The Box Ch. 06: "Sable Strokes"

The Box had been absent from their lives for a time.

Nevertheless they had delighted in each other. Recently, he had placed her on a very strict no-touch regime, going deeply into teasing and denying her, excruciatingly so. Night after night he himself would edge her, demand she report how close she was to orgasm, take her close, closer, again and again, whispering such wicked and depraved things into her ear that he barely needed to touch her to take her there.

Each night, after at least a half dozen edges, he would promise her at least one ruin, and then instead edge her again and yet again, without even that satisfaction, until she was nearly weeping, begging him, promising him anything for even the deeply dissatisfying ruin she knew it would end up being.

And he in turn would assure her that he would satisfy that urge this time, as long as she adhered to some bargain he concocted in the moment. Either by counting down a little too quickly, or asking her some riddle that confused her, the answer to which failed some arcane test and meant she hadn't won satisfaction, or using two fingers deep inside her and no stimulation of her clit whatsoever, and when she wailed: "I can't come like this" merely to whisper that he was sure she could, and that she should either relax more or try harder, and then he would start counting again, always too quickly.

He would stop touching her, leaving her short, and she would moan and shake in frustration and murmur: "I hate you", and with genuine sounding sorrow in his tone, he would hug her tightly and kiss her softly and assure her he knew what she really meant, and that tomorrow would be different.

Of course, it wasn't.

She could barely think straight in the day, during this time, her mind straying back between her legs constantly, her thoughts filled with dozens of alternatives to that forbidden stimulation, just as he intended. Filling her mouth, filling her arse, reddening her buttocks with crops, paddles, bare hands, anything to take away that throbbing itch for a time.

*

Now, though, a national holiday approached and they had planned to disconnect from the world. They had raced to complete all their work by a certain date and agreed to turn off their phones, close up their laptops, set their email to auto-respond, and travel out into the countryside.

They had planned in the days to wander the local area, enjoying the sunshine, the parklands, the natural hikes, the historical sites. By night they would dedicate themselves to each other.

The place they had chosen was a small rural cottage, whitewashed walls, thatched roof, an authentic kitchen served by a log fire. It was quite removed from the local towns and warm and snug inside. It felt like stepping back into a bygone era with its oil lamps, its open grate, its own well for fresh water.

She had unpacked and hung her clothes in the oak wardrobe and returned to the main room, flooded with spring sunshine and uncluttered as only a holiday residence could be, when she saw The Box resting on the coffee table.

She became aroused immediately. So long without seeing it, she had wondered if its effects upon her would still work. Yet they did. Knowing how deeply their game had woven itself into her consciousness was itself also arousing. She felt a thrill somewhere between expectation, fear and delight deep in her belly that sang though her nerves and her hips twitched all on their own.

As usual he was watching her. He took such pleasure in the effects of its surprise appearance upon her, looking for the change in her expression, the quickening of her breath, the flush of her cheeks, the parting of her lips and the way she flicked her gaze back to him as he sat there smiling quietly.

He loved how conditioned to their game she had become.

Further, he loved heightening those effects. They had arranged to spend their first day touring the local area so when he suggested she remove her panties before they left the house, he did so knowing full well what effect it would have upon her throughout the day. She eased them off right there before him, slipping them out from under her light skirt, and handed them to him. He tucked them into his pocket.

And tour they did, in the open top car they had hired, the better to feel part of the landscape through which they drove. They stopped off here and there to park and look at the sights.

Throughout the day, every so often, he would lean in to place a gentle kiss upon her neck and murmur something wicked in her ear.

"I wonder if you'll get to see inside the box tonight," he'd say. Or:

"How does it feel, being naked under your skirt?"

Once or twice as they strolled the parapets of a local castle, with a few other tourists nearby, the warm breeze caught her skirt and she had to smooth it down with her hand. He came behind her, took her hand in his and pressed it to the hardness between his legs, whispering how excited it made him to think of her like that, slick between her legs and with the thinnest of material hiding this from the other people.

"Do you think we will allow you will come tonight?" he asked her. "Seeing as we are on holiday?"

She moaned in anticipation.

They took a light supper in the open air at a local village. Candles flickered on the tables. The warm breeze felt like silk against her skin and a lover's breath between her thighs. He stroked her cheek with his fingers. Every so often he flicked a glance over at nearby diners. A silent look back to her, a slightly grin, suggested he was enjoying her frustration, her exposure to the elements, the proximity of the unwitting diners.

*

Back in the cottage, with a pretty fire dancing in the grate and the oil lamps dotted around the main room giving off a warm, orange glow, he eased the necklace that bore the key off from her neck, inserted it into The Box and turned it.

The metallic click as the lid sprung up was music to her ears.

She peered inside to see what lay there.

It was a paintbrush, for fine art, expensive, made of soft sable, about the diameter of his thumb.

She peered up at him curiously.

"Are we going to paint something?" she asked.

"We are," he said. "We are going to paint you, my beautiful artwork."

"Body painting?" she said. "But where are the paints?"

He simply smiled and led her over to a space he had cleared that morning, in front of the fireplace. He had laid carpet and several soft rugs there.

"Undress," he said, in that certain tone he sometimes used with her that spoke to some deep, obedient part of her mind. She felt her hands jerk to obey him almost before she consciously moved to do so herself.

"Kneel," he said, in that same tone, and she found herself dropping to her knees instantly, to gaze up at him. He stroked her hair, admired her beauty, praised her obedience and then eased her back until she lay, face up, on the carpet, warmed by the heat of the open fire.

He bound her there, arms stretched taut above her head, legs parted and ankles secure, another loop around her thighs to prevent her hips lifting and one more around her neck, partly to prevent her lifting her body but also because he knew she enjoyed that sensation. As he fastened this last loop about her throat, he whispered: "Just like a collar, to remind you that you are mine."

Then he fetched the brush from The Box.

He began at her scalp, drawing the brush from the very crown of her head down through her hair, a curious sensation, and down her forehead, across her temples, along the upper parts of her neck. Slow, steady, gentle strokes in an almost meditative rhythm.

At first, he simply moved down her body, from head to shoulders to chest, to belly, thighs, legs and feet, as if she were being slowly drawn through the lightest of portals, head first, like being reborn. The fire flickered, the shadows swung in the dim light of the room. There was no music, just her soft, steady breath, the guttering of the flames and occasionally the odd word of praise from him as he worked.

Once he had moved down from the very top to the very bottom of her body, he began seriously to paint sensation upon her.

There was a pattern she began to discern in his ministrations. He began in her least sensitive areas, painting invisible, swirling, arcane patterns like beautiful lace or perhaps the intricate Celtic knotworks. Her shoulders, her arms, her hips. Yes, they were still sensitive, acutely so after the weeks of denial but still this was mere sensation, not yet acutely erotic.

She closed her eyes and the sensations upon her skin became amplified. As if she had entered an altered state, she began not just to feel the brush tracing patterns across her skin but also to see them in her mind's eye. Spirals and whorls arose in her imagination, floated through her mind, danced and spun. It reminded her of the film Fantasia she had watched as a child.

It was as if he were filling her in like colouring book.

He moved on to more sensitive areas: the palms of her hands and her fingertips, the lids of her eyes, her face, the slightly parted lips of her mouth. Every faint dab of the brush now thrilled her and sent out shimmers of sensation that echoed around her body. The pretty patterns in her mind became more intricate and fractal. Her breath began to deepen.

And still he administered the brush in that slow, even-handed rhythm. He wasn't out to surprise her with sudden, different pace or pressure. This was something else. A more calculated torture.

She knew, very well, what he was doing. As the brush stroked around her breasts towards the very edges of her areolae, or wandered up her thighs nearer and nearer to her vulva. He was painting her pleasure from least sensitive, least erotic, to the very place she needed to be touched. The very place he had been promising all day. Indeed, he had been promising something for weeks, during her denial.

He spoke to her quietly of her beauty, of how pleased he was to see her in this guttering firelight, of how delighted he was with her obedience, her denial, her yearning to please him.

Sometimes she drifted, floated, as if she had fallen asleep for a moment. She returned with a little thrill, to the present moment, to the touch of the brush, to his sweet, low voice murmuring things to her, urging her to breathe deeply and evenly, to relax.

Slowly, inexorably, he began to near her nipples and her clit, excruciating her with light, lapping teasing promises of the brush. The weeks of teasing before were nothing compared to the hair fine fibres of the brush stroking towards and alongside her most sensitive places.

But he did not quite touch them. Every time she felt he was about to stroke the fine hairs across that most sensitive flesh, and she arched her back and stretched her body forward to meet them, he simply drew the brush around her nipple, in a circle, three times, and then allowed it to recede, following the lines he had drawn previously.

He did the same as he neared her swollen clit. Her hips pressed forward, opening herself as she tried to raise herself, seeking out the fine hair with her most hungry, sensitive spot, only to find him circle it three times and allow the brush to recede, like an ebbing tide, back the way it came.

Something about the hours - it must have been hours by now - of slow, concentrated stimulation had pushed her into a hypersensitive state. She swore she could feel individual hairs of the brush dragging across her skin.

And it didn't help that his low, murmuring voice urged her to feel the light lapping. Didn't she want to feel it everywhere? Couldn't she imagine it stroking and teasing her where she wanted it the most. It was almost hypnotic, those gentle, repetitive words.

Her nipples and clit burned like tiny points of fire. Her body tingled, covered in the lacework of sensation. And where he avoided with the brush, those three circles around her nipples and her most throbbing centre, felt like three tiny disks of longing, numb in contrast to the even-handed lapping of the brush that had touched every other inch of her. Between the lapping, and the numbness, and the hoping, and his gentle, urging voice, she simply floated, mindless, the edges of her perception dissolving into a single wash of need.

Perhaps she had faded out for a moment, for she came to her senses, once again, to find the brush lapping, slowly, steadily, directly along her clit. She could hardly breathe. It lapped, like the softest, sweetest tongue, edging her, holding her right there, just before the tipping point. The edge had at one time been a sharp line over which she could pass, to tip directly into orgasm. Now after all their games, after these weeks of teasing, after these hours of the brush, the edge was a landscape that lead into the foothills of orgasm, a burning, pulsing landscape of sensation which led ever upwards towards a receding peak of sensation she wasn't even sure she wanted to reach. If it were just a little faster, a little firmer...

"Oh please," she moaned.

"Please what?"

"Please keep doing that. I'm so close."

"Please keep doing what?"

She opened her eyes to see what he was doing.

He sat, beside her, hands in his lap, gazing at her intently.

And still that steady, soft stroking stimulated her. She still could hardly breathe, despite the confusion and astonishment. She wasn't sure what was happening.

"Can you still feel it? Like when you spin around and stop but your head keeps spinning? Like you've been on a boat for the day, and you step off it but you still feel yourself swaying? Apparently the echoes concentrate physically in the place you have been focusing your attention. I wonder where that is."

She moaned as the ghostly sensation of the brush lapped at her core.

"I don't know how long it will last," he said. "It could be a couple of hours. It could be a couple of days."

A couple of days! A half-moan, half-whimper escaped her. A couple of days with an incessant, steady lapping, teasing sensation edging her, like a scratch unable to be itched, driving her ever upward in frustration without relief.

"We could leave you lying here," he mused. Her whimper was her only reply. "Or perhaps you would prefer we relieve you with touch?" She nodded, desperate for the teasing to end.

"Very well," he said.

He stroked one finger down her neck and she arched her back. The single touch upon her flesh seemed magnified by her now hypersensitive skin. She swore she could feel the ridges of his fingerprint. And more ... she felt the touch trickle through her, following the lines of the loops and whorls he had painted on her flesh, sensation like lava, like sparkling light, tracing across her skin, following the maze upon her flesh to flood against her nipples...

No, not her nipples. He had drawn circles around them. The cascade of sensation washed against this, taunting her nipples with denial too. They were burning hard now, longing for sensation.

Another stroking touch, upon her thigh this time, the sensations flowing through the labyrinthine map upon her skin, to meet the circle he had drawn around her vulva, stopping them going any further. And just inside, that light, invisible, echoing lapping on her clit, slow, steady, unsatisfying.

She writhed and whimpered upon the carpet but that simply seemed to send further teasing ebb and flow across her skin to fall short of her most needy points.

"You should try to keep still," he whispered, "or you might drive yourself insane with unfulfilled sensation."

He tested her bonds, ensuring she was still firmly restrained. Then he himself ran another finger down her neck. Her core burned, throbbed, the ghostly brushing exquisite and unsatisfying.

"Perhaps we'll let you feel a real finger upon your tip later on," he said. "Or the real lick of the brush. It would be explosive, after all this time, wouldn't it? It would send you right over. But it would be a shame to ruin this beautiful state too quickly, wouldn't it? Right now it just takes a fingertip upon your shoulder to frustrate you so much your mind simply dissolves. You'd promise me so many things just for relief, wouldn't you?"

She nodded, delirious with pleasure. She knew he'd bargain with her. Pain and punishment in the future for satisfaction right now. And she would gladly agree. He knew her very well indeed.

"Take a breath and relax, sweet thing. We have all night."