As She's Told

by Anneke Jacob

  She looked up at him. "Is it a question? I thought – I thought it was a – a given –"

  "It can be. Or not. I want you there." His grip on her shoulder shifted and tightened. She turned her face against the side of his chest. "I know you want to be there. But I want to be sure you know what you're getting into."

  Their bodies had pulled so tightly together that they'd lost their careful pacing, crossed treads and halted in their tracks. He held her hard for a minute, his chest tight. Then he took a deep breath, turned her to his side again, his arm now lighter on her shoulders, and they walked on. "You remember our first restaurant conversation."

  She nodded. "All of it." She paused. "Probably word for word."

  "Hmm." He wondered if they remembered the same words. "I need to make sure you're clear on all this. Because once you're there it'll be harder for you to back out." Anders looked down at the dark head. "Not impossible.

  There'll still be escape points. But as I take you over I think you'll find it more and more difficult even to imagine operating on your own.”

  “I don't want to – to operate on my own."

  "I know that. But if you move in with me it'll be a complete phase change. It'll be a big step." He laughed. "Well, it is a big step, moving in together."

  She laughed up at him. "So the advice columns say."

  He considered what he had to say. "I really will control you, Maia," he said at last. "I'm not talking metaphorically. I'm talking micromanagement.

  What's happened so far is nothing compared to living with me 24/7."

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  She pulled herself closer to him. "Sir, what should I – what do you expect me –"

  He shook her slightly. "You should stick to the subject. Wicked girl."

  He kissed her head.

  "I'll expect you to do what I tell you to do, of course. Learn to serve me, exactly as I want. Accept what I inflict on you. Be what I make you."

  "Please, sir, I do want to move in."

  "Wait. I appreciate that you want to make the decision without needing to know the details. But I'm not consulting you, I'm warning you. Do you understand?"

  She looked up at him, the thin shadows of the branches above them tracing lines across her face. Thoughts flickered behind her eyes.

  "Yes. All right."

  He caressed her shoulder gently as they walked. "Maia, if you move in with me, I'm going to keep you like an animal on a very short tether. You'll have no autonomy at all in that house. Not much outside of it. Remember, there'll be constant restraints, rules, humiliations, punishments. All the time, do you understand? You're not going to draw a free breath." She was trembling beneath his arm. He held her more firmly and kept her moving.

  "Following rules doesn't mean you'll know what's coming, either. I'll be arbitrary, and sometimes I'll be cruel." He could hear her breathing. "I'll still look after you, Maia. That won't change. I'll still take great care, not to damage you. But you have to understand. This is for real. You'll be a belonging, a piece of property. I'll do whatever I like with you. We agreed to play no games, and I won't play them."

  She stumbled to a stop, and he faced her, holding her by the arms. He could almost see the heat radiating from her. Her head hung, and her body heaved with each breath. Slowly she raised her head, and looked at him with unfocused eyes, in the grip of profound, helpless arousal. "Please…," she breathed.

  "Oh, sweetheart," he said, and he sat down and pulled her into his lap.

  Loving her, and his luck.

  They sat there in silence for several minutes, rocking a little while she calmed down. Then he boosted her off his lap, pulled off his knapsack and found a good spot beneath a tree. Laying out a little lunch, grilled vegetables and cheese on thick bread, he said, "That wasn't the final decision, you 112

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  know. I expect you to go home and think about this. When you're not blinded by lust." He pulled out a carafe of water and gave it to her.

  She sighed. "Yes, sir." She straightened out the blanket. "I'll even talk it over with Nikki if you like; she'll argue with me until her voice gives out."

  He laughed. "Yeah, she gave me the third degree the other day on the phone about what I was doing to you. Got a bit raspy. It's only fair to have counsel on both sides of the case. Go for it."

  "But I have to give notice to the Silvas when I pay my rent on Monday, if I'm not going to have to pay for an extra month. As it is they're going to get a couple of week's rent for nothing.”

  “This is more important than a month's rent. If you've got any doubts at all, don't give notice. I can cover it if it turns out you need more time."

  She looked about to speak, but she stopped herself. They ate their sandwiches, Anders sitting against the tree and Maia leaning back against his shoulder. The speckled light beneath the tree was faintly green, and one bird was repeating itself at odd intervals above them.

  "Do you ever wonder…" said Maia.

  "Wonder what?"

  "Why we're like this."

  He looked down at her, amused. "Are you looking for secret trauma after all?”

  “No, no," she said, "I think it's inborn, myself."

  "Uh-huh. Genetic, you mean? Or a product of electromagnetic waves and undercooked fish while in utero? It does seem to run in my family, if Karl and I are anything to go by.”

  “Anyone else?"

  "Not that I know of. Though who knows what the older generation gets up to behind closed doors."

  She put her sandwich down. "I don't know. If it's genetic, what's it for?

  What's the survival value of having a bunch of people that like to be tied up and whipped, or vice versa?”

  “Damned if I know." He gave this some thought. "There might be some genetic advantage to being dominant, I suppose. Men would probably have had more offspring. But being dominant is hardly sex-linked."

  "No. I suppose it might have been an advantage in men and then got passed down to daughters."

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  "True. What about being submissive, what would that get you?"

  She mused. "Stay out of fights? Out of trouble?"

  "But submissives like being in trouble."

  She giggled. "So we do." She wriggled back into a more comfortable position against him. "I suppose there'd be some advantage to high pain tolerance. And don't pain centres cross over with pleasure centres? Maybe getting off on pain is the next evolutionary step."

  "Oh, paralyzed by lust on the battlefield. A big evolutionary advantage."

  She laughed. "No, no, lusty warriors. Getting off on blood and mayhem.

  Wait, we're back to doms now."

  "The two sides can't have different evolutionary origins. Why do doms like to dish out exactly what subs like to take? They wouldn't fit together as well as they do if they weren't somehow cut from the same cloth."

  "And so many people switch," she added.

  "Right. Do people into bdsm have more kids? I doubt it. More likely less. Maybe it's just a trait that showed up in the genome, and doesn't have any reproductive advantage one way or the other."

  "Mmm. Maybe. Awfully common, though." She stroked her bottom lip with her finger. "Okay, but here's something else I don't get. Why do we all like the same things? Well, not all, but it's so consistent. Is there some sort of gene for getting off on black leather?”

  “That part's conditioned."

  "No, I don't think so." She sat up and faced him. "I had no access to porn when I was a kid, or to other people that were into this. I was completely isolated till I was sixteen and got my own computer. And yet when I finally managed to see some stuff, some of it matched my fantasies.

  In detail. How could genes be that specific?"

  Anders watched her intent face, framed by hair that was curling wildly in all directions. Half her sandwich lay forgotten on the blanket. "I still think i
t's got to be at least partly culturally determined," he said. "Twists on popular media, for instance. The tied-up heroine. Dungeons and chains.

  Dracula."

  "Reynardine."

  He grinned and pulled his knapsack over. "Reynardine, right. Here, eat up, it's time to go."

  She picked up her sandwich. "I'm full; do you want it?" He finished it in 114

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  a couple of bites, his mind on her question, while she tidied up.

  "So," he mused, "you think the whole set of sexual behaviours and responses is a genetic package?"

  "It seems like that to me. At least some of it. I know it sounds impossible, but look, what about the way twins separated at birth like the same things and use the same gestures? Maybe it's something like that."

  "Ah! Interesting thought." Anders eyed her with respect. "Intriguing."

  He considered for a minute. "How to separate what is learned from what is inborn. The hoary old nature-nurture debate. All right." He glinted at her, and shifted into a professorial, strongly accented Danish voice. For a moment she looked apprehensive, then her eyes lit and she relaxed. "Here is the experimental question," he pontificated. "Is bdsm practiced differently in different countries? We know that it is; observe Japanese bondage culture. Is the difference cultural or genetic? Aha, we live in a multicultural society.

  We must find out if perverts prefer the fetishes of their ancestors, or adhere to those of their peers when they immigrate to new lands." She was giggling helplessly.

  "For instance," he continued, "does a second generation Japanese-Canadian prefer traditional rope bondage to leather harness?"

  "We'll have to ask one. I'm sure we can find someone on ds/TO."

  "Then we can write this up for posterity."

  She got up, but he was still sitting cross-legged on the ground, looking at her. "Come here a minute," he said in his normal voice. "I'd like to be amused on the trip back."

  In a moment she was back in his lap. He took hold of the back of her head and the kiss began. Slow, deep. Then deeper. His other hand pulled her jacket over her lap, and then slipped beneath her dress, between her thighs and up to her naked, slippery pussy. Anders could feel her whimper against his tongue as he penetrated her with two long fingers, then three. His thumb pressed and manipulated her clit: gentle, subtle. She squirmed, and he felt her hip press against his rigid cock. Wet flesh contracted around his hand.

  When her every breath was a moan and her body was drawn up and tight, he drew his head back to watch her. Withdrawing his fingers, he lightly traced the flesh around her clit, flicked it once and felt her flinch, paused, flicked again, felt her shudder, and drew his hand from beneath her skirt. She gave a small cry, sounding lost. "Get up."

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  Slowly, silently she got to her feet, looking at the air in front of her. His arm round her shoulders, he put his fingers to her mouth. Obediently she sucked them. "Now," he said. "Let's go."

  ***

  The trip back was like something out of one of my arousal-laced dreams. My clit was aching and hot, and the closer we got to the dock the more confused and self-conscious I became. After coming that close, just walking was keeping me on the edge. I felt like every one of the hundreds streaming past us off the newly arrived ferry could see my arousal; I had to be shimmering with it, like heat distortions over hot tarmac.

  It was also reminiscent of the last time he'd done this to me, except that when I'd walked around like this at school I'd been further from the edge.

  Now I was so close I was afraid I might actually come in the middle of a crowd and humiliate myself. My breasts ached, too, though Anders hadn't laid a finger on them. I had the most intense urge just to plaster the front of my body to his.

  Fortunately it was still early and the ferry back wasn't too full. We stood at the rail again, this time looking toward the city, and he smiled down at me, his eyes wicked.

  "I love seeing you like this," he said. "And on public transportation, too."

  We had to stand packed together on the Dundas streetcar, and he managed to maintain the agony with some surreptitious touching. When we reached my apartment at last, he brought me right back to the verge, and then I spent what seemed like forever on my knees, sucking him while he kept my nipples in a painful grip. But as I had six hours more work to do that day, he did finally finish me off. When his tongue touched me I had to clamp both hands over my mouth to muffle my screams.

  It wasn't until after I'd recovered, and Anders had finished one of the beers he'd stored in my fridge, that he got out the crop. He looked at my startled face.

  "You forgot about this, didn't you?"

  "Almost. Yes, sir."

  "I wanted to wait until after you came. It'll hurt more now. Over the desk chair."

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  speak clearly, I counted them. When he was done I expressed my genuine, if pained gratitude, along with a promise never to speak sarcastically to him again, and was on my knees when he left.

  As I had promised, I forced myself to think about all the ramifications of the move. The next day I even sat down and wrote out each of the pros and cons. I called Nikki that night and let her try to talk some sense into me, after which I dutifully expanded my list on the 'con' side. The thing about lists like that is you have to weight the items, or several trivial things can look more meaningful than the big important stuff. The big important stuff in this case – love, trust and an absolute need for what Anders had to give me – outweighed everything else. Really, I wanted this with a passion that made logical exercises completely beside the point. This time when I told him my process and gave him my decision, he didn't question it. I was vaguely hoping for some sort of celebration, but although he sounded very glad, he made me stick to the schedule. We went back to brief visits and supervisory phone calls for another twelve days. I counted them. I started counting the hours, too, but they looked too huge, so I went back to days, until the last couple.

  And then at last it was over. Every paper complete and on time, every assignment finished. To my shock I made the dean's list. Discipline works on me. Anders took me out to a great restaurant on King Street to celebrate.

  We went through my stuff, sold most of what little furniture I had to the Silvas, packed up the rest that Saturday and piled it into his truck. And somewhere en route, as we crossed the city's boundary between west and east, the last shreds of my freedom slipped out the open window, flitted up Yonge Street, and were gone.

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  Chapter Nine

  Housetraining

  "In this house," he said with quiet emphasis, "you do not wear clothes.

  When you walk in, you will always close the door, get down on your knees and take your clothes off.”

  “Yes, sir."

  He took hold of my face. His fingers were cool on my burning cheek.

  "It's 'master' now, girl."

  "Yes – master."

  I was kneeling naked on a honey-coloured hardwood floor, just inside the front door. When I'd walked in I'd seen a house so light and finished that I'd had to trace some sort of resemblance to the gritty construction site it had been. As the grey outside of the house had appeared unchanged, I was a bit disoriented; it felt like old movie set jokes where the exterior of a little grey cabin opens into a mansion in full living colour.

  Anders reached into a drawer in a good-sized hall cabinet to his right, and pulled out a circlet of metal. "You also don't go past this point without your collar." He pushed my hair out of the way and closed it around my throat. I heard a click. My hands rose and then I paused and looked at him.

  He nodded. I reached up and felt the thing with both hands. It was smooth and thick, with rounded edges, snug against my throat, maybe an inch and a half hi
gh all round. There were rings folded down at the sides and at the back, but no sign of a lock, though there was a square thick area at the back in which I could feel something that might be a keyhole. At the front the ring didn't fold down.

  I raised my eyes to Anders' face, my hands still on either side of my neck. He was looking down at me, his head cocked slightly. "I hope you weren't expecting orange blossom and an honour guard with crossed whips."

  I smothered a laugh, and shook my head. Well, he did hate formalities. I envisioned enacting some ritual in front of Nikki and Leda and all the rest, and shrugged inwardly. What he'd given me was enough: my own collar, and his hands to put it on me. I wanted to reach for him, wrap my arms around his thighs, taste his skin….

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  versions of the collar, but lined and padded with something black. He sat down on a built-in bench next to the cabinet and clasped them round my wrists and ankles. Each one of them clicked shut.

  "More rules," he said. "The furniture is not for your use unless I say so.

  No couch, no chairs. I'm going to let you sleep in my bed for now if you're good. No TV, no computer, no stereo, and not the telephone either unless I give permission. Not much of damned near anything unless I specifically allow it. You wait for orders, and only do what you're told. Is that clear?"

  "Yes, master, I think so." I thought I was managing to stay calm, but I could feel my belly trembling.

  "Good." He reached into the drawer again and pulled out about four feet of slim chain, which he locked to my collar. At a tug I got up and followed him to a rug in the middle of the living room floor. Just under the edge was a thick ring recessed into the floor, as if providing entrance to a trap door. But there was no trap door, just an attachment point to which he locked the chain. I looked anxiously at the windows, but the shades were set to admit only light, not a view from outside.

  Anders began bringing in boxes from the truck, and set some in front of me. "I want you to sort out the school papers that you might need for work, make sure they're organized, and file them in this." He handed me a file box.