I lotioned myself up really well, including my nipples, which were sure to receive plenty of abuse. After that, there was nothing left to do but wait and stress, and mull over my life choices. I drifted into the guest room and lifted a stack of pillows in the closet, and took out the pair of binoculars secreted there.
He’d never specifically told me that I couldn’t use the binoculars, but I was furtive when I borrowed them, and I always put them back under the pillows as if they’d never been disturbed. I took them out to the living room and focused on my old apartment across the street. Someone else was living there now, a boring, traditional couple that I spied on from time to time. They might be boring, but they were also happy. I was supposed to be happy too.
Oh, hell. I was happy. I was just scared of losing him again, because it had happened too many times before. I kept his poetry in a special scrapbook, in the same closet where he kept the binoculars, and I clung to those heartfelt poems as evidence that everything was okay. He wrote the poems himself now. They were short and sweet, and wonderful.
I lowered the binoculars. The couple wasn’t there right now. I rested my head against the glass and wondered if anyone was spying on me, the worried looking girl whose brown hair and brown eyes matched her brown slave collar. I had to stop worrying. I had to stop expecting him to desert me. I’d asked him to trust me, and the flip side of that was that I had to trust him.
I went back to the guest room and hid the binoculars, took one last look at my appearance, and went into his room. He had a chair in there, a hard wooden chair where I was expected to wait for him at least ten minutes prior to his expected arrival. Back straight, feet on the floor, hands in your lap. You’ll be there ten minutes before you expect me, not eight minutes, or five minutes.
The first few days I lived here, he’d taught me a hundred rules, a hundred expectations for my behavior when I was in our slave space—his bedroom and the dungeon beyond. There were rules about my hair (always down, never up), about my jewelry (nothing but stud earrings), about when I could look away from him (never, in the dungeon), about when I could talk (never, in the dungeon). Respectful talk in the bedroom was allowed, but it was at my own risk. If I annoyed him, I paid the price.
The respect spilled out of the bedroom into other areas of our life. Sometimes, at company dinners or events, I almost called him Sir. That was a no-no. I was careful what I said to him, unlike the times before, when I spoke more freely. The times before, meaning before slavery and ownership and the consuming control he exercised over me now. I’d wanted that control. I’d begged for it. I checked the collar to be sure the O-ring was at the front, and listened for the sound of him at the door.
He arrived within a few minutes of six o’clock and found me sitting as I was supposed to be, back straight, feet on the floor, hands in my lap. He strolled over to me as I drank him up with my eyes. Master, please master me. Please punish me so we can start fresh again and I can do things right.
When he reached me, he clasped my neck and tilted my face up for a kiss. That kiss was for being where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to be doing. It didn’t last.
He pulled away and turned his back on me, shrugged off his suit jacket and disappeared into the closet. He reappeared in a pair of jeans and nothing else, such a flawless specimen of enticing masculinity that I could have sobbed. His abs were flat and hard, and his jeans rode just below his hips to showcase perfect iliac furrows. I flushed as he crossed to me, all business.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“Yes, Sir.”
“You understand why you’re being punished?”
“Yes, Sir. I’m being punished for not being more proactive in my business. For not…for not working harder at getting my art out into the world.”
He studied me a moment, with an intensity that made me squirm. “All it takes is inspiration. You of all people should know that.” He touched my cheek, a soft touch before the storm. “Maybe I can inspire you. Or at least light a fire under your ass. Hold out your arms.”
He pulled the manacles I’d made from his pocket. I let out a slow breath as he secured them around my wrists, closing each clasp with a click. I was sure he’d used the words “fire” and “ass” with intentional purpose. My ass, as they say, was grass, as was any other part of my body he thought suitable for punishment tonight.