Craving Flight (13 page)

By the time
we get home from a boisterous late dinner, Shabbos is over. I know it’s supposed to be a day of rest, but I may be even more tired than I was last night after an entire day of forcing a smile onto my face.

Despite my exhaustion and feeling out of sorts, when Elan suggests we go to bed with that hopeful tone in his voice I nod, hoping he doesn’t mean merely going to sleep. When he circles fingers around my wrist, tugging me after him, I’m certain. No sleep for us. Not just yet.

Once in the bedroom, he nudges me into a corner, facing me away from where the walls come together.

“Stay there.”

I wouldn’t have moved anyway, but his terse command ensures it. Trying not to wring my hands, I watch him move about the room. The first thing he does is remove the runner on his side of the bed and fold it neatly before putting it to the side. Then he rummages in the closet and emerges with what looks like a…tarp.

Before I can school my features, my nose wrinkles up. That’s alarming. What on earth has he got planned for me? A
tarp
? Luckily he doesn’t notice my expression because he’s too busy shaking the thing out and spreading it on the floor. A hundred possibilities run through my head, each more disturbing than the last. I try to convince myself that I have a far, far filthier imagination than Elan does, but the man is quite cunning. And dirty.

When the tarp is laid out to his satisfaction, he opens the deep bottom drawer of the nightstand and draws out a few large pillar candles and a box of matches. What is he, setting up mood lighting for whatever it is exactly he’s going to do with the tarp?

I don’t have more time to wonder, because he turns on me. “Strip. Everything but your tichels.”

I expect him to go about his business. Most of the time he undresses me himself but when he orders me to do it, he doesn’t watch. But he is now, his gaze so intense I feel like I’m already naked. I move slowly, unbuttoning the sleeveless blouse I’d put on over my shirt, a piece of my old wardrobe I’d been able to salvage. I’d worn it today as some sort of silent protest I’m sure didn’t register with anyone else. My face is getting hot under his scrutiny and I swallow, my fingers fumbling at the buttons.

“Don’t be nervous, little bird. Not yet. I’ve been inside you. I’ve tasted you. What’s a little nudity?”

He’s right but it doesn’t make me feel any better.

When I’ve removed every last article of my clothing, he orders me to kneel in the center of the tarp. The candles that he’s set out on a ceramic plate are right in front of me and he takes the opportunity to light them, knowing my eyes are glued to where he’s setting the flames.

When the wicks are alight, the flames glow in the darkened room, their subtle flickering hypnotic. It makes me slightly less self-conscious, but no less confused. Why did he leave me my headscarves? He loves my hair. Loves to close a fist in it and pull, loves to bind it in his ropes. Loves that it’s for him and only him. So why is it still bound up in the elaborate thing I styled hoping to impress his family? Which was silly, given that all the women wear sheitels. Like most of the women here.

The smell of the blown out matches permeates the room, smoke curling up to the ceiling. I watch it rise and dissipate, distracting myself from the unknown until his voice startles me.

“On your stomach.”

I do as I’m told, stretching out on the tarp and laying my hands alongside my head. My hipbones dig into the wood and my breasts are pressed into the hard floor, but it’s not entirely uncomfortable.

When he breaks out several lengths of forest green rope from another drawer of the nightstand, I’m even more at ease. This is familiar. I breathe and watch as he rigs cuffs around my wrists, attaching me to a leg of the bed on one side and a foot of the bureau on the other. I like when he makes me into a work of art with all the intricate knots and weaving of the cords, but there’s something sexy too about this workmanlike proficiency. Competence is hot. The only thing I don’t like is that it’s quickly over and I can’t ogle him and his dexterity as he wraps more cuffs around my ankles and affixes those to the remaining posts.

Once I’m in his ropes I don’t care so much what else he has in mind. He might hurt me, yes—I’ll probably enjoy that part—but he won’t harm me. I believe he will honor his promises. Perhaps he’ll never be romantic or terribly emotionally intimate with me but he does care and he wouldn’t betray my trust. Especially not when I’ve handed myself over so fully.

He tugs at the ropes, more I think to give me that little thrill of being controlled and contained than to actually check his work, and then he goes once again into the drawer, extracting a blindfold. I lift my head without having to be asked and he fastens the fabric snug around my eyes.

After it’s been tied tight, he lays a hand on the back of my neck. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

I don’t respond because he hasn’t asked me a question, but when he tightens his grip and shakes me gently, the words come to my lips: “Yes, master.”

“You’re a little spacey already, aren’t you?”

“Yes, master.”

There’s an unintelligible grunt, but it’s accompanied by a stroking of the nape of my neck and then he’s gone.

He comes in and out of the room several times. I suppose I should be trying to decipher what all the sounds mean, but he was right. I’m well on my way to subspace and I can’t bring myself to care. Besides, it’s more fun when it feels like he’s doing magic. Why do I want to pull the curtain back? I don’t. I just want to enjoy the show, especially after the stress of the day.

Minutes later, his voice rumbles across my consciousness. “Still with me?”

“Yes, master.” Even I can hear how dreamy and singsong my voice is. His laugh is tinged with wickedness and I smile in response.

That’s when the burning starts.

I yelp and pull at my ropes, panicked by the sensation, but it’s only a drop over one of my shoulder blades that quickly becomes tolerable. Followed by another at the base of my spine and another. It all falls into place. The candles, the tarp, why he didn’t want me to take down my hair. He’s dripping hot wax onto my back. And now that I’m expecting it, though I don’t know where the next drop is going to fall, I can control myself more. Well, a little more.

A drop lands just below my armpit and makes a scorching trail down the side of my ribs. I hiss through my teeth. “Fuck.”

“Language, Tzipporah,” he admonishes in that warning tone that makes me crazy. I swallow to keep the next curse from coming out of my mouth when there’s another drip just below the last one. Sadistic fiend.

At last I’ve had more time to get used to the sensation and I’m not so shocked every time a drop lands. I’ve found my breathing and it helps me through the splashes searing into my skin. I can tolerate it on my back, but when a drop falls on my upper arm, I squeak and pull at my bonds, rattled. “Master, please, no.”

There’s a pause and then a movement before his heavy hand is at my neck and his beard is gently rasping behind my ear. “No, what?”

“Not on my arms, please, master. I can take it on my back, but on my arm it hurts so much more.”

“And not the good kind?” His voice is gentle and teasing which makes it all the harder to say no.

“No, master. I could—I could take it. If you needed me to, but I—” My chest seizes up with fear at the memory. Not of the pain precisely, because that’s near impossible to remember, but with that animal instinct of
run
. It’s possible that on some other day, at some other time, I’d be more willing to at least try, but after this nerve-racking Shabbos, it’s too much.

He hushes me, rubbing a thumb across my cheek. “Not today. You’ve been very brave.”

Gratification feathers around my heart. I’ve pleased him. And the “Not today” pleases me. Not that I’ll be looking forward to it precisely, because it hurt. A lot. But perhaps he understands that my refusal is due mostly to the circumstances. At least he believes I’m strong enough to take more, and his faith in me in this one small thing heartens me. He soothes me and pets me until I’m settled back into languor and I memorize his touch, what it feels like on my skin and over the wax.

“You can take a little more, though, I think.”

“Yes, master,” I agree, because I want to. I want to thank him for giving this to me, for showing me what I’m capable of so I will give him this gift.

He stands and I brace myself for the scorching drops falling on my skin and there it is. That blistering heat. I whimper because I’ve grown unused to it but I sink into the experience more quickly this time. He begins longer pours—not just small drops, but lingering ribbons of wax drizzled over my skin. Everything leaves my head besides sensation: the enduring heat, how the wax feels different when it’s poured over covered spots versus untouched skin, the contrast of the cool and crinkly tarp under my cheek.

I am free.

He pours two crescents of wax over my shoulder blades where wings might be. I can almost feel them sprout from my back so I can soar though I’m anchored to the ground. Then he’s unfastening the ropes he’s tied me with and I feel like I might fly away until he rolls me to my back and pulls the blindfold from my face.

His dark eyes are alive with desire for me. If I’m a bird, he’s a hawk and he’s going to snatch me right out of the sky. I want to be caught. But first he reaches for the clasp holding my headscarves in place. His fingers are deft, having learned how to unfurl my creations, and it’s not long before my hair is loose underneath me, spread out over the tarp.

“Beautiful,” he says. “And so good.”

He kisses me, his lips and tongue demanding and I give in to him, letting my legs fall open where he’s pressed against me. While our mouths play, he handles my breasts roughly, squeezing and kneading, tweaking and pinching my nipples. It’s not long before I’m writhing underneath him and making small, pleading noises between desperate kisses.

“Please. Please, master. I need you. Please.”

He torments me for a few more minutes. I’ve picked up on this little trick of his. Waiting long enough after my requests to make it clear he’ll do as he pleases. It’s his choice, but part of the calculus is what I want. The effort he puts into the equation melts me.

He strips his clothes, not folding them neatly like he usually does but leaving them in a heap on the bed, and the small detail makes me feel powerful in my own fragile way. Then he’s pressing inside of me, no fingers to check if I’m ready because he knows I am. With each forceful thrust, the wax on my back rubs against the tarp, some of it shedding. It creates this unique friction, like nothing I’ve ever felt before. So many new things he’s shown me and there’s so much more to see. I take advantage of my hands being free to hold onto him while we’re joined, my fingertips digging into the musculature of his back. Not to hurt him—not that I could—but to clasp him to me, to feel as much that he belongs to me as I belong to him.

I feel blessed when we do this, as though we’re fulfilling our purpose. It’s as if we are one soul.

It doesn’t take long before my climax is building. I rock my hips up to get the contact that’s going to send me over the edge and he threads fingers through strands of my hair, anchoring my head to the ground, the tension in my scalp sending an extra quiver of lust through me.

“Fly for me, little bird.”

His demand sends a gust of wind under me and I spread my wings and glide on it, calling out his name and clutching at him as I come apart. The contractions of my muscles around him encourage his own release and he lets himself go, plunging hard into me as he comes.

When our breath has evened out, he kisses my cheek and nuzzles at me, the unexpectedly fond gesture making me ache. Not that he’s unkind otherwise, but I wouldn’t mind some affection outside of when we’ve been intimate. I’ll take what I can get though, bask in the warmth of the aftercare and pretend it’s more than circumstance, kink, and sex that’ve drawn us together.

Withdrawing, he offers me a cloth and turns me onto my stomach. I’d forgotten all about the wax, scattered as I am, but the removal certainly reminds me. It doesn’t hurt precisely, but there’s a tugging, pulling, stripping away that makes me feel like I’m losing a layer of skin. It makes me feel vulnerable in a way I haven’t before and tears pool in my eyes before rolling down my face, dripping into my hair and onto my arm where my head is cradled.

It doesn’t take Elan long to notice and when he does, he talks to me in low nonsense words, interspersing the removal of the wax with featherlight caresses that feel electric on my sensitized skin. By the end, I’m sobbing and shaking, my entire body on fire like an exposed nerve. But he covers me, comforts me, takes me into his arms and carries me to our small bathroom. Holds me while the bath fills part way and then wedges his huge body into the undersized tub to hold me in the tepid water.

Curled up in his lap, my head resting against his chest, I start to calm. By the time he’s helping me dress then spooning me on my side of the bed, he’s eased me enough to fall asleep. When I startle awake in the middle of the night, coming to consciousness with the feeling of freefalling with no wings, he’s there. He doesn’t usually hold me through the night, probably because it’s uncomfortable lying on the gap between the beds, but tonight he is. The selfless gesture of concern is touching.

“Go to sleep, little bird. I’m not going anywhere.”

*