The Mentor and the Protege

"Hey you, come here - I need to test out something."

My mentor, part mad scientist part brilliant artist all genius eccentric, calls me over. I am her loyal assistant, learning her skills and her ways as I help clean after her and set up before her. I am her protege by title, but mostly I am part of her work - her tools, her workshop, her canvas.

"Right. Now stand still while I tie some parts up."

She ties some rope near the joints of my arms - the shoulder, the elbow, the wrist - and throws the other ends over a frame. My arms hang partly loose, like a puppet before it goes on stage.

My mentor examines the set up, though she doesn't spend too much time wondering about my well-being. I am her crash test dummy, her prototype; since when did Dr Frankenstein ask his monster how he felt before turning on those switches? I trust that my mentor knows what she is doing - she did not just fall into genius, after all. This is hard work, and I am part of that work, and I am so so honoured that she even gives me any time of day at all.

My mentor pulls each end, one by one. My arms move as the rope wills, bending in odd shapes. The puppet is being warmed up - will there be a show soon? What is she making?

I would ask, but my mentor does not like being quizzed too much about what she is making while she is making it. Usually she only bothers to know the result when it is done.

Putting too many expectations at the beginning only limits what you can do

, she says. Her genius percolates in movement, in action, in rapid-cycle prototyping and rigorous testing and plenty of alphas and betas. This is her art, done through scientific method, her only hypothesis being

what does this look like

?

She pulls the two shoulder ropes sudden and hard - almost hard enough to lift me off the floor. I yelp, taken in surprise by my unexpected lift.

"Calm down," says my mentor. "You're just stretched a little. I didn't tear your arms off."

I would be happy to have my arms torn off for her if it helps her work.

She looks at me up and down, dangling ropebound from the frame, my white work shirt lifted to reveal just a small belt of belly, black pressed slacks and black shoes and black socks. My mentor insists on a proper uniform, general enough that you can add your own flair if you like to make it your own (my flair usually involves flowers or feathers in my hair) but still smart and presentable. When I dress for my daily work I go immediately into protege mode, ready to be productive, ready to be helpful. It clears away the bleariness of early mornings better than any shower or cup of coffee.

"Looks like it might have straightened you out a bit too - your posture's better. But to have a better picture of things I need to be able to see your skin..."

She ties the ends of the ropes to the sides of the frames, stretching me in a tree-like shape. My feathery fascinator is slightly caught on the rope but it is merely a minor annoyance. I shake off my shoes in anticipation, but my position makes my helpfulness limited. Bummer. I wish I could just make my clothes melt on command.

My mentor comes to my feet and peels the socks away, tossing them to the furthest corner of the room while shifting my shoes to the side of the frame. My suspension results in me just barely grazing the floor by my tiptoes. I start keeping an eye on where everything goes; it is my job to clean up after.

My mentor stands and places her hand on the waistband of my slacks. Her long slender fingers, deft in fine metalwork and hours of computing and manipulation of fiber, press against my panties; I try to suppress a moan and end up biting my lower lip hard. I want her to take my slacks off, I want her to take my panties off. I want her to use her skillful fingers on me, inside me, deftly manipulating my clit and my cunt like she does her sculpture and ropework. I just do not have the authority or the nerve to tell her, so I just make myself more than useful, being ready for anything.

I feel a short moment of stronger pressure against my slit, almost like a very subtle rub. Does she know? Can she tell? Or am I just projecting my fantasy onto a relatively mundane task?

She undoes the button and zip of my slacks and swiftly pulls them down, leaving me hanging all in white, the cloth a contrast to my darker caramel skin but closer in colour to her pale pallor. I imagine the fabric to be the touch of her skin, and bite my lip harder.

My mentor unbuttons my shirt slowly, her fingers against my skin, an involuntary shudder as they brush against my relatively ample breasts. While we are both women, she somewhat older than I, I have the more feminine physique; hers is tall and slender like her fingers, easy to mistake for male in both appearance and demeanour. Indeed, in many ways we are opposites - her reserve and calm against my feisty vibrancy, reason against emotion, methodical against chaos. Which is why I am so fond of her: she teaches me ways I would not have known otherwise, guides me on being more balanced, shows me through example how one can parlay their gifts towards making real what starts as just an idea. She would not admit it herself, it's outside her worldview, but she creates magic.

Her magic hands have opened my shirt, but she can't take it off me - the ropes are in the way. After a few seconds of consideration she heads to her work table and returns with a freshly sharpened knife. My fear must have been obvious, because she shows a rare smile, and chuckles.

"Don't worry - it's not

you

I'm cutting up."

She slices through the sleeves, splitting my shirt apart. I can just feel the tip of the knife grazing against my skin. There are white scars on my shoulders; I imagine them to be a tiny sliver of her skin.

I am now clad in my white bra and panties, though my fascinator - my one piece of flair - is still caught with the rope. My mentor moves behind me and removes the clip from my hair, clipping it onto the side of my shoe. Sometimes her artistry manifests in unusual ways. She runs a finger down my rope-straightened spine, and I can no longer keep biting; a soft moan escapes my bloody lip.

"Ah, sensitive, are you?"

She runs her hands across my arms, smoothly above the ties of rope. More moaning. I am slowly losing control over my reactions, though now I am worried about whether this would mark me as unprofessional. My long-held crush is now threatening to betray its secrecy.

"Hmm...possibly a sensual machine...an intriguing concept I hadn't yet considered, but obvious now in hindsight..."

She reaches over my shoulders and unhooks the straps of my bra, then the bra completely. I long for her hands to cup my breasts, to replace the bare modesty my bra afforded me, but that did not seem to be what she hand in mind. Instead she keeps running her hands down my spine, ever so slowly, observing my shudders and moans and sways against the rope.

Her fingers reach into the waistband of my panties, which I am surprised aren't already soaking wet. After teasing around my hips she yanks them down and pulls them under my feet, tossing them towards the same direction as the socks. Maybe. I'm losing the ability to sense direction.

I am now bare naked, exposed to the studio, truly a canvas now. This is not the first time I have been used as a model, not by a long shot, but this has been more intimate than usual. Normally I'm the one doing my own undressing, for starters.

My mentor unties the ropes from the frame and moves them around, watching my body jerk and shake along with every tug and slack. Just when I feel relaxed enough to let go, she does another sharp tug, knocking the air out of my lungs. Sometimes she would tug on more than one rope at once; sometimes she would pull and release slowly, both of us watching my arms moving across the vertical plane. Now was the puppet show.

After a few minutes of shifting around with rope, with my mentor keenly observing my body and taking some notes on her small pad that she keeps with her at all times, she shifts and pulls the ropes so that my arms are almost upright before tying the ropes firmly to the frame. I feel a stretch along the underside of my arms and shift my shoulders to adjust, which makes me float a few millimeters more.

My mentor disappears from view. All is quiet for what seems like forever. Is she just going to leave me hanging here? Does she want to know what happens when you leave someone hanging for a long time? Will she ever release me, not just my bindings but also my hunger for her?

I am so lost in reverie that I nearly scream in her ear in shock when she suddenly pops up in front of me.

"You need to learn how to stay more alert, even in strange contortions. Don't get caught out."

She is standing so close to me; I can almost feel her breathing. Her nose so close to mine, her eyes looking just under mine, her lips just so deliciously close...

I feel a soft tickle on my belly, on my sides. I try looking around to see the source, and spy a few stray feathers. My fascinator - she's using it against me. Not that I mind; its gentle barely-there softness melts me like heated butter in this air-conditioned room. Who knew I had such a powerful agent of sensation sitting on my head the whole time?

The now-familiar fingers appear again, but only just; they give way to sharp claws cutting against my skin, somehow both painful and pleasurable. I am surprised to see that the claws are just my mentor's nails; I didn't think she kept her nails particularly sharp at all.

The nails' sharpness seem as gentle as the fascinator feathers though after the scrape that runs across my body. It is partly blunt, like being scratched with a thin line of sandpaper, and almost unbearable. I gasp when I see the instrument scraping across my breasts: it is the edge of the knife, held in an angle to avoid slicing me, but still menacing in its sharpness.

"You said you weren't going to cut me!" I exclaimed, though barely able to spit it out - my fears feel like they are stuck in a lump in my throat. My mentor looks up at me; I see annoyance in her eyes.

"And I still won't. I'm your mentor; trust me to know what I am doing. And don't fidget so much - the fear just makes things more dangerous. Breathe, and relax. Do your job and let me do mine."

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," I squeak out. I never meant to be disrespectful. I am at your service. My mentor puts her index finger against my lips.

"Hush. Just feel."

She scrapes the knife the same way as earlier across my skin, over curves and through valleys, the sharp edge just so dangerously close. My nipples go erect as the knife runs over them; the hairs on my belly rise with goosebumps. Fear, arousal, anticipation, melt, intense, everything mixing under my skin; I am in my body and yet also outside it; pleasure and pain intertwine and wrap around me like the ropes around my arms; sensations new to me overtake all my other senses; I am floating higher up the rope I am melted and alert and cut and whole and...

My legs are damp, my cunt soaking, my long-held lust and desire and crush now plain to see. I am too caught up in the knife's edge of ecstasy to worry about what my mentor would make of this.

She doesn't seem to mind though, if her hand running up one thigh and onto my cunt are any indication.

My mentor pays close attention to the knife running across the edges of the rope. Her fingers on my cunt seem to move on autopilot, stroking and scratching each lip and fold and my clit hungry for attention. She plays with my clit with her limber fingers and sharp nails, rolling and squeezing and nearly cutting it open.

I am lost in touch, hot and wet, my body tight and desirous to receive more and more and more.

I do not know if it is the knife being scraped across my collarbone or her fingers entering my cunt that made me gush more, but I am definitely soaked now.

Hot and wet and sharp and scrape and fear and arousal and desire and crush and service and tight and bound and taut and float and just so lost between the scraping knife and the scratching of fingernails and the tug of the rope and the stretch of muscle and the rolling of cunt in long slender deft craft fingers...

Jerks of explosive orgasm cause me to tug against the rope and bounce away from my mentor's hands. I release a waterfall as my skin feels like a torrent of golden stars. The scratches on me sting with heat; the ropes burn with their firm grip. Indeed it is only the snug pull of the ropes that is keeping me upright; there was no way I could have stayed alert.

My mentor puts the knife away in the pocket of her tight black slacks and places her cum-soaked hands on my sides. She kisses me; I hungrily kiss back, feeling like I could absorb some of that long-awaited genius and sexual prowess through our mouths and lips and tongues, like a baby bird feeding from the mouth of its mother. Thanks to her I was flying.

"You've done well."

My mentor wipes her hands on my back before undoing the ropes. The release from the frame brings relief, but also a tinge of sadness; canvas time is over. Who knows when or what her next experiment would be, her next exploration?

She hands the rope to me and makes sure I am able to stand steady - if bare naked and sopping wet - before heading to her workstation, throwing me a small square towel, just enough to cover my face.

"Now clean up - I don't want a mess left around here."

I spot my socks and panties immediately at the corner, the rest of my clothes by the frame. I smile and get back to work.

"Yes Ma'am."