Private Game

[A NOTE ON CONTENT: This is mainly a story about a loving couple, but it features themes of power, dominance and submission.]

**

I surrendered my delicate flesh to the merciless heat of a tropical sun. I turned that phrase over in my baking brain, and found it pleasingly dramatic. I mean, I was sunbathing. Lying in a bikini on an expansive lounger, gazing sleepily down the length of my glowing brown body, between my toes, out into the depths of a flawless blue sea. Blue like the opulence of pharaohs. In its depths, purple like empires. Sometimes almost green like... jade?... something Chinese... or do I mean Japan? Or both? I was dozing in the stillness, stupefied by the light, mystified by the warm wind and the fluttering of benign wildlife somewhere on the island.

The sea glittering in front of me. Dense green forest susurrating behind me. Arcing to my left and right was white beach. Not white like anything. Just white. White like the idea of white. White as you imagine it, like it never really looks. My brain buzzed and drifted.

I woke happily with Honey at my side. She'd brought me a very tall glass filled with ice and something that she had mixed herself. The glass was so wet with condensation that her clever pink fingers were drenched. She had also brought a massive bottle of sunscreen. Clever Honey-pie.

"You idiot, Maggie," she laughed, setting down the glass and opening the sunscreen. "You're going to be sore."

I gladly roused myself and sat up enough to sip from the glass. Impossible. Beautiful. I looked at my body. I'm long and lanky, but I have enough weight around my hips and enough heft to my breasts to look fine enough in a classic red bikini, if I do say so myself. My idiot skin was deeply brown now, and every hard contour had red highlights. Through the lenses of my sunglasses and the haze of my stupor I looked unreal.

I made a breathless sound as Honey's hands ladled cold cream onto my ticklishly twitching belly and began to spread it around.

"Relax, Honey-pie," I murmured, laying my hand on her arm, "we're not all as Pre-Raphaelite as you."

That's true. No-one's like Honey. Her skin is dazzlingly pale and pinkish, and every hair in that soft sumptuous pile on top of her head is the colour of Manuka honey. Is that even one colour? Honey-coloured anyway. Hence the name. Every hair on her body too, what little she leaves for me to tousle.

(I say 'hence the name', but there's more to it than that: her mother was slightly dippy and slightly eccentric and she named her Honoria. But she would literally strangle me – albeit playfully – if I called her that. Honey would strangle me, not her mother.)

"Never mind that," she replied, letting her hands glide over and around my legs. "You'll still burn. You're so careless. What was distracting you this time?"

Every pink part of her – the corner of her eyes, her mobile lips, the tip of her nose, fingertips, toes, those more intimate places only she and I share – are the colour of raw vulnerability, as though every breath of air, every degree of heat or cold, would make her burn. And yet she goes through the world as though she's as mundane as you or me.

I sipped from my glass and then held it aside to watch her slippery hands slither over my chest and shoulders in a businesslike manner.

"I was thinking about colours," I said. "I was thinking about the meaning of the word 'paradise'." I smiled. Her big blue eyes flashed at me and she showed me her little pouting smirk. She poked a creamy finger at the tip of my nose and left it well screened. I worried about her pinkness. I said: "You're going to burn before I do, Honey-pie. Let me do you."

She had come out of the villa wearing only a t-shirt and cut off shorts, and her skin (white, but not white like a beach) was already glowing alarmingly. She stood up and pulled off her shirt, leaving her little round breasts to quiver vulnerably in the blazing sunlight. She tilted her head back and squeezed sunscreen in absurd quantity over her chest, shoulders and neck. She wasn't playing around: she genuinely needed to apply it as thickly as cream on a scone.

"Are we going for a walk, Maggie? Or something? I'm bored."

"Thank you for my drink. No Honey, please, I just want to lie here. I'm so relaxed it's insane. I'm in paradise. If you lie next to me, I'll never want to move again. Come here, let me do you."

I gestured 'come here' to her, but she stepped back, reaching up to smear the cream over herself. She looked away, sulking. She's not spoiled. She's not a brat, nothing like that. But sometimes she sulks, and sometimes she gets away with it.

"I want to do something. Something that doesn't involve being completely motionless." She was coating her legs now. Her slim limbs must have been an inch thicker with the cream applied so liberally. No, they weren't. Of course they weren't. I can't bring myself to even joke about that. Her limbs remained as hypnotically lithe as ever. But creamier.

"I wasn't proposing to be motionless," I said. "But I'm not running around with you. Not today. I'm so sleepy, and this is bliss." I put on a comically winsome voice. "Please be part of my bliss."

She did the smirk again, and stomped towards me with mock anger. She knelt close and faced away from me.

"Do my back," she commanded. I took the bottle and unloaded a vast quantity of cream onto the tiny canvas of her shoulders. Her skin was gloriously hot. I began to paint her, dreamily.

"I just want to explore," she said. "We've got this place to ourselves. I mean this whole fucking landmass, coast to coast, every inch."

She meant the island.

"Not every inch," I said sternly, "remember there's dangerous areas down the other end we're not allowed into. This isn't a theme park, it's an actual wilderness."

"Urgh, don't fuss. This isn't 'Lost' or something. It's fenced off. It's safe. But it's a really and truly desert island all of our very own! Why aren't you excited? Why aren't we climbing trees, digging for treasure, chasing each other..?"

"Are you nine?" I laughed.

"...Chasing each other, splashing, tumbling through the water of the Blue Lagoon?"

"There isn't a lagoon." I shamelessly ran my hands down her side and over her hips, adoring her.

"You don't know that til you explore! Also I don't know what a lagoon is. Isn't that one?"

I looked where she was pointing.

"That's an ocean, Honey. Honey, I will do those things with you, I want to. But I just want to be still for now. You know I need that."

I eased my hands into her shorts, one down the back to squeeze a juicy buttock, the other down the front to find the gossamer soft flesh below the honey hair. My fingers were wonderfully slippery as a confusion of impossibly delicate petals were shuffled between them. I tried in vain to do anything more purposeful, but there was too much lubrication and I had to be content with knowing I was doing enough.

For a few moments all I could hear was the sound of her sighing breath. She didn't look around at me. When she spoke her voice was heavy.

"That's not fair."

"I'm only exploring," I whispered. "I think I've found a lagoon."

She shook her lovely head. She shrugged. She didn't pull away, but she picked up her t-shirt and pulled it on. It immediately clung disgracefully to her moist skin. She still didn't look at me. Then she stood swiftly, dislodging my hands. Without looking back she strode in the direction of the villa, hidden somewhere in the greenery.

"Go back to sleep, Maggie," she sighed.

She knew I needed to rest. She knew that and respected it. But sometimes she sulks, because sometimes she just has to have her own way. Sometimes she gets away with it. Sometimes she doesn't.

I watched her until she was out of sight, trying not to be anxious. I drained the glass and lay back. My skin was hot but no longer defenceless. I went to sleep.

**

This island, then. I can't tell you where it is. I mean I'm not allowed to, legally. That's part of the package. You get that perfect island, you get perfect solitude and perfect surroundings, and you pay so much you can almost physically feel it. I paid it ecstatically. But yes, the package: you don't tell a soul where it is. It's on no maps, no property registers that are easily searched, and the business model has no room for word of mouth or casual footfall. You get invited.

They research you ('they' are a company whose name I can't tell you), and tick you off against a checklist. Enough money? Enough class? Enough discretion? Enough stress? Once you've been invited and signed some preliminary confidentiality papers, you get the testimonials. From some serious people. I suppose I must be serious people too. But, oh man, the people I could name. I can't name them.

You and your guests are deposited on the island and you settle into the villa complex nestled in the trees near the north coast. They'll assign servants if you want them, but I didn't. I had my Honey and my solitude and that was all I wanted. A satellite guided drone (blind and deaf, guaranteed) dropped off fresh supplies every day. And that's the island.

And I'm not going to pretend I'm some high-flying, go-getting, self made woman. I inherited my money. I invested it modestly. Put most of it into charitable foundations. I never bother anyone. Oh, there's the promotions and the lobbying and all those things that make me feel worthwhile, but I don't pursue people. People trouble my mind. I pursue peace and quiet. Honey is my peace, and the island was my quiet.

And as for Honey...

"If you play Frisbee with me," a voice purred, "I will lick you from sundown to dawn."

As for Honey...

The sun was still taking its best shot at me as I stirred, confused, and now it was a relentless weight, pinning me to the lounger. But now it was flashing on and off oddly, and for a moment I thought I had heatstroke.

Honey was standing over me, flourishing a plastic disc, waving it like a fan, causing the strobe. I didn't know she had a Frisbee.

"I found it in the pool house. Play with me and and I'll do it. You know I will."

I knew she would. I stretched drunkenly and blinked up at her. She was smiling nervously and watching me stretch. She was always amused by my clumsiness. My limbs were too long and lean, and I fumbled a lot. I prefer to be fully dressed because I can manage my proportions better, but I was happy enough with my red bikini, and the suicidal suntan was really making me feel good about myself.

And as for Honey... I met her when I was a miserable twenty-three-year-old virgin and she was... well, she was Honey. Nineteen, and giggling, and running everywhere, and singing and painting and being an actress and being relatively bad at all of those things, but one evening at a party she touched me...

I had thought I was a misanthrope. I had thought I was incapable of love. But no. All I needed was my Honey. And against all expectations she clung to me and never let go. When I roll my eyes, when I'm dryly sarcastic, when I hate the crowds (which she loves so much), when I just want to lie still in the sun, she clings to me.

And sometimes she sulks.

She knelt close again, and this time she lay her head on my belly. Her hands clung to me. She looked up at me and then looked away.

"I didn't mean to storm off. I meant to seduce you. I went wrong. I'm sorry for sulking."

Those last four words carried meaning. Sometimes she sulks, and when she does there's a game we play. Often I will be the doting sugar-mommy and I'll cheer her up with a trip somewhere or a party. Not gifts, she hates gifts. An extravagant experience, a memory to share, something like that. But often she will say she's sorry for the sulk, and that means there are to be Consequences. It's an indulgence. It's something she can give to me. She doesn't have to, I don't need her to. It's something secret we share.

"I'll play Frisbee," I said, stroking her hair. This was burning hot too, blazing bronze under the sun. "Sundown to dawn was it?"

She nodded, grinning. Honey has an incredible talent. Or, maybe talent isn't the word. She has an incredible tenacity. She can and will (when the mood takes her) spend an entire night between my thighs. I sleep, I doze, I wake and she's there. However I twist and kick in the normal night-time ways, however much my silly long legs tangle around her, she is there. Her mouth remains wet and warm against my grateful sex, against my thighs, and her tongue seems to move ceaselessly. I've tried it and my jaw hurts in minutes. My tongue cramps. But she stays there, her peaceful eyes gazing at me whenever I wake. It's comforting and simply intimate enough to make me cry. Now and then she makes me cum, rousing me to a shock of astonishing ecstasy.

She goes down with the sun and comes up for breath when it does. And then she is too tired to spend the next day running around or tumbling into lagoons or whatever it might be. So we can lie still in the sun. So she's giving me that too. She doesn't have to, I don't need her to. I love her.

"You don't have to. I'll play Frisbee. I love you."

"I want to."

But that was for the evening. That's a whole other thing. Forget about that. For now she was sorry for the sulking, so that meant Consequences. I gestured 'come here' and she slithered up my baking skin until her face was close enough to kiss. She kissed me and told me she loved me.

"Frisbee," I whispered. "Take off your clothes."

She giggled, somehow managing to sound shy.

"Why, Maggie?"

"It's in the official Frisbee tournament rules. 'Girls who sulk shall compete butt nekkid.' It's some sort of health and safety thing. Google it."

She drew away, rolling her eyes. "Health and safety, eh? It gets everywhere."

"Like sand," I smiled. "When you're playing Frisbee. Nekkid."

She pounced on me, making the lounger squeak and rattle as she knelt astride my hips. Those delicate lips crushed my mouth and her tongue found my tongue, irresistibly. She kissed the breath out of me, and all the while I felt her wriggling as she squirmed out of her shorts. Then her hands touched my cheeks and she showed no inclination to do anything but kiss.

I fumbled to take hold of her t-shirt and peel it from her body. And 'peel' is exactly he word. It was saturated with sunscreen and it stuck to her skin. She twitched, and laughed into my mouth as it tickled her, and then she obligingly eased out of the sleeves and pulled it over her head. But she refused to stop kissing me, so now the garment was draped over my face like some weird damp snood.

I managed to gasp a few words.

"Don't you want to play Frisbee?"

"Yes," she whispered, and then she lay on top of me, her whole body, head to toe. She wriggled and nestled until she was comfortable, and only then did she stop kissing and let me pull the snood aside. She turned my face one way, and turned hers the other, and her lay her cheek on mine. She clung to me.

She stopped moving and I wrapped my arms around her, because I wanted to feel her breathing. So impossibly light, so impossibly soft. Entirely heavy, perfectly firm. So disgracefully sticky. She was absolute. She was a blanket over me and she was my entire world. And for a little while I was obliterated. I can do that when she lets me. The universe melts away, and all the difficult people and their problems cease to exist, even me. Only Honey exists.

Sometimes it makes me sad that she can't possibly feel the same way about me. She can't be thinking about me for an entire night, even if her tongue never leaves me. When she lays on me and makes the world go away, she can't be thinking about me. Sometimes that makes me sad. Not while she's there, not while she's touching me and I'm in her universe. Sadness can't happen in her universe. But at other times I'll be sad. And then she'll sing me some ridiculous song she has composed, or make me play some childish game she's invented. Maybe that's what occupies her mind.

"What are the rules of Frisbee?"

She had raised her head so she could look me in the eye. With every possible hint of seriousness. The game wasn't called Consequences, not out loud, not with a capital letter. It was nothing so structured or formal. But we both knew when we were playing it.

"Oh, well, it depends," I murmured, playing. "Let me see what model it is."

She didn't look or try to move more than one arm, but she fumbled around to pick up the disc. She held it where I could see it. I took it from her and pretended to scrutinise it.

"Oh dear," I said sadly. "Oh I'm sorry Honey, we can't play with that one. I'm sorry."

"Why not?" Wide-eyed earnestness.

"It's not for people. It's for playing with a dog. You throw it, the dog fetches it. If you try to throw it to a person it won't work. I'm sorry."

She thought about this. She was thinking about Consequences. She glanced sideways at the Frisbee, as though to check it wasn't listening.

"Do you think..." she whispered conspiratorially, "do you think it would work if I pretended to be a dog?"

"How would someone even begin to do such a thing?"

She lowered her head and nuzzled her eyes against my shoulder. She began to undulate. Her back rose and fell, her hips shifted back and forth, and her pink gossamer flesh began to slide up and down my thigh. I raised my knee a little, to give her an easier surface to work with. I don't know if the slipperiness was the sunscreen on my leg or her own natural lubrication, but it was perfect. That beautiful, delicate flower and the soft honey bush above it. Her throat was making a whimpering sound.

"Whine, whine," she breathed, her lips snagging my collar bone. "Attractive puppy-type noises. Leg-humping and so forth, not to labour the point."

I was giggling silently, pushing my head back against the lounger. Then her knee shifted and bumped firmly against my own stirring pussy. I made my own puppy-type noise, quite involuntarily, and my laughter became a little breathless. Her tongue made itself felt, hot and busy, a dabbing wetness.

"Yap, slobber, licking," she murmured, deadpan. "Ick, you taste suncreamy."

"Puppies will lick anything. They're dirty little beasts, even the very good ones."

Her undulations became a little more urgent, and her whimpers became a little more genuine for a moment. I liked that. God help me, I liked calling her a dirty little beast, and I liked her liking it. I wanted more of that feeling.

I combed fingers through the soft nest of her hair, and guided her head to look up at me.

"Do you still want to play Frisbee, puppy?"

Her eyes were peaceful, her lips playful. She nodded. I still had the Frisbee in one hand, and I swung my arm clumsily over Honey's back. I tossed the Frisbee up the beach, without a trace of skill. It flew more skywards than I intended, and the wind caught it. While we were being caressed by a gentle breeze down in the shelter of the trees and bushes, it seemed a stiffer wind was gusting above us. The plastic disc tumbled away and fell unhurriedly with a gentle smack into the lapping surf.

Honey watched it and raised herself with sudden energy. Almost as though I wasn't there, she leapt inelegantly onto the sand, landing on her hands and knees. She looked perkily in the direction of the sea, yapped brightly, and wagged her tail. That is to say, she pointed her pussy at me and wriggled her hips. I had a moment to laugh at her, then she scampered away.

I've never seen any dog move quite like that, but it was a good first effort. She kicked sand madly and stumbled as she went, legs going everywhere. She pursued the Frisbee into the water, splashing madly, shouting "Woof!"

I was grinning foolishly. I adored her.