In Chains Read online

  “It’s not like we keep whips in the kitchen and my leather harness hanging on the living room wall.”

  “You have a harness?”

  “Yes. A bit that goes through my mouth, straps that bind my arms behind me …” she notes my reaction, like she knows I’ve been dreaming of this for years.

  I wonder what I expected.

  “Don’t look so spooked,” she laughs. For a moment, she disappears into the back of the house and returns with two glasses of white wine. “Relax.”

  I take a sip, hoping the alcohol will have some effect on my fantasy-battered brain. As I sit on the couch I try to look relaxed, but watching Holly tidying up the room, her nervous agitation seems strange.

  “I told him I’d have the place cleaned up today. He’s been getting pissed lately because I’m such a lousy housekeeper.”

  I smile. “What would that mean, his getting pissed?” I ask.

  “That I’ll get my butt whipped,” she says, looking like a naughty kid.

  I’m not sure whether she wants it or dreads it. “And you don’t like that?”

  “Oh, I love it. But not when Crawford’s angry, because then, he’s not going for pleasure. If I’m not careful, I’ll find myself strung up against the wall for an hour or two. That’s only fun for about a half hour. After that, I start to ache and my arms scream with pain. I don’t like my S&M alone. He’s got to be there, and he knows leaving me is the worst thing he can do. Here,” she suddenly offers me her hand, “you want to see our room? That’s where all the good stuff is.”

  I’m led into the back of the house, to a small bedroom with a king-size bed pushed against one wall. There are thick blue velvet drapes at the window, a brocade comforter on the bed, and a small highboy in the corner. So far nothing unusual, until Holly opens what looks like a closet door, and we walk into a room that must be 8 x 8—hardly a closet at all. The walls, except one papered one, are painted the color of wine, like the color of blood. Like all the other rooms in the house, crown molding encircles the circumference, and runs along the base of the floor. Embedded into the plaster walls are eyehooks, a tangle of leather ropes dangle from the ceiling, an odd-looking rack-like structure sits in the corner, and against the wall papered with enormous roses are an array of S&M implements. My mind suddenly goes on vacation, thoughts end and my body turns weak. I take just one glance, wanting more, but choose to leave this dangerous territory when the fear clutches me by the throat. I’m in the jungle again, afraid any moment I’ll be dragged into the swampy quicksand oozing around my unsure feet. What the hell am I doing here with a woman I hardly know?

  “You’re spooked, aren’t you?” Holly says as she closes the dungeon door behind her and leans against it as though she’s protecting me from it leaping out and drawing me back inside.

  “Yeah, this is really weird,” I say.

  “But maybe you learned something.”

  I nod my head, standing frozen in my shoes, trying to find some excuse to leave her. But as she saunters toward me, the burning in my groin becomes more shrill. When she places her hand at my crotch, I start—an instinctive response—and try to pull away, but her soothing fingers massage me so tenderly I find myself refusing to leave. She kisses me. We are the same height, and kissing seems odd with a person of my size. I have to crane my neck in a different way than when I’m with a man. Her dainty lips move sweetly, feeling like flower petals against mine. As my lips part, we share each other’s breath. I respond to her nomadic hands as they journey over my clothes, and finally make their way under my sweater. There, her soft palm grazes the bare skin of my breasts. As she pushes me back against the bed, she goes down on me, exploring my body with such avid zeal, I’m overwhelmed and try pushing her away.

  “Kiss me back,” she purrs, lips at my ear, breath on my neck.

  I tentatively reach for her arms, feeling awkward; though I find my face at her cheek, enjoying the soft feel of skin perfumed with the scent of flowers. What she does to my crotch with her hand keeps me on her bed. I think I might climax with no bare skin contact at all. The heat’s too high to wait. Grinding my pussy against her palm, the desire in me swells. But then she backs off, going for the snap of my jeans, letting her fingers search the messy wetness between my legs. She struggles for a moment freeing me of the heavy denim. And once it’s discarded on the floor, Holly goes after me with her mouth at my snatch.

  “Ah, ah yessss.” I climax quickly, feeling her tongue flutter my clit. The sensation in my vulva mounts as my breathing deepens and my head falls back, and I arch my shoulders against the brocade-covered mattress. She has fingers tweaking a nipple, generating a long and steady line of pain that shoots to my clitoris. And then I float… dip myself in pleasure, and escape into this senseless vacuum where my spasms shudder their way through me until my surrender is complete.

  “Ooo, damn! You’re a randy bitch,” Holly seethes as she kisses my mouth, laughing delightfully in my face.

  I’m shaking my head bewildered by my lust.

  “See, I told you!” She is triumphant.

  I think this obligates me to reciprocate. “You want me to…” She jumps from the bed before I can finish.

  “No. I mean, yes, I’d love you to bring me off, but Crawford’s orders.”

  “His orders?”

  “Can’t have it without him.”

  “You can give but not receive?”

  “Yep.” She seems perfectly pleased. “Don’t worry, though. I’ll tell him all about you and he’ll be so horny he’ll screw the climax right out of my crotch.”

  I watch as Holly takes off her sweater. With my first look at her small naked tits and the chain running through her cunt, my tummy’s grinding again. I realize that I want more of her—and I want a chain bisecting my crotch the way hers does.

  “You know you could stay for Crawford,” she suggests. She’s wary of saying it, but not so wary that she doesn’t try.

  “No,” I shake my head as I sit up and reach for my jeans.

  “He’ll like you, I’m sure of it.”

  I’m shaking my head no, “I can’t.”

  “Okay,” she shrugs like it’s no big deal. “There’s always another day.” Her languid eyes seem to brighten even after my rejection.

  I don’t think so. Not now, not any time soon. I need to go.”

  “Sure, whatever you say.”

  I’m embarrassed as I put on my jeans—still feeling as though I’ve let her down. But then I wonder if this wasn’t some sort of scheme between she and her dom, to woo an unsuspecting woman into their blood-colored bondage boudoir. She doesn’t seem that conniving or that shallow, but I don’t think she’ll ask me to join her again. We’re obviously not from the same world—at least I don’t think we are. Sure, I’ll be cool with her, friendly, but chilly to any plan she has to seduce me.

  I already know I’ll regret being so cautious, especially when my fantasies turn dark, and I remember that I could have had my dreams come true if I’d been brave enough to step boldly into Holly’s world.

  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 sexual 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 vine
s. 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 sexual fire. I’m almost in pain the way this bleak place swallows up my sexual 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 sexual. 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… sex, 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 sex, 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 sexual 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 sexual 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 cocks 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.