by Anneke Jacob
Anders took in a long breath, let it out. "He walked out a fourth story window. Apparently thinking he could jump to the ground. Broke his neck."
"Oh, god…. I'm sorry." She was still for a little. "Not suicide?"
"No. Apparently he was still trying to gather a tobogganing party."
"Did you – see it?"
He shook his head. "I was searching two streets over."
"The doctor must have been wrong. That doesn't sound like depression."
"Nope. Manic-depression. Bipolar."
"Then the pills probably were wrong."
"No question. If I'd talked to the doctor I could have given him the whole picture. But he only saw him when he was depressed. And Sam was smart enough, despite it all, to lie about what was going on and how bad it was. Guess he thought he had to. Even to me." Anders rubbed his eyes deeply with finger and thumb. "If I'd talked to the doctor… If I'd called the police when Sam got crazy… If I hadn't thought I was fucking omnipotent and had gotten help sooner…"
"Hindsight…," she murmured.
"Yeah. People kept saying that I did all I could, that I'd been a good friend. Not to blame myself. Even his parents. My parents. Shit." Anders'
hand had gone still over both eyes. "How could I not blame myself? I was an egocentric, overconfident asshole who was sure I could solve any problem if I just tried hard enough. No failure for this boy. Talk about delusions of grandeur."
Neither of them spoke for a while. At last she murmured, "You still 266
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think you could have saved him."
"What?"
"If it's your fault then you had the power to save him. Still makes you omnipotent.”
“Holy shit. What…wait." He lay still for a long time.
At last he spoke again. "I'm still seeing myself as the central force in the situation. The prime mover."
"Uh huh. A – a god screwing up on the job."
"Oh, fuck." They were silent for so long that he thought she'd gone to sleep. But when he turned his head her eyes were open, watching him. He put a hand on her leg and turned his gaze back to the ceiling. "I was just one element, wasn't I?"
She wriggled a little closer to him. "Uh huh."
"What a comedown for my ego." He put his hands behind his head, arched his back and stretched. Then he turned on his side to face Maia. "And when I fail to control everything, I get out of sorts. Charming." He kissed her. "Thanks, love."
"You're welcome."
He turned out the light.
***
I lay awake for a long time. Seeing poor Sam, a rag doll sprawled in the snow. Thinking about Anders at nineteen, going through all that grief.
Blaming himself. Not Sam's illness, not the stupid doctor, not Sam's parents, but himself.
It figured that Anders' strength would turn out to be his weakness. Like something out of a Greek tragedy. Hubris. Competing with the gods.
He'd never learned to fail at anything; never really figured out how to cope with it. Not like me. My history of success had always been patchy.
Odd to think that made me better off than him when bad things happened.
The role reversal felt distinctly odd. My master had actually accepted advice and support from me; a first. I'd never seen him vulnerable before; not like this. Admitting to a weakness. I took a tour around my insides to see if it was shaking any serious foundations.
No. Better a multidimensional, fallible man than a cardboard cutout superhero. I'd lived through him being human the night of the accident. This was another layer to the man I already knew – a man who examined his own 267
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insides, and who had some perspective on what he found. That strong thread of realism and self-deprecating humour. It made it possible for me to trust, despite all the extremes of our life together, that I'd never come to harm.
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Chapter Twenty Minoan Snake Goddess
Nothing was said the next day, though the light in my master's eye was sharp again. That evening he made it clear that whatever limitations he'd acknowledged in his control over the rest of the world, his sovereignty over me remained absolute.
He informed me that my posture and moves were getting sloppy, and made me spend some sweaty, painful and exhausting hours being trained back up to standard. First basic floor moves like sitting to kneeling, getting to my feet with and without my hands behind me; up and down, with multiple repeats. Then display postures. Then graceful crawling, leashed walking, hobbled walking and so on. All of this in full bridle and bit, making it hard to silence the whimpers, impossible not to drool. I'd thought I'd had these moves down long since, but my master used his whip to point out all my errors and lack of precision, and impressed these on me up, down and sideways till I shaped up.
And under the chastity shield were two thick plugs which extended his control from the mere surface of my body into the profound and pervasive depths. Naturally, if I reacted to these, or showed any autonomous responses whatsoever I was instantly punished. I'd thought that the self-absorption had been trained out of me, but when he pushed me harder it emerged again, subtle and insidious and disgraceful.
He let me have some water and fifteen minutes chained in a corner nursing stinging flesh, sore muscles and chagrin. I was glad that he was feeling better, and grateful that he was giving me his full attention again.
Still, the evening was coming under the heading of 'Be careful what you wish for.'
And then it was aerobics. Apparently my postures had been slipping there, too. Anders hooked my bridle to the wall, and pushed me through endless, endless repetitions and corrections. In between the lunges and the jumping squats I was begging for a respite, wordlessly of course, basically praying to the god of my world, or in other words my master. My prayers, naturally, went unanswered.
After a while my world was reduced to nothing but the deep, hard voice and the whip that together activated my muscles, that operated and directed 269
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my limbs. These orders bypassed all higher brain functions; my body simply sweated, suffered and strained to obey.
Finally it was over, and my shaky form was stretched and washed down.
Frantic arousal would have emerged and shown itself, had I any energy left to show it. The outer layer of my body remained as the merest casing for the pulsating soft cream filling that was the rest of me. My mouth was freed, used, bridled again. I followed my chain down the stairs, watched dimly as my master reached beneath the couch just where he usually sat, and folded something down from its underside almost to the floor. Inset a few inches from the front edge of the couch was now a wide square plank with a circle cut out of it. At a word I crouched there on knees and elbows, and saw the bottom half of the plank tilt and drop. A nudge sent me forward, like a cow into its stall, and I felt the wood below my throat move back into place. A snap by my ear. Shifting weight above my head; a sigh of couch springs.
And then the heavy and familiar weight of long legs on my back and ass.
My field of vision was the dim brown of floorboards; a little lighter in my peripheral vision to one side, a little darker in the other. The television went on behind me, and I could hear newscaster voices. Words and phrases floated by without significance. I crouched. My jaws and tongue worked briefly around the bit in my mouth. The other orifices shuddered around their plugs. My core was molten, soft, slippery, suspended in immobility. I was still. I had a function, and I served it.
***
>heard about your accident from my mother, who heard it from your mother, who discovered it in two lines of a weeks-old email to your father which he could not recall reading.
>What a family. My mother called the other day to get the details, quite miffed at the way she found out, though she didn't come out and say so.
At the time I was busy dealing
with the mess and not feeling like discussing it. But I should have told her and gotten it over with. It was no big deal, more an aggravation than anything else.
>still going deeper?
>Yes, all the time. She keeps surprising me; there is always more to her than I expect. And all of it at my service. Sometimes I can't believe my luck.
>I am checking out this Chicago scene, but must balance this with my 270
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research time. Indeed my choice of thesis is ironic, and highly relevant to myself, as I am hardly regular in my sleep patterns and likely to become less so this year, with teaching and time zones and scenes that go from 10 to 4
a.m. Do you remember when we were out all night and then off on that day trip to Dragør, with Mormor demanding to know why we could not keep our bicycles to a straight line?
>Sure. And not just that time, either. You would even go back out the next night. I always drew the line at one. Remember the time you keeled over with your face in your sandwich and no one could wake you? I also remember paying Svend to get lost one evening. I think he followed us anyway.
>What I have seen so far is disappointing. A couple of decent dungeons but there are not so many events as I expected. Not many wearing fetish gear.
>Well, at least your lack of leather won't stand out.
***
Habitat for Humanity was throwing a Halloween Ball fundraiser. Nikki bemoaned our missed opportunities; there were at least three play parties within an hour's drive; her problem was which to choose. She grumbled at our stubbornness, and promised to regale me with juicy details as soon as she recovered.
After dinner that evening I sat naked on the bedroom floor chained to the footboard, waiting, not without some trepidation, to see what I would have to wear. My master didn't seem to go in for outright public humiliation, but in the case of Halloween who knew? Was this going to be the night he took me out on a leash in public, supposedly all in fun? I felt my whole body shrink; in my stomach was a ball of lead. Private exposure to friends was disturbing but liveable; the thought of anything public made me feel sick.
Loud footsteps thumped in the hall.
"Heed, woman!" a voice resounded. "Observe and cower!" There he was, filling the doorway. Thor, the God of Thunder, complete with horned helmet, huge red beard, and massive hammer. I stared up at him and then fell about laughing. The horns were blackened and twisted at comical angles, as if by an explosion, and the beard was singed. The whole thing was a sendup on the god theme. He grinned down at me, his teeth gleaming white through the beard, and I knew with a flood of delight that he was entirely back to 271
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normal.
Despite the send-up, the costume was marvellously authentic-looking: a genuine leather tunic, gauntlets, big studded belt. Boots wound round with thongs. I was impressed. "Now," he said, unlocking my collar and pulling me up, "similarly picturesque but in a different pantheon, we have the Minoan snake goddess." A large quantity of stiff and colourful material emerged from the closet. A goddess!? I rejoiced. Not a harem girl or a dog or something? Wow! I couldn't believe my luck. No way a goddess was going out on a leash. Wait. There had to be a catch somewhere. I suddenly remembered what a Minoan snake goddess looked like. Wasp-waisted, with a big layered skirt, and bare breasts. Oh-oh. I scanned the piles of bright multi-coloured material thrown over the bed. The bodice looked very tiny.
Anders looked over at me, his helmet askew, and winked. "We will not tempt the furies of the law. Your fertility goddess breasts will be concealed, if barely." He grabbed and squeezed them fondly. "Fortunately we already have your corset to provide the foundation garment." He fetched this and laced me up to within an inch of my life.
"Lie back." Off came the chastity shield, in went the plugs, over moans and whimpers. Plugs are far more intense in a corset. He locked me back up again.
I whispered, "Same as at the festival, master?"
"Almost. Not on automatic, though. Completely on my own initiative."
He was humming. He pulled me in another couple of millimetres to get the bodice on, ignoring tiny urgent pants and creaks from me. By the time the corset locks snapped closed I could have climbed him like a gearshift.
The skirt hung down in heavy layers to my feet, thick but not very wide, with a kind of apron in front in a crosshatched pattern. The colours were bright but a little faded, as if baked into clay. A thin, pale form-fitting layer covered my breasts, which were supported on three sides by the corset and short-sleeved bodice and so fortunately would not bounce. Much. Then there was the broad hat with a small sacred cat as its crown. The cat shape was painted to looked like old ceramic, but turned out to be cunningly managed in cloth and foam. Anders let me look in the mirror. "Wow! So elaborate!
It's beautiful!"
"You are gorgeous, goddess." He wound some snake jewellery around my arms in spirals, and handed me a couple of stiff, sinuous snakes in cloth 272
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and wire. "Here. One for each hand." I held them out to each side as in the images. "You'll be the belle of the ball. I'll have to supervise you closely to make sure no other gods come before me."
I snorted, then peered a bit more closely. Nipples pressed visibly through the clingy material, but not the nipple rings. It was going to be embarrassing, but not a nightmare. I glanced at my face, which paled in the midst of all this splendour. "Master, what about some makeup?" He cocked his head, considered me and agreed.
I took off the hat so I could lean, panting for breath, into the mirror above the sink. This was going to be a first for me, wearing a corset in public. "I don't – think I'll be able to dance, master," I breathed.
He smiled. "Sure you will. Of course; we don't want your naughty bits getting too overstimulated. Only over-stimulated enough. You see I have the remote concealed in my Belt of Power." So he did.
By the time I was finished with my makeup I looked like a terracotta figurine.
We did indeed wow them at the ball. I was unused to so much attention, and clung close to Anders, confused by all the noise and the loud music, and a bit oppressed by the mob. Fortunately there were many sexy costumes to share the libidinous attentions of the crowd, including, to my amusement, a harem girl, and some fabulous gay pirates. Still, we had barely walked in when a middle-aged Elvis widened his eyes at me, all paunch and pompadour. "Hello there! What are you supposed to be?" He stared at my breasts. "A Minoan snake goddess." Anders squeezed my hand.
The next minute it was the same thing. Every toga and trekkie and tin woodsman wanted to know what I was, and couldn't keep his eyes on my face to hear the answer. A few actually got so far as to ask what a Minoan snake goddess was, and I told them what little I knew. The jokes about fertility goddesses were pretty predictable.
Anders had less explaining to do. His pantheon was a couple of millennia closer to the present day, and thus was more familiar. The horned helmet was a dead giveaway. And of course Thor turned up in role playing games, and cartoons and god knows what else. His admirers (the gay pirates included) mainly wanted to get up close and feel the tunic, or so it seemed. I could relate.
And there went the vaginal plug, on, off, high, low. I took tiny shallow 273
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breaths and hoped my makeup covered the flush.
We saw friends, who looked, too, but were less obvious about it.
Graham turned up, very elegant in a top hat and tails, obtained second hand in Kensington at Courage My Love. He was accompanied by his wife Kristin, gowned from the same source a là Ginger Rogers, who eyed him eying me, and then stared in annoyed disbelief at my waist. There were some surreptitious glances of her own at Anders' chest and shoulders. Kristin turned out to be very nice, actually, if a little obsessed with her son's progress at daycare. I missed a milestone or two when the vibrator turned up a notch. Seeing me sweating, Graham handed me a
drink with the same kindly look of concern with which he'd brought me a glass of water so recently. We talked when the loud band allowed, sticking to safe subjects, like the pets we'd had as kids and why Kristin didn't want a dog. I noted that Graham was careful to orient himself companionably beside me looking elsewhere, rather than in front where his eyes might get him into trouble.
Anders and I danced. I was so hampered by the corset and heavy skirt that I had an excuse not to set my tits bobbling. Still, I could tell by the glances I got that they sometimes took on a life of their own.
Claude and Pam arrived, garbed respectively in Voyageur outfit and kilt, which apparently they'd worn at every costume party since 1982. We were joined by the Black Knight from Monty Python, missing an arm. To my embarrassment, sans helmet he turned out to be one of my customers at the information centre. I'd been hoping not to run into anyone from work. I saw one of our board members in the distance, but fortunately she didn't spot me.
"And what are you meant to be?" asked Pam. She'd startled me, coming at me out of the noise when I was turned the other way. I quailed a bit under her critical gaze, reminded more than ever of my sixth-grade teacher.
"Um – a Minoan snake goddess," I faltered. I could hear that long-ago voice: Speak up, girl!
"Ah, yes," she said, eyeing me up and down. "The representation rather than the goddess herself, I see. A porcelain figurine," she said bitingly.
"Very decorative."
"Terracotta," I muttered resentfully, but she'd already turned away.
Damn it, if Anders had dressed me as a collectible, it was as a museum-quality one-off, not some Royal Doulton shepherdess.
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A Wookie and a young guy in yellow makeup and Bart Simpson hair stopped by to exchange views with Anders about the merits of various brew pubs, and to express disgust with the standard Molson's 'piss water' in their plastic cups. Bart requested a dance, calling me 'dude;' I couldn't tell if he was staying in character or this was really how he talked. I declined with thanks. Everyone ate and drank. I took tiny sips, microscopic nibbles, and informed the curious that I was a Minoan snake goddess.