tummy rub

Feel the edge of the bed depress as I sit by your side. Does your mattress creak? With your eyes still closed you hear the ceramic tap of a cup as I put down your morning tea.

The duvet is all twisted. One thigh is overheating where it’s wrapped up, one is cool in the open air. You shift your hips and lie on your back, still clinging on to sleep.

The mattress depresses further and you feel a palm gently appear at your crown. A slow, patient stroke brushes your dark hair flat and tickles your ear as it passes on its way to cup the corner of your jaw. My fingertips stroke small circles beneath your jawline while my thumb draws a stroke the shape of a rainbow on the apple of your cheek. Your eyelashes flutter and you turn your face into the attention.

A sudden impulse causes you to yawn and stretch, arms reaching up to rap your knuckles on the headboard and back arching from the bed. The stretch makes you aware how full last night’s pizza has left you, compounding the feasts over the previous few nights to give you a rib-to-pubis feeling of weight and warmth.

Your jaw aches at the corners by the time your yawn is through. As your mouth closes you feel the pad of my thumb brush your lower lip, one affectionate and adoring swipe. You know that even without your burgundy I find your lips arresting.

You exhale long and lazy. Your arms you leave above you, relaxed, your fingers idly drawing shapes on the headboard. This brings into prominence that wonderful gut. Your breasts, also, but this is real-world Rey and you know I know they’re not for me.

What could be more “for me” than your belly, though? The stroking hand leaves tingles in your skin where it brushes down your long throat, dips into a collarbone, and detours around your flank to arrive triumphantly on your belly. My hands are pianist’s so you feel your whole belly being gently gripped. My palm is warm where it lies on the swell just above your belly-button and my fingertips sink slightly into your nascent fat.

Two broad, circular sweeps make you shift your weight to push forward your belly. Your skin makes a brushed-silk sound but your deep and secret guts voice gentle burbling noises. There is no question of embarrassment: we both fucking love it. So I settle into a loving massage of your abdomen, tracing the imagined paths of your intestines. Your duodenum must run right to left, so I trace it that way, pressing with the heel of my hand. The paths of your jejenum and ileum are anybody’s guess but your big, imposing colon we know well. It’s strange to think but here it is: I massage your large intestine, clockwise, with affection and thoughts about which of your meals might currently be sweltering within.

While lavishing attention on your tummy—and it is a fine, beautiful, still-stuffed little tummy—I brace my weight with my knee. The mattress bounces lower again. This lets me run my fingers through your hair, or stroke your cheek with the backs of my curled fingers, or tweak your nose playfully when you release a soft burp. When my fingers drift too close to your mouth you snap your teeth shut on the knuckle of my little finger. The corners of your lips are drawn up in a smile as you work your jaw side-to-side, sawing my finger bone between your teeth. You hear me inhale sharply with the pain, which you increase and diminish at will. While caught between your teeth I lean down to kiss each eyebrow. No self-preservation instincts at all; especially when it comes to your mouth.

When you release me I lean over you. With firm pressure through both hands I knead your flesh from your hips up your flanks, to your shoulders. The trapesius, that muscle at the corner of the shoulders and neck, I work with my fingers, releasing tension. Then it’s a delicate, shiver-making stroke up your neck to hold your head between my hands. I kiss your forehead.

One hand disappears a moment then you receive a deep poke in your belly, by the navel. A glorp emerges on protest. This is followed by jiggling you, shaking your gut from side to side at around the natural frequency so the whole assembly moves together. You grin, eyes still closed, then kick your legs to free yourself from the duvet. Once your body is revealed in all its glory, and mindful of just how much every motion wracks me with desire, you turn into your front and wiggle your bottom.

“Now massage my back, bum and legs. If you do a good job I’ll let you massage my belly again.”

You laugh when I spank your bottom with a glancing cuff. But we both know I’m going to do as you demand.