sat down next to her and took her feet in my hands, massaging them gently, both for pleasure and to help her keep her circulation up. Then just to feel her strong hands in mine, I took her warm fingers and did the same.
âWhat comes next?â she asked, tracing the rope indentations across her thighs with something like lust in her eyes.
âThatâs still up to you, my pretty little rope dancer,â I teased, bringing the hand I had been massaging to my face and letting her thread her fingers through my hair. âYou can go if you want to, but it would be nice if youâd like to stay longer.â
She smiled and used her hand in my hair to pull me closer, sitting up so that we could press our breasts together and hold each other close as we kissed. She scratched at my back and pulled at my hair until I rolled, pulling her with me so that I was lying on my back while she straddled my lap. When her little fingers danced over my nipples, I thought that sometimes itâs worth it to skip the rope and leave hands free. And then her fingers moved lower, and it was the last thing I thought for a long time.
She was gone when I woke up the next morning, in a sex-mussed bed, feeling deliciously sore all over. Sheâd taken her clothes and her bag, but sheâd left the Polaroid on the kitchen table, a phone number written across the bottom with a firm, feminine hand. I smiled as I went to make coffee.
That was a year ago, and I still love to see Emily in ropes, whether my own or hers, high in the air. And I still have that little Polaroid displayed on my bedroom mirror where I can see her bound form and her tousled hair and lustful, hungry eyes waiting to devour me each morning as I dress.
BEHIND THE DOOR
Kay Jaybee
The first van drew up at exactly half past twelve. It was never late.
Nina could feel the beat of her pulse accelerate as she watched from her office window.
Every day the same van came. It was white with gaudy adverts proclaiming the painting trade of its driver emblazoned along its sides.
Pretending to adjust the blinds, Nina found herself holding her breath as the spiky-haired, stocky man, with paint-daubed shorts and grubby T-shirt, left his vehicle and dashed through the door to the empty shop opposite.
Tearing her eyes away, Nina checked her watch. In three minutes it would be twelve thirty-five, and the next van would arrive.
This van was blue, and much larger, with a ladder strapped to the roof, and claims of being able to improve your double-glazing written on the hood. This driver was taller than the first,his ginger hair cropped closely to the outline of his skull.
He, too, all but ran into the neglected shop.
It had been a bookshop once. Popular, busy and friendly. Then one day a year ago, it was suddenly deserted, as if the Internet revolution had ruined it within the space of a day. Now it sat, with a single curtain, faded and worn, pulled across the length of the old shop window, blocking the outside world from whatever, or whoever, waited inside.
Conscious that she hadnât typed a word into her computer for at least five minutes, Nina turned to her keyboard and filled in a few more blanks on the spreadsheet before her. She had another three minutes before the final vehicle came at twelve forty.
They were rarely early, and they were never ever late.
The red car, a hatchback bursting with the tools of the carpentry trade, pulled up next to the blue van. Its tall, slim owner, whose shaved head was always covered with a baseball cap as he went inâbut always bare when he came outâchecked the time before he strode with purpose toward the solid wooden door.
The door used to be propped open with a solid-iron cat-shaped doorstop all day, but now it was left firmly closed. Prying eyes were prevented from even glimpsing within, as the men never opened it beyond the requirements of their own body size as they sidled inside.
âAre you coming for lunch?â