Training
Once she got the hang of it, she wasn't half bad. Workable. Malleable. Vulnerable.
Such a pleasant way to end my day.
4/25/2006
Logfile from Shaw of X-Men MUCK.
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With the curtains drawn against the warm, cloudy evening, the only light in the small hotel room is the lace-shaded lamp glowing sullenly on a nightstand. It's enough, however, to throw illumination over the old metal heater on the hardwood floor under the window, and shade up to the patch of mildew on a corner of the ceiling that's shaped something like the profile of George Washington as seen on the penny. Shaw, lying naked and still sweating on the lumpy bed, has his own profile directed at the ceiling, but he's not so presidential, not so noble: eyes half-closed in the valley below his furrowed brows, he appears to be contemplating something bitter, which has his hand tapping restless fingers, too, on the nearest fleshly piece of his companion.
Said companion murmurs something wordless and generally sated under her breath and ignores the tapping for the moment to deal with the annoyance of stands of hair sweat-slicked to her shoulder and cheek. That done, Zenith eases an arm under her head to prop it up and catches his fingers to still them with her free hand. "...Sebastian?" she asks, still soft and distracted, though her tone grows stronger as she actually returns to thought. "You're thinking about work, aren't you?" Idly, she plays with his fingers.
"No," Shaw answers shortly and pushes himself up on his elbows. He leaves those fingers with her, but uses the other set to unstick hair from his shoulders. Then he tips his head up again, blows out a breath, and continues to the ceiling, the cracked and crumbly ceiling, "I'm thinking about mutants blowing up the city again. Once more, with feeling! Christ." He slants a tired look down at her and tries to touch a smile to his mouth. "No offense to present company intended. /You'd/ never blow anything up."
"God no," Zenith says, fingers tightening around their captives as tension seeps a little into her body. She lets go and rolls over to her side to prop herself on her elbow and look at him. "Wouldn't know how. Isn't that backwards, though? People blowing shit up to get at mutants?" She shakes her head, pausing to smile at the sensation of her thick hair slipping down her back. "Anyway, enough worry to go around to everyone. I hate being outed at times like these."
Shaw considers her quietly, his face gone smooth again. "I'm sorry," he says, and sounds to mean it. He rolls his weight onto the far elbow and lifts the other hand to brush lightly at her brow, down her cheek. The callused skin of his thumb catches briefly on the corner of her mouth in passing. "Your lot in life isn't the easiest, is it? But you're doing pretty well at carrying it, seems to me."
Zenith leans into the touch, relaxing all over. After a moment, she catches the thumb with her lips and sucks it, briefly. "Denial. Don't think about it, mostly. Could get hit by a bus tomorrow, as easily. Anyway, I'm alone. Small target, probably forgotten about...Eve didn't even track me down, even." A small shrug, then a smile. "I meant to distract you from looking dark about stuff, though. Not encourage it."
Smiling back, Shaw rubs his thumb over her lips like a hush, or a promise. "Nah, it's fine. My fault, not yours. It's hard to turn the brain off sometime. However," and he slides closer, kisses her brow then her mouth, rests his hand on her hip. "You've done very well so far with the distraction." A laugh pushes his voice low and rippling-rough. "/Very/ well."
Zenith draws a light little line up Shaw's chest, before strengthening the touch when she leans into the kiss. "A pleasure," she says on a laugh. "And a testiment to your skill that /my/ brain wasn't on." She settles a little lower into the sheets, going languid. "Another way I carry it all," she teases. "Thanks."
Shaw grins and sits up the rest of the way. "So very good for my ego," he adds, patting her thigh. "Happy birthday. I nearly forgot! Did you have a good time? Did you go out with friends?"
Zenith grins, brightening all over. "Yeah. Stayed in with friends, actually." She mock-pouts. "They made fun of my birthday pie. I should wear the shirt Sam gave me to show you sometime, though. 'Washington Apples'" Zenith rolls onto her back and illustrates the location of the design of the shirt with framing fingers, transitioning into an absent cup of her breasts. Then she slides an arm back under her head.
The long-lashed black eyes follow those framing fingers, but Shaw forbears to let his hands follow, too. The quirk of his mouth, a long shiver down his arms and slightly knee-tucked legs -- well, that's enough appreciation of the view, hm? He clears his throat. "Sounds nice. Definitely wear it, but maybe not to work." He pulls an expression of mock-disdain. "Discretion. What a bitch it is."
Zenith also grimaces in annoyance. "Yeah. A little casual for the office anyway." She giggles. "Even under a suit jacket. Not that I haven't seen it tried, at some of my previous jobs..." She shivers a little with the drying sweat over so much exposed skin, and ruffles around until there's enough play in the sheets beneath her to pull a fold half over her legs.
"I have a present for you," Shaw offers, perhaps a little shyly. His hand's twitching at the sheet.
Zenith laughs and sits up, giving up on the sheet idea. "Really? Thanks!" After a moment, she smirks and lets her eyes trace lines of muscle and skin. "What kind of present?" Balancing chill against seeming to cover anything, Zenith brings her knees up, and crosses her arms under, not over her chest.
Shaw ducks his head with another laugh, shorter and a little sharper than the last one. "A surprise," he promises and swings around to stand and pad to the suitcase dropped, unneeded and unheeded, by the door. Crouching, displaying the curve of spine and the muscles that slide heavy wings away from it, he fishes around for a minute, finally coming up with a long business envelope brandished her way like a trophy. It gets tossed onto the bed at her feet, and the man follows quickly after, eased onto his stomach (with a grimace or two for creaking joints, ah, age). "Open it. Read it. All yours."
Zenith leans excitedly over her upraised knees to reach the envelope, then slides easily into a cross-legged position as she opens it and pulls out the contents, smoothing them in her lap before reading.
The Shaw Industries letterhead, stark black on creamy white, marches above a few paragraphs that display a cool assessment of one Zoe S. McMillan in her first months of employment. Phrases such as "responsible and trustworthy," "proactive worker," and "real asset to the company" conclude with the recommendation that Ms. McMillan be given a promotion to administrative assistant, with attendant wider and larger duties placed upon her shoulders, and the appropriate raise, to boot. It's signed William Linden, Vice-President of Operations, New York Region.
Zenith isn't one for noises of surprise, but there's as good as one in the way she stares blankly at the paper for several seconds before her smile blooms. Then, she laughs, and throws herself around Shaw's neck, paper forgotten in one hand. After a moment, she leans back far enough to kiss him properly. Then she sits back to read it over properly this time. "He really thought that about me?" she verifies shyly.
Shaw pulls himself up against the headboard and leans his chin onto her shoulder as if he were reading it, too. "He did," he confirms. "He sent it yesterday--" his finger taps the date up in the corner, so helpfully, then dives back to tickle her ribs "--and I'm inclined to agree with it. You /were/ helpful beyond words with the Mercheson business, and you fixed our atrocious filing!"
Zenith wiggles with the tickling, giggling. "God, the filing. I'd have done that for free. It was some kind of abomination against ordered nature." She gives the words one last loving caress with her eyes, and sets the page aside so it won't get crinkled. Ticklers must be prepared to be retaliated against, and she makes an attempt on Shaw's side in return.
With a bark of laughter, Shaw squirms away and goes after her wrists, manacling them with hard, heavy hands while he throws a leg over hers and aims to pin her down with greater height and weight. "I'm not ticklish," he informs her loftily, a little breathlessly, and growls a grin or grins a growl with it. "But damned if I can let you get away with that."
Zenith consents to be pinned, grinning up at him. "Everyone who's ever said that to me has been ticklish /somewhere/," she informs him in turn. "You just have to find it." She makes a token struggle against the hands on her wrists to get one free to begin such a search.
Shaw rests his forehead against hers. He's still got her wrists, make no mistake about that, but he's taking some of the weight off her with the support of his good knee. "I have a better idea. Tickle-fights -- humbug." He lashes his eyes half-closed for a second; his smile briefly matches those self-satisfied curves. "I think we should celebrate. Since we have cause, right? Have a little fun. Something a little different. You game?"
Zenith takes a brief moment for thought, but then abandons herself to enthusiasum. "Sure!" She catches his lips with a quick peck and then wiggles again, smile going impish with curiosity. "Or should I ask what first?"
"Only if you're chicken," Shaw scoffs and then rolls away, freeing her and putting him back into a seated posture. His head turns back toward the suitcase. His eyes slide to her, grinning their low, wicked grin again. "We're consenting adults, though, and you're no shrinking violet." His hand, running warm and familiar down her front, between breasts and the spread of ribs' wings to rest on her belly. "Are you?"
Zenith arches her chest up against the touch by way of an enthusiastic answer. "Bring it on!" she invites. Still consumed by curiosity, she sits up and follows his earlier gaze to the suitcase, frowning at it to make it give up its secrets.
Shaw doesn't need any further invitation. He pulls away, slides off the bed, crouches again by the case. It cracks open under his busy, digging fingers, which come up loaded with silk: ties, /his/ ties, but unleashed from duty as suits' choke-collars. Scarlet, navy, black, gold drip from his hands as he climbs to his feet and swings to the bed, gloating a smile. "One for each of your lovely limbs," he notes with eyes flicking to the bed's four posts. "Think they're sturdy enough to hold you?"
"Sure," Zenith says, smirking. She scoots close enough to be able to take one in her hands, running it through her fingers to feel the texture. Then she takes it with her in one hand when she scoots back to the approximate center of the bed, a little more tentative now. Clearly, she's willing, but doesn't know the steps of this game as well as she does others.
Oh, helpful, kindly, generous Shaw: he pushes her back to lying down with a gentle hand and pulls up one of her hands toward the nearest post. Scarlet ties her wrist there, sleek Italian silk, no less shiny and flexible than his own smile. "How's that? Not too tight?"
Zenith tests it, sliding her wrist around, then bringing her other hand over to slip a single finger between wrist and fabric to seat it more comfortably. "That's fine." Then she lays flatter, extending her free hand to within easy distance of the other post.
Shaw pads around the bed to do his duty for the other wrist. He's careful to match the tension with this tie, the gold one, before perching on the edge of the bed and looping black around her ankle, drawing it to that post. He's humming as he works: a master craftsman doing what he enjoys.
Zenith frowns very slightly as she feels out the sensation of being constrained this way. Just little shiftings here and there of arm or hip, no struggles. She keeps her free knee bent until Shaw is actually at that post, and then pauses a few seconds before relinquishing it, with a relaxation all over that indicates that she's surrendering to the moment.
He glances back, smiles briefly, rewards the surrender with a soft squeeze of hand around calf. "Good girl," he adds, approving, and lies across her leg and the end of the bed to finish the job: navy at the last, cool dark blue above the complex articulation of her ankle. Sitting up again, Shaw surveys what he's wrought, his eyes going at the last to hers, and they smolder, oh, they smoke with anticipation, passion, the heady brew that's raising gooseflesh up his arms and setting his legs to a tense brace against his feet's grasp of the floor.
"All yours," Zenith replies. She answers his looking with a smile of matching intensity, though still tempered by the newness of the situation. Another set of small shifts of her hips against the sheets, in anticipation this time.
"Yes," Shaw muses, rubbing her shin. "Yes, indeed. Well, then, my good girl, my very good girl: tell me your safe word while I get the rest of it from the suitcase."
Zenith blinks. "Rest?" she asks, surprised, and then laughs, trailing off as she considers the question. "Um..." Clearly, she hadn't considered the idea before this moment. "Gravity," she says impulsively, then grimaces, shoulders tensing as she considers whether it sounds stupid.
Shaw nods somberly in acceptance. His next, his last, visit to the suitcase gives him a long and brilliantly yellow feather. It gives her a jocular wave from his nimbly sliding fingers, flapping and flirting in front of his beaming face as he sits down by her feet. "That's fine. That's just fine. Easy to remember, huh?" The feather starts exploring the soft wrinkles of one of her soles: arch, ball, heel.
Zenith gasps and tries to squirm her foot out of reach--finding, of course, that she can't. "Hey!" she protests. "What happened to no tickling?" She exhales in laughter and turns her squim into an arch, since there's nowhere much else for it to go.
Snickering, Shaw draws the feather up the inside of her lower leg, and his other hand massages the poor offended foot with warm, easy reassurance. "I don't hear the safe word," he tells her in all wide-eyed innocence. "Do I?" The feather curls lovingly around the dimpled place where calf meets knee joint. "Do I?"
"No," Zenith says between smiling gasps. "No, you don't. Doesn't mean you're being /fair/ though..." She grins, making it clear that she's happy to dispense with fairness. "I'll get you back sometime..."
"I'll go next," promises Shaw in a merry tone that threads brilliance through his dark baritone, like the silver in his hair, which swings down on his swooping kiss to her knee. Hair tickling; feather tickling. He shifts up the bed, rocking it with his weight. Pokes the feather experimentally at her navel and looks up at her face with the expression of a boy hoping he passed the current round in the school spelling bee.
"Excellent," Zenith says, smirking. She tries to damp her body's reaction to the tickling for a few seconds, to tease him, but the twitches prove involutary in the end.
Shaw grins all the same, bestows a kiss now on her thigh. His mouth moves there briefly, then moves on, following a twitchy tendon toward the join of legs, where he licks. Pauses. Licks again, long and slow, wet and sinewy. The feather's grasped loosely now, forgotten, in the hand holding up his weight on the outer side of her other leg. --Another kiss to lower lips. His tongue probes between them, under the warm puff of his breath, behind the straggling curtain of his hair.
Zenith leans back, rather than craning her neck to watch, concentrating on feeling. Her gasps of laughter turn into low murmurs that guide him to certain spots with their intensity.
Obliging, he is, Shaw surely is, and rolls his weight to lie between her legs (his side over one of them, his heart pounding steadily through ribs and skin to /her/ skin) so he can run his hands smoothly up her thighs and down again. Up. Down. Like the pressure he's working -- tapping, tickling, darting, licking -- against her . . . for another minute. Then he stops. Elbows a look up at her, deceptively sleepy and all assessing her reaction.
Zenith's murmur takes on a thwarted note. She manages approximately half a second of patience before she archs hard, trying to rub against nothing but empty air, and growling with the frustration of it. "Don't stop--now--" she complains distractedly.
Shaw rubs his mouth with his fingers. "Oh, sorry." He doesn't sound it. Amusement, enjoyment, /vast/ enjoyment: the pleasure of the master over the mastered. Without hurrying, he tucks some hair behind his ear, then picks up the feather again. Flexible yellow begins a new exploration of her sides, counting the ribs with bump-a-bump meticulousness. "There. Is that better?"
Zenith struggles hard for a moment to hold one kind of sensation against a slightly different one, but gives up after a few moments. Her hips relax. "Tease," she says, but barely completes the word before a brush of one particular place on her side, just above where the curve of her waist smoothes out, makes her squeak and wriggle.
"Just having fun," Shaw retorts reproachfully and pushes the feather around the lower curve of her breast. "Aren't you?"
"Yes," Zenith allows with feigned reluctance as she shivers from the light touch. "But you should hurry so you can have your turn," she coaxes. She smiles at him, and arches her hips invitingly.
Shaw draws the feather down the center line of her stomach, watching that motion instead of anything she's doing. "I'm not in a hurry. Room's paid for, no one's going to see us or ask questions . . ." Carefully he plants the feather, plume upright like a flag, into the sheets' folds and scissors himself into sitting cross-legged between her knees. One hand supports his chin on an elbow to that knee; the other hand rests lightly on her pubis. As he smiles at her, he digs his thumb slyly back to where he left off, rubbing and rotating. And concludes, a bit chiding, "I don't think we need to hurry. That takes /all/ the fun out of it."
Having gotten what she wanted, Zenith is willing to conceed the verbal argument. Her murmurs are more like moans this time, mixed with laughter, as she anticipates another hiatus at any time.
His eyes sharpening on her face, recording every tic and twitch, Shaw eases off the stroking so he can speak over her noises and be heard. "Is this good?" Solicitous, tinged with worry (but laughter, deep black laughter, in his eyes). "Every woman's different, God knows, and you can never hope to get it right the first time, but I try. I really do, Zenith." Slower. Slower. Almost stopped, and now his tone is concerned: all about her well-being here! "You'll tell me if I go wrong? Promise?"
"Faster, harder," Zenith says, growling again in frustration, squirming, arching. "Or I'll lose it again--" She cranes her neck, the better to catch his eyes and mock glare at him. "As you well know."
Shaw looks chastised, and he mumbles, "Sorry," again. Doesn't obey very well, however. In fact, his thumb's motions edge to the clumsy, the crude: pushing, /hurting/. "Like that?"
Zenith's beginning frown is natural this time. When she squirms, it's to ease the pressure, not to add to it. "Not that hard," she corrects. "Please?" Making a sudden connection between the word and the game, she tries that tack again, experimentally. "Please."
"The magic word." Shaw rewards her by obeying promptly and completely this time. Soft, smooth circles, thumb on warm, wet silk-- "Are you sorry for being all growly at me?"
"Yeah," Zenith says absently, then remembers the game. "I'm really sorry. Just please--" She closes her eyes to concentrate on the building sensation for a moment, then yanks her attention back. "No more growly. I promise."
Shaw murmurs, "Good," and continues with short, swift, expert swipes to flush her like game up a brambly path, higher and higher up the mountain, to the peak, higher, higher--
Zenith moans, but it's cut off as she holds her breath at the crucial moment, tipping over and down into panting and tightened muscles very slowly relaxing. "Thanks," she remembers to say, after a moment, voice husky as she basks in afterglow for the second time that night.
Shaw doesn't reply immediately. He sits, still cradling his chin and the heavily pensive expression it's supporting, and he watches her. His hand slides away, fetches the feather, starts absently flicking it against her thigh and then the half-erect stir of his cock. "You have promise," he grants at length and tosses the feather to the floor. His grin is there and gone in a flash, swallowed by a certain satiety that drags the vowels long as taffy from his voice. "Yes, promise. Wasn't that fun? Tell me it was."
"Promise?" Zenith repeats, slightly confused. "Thanks...I think." But that's breaking out of the act, and she slides back into it. "Great. Absolutely fucking wonderful," she hyperbolizes. But only to a certain degree. She pulls against the bonds in earnest for the first time, now, trying to indulge her impulse to curl into a sated ball. "Let me go? Please?" She makes her eyes wide and innocent.
With a shake of his head, Shaw leans forward, a lazy cat's lunge, and measures his height horizontally against hers, on his side with his elbow deep in the pillow. He toys with her nipple and says casually, "I don't think so. You've had fun, but what about me? Should be equal. I like equality, and I assumed you were a modern woman." He peeks a look up at her face, matching the wide-eyed innocence effortlessly. "So you like equality, too." His fingers roll and tweak: toying, not -- quite -- hurting.
Zenith groans in very soft exasperation under her breath, but makes her smile look like she's totally game. "Of course. Never said I wouldn't make sure you had your turn, just thought maybe--" She pulls a wrist against the bond. "Go ahead," she offers, resigned. Her legs are already spread, but she angles her thighs more outward, conveying her meaning.
The wide eyes go wider with relish, and Shaw stoops a hawk's swift kiss to her cheek. "Thank you. I've changed my mind, by the way: we'll have to do my turn in the ties some other time, okay?" He squeezes her breast tenderly, looking deeply regretful. "I have that early meeting tomorrow, and I'm sure you'd like to be snuggled up safe and warm in your own bed -- all those new duties you need to think about with the promotion! Don't want to deprive you of sleep before such an exciting change."
"The promotion," Zenith murmurs happily--and indeed, a little sleepily--before smiling up at him. She responds only slowly and languidly to the touch at her breast, but clearly still making the effort, ready to do his turn, bond or not, properly.
[Log ends.]
Such a pleasant way to end my day.
4/25/2006
Logfile from Shaw of X-Men MUCK.
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With the curtains drawn against the warm, cloudy evening, the only light in the small hotel room is the lace-shaded lamp glowing sullenly on a nightstand. It's enough, however, to throw illumination over the old metal heater on the hardwood floor under the window, and shade up to the patch of mildew on a corner of the ceiling that's shaped something like the profile of George Washington as seen on the penny. Shaw, lying naked and still sweating on the lumpy bed, has his own profile directed at the ceiling, but he's not so presidential, not so noble: eyes half-closed in the valley below his furrowed brows, he appears to be contemplating something bitter, which has his hand tapping restless fingers, too, on the nearest fleshly piece of his companion.
Said companion murmurs something wordless and generally sated under her breath and ignores the tapping for the moment to deal with the annoyance of stands of hair sweat-slicked to her shoulder and cheek. That done, Zenith eases an arm under her head to prop it up and catches his fingers to still them with her free hand. "...Sebastian?" she asks, still soft and distracted, though her tone grows stronger as she actually returns to thought. "You're thinking about work, aren't you?" Idly, she plays with his fingers.
"No," Shaw answers shortly and pushes himself up on his elbows. He leaves those fingers with her, but uses the other set to unstick hair from his shoulders. Then he tips his head up again, blows out a breath, and continues to the ceiling, the cracked and crumbly ceiling, "I'm thinking about mutants blowing up the city again. Once more, with feeling! Christ." He slants a tired look down at her and tries to touch a smile to his mouth. "No offense to present company intended. /You'd/ never blow anything up."
"God no," Zenith says, fingers tightening around their captives as tension seeps a little into her body. She lets go and rolls over to her side to prop herself on her elbow and look at him. "Wouldn't know how. Isn't that backwards, though? People blowing shit up to get at mutants?" She shakes her head, pausing to smile at the sensation of her thick hair slipping down her back. "Anyway, enough worry to go around to everyone. I hate being outed at times like these."
Shaw considers her quietly, his face gone smooth again. "I'm sorry," he says, and sounds to mean it. He rolls his weight onto the far elbow and lifts the other hand to brush lightly at her brow, down her cheek. The callused skin of his thumb catches briefly on the corner of her mouth in passing. "Your lot in life isn't the easiest, is it? But you're doing pretty well at carrying it, seems to me."
Zenith leans into the touch, relaxing all over. After a moment, she catches the thumb with her lips and sucks it, briefly. "Denial. Don't think about it, mostly. Could get hit by a bus tomorrow, as easily. Anyway, I'm alone. Small target, probably forgotten about...Eve didn't even track me down, even." A small shrug, then a smile. "I meant to distract you from looking dark about stuff, though. Not encourage it."
Smiling back, Shaw rubs his thumb over her lips like a hush, or a promise. "Nah, it's fine. My fault, not yours. It's hard to turn the brain off sometime. However," and he slides closer, kisses her brow then her mouth, rests his hand on her hip. "You've done very well so far with the distraction." A laugh pushes his voice low and rippling-rough. "/Very/ well."
Zenith draws a light little line up Shaw's chest, before strengthening the touch when she leans into the kiss. "A pleasure," she says on a laugh. "And a testiment to your skill that /my/ brain wasn't on." She settles a little lower into the sheets, going languid. "Another way I carry it all," she teases. "Thanks."
Shaw grins and sits up the rest of the way. "So very good for my ego," he adds, patting her thigh. "Happy birthday. I nearly forgot! Did you have a good time? Did you go out with friends?"
Zenith grins, brightening all over. "Yeah. Stayed in with friends, actually." She mock-pouts. "They made fun of my birthday pie. I should wear the shirt Sam gave me to show you sometime, though. 'Washington Apples'" Zenith rolls onto her back and illustrates the location of the design of the shirt with framing fingers, transitioning into an absent cup of her breasts. Then she slides an arm back under her head.
The long-lashed black eyes follow those framing fingers, but Shaw forbears to let his hands follow, too. The quirk of his mouth, a long shiver down his arms and slightly knee-tucked legs -- well, that's enough appreciation of the view, hm? He clears his throat. "Sounds nice. Definitely wear it, but maybe not to work." He pulls an expression of mock-disdain. "Discretion. What a bitch it is."
Zenith also grimaces in annoyance. "Yeah. A little casual for the office anyway." She giggles. "Even under a suit jacket. Not that I haven't seen it tried, at some of my previous jobs..." She shivers a little with the drying sweat over so much exposed skin, and ruffles around until there's enough play in the sheets beneath her to pull a fold half over her legs.
"I have a present for you," Shaw offers, perhaps a little shyly. His hand's twitching at the sheet.
Zenith laughs and sits up, giving up on the sheet idea. "Really? Thanks!" After a moment, she smirks and lets her eyes trace lines of muscle and skin. "What kind of present?" Balancing chill against seeming to cover anything, Zenith brings her knees up, and crosses her arms under, not over her chest.
Shaw ducks his head with another laugh, shorter and a little sharper than the last one. "A surprise," he promises and swings around to stand and pad to the suitcase dropped, unneeded and unheeded, by the door. Crouching, displaying the curve of spine and the muscles that slide heavy wings away from it, he fishes around for a minute, finally coming up with a long business envelope brandished her way like a trophy. It gets tossed onto the bed at her feet, and the man follows quickly after, eased onto his stomach (with a grimace or two for creaking joints, ah, age). "Open it. Read it. All yours."
Zenith leans excitedly over her upraised knees to reach the envelope, then slides easily into a cross-legged position as she opens it and pulls out the contents, smoothing them in her lap before reading.
The Shaw Industries letterhead, stark black on creamy white, marches above a few paragraphs that display a cool assessment of one Zoe S. McMillan in her first months of employment. Phrases such as "responsible and trustworthy," "proactive worker," and "real asset to the company" conclude with the recommendation that Ms. McMillan be given a promotion to administrative assistant, with attendant wider and larger duties placed upon her shoulders, and the appropriate raise, to boot. It's signed William Linden, Vice-President of Operations, New York Region.
Zenith isn't one for noises of surprise, but there's as good as one in the way she stares blankly at the paper for several seconds before her smile blooms. Then, she laughs, and throws herself around Shaw's neck, paper forgotten in one hand. After a moment, she leans back far enough to kiss him properly. Then she sits back to read it over properly this time. "He really thought that about me?" she verifies shyly.
Shaw pulls himself up against the headboard and leans his chin onto her shoulder as if he were reading it, too. "He did," he confirms. "He sent it yesterday--" his finger taps the date up in the corner, so helpfully, then dives back to tickle her ribs "--and I'm inclined to agree with it. You /were/ helpful beyond words with the Mercheson business, and you fixed our atrocious filing!"
Zenith wiggles with the tickling, giggling. "God, the filing. I'd have done that for free. It was some kind of abomination against ordered nature." She gives the words one last loving caress with her eyes, and sets the page aside so it won't get crinkled. Ticklers must be prepared to be retaliated against, and she makes an attempt on Shaw's side in return.
With a bark of laughter, Shaw squirms away and goes after her wrists, manacling them with hard, heavy hands while he throws a leg over hers and aims to pin her down with greater height and weight. "I'm not ticklish," he informs her loftily, a little breathlessly, and growls a grin or grins a growl with it. "But damned if I can let you get away with that."
Zenith consents to be pinned, grinning up at him. "Everyone who's ever said that to me has been ticklish /somewhere/," she informs him in turn. "You just have to find it." She makes a token struggle against the hands on her wrists to get one free to begin such a search.
Shaw rests his forehead against hers. He's still got her wrists, make no mistake about that, but he's taking some of the weight off her with the support of his good knee. "I have a better idea. Tickle-fights -- humbug." He lashes his eyes half-closed for a second; his smile briefly matches those self-satisfied curves. "I think we should celebrate. Since we have cause, right? Have a little fun. Something a little different. You game?"
Zenith takes a brief moment for thought, but then abandons herself to enthusiasum. "Sure!" She catches his lips with a quick peck and then wiggles again, smile going impish with curiosity. "Or should I ask what first?"
"Only if you're chicken," Shaw scoffs and then rolls away, freeing her and putting him back into a seated posture. His head turns back toward the suitcase. His eyes slide to her, grinning their low, wicked grin again. "We're consenting adults, though, and you're no shrinking violet." His hand, running warm and familiar down her front, between breasts and the spread of ribs' wings to rest on her belly. "Are you?"
Zenith arches her chest up against the touch by way of an enthusiastic answer. "Bring it on!" she invites. Still consumed by curiosity, she sits up and follows his earlier gaze to the suitcase, frowning at it to make it give up its secrets.
Shaw doesn't need any further invitation. He pulls away, slides off the bed, crouches again by the case. It cracks open under his busy, digging fingers, which come up loaded with silk: ties, /his/ ties, but unleashed from duty as suits' choke-collars. Scarlet, navy, black, gold drip from his hands as he climbs to his feet and swings to the bed, gloating a smile. "One for each of your lovely limbs," he notes with eyes flicking to the bed's four posts. "Think they're sturdy enough to hold you?"
"Sure," Zenith says, smirking. She scoots close enough to be able to take one in her hands, running it through her fingers to feel the texture. Then she takes it with her in one hand when she scoots back to the approximate center of the bed, a little more tentative now. Clearly, she's willing, but doesn't know the steps of this game as well as she does others.
Oh, helpful, kindly, generous Shaw: he pushes her back to lying down with a gentle hand and pulls up one of her hands toward the nearest post. Scarlet ties her wrist there, sleek Italian silk, no less shiny and flexible than his own smile. "How's that? Not too tight?"
Zenith tests it, sliding her wrist around, then bringing her other hand over to slip a single finger between wrist and fabric to seat it more comfortably. "That's fine." Then she lays flatter, extending her free hand to within easy distance of the other post.
Shaw pads around the bed to do his duty for the other wrist. He's careful to match the tension with this tie, the gold one, before perching on the edge of the bed and looping black around her ankle, drawing it to that post. He's humming as he works: a master craftsman doing what he enjoys.
Zenith frowns very slightly as she feels out the sensation of being constrained this way. Just little shiftings here and there of arm or hip, no struggles. She keeps her free knee bent until Shaw is actually at that post, and then pauses a few seconds before relinquishing it, with a relaxation all over that indicates that she's surrendering to the moment.
He glances back, smiles briefly, rewards the surrender with a soft squeeze of hand around calf. "Good girl," he adds, approving, and lies across her leg and the end of the bed to finish the job: navy at the last, cool dark blue above the complex articulation of her ankle. Sitting up again, Shaw surveys what he's wrought, his eyes going at the last to hers, and they smolder, oh, they smoke with anticipation, passion, the heady brew that's raising gooseflesh up his arms and setting his legs to a tense brace against his feet's grasp of the floor.
"All yours," Zenith replies. She answers his looking with a smile of matching intensity, though still tempered by the newness of the situation. Another set of small shifts of her hips against the sheets, in anticipation this time.
"Yes," Shaw muses, rubbing her shin. "Yes, indeed. Well, then, my good girl, my very good girl: tell me your safe word while I get the rest of it from the suitcase."
Zenith blinks. "Rest?" she asks, surprised, and then laughs, trailing off as she considers the question. "Um..." Clearly, she hadn't considered the idea before this moment. "Gravity," she says impulsively, then grimaces, shoulders tensing as she considers whether it sounds stupid.
Shaw nods somberly in acceptance. His next, his last, visit to the suitcase gives him a long and brilliantly yellow feather. It gives her a jocular wave from his nimbly sliding fingers, flapping and flirting in front of his beaming face as he sits down by her feet. "That's fine. That's just fine. Easy to remember, huh?" The feather starts exploring the soft wrinkles of one of her soles: arch, ball, heel.
Zenith gasps and tries to squirm her foot out of reach--finding, of course, that she can't. "Hey!" she protests. "What happened to no tickling?" She exhales in laughter and turns her squim into an arch, since there's nowhere much else for it to go.
Snickering, Shaw draws the feather up the inside of her lower leg, and his other hand massages the poor offended foot with warm, easy reassurance. "I don't hear the safe word," he tells her in all wide-eyed innocence. "Do I?" The feather curls lovingly around the dimpled place where calf meets knee joint. "Do I?"
"No," Zenith says between smiling gasps. "No, you don't. Doesn't mean you're being /fair/ though..." She grins, making it clear that she's happy to dispense with fairness. "I'll get you back sometime..."
"I'll go next," promises Shaw in a merry tone that threads brilliance through his dark baritone, like the silver in his hair, which swings down on his swooping kiss to her knee. Hair tickling; feather tickling. He shifts up the bed, rocking it with his weight. Pokes the feather experimentally at her navel and looks up at her face with the expression of a boy hoping he passed the current round in the school spelling bee.
"Excellent," Zenith says, smirking. She tries to damp her body's reaction to the tickling for a few seconds, to tease him, but the twitches prove involutary in the end.
Shaw grins all the same, bestows a kiss now on her thigh. His mouth moves there briefly, then moves on, following a twitchy tendon toward the join of legs, where he licks. Pauses. Licks again, long and slow, wet and sinewy. The feather's grasped loosely now, forgotten, in the hand holding up his weight on the outer side of her other leg. --Another kiss to lower lips. His tongue probes between them, under the warm puff of his breath, behind the straggling curtain of his hair.
Zenith leans back, rather than craning her neck to watch, concentrating on feeling. Her gasps of laughter turn into low murmurs that guide him to certain spots with their intensity.
Obliging, he is, Shaw surely is, and rolls his weight to lie between her legs (his side over one of them, his heart pounding steadily through ribs and skin to /her/ skin) so he can run his hands smoothly up her thighs and down again. Up. Down. Like the pressure he's working -- tapping, tickling, darting, licking -- against her . . . for another minute. Then he stops. Elbows a look up at her, deceptively sleepy and all assessing her reaction.
Zenith's murmur takes on a thwarted note. She manages approximately half a second of patience before she archs hard, trying to rub against nothing but empty air, and growling with the frustration of it. "Don't stop--now--" she complains distractedly.
Shaw rubs his mouth with his fingers. "Oh, sorry." He doesn't sound it. Amusement, enjoyment, /vast/ enjoyment: the pleasure of the master over the mastered. Without hurrying, he tucks some hair behind his ear, then picks up the feather again. Flexible yellow begins a new exploration of her sides, counting the ribs with bump-a-bump meticulousness. "There. Is that better?"
Zenith struggles hard for a moment to hold one kind of sensation against a slightly different one, but gives up after a few moments. Her hips relax. "Tease," she says, but barely completes the word before a brush of one particular place on her side, just above where the curve of her waist smoothes out, makes her squeak and wriggle.
"Just having fun," Shaw retorts reproachfully and pushes the feather around the lower curve of her breast. "Aren't you?"
"Yes," Zenith allows with feigned reluctance as she shivers from the light touch. "But you should hurry so you can have your turn," she coaxes. She smiles at him, and arches her hips invitingly.
Shaw draws the feather down the center line of her stomach, watching that motion instead of anything she's doing. "I'm not in a hurry. Room's paid for, no one's going to see us or ask questions . . ." Carefully he plants the feather, plume upright like a flag, into the sheets' folds and scissors himself into sitting cross-legged between her knees. One hand supports his chin on an elbow to that knee; the other hand rests lightly on her pubis. As he smiles at her, he digs his thumb slyly back to where he left off, rubbing and rotating. And concludes, a bit chiding, "I don't think we need to hurry. That takes /all/ the fun out of it."
Having gotten what she wanted, Zenith is willing to conceed the verbal argument. Her murmurs are more like moans this time, mixed with laughter, as she anticipates another hiatus at any time.
His eyes sharpening on her face, recording every tic and twitch, Shaw eases off the stroking so he can speak over her noises and be heard. "Is this good?" Solicitous, tinged with worry (but laughter, deep black laughter, in his eyes). "Every woman's different, God knows, and you can never hope to get it right the first time, but I try. I really do, Zenith." Slower. Slower. Almost stopped, and now his tone is concerned: all about her well-being here! "You'll tell me if I go wrong? Promise?"
"Faster, harder," Zenith says, growling again in frustration, squirming, arching. "Or I'll lose it again--" She cranes her neck, the better to catch his eyes and mock glare at him. "As you well know."
Shaw looks chastised, and he mumbles, "Sorry," again. Doesn't obey very well, however. In fact, his thumb's motions edge to the clumsy, the crude: pushing, /hurting/. "Like that?"
Zenith's beginning frown is natural this time. When she squirms, it's to ease the pressure, not to add to it. "Not that hard," she corrects. "Please?" Making a sudden connection between the word and the game, she tries that tack again, experimentally. "Please."
"The magic word." Shaw rewards her by obeying promptly and completely this time. Soft, smooth circles, thumb on warm, wet silk-- "Are you sorry for being all growly at me?"
"Yeah," Zenith says absently, then remembers the game. "I'm really sorry. Just please--" She closes her eyes to concentrate on the building sensation for a moment, then yanks her attention back. "No more growly. I promise."
Shaw murmurs, "Good," and continues with short, swift, expert swipes to flush her like game up a brambly path, higher and higher up the mountain, to the peak, higher, higher--
Zenith moans, but it's cut off as she holds her breath at the crucial moment, tipping over and down into panting and tightened muscles very slowly relaxing. "Thanks," she remembers to say, after a moment, voice husky as she basks in afterglow for the second time that night.
Shaw doesn't reply immediately. He sits, still cradling his chin and the heavily pensive expression it's supporting, and he watches her. His hand slides away, fetches the feather, starts absently flicking it against her thigh and then the half-erect stir of his cock. "You have promise," he grants at length and tosses the feather to the floor. His grin is there and gone in a flash, swallowed by a certain satiety that drags the vowels long as taffy from his voice. "Yes, promise. Wasn't that fun? Tell me it was."
"Promise?" Zenith repeats, slightly confused. "Thanks...I think." But that's breaking out of the act, and she slides back into it. "Great. Absolutely fucking wonderful," she hyperbolizes. But only to a certain degree. She pulls against the bonds in earnest for the first time, now, trying to indulge her impulse to curl into a sated ball. "Let me go? Please?" She makes her eyes wide and innocent.
With a shake of his head, Shaw leans forward, a lazy cat's lunge, and measures his height horizontally against hers, on his side with his elbow deep in the pillow. He toys with her nipple and says casually, "I don't think so. You've had fun, but what about me? Should be equal. I like equality, and I assumed you were a modern woman." He peeks a look up at her face, matching the wide-eyed innocence effortlessly. "So you like equality, too." His fingers roll and tweak: toying, not -- quite -- hurting.
Zenith groans in very soft exasperation under her breath, but makes her smile look like she's totally game. "Of course. Never said I wouldn't make sure you had your turn, just thought maybe--" She pulls a wrist against the bond. "Go ahead," she offers, resigned. Her legs are already spread, but she angles her thighs more outward, conveying her meaning.
The wide eyes go wider with relish, and Shaw stoops a hawk's swift kiss to her cheek. "Thank you. I've changed my mind, by the way: we'll have to do my turn in the ties some other time, okay?" He squeezes her breast tenderly, looking deeply regretful. "I have that early meeting tomorrow, and I'm sure you'd like to be snuggled up safe and warm in your own bed -- all those new duties you need to think about with the promotion! Don't want to deprive you of sleep before such an exciting change."
"The promotion," Zenith murmurs happily--and indeed, a little sleepily--before smiling up at him. She responds only slowly and languidly to the touch at her breast, but clearly still making the effort, ready to do his turn, bond or not, properly.
[Log ends.]