Craving Flight
Tzipporah Berger is thirty-seven and single, which is practically unheard of in the Orthodox Jewish community she now calls home. Her increasing religiosity and need for kink may have broken up her first marriage, but she’s decided it’s time to try again. And the rabbi’s wife has just the man in mind.
Elan Klein is the neighborhood butcher whose intimidating size and gruff manner hint at a deliciously forceful personality. But BDSM isn’t exactly something you discuss during an Orthodox courtship. Will a marriage to Elan solidify her place in the community that she loves and provide the domination and pain Tzipporah craves or will she forever have to rely on flights of fancy to satisfy her needs?
For M, who has supported my outlandish ideas from the beginning. You have only yourself to blame.
Excerpt from Personal Geography
This novella is a product of the
Bring Out Your Kink ~ Bound by Ink
writing event sponsored by the
Goodreads BDSM Group
. Members provided a photo and letter to inspire writers to create an original story. Writers picked the prompt that spoke to them most. A written description of the image that inspired this story is provided below along with the original request letter.
*
A woman in profile, eyes cast down. Clearly holding the camera at arm’s length, she wears a long-sleeved, olive-green shirt that covers up to the hollow of her throat, a black pearl necklace and drop earrings. Her hair is covered by intricately tied scarves of blue, grey, bronze and gold, the interwoven tail is draped over her shoulder. She is at once modest and on display.
Dear pervert,
I am a deeply modest yet profoundly kinky woman. My husband left me for another woman, so I divorced him. During our marriage, I discovered that I had a need for restraint, spanking during sex play, and some rather kinky drives. He was my husband but resisted being my Dom though he agreed to “play” sometimes during sex.
My bed proclivities represent only one area where I have grown and evolved. I also have become more modest as I have grown older. I cover my arms to the elbow, my legs to the knee, and my collar bones. While not frumpy, I chose to dress to save my charms for the next and only master I will have. Also I have long auburn hair that I keep tightly bound and covered with beautiful scarves called tichels…keeping that part of myself hidden for my next master. My hair hasn’t been seen by a man since I last was with my husband five years ago.
I am a sexual submissive that is dominant in other life roles (career, academic, etc.). While my ex-husband did try at times to meet my needs, I have craved a master who would demand my full submission…perhaps one who would demand a much deeper power exchange and much more intensive exploration of pain play…allowing impact, bondage, violet wand, clamping, wax, and pain but no edge or fluid play.
Please…I beg you to unwind my scarves, take down my hair, bind me in the literal and figurative ropes of your dominion with shibari and pain, so that I may finally fly free.
Please,
Craving Flight
‡
“G
ood afternoon, Tzipporah.”
“Good afternoon, Elan.”
His jaw tightens at my response, only barely visible by the shift of his beard. I have to resist swallowing. His eyes focus on my mouth, my lips, and then his gaze travels down my neck to the buttoned-up collar of my shirt. The wings inside me beat harder under his gaze. Even though it makes me nervous because his dark eyes are so intense, I don’t truly mind his scrutiny. I like the way he looks at me.
With the shop being relatively empty and his attention distracted by examining what I’m wearing, it gives me a chance to return the favor and study him. The way his broad shoulders fill out his white shirt, how the fabric grazes his biceps. But his forearms…those are definitely my favorite. The sleeves rolled up nearly to his elbows show off the veins and muscles, the masculine dusting of hair that reaches to his wrists. His hands—battered and scarred from his work but scrubbed clean—rest on the counter behind the glass. I even admire his clipped-to-the-quick fingernails.
“What can I get for you today?” His words startle me. How much longer have I been staring at him than he’s been staring at me? Blood rushes to my cheeks and my face grows hot. Forget my cheeks. I must be blushing from my collar to the tichels that cover my head. It’s a ridiculous thought, but I’m so flustered, I think my hair might even be turning redder under the scarves. My reactions to even the most innocent interactions with Elan are visceral. It’s as though he knows how to communicate with the very center of me.
“Half a pound of ground beef, please.”
His expression doesn’t change, implacable as ever, but there’s a small shake of his head. I’m confident he finds me faintly ridiculous. This interloper who hasn’t quite adapted to her new surroundings. I stick out like a parrot in the taiga. I’m trying, have been trying, but I don’t know that I’ll ever feel completely at home here.
“Spaghetti and meatballs again?” Am I imagining the tinge of judgment in his voice? I could be. I’ve been told I’m overly sensitive to these things. Probably the result of too much of my life spent studying other people, watching for nuances, coding and decoding the words they’ve said and trying to figure out
What does it all mean?
Four years as an undergraduate, six years earning a PhD, nine more as a professor teaching classes and doing research, and I haven’t figured it out yet.
His hands come off the counter and he tears a piece of waxed paper from a large roll before he pulls on gloves and takes a tray from behind the spotless glass of the case. Something else I like about Elan: how easily he moves in his work, how at home he is here. We have that in common—competence in our occupations, though his is with his hands and mine is mostly in my mind. He weighs the meat and hands me a package tied with care along with some counsel. “Don’t forget, no Parmesan cheese.”
“Yes, I know.”
It’s kindly meant, I think, but it mortifies me. I’ve been keeping kosher since I moved to this neighborhood in Brooklyn. It should be second-nature after so long but even now I make mistakes. He gives me reminders sometimes because he knows I can be forgetful.
It’s such a cliché, the absent-minded professor, but I’ve been that way my whole life. Always with my nose stuck in a book, my brain churning with abstract thoughts instead of paying attention to worldly things. I’ve gotten caught out in the rain with my laptop before because I didn’t notice the gathering clouds, and if I want to have a hope of being on time for anything I need to set alarms. I’ve gotten better at hiding exactly how scatterbrained I am and it embarrasses me that he knows.
Our fingers nearly brush as I take the small parcel and the almost-contact is electric. At least for me it is.
“Thank you,” I murmur, tucking the meat into my grocery bag that already holds a box of pasta, and vegetables to make the sauce. Tomatoes, zucchini, and onions I’ll chop carefully in my quiet apartment and put on the stove to simmer while I grade the papers I collected during the seminar I just taught. I have high hopes since they’re my seniors and it’s October, but I don’t like to count on anything. We’ll see.
“You’re welcome, Tzipporah.” The sound of my name formed by his mouth, the breath he expended to say it, to acknowledge me, sends a pleasurable chill up my spine that I try to ignore as I pay the younger man at the register.
Turning to leave, I feel Elan’s eyes on me as I go. What is he thinking as he watches the gentle sway of my skirt around my calves, the tightly wrapped colorful silk that crowns my head, the press of my palm to the door as I push it open to head out to the sidewalk? Or am I inventing the weight of his attention? I don’t turn around to find out.
I think of him as I walk down the street; the work of his strong hands safe in the sack that hangs from my shoulder, his soft but compelling voice, his presence behind the counter as reliable as the sun. He’s always there.
Though I’ve tried to ignore it and would never admit it to anyone, I’ve had a certain fascination with Elan since I walked into his butcher shop five years ago. And next week, I will become his wife.
‡
Two Months Earlier
T
he tea I’m
holding is hot and outside it’s a sticky-August eighty degrees but my hands feel cold. Bina, on the other hand, looks like she’s got sunshine streaming out of various orifices. She’s practically bouncing in her seat. “Is this about what I think it’s about?”