The Tulip

The Tulip

After meeting informally at a conference and a few conversations which seemed to spark a mutual curiosity about one another, Gideon’s invitation to meet for a drink seemed innocuous enough. After all, they made each other smile, and occasionally laugh; their inclinations in music and art and public matters were similar, and there was a physical frission between them that wasn’t conventional attraction, but created a dull, interior warmth in them both. It was like the knowing of a hidden thing, that few others could sense.

Both were a part of a couple, but unknown to each other, had started to outgrow their partners sexually, and so shared the same longing for release and a new stage on which to perform and to stretch . Both were inherently loners, although active socially; both absorbed in their work and their daytime lives, so neither were remotely interested in romantic entanglements, but extremely interested in a whole variety of other entanglements. Life, they figured, was short, and so was their tolerance for the ordinary.

They both wanted to use, and to be used. They wanted to cloak themselves in a new persona while stripping the clothes and the public inhibitions from their collaborator; to sate their appetites, but then to walk away into their daylights with a secret energy radiating from their loins and a smile curling at their lips.

It was inevitable, with so many threads in their individual lives drawing together, that a rope of some kind would be formed. They had exchanged numbers quickly and their occasional phone but more frequent text exchanges had pushed their conversations flirtatiously into those other preoccupations that dealt solely with play and pleasure, and those things which occupied their secret spaces ­ what aroused them, what fascinated them, the stimulations they hungered for. Almost from the beginning, there was an apparent simpatico evident between them.

It doesn’t take long to recognise one of your own.

Despite the fact that he seemed a newcomer to some of the physical explorations she was already making, she had a sense that his instincts showed some promise, and so meeting for a drink was a normal next step to test her hunch. He was lean and physical, with an intense gaze and a creative bent, coiled somehow, and more on the interesting side of attractive than the handsome. She was never short on attention, and drawing men to her was easy, but ­ we’ll call her Valerie - was not a common girl.

Perhaps it was the measure of Spanish blood in her lineage that led her to expect that attraction and lust needed to be laced with a little mystery. She needed some shadowy element of the unknowable in her partner (or her prey) to make her pulse quicken beyond her lawyer’s normal, stable professional coolness.

She wondered whether she might be able to slot him into the fantasies that woke her in the half-dreamt, pre-dawn dark each morning long before her husband stirred, and which drew her hand ever so slowly across her breasts, sparking her nipples quickly to life, and inexorably continuing down her belly, to the peak of her mound, and then down, and further down. She wondered whether those instincts she felt he may have might lead him to take hold of her fantasy, and to quietly assert his control over her anticipation; to bind her body and to travel over and through it, with his hands and his words and his silences.

They agreed to continue their conversation in person at a bar in the lobby of The Ansonia - a chic new boutique hotel in the city. The bar had an opulent Oriental theme and they had arranged to meet after work on a Thursday night. Valerie had a full day of meetings as part of her annual client review cycle. She would try to reinforce her firm’s value to them and present a picture of legal victories claimed or commercial defeats and embarrassments averted, while coolly deflecting the overly attentive gaze of her mostly male clients.

She’d been torn between the fear of being distracted during her meetings by the anticipation of her rendezvous with Gideon that night and the desire to put an edge on her day so that when the night came, she would be in costume physically and mentally. She decided that at this point in her life, “edge “easily trumped “distraction”, and that she would go for it.

Along with her tailored black jacket and skirt, she wore a fitted white blouse of heavy, quite masculine Egyptian cotton. While the weight of fabric leant toward the masculine, it was cut to her every contour and this, in concert with its opacity implied a definite, but inaccessible femininity. It was collarless, buttoned high, elongating her neck and providing a palette against which her deep chestnut hair fell and played artfully with a jade and amber beaded necklace which sat and fell just over the ridge of her breasts. Christian Louboutin black patent leather pumps and seamed black silk stocking completed the conservative but calculated ensemble, designed to impress and to intimidate, while taunting the observant with a perfect run of cloth over the curves of her body.

The part that the intimidated and impressed couldn’t see, and which fuelled not only the suggestion but also the physical element of distraction were the very modern lines of blood-red satin Aubade lingerie that Valerie had rebelliously decided should bridge the narrow space between her naked skin and the tailored professional package on the outside.

Each item, from the thin satin bows that tied the sides of her knickers to the sheerness of her bra which ended just over her nipples and barely had enough cup to contain her breasts, to the narrow waistcincher whose red suspenders met the black of her stockings, was its own rebellion. A symbol of control to those she held at bay, but of submission to someone, when she chose the moment.

The sheen and delicacy of the French delights seemed to take on a life of their own under her starched and structured outer clothing, and slid and caressed her most sensitive skin each time she moved. Rising from her chair, crossing her legs, reaching for her coffee or stretching to point to a line on a chart each produced a tiny rewarding touch of friction upon her, and a constant reminder of what she had assembled underneath, and why.

They were, however, very, very distracting, and it was with relief that Valerie shook her last client’s hand at the lift lobby and was able to turn her mind to her rendezvous with Gideon in half an hour. The lift doors closed and her property developer client descended; she turned on her significant heels and, drawing a slow breath, walked slowly back to her office to touch up her lipstick before leaving. As she walked in to her office, lost in her thoughts, her mobile vibrated suddenly and noisily on her desk startling her. She felt the thrum of her heart beat against the tight fitting blouse and a pulse across her abdomen as she reached to pick up the phone and read the text that had flashed onto the screen.

“On time?”

She fumbled at the keys, uncharacteristically nervous now.

“Yes ­ on my way. How are you travelling?” Valerie waited for Gideon’s reply, but the phone sat still in her hand. She was just about to leave, thinking he may be driving and not able to respond, when the screen lit up again.

“What do you like to drink?

She felt her heart start to speed it’s rhythm again but recognised the distinction between nervousness and the beginning of excitement. On the threshold of blurting out that she didn’t know what she felt like drinking, she managed to key instead; “I like Cointreau on ice to start with, but perhaps this first time, the gentleman should choose?” Looking at the text for a moment, she wondered how he would take the suggestion, but as this was a step into some unknown, in any case, it seemed to be in the spirit of the night to hit “Send”, without really knowing.

Throwing on her coat and a sheer silk scarf around her neck, she gathered up her handbag and became lost in the percussive echo of her heels on the hard stone floor. As the lift doors slid shut and the floor imperceptibly fell away, her phone vibrated Gideon’s reply.

“Yes”

Though she had wondered a dozen times in the short cab ride from her office to the Ansonia, Valerie hadn't worked out whether Gideon's "Yes" was yes to her normal libation or to choosing one for her. Since acknowledging their draw towards one another, the pull, and agreeing to meet, a subtle change had come over their exchanges. When they were just loosely connected professional peers, he was open and loose, an easy companion to like and pass the time with. Now that the match had been struck, he began to withdraw into the shadows, perhaps, she thought, so that she would follow him, with the match, to throw a brush of light onto the deeper place they were entering. She sensed Gideon to be holding back half of what was there, half of what he might or might not give her; half of what she wished to see and to know, but couldn't.

The Ansonia was, as always plush, warm and casually ostentatious. Just a little too dimly lit to properly identify its clientele to the slightly disorientated newcomer fresh from the street. One felt that that's exactly how its clientele liked it. It was more subdued in volume than most city bars, probably because of the hotel above, but possibly also because of the secrets most likely shared there nightly over their perfectly mixed cocktails.

Valerie walked slowly into the bar peering through the soft dark for Gideon and praying her nerves wouldn't betray her intended veneer of assured charm once he saw her. As much as she might be able to disguise her nervousness through sheer bluff, the sudden tension of her arrival and the anticipation of locking eyes with Gideon had conspired to make her painfully aroused.

Realising her nipples had involuntarily risen to acknowledge her desire, they strained and abraded against the mesh of her bra and Valerie subtly drew her coat lapels together to cover her breasts, thankful now, for the room's apprehended light.

She stopped and slowly pirouetted on the ball of her foot, scanning the room. A man looked her up and down and tried to catch her eye, then another as she continued to turn, but there was no discernible sight of Gideon.

Spying a free booth just a few feet away, Valerie made for it, her heels and skirt forcing her to slide in awkwardly but gratefully. The rising of her skirt and parting of her legs as she sat and slid across the fabric presented a brief contact point between her sheathed pussy and the surface of the booth and she welcomed the brief relief to her arousal of that friction. She would track Gideon down and direct him to the black velvet booth and set about seducing him, she thought, but no sooner had she fished her phone from her bag than it vibrated in her hand - a text from Gideon - "Ready for your drink?. Valerie blinked then sat up and looked around over the top of the booth's cushions. Was he nearby somewhere, watching her? She saw nothing so turned her attention to the screen again.

"More than ready", she tapped in quickly, "but where are you?" The reply came so quickly he must have known exactly what her question would be and she started to feel like she was being played a little. "There's been a little change of plan - your drink is waiting but there's something I need you to do first."

The next half hour blurred like the landscape in the window of a train. Later, Valerie would remember little of how she got from the bar to the room.

More texts came from Gideon; she was asked to collect a hotel room entry card from the reception desk upstairs; she was told to let herself in to the corresponding room five further floors up; She was told to strip; she was told to now deposit the entry card underneath a planter on the same floor, but she could only put back on one item of clothing. She obeyed each instruction without question, drunk now on the adventure, disorientated but still unable not to give herself over to it.

She had arrived wearing a coat, so she put that on over her nakedness, propped the door open and rushed to the planter location praying that no-one would see her, shoeless, possibly noticing her nakedness under her coat, and that the door wouldn't close before she could dash back to the room.

But she made it back. Leaning back against the door once it had shut with her safely on the right side of it, Valerie closed her eyes and fought to regain her breath as the next instruction came. It told her to go into the bathroom and to shower, but again, a condition. She had to close the door and leave the light off. Shaking her head, Valerie moved the half dozen steps to the bathroom door, dropping the coat from her shoulders onto the carpet before stepping inside. "Is this it?", she wondered, whatever "it “might be. Depositing her phone onto the vanity, she closed the door behind her and banished the light. In pitch darkness, Valerie fumbled her way to the shower, reaching for surfaces to guide her until she was inside the shower recess. She found the taps and, adjusting the water, stepped under, feeling every drop of water roll down her body as the darkness eliminated her sense of sight and heightened her sense of touch. After a while, Valerie heard the bathroom door open, close again then nothing. In the stillness, she could hear her heart.

An endless minute later, as she strained to hear or see anything, the shower door opened and she felt hands find her. Valerie turned slowly to face him, but he turned her back to face the wall. Gideon’s body pressed against her, pushing her against the wall, his rising cock resting on the small of her back ­ and she felt his left hand slide with the falling water around to cup her hanging breast, rolling her erect nipple between his fingers and pulling on it gently. His right hand ran down her spine, from the top of her neck, down the ridges of her vertebrae, slipping between her cheeks and then cupping her cunt. Still, Valerie saw nothing, only feeling him and the water, and her heartbeat vibrating from within.

She moved against Gideon’s hand and it opened, fingers splaying, her your cunt lips falling between his fingers, riding the backwards and forwards motion. Valerie’s’ head probed back against him, turning, her mouth, seeking out his and finding it. Her breath was shallow and drew sharply inwards as his fingers slid inside of her, moving, caressing. As she moved in a circle onto his fingers, Valerie pressed back against his cock, and brought it into the same motion. His left hand slipped down her torso, from her breast and found the nub of her clitoris. It moved in a tiny circle, pressing around it but in the opposite direction to his right hand and his fingers.

The dance continued until...

His hands were suddenly gone, and from the crest of her arousal, before she knew what had happened, she was alone in the shower, suddenly louder than it seemed before, echoing harshly through the marble bathroom.

She swept one hand through her hair, moving it from her face where it had fallen in damp branches, covering your eyes in the minutes before. The other ran across your stomach soothing the deep ache within and down to grip her cunt, hard, trying forlornly to clench away its sudden denial. It fell from her lips with her breath, the word, slowly, "fuuuckk".

What was she to do? The rules, unannounced but seemingly explicit from the start were that instructions would come and that she would comply. What to think now? Valerie tentatively closed off the taps and stood for a minute in the dark and the descending cadence of drops.

She wondered if he’s just left her like that. She wondered if she was supposed to have understood some inferred next step. She wondered how an assured woman such as she was, could suddenly be so equivocal, so exposed by indecision.

As Valerie stepped lightly out of the shower and onto the cold stone, her hand somehow found a towel which she absently draped around her body. She became aware of sound in the room outside, music, spare and soft falling notes from a piano. She grasped the door knob as she moved towards the sound, but then stopped, resting her weight against her hand, her other hand holding the towel tightly then brushing it over her nipple. She turned the door knob and stepped through. The notes of piano now rang more roundly.

There was also light; so little as to barely be there but still enough to throw a glow and shadow after the pitch of the bathroom. Before she had adjusted to the light, Valerie stepped onto something which rustled quietly on the carpet beneath her feet. The carpet was warm and giving in contrast to the cold stone floor of the bathroom and she bent her knees and dropped to pick up what had been under her foot. Paper,textured. Her eyes were adjusting further to the half-light and she saw something written on the paper. It was still too dark to quite make out the words but she could see the letters were generous, possibly written with a fountain pen, idiosyncratic, somehow loose and abstract, but contained carefully within their own form. More light.

As Valerie looked up from the page, she saw into the large room. Though she'd seen it earlier bathed in full light, it has taken on a different character now.

The bed, behind an ornate timber screen, decorated randomly with her dress and lingerie and stockings. On the other side, the contemporary Chesterfield, a matching leather ottoman almost as long as the sofa in front of it and an antique hardwood writing desk along the wall next to the sofa, upon it, 3 thick candles, the source of the warm, honey light touching the edges of everything in the room.

Valerie saw him by the large window in the space between the bed and the ottoman, the soft light carving an exaggerated cleft between the lean muscles of his back as he looked out at the lights of the city below, a towel identical to the one she was still gripping to her damp skin wrapped around his waist.

Valerie took a few steps into the room, stopping next to the bed almost tiptoeing because for some reason her throat had tightened and she had a vague feeling that she shouldn’t disturb Gideon. “The bed is where we should be - reigniting our lust of a few minutes ago.” She felt suddenly warmer; a familiar, viscous warmth, in her belly, along her neck. Unconsciously she brushed the towel in a tiny motion over her breast. She remembered the paper in her hand, and looked down. The indigo flourishes spelled out, “Say nothing, but “tulip”...

Valerie read it twice, not understanding. "Tulip"? What the fuck did that mean?

As she looked up, the question on her lips, Gideon started to walk slowly towards her. "Yes" she thought, what she really wanted was to continue the dance from the shower, to be wrapped up in each other's arms, skin all over skin, breathing from each other's mouths and leaving these word games behind.

Gideon reached Valerie but Instead of wrapping her up, he took the note from her hand and dropped it onto the bed, taking the free hand into both of his. He pulled her backwards, never taking his eyes off hers until they were at the edge of the ottoman. Valerie could feel the warmth coming off the candles now, touching the skin not covered by the towel, merging with the warmth coming from within and she had an impulse to throw the towel off and feel the candle's heat bathe her whole body, to rip the towel from his waist, take his cock into her hand and bring it to life. "Please", she breathed internally, remembering she was not to speak. Gideon, however, did not indulge her wish, instead turning her to face the ottoman and gently pushing her to it. Valerie felt she might lose her balance with nowhere to go, her shins already against the leather of the ottoman, and did the only thing she could from that position, climbing onto it on all fours.

Valerie had to let go of the towel as she climbed onto the ottoman and it opened up as she settled into her canine resting position, but stayed on, draping her back and bottom and thighs. She saw Gideon walk slowly around the ottoman, taking in her shape, his eyes on her gently swinging breasts and felt the fingers of his hand trail across her neck, through her hair, her bare shoulders and down her spine before lifting the towel off. His hands brushed back along her neck and briefly held her head still at her temples, holding her gaze straight ahead, and then releasing her.

Valerie heard him move at the writing desk behind her, and the heard a sound of glass lightly touching glass.

“I have your drink for you now Valerie. Cointreau wasn’t it – on ice?”

She was about to say “Yes”, before catching herself. Damn! She nodded instead.

“I’ll just need to replace your towel with a blindfold though” he said casually, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to be naked and blindfolded, on your hands and knees in a dark room with a man you’ve only known previously in a suit and in public. “Will that be OK?”

Valerie wished the clanging noises in her ears could be communicated to him without saying anything, but failing to find a way to do that, simply nodded again. She didn’t feel him touch her but felt the towel sliding slowly down her shoulders, across her back and over her bottom before dropping off completely and leaving her now fully exposed to the air and to Gideon. She breathed in deeply, and though he hadn’t touched her at all yet, felt the swell deep in her belly, quickly extending down her core to her thighs and her sex. She shifted slightly on the leather of the ottoman and then felt a soft fabric slip over her eyes as Gideon moved close to her from the side and placed a silk scarf around her eyes. He had to make contact now, and his hands brushed her ears and her hair as he tied the scarf in place and what little light there was for Valerie to work with was then gone. As he finished tying the knot at the back of her head, she felt Gideon’s finger touch her spine at the base of her skull and drag lightly down its ridges, making her tremble involuntarily, all the way down to the indentation at the top of her derriere and then unexpectedly continuing on and dragging onto and across her rose petal, the touch on her sensitive, untouched spot there making her quietly shiver with a thrill of surprise and pleasure. Though she now expected the trail to continue, his finger lifted off just before reaching the ridge of her cunt.

“I’m so sorry – I was distracted – I find you very, very distracting Valerie. Let me get your drink”

A moment's pause and then the soft sound of glass on glass again. She heard the rustle of him moving from the desk behind her, passing close by her side around the ottoman and stopping in front of her.

"Here you go - just a little to begin with...."

Valerie wondered what he meant - was she to reach up to take a glass he was holding out for her? She felt a drop on her lip then, the unmistakeable sharp orange zest of Cointreau. It ran down her lip into her slightly open mouth and her tongue caught it in a reflex action. It was an achingly small taste when she felt like gulping down a mouthful to counter the mounting tension she felt with each twist in Gideon's unravelling theatre.

"Nice?"

She nodded

"More"

She nodded three times, making him laugh quietly.

"OK tiger," he said lightly, the humour in his voice instantly quelling some of the tension she felt and changing it to excitement. Valerie heard the glass on glass sound once more, this time with a swirling tone; it stopped and a moment later she felt a cold, smooth, rounded surface on both her lips, wet with Cointreau. She parted her lips and it moved beyond them, smooth, bulbous, the end of it thicker than the similarly smooth stalk it was attached to. As she closed her mouth around it and sucked gently, the surface filled her mouth now with the taste of the Cointreau. God, that was good! Gideon withdrew the thing slowly and glass on glass followed before it was back on her lips and he spread the dripping liquid over her whole mouth. As her tongue darted out to taste it again it encountered slightly rough skin then softer, firm lips as his mouth met hers and locked it in a deep, orange tinged kiss. A sound welled from her with no hope of being dampened, part sigh, part moan, and on hearing it Gideon pressed his tongue against hers intensifying the kiss they had both imagined many times in their personal daydreams, before breaking away, leaving her open-mouthed.

"That Cointreau really is good isn't it?"

She only breathed, waiting.

"I think I need some more", and Valerie waited, yet again, for the clink of glass on glass, and opened her lips, a smile playing on them. Her sightless, wordless role in the startling encounter made it all the more dreamlike, leaving only smell and sound and touch and taste - a pure concentration of the senses - unravelling her grasp of what was real, what was normal and what was imagining.

The clink and the swirl came but a moment later she felt not the cool, wet hardness of the bulb object but of the ottoman shifting and depressing beneath her and the displacement caused her to have to re-adjust and spread her hands and knees a little further apart to keep her balance. This lowering brought her into contact with a faint, warm movement of air, in the area of the front of her neck and shoulders, and she realised the warm sensation she was feeling was Gideon’s breath – that he had slid onto the front of the buttoned leather platform and was now directly underneath her. Valerie felt drunk with desire now, knowing he was only inches away, but that for this performance, he was still pulling the strings and that she needed to give herself to it.

Her musings became quickly re-connected to the moment when she felt the wet, cool sphere touch her nipple and spread around it onto her hanging breast. She smelled the citrus activated by the heat of her skin and felt the exhilarating sting of the alcohol on the nerve-filled pink of her nipple. The glassy bulb lifted off and a then touched her other nipple, causing her to shiver again, possibly from the cold on her sensitive skin, possibly from the charge of heat the touch fired from within her. As Gideon connected the object to her second nipple, her first briefly felt cold as he blew gently onto it from underneath but was then suddenly warm as he lifted his mouth to take her nipple fully into it, transforming the cold to hot. Gideon pulled hungrily on her nipple with his lips and swirled his lounge aggressively around it and over her breast where the sweet spirit had been spread. The cold hardness lifted off her second nipple and it too, was then consumed by his breath and mouth, as he supped the drink from her silken skin, driving her further into heady, agonising arousal. Valerie became aware of a cool feeling between her spread legs at the other end of the ottoman and realised her cunt, pointing upwards, was starting to moisten noticeably and she felt the air upon her slickness. She dropped her chest lower, pressing her breast into Gideon’s mouth, not wanting his sweet assault to stop.
It did stop though, but she felt his weight shift under her as he slid along its leather, further under her and it was now his breath hitting her oily cleft from underneath. She wanted to scream “Yes…” but held it somehow and controlled it as increasingly shallow breaths pushed from her open mouth.

The weight beneath her shifted again, twisting slightly rather than sliding this time, and she heard the clink and swirl that now had the effect of instantly raising her anticipation. The weight shifted back and Valerie felt the warmth of Gideon's breath between her legs, also more urgent now, and she felt the wetness escaping her folds bathed in the warmth of his breath momentarily before being lost in the touch of the unbending and wet glassy bulb onto the ridge of her cunt. Pressing slightly and moved by Gideon upwards and over her swelling clit, it slid back down her pursing lips, stopping just at the edge of the gap between her lips and her rose petal and then back the other way, again, then again.

Valerie feared her knees may give way as the alcohol spread a luxurious heat over her cunt . The glassy bulb slid the entire length of her folds, back and forth, quicker and quicker until Gideon's pressure increase slightly which was enough, with her spreading wetness, to break the seal of her outer folds, and the bulb plunged into her.

Valerie gasped, her head thrown back impulsively, her long hair arcing in the air above her.


"Say it...."

His voice was hoarse but firm. Though she felt a desperate need to call out - to give voice to her pleasure, the natural defiance within her told her to resist him, at least for now and to withhold full satisfaction, full control from him. Instead, she dropped her head to find some surface below her to muffle her cry and fell onto the ridged texture of Gideon's towel. Panting into it she felt, alongside her cheek, the elongation of his cock under the overlapped towel and moved her mouth into it, tracing it's rigid length through the towel, from its tip to where it fell away between his parted legs. Gideon drew the bulb out and Valerie felt it pull on her inside skin and then a new rush of friction as he thrust it back in again. She felt its composition fully now, the bulb, the stalk, its length, and realised its shape perfectly matched her internal curvature, pressing, stretching then releasing again. She exhaled with each thrust - "ahh, ahh, ahh...". Her teeth caught at the loops in the towel covering Gideon's hardness and her control evaporated. Opening her mouth, she closed her teeth onto his shape and gripped, causing him to gasp now and his head lifted and pressed against his hand, pushing the bulb deeper into her. Valerie tore at the towel underneath, thrusting her head to one side to throw it off. She felt his cock, wildly hard, spring out of its confinement and up to touch her chin and moving back down, her lips found his shaft. Valerie sank her teeth lightly into it, punishing him for the protracted torture he had put her through, and Gideon cried out in protest. She spared him for now though, opening her mouth wider and pressing the tip of her tongue along his length before finding another bulb, this one also firm but warm and so, so perfectly sized for the mouth which she closed completely around it, swirling her tongue over it and sucking gently. Gideon shifted his hips in response, pushing his cock deeper into Valerie's mouth; she loved the fullness of it, the fullness of Gideon's pleasure as she returned to him what he had so deftly drawn from her.

She tightened the grip of her lips and tongue and the tips of her teeth around his pulsing hardness, holding it and drawing up from its base, to its luscious bulb and down the shaft again. Gideon instantly fell into the same rhythm at the other end of the ottoman, with the glassy bulb dancing into and out of her sodden cunt easily now, the motion like the dancing bow of a violin. Valerie felt the wave well within her, breath and the sounds from the back of her throat rising in pitch and frequency. "Say it!" he repeated, but still she resisted, against her instincts and against the building wave. She felt Gideon's hips bucking urgently in a synchronous dance with her mouth, pulling back his cock as she rose, pressing it forward as she fell, and she knew he too was careering towards the precipice of release. She felt his free hand reach around her hips and pull her closer to him from below, his fingers pressing into her rose petal just above the thrusting bulb and pushing her down until she was on his mouth. He released the glassy instrument and let it fall out of her, to grasp her bottom with his other hand also and press her harder onto his mouth.

She felt liquid and soft now, the wave spreading further, his lips and tongue, giving and warm in contrast to the bulb's solidity, consuming her cunt. As his tongue found her distended clit and pressed into it, she was lost and the orgasm crashed through her, shuddering with her cry through the room. With the rise of her head to release the sweet agony of that sound, her mouth lavished a final, powerful upward stroke on Gideon’s taut cock, tripping his ecstatic release also, his cry joining hers. She felt his eruptive liquor shoot onto her neck and the tops of her hanging breasts, slipping down and coating them as he convulsed again and again, wordlessly singing too, her song, "ahh, ahh, ahhhhhh...".

After all sound had flowed, and all physical impulse had ebbed from them, Gideon slipped quietly along the ottoman and when his face was in line with hers, reached up and slipped off her blindfold. Valerie's shuttered eyes took a few moments to sense the enclosed light within the room but then recognised his face, exhausted and joyous, raindrops of sweat shining upon it in the candlelight, smiling that "we knew it all along, didn't we" smile up at her. Though it was only inches to travel, she bent her fallen shoulders and released elbows and surrendered hips and her whole yielded body to him in a sacrificial kiss that pushed them both deeply into the night's silence. It took longer than they could gauge to drift slowly from the kiss and into the present again.

Gideon slid fully off the leather and onto the carpet below, half seated, half slumped against the ottoman. Valerie stretched out all residual tension from her limbs, climbed down and poured herself into his embrace, resting her head into the crook of his shoulder. With her eyes tilted towards the floor she saw a crystal glass, studded with condensation and half full. Beside it, also still glistening, a beautifully honed crescent of glass, pink and violet swathes at its oval, slightly tapered bulbous tip, giving way to flashes of gold and jade and clear glass down its long, curved stalk. It caught the flickering light of the candle on the desk above so perfectly it looked as if the flame was burning within the bulb itself. The shaped it mimicked and evoked was unmistakeable. Valerie picked it up and held it closer up to the light and the flame inside burned even brighter.

"Though you've already met," said Gideon, reaching across her for the glass, raising it to her lips, and inundating her mouth finally with the zest of Cointreau, "I should introduce you formally to The...."

"Yes...," Valerie said, placing it onto his lips, quietly interrupting him, "Yes....The Tulip".