Before the elevator doors even close, Cosima has me backed up against a wall of the entranceway, my head thudding sharply enough to make the chandelier rattle. I barely notice, so all-consuming is our kiss.

Neither of us had bothered to attempt getting dressed in the car, only throwing on our coats for the brief trip to my flat from the parking garage. The layers of thick cloth that deny the melding of her luminous skin to mine are rapidly becoming intolerably maddening; quickly we shed them, leaving her naked, me still in my pants and boots. Her mouth and hands are hungrily rough, my body willingly trapped between the heated sinewy length of hers and the cool unyielding surface behind me.

Smooth blunt nails scrape up my sides, corrugating over each rib until her hands surround and possess my breasts, sending a shudder jagging through my body. My nipples jut marble-hard against her palms for a long breathless moment until she captures each of them between a thumb and forefinger, pinching and rolling slowly, making me whimper, the sounds muffled in the depths of her mouth.

I fumble at the buckle of my belt, my hands clumsy in their haste, but she catches hold of my arms, raising them above my head and bracketing my wrists in one hand to pin them against the wall. Any thought of protesting evaporates into a voluptuous sigh as she bends to close her teeth over first one nipple, then the other, alternating between them to bite and suckle at the exquisitely sensitive flesh.

Still inflicting delicious torment on my breasts with her mouth, she lets her free hand slowly slide down the plain of my belly, using the continually flexing roil of the deep muscles to slip her fingers beneath the waistband of my pants and graze them teasingly through soaked curls. My hips jerk inelegantly toward her, my cunt weeping its unabashed hunger as I fight not to simply tear my hands from her imprisoning grip so that I can smash her fingers harder against me.

My struggle does not go unnoticed. "Ah, ah, ah," she says, smiling wolfishly even as she lets me go long enough to undo my belt and slide it free of its confining loops; before I fully realize what she's doing, she has loosely knotted the soft worn leather in a figure eight around my wrists and hooked the buckle over the scroll of a convenient wrought iron sconce. Experimentally I tug at the sconce, leaning my weight against it. I am in almost equal measure pleased and dismayed by its solid immobility.

Our eyes meet and lock, hers asking a silent question, mine trying to convey nothing but assent and want. I nod once, slowly, to make my intentions absolutely clear. Reassured, she tilts up her head to kiss me, her mouth unexpectedly gentle on my lips as she unfastens my pants, then yanks them and my underwear down.

My hips twist of their own volition at the waft of air over my dripping sex as I spread my legs to their widest extent, straining against the cloth encumbering my ankles.

Cosima closes the short distance between us so that her body once again presses up against mine, grinding deliberately, her hands flat on the wall to either side of me. Lightly she runs her tongue up the line of my neck until she finds my mouth. Eagerly I open to her, our tongues tangling, circling, stroking, damping the shameless moans that tell her how perilously close to coming I am right now.

Breaking away, she kisses her way down my throat until she reaches the hollow, pressing soft lips there lingeringly, then moves to lick and bite at my breasts, marking me anew, making me arch toward her despite the stress on my shoulders.

Her hands trail down the insides of my arms, skimming the curves of my breasts to settle at my waist, using their hold to anchor her descent along my torso until she is kneeling between my legs. I look down at the neat furrows of the dreads ornamenting the top of her head; she lifts her eyes to hold mine just as she glides her tongue through the swollen, sodden folds of my sex.

Immediately my hips lurch toward her, swaying, beckoning, all but begging for the touch of her mouth. Parting me with her hands, she sweeps the flat of her tongue back and forth. The breath leaves my lungs for a lightheaded moment when she languorously licks up and down and side to side over the aching distension of my clit, gorged and slick with need after the monumental tease that has been building since earlier this afternoon. The empty hallway reverberates with the wet sounds of her mouth and the harsh rasp of my breath as she drinks in the rush of my arousal.

Her hands move to cup my buttocks, pulling me more tightly to her. Knees nearly buckling, my arms threaten to pull out of their sockets as she soaks her fingers in the copious pour from my cunt and lets them drift toward the cleft between my cheeks, lingering in the divide.

The position of my arms forces me to breathe in short jerky gasps. My hips cannot decide whether to surge toward her mouth or to encourage the damnably clever fingers circling my ass. Body taut as a bow, every muscle quivers with tension at the intensity of my response to her touch. I am too far lost in sensation to be able even to think.

Feeling the pad of one slick finger press against my rear entrance, I let the hook and my straining arms take most of my weight so I can relax my legs, pushing outward to easily let her in. My ass pulses helplessly around the slender intrusion, my hips writhing in little circles and grinding thrusts, every movement sending bewitching tendrils of pleasure up my spine. "More," I manage to say, not recognizing the coarse, raw growl in my voice.

She ghosts the barest kiss at the top of my crease. "You sure?"

"Goddammit, yes!"

"Tch. Such rudeness." Her tongue circles my clit, making me stagger. "What's the magic word?"

"Now!"

Her mouth curls into a gleefully impish smile. "Your wish is my command." A second finger joins the first, then with a little more effort, a third, withdrawing and plunging through the pulsing cling of my ass. Her lips fix on my clit and begin sucking, not gently.

"Fuck, oh fuck! Yes, like that!"

A wordless howl echoes off the walls as uncontrollable spasms contort me, my entire body clenching and releasing, panting sobbing crying out, breath tearing from my chest. Her tongue massages my clit in a steady, constant motion, milking the shudders wracking my body, drawing them out and urging me on with the rippling of her fingers in the wildly contracting grip of my ass, gradually gentling her ministrations until each paroxysm is lesser than the one before, and at last I am still.

Time slows into sluggishly eddying swirls, broken by the harsh rasp of air from my throat. Dimly I recognize that my head is drooping forward, that every fiber of my being is spent. The muscles in my legs are useless. I sag against my bonds, twisting on her impaling fingers. I cannot feel my hands.

Carefully she begins working her fingers out of me, keeping me loose with the gentle laving of her tongue over my clit. I gasp hoarsely as the sudden absence leaves me hauntingly empty.

Strong arms wrap around me, easing the pressure on my aching shoulders. "Shhh," she whispers. "Let me." She slips the belt free of the sconce and undoes the now constricting ligature from my wrists, letting the wide length of worn leather slither to the floor as she braces her back against the wall and sinks us both down, cradling me in her lap.

My head rests helplessly on her shoulder. She litters kisses over my face, my hair. Gently she massages my wrists, my hands and arms trembling as blood and feeling course back into them.

"'Ce n'est qu'un peu de temps après que je vais me blottir sur son épaule rassurante et me plaindre à mon ami du mal trop cher que m'a fait mon amant,'" I murmur into the curve of her neck, tasting, scenting.

"What was that?"

"A line from Colette. It just struck me as being à propos."

Her body quakes with laughter. "Colette wrote about light bondage and girl-on-girl sex?"

"Girls, yes, though perhaps not about this exact situation."

Soft lips press against my temple. "You didn't mind? Me tying you up, I mean?"

"Aside from the fact that I still have ants in my arms and hands, no." I kiss the tender spot beneath her ear. "It was pretty intense, but I knew I could trust that you wouldn't hurt me." Inspecting the dark red marks banding my wrists, I snort. "Although I'll probably be living on ibuprofen and wearing long sleeves for the next day or two."

"Yeah, I'm not into the power scene. I don't mind playing a little roughly sometimes, but Dom/sub culture, not to mention all the variations of discipline and punishment and master/slave stuff? Not really my thing."

"You sound like you're talking from experience."

I can feel her smiling. "Younger and crazier days. Back then I figured I'd try anything at least once. Until I got involved with a woman who was way more into the topspace aspect than I was comfortable with. Sometimes a girl just likes to get tied up or spanked, you know?" She kisses my forehead. "Hey, Delphine?"

"Mmm?"

"My legs are kinda falling asleep. Do you mind if we move to the sofa?"

"Pauvre petit chouchou. Of course."

Carefully she shifts me to the floor and pulls off my boots and pants, then helps me stand. I am as wobbly on my feet as a newborn foal.

Leaning against her for support, I inspect the shallow but broad dent in the drywall where the back of my head had slammed into it at some point. "Well, I guess that answers the question about where I'm going to hang Felix's painting."

Slender arms wrap around my waist from behind; a puff of air warms the nape of my neck as she chuckles. "Not necessarily. Besides, if you hang it there, it'll throw off the symmetry of the space. I'll ask Felix to repair it before the art movers come on Wednesday."

"Felix, really?"

"Sure. He can fix anything — he's done all kinds of odd jobs to support himself when he's between, um, boyfriends."

Turning in the circle of her embrace, I bend to kiss her, tasting myself all over her mouth. She hums a contented sigh against my lips, then leads me to the long sofa in the living room, tucking a throw over me as I stretch out groaning into the comfort of its overstuffed cushions. "Right back."

When I open my eyes again, Cosima is smiling down at me. My head is pillowed on her lap. Her fingers absently run through my hair as she scrolls through texts on her phone. She's wearing one of my ancient t-shirts. I poke my finger through a hole in the thin cloth, tickling the silky skin of her belly to make her giggle.

"Sorry, chérie. I didn't mean to fall asleep on you. Literally."

She drops her phone to caress my cheek; I turn my head so I can press a languid kiss to her palm. "'S okay, you weren't out for all that long." Eyes soft and luminous behind her glasses, she flicks me a crooked grin. "You might want to get dressed, though. Felix is going to be here any minute."

"Merde!" I struggle to my feet and stumble to my bedroom, emerging after a quick wash wearing a t-shirt of similar vintage to the one Cosima has on as well as a pair of supremely comfortable but disgraceful sweatpants that I could have sworn I'd consigned to the rag pile ages ago. Gladly I resume my place on the sofa, contentedly settling my head once again on her lap.

My phone alerts me to Felix's arrival; the building's internal security app allows me to verify him through the lobby's camera and let him in to the elevator. He enters bearing not only a toolkit but also a large tantalizingly fragrant bag of Chinese takeaway and a battered leather military surplus backpack. "Good lord," he says, looking around the living room. "If I had to live with all this white, I'd be tempted to throw buckets of paint on everything."

"Dyad's idea of cozy interior decorating," says Cosima, scritching my scalp delightfully with her nails.

"Of course."

His eye is immediately drawn to the livid marks on my wrists. Taking in the location of the dent and the fresh scratches left by my belt buckle on the wrought iron sconce, he arches an imperious brow. "A couple of someones have been very naughty indeed, haven't they?"

We watch from our lazy vantage as he gets to work. Fortunately the dent really is quite shallow; no loosely attached pieces come away when he runs his fingers over it. Laying down a piece of thick plastic tarp to protect the floor, he uses a sanding block on the dent and the surrounding area, wiping off the dust with a clean rag. He loads a wide putty knife with drywall compound and applies a thin coat to fill in the dent, holding the knife at an angle to scrape off the excess and feather it out to the edges. I've had enough experience doing similar repairs on the old plaster walls of my parents' pied-à-terre in Paris to be able to see that he clearly knows what he's about. Hands on hips, he scrutinizes the site critically. "I'll come back tomorrow to sand, prime and paint it," he calls. "It'll look good as new. Unless you manage to bring the place down on your heads with your nonstop shagging in the meantime."

Quickly he cleans his tools in the utility sink in the laundry room, then joins us in the living room. We dive into the food, eating directly from the cartons and passing them around. I am unsurprised that they are both adept with chopsticks, far moreso than I, especially with my hands still stiff and slightly swollen from their extended period of impaired circulation. Cosima notices and makes a game of feeding me, which causes Felix to roll his eyes.

"Gawd, the two of you are going to send me into a diabetic coma. I brought you some clothes, as requested," he says to her. "Oh, and this is for you." Reaching into his backpack he pulls out a small rigid portfolio and hands it to me.

Opening the folder, I find the CoA for his painting. The usual information — title, artist's name, description of the medium, size, provenance, and so forth — is printed in minuscule type in the center of the heavy archival paper. The rest of the space is taken up by pen-and-ink drawings done in a bold graphic style reminiscent of Japanese erotic woodblock prints but far more frankly obscene, disturbing and arousing.

And personalized. I can feel my face flooding with heat.

Cosima leans against me, peering over my shoulder. "Um. Fee, dude. Why are Delphine's tits and cock like three times the size of mine?"

He flings his white silk scarf around his neck with a flourish while tossing his head at the exact angle to make his bangs fall just so over one eye. The elevator opens immediately at his press of the call button. "Artistic license. Carry on, my darlings." And with that, as well as a flounce that he must have perfected in front of a mirror, he is gone.

I have to laugh. "He does know how to make an exit. Now," I say, craning forward to capture her mouth in a kiss, "I may not be quite as impressively endowed as my illustrated counterpart here, but what would you say to reenacting a few of these positions?"

She smiles against my lips. "As a lifelong supporter of the arts, you bet your sweet ass."