Travels through the Alphabet with Mai
Part 6: Fetish
A/N: Thanks to Private Fire for her help with the fetish idea.
Her skin, creamy white, alabaster and her hair, midnight tresses, soft as down and shinier than the finest jewels, had always been admired. Mai's mother had fretted about too much sun. That showed just how little she really knew her daughter. Mai avoided the sun as much as possible out of principle. The night and the dark were far more compelling. Nighttime held secrets and nighttime permitted so much more.
The finest soaps and shampoos were always available to Mai and from a young age, she had been encouraged to keep that hair brushed and smooth, at least fifty strokes every night before bed. It was a ritual that Mai enjoyed, despite the fact that her mother had been the one to initiate it.
So her skin and her hair were like valuables, physical traits that others envied, traits her parents might use in the bargaining to find a husband for their daughter. Mai didn't care about that, didn't want some stupid man chosen by her mother and father.
Zuko was different. He loved that pale skin and that black hair too, the contrast between the two, the softness of each. He was obsessed with them, focused on them during lovemaking, twisting bits of hair about his fingers, rubbing the strands, biting her skin, sucking on it, leaving red marks. And Mai was captivated by his fetish.
She loved nothing better than the buildup to sex, those minutes before when she and Zuko kissed and held each other and touched secret places and she let down her hair, allowed it to spill across her back like a dark wave. Every time, every time, Zuko sucked in his breath and stared, captivated for a moment, before reaching out and running his hands through the thick strands. And every time Mai untied her sash and undid clasps and buttons, letting her robes drop to the floor, a puddle of burgundies and blacks, he gasped.
"Oh, Mai," he would whisper.
He inhaled the sight of her, vital to him as air. And as Zuko ran his fingers along arms and legs, remarking at their smoothness, pinching occasionally and biting gently, watching the red appear, glaring and strange against the white, he became more and more aroused.
Catching sight of her in the corridor sometimes, raven bangs against pale forehead, long pale fingers protruding from wide sleeves, Zuko leapt on her, his need overwhelming, and dragged her willing to whatever empty room was nearest.
His desire, the power a flick of her hair could have, exhilarated Mai. Never had she appreciated her mother's beauty tips more.