Dear Readers,
Thanks for taking the time to read my Halloween Contest entry! This story is about a young woman's exploration into the world of bondage; I vacillated between which category to post this under. Ultimately, I decided the story is more about the relationship that develops than anything. Feedback and constructive critiques are much appreciated. Please don't forget to vote!
~kitten
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Izzy was lying on her back on a smooth wooden table, wearing only her bra and panties. They were not her raciest pair of under things -- the fabric was black, thick and opaque. But the cups of the bra were low enough to show the ample swells of her breasts, and the strings that tied into little bows at the tops of her thighs left only a triangle of fabric covering her mound. She hushed her inner critic -- there were more revealing bikinis on the beach, by far -- but couldn't help but be hyper-aware of her exposed skin as Alex stood over her, brandishing a rusty saw. Plus, the room was cold, and even through the thick cups of the bra, the swell of her nipples made themselves known.
"I have a confession to make, Iz," Alex spoke in low tones. The last group had just been ushered out and they had a few minutes before the next would come creeping through.
"I've been wanting to tell you all night. Well, I've been wanting to tell you for weeks. And I know it's going to sound bad, but you have to hear me out, okay?"
Izzy bit back a laugh. "I don't have much choice at the moment, do I?" Despite his dramatic warning, she wasn't too worried -- chances were, Alex was about to play another prank on her. He wouldn't bring up anything serious
now
, would he?
"Exactly," he said with a hint of dry humor. "The thing is...it's about Brandon," his voice turned uncharacteristically hesitant.
If Izzy could have sat up in shock, she surely would have. "How do you know about Brandon?" Her voice rose in volume and pitch more than it should have.
Alex looked her in the eyes for a long, heavy moment. It was particularly unsettling because the make-up that he wore made his eyes look gaunt and lifeless.
There was no way in the world that Alex -- her roommate, her big-brother-figure -- should know anything about Brandon. Brandon, the man that she'd been chatting online with for the last six weeks, wasn't just some random internet suitor. She told Brandon her most intimate secrets. He was the only person that knew who she ~
really~
was.
Alex was having a hard time looking her in the eye. She gulped. "I know about him because I am him," he whispered.
* * * * * * *
One hair-raising breath after those words dropped out of Alex's mouth, Izzy heard faint buzzing from the earpiece hidden behind his wig. He nodded at her. The next group was on their way in.
In a way, it was for the better that their discussion was stalled; Izzy didn't have a clue on how to respond. Furious was the first response that came to mind, but there way another emotion just behind the anger that she couldn't understand. She shut her mouth and her eyes and reverted to her role. She was playing a corpse -- at least, almost a corpse -- so the act didn't take too much mental concentration.
Great
, her inner sarcasm went off,
I can dwell.
She and Alex were acting in a haunted house. Izzy was lying a on table that was made to look like a steel examination table; she was pinned in place with a shackle around her neck. From where the onlookers stood, it appeared as if her leg had been severed at mid thigh. From the end of the severed limb, gooey bits of bone and viscera dangled, complete with a slow, steady drip of "blood" that collected in a steel basin below. In reality, her leg was wedged through a hole in the table; the prosthetic stump was made to blend in with her living flesh seamlessly.
Alex was playing a mad doctor. Naturally an imposing figure at nearly six and a half feet tall, his face was heavily made up to appear not just hollow or sunken, but...empty. He wore a stringy grey wig and a lab coat, and stood at Izzy's far side, facing the groups of Halloween revelers. He held a rusty, large-tooth saw in his hand.
The scene was eerily still as the next group made their way into the room. The steady drip of blood, aided by a hidden pump system, made the only noise in the space. The only movement came from Alex, pretending to saw her arm in a slow, methodical motion.
The guide led each group through slowly. By the time the crowd was halfway through the "exhibit", the tension was thick, every eye was peeled, waiting and wondering how they would be spooked this time.
The crowd was nearer the exit, now, and Alex surreptitiously nudged Izzy into action. Her eyes popped open and she let out her best B-movie actress blood-curdling scream. At the same time, her out-of-sight arm squeezed a bulb connected to the pump, and the slow drip of blood surged to a violent spray. The audience barely had time to process what happened, and in that moment of confusion, Alex lifted up her freshly severed arm, brandishing it as a weapon. He'd perfected a hurried but stiff-legged walk that made him seem both determined and demented. The slow shuffle of the audience picked up the pace and made their way down a hallway to next scare.
And then Alex was at her side again, and they were alone. Izzy waited a beat until the group was out of earshot. Because of her staged scream, they were in the soundproofed band practice room, so she didn't wait long. "Please tell me you're fucking kidding," the hard edge to her voice was enough to make him cringe. "Because it is not funny." She spoke in staccato, as if each word were its own sentence.
He drew in a breath. "It's not a joke, Iz," he let the breath out. "I swear I didn't mean for it to get this far, but you have to know -- I did it to protect you."
"Protect me? I'm not a fucking kid anymore, who the hell do you --"
"I didn't mean to be patronizing. And I didn't mean to snoop when I sat down to the computer one day and found a IM conversation you left up. With one so-called "StrictMaster".
Izzy cringed. Just when she thought she couldn't get any more embarrassed. Now everything down to her internal organs was blushing. StrictMaster was some idiot she'd met months ago in a BDSM chat room. She was new to the scene, brand spankin' new, and he seemed charming, and smart. At first.
"I read it, Iz, 'cause I was concerned. He seemed like trouble, and you seemed...like a novice," he chose his words diplomatically. "And I was pretty damn sure you wouldn't want me confronting you about it, so I thought --" the crackle of the earpiece stopped him short. He sighed and mouthed a word she guessed was "sorry".
She could hear the new group approaching -- rowdy adults, likely drunk -- so she closed her eyes and lay down, her body placid, but her mind bubbling.
* * * * * * *
Izzy did not have a hard time believing that Alex only wanted to protect her. He'd been watching over her since her sandbox years; he cheered for her, defended her, kept her out of trouble. He was the big brother she never had. Later, in a sense, he'd saved her life.
Not that she was ever suicidal. But she had been increasingly dead on the inside, those years after high school. Kim -- her best friend, his sister -- had moved hours away, for college, but Izzy's parents had an iron grip on their only child. They were deeply religious and just as strict. Even after she turned 18 they forbade her most anything a "normal" girl her age would want to do.
So Izzy took the only work she could find -- a menial desk job in that same rural town she'd lived her whole life. She put pennies away as much as she could, but she was making minimum wage and working part time, and her parents had begun collecting rent -- she suspected to maintain control over her. It would be a very long time before she could make an escape, at that rate.
The year of her 20
th
birthday, both Kim and Alex Cain had come home for the holidays. Despite the cold, the three of them sat in a park on the edge of town. They each took pulls from a bottle of whiskey, passed around covertly in a brown paper bag. It was the most daring moment of Izzy's life, she remembered thinking.
They talked all night, and Izzy must have gotten pretty buzzed, because the next thing she remembered, she was waking up in the Cain's guest bedroom and, apparently, Alex had invited her to stay with him in Chicago. She didn't remember the details of his offer, but it didn't matter. She agreed without a hint of hesitation.
Then, he did even more than pull her out of that brand of hell. Alex lived in a warehouse that he'd converted to a studio/loft. He was an artist, and he knew that Izzy had always had an untapped creative side. So he hooked her up with some canvas and paint, gave her space and an easel, and made her work at it. He coached her, he encouraged her, he taught her how to deal with galleries and contracts and mission statements. Five years down the road, she had her foot in the art world door. They still shared the same home, and no matter how helpful of a roommate or friend she tried to be, Izzy felt she'd never truly be able to repay her debt to him.
Alex tapped her forearm to signal it was time. She screamed and squeezed the bulb in three quick bursts so the blood would squirt like a severed artery. There was an audible shriek from the audience.
"So I thought," Alex continued where he left off as soon as the crowd has passed, "that if you had someone to talk with, about safety, someone to ask questions of...I thought it would be helpful. Less dangerous. Dammit, Iz, the thought of you talking to wannabe's like that creep -- I had to do something. I had no choice."
Izzy bit her lower lip. "You seriously just...shat all over any kind of
privacy,
that I might wanted to keep. And why they hell tell me
now
?"
The corner of his mouth turned up. "I thought I might have better luck actually having a conversation with you if you couldn't get away."
The way her leg fit into the hole in the table, she couldn't easily get out without help. "Just more proof that you're an asshole," Izzy spat, but her tone lacked venom. "I can buy that you wanted to help keep me safe. I'll even concede that I probably needed some small, tiny amount of that help," she held her thumb and forefinger a centimeter apart, "but --"
The earpiece crackled; another crowd. She closed her eyes.
* * * * * * *
In the silence she realized that her heart was thumping in her chest. The enormity of what had transpired between her and "Brandon" washed over her.
It was true, for the first three or four weeks, "Brandon" had spoken with her as a mentor to the lifestyle. They talked about how and why things worked, terminology, standard practices, that sort of thing. He'd spent a lot of time coaching her on the best way to find a Dom, what to look for and what should raise red flags, all in a manner as if he himself wasn't interested in filling that role for her.
But the closer they became, the more Izzy knew she wanted to lose her bondage virginity to him. It was Izzy herself who began to change the direction of their conversations. She tried to egg him on.
She began to tell him about her preferences. She asked him personal questions, intimate questions. Then it was his name featured as the protagonist in the stories she wrote him, in full blown erotica. For a few weeks, he didn't encourage her, exactly, though he certainly didn't stop her.
