Part One: The Meeting with the Master
There were seven of us seated around the table in the private dining room of a swanky New York restaurant. I couldn't believe my good fortune; I had been invited to dinner with a bevy of celebrities. One was a writer and editor for a posh fashion magazine, along with his lovely, but simple blonde buxom wife. There was the rock star, brilliantly handsome even in his older age with his graying hair dyed a light blonde and the crinkles of his eyes giving his face a soft sympathetic look- he was joined by his very young brunette fashion model girlfriend. To cap it off, there was the photographer for the same posh fashion magazine, his two toned spiky hair contrasting with a brilliant purple suit; he was joined by his "friend", a quiet male whose pale face was obscured by heavy dark framed glasses. And then there was me, a struggling freelance writer.
We had already placed our orders for dinner and were enjoying an extremely expensive bottle of merlot when the waiter came over bearing a large arrangement of sunflowers.
"This is for the lady," said the waiter crisply, his foreign accent a harsh staccato. He pointed to me and set the flowers down on a serving table behind my chair. "There is a note," he said, pulling off the card and sliding it on the table in front of me.
I was instantly suspicious. Sunflowers are my favorite flower, but a whole bouquet would not be so easy to come by in the winter months, even in metropolitan New York. I fingered the note as I read it, clean black ink in a precise handwriting on stiff ecru parchment. "Come to the ladies room right away," it read.
"Excuse me," I said, nodding to my dinner companions. I didn't say anything about the message and I knew they were wondering what was going on.
The ladies room was extremely chic with an antechamber lined with plush floral couches. It should have surprised me that there was a man standing in the ladies room, but it was what he did and the suddenness of it all that made me stand there dumbfounded. He quickly came up to me as I pushed open the door, grabbed my hands together in one strong grip, and with his other hand, slipped a pair of handcuffs over my wrists, securing my hands together in front of me. I should have screamed, but I stood looking stupidly into his handsome face. I staggered backwards, my eyes never leaving his hard gaze, as I waited for him to grab me. He didn't.
"Now you may go back to your table, my lady," he said softly. He held the swinging door open for me. I didn't look back, but scurried back quickly to my table, my hands still bound awkwardly in front of me.
"You are not going to believe the 'freak-a-zoid' who attacked me in the bathroom," I exclaimed a little too loudly, holding my hands out like a trophy. It was deadly quiet I realized. My six dinner guests looked at me and then back at the chair that I had left. There was a man sitting in my chair. He sat back, languidly, looking at me expectantly, his fingertips touched together in an arc as if he were meditating. I could instantly see that he was very tall, his long legs stretched out in front of him as if he had been waiting hours for me. He was deadly beautiful for a man -- dark hair that curled a little at the nape of his neck; pale, almost translucent skin; dark eyes that blended in seamlessly with his wide pupils.
"Hello, Elizabeth," he said in a deep, unwavering voice.
Two words that sent chills down my arms. Who was this man?
He sat patiently, staring at me, either unaware or uncaring of the other eyes that flitted between him and me trying to understand the interchange. "I am your master, Elizabeth," he said simply, as if that was enough.
My mind raced. I now realized who he was - "Beau", or at least that's how I knew him as. I had met Beau on-line about a year ago in an animation/simulation program. The only Beau who I knew up until that day was a computer animated avatar and we had forged a very intense sadistic relationship based on sex and S&M ritual. I knew that there was a real person behind Beau, but now here he was, flesh and blood, sitting in front of me. He represented a year's worth of fantasies -- a make-believe world that I felt I controlled with a click of a button. I had no button to push now to make him go away.
He stood up abruptly, his eyes never leaving me, a look of intensity framing his serious face. He was dressed immaculately in a very stylish tailored black suit with a black silk shirt which left only a trace of his hairless chest exposed. He pulled the chair back from the table, and grasping my shoulder, maneuvered me into the chair.
"Please, sit down, my dear," he said so normally. I almost started to laugh hysterically from the absurdity of the whole situation.
He pushed the chair under the table for me, as if he were just a gentleman seating his dinner date. He stood behind my chair, which unnerved me; I couldn't look up to see him without twisting all the way around and I couldn't look at anyone else at the table, for fear that I would start crying or laughing like a crazy person. So I stared at a spot on the table cloth.
Beau leaned over the right side of my chair. I could barely see his face at my side. His finger, long, thin, and hairless, reached out to stroke my cheek, stopping under my chin to grasp it in a vise between his finger and thumb. He was not hurting me, but I could feel the strength in his grip, the reminder of power beneath his gentleness.
"I am your master, Elizabeth and you will obey me. Will you submit to me?" He stopped waiting for me. I nodded, my brain whirling. He stood for a moment. "Answer me," he said, the calmness in his deep voice similar to the power beneath his fingers.
"Yes, my lord," I said quietly. It was what he wanted to hear. It was the game, I thought. We are playing the game. However, instead of our game being played out in a computer simulation in the privacy of my office, it was now being enacted for the world to see -- or if not the world, then a group of six strangers who might have represented the entire world to me at that moment. My face flushed with the shame of thinking what these people must be thinking. The quietness at the table was unnerving. I could feel the heat of their stares on me.
"Your hands are bound with these handcuffs," he said. "You will wear them for me. You will keep them on as you eat your dinner. You will keep them on until I say that you may take them off."
"And if I refuse?" I snapped. I was getting over my initial surprise and fear; defiance was starting to creep into my soul. I forced my eyes sideways to stare at him.
"Then I will punish you," he said simply, his face or voice showing no emotion.
