consent. Whatever you want. No games."

"Hit me." I'm thinking.

She has stopped moving. She occupies me, brushing those hidden parts that lie at the root of my erection.

Not both, I think. Immediate gratification or carte blanche delayed. 

I hesitate. I torture myself with another moment of borrowed pleasure, which brings me dangerously close to having no choice at all. 

"Tomorrow. I choose tomorrow."

"Okay," says Dex. She begins to withdraw from me.

"Just a little bit more though." 

"Okay."

She slides into me again and falls into a slow and painfully pleasurable rhythm. I'm not at risk of spoiling my chances for tomorrow, but am unwilling to forego the sensation of her occupation of me, even if it goes nowhere. 

"Would you believe me if I told you that this hurts me more than it hurts you?" she asks.

"Not for a moment."

"You're probably right."

***

The next morning there are no games. I enter the kitchen and kiss her dutifully on the cheek. "Do you want me to do anything?"

"No," she says. "Just have a seat."

I kiss her again, on the lips this time. The kiss deepens into a living, desperate thing and I break off before my control abandons me entirely.

As before, I watch her move around the kitchen. As before, I lose myself in the watching of her.

We spend morning day hiking around the lake, have lunch on the dock, and then take out a small sailboat named the Dorothy Elizabeth. I ask about the name but Dex just shakes her head. We skinny-dip from the boat and canoodle in the water. 

Dinner consists of steaks and a salad. Dex has given me the grilling duties while she busies herself in the kitchen with everything else. She brings me out a beer and I almost laugh. 

"What?" she asks.

"I never thought we'd ever be living the stereotype."

"Anything's possible," she says.

We eat outside like a normal couple, enjoying good food, craft beer, and the sun setting over the lake. We match, Dex and I, in our shorts and t-shirts. There's nothing about us that says that she owns me or that I subject myself to her in ways most men would find degrading. We chat about the day, her uselessness as a sailor, my comparative lack of grace as a swimmer.

The stars come out, as does a bottle of wine. Mosquitoes and moths are drawn to the divine light of the gas lantern that Dex has set up and are rendered unto ash. We move to a swing and snuggle on it. Her leg is draped over my thigh and my hand is on her knee. It's disconcerting, this oscillation between submissive and companion. I wonder if I would value the latter less if not for the other. 

Dex has given me carte blanche. I think of the closet that I know contains every restraint and device that I could ever hope to use. I look back to Dex. I've so long imagined payback, fantasized about the things that I would do if the roles were reversed. My repertoire has broadened under Dex's tutelage. There are any number of things that I could do now. It would be easy to express my displeasure at having been denied. After all, she has consented and for Dex, consent encompasses a world of possibility. 

I lean towards her and touch her cheek, still considering my options. This woman is my mistress, my dom. I'm her sub. There are no conditions that I apply to the statement; it's just fact. The roles have become a part of me rather than a curiosity that I can opt out of when it ceases to interest me. Play is the language of our relationship, Dex once said. 

I get off the swing and lift her in my arms. She's remarkably light. She wraps an arm around my neck.

I manage to negotiate the door without causing either of us injury and make my way to the bedroom as though I carry women in my arms every day. I leave the devices in the closet. I lay her gently on the bed and undress her. She's framed by the dark, satin sheets. Her arms rest above her head, flingers curled, almost touching the headboard. It would be so easy to restrain her. She watches me expectantly, shadowed green eyes following my every movement. One leg is drawn up, partially obscuring her sex and the swallowtail tattoo appears to be burrowing a crease of skin. She takes a deep breath. Her breasts rise and fall.

I touch the bent leg and it swings to the side, revealing the furrowed flesh that parts ever so slightly, revealing the glistening folds that await me. 

I bend over her and kiss one nipple and then the other.




Swallowtail Ch. 11



I could be doing anything but opt simply to please her and in so doing allow her to be the instrument of my pleasure. I stroke every inch of her, unrestrained by device or imposed injunction. Her flesh erupts in goose pimples. She squirms beneath my touch. It's as though she too has been denied intimacy and has hungered for it as I have. 

"Please," she whispers urgently.

I take my time.

"Are you happy?"

I'm not sure that I've heard correctly. I was about to drift off to sleep. "Pardon?"

"Are you happy? With me? With the way things are going?"

Dex has seldom asked me about my feelings. 

"Yes," I say. "Surprisingly, I'm very happy. With you. With everything."

The windows are open and the sounds of nocturnal life waft into the bedroom.

"Are you?"

I think Dex might have fallen asleep herself.

"Uh-huh. Surprisingly." We listen to the frogs and insects for a while. "I've become somewhat attached to you."

"Good." I say. "Me too."

*** 

Thanks for reading. Comments are always appreciated. 



Swallowtail Ch. 12



Swallowtail is a novel that traces the narrator's gradual acceptance of submission.

Previously: The narrator has given Dex blanket consent and is prepared to explore what submission to her might mean. As the narrator becomes more comfortable with submission, his dom continues to test his limits. 

***

There are days, perhaps weeks at a time, when Dex and I live and love as other couples do and the floggers, whips, cuffs, and other devices remain tucked away in a large steamer trunk at the foot of my bed. Though they remain largely unseen save for the crop that leans against the wall by my bed, I cannot forget them. That they exist adds a certain potential to our relationship. Whenever I become too comfortable or Dex feels the need to reassert herself or it's simply time to play, she dons the mantle of a dom and I willingly submit to her. Then there is great pleasure or great pain and often both. Rather than being unsettling, this oscillation in our relationship is the forge that gives it strength. Comfort, I've come to realize, breeds laziness.

We're lying in bed on Sunday morning. The chastity device that she often makes me wear lies between our pillows. An hour earlier I chafed in its tight and implacable embrace; now I'm in no condition to protest should it be returned. Dex fingers the piercing that she inflicted on me so many months ago—a small bar that hugs the underside of my cock, just behind the glans. It feels like an age since I got it. I think back on my jaded innocence when I entered the tattoo studio that day. Things have changed.

"Can you be obedient?" she asks. "Do whatever is commanded, no questions asked?"

Dex has her head on my chest. Her hand becomes still on my cock, so I'm not sure to whom her question is addressed.

We've had this discussion before and I'm instantly alert. Whenever Dex probes my limits in this way, I know she's up to something. She knows that she has my consent and trust but occasionally needs me to articulate it. I'm grateful for it but I make a show of doubt, because that's part of the dance too. "I don't know," I say. "Depends what you ask of me."

Dex shakes her head. "Do you trust me not to ask something of you that crosses the line?"

"Do you know where all of my lines are?" I counter.

"I have a good idea. We've come up against several already."

It's true. I've been induced to do things that I couldn't have even imagined months ago. With few exceptions, Dex has anticipated my limits well. The whole question of lines and limits is a bit delusive anyway. Every line crossed with no negative consequences establishes the new normal and draws a new line in the distance. Lines are simultaneously limits and objectives. 

"Do you trust me enough?" she asks again.

"I do, but on the off chance that I can't comply, what then?"

She reminds me of my safeword and signal, in case I can't talk at the moment.

I give in. "Why are you bringing this up now? What do you have in mind?"

"There's a party this weekend. I'd like you to come."

"What kind of party?"

Dex is stroking my cock again, playing her fingernails along its length. It's distracting. "Some friends of mine. People that share the same lifestyle that we do."

I used to think of it as dabbling in kinkiness. Now it's a lifestyle. As I said, things have changed.

***

Dex tells me that a dom she knows is having a coming out party for a new sub. It's an opportunity, she explains, for a dominant to present his submissive. For the latter, it's a public statement of submission. I shake my head. I don't understand why anyone would need to make a public statement like this. Dex tells me to think of it as a wedding reception, only in this case there's a different dynamic at play. I ask her whether there's some kind of wedding register I should know about. Maybe they need a new St Andrew's cross or something. Dex scowls at me and I shut up. 

She explains that it probably won't be the kind of BDSM orgy that she knows I've explored on the internet. She says that her friends are my type of people—whatever that means—and that they have strict rules and none of them are particularly into depravity or humiliation. I voice some reservations. Humiliation is in the eye of the beholder, I say. Dex says it's in the eye of the sub. If the sub sees no humiliation, then there is none. If the beholder has a problem with it, the beholder can look away.

Even then, when I imagine this coming out party and all that it might entail, I can't help but to feel for the sub, for the treatment that she might be forced to endure. I realize that I've applied my own insecurities to this sub I don't yet know but for whom I feel some kinship. We're members of the same strange and complex club. I'm not sure what to expect and tell Dex as much. She tells me that she really doesn't know what to expect either. It might be a few drinks and idle talk or it might be more than that. It depends on the dom and the sub and what they've negotiated between themselves and what they feel comfortable with. 

It's a coming out party of sorts for me too and I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with that either. For the last year it's been just me and Dex on our private little island of lasciviousness, exploring the possibilities of dominance and submission. Off that little island I'm just one of the guys—ogling pretty girls, forcing laughter at blond jokes, commiserating with my peers that women just don't know what they want. It's still hard to reconcile that version of me with the version that lets himself be trussed up and flogged and compelled to wear a chastity device and do all of these things gladly. And even if I am among strangers who, as Dex says, share the lifestyle, it's still a public affirmation of a private arrangement.

I try to explain this to Dex and she flashes me a look of understanding and concern. I sense that there's something else too. I've been so focused on my own insecurities that I haven't, until now, seen that Dex genuinely wants to go to this thing. It's important to her. She wants to introduce me to her friends. She wants to come out, with me.

"But you'll do it for me, right?"

I sigh. "I'll do it for you."

"Thank you."

"Does this kind of thing happen often? Coming-out parties?" I ask a while later.

Dex shakes her head. "Depends on the dominant. Some are exceedingly private, others are into exposure and the aesthetics of submission. Some like sharing or being shared." Dex smiles. "I'm one of the private ones, in case you were wondering," she adds, anticipating my unspoken concern.

***

We enter one of the swanky condos that line the waterfront like a concrete and glass curtain that shields those with less affluence from a view of the lake. The lobby is a temple to conspicuous wealth. It is a cavernous space of marble and stone and fireplaces that are more for show than warmth. The concierge glances up. There's a look of recognition that Dex ignores.

"Quite the place," I say.

"It's okay. I like yours better."

We enter the elevator. Dex presses 37. She stares at the number for a moment, mutters a curse, and then presses 35. The doors close.

When we arrive on the 35th floor, Dex makes no move to exit the elevator.

"What's going on?"

The doors close again and we move up two floors.

She hesitates when the doors open and shoots her hand between them as they begin to close again. She steps out and I follow.

"Dex?"

She closes her eyes for a moment. "This is where I live," she says.

I'm confused. "There's no party?"

"There is. Two floors down." Dex lowers her head. "This floor is where I live. Force of habit, pressing the number." She shakes her head, seemingly bemused.

I follow Dex to a door at the end of the hall. She unlocks it and invites me inside.

"Welcome to my home."

"You live here?"

Dex nods and turns on the lights. 

The entire place is starkly white with some pieces of black furniture. It's impossible to tell whether it's an attempt at trendiness or an inability to decorate beyond the monochrome. I pass the kitchen on the way to the living room. An envelope on the counter catches my attention. I glance at Dex who is standing, arms crossed, by the front door. I pick up the envelope. It's addressed to Dorothy Xavier.

I remember the small boat at the cottage then. Dorothy Elizabeth. Dorothy Elizabeth Xavier. 

Dex.

"I'll still call you Dex, okay?"

She nods.

The living room features a floor-to-ceiling window that overlooks Lake Ontario. The view is breathtaking and beyond the reach of most. 

I enter the master bedroom, which like the rest of the place is neat and black and white. A pair of paintings hangs over the king size bed. I recognize them. They're from the show where I first met Dex. 

I back out of the bedroom and glance into a second one, smaller, and done up as an office. There is a laptop on a desk and binders. There are graphs tacked to a board behind the desk. I take a closer look. They show stock prices of various companies, with lines and acronyms that I don't understand.

Dex has approached silently. I'm jolted when she speaks. "My dad left me more than the cottage. I invested well. That's what I do—investing."

"Not piercing?" 

Dex laughs tentatively. "It's my hobby." She hesitates. "I own that too."

"What?"

"The studio." 

I don't know what to say.

"I'm a silent partner," she says.

"Okay."

We return to the living room and look out onto the lake. "Why didn't you tell me?"

It dawns on me that I am here, finally, in Dex's inner sanctum. A place that she has guarded from me for almost a year. A place that should reveal her essence to me but does not. Or maybe it does. It looks like a show home, like a real estate agent could, at any moment, bring prospective buyers in. Nothing is out of place. All of it is spotlessly clean. What it doesn't do is reveal her personality to me, unless that personality is one of furious anal retentiveness. I compare this place to mine, where Dex has over a period of months slowly imprinted herself and the two are as dissimilar as they could possibly be. To my place, Dex has brought flowers. She has brought artwork that both of us have admired at one time or another. I see more of her at my place on the escarpment, overlooking the town, than I do here. I have no idea what it means.

"At first I figured it was none of your business. I treasure my privacy. Later it didn't seem to matter. You didn't ask and I didn't tell. Then it felt like it was too late." Her fingers brush my hand. "Do you understand?"

Lights blink on an island and I can see a freighter further out, bound for Hamilton or one of the states on the other side of the lake. "No," I say. "Not really."

I'm not angry with Dex for having so closely guarded her privacy. I can understand it. What I am, though, is disgusted with my own lack of curiosity about Dex and how long I've allowed myself to wallow in the treacle of ignorance, content to spend almost a year of my life with someone I know next to nothing about. 

"What's wrong?" she asks.

I tell her.

"Ask away," she says.

"What's your birthday?"

"May 8."

"Year?"

"1989."

I do the math. I knew how old she was but this confirms it. At least she's not younger.

"Siblings?"

"No."

"What's your favorite color?"

"Green."

"When did you lose your virginity?"

"At fourteen."

"What was his name?"

"I don't remember."

I scowl at her.

"It wasn't that memorable," she says.

"Have you been with anyone else since you've been with me?"

"No."

I can't think of anything else to ask. Here she is, answering my questions, and I can't for the life of me think of anything else. 

"What else should I know about you?" I ask, buying time.

She looks at me. I think that she may be wrapping herself again in her cloak of secrecy. Then she speaks again. "I love you."

***

We're both quiet as we wait for the elevator to take us down the two floors from Dex's apartment. Her words still echo in my mind. She reaches for my hand and squeezes it tentatively. I still haven't spoken the reciprocal words. I squeeze back my reassurance but maintain my silence.

We're ushered into the condo by a trim man in his mid-fifties. He seems genuinely happy to see us. He kisses Dex on the cheek and shakes my hand warmly, as though we're old friends. The host's name is Michael and he's a lawyer. Beyond that, there's nothing about him that suggests any kind of deviance. I don't know what I was expecting about this coming out party—gay biker chic, dungeon duds, leather body harnesses and chaps—but there's nothing like that. Not even a lecherous grin. Michael is charming and affable, casually attired in slacks and a well-tailored dress shirt, open at the collar. There's no sign of his sub.

Dex and I are led to a group of people who are sipping wine by the living room windows. They're enjoying the same view that Dex and I took in two floors above. The condo itself is tastefully decorated and is more colorful than Dex's space. The place speaks of ease and comfort and casual affluence.

It's a small gathering. There are eight of us. We're the last to arrive, thanks to our detour. The group appears to be well heeled, wealthy, and professional. It's not the kind of crowd I expect my goth princess to rub elbows with, but then she's obviously more than just a goth princess now. It seems that in this as with everything, I have underestimated her. There are kisses and hugs all the way around, exclamations of how good everyone looks, idle chitchat and more than a few curious looks my way.

The other members of the party include a female doctor and an investment banker who appear to be a couple. I don't know who's who in their relationship. A nurse and an executive at a software company round out the group.

I feel comfortable with these people and can detect no undercurrent of the lifestyle that has brought us here. It's just a group of shiny people who are in good health and humor. 

Michael brings us our drinks—wine for Dex and a single-malt scotch for me. I watch Dex as she exchanges pleasantries with the others in the room. I relax in the reflected glow of the comradeship that Dex shares with these people. Seeing her here, chatting and smiling, I undergo one of those shifts in perspective that leaves one momentarily disoriented. Everything I've assumed about her has germinated in that tiny erotic incubator we've created for ourselves. Here among her friends and peers I begin to recognize the dimensions of her that I hadn't, in my willful ignorance, even considered as possible. A social being. One with friends and a history. One who is valued.

If there was a part of me that felt superior to her, that part is now extinguished.

She winds her arm in mine and draws me back into the circle. I hadn't realized that I'd retreated. I'm asked questions about what I do, how long Dex and I have known each other. I'm being gently interrogated for my suitability for their friend. I answer their questions honestly and I can see the group relaxing and opening up to me. I've confirmed to them what they have heard about me. I have been accepted.

At that moment I undergo another one of those shifts. I realize that I'm proud of Dex. Proud of my relationship with her. I thought that I would have been embarrassed to be led around by anyone, but I'm not. I size up the other doms and subs here and can sense the different dynamics at play. There's a greater degree of attentiveness here, a desire to acknowledge and to please that I've seldom seen elsewhere. 

I'm about to lean over and whisper reciprocity in Dex's ear when Michael stands with his wine glass raised.

"It's wonderful that you've been able to come and share in this moment. As you know, Eve has agreed to come out as it were, and as an expression of that submission and trust has agreed to be presented to you, my dear friends, in the role that she has accepted. This is," continues Michael, looking at me, "something that Eve wanted. To share this moment and herself with those she holds the most dear."

The bedroom door opens and a tall brunette enters. Save for a some straps of leather, she is nude. Full breasts are framed by a series of leather straps that extend from a central ring. Her wrists and ankles sport thick leather cuffs. She is barefoot and walks with the graceful self-assurance of a dancer.

I am struck at the obvious confidence and pride in her bearing as she enters the living room. She presents herself to the lawyer, kneeling on the floor, arms locked behind her back, assuming the position that I've seen on the internet.

The assembled guests are smiling. No one is embarrassed for themselves or for Eve. It's as though this is the most natural thing in the world, which I imagine it might be for these people. 

Around Eve's neck Michael places a gleaming collar that appears to be of gold. Its beauty only partially masks its function—a golden ring sways from the front of the collar as Michael locks it in place.

"He's always appreciated theater," whispers Dex. 

"You may mingle," says Michael as he helps Eve to her feet.

Eve smiles and kisses her master on the lips. I watch shamelessly and feel unmoored by Eve's casual nudity as she navigates the room.

More pleasantries are exchanged and Michael turns his attention to Dex.

"Dex, it's great that you are here."

"I appreciate the invitation. Besides sharing in this moment, it gives me an opportunity to present to you a friend of mine as well." Dex introduces us and we shake hands.

We chat about the mundane topics that people chat about at the beginning of a party. The weather (it has been hot and humid), baseball (the Jays are out of contention), and the various shows that are coming to town.

Eve eventually joins her master and smiles at Dex and me. "It's been a while," she says.

Dex smiles. "I've been busy."

"I can see why. We've missed you."

Dex nods. "May I?" she asks, looking at Michael.

"Of course."

Dex faces Eve. Smiles flicker on both their faces. Dex circles Eve, her hand trailing a circle around the woman's hips and buttocks. Facing the slave, Dex cups one of her breasts while studying the woman's reaction. Eve tries for a submissive mien but doesn't quite succeed in entirely hiding a smile. Dex brushes her fingers across the woman's nipples.

"She's pretty, as always," she says.

"Thank you," says Eve.

"She's not broken though," says Dex with mock sadness.

"I prefer it that way," says Michael. "The fun is in the attempt. I hope I never fully succeed in taming her."

"I agree," says Dex, glancing at me.

Michael doesn't miss the exchange and smiles.

Dex pinches the woman's nipple and twists. Eve gasps.

"I sense that you might enjoy the attempt," says Michael.

Dex smiles. "I would."

"I think that might be arranged, provided Eve agrees."

Eve nods. "If it pleases you."

"But first," says Michael, "I think is time to prepare our little feast."

"Will you help Eve?" Dex asks me.

"Sure." I say.

***

Eve takes my hand and leads me to the dining room. She closes the door. I see the guests through the glass panes but their conversation is muted. 

Now that I'm alone with her, I feel self-conscious. I struggle to look into Eve's eyes while her nudity lends my gaze a certain gravity. "What do you want me to do?"

"Set the table."

"I can do that."

"Good." Eve arranges a cloth on the table and places a cushion at its head. She then climbs up on it and spreads her long limbs to the four corners. "I'm the table," she says.

"I don't understand."

"You will. There are lengths of rope in the credenza. Tie me up."

"Ah."

"There is also a package of alcohol wipes. Bring that too."

Eve instructs me to tie each of her cuffs to the legs of the table. Tight, she says, but not too tight. Once she is secure, she asks me to wipe her down with the alcohol wipes.




Swallowtail Ch. 12



"You could have done it yourself before I tied you up."

Eve smiles. "This is more fun though."

She's right. It is fun. I stroke the entire length of her body. Goose pimples rise in the wake of the wipes and her nipples grow tight and puckered. She squirms and I have to admit that I'm not immune to the sight of a bound woman before me. 

"Don't forget the nether regions."

I'd skirted these, not wanting to appear too forward. "You sure?"

"Yes," she hisses impatiently.

And so I make sure that every visible inch of her is clean, paying special attention to the various nooks and crannies that I might have missed the first time around.

"You're enjoying this," says Eve.

"You asked."

"Fine. Enough already."

With one last stroke I announce that she is as clean as she will likely ever be. Eve then orders me to the kitchen to retrieve some platters.

"Are you up to managing the presentation?" she asks when I return.

"Sure. I'm in advertising."

"You're a liar."

"No, really."

Eve rolls her eyes.

The platters contain a wide array of sushi and sashimi and some decorative bits of green paper designed to look like grass or the teeth of a saw. 

I study what I have on my palette and then set about placing pieces of sushi and sashimi over Eve's abdomen. I'd read about this kind of thing. I think it is called naked sushi, but I don't remember whether there are any rules about how to place the food. I decide to create a floral pattern, with rolls as flower petals and pickled ginger as leaves. I wind the arrangement from her lower abdomen up to her breasts.

I accidentally brush a nipple with a hand while I'm placing a roll.

"Sorry," I say.

"You don't have to apologize."

"But..."

"If it's okay with Michael that you're doing this, then anything you might want to do with me is okay."

"Within limits," I say.

"There might be those. I'll let you know."

"Dex's limits might not be yours." 

"You'd have to weigh that, of course. Face the consequences if you're wrong."

I shake my head. This is a strange and foreign world.

The arousal that I felt when I secured Eve to the table is subsumed by my desire to create a flattering and interesting presentation.

"How daring do you want to get?" I ask.

"Sky's the limit."

"Okay," I say. "You asked for it."

I've placed most of the pieces and am beginning to run out. 

I drape some picked ginger around Eve's pussy and tuck it firmly into the creases using chopsticks. She gasps. "That's cold," she says. Then: "It tingles. You're a bastard."

She bites her lower lip while I place layers of ginger in and around her labia. I'm worried that I'm overdoing it, creating a riotous labial explosion between her legs. I decide to temper the efflorescence of pink by inserting a hand roll into the layers of picked ginger. I frown at the presentation, debating whether I've gone too far.

I decide to leave the area for a while and exhaust the rest of my supply of sushi and sashimi on Eve's arms and legs. 

While I'm navigating less fraught anatomical territory, Eve says, "I was curious about you. I'd heard that Dex had taken up with someone."

I nod.

"Keep her happy," says Eve. "She deserves it."

"I intend to. How do you know her?"

"Michael used to manage her financial affairs. He doesn't any more. It's one of those strange twists of fate that finds Dex and Michael in the same social circle now. How about you?"

"Dex found me." I place the past two pieces. "This is all pretty new to me."

"Dex thinks highly of you."

I'm tempted to ask what Dex has said about me but decide not to. "I'm a work in progress," I say instead.

"Everyone is."

The conversation stutters to a halt. "What's it like for you?"

Eve smiles. "Can you be more specific?"

Uncharacteristically, I feel myself blushing. "I don't mean to get too personal, but what's in it for you, submitting?"

"Ah." Eve adjusts herself on the table. She catches me staring and smiles. "Have you felt before that a relationship invariably becomes little more than an eternal chess match? There's the strategizing, the constant jockeying for advantage."

I know what she means. "Not always. But yeah, I know what you mean."

"I realized a while ago that I don't particularly like chess. It's devastating to lose and exhausting to play to stalemate. So I decided that I wouldn't play anymore.

"I'm liberated from all that. Not liberated in the way Gloria Steinem would necessarily condone, but in ways that work for me. Besides which," says Eve, "I have certain appetites that are satisfied in no other way."

"And this..." I struggle for the words. "This coming out?"

"I'm not exactly the marrying type but I do appreciate the symbolism of formalizing a union among one's peers."

"And that's what this is?"

Eve laughs. "Sure. BDSM wedlock."

"It's certainly more interesting than any wedding that I've gone to."

"See?"

I finish up by placing paper decorations here and there on Eve's body. I take a step back. The presentation doesn't look too bad.

"I think we're done."

"Good," says Eve. "By the way, Dex wants you naked too."

"She didn't say anything to me."

Eve shrugs. "I'm just passing along the message."

I weigh the options. Respect Dex's wishes or refuse. This is far beyond where I wanted to go, but then I'm afraid of how my refusal might reflect on Dex. She may want to demonstrate to her friends that I am worthy and attentive.

In the end I strip and place my folded clothes in the corner of the dining room. I open the door and call out that dinner is ready.

I feel that I'm blushing as the guests file past. Dex's eyes widen when she sees me. "Where are your clothes?"

"I thought... Eve said... Shit."

"That's for the ginger," says Eve.

"I'll get dressed."

"No." Dex is smiling. "I'm fine seeing you naked."

"Oh."

"But if it makes you more comfortable, you can put your pants back on. Leave the shirt."

"Thanks."

Dex strokes my naked rear. "You owe me."

***

Michael helps Eve off the table and feeds her one of the left over pieces of sushi. The party drifts back to the living room, leaving Michael to wipe the residue of the food from Eve's body.

They return to the living room a few minutes later. Eve appears flushed and happy. Michael walks her to the center of the room and announces, "Having worked so hard at providing us a feast for so many of our senses, I think that it might be time for some play."

"As you please," says Eve.

Michael smiles and leads Eve to a raised, padded bench that I hadn't noticed before among the other furnishings. He invites Eve to bend over it. I marvel at Eve's unquestioning obedience. More than anything, her faith and trust inspire me. More than any vow spoken in the company of friends, these actions demonstrate to me the depth of her loyalty to her partner. Her ankles are spread and fastened to eyebolts on the legs of the device. Her wrists are similarly bound to the other side. A few short months ago, I would have regarded Eve as a victim or a simpleton and Michael as a predator. Now I marvel at the reciprocal trust that has brought these two individuals to this point.

"Dex, it would be an honor if you could break the ice."

"Are you sure?"

Michael nods and gestures to low table. He removes a cloth to display an assortment of canes and whips and floggers.

I watch as Dex inspects each before lifting a flogger. This, I think to myself, is when things start to get weird. She swings the flogger experimentally, testing its weight and balance. She whispers something to Eve that I don't quite hear and then positions herself behind the bound sub. The guests watch with interest. I guess I do too.

I've never seen Dex in action like this. When I'm on the receiving end, it's difficult to appreciate the concentration and control. For me, it's equal parts anticipation and pain. Appreciation is the farthest thing from my mind. Dex first allows the fells to fall limply against the small of Eve's back before slowly drawing the flogger back. She does this playfully, teasingly for a minute or two. I can see how Eve relaxes. 

Dex them directs a series of underhand swings to the point between Eve's legs. Eve's eyes are closed and she is smiling.

Dex gathers up the fells and directs a fast, powerful stroke to Eve's left cheek. The blow surprises the sub and she utters a muffled shriek as her knees buckle. Conversation in the living room stops for a moment.

"I see I have your attention now."

"Yes."

Dex steps back and swings the flogger with more power and rhythm. She places a series of glancing strokes across one first one cheek and then the other. I see the flesh give beneath the leather fells and Eve's muscles tensing and a growing redness to the flesh of her ass.

"This must seem very strange to you," says Michael.

"Eve explained it to me. But yes, it is strange."

Michael nods. "It was Eve's idea, this evening. I'm normally a very private man. For Eve, I've allowed this."

"I understand."

"Do you? I wish I did. I sometimes think that her sacrifices are greater than mine are, which is why I sometime grant her some latitude. But then, it isn't really a sacrifice at all to do what gives you pleasure, is it?"

"I guess not."

Eve is biting her lower lip as the strokes continue to land. Dex now changes the character of her assault. The insistent and slightly menacing whisper of leather against skin now becomes louder. The arcing swirls of the fells flatten and thudding blows now begin to land more forcefully. More time elapses between each, allowing Eve to recover from the last and wilt in anticipation of the next.

"Count them down," says Dex, "From five to one."

Whack.

"Five," gasps Eve.

Dex wheels back.

I watch the others. They were chatting among themselves before but are now paying attention to the conclusion of Dex's performance.

"Dex is very skilled," says Michael. 

"Yes she is."

"You are fortunate. But then you probably already know that."

"I am fortunate, but there's a lot I don't know. Have you known Dex long?"

"Since she was a child."

I can't help but to feel a little creeped out. 

"I can imagine what you're thinking and I can't blame you for thinking it. Until maybe two years ago, I had no idea that Dex and I shared similar interests. Until then, she was simply the daughter of my friend and business partner and, after his passing, a client.

"Imagine my surprise when my client ends up at an event that I'm also attending. I'm not sure who was more embarrassed. I could see that Dex had taken up with some less than trustworthy individuals, people more concerned with their own pleasures than her well-being. I encouraged her to find a more worthy partner and friends more attuned to her needs. When she finally did break with them, I told her that my circle would certainly welcome her. Until tonight, she never took me up on the offer." 

Eve moans now. Her ass and legs are bright red and I can discern darker welts where skin may have broken. "Two," says Eve. 

I might be concerned for Eve if I didn't know that pleasure is written in different shades of red.

"Last one. Ready?"

"Yes." The answer is quavering.

"Okay." Dex makes a show of wheeling back and then arrests the movement just short of the target. The fells trickle against the reddened flesh. Eve has been bracing for it and lets out a quavering breath. Dex lays the flogger across Eve's back and moves to her head. She sits on her haunches and pulls Eve's head up by the hair.

She smiles and kisses the bound woman on the lips.

Dex then rejoins me and Michael. 

Another hour passes and Eve remains bound to the device. From time to time, a guest approaches and caresses a breast or cheek. Other times she is offered wine.

I notice that the frequency of these visits to the bound woman is increasing. 

I watch with interest as the doctor approaches a table on which is arrayed a set of floggers, canes and other devices. She says something to Eve, whose only response is a slight raising of her eyebrows. The doctor selects what I know from my own experience to be an anal hook. The doctor whispers something in Eve's ear while her hands work between Eve's legs. The corners of Eve's mouth quirk up in what might be a smile as the doctor continues to whisper in her ear. A moment later a cry of surprise wafts out over the party as the hook is inserted. The doctor has tied a cord to Eve's hair. Eve's head bends back until she looks out on the guests and the doctor ties off the rope. 

"You could get even," says Dex.

"Huh?"

"For Eve's little trick on you. I hear that she just loves nipple clamps."

"You don't say?"

"So if you were to attach a pair, the ones with the weights, for instance, I'm sure you would earn her undying gratitude."

There are a pair of clamps that feature metal balls on the table. I weigh them in my hand and approach Eve.

"Hello Eve," I say, squatting down in front of her. "Remember me?"

"How could I forget?" The strain is evident in her voice but still she smiles.

"Dex asked me to look in on you." I tentatively stroke a breast. The skin is cool beneath my fingers. "I'm told that you like clamps." I dangle the pair of clamps in front of her face.

Eve shakes her head.

"You don't? Really? Dex said you did. Who am I to believe? I can't believe you unfortunately. But if it's really a problem, shake your head again. I don't want to overstep my bounds."

Eve remains still.

"No? Good. You have remarkable breasts by the way." I take a nipple between a thumb and forefinger and position the clamp. I slowly allow the clamp to bite. Eve stiffens but remains quiet. "One down," I say. I place the other one and step back to admire my handiwork. 

At that moment, the doctor approaches Eve from behind strokes the sub's ass. Eve has been in this position for longer than I think I could hold it. 

A hum emanates from the bench where Eve is still captive. I see that the doctor has applied a vibrator of some sort between Eve's legs. The sub's body is aglow with sweat and her clamped breasts sway under the weight that hangs from them. 

I return to Dex and Michael. We talk for a while. I notice that Michael is dividing his attention between us and Eve. 

After a few minutes Eve's legs jerk and she cries out. 

Eve is allowed to mingle towards the end of the party. Michael has allowed her a robe and she wears it, partly open to reveal the collar that she wears. She hovers near her master and, watching the unconscious contact between them, it is clear that they are in love. It's hard for me to imagine sharing a loved one as Michael has until I realize that no one has derived physical pleasure from the helpless sub. It has all been about the giving of pleasure.

I whisper my realization to Dex.

"What did you expect?" she asks. 

I shrug. 

***

We take the elevator to the garage to collect a bag that Dex has left in her car before proceeding to my house. Of course, it would be much easier for us to remain at Dex's condo, but she has issued no invitation and I respect her wishes. Besides, my house on the escarpment has become our place.

Our footfalls echo in the cavernous and dimly lit concrete space. Dex is holding my hand and bumps against me as we walk.

"What did you think?" she asks.

"About the party?"

"Yeah."

"Fun," I say. "Weird but strangely familiar. I like your friends, by the way."

"It's mutual."

I spot the Audi TT that I followed several months ago. We approach it and Dex unlocks the door and then hesitates. 

"I can't wait," says Dex.

"What?"

"I want you now."

I laugh. "We're in the garage."

She turns me around and pushes me against the fender. One hand is pulling the key from around her neck while the other fumbles at my pants. She wasn't joking.

"Someone might come," I protest.

"Me, I hope."

"There are cameras."

"Smile then."

With a metallic snick the lock opens and Dex pulls the cage from me. The ring opens and clatters to the ground. 

"I'm a little horny," she says. Her hand finds me and squeezes.

"I can tell."

"All I could think of, when I was flogging Eve, was you."

"Aw shucks," I say. I was thinking pretty much the same myself, but don't admit it.

Dex presses her fingernails into me. "And now I want you."

"Yes, mistress."

"I like that. Say it again."

I do.

Dex turns away from me, pulls up her skirt, and perches a knee on the hood of her car. She bends over and offers herself to me. Neither of us needs much in the way of foreplay. The entire night has been that. 

I grasp her hips and bury myself in her wet, hot hole.

"Oh fuck," she says.

Her hands splay against the hood and she grinds against me.

I feel that unmistakable tremor from her a moment later.

"Jesus," she gasps.

She tightens herself around me and tips her head back.

I don't care about where we are or about cameras or unsuspecting passersby. I want to fuck this woman.

I pull her up and turn her to face me. I reach down and wrap my arms beneath her legs, lift her, and brace her against a support column.

Her piercing rattles against my teeth when her tongue finds mine. Her fingernails bite into my neck and I feel a stinging pain.

I use my arms to spread her legs wide and occupy the space she offers me with a mindless, violent thrusting. There's nothing deliberate or planned about this. There's no scene or play. No dom or sub.

"Fuck me," commands Dex.

And I do.

***

Thanks for reading. As always, your comments are welcome. 



Swallowtail Ch. 13



Swallowtail is a novel that traces the narrator's gradual acceptance of submission.

Previously: The narrator has accepted Dex as his dom. In this final chapter, the narrator learns more of his dom and is shared with her former lover.

(For those who have read "Outsourced" 1 and 2, this chapter features the character, Naima.)

***

"I've invited a friend over for dinner for Friday. Is that okay?"

We're lying in bed on a Sunday afternoon and the late summer breezes are wafting into the bedroom, cooling the sweat that films our bodies. The curtains are open and riffle gently. Dex prefers it that way, despite or perhaps because of the danger of being spied in flagrante by the hikers who might be passing by on their way to the edge of the escarpment to watch the turkey vultures that circle endlessly on the thermals. I don't mind either. I like watching her and doing so in natural light is a joy. If that means having the windows wide open, so be it.

It has been almost a year since we met one October night in the art gallery. It has been a strange and exciting journey. At my age, you don't expect much in the way of change. You tend to think of yourself as being more or less set in your ways and that any change would be glacial. But the year has seen me somehow go from cynical cad to faithful sub. It has seen the introduction of bondage and impact play and the exploration of dominance and submission.

Dex said a month ago that she loved me. I'd been flummoxed. I hadn't anticipated that love could blossom out of the shifting soil of our relationship. I couldn't imagine how genuine love could flourish in a heart intent on domination. It took me a while to reciprocate the sentiment, though I knew it to be true. I explained to her, or tried to, that I couldn't easily grasp how I could love someone I was submissive to. She replied that women had been doing it for millennia. 

She's wise, this one. But then, I've known that for a while.

I told her then that I loved her too.

And now, lying here with the dom I love, she's asking for my permission. A month or two ago I would have been surprised by Dex's question. A month ago, Dex seldom mentioned her friends to me and I would have assumed that any circle thereof had to be vanishingly small. Now I know that she does indeed have friends, individuals who are accomplished and personable and balanced, characteristics that I, in my less charitable moments, would have found difficult to apply to Dex or anyone of the lifestyle that we share. And now she has another friend coming out of the woodwork. My dear mistress appears to have a veritable abundance of friends. 

I roll over onto my side and place my hand just beneath a breast. Her eyes are closed and the corners of her mouth quirk up in a smile. Dex wears less makeup these days, seemingly less intent on that barrier of dark goth that she hid behind when we first met. I prefer the more natural look. It suits her better, highlighting rather than masking her beauty, making her look more confident and less other. The piercings are still there through. She said, months ago, that they were a sign of ownership. That she owned her body. With piercings on her face and tongue, nipples and labia, there is no doubt that she is the mistress of her domain.

"Sure," I say.

"Good."

I trace the swallowtail tattoo on her lower abdomen. She squirms and says that it tickles. I don't stop. The tattoo is so realistic that it always surprises me that I don't feel the delicate structure of the wings beneath my fingers. 

"Who is this friend? Someone from the party?"

"No. Her name is Naima."

"That's an unusual name."

"She's from India originally. She's a student here now."

I wait for Dex to say more. She doesn't. I don't know whether her silence is just Dex being Dex or something more secretive.

I bend over her and press my lips to her breast, enjoying the way that it gives beneath the pressure. 

I try again. "Tell me more about your friend." 

Dex hums her pleasure instead.

I come up for air a little while later. "How long have you known her? Is she really close?"

"Our circles intersected for a while." 

I think I know what she means. Before meeting me, Dex had been submissive to a master who had gone too far and had betrayed the trust that Dex had placed in him. "Naima is into the lifestyle?" I ask.

"Not quite." 

I tease the story out of her. She wants to tell me but also wants to be teased. It takes a while but neither of us minds. After Dex had broken with her dom, she ran across Naima, whom she'd once seen at some party or another. For whatever reason, the two of them hit it off. Naima was going through her own difficulties and found in Dex a kindred spirit. One thing led to another and...

I stop Dex at this point. "Don't tell me."

"What?"

"That you became lovers."

"Okay. I won't tell you."

Naima convinced Dex to take control again and that if she couldn't trust anyone as a dom, the best course of action was to become one herself. A better one. The kind of dom that she wanted to have for herself. Naima, said Dex, reintroduced her to the pleasure that was possible. "She helped me at one time," says Dex. "She woke me up when I had shut myself down."

"And she was your lover."

Dex pauses a beat. "Yes. She was."

She emphasizes the last word for my benefit. She understands me well and I appreciate it.

"Does it matter?" she asks.

I think about it and am again confronted by one of those logical inconsistencies that Dex has invited into my life like unseen insects that sneak in through a door left ajar and inflict unexpected bites. I'm less put out at the prospect of meeting Dex's female lover than I would have been had Naima been male. "No," I say. "It doesn't matter."

***

I'm wearing the chastity device for the first time in weeks. For reasons I can guess at, Dex has felt the need to reassert herself and claim her dominance over me. I don't mind. In fact, I'm quite satisfied, for Dex has also learned that it's difficult to manhandle my unit into the confines of a cage without first taming it. 

It's too early in the fall for a fire so Dex has instructed me to light some of the candles she has brought into my house. For ambiance, she says. I'm in the process of burning my fingertips when the doorbell rings. Dex hurries off to answer it.

It has been said that the women of India are among the most beautiful in the world and Naima does nothing to suggest otherwise. Dex introduces us and Naima gives me a hug as though we're long-lost friends. She's wearing a well-worn pair of jeans and a loose white blouse that is generously unbuttoned. A pendant held by a length of fine gold chain rests between her breasts. It's as though the fates are conspiring to test me and the ability of my eyes to resist the laws of curiosity.

I see immediately that there is a quiet elegance about her, a long limbed grace and confident self-possession. I'd be lying if I were to say that she didn't at first befuddle me. Despite my age and experience, unconscious beauty still takes my breath away and it takes me a while to get used to it. In a way, I hope that I never do.

I serve some wine and settle gingerly in my armchair. The weight of the device between my legs is impossible to ignore. If Dex wanted the device to suppress my libido, she might have chosen something else to do to me. The device draws my attention to my groin whenever I move. Of course, that might have been her plan too.

I'm glad that I'm relegated to the background while Dex and Naima catch up. It gives me the opportunity to observe them, these two erstwhile lovers. Their mutual attraction is obvious and I see that Dex is not immune to Naima's pull. The layers of distance that she reserves for others fall away and I see the Dex as I've only recently come to know her. For her part, Naima seems refreshingly ignorant of the effect she has on people. Expressions dance across her face like actors on a stage. She bestows touches on Dex like unconscious benedictions. 

I refill the wine glasses. The two women speak in a kind of code that excludes me. People that they have in common. Events they've experienced together. There are suggestions of drama and careful euphemisms that hint that Naima might be more than a mere student. I don't mind the exclusion. I'm new to this dynamic and am content to piece together the fragments as they appear.

Dex excuses herself and moves to the kitchen to attend to dinner. 

Naima observes to me that Dex has changed. For the better, she adds with a significant look at me, as though I'm somehow the architect of this improvement. Naima comments that she has never known her friend to cook. It's true. Dex is a recent convert to the kitchen and has gradually become more daring in her culinary adventures. The first time I saw her in an apron I thought for a moment that I'd landed unwittingly in Stepford. She muted my laughter with a thoroughly unstepfordian application of the flogger that night. I've since learned to appreciate Dex's tentative forays into domesticity with careful encouragement and no expressions of amusement.

Naima quizzes me gently, more out of genuine curiosity than intrusiveness. I ask my own questions. It seems that both of us are interested in the strange physics that have pulled us into Dex's particular orbit. 

Naima takes a sip of her wine. "You two appear to work well together. I can tell that you're strong. Dex needs strength, and certainly you need strength to be with Dex."

I'm not sure what to say. "I think we work well together."

"That's what Dex says."

"She's talked about me?"

"Of course. Girl talk."

I laugh out loud. The thought of Dex, so private and inscrutable, engaging in anything that could be termed girl talk is frankly bizarre. It shows how little I know her still.

"What's so funny?" asks Dex, who has reappeared wearing her apron, as if to dare me to comment. 

"I guess I never imagined..."

"That I might talk about you? That I might have someone to talk to?"

"Well..."

"You're surprised that he might think that?" asks Naima, coming to my rescue. "You're not the most communicative person in the world."

Dex mumbles something that I can't quite hear. I'm growing to like Naima more by the minute.

"I guess you've known each other for a while then," I venture.

"A few years," says Naima. Then, without prompting, she continues. "I remember that it was at a party. My companion insisted that we go there and that's where I first saw Dex. I suspect that both of us were there only because of our respective obligations. At any rate, we got to talking, found we had absolutely nothing in common, and became friends."

"Nothing in common?"

Naima laughs. "Surely you of all people can understand the mechanics of that? Opposites being attracted? We were as opposite as two people could be. Eventually we did find some common ground."

"Which was?"

"Certainly not her fashion choices. We were, in different ways, subordinate by choice." 

"Ah."

I sense that Dex would like nothing more than for Naima to shut up but she remains quiet. 

"In different ways," continues Naima, "the paths that we had chosen for ourselves were difficult, so when we needed friendship, we were friends." Naima shrugs. "And when we needed love, we were lovers."

I have no idea whether she knows that Dex has disclosed the nature of their relationship to me. The words are spoken like it's the most natural thing in the world, two women coming together as lovers. "She mentioned something like that." 

"You're not surprised, are you?" asks Naima.

"No. I'm not surprised by much anymore."

Naima appears to be enjoying herself. She glances at Dex and grins. "I understand that you too have learned to find pleasure in unexpected places?"

"Jesus, Naima." Dex is shaking her head, clearly nonplussed by the flood of disclosure.

"We're all friends," says Naima. "Let us then speak openly and honestly."

I think of the journey that I've taken with Dex. Finding pleasure in unexpected places is a delicate way of putting it. "I seem to have developed an appetite for it."

Naima laughs. "I thought so. Dex, you chose well."

More than a little wine is consumed over dinner and the restraint with which Dex and Naima began the evening begins to weaken. The conversation flows more easily, the filters fall from expressions, and there is more touching.

I wonder absently how Dex has described our relationship to her friend. Naima clearly knows about Dex's tastes and has at least inferred my collaboration. Does she know the extent of my submission and Dex's control over me? 

We move from the dining room to the living room. The only light in the living room comes from the candles that I lit earlier. I pour some Taylor Fladgate into three glasses. The stereo fills the room with a soft, comfortable blanket of music. The two occupy the love seat and I return to my armchair. I note that their thighs are touching. As they talk, hands alight of their own accord on the other's shoulder or leg. There's clearly no issue of personal space. 

Curiously, I don't feel excluded or threatened by their closeness. 

Naima leans her head on Dex's shoulder and gazes at the play of candlelight through the liquid in her glass. I notice also the Naima's hand has found Dex's leg again.

Naima has gone to the bathroom and Dex and I are alone for a moment. Dex looks after her friend and then back to me.

"I can tell that you want her," I say.

Dex averts her eyes but nods almost imperceptibly.

"Not that it matters, but I'm okay with it."

"It does matter."

I give a yeah-right shrug.

"You're an idiot for thinking it doesn't."

"Sorry." I'm glad that my implied consent does not extend to this and I'm grateful that Dex is recognizing this line.

"If it did come to it, are you sure you're okay with it?"

"Of course, now that you've asked."

"I didn't have to."

"You did."

"Life is too short to deny ourselves what pleasures are possible." The drink has relaxed all of us and Naima speaks now with a more pronounced accent and her words float on a foreign cadence. I enjoy the sound of her voice.

"You're a hedonist," I say.

Naima laughs. "If you wish to label me, that one serves as well as any other. I have a suspicion of labels.

"Let me tell you a story," continues Naima. "I was maybe eleven or twelve and living in a village in India with my parents and siblings. There was a boy with whom I'd grown up. He was in my class at school and we spent much of our time together. I probably thought in the way of young girls that we would be married one day. I had no notion that I wouldn't be a good match for him, as my family lacked wealth and position. At any rate, we grew up together and there came a day when we became curious about the differences between us. It was a game, both new and exciting. We dared each other to reveal ourselves. It was in our secret place by the river. I don't remember any fear at the time, but I do remember curiosity and wonder. Soon looks became touches and then shame brought an end to our little experiment, though I knew even then that excitement would triumph over shame and we would challenge each other again. 

"I found myself looking forward to a more of these forbidden times with my friend but I would never get the chance. In spite of our solemn vows of secrecy, word of my immodesty soon wound its way through our village and into the ears of my parents. I learned then that it is in the nature of boys to brag about their conquests. At any rate, immodest is one of the gentler words that were used to describe me. I had brought shame upon myself and my family. I remember feeling how disproportionate the consequences were to our little moment. I had done nothing wrong. What was the crime? Where was the victim? But as they told it, I had, by my shamelessness, moved further from God. That was my crime. I was a Jezebel at the age of twelve.

"And so I was labeled and the words applied to me could not be washed away. They followed me for years in the whispers and callous taunts of my peers. I was shunned by those who were my friends and lured by those who would lead me astray. 

"By the time I was in my teens I had satisfied my curiosity sufficiently to know that there was a certain fulfillment in being Jezebel. It occurred to me that if there was a God, then I could be closer to Him by using His gifts to give and receive pleasure." 

Naima pauses to sip at her port. She's beautiful and both Dex and I are spellbound.

"Eventually I became indifferent to labels. If you want to call me a hedonist, rest assured that I regard it as the highest of compliments. I'm also a realist and have been around enough to know that too few experiences in this life are pleasurable. Those that are and those with whom one finds pleasure are to be cherished and nurtured. Life will sooner or later rob us of our health and abilities and desire, so let's enjoy these things while we can. When I am old, I want to remember the pleasures that I have had, not the pleasures that I have denied myself."

"Naima has no issues with guilt," observes Dex.

Naima smiles. "If, in the moment, there is no guilt, why should there be when the moment has passed? You know this, Dex. Guilt is something imposed on us from outside by people who hold denial and suffering as the highest expression of the human condition. I'm not going to martyr myself on someone else's notion of virtue. I believe in creativity and pleasure. Guilt plays no part in it. If it gives pleasure and no one suffers in the attaining of it, then pleasure will be my guide." 

"I'll drink to that," I say.

We all raise our glasses.

***

I'm not quite sure how it happens or what sets it off. Perhaps the talk of pleasure has suppressed whatever inhibitions might have existed. At one point, there's a look between the two women that I can't decipher. Then one or the other or both makes a subtle move and their lips are pressed together. It may have started with a touch or it may have been the inertia of the evening. It doesn't matter; I see that everything has been leading to this.

I watch and wonder why I'm not surprised or threatened or embarrassed. I can't help feeling that this simple action, seen from the dissociative heights of my own wine-induced buzz, has been held in abeyance with difficulty ever since Naima arrived. Now that it has occurred, there is the strange type of expectant calm. I can see that Dex is both excited and bewildered. 

In wine is truth. I've used the phrase before. There is truth here. About pleasure and desire. About the possible rationale for denying pleasure and desire and the myriad reasons for embracing them.

Dex is wrestling with the truth. I can see it in the way she averts her eyes from mine. She wants the pleasure of Naima. I won't deny it. If she were to ask, and inasmuch it's within my rights to deny her anything, I wouldn't stand in the way. Naima was right. When we're old and time has robbed us of our ability, pleasure denied is the stuff of regret.

They separate. Dex looks at me and then down to a hand that is wrapped in Naima's. She has reservations. Naima has none. Dex closes her eyes for a moment. At length she rises and pulls Naima out of the loveseat. 

I wonder whether Dex somehow expected this from the very beginning. 

Naima, her back to me, has wrapped her arms around Dex. There's a brushing of cheeks, a closing of eyes, and then a full-on kiss, less inhibited and more deliberate than the first. I can tell by Naima's posture that she's pressing into Dex. I can tell by Dex's hands on the small of Naima's back that she is pulling.

If they are uncomfortable with my presence, they don't show it.

I wonder whether the drink has robbed me of my senses or my self-respect. I wonder what Naima thinks of me or what Dex has told her of me that she should so openly lavish such attentions upon my mistress with so little regard to my presence or feelings. Is it disrespect or something else? Is this a show put on for me? Is my presence irrelevant? I have no idea.




Swallowtail Ch. 13



Dex looks at me over Naima's shoulder while the darker woman's lips move smoothly down the side of her throat. Dex still has misgivings. I see that. She doesn't want to antagonize me but she also wants this. I nod slowly. I'm grateful for the look and the question I see embedded in it. With that look, I'm at ease, comfortable with whatever may occur. 

Dex disentangles herself from Naima, takes my hand with one of hers and Naima's with the other. She leads us to the bedroom. She squeezes my hand and deposits me on a chair. She leans over me, her lips on my ear. "If you're going to object, now would be the time."

"No," I say. I can't imagine objecting now to the pleasure Dex clearly desires.

With one last look at me, Dex turns to Naima, who has been waiting patiently by the bed. 

Naima eases Dex's shirt over her head. The skirt then falls to the floor. Dex's hands, those I have thought dedicated to me, similarly navigate the folds and buckles of Naima's outfit. They undress in time with the music that is wafting in from the living room. Soon the two are entwined in a naked embrace and I feel self-conscious and out of place. I see Naima's hands running smoothly up Dex's sides, contrasting against the pale skin, brushing the outer swell of her breasts. Dex's hands flow down the contours of her friend's waist.

I wonder if I should leave and pour myself a scotch and wait for them to finish. I'm at a loss. If my presence hadn't been implied by Dex leading me here, I'd be gone.

There are noises of wet kisses, the susurration of breathing, the sound of skin against skin and now the muted exclamations of arousal shared.

And then there's me, crossing my legs painfully.

Naima presses Dex onto the bed. They navigate each other with the unconscious movements of long-time lovers. I watch, rapt, at the union of flawless skin, of need wordlessly implied and immediately satisfied. 

Naima has maneuvered herself down Dex's body and has positioned herself between Dex's legs. She kisses the swallowtail tattoo. Dex's legs are spread, revealing that perfect pussy, lips parted and glistening. Naima lowers her head and I see the flash of tongue and hear the gasp evoked by the contact. 

And I watch.

I watch as Naima's tongue dances over Dex's sex. I watch as Naima's own fingers appear, probing the valley between her own exotic legs, and burying themselves within the folds that are darker than Dex's. The fingers of the other hand have lifted and spread the labia of my mistress.

Dex is breathing more heavily now. Her abdomen falls and rises in time with her mounting arousal. Her back arches. Her hands have found her breasts and are alternately kneading them and fingering the pierced nipples.

I shift on the chair. My own arousal is mercilessly constrained by the steel that confines it. I feel its edges biting into me.

The dance of Naima's tongue over Dex's clitoris combines with the fingers that are now buried within my mistress to bring her to the top of the wave that I have built for her so often before. There's the intake of breath that I know so well, the quiet whimpering release through a constricted throat, the final gasp of abandonment.

Naima reaches for the chain around Dex's neck and the key that hangs from it. Dex raises her head and the chain is lifted over it.

Naima approaches me, the chain draped over her slender fingers. "You must be uncomfortable," she says.

"Yes."

Naima smiles. I stand and she approaches. I feel the warmth that emanates from her, and the subtle aroma of intimacy that plays beneath her perfume. She stands close and I feel her hands at my waist. My slacks to fall the floor. Naima unlocks the device and gently removes the steel from me. "You have a cruel mistress but you've been very patient," she says. The words come out with an almost musical cadence.

I didn't have much choice, I think, but I only nod.

She kneels and grasps me as though trying to smooth out the embossing that the device has imprinted on me. Her slender fingers run the length of my cock. "It's a cruel thing to be held captive." She's playing with me in more ways than one. There's a gleam in her eye and a smile that is barely suppressed.

"But twice the blessing to be free," I say.

The smile blossoms. She turns to Dex. "I like this one."

"He's a keeper," says Dex.

"Let us double your blessing then," Naima says. She leads me to the bed where Dex is waiting. I detect a look in her eyes that I haven't seen before. Pride. Love, perhaps. Gratitude for having been allowed this moment.

Naima bids me to lie down next to Dex. I comply. I've never been involved in a threesome and the etiquette, if there is one, is unknown to me. Dex places a hand on my cheek and kisses me deeply. I'm hyper aware of her skin against mine. Her hand. The breast that presses against my chest. The tongue that twines with mine. I lose track of Naima, so engrossed am I in the moment. Then I find her, working her way up my leg with her fingers and lips and tongue. It's difficult to concentrate on Dex, what with the imminent encroachment of this beguiling stranger. Naima's fingers encircle my scrotum and I freeze.

Naima's tongue navigates a slow path from the base of my cock to its head. I feel the heat of contact and the cooling trail of saliva behind. Dex catches my lower lip between her teeth and runs her tongue over it as Naima captures my cock within her mouth. I'm overwhelmed and am tempted to ask Dex to take the crop to me for the distraction. Dex lifts herself slightly and positions a breast at my mouth. I take its tip between my lips and concentrate on the nipple and the bar of metal that pierces it. I focus on my lips and teeth and the movement of my tongue to the exclusion of all else, all in an attempt to distract myself from the warmth and undulating tongue that plays on the underside of my erection. I could easily surrender now. 

One of my hands finds Naima's head. My fingers bury themselves in her luxuriant hair. My other hand rests on the small of Dex's back. As the two women lavish their attentions on me, I think of how my old self would have taken this as his due. It would have been a first, but also the kind of unexpected carnal surprise that happened to me from time to time, like Dex taking me in the bathroom stall last year. There would have been a certain blasé enjoyment. Now there's gratitude. Pleasure given freely is a gift. 

There's one last nip at the collar of my cock and flick of a tongue at its tip. Naima leaves me and I feel, a moment later, the bed giving slightly under her weight. I glance down my body and see that Naima now straddles me, facing away. Her hands squeeze my thighs. I marvel at her shape, the perfect exotic hourglass, subtle and feminine. Naima lifts herself and positions me before allowing herself to drop ever so slightly. I breach her silken wetness and close my eyes, fearing that the addition of sight to the sensory palette might overwhelm me.

"That's good," she says.

I glance at Dex and see that she is watching too, seemingly as taken by the image as I am. Naima descends on me and the twin curves of her ass press against my abdomen.

"Just be sure that you finish with me," whispers Dex into my ear. 

Dex then moves to the foot of the bed. I feel her between my legs. I open my eyes slightly and see her and Naima locked in a kiss. Dex's fingers are buried in Naima's raven black hair. Naima raises and lowers herself and I hear a muted moan and I'm unsure of its provenance.

At length Naima lies back on me. Her hair brushes my face. I feel her breath on my cheek and I turn to kiss her. She smiles dreamily in the wake of the kiss.

Dex has lowered herself. Her tongue lights on the underside of my cock, the part that's not still buried within her friend, and traces a path up until it leaves me and finds instead another target. Naima quivers against me when it does.

My hands stroke Naima's sides before snaking up her torso to find her breasts. Her nipples are hard and I hold my hands just above them, allowing her breathing to brush them against the palms. 

Dex's hands rest gently on my upper thighs and she nips playfully at the base of my cock before resuming her oral ministrations on Naima.

Naima's breathing is coming faster now. Her hands find mine and press them against her breasts. She rocks upon me as I feel the trill of Dex's tongue where Naima and I meet. 

She's grinding against me, tracing quivering circles with her hips. I feel that Dex is now lashing her friend mercilessly with her tongue. I wrap my arms tightly around Naima's abdomen and add my own thrusting to the mix. 

I'm at that point where I can easily relinquish control. I can allow myself to slip beneath the roiling waves of arousal. I'm tempted. Naima is there. I can feel her. I can join her. I want to join her. Add my gasps to hers. Both of us joined but alone, lost in the roar of climax.

I promised though. Promised to wait for Dex. Save myself for her. I try to dissociate myself from the intimate tightness that has surrendered to me, the feeling of a quivering body weighing on mine, the tongue that flits between us....

Naima lies limp upon me, following the rises of my body and filling the hollows. There's a thin film of sweat between us, hers and mine. She clenches me within her as the spasms subside. 

I'm not sure whether I've surrendered. I don't think so, but the last moments have been a blur. 

With a final kiss, Naima disengages from me and lies next to me. Her head is perched on her hand and she simply watches now as Dex claims me. I feel the presence of my mistress as an abstraction and she may as well not exist. I cup Dex's breasts and we fall into a rhythm that is both familiar and reassuring. In spite of everything, this is where I belong.

The swallowtail tattoo appears to rise and fall, undulating on unseen currents. Dex takes her time and brings me back slowly. She knows me now. Knows herself. Knows, as I do, that we work together. Her eyes are closed but her face is intent, balancing her pleasure with mine.

Gold glints from the various parts of her body that she has claimed ownership of. I hear Naima breathing next to me. I'm content to let her watch, just as Dex is content to share me and herself. 

I'm glad that I have waited for Dex. I feel that familiar tingle, that building of pressure. She's drawing it out of me with a body and mind that are familiar yet blessedly unknowable. It is the unknowable that will keep me with her. It is my hunger for the unknowable for which I will strive to keep my place.

Uncharacteristically, a moan escapes Dex's parted lips. She has angled her hips, pressing my turgid length against that spot that she often toys with when she's on the cusp. 

There's another moan, louder this time. It's joined by my gasp as she digs her fingernails into my flesh. She's there, body dancing to a tune only she can hear. She's away from me now, riding waves on which I'm an incidental companion. Her body writhes and clenches, simultaneously pushing and pulling, perched on the cusp.

Before I know it I join her, no longer incidental but not with her either. I ride my own wave alone, yet propelled by her. 

Epilogue

It will be a coming out party of sorts. It was my idea and the lines and limits of it are mine alone. That said, Dex was both surprised and pleased that I suggested it to mark our first year together. She's as giddy and anxious as a betrothed, wanting everything to come off perfectly.

There are many friends with whom I could not share this moment, this coming out, this public statement of my submission to Dex. As important as it is to me, it would be unfathomable to them. And so, I have limited the guest list to Dex's friends, those who share in this particular and peculiar dynamic.

Naima has also agreed to come. We never repeated that night, though Naima frequently visits and subjects herself to Dex's culinary experiments. I can't imagine that we would repeat it, though the very fact that it happened has erased some of the lines that I've had and redrawn them somewhere else.

At some point, Dex and I might approach these lines. We might respect them or cross them. I know now that all lines are flexible and that it's foolish to give them more power than they deserve. As Naima said that night, if it gives pleasure and no one suffers in the attaining of it, then pleasure will be my guide.

Pleasure... and Dex.

***

Thanks for reading. For those who have followed Swallowtail from the first chapter, I have appreciated your comments, suggestions, and words encouragement. Thank you! --KT