Untitled – Snippet – August 9, 2012

I  studied his face.  His eyes were bright in the guttering candlelight.  His pupils were wide, pushing out all color to their coal blackness.  His skin was faintly darkened by sun and wind-roughened along high cheekbones.  Although his face was lean and worn by years, it maintained an impish hint of youth.  His eyes never left mine as I rose from the Victorian arm chair and approached him.  I smiled slightly and he suddenly seemed uncertain what to do with his hands.  He finally hooked his thumbs into the front of his belt.

“Are you nervous?”  I pitched my voice low and deep, the tones were honey warm in the small room.  He studied me.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said finally.  The formality of his answer was true and old-fashioned manners not submission.   I smiled again, as always, attracted by his frank honesty.  His gaze wavered for a moment then steadied as I drew close to him and stopped.  I liked this one, of all my boys I had always like this one.  He was easy, gentle, and a heady combination of confidence and little-boy, toe scuffing, foot-shifting nervousness.

He swallowed as I reached out toward his shirt and pinched a tuck of cotton between my fingertips.  “Take off your belt.”  I heard the barest stutter in his breath and his eyes widened so slightly it was almost imperceptible.  The faint flush under his tan could have been only a trick of the candlelight.

He tore his eyes from my face and brought his attention to his belt buckle.  His hands seemed to lose coordination as his fingers fumbled at the leather.  The flush was deepening and spreading, the tips of his ears glowed dark crimson beneath his neatly trimmed, dark hair.  He hissed softly in frustration then finally drew up the loop of thick leather and drew it free from the buckle.  The belt rustled against his jeans as he pulled it free of it’s loops.  The sound never ceased to send a thrill of anticipation up my spine.  And, I knew, up his as well.

He stood for a moment holding the belt awkwardly away from his body as if it were a venomous snake.  For a moment, the confident, self-assured man before me was shaken, uncertain.  I held out my hand, and he raised his eyes.  A sudden, quick breath brought him back to himself, and to a mixture of anticipation and resignation.  He extended the belt and relinquished it to my waiting hand.

Fear was creeping into his belly now.  I knew it, could see it, tingeing the edges of his aura.  The way his movements became so slightly jerky, the faintest sheen of sweat beginning at his hairline and on his upper lip.  The way his pupils now eclipsed the irises of his eyes to such a degree that the color was no longer visible.  The way he caught his lower lip between his teeth for just a moment.

“Now your shirt.”  I doubled over the belt in my hand, tucking the metal neatly into my palm.  His gaze flickered over my face before he reached for the hem of his shirt, pulling it free from his jeans, then crossing his arms to pull it up over his head.  I watched as smooth, dark skin came into view, his belly, defined with muscles, lean and wild, born of hard work rather than hours in the gym.  I smiled at the memory of his expression when the topic had once come up.  To him and those like him living out here on what vestiges remained of the frontier, a sculpted body was a matter of practicality not aesthetics.  But it was still beautiful to see nature at its pinnacle.

He laid the shirt aside on the chair by the door.  And turned to face me.  He knew what was next.  It was always the same.  But he waited for the instruction.  Ritual is important in this business.

I nodded toward the bed.  The old fashioned brass frame crossed the foot of the bed on a level with his hips.  He hesitated only for a moment then turned from me and stepped up to it.  He shifted his feet slowly apart and lowered himself over the wide bar.  He laid his forearms flat on the hand-stitched quilt, knit his fingers, and lowered his gaze, sighing softly.

I ran the supple, old leather between my fingers once, appreciating its width and weight.  He shifted slightly from foot to foot as I let his own nervous anticipation prime him for the coming scene.

Finally, I stepped up to the foot of the bed and watched the lines of his body tense.  With no preamble, I drew the folded belt back to my full reach and arced it around, putting the weight of my body behind the swing.  The belt hissed angrily through the air and cracked across the worn denim, slowing it’s progress as it continued it’s travel through, finally wrapping itself harmlessly against my own thigh.

He jerked as the leather connected, letting a soft grunt escape as he bowed his head.  Then he inhaled deeply and I watched the tension melt from his body.  As the belt cracked down again, only the slightest flinch betrayed its effect.

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