The Book of Firsts

Sixty-Five

"I’m a little surprised blindfold and bondage is only one challenge," I said, as Rin closed the summer house doors on a late Spring shower. "They’re not quite the same thing."

"We thought we might run short of time," he said. "And didn’t want to be distracted after the midsummer break. I’d say I regret not spreading it out, but…" He paused, and gave me his gentlest smile. "I think this way will be the most fun."

"Having me completely at your mercy?"

"Exactly."

"Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to tie you up instead?"

"Leave that to Kyou. He’ll appreciate it more."

This seemed true to me, and I smiled as I curled onto the couch, noting that Rin had moved the coffee table over to under the window.

"Picturing him in handcuffs?" Rin asked, picking up the teapot.

"More or less. I think he’d like it if there was a way to break free and get his revenge."

Rin laughed, and handed me a steaming cup. "I’ll pass on the suggestion." He sat down, sipped his own cup, and added: "We’ve been researching tying people up, and for most of it our conclusion was Cheshire would hate that."

"Google certainly showed me a lot of things that looked more uncomfortable than fun," I said.

"I’ll try to remember to let you enjoy yourself."

He, at least, was enjoying teasing me. Being tied up was not something that drew me particularly, but I gave all three of them credit for having sense enough to try to avoid me actively disliking it.

"Have you given up on finding out who your photographer is?"

"Not precisely. We suspect it might relate back to Tomas again. He was released on a restricted parole, and his parents have bundled him out of the city, theoretically under psychiatric supervision.

"How did your family react to the small matter of someone attempting to murder the future discoverer of a cure for cancer?"

"Are you sure today is a day you want to provoke me, Cheshire?" he asked, expression not shifting.

"I am, of course, speaking purely from the perspective of those who have missed your Guitar Hero core."

He snorted, but then said: "I haven’t played that in years. Bran and I used to have the most epic battles. As for the family reaction, we’d already had a clan conclave, back when Kyou was nearly poisoned. That vacillated between trying to decide if it was an attack on L-B Corp, or whether Kyou had done something to provoke retribution."

"Just Kyou?"

"I am considered too well-behaved to attract serious enmity, and nothing they’re aware of had happened to Bran."

"I guess provoking people as a hobby comes with a price."

Rin smiled, and put down his cup. "A lesson you should take to heart, Cheshire," he said, then added: "Take off your clothes."

He reached for his own tie as he spoke, and I watched with due enjoyment as I shed my own uniform and folded it onto the coffee table. While Rin maintained a balance between a slender build and a fit physique, rather than being cut like Bran, I thought his body was truly beautiful—or perhaps that innate elegance made everything about him look good.

"Has Kyou ever painted you?" I asked.

Rin, who had been reaching for his backpack, paused. "Not the way he painted you. Kyou likes to draw the people he cares about, and he has a sketchbook for each of them. Mine is onto a fourth volume. Bran is still on the third, but his third sketchbook is a little thicker." He lifted a piece of cloth from his backpack. "Your sketchbook has a lock, and he hasn’t shown us the pictures. Yet. Would it bother you if he did?"

"I’m not sure," I said, as Rin fastened the blindfold with Velcro. "Anyone other than you and Bran, absolutely, even if the drawings are as anonymous as Kyou claims." I paused. "I almost walked away from this, because of the photos. I’ve never had a whole-life-crashing-down moment before, and I don’t want to repeat it."

Rin, who had been moving about, came back and folded his arms around me, much the way Bran had.

"The fact that someone heard the name Cheshire means we haven’t been nearly as careful as we thought," he admitted, stroking my back. "No game is worth harming you. We can stop right now, if you think the risk is too great."

"I wouldn’t still be showing up, if I thought that," I said, leaning against him. "Bran told me Tuesday that bridges make me compromise, and that stuck with me. It made me realise that being very rigid about the specific goal of Helios U and the Marden Institute isn’t good for me. Not that I’m putting it down, but they’re not critical to my future. Engineering, physics, math, chemistry—I can not only study those anywhere, I can excel at them. Like Kyou and his financial crisis, there’s always a way to recover."

"But meanwhile we’ll make sure nothing that can be used against you ever leaks out," he said, in a very definite tone.

Pleased with him, I amused myself tracing my way to the nape of his neck, then stretched up to kiss him. He cooperated with me briefly, enough to increase the pace of my breathing, but then moved away.

"Put this on," he said, draping some cloth over my shoulders.

I fumbled, found sleeves, and slid my arms into them. It felt like his shirt again, the material still slightly warm from his body heat. Given the challenge, I decided not to tease him about it.

"Wrists together in front of you."

He fastened pliable cuffs around my wrists, tightening straps. There was something soft inside them, making them not uncomfortable, but they were linked closely together.

"If people saw your recent shopping list, your image would be totally shot."

"What makes you think it’s recent?" he purred into my ear, obviously enjoying himself.

"New leather smell."

"Hm."

He moved away, and I heard a slow clinking sound, and had to control my expression because I hadn’t expected chains. He hooked what seemed to be a very solid chain to the join between the two cuffs, then moved away again. Possibly he stood on the couch: it felt like he moved upwards.

Translating the sounds I was hearing into probable causes, I said, only a little incredulously: "Have—have you attached a pulley to the ceiling?"

His response was to continue to pull the chain, drawing my hands inexorably up. And then the rest of me.

For a moment I was blankly astonished, but then I laughed. "Dangling from the ceiling ranks highly among things I never imagined I’d be doing at school."

"Is it hurting?" he asked, standing behind me.

"Not yet."

He hummed in acknowledgement, and touched my neck, just a glancing contact, before moving again. I probed for the ground with my toes, but couldn’t manage it. I couldn’t be too high up—the summer house simply wasn’t tall enough.

Something touched my stomach, just a tickle, but it didn’t feel like his hand. A lock of hair, perhaps?

Rin might be invisible to me, but his pleasure was palpable as he teased me with feather-light touches, so soft I was barely sure they had happened. And, then, when I had started to not expect it, a sudden inhalation of my left breast, sucking intensely, and not neglecting to scrape a little with his teeth before he moved away. Then an outright bite on my behind, hard enough that I felt I’d have to check it later for broken skin. He licked my throat, then roughly gripped my thigh.

I swung lightly on the chain, gasping, caught somewhere between excitement and faint distress. My belief that Rin would not push me too far was beginning to fray, but thankfully a moment later he stopped me swinging.

"Is it hurting you? You’ve gone pale."

"I’m not sure I’m cut out for bondage."

He paused, then hoisted me with an arm beneath my butt so he could unhook me. Then he pulled free the straps on one cuff so I could get my wrist free.

"Is that better, or do you want to stop?"

I steadied myself, gripping his shoulder. "Just—just have a little less fun from now on."

"Stopping," he said, very firmly, and took a couple of steps so he could sit us down on the couch, settling me on his lap. He freed my other wrist, tossed the cuffs aside, then stroked my back. "Too far, sorry."

"The swinging set me off, I think. Made me want to kick out. Probably not the reaction you were looking for."

He took off my blindfold. "I’ve been itching to shake your calm for months, Cheshire, so perhaps it was precisely how I wanted you to react. I didn’t enjoy it at all."

"Feeling guilty?" I asked.

He tidied stray strands of hair out of my eyes. "Reminding myself of the obvious point that this will only be fun if you’re having fun. Let’s take a break. Would you like to listen to some music?"

"Sure."

"I’m practicing for a performance on the Friday before study break," he said, putting me down and lifting a violin case from beside the couch. "An original piece."

He sat cross-legged on the opposite end of the couch, elegant and very naked, long fingers handling the polished wood of the instrument as tenderly as he’d just stroked my cheek. Then he touched bow lightly to the strings, and they made a tiny, now-familiar sound.

"Very funny."

"Bran and I had a competition to see which of us could reproduce it first," he said, again summoning a faint mewling noise from the violin.

"Is that what you’re planning to play to the year assembly?"

"Don’t tempt me," he said, and lifted the bow.

I don’t have the foundation to know whether Rin is a brilliant violinist, or simply one who succeeds in drawing me in whenever I hear him play. The piece this time was playful, full of sudden bounces and little runs, but then shifted into a more dramatic tone, driving and frantic, and then flew up into a final, exhilarating release.

"Is this another for your game?" I asked, when he lowered the bow. "I feel like something just chased me down and nearly ate me."

He smiled, a vividly pleased expression. "It’s called Will-o-the-wisp. The player encounters one, tries to catch it, and is nearly caught by something rather larger."

"Are you being symbolic, playing it at the last official school assembly?"

"Primarily I just want to perform it, because it turned out well. But I might waffle about childhood’s end or something, if pressed."

"You’re going to have your fans rushing the stage, if you’re not careful." I paused, then added. "I don’t understand how your parents can possibly believe music is a hobby for you. Do they never look at you when you play?"

"They see what they want," he said, smile fading.

"Sorry, that spoiled the mood, didn’t it?" I picked up the blindfold, and put it back on. "Let me make it up to you."