As She’s Told

‘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 high 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….

‘These too,’ he said, and showed me more metal bands, smaller 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.

‘Garbage goes in here,’ he said, setting down a recycling bin, ‘and I’ll store the rest away.’

It wasn’t quite the introduction I’d expected, but he had always believed in work before pleasure. Still, the fact that I was chained to the floor had me panting. Was this what normal life was going to be like? He’d said he’d keep me on a short tether…. Gingerly I shifted to the far box and the furthest length of the chain, just to test the extent of my freedom. The solid tug of the collar against my throat was revelatory; this was no joke.

The room was as different as possible from the dark-joisted space I’d been in before. White walls, furniture in warm, smooth wood and some bright blocks of colour in the upholstery and rugs. Uncluttered, a little bare.

The varnished wood grain around doorways and windows glowed. Still no fireplace; apparently that mantelpiece had continued elusive. My presence felt completely anomalous, naked and chained in all that cheerful, mundane daylight. I realized that I’d been associating bondage with nighttime hours, dark shadows, drama. Not this everyday world.

An everyday world that was out of my reach. I couldn’t try the couch in my new home or even touch it to feel the texture of the upholstery. I couldn’t go from room to room exploring what he’d done with the place. Instead I sorted away as instructed, shivering a little when the door opened, feeling the collar and chain and wrist cuffs with every move, while he went up and down stairs with the rest of my stuff.

He spent some time at a big desk by the front window, fiddling with my laptop and then with the computer on his desk; he told me that he’d added my data to his hard drive, and then he put the laptop away. I saw it go with a bit of a pang. For so long it had been my gateway, the tunnel through which I’d peered at the world. But now it was just a tool, like any other. I had a different kind of interface now.

I expected to do more unpacking once I’d done. There had been a lot of books, personal files, dishes, all that stuff. There were glimpses of things going by: a coat going into the closet, my one good pot, a few toiletries. He set up my bookcase and rapidly filled it, organizing it according to his own methods without consulting me. My files went into his drawer. Then he sat down on the couch and emptied out my knapsack, which I’d used as both briefcase and purse all through school. Wordlessly he handed me the papers remaining in there from my last few weeks, and I filed them. Anders sorted through a mess of pens, notebooks, scraps, tampons, hairbrush, wallet, chequebook. I watched him go through the last two in detail. He took the money and debit card from my wallet, and set them aside.

‘Here’s how the money is going to go,’ he said. ‘We’ll arrange for your paycheque to go into an account by itself, a joint one that will need both our signatures. What money you have now will go into it, too. You won’t need it.

I can look after you on my own income for now. If at some point you decide to leave, the money will be there for you. If you stay, after a year we’ll switch it over to my account. Clear?’

I hadn’t even thought about money. Provider of power, instrument of autonomy and mobility. He was right. I nodded.

‘You don’t need to carry cash any more. Or a debit card. I’ll give you tokens for the streetcar when you start work on Monday.’ This was a startling and scary idea. No cash at all? Not even a couple of bucks for coffee? But I hardly ever drank coffee. Lunch, then? But I was going to be coming home for lunch. Hell, what about a couple of quarters for an emergency phone call? But of course I had my cellphone….

Anders quickly disposed of the piles on the couch and floor: filing cabinet, back porch, basement. Then he stood and looked down at me, a little smile playing over his lips. ‘Well, little girl, good.’ He unlocked the chain from the floor, wrapped some of it around his wrist and sat down. ‘Come here.’ I knelt up in front of him, and at his direction put my hands behind my neck. He examined me for several minutes, weighing my breasts in his hands, stroking my belly and pubic hair. He opened my mouth and turned my head this way and that, apparently to examine my teeth.

‘Turn around. Hands and knees.’ I obeyed. ‘Lift your ass to me. Legs wide. That’s better.’ He squeezed my rump, pinched my cunt lips, fingered my asshole. Was there anything he was discovering that he didn’t already know? A little yank on my collar, clink of metal on metal. My body turned toward the pull; he stopped me halfway, sat back with the chain in his hand to examine me from the side. I stared in front of me, feeling like a prize dog in front of the judges. A prize dog that couldn’t stop panting.

A hand stroked my hair, stroked down my back and legs, and I sighed with pleasure. ‘Stay.’ I stayed.

Then he was back, taking the chain up short and signalling me up. I started to obey, but the slash of a whip on my thigh made me fall forward again with a whimper. The chain yanked harder on my throat. ‘Up! You don’t stop obeying me when I hit you. More gracefully this time.’ I was halfway up when the whip landed again. This time I kept moving. When I was upright, my head tipped back to accommodate the tight chain, he said,

‘You’re going to learn to display your body better when you move. Back down, let’s try again.’

I tried to move more carefully, but got another flick of the whip on the way down and one more on the way back up. ‘Slower,’ he said. ‘Head up.’ I tried again, keeping my weight over my centre of gravity so I wouldn’t shift from side to side. ‘Better,’ he said. The whip stung the underside of my breasts and I cried out. ‘Tits out.’ I arched my back. This went on for a while, till I was sweating and on the verge of tears. I did improve enough to be spared the whip on the last couple of attempts. But then he had me precede him up the stairs, and corrected my walking as we went.

I’d been in his bedroom and bathroom upstairs; the other two bedrooms I’d viewed only in passing, weeks ago. The one at the back, which had been full of lumber and a table saw, was finished now and full of light, like the rest of the house, if somewhat bare. There was a rather nice, thick Indian rug over most of the floor, a deep chest of drawers, a wooden chair and a large mirror on a stand. A wooden beam ran the length of the room, suspended a couple of feet below the ceiling on metal rods; it carried a few track lights. It looked innocuous enough until Anders positioned me beneath it, linked my wrist cuffs with another chain and fastened my hands just above my head.

Glancing up, I saw the hook recessed into the beam. Come to think of it, there had been a similar beam in the living room.

My belly was trembling worse than ever. I tried an experimental tug; nothing gave. The beam might as well have been set in concrete. The cuffs’ padding gave only so much and no further.

Anders took a ring of keys from his pocket. ‘Time for this to go,’ he said, and unlocked the little padlock at my waist. I opened my eyes in surprise and a vague sense of loss; I’d invested a lot in that chain in the way of emotion and symbolism. It had been something to hang on to in my lonely bed. I’m going to let you sleep in my bed for now if you’re good. I guessed I didn’t need it anymore. I hoped.

I watched in the mirror as he came up behind me, something black in his hands. ‘Black leather, just as genetically determined,’ he murmured as he opened the thing up and passed it around my middle. A corset, strong and stiff. An enveloping smell of leather. He fiddled to get it sitting right, kissed my shoulder while he was at it. ‘You have a gorgeous little body. Just right for a very –’ tugging ‘– tiny waist.’ Unlike the waist cincher he’d made me wear before, which had covered only six inches or so, this went from just below my breasts to just over my hips. The lower edge followed my belly down almost to my pubis, and curved up to cradle the underside of each breast. Anders began to pull on the laces, tightening in a steady rhythm toward the small of my back until my breath was huffing out of me at every pull. Then he looked at me carefully, and measured my waist with his hands.

‘Nope, not enough.’ He started again. I began to whimper as the air was forced from my lungs.

‘Well?’ he said when he’d tied it off.

‘I can hardly breathe,’ I whispered.

‘Does anything hurt?’

I explored myself internally. ‘No.’

‘Are you feeling faint?’

‘No.’

He felt between my legs and laughed, forced his wet fingers into my mouth. I sucked them avidly. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ he said. ‘And then I’ll make it tighter.’ He fiddled around some more behind me. ‘You’ll be wearing this a fair amount, I think,’ he said conversationally. ‘And there might be times you’d rather have it off. So we’ll just make sure there’s no tampering.’ There were those ubiquitous clicks again – a ratcheting sound this time. I looked over my shoulder but couldn’t see the mechanism, or whatever it was. ‘This covers the knot, little one,’ he murmured. ‘You’re not going to be able to untie it.’ More tugs and more clicks at top and at bottom.

He turned my back to the mirror. ‘See?’ I couldn’t twist much, but I could just see that there were three straps going into something metallic at top, middle and bottom, the middle strap indeed covering the knot; there was no sign of it.

Between the straps I could see that the corset had some space to go before it would be completely closed. I felt so utterly compressed that I couldn’t believe he thought it could be any tighter.

His hand ran over my ass. ‘You’ll notice that it’s good and high in back.

I wouldn’t want you to think that you had any protection there.’ He unfastened my wrists and had me walk around him in a circle at the end of a longish chain. The sensation was strange and wonderful; I felt terribly hampered and restricted, and yet my arms and legs were free. I walked around him feeling like an inadequately-schooled circus horse, or like that show dog again: a prize poodle tricked out with ruffs and collar.

After two circuits Anders locked my hands behind my back and had me continue. I was afraid he’d pick up the whip again, I was walking so awkwardly, but apparently he was letting me get the feel of the thing. Each step was an experiment in how to move, with so much of me immobilized.

Then he drew me in by the chain and held and squeezed my breasts above the corset. ‘God, you’re beautiful,’ he said feelingly. ‘Look at yourself.’ He turned me around to the mirror and held me against him. I saw a creature with an incredible, sexy hourglass figure, the waist ridiculously small. My hips, never very big, now looked downright womanly in contrast.

I glanced higher at the face above mine, the intent agate gaze, looked at the broad shoulders and the long hands on my breasts, and felt weak at the knees.

Fingers slipped into my nipple rings and tugged, pulling and turning them gently. My breathing grew even more ragged. ‘I think these are ready for me,’ Anders said. He’d been toughening them up gradually for several weeks on his visits, and making me do so also. It seemed to be effective, because I felt no worry when he pulled on them, only more lust. I watched, slightly alarmed, as he pried open the rings and slid them gently from their holes. I’d never had them out; I hadn’t opened them at all since they’d gone in. He opened a little box and took out two shiny new bits of hardware, curved on one side, thick and straight on the other. I thought for a second that they were barbells with loops, but it was the curved parts that went through my nipples; the straight bars swivelled and pushed into place over the ends, like tiny attenuated padlocks. Anders located a miniscule screwdriver hanging from his key ring and inserted it deep into the side of each one. ‘These have specially shaped screws holding them closed,’ he said. ‘This tool is designed for them. They won’t come off without it.’ He kissed me and put the keys back in his pocket. Then he slipped a finger through each ring and smiled; they were an exact fit.

He went back to the chest of drawers and drew out a decorative little chain, with two small locks at either end. This he fastened in a lovely curve between the rings. The weight tipped me deeper; I groaned. He made me walk some more at the end of the chain, and then he released my hands and made me crawl. And this time he did use the whip. His voice husked, ‘You’ll have to learn to crawl better than that.’

The next thing I knew he was behind me, a tight grip on the chain holding me still. Then he was sliding into me, huge, and I gasped, and tried not to howl, and bit my lip, hoping he’d let me come. Guessing he wouldn’t, from the slow, deliberate way he was moving: a diver in no hurry. I felt held down all right, by the chain and corset, and by every swing of the chain off my new hardware. But he was leaving my clit alone. I would have been breathing deep and hard by now, but had to go high and shallow because that’s all there was room for. Every breath against bondage…it was too much, not enough…. More, a little more…. The hands on my hips tightened their grip and he dove deeper into me, and came hard. And held me still.

Twenty seconds more and I would have come. When he withdrew I could hear my whimpering, wordless voice.

I looked up through my miasma, to the tall figure now sitting in a chair, the line of chain running between us. Felt the tug drawing me to him, put my head in his lap. A big hand settled on my head and rested there; a still, heavy hand weighted with calm and repletion.

My own unstill hand wanted to sidle down and slide one finger over my neglected, slippery clit…. No. I didn’t want to imagine the consequences.

***

Anders rested, his eyes half closed. He was still resonating, like a dozen instruments all finely tuned. It was an experience akin to that in the unfinished kitchen weeks ago: a moment of wholeness, unity, profound content.

He kept still and let this strange music pervade and occupy him, play in all his corners. All thought suspended, Anders occupied his body, and took in the texture of the dark head on his lap.

Not for long, though. Soon his analytical brain chimed in with some irony, noting that his most joyful moments occurred when he had just had an orgasm and left his slave on the edge and suffering.

He’d barely begun. He had created the setting for his exquisite little bonsai girl, and was just beginning the fine work involved in bending and shaping her according to his own aesthetic, honing and refining and nurturing so that she could flourish. So much more to do, so much to look forward to.

Anders brushed the thick hair aside so that he could rest his hand on the nape of her neck. That familiar, vibrant stalk now locked in metal, just as it should be. The slender wrist, too, resting on his knee in its shiny new cuff.

He felt more pleasure, in a good, well executed piece of design. The setting, the binding, had to be just right, just like his bonsai wires. A locksmith friend with metalworking skills had produced the cuffs, collaborating with Anders on the design, including the integrated snap locks. The idea was efficiency and fewer little padlocks. Less fiddly. And too much hardware hanging off her would spoil her pretty lines.

He took a deeper breath, roused, looked at his watch. Picked up chain and whip, and headed downstairs, aware of Maia’s still tentative gait. In the kitchen, with shafts of late afternoon sun lighting up her skin, he drew her along from cupboard to cupboard, showing her where everything was kept, how the appliances worked and how to make coffee. Her lip trembled a little. ‘Master?”

“Yes?”

“You – you know what I’m like in the kitchen – ‘

His eyes twinkled. The girl had a history of woeful incompetence when it came to food preparation, and giving her a recipe only made her worse.

‘Oh, yes. Never fear, I’m still cooking. It’s our good luck that I happen to like it. But you’ll be doing the boring prep. Scrubbing vegetables and so on.

Cleaning up after me, washing pots, scrubbing the floor. And I’m pretty sure you can manage a coffee maker.’

She looked relieved. Anders doubted she’d feel that way when she learned his standards regarding the cleanliness of vegetables and floors. He drew her down to her knees and made her crawl around the kitchen, looking into low cupboards: onion bins, large pots, roasting pans. Maia knelt shivering at the fridge, trying to identify large lumpy root vegetables, the nipple chain clanging against the bottom bin.

‘That’s celeriac,’ he told her.

‘Okay,’ she said doubtfully, rolling the hairy thing back into place.

He had her put her head under the sink and tell him the names of all the cleaning products she found there. Standing back, he observed her vulva on display, dark and swollen. Poor baby. He smiled.

After a complete circuit he took off the chain leash and sprung a surprise quiz on her, naming items and watching as she scurried or crawled to locate them, giving her a moderate smack of the whip whenever she made a mistake or hesitated too long. She gave a little shriek at one that caught the inside of her thigh.

‘Please!’ she cried.

‘Whole wheat flour,’ he repeated.

Maia turned frantically from one cupboard to another, cried out at another blow. ‘I don’t remember! I’m sorry, master. Ow!’ She tried to evade the next blow by twisting out of its path.

In half a second he had her face down over the table with her arm up behind her back.

‘You do not try to run away from me,’ he growled low in his throat.

‘Not. Ever.’ He whipped her ass in earnest now, and she blubbered apologies, legs kicking helplessly. After the last blow he held her in place, and bent his head to her ear. ‘Let’s get this straight, girl,’ his voice quiet and hard. ‘Let’s just be sure we’re clear. Who owns this?’ He took a handful of striped ass flesh and squeezed hard.

She wailed at the fresh pain. ‘You do, master…’

‘Do you get to decide what happens to it?’

‘No, master.’

‘Is it up to you how much punishment you’ll take?’

‘No, master.’

‘Just how much punishment do you have to take?’

‘Whatever punishment you want to give me, master.’

‘Damned straight. And?’

Once she’d thanked him adequately and promised better behaviour in future he took a few inches of chain from his pocket and linked her ankles with it.

‘This will remind you not to run.’

When she was off the table and upright again he directed her toward the kleenex and watched her shuffle gingerly over to blow her nose. The chain jingled. ‘All right, girl. You’ll find the whole wheat flour in the right-hand cupboard. Green plastic container.’ He watched her move carefully and put her trembling hand where it was supposed to go. ‘Fine. Oven cleaner.’

Anders made her struggle on, back and forth across the kitchen in tiny steps, continuing to punish her methodically for each mistake. As he expected, though she winced and whimpered, she managed to contain any further self-protective impulses.

Finally he looked down at her sitting on her heels by the baking tins.

‘That’ll do for now.’ He dropped the whip on the floor in front of her. Maia looked up at him, then down at the whip, and then she shifted her confined body like a fulcrum to bring her head to the floor, her ass high. Her mouth pressed itself to the whip. He put his foot next to it. With only a heartbeat’s pause she kissed that too. Yes. ‘Good girl.’

She pressed her face to his shoe, kissed it again and then looked up at him, eyes swimming. For a long moment their eyes locked. A shaft of sunlight linked them, dust motes vibrating golden, the air between them dancing. Slowly Anders reached down and took hold of the ring in her collar.

‘Up.’ She had to use her hands, on his leg and the counter, to get to her shackled feet. ‘All right. I want some coffee, so make me some, and put it in this mug –’ he said, pointing, ‘and bring it out on this tray – ‘ pointing again, ‘so that if you spill any you won’t burn your pretty tits or stain the corset. But you’d better not spill any.’ He went to his desk by the front window and sat down to do some work.

***

I did what I’d been told to do with the coffeemaker; luckily when he’d shown me that I’d actually been listening. The weals on my bottom attested to how distracted I’d been otherwise. This wouldn’t do. I had to pay attention, no matter how distracting all these new sensations were, no matter how desperately aroused I was. No matter how much I wanted to be down on my knees begging to come. I couldn’t serve him properly unless I listened to his every word, caught every nuance of meaning. And unless I actually remembered what he told me. Cheese grater there, pot lids there, and what was that thing in the fridge called? Oh, yeah, celeriac. I could think about mistakes like that, because they were minor compared with the colossal failure of trying to avoid the whip. I could hardly bear to think about it. How could I have done such a thing? After weeks of obediently presenting for it.

As I waited for the coffee pot to fill, I took a surreptitious look at Anders at his desk at the other end of the house, in profile against the light from the window at his side, just then pulling out a file drawer. In the process of renovation he’d opened up all the space downstairs; there was not even a counter between us. Nowhere to hide. No doubt that was the intention. I got out the tray and put his mug on it, noticing that everything felt different in a corset. But he was right; I was getting used to it. My breathing was all up in my thorax, but I was getting enough air. Still, the restriction, and my burning ass, and the scene upstairs, and every moment since we’d come through the door had me at a level of arousal that was very difficult to ignore. My pelvis pressed itself forward into the counter, then I pulled back. No. None of that. The chain caught my ankles and I caught the counter for balance. I’d forgotten the new restriction and my undignified new gait. Worse than crawling in front of him; I’d begun to get used to that a little, to the animal quality of it, and the feeling of his eyes burning on my rear end. Now I had to actually face him as I shuffled and minced and tripped. Was there any possible way to move gracefully like this? I doubted it. But every halting, hampered step communicated itself up the sinews of my legs, like hidden cords tugging at my cunt.

The sliding doors to the back looked out onto a deck that was shaded with an overhead trellis of some kind. Weaving through it were thick branches not yet fully in leaf; an arbour then. Beneath it sat a sturdy lawn chair, and a small table holding three shallow-dished plants. Bonsais. There was the one with red clusters sprouting, the one he’d been working on behind my back while I stood in the corner steeping in sore humiliation. I glanced back at the corner, which though now clean and smoothly painted, looked like it was ready for me any time.

The rest of the yard was long, with a high privacy fence all around. It was full of plants and bushes, pale green, well short of their summer foliage.

A bit wild looking. I wondered whether I’d get to go out there much. Not dressed this way, presumably.

The corset’s embrace felt like his big arms crushing me. And I had to admit that I loved it. Still, I could easily imagine that at some point I might, indeed, want it off. Would he release me from it then? What if he didn’t? I’d never be able to get it off on my own, not without him knowing. Lacing it up again the same way would be impossible. I felt my back, curious to know what was stopping me from releasing the straps and undoing the corset.

There were no buckles, only those narrow metal rectangles, not entirely flat but slightly raised like tunnels, through which the straps passed. After a moment’s exploration I located a keyhole in one of them. I was really locked in this thing. Really, truly locked and without a key. I took a fast, restricted breath, fought down my reactions, and decided to stick with the moment.

Despite my ineptitude with food, I did at least know how he liked his coffee – cream, no sugar – and I carried the tray in with great care, step by tiny, jingling step. He seemed to be adding up receipts. An offhand voice said, ‘On your knees.’ His thumb flipped up another page; he added another figure. I sank down gingerly, my eyes glued to the mug, very much afraid of a spill on the expensive-looking Indian rug beneath my feet. But I managed.

To my surprise, once he’d taken a sip he put the mug back on the tray, and went on with his work. I froze there, arms half extended, waiting for directions. None were forthcoming. After a minute he took another sip, and replaced the mug again, and I got it. I had been servant/slave, now I was furniture. Table space. I tried to keep as still as possible.

The desk was even bigger than I’d thought. It had looked lightweight from a distance, almost like wicker, because it was more or less that colour, and was supported by a kind of lattice work – narrow, vertical amber-coloured slats. But it was solid wood. He had a two-drawer filing cabinet under it on the left, and a wide shallow drawer in the middle, and that was it.

I had the feeling he’d built it himself; it was the right height for him.

His computer was on, some financial program. I felt a weird – no, an utterly mundane impulse to check out what kind of software he had, an urge to check my e-mail. Nerd that I was, I probably hadn’t gone half a day without touching a computer in years. Most days I’d spent hours on there.

Now it was off-limits without permission. I couldn’t quite take this in. Not that I didn’t believe him; Anders always meant what he said. I just couldn’t get my head around such a loss of autonomy; not all at once.

He took up the mug again, took a longer sip, and looked at me for a moment as he set it down. His hand brushed my cheek before he went back to the keyboard. The meaning was clear. Good girl.

Apparently if I just did as he told me and nothing else, I’d please him.

This small success gave me a bit of a glow, and gave my tiring arms a boost.

But another discomfort was growing, something I was trying to suppress because I wasn’t sure how I’d get to deal with it. Would he unlock the ankle chain so I could get upstairs to the bathroom? Or would I have to creep up the stairs somehow?

At last, when he switched from the financial program to a PDF form that said City of Toronto at the top, I ventured to whisper, ‘Master?’

‘Yes?’

‘I have to – may I go to the bathroom, please?’

‘What do you need to do there?’

‘I need to pee.’

‘Then you can use the chamber pot. There.’ He pointed at a squat white covered enamel bowl by the wall, in the shadow of a small table. On the table was a tissue box.

Oh, god. I’d seen the thing but it hadn’t entered in. The tray was lifted off my hands. I could feel my face burning at the thought of squatting over that pot in plain view. The word ‘but…’ was at my lips, but I bit it off; a conditioned reflex by now. By this time I knew that there was absolutely no percentage in questioning his orders, or in anything at all other than instant obedience. My hands went to the floor and I crept slowly up to the thing.

Positioning myself over it was an agony of awkwardness, the ankle chain helping not at all. And then I couldn’t let it go for ages. I was almost in tears by the time I finally managed it.

I covered the pot and crept back to him, head down, unable to meet his eye. He gently pulled my head against his side. ‘It’ll get easier, girl. You’ll see.’ I buried my face in his shirt, but I could hear the amusement in his voice. ‘Before long you’ll be completely housetrained.’ I wailed indignantly and tried to pull my head back, but he held it in a tight grip under one arm.

The other hand went to my breast and stroked soothingly. ‘Ssshh… easy, now… that’s the girl…’ I gave up my momentary struggle, feeling both lulled and humiliated. He was talking to me as if I was a flighty domestic animal. Which I suppose was the idea.

Housetrained… the word reverberated, racketing back and forth between the bones of my skull. In this house no clothes, no autonomy…. Be what I make you…. That wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d thought. I was afraid…what was I afraid of? Stupid question; what wasn’t I afraid of?

He was still stroking me. I sighed. After a minute he released my head.

‘Under the desk, now, girl. I have to get some work done.’ The chair rolled back, one foot went up on the desk, and the other was used to gently shove me toward the opening. And under I went. No thought, no argument; I just did it. This of all things felt quite natural: to be at his feet.

It was a twilight world under there. Strips of light came through the lattice, which now, of course, resembled a cage. I was on the room side; the filing cabinet filled the side by the window. I could just see a little space behind it, past his feet. On my side the lattice continued along the front of the desk, up to the drawer in the middle and the space for Anders’ legs.

Caged on three sides, master’s legs on the fourth.

I could see the living room and kitchen quite well. One-inch spaces, one-inch slats. Wood surfaces sanded but unfinished on this side. No splinters. Hard, cool, clean floor beneath my knees; the rug didn’t go this far.

The surface above my head forced me to crouch. But when I sat instead of kneeling I could just sit up. I touched the lath gently with one finger, ran a finger down it. Pushed. Pushed harder. No movement; solid. This man built everything like rock. After a while I leaned tentatively against his leg, and felt his hand briefly in my hair. So I stayed there, up against the warmth of him, and was happy. Listened to the keyboard sounds above me. Mouse clicks. He made a phone call, checking on someone’s supply of underdecking, whatever that was. When his leg shifted I lay down on the floor. The corset made it hard to curl up.

I hadn’t exactly gotten a lot of sleep the night before, and the dim light could have been soporific; still, I was wide awake. Looking at the very large shoe in front of me (size 14). Wondering if he’d mind if I kissed it. Thinking about the job I was starting on Monday, and how Anders might control me beyond these walls, as he was clearly planning to do. I hoped there’d be no conflict between the demands of the job and Anders’ demands. Given how he’d handled me through school, probably not. But would I be able to use a computer at work without getting into trouble? I’d have to.

I’d had four interviews and two offers, one from a Toronto historical archive, the other from an environmental coalition’s information centre. I still felt wistful about that archive job, with its subject matter safely in the past, its demands measured and scholarly. Helping people dig out material from past centuries: curious and mundane fragments of everyday life. But the hours were sporadic, and Anders said it was below my level of qualifications, which I had to admit was true. So instead of burying myself in nineteenth-century property assessment rolls, I’d be dealing with global warming, deforestation, and activists who needed their facts served up fast and hardhitting. All of which pushed my anxiety buttons like you would not believe. Fortunately it was only part-time, and I’d be able to bury myself back in the house in the afternoons.

The phone rang against the wood above me, making me jump. I listened to Anders’ business voice, his polite silence.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t do that; we’re booked.’ A sigh. ‘No, I told you, we can’t add any more to that contract. I’ve got to be out by the 23rd. I could schedule it for August.’ He paused, and then went on. ‘Because we’re booked to do a job somewhere else.’ The feet stretched forward, and crossed. ‘Well, I appreciate that, but money’s not the issue; I’ve got a schedule and I have to stick to it, or I’m screwing everyone else right down the line.’ Pause. ‘Yes, other contractors do it. And as a result they don’t show up when they say they will.’ His voice shifted to a lighter tone. ‘By all means, find someone else to look after it.’ He said, ‘Good luck,’ under his breath as the phone went down.

He leaned down, took me by the chain between my nipples and drew me out steadily until he had me on my feet. I looked at him to see if the phone conversation had put him out of temper, but there was no sign of it. He sent me off to scrub vegetables and set the table – one place setting, of course. I did get smacked, but that was because the potatoes weren’t clean enough. At last I obeyed a pointing finger and knelt down in the middle of the floor.

‘Over to that mat, now, out of my way.’ I crept over to a mat in the corner, and felt his fingers on my collar, locking something to the ring at the back. My eyes followed the chain back to a ring at the wall; I was tethered again. With longing, I watched his long, triangular back and the muscles in his arms, listened to all the chopping and sizzling, smelled the savoury stuff he was cooking. Looked forward to the feeding ritual: kneeling at his side and being fed from his hand.

Anders turned with something bright red and rectangular, and set it down in front of me. A dog dish. Cubed bits of food in one side, water in the other. I felt a deep flush sweep its way upward as I stared at the dish. I wanted to shut my eyes, but couldn’t. Couldn’t move either. I felt him pull my hands behind my back and lock them there. My eyes remained locked to the red thing on the floor.

I was aware of him standing over me, watching. I was supposed to crouch down, put my face into that dish and eat from it. He expected that.

Obedience, without delay. And I wanted to obey. I needed to obey. I needed more than anything to do what I was told. I would eat from the dish, I’d obey. I just couldn’t move.

He crouched down next to me, his hand on my shoulder. ‘What’s the matter, girl?’

I stared at the dish. ‘I don’t know,’ I whispered. ‘I will – I just can’t – “

“Yes, you will. Start now.’

I managed to close my eyes for a moment, but the dish was burned into my retinas, this time in green. I was still locked in an immobility I couldn’t understand. Why this? Why accept everything else and not this? But I couldn’t.

‘Do you need some help?’ His voice was quiet, but I could hear the undertones. I managed a slight nod. He went away and he came back, and there was a swishing noise and a line of fire across my ass that made me scream. I stumbled forward on my knees, released from my paralysis, felt another strike and had my nose down in the dish, and I was crying around my mouthful when the third one descended. He watched me for a little, cane in hand, and then leaned down and drew his fingers through the lake that was my cunt. Then those fingers were at my lips. I licked up my juices, sauce for the food in my dish. Plenty of tears for the salt.

***

‘On the couch now, girl, next to me.’

Next to him? What now? I didn’t believe he was going to let me sit with him and watch TV, even with my hands still locked behind me. I was drawn down and arranged on my back with my feet toward him. Thought so. He linked my ankles on short chains to rings at each side of my waist; the corset had a variety of such hardware. A cord, something elastic, from each ankle to each nipple ring held my flexed legs just a little bit tighter – just enough, as I soon discovered, to make each convulsive kick punishing, while the chains to my waist stopped me short of any damage.

Mostly he read. Something called The Grape Grower: Guide to Organic Viticulture. And though it was a good-sized book, one huge hand was enough to keep it steady. With the other, casual and cruel, he pinched, tormented and teased me. Long hard pinches on my labia. Tufts of pubic hair twisted and steadily pulled. Sudden semi-painful flicks on clit and anus.

After involuntarily yanking my nipples more than once I tried to stay still, but it was no use. He made sure I writhed, gasped, and writhed again.

When my whimpers and yelps took on the shape of words I got my thigh smacked, hard. ‘Who gave you permission to speak?’ He rolled me off the couch onto my knees and I crouched there, face to the floor, unable to move. To my relief I felt him release the nipple cords.

‘Go to the chest in the front hall. Open the bottom drawer.’

I suppressed a groan and lurched forward on my tightly flexed knees, unable even to raise my butt much off the ground due to the ankle chains, burning with humiliation. The spots between my legs that had received his attentions ached and throbbed. When I had struggled all the way to the chest, it was necessary to crouch down and put my breasts to the floor in order to get my mouth low enough to grasp one of the knobs. Then, because I was pulling only from one side, it stuck. I had to shuffle sideways, crouch down, get my teeth onto the other knob and shuffle backwards again. Again it stuck. Back and forth once more, till I could grasp the middle edge with my mouth. All the while aware of my master watching this dreadful performance. In the course of one go from right to left my cunt brushed the ground, and I lingered…. I heard a deep growl of warning from behind me;

‘Maia!’ and hastily I lifted my tail off the floor.

When the drawer at last was wide, I saw it was full of s/m gear, neatly stowed. Coiled straps, whips, lengths of chain. ‘Bring me the gag, girl, the one with the red ball. You might as well get that into your mouth right now.’

This required some awkward manoeuvring, but at last I had other things out of the way and my mouth above the ball. I opened wide and pressed my face down over it, felt it slip behind my teeth, the strap not quite straight. I tried unsuccessfully to shift it round with my tongue, straightened up, turned and began to shuffle back to my master.

‘Close the drawer!’ came the impatient command. I turned back and obeyed, head down. I’d never been gagged before. I’d been forbidden to speak often enough, and even during conversations when it seemed I could say anything, I’d always watched carefully for the moment when permission would be withdrawn. This was different. A thing in my mouth that pressed down on my tongue and rendered me dumb. He adjusted it and buckled the strap tightly, pulling it deep into my mouth. Then he rearranged me on the couch as before, not forgetting the nipple cords, and returned to his amusements.

When my back was arched and my legs were trembling, straining toward the next touch, no matter how painful, he said, ‘That’s enough of that,’ and dumped me unceremoniously on the floor again. One long leg made use of me as a foot rest. I spent a long while with my forehead to the wood grain, gradually simmering down. I was no longer sure that one more flick or pinch would tip me over the precipice. It might have taken two or three.