All I can do is wait. I'm blind, even though it's still daytime, standing naked in the converted tram workshop that has now become a performance space, on a photographer's backdrop sheet. I can hear him moving around me, the scrape of the metal stepladder on the old concrete floor, footfalls, the rattle of chain. I'm bare, wearing a tight-fitting, shiny silver helmet that covers my hair, changing my skull into a mirrored dome. My eyes are dark, but it's the opaque contact lenses, changing my appearance even as they blindfold me. It's ironic that I'm the one being stripped and exposed in a public space but I'm rendered blind so that he can keep his anonymity.
My mind is racing, my thoughts keeping time with the hammering of my heartbeat. I can hear his wife moving too. She's setting boxes down, but she's almost silent because she's naked like I am, padding in bare feet over the concrete floor. Unable to see, all I can do is stand there, ignored by the pair of them as they plan the next part of the photo-shoot together.
My crotch is aflame with the memory of her tongue, her moisture drying gently on my cheeks but the taste of her still in my mouth. The fine chain dangles from my lips down my glistening chin, still secured to the ring through my tongue. I want to touch myself. I want to touch her. I want to dive into her scent and lose myself and find the devastating orgasm her tongue promised me.
Instead, I wait, frozen like a mannequin as they move around me. They can see everything and I can see nothing: my body is completely exposed, the rings in my nipples and my belly button and my crotch will be glinting in the heat of the spotlighting I can feel shining down on me. She's placed me there, beautifully lit, like art. The camera clicks and I'm brought back to the present moment.
"How're you feeling?" he asks.
I don't answer immediately.
"It's a lot to take in, isn't it?" he probes.
"Yes."
"We're ready now. Do you want to continue, or do you want to stop?"
I turn in the direction of his voice. I want to face him.
"I don't think I have a choice," I reply.
He laughs. "You do. You always did. You could have chosen not to send that first photo to me, of you naked in the carpark. You didn't have to send the nude shots in your bedroom. You had a choice every step of the way."
"You blackmailed me. You told me what to do, otherwise you'd post that picture of me on the forums."
He laughs again. "How did I blackmail you into sending me the photo I would need to blackmail you with in the first place?"
There is movement off to my left, the jangle of chains, the snap of a plastic lid being pulled off a storage tub.
"No," he continues. "I'm fascinated to know what was going through your head when I answered that first message."
He's forcing me to rewind back nearly six months. One lonely night, half a bottle of wine in, sitting on my bed with my phone in my hands, staring at his latest post on the forums: a naked redhead with a desperate expression on her face. It had been her eyes, staring back at me, that had tipped me over the edge, and I'd sent him a private message. It had been just a few words, but it was the longest sentence I'd ever written: what would he do if I sent him a naked picture of myself?
Pressing the button to send the message had been terrifying, but almost orgiastic, admitting to another living being that I wanted to be shamed and exposed. Lying on my bed, the phone next to me still displaying my awful admission, I had brought myself to a powerful orgasm fueled by the idea of humiliating myself in public. I had hesitated, but by then I was already lost.
"I was terrified," I confess.
"And yet you still replied back. You didn't have to. We were just chatting."
"I nearly didn't."
"But you did," he insists. "Why?"
My demons taunt me. I can't see his face to read his expression, and it's almost like I'm back in my bedroom, talking to him on the phone. I want desperately to see what he looks like, but he's maneuvered me into a position of weakness. I'm the one stripped naked in front of him, I'm the one answering his questions.
"Because it terrified me," I tell him.
"How?"
I cover myself with my arms, shielding my bare crotch with my balled fists. The metal cuffs around my wrists clink together. There are restraining rings on the cuffs, and they jingle as he takes hold of them, exerting inexorable, gentle pressure until I allow him to part my hands. He exposes me again, positioning my arms by my sides. I've never felt so naked, staring sightlessly at a stranger as his eyes travel down my body. I can't see it, but I can feel the caress of his gaze, and it's electric.
"Being seen terrifies you, doesn't it?" he asks.
I nod. "Yes."
"But, why?"
"I... I'm not... I don't like the way I look."
He doesn't say anything and the silence lingers until I fill it.
"All my life, I've just had that feeling. My hips, my boobs."
My hands make apologetic fluttering motions by my sides.
"But, you look glorious."
"I'm no cover girl. I'm plain."
"You're anything but plain. Those girls, there's nothing interesting in them, believe me."