The Hairband

He was reaching under his bed when his fingers grazed across its silky fabric, then spasmodically retreated as if he’d touched a venomous snake.

That can’t be, he thought. That’s impossible!

But he had to return. Had to make contact with it. This time, the pads of his fingers slid over its seductive surface as it greeted each friction ridge like an old friend. Rubbing it between his pads brought a long-forgotten smile to his lips, and with the welcoming embrace of a dear friend, he drew it out.

It was Cecilia’s magenta hairband.

The barriers he’d built around the memories they’d shared buckled and fell, just as he would want them to. Visible were all the things they had done with that same hairband. How she’d stretched it over his head to fit around his neck like a choker. Called him her good boy for wearing it so proudly. How she’d taken him to the local dom bar at three in the morning so that she could show him off. Show how he was proud to wear it for her.

He remembered how she looped it around his cock and balls as a decorative prop to use with other toys. How she had wrapped it so many times around his cock that it was purple from ache, then teased his nipples and ass until he spasmodically came with a shudder and shot his jizz from his bed to the opposing wall. How she insisted that he leave it there, and how she challenged him from further and further away to add to it. How he’d asked that she tease him mercilessly in order to succeed. To appease his mistress.

He remembered how he’d asked to be the dom early in their sessions. He’d bound her wrists to the bedposts and began trying to entice her, but gave up quickly. She had consoled him, saying it was good for him to try, but that he needed to embrace and revel in his submissive side. He never again asked, and was rewarded with diverse play sessions.

Ha also remembered how that last kiss had been so sweet, sweeter than any they’d ever exchanged. Maybe kinky play was like that. Perhaps that was recompense for greater openness and submission. His true belief differed. He believed that was why it had ended. He’d grown afraid of exposing too much. Of being too vulnerable or transparent. That someone would see through him, or that seeing them together would expose their relationship.

She had always said their play would be safe, and that he could pause or stop at any time. But now he wondered if his need to hold back eventually caused their connection to collapse. She had never been impatient with him. Never expressed disappointment. But there was that one time near the end, when they’d exchanged that last kiss. All the other kisses had been dom to sub. Purposeful and pure. During that kiss, he could have sworn that he felt her lips quiver.

Had she become unsure?

He refused to believe that. He had convinced himself that it had been his limitations that had led to the end of their sessions. What else could it have been? She was perfect, and he was as perfect for her as he could be.

Maybe that was it. The master had gotten everything possible out of the pupil.

He briefly imagined their sessions concluded due to her affection for him, but dismissed that notion quickly. He was the sub; she was the dom. Their entire relationship orbited around that, and thinking that he could have any more value to her than that came from selfishness and insecurity.

He slipped the hairband over his wrist. It hugged him back. Gently. Memorably. The way she would hug him during aftercare.

He playfully pulled and twisted it into a figure eight that held both of his wrists, like a child rediscovering a lost, revered toy. The feeling of submission was immediately there, as if it had never left. His breaths grew shorter, and his pulse quickened. His cock gave that familiar twitch.

He closed his eyes, letting the sensations flow in and over him. Tears of loss welled as he embraced remembrance, deeply missing her.

Then the slap of a book hitting the wood floor above him made his mind and body snap to attention, the way it had when she first introduced impact play. His greatest accomplishment involved learning to enjoy the sensation of a crop or whip; now, tears streamed as he wished the universe would return her. He was sure that he was ready for whatever progression she had in mind. Sure that he could be the perfect sub.

His cock twitched even more profusely now, as if nodding in agreement that it was ready, too. Ready and willing to be more vulnerable.

He undid the hairband and began to wrap it tightly around his cock. Immerse himself in the pleasures of constraint before beating off. Ready to spray the wall once more in her honor.

Then he stopped, tossed the hairband onto the bed, and wept. Not out of longing for her, but out of an inability to control his urges in ways she would have expected.

Have I learned nothing? He asked himself.

He grabbed the hairband tightly in his fist.

Why? Why did it have to be there?

The answer arrived swiftly, conjured by memory.

“This is your hairband,” she had said. “It will only be worn for you.”

He thought that was silly at the time.

It’s a cheap hairband. What would it matter if someone else had it used on them?

But then came the time when she had pulled the hairband from her locks and set it down to freshen up. When she returned, she found him looking oddly at it.

“What’s the matter?” She had asked him.

“There’s blonde hair tangled in this,” he said. “Neither of us has blonde hair.”

She didn’t answer him. Simply continued with their routine.

He didn’t push the issue. After all, it was just a hairband.

But that’s not what she had called it. She had said it was his hairband.

That session didn’t go well for either of them. The aftercare seemed abrupt and insincere.

It was the following session that had ended with the last kiss.

He peered out the window. The afternoon seemed so full of possibility as flowers danced in the breeze. So much life out there to explore.

He looked down at the hairband, all that their relationship had brought him, and all that had been left unfulfilled. The faint desire to return to the past caused him to raise the hairband to his nose, but he stopped short and lowered it to his lap once more. A discontented sigh escaped his lips, and for the longest time, he stared into the distance. Then he opened his bedside drawer, placed the magenta hairband inside, and closed it.

It was, after all, his hairband.