The visceral, heavy noise of the crank is overwhelmed only by the pounding of the blood rushing in her ears. She feels her conscience sway within her, but there is no physical outlet; the restraint is too thorough now. Another twist and she feels her own hair brush her knees, and she is so tightly pressed into her own body that breathing becomes difficult, and her moan of satisfaction is tempered by the lack of oxygen.
Yes, she thinks, feeling a hand caressing her rear – this is the perfect gift.
-0-
She pets the vine which is slowly tangling its way up her arm, the pads of her finger catching on the sharp thorns along the way.
"I have no idea," she coos to the plant. "And I am generally rather inventive."
She dangles a lifeless mouse above the gaping maw, a dark, throbbing purple, and it slides slowly open and snaps the mouse into oblivion.
"Good girl," she says tenderly, tickling the underside of the bell.
The plant shudders, but inches towards her anyway.
"He has swords aplenty, more garments than I do, and more shoes. A pocket watch he adores. Cigars to keep him a lifetime," she muses. "And…I don't know. I'd like to do something different."
The plant shivers sympathetically and curls around her waist.
"I could ask Thing but he is so…" she searches for the world. "Predictable. And Fester is unimaginative. Perhaps, at this age, one has given one's spouse ever gift imaginable."
She gently un-twines the thick verdure which is slowly constricting her waist.
"Behave Cleo," she chastises, though the plant's over enthusiasm for the hunt has sparked an idea, and dropping the shears on the table, she tickles the plant's bell. "Oh you clever darling. Thank you!"
-0-
The hand caressing her leaves her body, and while her senses are heightened – teetering on the brink of the kind of madness this rarity seems to birth – they are also paradoxically blunted. When she hears the familiar strike of a match she is momentarily confused, unable to pair up the sound with the action, until the comforting smell of cigar smoke, bitter and earthy and warm, reaches her. Crouching, he is in line with her face.
"You are beautiful like this. You know?"
She hides a smile, dips her chin so it is almost on the stone. And remains silent in a show of defiance.
"Answer me," he yanks her chin upwards, and the pressure the gesture creates makes her gasp, as agony clenches at her abdomen.
She can barely hide her pleasure, and it fleetingly occurs to her that this gift was hardly altruistic in its nature.
"Thank you," she bites.
He leans in, crouching down, and pressed his lips to hers – hard, unrelenting, his tongue pushing into her mouth. Uncomfortable as it is, she feels her desire climb even more, and as his hand gently strokes her face in a desperately gentle manner, the contrast is enough to make her beg. Almost.
Instead, when he pulls away and leans back on his knees, she bites her lip to stop the words from tumbling out.
"You're welcome, my gift."
-0-
The house is deadly quiet; Lurch is doing his monthly maintenance of the East Wing, Mama is at a Bridge tournament, their almost-adult children are otherwise occupied with nefarious pursuits – about which she is happy to remain blissfully ignorant - and Pubert is enjoying a sleepover at Fester's home.
So with her blooming idea in mind, she makes her way to the quiet of the dungeon – sliding her hands along the damp, uneven walls of the arterial corridor of the underbelly of their home. While not entirely discreet about their more niche pursuits, she does recognise the value of privacy, and so ensures the door to this particular chamber is locked at all times when it is not in use. At any rate, the accoutrements this door stands guard to are far too delicate and precious to be victim to little hands or unskilled exploration.
She pushes the bolt back, twists the low lights on, and picks her way between strategically laid out devices, past the giant St Andrew's cross hanging invitingly on the wall, resists the temptation to caress the methodically organised, in order of efficacy no less, paddles and chains and whips which hang beside it – and goes to the smaller antechamber at the far end. The door proves less challenging than locating, and then moving, the device itself.
She could call for Lurch, but it seems too personal an intention now to involve him, so she exerts an uncharacteristic amount of effort in bringing it to the centre of the room.
She examines it, makes sure it is in working order, and leaves to carry out the next step of her plan.
-0-
"Tish?"
He grins as he takes in the surroundings, setting his coat on the bench along the wall.
"Happy Birthday," she says, almost in a whisper.
"It seems as if it's shaping up that way."
She smiles, crosses her stocking covered legs where she sits, in an intricately carved chair, designed with straps used to restrain. It was used liberally during the Spanish Inquisition – and even more liberally through the course of their marriage.
"What did I do to deserve such a gift?"
She smiles, examines the golden bubbles rising to and bursting on the surface of the champagne in her glass, and looks at him.
"You don't know what the gift is yet, Mon Cher."
He begins to remove his jacket, unravels his tie, and she sees his pupils widen with the easily-fostered beginning of lust.
"I can make an educated guess."
She holds up a hand, and he stops in his stride and gives her a lopsided grin.
"Will you ever learn patience?"
He shakes his head in absolute conviction, but remains uncharacteristically quiet. She stands up and comes towards him, and the only noise is the rustle of the train of her impractically dramatic robe over the flagons of the floor. She can see his fingers pulsing open and closed, desperate to reach out, and his ability to resist impresses her.
"Your guess, I think, would be wrong," she touches his half-unknotted tie, traces her nails across the pattern.
"Enlighten me," he catches her hand, kisses the back of it slowly.
"As the birthday boy, I think exception would be turning our ordinary roles on their heads." She takes a moment to enjoy the grin of understanding which is slowly curling his mouth. "And after all, turnabout is fair play."
-0-
He disappears from her sight, entirely restricted as it is, but she hears the telltale rattle of chains behind her, and determines he is making some sort of selection.
The anticipation of which one he will choose excites her deeply.
She doesn't have long to wait. Her husband can always be counted on for extreme impatience.
The silence is shattered by the tearing of the delicate lace panties she'd chosen specifically, and the motion jerks her back, so that her knees are thrust into her abdomen as the first blow of the paddle simultaneously makes her cry out. She does not know what pain to give her attention to, and each is so exquisite that she cannot hope for equitable attention to give to both. Her thighs and stomach quiver with delight, and the tension that is gathering in her is fit to snap already.
"Good?"
He seems to be answering his own question as his fingers – one, two and then a third - slide slowly between her spread legs, and easily, because of the moisture there.
"Yes," she breathes, trying to focus her own energies on maintaining meekness in the face of building desperation.
"Would you like more?"
He moves his thumb slowly, pressing into her clit and sending prickles of delight through her very bones.
"Mmmm…"
"Not good enough Morticia."
His voice is thick with desire and she knows he too is struggling to control his baser urge to simply take her.
It makes her feel powerful (bondage and agony and merciless positioning aside).
"Yes please."
She only has to wait for a moment until the paddle comes down again, the sound tearing through his laboured breathing and eliciting another cry – like a wounded bird – from her. It spurs him on, and she loses count, and any sense of her own control and propriety, by the tenth blow.
-0-
"Ah, and what did you have in mind?"
She lifts his arm from his side and supporting the weight of it in one hand, unbuttons and begins neatly rolling the cuff of his fine shirt up, revealing a bronzed forearm. She repeats the action with his other arm, before looking up at him.
"A little castigation."
She lets her eyes slide towards the instrument, gleaming now in the middle of the room, and smiles as his own follow, and understanding dawns on his handsome face.
"La cicogna," he groans. "Are you sure?"
She begins untying her robe, "Consider it a gift, darling."
-0-
His fingers begin working inside of her, and the moment's respite gives her space to focus. She cannot move away, and it feels less of a gift to give into the desire coursing through her so easily. So she bites down on her lip, so hard she tastes her own blood.
"You are so beautiful like this , so..." he groans as her muscles tighten around his fingers. "So exposed. So mine. So...easy. Aren't you so available like this?"
"I am..." She manages, though it's less forced than she imagines it may be in her own head.
"I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't part of the thrill," he volunteers, as if she doesn't already know.
He moves back to her clitoris, this time using his hard-worked for knowledge over her body to his distinct advantage. His finger circles, pushing her threshold harder and harder and harder and she feels the dam about to burst, rationalising that she has no choice but to simply give in.
And as quickly as she makes that decision, he ceases all movements.
She has to swallow an audible moan, and instead settles for a soft whimper, which seems to have the desired impact.
She hears him get swiftly to his feet, and leaves her again, obviously changing tact.
-0-
She watches over his shoulder as he selects a set of restrains from the large, repurposed map drawer that is lined in decadent velvet, and smiles when he chooses a delicate set of kid leather straps, with brass buckles.
He slides her robe from her shoulders, and leave it in a puddle at her heels. And stands so close to her she can taste his cologne.
"My my," she says softly as he pulls her wrists behind her, and binds them carefully, with just enough pressure to be uncomfortable. " You are enjoying this."
"What's the point," he asks, tugging more tightly and grinning as she winces, "in a gift if you don't take full advantage."
"I do hope that's the operative phrase this evening," she replies, voice low and plaintive.
He answers with a silent smile, and drops her hands gently, so they are hanging, bound, across the top of her rear. Then he circles behind her, and begins unlacing her corset with practised hands.
"I plan to take great advantage tonight, if that is alright with you?"
He is asking because, stripping away all the lust and humour and gregariousness, he is a gentleman to his core.
"I think my complicity implies my consent."
"Still," he pulls apart the laces at her back, and she feels a rush of cold air against her skin, swiftly replaced by his warm lips. "Manners are manners."
"Then you have my consent to do as you see fit," she says gently, and is rewarded with a growl of understanding.
-0-
While she is released of the instrument, and what an instrument it is, she cannot move from where she is. Not only is she in a purgatory of pleasure, – floating somewhere between outright bliss and intense frustration – but the manner in which he has bound her hands means she cannot create leverage, so she is still perfectly helpless, and curled over.
His hands alight on her shoulders, and he pushes her up so she is upright, but still on her knees. The effort she has to exert in the face of her protesting body which has been pushed to its very limits, makes her breathless with torment and she has to swallow a scream. She nearly fails.
His thumb swipes across her lip, and when he withdraws it she is almost mesmerised by her own blood; glittering, vital, scarlet.
"You were having fun," he says, rubbing the viscous liquid between thumb and forefinger.
"Yes."
"You can look at me when you answer," he says, voice thick and more accented than ever.
She looks him in the eye.
"Are you irritated? Be honest."
He gets to his feet, and goes to the chest of drawers and takes his cigar from the ashtray, and takes a long draw.
"Answer me Morticia. Honestly," he reminds, as way of a warning.
"Yes."
"Why?"
As much as she enjoys this, she's not often the one begging for release, and so it takes a great deal of strength to play along.
"I'd rather not say."
He comes towards her, holding both glasses of champagne. Kneeling once again, he holds a flute up to her lips, and she drinks as deeply as she can.
"You've always been a woman of few words. However, on this occasion, I am demanding them."
"I am irritated because you stopped what you were doing."
He leans back on his own knees, and one hand comes up to touch her breast, and the touch is so gentle she almost flinches.
"And what was I doing?"
she genuinely does blush for a moment – there's usually a more prolonged dance around metaphors before it descends into this, but she smiles anyway.
"Making me come," she says, so quiet it is almost inaudible.
"Ah."
he twists a taut nipple between his fingers.
"Would you like that to continue?" He asks. "After you do me a little favour, you can go back in your toy. But only if you'll do something for me first."
Loathe to answer, she remains silent.
He begins unzipping his own pants, and she watches with a feigned insolence she knows will only serve to drive him even more wild. Then his shirt buttons, so it lies open to reveal a muscled, olive-chest – she can practically hear his heart under that gorgeous surface. He pushes his pants away, kicking them off with his shoes, and finally his underwear.
It is an entirely calculated move when she licks her lips, eyes lowered.
"Open your mouth."
She has to contain her smile.
-0-
"You're absolutely sure?"
He caresses the iron handle of the crank, which has been engraved with a Tudor rose – the blacksmith must have been demented; as if, in gilding it, he believed the monstrousness of it was somehow lessened. For her it just seems heightened, the story of one art form pushed up against another, far more visceral one.
"Mon Cher, you are ruining the moment."
He laughs, a sharp bark more than a melodious one, but she knows it's because the tension is building in him already.
He nods, and then draws his eyes from her feet, upward, in a slow, exaggerated examination. She knows what he is aiming for; a degradation which would ordinarily make her incandescent with fury. Under his gaze, it elicits an entirely different reaction. Moisture pools between her legs.
"We keep the heels, the stockings, the panties." He pushes down on her shoulders. "On your knees."
-0-
Moving behind her, he pulls her up to her feet, holding her against him because he knows she's likely to sway, given the recent strain her body has undergone. He slides a firm had around her waist, enclosing her entirely, and supports the vast majority of her weight.
"Answer me," he demands again, his devilishly soft voice shuddering through the skin of her neck. "Or I will make you beg, Morticia."
"Yes, I would like to come."
The hand holding her waist moves downwards, slides between her legs, offers sweet relief as he moves his fingers and the sudden freedom means she can grind against them, expediting the end-game. She sways into his skilled touch, and he assaults her neck with delicious kisses, muttering unspeakably graphic vows about what he intends to do her.
The tension gathers almost instantly in her stomach, her thighs, her very bones. And it feels so overwhelming that she thinks it will never end, until suddenly it does and the blistering pleasure of it claims her, shattering every last fragment of her determination, and she comes apart under his hands with a pained cry. Her legs weaken, and he hauls her body indelicately against his with one hand, while the other continues to drive her insane.
"Enough," she pleads, her voice weak and desperate.
Her nerves feel like they are alight, and the pleasure is slowly edging into pain, as his fingers push and push her to another climax.
"No," he says softly, fingers relentless, as he latches his mouth – teeth and all – onto the delicate skin of her neck.
-0-
She looks up at him from her vantage point on her knees, and watches as he strips his waistcoat off, setting it neatly on top of dresser.
He turns on his heels and stalks towards her, examining, admiring and a little lecherous.
Everything she adores about him in one long look.
A hand reaches out to caress her jawline, to trail a line from her ear to her chin, and raises her chin up to look at him.
"Leave marks," she says softly.
And he smiles like the very devil himself.
-0-
Legs weak, skin aflame, bones aching, she feels almost blinded by the second wave of pleasure. He allows absolutely no time for recovery. Instead he sweeps her up into his arms, her hands still tied behind her back, and carries her to the giant futon set out in the centre of the room.
The red satin feels something like relief, whispering a promise of peace against her body as he helps her down onto the softness, and she finally feels him unbuckling the straps at her wrists, allowing her hands to drop, unencumbered, to her sides.
She isn't silly enough to move from her position, she knows – at any rate – that it will be a significant amount of time until she can trust her arms to support her. So she stays where she is, awaiting the next instruction, on her knees. He paces across the room, shedding his shirt to leave it neatly over a beautifully carved chair, designed to garrotte its occupant slowly. Maybe later, she thinks, as he comes towards her again, this time removing the remainder of his clothing so he is in all his glory.
She resists the urge to crawl forward and meet him half way, instead raising her chin to have a better look at him. To say the visceral physical attraction in their union was one sided would be an outright lie and though she resists staring on the whole, she realises she's practically salivating now.
And he smiles as he recognises the longing on her face.
"Hungry?"
She nods, eyes deliberately lingering on his erection.
Dropping to his knees, he is directly in front of her, and she feels the heat radiating from his body. He draws his fingers along her chin and she turns her face to the side, so she is not looking him in the eye.
"You enjoy it, don't you?"
She does not answer, because she cannot bare to. The questions, his tone, the way he addresses her with both disdain and intense love, are stolen from her own arsenal, and being turned on her rather artfully.
He yanks her chin round forcefully and growls;
"Look at me."
For a moment a smile of extreme satisfaction flashes across her own lips, but she immediately schools her face into a more demure expression as she meets his eyes.
"Answer," he demands, tracing his thumb across her trembling bottom lip.
"Yes."
"Not often, of course but humiliation, degradation; you enjoy these things, don't you? You enjoy me using you."
The last sentiment is not a question, but a fact, and one he will not allow her to escape acknowledging.
"Yes," she almost weeps.
"I enjoy it too," he pushes her backwards softly. "Open your legs."
She does as she is told, setting her ankles on either side of his thighs. He slides his hands up and over either ankle, the inside of her calves and her lower thighs. They come to rest possessively, inches away from where she needs his touch most. She swallows a moan of desperation.
"I want you to watch," he whispers. "understand?"
"Ye-" but her words are swallowed as the sensation of his merciless mouth on her renders her senseless.
She resists the urge to let her eyes flutter closed and instead does as she was directed; watches the dipping and bobbing of his ebony head, and tries her damnedest not to give in.
She fails.
-0-
"I think," he says - but the slap of the paddle makes it hard to concentrate - "what I enjoy most is your subjugation."
a scream sings at the back of her throat, and she feels the imminent urge of an orgasm at the same time as she feels she may faint. It is delicious.
"Gomez..."
The break in character – the shirking off of her role as the suffering damsel – is enough to break him too. She hears the leather paddle clatter to the floor, and the feel of him as he slides into her is an instant, ecstatic agony. She feels his arms reach up and across her rear and her back, as he sinks deeper inside her, gripping the arch and crank of the instrument to leverage himself and bury his entire length inside her.
"So tight, but so...ready." He grunts behind her, pace relentless and without mercy.
She searches her mind, then her mouth, for the words to answer but everything is blunt and meaningless in the face of such intense sensations. She feels the breeze of one hand leaving her back and after he grips her hip momentarily, he forces his hand into the tiny space between her legs and her abdomen – pushing her body even closer to its already stretched limits, and even more flush against his groin – and begins circling her clitoris. The movement is a slow, languorous contrast to his almost-violent thrusts.
As her conscious slips into a parallel universe his words slip into his mother tongue, and her world explodes in a fountain of colour and Spanish.
-0-
He rolls off of her spent body and she curls on to her side, eyes still closed, floating in sea of well-earned languidness. She listens to his breathing; first erratic, hitching on exertion and arousal, before it slowly tapers into calm, even breaths.
When that happens, she hears the telltale striking of a match and smells the bitter, familiar scent of his cigar.
"Well?" She asks quietly, opening her eyes to look at him.
"Well..." he grins. "I think that amongst your finer gifts."
"If I had thought of that before now, I would have saved us quite a lot of money," she says dryly.
He laughs and pulls her into his arms.
"I know it's because it isn't in your nature to be the submissive Morticia, and it take a lot of my energy to restrain myself. it's a rare treat."
"The older I grow, the more I enjoy it," she admits gently.
"That's because you get more powerful – as well as more beautiful – with age. And relinquishing it is fun when you have so much power."
"I am glad you enjoyed it," she kisses his chest. "Mon amour."
"I did. But now you've really set the bar for your birthday," he laughs.
She grins, unguarded and entirely rare, and kisses him soundly.