The copper kettle cried gently from on high.

In its previous incarnation, it was merely decorative, something that hung from a bar ceiling to give the illusion of rustic authenticity to a purpose-built chain pub. Tonight though, here in the garden, the boiling water that dripped from its spout whenever she moved was filled from the electric kettle in the kitchen (I’m too practical for sentimental rituals). She made a gasping noise, almost inaudible, at the drip’s impact on the back of her neck.

“Please,” she said.

It was the sound of the water that thrilled me at first: the tiny, hissed breath of steam as the boiling droplet hit the cool of her skin; and then the way it ran slowly down her back like rain on a window, swerving on its course around the bumps of vertebrae, wriggling down against the small, involuntary lurches as she tried not to struggle against the ropes around her wrists. After all, she knew that if she moved, the next drip would fall, smashing agonisingly against the nape of her neck and beginning its journey down her spine, following the track of its recent predecessor.

“Let me touch you,” she sobbed. “I just want to touch you.”

The sky was featureless and black above the garden, suburban horizon smudged with brown from the streetlamps. There was something almost blasphemous about the tableau here: the woman half-kneeling like a graveside statue in the dark, on the patch of rain-nourished lawn between the rose beds, pale and nude, arms cruciform, wrists bound, pulling desperately downward to hold the slack, her bare shins on the wet grass, antique copper kettle suspended above her on the taut rope that ran between outstretched arms and looped up around the metal frame of the fold-up washing line. It reminded me a little of that famous quote by Bertrand Russell about God, daring us to disprove the existence of a Celestial Teapot floating merrily around the sun.

“No,” I said, with a kindly smile.

Predicament bondage excites me. It might be because I grew up watching James Bond, Batman, Penelope Pitstop, and a host of other characters who would not merely be executed outright by the charismatic villain, but instead find themselves tied to a timebomb, or various pieces of sawmill equipment, or a complicated contraption involving laser beams or similar. This is flawed, as the heroes inevitably escape and win whatever battle they’ve waged. Yet I adore the concept of entirely automated torture. Quicksand inspires me – the fact that its victims come to more harm if they try to struggle or swim than if they merely keep still and submit to its unthinking authority.

“Please,” she murmured hopelessly towards the wet ground as I rolled my fingertips around her button-hard nipples.

A tiny shiver in her bowed head sent the kettle rocking gently, just once, and another drop of boiling water fell, forcing a sharp inhalation as it hit. She was the vital part in a machine that was tied in perfect equilibrium. So simple: rope; washing line; copper kettle; boiling water; her, arms splayed and weeping. One tiny drip at a time. Pain with precision. After all, a larger splash would scald her, stripping the skin, and neither of us wanted that. The mechanism allowed only the smallest, most excruciating droplet to fall with every flinch. Perhaps she was frightened, or – ha! – excited even, that someone would see us out here. The panel-fence gave little privacy, if anyone knew to look at this time of night. The rain-jewelled lawn shimmered and blinked in the light breeze. Plip, hiss, gasping breath. All was quiet.

“Keep still,” I whispered calmly, just as I had before. “If you keep still, the drips will stop. It’s very simple really.”

Her head hung low, hair draped like a curtain, obscuring her mascara-slicked face. “I can’t.”

“You should,” I said, one hand down between her bare thighs, finger sliding its gentle orbit round her swollen clit, those hot, wet lips pulsing against my skin.

The woman’s body shuddered again, and she cried out as another burning droplet exploded at the top of her spine. My eyes followed the thin, florid tracks of the previous drips, haphazard red scribbles, parallel lines snaking down the length of her back, diving to join up as a neat little delta at the cleft of her buttocks.

“Please,” she whimpered softly, with as little movement as possible, muscles tense and rigid. “I’m going to cum.”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” I said flatly, fingers working faster now, pushing harder, drenched. “Not unless you can do it whilst keeping completely still.”

“Oh god, please stop,” she gasped, right at the edge of her own control, another boiling droplet falling, landing, darting down the hollow of her spine. “Oh god!”

I felt the tremor like a single ripple in still water at first, there at my fingertip. The full force of the orgasm hit her then, throbbing in waves, torrents, writhing helplessly, clenching, bucking against my hand, drip after burning drip rattling down her back from above as the washing line shook. She opened her mouth in pain and ecstasy, face twisted, lips frozen in a silent cry, my pitiless fingers caressing her on into further depths of oblivion. Her naked body contorted, a martyr to the Celestial Teapot, she hissed the words again:

“Oh. God.”