White Silk & I Belong to You

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  My body bucks against his hand, but there is no moving away from him firm grasp. Steven fumes as if I’ve offended him, “What did I say about being quiet?”

  I’m duly scorned.

  While I settle myself, Steven runs the smooth back of the hairbrush against my hot skin, teasing me with the threat of his next smack. When he begins, the fury behind the paddling makes me wonder what kind of monster I’ve unleashed from its pen of rules.

  As each crack of wood smashes into my buttocks, more tears form in my eyes. I hear myself sobbing, feel my body wriggle for escape and listen to my heart, torn as it is, plead silently for an end to this punishing session.

  When he’s finally finished, Steven tosses the brush to the sofa beside my hands where it lands with a saucy bounce. I’ll never look at the thing the same again.

  “Get up,” he orders tersely.

  I struggle to rise without his help. Obviously there will be no consoling hug to finish this off. If anything, I’ve only just tapped an anger that has deep roots and a vast well of emotion to draw from.

  We face off looking eye-to-eye, his eyes molten with dark feeling, mine tear-strained and puffy from crying. “Yes, Michelle, this was the right solution, at least for now,” he says.

  “Was it?”

  He nods. “Yes, it was. But I need time now.”

  “Steven, there are probably more things you need to know… I-I need to tell you…”

  He gently lifts my disheveled hair off my face, and covers my lips with the soft touch of his fingers. He shakes his head no. I’m not to speak. “No more, not now. You go home and do whatever you need to do. You’ll hear from me soon. I just need some time to think.”

  “Okay,” I answer weakly. All the spirit for argument has vanished. “It was the right thing, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  I need reassurance, but I see from his troubled expression that I won’t be getting that reassurance now.

  “But you know what I do want?” There’s some strange and evil glint in his eye. “I want you to sweat it out, Michelle. Because that’s what I’m going to do. I want you to think about what it is you want for the rest of your life, because that’s what I’m going to be thinking about. Do I like the fact that I have to punish the woman I love because she can’t be straight with me? And what does this do to me? Do I like the man I was just now? Do I like that fact that I enjoyed blistering your behind?” He nods toward the sofa where I’d lain poised for the spanking. “I don’t have the answers, yet. And until I do, we need a break.”

  “I understand.” Of course, I understand.

  But I hate it! I hate that he’s turning emotion into thought, that he can’t translate the fire I feel from him now into something tangible that I can cling to. I hate that we’re not locked in a hot sexual clinch, letting the rest of the tension between us subside with a hard fuck. I hate that he’s sending me away to think! I hate that he needs a break from me…

  But I do understand. This is the way it’s going to be; I’ve spent all available relationship capital to get us this far. And now I can only wait.

  I carry home the heavy weight of more lies—the more recent ones about my impetuous flings and the dark scene with Daniel. I’ll have to tell Steven if we’re to continue… I won’t let more lies stand between us. I even wonder if it’s fair to withhold this information now. What if he can accept my past but not my behavior in the last few weeks? These would be more personal crimes, infidelities in our relationship. But then, he doesn’t give me the chance to amend my story. And I have to admit, I’m spent.

  ***

  “You look like shit, Shelly.” Sunny’s worried look greets me when I return to the studio. “You have any idea what we need to do today, and you’re off doing what?”

  I don’t take her admonishment well, not from a subordinate. “Who are you to be grilling me?” I snap back.

  “Oops, sorry.” She has an impish look in her eye. If she only knew what she faces.

  “And why are you so in a hurry?”

  “No hurry, really; I just want to wrap things up by the weekend…Master Rennie is taking me away.” Her whole body giggles at the idea.

  “You’re going away? Where?”

  She shrugs. “I’m not supposed to know. But I think it’s a scene party, maybe one of those really decadent weekends at some fancy estate. Ooo, wouldn’t that be amazing if I spent the whole time naked and in chains, locked in a medieval dungeon?”

  From the look of her, I think she’s going to cum on the spot. But as she’s thinking slave bells, I’m hearing alarms go off. Fancy estate, my ass. I tremble knowing she’s headed for Aman’s training facility. She has no idea…

  “Sunny, do you really know who this man is? I mean really? How do you know you can trust him?” She stares at me blankly. “And now you’re going away for the weekend and you don’t know where. Good lord, look what happened in the warehouse. You’d better be careful putting your life in his hands again. Sometimes these characters are not all they seem.”

  “Oh? That so? And where do you get your information? What do you know about the scene?” She purses her lips like a pissed-off fifteen-year-old.

  “More than you realize.”

  “Oh?” she backs off a little.

  “My boyfriend Kovac… the one who died. We were into it pretty heavy.”

  “You were?” I have surprised her now.

  “Yes.”

  “Wow. I didn’t know.”

  “I don’t like to talk about it.”

  “Did it end badly?”

  “Kovac died,” I remind her.

  “Yeah. But that had nothing to do with S&M and what you experienced has nothing to do with my experience.”

  “I’m just warning you.”

  “I’ll take your advice as sisterly concern, but really, I know my Master, and know he’d never hurt me.”

  “But you’ll do anything he says?”

  “I’m bound to him, Shelly. That’s what makes me his slave. I want to do his bidding. It’s in me to serve. Jeezus, you see me around you, I’m practically your slave, too. You can’t separate me from who I am.”

  “Yes, but you can’t walk into the life blindfolded, or you’ll get sideswiped. I know. I’ve seen it. You have big, big reasons to be cautious. Please don’t make plans for this weekend.”

  She looks at me totally baffled.

  “Shelly, hon, I really don’t understand where you’re coming from. I’ve been on weekends with other boyfriends and you say, ‘go and have your fling’. Now you’re the prophet of doom. Lighten up. I’ll be fine, and probably have more fun than you and Steven… speaking of which, what’s this with telling Steven you were in New York? Huh?” she thinks a minute. “You two aren’t on the outs, are you? Because I think that would be a real shame, Shel. He’s a such a hunk.” She shimmies as if an erotic shockwave has just passed through her body.

  “Yes, actually we are having a few problems.”

  “Oh, dear!” She frowns sadly.

  “Oh, dear, indeed.”

  “I’m sorry. Maybe you two need a weekend away.”

  “We just had one,” I tersely remind her.

  “That’s right. And it didn’t do the trick, huh?”

  “It’s more complicated than that.” I reach for a file on my desk and start to browse through its contents.

  “Well, I guess it’s not just PMS. I was beginning to wonder. . .”

  “I think you should get to work,” I curtly reply.

  “Yeah, boss, I’m on it.”

  I realize that I’ve nothing to dissuade her from what lies ahead. She’s innocently engaged with villains and here I sit doing nothing but stew in the midst of this dilemma.

  After mulling options for a few minutes, I pick up the phone, dialing Daniel’s New York hotel.

  “Checked out? He can’t be!” I exclaim, more horrified than surprised.

  “I’m sorry, Miss; he checked out yesterday afterno
on.”

  “And his forwarding address?”

  “None.”

  “That can’t be! This is an emergency.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss; he left no address; no forwarding number.”

  “And do you expect him to return?”

  “I’m afraid that’s confidential information.” A long pause. Only my ragged breathing and panic cross the connection. Then I hear, “I do believe Mr. Broc planned to return.”

  I hang up.

  Damn him! Damn him! Damn him!

  I feel as if my world is falling apart.

  Any other day, I’d take off for the garden—but its soothing influence has been totally ruined by meeting Steven there for our confrontation. I’d go to the gym, but I have too much to do, to get sweaty for the evening hours. Fact is, I want the documentary done. Now! A day, maybe two, that’s all that remains, if Sunny keeps her head about her and gets the editing ready for me.

  Premonitions, more coming hourly, but I can’t sort them out so I toss them off. Thinking of Steve is my endless obsession. It’s been two days and I’ve heard nothing from him—maybe never again, I fear.

  Work! Better that I work. Much better that I work, because brooding with my restless thoughts and worrying over Steven will only drive me crazy.

  I do work long into the evening. Sunny and I order Chinese in when we’re hungry. Neither of us can seem to stop, but there’s no mention of our conversation earlier in the day. Occasionally, my mind drifts to Steven, but I stop that abruptly.

  I work; I fill my mind with so much thought, that Steven, Sunny’s slavery, Daniel, Aman, and the world of my miserable real life are pushed away as if they weren’t even there. There’s nothing but videotape—street scenes, interviews with punk-looking kids with their facial piercings and wild-colored hair…a collage of so many faces in varying colors, using varied figures of slurred speech that I could use sub-titles if I really wanted my viewers to understand what these contemporary kids are really saying…but I won’t. It will be authentic… all the pathos, the drugs… needles in arms, in eyelids, and smoke from cigarettes, pot, crack… the smells, if only we could do smell-o-vision … what a story that would be. But the poetry gets inside… that’s all it takes for me to shiver, for Sunny and me to quake together at the poignancy. We skirt the images of S&M sexuality that are part of the drama… as if we don’t even know what they mean, when we certainly do. We’re just recording history, the way things are… hoping we’re doing the world a service. At some future point, we may realize that there is nothing important about this at all, and there’s nothing new that the world hasn’t already seen. Maybe there are no true things, no conclusions reached. If so, then why, why do I bother? Why put my life in jeopardy again… or put my associate in danger? Why call attention to myself as if I want to return to their world— my other world—and I want Sunny with me when I disappear…

  My mind is a dangerous trap. Every turn it takes, I run smack into the riddle of lust, guilt and pain I’m trying so hard to ignore.

  Damn! I have to stop this! I bring my mind to a sudden halt and come up for a breath of air… The night goes on, the painstaking work as image after image floats in front of my eyes until the long hours pass and the documentary finally blurs into one fuzzy image I don’t even recognize.

  “Whew!” I sit back in my chair, exhausted. “My eyes are crossed; I can’t even see anymore.”

  “I know; neither can I,” Sunny answers. She’s slumped in her chair, but vibrating like a sex machine. “You think we could end this now? I’m already late.”

  “Late for what?”

  “Date with Master Rennie. I didn’t want to say anything, but…”

  “And now you’re late…”

  “Yeah,” she smiles, while biting off the end of the last egg roll, “he’ll do something nasty to punish me, and then we’ll tumble into bed.”

  It all sounds so innocuous, could I be wrong? “All right, then,” I tell her. “Just think about what I said. Please.” I’m too tired to put any passion behind my words.

  “I will.”

  “And look out for anything suspicious…”

  “Shelly please! I don’t know what’s got you spooked, but you’ve got to stop!”

  Sunny leaves and I tidy up the workroom, making a few notes about where we left off. We’re to the point that we can finish in a day. I don’t know why, but this seems significant. A milestone I need to accomplish before my world changes—and I trust that the change is near. That’s all the conclusion my feverish contemplation has brought me to.

  I lock the door, glancing at my watch. Almost midnight. The witching hour. I half expect my fate to meet me on the street as I walk out into the night. But the night is calm and harmless.

  The night is calm, even if I’m not. I feel the fire simmering between my legs as soon as I hit the street. My obsession begins again, catching up with me where it left off. I feel like a vampire on the prowl, ready to suck the blood from my next victim—or more accurately, ready to seduce an erection from a pair of clean pants. A few bars remain open and seem lively at this hour. If only I had Steven, I could knock on his door, slip into his bed, and make amends.

  But I can’t do that now. I have to wait. He has to call me first.

  I impulsively dart into MacAuthur’s, and take a barstool at the bar.

  “Scotch, please. On the rocks.” I’m thinking of Daniel. And thinking of Daniel, my crotch catches fire—no longer smoldering; it blazes with need. I haven’t masturbated in two days, not after the spanking. I haven’t cum since Daniel fucked me in New York. This self-denial is catching up with me.

  The boy next to me is drunk, but damn cute. I figure maybe twenty-two, if a day. He’ll do if he can get it up. Sure he can; twenty-two-year-old guys are sex machines, like Sunny is a sex machine, ready for sex on the spur of the moment. He won’t fail me.

  I bat my eyes coquettishly, make vapid conversation suggesting what I want, and he responds with an interested grin. I lean a little closer, my hand meandering along his thigh, tracing a thin line down his flexed muscle. His drunken consciousness rises along with a boyish smile.

  But with that smarmy smile, my insides suddenly sour. I don’t understand, but I think I’m going to retch. Good, God, why now? I try to settle myself, to think more rationally… Yes, this is good; this is very good, I repeat silently. What an idiot I am, going after another anonymous fuck!

  No, not tonight, no sex with strangers, not ever again!

  I smile at my moment of revelation and slide off the seat, “Sorry; I’m not feeling well,” I tell the boy. I move to the back of the bar, toward the restroom, but then abruptly stop halfway there, and like Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt, I stand firm as granite and stare blankly ahead.

  Steven.

  He’s sitting with two men, drinking beer and doesn’t see me right away. I’d flee if I thought I could evade his eye, but before I reconstitute myself to flesh and take charge of my heavy legs, he spots me.

  His expression changes from smiling to concern.

  “Hi!” I’m sure he didn’t see me with the boy at the bar… but what if he did?

  My legs gather strength and I make my way to the restroom where I splash water on my face. I want to go home, to bed. I want to have sex, have Steven, have love. I want out of this mess I’m in, but all I can do is wait; wait for Daniel, my phantom liberator, to rescue me one more time. And what if he doesn’t rescue me? What do I do then?

  I rehearse a few lines since I expect that Steven will want to talk before he’ll let me leave the bar, as it would be awkward not to say something. But when I finally return to the main room, he’s nowhere around. His friends are gone and there’s cash neatly laid on the table under an empty beer glass.

  He left? I’m stunned.

  I give the drunken boy at the bar a smile as I pass by, squelching the urge to pick up where we left off, then walk into the night, greeting it with a deep breath to clear my lungs
from the thick smoke.

  “You need a ride, Michelle?”

  I turn back seeing him clearly now. “Steven! I thought you’d left.”

  “That would have been rude, don’t you think?” His voice, his kind attitude, and the soft strength he exudes now remind me of the man I fell in love with. “You need a ride home?”

  “I’m not drunk.” I say testily.

  “I can see that.”

  “But you wondered?”

  “Yes, I wondered.”

  “Is this what I deserve?”

  “You’re angry with me?” he says, as if I shouldn’t be.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I told you I needed time.”

  “And I’m giving you time. I haven’t called. I haven’t whined. I haven’t stalked you—I had no idea you were here.”

  “I don’t suppose you did, not unless you deliberately wanted to piss me off coming on to that guy.”

  Oh, shit! He saw!

  “Are you pissed?”

  “Oh, I’m not too happy seeing the woman I love playing around with another man.”

  “I don’t imagine you would be. And I’m sorry, I was being stupid, and the moment passed. I’ve just spent twelve hours editing video and I really need my bed—not boys or men or cock of any kind—just my bed.”

  He sighs, being generous enough to let this go, though I note the troubled concern on his face. “I tried calling you at home tonight.”

  “Really?” Perhaps this is a hopeful sign. “You could have reached me at the office,” I say.

  “No, I think your cell phone was turned off.”

  “Ah, yes,” I remember. “You’re right. It’s the deadline, I didn’t want any interruptions.”

  “But now’s not the time to talk.”

  Oh! But I would talk now! I’d talk to him in a heartbeat. I’m so lonely, so scared, so in need of his arms as I fall asleep, and maybe he’d give me that much if I asked. But I can’t. I can’t ask and he’s not offering comfort.

  Steven escorts me to my car like the gentleman he is, as if our scuffle nearly three days ago never happened, and he didn’t just see me come on to a stranger. I know the impasse still clouds the relationship, but being with him now feels more the way it’s supposed to, as if I still belong to him and he to me. I climb into my car, wishing he were going with me. But since he isn’t, I start the engine, smile through the window, twiddle my fingers in a weak farewell, and take off as he smiles back.