by Alex M. Quinlan
(10/11/00)

I walk around the party, snacking on chips and drinking apple cider. There's lots of physical contact with this crowd, and enough people to populate more than one puppy-pile. After saying hello for a while, I wander down to the basement. It's a typical generic, semi-finished basement: utilities there, carpeted area here, low ceiling throughout. I sidle in toward the scene quietly, sit cross-legged on the floor near some friends, and settle in to watch what's going on.

There is a futon on the floor. On the futon is a woman, dressed in a micro-mini dress of amazing colors. Her accessories include assorted pieces of black and blue velcro webbing, and a brilliant purple tether to a pipe near the ceiling. She is on her back, shoulder-length black hair splayed around her head, knees bent, holding her hands behind her neck. A wiry man with a dark brown pony-tail is alternately running ice over her skin and swatting her with narrow, thin pieces of metal -- aluminum, by sound. Her body tenses and relaxes as he clips various things here and there -- clothespins on her arm, a Vise-grip to her very erect nipples, a postal scale to her earlobe. She whimpers occasionally, and gasps more often.

I can't keep my eyes away -- something about this particular scene draws me intensely, and I have to watch. In the past, I have not responded particularly strongly to pain of any sort -- either watching it or receiving it -- receiving bondage and teasing is more my style. But this... it's grabbing me strongly. My breathing becomes shallow, and I can feel the wetness growing in my crotch. The goosebumps that are forming where the cool air meets my legs through my floor-length wrap-around skirt are as much sexual tingle as vestigial reaction.

I hear some whispers behind me, and feel a tug on my shoulders. I let myself fall back into a cuddle -- this is why I'm glad there was a group of friends to sit near. Jon, a former lover, has pulled me back against him -- he seems to be discussing me with Matthew, my current flame. Jon is the only person who could ever physically overpower me -- dead-lifting my considerable weight more than once -- and so our sex play often turned on my being bound or held down while he drove me wild. The worst was a feather. He teased my nipples with it for what seemed like hours -- and I became so sensitive that I couldn't wear a bra for days. Matthew is my latest acquisition, his long hair a redder brown than Jon's salt-streaked black, although both of them have the blue eyes that trip my heart. Matthew and I are still exploring what can be done with vanilla sex, given that we live three hundred miles apart and don't get together that often.

Jon pulls my arms from across my chest -- funny, I hadn't even realized I was in a defensive posture -- and starts running his nails along my forearms, stroking softly on the underside of my wrist, strongly in the middle, feather touch, almost non-existent on the inside of my elbow. The muscles in his forearms shift and ripple as he whispers in my ear to keep watching the scene on the futon, and he nibbles on my earlobe. Matthew runs his much longer nails along my legs, which are somewhat more responsive. Up the inside from my ankle to my knee, just this side of tickling, and down the outside to my ankle again. Openly gasping, I shudder as nerve after nerve takes fire, inflaming my entire nervous system, with the focal point in my cunt.

I have closed my eyes, or maybe just completely spaced out. The applause that erupts for the couple on the futon snaps me forward out of my slouch, eyes wide and startled, brought up short by Jon's arms around me. I drop my head, letting my breathing return somewhat to normal. I hear a man say, somewhat amusedly, "Do you folks want the futon?" It is only when Matthew says "Yes" that I realize he was talking to us. I can feel myself start to blush in addition to everything else -- suddenly I am unsure of my flamboyant exhibitionist tendencies.

Jon stands up behind me, lifting me up with his arms under mine. He holds me while I catch my balance, brushing my breasts with his fingers. I turn my attention outward again, step over a few people to the futon, where Matthew has already sat down. I slump more than sit, Jon behind me again, his back to the wall. "Lie down," he says, and I do. He pulls one arm out to Matthew's side, the other over my head, holding them at my wrists.

"Watch me," Matthew says, waiting for me to meet his gaze.

I do, and we lock eyes for a moment. He reaches to his side, fumbles, and pulls out a Bowie-style knife, holding it up between us.

I take a deep breath and try to relax my muscles. He drops his gaze and his hand toward my arm. I watch as Matthew slowly draws the tip of his dagger along the inside of my forearm. Starting at the inside of the elbow, slowly tracing the vein to my wrist -- Jon moves his hand down to my palm, pinning me there.

"What does that feel like? Do you like that?"

I struggle to pull my awareness back into the talking part of my brain, trying to put these sensations into words. I finally manage to whisper, "Ouch means slow down. Oatmeal means stop. Don't ask, just do." I close my eyes and try to relax into the sensation of being pinned, my earlier spaciness returning and deepening with a shiver.

I hear low-voiced consultation that I deliberately ignore. Jon pulls both arms over my head, resting my hands in his lap, holding them with only one hand. He starts to fondle a nipple through my shirt, flicking across it, rolling it, occasionally pinching it.

Matthew moves my skirt out of the way just enough to have some leg to work on. Starting at the ankle, he traces nerve endings up to my knee, lifting the knife when he gets there. I haven't been breathing for the entire time the knife was on me. I gasp for air, and suddenly the sexual response washes over me, in a delayed reaction that starts in my tits and quickly closes the circuit to my clit. I hear a roaring in my ears.

"Are you ok?" someone asks. I nod jerkily, and feel his attention shift back to my leg.

This sets the pattern. With the point and back of the blade, he works in short lines -- while the knife is on my skin I don't breathe, gasping heavily when it is lifted, getting closer and closer to orgasm. The chill of the knife raises gooseflesh all over my body, a tingling sensation that travels up to my breasts. Working on only one leg, he plays tag with the goosebumps, up and down my thigh and calf, past the knee, walking the line between tickling and outright pain, then down between each toe.

"Hold very still," Matthew orders, and I freeze.

It is a different sensation now, like a row of points traveling together, slower, less cold, more twitchy-making. As the knife nears my knee, Jon unbuttons my shirt, exposing my stomach and confined tits. Just above my knee, all the points collect into one and evaporate. As I gasp for breath, I feel cold fire laid onto my stomach, just under my bra.

"Ah, good, it hooks in front. We don't have to cut it."

Leaving the knife flat on my stomach, Matthew unclips my bra and releases my breasts, moving the bra out of the way. The nipple on the same side as the leg Matthew has been playing with is very erect. The other is completely flat. "How interesting. Lets see if we can change this."

More muttering that I can't comprehend, and suddenly there is a hand at my lips with an ice cube. I suck at it greedily, kissing the fingers that offer it. Heavy breathing has left me with a very dry mouth. It melts quickly.

"Want more?"

I nod, and then let out a gasp as the ice is applied to my nipple. "You should have expected that!" I think to myself, and then all thought evaporates once more as someone's mouth wetly, warmly, corrals the ice and keeps it on my nipple. Another piece is fed to me, somewhat larger than before. Another piece is fed to the mouth on my nipple, too.

This intense, overtly sexual act has me close to coming -- all the built-up sensation transmutes into arousal, slamming into me, the tide beginning to crest beneath me, moaning. Everything stops short when I feel the knifepoint on my other breast, circling around. And around. As it gets close to my nipple I start to call ouch to slow down, but it lifts, and my other nipple is sucked intensely again, all tongue and no teeth. I convulse and cry out.

Again this happens, the teasing circling of my aureola, the approach that almost has me wanting to stop, the sudden switch from blade to tongue. I almost start coming, but, yet again, everything suspends in my body's strange reaction to the knife. I come closer this time, whimpering when I feel a weight settle across my hips, holding my legs apart. It could be Matthew, but I don't know anymore. The knife starts up again, my breathing suspends. This time it traces around both breasts, figure-eighting back and forth. Confident that the slow word won't be needed, I wait for the expected denouement. But this time, while the mouth comes down as expected, the blade continues across at the same time.

It's a major short circuit for me -- I convulse, and am held down by Jon on my hands and the weight on my hips. I almost come, but the sensation of the blade on my breast is the wrong kind of too-much for that, and the aborted orgasm causes me to thrash even harder. I start shrieking, cursing Matthew for denying it to me, seriously trying to get my hands free to claw him, to stimulate myself, to beat my frustration out on something soft.

Suddenly the only extraneous sensations are Jon holding my hands and the anonymous weight on my hips. This is enough to deflate me, and I start shaking, afraid of what my outburst might produce.

"Open your eyes."

I do so. Matthew is sitting to the side, watching me with no expression. All I can see of the person weighting me down is long dark hair and a back, not even any gender cues. Jon is above me, stroking my neck -- who knows for how long?

"Look at me," Matthew says in a low-pitched voice.

I do, and again we lock gazes.

"Did you like that?"

I only succeed in whimpering.

"No. Words. Did. You. Like. That."

I swallow twice before I have enough saliva to talk. "Yes," I whisper.

"Say it louder."

"YES!" It tears out of me like a sob. I have tears running down my face, gasping for breath again. I see his pupils dilate.

"Do you want me to continue?"

"Yes."

"Yes, what?"

"Please," I whimper, impaled on his wide blue gaze.

"Yes, please? Is that all?"

Now I can hear that he is laughing at me, and I stop being quite so pathetic. "Yes, please, sir."

"Yes, sir?" His glance flicks over me, and I feel my wrists being squeezed unpleasantly.

"Yes, please, sirs!" I say quickly.

He smiles, and lifts the knife, holding it like a pen. Holding my gaze, he very quickly draws the edge across my stomach, over before I can gasp. "Look down."

I look at my torso. I don't even see the white lines that I usually associate with scratching sharp objects against my skin.

"I will not cut you. I will not draw blood. Do you believe me?"

I look back at him. "Yes, sir," I say quietly, truthfully.

"Good. Then we can continue."

He taps the shoulder of the person at my hips and motions. That person gets up, but before I can see who they are, he again has the knife flat on my breast -- and all my attention.

He leans over and straddles me, not quite putting his weight on my hips. He starts idly drawing on my stomach with the tip, and at the same time drawing his nails down my side, just barely tickling me. He smiles with amusement as I squirm futilely, not wanting to twist my body because of the blade.

"Hmmm. You don't seem quite as active as you usually are in trying to get away from this. Perhaps I am not doing it right. Does this work better?" He moves his tickling up into my armpit, holding the knife just far enough above me that I can feel it when I gasp deeply for air. I try bending my body to one side, but that is about all I can do. He grins at me. "Payback's a bitch, huh?" and looks out into the audience, tagging a few people with nods. Two folks whom I have often tickled - and who have never been able to get me back -- slide over to help.

I see him pick the knife up as he says "Go to it, folks," and I start to make a serious effort to buck him off -- if I can get my feet under me fast enough, I have a chance to break even Jon's grip on my hands. I get about 3/4 turned around and they are all on me, at all my known tickle points. Once again I go into massive overload, convulsing in my doomed attempts at evasion. Some unknown time later it all stops - and I think we all have bruises. But he is still on top of me, and I am the one worn out.

I nod warily, and the tingling in my cunt begins again.

He sits next to me, idly taking a now-flat nipple in hand. "Let's explore this connection," he says, and draws the flat of the blade, dull side first, up over my ribs to my breast, up over the curve of my breast and up to the nipple. I am quivering the entire way, but at least I am breathing, if only shallowly. The nipple that the knife is near doesn't react, but the other one does, slightly. He announces it to the audience in officious tones, and does the same to the other side. By the time he has the knife next to the nipple, the situation is reversed.

Next he starts from my neck, and I can feel the difference as he lays the edge on my shoulder, the back towards my breast -- cold fire tingling up to my neck, my ears, down to my breast. I gasp and can't let the breath go as the knife reaches the very erect nipple. As he pulls it off I feel a line of very sharp, very intense cold fire across the nipple, which has me gasping, close to ouch.

He watches me catch my breath, and repeats with the other breast. By the time he gets to the nipple I am quivering, and as he pulls the tip across I am gasping, my breath hissing out in as close an approximation of ouch as I can with no breath left. Immediately he is covering my nipple with the palm, warming it, pressing it down.

"What?" he asks softly.

"Was that the edge?" I stammer.

"No. Watch."

I see him pull the tip very softly across my aureola -- not on the nipple, not even deforming the skin with the weight of the blade. Same sensation, almost like a paper cut. Same place.

"Okay. I'll deal," I manage to say.

"You'll wait," he says, and lays the knife flat on my stomach.

He reaches down and unhooks my skirt, unwrapping it to lay under my body.

"You did bring extra clothing, didn't you?"

I nod, my eyes very wide.

He takes the knife and slices down the sides of my underwear and pulls them off, exposing my abdomen and crotch. He starts running the flat of the blade along my thighs, cold strokes, never warming. He runs the tip across my tummy, circling my navel, skirting my fur. My breath is coming short again, quick gasps whenever my brain will permit it. I am feeling very teased, but at the same time it is as if my brain refuses to admit that this is sexual without an explicitly sexual sensation to focus on. My hips start to roll back and forth, uncontrollably.

He starts to tweak a nipple, rubbing his palm across it mostly, rolling it, pinching it. Jon starts doing so on the other side, and I am moaning again, my eyes closed, the roaring in my ears louder, wetness dripping down my crotch to my skirt. Suddenly there is someone sucking on my nipple again; my back arches and I call out with intensity. Someone is playing with my other nipple, someone is playing with my clit. But I slowly realize that I don't feel the knife anywhere, and I start to panic.

"Let her up. Let her see," I hear Matthew say.

I open my eyes and lift my head slightly. He is sitting between my spread legs, holding the knife by the blade. The handle is sheathed in rubber. He looks questioningly at me. All I can see is the knife and his eyes. I look between the two for a moment, confused. Suddenly it clicks, and I moan.

"Fuck me," I whisper, very clearly, and let my head fall back. I feel something cold, hard, slick moving along my cuntlips. I feel my nipples being played with and sucked. I feel the knife enter me. And I feel the convulsions as the wave of orgasm crashes down on me, wiping me out like a surfer until I know nothing but the dark.