The man finishes my shoe shine as I watch the arrival board to the left. I like him. He is a young, muscular black man, who gives the appearance of being the most leisurely person on earth. He does not do anything that looks like work. He gives a few offhand licks with the brush, and the cloth, effortless. He turns between each action with his hands to scan the esplanade for girls, and give them a look. I don't even try to compete, this is his territory. But when he is done, my boots are shiny, better than she gets them, even if she gets a studious look and works hard.
She is about five minutes late. She can't help it of course, and I know that. Knew it when I wrote the schedule for her. I want her scared and anxious. I've set her up to fail because I know it will get her off balance. The Commuter Rail Service is southbound against the City's rush hour and I know from experience the nearly empty Southbound commuter trains are given lowest priority on the CSX right of way.
She could have taken the mass transit, the subway lines. They run to the same boarding point where I'd instructed her to leave her car. But I wanted her to take the regular passenger train. I did not want her crammed like a sardine into a car full of people I wanted her relaxing in the low light of the "quiet car," with easy access to a restroom.
The commuter rail also allows passengers to bring drinks on board. I'd told her to pack an airline bottle of vodka, and a mixer in a clear soda bottle. She would step inside the lavatory, mix it, throw the bottle away, then put her "public" collar on. She would also take off her panties and throw them away. She'd had the card since this morning with my instructions so I presumed she'd pick some panties she didn't like very much.
I'd stirred myself from the bar when the digital board showed her train arriving. I always loved the station. I focused on that to relax a little. Even after a drink there was a knot of tension knotted in my gut that wouldn't be gone until the night's scene was played through to conclusion. I had nerves and no amount of drinking was going to fix that. There was a chance that she'd hate me, even feel betrayed by me, after tonight. That would be the worst, was hard to take.
I took a deep breath and focused on the scenery around me. The station was built in a classical-nouveau style just after the turn of the century. It was about the same age as my house, but the plumbing worked better. In the 70s they had turned the place into an upscale shopping mall, and there were marble walkways and brass railings a flight above the main floor where you could have coffee, or walk and look down.
I watched for her to come through the main hallway. I could pick her out of a crowd in a moment. There were other girls that looked a little like her; young, petite, brunette. But when she was in her collar, she had a walk and seemed highlighted to me, with a bit of a glow. She was carrying a small clutch purse big enough for the airline bottle, her phone, and two twenty dollar bills rolled up in case of an emergency. I liked her to be safe, and sometimes I even let her know that.
It was a chain, heavier than most jewelry but within the range that was acceptable for a modernesque fashion. It was fastened by the tiniest lock I had ever seen, small but functional. She was entrusted with the key to both of her collars, a trust she had never violated.
I held a dark morocco folder. It was one of five I owned, all slightly different. Three were locked in an antique desk of polished wood, and seldom perused, except when I wished to draw lessons from the past. Or to remember. There were initials on the cover, and they were hers, her true name. It contained a synthesis of all I knew about her, and designated her as one of the special ones, so maybe that was why light seemed to attach to her when I watched her walk from a distance. I always felt a strange surge of pleasure a mixture of pride and ownership in the first sight of her, especially when I could observer her like this, not knowing that she was being watched.
It wouldn't be a disaster if I couldn't get a connection but my cell phone showed a signal, and it rang through. Good timing.
She almost fucked up. She started to keep walking. But I saw her catch herself and stop dead. She stepped slightly out of the line of traffic and answered the phone.
"Hello."
She used to second guess me by answering my number "Yes Sir," but eventually she'd had to explain that to her mother when she made a mistake. Her mother did not know about me. Her mother did not know about a lot of things her baby daughter did in the heat of the night. I knew this because I could make her wet by reminding her of the fact. I'd fucked her at their house once when her mother did not even know I was there. I'd had to shove the side of my hand in her mouth to stop her screaming when she came, and she'd left bite marks so deep they broke the skin.
I took one breath to steady my voice. Wouldn't do to let her hear me sound excited, even if I was. "Good Evening." My voice came out slow and steady. Good.
"Is there anything Sir requires of me."
"Yes. You have a change from your default plans. In your purse you have three dollars in change from your on board ticket purchase."
"Sir is correct."
"I want you to fumble in your purse right now and drop one of those dollars to your left. Then I want you to turn and bend over and pick it up. You will do this the way you have been shown."
Her posture training did not allow her to bend her knee. To retrieve an object she'd dropped, she'd be expected to bend from the hips and reaching out her fingers to the ground. There was only one time when she was allowed to be on her knees.
I watched to see if she shook her head as she put her ass up in the air. She was good. A month ago she'd have given a little ironic shrug. Of course by now common sense told her that I was watching her. She wasn't allowed to look up to see where. She wasn't stupid. She was anything but stupid.
I loved this part of the evening. The big stuff was still far enough off I had some breathing room. These were the easy points, the freebies, the ones that started her on the roller-coaster ride and that were pretty much foolproof. I already knew what her responses would be like, could feel them even at a distance, from familiarity, could savor them without having to worry very much.
"Good" I said. "Now I want you to go to the lockers. They are coded so you don't need a key. You will be going to Locker 78, and the four digit code would be the year the Hundred Days took place." The new lockers allowed you to key in any combination you liked, so I'd taken advantage to give her a little something to think about.
She would enter it correctly the first time. She was anything but stupid. It was a date she'd know in her sleep, or at very worst could calculate quickly. But it reminded her why I valued her, while giving no real chance of failure.
She repeated the code back to me – "one eight one five." I couldn't quite see the locker area, but I wasn't worried. I had a few minutes while she dealt with what she would find there.
If being without panties had made her feel vulnerable I was pretty sure that taking off her clothes in a stall, packing them in the small handbag I'd provided, and putting on a black women's coat with a thin blouse and nothing else would make it worse.
She phoned me when she had finished and was outside the bathroom. "Does Sir have any further instructions?" she asked. I could hear that she was breathing a little fast.
