Under the blindfold you hear the brûlée snap under the spoon. The clink of the metal on the glass, and again the subtle pressure of the spoon on your lips. The custard is rich and thick, with the shard of sugar a perfect textural counterpoint. Your tongue slides the flavor around over and over before you swallow.
The wineglass touches your lips and you sip, a viscus Canadian ice wine, sweet and flavorful, deep red, full of after notes.
The evening has gone this way. You saw the repast as you sat in the chair, catalogued what you could while I wound the straps round and round your calves, binding each to a leg of the chair. Then your forearms, again the straps almost tight enough to block circulation, certainly tight enough to hold you immobile. Then the straps around your chest, pulling you to perfect posture against the old oak, feeling the carvings on the hardwood chair back pressed into your spine. Then the blindfold.
Then the food. One slow mouthful at a time of caviar. The buttery brine of the eggs, salty and delicate popping against your tongue. Then a sip of the wine, Blanc de Noir, to match the taste. Three spoonfuls, then four. Then no more.
A light sorbet to cleanse the palate. Just a spoonful.
Then the kale, creamed and just a touch bitter, rich beyond belief, with shards of bacon in it. A light white wine between each sip.
With each sorbet you feel your mind racing, your heart pounding about what might come next. What had you seen?
The roasted marrow on toast, with a deep blood red, extremely dry.
The cool lemon clears your tongue but not your mind. You can feel the pulse, but it seems bound as you are the blood has only one place to go.
The unagi, grilled and perfectly smooth, with a saki.
The lemon. You moan with pleasure at it now. Even that delicate touch feels like it's everywhere you would wish to be touched.
The duck confit, rich beyond rich, with the effervescence of champagne to brighten it up.
It's indescribable. The want for what is next.
Every decadence in the world, four spoonfuls of each, just enough to taste, until you are replete, sated and spent, with the fourth spoonful of brûlée in you.
You feel your hands tingle back to life as the straps are unwound, then your feet, which you don't trust to hold you.
I lift you, still blindfolded, and place you in your bed, the Egyptian cotton sheets caressing you. When the blindfold come off the room is pitch dark.
I whisper in your ear "would you like to move from taste to touch?"
I roll you onto your stomach. You hear and feel me move but in the darkness. Then then my hands, coated in warm oil, start massaging your right foot, working in deep strokes to release any tension.
Then your calf, the strong pressure undoing the strap marks on your leg. Long, slow, deep strokes, finding every knot of tension. Then up further to your thigh, taught and strong from your exercise regimen, being worked over with my fingers pressing deep into the muscles, each stroke going a little higher until my fingers just touch the glorious curve of your backside, within a hairs breath of the heat that's been growing in you since the first course.
Rather than indulge you I move to your left leg and start over, first the ball of your foot, the arch, the heel, the perfect Victorian turn of your ankle, and up your calf. The work of the straps is again undone, with the muscles underneath restored to fill vigor and then lulled into relaxation. Then your thigh, up and up, stroke by long torturous stroke, while you start to moan at the release of stress in one area and the growth in another.
My fingers just brush your fresh aches, and then are gone. You hear me move and lift your left hand. Fingers and palm and wrist are prized free of their tension, loosened and relaxed before my fingers move to your forearms.
First they trace the strap markings, running along the indentations of your imprisonment before caressing them out, making them never were. Then up your arm to your shoulder, shaking the arm to prove it is limp with relaxation.
Then around your body to the right hand, repeating the process, undoing the binding marks. Aside from the comfortable satiation throughout you there is no longer a mark of your confinement, save your memory of acquiescence.
My hands move to your shoulders and my strong fingers slowly work deep into your muscles. Every knot of tension is found and removed. Your spine is traced from the base of your skull to again just the slightest rise of your backside. You moan and grunt as I work out everything, fingers deep into you, leaving behind the most comfortable of aches.
I roll you over and with light hands trace from the edge of your scalp down your face, your jawline, your chin, your neck. Your shoulder blades.
Your breasts. High and perfect. Nipples taught with anticipation, being every so lightly touched with the flat of my palm, down my fingers to their tips. Tracing the upward curve of your rise, then back down, across the flat expanse of your midriff, then the curves of where your legs meet your hips.
You are panting now, but otherwise silent. You are aching but know not to beg. You will be asked, and fulfilled. But there is a heat in you now that must nearly sear the sheets.
"Touch," I whisper. "Would you like hearing?"