It wasn't uncommon for Drew to wake up with dubious interpretations of his previous night, to wake up unsure of what had happened, what had been forgotten, what had been dreamt up entirely. For the first few moments after Drew awoke, it seemed possible that it had all been fantasy; his mental movie theater opting to play a new breed of skin flick for once. The prospect of a stranger at a bar turning him into her obedient plaything was, at best, farfetched and, at worst, absurd. If it had been real, he'd have bolted from that crazy woman's house as soon as she started pushing him around.
Then the ghost of grips on his arms and his jaw arose with vengeance in their hearts, as if she had heard his thoughts and sought to reestablish herself. He could still feel her; not just the hands that had pinned him down or the thighs that had held him against her cunt, but the almighty gaze that tore away at him, shrunk him down into nothingness. In the darkness of his closed eyes, Lady Sparrow loomed over him, her presence stormcloud ominous and stormcloud ubiquitous. A person couldn't dream up someone like her; not in the darkest mind, not in the cruelest nightmare.
Drew wasn't fool enough to be ignorant of the existence of kink. He had hit puberty at the tail end of 12 and was fortunate enough to have had eight good years of Internet access and, eventually, a decent stream of short and long term partners. Those eight years had done well to refine his perception of his sexuality: girls only, curly-haired brunettes encouraged, bonus points for glasses, moderate tattoos and piercings appreciated. He liked getting head. He didn't mind giving it either. Sex was the pinnacle, best performed from behind (there was no better joy, he thought, than watching a girl's ass ripple against your hips when she backs into you. Who could resist grabbing two handfuls of that beauty?)
And so, in his traversals of porn websites, that's what he stuck to. Brunette gets her cunt split. Curly teen takes a hard twelve. Punk girls share a new toy. Nerdy hottie plays with her boyfriend's joystick. These videos had served him well. Still, this is eight years, and this is sex, so it wasn't as though curiosity never overcame him. The entire journey of pubescence, at least mentally, begins with curiosity. In time, every category on the roster got its audition; if it was lucky, it would even get itself a phase. The anal sex phase. The MILF phase. The Latina phase (his longest phase, spanning two and a half years and two relationships with, respectively, Vickie Salcedo and Maria Guerrero).
Some auditions ran longer than others. Indeed, the shortest of them all came from the little box marked with a photo of a blonde choking on a ballgag and four sinister letters: B, D, S, and M. Drew got far enough to figure out that the B stood for bondage, but after fourteen minutes of girls getting spat on, slapped past the point of bawling, facefucked while suspended from the ceiling, and drenched in scorching candlewax, he had packed his flaccid member into his underwear and closed his tabs. Somewhere out there, an audience of freaks was pounding off to this sick shit. Let them have it; he would stick to his curly brunettes, with their glasses and their moderate amounts of metal and ink.
Now, reflecting on his previous night, he realized he had been in the dungeon of one such freak. It may have looked like the bedroom of a humble yet stylish college student, but that was the room as Abby lived in it. When Lady Sparrow emerged from out of those narrowed hazel eyes, the posters and paint would melt off the walls, revealing the sweaty stone underneath. The plush mattress would decay into a hardened operating table for her to inflict her vile whim on her victims. Her dresses and sweaters would retreat back into her closet to make way for the leather, the latex, the shin-length high heel combat boots.
Drew stared down into their infinite blackness, just shiny enough to catch the reflection of the swaying candle. Their presence changed the air in the room, like a gun lying still on the dining room table. The soles seemed destined to crush him; the thin heels tapered off into points so fine they could slice a falling hair in two. When Lady Sparrow stood above him and extended one of those boots forward, the urge to beg for his life swelled in the pit of his stomach. But the fear that filled him now was the paralyzing kind of fear. He didn't speak. He didn't even try to run from her. He stayed on his knees, his mind still a prisoner to the infinite blackness.
"Do you know how much I spent on these boots?" she asked.
No answer necessary.
"I spent $350 on them. They're very expensive."
She twisted her ankle back and forth, showing off her luxurious footwear to her captive audience.
"I have many pairs of shoes, but these are special. They require special care."
His eyes followed the path of her laces as they snaked through golden eyelets.
"I can't clean them the way I do my other shoes."
A leather strap with a gold buckle fastened around the neck, high up her calf.
"These have to be licked clean."
His breath stuck in his throat, as if a leather strap with a gold buckle had fastened around his neck.
"And they aren't gonna lick themselves, boy."
She tapped her foot on the stone floor, and the shattering of Drew's eardrums finally freed him from paralysis. To his horror, there was no hesitation. There was no protest, no bargaining. He watched himself lean down, watched his tongue unfurl against the dark leather and lap up every day of use that those boots had ever had. From the tip of her toe up to her gold buckle, he left a slug trail of saliva in his wake. He pulled away.
"Do you think you're done, bitch? Don't make me tell you again."
But his paralysis had returned; not from the blackness of the boot, but from the reflection staring back at him.
Why did it look so happy?
The fantasy faded around him, leaving him alone in his bed with his shock, his confusion, and his pulsing erection. He wasn't supposed to have thoughts like that. His wandering mind had betrayed him; Lady Sparrow had poisoned him. He wasn't a freak. He wasn't like them, wasn't like her. She didn't have power over him. She wasn't going to turn him into some kind of slave. She had manipulated him last night, but he would never serve her again. He would never lick her fucking boots.
When it comes to scapegoats, alcohol is something of a Superman-type character. In some people's eyes, it's the ultimate trump card: totally bulletproof and godlike in its abilities to explain away questionable comments and behavior. Bad mouth one of your best friends? That was the tequila talking. Steal two armfuls of traffic cones? Shouldn't have shotgunned all those beers. Hooked up with your ex again? Well, you know how those mojitos are always pulling pranks.
And so, Drew played his trump card. He had been drinking, after all: two whiskey gingers in an hour. Normally, this would only be enough to net him a comfortable buzz, but on this particular night, it had made him weak-willed and persuadable. Maybe he hadn't eaten enough at dinner. Maybe the bartender poured them too strong. Either way, that had to be the answer. He was probably only a minute away from jumping onto the dancefloor and making an ass of himself before Abby slithered in and led her drunk, vulnerable prey back to her nest. How treacherous. How deplorable. How utterly blackhearted.
It wasn't a strong excuse, but like wet clay, memory can become set in permanence if one shapes it early enough. Drew reshaped his memory in late morning and let it dry into the afternoon; slowly, his revised interpretation of the night's events began to feel natural. A filter of drunkenness had been added to all his recollections, and the picture seemed to come together nicely. As he had said that previous night: drinking out at the bar makes everyone regress into animals. In his sober state, he would certainly be immune to the sadistic advances of any freak he might come across.
In late afternoon, one such freak sought to test this. When the unknown number rang on his phone, Drew answered before he could give a thought toward who would be waiting at the other end of the line.
"Hello?" he greeted.
"How is my pet doing today?" Abby inquired warmly.
Although he had retroactively coated his memories in haze, her voice was unforgettable. The outer sheen of hospitality, so thin above the cruelty beneath, was gift wrapping on a hand grenade. A knife had leapt out of the phone and driven itself through his brain, and now his planned speech, all the searing words he had dreamt about using to sever his ties to this sick woman, were leaking out along with the cerebrospinal fluid. He could hardly draw a breath, much less form a reply to her question, which stayed hanging in the tightening air of his kitchen.
"I asked how you were doing," she insisted, the warmth in her voice now absent.
Finally, he squeaked out, "I'm fine."
"I want to see you again. I hope you didn't make any plans for this evening."
The crossroads spread itself open in front of Drew: the path of least resistance, and the path that was blocked off by a towering figure cloaked in shadows whose fangs dripped with venom and whose eyes never blinked as they stared at him. When he envisioned the scene earlier, he had stepped up to this towering figure and condemned it to the depths of Hell, pushing his way past it without fear to come out powerful on the other side. But Abby's voice was in his ear, her spirit was waiting at the other end of his table. She had put him on the spot, and under her observation, he had changed.
