“If you just gimme all ya love!
Gimme all ya got, baby…”
Brittany’s voice rasped from the speakers as the curtain billowed, caught by a late afternoon breeze. I stood and stretched, groaning at the relief that washed through my stiff body.
“I’m gonna make myself a drink. You want one?”
Elijah looked up from the sheaf of papers he’d been hunched over for the past hour or so. “That would be amazing.”
“Whiskey?”
“Is there any here? Cause I can run up to the corner — ”
“We still have that bottle in the freezer from the other day.”
“Good,” he said with a slow blink and a nod. “Make mine neat.”
I ran my fingers through his thick, dirty blond hair and kissed his forehead. “Like always.”
My shitty 8th Street apartment had somehow become the unofficial offices of Ellipses Publishing by some unspoken agreement. I’d all but moved into Elijah’s condo on the riverfront, but now that I was writing my second book, I felt the need to be in my old digs.
My muse didn’t like his space. She needed to pace, fidget, smoke cigarettes and drink whiskey at midday, listen to moody music. At first Elijah understood, but after two weeks of me falling asleep at my place and him at his, he suggested that we make my place our workspace. Treat it like a nine to five. So since then, we get up every morning, make breakfast, drink coffee, and commute from his place to mine. I’ve definitely got a lot more work done with this new arrangement. I was more than a third of the way through my book — a second memoir about me exploring my kinks — and spending time with him has made us so much closer.
In my previous relationships I would have thought all of this togetherness was unhealthy but now? Now being away from him wasn’t a thing I wanted to do. Besides…him sitting at my tiny writing desk was quickly becoming one of my favorite things.
The desk was one of the only things I took from my childhood bedroom when I moved out. Papi found it on the curb on trash day. It looked like it had been left out on the rain. The pink paint was flaking off and doors were swelled shut, but he looked at me and said, “This desk is going to be for our little writer!” and gave me a wink. Mami thought it was just a trick to get back in the house. And maybe it was. At the time I wasn’t sure if he could make it functional again, but he was determined to restore it. He took on the task with loving persistence and his diligence shines through in the soft silk finish and the smooth gliding drawers that open and close with barely a whisper.
And now my boyfriend was working from it. He’s a big man, too big for a pink writing desk restored for a twelve year old girl. But him sitting there all big and broad shouldered was sweet in an unexpected way.
“Here you go, babe,” I murmured, setting his glass on the desk.
“Thanks.” He lifted it to his lips and took a deep swallow; a low groan rumbled in his chest as if the burn of the whiskey felt good.
“Whatcha working on?” I leaned over his shoulder and traced the line of his neck with my lips.
“I’m trying to decide if this poem is good or if it’s just good to me.” He swiveled the desk chair around to face me. “Here…you read it,” he demanded, thrusting the typewritten poem into my hands and pulling me between his knees. His hands bracketed my hips. The intention in his touch made me want to squeeze my thighs together.
“Okay…” I looked down a the paper in my hands. “Who wrote this?”
“Doesn’t matter. Read it. Out loud,” he said, when he saw my lips moving as I read it to myself.
Terrible habit. Gotta work on that.
I cleared my throat and began.
I knew why he asked me to read it aloud. It was the best way to measure the success of a poem. Only then can the rhythm and cadence be heard and felt. As I read, his hands crept up my outer thighs and settled on the swell of my ass.
“Again,” he requested when I was finished.
So I began again — suddenly feeling like a little girl in my plaid, catholic school skirt and crisp white shirt, reciting Walt Whitman whilst Sister Elizabeth tapped out the tempo with a yard stick. But I wasn’t wearing my private school uniform. Just a Rolling Stones t-shirt and panties. And Elijah didn’t use a yardstick. Just the flat of his palm against the round of my ass until my cadence synced up with the one he was making with his hands. It wasn’t a rhythm created with rhyming, but with creative line breaks that lifted and paused in an appealing way. With each turn of verse he swatted my bottom with increasing intensity until my breath caught in my throat.
“So, my smooth legged paperweight, what do you think?” he asked squeezing both cheeks firmly.
I knew enough to know that when he asked this, he didn’t want to hear that the poem was beautiful. He wanted to know what the poem made me feel.
“Well,” I murmured softly.
“I can’t hear you,” he urged.
I cleared my throat. “It has…kind of a slow build — ”
“Is there something wrong with that?”
“No, but I feel like I should mention it because it’s a distinctive style.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Go on,” he coaxed.
“Well, I was saying that the slow build works because it reads like an orgasm?”
“An orgasm? What makes you think the poem is about an orgasm?”
“Isn’t it?”
He didn’t answer me. “What else?” he asked, squeezing my ass in his big hands.
I chewed on my bottom lip. Hmmm…I wanted him to finish the spanking. I could give in now, tell him exactly how the poem made me feel. I would shower him with praise, tell him he was had such a good eye for talent. Upon hearing those words, would envelope me with tenderness. A soft kiss. A gentle caress. Lovemaking. But sometimes — and definitely not this time — that wasn’t what I wanted.
“This line here,” I began hesitantly, furrowing my brow for emphasis. “Doesn’t it sound a bit clunky to you?”
He took the poem from me hand and leaned back in the chair to read it again. I stepped around him to lean on the desk and sip a bit of my whiskey. Slid my bottom onto the lip of the desk. The smooth polyurethane finish felt cool against the warmth he’d created on the back of my thighs. I watched him, his head bowed, dark blond that was getting a bit too long falling over his brow. Firm lips whispering as he read the line again.
“I don’t hear any clunkiness,” he said after reading it several times. “Read it again.”
I set down my drink and took the paper from his hands. It trembles slightly in my fingers, betraying my nervous arousal as I began to read again.
This time his hands land smartly against the sensitive skin of my inner thighs. I couldn’t help the way I raised up on the balls of my feet, hips tipping forward, drawing his hands closer to that tender crease where thigh meets pubis.
“Hm. Again,” he grunted when I reached the end of the poem.
I read the poem again and again — each recitation became more and more breathless. He punctuated each line break with a firm smack, rising higher and higher until his hand landed flush against my mons making me gasp.
“I still don’t hear any clunkiness.” He took the poem from me again. He read it silently. Green eyes dashing over the page while he absently strokes the now moist gusset of my panties with the pad of his thumb. “But something is wrong with it.”
“You would know best,” I murmured. A little shiver ripped through me and I rocked my hips the tiniest bit.
Elijah chuckled, and squinted his eyes knowingly. “So you don’t think there is any clunkiness?”
“I — I don’t know,” I stuttered.
He drew his knuckles over my clit while examining the verse again and the sensation made my back arc.
“I can’t put my finger on what’s wrong with it but, your theory deserves further investigation.”
He furrowed his brow and stood slowly — his normally soft green eyes growing dark. The sheer size of him dwarfed me easily. He closed the laptop and slid it into the desk drawer. Our drinks found a new resting place on the little reading table next to the armchair I’d been sitting in. Then he came back to me, snaked his hand around my upper arm, fingertips pinching slightly as he turned me around.
“Hands on the desk,” he ordered gently.
My belly did a lazy flip as I turned and placed my hands where he instructed. I knew what came next — even orchestrated it to some extent. That still didn’t temper the fear and anticipation of the act. No matter how many times Elijah has spanked me, I still couldn’t admit that I really wanted and craved his firm hand against my backside.
Elijah placed the poem on the desk between my hands.
“Now,” he said as he bunched up my t-shirt until the soft, worn fabric bundled around my neck and shoulders. “You’re going to read it again only…much slower this his time.”
He raked the blunt edges of his nails down my back to the base of my spine. A frisson of pleasure slipped through me. I drew in a sharp breath, the air hissing over my teeth as I exhaled. My skin pimpled and my nipples became tight and hard in the cool breeze blowing in through the window. I briefly wondered if Mrs. Mckinney would hear us again, but decided that I didn’t care when his fingers caught my panties and tug them down gently. I stepped out of them and he kicked my legs apart a bit. I could only imagine how wanton I must look. Partially dressed. Spine arching into a sensuous curve. The lewdness of my upturned ass — an ass that I couldn’t refrain from swaying invitingly. An act that earned me a firm smack and a growl to keep still.
I quieted.
Elijah grabbed greedy handfuls of my ass, squeezing hard, making my breath come shallow and quick — the anticipation almost unbearable. He moved around beside me. The palm of his hand pressed gently against my lower back, forcing a deeper curvature of my spine and lifting my ass higher still. A low groan of approval sounds somewhere in his broad chest.
He caressed my backside in a slow, deep, massage.“Are you ready?” he asked softly. Both of his hands went still. One on my lower back. One at the rise of my buttocks. Both completely still.
Waiting.
A sweet heaviness settled low in my belly. A longing. I wish he would just do it, but I knew my acquiescence was part of it. He didn’t want to just take from me. He wanted me to give it willingly.
I swallowed hard. My eyes prickled with tears. Too soon to be crying. Especially knowing what his hand could do. I licked my top lip.
“Yes,” I said. My voice barely above a whisper.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I’m ready.”
“Good girl,” he murmured.
A little shiver tripped up my spine. I so wanted to be his good girl.
“Here’s the tempo.”
He delivered twelve measured smacks to the tender skin where ass meets thigh — the sweet spot. Six to each cheek. The pain was surprising. My breath stalled and I had to remind myself to breathe. Blood rushed to the surface immediately. Those smacks before were only love taps, warm up for the real thing. The warmth spread to my lower belly, melting the place between my thighs.
“You have the tempo?”
“Yes.”
“Now…recite the poem again. And remember projection and articulation.” His voice was playful and mocking but had just enough steeliness to let me know he was serious.
I opened my eyes and looked down at the poem on the desk though I was sure I didn’t need it anymore. I nearly had it memorized.
The last syllable of the first line was followed with a quick and precise smack! that stole my breath again.
I continued to the next verse.
Six words.
Another singing smack that echoed against the walls and high ceiling.
Third verse.
Six words.
Smack!
Five.
Smack!
By verse seven I was trembling. My legs were weak. My calves tight and aching from balancing on the balls of my feet. My pussy felt over ripe. Dripping. Full. And my ass…my ass felt lovely — so warm and so fucking sensitive that when he blew on it gently, a shiver racked my body like an orgasmic promise.
He dropped kisses along my spine. His hands whisper soft on the welts he’d raised.
“Hmmm,” he hummed. Fingers slicking against the moisture on my inner thighs a breath away from my pussy. I fought the urge to wiggle. I wanted his hand flush against those swollen lips, fingers delving inside, thumb circling my clit to bring me to a quick, knee-knocking orgasm. I fought the urge. Because the promise of a lush and deeper climax lies in one two syllable word, “Again.”
Verse one. Two lines. Eleven words. Two smacks.
Verse two. Two more lines. Eleven more words. And two more blinding smacks.
I’m flying.
He began to count the syllables in each line. The words cease to matter. It was only rhythm and cadence. Only the percussion of his hands against my ass and thighs. Marking time. Making a rhythm that I felt in my belly, down to my groin and back up my spine again.
This time when I got to verse seven I was so close that I gasped aloud [God!] somewhere in the middle of the line. The last word of the last line slipped from my lips and I waited for the stinging hit that I knew will probably send me tumbling over the edge.
It didn’t come.
A little sob escapes my lips. I wanted it, but he was suddenly quiet. Contemplative. And I was a wreck.
Should I recite it again?
Did I do something wrong?
He had to know I was close. So close that my pussy was tightening in rhythmic spasms. My clit was hard and peeking between my lips. One swipe of my thumb could end it. If I leaned against the cool, hard edge of the desk I could probably bring myself off quickly.
But I didn’t want that.
“Elijah…”
He quieted me with a silky caress at that knot of nerves on the base of her spine. He picked up the poem, the ink smeared and blurred from my tears, and scribbled something in near the end.
He set the poem in front of me. “Again.”
“Please,” she sobbed. “I can’t. I need — ”
“You can and you will do it without coming.”
I crumbled then. How could I hold this back? It was slamming toward me with all the force of the sea, dammed back by only his words.
“Again,” he demanded
I drew my self up on quaking limbs.
And he began.
The words flowed out of me. No real adherence to tempo. I let them tumble out eagerly. I sounded too eager. I hoped he didn’t disapprove. But when the line break was met with a mind numbing slap to my already stinging ass, all I could do was tumble into the rest of the verse. And the next and the next until I was back at the crest of my orgasm again. My whole body tight, thrumming and begging.
“Slow down,” he murmured. And then his hand was covering her mound.
I knew the intention that hand held.
“Ohgodpleaseyes,” I wept incoherently, setting my legs wide apart. Granting him access. Bearing my most intimate self to him. I curled my fingertips around the edge of the desk, bracing myself.
He drew back his hand.
The air kissed me first but only a millisecond before his hand connected with the puffy lips of my sex. The sudden intense pain sent me headlong into a climax that drew my body up tight then dropped me down — weightless, boneless. Sweet, honey brown, liquid pleasure unfurling deep in my groin, curling up my spine. Whispering down the backs of my legs. He gathered me up. Curled me against his chest for a sweet kiss. His cock was hard and wanting — straining against his plaid pajama pants. I reached for him but he quieted me with a low whispering, “Shush.” So I satisfied myself with his mouth. Accepted his kisses and gave them back with a graciousness that I knew I would never be able to put into words.
When I finally settled down, Elijah smoothed down the back of my shirt. Helped me slip back into my panties and set me down in the armchair. I squirmed a bit. The abrasions on my ass against the upholstery made it feel like it was covered over with pebbles. Elijah handed me my glass of whiskey. It felt like he’d spanked me for hours but the ice hadn’t even melted. I sipped feeling warm and relaxed. Then a thought came to me.
“Who wrote that poem?” I asked again.
He looked at me a half smile on his lips. “Me.”
“I thought so.”
“How’d you know?”
“All of that tension. No one does that like you do.”
“Hmm. You might be right.” He chuckled as he returned to his seat at my dainty writing desk.
“So you’re a poet now?”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
I picked up my laptop and saw where I’d stopped. The middle of a sentence — a thought dangling and begging to be completed. I curled my fingers over home row and began to write.
* * *
IF YOU ENJOYED RHYTHM & CADENCE