As She's Told (11 page)

"Stay there." He went into her bedroom and came back with one of her dresses. Her eyes went wide again. She obeyed his gesture to rise, and he gathered the dress and pulled it down over her head. "Go put some stockings and shoes on. We're going out."

She looked up in distress, and then down at her body. Her swollen 67

As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob

nipples thrust lewdly against the cotton jersey fabric. "But – sir –"

"Maia."

She looked up, frightened. He took her head between his hands and held it angled toward him. Stared down into scared eyes. "What's the first rule?"

"Do as I'm told," she whispered.

"Are you questioning me?"

She shrank a little, and whispered, "No, sir."

"Do you want the clips back on?"

"No, sir."

"Then do as you're told."

She obeyed. The pure beauty of it made an intensely pleasurable ache in Anders, like a surpassingly perfect chord, or the most gorgeous of sunsets.

This woman slipped into obedience like a seal into water. He watched from the doorway, watched the body inside the dress, the submissive being inside the body. There were fibres within his own body shaking loose, unfolding and reaching out for places not yet explored. As if all his life he had been confined to one small space inside his body, and was only now stretching himself to fit the full extent of his frame.

At Harbourfront he let her keep her jacket on; it wasn't a very warm room, right on the lake with the door opening and closing all the time. They listened to the jazz and talked between sets about what they'd heard, like any couple. Except that he kept stroking the small of her back. Then they took a walk along the pier. In a quiet spot, against a wall over the lake he murmured, "Tell me how it feels to be out like this, semi-naked with a strap through your crotch.”

“I – I don't know. I don't think I can explain…sir."

He raised his eyebrows. "You don't?" he asked gently.

He saw the whites of her eyes flash fear. God, how aware she was, how exquisitely responsive to handling. Untrained, a little clumsy, but so sensitive.

She bit her lip. "Ah…" She thought a minute. "Scared of something happening, someone noticing. Cold under my dress, but so – so hot and wet." She whispered. "It slides when I walk and I want more…."

He smiled, and put an arm around her. "Do your nipples still hurt?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. What else?"

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"I – honestly?"

"Of course honestly."

"Honestly, I wonder what would happen if I – if I just said no to you. If I walked away. I don't want to, not at all, but I probably could."

"Yes. That bothers you, doesn't it?"

"Yes. To have a choice. You know. But – I'm also – afraid."

"Of what?"

"You."

"You're afraid of what I would do to you if you said no and didn't really mean it.”

“Yes, sir."

"Good. Smart of you. You'll have more and more reason to fear me.

And less and less choice about all this."

He hugged her to his side, stroked her hair and looked out at the dim lights across the harbour, reflected on the rippling lake. There was no moon.

The dark water below them sloshed and slapped gently against the pier. "I've been leaving you on your honour to obey me. Not my preference. That's not enough control for me, not by a long shot. So hang on, Maia. I won't keep you like this for long."

He stood behind her and pressed her body to the wall, hiding her from view. As she looked out at the lake he slipped his hand between them, and his fingers took hold of the chain through the material of her dress. He hushed her quietly when her voice caught. Gently he pulled, and pulled again, and pulled again.

A boat went by, its lights bright in the darkness, and they saw figures on board. On the wall close to them a seagull came to a flapping standstill and looked at them with one eye, and then the other. A saxophone blared out through a briefly opened door somewhere behind them. Still Anders drew on the tight chain, until he felt Maia tremble and go rigid, heard her tiny, agonized panting. He held her there as she relaxed and sagged against him.

At last he turned her around and wrapped her in his arms.

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As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob

Chapter Seven
Random acts of kindness

"Maia!" Arms waved me to a table, through a room thick with students, trays of food, music, knapsacks and loud conversation. I squeezed between two chair backs, nearly got the back of someone's head with my bag, gripped my tray with one hand and pushed my dress down nervously over my stocking tops with the other, and came close to spilling my tea down some guy's neck. Gratefully I collapsed at the table. Po Ling pulled a notebook out of the way to make a little space for me. Heather efficiently unloaded my food and shoved the tray down next to the wall. She was listening to Isadore on the topic of software mega-giants as threats to individual freedom. This was a subject he worked into all his papers, even the ones on Medieval manuscripts.

"It's no joke," he said. "Do you realize how much of our lives they control? That's why I'm designing my own operating system. How can you let those guys take over, watch you, manipulate everything you do?" Heather looked impatient and resigned, both. Po Ling was going over pages of charts and making notes.

I kept my mouth shut, except to put food in it. At last, working a folded page out of my bag, I interrupted. "Isadore."

He kept talking and eating, output and input, until I waved the paper directly between him and his plate.

"What?" he said.

"You said you needed a contact for those archives in Prague."

"How did you hear about that? Brilliant!"

Heather leapt into Isidore's gloating pause. "Maia," she said, whipping open a notebook, "we need those journals catalogued by Friday at the latest; can you do it?”

“It's done. I'll send it to you tonight."

"Wow! Great! How did you do that? I thought you had to do the water quality thing first.”

“That's done too."

They stared at me. Isadore spoke first. "Can this be Maia the haphazard?

Hey, you're on a roll. You can help me write up my references."

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Both the other women protested, and I smiled uncomfortably. "No, afraid not."

"Oh, come on, it'll only take you an hour or so, you're so good at it. If you leave it to me, Heather won't get my stats for ages." Heather was looking irritable again. I felt the stirrings of incipient guilt, stuffed it down and shook my head. Thought about that conversation with Anders, our first day. Bake voice until low but firm.

"No, sorry." No explanations, nothing for him to argue with. I didn't owe Isadore anything, had in fact done him more favours than he deserved.

Only one person I owed my utmost to, and he didn't have to wheedle and manoeuvre to get what he wanted.

I'd been naked in the mirror that morning, examining the chain around my waist. When Anders had first put it on me I'd hardly dared to touch the lock, but as my confidence in it grew I'd pulled on it gently from time to time. This morning I'd grabbed the chain in both hands and pulled it apart with all my strength. This had made not the slightest visible impression. A bubble of elation had lifted me up and carried me into the day.

When I was busy I could forget about the chain for whole quarter-hours at a time. But it tugged at my consciousness: a constant presence, a fence that set me off, a property line. Its reality made me so excited sometimes that I could hardly concentrate.

They were talking to me, laughing at my abstraction. "Maia, wake up!"

said Heather. "What? Sorry."

"There's an on-line conference tonight on internet ethics. We can pick up material for the censorship paper."

"Tonight? No, I can't," I said hastily. Anders was coming at seven, and no way was I going to suggest to him that there was something else I ought to be doing. I gathered up my things and nodded farewells.

Po Ling caught me up outside the door. "You got a new boyfriend, ah?"

she said slyly. I flushed.

"Mind is on other things, I can tell. I saw when he dropped you off at the library." Po Ling eyed me and her smile was arch. No wonder. The goodbye kiss had been epic. "Don't forget your schoolwork, okay? But you're more organized now." She nodded approval. "Making time for the boyfriend I bet. He a nice guy?"

"Yes," I said truthfully. "Wait a second, I meant to show you, have you 71

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seen this?" I rummaged hastily in my bag for a job posting I'd printed off that morning, just right for Po Ling. She ran her eyes down it, opened them wide. "Hey, that's a good one!" She looked up. "Why are you – Don't you want it?”

“No, I'm – looking at other things. Got to go."

***

>Sorry if my cautions sound like the warnings of elders. This is much
more your role than mine, I think.

>You're right. Svend and Janne always used to complain that I took
the joy out of life. It's an elder brother imperative, I think. But being over-responsible is no bad thing at the moment.

>Chain is very nice. Just do not send her through a metal detector.

She sounds not ready for the humiliation.

>No problem. It doesn't set off the alarm at the university library,
which is all that matters right now.

>Ria asks if your inexperienced sub has any idea how a whipping
feels, before she agrees to stay with you.

>She'll know how a whip feels soon enough. Before she has to agree.

Tell Ria thanks. Tell her I still remember her advice on cane technique.

>She had three men on their knees… I cannot tell you how fearsome
and enthralling she was.

>Enthralling, good word. I remember her in that silvery outfit; she
was awe-inspiring. But that tiger growl of hers is even better. Are you two
still taking turns being the dom, or are you just taking it out on other
people? Vanilla at home? Hard to imagine you two having an ordinary fuck.

Has Ria made up her mind about Chicago?

>took Tante Berta home and she will be okay with care. You heard
this, yes? Our Mormor is predicting doom as always but secretly is pleased.

>Of course she's pleased. She's getting the chance to take charge in
her sister-in-law's house; it's been her ambition for fifty years. She's
probably already using Rationalist principles to rearrange all the kitchen
utensils.

>Tante Berta has the slice back in her tongue, by the way. I did the
dutiful grand-nephew thing and called her yesterday. Sweet with me, but
took her nurse apart and didn't cover the phone.

>Is your girl believing yet she cannot leave?

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>Right now she knows the choice is still there, and hates it. Give me
time. The house isn't ready for her yet. And I need to get further into her
head.

***

The days went by in a weirdly contrasting diamond pattern: bright, sharp hours with Anders standing out against the ordinary, matte colours of daily routine. Except that gleaming threads had begun to weave themselves through the duller patches. The chain like a silvery cable, keeping me in place for the next encounter. The phone calls. The thrill every morning when I woke up and remembered that I was behaving according to someone else's wishes and not my own.

My body felt subtly different, more receptive, as if it had gathered an extra layer of blood and nerve endings. As if my skin was one big erogenous zone. I kept searching for the signs in mirrors, but apart from the chain, I looked the same as always. Still, sometimes I felt as if I was moving under water, balletic and weighed down.

I tried in odd, breathless moments to guess what he might be planning to do with me. He had kept his promise not to consult or negotiate. I turned his words from our first meeting over and over in my mind, like prophecy.

As promised, we got to know each other better. Stories From My Childhood, that kind of thing. I'd get one view of the younger Anders, and then another that seemed like some other person. Like when you make plans at different times for the same day, oblivious to the conflict, the information filing itself in separate cul-de-sacs in your brain. When the neural pathways finally cross and stumble over each other, it's a bit of a jolt.

There was the pragmatic northern-European social-democrat side, with eminently sane, rational, socially conscious parents. He told me without irony about family outings straight out of a milk ad, everyone skating and skiing and snorkelling together, collectively blond and wholesome. Even his dour grandmother, who sounded like something out of a Bergman movie, still skated along with the rest. A contrast to my own family, in which my father took his exercise on a keyboard, and my mother preferred hers at her upscale fitness club where she could combine Tae Bo with networking. I grew up thinking exercise was something you drove to. Then there was this other young Anders, still, oddly enough, with family. Brooding and smoking dope in a moodily-lit bedroom with his cousin Karl over Christmas and 73

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summer holidays, discussing floggers and gags and the rope harness demo they'd used their early height to sneak into. There was a long, licentious weekend in Amsterdam. Nocturnal expeditions in Copenhagen. This driven, dissolute Anders and his cousin biked home at dawn, downed bowls of muesli and got back on their bikes for jolly day trips with their family.

He laughed at my bemusement. "Did you picture me skating in black leather? Imagine what my grandmother would have said. Though after all I suppose I snorkelled in black rubber; very kinky if you're into that kind of thing."

I shook my head, unable to explain.

"You know about living a double life, all the incongruity," he said.