The box arrived on a Tuesday, discreet and matte black, the kind of packaging that whispered rather than shouted. Becky left it on the kitchen island like a sleeping bomb, its very presence altering the atmosphere of their shared loft. Jessica knew what it was, of course. They had chosen its contents together, scrolling through sleek websites one tipsy Friday night, a shared bottle of Malbec making bravery feel like a given. They had pointed, laughed softly, whispered “That one?” and “God, can you imagine?” It had been a theoretical adventure, a map drawn for a future expedition.
Now, the map was here. And the territory felt vast and unknown.
They were not inexperienced. For three years, their intimacy had been a language built from touch, breath, and the exquisite, learned grammar of each other’s bodies. It was an artisanal craft. Becky, a luthier who repaired rare violins, approached love with a precision-tooled focus. Jessica, a sculptor who worked in reclaimed metal, brought a strength and spontaneity that could reshape the moment. Their lovemaking was a duet—sometimes a furious, clanging symphony, other times a fragile, hushed nocturne. It was enough. More than enough. It was everything.
But the curiosity had been a slow, quiet hum. A “what if” that lived in the space between Jessica’s teeth when she bit her lip, in the way Becky’s fingers would sometimes pause, hovering, as if wishing for a different kind of reach.
Now, the box sat between them as they ate pasta. It was absurd.
“We could just… put it in the closet,” Jessica said, twirling fettuccine around her fork with a sculptor’s intensity.
“We could,” Becky agreed, her voice calm. But her eyes, the color of polished oak, flicked to the box. There was a gleam there, the same one she got when presented with a rare, complex instrument in need of restoration. It was the gleam of a problem to be solved, a mechanism to be understood. “But we spent eighty-seven dollars on it.”
“The most expensive paperweight we’ll ever own.”
They laughed, the tension breaking like a snapped string. But it was still there.
It was Jessica who brought it into the bedroom later, placing it ceremoniously on the dresser while Becky brushed her teeth. She stared at it. It wasn’t intimidating, technically. It was a smooth, silicone wand, a deep amethyst color, with a simple dial at its base. They’d chosen it for its simplicity, its elegance. It looked like a modern art piece. Yet, it represented an intervention. An external actor in their private play.
Becky came in, braiding her long, chestnut hair. She saw Jessica staring at the unopened box. Without a word, she walked over, picked up her violin case from its stand, and drew out her own most precious tool: her bow. She held it loosely, its length of polished wood and taut horsehair a familiar extension of her arm.
“You know,” Becky said, her voice soft in the lamplight, “when a musician first gets a fine bow, they don’t just attack the strings. They learn its weight. Its balance. The pressure it requires to draw a true sound.” She let the bow slide through her fingers, a lover’s caress. “It’s not a replacement for the fingers on the fretboard. It’s a collaborator. It makes a new kind of music possible.”
Jessica understood. This was Becky’s lexicon. It wasn’t about a tool. It was about a new instrument. And Becky was, above all, a master of instrumentation.
“So,” Jessica said, walking to the dresser. “We learn its weight.”
Her fingers were usually sure, capable of bending steel, but they fumbled slightly on the simple cardboard seam. Inside, nestled in black foam, the wand lay. It was cool and surprisingly heavy. She lifted it out. The silicone was velvety, giving slightly under her thumb. It felt… alive, but in a passive, waiting way.
Becky took it from her. Her touch was analytical at first, turning it in the light, running her thumb over the dial, clicking it on to a low setting. A deep, nearly silent hum resonated in her palm. She switched it off. “Interesting,” she murmured. “The vibration is internal. The frequency is consistent. Not like… human touch.”
“Is that a good thing?” Jessica asked, stripping off her t-shirt, suddenly feeling both vulnerable and powerful.
“It’s a different thing,” Becky corrected, placing the wand carefully on the bed. She came to Jessica, her hands now finding the familiar landscape of her partner’s body—the welder’s muscles of her shoulders, the softness of her waist. “Human touch is variable. It trembles, it changes pressure, it gets distracted by a freckle here, a sigh there. This…” she glanced at the wand, “this is a pure, focused intention. It’s a single, sustained note. We get to be the musicians who decide what to do with it.”
The shift in perspective was a revelation. The object was no longer an intruder. It was a new element in their composition.
They began as they always did, with the known symphony. Becky’s mouth on Jessica’s neck, Jessica’s hands threading through Becky’s hair, pulling her closer. The familiar heat built, a comfortable, glorious fire. But tonight, there was an extra current in the air, a shared awareness of the amethyst instrument lying beside them.
Becky was the first to introduce it. Her lips were trailing down Jessica’s sternum when her hand left its usual path and closed around the wand. She didn’t turn it on. She simply used its smooth, cool head to trace the outer lines of Jessica’s breasts, down the sensitive curve of her hip, a foreign sensation that made Jessica gasp. It was the contrast—the warmth of Becky’s breath on one nipple, the shocking, inert cool of the silicone tracing the other.
“Okay?” Becky whispered, her eyes dark pools of inquiry.
“More than okay,” Jessica breathed.
Becky learned its weight. She explored with it, as she might test the density of a piece of wood. She drew circles on the inside of Jessica’s thigh, the velvety drag a teasing, maddening promise. Only when Jessica was arching off the bed, a raw, pleading sound in her throat, did Becky’s thumb find the dial.
She started on the lowest setting. The hum was not a sound so much as a feeling transmitted through Jessica’s skin, a bass note thrumming deep in the marrow. Becky held it just there, at the apex of her, but not touching the most sensitive point. It was agonising. It was exquisite. It was a vibration that seemed to gather all the scattered pleasure in Jessica’s body and hold it in one focused, humming point.
“God, Becky…”
“Shhh,” Becky soothed, her own breath coming faster. “Listen to the note.”
And Jessica did. She let the sensation be not just a feeling, but a sound in her nervous system—a steady, resonant drone. Becky began to move it, slow circles, the vibration now painting broad, impossible strokes of pleasure. It was nothing like a tongue, or fingers. It was a pervasive, unrelishing shimmer. It was too much, and not enough.
Jessica’s hand shot out, covering Becky’s, stilling her. “Wait. My turn.”
They switched places in a tangle of limbs and laughter. The wand, now warm from Becky’s skin, felt different in Jessica’s grasp. She was not a luthier; she was a sculptor. She didn’t think in notes, but in form, pressure, space.
She didn’t tease. She worshipped. She turned the dial higher, the hum deepening into a powerful throb. She pressed it against Becky’s inner thigh, watching the muscle jump. She used it like a chisel, not to carve away, but to carve into sensation, finding the hidden contours of Becky’s arousal. She learned that a light, fluttering pass over her clit with the highest setting made Becky cry out, while a firm, sustained pressure with a medium pulse made her grind down, her eyes squeezed shut in deep concentration.
It was Becky who, in a gasp, guided Jessica’s hand. “Not just… there. Everywhere.”
And so Jessica painted her with it. She ran the humming length up her sides, along her spine, over the tight buds of her nipples. The vibration became a golden thread, stitching a tapestry of pleasure across her entire body, making every nerve ending a point of light before finally, inevitably, returning to the centre, now impossibly sensitised and weeping.
That’s when the true collaboration began. Becky took the wand back, her movements no longer exploratory, but compositional. She used it as a baseline, the sustained drone, while her mouth provided the melody. The juxtaposition was shattering. The flat, consistent vibration against her clit, paired with the hot, sinuous, living flick of Becky’s tongue inside her, created a harmony Jessica had never dreamed existed. Her orgasm didn’t crest; it built in layered waves, each one reinforced by that unwavering, hummmming note, until it broke not with a cry, but with a long, shuddering exhalation that seemed to go on forever.
After, trembling, she returned the favour. She used the wand on Becky while her fingers worked inside her, curving just so. She watched, mesmerised, as Becky’s analytical composure completely dissolved under the dual assault of predictable vibration and unpredictable, loving touch. Becky’s climax was quiet, a series of sharp, breathless hitches, her back bowing like a drawn bowstring before she collapsed, pulling Jessica down atop her.
They lay spent, the wand discarded beside them, still humming faintly on the rumpled duvet until Jessica reached over and switched it off. The sudden silence was profound.
Becky traced the line of Jessica’s jaw. “So. Review?”
Jessica laughed, a rich, full sound from deep in her chest. “It’s… a very good collaborator.”
“It is,” Becky agreed, snuggling closer. “But it has no hands to hold me after. It doesn’t know my favourite song. It can’t get distracted by the way the light hits your hip.”
“No,” Jessica said, kissing her forehead. “It’s just an instrument. We’re the music.”
They fell asleep entangled, the matte black box empty on the floor. The instrument had been mastered, not as a replacement, but as a new, vibrant paint on their already expansive palette. They had composed a new kind of song together, one that required both a sculptor’s boldness and a luthier’s precise ear. And they knew, with a warm, sated certainty, that this was only the first movement.
