Beyond the Black Curtain

by Hayley White

  “Go to the dining table. Assume position.”

  Ever crossed to the table. Her overcoat, carelessly tossed over the chair, ready to go. Well, not yet.

  The combined phrases ‘dining table’ and ‘position’ meant she was to prostrate herself over the table, skirt raised up to her waist.

  Stroud wasted no time in first roughly sodomizing her with something taken from his coat pocket, and Ever, desperately humiliated, wondered fleetingly if Stroud had any idea what such an invasion felt like. He continued the lesson in punctuality with an eighteen inch ruler he took right off the table. Twenty whacks across her bare behind that made her want to squeal.

  “Next time, answer the door promptly.”

  Ever nodded, still frozen in position.

  “In English prep schools one acquires an appreciation for the cane,” Stroud remarked. “There are some very nice canes in my collection at home... Don’t keep me waiting, for any reason.

  “Now, I assume you’re ready to go, since you’ll be bringing nothing.”

  With one more stinging smack, Ever was signaled out of position. She quickly assessed how to consolidate in order to make it to the door in one second flat. Any longer would try his patience.

  She was grabbing the coat and cigarettes off the table even as she rose. Her purse was on the coffee table, which she would pass on her way to the door. But she had no shoes on. Stroud didn’t give her time to get any. She stepped out into that wintry evening in her stocking feet.

  ***

  It was an unusually abrupt start to their weekly visit, but Ever’s thoughts broiled with concerns beyond a burning behind and cold feet. Yet, contrary to her expectations, Brooke did not put in an appearance and the tempering of her expectations was only the second of many lessons imposed on her that week-end.

  Since she had no shoes, she was confined to the house. Confined in the corner, against the wall, in her tiny cell and in Stroud’s bed. She spent a good deal of time trying to please him, and more in consideration of her shortcomings.

  From the very beginning Ever harbored fears of failing Stroud in some way, but she never imagined any real conflict arising. Never envisioned herself as anything less than the respectful, willing submissive he’d suggested she strive to be. But willingness was not always sufficient to guarantee success and, as she’d been warned, Stroud was not always easy. He’d become stricter and sometimes it seemed he intentionally tried to push her beyond the desire to obey.

  By Saturday night she was cowed and exhausted, and only partially reassured by the fact that she was permitted to sleep in Stroud’s bed.

  ***

  At five to eleven on Sunday morning, Ever awoke alone. Her chain was unfastened, so she climbed out of bed and went to the bathroom. Nude, collared and manacled, she stood at the sink and brushed her teeth and hair. No bath towel was set out, so she donned the blue robe and padded downstairs. She was about to turn for the kitchen when she heard Stroud’s voice, coming from the other direction. He was on the phone.

  Despite her reluctance to confront him so soon, she knew it would be improper to go to the kitchen without first acknowledging to him that she was up. She stepped into the short passageway that ran from the front door to the small sitting room and approached the second door along from the bathroom. It was the first time she’d seen it open.

  Stroud was seated at a large, leather topped desk that faced the door. Warm morning rays slanted at him through dark wooden slats. He was dressed and it was apparent he’d been up for a while.

  He saw her immediately and held her with his eyes as he continued his conversation. Ever found herself sidled up against the doorjamb, unable to progress further in any direction. Stroud’s eyes dropped as he jotted a note, then he looked up and gestured her into the room.

  “Alright, if that’s the best we can do...” he said into the phone.

  He swiveled his chair as Ever came around the side of the desk, wedging the receiver between his shoulder and chin. He fingered the lapel of the robe, his eyes on her face.

  “Did I give you this to wear this morning?” he asked in a muted tone.

  “No,” Ever replied softly.

  Stroud spoke into the phone again as his hands loosened the robe tie and divested Ever of the garment.

  “Yes. Please check that, would you?” he said and handed the robe to Ever. “Take it back upstairs,” he said in the same muted tone.

  Ever turned to go, then hesitated. “I haven’t bathed yet...”

  “Come back as you are,” Stroud instructed and Ever left, troubled that his commands might be heard over the phone.

  When she returned, Stroud waved her in with an unmistakable gesture. Ever dropped to her knees by his chair as Stroud picked up the pen. He was now speaking in French and Ever assumed he was jotting down details of his conversation but, a moment later, he turned with a printed note to her.

  I PRESCRIBE HOW YOU

  DRESS IN THIS HOUSE.

  Ever nodded mutely. As Stroud’s attention reverted back to the phone, Ever’s eyes wandered around his study. Apart from the small sitting room, this was the coziest room in the house. Carpeted in dark forest green. A library of leather bound volumes lining the back wall. An oak filing cabinet against one wall and, opposite that, a leather wing backed chair complete with brass studs. On Stroud’s desk was a brass Banker’s lamp with a green glass shade and several wooden boxes of index cards.

  As she scanned the room again, it suddenly struck her. The walls of the rest of the house were starkly bare of adornment, yet in here there were several small works, carefully arranged. Pastoral scenes, village scenes depicting thatch roofed cottages, one small oil of a pony hitched to a cart constructed in basket weave. None of startling artistic significance but not rubbish either. They were all originals, exquisitely framed. Just the sort of thing one would expect to see in the study of an English gentleman. The classic setting for a caning.

  Naked and knelt at Stroud’s feet, it was difficult for Ever to feel comfortable, but the room was homey and lived in. A place that revealed a deeper, warmer side of Stroud. It was also apparently a working office and it suddenly occurred to Ever that she had no idea what Stroud did for a living.

  A deep silence descended when Stroud finally hung up the phone. Only the soft ticking of an oak Regulator clock on the wall tapped out the passage of time. Stroud was finishing off some notes.

  Ever tried to relax but, as soon as Stroud turned to her, she knew there would be a challenge she was not prepared for. She felt tired and used from the previous day but little did it matter. Despite his soft words and easy manner, the demand was clear.

  It was the first time Stroud had made her kneel between his legs for oral service. Ever didn’t resent his petition. She did her best to please but, at the moment of Stroud’s climax, she choked. When she tried to pull back, Stroud held her down, milking every drop into her throat before allowing her to spit into the tissue he offered.

  Once, long ago, an eager young man had surprised her the same way. It was the unintentional result of a young man’s lack of experience and control. She gagged then, a discourtesy easily forgiven by the young man who had been the one to apologize.

  Stroud was not a man to forgive such an error. He sat forward and lifted her chin with his finger. “I think it only fair to warn you – this offence is punishable.”

  He took her from the study to the small sitting room and seated her on the ottoman which was equipped with six chrome rings, evenly spaced around the circumference. Stroud joined her wrists behind her, affixing them with a length of chain to a ring at the back of the ottoman. Her ankles were likewise joined together and secured to the ring at the front.

  He blindfolded her and, just as she presumed this to be the extent of her punishment, he deftly wedged a phallus shaped gag into her mouth, securing it with a strap buckled behind her neck. At first, Ever believed the thing would choke her, for it seemed at least as large as a man’s penis. In fact, it w
as an exact replica of one.

  Ever was appalled and, had she known what was coming, she would have resisted forcefully. As it was, she sat there now, the taste of Stroud’s ejaculation still present on her tongue, this vile thing lodged in her throat, with no defense.

  For most of the period, Stroud sat in the room with her, watching. Although enjoying the spectacle, it was not so much for pleasure that he watched, as it was his discipline in the enactment. Ever could not be left alone like this. He must be on hand if she ran into difficulty.

  Her anger came as a surprise and a relief to Stroud. It had appeared in spurts over the past weeks, but never had it been so purely revealed or sustained. And, because the anger was there now, he determined to keep her to this discipline until it boiled dry if she could hold out that long.

  He knew she hadn’t expected the gag, but it was important she learn to adapt to the unexpected. How she managed herself now would tell him a lot.

  Managing would not have been Ever’s description of it. Novice that she was, she battled the despised object until it was apparent that no show of resistance would soften Stroud’s determination.

  There was no expelling the thing, so she attempted to sit as quietly as possible, as though to demonstrate it was no affliction she need concern herself with. In time, she would cease to be aware of its intrusion.

  But quietness did nothing to alleviate her mental war and it was impossible to ignore the physical imposition. She could not maintain a pretense of dignity once the accumulation of saliva collected at the corners of her mouth began to leak in strings of spittle that dripped from her chin. She tried her damnedest but she was unsuccessful in her initial efforts to keep it contained.

  She knew Stroud was there observing this humiliating exhibition from the easy chair. She heard his cigarette case open. The flick of his lighter. The aroma of his freshly lit cigarette made her all the more frantic for a sweeter, simpler start to this dreadful day. A hot bath. Breakfast. Coffee. A cigarette of her own...

  “How long will it take you to understand the object of the exercise?” Stroud asked softly.

  Ever’s hands were cramped with the tension of her clenched fists. It seemed she’d been sitting there an interminable time. Stroud had all the time in the world, but she could not stay like this indefinitely.

  Ultimately, only one choice remained. Stroud had set up the scenario to pressure her into focusing on one objective. As she began to seriously apply herself to this predicament, she thought, it’s one thing to learn to swallow one’s own saliva. Surely that was not entirely impossible under the circumstances. But would she be able to master the skill implied by this discipline? And, if not, how often would she find herself subjected to this vile indignity? The thought was unbearable.

  Ever would never have guessed how tired her throat and tongue would be by the time Stroud finally released the gag strap. She never saw it coming and he did not allow her to see it as he withdrew it.

  ***

  Almost the instant Stroud dropped her off at home on Sunday night, Ever put on some shoes and left her apartment. It was only a brief trip, but it felt like a rebellion. Her first truly independent act in two days.

  Cigarettes were more expensive at the liquor store, but it was close to home and Ever enjoyed going there to see Marta. Marta and her husband were Korean immigrants drawn to a land of immigrants in search of new opportunity. How they ended up opening a liquor store in this town was anybody’s guess.

  Marta was a small, soft spoken, moon faced woman of indeterminate age but seemingly eternal youth. Her husband was a tall, lean, tired man with graying hair, as much a contrast to the shyly social Marta as Marta was to the gritty, uncaring town that patronized their business. Marta spoke better English than her husband and handled the front counter. She always had a warm welcome for Ever.

  “How are you?”

  “A little tired,” Ever admitted.

  “But you smile,” Marta observed with a heart melting smile of her own. “You have new boyfriend?”

  Ever’s cheeks pinked slightly. “Yes.”

  Marta nodded. “I see difference.”

  “You do?”

  “You in love.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Ever demurred.

  “It come,” Marta said with soft assurance.

  “He is special,” Ever conceded.

  Again the knowing nod from Marta. “It come,” she said.

  Marta’s presence was a blessing. In Ever’s shrunken world she was disproportionately dependent on fleeting kinships formed with bus drivers and local shop keepers. These were the people who filled the gaps in her social life and only recently had she come to realize how much she valued their interest in her.

  Ever knew she would never become intimate enough with Marta to learn such things as where she was actually from; how she met her husband; what TV shows she watched, or even how a Korean girl came to be named Marta.

  But not every relationship is based on a composition of such facts, nor even every love. Love could be simple and, in this case, it was. Marta provided Ever with quiet, unobtrusive, healing love. It was clear as day in her smile and Ever was so grateful for it.

  As for Marta’s predictions of romantic love on the horizon, Ever could not be sure. She’d run off to the liquor store to neutralize the spell of her week-end with Stroud, but she returned home with Marta’s comments echoing in her mind.

  It had been a difficult, challenging week-end that left Ever questioning her participation in this bizarre alliance. She’d been angered by Stroud’s use of the gag but he had gone on immediately afterwards and proven that she’d been aroused by the scene.

  By the end, she was very deeply immersed in the mind set. It had been difficult to leave the house and Stroud, and she was so conscious of the absence of her shoes – an inconvenience that, in hindsight, seemed so symbolic of her condition.

  When she reflected on the events of the past weeks, one startling revelation broke through. Something so simple and yet, until now, obscured. It was not so much the punishment that she responded to, but the exertion of Stroud’s dominance.

  What did that say about her state of mind? She couldn’t tell. It was merely a fact. Perhaps it was something Stroud already understood. Perhaps this was the basis of any relationship of this kind.

  The stimulation of her relationship with Stroud was an undeniable force, but the weeks between had become more demanding. There were increasing pressures at work and, now that she spent every week-end with Stroud, it meant household chores were allotted to week nights.

  Since she had no car, Ever’s groceries were hauled in the same manner as her laundry – in the granny cart. And the trek to the supermarket was four blocks longer than the walk to the laundromat.

  To space out the efforts, she now shopped on Tuesday nights and went to the laundromat on Thursdays. The late winter days were gradually lengthening, but daylight was long gone by the time Ever got home from work. She made her pilgrimages through dark, cold streets, sometimes not arriving back home until eight or nine o’clock, chilled and hungry and just too tired to go into the kitchen to cook for herself.

  These mundane routines took on a deepening futility that slowly eroded her spirit, but Ever still appreciated the quiet anonymity of her apartment existence. Here she was spared the rigors of Stroud’s demands and scrutiny.

  Yet, when she was with Stroud, she was far removed from this almost desperate struggle for survival. In Stroud’s world she shone like a star and she wondered how she ever coped before he offered her this extraordinary outlet. Every week seemed more tightly strung with the sweet anticipation of their next encounter.

  You’re leading a double life, she thought wryly. Like the heroine in some melodrama. But, was there a possibility of finding love in the relationship she shared with Stroud?

  For Ever, there was a certain anonymity in the role of the dominated pawn and that anonymity was a comfortable skin she’d grown accustome
d to wearing. It was too soon to think again of love. And too painful.

  And what of Brooke? Where did he fit into all of this? Was he a distraction intended to keep her from bonding too closely with Stroud? ‘You’ll have to trust me,’ Stroud had once said. But was Stroud the threat?

  Yes, the introduction of Brooke raised many questions. Would it be morally incorrect to desire being dominated by them both? Would it be wise to consent to it?

  Ever made pages and pages of notes about it in the blank book, but she came no closer to forming a point of view.

  A compassless explorer, lost on a new frontier, she wrote:

  ‘I am unable to call and tell him yes... and equally incapable of calling to say no...

  A dingy, lacking propulsion of my own, I am towed in the wake of a massive liner through uncharted waters...’

  Chapter Twelve

  Saturday night. Tense and expectant, Ever stood in the space between the stairway wall and the coffee table under the gazes of Stroud and Brooke. She recalled her urge to run her first night in this room with Stroud. She’d been bound at that moment, unable to escape. Nothing bound her now, except the lack of someplace to run and an undeniable desire to see what would happen in this room tonight. She sensed this evening was a critical turning point in the relationship between the three of them.

  “Can I get you something?” she asked Stroud suddenly, no longer able to withstand the silence.

  “No,” he replied, leaving an even more impossible silence.

  “Why don’t you undress?” Brooke asked.

  Ever wanted to obey. She never disobeyed Stroud and, under the circumstances, Brooke’s wishes would certainly carry as much weight as Stroud’s. Only a blouse and skirt. A simple matter, but she found she couldn’t move – even to raise one hand to undo one button.

  At last Brooke stood up and approached her. He stroked down the back of her head, paused at her neck, then his hand traveled on down, passing over the curve of her buttock before it lighted again at the nape of her neck. His other enormous mitt cupped her breast as he tilted her head back by the hair and kissed her, probing into her throat with his tongue.