Nothing/Everything

In the beginning he allows her nothing. The rules are strict. She may not look at him. May not say his name. May not face him when he fucks her. May not vocalise when she feels pleasure or pain. May not move when he whips her. May not cry. May not swallow his come. May not touch him with her hands even when he’s inside her. May not speak at all without his permission. May not do anything he does not explicitly grant her permission to do.

He explains the reason for such strictness. How, if she does not wish to play this game, she does not have to, but that he thinks she will. It is clear that she wants to belong to him, and this is what belonging to him entails.

First, a week of rough, transactional fucking. She’s naked when he arrives. Moves like a puppet on his command. Get on the bed. Face down. Spread your legs. Not looking at him. Not saying a word. Biting down on the bedsheets so that she won’t accidentally make a noise as he slips inside her. Holding herself taut and tense as he fucks her from behind.

When he’s done he offers little comfort. A hand placed on the small of her back, warm against her skin. Intimate touch. No cuddling. No kisses. No whispered words of affection. But that hand… that hand is everything.

Incrementally, she is allowed greater intimacies. The day comes when he tells her that she no longer needs to lower her gaze when she is around him, and this tiny concession feels so sweet that it makes her lightheaded. She looks at him, drinks him in. Still silent. Still kneeling. Still naked. Still unable to touch him. But, with her eyes, she devours him – looks as long as she is able whenever he is in his presence – and feels utterly, sublimely grateful for it.

For being allowed merely to look at her lover.

She feels as though she has never been more thankful for anything.

And that is how it is with every little allowance he hands to her. When he tells her that she may vocalise when he hits her it feels like a gift. The first time he allows her to swallow his come she does so with eager, obscene gratitude – swallowing again and again long after it has slipped down her throat, searching for the taste and feel of it over again, wanting to be able to swallow his come a hundred times, right then and there, till she’s gorged with him.

When he fucks her face to face. When he kisses her on the mouth. When, months after they first met, he permits her to say his name… out loud, at will, in her own voice. There is still so much that she does not have permission to do, and yet she is allowed this, his name, and she uses it, and no word in her throat, between her lips, in the air between them, no word has ever sounded so perfect.