Michelle frowns, "I'm afraid I'm serious. You're a sweet girl, Grace, but, given the situation, I have to ask that you find a new place of employment."
--
I've done a pretty good job of keeping myself from crying on the car ride home. Instead, I've formulated a long list of ways I might apologize to Nicole, insist that she was always right, and plead her forgiveness.
But when I open the door and call her name, there's no response. Of course, it's still the afternoon and she's still at work. I sigh at the reminder of my own dismal situation and start disrobing on my way to my room. When I get to my bed, I'm just in my underwear and I happily kick those off as well. If there's no one home anyway, there's no reason to wear clothes.
I rock backwards, grabbing my sketch pad and pencil from my night stand, then cross my legs and rest the pad on my lap. I decide if anything will distract me from all of this, it's my art. I relax my eyes and my mind and let my hand start to sketch shapes without really trying to direct it.
I realize I am drawing a figure of a woman, so I shape her in. She is fit but curvy with wide hips, kneeling with hands in her lap. She looks a bit too much like myself, I do hate when I do that. So I give her fat ringlet curls, the opposite of my straight, glossy red hair and plump, sexual lips, nothing like my lips that are thin and a little uneven.
My figure looks incredibly sexual, now that I notice it. Her position reminds me of just last night when I was in the very same position with Richard and Catherine, except I was bound in rope. Then I get an idea. I draw twisting strands of rope around her chest and breasts in the way I remember being tied. I'm excitedly erasing and making slight changes, showing how the tightness of the rope puckers her skin, parting her full lips. I find the sight of this girl I've created, this almost-me, kneeling and bound so beautiful and I feel myself excitedly taking in big breaths of air. I imagine myself as her, bound again, with her beauty and perfection, without anything to be self-conscious about. How amazing that would be.
I erase the gentle lines of her neck and add a final detail, a thin collar. And it is as if I am looking at an image of my ideal self, free and self-confident, all my anxieties and worries placed in the hands of someone else for a short while. I find myself missing Richard and Catherine, as if my absence from them has spanned days, not hours. Somehow, I feel like, if I were with them, I wouldn't feel this pain.
I notice the leather bracelet around my wrist rubbing the paper. It is like an invisible link to them.
"What if," I hear myself whisper.
And before I can give myself time to second guess, I unsnap the bracelet and slide it through my fingertips. I bring it to my face and drawn in the earthy leather smell, feeling myself grow wet at the idea of what I'm about to try. I take an end in each hand and bring them together at the back of my neck, snapping the braided piece in place like a choker, except, no, of course not: like a collar.
I abandon the sketchpad and throw myself backwards into my bed, falling recklessly into my comforter like a joyous animal. I let my right hand slide down the curve of my body, towards my growing desire. I keep my left hand at my neck, grasping and feeling how the leather sits against my skin. I imagine it truly is a collar. That it is held on with a lock, fastened to a leash, led by someone I can trust with my life. My hand slips between my legs and effortlessly parts my lips, slick with wetness. I moan in response and rub, faster and faster.
Usually I start these sessions slowly, sensuously, but not today. It builds much too quickly, and I am overcome with lust at the fantasy of being collared. The feel of the leather around my neck makes me feel untamed and I am rolling my head from side to side, tangling my hair. I thrust my fingers inside myself, flexing them with an intense rhythm and I allow guttural sounds, so different than my normal, demure moans, to come forth.
Yes, I am enslaved, taken, a pet, owned. I am not Grace Meadow; I am just a girl, a beautiful girl with full lips and curly hair, naked and bound for the pleasure of another. I exist to experience pleasure and pain and joy and bliss. My job isn't to think but to feel. And I will feel any sensation no matter how intense if it pleases my owner, oh god yes. The fantasy of being totally taken and used engulfs me and I shudder around my aching hand, coming fast and hard.
I lay, panting and blissfully high, still gracing the leather fastened around my neck.
