The colors could mean anything. Red is fire and passion and danger. Green is nature and growth and jealously. Purple is royal. But she can’t think how he’d mean any of that. Red means stop and green means go, which leaves purple meaning nothing.
She pulls the purple ribbon out of her pocket and twists the fuzzy edge around her fingers. The velvet is soft and fine and yielding.
One time when she was leaving, he handed her a purple flower and told her to wear it in her hair so he’d be able to pick her out in a crowd. It startled her to think he saw her at times outside his room. After that, she looked for him at the train station and in the lunchtime crush but she never saw him. Still, she imagined him watching over her and she felt safe. She wore the flower until it wilted and turned brown.
She takes out the green ribbon, twisting it around the purple.
When they are together, after he’s done, he brings her tea in a green mug. It’s chipped and she pretends she doesn’t see the stains inside. She doesn’t like tea but she needs something to bridge the gap between him and the rest of her life. While she sips the tea, she readjusts. The tea is strong and sweet and milky. Workman’s tea. And even though she doesn’t like it, she drinks it when he gives it to her, her hands wrapped around the scalding, green mug. Sips it and fills herself with its robustness. It’s the green he wants her to pick.
She takes out the red ribbon and weaves it through the other two as if making some complicated cat’s cradle.
Red is the color of her blindfold, the screen he brings between her and the rest of the world. Soft yet strong. He treasures the cloth, folds it gently and returns it to a special box while everything around him is covered in a layer of dust. When he takes the cloth in his hands, she knows he delights in its feel. He runs it though his fingers and sometimes even smiles. Five times he’s smiled. Barely noticeable, just a twitch at the corner of his mouth and a crinkle at the corner of his eyes but a smile nonetheless and then his voice becomes thick like syrup. It’s the red he means.
The ribbons tangle around her fingers until she wonders if she’ll be able to separate them.
It’s a test, but she doesn’t think it’s a test she’ll pass. The note said to trust him, to trust herself and she’ll know. But she doesn’t know, so already she’s failed. Why does he leave her to guess? He’s supposed to be the one taking her hand, the one pulling her in from the ledge, but it feels like his hands aren’t guiding her in, they’re behind her, pushing her. She’s falling.
When she gets to the river, she climbs onto the bridge. She holds the ribbons up high against the dull, gray sky. They look so pretty.
Boats float in random patterns below her. They rock with the flow of the water. She leans her head against the metal rail, watching. They are anchored like she is not. She’s a boat and she’s adrift. He’s a landmass.
Lately he’s wanted more. He wants her to react. He shackles her but stares at her for a long time before he covers her eyes, cupping her face in his hands so that the impression lasts long after he’s gone. He pets her slow and soft like she’s a rare breed of cat. Other times he ignores her, leaving her alone and unguarded. He talks to her—sometimes in a language she can’t understand, more often asking questions she can’t answer. He touches her softly, trailing the rough pad of his finger over her neck and her breasts and her legs. His touch becomes firmer, squeezing and kneading and pummeling. He commands her into various positions so that he can probe and explore every part of her.
But from the moment he ties her, she’s gone. No pleasure, no pain, just emptiness.
He sighs as he unties her.
She looks up, stunned at his defeat. “Tell me, and I’ll do it.”
But he shakes his head.
She promises to do anything he asks. He turns away like she isn’t there and spoons tea into a pot, trailing an unraveling sleeve. She waits for a response. When he turns back to her, he stares at her for a long time. Then he asks her if she’s prepared to give up the surrender.
She frowns. She can’t separate the act from the man.
She hears nothing more, not until the ribbons.
She leans on the railings, holding out her hand. The ribbons stream out from her fingers, dangling in the wind. She thinks she’s ready to let go when someone pulls her back. Arms around her, pulling her down, so rough they bruise her skin. A stranger with the authority of his assumptions.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he shouts into her face. Her rescuer is big and burly, wrapped in a padded jacket. He’s not the rescuer she wants.
She hunches down and laughs. She’s not a jumper. She holds out the ribbons.
“Which one would you pick?” she asks.
He shakes his head and walks back to his truck, getting out a phone. As he starts punching in the numbers, she stands and walks away.
“Come back, you crazy bitch,” the stranger screams but she keeps on walking.
That night he meets her at the door. Her face is grimy and streaked with tears. Her fingers are stiff with cold.
She holds out the red ribbon and he smiles.
“It’s the right one?” she asks. She doesn’t look up. She can’t read his face and the buzzing deafens her mind.
He pulls the ribbon through her fingers.
“There was no right one.”
As the soft leather of his gloved fingers circles her wrist, her pulse pounds beneath his touch. She feels alive.
THE DAY I CAME IN PUBLIC
D. L. King
Listen honey,” Marla said, “don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”
At the time, the idea of calling your boyfriend “Sir” and letting him order you around didn’t strike me as the sexy romance she made it out to be. “Are you telling me he hits you?” I grabbed her hand across the table. “Marla! Do you have bruises? Has he hurt you?”
“Listen, it’s not like that. It isn’t abuse,” she said. I let her hand go but continued to stare at her over my martini. “Don’t jump to conclusions. I want you to make me a promise. I’m gonna give you a book to read. Read it and then we’ll talk again. Promise me you’ll keep an open mind until then.”
She reached into her workbag and pulled out a well-worn paperback. “What is this? Porn?” I asked. “What, you just carry this stuff around with you all the time now? I don’t know what’s happening to you, Marla. I’m afraid for you.”
“I figured you’d be a hard sell and I wanted to be prepared. Just read it, Libby, then we’ll talk.”
I looked down at the book on the table. It was the first volume in that fairy-tale trilogy. I’d heard about it but hadn’t read it. “I don’t know what difference you think it’ll make, my reading a fairy tale. I’m worried about you,” I repeated.
“Read the book. We’ll meet here next Friday after work, and we can talk more then. I don’t want to discuss it anymore, not ’til you’ve read the book.”
“But Marla…”
“Nope! What I want to talk about now is Joe and Holly. I walked in on them in the copy room yesterday. I gotta go to the bathroom. Order me another drink, will you? I’ll be right back.”
I was a little concerned, but she seemed fine and when she returned from the ladies’ room we got off on another topic. Between the vodka and a long workweek, I couldn’t concentrate on anything heavy anyway. I forgot all about Marla’s crazy boyfriend and the book until Saturday afternoon, when I remembered I hadn’t taken care of my empty lunch container from Friday. I took the Tupperware out of my bag and noticed the book hiding underneath.
I took it out. Pretty cover. I didn’t recognize the author’s name. I seemed to recall this was written by someone famous, but under an assumed name. It must be pretty dirty for the writer not to want to own up to it. Why the hell would he—she, whatever—want to hide unless they were ashamed? But I remembered hearing that lots of writers, famous ones, published their books under false names, pseudonyms, like Mark Twain. I didn’t have time for this anyway. I had
laundry and housecleaning to do. I left the book on the coffee table and promptly forgot about it.
When I finally settled down to relax in front of the TV, there was nothing on. I thought about watching a DVD but couldn’t get excited about anything in my collection. That’s when I noticed the book.
Three hours later, a little out of breath and with drenched underwear shoved tightly between the swollen lips of my pussy, I realized it was after midnight. Holy fuck! I needed to go to bed—but first I needed to find my vibrator.
The end of the week finally came and Marla and I left work at five on the dot to secure a table at our favorite haunt.
“Well?” she said.
“Yeah, okay.”
“Yeah, okay, what?”
“Yeah, okay, I get it.”
“And?” She grinned.
“Yeah, yeah, okay, it was hot,” I conceded.
“Can I pick ’em or can I pick ’em?” she asked the ether. Directing her attention to me once more, she said, “I just knew if you understood, you’d get it and be turned on. So?”
“So, what? That stuff isn’t real. I mean it’s hot but those things don’t happen. No place like that really exists and no one does those kinds of things really. I mean, it’s a hot fantasy, but that’s all it is.”
“Of course that’s a fantasy. But you’d be surprised what there really is, what people get up to, what’s out there if you look for it. I know you want to know more.” And then she proceeded to give me a primer in kinky sex and how to find it.
Once I started looking, I couldn’t believe how much there was. All of a sudden I understood the true purpose of the Internet. I researched and researched and couldn’t believe what I’d been missing all my life. Who knew? Well, I guess everyone but me. Sometimes I’m slow on the uptake.
I joined lists. I joined chats. I read lots of smut. I watched lots and lots of porn. Finally, I took an online friend up on attending a public meeting at a local diner. I liked him. He was obviously intelligent and seemed to know what he was talking about. He also made me cream my jeans every time I saw his name in my inbox.
He was the domliest of doms. We’d be chatting about art or work or something equally innocuous and he’d write something like, Pull your pants down to your ankles. Pull your panties down to the top of your pants. Now, sit back down. No touching, then he’d continue on with whatever we’d been chatting about before.
Just when all the wet was beginning to dry up, he’d refocus my attention to my bare ass and naked pussy. He seemed to know just when to give me another sexual push to keep me on edge. Sometimes at the end of our correspondence for the evening, he’d take pity on me and give me permission to come but, as often as not, he’d tell me to go straight to bed—if I couldn’t keep my hands off myself, he’d dictate, I was only permitted to touch my nipples. Yeah, that would make for some seriously sleepless nights.
I’d find myself thinking of him at odd times. In the middle of my commute to work, his last email would pop into my head and completely carry me away from reality. I’d be sure the people on the bus could smell me. Or worse, I’d be in a sales meeting and the same thing would happen. I’d have to fight to keep focused. So of course the idea of finally meeting him in the flesh, as it were, was exciting, and a little scary.
It was scary because I didn’t know how I’d act around him. I had my idea of what he looked like, but what if I was wrong? All I knew for sure was that he had dark hair and was physically fit. What if I wasn’t attracted to him? What if I was? God, what if he wasn’t attracted to me? Scary.
I was definitely attracted to the personality I knew online. He was my ideal, I suppose. He wasn’t the “On your knees, slave, lick my balls,” kind of dom. I’d met plenty of them online and I couldn’t take those guys seriously. I mean, really! No, he was someone who wanted the same things I wanted, someone I could believe in, someone I could take seriously because he took both me, and himself, seriously. I could tell this guy wasn’t playing, even when he was playing.
“Libby?”
I must have looked totally lost. I’m not all that outgoing under normal circumstances, but here I was, standing by the door of the back room of a diner, looking at ten or fifteen total strangers, all of whom were into kinky sex to one degree or another. A woman was making her way toward me with a welcoming look just as I heard the masculine voice behind me.
“Libby?” I turned and he smiled. “Hi. I’m Chris. I’m glad you made it.”
My mind was on autopilot as he introduced me to all the people. All these thoughts swam through my consciousness: Chris. Wow, he’s short. Great voice. Gee, I didn’t know he wore glasses. Nice ass; yeah, he is pretty fit. Look at those eyes. That voice, God, that voice. He’s hot—I think he’s hot—he’s…look at those hands. He’s talking about buffalo wings and I’m getting wet….
Finally, things started wrapping up and people began to leave. “Shall we go somewhere and chat?” he suggested.
We went to a quiet pub and talked until they closed, then made plans to meet at the diner the following Saturday. We’d go to a private S/M club so that I could watch people play—watch him play. He wanted to take things slowly.
The week seemed to crawl by. I met Marla at the bar on Friday, as usual, and she asked how the meeting went. I told her all about it and about how I was going to the Mansion on Saturday.
“Ooh, I love that place. Hey, maybe I’ll see you there. Are you going to play?”
“In public? I don’t think so! I could never get naked in public—um, do people really get naked there?”
“Sure. Sometimes. Sometimes they leave on some stuff. It depends. But if you aren’t going to play, why are you going?”
“Chris wants me to watch. He said it would be good for me to see what it’s like, to watch the doms and see the reactions of the people on the receiving end. He said he wanted me to watch him play with someone before I made a decision about allowing him to play with me. He wants to make sure I’m comfortable with everything. He doesn’t like to jump into things.”
An email was waiting for me when I got home.
We’ll meet at the diner at 8:00 tomorrow evening. From there I will escort you to the Mansion. Wear a skirt, something short and flouncy, not black. Wear a feminine blouse that buttons in the front. If you feel you must wear stockings, no panty hose. You may either wear thigh-high stockings or stockings with a garter belt. I’ll leave the choice of shoes up to you, however my preference would be heels that lengthen your legs and show off your calves. Oh yes, no panties or bra.
Chris
I had to go shopping. I didn’t own most of that stuff. I seldom wore skirts, and when I did, they were only slightly above the knee, and straight. Most of my clothes were black, or at least dark. I’m a New Yorker, after all! I needed to buy stockings. I decided to go for thigh-high stay-ups rather than a garter belt. A garter belt sounded really hot, but it also sounded like a lot of trouble, especially if this never happened again. I had a closet full of shoes; they were the one thing I wouldn’t have to buy for this date. Was this a date?
I became more and more nervous, preparing for my evening with Chris. I wondered about everything. Would he like the smell of my soap and shampoo? Should I wear perfume, and if so, what fragrance would he prefer? I worried about my hair; should I wear it up or down? Should I try to curl it or leave it straight? Everything had to be just right.
I worried he wouldn’t like the outfit I’d chosen, a ruffled miniskirt with little flowers on a blue background. I’d bought a darker blue silk blouse to go with it. While I might never wear the skirt again, at least the blouse would be a keeper. I decided on platinum strappy sandals with a four-inch spiked heel and hoped I wouldn’t have to do much walking.
As I fussed with my makeup, I became more aware of the missing panties. It was an odd sensation. Depending on how careful I was when I sat, I often found my bare bottom making contact with the chair. At least the fullness of the skirt draped well over my
thighs, and with my legs together no one would be able to see my pussy. As that thought entered my consciousness, I felt the first hints of moisture. This could be bad! Just before leaving, I put on the stockings and shoes. Somehow, the stay-up stockings made me feel even more naked than I had before. The silicone material at the tops, which caused them to stay up without garters, hugged my thighs and made me even more conscious of my bareness.
I arrived at the diner fifteen minutes early and waited outside for Chris. As I saw him round the corner at precisely 8:00, my heart sped. He wore black leather pants, which fit him perfectly, not too loose and not too tight; a charcoal, long-sleeved shirt and black leather boots. Somehow, he no longer looked short; in fact, he looked rather imposing. I hadn’t noticed how sexy his Hugh Grant hair was before, and his glasses somehow added to his air of control.
“You look lovely,” he said, ushering me into the restaurant.
“So do you,” I murmured.
Over salads and sandwiches he talked about the club and answered my questions. “Even though you won’t be playing tonight, I want you to do exactly as I say. Afterward, with your permission, I’ll take you home and we’ll chat about your experiences and feelings. I like your choice of outfits,” he said. I felt his hand on my leg, stroking me through my stockings. He moved it up to the stocking top and ran his finger along the edge briefly. My breath caught as his fingers worked their way past the stocking top and up to the fold of my thigh. He slowly shifted direction until his hand cupped my uncovered sex. “Good girl,” he said, taking his hand away. He picked up his napkin and blotted his mouth. “Shall we?”
Silk may not have been the best choice for my blouse. My nipples felt like they would poke straight through the material, and his brushing the back of his hand against one while we stood at the cash register didn’t help. Outside again, he hailed a cab and I scooted into the back and did my best to sit on my skirt, squeezing my legs closed.
Yes, Sir Page 6
