I am covered with honey and cinnamon. The table is getting messy, too; we're going to have to really scrub to clean it off. I'm not sure what holding still is accomplishing, given the incredible amount of inevitable splattering, but I continue to do so. It's for art. Besides, he asked me to.

Holding still is getting difficult, though, because he's started painting my nether regions. Every stroke of the paintbrush makes me want to roll my hips in ecstasy.

"It's amazing how many euphemisms and slang terms for the female genitalia reference honey or sugar," he says, and does something particularly interesting with a corner of the brush. "Jelly hole. Jelly roll. Honey pot. Honey hive. Honey trap. Sticky bun. Sugar basin. Donut. It makes the female genitalia into a dessert. Linguistically speaking."

"Oh," I reply.

I can't tell if I'm automatically commenting on his words or on what he's doing with the paintbrush. It probably doesn't matter too much, really.

"Rather makes one wonder if terms of endearment like 'my sweetness' were used innocently."

He pauses his monologue.

That's not a paintbrush. I cry out. I don't want him to stop what he's doing...

...and he stops. And he gets up to go to the refrigerator. And he starts rummaging. I groan. This isn't fair. Just now, the oven timer also chooses to go off, so he takes spanakopitas and tiropitas out of the oven and baklava out of the toaster oven, and then turns off the heat to the ovens and sets the baking dishes on the counters to cool. We're running out of counter space. I'm running out of patience, but that's my problem.

When he returns, he has the bowl of grape and yogurt salad in the crook of his arm. "You didn't really think I'd forgotten about you?" he asks. "Tsk. You know better than that." Then he starts inserting the grapes.

"They're... they're cold," I gasp, displaying fine mastery of the obvious. Not that coldness is a bad thing. Actually, it feels quite interesting. Interesting, that's a good word for it. I think he could hold my attention this way for quite some time.

"Don't worry; I'll warm you up. Stop wriggling, please. You'll undo my work."

How many grapes is he going to try to fit in there? I feel frozen and stuffed. The filling sensation is not at all unpleasant; I've accommodated his hand on numerous occasions, and the grapes aren't much different in that regard, except for the fact that I can't move around the grapes to get myself off, the way I can move around his hand. The chill, however - I'm not sure whether it feels uncomfortable in a bad way, or uncomfortable in a good way. I do know it's starting to feel uncomfortable. I'm shivering from the cold.

And then he gets up, lifts the saucer to drink tea out of the mug, sits back down again, and puts his mouth against me. Warm tea spills against my flesh. After the cold of the grapes and the yogurt, it feels like sunlight. I moan.

"Fire and ice," he murmurs. "This is usually done with round ice cubes, not refrigerated grapes, but I thought you'd go well with grapes."

"Could you... could you do that thing with the tea again? I... I liked that..."

"I think I can manage that."

Tea. I never before thought of tea as a sex toy.

Tea.

Oh, God.

He does that for a while, perhaps because he likes the way I sound when I beg.

"Hmm. Something's missing. I think a little more honey would be appropriate... Yes. Let's try that." He picks up the paintbrush again.

My breath has become gasping and hoarse.

"I think, maybe, just a touch of cinnamon. There. That should do it. You make a lovely canvas for art. Alas, everything that is done must be undone. It wouldn't be practical to have you walking around the house dripping honey, yogurt, and grapes, after all." He bends down, murmuring, "Then make my joys at full. And drop down nectar from thy honey lips..."

Eventually, the grapes are all out.

My knees are shaking. The kitchen reverberates with the sound of my cries.

When he surfaces, he tastes of honey, grapes, cinnamon, almonds, and me.

"Oh, you," I sigh, when we are done with each other's mouths. "I never did finish what I started. Those clothes are going to have to come off. Now, where's the honey?"

There is a lull between my Formal Logic class and my Victorian Literature class; my gaming buddy from last term's course on existentialist philosophy is in both classes with me (apparently, she shares my intellectual tastes) so we generally spend the hour between the two classes hanging out together in the student union lounge. It gets a little crowded and noisy for me, to the point where sometimes my skin feels like it wants to crawl, but it's easier to hang out here than it is to wander around looking for an empty classroom to occupy. Warmer weather will be here in a month or two, though, and then we'll be able to sit outside on nice days.

"Why do you always wear that black scarf wrapped around your wrist?" she asks. "I've never seen you without it."

I suppose someone was bound to ask sometime.

I could just give a simple answer. My boyfriend gave it to me. However, some impulse in me makes me blurt out the truth in greater detail. "I wear it as an outward sign of my submission to my Magister."

"You what for your what?" She blinks at me.

"My boyfriend. He also happens to be my magickal teacher, my tutor, and my mentor in the erotic arts." If I'm going to come out with it, I might as well go the whole nine yards. I couldn't just keep it quiet, could I? Oh, well. The only reason I've been discreet so far has been because Magister is easily embarrassed, but my friend from class is unlikely to tease him. And it's not like the rest of the gaming group doesn't know, although it's not the sort of thing we talk about while sitting around the table.

"Oh. Oh, wow."

It seems like whenever there is an awkward pause in the conversation, it's not just you and the person you're talking to who are hushed - the entire room suddenly stills, and everyone seems to be listening to you, waiting to hear what you have to say. No doubt that's completely illusory.

"So," she asks at last, "that means you're into bondage and stuff?"

"Among other things."

"What kind of magic is he teaching you?"

Where should I even begin? "Are you familiar with the Neoplatonists of the Renaissance? The Hermetic scholars? The occult philosophers of late nineteenth-century Europe? That's a part of what he's teaching me, for the philosophy part of my studies. He's also been devising practical lessons in magick based on what I'm studying. A lot of it is Thelemic sex magick, with an eye to gnosis through ecstasy and self-perfection, but a good part of the practicum comes from Siberian and Finnish shamanism because we found my personal energy works better with primal stuff and chaos than it does with ritualistic ceremony."

"Sex - oh, wow." She stares at me. "That's amazing. I didn't know there was such a thing. Does it work?"

"Sex magick?"

"Yes."

"It depends on what you want it to do," I reply quietly. "Mostly we use it to search for our higher Selves, and to share our souls with each other." We drink from each other as if we were wine.

"How long have you been together?"

"About two years, now."

"It sounds beautiful. Weird, but beautiful. You must love each other very much. You're glowing. Your whole face just lit up."

"Yes," I sigh.