Kurt finished tying the rope off to the cleat on the wall and stepped back to survey his soulmate.

In many ways, this was his favorite part. There was so much possibility, and he held all of it in his own hands. Blaine was hanging from the pulley, stretched up on the very tips of his toes. He was naked, of course, his taut muscles already twitching with the strain of his position. His cock was free and upright, surging with excitement and the hope that weeks of edging and denial might come to an end tonight. His eyes were molasses-dark and already brimming with surrender, though Kurt had yet to do anything except string him up. Blaine had no idea what Kurt had planned, and Kurt knew that his brain was already spinning from one possibility to the next, each one ramping him up higher. But for Kurt this moment was like the calm before the storm. The only thing he had to think about was pleasing himself, because anything that pleased him would by definition please Blaine. And there were so very many ways he could please himself.

He loved to draw it out, this moment of infinite possibility, to heighten the anticipation for both of them. He weighed his options silently, taking a slow tour around Blaine's suspended body. So exposed. So vulnerable to whatever Kurt chose to do to him. Later, there might be a blindfold, but for now Blaine's eyes followed Kurt as far as they could as he circled. A gag, perhaps, Kurt thought as Blaine's neck craned to keep him in sight, when Blaine reached the point where he couldn't or wouldn't hold back his cries any longer.

Something on that gorgeous ass, of course, Kurt mused as he passed it. The heavy flogger, perhaps? Although he never got tired of the tawse. He hadn't expected to find such a blunt, harsh instrument so compelling, but he loved the tawse just as much as Blaine did. He loved the marks it left and the way it made his boy scream. Yes, the tawse. And he could use the flogger on Blaine's impatient cock. That produced a completely different but just as arresting sound and Kurt had long ago accepted the eroticism he found in offering relentless pain to that part of Blaine's body that most longed for pleasure.

Clamps on his nipples, certainly, and Kurt would decide in the moment whether he felt Blaine needed something light and sharp or heavy and agonizing. He'd tease them first, though, those impossibly responsive little nubs, until Blaine was writhing so hard that he lost his footing and swung freely from the ceiling. Then he could use the chain between the clamps to pull and swing Blaine harder. Blaine might cry then. Helplessness always made him cry.

Kurt raised his eyes from Blaine's chest to his face just in time to catch the kaleidoscope of emotions that his scrutiny had inspired, before Blaine pushed them all away and forced his expression back to his default submissive acceptance. But Kurt knew he'd be seeing them all again, in the course of the evening, ecstatic highs and desperate lows and everything in between. He wondered if his own expressions as they moved together through this intimate space were as familiar to Blaine as Blaine's were to him. He wondered, but now wasn't the time to ask.

Kurt circled behind Blaine again, watching Blaine crane as far as he could, until he had to give up and face forward again. He wrapped his arms around Blaine's torso – a shudder at this first contact rocked Blaine's body against his – and he stroked over those tiny nipples, again and again, until Blaine was wound up and quivering from head to foot, struggling to keep his toes on the floor.

Years ago, Kurt, in this moment before, would have been asking himself a thousand questions. Back then, each step had felt like a journey in itself, fraught with pitfalls and the possibility of failure. But that kind of uncertainty was a thing of the past. Now he was a virtuoso and his instrument was Blaine's body, his mind and his emotions. Now, Kurt only had one question on his lips as they hovered on this precipice, and he pressed a kiss to Blaine's ear and whispered it against his skin.

“Are you ready for this?”