Swallowtail is a novel that traces the narrator's gradual acceptance of submission.
Previously: The narrator has given Dex blanket consent and is prepared to explore what submission to her might mean.
***
Beyond the chastity device I now wear most of the time, beyond even the fading welts from the cane that has recently assaulted the flesh of my back, buttocks and legs, there's perhaps no greater evidence of my willing submission to this woman than the fact that I am sitting on the sofa with her, a bowl of popcorn between us, watching a dancing competition on the tube. Dex, the goth princess who has claimed dominance over a large swath of my life, stares at the television in rapt attention. My friends would look at me askance for sitting here like this. Good thing they don't know the rest of it.
Dex now divides her time almost equally between my house and wherever it is that she lives. The place feels empty when she's not here and almost overwhelming when she is. We've settled into the easy rhythm of quasi-domesticity, though one punctuated by the occasional use of a crop or flogger against my recalcitrant flesh for infractions real or imagined.
A few weeks ago I bought Dex a toothbrush and placed it in the holder next to mine. She would never be so presumptuous to bring her own and I could tell that the symbolism of the two toothbrushes was not lost on her.
"Yikes," says Dex about some dance move I'm not quick enough to catch.
For the most part, I have become comfortable with submission and somewhat addicted to the intensity and creativity that Dex brings to our relationship. I remember that Dex had me figured out from the very first—the jaded yuppie who'd grown tired of the parade of easy but unimaginative bedmates whose notion of daring was fucking with the lights on and for whom an exuberant smack on the ass might have been cause for charges. No less insightful on Dex's part was the intuition that I might be willing to relinquish control. She'd recognized a possibility I would never have imagined.
It's the kind of bright Saturday in early May when the world seems to take a deep breath and stretch after a long, cold winter. Dex has an appointment at the piercing studio where she works. A frenum ladder, she tells me. I grimace.
I'm planning to do some yardwork outside while she's away. Things like raking the lawn awake now that the blanket of snow has vanished into the earth. Cleaning up the branches that litter my lawn. But Dex has other plans for me. She locks me up in my chastity device and instructs me not to get dressed. "I want to think of you like this," she says as she snaps the lock shut, securing the cage to the ring. "I have plans for you tonight."
Yardwork, it seems, will have to wait. I'm a little resentful that my plans have been delayed, but equally intrigued by the promise of Dex's return.
When she leaves, I close the blinds throughout the house, not wanting to frighten anyone who might be enjoying a hike along the trail behind my house.
I try to work but am distracted by my nudity, the device that secures my privates and the prospect of the evening with Dex now that I have given her my consent to test the boundaries of our relationship. It's spring, after all, and while a young man's fancy might lightly turn to thoughts of love, mine turn to thoughts of the crops and paddles and leather I might face tonight. Of pain and pleasure and sweat and come. Of submission and domination. After rereading the same paragraph for the umpteenth time and realizing that I've managed to retain nothing, I close the document.
Even though Dex and I have been together for over half a year and the strange momentum of our relationship has led us to this place, I am still relatively new to submission and from time to time its yoke rests uneasily on my shoulders. I trust Dex but it's difficult to reconcile my professional life and persona with the one that now exists behind closed doors. At work I'm the one with whom the buck stops. I decide things. I'm the boss. I possess the business relationships and the savvy that is somehow parlayed into revenue. There are times when I feel like the master of my little universe. Within the walls of my home though, I submit to the will of a dark, gothic twenty-something and am the master of very little. It's completely at odds with the guy who wears suits and attends power lunches and schmoozes with the best of them. I don't know why it works; I only know that it does. Dex has tapped something in me that has become as vital to me as oxygen.
Although submission has become a large part of my life, I've resisted the notion that I might belong to a community of others who share the same tastes. I know such a community exists, but I've chosen to ignore it for the simple reason that I find it difficult to respect others who submit as I do. It's clear that my arrogance is hypocritical and untenable. Perhaps my hypocrisy is coming to a head. Perhaps that's why I find work so difficult today.
So I sit, my privates encased and locked in a thick layer of steel, considering my ignorance of the world to which I seem to belong. If I am truly to commit to this lifestyle, to be a good submissive to the woman I've chosen to be my dom, then I owe it to myself to do my research.
With some trepidation I venture onto the Web to see if I can learn anything of what consent and submission might entail. I have largely avoided it until now, fearing that alternative expressions of submission might become possibilities in my own life. I've been happy to go along with Dex without considering the branches that she might take off the path we've been on. Now that my skin is in the game, I'm more curious about what might be done to it.
I click through to various sites. I have already felt pleasure and pain at Dex's hand—the two are not as different as I had expected—but am unprepared for the pictures of degradation and humiliation that I encounter on the Web. I recognize the mechanics of some of the scenes, but the tone of them is much different than what I enjoy under Dex. I see both men and women treated in ways that make me uneasy and uncomfortable. I see them humiliated and debased, insulted and taunted. I see them groveling and crying, and though they may seem fulfilled at the end of the scene, I can't help but to hold these people with some disdain and pity.
I can't see Dex elevating herself on my debasement, but I don't know for sure. Nor can I see myself ever accepting such treatment. I wonder whether my consent necessarily entails my eventual humiliation. Am I being diminished without realizing the extent? How would I react if I were asked to go around on hands and knees in my own house or be forced to watch as she bestowed her favors on another? I'm watching a video on my laptop and I ask myself: how different is the poor slob who is licking his mistress's boot to the guy sitting naked in his own house, locked in a metal cage, waiting for the object of his desire to return?
Dex and I have only spoken of the limits to her authority over me in general terms. So far, I have trusted her judgment and have not been disappointed.
Now, though, I have to consider that the consent I've given her might lead us onto paths I'm not prepared for.
***
Dex returns a little after seven that evening. I stand as she enters the living room. She is beautiful and intense in her goth finery and heavy makeup. It's clear by the way her green eyes take me in that she has been as distracted as I.
She presses me against the wall and kisses me hungrily, her body hard against mine. The stud that adorns her tongue raps against my teeth. The fingernails of one hand rake my ass while the other strokes my balls. "I've been thinking of you all day."
My erection strains against the cage. "Me too."
"I've never had a submissive waiting for me like this."
The word stings, particularly since I've been obsessing about submission all day, thinking about the limits and consequences, wondering how it is that I've gotten from where I was to where I am and where I might yet go. It's not the first time I've heard the word or have had it applied to me, but having it stated so baldly now causes something inside of me to shrivel. "Do you want me to call you mistress now?"
Dex frowns, catching my less than playful tone. "It depends if we're just playing or if it's in the context of something more permanent. It means different things depending on what you want."
I'm reluctant to share my feelings with her. I guess I'm still a typical guy in that way. Strong and silent. Right.
Dex strokes my cheek. Our eyes lock. There's a hint of concern in hers. I don't know what mine reveal. "For what it's worth," she says carefully, "I'd love to be your mistress, in play and in life. I'd be honored if you called me that."
She's serious.
"Where would you take us?"
"That depends mainly on how far you want me to go and how much you trust me to go there."
There it is. Trust. Trust that she doesn't lead me on paths that I'm unwilling to tread. Trust that she can balance the pain and pleasure, the risk and reward. Trust that the slippery slope I've been on won't plunge me into the abyss populated by the kind of beaten and desperate people I've seen on the internet.
"I trust you," I say.
Within limits remains unspoken.
***
"Stand in the corner," says Dex. "Face the wall."
The memory comes back as fresh as the day it happened. I'm a child. Grade one or two. Accused of some transgression or another. I've been singled out by the teacher. This was back in the days where humiliation was a justified weapon in the hands of teachers who needed to keep control.
"No peeking," says Dex.
I listen to the sound of her undressing. I can imagine her naked, her lithe, pale body, the glint of cold metal at her nipples and labia, the swallowtail tattoo on her lower abdomen. I can feel her green eyes scrutinizing me. I hear the sound of leather being stretched and the sharp sound of stilettos on the hardwood floor as they approach me. I feel a crop resting lightly on my ass.
"You can turn around."
I do so.
What I have heard has titillated me; what I see takes my breath way. Dex is every inch the dom. She wears a leather underbust corset that highlights the pale fullness of her breasts and the narrowness of her waist. Leather boots that descend from just below the knees make her legs look impossibly long and slender. The crop rests lightly against her calf.
"Wow," I say. If I am to be dominated by her, I have to count myself lucky.
"You like?" she asks.
I nod.
Dex smiles. "Good." She turns and saunters slowly and deliberately to a steamer trunk that contains our growing arsenal of erotic appurtenances. She opens the lid and bends over, revealing the shapely curve of her hips and ass that frames the shadowed folds of her pussy.
She returns holding an assortment of leather cuffs and clips. My mouth is dry.
Dex places one of my hands on her breast and fastens the cuff to my wrist. Her skin is warm and soft under my palm. She repeats the process with the other wrist and then cuffs my ankles. Another band of leather encircles my neck. She then slips a leather blindfold over my head. "Lights out, lover," she purrs.
I hear Dex rummaging around the trunk again.
"Open your mouth," she says a moment later.
I comply and a large object is inserted between my teeth. Straps are quickly cinched over and behind my head and under my chin.
"You're quite the vision," she says.
I'm glad I can't see myself. I have no doubt that I look like any number of slaves on the internet. I push the thought away. How can I judge them? Certainly not when my own situation and the anticipation of play has me aching with excitement.
Although I'm intimately aware of everything in my home, I'm strangely off-balance as Dex leads me to the support column that stands between the living room and dining room. She binds my wrists behind the column. Without a word she walks away and soon returns, depositing a bunch of stuff at my feet.
I strain to hear what she might be doing. I don't have to wait long until I feel lube spread over and within my anus.
"On your toes," she says.
I comply. The crop pressed against my balls encourages me higher still. I feel something thick and hard at my ass and I struggle to relax, knowing that tension will only make the inevitable penetration more uncomfortable.
"Good," says Dex as she patiently works the length within me. I gasp when the widest part breaches the ring of muscle.
Dex hums her satisfaction with the arrangement. "Feeling okay?" She asks.
I nod.
