Soul Custody

Chapter Two-2

My stomach clenches into a knot within seconds. I wasn’t prepared for this. “Mr. Caulfield,” I answer, adding a tone of respect to my voice.

“I have the need of your services Friday evening.” It’s Wednesday now.

My, this will be a banner week! I can’t remember when I’ve had Jeremiah, Rocco and a session with Ellery Caulfield in one week. Probably never. Perhaps the moon has lined up with Mars and Jupiter is in the sixth house. Or may the universe has simply conspired to throw all my s****l eccentricities at me within a few days. Am I bound for some greater enlightenment? Perhaps the world has suddenly spun off its axis and calamity is about to strike.

“Yes, sir, I can likely make it.”

“Likely?” he questions me. “Either you can or you can’t.”

“Yes, yes, I can. Certainly.”

“Good. Then I’ll see you at seven.”

“Yes, sir.”

We both hang up, and I sit motionless for several minutes, unable to budge.

It’s been four months almost to the day since Ellery Caulfield ‘needed my services.’ I had begun to think that our odd affair was over. But then, I’ve wondered that after every one of the sessions since our first two years ago.

After a few disquieting minutes, I finally overcome inertia and start to move again, although not without a subdued feeling of arousal that I’ll carry with me until Friday night is over. The sensation is nothing like the raw agitation I feel when I’m about to pounce on Jeremiah, or the fiery erotic edge that burns my crotch when I see Rocco coming for me. This is far more subtle, a knowingness in me that until the session with Ellery is over, I belong to him. I’m not his slave, though I will be obedient to his wishes. I will do what he instructs, even things I find distasteful. With his advance warning, every hour of my day becomes colored by the sound of his voice, the memory of his smell, the thought of his smooth fingers against my skin. The unique flavors of our relationship begin to taste on my tongue. His subtle influence becomes an ever-present awareness that I cannot deny nor would wish to shake. It will live with me every conscious waking minute until I see him.

When I leave work, I’m shaking, remembering Rocco and thinking ahead to Ellery.

I need to talk to Jeremiah. I’m not sure why. I guess I just need to vent, which sometimes he lets me do. I have his number in speed dial on my cell phone and make the call as I’m locking the door, holding the phone in the crook of my neck.

“Yeah, sure, stop by,” he says. “I have a few things to do before I get there, but you can wait.”

“Wait how long?”

“Don’t know. Could be an hour.”

I grumble, complaining.

“Hey, you don’t have to stop by at all, Hayley.”

“Yeah, I do. But I’ll wait.” I hang up before he can change his mind.

It’s just two blocks to the Coffee Bar, so leaving immediately, I hope to find Jeremiah still home. But on arriving I see that the bar is closed for the night and Jeremiah’s motorcycle is absent from the entry to his loft.

I take the stairs and slide back the heavy metal door listening to it screech in its tracks. The lights are on in the loft to welcome me and when I see a body moving in the shadowy room, I think for a moment that Jeremiah might still be here. I stare for a moment, wonderingly, then realize that, it’s not my best friend reading in the corner of the great room but the light-skinned black man from nights before sitting in Jeremiah’s reading chair. The light from the floor lamp is trained on his book; his glasses sit on the tip of his nose. He doesn’t acknowledge my arrival.

I stand at the door a minute, deciding whether to stay or go. When I finally move into the room, the stranger hears me and looks up. His skin’s the color of butterscotch, mellow in the incandescent light. He has the air of a cocky grad student or a revolutionary with political agendas. His manner screams educated black man. Wiry hair clipped close, a thin mustache above his full lips, eyes almost too pretty for a man’s face, but dark, deep and suspicious, as if he questions everything.

Finally looking up, he says, “Ah, it’s you.”

“Yes, I was invited.”

“I know. Jeremiah told me. Said he had to go out. I could keep you company.”

“You?”

“Why not?”

He looks as if he owns the place. His books on the table, the slouching way he occupies the big reading chair, the attitude of control more than anything else. All this makes me want to leave and seek out Jeremiah some other time. I’m immediately resentful.

“But why you? I don’t even know you.”

“Which might not be a bad idea—to know me.” He looks a little more interested.

“Really?”

“I know all about you,” he says glibly.

I move into the room with hesitant steps. Strangely, I feel as I’m tethered to the man and can do nothing else.

“What does that mean, you know all about me?”

He sort of shrugs. “I know that Jeremiah beat you in his dungeon a few nights back—like he beats you every time life weirds you out. You’re his troubled genius friend who minds the Retro store two blocks down and accepts invitations to f**k and serve from men with unusual tastes.”

I stare back at him shocked. “He told you all that!”

“Sure. And more.”

By then I have the sofa behind me and with my legs about to buckle under me, I slump down to the cushion, wearing my astonishment on my jaw-dropped, eye-popping face.

“You’d think some things between friends are sacred,” I mutter, finally finding my voice.

“Hey…he’s not running you down.”

“But he passes around my bio to strangers? That’s some friend,” I say bitterly.

I fume for several seconds, while he waits for me to say more. His passivity scares me. “Who are you anyway?” I finally blurt out.

“Pierre. Pierre Dysart.”

“Yeah, the name’s fine, but who are you?”

“I’m a friend of Jeremiah’s.”

“How come I’ve never seen you before? Jerr and I are pretty tight.”

“Jeremiah has lots of friends. We roomed in college.”

“Jeremiah in college?”

“Just a year. He dropped out. I finished.”

“That figures. And I’ll bet you have your master’s degree too.” I slide back in my seat and play with the loose threads on the arm of the purple sofa—he bought it from the store a few months back. Really pretty thing, though it’s already showing wear. Not one of our top of the line models.

“Actually, I’m working on my doctorate,” Pierre says.

“In what?”

“Social advocacy.”

“That would be…what?”

He chuckles under his breath. “You probably don’t want to know.”

I wonder if this is supposed to be an insult to my intelligence, but then I realize that I really don’t want to know what he studies. It sounds about like what I figured for him, some socially conscious, radical thinker who would either bore me or make me mad.

Obviously, I’m one to make instant judgments about personal character, and I had this man pinned the first time I laid eyes on him in the coffee bar. The only problem with quick assessments is that they don’t always take into account the primal gut feelings that clench the stomach, or make my p***y go sexually mad—for little apparent reason. I realize now the visceral reaction I had days ago to this Pierre—the one I immediately smothered. I thought it inconsequential then, a random moment of mistaken feeling, like sensing danger at your back, only to find on turning to confront it, nothing to substantiate the fear.

I’m paying more attention now as the raw feeling rises in me again. I think he should repulse me, but I’m oddly drawn to the man instead.

“So, what did you think when Jeremiah told you that he beats me?”

“I think you probably need it as much as Jeremiah needs to do it. It obviously gets you off. But it’s more than that. He says you conquer your demons and I suspect that’s true. Women don’t run from man to man asking for nothing but a s****l catharsis without being afraid of something. I figure you’ve got lots to fear.”

“Boy, you do have a lot to say.” I feel my embarrassment washing across my face in a heady blush.

“Am I wrong?”

“It’s a lot to conclude from a once and a while session in a bondage dungeon with a friend. It’s not all that strange. It’s an alternative lifestyle, that’s it.”

“Maybe. But you do it with an auto mechanic in stairwells. You play act the naughty girl for some geek professor. That’s not exactly normal. Seems to me you’re running from something. Something big if that’s the extent of your intimate relationships.”

I’m about to cry. The man nails my personality like Luther nailing edicts to church doors. I’ve got nowhere to go and no graceful way out of this awful scene. Why the hell did Jeremiah leave me here with this man? I’m angry, I’m about to cry—and I can’t let my guard down.

“I don’t get it,” I say as my chin trembles and I bite my lip to hold back the floodgates. “Why are you…” I don’t have the strength to finish.

“Why am I, a total stranger, talking about your private life as if I have the right to point out your vulnerabilities and your failings?”

Yes, that’s exactly my question! It’s not just judgment coming from him anymore. Maybe it never was. There’s a softer spirit in his voice. So I don’t run.

“Yeah, why?”

“You may not have seen me before, but I’ve seen you. I’ve shopped your store. I even bought a sofa there, some high school kid waited on me. I’ve been in Jeremiah’s dungeon when he’s beat you. I was there other night and left before it was over…”

“What!” My jaw drops again in wonder. At least the need to cry has been swept away. I’m simply baffled.

He shrugs as if all this is suddenly meaningless, while my eyes remain glued to his remarkable face. He’s more than just some cocky bastard now, but I still don’t know what to think. “I thought I knew your face,” I say.

“Now you know why. There’ve been other times, too. I’m interested.”

“But why?”

“Sometimes there aren’t answers to why. Let’s just say, I’m really a very shy man and it’s difficult to approach women.”

“So, you’re coming on to me?”

“Not exactly. But I’m interested.”

I haven’t a clue what to think, but I am reasonably warmed by the sentiment—not to mention feeling the arousal in me swell. But then that’s to be expected in a girl like me. I gloss over how I feel since I’ve learned that s****l arousal is not a sensation I can trust to guide me.

“So, you’re interested in…what?”

“Knowing you.”

“And you set this up with Jeremiah?”

“No. He hasn’t a clue… except maybe for the times I’ve asked about you.”

“And you know the dungeon scene?”

“I’ve played a Dom often enough.”

“You’re a Dom?”

“Likely. I don’t think about it much. But that’s not all I’m interested in.”

I take a moment to think, trying to sort out my confusion. “Well, Pierre, maybe you’re a fascinating guy, but I don’t know a damn thing about you and I don’t think I’m in the market for another non-intimate relationship. As you put it so well, I already have three to meet my cathartic needs.”

“Then maybe we can be friends.”

I can’t wait to get out of here. The air is so close and creepy that my skin is crawling. I thought it was cold here when I arrived, but now I’m sweating—I refuse to draw obvious conclusions.

Impulsively, I move to my feet. “You know, I really think I should go.”

He deliberated for a moment. “Sure. Whatever you want.”

“Tell Jeremiah…” I stop not having a clue what to tell him… “You know, don’t tell him anything.” I shake my head, feeling totally confounded.

Pierre moves to his feet and walks me to the door, where we pause for several awkward minutes of silence. I finally slide open the door, pulling it with an awkward tug. I turn back when he speaks.

“If I call, if I ask you to lunch, would you go?” he asks.

I don’t know what else to say. “Yeah, I guess so.”

I snuggle into my coat, bracing myself against the wind, making my way up the street to catch my bus. I realize only as I get off a block from my house that for a good thirty minutes while I was in Jeremiah’s loft and afterwards, thoughts of my session with Ellery Caulfield vanished from my conscious mind. In fact, it takes an act of will to think of him and not Pierre. Only when I force myself to focus on the upcoming session Friday night does that distinctive feeling of arousal and relinquishment return.