Earning Her Keep (Price of Love)

She unfastens her bra, letting her gorgeous tits hang free. The elastic of her bra is a little too tight, and angry red lines crisscross her back. Even though she’s alone, she covers herself, like she always does, with her forearm pushed to her nipples. It tantalizes me, that private modesty. Makes me want her nipples between my teeth for hours.

Slowly, she makes her way over to the bath. She sits down on the edge and slips her feet and calves into the warm water. She’s got her back to me now. Her ass is fucking magnificent, but I want more. I want her face. I want her eyes.

“Turn around,” I whisper. I know she can’t hear me, but I say it anyway. “Turn the fuck around,” I whisper again, even deeper, hate fucking my palm because it’s not her.

And she does. Whether she heard the growl, or felt the energy, or whether it’s just coincidence, I don’t fucking know. But she does turn, enough for me to see her face in profile, her chin brushing her shoulder. Listening.

And in that moment, sitting there, naked before me, she is every classical painting ever made, she is every goddess ever sculpted, she is every fantasy I have ever had, made real.

So fucking beautiful that I want to punish her for it.

The Roman bath is about five feet deep, surrounded by carved stone angels looking on. I watch her slowly make her way down the steps into the water, descending inch by inch, until that beautiful body is submerged, until her fiery hair fans out around her in a blaze.

Again, she smiles. She extends her arms and gently eases herself onto her back, so she is floating face up. Her tits break the surface of the water, the steam rising around her. The mound of her red pubic hair, trimmed but not waxed, catches droplets of water between the hairs, like spun gold. I keep the salinity just so, for perfect buoyancy. She floats along, smiling up at the fresco-painted ceiling.

She lets out a long, contented sigh, then wiggles her toes and taps the water with her fingertips, sending ripples in every direction.

“Esme,” she barks in her best drill sergeant voice, addressing the custom virtual assistant I had installed into the Bluetooth system, “play Simone Kermes. Now.”

The music starts. It’s not what I expected at all. Opera, centuries old. Delicate harpsichord, a simple soaring soprano. I’ve never heard this song before, but I know now that I will never forget it. What a haunting, beautiful thing.

She hums along with the soprano, drifting happily in my tub, in my house, in my life, but lost in her own little world.

Her hand slides down the newly-curved pooch below her belly button. She parts her pussy with her first two fingers and I watch her eyelids flutter as the water laps at her clit.

Well, fuck. Here’s to screwed-up schedules. I have wanted this so bad—to see this, to experience it. It’s the first time in all these weeks that I’ve gotten to see her pleasure herself in broad daylight. I heard her once at night but couldn’t see her. And once in the shower, but it was too steamy to see her face.

Now, though, I can see everything. Every exquisite detail. I start to fuck my fist harder, more angry than ever.

She bends her first finger, teasing her nub, drawing the skin tight. Her toes curl in the water and she lets out another long sigh.

The opera singer soars higher. My Italian is good enough that I get it. Poor her, in love. Poor her, alone and longing.

The whole fucking scene is so excruciatingly gorgeous that it makes my fucking heart ache. Me. My heart. Me. Overcome with fucking feelings.

Sun rising in the West.

Now with two fingers, she makes little slaps against her clit, splashing water up over her belly as she does. My balls throb out a heavy spurt of pre-cum as I watch her, feeling her pleasure. And a little pissed that I’m not the one giving it to her.

She is a vision. She is so beautiful, so breathtaking, that I forget to keep stroking myself. Standing there with my dick in my hand, she takes my fucking breath away. Watching her now, I’m aware that my worry and anxiety are just fucking gone. I have no thoughts except for her. I don’t do anything but take her in.

Nothing else wanted.

Nothing else needed.

But the vision is too brief. The song hasn’t even ended before she lifts her head to check the clock on the wall. She huffs out a little breath of annoyance, then moves her arms in two graceful circles and floats over to the steps again.

Her hair forms curly ringlets over her shoulders. Her skin is pinked with the warmth of the water.