by Zoe Kittridge
(07/19/06)

I handcuffed him to the bed on our first date. I'm not usually quite that forward, but he was so easy to read.

I met him at the staff briefing. There he was jokingly introduced as "the spy who came in from the heat." Naturally I'd heard of Captain James Schiller. His success rate had made him a legend at the agency. Unfortunately, his recent divorce had made the tabloids and ended his usefulness as a field officer. When I'd heard he was being reassigned to the advisory team (as in "Those who can, do; those who can't because they're too burnt out or recognizable, advise"), I'd made it a point to brush up on his history -- starting with his service record, moving on to gossip, and ending with a conversation with the man who had first recruited him.

He would never have put in for transfer, but I think he was secretly glad to be pulled in.

He thinks too much.

With that, I figured I knew more about Schiller than his priest, his best friend, and his three ex-wives put together. But when I finally met him face to face, I realized that no photograph or report could have prepared me for the weapons-grade maleness he exuded. A man's man, a lady's man, all man -- the gossip was right.

The way his brown eyes met mine told me that he'd heard of me as well. I have a certain notoriety and I was glad he was aware of it.

As the meeting wore on, I kept glancing at him across the conference table. With each mention of acceptable risks and potential losses, he set his jaw a little more firmly. I've seen it in other strike team commanders. Despite all his accomplishments -- or perhaps because of them -- there was a certain pain, a weariness, very near the surface. Too many deaths, too many lucky escapes, too much awareness of the sacrifices of others.

Too much thinking.

He and I went to dinner at a hole-in-the-wall that served excellent mu shu and wasn't far from my condo. Our conversation was standard first-date stuff: I didn't openly signal my intentions until he reached for a fortune cookie.

"Let me," I said, scooping the cookie out from under his hand. I broke it open, unrolled the paper and tossed it aside unread. "Confucius say: The things you've heard about the lady..."

I paused for effect. He cocked his head, his mouth curving in a rakish half-smile. He was so confident. He'd been born to lead, and to dazzle. I looked him straight in the eye.

"...are all true."

He was beautiful, stripped naked and lying on my bed, his hands resting against the pillow as I slipped the chain behind the center post of the headboard and snapped the cuffs around his wrists. The chain had a few extra links to allow some movement and the velvet-lined cuffs would leave no marks should such movement take the form of struggling. He observed this evidence of expertise with obvious interest and gave the chain a couple of tugs to test its strength. When he caught me watching him, he smiled and said, "I'm trained to withstand torture, you know."

"Of course you are. This wouldn't be any fun if you weren't."

He laughed and I joined in, although I'm sure we were laughing for different reasons.

I keep my bedroom a little too warm just for occasions like this. To see the sweat of a man's body shimmer in candlelight, to wet my hands by running them through his matted hair and dry them by pushing my own hair up from my neck, to inhale the mingled smells of arousal and perspiration, to taste a salty droplet just as it slithers into the hollow of his throat -- heat is most definitely required.

That night, the air was thick with heat. It curled around me until I felt like I was drowning. When I looked at Jim and saw his body slick and shining with perspiration, I knew I would drag him under with me.

I kissed him and asked, "Do you trust me?"

"I'm here, aren't I?"

He looked amused. Did he have any idea how much he needed me?

I started gently, taking my time as I ran my hands over his body, sucked his lips, knelt above him and let my breasts brush his chest. Standard operational foreplay.

Was he disappointed? Hell, yes.

But I wasn't. I love the moment when I've got a man thinking I'm one thing and then I shatter that belief by being another. With that end in mind, I let him think that I sought nothing more than a whisper-thin illusion of control. He had 'indulged' me by 'submitting' to the handcuffs and I returned the favor by letting him think that such a little-girl idea of bondage was as far as my imagination went. As I sat back and frowned, as if uncertain of what to do next, I congratulated myself on how well I was playing my role. Underneath, of course, I was practically drooling in anticipation of the moment when I would reveal the sharp edge of my naughtiness.

After several ridiculously coquettish minutes of tracking beads of sweat along his muscles and whispering, "Shall I touch you here? Here? How about here?" -- never actually touching anywhere he wanted me to, of course -- I ruffled the damp tufts of hair under his arms. He wrenched away, and the sharp rattle of the chain sent a thrill down my spine.

"Ticklish?" I asked.

I walked my fingers along his ribcage. He twisted and pulled against the handcuffs again. It's amazing how many men will staunchly face every pain and humiliation I can provide but will quail at the mere thought of being tickled.

"Catherine, don't!"

It wasn't a request; it was an order and a slightly angry one at that. The biting tone, the warning glare, the hard line of his mouth -- I knew he had that in him but I hid my pleasure at seeing it manifested so soon.

"Don't worry." I put on a soothing tone. "I'm not into that. I just wanted to know."

I was quite sincere -- tickling is for children -- but I was devious enough to enjoy using sincerity as part of the charade.

I gave him a long, slow kiss until I felt him relax.

I did everything slowly that night. I think it was greater torture for me than it was for him. I sucked his nipples for what seemed like hours before biting them, and stroked his cock even longer before giving it a drawn-out squeeze that brought him to the edge of pain. I was sure he'd had much worse -- and I certainly intended to surpass any previous experiences he might have had, but not that first night. That night, I wanted to hurt him just a little and pleasure him quite a lot and I wanted him to know that I was capable of much more.

And -- oh yes -- I wanted to scare him.

There's really only one way to scare a man like Jim. You have to let him do it for you. If he has a good imagination -- and I was sure he did -- well, there's nowhere you can't go on imagination.

"You don't trust me, Jim. Not really. Not yet." I rolled him onto his stomach. "You trust yourself. You've done quite well trusting yourself. Even chained to my bed, you still think you're in control because you're 'letting' me do this.'" I injected a subtle change of tone. "On your knees, darling. That's it." I gave his ass an approving pat. "You're wondering what's coming next and you're perfectly comfortable not knowing, because you're sure you're in control."

I pushed his knees apart and took a moment to admire the view. His ass was round and taut and his balls dangled like ripe fruit. I cupped them in my hand and fondled them. When he began moving in a way that urged me to turn my attention to other areas, I smacked each cheek hard. My palm stung from the impact, but it was important to make that first disciplinary contact flesh to flesh. I needed to make my point and as the repeated spanks turned his skin an enticing pink, his almost-muffled grunts told me I was on the right track.

"You're not in control, Jim, and there's no need to insist that you are or even that you want to be. It's time to let go of yourself and start trusting someone else."

I lay down beside him and studied his face. Desire was so blatantly displayed that I rewarded him by nipping his lower lip to see if he liked that. He did. He lifted his head, seeking more and I kissed him deeply, again leading him on, letting him think that I would take my cues from him. I took his lip between my teeth, held it in a light bite and then freed it with a slow pullback. He made a small noise, half-sigh, half-moan, and I knew his pleasure came at least in part from the unspoken affirmation: Ask and you shall receive. I let him have that, perhaps for a few moments longer than usual, but I couldn't help myself. The anticipation of peeling away the illusion of control was intoxicating.

I turned him onto his back, straddled him, and leaned in until my hair tumbled down and touched his chest. I moved my head from side to side, letting the long strands graze his nipples. He murmured something about the beauty of my hair. I didn't reply but I gradually increased the action until my hair was slapping his chest and face like a thousand tiny whips.

Finally I sat back and watched him move beneath me. I felt his cock pressing against my ass and I slid forward, withholding what it was seeking. He arched his back, trying to maneuver me into the position he wanted.

"Catherine."

He said my name as if he could seduce me with just that, as if his voice gave him some sort of power over me. That spoke volumes about his history. I felt slightly envious of the women who had surrendered to such a summons. But I knew the hard truth at the center of that sound, a truth that had escaped the lovers of his past, just as he himself had. I would keep him as they had not because I know that words have power. I was glad to see that he understood at least part of that.

"Jim," I replied, an acknowledgement that he had said my name and nothing more.

He eased back down to the bed. When I spoke again, I was surprised at the depth of my longing for all that would follow. Something inside me shuddered with joy.

"I'm going to give you a safe word."

He frowned. Puzzled? Incredulous? Scornful? He was all of those. I hid my satisfaction as I watched him travel the dimly lit path of questions. When his expression changed to one of understanding, I waited a moment longer and then I saw it. A flicker of uncertainty. He had reached the answer beyond the answer.

He recovered his composure almost immediately, too quickly for me to determine all the colors of what he was thinking. It didn't matter. I would see everything in due time. That's the beauty of the safe word. It's both reassuring and terrifying. On one hand, it gave him the final control. On the other, it made him wonder what I was going to do that made a safe word necessary.

I bent down until we were cheek to cheek and whispered the word that would release him. As I did so, I pulled open the drawer of the nightstand. I sat up and caught his wary eyes watching me. I taunted him with my motions, careful to conceal what I had gotten from the drawer. After settling back into my place astride him, I held my closed hand over his chest. His expression was deliberately impassive. His refusal to betray himself with any emotion, even one as simple as curiosity, made me smile. He was just as I had imagined him, just as I'd hoped he would be.

I slowly fed the thin strip of rawhide through my fingers until the tip hung just above his right nipple. The cord was the perfect length to tie around a man's scrotum with just enough left over for pulling. I didn't point that out. He could see it as well as I could. Like me, he was trained to consider all possibilities.

His lips parted as he watched the cord swing in a small circle. With each quickening breath, his chest rose a little closer to its touch. Finally, just as the frayed end was about to brush the peak of his nipple, I snapped it down sharply. The crack of leather against sweat-soaked flesh was as loud as a gunshot; it almost concealed his gasp of pain.

I wound the cord up in my hand and with only a few inches hanging loose, I put my hand behind my back and let the cord dangle against whatever it happened to touch. I felt his cock moving behind me, alternately retreating from the intimation of pain and leaping toward it. I swung the cord a little more forcefully, not nearly as hard as I had snapped it against his chest but enough to rekindle the memory of its sting. He groaned, closed his eyes and let his head fall back on the pillows.

I began silently counting, one beat for each of his breaths. Soon we were in perfect synchronization and I couldn't have said if my counting controlled his breathing or if he drove the numbers on puffs of air. It really didn't matter. I was glad to linger for one last moment, caught between who we were separately and who we would be together.

On the count of nineteen, he opened his eyes and I saw what I had been waiting for.

Acceptance.

I pulled my hair up into a twist, secured it with the strip of rawhide, and we began our journey.

He didn't need his safe word that night.

By my standards, I was quite gentle. A good hard spanking and a bit of rough handling, enough to leave him aching the next day but nothing that he couldn't conceal. I scolded, nibbled, pinched, bit, slapped, squeezed, spanked, teased, tempted and played bait-and-switch until he begged for release but in the end, I fucked him to the moon and back. And the whole time, I knew he was thinking about the safe word.

Afterwards, we held each other in a silence that I found comforting...but I'm familiar with the journey from light to dark and back again.

"Why did you give me a safe word?" His voice was hoarse but I heard the steel under his carefully pitched question.

I waited to see if he would ask a second time. He didn't, thereby earning a response from me.

"I'm sure you're aware that it's a commander's prerogative not to answer every question. For instance, if it means stating the obvious."

I went into the bathroom, leaving him to think about that.

He didn't need a safe word, not that first night.

But now he has one.

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