by Anneke Jacob
"How often do you see a squirrel going that far in a straight line?"
Anders asked.
"Well, only for a second, heading for a tree. Usually they dodge about."
"Like you." He squeezed me, his eyes still following the squirrel. "Not that it has a choice at the moment. On the street you never know which way they'll go. Back under your tires often as not."
"It does look odd. I have never been under your tires, by the way." We watched the critter cling and scuttle on its narrow path, on and on above the sidewalk, above the traffic, tail whipping back and forth for balance. "Like a tightrope walker over Niagara Falls.”
“Looks like it's on a mission. Like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon.”
“I'll bet he's got a girlfriend in the next block."
Halfway down the next block the squirrel finally reached a tree and disappeared. We crossed, and Anders turned us south, through small but thoroughly renovated houses. We'd reached the Beaches; east-end upscale. I hugged his side to keep warm.
"Well, well," he mused. "A fleeing hunhund. A crazy cat. And a disturbingly methodical squirrel. This is our day to consider unusual animal behaviour. What next, I wonder?" I dug into his chest with my head, either protesting or confirming my animal status; he could take it any way he wanted.
On Queen my eyes raked the outside bins at Book City, and Anders indulged me; we went in. He ended up buying Jane Jacob's last book, about the decline of Western civilization, from which I averted my eyes; I got a Penguin Classic edition of an Arnold Bennet novel, the story safely set in 1910.
We ended up in a fancy pub-slash-bistro, eating grilled chicken pizza and talking about Christmas.
"Christmas traditions? I don't know," I said. "The usual. A tree, a pile of 291
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presents. A free-range turkey with dried apricot and organic wild rice stuffing.”
“That was it?"
"Let's see…. My uncles and cousins watched football down in the rec room. My parents went to a million parties, and came home trashed. My sister complained about turkey sandwiches and sent out for pizza."
"What about you?"
"I ate leftover wild rice and read the books people gave me."
"That doesn't sound like much fun."
I shrugged. "I like wild rice. Anyway, it could have been worse. My friend Laura's parents did their drinking at home and fought through the whole thing, every single year. Broken crockery and all. One year she had to call 911. What was your Christmas like?”
“Oh, well, a Danish Christmas is something else. It's a very big deal.”
“Is it?"
"Oh, yeah. A big lead-up, first of all. The whole month. Weeks of baking and decorating. We had Advent calendars, of course, with little presents, one for each day. Chocolate, mostly. When Janne was three she ate all of hers at once and threw up." Janne was his little sister. "Svend teased her about it every Christmas for years; she'd chase him around the house trying to tackle him.”
“Now there's a golden memory. Did you have big presents too?"
"Of course. Everyone spends a fortune on presents. Plus days of feasting and parties and games and visiting back and forth. It goes on and on. But it is fun. I'll have to take you back there some time; you should experience it."
"Not this year, though?" I tried to keep the anxiety out of my voice. A big friendly noisy family taking me in, requiring me to have social graces, speaking another language over my dark swarthy little head. Oh, boy.
"No, I think we'll just have fun at home. But I'll do some baking. Deck you out in pretty chains and sprigs of holly."
While we were eating the clouds had decided on sleet; there was a thin layer on the tops of cars, and some slush piling up on the sidewalk. As I wasn't wearing boots we took a streetcar. At the next intersection my eye was caught by a man, broad, drab and blank-faced, wandering off the curb into the slow traffic. He began meandering in circles and figure eights, ignoring all honks and verbal advice. I nudged Anders, and he leaned past 292
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me to take a look. "Wow," I said. "The sun's not down yet."
A car edged past the wavering figure. The man weaved toward the sidewalk, then changed his mind and headed out again, his path describing a curve, as if one leg was shorter than the other.
"Something tells me time of day isn't what he goes by," Anders said.
"Poor bastard." I half expected Anders to get up and take steps, but he stayed put. "No urge to rescue?"
"No need. Look." There was a cop car, a pair of policemen just emerging with that slow and deliberate convergence thing they do.
The streetcar moved on. "Hey!" I said, sitting back. "Squirrels going in straight lines and men going in circles!"
Anders grinned down at me, and in his Danish professor voice said,
"Aha! Very significant."
"What does it mean, Doctor Thygesen?"
"Obviously, the squirrels take over after our decadent society implodes and we succumb to global warming."
"I thought that was supposed to be cockroaches."
He stroked his absent beard. "The squirrels want you to think so. They are gaining in intelligence by picking up the washed-away brain cells of tavern customers. Elite rodent cadres are preparing to rule the world."
"Rodent cadres, of course! Rats I can believe."
"Very well, the squirrels are in league with the rats. Brothers in arms.
The city rodent and the country rodent."
The woman sitting in front of us glanced over her shoulder, amused, or possibly alarmed. Anders put an arm around me and said in my ear, "Of course, the real meaning is that the boundaries between human and animal aren't clearly defined. Some creatures might need to remember at which end of the continuum they belong." Payback. I knew it. What was he planning?
It turned out he was planning to emphasize my captured animal status by hanging me from the ceiling again, tying my labia rings to my thighs, and tormenting and teasing me until I howled.
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Chapter Twenty-Two
A Pervert's Christmas
I lay curled beneath the desk one Saturday afternoon, inhaling warm and gingery baking smells, listening to half a conversation in Danish above my head. The legs beside me took themselves off toward the kitchen. Through the slats I saw my master, phone in hand, looking through cupboards. An ingredients search, it looked like.
We were well into December now. The tree was up and decorated.
Danish tradition was to leave it till just before Christmas, but Anders was using it to substitute for the lack of family fuss, and to be the recipient of decorations as we made them. He'd showed me how to make paper hearts in red and white, apparently traditional, and strings of little Danish flags, of all things. Plus small baskets of chocolates.
He'd been spending long hours in the basement, clanging and banging, leaving me tethered upstairs. Normally I got to spend some time chained beneath the bench, watching him work. I missed keeping him company down there. He'd fastened me to posts or joists and amused himself between the worktable and the lumber pile. When he'd been in a whimsical mood, he'd use me as a holder for small items, hanging them from nipple and nose rings. But I hadn't been downstairs for weeks; he'd even taken over the laundry. It was obvious he was hatching more surprises than usual.
A really big Advent calendar now hung on the wall in the back bedroom, and starting on the first of December I'd been allowed one item a day. There were pockets of all sizes velcroed on; I suspected Anders of shifting things around to the day's date to suit his mood. Things like nipple clamps, new whips, chocolate truffles, vibrators, cookies. Whatever it was I got to wear it, eat it or have it applied to me. And the non-edible items accumulated and got combined another day. Clamps were decorated by weights shaped like Christmas ornaments, vibrated, joined by silvery chains.
Today I'd gotten
a break from the clamps; the day's pocket had produced various small bells. One for each nipple ring, one on my nose ring, which made me feel truly silly, and some for my collar and cuffs. Oddly, they all seemed to produce different pitches. I tinkled like a wind chime.
There were six left over which he'd put aside. Something told me the use to 294
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which they were going to be put.
Anders sat back down at the desk still in the midst of his conversation, and clicked away at the computer. I suspected him of downloading recipes, or perhaps his mother was sending them? Lately he'd been trying out all sorts of goodies on me, holding up tidbits and making me beg first, of course. He'd have to be careful, or the restraints would need to be let out a notch; that would be a first. His culinary skills never ceased to amaze me. I felt more than lucky to eat what he made, even from a plastic dog dish.
Given my own ineptitude in the kitchen, I was still giving thanks that my work as a slave didn't include attempts at cookery.
I curled around his leg, and felt a hand briefly in my hair. After a while the phone went down, and a bare toe flicked my nipple. The bell jingled.
Anders went back to whatever he was doing on the computer.
The big production he was making of Christmas rather amused me, but his enthusiasm was infectious. I hadn't felt this much excitement over it since my cynical adolescence. My manufacture of ornaments had gone on from set pieces to productions more or less original. A few miniature dreamcatchers first of all. As I made those I could feel my grandmother's hands guiding mine, their warm, thin skin spotted and shiny with age. I also constructed little figures out of bits of cloth and paint and Anders' leftover wood scraps. Some of these he had me make into Julnisse, elf-characters in pointy red hats. Apparently the originals hung around making mischief at Christmas unless fed. These were all male, with the exception of one completely nontraditional female Julnisse with dark, curly yarn hair under her red hat.
The other figures were whatever my imagination could come up with. A construction worker, complete with a round shampoo cap hard hat, was my favourite. Every afternoon I sat naked over these things, and then searched for empty branches from which to hang them. I'd made a couple to send home to amuse my parents.
Anders had already kindly allowed me the use of a debit card and a couple of afternoons to do some shopping for my family, with time and location tightly specified, of course. The resultant package was probably safe in the keeping of Homeland Security by now. This didn't solve my constant problem, which was my present for Anders. Gifts were flowing in one direction only, from a lavish and imaginative soul. I had so little ability 295
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to reciprocate. But I was determined that come hell, high water or GPS
tracker, he was going to find a surprise under that tree.
The week before I'd gestured toward a piece of paper on the dresser, the Home Depot gift certificate bestowed upon me at the Halloween ball. It was half hidden under a pile of small change and a telephone bill.
"Could I have that?" I'd asked him.
He'd looked puzzled, then amused. "Sure. Hey, you won it. Do you need more time to shop?"
For a split second I was tempted. Shopping on my own, even in Home Depot, now had an air of forbidden adventure. But he'd know eventually that it hadn't been necessary, and then I'd be in trouble. "No, master, thank you."
He'd glanced at me with narrowed eyes, and for a second I'd thought he was going to squeeze it out of me, but he'd let it go.
The bare foot slid out from beneath my breast, and the legs were gone again. Oh, lord. Anders was near the tree, hanging something from the ceiling beam. My heart began to thump. "Come here, my little ornament, and let's decorate the living room some more."
I crawled out from beneath the desk, jingling all the way, and presented myself to him. The apparatus above me wasn't the wrist and ankle cuff arrangement, but a sling of some sort. He extracted me from the chastity belt and lifted me up into it. I swung a little, feeling momentarily like a little kid.
"What are you looking so shiny about?"
"Wow, a sitting position!"
"Why of course, my dear. Your comfort is my goal, always."
I snorted, and peered around. He'd put me at about at his own eye level, and the floor was surprisingly far away.
"The house looks so different from this angle," I said. "How bizarre to spend your life at such an altitude."
He tingled the bell hanging from my nose. "So speaks the floor-dwelling tambourine." Daringly I stuck out my tongue at him, and got it yanked.
"Behave yourself, moppet. All right, hands behind you. There. Legs now. Wider. That's good." He strapped my thighs and ankles to the sling.
Then he ran his fingers through channels and inclines, and over the arc of pubic bone. Tiny squirms were amplified by the setup; I began to swing. He steadied me, and confirmed my expectation about the remaining bells, 296
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hanging them from the labia rings. They were heavier than I'd expected.
I watched him stand back and consider me. "You're extremely ornamental, but I think I'll make you a little more obviously seasonal." He went off and came back with garlands and glittery chains, which he spiralled round my neck and legs and around my breasts. Two tree ornaments ended up hanging from my ears.
"Better. Very festive. This calls for a beer." From the kitchen he came back with a dark and foamy glass, wiping his lips. "Wait, I forgot the hat."
Red and pointy, on it went. "That really is cute," he said, standing back and admiring.
He brought out a couple of those little wooden sticks with balls at the ends. "Okay, let's see how the bells sound. Get you tuned up." This turned into serious musician business; one bell was trifle flat and he spent several minutes fiddling with it. A few got moved around on some harmonic principal or other; he exchanged a nipple bell with the nose bell, and rearranged me to be more upright so that the collar bell would hang free.
Then he began to play. First a scale and an arpeggio, then a tune, initially clumsy but defter with practice. I was vibrating along with the bells.
"Recognize that?" he asked conversationally.
"Um…something about drinking…harvest supper…?" I breathed.
"Very good!" He continued tapping, and belted out the tune in his deep baritone, loud enough for a whole roistering table full of farm hands.
Our sheep shear is over and summer is past, Here's a health to our mistress all in a full glass, For she's a good woman and provides us with cheer, Here's a health to our mistress, so drink up your beer.
He grinned at me and took a deep draught. "Here my good mistress, try this, it's the Granite's Peculiar; outstanding stuff." Dutifully I took a sip. It all tasted the same to me: like beer.
A lively little jig now. "Stop whimpering, you're out of tune. Name this one. Quick, now.”
“The – The Sailor's Wife?" The bells seemed to keep vibrating even when they weren't being struck. Despite my efforts to hold back, my hips thrust rather desperately forward, causing Anders to strike a wrong note. I 297
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got a good whack across the ass that hurt quite a lot even through the sling, and set everything jingling at once. "Hold still!”
“Sorry, master."
The next song seemed to be in the key of the nose bell; anyway, the tune kept returning to that one. My head started to buzz. The bell was tingled four times in two bars and I sneezed. "Hey!" he laughed, but he didn't stop.
At the next nose vibration I sneezed again, and we both cracked up. "All right, that's it, it'll have to go somewhere else." A brief pause while he strung a chain between my nipples, polished the bell and hung it from that.
He played a couple more tunes, quizzing me on each. I couldn't dredge up the fourth one, though it sounded vaguely ragtime, and I got whacked again.
> "You know," he said, striking notes at random, "this would be a great way for people to start making their own entertainment again at parties.
Most of them have lost the knack; they just shove in a CD, and leave it to the music industry. Where's the fun in that?" Ping, pang, clangle. "Not everyone
– has your talent – master –"
He gave me a slow, rather ominous smile "Oh, but with such an instrument available – and so decorative, too – almost anyone could make a pretty tune." Suddenly I could envision the room full of people, laughing and drinking and joining in on the choruses. With me as the centrepiece.
He ran his sticks back and forth over the labia bells, hit the nipple bells with a little ta-ting, and then pressed one of the sticks up against my clit. Not moving it, just pressing. My voice slid upward in pitch, quavering like a violin tremolo. "See?"
The stick was withdrawn, and I groaned. "Oh, god…. Please, master…"
Here it came. Begging. Whether I wanted to or not. No matter how futile the exercise. "Please, master, please…"
"Stop wriggling, slave." He sang a teasing chorus of 'Beggin' Woman.'
Then he wiped the stick clean and played on. When I couldn't shut up and stay shut up I got strapped into a full gag and muzzle. The hat went back on top.
And somehow the stopping of my voice sent me inward, the recipient, now in no way a player but only played upon. The pure tones picked up some kind of harmonics in my flesh, which resonated with the ear's vibration. Melody, in the key of exquisite arousal, with no crescendo. There 298
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was a faint echo in my mind of that story of Kafka's, the ordeal and the enlightenment. What I was absorbing I couldn't put words to; couldn't have produced. I was literally nothing but the sounding board.
***
Anders stood back and observed the silent figure in the sling, the muzzled head sagging back, the eyes, framed by straps, deep in the glaze of subspace. Setting the mallets aside, he gently removed the labia bells. A little height adjustment. Then he was inside her, his cock gliding slowly, slowly along slippery walls, his hands gripping her hips. By now he knew well how to make use of his vessel, stage by stage and nerve by nerve, always bringing her along with him, always gently leaving her just outside the door while he stepped through. Every moment, every movement, had to be considered and deliberate. And when the long, slow orgasm, magnificent as a cathedral chord, had played itself out, he stood there with his eyes closed, using his hold on her to stay upright, shuddering with the aftershocks brought on by the urgent convulsion of warm wet flesh around his softening cock. The rigid thighs, the helpless moaning. So sweet. A little further decoration and then it would be time to make dinner. Anders hung his slave's labia and nipples with the clamps and ornament-shaped weights that he'd been using all week, this time hanging the bells at the ends. He strung coloured lights across the ceiling from either side of her, down the sling, in a gentle loop between her feet, back under her to her bound hands. When they were turned on he swung her gently, listening to the bells' tinkle and the faint groans at the additional drag of weight on her flesh, and made sure the lights made no contact with skin. Then he turned on some old wassailing songs from the 18th century and went into the kitchen.