Slow Surrender

by Cecilia Tan

  I was disappointed. The bio didn’t say much, and the photo was of a man bending over a glass forge, with goggles on his face. It could have been anyone.

  It would have fit so perfectly, I thought, if he was the glass artist and had made the marbles and the gorgeous glass butterfly and dildo himself. The thought excited me, but it didn’t quite fit. He was friends with a high-ranking curator at one of England’s most prestigious museums. He was filthy rich. It seemed more likely he was an art dealer or collector than an artist, didn’t it?

  What about the paintbrush? I thought. Where did he get that from? He must have brought it with him to the hotel room. That wasn’t the sort of thing a non-artist had lying around, was it?

  I searched a bit further for more about the glass sculptor. A few blogs and magazine articles called him a recluse. Did the J and B in J. B. stand for James and Byron? I eventually found a reference, and no, it was supposedly Jay Brian Lester.

  That was too close to be a coincidence, I thought. Things still didn’t quite add up, but just as my feelings for him were becoming more certain all the time, so was the feeling that I was coming closer to knowing who he was, not just in the ways that mattered to my heart, but to the rest of the world.

  * * *

  On Wednesday I got a text from him with a photograph. It showed a bedspread on which sat four items. A riding crop, a fraternity hazing paddle, a candle, and what looked like a miniature pizza cutter. I zoomed in and saw it was a small wheel with a handle that had needlelike spikes sticking out of it.

  Pick one, came the next message.

  I mulled it over. Were they to be used on me? If they were, which one looked best? I did a quick Internet search. I was already intimately familiar with the candle. The wheel was actually a medical object called a Wartenberg wheel. It was used to test people’s nerves and reflexes. Nonetheless, I didn’t think I’d enjoy it being used on me. The paddle looked large and heavy.

  I texted back, Riding crop.

  A smiley face came back, which felt like approval and glee, even though it was an emoticon. Then I heard nothing for the next twenty-four hours.

  Becky, meanwhile, had made herself an expert on BDSM relationships by reading about them on the Internet. She had cooked a whole chicken and was exhorting me to help eat it for dinner. She had roasted it in a Chinese style so that the skin looked red and the house smelled like cinnamon. We sat in the living room eating on the steamer trunk we used as a coffee table. Becky had a bowl of rice in front of her but was gnawing on a wing with her hands. “Ooooh, he’s probably trying to mind-fuck you,” she said when I told her the latest.

  “Mine-fuck?”

  “Mind, as in, fuck with your mind.”

  “Oh, he’s very good at that,” I said. I was too embarrassed to tell her about the whole “sex with words” thing in the restaurant.

  “He’s trying to get you all keyed up about it. Why did you pick the riding crop? In the stories I read, those always hurt the most!”

  “Becks, in the stories, everything hurts. And all their dicks are huge, too.”

  She giggled and hid both the chicken wing and her mouth with her free hand. “Well, that’s true.”

  “I’m not sure if what you read on the Internet and real life match up,” I added.

  “Well, some of it must. There are a lot of real people blogging, and you can talk with them on Bondbook.”

  “Bondbook?”

  “It’s kind of like Facebook but for kinky people only,” she said. “A bunch of the fan club women are on there. There are even some guys on there who dress up as Lightning and enact scenes from his rock operas. Only with real sex and spanking.” She giggled again. “They seem like they have a lot of fun!”

  “Are you going to hook up with one of these guys?” I asked. “I mean, isn’t that kind of your ultimate fantasy?”

  She shrugged, setting down the bones and licking her fingers. “I don’t know. Some of the people you meet on the Internet are kind of sketchy.”

  “The only people you’ve met from the Internet are your fan club ladies and you said they’re great,” I pointed out.

  “Well, yeah, but they’re women. Men are a whole different story. Although, a lot of the Lightning impersonators out there are actually women. I think some of the best ones are. But those are the ones making YouTube videos and stuff. I’m not sure if any of them are putting up personal ads to meet fan girls like me.” She seemed deflated by that admission.

  “How do you know? I would think a woman who performs as a man might have a pretty high interest in fan girls.”

  “You think?”

  “Well, don’t you think some of them are lesbians, or even transgender?”

  “Oh. I guess so.” She got a wrinkle between her eyebrows as she thought about it. “I hadn’t really thought about it that way. That totally makes sense. I’m still not sure I’m really interested in meeting someone like that, though.”

  “Not even for recreational sex? It sounds like it would be a lot more recreational and fun than the jocks and pre-meds you used to try.”

  “True. I guess I’ll keep hanging around the online chats and see if I meet anyone interesting.”

  The phone from James chimed then, and Becky clapped her hands. “Oooh, new text! More pictures?”

  I checked it. “Nope, just an address and a time for tomorrow.”

  “Oh, fun! Type the address into the online maps and see where it is!”

  “Okay! Okay, hang on.” I searched for it. Up came a map of a block not far from here, in SoHo. There was a little tag on the map of the building. “It’s an art gallery,” I said. “I guess I was expecting that. He said it would be a modern art show. His exact words were ‘Your presence will enliven things considerably.’” There was a link to the gallery’s Web page. I followed it.

  “Aha!” The show featured the combined works of four artists. One of them was J. B. Lester. “Oh, wow. According to this, the show doesn’t open until next week.”

  “It must be a special preview, then, for top buyers and gallery supporters?”

  “What do you think I should wear?”

  “Maybe you should ask him?” Becky suggested.

  “Good idea.” I texted him back: Wardrobe instructions/suggestions?

  All that came back was a single word: Shave.

  * * *

  Becky convinced me to go in an Indonesian print top with blue and black designs on it and black jeans, saying that would be plenty artsy for any SoHo gallery crowd, especially modern art. I figured if he didn’t like what I wore, I’d get some diabolical but fun punishment for it, and if he did, I’d be rewarded.

  As it turned out, he had asked me to arrive before the rest of the invitees. I showed up at Gallery Three2Four at six-thirty and the door was still locked. The front windows were blacked out with heavy theatrical drapes. A skinny man in skinny jeans unlocked the door for me.

  “And you are?” he said, looking me up and down.

  I froze for a moment. Was my name on a guest list? Who should I say I was a guest of? Then I remembered the name he used for me that kept my real name a secret. “Ashley,” I said.

  His face went from guarded and skeptical to a brilliant smile. “Ah! Of course!”

  James appeared at his elbow at that moment. “Right on time,” he said, and showed me in while the skinny man locked the door behind us. “I’ll take you back to the installation.” We went through another heavy drape, like the ones that keep out the cold at restaurant doorways, and into the gallery proper.

  At the front were two tables set up with cheese platters, still covered in plastic, and a caterer was uncorking bottles of wine. There were very large canvases on the walls, with some industrial metal sculptures and glass pieces on pedestals here and there, but I wasn’t paying attention to any of that.

  My attention was on a large, softly glowing white construction that took up the whole back of the room. It looked almost like an igloo, except the bricks were gl
ass, some opaque and some clear. In front of the igloo was a wall of glass bricks about three feet high. The front wall was like the fence around a yard and the igloo was like the house. The house had two openings in the front like oval windows, except that side by side they resembled nostrils in an enormous face.

  Polishing the top of the glass wall with a piece of cloth was a man with unkempt brown hair, in a black T-shirt and ragged corduroys.

  “Ashley, I’d like you to meet J. B. Lester,” James said.

  Oh. Well, I suppose that answered that. “Nice to meet you.” I shook the artist’s hand, which was calloused and rough.

  “Likewise,” he said in a gruff voice, then nodded at us both and walked off, leaving us standing alone.

  “Not very comfortable with the public,” he explained. “Come in back with me.”

  I followed him around a curtained off area and then into the igloo. From inside, only slivers of what was out in the gallery could be seen. I noticed there was what looked like a massage chair and a few other pieces of furniture inside, all completely white, so I hadn’t seen them from the other side.

  He put his hands on my upper arms, turning me to face him. “Karina, I would like to ask you if you are willing to take part in a bit of performance art.”

  “I’m willing to try just about anything once,” I said. “With you, anyway.”

  “I’ll be right here the whole time. You remember our discussion about exhibitionism?”

  “Yes.”

  “The concept behind this piece, which is entitled Performance Art, is that art makes one naked to the world and subject to pain and exposure.”

  I gripped his wrists in my hands. “How much pain?”

  “That will partly depend, but I promise if it’s too much, I’ll end it. It will only last five minutes.”

  Five minutes. “What do I get if I last more than five minutes? Another wish?”

  He laughed as if I had surprised him. “Yes, you may have a wish. And a kiss, right now.” He pulled me close. He was wearing a beige suit and tie, and his arms felt whipcord strong as he pressed my body against his and then bent me back for a kiss.

  It was another one of those kisses that began slow and gentle but left me panting by the end. I pulled back from him somewhat reluctantly as the skinny man cleared his throat.

  James introduced him to me as the gallery manager, who then showed me to the restroom.

  I had butterflies in my stomach, just like before a dance performance when I was a teenager. When I returned to the igloo, James twirled me into his arms as if we were about to begin a waltz. “I haven’t felt like this since junior high talent shows,” I told him.

  “What did you perform?” He rocked us back and forth as if to music, though there was none.

  “Dance, mostly. I wasn’t really that good a dancer, but I kind of liked getting up in front of everyone, and with dance, I didn’t have to say anything. I tried one drama club play and didn’t like having to memorize lines.”

  He brushed my hair back from my face with his fingertips. “You don’t seem to enjoy pretending to be someone else.”

  “I have enough trouble figuring out how to be myself,” I said.

  He bent his head and kissed me again, this time tenderly. “For this performance, that’s all you have to do. Be yourself. You won’t even have to move.”

  “That sounds intriguing. Will I be tied up?”

  “Not exactly. You will, however, be exposed.”

  “Naked?”

  “Yes, though only I will see your face.” He ran his fingers over my cheek as he looked into my eyes. I think he got a little lost because a long moment passed before he blinked and went on. “It will be a very exclusive crowd here tonight. It’s nearly time, so we should get ready.”

  “Should I get undressed?”

  “Yes, down to nothing. And here’s a box to put your clothes and things into.” He showed me a white bin. I hid my clothes inside it, and then he pulled me into another full-body hug, my bare skin against the soft, suede texture of his suit. “Now settle yourself here,” he said when he let me go, pointing to the thing that looked like a massage chair right behind the “nostril” holes. It canted forward more than a massage chair did, so that my butt cheeks aimed right at the holes. There were straps that went over my back to keep me in place, a cradle to rest my forehead, and padded shelves for my arms.

  He stroked my back with his hand, and then my backside. “You’re very brave,” he said.

  “Am I?”

  “Not everyone would let their rump be shown to a room full of strangers.”

  “Not everyone has their own personal genie to grant them wishes when they do,” I pointed out.

  “Ha! True. Now, sit up a moment and look at this.” He released the straps and when I sat up, he handed me a black riding crop. “This is what you picked.”

  I had not held one of these since a Girl Scout riding class when I was ten. At the time, I’d been afraid to hit a horse, and fortunately didn’t have to, since the horse they gave me was docile and didn’t fight me.

  I flexed it a few times and said, “Horses have much thicker skin than humans, don’t they?”

  He took it back and kissed my temple, whispering, “They do, but you’ll do fine.”

  He gestured for me to get back into position, so I did, and then he ran the leather loop at the tip up and down my back, giving me goose bumps.

  “It can give pleasure, too,” he said, leaning close so that his voice was in my ear while he tightened the straps to keep me still. He ran the crop between my legs, dragging it over my clit lightly and making me pant with desire, then flicking my clit with the leather tip. I moaned.

  “More of that later, perhaps,” he said, and then rolled the chair back until my buttocks were fitted into the two holes, my ass protruding into the gallery from the frosted glass wall. “Now, let’s test this.”

  I could turn my head enough to see him, and he took a seat in a folding chair and put his arm through another hole I hadn’t noticed. I felt the tip of the riding crop tracing its way up and down my rump.

  “Distance is just about perfect,” he said. “All right. Two more things to prepare.” He reached into his pocket with his left hand and pulled out his phone. He must have been using it to control various things, because the lights around us changed, the glow of the wall brightening, and suddenly I could hear the voices of the people in the gallery much more clearly. “Directional microphones,” he explained. “So we can hear what the people out there are saying when they come up to the wall.”

  The staff began letting people in. He leaned against the wall with his arm through a hole and hanging on the outside like a piece of art, I supposed. He was quite still and silent, but when I turned my head, his eyes met mine and he gave me a conspiratorial smile.

  We could hear the voices clearly. “Oh, this one is weird. Is that real?”

  “Real what? Oh my God, I think it is real. Or we’re supposed to think so, at least. Are we supposed to be scandalized by seeing a woman’s private parts?”

  “It’d be much more subversive to see a man’s. Female nudity is still standard in fine art.”

  “That’s entirely because the female body is so objectified by the male-dominated art establishment, not because female nudity is acceptable.”

  “Well, that’s clearly what the male arm here is about. Look at the business suit and the riding crop. Think someone’s making a statement about what a slave driver their business manager is?”

  “Is Lester here? I heard he was.”

  “That’s him over there.”

  “That’s him? I thought that was a homeless guy crashing the party!”

  “It’s not real. It’s just as much of a statement if we think it is.”

  “Oh my God! He moved!”

  The spectators fell quiet for a moment, watching. I looked at his face, and he winked at me.

  “There! He moved again!”

  “It could be
animatronic.”

  He blew me a kiss. And then he struck me with the crop across both buttocks and I screamed.

  “Holy shit! Did you see that!”

  It burned and it hurt and in an instant I was panting, but I could hear him whisper, “Good girl.”

  The voices were still talking. Some male, some female. “Look at that! A welt is coming up!”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “That’s proof it’s real. She’s real.”

  “Oh, come on. They’re probably paid actors. No need to freak out.”

  “But she screamed!”

  “I would’ve screamed, too!”

  And then there were enough people trying to talk at once that I couldn’t really make out what they were saying.

  I felt the tip of the crop making a circle on my butt cheek and the crowd quieted again.

  “Oh, this is so kinky,” one woman whispered.

  “Agreed, and we’re all getting teased and tortured by that guy. Rawr.”

  He blew me another kiss. “This one won’t be as hard,” he said quietly.

  He was right. He struck me so that the leather tip made a cracking noise, but compared to that first blow, it didn’t hurt at all. I yelped a little. Then again he gave me that tap, tap tap tap, just light smacks with the leather. I wiggled my butt, and that had two effects. One was it rubbed my bare clit against the column of glass between my cheeks, and two, it made the audience giggle.

  “Now let’s see if they get bored,” he said, and I felt nothing for a while. He didn’t move. I didn’t move. From the sound of things, people drifted away somewhat.

  New voices came, many of which said similar things as the previous group.

  “Oh, that’s disgusting.”

  “I think it’s rather brilliant.”

  “It’s a cheap ploy.”

  “It’s putting their money where their mouths are.”

  “Instead of art being a metaphor for all the sex we can’t talk about, sex is a metaphor for art.”

  “But is it sex? It looks more like torture.”

  “Objectification.”