The Request

The moment he put the phone down I felt a surge of joy rise inside of me. Okay, that's strictly not true; it had been there all day, like a troupe of ballet dancers in steel-toed boots had taken up residence in my gut. I was behaving, I knew, like some dorky teenager about to embark on a first date. The fact was, I wasn't and neither was he. Even still, I couldn't shake off the thought that something might go horribly wrong or that I, or worse, Sven, might wake up one morning and realise that this whole thing was a terrible mistake. What was weirder still was the ever growing realisation that it wasn't going to happen and that I was positively stupid with love for him.

"The things I do for you, huh?" he gave me a wolfish grin and settled the handset back into the cradle. He was focused on pulling off his shoes, kicking them absent-mindedly under the table in the small hallway. Sven and I were trying to avoid a Christmas mixer for our apartment block and our plan had worked. I had been struck down with something that was simply awful and he was playing the role of nurse beautifully. Or so everyone thought.

"Thank you." I walked over, wound my arms around his waist, luxuriated in the way he felt against me, the cold from the street still clinging to him in the warmth of the apartment. "I really need this."

"I noticed." Sven said. "I nearly rang up and cancelled this morning but didn't."

"Thank you." I said, at once surprised and touched by the revelation. " You're always looking out for me."

"I try." he shrugged, kissed my forehead. "You'll just have to have had one of those 24-hour bugs or something."

I nodded. The 24 hour bug was one of science and nature's greatest gifts. Nature had provided the best excuse for nearly anything one didn't wish to attend and Science had been kind enough to fail to cure it and work on solving cancer and dementia instead. "You got my text, then."

"I did." he turned and smiled, grabbed a jug of water from the fridge. "Do you want anything?"

I shook my head and leant against the wall. "No. Are you definitely sure you're okay with it?"

He set down the jug, gulped greedily from a glass. I watched the muscles in his neck move, felt the nerves in my lips tingle in sympathy, desperate for him after a long day of waiting. "I am."

I grinned, bounced about a little too enthusiastically. "Drink your water, then." I said. "Then we can start."

"Eager, much?" Sven said.

"You have no idea." I kissed him hard, shivered to myself when he purred back, moaning into my mouth. "I've been thinking about it for ages."

"So have I." He said. "More than I thought I would. I blame you, sugar."

"What's that supposed to mean? I wish you weren't always so cryptic."

"I just meant that...I don't know." He tailed off, his eyes flickering over my face. The tension was killing me, knotting up in my gut, solidifying like cement. "Pain was something that I wasn't always comfortable with but then you showed up and now I have all kinds of terrible thoughts."

"Well?" I pressed him further, impatient with desire. "That's nothing to be ashamed of and I won't do anything that you don't want to do, okay? You tell me what you're comfortable with."

"No," Sven shook his head, leant against the counter. "It's not that, I know you will, sweetheart. It's just, you really want this?"

I nodded, tried not to take his questioning of my suggestion as an insult. "Of course I do." I smiled. "Please don't think of me as some sweet, blushing ingenue now that I'm marrying you. Don't be that guy."

"Now why would I do that?" he smirked, his arms wrapping around me, pulling me close to him. I kissed him hard, my hands running through his hair. I settled my hand on his shoulder, pressed my thumb against his cheek, the nail just a smidge too rough against his flesh.

"You know what I love about you?" I said.

Sven gave me a long, slightly cynical look. "What?" he asked, "My winning smile, my eagerness to please you?"

I shrugged, "Apart from those."

"What?"

"You're the only man who I felt like I could be both with. You know, the old smart or sexy, madonna or whore problem. So many men make women feel like they have to pick." I hadn't wanted to admit this but it had been true from the first weeks of our relationship. Not once had Sven made me feel like our relationship was just kink or that he could only see me as some inhuman dominatrix fantasy. I had never stopped delighting in the way he made everything seem so completely comforting and utterly natural. "You respect me."

"Respect is earned." He said, as thoughtful as ever. "How could I not want to take pain for you?" he laughed. "You're so good. So tender and brutal and then-" he kissed me, "There's that god damn grin."

I cocked my head at him, inquisitive. "Not so bad yourself, have I ever told you that?"

"Once or twice." He said, nuzzling my neck. "I could stand to hear it again."

I let him kiss me, nibble at my clavicle and begin unbuttoning the tiny pearl buttons up the front of my shirt. I did the same to him, our hands avoiding each other's movements expertly.

"You smell so good." I said, desire knifing right through my torso so that it hit right against the sweet spot between my thighs. "So good."

Sven pushed me against the kitchen counter and I grinned against him in response, my teeth catching his lip. His fingers ran over my neck, tortuously slow and so deliciously cool against my heating flesh that I shivered in his grip. My fingers were lower now, working efficiently at his belt, the old chinos and underwear falling away, landing with a soft clink on the kitchen lino. I nibbled his earlobe, kissed the smarting flesh when he mewled at me. "On your knees." I purred. "Now."

He did as asked, his arms out as though welcoming whatever I would give him. "Take that smirk off your face." I said. "Or I will."

"Please." He said, still cocky. "I would like that."

"Are you definitely sure?" I asked. "Because I will gladly subject you to everything I whispered about last night and everything I thought about this morning and things you cannot even imagine I am capable of."

"This morning?" He raised an eyebrow.

"While you were in the shower." I said, my voice dropping to a low whisper. "I thought about making you cry and beg."

"Oh." Sven's eyes widened. "I see."

I nodded, watched the colour rise in his cheeks. "I like to think about getting you nearly there but not quite." I teased. "I like to orgasm over you not having orgasms."

"I know you do."

My mouth was inches from his ear now, my fingers wound into his hair. He sighed happily as I spoke, like my words had slaked some need deep within him. There were only one or two things which made me happier than watching him begin to melt and harden all at once and I was fully prepared to show him what they were.

"Do I have your consent?" I asked, moving his head back slowly, the languid movement masking the need that boiled inside me. I thought it best to start slow given what I had planned, what I'd spent all day thinking about.

He nodded, swallowed hard. "Yes, Ma'am. Please, I want you to."

"Good." I kissed him on the cheek, felt the familiar bass line in my panties spike up when he leant towards me, his eyes closed. "Then let's begin."

When I directed him to go and sit on the sofa Sven looked confused but went and sat down anyway. I followed him, wine and couple of glasses in hand and began pouring.

"What are you doing?" he asked, "I thought-"

"No harm in taking the edge off first." I said, passing him a glass. "It'll do you good. I don't want you rolling drunk, obviously, but you know, I don't think there's any harm in lubricating the barriers a bit."

"Right." He took the glass from me, sipped. "Is this one of ours?"

I nodded, "Your mum gave it to me before we left. It's the last one, I'm afraid."

"Well then, it seems right we have it now." Sven said, his face turning thoughtful, staring into the glass.

"Don't worry." I squeezed his thigh, smiled at him, knew that he was probably thinking of home and the past, of the shadows that he so rarely spoke of. "I know how you feel about all this. I know that there are things you want that are difficult for you to deal with. So do I. That's why I think a little talk might help to mark the boundaries, it's so important to talk, to check in."

"Yeah. Definitely," he said. "Of course. Even now, after all this time."

"Even now. It's very easy to agree to do things when you're in the moment." I said. "Easy to agree when your dick is hard and I refuse to let go."

He nodded, laughed from behind the glass remembering everything he'd promised me. It floated quite visibly across his face then, his flickering eyes and bouncing thigh gave him away immediately. "Except I really do want it now. I want you. I want this." He leant forward, set the glass on the coffee table. "I want to suffer for you."

I laughed, stroked his cheek. "You know just what I want to hear, don't you?"

"Yup." Sven flashed me a grin but soon enough, his face settled again. "I know just what you like."

"And you're really prepared to eat your words. To hurt for me? To be humiliated?" I kissed him hard, melted a little inside when he nodded back from beneath me, his arms pulling me against him. "I was thinking I tie you up, beat you, edge you a little."

"A little?" he raised an eyebrow at me, knew me too well.

"Okay," I conceded, "Until you're a begging, sweaty mess and it hurts. Until then."

"That's my girl." he laughed. "And, yes, happily."

"Keep talking like that, sugar," I growled "and I'll devour you right away."

"Please."

"Ask again." I whispered, kissing his neck. My fingers were toying with his nipples.

"Please," Sven sighed, his breath curling like smoke against my ear. "Please devour me, fuck me, use me in any way you want to. That I get to serve you and make you happy, baby girl, is the chiefest of all pleasures in my life."

"What about bruises?" I asked.

"I'll his them under my shirt and smile when they ache." He cooed. "I'll feel warm inside, proud of them." He could be down right romantic when he wanted to be, I thought, a real schmaltzy bastard. I laughed and planted another kiss on his nose that he soon turned to mouth, flicking up his jaw and catching my lip. I kissed him back, but found I was frustrated because no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I told him or how hard I kissed him or how close I pressed my body against his, I couldn't ever be sure that he understood what he meant to me. But maybe, I thought, just maybe, pain would be enough. If I could make him moan and sweat and ache for me, maybe them he'd know just what I felt. If I held him close while he was vulnerable and built him up when he was tired maybe then he'd get just a little taste of how much he meant; how nourished I was by his presence in my life and of the overwhelming strength I had found because of his ability to be vulnerable in front of me.

"One more thing." I said, the breath hitching in my throat, the throbbing between my thighs turned high and hard. My lips were tingling from kissing and my mouth was dry. It had been a long, damn day that was for sure.

"What?" Sven asked, his face falling serious again, his eyes settled on mine. I took his hand, kissed his long, pianist's fingers.

"I want to make you cry." I admitted. "I need to make you understand."

* *

How could I start? How could I begin to explain the feeling that I got when he was tied to the d-ring in the doorway to our bedroom. I couldn't. And so, instead of trying to tell him, I buckled his collar around his neck and took what I wanted. Showing him was easier. Taking the trust he had given me and using it for my own ends was an honour, every time that he consented. Because every time we played was just a little more of himself unravelled and knotted into me and a little more of me knotted into him so that we became entwined; stronger as the sum of our parts.

"That face you pull." I mused, my fingers hooked into his collar, holding him in place. "It's so cute the way you still get coy on me."

He shrugged, blushing. "I don't know, it just...happens. I feel safe here."

I smiled. "You know I once heard a woman, another domme, describe to me the way she could just tell, just feel, if someone was submissive and at the time I thought it was bullshit. I didn't understand what she meant because I was a newbie and we were also on our third bottle of wine so-" I broke off, shrugged, thinking back to the night almost ten years previously when the beautiful, brilliant older sister of a friend wiped my tears after some teenage dickbag broke my heart and began telling me about a different kind of love, one that would change my life forever.

"So what?"

Laughing, I gave Sven's collar a jerk. "Not subby enough to be quiet yet, are you?" I smiled.

"No, Ma'am." He laughed. "You're going to have to shut me up."

I shook my head at him, shot him my most disdainful look. "For so long I never believed her, never thought that you could really tell."

"Can you?" Sven asked, moving from foot to foot, anticipation rising within him, his eyes never leaving mine.

"Of course." I stroked his cheek with my palm, my fingers trailing gently over his chest, light enough to tease a shiver from him. "Even with that chatty little mouth of yours I can tell. It's in your shoulders, the way you look at me, the way you bend your head just so." I was inches from him now, my palm pressed against the back of his neck. He leant into the crook of my arm and I smiled to myself, kissed his temple. "Just like that, sweet thing."

"It's just so easy with you." He whispered. "It's like coming home."

"I know." I drove my fingers up into his hair and watched his eyes flicker, his breathing get heavier. "Because I know that all you need is to be told what do do, isn't it? To have someone to suffer for."

"You." He answered, the admission twisting between us. "I want to suffer for you, Mimi."

I smiled, kissed him again. "You're saying all the right things tonight." I mused. "I like it."

"Thank you, Ma'am." He grinned. At the last moment, he winked and I laughed aloud, my surprise barely hidden. "I'm glad I can please you."

"You know all of your fooling around is making it very difficult for me not to want to do frustrating, tortuous things to you." I said. "And I know you'd like that."

My hand sank lower, though I never let my eyes leave his face, the way his eyelids closed made the blood rush through me so that it felt like molten metal under my skin; I was in love and ten feet tall. I let my fingers curl around his cock, gentle at first, skin barely meeting the skin so that his back arched and he tried desperately to meet my touch. I watched him wriggle for a moment, gasping and laughing as he tried to manoeuvre and failing as I jerked my hand away.

I still hadn't even discussed that first time I'd played, not really, though the memory bubbled up then as I touched him, this man who was to become such an integral part of my life and was so utterly different to the first boy I'd been with about a thousand years ago. The first time was with a pretty, blonde boy I'd met at university, the two of us jammed into my narrow cot in a freezing, tiny dorm room. They stood like night and day next to each other, the first and the last, opposites in every possible way. Though, I realised, there were a few things that remained the same; the flicker in the eyes and the pouting, touch starved mouth, both of them eager to please. I was a sucker for a good set of puppy eyes and there was a funny kind of electric that existed whenever we played.

Then, everything became so beautiful, so significant precisely because Sven wasn't some one night stand picked up in a sweaty bar and there was years of meaning laid down behind every move. Not that there was anything wrong with hookups, I'd just done it enough by then to know that this was what I'd wanted, what I'd been looking for since the very first time when I was eighteen and clueless, terrified of getting it wrong. I wanted him and only him and everything that only his submission gave me. He was top shelf stuff and I was utterly intoxicated.

Sven and I had our own kind of nearly-married hetero love and I could live with it, that was for sure. Of course, there were days when we were bored, when we couldn't stand the sight of each other but we pushed on because we both knew that these moments were inevitably outweighed by the times when there was no one else we possibly could have turned to; to be human, to be vulnerable, to be the very truest versions of ourselves, to be hungry for each other. Because it was no longer just playing as it had been at the beginning but something that I couldn't have even started to comprehend until I felt it; that we were carried by one another, loved and safe now. That we could fill our bellies and come back for seconds if we really wanted.

My hands traced upward over his chest, through the hair there, then settled around his shoulders. I hugged him with the full length of my body pressed against his, kissed his neck then moved to his mouth and felt his tongue meet mine in the dark. I wanted to kiss him forever.

" You're softening, Ma'am." He whispered.

"I can hear that grin." I said, not moving my chin from the curve of his neck.

"True, though." He whispered. "Isn't it?" He kissed my shoulder and I could feel his arms move, pulling against the ties that fastened his wrists above him.

Without warning, I sent my knee upward right between his thighs with just enough force that he grunted loud and hard against my shoulder, sending expletives arcing into the quiet.

"Is it?" I asked. "You cheeky fuck."

"No, Ma'am." The response came out as a strange wail, pain flickering forward with only the faintest tone of frustrated humour behind it.

"You think that's funny?" I asked, my voice diamond hard with desire. "Huh?"

"No." He answered, "No, Ma'am."

"You had it coming." I chided. "You agreed to pain, didn't you?"

He nodded. "I did. I-"

"What?" I laughed, watching Sven open his eyes and glower at me.

"I should have known you'd do that."

"Rookie mistake, boy." I said. "You should have seen that one coming."

"Ugh." Sven sighed, sheepish that he hadn't.

"You were hardening up nicely, too, weren't you?" I toyed with his cock, my mouth inches from his. He nodded.

"Yes."

I nodded back. "Don't want you too excited yet, do we?" My hand was jerking him faster now, rubbing him in even, firm strokes.

"No." He said.

"Could you try that again without the grin?" I asked, my palm was cradling his balls. "I thought you were all about being my plaything tonight, not being a little bitch."

"I'm always your little bitch." he purred, his eyes getting big again. "Aren't I?"

I landed a slap across his face, hard and low, right across that pretty, butch jawline of his so that I didn't do any serious damage and got the shock I needed. He gawped at me like a hooked fish.

"That's better." My voice was level again, a cool crust over the magma below. "Now," I said. "Let's focus."

"Yes, Ma'am."

I stood to the side, began rubbing his chest like I was back in the home counties with my pony and the fancy private school I kept trying to run away from. "You're getting bratty because this frightens you, aren't you?" I kissed Sven's shoulder, watched him pull a face.

"No, I- " he took one look at my raised eyebrow and let his shoulders sink, pulling forward on the ropes again. "How the fuck do you do that?" he whispered. "Every fucking time."

"And now you're getting angry." My voice was still level, calm in the face of his grunts.

"It's okay. You're safe, it's just me, baby. No one else has to know your dirty, little secrets." My hand was curled around his cock again, wanking the first clear droplets from him, his face fading up and down between pleasure and frustration. "No one needs to know all those things that make your dick hard." I cooed. "It's just me, just us, isn't it?"