Gabriel

A friend introduced me to Gabriel at a party, we chatted, and arranged to meet again, at the art gallery café the following Saturday, where there was some sort of dance thing on, with a jazz band. It was fun, and he was good company, so we met again, and again, and we ended up going to bed together after we’d known each other for about a month.

At first, it was just lovely sex. He wanted me on top, not just sometimes, but all the time, which I suppose was a bit unusual, but not that unusual, and I liked it, because I could see him, and he was absolutely gorgeous. It also seemed to take him ages to come, so there was never any question of my being left behind, the way I had been with some of my other boyfriends. He didn’t move in with me, or anything, but we spent three or four nights a week together, sometimes at his flat, sometimes at mine, and taking turns to do the cooking.

That had been going on for about six weeks when he muttered, “Pinch my nipples. Please?” while we were making love.

I thought I must have misheard, so I stopped pumping. “What?”

“Please. Pinch my nipples.”

“Why?” I’d been close to coming, but I could feel it threatening to ebb away, even though his knob was still as hard as ever inside me.

“Because I like it.”

If I hadn’t wanted to carry on where I’d left off, before everything went off the boil, I might have argued, but in the circumstances, I just gave his nipples a tweak and got pumping again.

He had the decency not to interrupt again, but by the time he grunted and squirmed, I knew that part of the dynamic between us had changed. We cuddled a bit afterwards, but eventually I had to ask. “What was that about? The nipple pinching, I mean.”

He looked a bit embarrassed. “Sorry. I like to be hurt. I didn’t think I was going to be able to come. Thanks for doing it. You could have done it a bit harder.”

My brain was stumbling, trying to keep up. “Sorry. Run that past me again. You like to be hurt?”

He nodded. “I can’t usually do it at all, unless I’ve been hurt first. With you it’s been special, but I still want you to hurt me.”

I couldn’t help laughing, but it wasn’t meant to be unkind. “I suppose you know that makes you a bit weird, but I’m not about to let a bit of nipple pinching come between us. Come here.” I tweaked the nipple I could reach, and he gasped.

“I love that. You can do it a bit harder.”

I didn’t really want to, so I just did the same again, and kissed him. That was the end of the conversation for that night. We went to sleep, and he didn’t mention it until the next time we were in bed together, a couple of days later.

“You know I said about pinching my nipples?” he said.

I nodded. It had been on my mind on and off, but it had made me realise that I’d actually fallen a little in love with him, so I was prepared to put up with it.

“Will you do it some more? Maybe before we start. You could bite them, too.”

I could. Or I could change my mind and walk away. I pulled the covers off him and looked at him. He was beautiful, but his knob was definitely not looking happy, lying on his thigh like a fat slug. It was decision time, and I decided I’d do it. I started with the pinching, then nibbled a bit, all of which had the desired effect. I didn’t especially like doing it, but it meant that he had a useable woody that I could straddle. I pinched him a few more times while we were doing it, and everything worked. I came a few times, he came, and we had a cuddle afterwards.

It turned out to be the top of a very slippery slope. After a while, just the pinching wasn’t enough, and nibbling was replaced by biting. Still, once I’d got him hard, he didn’t ask me to pinch his nipples again, so I could just get on with it.

We moved on to my biting his lip, and eventually to my nipping the skin of his knob with my teeth. Otherwise, we were just a happy couple, and the sex was amazing, getting better all the time. I was still uncomfortable with hurting him, but everything else was perfect.

Even when he bought me a pair of black leather boots and a whip for Christmas, I went along with it. He lay on the bed, and I’d flick his chest and his knob with the whip. Riding him with the boots on felt strange at first, but I quickly got used to it.

The most difficult moment came when he produced the hatpin. I looked at it in horror. “What do you want me to do with that?”

“Just stick it through my nipple.”

The word ‘just’ had probably never been so misused. “Just stick it through your nipple?”

“Yes. You just pinch it between your fingers and pull, and then you can push the needle through.”

“Needle? It isn’t a needle. It’s a fucking hatpin.” Even if I hadn’t been naked apart from a pair of boots, it would have been a weird conversation.

“It’s all right. I sterilised it.”

“It is not fucking all right. You’re asking me to stick a hatpin through your nipple. Which bit of that is supposed to be all right?”

“I want you to. I want to be able to make love to you. I love you.”

In my experience, men said that to me when they wanted to get me into bed, but he’d already done that, without any quibbling on my part. If you ignored the bit where I hurt him, and the boots, it was the best sex I ever had. “A few months ago, all I had to do was pinch your nipples. Where’s it all going to end?”

He looked sad. “I don’t know. Maybe the needle will be enough, but it might not. I’ve never gone any further.”

He sounded like a teenage girl talking about taking her bra off. Remembering that, I gritted my teeth and forced a smile. “Okay. We’ll give it a go. Lie down and give me the hatpin.”