Switch

by Clarice Clique

  Did the slave see the same things I did as he cautiously looked at them? He was too obviously nervous and not wanting them to notice his attention. But no one did notice him; this was a place where people wanted their own thoughts and their own company.

  There was only him looking at them. And me looking at him. Him waiting for me. Me waiting for my master. It was a strange sense of being between two relationships. As soon as I saw my lover I knew I had to follow him. I didn’t even know. It was instinct, like breathing, like staying balanced when we move; a deep calculation and complex process the body works out without the conscious mind ever being involved.

  With this slave, I could watch him, I could go down to him, I could text him and tell him to drive home.

  Perhaps there was some connection between us like he’d suggested: as I was thinking about texting him, the slave got his phone out and stared at it as if he was willing it to ring. He glanced hopefully around the shop. In that instant there was something so vulnerable and wistful about him that I did almost go to him. Almost. I couldn’t meet a new person right now. I couldn’t meet any person right now. I looked up at the ceiling and thought of my lover on the floor above. All the times he’d tied me up and left me alone, I should have been used to having him out of my sight and not knowing what he was doing. But of course, I wasn’t.

  Fifteen minutes later, my lover hadn’t descended to see me and the slave was still sidling up to women and then quickly moving away below me.

  I sent Slave a text.

  Go to your car and wait.

  I do not know honestly if the curtness was for his benefit or mine. Watching his mannerisms, knowing the sexual role he preferred, the fact he’d waited so long for Wickedgirl to appear, I felt I understood him. Or I understood one part of him anyway, the part that was like me. He wanted orders, simple commands that he could respond to.

  And I didn’t want to be so cruel as to stand someone up, but I couldn’t meet a stranger and be funny and witty and charming and pretty and all the other amazing things you’re supposed to be when you invite a man to drive 50 miles to see you. Neither did I want to start our face-to-face relationship by giving him the most private parts of my life, nor could I summon the energy to create a lie that wouldn’t be insulting and hurtful in its obvious falseness.

  I was being direct, in any other situation rude, for his benefit, but it suited me too. The slave paused. Appearing to read the text several times, he gazed around the lower floor of the shop one last time and left.

  I followed shortly after him, deciding to go for a smiling pretence at normality – whatever that was – with the shopkeeper. Outside, I walked down the street texting a short message to my lover.

  I can taste you on my tongue. Your little slut is hungry for more. But you’re safe. Your temptation has left the building.

  At home I gave my flat a cursory clean, showered, washed my hair, put on a light layer of make-up, touched up my nails and phoned Slave.

  ‘Hello, mistress.’ His voice was uncertain.

  ‘Are you in your car?’

  ‘Yes, mistress. It’s quite hot.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you for a weather report.’

  ‘Sorry, mistress. I was just saying …’

  ‘Don’t say. Listen. Go to a pub called The Fallen Angel. Order a glass of tap water for yourself and a G and T for me.’

  ‘Yes, mistress. May I ask where this pub is?’

  ‘I’m not your sat-nav.’ I put the phone down on him feeling that I had done quite well.

  True, I had told a stranger to the town to find a small pub off the main streets on his own, but I sensed that he liked the authority and it saved me the hassle of having to work out directions.

  I applied more make-up, a spray of perfume, and set out for the second time that day. At least today was giving me a break from my flat and work if nothing else.

  He was sitting at a corner table with two full glasses in front of him. I had to be impressed he’d found a table to himself when the pub was filled with students, their presence explained by posters for a poetry slam pinned over the walls. An unlucky choice of place on my part, but it would be too much to send him another text and ask him to move again. Too much at this stage, but I was sensing a potential in him for obedience that could retain my interest until my lover decided this game was over.

  I sauntered over, playing a lets-pretend game of being an incredibly desirable princess, and sat down on the chair opposite him.

  He raised his eyes. ‘Mistress?’ The word a nervous whisper.

  ‘Don’t look at me.’

  He lowered his gaze to a warped cardboard coaster on the table. ‘Yes. Mistress?’ Still the uncertainty, the question in his voice.

  I smiled, wondering if he had so much experience of unknown women approaching him in public places and ordering him not to look at them that he could doubt who I was.

  ‘Have you had a nice day, slave?’

  ‘Um, yes. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you but I thought you might be mucking me around.’

  ‘A mistress does not muck around.’ I had no real idea what a mistress did or didn’t do aside from the common image of leather and whips. I thought of my master, I thought of his quiet control. I stroked my hand over my shoulder where he’d held me mere hours earlier. I hoped I was bruised; I wished his fingerprints were tattooed into my flesh.

  ‘Sorry. I mean, I thought after the bookshop you might not be meeting me. I understand perfectly that you might change your mind.’ The slave’s eyes rose; a natural habit rather than deliberate disobedience. I met his gaze with a warning look and he immediately went back to staring at the table.

  ‘Why didn’t you go upstairs in the bookshop?’

  Again his gaze lifted, this time in surprise. I slammed the palm of my hand down on the table. A few students looked over, but my version of a mistress did not care what other people saw or thought.

  He looked down. ‘Sorry, mistress. I mean, I’m sorry. For looking at you and for not going upstairs in the shop. Were you there?’

  ‘You don’t ask me questions.’

  ‘I remember, mistress, you told me when we spoke. If you were upstairs, I didn’t realise. I stayed downstairs, I didn’t want you to arrive and not see me and think I wasn’t there. I texted you asking where I should be.’

  ‘I made a simple enquiry, slave Don’t start whining and making excuses.’ This was surprisingly easy. I was taking my master as a guide for dominance, but I was being nothing like him. I was more like some Disney baddie, a Cruella De Vil, stamping down a lesser mortal.

  ‘Sorry, mistress.’

  Was this turning him on? I was curious rather than desirous.

  ‘I brought you this.’ He ruffled around in his pocket and slid a folded bit of paper across the table.

  I unfolded it. “Mistress” written over and over again in the careful, rounded handwriting of a child learning their first words.

  ‘I wanted to show you I did it, like you asked.’

  Had I asked?

  ‘And I also have a present for you to thank you for your kindness and grace. I don’t use the word “grace” lightly, I mean it completely. I can tell you have a beautiful spirit.’ He put his silvery wrapped package on the table between us. ‘Mistress, this is my most precious possession. When you suggested that we meet in a bookshop I knew you’d appreciate it. It is a first edition copy of Lord of the Rings . It’s printed on India paper. Prices are down a bit at the moment, but when I got it, it was worth several hundred pounds.’

  ‘Money doesn’t always indicate value.’ I placed my right hand lightly on top of the paper, sliding the tips of my fingers across the shiny surface.

  ‘No. You’re very wise, mistress. I knew you were. I hope you don’t think I’m being foolish, but I wanted to give it to you as it is the thing that matters most to me. It is the only thing I could give you that shows my gratitude and affection.’ The words bubbled out of his mouth. He clearly wanted
to talk, and would talk all night. If I allowed him to.

  ‘Isn’t a gift like this more appropriate for your real mistress?’

  The poetry slam began in the middle of my question; he leaned closer to try and hear me.

  ‘You have no affection for your current mistress, do you, slave?’ I didn’t raise my voice to compete with the noise of the student currently shouting out her passion.

  ‘Black Heart!

  ‘Cruel World!

  ‘No Part!

  ‘No Meld!’

  ‘I respect Mistress Crimson, mistress. She has been very kind to me, she’s been trying to teach me,’ he said loudly, although he looked around nervously to see if any of the students were distracted from the performer and listening to him instead.

  ‘What has she been trying to teach you?’

  His face and neck coloured. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever blushed in my life. I awaited his confession, wondering what it could be to make a BDSM player ashamed.

  ‘I’m a virgin,’ he said.

  Oh dear gods. And goddesses too.

  ‘Is there anything else you want to tell me?’ My voice was calm, though I was aware of every thump of my heart.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Then I will tell you some things. To me you are a piece of meat. I’ll use you. I’ll devour you. I’ll discard you. That is how it’ll be, that is all you can expect. How does that make you feel?’

  ‘Excited, mistress.’

  I stood up. ‘Do you like performance poetry?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I don’t really know anything about poetry.’

  ‘Then you can learn tonight. You’ll sit through the whole evening here.’ I picked up the wrapped present and the folded piece of paper. ‘You can respectfully inform Mistress Crimson you will not be seeing her again. Enjoy the rest of the poetry slam. I’ll be in touch, slave.’

  At home I unwrapped his gift. The book was beautiful. I yearned to take it to my master. I rewrapped it in its paper and pushed it to the back of my wardrobe. I went to sleep with the piece of paper with all the mistresses written over it crumpled up in my hand.

  Chapter Eight - Learning

  Dean stood naked in front of the mirror, trying out different poses. Mistress had told him not to think, just to take the photo. In the end he set up his camera’s timer and just stood in front of it with his hands by his side.

  He took nine more: with his arms folded; with his hands behind his back; side views; sitting down. In the end, he emailed her the first one.

  She’d seen his cock before. Last week, when they went to the art gallery, she made him drive along with no trousers or underwear on as a punishment for some slight error he’d made when he addressed her.

  No, Dean reminded himself. There are no slight errors.

  He picked up the slave contract that he kept on his bedside cabinets and which he read dutifully through every night before sleep.

  On Wednesday he’d forgotten to hide it when Helena came round. His fiancée didn’t normally have any interest in his bedroom, but she’d wanted, for some reason that he couldn’t understand – she said something about planning what to take on the honeymoon that wasn’t booked yet – to make an inventory of all his clothes. She hadn’t got very far. She went through his socks, throwing out a couple of pairs that she complained were too worn. Then she opened his underwear drawer, stared down at it for a moment, before abruptly closing it. After that she sat on his bed and talked and talked and talked. He was nervous in case she saw the contract and wondered what it was, but she didn’t seem to require anything more than the occasional “yes” or murmur of agreement. Finally she left and he settled down in bed, barely able to remember a single thing she’d said. This gave him a twinge of doubt until he started reading his contract, like he was now, and then he thought of nothing but his mistress.

  He’d had to rewrite it countless times before his mistress declared it was acceptable, and still there was only his signature at the bottom.

  The first version, having had no experience and never having heard of such a thing before, he cribbed off the internet. She told him to get rid of all the references to slave vetoes and safewords.

  ‘You’re mine,’ she said. ‘I’ll do with you what I want.’

  She had such a soft, gentle voice that it gave him an extra thrill that such a beautiful creature could say such hard things to him. There was never any uncertainty or doubt in her commands and statements.

  He thought of her as beautiful, but in truth he didn’t know much about her appearance. He was forbidden from looking at her; that was one of the rules, printed out in black ink on top quality paper, secure in its binder, irrefutable, as he reminded himself every night when he read it. He caught glances, though. Initially she had told him to walk behind her and then he‘d complimented her on how shapely her legs were and how much they turned him on. After that he was ordered to walk in front of her.

  There were times he disobeyed, not on purpose. He just got overexcited and looked up, or turned around at the wrong moment. He was fairly certain she had brown eyes, a guess that came as much from the colouring of her skin and her gorgeous dark, curly hair, as from glimpses he had caught of her face.

  His overall sense of her attractiveness came from her hands, which were the part of her he saw the most, resting on the table in a pub, reaching out to take something from him, in his dreams, digging into his balls. She had long nails that were a fantasy on their own. Every time he saw her they were painted in different colours, deep purples, bright reds, pastel blues, sometimes in intricate patterns of graduated shades.

  His mistress’s favourite standard punishment was to say, ‘Squeeze,’ and Dean had to respond immediately by gripping his balls until she told him, ‘Stop.’ He got through the pain by imagining it was her nails pressing into him.

  Dean read through the first paragraph – his favourite – of the contract aloud, in a similar manner to which he used to sit in empty rooms reading the Bible to himself.

  ‘The slave submits in entirety to his mistress. There are no limitations on location, time, or situation in which the slave may refuse to obey his mistress’s command without being subject to punishment of his mistress’s choosing. Within the terms of the Slavery Contract the slave agrees that their body, possessions, finances, and assets belong to his mistress to dispose of in any way she so desires. The slave is not an autonomous person, but a belonging of his mistress. He has no rights outside this contract. The slave lives to entertain his mistress, he exists only to give her pleasure with his service.’

  It gave him an elation that he could not describe. It was as if this document, this proof that he was simply one of his mistress’s possessions, was what he had been praying for all his life.

  His mistress encouraged – no, ordered him to become more familiar with his emotions. She gave him lists of books to read, poems to study, artists to research. She asked continuous questions about his childhood. He told her about things he hadn’t thought about for a long time; sneaking into neighbours’ houses in search of food, drinking water out of the toilet, stealing money from his stepmother’s purse and talking his brother into running away with him.

  She absorbed everything with no comment, just more questions.

  In some ways he preferred those questions to the other ones about his opinions. She was obviously far more intelligent than him, and he was trying with all the books but he knew he’d never catch up with her. He went to the Tate art gallery for the first time under her direction and found himself standing in front of a sunset by Turner with tears in his eyes. The light in it was divine and he’d wasted so many years of his life not knowing that such beauty existed and was so readily available to anyone who wanted to step out of the hustle of London and into a vision of paradise.

  And then there were the questions about his sexual experience.

  ‘I know you, slave,’ his mistress said. ‘You’re cunning and manipulative.’

  ‘
I don’t think that’s fair, mistress. I just like to think of ways around problems and talk people around to seeing things my way.’

  ‘Don’t contradict me, you stupid fuck! Squeeze now.’

  ‘Yes, mistress. Sorry, mistress.’

  ‘Our relationship is based on a certain understanding. You belong to me and that means you have to tell me everything. I have to know everything. If you give me reason not to trust you then we have nothing. You’ll be nothing to me. You may stop squeezing now.’

  ‘Thank you, mistress. You’re very kind to me.’

  * * *

  Dean hadn’t told Mistress about Helena. He hadn’t told her that every Sunday he went to church with a beautiful blonde and spent the morning receiving queries about his marriage, suggestions about wedding colour schemes, and polite hinting that he should set a definite date.

  He meant to tell her. But he didn’t. Despite all of the things that he revealed to her, things he’d never dreamt of sharing with anyone else, he couldn’t imagine himself telling her that he was accidentally engaged.

  Dean read through the contract again. He imagined his mistress sitting and listening to him. He imagined her receiving the email he’d just sent her and showing it to all her friends, laughing and mocking his manhood and his stupidity in doing everything that she told him.

  His cock reacted to the image. He glanced down at his erection; it looked so bulbous, he felt it would literally explode. Mistress had forbidden him from self-pleasuring at a time when he was experiencing more sensuality and stimulus than he had throughout all the rest of his time on this earth.

  Still, he had managed to abstain. And tomorrow he was going to meet some other ladies, where he was permitted to have release if they allowed it.

  His mistress, so strict and stern in many respects, and so clear about him being her possession, had actively encouraged him to find other BDSM players to serve.

  ‘Would you be happy continuing the rest of your life under my command with the knowledge that there would never be anything physical between us?’ she had asked.