I always know when the city fades from a lover’s pulse: the instant diesel, gossip, and sodium street-glare drain off their skin like dirty rainwater. Tonight, the hush arrives on the sixth iron step beneath my workshop. The grate shivers under two pairs of boots: Eva’s rubber soles dancing, my leather cadence unhurried… and somewhere above us, Toulouse keeps pumping its neon bloodstream into the night. None of it reaches down here.
The stairwell opens onto a landing no wider than my wingspan. A single 40-watt bulb glows sullen behind a wire cage; its light collects in my cheekbones and lets the rest of me remain silhouetted. Eva draws a breath that quivers audibly. (Good, her composure will be prettier once it cracks.)
“Color?” I ask without turning. My voice sounds different in the concrete shaft: lower, almost smoke-rough.
“Green, Mistress.” The words leave her velvet-soft, but her knuckles whiten on the railing.
A steel door (adorned with a waist-high graffiti I’ve never had the heart to sandblast) waits at the bottom. I thumb the latch; the old hinges inhale and swing wide. Pitch black yawns, smelling of machine oil, damp mortar, and the faint citrus cleanser I use on the mats. Before crossing the threshold, I pause. The pause is choreography: it lets my sub feel the night tugging at her clothes, at her doubt, at the last free breaths she’ll draw until I grant the next.
Inside, a motion sensor kisses to life. Thin amber LEDs embedded in two ceiling joists tesselate outward like airport runway lights, but slower, softer, as though cautioning the darkness instead of aircraft. They reveal the room in coin-purse flashes: here a suspension ring-bolt sunk deep into reinforced concrete; there a low steel table laid out with implements that glint and hide again. Farther back, a smaller doorway curves into deeper shadow. Eva doesn’t know what lives beyond that door. I intend to keep it that way… for tonight.
She steps in behind me, and in that heartbeat, the world above ceases to exist. I pivot and let the door sigh shut. With it sealed, the hush grows tender.
“Strip,” I say. No thunder, no bark; a simple request delivered with the confidence of continental drift.
Eva obeys like a prayer unfolding. Blouse first, buttons slipped with shaking fingertips; the neckline claws at raven hair before surrendering. Cool air beads her collarbones in dew. She folds the garment (good girl) and sets it on a bench to our right. Her skirt whispers down stockinged thighs; the stockings follow, leaving pale skin lit by amber moonglow.
I watch in silence, cataloguing details like an archivist:
height: five-four, small enough that hoisting her won’t strain the rig;
skin: porcelain veined with a faint lace of silvery stretch-marks she pretends to dislike;
breasts: mid-hand-sized, nipples already blushing;
hips: full, made for my palm;
mouth: painted cherry earlier at dinner, now licked almost clean but for a shy stain at the cupid’s bow.
Last to fall is her underwear, plain cotton darkened at the gusset. That spot, no larger than a thumbprint, tells me every secret I need… I step closer. Boots scuff rubber matting; my height eclipses the amber beam until my shadow swims over her nakedness. Fingers under her chin tilt her gaze up. Eye makeup rides a fault-line between Adoration and Anticipation. Fine then, let’s widen that fault until it swallows her whole.
“Color?”
“Green.” No tremor this time; good…nothing beats a brave sub when the truly cruel games start.
The cuffs are calfskin, matte black, lined with brushed suede that smells faintly of clove oil from last week’s conditioning. I kiss the back of each of her wrists before closing the buckles: an Old-Guard courtesy I’ve never outgrown. With wrists secured, I feed a swivel carabiner through both D-rings, click-lock it to the hoist cable, and nudge the foot-switch at my ankle. The motor purrs.
Eva rises two inches, enough that her heels hover. Muscles ripple down her abdomen as gravity redistributes. I hear her exhale: the sound of surrender arcing from throat to ceiling bracket.
Ankle cuffs follow, tethered to floor-rings set shoulder-width apart. The stance is modest: I don’t want strain; I want inevitability. Only once the geometry is perfect do I let my fingertips rest on the gentle pulse inside her ankle. That pulse gallops now.
Sight is a tyrannical sense; I dethrone it early. The blindfold (Italian lambskin, aubergine) slides across her brow, tangles briefly in lashes, then blots out the amber world entirely. I knot it at the occiput, adjusting to keep pressure off her sinuses.
“Count the seconds in each breath for me,” I murmur, lips grazing her ear. She shivers; her voice trips into the darkness.
“Inhale… one-two-three… exhale… one-two…”
I listen to six cycles. By the seventh, her cadence stabilises, parasympathetic system coaxed toward equilibrium. That’s where I want her: balanced on calm so the smallest push will send her reeling.
I claim the marabou tickler from the table (black, absurdly delicate against my callused knuckles). The first touch lands at the hollow of her throat. Her vocal cords flutter; the breath count stalls. I silence the urge to comfort; let uncertainty wrap her bones.
I drag down to the underside of her left breast, slow figure-eights around the nipple that make her belly flutter. Skin pimpled into tight buds follows wherever I go… across ribs, dip of navel, ridge of hip. When I circle the cleft of her sex, the lashes of down lift a faint perfume: salt, musk, the high note of skin on the verge of sweat.
She inhales sharply. “Three,” she blurts, trying to resume the count, but the number runs away on a gasp.
“Ask,” I murmur.
“Please… may I… may I touch you? No, sorry… may I come?”
“So soon?” I chuckle low, sliding the feather between labia so lightly it might be rumour. Her hips jerk; the feather falls away. “Denied.”
The word lands heavier than any slap. Chains jangle; I catch the metallic echo in my chest, savour it.
“Thank you for the denial, Mistress,” she whispers, voice ribbon-thin, already learning that desperation has a liturgy.
Blindfolded subs paint spaces with memory. To wield that, I let silence pool. The only noises: the hoist’s soft creak, her throat wetting a swallow, the distant drip from some forgotten pipe. In that quiet, temperature becomes a drum; scent becomes a lighthouse. I take two slow laps around her, boot-steps metronoming so she can trace distance by sound. By the third lap, she tilts her head… trying to predict where I’ll stop.
I stop nowhere. Instead, I kiss the top of her spine—stealthy, warm—then vanish again. She moans, a small, desperate animal performing for its keeper.
