SEA FEVER

As expected, the key was under the second pot of geraniums, except that the Cape Cod winter had now frozen the geraniums into pale brown stalks, with the skeletal remains of the once scarlet blooms bobbing helplessly in the wind. Andrea removed her gloves, blew on her fingers and extracted the fob with the little brass Mexican donkey.

They had other keys of course, but this one was her favorite, left for the agent or maintenance people who might at some time need access to their beach cottage. It reminded her of summer, of love, of Miranda's sun hat thrown onto the hammock.

They had come again once since, in October when her brain still wouldn't work well, but it was the first vacation here in Provincetown, back in early September which was most firmly lodged in her heart. That time when Miranda had broken down, when they had properly cemented themselves together as a family, when she had first nursed Miranda's fractured heart back together, those days had been very special.

Miranda now was running around like a westerly gale though. She was in fine old spirits, full of energy, teasing, hungry for love and sex, and in a mood to provoke Andrea into as crazy a mood as her own. No-one would imagine she had just driven three hours, having demanded Andy hand over to her half way through Connecticut.

"Far too slow. Here, stop as soon as you can, and I'll drive. We're not two old women expecting to have a heart attack!"

So she'd throttled up the Porsche and they'd broken the speed limit consistently for the rest of their journey from New York. Now, while Andrea, being sensible, and caring for their tiny puppy besides, opened the door and carried in the first of the bags, Miranda had bypassed the house altogether and run off down onto the beach to look at the sea.

The breakers were high and crashing onto the sand. It was a classic winter Spring tide, and Andrea could see her lover through the window, looking like a white horse herself, cantering along the sand with her silver hair tossed about like the blown spume of the wave tops.

With little puppy Matilda's inquisitive help, Andy completed the unpacking, switched on the electricity and the water, and filled a tea kettle. She was being the domesticated one today, the sensible partner, but it was only partly real. Her heart was pounding and a growing excitement between her legs drove her to turn on the heating in their bedroom and warm their large bed. She had plans for Miranda today.

Just as she had opened a packet of cookies, reached down two mugs and pushed tea-bags into them, Miranda banged back in through the back door, her arms full of driftwood and her expression completely crazy. She looked somewhat like her immaculate Editor-in-chief Runway persona, with the clothes, the make-up, the hair-cut, the bling she often couldn't resist flinging round her neck. But today her eyes sparkled with wicked happiness and she seemed to have the energy of at least three women put together.

"The sea! The sea is wild today. I found all this thrown up on the beach!"

"Yes. Fantastic, but it will be too damp to burn now. We'll have to store it up for our next trip. Though we can make a fire later. Now, I've made you tea. Here, have a drink and something to eat."

Miranda dropped the armful of wood into the corner of their fireplace.

Andrea felt like the older of them, the sensible one. She knew Miranda's blood sugar, always supersensitive needed something to feed on, if she wasn't to go completely off the rails.

Miranda shrugged off her sheepskin jacket and took the mug, warming her fingers round it. Then she pulled Andrea closely to her and took her over to the window to look at the sea which crashed in, almost within thirty yards of their veranda.

"'I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky' ", she quoted. "You know, I learned that as a child of seven, long before I ever went to the seaside myself."

"Masefield?" Andrea passed her an oatmeal cookie, and she took it without argument and nibbled it.

"That's right. I wanted to run away to sea then. It's still one of my favourite poems."

"And now you have realised your dream, more or less. We both have. The owl and the pussycat, that's us."

"Shall I buy you a pea-green boat?"

"No darling, we have a bed. All the travelling I want to do right now can be done there."

Andy put down her tea, cupped both hands gently round Miranda's pink and chilly cheeks and drew her in for a sweet, long kiss. Then she said,

"You're wild, but cold. Let me warm you up. I've turned on the heating and the electric blanket to air our bed."

"But it's only 2pm. Don't you want to walk Matilda first?"

"No, she's happy pottering about the cottage. I want you. I want you now, more than anything else in the world. I want to make love to you, to kiss away the salt from your lips and roam the seven seas with you under our patchwork quilt."

"Oh My! Is this my lucky day then?"

"Yes. So, are you ready for it? Can you think of any better way to spend a cold February afternoon?"

Miranda shivered, and looked half excited, half nervous in a way which never failed to raise Andy's libido by at least ten points. She shook her head cautiously from side to side, and then was caught off-guard as her younger, stronger lover suddenly picked her up, right off her feet, swung her over her shoulder and carried her through to their bedroom. Andy dropped Miranda in the middle of the bed, and jumped on top of her.

"Hey! Help! No need to act like the rape of the Sabine women here!"

"Hmm," growled Andy. "So funny eh? All your previous big talk of making me scream. If there's to be any screaming going on, I'll be the one to say who's going to do it."

"Like that is it?" Miranda's eyes were wide and her chest began to heave. She raised herself up on her elbows, and looked flustered as Andrea bent down and pulled off both her long leather boots for her. She could see that Andrea wouldn't let her play any dominatrix games with her, not with her on top anyway. She was proud to see how far her young lover had come in such a short time

Andrea tossed her head.

"Absolutely. Now you can get all your clothes off, girlie, tout suite, while I draw the blinds, not that I expect we'll have any visitors today."

"Lock the doors then, and settle your puppy. She looked quite frightened when you grabbed me."

"I'll go and sort Tilly, and tell her it's not her I intend to frighten. While I do that, I want you under the covers and ready for me. Understood?"

Miranda simply nodded.

"Oh, and drink your tea and eat the cookie. I'm not having you faint on me." Andrea went back and fetched the drink and a plate with two cookies.

So Miranda sighed, muttered something like, "Such a little bossy boots!" and reached for the refreshments.

When Andy returned some minutes later, Miranda could see in the slightly shaded and dimmed lighting that she had changed from her street clothes into nothing more than the peacock coloured velour robe she'd left here from October. She remembered buying it for her, and making love to her on the sitting room carpet as she had worn it and nothing else. Andrea's hair, now curling as far as her neck, framed her face, and she looked extraordinarily beautiful.

They had had very little time together since they had returned from California, and most of their conversations had been short or heavily dominated by family life considerations and care of their twins. This little break, for Valentine's Day and the following couple of days was theirs alone, and Miranda knew it would be special.

Andrea had such a gift for the theatrical, for surprises, for making her feel loved in a way she could not, and would not, ever describe to anyone else. Being with her was like sailing out into very deep water without a compass.

Andrea smiled at her now, but gave nothing away. She nodded in approval at the drunk mug of tea and the empty plate. Then she looked at Miranda's bare shoulders emerging above the duvet, and picking up a corner, peeled it back to examine her mistress's body. Miranda had obediently stripped, even her jewellery and ear-rings, but she'd left her panties on.

Sometimes extremely brazen when naked, today Miranda suddenly felt vulnerable and shy. She closed her eyes against the scrutiny, aware of her fifty-year old sags, and creases, and the inevitable slight droop of her breasts.

Andy always told her how much she worshipped her body, but she didn't worship it herself. She wished by some miracle Andy had been able to be her lover when she was twenty-one, when her body really had been a beauty, but a beauty wasted on careless men aiming for a quick fuck and nothing else.

"Open your eyes for me."

She obeyed, and looked up into a dark, adorable inspection, so different from the anxious, slightly afraid way the girl had approached her in the beginning of their relationship. The eyes returning her gaze now were completely confident. Andrea had the look of a trainer of wildcats, almost hypnotic. Miranda still felt very merry, and curious. What new game was Andy planning, and how could she win, despite already being at a disadvantage?

Andy leaned over her head on the pillow, and gently lifted her right hand above her head. She realised Andy had one of her own Hermes scarfs in her grasp and before she knew it, she felt it being tied round her wrist and then round the brass bed head.

Miranda looked up sideways, about to protest, and Andy gently put a finger against her lips.

"Sshh. When we were talking about bondage, you thought I wanted you to tie me up, didn't you?"

"Well . . . I know how you like it."

"Sshh, not today. Not this time."

Andy had nipped round the bed and was now attaching her left hand to the bedhead on that side. Miranda's eyes fell between the gap in her robe and she could see the curve of Andrea's perfect breasts. She smelt the scent of her own favorite perfume, the one made for her in France, and now blending on both their bodies. On Andrea, it was hotter somehow, producing more pheromones. She simply breathed it in.

Andrea had now moved like an efficient torturer to the end of the bed and pulled Miranda's legs far apart, as far as was comfortable. Both feet were fastened by the ankles to the end of the bed, so she was spread-eagled there, immobile, powerless. She ventured to state the obvious.

"How can I make love to you like this? Half the fun is when we do it together, when we come at the same time."

"Don't you worry your little head about me, Miranda! Relax and enjoy it darling. I just have a little floorshow for you, and a small Valentine's Day present. Now tell me, why did you leave your panties on? What was that about, eh?"

"Natural modesty."

"I'm afraid they have to go."

"But you've tied me up."

"I have. So it's a good job we have some scissors, isn't it?"

"Andy! These are 100 dollar panties!"

"I know. Maybe it will teach you to always be a good Miranda and obey me in future."

She went out of the room and returned with a pair of scissors. She neatly cut Miranda's underwear off her with a snip on both hips and pulled the front lacy panel forwards.

"Up!"

Miranda lifted her buttocks off the bed and Andy pulled out the back of the black lace panties, waving them like a little trophy.

"Let's call these your valentine's gift to me."

They were already very damp. Andrea smiled and put her hand where the panties had been, provocatively between Miranda's legs.

"Ah, yes! Nice and ready."

"You little monster. I haven't been dry in that area since you first strolled into my office."

"Well, I'm pleased to have been of such use. You are a beautiful woman. You deserve the very best sex life. Now I'm going to keep you nice and warm under the bed covers."

She pulled up the duvet and tucked it round Miranda, then stood back. They stared at each other, both perilously close to laughing. That was the only trouble with playing bondage games. Keeping a straight face in role play was never easy.

Andrea then slipped out of the robe and let Miranda enjoy the view of her naked, powerful and unafraid, standing above her. Then she lifted the covers and joined her in the bed. The feel of her silky skin and the weight of her pelvis against her hips made Miranda shudder with arousal. She tried to break free, to wrap herself around Andy and kiss her into the next county.

But Andrea called every shot, and started by walking two fingers very slowly and very teasingly up and down Miranda's body, down from her ears, all over her breasts those wicked little fingers walked, lifting each breast in turn so she could kiss the delicate skin beneath them. It took many minutes to complete the stroll over the top half of her body, by which time she could feel herself flooding below onto an increasingly damp sheet.

Then as she moaned, the promenade continued, down the flank of her belly, past the soft fur of her pubic hair which Andrea insisted she kept intact, and then down the inside of her left thigh. Miranda's insides were famished for her lover's touch, she bucked on the bed in protest at those fingers which refused to penetrate her.

The walking holiday seemed to take forever, until Miranda almost sobbed, "Come inside, don't be so cruel."

Then she felt Andrea's cool, sweet touch against her throbbing clitoris, and suddenly and unexpectedly, the colder feel of a small oval object, a vibrator, inserted behind it, into the hot dark passage of her vagina.

"What the dickens are you playing at?"

"Just lie still. I think you'll like this."

"You know we never use toys. We don't need them . . . "

"Sshh! Wait. It's remote control. It's fun. I'll turn it on now."

"Aaayyee!"

Miranda had rarely used a sex toy on herself, and never in company. They were used, she imagined, to stimulate a sluggish libido, and hers was already jumping off the bed, but this little surprise package was playing havoc with any self-control she had left.

Andy's games with her little purchase continued for what seemed like an eternity, but which might have been no more than thirty minutes, but Miranda lost all sense of time. Under Andy's control, this little beast was taking her into climaxes which shot off the chart, and she heard herself screaming, again and again, as a whole series of orgasms rocked through her. Being tied up had somehow intensified them.

She couldn't explain, she couldn't resist. By the end, she almost hated Andy for the amount of sexual ecstasy she had seemingly so easily pulled out of her. All she could do was moan and plead for mercy, which was finally given. Thank God!

Andy slid out the toy and placed it casually on the bedside cabinet. Then she untied Miranda's hands and feet and drew her into her breast, enfolding her and soothing her forehead which was now wet and sticky with perspiration. Miranda started to cry, sobbing like a child against Andy's naked shoulder. She did indeed feel as though they had gone on a long voyage across the Southern Ocean and round the tip of South America. She was temporarily exhausted, a little bit angry, surprised more than anything at her own reactions.

In all their previous bouts of energetic lovemaking and sexual games, she had never lost complete control like that. She of the iron will and demonic need to boss everything and everybody who came within her orbit, she had lost every iota of resistance against her lover and her own sexual needs. Her body had exploded like a firework and taken its own course. How had Andrea managed to do that with one little gadget?

But then, as her tears dried, she felt herself sink into a state of complete relaxation. She felt she was floating, completely weightless. The light behind her closed eyes turned into a deep gold, and she felt Andrea's kiss on her lips, as light and as unassuming as a dandelion seed head.

"Was it too much? I never wanted to hurt you. I just thought it might be good, cathartic, you know?"

Miranda had somehow lost the power of speech. She said nothing, just tweaked Andrea's nipple to show she wasn't entirely vanquished, but then simply snuggled down holding Andrea's warm body against her at every available point of contact. She did in fact, feel wonderful, though she wasn't sure if she was going to admit it.

"Happy Valentine's Day, darling," eventually came out of her lips.

"That's not until tomorrow."

"I know, but I'm thinking about it now, what present I will give you in return . . . "

"Oh, and should I be happy or afraid?"

"Afraid. Be very, very afraid. . . ."

But Andrea only laughed, her warm, positive laugh which could dispel all fear.

"Come on, let's get up, shower, and then take Tilly for a walk before the sun sets. I will race you along the beach if you like."

"OK, but don't expect always to win."

"As if! Come on!"

And Miranda allowed herself to be pulled up out of bed, and led into the bathroom. Andy was in control, today. But maybe tomorrow, well, tomorrow she might be able to conjure up a few tricks of her own . . . she knew Andy was really very ticklish for a start . . .

Author's Note.

This is the third of my little trilogy of tales to celebrate Valentine's Day. I hope you enjoy it. Normal service will resume in a month or so when Miranda takes Andrea to Italy for Easter. As always, I do not own, nor claim any rights over the characters.