She is lying supine on Leonardo’s red bed. The curtains are closed, although a little sunlight sneaks in through the cracks. Leonardo has candles burning around the edges of the room. Beside the bed is pot of fragrant oil upon a little burner. Its exotic, spicy aroma fills the room, making her relax further.
She is wrapped in a red silk sarong, underneath which she is naked. Leonardo is kneeling beside her on the bed. He too has a red sarong on, tied around his lean waist. She looks up at him, feeling a little nervous, wondering quite what a yoni massage will entail. She is worried that she won’t be able to control herself, that she will orgasm too soon and ruin the whole Tantric thing.
‘Should I keep my eyes open – look at you?’ she asks him.
‘It’s up to you, although maybe this first time you should close them and just concentrate on yourself, nothing else. Open up the sensations within your own body; don’t worry about me.’ She closes her eyes and Leonardo begins. He pulls her silk sarong off her shoulders, as if he is unwrapping her, sliding it away from under her body, and now she lies naked before him. He massages her shoulders. His hands are slick with the hot, fragrant oil. He works down both of her arms, pulling the tension out of her hands, finger by finger.
He massages her feet, her legs, her thighs, passing over her pelvic area to her stomach and up to her breasts.
She imagines him scooping handful after handful of hot, scented oil into his palms, for her breasts are thick with oil, and she feels herself opening out from the heart, as he massages each of her breasts, moving his hands swiftly between the two of them. For a moment, she starts to enter a fantasy, a dream of her and Theo on a honeymoon in Morocco and her new husband massaging her with oils, but then she pulls herself out of it. She counsels herself: stay in the moment, with your body, Valentina. Take in all the sensations.
She doesn’t know how long Leonardo massages her breasts but, by the time he asks her to turn over on to her front, she is entirely relaxed. His gentle massaging touch has penetrated her loneliness more than all the S&M sessions she had with Russell.
Leonardo massages her back, working his way down her spine, from the nape of her neck right to the tip of her tailbone. She senses him moving around and the next thing she feels is the most exquisite stroking sensation. He must be using the two big ostrich feathers on her. She never imagined that feathers on her skin could feel so intense, full of power. He strokes them one at time across the skin of her back, speeding up so that her skin is tingling beneath the sensation of the fluttering feathers, as if they are thousands of butterfly kisses assaulting her naked body.
He removes the feathers and pours more heated, scented oil on to her back, starts working it into her skin. This is no ordinary massage. It is as if she and her masseur, Leonardo, are in unity, as if all the sensations of her body are working through him in a circle back into her again. He presses down upon her back with his hands, and then he lies, full length, upon her back, lightly, so as not to crush her. It is a wonderful sensation to feel his naked skin upon hers, the weight of his body pressing into her, the surprising softness of his skin.
He slowly peels his body away from hers, and now all trace of tension within her has vanished.
‘Turn over again, please,’ Leonardo says, softly.
She opens her eyes for an instant as she turns over on to her back, and she sees him looking down at her in a way she has never seen him look at her before. It is a look of deep love and understanding. She closes her eyes, a little shaken by his expression.
Leonardo is on his knees beside her. He gently strokes her breasts again, her stomach. He takes her left leg and lifts it at the knee, bending it slightly and propping it on his lap, so that her leg is turned out. Now she is revealed to him completely. He bathes her pelvis with warm, fragrant oil, pours it on to her vagina, so that she is no longer afraid of how she looks to him. It all merges into one delicious sensation – the sliding oil and her own juices.
She can feel him massaging the mound and outer lips of her yoni. He doesn’t rush, gently squeezing the outer lips and then sliding up and down the entire length of each lip. He repeats the process with the inner lips of her yoni. It is an incredible sensation: slip, slide, up and down, again and again. She has never experienced this before.
Gently stroking the clitoris in clockwise and counter-clock-wise circles, he squeezes it, just like he did with her pussy. She is drifting, but not into an unconnected fantasy; she is drifting into her own bliss, her own rapture. She feels golden.
He pours more oil on to her and then she can feel him, ever so carefully and gently, inserting his finger into her yoni. It is as if he is tentatively exploring her inside, massaging each cell of her, internally. There is no feeling of an end to this massage, no outcome or climax. He is taking his time, feeling her up, down and sideways, varying depth, speed and pressure.
Her body is humming, like a song from her soul that she has never heard before. And now she knows he must be massaging what Leonardo calls her sacred spot: her G-spot. He moves side to side, back and forth and, at the same time, she can feel him circling her clitoris again. She is throbbing deep within herself, trembling, her insides fluttering like the beating wings of a humming- bird. She cannot control herself any longer as she orgasms beneath his touch.
‘Keep breathing,’ Leonardo whispers to her.
She has this urge to stop now – it is enough – and yet Leonardo continues to massage her.
‘Don’t give in,’ he says. ‘Keep breathing.’
She sinks back into the sensation of his touch, slows her breath. He is continuing to massage her sacred spot and clitoris at the same time. She gasps, a deep, gut-wrenching gasp from deep within her belly, and orgasms again. Still he doesn’t stop massaging her.
She tries to steady her breath, but she is a riot of sensation and emotion. She climaxes again, this time even more intensely than the first two times. Now she cannot stop herself, and yet, each time she comes, it is even more ecstatic than the time before. It feels like a pure orgasm, coming from the root of her own sexuality, with no need for S&M fantasies to turn her on, or even thoughts of Theo and her love for him. This is all about love and acceptance of herself.
Gradually, gently, Leonardo removes his finger from inside her, stroking her all the time on her thighs and her belly. She is still vibrating from deep within. She opens her eyes, and he is looking down at her, smiling softly. There is no need for words. She sits up and hugs him.
‘Thank you,’ she whispers.
