Amy thought about it, but she didn’t like the conclusions she was already coming to. “Yeah? And … ?”
“And he mentioned this … this agency … you promised to keep an open mind, right?”
“Isla!”
“Okay, well, it’s kind of like a … like an escort service, I guess, but they specialize in role play.”
“Role play? I don’t get it, you mean a guy shows up and pretends to be James Bond?”
“Um, no, not James Bond, exactly.” Reading Amy’s growing impatience, Isla said, “They specialize in kidnapping role play, abduction scenarios, things like that.”
Amy had to stop walking, her stunned mind confusing her brain, legs shutting down.
Isla stopped and turned. “I know, it’s kind of … out there, I get that.”
Amy nodded and kept walking. “Oh, you get that, do you?”
“Yeah, but honestly, Amy, I think it’s just what you need.”
“Me? And why’s that?”
Isla huffed, rolling her eyes. “God, Amy, a million reasons. First of all, what you need, Amy is to get laid, seriously, seriously laid!”
Amy threw out a huff of surprised laughter, but it faded quickly. “Isla, really — ”
“It’s true! Think about it, Amy: What was the best sex you ever had?”
Amy didn't like to think about it, but she knew there was no getting around the question. “You mean … the precise time, or the person — ?”
“Either or, dummy!”
Amy sighed, her memory illustrating a sheltered and uninspired romantic life through her late teens and into her early twenties. “Michael, I guess. He wasn’t bad.”
“Wasn't bad? That’s the best sex you’ve ever had, he wasn’t bad? I think you can do better than that.”
“Well, yeah, I’m sure I can, but … you think I need to get kidnapped? It’s a little extreme, isn’t it?”
“But that’s exactly the point! Don’t tell me you've never thought about it, with all the TV shows and movies. Have you looked at the internet? There’s a lot worse that than out there. And this isn’t even sex, the Jag said. I guess you can do that if you want, but it can also be just, y’know … ”
“No, I don’t know.”
“He says it’s whatever you want it to be. I guess some people get whipped or tied up, and I’ll bet a lot of ‘em go for the sex too, but … he said, one person he knew just wanted to be tied to a chair and yelled at for six hours, then shoved into a closet to jerk himself off.”
“Jerk himself off?” Amy squinted in confusion.
Isla nodded. “Hey, people are complicated, what can you say? And I really think this could be good for you. You want a little adventure outside the mansion, right? Well, once the mouse is away, I say, ‘Let her play!’”
“Isla — ”
Isla cut her off, “This could put you right, Amy, put everything else into perspective. A little vacation from reality, with a good hard fuck at the end of it? That's a no-brainer. And talk about independence from your family, you know they’d never go for it. Of course, just rebelling is no reason to do anything.”
“No,” Amy said, trying to quell her little smile, “of course not.” And though she wasn’t that close to admitting it, Amy couldn’t deny a kind of unspoken attraction to the bondage subculture, little as she knew about it. She only knew she was supposed to deny her interest and curiosity, or she’d come off like some weirdo deviant.
“The Jaguar said it’s perfectly safe, that everybody’s screened and clean, condoms and everything, it all checks out. Costs a fortune, I guess, but what do you care about that?”
Isla’s logic was hard to surmount, and the mountain of it was getting taller all the time, nearly blotting out the sunlight of her doubt. “So, whatever I say happens,” Amy clarified, “and only what I say, and it’s totally safe?”
“That’s what you’re paying for.”
“How much?”
“Just ten grand or so, is what T-Jag said.”
T-Jag?
Amy looked around Hollywood Boulevard as they strolled forward, the gritty underbelly of the famous tourist trap revealing more to her with every step forward. “Would you do it?”
Isla gave it a little thought, one shoulder arching up toward her ear. “Well, it’s not so weird, is it? I mean, there are people out there doing all sorts of shit! Nothing wrong with getting in touch with your wild side once in a while.”
Though she was almost afraid of the answer, Amy asked, “Have you ever … ?”
Isla’s smile told Amy everything she needed to know; well, almost everything. As she learned more and more, Amy realized that she knew less and less. “Isla!” Then, after a conflicted pause, Amy asked, “Who? When?”
“Christian, last year, loved to tie me up.”
“Get outta here!”
“It was the only way he could get it up, actually. He’d be limp as an old gym sock until I put up a bit of a fight, he’d get out the duct tape, and we’d be off to the races.”
Amy was stunned, barely able to put together the very simple and logical question she knew she had to ask. “What about you? Did you like it?”
“Best sex I ever had.”
“Really? Why?”
Isla just shrugged as they walked on. “I dunno. It’s the old dom/sub chemistry, I guess. Who doesn't love the feel of a big, strong man, all that power and energy? That has a natural attraction, it touches on a biological mandate. And there’s nothing wrong with it, society promotes it. I think the real maladjustment is in not accepting it, not fully understanding it … or yourself.”
Isla found what she was looking for in her purse, The Jaguar’s business card with a word and a phone number scribbled on the back.
Longshadows.
Curled up on her plush king size bed, Amy grabbed her laptop and stared back at the results of her google search. The internet was crawling with bondage-related material, nothing that surprised Amy, of course. But the articles on the subject were far outnumbered by websites offering dating services and cheap video downloads.
One Youtube video was an hour-long instalment of a History Channel documentary on the history of sex. The episode entitled Strings Attached was dedicated to the development of the popular kink throughout ancient and modern history.
The stately voice of actor Peter Graves evenly described the development of bondage sex over the years, narrating a series of photographs of ancient artifacts and other evidence. A series of pictures of small stone statues, worn by time, pictures fertility Gods in sexual combat, arms and legs intertwined, several figures gathered around one in the center, and other provocative poses.
“The Ancient Egyptians practiced bondage as a delight of the rich and powerful, which is where the practice remained for much of its time in the human experience. The Indian cultures’ sex bible the Kama Sutra outlines several sexual ways of hitting your partner during sex, though ancient social balances have to be taken into account.”
They sure do, Amy thought. Nobody’s hitting me, that’s for damn sure!
Peter Graves went on, “However, the modern traces of this include playful spanking and paddling. And the modern Japanese culture still embraces bondage today, indulging the ancient tribal dominance and submissiveness that is so intrinsic to their culture.”
Other pictures, black and white engravings of wealthy men and women in Elizabethan wigs and hoop skirts, happily throttling each other, filled the screen in slow succession. “Aristocrats through European history were eager enthusiasts, with writers like the French aristocrat and revolutionary politician Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, leading the call of the rich and curious.”
The screen was then dominated by a series of old comic book panels, some in black and white and some in color, most featuring the popular heroine Wonder Woman in tight bondage; tied to chairs, standing against poles, always gagged and often menaced by some monster or criminal.
“Young men of a certain
generation grew up on the bondage adventures of Wonder Woman, Lois Lane, Brenda Starr, and countless other Golden Age damsels in distress,” Peter Graves explained as casually as if he was recounting a fishing expedition at a neighborhood pond. “The effects of this influence were pervasive twenty years later, when these same readers were creating programming of their own, on television and movie screens in the United States and across Europe … ”
Amy clicked off the video and kept browsing. Is that it? Are we trained to want this? And then are we trained to be ashamed of it? These people, Wonder Woman, Lois Lane, they're actresses playing characters, they’re drawings, they're not real people. Nothing bad really happens to them …
Still, the whole thing was just too much to digest and Amy closed the laptop shut and fell back onto one of the many large, soft pillows arranged on her bed.
There must be some other way.
Chapter 5
Amy
Amy spent the next day puttering around the mansion grounds, a massive zoo with a single living exhibit, the rare and endangered Amy Lynn Dey. She kept thinking about Isla’s suggestion, and once or twice was ready to call the number on the back of The Jaguar’s business card. But she just couldn’t bring herself to do it, despite the little charge she got whenever she thought about it.
No, Amy told herself, again and again, it’s too much. There must be a more … normal way of going about things. If I wanted to get tied up, I could just take Isla to Comic Con, we’d be bound and restrained to a hotel bed in no time.
So Amy took a more traditional approach, this time finding a host of dating sites. Though she found several that specialized in the kinky lifestyle, Amy’s impulse was to find somebody from a normal, mainstream website. Everybody’s got a little hobby, she told herself, no reason to find somebody who’s absolutely obsessed with it.
I should have done this a long time ago, Amy had to admit. What my family doesn’t know, won’t hurt me. I’ll just tell them I’m out with Isla, they’ll buy that. Anyway, I’m twenty-three years old, I’m not a kid and I shouldn’t have to lie about my comings and goings. Still, I know Isla will back me up in case they call …
Amy posted a picture and was careful not to use her real name or disclose anything personal about her family or fortune. She spent hours searching the profiles, finding only one that excited her interest, a psychology masters student at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Roger Halibrand, eh?
Roger Halibrand was well-built and athletic, with sun-kissed blond highlights in his dusty brown hair. They strolled together down Glendon Avenue in the crowded Westwood Village, cars crawling past the numerous shops and cafes that were the playground for the students and faculty of UCLA. The campus itself was nestled in the southern foot of the Hollywood Hills, stately marble halls and vast lawns and concrete steps in almost every direction.
“Psychiatry is, for me … it’s the ultimate science,” Roger said, hazel eyes sparkling as he looked out over the busy village. “The human mind really is the last frontier, wouldn't you say?”
Amy had never thought to put it that way, but she was hard-pressed to disagree. “I suppose I would, yes.”
“It really is what separates us from the animals, though there is plenty of psychology in the natural world, from dogs to orca, anything that thinks, really. But things like morality, good and evil, inspiration and creation; everything which is greatest and worst about our species, comes down to psychology.”
Again, Amy couldn’t necessarily disagree, but it just seemed easier to digest the idea rather than comment on it. She liked this Roger and she liked what he had to say, even if there was something about him she wasn't quite sure of.
Oh stop it, Amy told herself, give the guy a chance! If you wanted to half-ass it, you would have met him for lunch on a Tuesday, not Sunday brunch in the Village.
Roger went on, “That’s what my mother always used to say anyway.”
“Oh, your mother,” Amy said, troubled by it for several reasons. “You say, ‘used to’. Is she … gone?”
He turned, brows high, a quick snarl on his lips. “What? No, of course not! How could you assume such a thing?”
“I’m sorry but … you said used to — ”
“When she was a psychiatrist, is what I meant.” He snapped.
“Oh, she was in practice. Well, that makes sense.” Amy said calmly, trying to neutralize the anxious vibe in the air.
“Of course. She was one of the first female psychiatrists in town with her own offices. She’s whip smart, a great businesswoman, superb insight into the human condition.” They walked on, Amy nodding and smiling and not sure what to make of the conversation or what to add to it. “In a lot of ways, she’s like my best friend.”
“Your — ?” Amy tried not to smile, but her shared psychiatric expertise with Roger literally begged the question. “Isn’t that just a bit … Freudian?”
Roger waved her off. “Freudian implies a sex love, that’s not what I’m talking about at all.”
“No?”
“No, of course not, no! Blech, disgusting.”
Amy shrugged. “Well, um, I agree, I have to say.”
But Roger went on, “But what I feel for my mother is just … just a healthy respect, familial love, and an objective admiration for her as a person and as a professional. Just the thought of losing her … ” He shook his head.
“I apologize,” Amy said, “forget I mentioned it. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Done.” Roger pulled his smartphone out of his pocket and swiped the screen a few times, Amy looking over with mild curiosity. Reading her curiosity, he handed her the phone, a picture of an attractive middle-aged woman dominating the screen. Blonde hair and a crooked smile, Amy was struck by the instant recognition.
Whoa.. She looks like me! Or else, I look like her. Either way …
Roger took the phone back and swiped the phone again, and to Amy’s horror, he raised the phone to his ear. “Mom, it’s me … Yeah, how’s your day going?”
Your day, Amy silently repeated. Does he call her every day?
“Yeah, I’m with her now,” Roger said, offering Amy a little nod. “Hold on.” He extended the phone, Amy stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at the phone as if it might electrocute her on the slightest touch. “Go ahead,” Roger said to Amy, “she wants to say hi.”
Amy took the phone, slowly raising it to her ear. “Hello?”
“Hi, doll,” the woman’s voice said. “I’m Carol, Roger’s mother.”
“Um, yes, it’s nice to meet you.”
“And you’re his new girlfriend?”
The word pushed a lump up in the back of Amy’s throat. “Oh my no, Mrs. … Carol, we’ve only just met. This is our first date.”
“He’s a very good boy,” she said.
“I’m sure he is.” Roger watched Amy’s half of the conversation as if knowing what his mother was saying on the other end, and Amy didn’t doubt it for a minute. “Well, I’ll hand you back to him. It was very nice speaking with you.”
“You too, dear,” was all Amy said before she pressed a fake smile and handed the phone back to Roger.
Roger took the phone, he and Amy standing as disinterested students and other hipster types bopped down the sidewalk past them. Roger said, “No, Mom, she’s very nice … Now why would you say that, you’ve never even met her! … Wwww — What’s the matter with you, Mother? … And how was that my fault? She was a bitch, we both know that. Also, she turned out to be a lesbian, how is that me scaring her off?”
Oh boy, Amy said, glancing around and taking a single step back, followed by another. “That’s you all over, so typical,” Roger said, louder and angrier, his attention focused on the phone, not even seeming to notice Amy turning and fading into the crowd. “No, mother, you go to hell!”
Chapter 6
Amy
Later that evening, the Dey family sat around in the dimly lit dining h
all for Sunday dinner. The dark walnut wooden table was polished and adorned with gorgeous place settings and fresh cut flowers. Sunday night dinner was a tradition they kept alive each week. The filet mignon was tender and juicy, the lobster tail fresh and flavorful, potatoes au gratin creamy with a dark, crispy crust. But Amy couldn’t enjoy any of it. She sat at the grand dining room table with her mother and brothers, Rosa quietly scuttling around unseen in the kitchen.
She’s eating, Amy knew, poor Rosa eating alone in our kitchen, apart from her family. But Amy turned back to her own family and couldn’t fight the feeling that she was every bit as lonely as Rosa was, and every bit as alone. At the very least, Amy knew that she was no less lonely.
Jonathan washed down a mouthful of lobster with a drink of chardonnay, his tongue pulling strands of the delicious meat from between his teeth. “I was thinking today,” he said to break the uncomfortable silence, “about you, Amy, and your current … winter of discontent, let’s call it.”
Amy didn’t like the snide reference, but she was more interested in hearing what Jonathan had to say than in reprimanding him. As the youngest sibling and the only girl, she never stood a chance of doing that anyway, at least not and getting away with it.
With nobody to stop him, Jonathan went on, “I was thinking it’s time to think about finding a suitable man, a husband.”
Danny said, “You wanna marry her off?”
“It’s not like that,” Jonathan said, turning to Amy. “But you’re looking for purpose, right? And the whole partying lifestyle, that’s not you, it never was. No wonder you’re unhappy. And I honestly think what would make you happy is the right man.” Amy was hard-pressed to disagree, though there was no time to plumb that complicated subject. “You’re such a loving person, I know you’d make a great mother.”
Danny had to nod, turning to Amy. “You were just talking about this, down at the bar. Maybe you got babies on the brain and you don’t even know it.”
Capture Me Page 4