11. A Fastened Gift
Chapter 11
A Fastened Gift
W hen Tristien placed the collar around her neck, she felt like every candle in the castle grew dimmer.
No, not the collar.
Her collar.
“Beautiful,” he said.
It did not feel beautiful. The collar was rough, the metal cold. He looped a long ribbon of thick silk through it, then led her to the wall.
“This ends any time you wish, Celestine.” Tristien kissed her neck. “But you will never wish it. Come, for I will court you in ribbon and rope. You will learn me by lash and strike.”
“Tristien…” Celestine felt a wave of uncertainty… but there was more. She wanted to know more.
“Yes, my love?”
I have been in a battle. I’m made of sterner stuff now.
Celestine smiled. “Court me.”
Tristien smiled, and the hunger in his eyes excited her and filled her with terror. A long dagger flashed in his hands, and as he cut her gown off of her, he whispered, “To appreciate beauty, you will serve it.”
The artistry that had adorned her all evening fell from her. Tristien swept the blade expertly, like a tailor. The masterpiece of stitching fell in heaps on the ground.
Then her shift, and when his blade kissed her, it was the loveliest trace of danger. The silken cloth fell from her slowly, one last stitch breaking under the weight of what he had ravaged, the weight of it breaking itself open under his watchful eye.
Her shoulders, her breasts, everything was exposed. Despite the wine, despite the evening, despite it all—she covered her mound and breasts with opposing hands.
“Don’t do that,” Tristien ordered. His voice was a whiplash, and her hands slid slowly away.
He held her chin in his hand, staring into her eyes. Magic, the essence of him, hummed in the air. He was summer incarnate, not the dust of war, but the beauty of the skies and lakes. His eyes were the first breath of fresh air when you ran into the fields with your friends.
“Now you shall know me.”
Celestine wanted him to touch her. To reach down. But his eyes glowed, and the room shifted in his sorcery.
A yellow ribbon as wide as her hand and slim as a sigh slithered out from his hand. It looped down, circling her ankle in a spiral, spiraling up her leg. The feeling of an invasion was rapturous.
“Tristien,” Celestine exclaimed. But he only watched her, another ribbon sliding from his other hand and slipping up her other thigh. The sensation was as overwhelming as it was sudden. The streamers slithered further up, faster now, circling across her waist, her chest, all along her shoulders, and down to her wrists.
“Do you feel my embrace?” he asked.
She couldn’t speak. The ribbons were the softest thing she had ever felt. Then, the tightest. Everything was bound; she was a striped lance, encased in his colors of summer. Celestine was powerless under their binding, and she shuddered as they flexed and slid like a living creature on her.
Tristien stood back, marveling at her ensnarement.
The ribbons hoisted her up, drawing her wrists high and snaking through a loop of gold upon the ceiling.
She rose until the tips of her toes barely touched the floor. Her body stretched. Contorted and in his complete control. Tristien watched her with lavish fascination until she hung before him. The ribbon tightened around her thighs and her breasts, swelling the rump of her rear and her bosom.
“A captured star…” Tristien whispered. He traced the edge of his finger across her nipple. “Now begins your tutelage, Celestine.”
The ribbons hoisted her higher, imprisoning her in the air.
Tristien reached out, sliding his hands over her body, searching her. He circled his finger between her cheeks, down, pressing against the lips of her quim. Another ribbon slithered from him, this one thicker, softer. It looped into the ceiling in front of her.
The ribbons flexed, drawing her legs slightly apart as the silken binding slid up to her quim, spreading her, finding the beginning of her clit and coaxing. Kissing it in silk.
“Tristien…” Celestine groaned, bound and imprisoned. A single word would cancel this, and she feared the glimmer in his eye.
Yet I want more.
The final silk between her legs slid slowly back. Then forth. Then back again. Teasing her lips before settling across the hardening nub of her clit.
“Do you feel me upon you?” Tristien asked.
Celestine was not hanging from the ceiling. She was strung like a chandelier. Perfectly balanced, weighed, and countered. Her legs and arms stretched out, at the beautiful mercy of his silk gently teasing her cunt.
“The love of this lies within you already, Celestine. I am the guiding light. Your breath, your will, your mind… all will be mine. I promise you will know a devotion that you never knew possible.”
The ribbons slackened, lowering her to the floor. Down, down, they shot across the floor, tightening around her, binding her until she was prostate, bent over, rear in the air, and exposed.
The ribbon between her thighs wound tighter against her cunt, and between her cheeks, until it slid across her spine. Tristien sat on his bed.
The collar somehow tightened around her neck, and the silken binding slid across her quim, mashing and coaxing until she groaned aloud.
A swift blow came from his hand on her rump, and she yelped.
“Silence,” he commanded.
The ribbon slid back and forth slowly, teasing her, bringing her forth. Every part of her was bound, captured.
“Yes,” Tristien murmured, watching her. The ribbon slid faster, and she drenched it in a betrayed lust. Celestine begged her own body to stop, but every inch of her was under his control. The lust he brought forth in her was like a growing fire, each binding a piece of kindling. The fire came from his friction.
“Tristien…” Celestine whispered.
Another spank flew, and it cracked on her flesh like the kiss of a whip. She struggled, but the bindings flexed tighter, forcing her to be still, to take it.
“That’s better,” Tristien spoke. He walked around to the front of her, knelt, and took her face.
Now begins my torment, my ravaging.
The ribbon slid across her quim, never ceasing. It wasn’t foreign; it wasn’t some strange magic creature or being. It was his will that slid upon her.
Celestine opened her mouth, whether for his tongue or his cock, it didn’t matter. There was a coldness here, in this devotion. Something that excited the flesh, but it made her feel alone. She wanted him to embrace her, so that their union could begin. That he would enjoy her, and not enjoy only what he did to her.
“Goodnight, slave.” Tristien kissed her and turned away.
She heard him undress. The ribbon continued its unrelenting patient onslaught of her quim. Tristien slid under the covers of his bed, and every candle in the room extinguished, leaving her in darkness.
She heard the softness of his breath in a few moments as sleep took him. Was he really going to leave her like this? Slowly teased, on the floor of the bed they should be sharing?
She knew the answer.
Subservience, an elegant dominance, this was his way. It was outrageous. Insulting, to be bound and teased like a pet on the floor of his bed.
For hours it continued so slowly. Slower than any touch or embrace, so eternally patient. When Celestine came, drenching the silken binding that slid across her quim, she did so in complete silence, such slowness. Any movement to escape simply made the bindings tighter.
A delirium took her. Her knees ached, her hands were bound behind her back, the ribbon across her cunt continuing. Finally, she succumbed, unable to move. Only to feel. Final surrender flooded her, and she resigned herself to this night, to this teasing.
When she did, the ribbons loosened, and she curled up on the ground and slept. The strangest peaceful feeling upon her.
When she finally relented, easing against the bindings, her mind a blank canvas she felt his warm touch upon her.
I am floating.
She blinked, staring at the demigod carrying her to his bed. It had been hours. He had been asleep, yet he had known the moment she reached such a surrender.
“I have you,” Tristien murmured in the darkness.
He carried her like a child into bed, and held her in his chest with his long beautiful arms. Tristien gave her cool water from a pitcher. She felt like a bowstring that had been pulled taut for days, and finally now could rest.
“I am proud of you, Celestine.” His voice was honey in her ear. The hand that had wrought her torment now salved the hurts all over her. Anywhere he touched and pressed brought relief. As the soreness and strain vanished, Celestine sunk into his arms. The two of them nude against each other.
What had just happened was beyond the sensual. Tristien had pushed her. This being she barely knew, that she barely trusted, yet in matters of the flesh he seemed an exacting master.
This subservience, this nestling into his chest in the deep evening, feeling finally so free and without having to do anything—this was his gift to her.
Celestine looked up from his chest, seeing his eyes in the darkness. The season held her closer, sitting against the back of the bed.
She reached up, needful. There were no words after such torment, such teasing. None left inside her. A whispered breath was all she could manage, and he bent low and kissed her in his arms. Shutting her eyes into the most peaceful sleep of her life.