As She's Told (43 page)

And then the heavy and familiar weight of long legs on my back and ass.

My field of vision was the dim brown of floorboards; a little lighter in my peripheral vision to one side, a little darker in the other. The television went on behind me, and I could hear newscaster voices. Words and phrases floated by without significance. I crouched. My jaws and tongue worked briefly around the bit in my mouth. The other orifices shuddered around their plugs. My core was molten, soft, slippery, suspended in immobility. I was still. I had a function, and I served it.

***

>heard about your accident from my mother, who heard it from your
mother, who discovered it in two lines of a weeks-old email to your father
which he could not recall reading.

>What a family. My mother called the other day to get the details,
quite miffed at the way she found out, though she didn't come out and say so.

At the time I was busy dealing with the mess and not feeling like discussing
it. But I should have told her and gotten it over with. It was no big deal,
more an aggravation than anything else.

>still going deeper?

>Yes, all the time. She keeps surprising me; there is always more to
her than I expect. And all of it at my service. Sometimes I can't believe my
luck.

>I am checking out this Chicago scene, but must balance this with my
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research time. Indeed my choice of thesis is ironic, and highly relevant to
myself, as I am hardly regular in my sleep patterns and likely to become less
so this year, with teaching and time zones and scenes that go from 10 to 4

a.m. Do you remember when we were out all night and then off on that day
trip to Dragør, with Mormor demanding to know why we could not keep our
bicycles to a straight line?

>Sure. And not just that time, either. You would even go back out the
next night. I always drew the line at one. Remember the time you keeled over
with your face in your sandwich and no one could wake you? I also
remember paying Svend to get lost one evening. I think he followed us
anyway.

>What I have seen so far is disappointing. A couple of decent
dungeons but there are not so many events as I expected. Not many wearing
fetish gear.

>Well, at least your lack of leather won't stand out.

***

After dinner that evening I sat naked on the bedroom floor chained to the footboard, waiting, not without some trepidation, to see what I would have to wear. My master didn't seem to go in for outright public humiliation, but in the case of Halloween who knew? Was this going to be the night he took me out on a leash in public, supposedly all in fun? I felt my whole body shrink; in my stomach was a ball of lead. Private exposure to friends was disturbing but liveable; the thought of anything public made me feel sick.

Loud footsteps thumped in the hall.

"Heed, woman!" a voice resounded. "Observe and cower!" There he was, filling the doorway. Thor, the God of Thunder, complete with horned helmet, huge red beard, and massive hammer. I stared up at him and then fell about laughing. The horns were blackened and twisted at comical angles, as if by an explosion, and the beard was singed. The whole thing was a sendup on the god theme. He grinned down at me, his teeth gleaming white through the beard, and I knew with a flood of delight that he was entirely back to 271

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normal.

Despite the send-up, the costume was marvellously authentic-looking: a genuine leather tunic, gauntlets, big studded belt. Boots wound round with thongs. I was impressed. "Now," he said, unlocking my collar and pulling me up, "similarly picturesque but in a different pantheon, we have the Minoan snake goddess." A large quantity of stiff and colourful material emerged from the closet. A goddess!? I rejoiced. Not a harem girl or a dog or something? Wow! I couldn't believe my luck. No way a goddess was going out on a leash. Wait. There had to be a catch somewhere. I suddenly remembered what a Minoan snake goddess looked like. Wasp-waisted, with a big layered skirt, and bare breasts. Oh-oh. I scanned the piles of bright multi-coloured material thrown over the bed. The bodice looked very tiny.

Anders looked over at me, his helmet askew, and winked. "We will not tempt the furies of the law. Your fertility goddess breasts will be concealed, if barely." He grabbed and squeezed them fondly. "Fortunately we already have your corset to provide the foundation garment." He fetched this and laced me up to within an inch of my life.

"Lie back." Off came the chastity shield, in went the plugs, over moans and whimpers. Plugs are far more intense in a corset. He locked me back up again.

I whispered, "Same as at the festival, master?"

"Almost. Not on automatic, though. Completely on my own initiative."

He was humming. He pulled me in another couple of millimetres to get the bodice on, ignoring tiny urgent pants and creaks from me. By the time the corset locks snapped closed I could have climbed him like a gearshift.

The skirt hung down in heavy layers to my feet, thick but not very wide, with a kind of apron in front in a crosshatched pattern. The colours were bright but a little faded, as if baked into clay. A thin, pale form-fitting layer covered my breasts, which were supported on three sides by the corset and short-sleeved bodice and so fortunately would not bounce. Much. Then there was the broad hat with a small sacred cat as its crown. The cat shape was painted to looked like old ceramic, but turned out to be cunningly managed in cloth and foam. Anders let me look in the mirror. "Wow! So elaborate!

It's beautiful!"

"You are gorgeous, goddess." He wound some snake jewellery around my arms in spirals, and handed me a couple of stiff, sinuous snakes in cloth 272

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and wire. "Here. One for each hand." I held them out to each side as in the images. "You'll be the belle of the ball. I'll have to supervise you closely to make sure no other gods come before me."

I snorted, then peered a bit more closely. Nipples pressed visibly through the clingy material, but not the nipple rings. It was going to be embarrassing, but not a nightmare. I glanced at my face, which paled in the midst of all this splendour. "Master, what about some makeup?" He cocked his head, considered me and agreed.

I took off the hat so I could lean, panting for breath, into the mirror above the sink. This was going to be a first for me, wearing a corset in public. "I don't – think I'll be able to dance, master," I breathed.

He smiled. "Sure you will. Of course; we don't want your naughty bits getting too overstimulated. Only over-stimulated enough. You see I have the remote concealed in my Belt of Power." So he did.

By the time I was finished with my makeup I looked like a terracotta figurine.

We did indeed wow them at the ball. I was unused to so much attention, and clung close to Anders, confused by all the noise and the loud music, and a bit oppressed by the mob. Fortunately there were many sexy costumes to share the libidinous attentions of the crowd, including, to my amusement, a harem girl, and some fabulous gay pirates. Still, we had barely walked in when a middle-aged Elvis widened his eyes at me, all paunch and pompadour. "Hello there! What are you supposed to be?" He stared at my breasts. "A Minoan snake goddess." Anders squeezed my hand.

The next minute it was the same thing. Every toga and trekkie and tin woodsman wanted to know what I was, and couldn't keep his eyes on my face to hear the answer. A few actually got so far as to ask what a Minoan snake goddess was, and I told them what little I knew. The jokes about fertility goddesses were pretty predictable.

Anders had less explaining to do. His pantheon was a couple of millennia closer to the present day, and thus was more familiar. The horned helmet was a dead giveaway. And of course Thor turned up in role playing games, and cartoons and god knows what else. His admirers (the gay pirates included) mainly wanted to get up close and feel the tunic, or so it seemed. I could relate.

And there went the vaginal plug, on, off, high, low. I took tiny shallow 273

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breaths and hoped my makeup covered the flush.

We saw friends, who looked, too, but were less obvious about it.

Graham turned up, very elegant in a top hat and tails, obtained second hand in Kensington at Courage My Love. He was accompanied by his wife Kristin, gowned from the same source a là Ginger Rogers, who eyed him eying me, and then stared in annoyed disbelief at my waist. There were some surreptitious glances of her own at Anders' chest and shoulders. Kristin turned out to be very nice, actually, if a little obsessed with her son's progress at daycare. I missed a milestone or two when the vibrator turned up a notch. Seeing me sweating, Graham handed me a drink with the same kindly look of concern with which he'd brought me a glass of water so recently. We talked when the loud band allowed, sticking to safe subjects, like the pets we'd had as kids and why Kristin didn't want a dog. I noted that Graham was careful to orient himself companionably beside me looking elsewhere, rather than in front where his eyes might get him into trouble.

Anders and I danced. I was so hampered by the corset and heavy skirt that I had an excuse not to set my tits bobbling. Still, I could tell by the glances I got that they sometimes took on a life of their own.

Claude and Pam arrived, garbed respectively in Voyageur outfit and kilt, which apparently they'd worn at every costume party since 1982. We were joined by the Black Knight from Monty Python, missing an arm. To my embarrassment, sans helmet he turned out to be one of my customers at the information centre. I'd been hoping not to run into anyone from work. I saw one of our board members in the distance, but fortunately she didn't spot me.

"And what are you meant to be?" asked Pam. She'd startled me, coming at me out of the noise when I was turned the other way. I quailed a bit under her critical gaze, reminded more than ever of my sixth-grade teacher.

"Um – a Minoan snake goddess," I faltered. I could hear that long-ago voice: Speak up, girl!

"Ah, yes," she said, eyeing me up and down. "The representation rather than the goddess herself, I see. A porcelain figurine," she said bitingly.

"Very decorative."

"Terracotta," I muttered resentfully, but she'd already turned away.

Damn it, if Anders had dressed me as a collectible, it was as a museum-quality one-off, not some Royal Doulton shepherdess.

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A Wookie and a young guy in yellow makeup and Bart Simpson hair stopped by to exchange views with Anders about the merits of various brew pubs, and to express disgust with the standard Molson's 'piss water' in their plastic cups. Bart requested a dance, calling me 'dude;' I couldn't tell if he was staying in character or this was really how he talked. I declined with thanks. Everyone ate and drank. I took tiny sips, microscopic nibbles, and informed the curious that I was a Minoan snake goddess.

"You're rather meek for a goddess," said Pam. "Don't you agree, Claude?" The two of them flanked me as we watched Bart and the Wookie, who had consumed more than their share of the despised piss water and were having a little duel with my snakes.

Claude turned his head to examine me. "You could be right. Maia, why don't you go and demand worship? Or your snakes back. They'll fall at your feet."

"The snakes or the – um – combatants?" I asked.

"No doubt both."

The Black Knight's other arm came off in the mêlée. We all doubled up laughing. Well, I tried to double up.

"Women need to claim their own," said Pam, in a voice that carried.

"Especially goddesses. No need to play second fiddle, even to brawny superheroes with sledgehammers." Suddenly everyone was looking at us.

Pam was standing with crossed arms, looking at me as if she'd caught me copying off of someone else's test. I glanced up at my personal superhero, who looked amused and kept his thoughts to himself. Well, I could hardly expect him to swoop down and rescue me from this one.

"What if I don't play fiddle at all?" I said, suddenly fed up with her judgments. I'd managed to get down just enough wine to loosen my tongue.

"Why would I compete with him on his own ground?" Pam shook her head and the grooves around her mouth deepened. I ploughed on. "I have my own role to play. Who says I have to fill the room? He can have the thunder and lightning. I provide – what I have is quieter – in the background – it's – “

“If it's fertility, don't send any our way, we have enough," said Graham.

Everyone laughed except Pam, whose disapproving expression was weighty enough to crush small children. Anders picked the snakes up off the floor, wound one of them tightly around his hammer and held it up for all to see.

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"What is that supposed to mean?" asked Claude. "Oh, the Midgard serpent."

"Consumption," Kristen suggested. "She's actually eating him." She went off into giggles, her face pink against Graham's shoulder.

"Clinging vine." Pam's enunciation clanged, in phonemes pure Edinburgh. His eyebrows raised, Claude laid a cautionary hand on her shoulder and murmured in her ear. She shrugged.

"Symbiosis," Graham offered. I gave him a goddess-gracious smile.

"Take it any way you want," said Anders. He and I danced a little more.

"Well done," he said.

"Thank you. You too. I'm sure I'll think of something better to say to her after we leave.”