In Chains

Chapter Two-1

Chapter Two

At this garden party, where I sit with hands daintily folded in my lap, and make bland conversation with Blythe’s Aunt Carol, my insides are screaming to get out. I’ve been at the Blythe’s Harris Estate for a week and I’m going mad. Everything here is so damned exquisite—of course, Architectural Digest did a full layout on the house last spring. The gardens were blooming just like they are now. I remember being here the same time last year, having the same miserable feeling of oppression cloud my sleazy s****l thoughts. There’s too much cream and white on white, and handsome floral centerpieces, and manicured gardens. Assaults the eyes.

My family is wealthy, but not like this. We live in a three-story city house that’s slightly tattered around the edges—needs new drapes and paint, and, no doubt, the electrical rewired before someone kills themselves. But the yard… ah, by the first of June, that wild green is a beautiful disarray of unruly blooming summer vines. How many hundreds of fantasies have sprung from that haven of decadence, I can’t count. I’d sit on the lawn in a sundress, dress raised, crotch planted inside the soft and prickly emerald grass. I’d smell the aroma of lust drifting toward my face, and feel butterfly soft whispers of desire against my skin. The tremors of darkness would clutch my crotch, and one mysterious dream after another would pour into my mind. Lying naked on that grass, my fantasies and all that splendid green would tickle me into an orgasm—though it’s always more prudent to escape to my third floor hideaway and delve into the mirror and my ropes.

Here, the chaste elegance of perfection stunts my imagination, but not the s****l fire. I’m almost in pain the way this bleak place swallows up my s****l fun. Now, the party and these people, swarming around me in their crisp summer cottons, make me think that all life has been sucked from the marrow of their bones, and there is nothing but dry dust clinging to bodies that will simply disappear with the first summer storm.

Newly graduated, I have no idea how I’ll spend my summer. I’ve thought of taking an intern position at Doubleday or Redbook—the offers are there, but I can’t imagine being cooped up in an office the entire season. The little mag rag I’ll go to work for in the fall has promise, and, being a purist in some matters, I’d rather not waste my efforts on those other tedious ones. I did that last summer—learned all the ropes I needed to learn, while the ones I dream of, the physical ropes still await. Perhaps.

“Kirsten, you’re looking so dejected,” Blythe exclaims, awakening me from my daydreams. “Come here. There’s someone you have to meet.”

“I’m not it the mood.”

“Go with her, dear,” Aunt Carol pushes me.

“Come on, he is dreamy.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re too pretty to be sitting here all alone,” Aunt Carol chimes in again. Obviously, this is Blythe’s reasoning, as I’m pulled from the chair. She grabs my arm so I can’t get away, and hustles me across the lawn, through dozens of chuckling, chattering people, to a table near the princess fountain—this princess has been carved from granite and has a three-foot moat around her svelte ash-colored body.

“Billy Fitzgerald, my friend Kirsten Cates,” she announces me, as though she’s just made the match in heaven. “Sweetie, this fellow has been everywhere this season, and you can’t let my party go by without making his acquaintance.” She turns to Mr. Fitzgerald. “She’s starting her own literary magazine in the fall,” she exaggerates my future plans, “make her smile, Billy, she’s been far too gloomy the last two days.”

“Miss Cates?” the man at the table looks up at me, and orders my next move, “sit down.”

“Gotta run,” Blythe says, kissing me on the cheek. Seeing that I’m safely dispatched with one of her other unattached guests, she darts away, leaving me to stare into the cultured eyes of a fine-tuned, sculptured gentleman who’s sitting casually sideways in his green lawn chair, only absently interested in my sudden appearance inside his invisible bubble.

At least there will be a table between us when I finally sit down, I think to myself. His eyes drip sexily, and his reserve leaves me nervously trembling inside my simple summer pumps. I’m afraid I’ll fall out of them with the next brisk breeze.

“Sit,” he says again. He’s ordering me, raising his elegant hand to motion me toward the chair. I haven’t felt this much eerie dread since I fled Holly’s house of wondrous horrors like a child escaping a haunted house at midnight.

I notice the cuffs on his shirtsleeve, cleanly pressed, the cufflinks gleam gold, catching the sunlight. They could blind the eye with their brilliance.

“Blythe says you’re ‘gloomy’. Is that so?” he asks.

“Blythe can’t stand moods, especially ones that don’t reflect her sunny disposition. This atmosphere simply makes me pensive.”

“Why’s that?” he asks, while I attempt to keep myself together under the intense stare of his soulful chestnut-colored eyes. They have heavy lids with a drowsy look, but ones I imagine can snap sharply when he chooses. Now, they simply scrutinize me like he’s the devil meaning to cut out my soul. His hair is dark, neatly combed, his brows full, his lips as well—I wonder how they look when they form a smile.

I lick mine nervously as I try to find some clever answer to his question, but my mind is on holiday. “I find this place tedious,” I finally announce. “Though I’d appreciate it if you’d not say anything to Blythe about my feelings.”

There! There’s his smile. Suddenly I’m swimming in a vibrant aura, and I realize that all my hesitation and nervousness is s****l. My thoughts trip right past the usual lust I feel for a good-looking guy. I imagine him owning me.

“But you feel obligated to stay?” he asks.

I shrug. “The week’s almost over.”

“And where then?”

I think for a minute how to answer the question because I don’t have an answer myself. “I have no idea. Maybe I’ll go home to Boston and get a job waiting tables in a diner.”

“And spend your evenings in your room thinking of… s*x, perhaps?” he goes on.

Now I’m blushing.

“I’ll tell you what, we’ll go out tonight, and change your mood,” he announces. Then he rises from his chair, comes to my side, and kisses my cheek. “I’ll get you at eight o’clock.”

Before the message registers, he’s gone. When Blythe returns looking despondent because I’m alone again, I tell her what just happened. At first, her face lights up, but then there’s an odd expression I don’t understand, I thought she’d be thrilled. “Oh, I hope I haven’t really screwed up here,” she says.

“Why’s that?”

“Ahem…” she hedges. “Nothing really, just that Billy isn’t your ordinary kind of guy.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’ve heard rumors,” she stops, “but they’re only rumors. He’s nearly thirty, spent several years bumming about clubs and art houses in Europe, and has a past of running roughshod over women.”

“And you introduced him to me?”

“I didn’t think he’d do anything like ask you out.”

“So, what’s roughshod mean?”

“I gather he’s pretty demanding sexually. Likes it down and dirty … I’m not sure what else, you know how rumors fly? But then, this is just a date, not s*x, right? He is gorgeous… and you certainly don’t have to sleep with him.”

I have a premonition on this one that hits me hard. In seconds, I’m on Holly’s porch again, in her master’s house, in the closet that connects to her bedroom, staring at a room full of implements and s****l apparatus as though I’m now bound in leathers, a chain just drawn tightly about my neck.

***

I was supposed to leave Blythe’s this morning, but Billy asked me out again and I can’t refuse him. Our first date was straight from the pages of a novel: jet black Porsche, slinky sheath, elegant restaurant, Billy Fitzgerald like a GQ model with a smile so brilliant I’m sure this man and that the night before were just a dream. The lust he generates in me far outstrips anything I’ve experiences before. Then there are the rumors of his s****l inclinations. No, this can’t be real, but by the second date, I learn it is.

We’re at dinner—this time a seafood bistro near the bay. He’s dressed down to jeans and a sport coat, clean white tee shirt underneath. I’m in a loose white cotton sundress, wearing my white corset underneath. All this came out of my fantasies. He’ll never know, unless he gets really close, puts his arm around me so he can feel the constricting garment that molds my waist into a fraction of its real size. I feel submissive in its confinement. It cultivates my lust, and is surely a damn foolish thing to wear, unless I’m actually baiting him, hoping he’ll declare himself for what he’s supposed to be.

“Blythe said there are rumors that you run roughshod over women. Why do you suppose people say that?” I ask him. About two glasses of wine into the meal, I’m much bolder than when I’m sober.

He c***s his head slightly, smiling. “Is that a fair question to ask?”

“Why not?”

“Then, tell me why you’re wearing a corset,” he asks without answering me.

The question takes me by surprise. “How do you know?”

“I have a keen eye, Kirsten,” he smirks. “So, why the corset?”

I suddenly feel like I’m on trial. “I like the way it feels,” I finally tell him.

“That’s good. I imagine I’ll enjoy the way it looks when I take that dress off.”

Our conversation and the wine take down my defenses. I’m ready to confess everything to him and he’s ready to listen.

“So what does roughshod mean?” I try one more time. “I need to know.”

Billy gazes at me thoughtfully as though he’s calculating my reaction to his reply in advance. This tight little game we play with words has me figuratively standing at the top of a precipice reeling as I look into a veiled abyss. Desire and need pull me downward into that unknown. “Roughshod isn’t exactly the word I’d use, Kirsten. I suppose what the rumors mean is that I impose my will on the women that go to bed with me. I expect them to obey me, I expect them yielding and subservient, willing to be led, molded and sexually daring—exactly as you want to be.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you, Kirsten Cates.”

He reaches across the table placing his hand over mine. I’m trembling so badly, he can tell I’m shaking.

“Don’t worry,” he smiles. “I don’t whip my lovers the first time we make love.”

“But you do whip them?” I’m practically whispering.

“Yes. I often do. Those that need to be punished, and those that like pain.”

“And you think that’s what I want?” How can he tell?

“I know that’s what you want.”

Later, on the terrace of his borrowed apartment, I face him meekly, letting his fingers slowly undo the buttons on the front of my dress. When he sees the white corset, he smiles.

“I imagine that’s hard to put on by yourself,” he observes while he runs his hand along my waist, feeling the tightly cinched garment.

“I struggle with it,” I admit.

“But it’s worth it.”

“Billy, I’ve never done anything like this. No one knows except…” I think of Holly, but how do I explain her?”

“Except who?”

“A woman at school, a submissive. She calls herself a s*x slave to her owner.”

He nods.

“That takes time,” he says. “I need to love you first, and you me. We can’t do this without being sure of each other.” He reaches to my face, pressing a gentle hand on my cheek, and I know that I’ll do anything he asks. This is not like it was with Holly. He’s so beguiling, I’m oozing into him without fear, sucked inside Billy Fitzgerald as though I already belong to him. We’ve only known each other two days. He teases me all evening making-out on his lounge chair. But our intimacy ends with his one hand under my skirt lovingly caressing my ass. When he takes me home, I have a clit as hard as a rock inside my panties.

“If I were your master, I’d tell you not to c*m tonight,” he tells me as we stand on the steps of Blythe’s guesthouse saying goodnight.

I know I’m falling in love, but I don’t think I could obey that order. I rationalize that he’s not yet my master, though I think I already know better.

Every night for the next week Billy and I spent together becoming acquainted—talking. He tells me everything—about women he’s sexually mastered, about his various jobs—stock broker, antique dealer, linguist—he speaks German, French, Dutch and several Slavic languages fluently, and impersonates native born citizens in the countries he frequents on his trips to Europe. Makes me wonder if he’s an international spy—a regular James Bond secret agent. That wouldn’t surprise me, even though it seems so absurd.

I tell him about Holly—the only really exciting thing that’s happened to me. When he starts digging into my fantasy life, I manage to spit out a few telling details, while I stare blankly in another direction. I can’t look at his face. One night, he forces me to look at him as I speak and I’m almost in tears.

“Your eyes, Kirsten, I want to see your eyes. You need to look into mine when you talk.”

“I find that hard.”

“You’ll find a lot of other things harder,” he replies tersely. His hand on my chin feels like steel. Billy doesn’t like to be doubted or questioned or disputed. And that kind of command is everything my mind imagines for the man I love. Although I can’t believe this is happening now, that I’m caught in this tornado of desire and being swept away by the sheer force of it.

He is so very kind, his hands gentle. I can’t believe he’ll ever use them to hurt me. Do I really need the pain I envision in my imagination when just one finger running down my spine makes me want to come?

“Spit out the truth,” he demands. His hand glides down my neck and across my shoulder.

“I want a s****l master,” I finally say. “You. I want you.”

“And you have me,” he states flatly.

“So soon? You’re sure of that?”

“We’ll take each day one at a time. It’ll happen no faster than that.”

By the end of the week, my body screams for his touch … the brush of his hand… the smell of his cologne… the whispered breath in my ear… his full lips on my lips… his fingers on my bare skin… his heart beating against mine when we embrace. I feel the beating in his groin as well, but he takes his time… more expectant, anxious and frightening minutes.

“I know how you’ll spend your summer,” he finally announces ten days into our obscure affair.

“How’s that?” I ask.

“We’re taking a cruise to Europe, a train to Amsterdam and driving to Paris. We’ll be there a month. Bad time of year to go, but I have business. We’ll get s*x figured out on the trip.”

I’m silent for a long time.

“I plan to marry you when the summer is over. I want you in my bed where I’ll master you sexually, and own you thoroughly by the time you step into your job at the magazine in September. You won’t have to think of anything but your creative genius. I’ll take care of everything else.”

We’ve only known each other ten days, but I know everything he says will happen just as he’s planned.

“What can I say?”

“It isn’t necessary to say anything,” he replies looking down his haughty nose at me.

I feel giddy. “This sounds like an assumption of marriage, not a proposal.”

He laughs, looking amused, charmingly amused, dignified and haughty, knowing I’m that easily conquered. “Yes, I suppose you could consider it that,” he says. “Saves you the time spent brooding over an answer. I simply take over your choices, since you don’t like making them that shouldn’t bother you.”

I am scooped up in his arms again, his hands running along the outside of my dress as he feels the black lace corset he bought me the day before. He hasn’t seen it on me yet, but he appreciates the way it cradles my breasts. Though I’m desperate for more, he doesn’t seem to want me sexually in anything more than these carefully measured increments.