The agreement was a paragraph long, and they had rewritten it four times before either of them signed it.
It sat on the dresser in typed print, both signatures dated two weeks back, witnessed by a friend who had no skin in the game except wanting them careful. The first sentence read: For the purposes of this scene, the bottom grants the top prior, standing, revocable permission to proceed past verbal refusal, up to but not including any of the boundaries listed below. The second sentence listed eight boundaries, and the third listed the handles. One tap on the wrist for slow down, two for stop, and the word red meant the scene was over, full stop, no discussion, no bargaining in the moment. The fourth said the handles worked any time, for any reason or no reason, no consequence, no apology, and the top would honor them instantly and completely.
The eight boundaries had taken them three evenings to settle. Ropes on the wrists, never the elbows. Nothing over her face except the blindfold. No name-calling that touched her family. No marks above the collarbone, because of work. The other four Jordan had argued for and lost, and Sasha had been right about all of them.
Jordan reread it at seven. Sasha reread it in the next room, sitting on the bed they’d spent the morning arranging. Then she folded the paper, slid it in the envelope, and put the envelope in the drawer.
She came out in a black slip and bare feet. Hair braided down her back. She’d left her glasses on the nightstand, so her eyes were soft and a little unfocused, the way they went right before she let Jordan take her apart.
“Ready?” Jordan said.
“Yes.”
“Last chance to call it.”
“I’m not calling it. I want it. We wrote it down.”
“I know. I wanted to hear you say it.”
“I want it.”
“Good girl. Bathroom. Clean up. Then come out and stand by the bed.”
She came back smelling of nothing. Unscented soap, the kind they’d agreed on for scenes that involved her mouth. She stood by the bed with her hands at her sides. The room was warm. One lamp on, everything else off.
“Take off the slip,” Jordan said. “Fold it. Set it on the chair.”
Sasha did.
“Underwear too.”
She did. Folded it. Her hands were steady. The rest of her wasn’t, and Jordan could tell from her breath, gone short the way it got between the part they’d agreed and the part they hadn’t started.
“Get on the bed. Hands behind your head. Knees wide.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir yet. We haven’t begun.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. We’re almost there.”
Sasha got on the bed. Jordan stood at the foot of it and looked at her for a while. She was beautiful. The kind where you’d picked each other and she was letting you look. Jordan didn’t say it out loud. Sasha didn’t need to hear it in the middle of a scene.
“I’m going to begin,” Jordan said.
“Okay.”
“You have your handles.”
“I do.”
“Use them if you need them.”
“I will.”
“I believe you.”
Jordan crossed the room in two steps and put a hand over Sasha’s mouth, palm flat, no pressure yet. Sasha breathed in through her nose. Jordan watched her eyes. That was the cue. The cue started the scene. Sasha hadn’t agreed to hear the next part in advance.
“You don’t want this,” Jordan said, low and even, the way they’d rehearsed it. “You want to say no. You can’t.”
Sasha’s body answered before her mouth did. A shiver. A flinch. Her fingers tightening behind her head. She didn’t speak.
“You can stop me,” Jordan said. “You know how.”
She knew how. She didn’t use it.
“You won’t, though,” Jordan said. “Because we wrote it down.”
She nodded, barely.
“Tell me why you won’t.”
“Because you wrote it down with me,” Sasha whispered. “Because I signed it.”
“And because?”
“Because I want this. Even the part that sounds like you not wanting me to want it.”
“That’s right.”
Jordan took the hand off her mouth and brought it down slow to her throat. Resting there. The weight of a hand. Sasha swallowed against it, and the swallow was its own small surrender.
Jordan’s other hand went to her breast and stayed, palm flat. Sasha’s breath hitched. Under the palm her heart was going fast.
“You can say no,” Jordan said. “You can say it now.”
Sasha closed her eyes. “I’m not saying no.”
“You’re not saying no, but you could.”
“I could.”
“But you won’t.”
“I won’t.”
Jordan moved the hand from her throat to her jaw, tilted her head back, kissed her once, hard and full. The kind of kiss that doesn’t ask. Sasha made a small sound against it. Just a sound. Somebody being kissed by somebody they’d picked.
“Don’t move your hands,” Jordan said, against her mouth.
“I won’t.”
“I’m going to do things you haven’t agreed to in advance. Things I haven’t told you about. That’s the shape of tonight.”
“Okay.”
“Use the handle if you need it.”
“I will.”
“I believe you.”
Then the blindfold.
They’d talked about it. Sasha had said the night before, I want the scene to start with my eyes closed. Jordan said are you sure. Sasha said I’m sure, I want the surprise. Jordan said then we put it in the agreement. Sasha said yes, please put it in the agreement. So they put it in. Black silk, kept in a specific drawer for this, folded twice before tying so her eyes were covered all the way.
“What do you see,” Jordan said.
“Nothing.”
“Good.”
Jordan spent the next few minutes doing things Sasha couldn’t see. Touched her shoulders, her collarbone, the tops of her arms. Moved off. Came back somewhere else. Put a mouth against the inside of her wrist and felt the pulse jump. Put it against her hip and felt her breath catch. Went no further south. Not yet.
They let the silence work. Silence had come up in negotiation. Sasha had said I want long pauses. Jordan said I’ll give you long pauses. Sasha said the long pauses are part of it.
“What are you going to do to me,” Sasha said, after one of the long pauses. It came out flat, like she was reading it off a card.
“I’m going to do what we agreed on.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I know.”
“Are you going to tell me what it is?”
“No.”
Her hands flexed behind her head. Small. Jordan saw it.
“What is that,” Jordan said.
“Nothing. Reaching.”
“Reaching for what?”
“For you.”
“You don’t reach. I reach. Tonight I reach.”
“I know.”
“Tell me you know.”
“I know.”
Jordan went to the dresser and took out the flogger. Soft one, beginner one, the kind they’d agreed on for a first scene like this. Held it where she couldn’t see.
“I’m going to do something,” Jordan said. “It’s in the agreement. You don’t need to use the handle.”
“Okay.”
“Tell me if you need to.”
“I will.”
“I’m going to count. When I count, you breathe. Out when the flogger lands, in when it doesn’t. Can you do that.”
“I can.”
“Out when it lands.”
“Out when it lands.”
“In when it doesn’t.”
“In when it doesn’t.”
“Count with me.”
“One,” Jordan said. They said the number and let it sit there, setting the rhythm, no strike.
“One,” Sasha said.
“Two.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Three.”
“Breathe,” Jordan said.
She breathed. Jordan watched her ribs move under the lamp and brought the flogger down across the backs of her thighs, soft, the way you do the first time. She exhaled on cue.
“Good,” Jordan said. “Again.”
Again. She exhaled. The third one pulled a sound out of her with no words in it, and Jordan paused.
“Color,” Jordan said.
“Green.”
“Are you sure.”
“Green.”
The marks came up fast on her, the way they always did. Pink lines going wide across the backs of her legs, one of them already raised.
She was wet. Jordan found that out after the tenth stroke, two fingers sliding up between her legs from behind with no warning. Sasha jerked against the ties like she’d been burned. “No — no, don’t.” Exactly the voice they’d talked about for three weeks. No tap. The word no sat on the list of things that didn’t count tonight, in her own handwriting.
“You’re soaked,” Jordan said. “You’re saying no and you’re soaked.”
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah.” Jordan pushed both fingers in, slow, all the way, and held them while she clenched and swore. “Tell me again you don’t want it.”
“I don’t want it.” Her hips were already rocking back onto the hand. “I don’t — oh my god — I don’t —”
Jordan fucked her with their fingers until her thighs shook and the flogger marks on the backs of them had gone pink and hot. Then stopped, right before, pulled out, wiped the hand on her stomach. She made a noise like she was going to kill them.
“Mouth,” Jordan said.
They got on the bed, knelt up by her head, undid their jeans one-handed. Cock hard, had been hard since the slip came off. They took a fistful of the braid and turned her face into it. Sasha kept her mouth shut. On purpose. That was the game. She made them work for it.
“Open.”
She didn’t.
Jordan put a thumb under her chin and pressed down, slow, and her jaw gave. They pushed in past her lips and she moaned around it, furious and wet. They fucked her mouth with the braid wrapped around their fist, shallow at first, then deeper, the blindfold going dark where her eyes were watering into it. Every time she gagged they pulled back and waited and watched the hand the ties left loose for exactly this. It stayed flat on the sheet. Open. Still.
“Look at you,” Jordan said. “Can’t even see me and you’re sucking like you begged for it.”
She had begged for it. Two weeks ago, at the kitchen table, in sentence two of the agreement. They both knew that. It was the part that made it hot.
The handle, when it came, was the second one. Jordan’s.
Jordan had been escalating. That was the word from aftercare conversations. In their own head the word was settling in. Their body had another word, closer to going past the plan. They caught it. They stopped. They breathed.
“I’m pausing,” Jordan said.
“Okay.”
“I’m pausing for me.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not stopping the scene. I’m pausing because I want to know I’m still inside what we wrote down.”
“You’re inside it.”
“I might not be.”
“I trust you.”
“That’s not the question. The question is whether I trust me.”
Sasha reached up and tapped Jordan’s wrist. Once, twice, three times. The third tap meant stop everything and renegotiate. Full stop. No scene.
Jordan sat back on their heels and looked at her. The silk over her eyes. Her mouth. The shine on her chin. Their own hands, still shaking a little.
“You just used the handle,” Sasha said.
“I just used it.”
“Why?”
“Because I was going further than we agreed. I caught myself. I wanted to be sure before I kept going.”
“What do you want to do now?”
“Keep going. Do the rest of what we wrote down. Slow it down some. Check in every five minutes instead of ten.”
“Can we do that?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s do that.”
Jordan kissed her forehead. The agreement said nothing about kissing in a scene. They’d settled that one separately, early, before any of the rest: foreheads were allowed, always, whatever else was happening.
“Five minutes,” Jordan said.
“Five minutes,” Sasha said.
The second half was quieter. Jordan rolled her onto her back, the ties letting her, pushed her knees up and apart, and knelt between them. Spent a while just running the head of their cock up and down through how wet she was, until she lifted her hips trying to catch it.
“Say no,” Jordan said.
“No.”
They pushed in. One long stroke, all the way, and she arched off the bed with her mouth open and no sound coming out.
“Say it again.”
“No,” Sasha said, and wrapped her legs around their back and pulled them in deeper.
Jordan pulled out to the tip and pushed back in slow, and she made a sound on every inch like it was the first one. Did it again. Watched her hands twist in the sheet. She was saying words by then, mostly swearing, and none of it counted.
Jordan fucked her slow, then not slow. The headboard knocked the wall. The hand came back to her throat, resting, then pressing, gentle, a few seconds at a time, and every time it settled there she clenched around them so hard Jordan had to stop moving and breathe. Five minutes. “Color.” “Green, green, don’t you fucking stop.” They didn’t. Five minutes. “Green.”
They kept her right at the edge. Hand on her throat, thumb on her clit, hips barely moving, deep and grinding. Every time she started to tip they eased off, and she sobbed and called them names that weren’t on the list of safe words and so didn’t count. They held her there until she asked, in the voice they’d agreed was the right voice, in the words they’d agreed were the right words. Please. I’m yours. Let me. Then Jordan said “okay,” pressed the thumb down, fucked her hard and fast, and she came screaming into the silk with her heels digging into their back. Jordan came a few strokes later, buried in her, forehead dropped onto hers. Foreheads are always allowed.
Then the ties came off. Then the blindfold. Water, a warm towel, second water, a third she didn’t finish. They lay in the quiet room and held each other. Her thigh pressed against Jordan’s hip, still slick there. The sheet underneath her was damp in one patch, going cold. The marks on the backs of her thighs had gone a dull red, ten or eleven of them, the kind that would be brown by Tuesday. Two thin bands circled her wrists where the ties had been. When she talked, her jaw moved like it ached.
“How bad do I look,” she said.
“Like somebody gave you what you asked for.”
“Okay?” Jordan said.
“More than okay.” Sasha’s voice was rough and small. “Thank you for stopping.”
“Of course.”
“Thank you for telling me you were stopping.”
“That’s the whole deal. That’s the whole deal, and I’m never going to stop telling you.”
“Tell me again.”
“Of course I’ll stop. Of course I’ll tell you. Of course we’ll write it down again next time. Of course you’ll use the handle if you need it, and I’ll use mine, and we’ll keep writing it down, and we’ll keep talking about it. The whole thing only works because we keep doing that.”
Sasha pressed her face against Jordan’s chest and stayed quiet for a long time. Her hand found the wet patch on the sheet and she smoothed it flat, twice, the way she did with things she was done with.
“The whole thing only works because we keep doing that,” she said, finally, into the warm skin.
“Yeah.”
She closed her eyes. Jordan kept hold of her. The lamp was still on. The envelope was still in the drawer. The agreement was still in the envelope, both signatures, the friend’s witness signature, the date from two weeks ago, the four sentences that made the whole thing possible.
They’d rewrite it next time. They always did.
