Eternity Collar

Chapter One-1

Chapter One

The Leather Heel

I didn’t get home until late. Three days I was away on business. Yet another grueling sales seminar. The guru’s who ran the thing tried to get people like me “motivated” to make that big sale, or make a lot of little ones that amounted to the same thing, but with a lot more work. And, as always, they had this sure fire way to do it. I had heard it all before, so many times. In my middle twenties I knew I was already way too cynical, and this seminar was so much like all the others; ultimately filled with empty promises. So when I got back to the apartment I shared with two other ex-college sorority sisters, I was tired and more than a bit cranky.

Cranky? Guess again. I trudged through the door and was assaulted by loud hip-hop from the stereo and equally obnoxious shouting heads on some TV news show. Oh, no. Cranky was too nice a word!

“What the – Randi? Mal?” I shouted. “What’s going...Oh, f**k it.” My hand slapped the stereo off switch, then grabbed the remote and muted the angry politicians. Their wild arm gestures proved only a slight distraction as I scanned the small living room and adjacent kitchen. Everything was clutter and chaos. I had gone away before, and when I got back things were usually a bit of a mess, but nothing like now. Half-eaten sandwiches lay next to cold pizzas. Opened longnecks stood beside turned over wine bottles. From one of the three bedrooms someone stirred, croaky-voiced, and I thought it might be a guy brought home by Randi or Malina. But the rustlings and footsteps as someone stumbled out of bed and staggered through the short hallway suggested one of my two roommates. It was Randi. It figured. I don’t know how many waitress jobs she had blown through since we had graduated and left the sorority house. By the way she leaned against the hall door frame in her almost sheer nightie and squinted in the light it looked like she had lost another.

“I hope you really had something to celebrate,” I said. “Let me guess, you’re going to be late with the rent again.”

Randi rubbed her eyes. “I need a drink,” she said.

I gestured to the beer and wine bottles. “Take your pick. Where’s Mal?”

“Gone.” Randi flopped on the couch and grabbed an already half-finished longneck. She looked like one step short of a street lady, hair mussed, eyes red-rimmed. She was my age, but wouldn’t look that way for long, not at the rate she drank and smoked. And the saddest thing of all was that she was smart. And cute. I don’t mean “cute” like some girl-next-door type, but really, really cute. Almost pixyish. It had gotten her into the sorority, and she had made a lot of friends, the kind that would do things for her. But maybe that was part of the problem. Everything had come too easy for her, and now that the three of us had graduated and were out in the wide world, Randi had found her path the toughest. Things weren’t just handed to her on a platter anymore. That didn’t stop her from trying, but instead of trying to make her own way, she still thought some rich guy was going to come along and take care of her. Malina, my other roommate, was a little better, but erratic. Sometimes she had her act together, held down a job, but other times she went off on these endless parties. After the first month together, I would have moved out on them both, but we had all signed a one-year lease, and I couldn’t afford to break it.

“So, Malina’s off to Vegas again?” I said.

Randi snorted. “f**k Vegas.” She took another swig.

I grabbed at the bottle. Randi tried fighting me for it and some beer spilled on her nightie. Eventually I wrested it away. “Randi, where is she?” I grabbed her by a shoulder. “Where’s Malina?”

“I don’t know, Taren.” She mumbled. “I don’t know!” She covered her eyes and softly wept.

I wasn’t going to get anything out of her. Not right away. So, although I was tired and pissed at coming home to a mess, I started throwing stuff out; the pizza boxes, the bottles, anything that didn’t belong.

Randi gave a low laugh and shook her head at me. “Oh, Taren. Always practical Taren. If there’s a mess, you’ll clean it up. No matter who’s in trouble. Right, Little Sister?”

My blood froze. “What did you call me?” A secret I thought I’d kept dead secret was suddenly out in the open. Then, something else Randi said crowded my thoughts. “Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

Randi shook her head again and mumbled. “Not the kind you’re thinking about.”

She shut down again, but this time I stood over her and said, “You know you’re going to tell me, so you might as well get it over with.”

Randi’s tears started up again and she blindly grabbed for another beer. I tried to snatch it away but she scrambled back along the couch.

“You ever want to take back a decision, but were too scared?” Randi said. “Or you were too scared to make the decision in the first place? Well, welcome to my world.”

“What are you talking about?” I said. “Randi, you’re not making any sense.”

“Oh, I am, even if you don’t know it.” She laughed again, this time almost hysterical.

I grabbed her again, shook her hard. “What’s the matter with you? Why’s this place such a mess? Where’s Mal?”

“All right, all right, you fuckin’ b***h!” She slapped my hands away, unsteadily pushed herself up and stumbled back to her bedroom.

I followed. The place was a wreck, like the living room and, with her back to me, Randi crawled and rummaged through dirty clothes and other piles of whatever. Suddenly she straightened up and shoved something shiny and heavy at my chest.

“Here. Take these back. Tell ‘em you’re returning ‘em ‘cause they’re a perfect fit.”

They were a pair of spiked leather boots. And not just any pair, but the kind that laced up in front, well past the knees. Anyone who tried to walk in these wouldn’t. It was like they were meant for keeping one’s legs from bending, or keeping them at attention. A million memories flashed through me. The kind I kept deeply buried. “Where did you get these?” I said.

Randi laughed once. “Yeah, right. Like I really need to tell you.”

I grabbed her short hair and snarled. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

Randi tried to wrench away. “Oh, c’mon, Taren. You are what you are. And we all know it.”

Her eyes stabbed into mine and then I knew. I knew the hidden thing that I thought I had kept so secret for so long wasn’t really a secret at all. Numb. I was numb and now Randi did manage to get loose from my slightly shaking hand.

“She went down to Hollywood, all right?” Randi said, still in that accusing tone. “Now leave me the f**k alone.” Randi’s head sagged in her hands. She started to cry again.

I should have just thrown the boots aside, told her whatever mess it was it was hers to fix. But, like Randi said, I was the practical one. Always helpful Taren. So, pragmatic as always, instead of more shouting and intimidation and forgetting for the moment my most inner secret had been laid bare, I tried a softer approach.

I stroked Randi’s head. “All right. It’ll be all right. I’ll go down there tomorrow and when Mal and I get back we’ll all have a long talk.” And I would announce that I was moving out. I didn’t want to have anything to do with co-dependent relationships.

I turned to leave, but Randi clutched at my business suit skirt. “No! No, you have to get there tonight. Before midnight. Or else it’ll be too late.”

Now I really was concerned. “Too late? What are you talking about?”

“She went to the Leather Heel.”

Ohhhhh.....craaaapppp. What the f**k had these two idiots done? The Leather Heel. Inside, I turned really cold.

I tried to get more information out of Randi; how she and Mal had wound up at the Leather Heel, just what the boots meant, and why the hell the boots had to be returned if they were a “perfect fit”?

Randi waved me off and collapsed on the bed, passed out drunk. So I stood there, boots in hand, and made a snap decision. I grabbed my keys and jetted out the door.

It was already eleven. If I hurried I would get to the Leather Heel with just minutes to spare.

***

My sweaty hands gripped the wheel. The Leather Heel. A place to go live out your SM fantasies. A place where you could get a simple, semi-public spanking, or where you might use it as a doorway to deeper, darker scenes, all in a safe, controlled environment, of course. The trouble was, once you got hooked on the inherent danger in those “safely controlled” scenes, you couldn’t help but keep going back, pushing the envelope until it tore apart. I tried to convince myself I was prepared to confront whatever situation existed at the Leather Heel, and wondered (worried actually) how either of my two roommates had gotten mixed up with anyone at that place. And how much they might have discovered...about me.

It had been a long time since my last visit. After graduation I had sworn off that place and the people who hung out there, the whips, the smell of leather and sex...

No, don’t think about it. Stop it! You walked away long ago. Had to.

But now here I was, lured back. Slowing down as the car glided along the upswept freeway off ramp. Stopping at red lights, crawling along when they turned green as I gazed at all the demonic, Goth inspired active night life. Again, I found that same out of the way parking spot, the one that hid my car from casual passersby on the street. It was empty, like it had been waiting for me all this time. I swung into it, behind a crumbling, brick building with a lone streetlight overhead. Quickly I shut off the engine and melted into the dark shadows of a nearby alley, then emerged to stride down that familiar stretch of sidewalk. Several heads swiveled in my direction to stare at this obviously out of place yuppie. I ignored them, or tried to, and wondered if any recognized me from my previous trips, all those wild nights. My hair was longer then, posture and bearing different, but I couldn’t hide the fact of who I was, much as I wanted. Goosebumps formed on my arms as I recalled the lash of a top’s whip, s**t anyone’s whip, and how I writhed and screamed. It all came flooding back and my mouth went dry, my panties wet. And then I stood just mere feet from those double swinging doors, while above that familiar sign flickered.

Leather Heel – Leather Hell.

Boots clutch against my stomach, I stepped back into the secretive world of seductive pain and pleasure.

***

The place hadn’t changed much. The long bar was still on the right, with several vaguely familiar people who looked like they hadn’t moved since my last, “final” visit. In the center of the floor were rickety tables and equally weak chairs, one or two of which I’m sure I sat on while tied down and was spoon fed little greasy morsels. On the far left were booths with high backs for privacy as negotiations took place between tops and subs. I had struck more than my share of scene bargains there too. I roamed past them all, looking for something, anything, that would give me a clue as to Malina’s whereabouts and who to speak to about the boots I clutched. And then I found someone. Or, rather, he found me.

“Hey, Little Sister! Where’ve you been hidin’?”

I almost jumped. I knew that voice. He called me by the scene name that I had adopted. And he knew more about me than just a name.

“Hey, babe, don’t you remember me?” he said. “John Q?”

Oh, yes. I remembered. Jet black hair, cut shorter than the last time I saw him, but not by much, and with a hard body that most guys would kill for. Especially if they were gay, which was how John Q swung. Unlike most gay doms, he sported kind eyes that always remained that way no matter how hard we played. We had gotten together a few times, when I just wanted dominance without any s****l threat. He was good and eventually found out which buttons to push until any thought of submission without s*x was banished from my mind. But as part of his dominance, he didn’t allow anyone else to touch me. And since he would turn me on, but was gay, that left me with just one way to satisfaction – by my own hand. That is, if I wasn’t tied up.

I smiled nervously, like it was my first visit and suddenly came across a friend who also shared this deep, dark secret.

John laughed, like I had asked him about the weather or some other mundane subject. “Look at you! All grown up, huh? Business power suit. I thought you had given us up for good. Hey, what’s with the boots? You turn dom?”

“Uh, no. No. I’m trying to return them.”

John Q’s manner changed. Gone was the friendly, open greeting replaced by...betrayal? “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

I didn’t quite understand the question, but played along. “I’m not sure. But a friend of mine...Well, I don’t think she knew what she was getting into.”

“And you do? Even though you had the same chance and turned it down?”

I didn’t answer, but squatted down beside John Q, my hand on his knee. That was all it took. He gazed at me a moment, as if trying to assess my sincerity. “Downstairs. That’s where you want to go.”

Yeah. Downstairs to the converted basement, the space reserved for heavy players.

I kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”

John Q gently pushed me away. “Don’t expect me or anyone else to come rescue you. It doesn’t work like that down there.” He turned away.

So there I stood, like an unsure SM novice who, at last, step by agonizing step, made my way to the back of the club, past all the staring eyes to a set of steep stairs that descended to a small door.

Unlike the club upstairs, with its mindless techno music, the basement was quiet. Familiar classical music played, but as an undertone. A tiny knot of people, two women and two men, clustered at the near end of a couch by the door. Whatever activity they had been engaged in was apparently over, as evidenced by the ropes, gags and whips that lay strewn on the floor. Both men stroked the contented women’s heads that lay in their laps. At the couch’s other end, as if a part of the scene but also removed from it, near a flimsy, wooden door, sat a lone woman with dark, slicked back hair. She wore a leather vest and pants and languidly smoked a cigar. The group of couples appeared too immersed in afterglow to be any help, so I skirted around them and concentrated on the woman.

“Hello,” she said neutrally at my approach.

“I’m looking for a friend of mine,” I said, keeping my voice even too and hoping it came off as confidence. “Her name—”

“You know how we feel about names,” she said. “Especially down here.” She took a long drag on her cigar, blew the smoke right in my face.

“Ever been down here before?” she asked.

**Cough cough**. “Just once.”

“Hmmm. Interesting. Well, it’s always the newbies that can’t get enough, isn’t it?” Another drag. “All right, newbie, I’ll give you one small break. You can call me Lady Eleanor.” She pointed with the cigar. “What’s with the boots? Going to put them on? Or kiss them?”

“Another friend of mine asked me to return them.”

“Really? A...friend.” Lady Eleanor’s dark eyebrows shot up. “What else did this ‘friend’ tell you?”

“That the boots were a perfect fit.”

If things were quiet before, they now got absolutely tomb-like. Lady Eleanor took another drag on her cigar, blew a couple of lazy smoke rings. I backed up a little to avoid the noxious fumes and bumped right into the two men who now stood behind me.

“Are you sure about this?” Lady Eleanor said. “They’re a perfect fit?”

Something was going on here. I should have backed off, taken a moment to try to gauge all the subtleties that Lady Eleanor threw my way. But I was more concerned about finding Malina. Instead, I should have watched out for myself, and by the time I learned that, it was way too late. “Yes, I’m sure.”

Lady Eleanor casually waved the cigar at the two men. “Take her.”

One grabbed my arms and pinned them behind my back. The other pulled a hood over my head.