APPRENDIMENTO

Kathleen Tudor

Gia shifted behind me, breaking my concentration, and I bit my lip as I struggled to tune out my awareness of her. A pointless task. Every nerve ending in my body seemed to twist toward her like a weather vane, all atingle with anticipation. “Avete,” I finally said.

“No, bella, it’s avere.” She tsked as she stepped forward and lifted a clothespin from the bowl on the table. My breasts were already adorned with several pins, but she had no trouble finding a bare spot to pinch. I winced as the clothespin clamped down, but that little pinch was just the appetizer. Taking them off again was the tricky part.

“To run,” Gia said.

“Correre.” I tensed, nervous until I saw her little nod, almost subconscious. This had seemed like such a good idea last weekend, when I’d been listening to the buoyant words flow from Gia’s lips. As soon as she’d hung up the phone, I’d blurted it out: “Would you teach me Italian?” Oooh, she would, all right, if it’s the last thing I do.

“How do you say ‘I want?’”

I swallowed. “Viene?”

The pinch was a bright spark of pain, but I was focused on Gia’s lips as they formed the words before my face. “Voglio.” I should have remembered. Wanting… now that was something I understood.

Language, not so much. The words seemed so obvious when she said them, as if the answers had always been there, lurking in the back of my mind. I’d studied the pages she gave me—why wouldn’t any of it stick?

By the time I was done with our little lesson, my breasts bristled with clothespins and my eyes were clouded with unshed tears. I couldn’t do this. It was too hard! I took a shuddering breath and held it, trying to will the emotion down. Out.

I was still working on getting myself together when Gia yanked the first pin free. I screeched in surprise, and then moaned as blood rushed back into the half-numb bit of flesh. Amazing how much such a tiny spot could ache.

“Mela,” Gia whispered.

“A-apple.” It had been one of the first words I’d forgotten today, but fuck if it didn’t spring nicely to mind right then.

Gia pulled me to my feet and guided my hands up to the pull-up bar we kept over the door of the study. We… didn’t use it for pull-ups.

I gripped hard and closed my eyes, waiting, and just when I had begun to think that the pain was never coming, she pulled another pin free. “Zucchero,” she whispered, so close I could feel her breath on my throat.

“That’s sugar.”

Another word, another pin, again and again until my breasts tingled and ached and throbbed and tears flowed freely from beneath my closed lids. I held tight to the pull-up bar and sobbed. I was no good at this! I was never going to learn, and she was never going to let me quit!

By the time only two pins remained—one on each nipple—my sobs had quieted to the occasional sniffle and I felt empty of the frustration and despair. It had all poured out of me, and now I was an empty vessel, a bundle of nerves, and every single one pointed, as usual, to my True North.

Gia kissed my damp cheek and pressed so close that her breasts brushed against the last two clothespins, making me whimper at the short bursts of pain. It was nothing to what was coming.

But before she pulled either of them free, her hand slid down my belly and beneath the elastic of my pajama bottoms. My whole body jolted as her fingers slid into the engorged heat of my pussy lips, and gave a little purr of pleasure as she slid her fingers inside me. “My good ness you’re wet. I didn’t know you were so excited by learning!”

“Please…”

“No, no my sweet. In Italian.”

“I…I…Per favore!” Dear sweet baby Jesus, why hadn’t she told me how to say “more” yet? She pulled her hand away and I sagged, limp with thwarted desire. Her hand closed on a clothespin and she toyed with it, sending shocks of pain straight to my clit. “V-voglio…”

“Oh, molto bene,” she said, and without mercy she ripped the clothespin off my nipple.

Pain surged through me, crashing and melding with the pleasure that wound ever tighter in my belly, and they both throbbed through me until my mind was afloat on a sea of sensations that I couldn’t begin to name in any language.

“One more pin, mia bella. One more word. Are you ready? This word means ‘come,’ and that’s just what I want you to do.” She flicked the pin and I moaned. “I want you to come when I say. Can you do that for me?”

I reached for the words to beg, but they were lost to me. I whimpered instead and tried to press my chest forward, inviting her without words to shred that final piece of my self-control. To tip me over the edge and watch me fall and shatter. Now. Please. More.

Gia ripped the pin away, and she spoke with a clear, strong voice. “Venga.” Come.

The pain and the pleasure arrowed through me, and where they met there was an explosion that drove the breath from my lungs. My clit and my nipples seemed to pulse in rhythm with each other, and I was helpless, riding the sensation until stars sparkled in my vision.

“Breathe, bella. That’s my good girl.”

I obeyed, and soon enough felt strong enough to open my eyes. I was on the ground, but Gia had been ready for me, and rather than letting me topple, she’d guided me down and into her lap. A tremor twitched through my legs in an aftershock of pleasure, and the smile she gave me said she’d be riding my face until sunrise.

“That was perfetto,” she said, gathering me even closer. “Tell me when you feel strong enough to stand and we’ll move to the bed.”

“Sì, Gia.” I snuggled close, every nerve attuned to her, my muscles lax with satisfaction. Somehow, I was already looking forward to our next lesson.