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“Is your Ellie here?”
“No. She’s at lunch, but I’ll leave a note. How long will I be?”
“No more than two hours.”
I scratch something on a paper and pin it to the door, then exit my shop with Lockhart, his hand at my back like the perfect gentleman.
We walk several blocks in the crisp December air. The town is quaint with a charm that feels comfortable. It’s a place I can manage. I never thought there would be such a difference from the city. Even knowing that Lockhard has incredible commands for me to follow, I’m easing into this so that it hardly seems like an effort at all.
We move along the sidewalk as though we’ve been friends for years. He tells me about the shops, gossiping about people we pass—slyly revealing detailed intimacies so I wonder where his information comes from.
I learned from Ellie that Lockhart is the town eccentric. He’s been a major contributor to the library, and the small theater—even acting in several major roles to great reviews. He’s a champion of civil liberties, which makes him too liberal for many in the town. But no one bothers him. He’s erected a protective barrier around him that keeps people from getting too far inside his life. Some think he might be gay, which I find amusing, because that certainly isn’t my impression of him. Those that know him better find his libertine love life a rich source of gossip. But it’s clear his interest in the darker sides of sexuality is not commonly known—if at all—except by the very few who share his taste for our perverted underworld. Thankfully, Ellie knows nothing about the bizarre lifestyle that goes along with Lockhart’s libido.
When we’re almost on the edge of town, Lockhart darts into a small shop—the apothecary—so the name on the door indicates. The shopkeeper looks like an aging hippie with long grey hair tied in a ponytail and clear blue eyes. He wears a well-worn East Indian shirt and Birkenstock sandals.
“This is Anna,” he tells the man.
“And I am Colin,” he informs me, holding out his hand for me to shake.
“I want her in rings.”
“Ah, how many?”
“Five.”
“I have no idea what he means until I’m led into the back of the shop, to a small display case with piercing jewelry underneath the glass.
“You’ll do this all at once?” Colin asks.
“Might as well. It takes some time to heal these things.”
Without consulting me, Lockhart chooses five gold rings from the display, two pairs of matching size and a third a little larger than these four. The master lays his cash on the table and five sealed packets emerge, along with five needles all in hermetically sealed packages. The sight of the needles seems to pierce my consciousness with the reality of what the master plans. My head’s dizzy, so I lean on his arm for support.
He puts the bag with his purchase in the pocket of his coat, and we head back into the December air. I am much less relaxed than when we left my shop, anxiety doubling inside my stomach. A block or two down the street, he stops, opening the passenger door of a pale green Mercedes that must be at least two decades old. Still, it carries with it a weighty importance, and the smell of leather inside reminds me of the leather that has collared and bound me in the past. We drive through town, down the highway for a mile and turn off at his winding drive. The closer we get to his house, the more my body quakes. He glances at me several times as though gauging my nervousness.
“You have done this before? Piercing?” I wonder aloud.
“Yes, several times.”
I was hoping he’d give me a more detailed explanation, but with none, I turn silent and introspective.
Heinrich would like this move. We’d talked of piercing, brands and tattoos—all of which would have intrigued me, but there was nothing permanent pierced, etched or burnished into my skin—perhaps because our relationship wasn’t destined to be permanent. If I were to take that metaphor seriously, it would mean my relationship with Lockhart is permanent—though we both know that is not the case.
In his house, I watch him casually throw his bag of trinkets on a table by the door. He hangs my coat on a coat rack packed with winter parkas and woolen scarves. Leading me through a hallway to the back of the house, I find myself in a bright sunroom that faces south. Like my shop it’s banked on three sides by dozens of windowpanes, perfect rectangles of glass all side by side by side. The sun pours through these panes—many of them beveled, so like prisms the reflected light makes rainbows everywhere. The room’s been painted white; and so contrasts the rest of the house, I feel as though I’ve changed worlds, altered planes of energy, transformed in matter and composition so I’m now existing in a place wholly different that the dark and mysterious house of my master.
But still, he’s here with me, behind my back, his gentle hand on my shoulder to comfort me. He reaches to the bottom of my sweater and begins to pull it over my head. These hardly seem the surroundings for a first scene with him. I’ve thought only of his cellar, or attic, or even the cluttered living room where we had our first interview. It would be so easy to make any of those places match the darker designs we both have in mind.
Here, in this white room, there’s a sterile quality—not unlike Bernard’s white-tiled chamber. Yet, there is more here: the out of doors, the barren vines and the stark trees reaching in like fingers and claws, the intense sunlight pouring into the room. The sun is warm on my bare skin.
Lockhart unfastens my bra, letting my breasts spring proudly free. Then he sits behind me to remove my jeans. As he inches them over my hips, he finds I wore no panties.
Does that mean I am bolder than other women? Is that significant to him? Because I can’t see his face—or his crotch—I have no idea how he responds to this first unveiling. I help him as I struggle out of each pant leg, and then, because he’s given me no other orders, I remain facing into the room with Lockhart behind me.
I can feel his eyes peer into me, and his warm breath on the small of my back. He strokes my skin tenderly, delicately running his right hand from my shoulders, down to my hips and over my protruding buttocks. He cups one cheek in his palm and squeezes. I want to fall back into his arm. My insides are mad with desire that suddenly leaps from my body. There’s so much erotic tension between us, and all that’s been suppressed for weeks now pours from me like a thunder-driven shower. I’m sure he feels how my body explodes. And I can’t help myself, as my ass moves into his hand wantingly.
Lockhart rises and then walks around me to view my naked front. He smiles, but doesn’t touch as he takes this first look at the body he’s agreed to master.
“Yes, five rings will be just fine.” He has his fingers at my pussy, opening the labia so he can see what’s inside. Then, he moves to the side of the room, and pulls out a green metal examination table, what, until that moment, struck my eye as an objet d’art, an antique from the 1930’s. Obviously, it is fully functional.
