Check And Mate

The first Thursday of every month for the past two years, you and I have gotten together for wine and chess, alternating between your place, mine, and the chess club where we met. Tonite it is your turn to play host and when I arrive, there is a note on your door: "See me inside." As always, I enjoy the word-play. I am so easily delighted by everything from the most childish puns to the cleverest double-entendres.

I open the door with a grin and step into the foyer. I stop to listen for the sound of you moving around, but I can hear nothing. For once, your place is immaculate, and my eyes rest appreciatively upon a japanase tansu chest whose lacquered surface is usually covered in junk mail and dust. What a gorgeous piece. As I approach to examine it more closely, I spot a another note, this one on the newel post. "Upstairs," it reads.

I kick my shoes off and wiggle my toes, enjoying the colour of the coral pink polish applied during yesterday's pedicure. Lovely. And so nice to be barefoot at the end of a long day. I pad up the stairs, admiring the old photographs on the wall, stopping as always before the one of your great-grandfather taken when he retired as a sea captain. The ocean and the sun carved character lines into his leathery skin, and his eyes seem to hold so much wisdom and sadness.

On the top step is another piece of paper, which states, "My room," instead of "Den", as I expected. My smile fades a bit, and I consider turning around and leaving. I was enjoying this game, but I didn't come here for seduction, and I thought, after all this time, that you understood that. I enjoy our friendship very much, and while I also enjoy the sexual tension between us, I have never had any intention of acting on it. Feeling a bit like a pawn, concerned about being out-manouevred, I follow the instructions and approach your room, the door of which is closed. When I open it, I notice an immediate change in the temperature and humidity of the air. Faint music wafts from the adjoining bathroom: something Hayden, I think.

Curious, I enter the bathroom to find you leaning back in a clawfoot tub, your eyes closed, arms draped along the rim. There is a bar of soap in one hand and a washcloth in the other. Your chest rises and falls in a slow rhythm, and it appears to be half-lathered. A king in his own castle, you are in another world, listening to the music, a hint of a smile on your lips. I smile, too. I do so love a man who appreciates a long hot bath, and there is no doubt in my mind that you are enjoying yours. I walk silently across the floor and carefully lower the lid of the toilet seat so I can sit.

Once I am settled comfortably across from you, I make a bold opening move, speaking just loudly enough to be heard over the music. "If you needed your back scrubbed you could have asked. It wasn't necessary to go to such elaborate lengths."

Your eyes open wide and you jerk a bit, making the water splash against the sides of the tub. I have startled you. We stare at each other for a long, unguarded moment, and the energy between us changes, shifts from sexual tension to something sensuous and sweetly langourous. You smile slowly and hold the bar of soap out to me. It is an innocuous move that lulls my caution. I hesitate a moment, then move to kneel on the bathmat.

You are warm and wet and smell deliciously of soap. When I take the bar and the washcloth from your hand, I can feel the heat radiating from your body, and from your gaze. I look into your eyes, but something in me dares not look too long. Something in me struggles languidly, uncertain if it should make a token resistance, or a stronger, decisive move. There is desire, oh yes, no question, and yet, caution, also. I know that if I succumb to what is rising between us, all will change, and I know I've not given the consequences nearly enough thought.

I put my hands on your shoulders. They are slick with water and soap, and the warm, slippery wetness creates havoc with my emotions. I bite my lip. I don't want you to see my face, to see the feelings and internal conflict running so close to the surface. I feel too exposed, even though I am the one fully clothed.

"Turn around," I say, as casually as possible, but my voice sounds breathy even to my ears.

I turn my head aside, looking out the window as you shift to a kneeling position in the water, and when you are still I return my gaze to you. 'Mistake', I think to myself, as I look at the length of your back. It is a somewhat androgenous back, lacking hair and predominant muscles. It is almost feminine it its graceful lines, but broader and slightly more defined than a woman's back. I've massaged it more than a few times, but this time... this time something is subtly different. I resist the urge to kiss you, there, where the shoulder and neck meet, and soap my hands up instead.

I close my eyes and let my fingers slide along your shoulders and down your back to just above your buttocks and then up again. I press my slippery fingers in between the muscles and you arch your back a bit. 'This is a mistake,' chides the cautious part of my mind, for my sex is suddenly warm and I can feel the flow of moisture within me. 'There is no harm in a soap massage', I tell myself. I try picturing your back as a chessboard, my hands moving imaginary pieces across it. But I am in a sensual trance, all nerve-endings and langorous warmth, and my cautious self is lulled by the rhythmic movements of my body.

I repeatedly trace my hands down your back and up again, fingers finding and releasing the little knots in your muscles. You lean forward a bit and your knees come apart, causing your buttocks rise a little higher above the water. I slide my hands down your back again, over your bottom and down, into the water, thoughtlessly and beyond all caution. I have made a reckless move with my queen, I realize. How will you respond?

You make the slightest move back toward me as one of my hands cups you from behind, then, as the other slides forward over that part of you where longing concentrates itself, you shudder and sigh. It is wonderful, that sigh, and I cannot help myself. I kiss your shoulder, exhaling on the wet skin, touching it with my tongue. I lean further over the tub, my breasts pressing against your back, and whisper into your ear, "Do you want me to stop?"

For a long moment there is no sound, no response. I know that, like me, you are probably struggling to weigh the consequences of acting upon your desires. You make a move that will sacrifice your pawn, placing one of your hands over mine, intertwining our fingers around the heat of your sex. Your hand guides mine in its movements, teaching me the rhythm you like, revealing the places that make you shiver with pleasure and suck in your breath. Before long your body tenses and you let out a groan. I can feel your cock moving in my hand, but you pull our interlaced fingers away and upwards, out of the water.

You shift position and lean against the back of the tub. Your dark eyes study me. I can feel the heat rushing up from under the bodice of my dress, warming my neck and staining my cheeks. Your eyes run over me in such a meaningful way that there is no doubt in my mind that you are aware of my arousal. I curse my nipples, those barometers of mood whose hardness is surely visible through my damp dress. You tug on my hand. Kissing it, you ask, "Join me?"

I curse, too, the wetness between my legs, and the ache your voice and your words bring me there. I tremble on the edge of saying something flip and handing you a towel, of doing whatever I must to break the tangible sexual tension between us, but I don't want to. In being flippant I might hurt your feelings, and my fondness for you prevents such callousness.

The ethics of the moment grip me. I am acutely aware that my morals differ from the mainstream. I am uniquely able to love intensely and eloquently with my entire being, living so entirely in the moment that nothing exists outside my sphere of sensual pleasure. It is a quality which draws lovers to me and keeps them close, only to be burned when I end the relationship as originally agreed. I do not confuse love and sex, no matter how transcendant the experience of it. I remember past discussions with you and I wonder if you have understood this about me. I wonder if what we have started here will soon end, as it must, for me to continue.

Your face is alight with expectancy and confidence. You know my answer, as do I. But do you know my terms? This queen is not cornered, I still have a few moves left.

"You know that my life is complex and full. I have time for dalliance but not for more..." I touch your bottom lip with a finger and you take it into your mouth, sliding your tongue across the tip in a way that makes me convulse, wringing a gasp from me. You know these words for what they are: capitulation. 'That which yields is not weak,' I remind myself as I yield myself up to the passion rising between us. I lean toward you and your hands grip my hips, sliding over my dress, then up again.

You lean toward me, and I know that you want to kiss. I am conscious that this is our first real kiss, nothing so casual as the hello-goodbye-thank-you kisses of the past. I touch my mouth to yours and take a gentle, sucking nibble of your lower lip, enjoying the feel of it between my teeth. As I start to pull away your hand lifts from the bath's edge and cups the back of my head, deepening the kiss. We open our mouths and our tongues touch fleetingly, flirting, stoking the heat spiralling inside me.

I break the kiss and stand upright, swaying slightly at the head-rush. You are looking up at me and I see the need in you, answering my own. Wordlessly, I step out of my dress, leaving it to pool at my feet. I feel that fleeting self-consciousness all women seem to feel when disrobing for a new lover, that feeling of uncertainty: will he or she find me attractive when I am naked? You regard me for a moment in silence and then put my concerns to rest as your hands raise to my hips, pulling me gently toward you. I step closer to the tub. You hook your fingers in my panties and slide them down. I step out of them and stand with my legs a little farther apart. I look down on you sitting there in the tub, and I smile at the two surprises I know are in store for you: the smoothness of my mound, and the size of my clitoris.

Your eyes fix on my very bare sex, studying the soft folds of skin. Your fingers press more firmly into me, and I watch as you lick your lips. I raise my hands behind me and unfasten my bra, that final item of clothing. Your eyes raise to take in my breasts and my hardened nipples. In one fluid movement you are on your knees in the tub, and one of my nipples is in your mouth. I groan and my knees feel like they are going to buckle, but the lip of the tub props me up. You release it and bury your face against my belly. You inhale deeply, and I know that you can smell my arousal. You tilt your head back to look at me.

"It would be a shame to lose that to soap and water," you say.

I nod my agreement and lower my left hand to touch myself. My fingers slide between the lips of my sex with ease, and unerringly find the centerpoint of my pleasure. I am wet, and my clit is hard, and warm, and when I touch it I feel a giddiness wash over me. I flick it with my index finger, once, twice, then run my fingers down into my pussy, slipping two in easily for all the moisture there. I close my eyes and enjoy the wanton feeling of pleasuring myself in the presence of another person.

You inhale deeply once again, and I can hear you swallowing hard. I slip my fingers out and hold them up to you as an offering. You take my index finger into your mouth, and as you do, a soft moan rumbles in your throat. You suckle my finger clean of juice, then relinquish it. I raise my fingers to my mouth and suck the other one. I love my own taste and smell, slightly musky, slightly sweet, and as I savour it, you pull me forward until my back is arched and my hips are pressing forward. I know what I want you to do, I know what I yearn for. The thought of it makes me clench and a trickle of juice starts a long slide down my inner thighs.

I take your head in my hands and press myself against your face. Your mouth opens and you do just what I want, diving your tongue into the naked folds of my labia. A mouth can bring so much pleasure. Lips, teeth, tongue and the liquid heat of the orifice itself are instruments with which to bring delightful torment. I shamelessly rock against your mouth as you nibble and suck, wishing for all the world that you could swallow me entire. My clit swells and becomes the center of my universe, and you suck it, worrying it with your tongue, pushing me by inches toward the precipice. Moans escape me, some langourous, some sharp. I feel the first of many orgasms coming on, and my legs tremble.

"Fingers," I gasp, and taking your hand, I part my thighs to accept the fingers you hook inside me. I am briefly grateful that your hands are smooth, rather than rough and callused like those of a day laborer. I might have taken more time to admire your hands, but the presence of your fingers sliding up into me is all that it takes to set me off. I stiffen, my muscles tightening around your fingers, clenching and releasing in involuntary response to the tormenting of your mouth. I throw my head back, and leaning one hand against the bathroom wall, I give myself up to my orgasm. A series of short, sharp cries breaks from my throat and with my free hand I try to tear your head away, to end the pleasure that has intensified beyond all bearing. The fingers within me still, but your other hand presses against my sacrum, holding me in place, and you continue to lap my clit, slower and slower, until the muscles of my vagina have stopped quivering and instead begin clenching in time to the strokes of your tongue. I find it diabolical and admirable, your approach, and breaking away from you, I say so.

I step into the tub and lower myself into it, facing you. I lean back and close my eyes for a moment. I can feel the arms I rest on the rim of the bath tremble ever so slightly, and my breath is still coming a bit fast, making my breasts sway in the water. My skin is sensitized, and I am conscious of so many things: the cool porcelain of the tub, the still-warm water, the tendrils forming at my hairline, the feel of your knees pressing into mine. I breathe deeply of the soap-and-sex scented air and open my eyes. I wonder if you like the things you read behind them as I meet your stare with one of my own. A knowing smile lights my face as I look briefly into the water and my eyes catch a glimps of what rises from your lap.

I do not need to touch you to know that you are hard, but I do so anyway. I wrap my fingers around you and tug slightly, making your skin slide forward, causing your cock to jerk. Your sigh of pleasure fades and a silence drapes the room. We are wrapped in it and our own thoughts, each of us considering what will come next, what beauteous pleasure may yet unfold, if neither of us mis-steps. As I tug on you again I think it inevitiable that before night's end I will feel you moving inside me, but what morning will bring with regards to our friendship is unknown to me.

Something of my uncertainty must have revealed itself on my face, because you take one of my feet in your hands and begin soaping it, massaging all the way up to my knee. You do the same thing with my other leg, then instruct me to turn around, so you can do my back.

I slip around and kneel with my back to you. A cascade of warm water flows down over my skin, and then your soapy fingertips are there, tracing the muscles in my back and shoulders. Your fingers are firm but gentle, and doing a credible job of working out the tension between my shoulder blades. Slippery fingers press along my spine, following it down to my hips. You lean forward, pressing your face into my hair. I feel your breath on my wet skin just a moment before you press your lips to my neck. A wave of gooseflesh washes over me, making my nipples tighten and my breath catches. Mmmm.

Your mouth near my ear, you softly say "Raise up, please."

I do so, placing my hands on the side of the tub, arching my back and leaning forward slightly. I drop my head and relax into your touch as your soapy hands work along my hips and press deeply into my buttocks. One hand slides forward, caressing the folds of my flesh. You find my clitoris and make me gasp, sending a jolt of pleasure through me. The intimacy of your touch, of your fingers teasing my opening and pressing gently into me is magical. I am as liquid as the bathwater, body-surfing on the tide of pleasure that rides through me. I have become an instrument giving voice to the stroke of your fingers, so the barest movement by either of us calls forth moans and sighs. My nipples are hard, so hard that they ache. I cup my breasts in my hands and tweak the nipples, leaning back into you, wanting your fingers to slide deeper, but you slide them out, instead. The sense of loss is immediately replaced by wonder and apprehension as I feel your thighs pressing against mine and the hot length of your sex pushing up under my bottom, ready and eager to slide inside me.

Again, your breath on on my ear, and it is your turn to ask, "Do you want me to stop?"

Your words, whispered in such a teasing way, send a frisson through me. Where just moments ago I was nearly swooning with pleasure, now heat is chased by a cold dose of reality. Do I want you to stop? No! Yes! Wait. Wait. Why? I want this. I want you. I can feel the heat of you pressing against me, into me, and I want more. But try as hard as I might to succumb entirely to passion, my brain puts on the brakes. Why?

Ah! I remember now. No sex without a condom. It becomes a litany running around in my mind. No sex without a condom. I struggle to re-establish the connection between mind and voice, to tell you what I want. I don't know for how long I have hesitated, but it is long enough for you to take my silence as consent. You shift position slightly and I feel your tip starting to push into me.

"Stop," I moan, and thankfully, you do. In this moment I am endlessly grateful to you for your responsiveness and sensitivity.

"What is wrong?" You ask, and your voice is tremulous. I can hear the stress in it, and I can feel the increased tension in your body.

I struggle to shape the words to make you understand me. Finally, I simply say that which has been running around in my head, "No sex without a condom."

You groan and and your hands move up to cup my breasts. You press me backwards, up against your chest, and sigh into my hair. Your king is under pressure. Will you castle?

"Ok," you say, squeezing me in a gentle hug, "I have some in the dresser."

Smiling, I pull the stopper in the tub and the sound of water swirling down the drain fills the room. My legs are trembling a bit, so I lift myself out of the tub very carefully, and grab a towel. After wrapping it around me, I pull another towel off the rack and gesture for you to stand up. When you do, I take a moment to admire your grace and the movement of your cock, still hard and flushed with colour. You step out of the tub and I take a minute to dry your chest and back off with long, slow strokes. I kneel to dry your legs and bump into your sex by mistake. You jump a bit in surprise and perhaps discomfort, and remourseful, I take your cock into my hand and kiss the tip. My ministration is rewarded by a pulsing in my hand, and a clear droplet of fluid forms there.

I breathe in the scent of your pre-come and my mouth waters. I stick out my tongue and with the tip taste you. Yum. Yes. Yummm. I sigh voluptuously and your cock jerks in my hand, so I decide comfort it with my mouth. I slide the first few inches past my lips and now it is your turn to sigh, a sound both languid and strangled, as though your mind has gone 'ahhh' but your body has decided that the arousal level has been turned up another couple of notches and isn't sure how much more it can bear.