Just You Wait

Chapter 7 - The Bottle

The Rain In Spain

"Severus...that was...amazing."

Snape retrieved a small vial from an inner pocket of his robes. "Stay where you are," he said sharply as Hermione made to get up. He punctuated his command with a firm nudge in the middle of her back, pushing her over again onto the sofa.

In a quick change from the sensual languor of the past few minutes, Snape adjusted Hermione's position in front of him, tucked her skirts out of the way as if preparing her to walk down a Paris runway, and began to speak in his best teacher voice, "It may seem to you that you have been sufficiently punished, what with my...thorough...use of you, but fortunately, we are only half-done." He smirked evilly and regarded her with eyes that glittered with predatory interest. "This substance, a potion that I had heard of years ago and forgotten about, will ensure that you will be able to continue to live these moments of passion, even when you rejoin the party." The last sentence was delivered in a seductive, sinister drawl that made Hermione's stomach tighten with desire...and apprehension. Snape held the tinted, unmarked bottle in front of her, then dabbed some of the contents onto the fingertips of his right hand and reached back around her.

As anxious breaths caught in Hermione's throat, he began to work the thick oil carefully into her inner and outer lips, and continued conversationally, "It is a substance used primarily by wizards in the Middle East. At the conference in Barcelona, an acquaintance of mine from my distant past happened to have some on him...I have never been clear on whether it is a tool of pleasure or torture." It wasn't strictly true that the wizard had simply happened to have some on him. When Severus recognised him, and remembered what had made this man famous (in certain circles), Severus had had the wizard send him a bottle through the Floo.

On the U-curve, Hermione's reaction to the oil was every bit as intense as Severus's was casual. He chuckled wickedly as she gasped and shuddered in his arms. "Oh, oh, OooohhhMyyyyGoddddd!!! You bastard!!" At this, he laughed out loud. Knowing its effects by reputation, all the gold in Gringotts couldn't have persuaded him to endure what he was about to do to the woman he had married. But he remembered the words he had quoted to her, on the occasion of the first of many nights she spent on her back in his sitting room: "Believe me, the pleasure of love must not be hurried, but gradually built up by delaying it as long as possible" ... and at the time, she seemed to be in perfect agreement. Ahem.

Hermione, on the other hand, wasn't finding this funny AT ALL. When Severus showed her the vial, then made to anoint her with its contents, she expected some wizarding version of a Muggle sex toy - a novelty item that would feel warm, or tickle a little, or taste like bananas. She should have known better. This was Severus Snape. Not a Muggle. Not a Weasley. Not a man with scruples, a conscience, or a sense of humour. (Maybe that was going a bit far - after all, he seemed to find this scenario quite hilarious...)

When Severus began applying the oil, Hermione's first reaction was a sigh of pleasure at his gentle touch - his fingers, so able and sure, moving in and over her nether lips. But quick on the heels of his welcome caress came an ache, an awakening ache, that made her feel as if her body had lain dormant for 36 years, and was now stretching, swelling, and straining towards the catalyst that coaxed it astir.

The female body is an amazing thing. Mark Twain said, in so many words, that women's bodies were made for pleasure. (A little risqué coming from a 19th century author, but more so because he meant their own pleasure.) He said that in all fairness, a woman deserved to have four orgasms to each of her husband's one. Thank you, Mr. Clemens. I'll send you a postcard and tell you how it feels. When my orbit decays sufficiently.

It was as if the nerve endings in her labia had been stripped, or duplicated, and hard-wired to her nipples, her womb, and every other erogenous zone on her body. The tiniest friction, or movement of her body, felt as if she were being teased mercilessly by a thousand hot, wet tongues. Muscular probes made maddeningly gentle. She felt herself arching to press against a stimulus that wasn't there - it was only her own slick, swollen walls. And swollen they were, or felt so. Hermione felt Severus's fingers sliding through her folds, and the plump flesh pushed teasingly back at him as he probed.

Unbeknownst to herself, Hermione made a most amusing picture as her husband tended to her anointment. He held her in his left arm as he worked, and he smirked at the glassy, unfocused cast to her eyes, and her slack mouth, hung open in a permanent gasp of utter astonishment. Ah well, she'll be on her feet soon enough. If I can only get her out onto the dance floor...

-*~~*~~*-

Having coated her thoroughly outside, he replenished the oil on his fingers and began to work it up inside her, meticulously filling every swollen, tender crevice. Her vaginal walls felt bruised and sore already, and Severus blanched a little at the thought of how the magical oil would enhance her sensitivity. He knew that one of its primary effects was to enforce constant stimulation, by making a woman's genitalia so swollen that even the tiniest movement made the sensitive flesh caress itself. And yes, it was always a woman - men just couldn't handle it, thank the Gods. It was particularly uncomfortable inside, because while the sensation of swollen labia is familiar and even welcome, it was most ... disconcerting for a woman to be so engorged that her inner walls met, and stroked each other with a gentle wetness that no part of any man could match. The result would be a constant, relentless ache for penetration.

Another few drops of the substance and he reached his long fingers high up into her and brushed the oil over the cone of her womb.

The sensation of Severus's fingers inside her was as if he were wiping away a numbing agent that had filled and coated her for her whole life. Curse that methodical man! Hermione arched her back reflexively as he slid around inside her, but it was no use. She was putty in his hands, in more ways than one... She could almost feel him smiling as he became aware of the moisture her poor over-used, if not ill-treated body was producing as a result of her husband's caresses, and that dratted potion. She inhaled in preparation to ask him a question, but he anticipated her.

"The substance is magical. Not only cannot it be washed, or in your case, ahem, secreted away, but in fact, it can only be neutralised by the person who applied it. Rather like an especially pleasurable chastity belt, don't you think? My dear?" He leant into the crook of her neck and murmured, in his most velvety, villainous tone, "And if you were thinking that you might - help yourself - don't bother. The makers of this oil are of the opinion that that particular pleasure is the man's job. And quite right, too." He chuckled at the groan that escaped from his darling wife's throat as he teasingly rocked her body in a slow figure-eight, showing her exactly what [the] sensations she would have to endure when she was forced to move.

-*~~*~~*-

Severus Snape knew that the duration of the Ball, for his wife, would be an ordeal. Hopefully, by the end of the evening, she would agree that it had been worthwhile. He could see that the potion he had procured from the Yemeni wizard was already paying multiply for the trouble he had taken to get it, and he tightened his grip on his wife in anticipation to her reaction to his last anointment.

"Now for the tricky bit. I wouldn't put it past you to go over the edge as I'm applying it...you're so close." Realising what he was about to do, Hermione tried to squirm out of his grasp, crying "Please, oh please, Severus, NO!! I can't bear it, I can't bear it..." Her pleading voice rose to a child-like squeal as she pulled at his left forearm in a final attempt to wiggle free. With one last tip of the bottle, he carefully patted a glistening drop of the viscous amber on her swollen, hyper-sensitive clitoris. Defeated, she slumped against him with a groan.

Just You Wait

Releasing her finally, Severus looked at Hermione with the most self-satisfied leer she had ever beheld on him. "There you go, darling. Now back to the party with you. I'm sure Mr. Potter wonders where in his house we disappeared to. I'm surprised that there have been no knocks on the door." His voice was calm, controlled, and positively dripping with smugness.

For a few seconds, all she could do was gape. Then she found her voice, if not her faculties of speech... "You ... you ... utter ..." Snape regarded her with keen interest, and at each pause, he gave her an encouraging, prompting look like a parent with a child who is just learning to use words to communicate. "...Why?..." She squeezed out finally. The effort left her drained, and she leant her head on his shoulder and looked up at him beseechingly.

"I thought I made that perfectly clear," he bit off in a seductive growl. The sound of his sexy voice made her oiled flesh throb, and an involuntary grunt from her made his smirk even more pronounced. "It is your punishment."

"For what?" Her voice held a hint of desperation, but Snape held firm in his disapproving stance. He answered her as he stood, a little stiffly, and settled her in the corner of the sofa to gather her ... composure.

"For so many things, my dear." Waving his wand, he removed the creases from his dress-robes and trousers, and from his wife's gown. Arching an eyebrow, he continued speaking. "In addition to what we already discussed," he chuckled as she rolled her eyes, "simply put, you turned my life upside down," he finished with a frown.

"Thanks to you, I am no longer free to roam the hallways at nights. In fact, I couldn't anyway, because I no longer lie awake until dawn." Severus ran his fingers through his hair, and charmed his wife's hairdo back into its pristine loveliness. Hermione sat still on the sofa, staring at her husband's knees, with a look on her face like a drunk trying to remember how to say the alphabet backwards. "I've had to learn to recognise a whole new vocabulary of sounds: your voice in a roomful of people, for instance." At this she looked up at his face, and he winked at her, continuing softly, "Various sighs and moans, I've had to learn to interpret." He hid a smile, watching the _expression on her face soften. "The literally hundreds of subtle expressions your sweet face can manage. Hmm?" He knelt in front of her and took her hands, and spoke with a stern tone and a mock frown, "Since the day I met you in this room, you have kept me thoroughly off-balance. My life has taken several 180 turns, I sometimes don't know which way is up. You have a penalty to pay for turning my life into something that I could not have ever imagined, and now could not imagine doing without." He tenderly kissed each of her little fingers, lingering over her rings. In an uncharacteristically vulnerable gesture, he laid his head in her lap and encircled her waist with his long arms. They sat like that for a few minutes, while Hermione stroked her husband's soft, salt-and-pepper hair.

-*~~*~~*-

"Severus..." she said finally, trailing her fingers over the back of his neck, "don't you think that just my being apart from you was punishment enough?" Her voice hadn't come out the way she wanted. His gentle attentions had left her feeling a little bit choked up, and the pressure of his head in her lap had made certain...other parts of her...choke up. She had aimed for a flirtatious, persuasive tone, but what [came out] sounded rather like the lady doth protest too much.

"No, not really."

Any hope she'd had of her husband taking tender pity on her, went out the window with the owls when she saw his face. You utter bastard! was all she could think to say - but in the gap between the thought and the regrettable words, Severus stilled her indignant outburst with a warning glance. And to add insult to - well, it wasn't exactly injury, but still... he looked up at her from the vantage-point of her lap, with his arms still loose but immovable around her waist, and his face held an amused, seductive, superior look that just did her in. It wasn't fair that he could look like that. After what he put her through...

Snape rose in one graceful movement, and held out a hand to help her up. Allow me, Empress, he said with his eyes, the block is this way. With a feeling of doom, Hermione took his hand and allowed him to raise her up out of her seat.

Oh, sweet Merlin and all the deities under the stars... When she was sitting perfectly still, from the oil-slicked flesh between her legs she [had] enjoyed a piquant yet tolerable throbbing sensation. At her first movements, however, the diabolical reality of her situation made itself known. Every tiny movement made her plumped, over-sensitised flesh caress itself, producing sensations that her nerves seemed inadequate to process. The net result was a series of attention-splitting stimuli that blended themselves into one huge, homogenous, pitiful scream for relief. Horrified, Hermione thought I cannot do this. I cannot possibly make it through the rest of the evening feeling like this. Looking at her husband, she was dismayed to see on his face a look that was as close to the sadism he displayed in the potions classroom as she had seen since their marriage.

"Severus, I can't possibly do this." She was genuinely pleading with him now, thinking with dismay at the next few hours of her life. "I can't walk."

"Certainly you can, my dear. It will just be very uncomfortable. You'll be fine - you'll see." With uncustomary devilishness, Severus said his last words against her lips while he caressed her waist with chaste, yet very seductive, strokes. Hermione groaned into his mouth and almost lost her footing. "It will be worth it, you'll see." He chuckled, inching his hands upwards so that they rested just under, not on, Hermione's breasts. Oh, please touch them, she thought, and Severus must have read her mind, because his fingers continued to creep upwards, then diabolically removed themselves from her before reaching their destination. With a slight, mocking bow, her husband held out his arm to her and led her out of the room.

-*~~*~~*-

A/N: The quote from this chapter was originally cited in pigwidgeon's Pygmalion, and in it she credited Ovid's Ars Amatoria. Also thanks to Anne Rice and her Beauty series (Book III, Beauty's Release, specifically), from whence I borrowed and twisted the idea of an erotically irritating oil. If you want more insight into what an amazingly deep, original and forward-thinking man Mark Twain was, read his Letters From The Earth. You're definitely not in Mississippi any more, Huck. I haven't checked carefully, but it looks like the whole text of the book is here: http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/twainlfe.htm