The email from her wasn't enough. I told her she had to meet me, look me in the eye and say what she wanted. It was hard, seeing her for that brief moment. She had that nervous smile I remembered so well, from when she was in trouble. Her red hair, her pale smooth skin, the sparkle in her eyes and the scent of her. Even in the shapeless baggy jeans and loose shirt she wore, I could see her curves. They were burned into my memory from my fingers tracing them for so many nights. I remembered them without seeing them.
She had a sweet curve to her hips; it made it look like she was dancing even when she was walking. But she was still now, and her arms were crossed over her full breasts. I could feel her breasts, nestled against my chest, like they had been so many nights when I held her, just looking at her.
We met in front of a 7-11 near the crappy little development that she lived in. We sat on the hood of my car as the blue-collar locals went in with a weeks pay and came out with twelve packs.
"Do you want a soda or anything?" I tired to stare, to really see her.
"No, sir." Eyes downcast.
"Well how have you been?"
"She has been well, Sir, and hopes you are the same." I thought for a second of telling her to cut the crap out, to just talk to me, to let me be a friend at least. But I knew her answer, that she was a slave and nothing else. It angered me. She knew what buttons it would push.
"GIRL" my voice harsher, deeper I stood up straighter, I could feel my eyes flashing. "Look at me." She hesitated. "Now."
Some ditch digger coming out of the 7-11 cut a wide berth around me, going out of his way, his dim befuddled brain sensing trouble. She met my eyes. It was all there. That first squint of anger, actual hate that I still had MY buttons to push in her and the fear, and the need, the excitement- she couldn't meet my gaze long, and her attention fell down to the pavement.
She saw a popsicle stick on the ground, and bent to pick it up.
"Leave it."
She froze. Stood back up. She was mine, as much as she had ever been. I knew I could have told her to get in my car, come back to my side of town, it might have even lasted a couple of weeks if her boyfriend had been particularly nasty that day.
I opened my car door, as she stood on the sidewalk frozen. "I'll do it. Tomorrow. 9:30."
I slammed my door shut behind me. I looked back in the mirror when I was waiting for the light to change, and she was bending over the popsicle stick again.
**********
The old familiar drive to her place...their place now. I had made every excuse in the world to my then wife, when I first went, now I just hopped in and went. I hadn't had a toy bag then, just a few odds and ends.
Now it sat on the passenger side, a visible manifestation of my growth. Tools I had made, that friends had made for me that they had picked out with me. The touches from the hands of all my friends, wrapped in a big black gym bag.
We had been in bed as lovers, as Master and slave, and I had talked about this, but it was she and I doing him, getting revenge for her, for all the things he had done. Not being there, not giving love to her and her son. So who was I punishing now?
I pulled up, and saw his car in my old spot. I parked next to it, and as I set the brake and took my keys out I heard the jingle the keys made. I looked down in surprise, seeing my hands were shaking. I could see the candles flickering in her dark apartment, their dark apartment, and knew they had heard me drive up.
But I wasn't ready to go in, and I could make them wait.
I got out without my tool bag, and looked around the apartment complex. Pickups with ladders attached, old beaters, the occasional souped up muscle car. When I had spent time there I'd see all of the men working on the cars all weekend. My leather jacket cost more than the monthly payment on any car but mine in the whole lot.
The grass in the big common area was marked with the tread of the kids, and I could see it under the streetlights--it needed mowing, and there were toys just left there. Her son had lost more balls that I would give him that way, just dropping things and running in at suppertime. He hadn't been given the concept of putting everything away when you were done. She couldn't teach him that, and neither could I. I looked at her car. The inspection sticker a month overdue, but the new stickers for bands she had seen and radio station gleaming all over it and the child's toys and schoolbooks, in the back seat.
His car, dented, rusted, full of crap. I looked at the back seat: clothes from the last time he'd been thrown out or left, fast food wrappers, art supplies. All tossed blindly into the back seat. All the garbage from his carelessness following him around.
I took my toy bag, put the strap over my shoulder, pushed the bag around behind me and headed to the mailbox, to fish out the keys. She had put her keys in the mailbox. I recognized the key chain.
The door stuck unless you pushed it as you turned, but I had opened it plenty of times. I didn't look as I closed the door behind me, but stood with my back to the apartment I had entered with my eyes closed. I could smell the incense, the scent of the candles, and very faintly the chicken she'd cooked for dinner. For him.
A glance left showed me the drying rack full of dishes on the kitchen counter. I knew she had washed them, not him. A glance right showed me a couple, living together, about to give themselves over to me. They were both naked as instructed, except for white tee shirts and dog collars. Both knelt on the floor knees spread, hands palms up on their thighs. She looked down at the floor, and he kept looking from me to her. Looking for a clue. I looked around the room. All the toys they had, laid out on the coffee table in the living room they knelt in. I had bought and left about half of them. The room had the curtains closed in every window, and a sheet put over the blinds in the sliding glass door. All the furniture was pushed up against the walls, and the sofa was down in its bed configuration, with an old blanket covering it.
I took a six-foot leash I had bought, and hooked it to his collar. It was the first time I'd met him, and his beard brushed the back of my hand. Instinctively he tilted his head back to allow me access, swallowing the lump in his throat. I could tell he wanted it, but there was no respect in his eyes. And his fear was overtaking his desire, I had got to the point I could almost smell that.
"What's the matter, sugar? Second thoughts?" It came out as a horse whisper, somehow louder than if I had shouted it. She flinched next to him, because she knew what was coming next.
I pulled up on the collar, gently at first to let him get his feet under him then a hard jerk up, using my whole body to supply the power. It pulled him up to his tiptoes, and while he was off balance I slammed him hard into the wall. I heard her softly say "No. Please." I didn't look back at her, as she knelt behind us. I stood closer to him.
He had beer on his breath, and a raging hard on. I knew he couldn't hold a job, or contribute to the household; he was weak, pulling her down to his level. He came up to my nose, and was scrawny, hairy. He couldn't hold still, but I could tell he wanted to. As I moved closer he tried to push me a way. My eyes widened. He caught the look and froze.
"You better put those hands at you sides before they get you in more trouble." He dropped them. I reached into my pocket and took out the first set of handcuffs.
"Here bitch, let me help you 'cause you want to be a sweet bitch for your daddy, DON'T YOU?" As I cuffed him, he opened his mouth, and then shut it.
"Try saying yes sir with that little bitch mouth."
"Yes sir."
I could see him blush in the dark, see by the way he leaned into the wall his knees were weak, see by the pleading look he gave her he was gone. The fight had left him, and she wasn't giving him any help. For once she wasn't bailing him out. I grabbed his t-shirt by its collar, and ripped it off in one motion. He had on the collar, leash and the cuffs behind his back.
I pressed up against him my jacket still on, my boots next to his bear feet, my jeans against his legs-I put my forearm against his throat.
"I am clothed and you are naked. I am strong and you are weak. You are bound and I am free. Can you feel that?"
"Yes sir." His knees were literally shaking.
"What are you?" His eyes panicked he looked over my shoulder at her. "Say you are my bitch, and don't look at her, she can't help you."
"I'm your bitch--owww!" I had twisted both nipples, hard.
"I'm your bitch, sir. Say it right."
"I'm sorry, I'm your bitch sir." I threw the leash over my shoulder and slowly walked over to the couch-bed, and sat on it.
He had followed me, already eager to please.
"Crawl to me bitches".
They both did, she with a lustful smile and an eager little canter, he with fear all over his face and a puppy like awkwardness. They scooted over to me, and I pulled him by the leash and her by the hair until one was over each boot. She remembered my hand in her hair, all the times before. It relaxed her, I could tell.
I cuffed her hands behind her back. "Boot laces-teeth. Last one done gets ...punished."
She threw herself on my right boot, stopping to kiss it, then letting her tongue and teeth gently carefully grab the laces, as she had done in her mind a million times before. The taste of the laces hadn't been part of her fantasy, and she made a face, which I let slide, and sat back done with a smile before he had even brought himself to put his teeth on the left bootlace.
