“Again, please?” She looked up at him, pleading, wanting to start all over again even knowing that he needed some time.

He smiled. “Patience, pet.”

She sighed and tried to collect her thoughts, which seemed to buzz and fly about inside her head like a thin and slow swarm of butterflies; each time she thought she could catch one, though, it fluttered away and she had to search again for the thread that connected them all. Curious, was all she could muster: how curious that although previous lovers had not been selfish, she had never experienced anything quite like this. Mechanically, physically, it seemed to be the same; and she didn’t know what to make of any emotional component, or even if there was one, but she could not deny that every moment of this encounter, from the bar to the bed, from the first kiss to the last tremor of her orgasm, was different. This was on a very, very different plane than anything within her experience. She closed her eyes and felt the warmth of his still body on top of hers, his weight pressing her evenly into the mattress.

He shifted, standing momentarily before sitting on the edge of the bed, stroking her hair. She closed her eyes felt her breathing deepen under his touch. His hand wandered down her shoulder, across her bare back and down, fingertips brushing her curves gently. It was warm, a sunny spring mid-afternoon, but she could feel the goosebumps rising under his touch and beyond. She shuddered, just a little, and shook her shoulders. He smiled again and continued his exploration, down the back of her leg, to the sole of her foot and back up, brushing this time inside her leg. Her breathing deepened more and she swished her hips, transparently trying to bring his fingers into more direct contact without actually asking. He played along, moving his hand in time with her hips, their two motions briefly in counterpoint. He could feel her heat, the wellspring of desire building within her core, her readiness for him again. He moved his hand away and saw her eyes close tighter, a shadow across her face until his palm was again in light contact with her sex.

He indulged her, and then without warning his hand was gone again. She pouted, and then started — her back arching — with a loud “Ooof!” when his open hand swung down hard on her ass. He raised his arm again, the palm striking harder this time, to be followed by several lighter blows in slightly different places. Hard, soft soft, hard, hard, soft, hard. There was no discernible pattern and she stopped trying to make one out, falling instead into the unknown rhythm of his blows and the warming of her cheeks and the escalation of her desire and need for him. She relaxed her back and shoulders, settling into the pillow and accepting this unexpected assault. Two weeks ago, this kind of attention would have been unwelcome, an affront, a humiliation. Now it was, suddenly, what she wanted and craved: anything, she thought, to keep his hands connecting with her body. She sank further into her fugue state.

He shifted his body around again, using his free hand to spread her legs so that he could spank not just her ass and thighs, but her inner thighs and pussy as well. This he did frequently, more frequently as the spanking progressed. Each time he struck her, he noticed that she was wetter than before. Soon he probed between hits, and then the spanking stopped altogether while his long middle finger slid between her labia and invaded her, gently at first and then more harshly — echoing the progression of the spanking itself.

She heard his voice in her ear, soft and low, very close, tickling the hairs in her middle ear. She struggled to make sense of it, for she seemed to have lost the capacity for speech and the gift of language itself. “Umnnh,” she heard herself utter. “Uh…”

He smiled. “This is what you crave, isn’t it, pet?” he cooed.

“Yes,” she said softly. “Please.” Her own voice sounded strange to her, far away and disembodied. She collapsed back onto the pillow while his fingers moved in and out of her, touching spots she wasn’t sure she had known existed. She felt his thumb — she thought it must be his thumb — press and circle gently around her anus, and she felt herself falling further into a swoon. Harold, her ex, had badly wanted to take her there but she always resisted, refusing even to allow his fingers too close lest he get the wrong idea. Now she shifted her hips again, pushing upward against his wayward digit and welcoming it in, and she moaned. Softly at first, growing to a guttural, animal growl and then relaxing to a kind of purr. She felt his hands on her, his fingers dancing within her, and allowed him to silently direct her every movement, coaxing her along, bringing her to one peak after another, each peak becoming a plateau from which she would quite impossibly ascend further.

“Please!” she said again. “Please….” He smiled and twisted his fingers, pushing and thrusting quickly and sending her over the final precipice.

As she lay in his arms, she saw the butterflies collecting in her head again. She touched one and something else exploded in her, and she was overcome with both pleasure and understanding. She opened her eyes and kissed him deeply, then pulled her head back and gave him a warm smile.

“Again?” she asked. At last, she grasped the difference between unsatisfied and insatiable.