All Your Well Learned Politesse

The limousine pulls up around the circular drive in front of the French embassy. I have to resist the instinct to jump out and go to open the door for my date ... that's the driver's job. I'll get out second, straighten my cuffs, check my cufflinks, and try to appear non-chalant about my surroundings.

I can remember how sophisticated I felt when I *bought* my first tuxedo. Now I own three of them. Tonight I'm wearing the Charles Tyrwhitt. I can't even tell them apart, but I know that I'll be judged tonight by people who can.

Being *charge d'affaires* at an American embassy certainly has a cachet; but it's more so back in the States than it is here among the European diplomats (and their partners) themselves, most of whom are personal friends of heads of state, and/or heirs to the wealth of dukes and barons. *They* realize that I'm a plebian, bourgeois at best; a mere functionary of the bureaucracy. And the *American* bureaucracy at that.

Still, I'm the top plebian at the American embassy, and my employer has nuclear weapons, so I am treated with the kind of politesse that looks like respect to those who don't see it every day. And tonight the respect is genuine, owing to the woman on my arm. Madelaine Elston has been quite the celebrity here in Brussels this fall. Not every visiting professor at the national university gets this treatment, but writing and directing the *Palme d'Or* winning film at the Cannes Film Festival will do that. And being impossibly, elegantly beautiful doesn't hurt.

She is the one, in fact, who got the invitation to this reception. I'm her plus-one, not the other way around. My boss was on the invitation list; and he was surprised and seemingly somewhat envious when I told him I had been invited too; but it was good for the embassy for me to be in attendance, so he readily approved. Honestly, I had been as surprised as my colleagues were, earlier this fall when Madelaine had shown interest in me at the event at our own embassy welcoming her to town. Sure, I knew I was considered attractive and of course I could be charming, that was part of my job description; but she had identified another quality in me of which I wasn't even aware.

As we enter the two-story foyer and wait in a short line to show our credentials, I'm amused to notice that the music I hear filtering out from the ballroom is not a chamber orchestra, but a jazz quartet. So, yeah, I think, they do like a few things about America other than our defense spending.

Then Madelaine pulls me into an alcove and opens her purse. "Be a dear and help me out here," she quickly directs. "I want to switch out necklaces."

I agree, and as she turns her back to me, I undo the clasp on her current jewelry, while admiring her lovely neck and detecting the perfume she has dabbed behind her ears. I reach the two ends around so she can grasp them in a single hand while she gives me the other necklace with her other hand. It was an almost identical silver chain, and I only fumble for a moment before securing the clasp. Only when she turns around do I see what serves as a pendant for her now. It is a tiny silver key. Like the key to the lock on the chastity cage that she had instructed me to wear tonight.

"Ummm..." I stammer, looking around the room.

"It's just 'the key to my heart,' if anyone asks," she assures me, with a smirk.

I roll my eyes at the disingenuous phrase. "No one's going to ask," I reply.

"You're right, they won't," she agrees, her eyes twinkling. "We're in Brussels, not Boise. They're all too discreet." Then, after a pause, "And they already know."

Then she heads off across the terrazzo, and I scurry to catch up. She moves directly into the small group around our host, the French ambassador. He is a typically elegant gentleman, gray at the temples, trim, with that cultivated ability to appear imposing without being tall.

"Ah, *mon cheri*," he says, grandly, bending to place a kiss on her proffered hand. "Thank you for honoring us with your presence."

"*Mais bien sur*," Madelaine responds, then gestures to me. "You know my gentleman friend, Robert Peters, from the American Embassy?"

"Of course," replies the ambassador, giving me a more-than-adequate nod of the head and extending his arm for a firm handshake. "The word from Washington is good these days, I take it?"

"Your Excellency," I greet him. "Yes, thank you. Or shall I say ... it's nice to have *no* news for a change." He laughs, and turns to the stunning young woman at his side, a buxom redhead in an emerald green gown, with stones at her throat to match. "My ... friend, Jacqueline Delacroix." I bow to her as the Ambassador returns his attention to Madelaine. Almost immediately, he takes notice of her necklace, and seems to stumble a bit. I have to chuckle, even if the joke is at my expense. This is a man who is used to going head-to-head with Boris Johnson and Vladimir Putin, but a little show of *dominance* from the woman I am with is setting him on his heels. Perhaps she's right. Perhaps everyone who sees that key *does* know what it means. This isn't Boise.

I glance over at his date. She seems oblivious, or bored. I wonder for a second whether she is one of those multilingual 2500-euro-a-night escorts; but then dismiss the notion. I've met my share of multilingual 2500-euro-a-night escorts at these events, and they all have in common the ability to *not* appear to be bored. Ah well, I think; I'm sure she's good company when it counts.

Eventually, Madelaine and I make a round of the room together. I am delighted to be seen with her, but I also find myself watching nervously to try to determine whether the men and women we chat with are fixing their gaze on the tell-tale key between Madelaine's breasts, and then evaluating me to determine if it means what they think it might ...

After a while, we separate to work the room in our different ways. She has numerous people who want to meet her. I have numerous people who I need to court and curry. From time to time I look for her across the room. To me, the tiny silver key in her lovely cleavage is like a beacon. Every person in the room must be studying it. More than once, I imagine that she is glancing down as if to acknowledge some comment about it, and then that she is looking across the room at me, and her companion's eyes are following.

Finally she appears again at my elbow, and after some pleasantries with the Swedish *attache*, she whispers into my ear, "Get us some more champagne, and let's go out on the balcony." I am happy to comply. Moments later I join her at the railing overlooking the river, and hand her a flute of Dom Perignon.

Madelaine takes a sip and smiles at me, her eyes sparkling with mischief. At the moment my back is to the reception hall, so I can't tell whether anyone is in a position to see her hand cup the rigid little package in my trousers that contains my frustrated manhood. "Are you enjoying yourself?"

I grin back at her. "I think I might be beginning to, now."

"Hmm. You mean you haven't been enjoying mingling with the Hottentots for the past hour?"

Well, no, not really. Making small-talk with the self-important lost its allure for me a long time ago. And that was without the added complication of being trapped in a cock-muzzle while my date waltzes around the room showcasing the key between her magnificent breasts.

"Oh, come on," she taunts me, reading my mind. "That little predicament in your pants made tonight much more exciting, admit it."

I chuckle and sip my champagne, and feel myself blushing. She leans into me, her soft breast touching my arm, her lips grazing my ear. "Hasn't it been exciting, talking to all these powerful women who have seen us together and realized what a submissive you are?"

She draws back and leans against the balcony rail, and nods to her right, toward a statuesque Romanian woman in a backless burgundy gown who is holding court with a group of bedazzled Brits. "Like Mare Sfetnik there. She would have you collared and cuffed in ten seconds flat." I choke a bit on my drink, but I feel the cage's grasp on me get tighter. Madelaine can tell.

"Wouldn't she?" she pushes.

I clear my throat and nod. The jealousy in our relationship runs one way. It's strictly casual, I know, but I can't help feeling possessive toward her. And she can't resist reminding me that I'm a toy.

"Or perhaps Countess Belisario, from Florence," Madeline continues, gesturing with her head toward a robust, mature woman who I've met before. "I hear she's a direct descendant of the di Medici's. Or the Borgias. I forget which. At any rate, I'm sure she's a woman who is used to having men do what they are told."

I hear myself gulp audibly. I was seated next to the Countess last month at a state dinner. She was delightful company, but I hadn't thought of her "that way." She is half again my age, and half again my weight. But she is attractive and self-assured and ... and next time we meet, I suddenly realize, she'll be looking at me knowing I'm the kind of man who, when told by a woman to place his manhood under lock and key and to kneel, *obeys.* She's the kind of woman who has "chambers," with candelabras and satin curtains on her four-poster bed and a lace peignoir that falls open as she guides my head down between her luxurious thighs ...

But while I'm dwelling on that little fantasy, Madeline is moving on, leading me into even more turbulent waters.

"Or maybe what's most ... disturbing ... to you right now, isn't all the women who have figured out this key. Maybe it's the *men.*"

I thought my cage was as tight as it could get, but suddenly I feel it ratchet even tighter.

"I've found that cuckolding is much more common here in Europe than in the States. Haven't you?" I feel myself biting my lower lip as she continues. "Or at least, they're more open about it. So many men who just seem to relish the torment and the jealousy of having their woman give herself to another man. And, of course, it takes *three* to do that tango."

She's craning her neck now as if she's looking for someone in particular. "So which of the men we talked to tonight do you think put two and two together? Who realized that I was here tonight with a man who so easily gives up his masculinity?"

I have just enough dignity left to start to protest, but she places a finger on my lip to stop me. "Oh, I know. I don't think the cage makes you any less of a man. Quite the opposite. But, we're talking about what *he* thinks. And, you know, well, the kind of man who *enjoys* taking another man's woman ... right in front of him ... well, there's a certain primal attractiveness in that ..."

The fingertip on my mouth drops to my chest as she leans in once more to whisper to me, "And of course, we're in Europe. So he's almost certainly uncircumcised." Then she steps back and shrugs apologetically. I've learned that already ... she has a preference, and it's not something I can do anything about.

God damn it! Is she about to make this happen tonight, right now? I turn around and quickly survey the room, wondering if she's made eye contact with the suave, confident man who is going to be smirking at me as he undresses my date in an hour. But for the moment, she seems content to just go on teasing me.

"I'm just fascinated by the dynamic. Some men just aren't willing to be naked in a room with another man. And then there are delightful men ... like you, I think?... who will do whatever it takes to please a woman.

"And then ... there are those men who don't mind having another man present, but who insist on being the only one with an erection." Then she laughs and mimics a shudder, as if she's just given herself a chill. Or a little *petit mort.* And then ...

"Ooh. I know. Sergio Mendez. The Spanish trade minister. Yes, I know *he's* the kind of man who ... Robert, are you okay?"

What? Am I hyperventilating? I have to set my wine stem down on the railing and steady myself. I nod. I'm okay. But it only took that second ... her naming a name, conjuring a specific face, and suddenly I was immersed in a vivid alternate reality. Yes, I know Sergio. A tall, elegant, persuasive Castilian. And I was already in a corner of a five-star Belgian hotel room, naked, a steel chastity cage forcing my phallus to bow its head in shame. Watching him stepping out of his boxers, proud and potent and unrestrained. While this alluring, desirable woman who had so captured my imagination, stripped down now to lingerie and stockings and garters, leaned back on her elbows on the bed and opened her legs for him ... the only man in the room with an erection.

I blink. I'm still on the balcony of the French embassy after all. "I'm okay," I mumble.

"So ... wait ... you have a meeting with him next week, don't you? To renegotiate a trade deal?"

I have to close my eyes and shake my head in amazement. And then nod, in confirmation.

Madelaine laughs out loud, far too genuinely for this to have been a set-up. "Oh, well ... won't *that* be interesting." Then she surreptitiously brushes her hand against the front of my pants, where, defying all logic, my penis is straining against its cage even harder than ever.

"I think you should wear this again then."

I need a minute to slow my breathing down. While I do, I am aware that she's still here, focusing her attention on me. It's all been a tease. She's not waving a rival over to join us. She drains her champagne glass in a final sip, and then hands me the glass.

She leans in to me again, her lips brushing my ear, her breath warm on my neck. "I'll bet you're ready to get out of here, and have me let you out of that thing, aren't you?"

I inhale deeply, close my eyes, and nod gratefully. Yes, this is what I had had in mind when I agreed to spend the night in public in this damn thing. The release. The reward.

"I figured as much. Ah, but here's the thing." I step back so I can face her, our eyes now just inches apart. Hers are luminescent with a kind of excitement that is new to me.

"This isn't the key to *your* lock." She reaches between us and twirls the little object on its chain. "This key is for the cage that the French ambassador is wearing."

I'm speechless. I can only watch her arch her eyebrows, and cock her head as she enjoys my stunned response. Two realizations burst into my head simultaneously.

Our host, the French ambassador to the "Capital of Europe," has been locked in chastity all night too. While being the center of attention, and talking to all the most powerful men and women in town. Damn, I think, that's ... impressive.

But ... also ... apparently *he's* the one who is going to be unlocked, and released, and rewarded tonight. By my date.

"You take the limo, I won't be needing it," she tells me. Then, "Call me tomorrow?" Then she kisses me on the cheek, and begins her sultry walk back into the ballroom.

It's going to be a long night for me.