Sincerely, A Slave

Chapter Two-1

Chapter Two

Still Lifes

Let me tell you something, I had taken a lot of s**t over the last few years at that point in my life. Bowing to Daddy’s and Mommy’s idea of what my wedding should be like, acting the part of the good little Catholic girl, pressured into marrying the boy next door, then finding out the “bliss of marriage” pretty much ended after the two week honeymoon (in other words, when the s*x stopped). Add to that almost no emotional connection and Jim’s disappearing for hours (probably out cheating), the divorce, and today finally finding that collar in my bed, I had had enough. So, with righteous pent up rage this girl was ready to clobber something or someone. And Ryan Thompson was the punching bag.

So I got dressed, deliberately downed a breakfast of bland scrambled eggs, paper thin toast and weak coffee, made a point of not making anything for him, allowed my fury to come to a nice, slow boil, dropped the dirty dishes in the sink and marched right off to that bastard’s room, ready to rip off a pair of balls.

His bedroom door was locked. I pounded on it, shouting for him to open up. No answer. Fine. I’ll just use the pass key. The bedroom door flew open and I blindly threw the collar inside to thud against a wall. “All right, Thompson, just what the hell - ”

He wasn’t there. Crap, he wasn’t there! I had worked out this perfect scene where I was going to tell him off, use him as a substitute for all that had gone wrong in my life and the bastard didn’t even have the decency to show up? Goddammit. God f*****g dammit!

The collar had landed on the floor, in between the dresser and the far side of the bed. Like a rabid dog I rushed over, grabbed it and flung it against the opposite wall, the silver rings sounding like an alarm clock. I bounded on top of the pristine, militarily style made bed, reached down and snatched the collar and threw it again, this time through the door where it banged against the hallway wall and fell impotent to the floor. But I wasn’t done, not at all. Crouched on the bed I tore at the duvet, the blankets, the sheets, pulling, tossing, heaving them every which way, anything to mess up his spotless, ordered world while mine, mine still broiled in chaos. f**k him!

Let me tell you, it felt great! Just letting everything go! The room a complete mess I dashed outside, putting distance between me and my sin. I laughed maniacally, screamed like a madwoman, kicked at the ground, threw rocks against the trees until, exhausted; I collapsed on my hands and knees. My head bent to the dusty ground, and I cried like a baby. Why the hell did I marry that fucker? How did I let this happen?

You know.

No! I did nothing wrong. It was all his fault. His sneaking around. His cheating on me. Right? Right???

I lay there, my tears falling to the dusty ground. Had to stop, I had to stop, none of this was doing me any good. Ryan Thompson wasn’t to blame for the shitty way I felt. Sure, a good cry once in a while is healthy for you, but where does it get you in the end? The problem is still there. And mine was a failed marriage, the guilt, brought on by the behind-the-back whispers and sidelong glances I endured from those whom I thought would be my support. Well, to hell with them. And to hell with this exercise in self-pity. As I was told I don’t know how many times as a kid, just push it back, push it down, and move on.

I staggered to my feet. All right, move on. And to do that you’ve still got a guest to look after. He probably wanted breakfast when he got back from wherever he had gone, and clean dishes to eat off of...

Clean. That concept gonged in my head like a huge bell. Clean. Oh, s**t, the bed!

I dashed back inside.

***

Thankfully Ryan hadn’t yet returned, so I madly worked on covering up my tracks.

I billowed the sheet with a snap and it floated back down like a parachute. I hadn’t done something like this, formally make a bed with another person in mind, since well before Jim and I broke up. When we had gotten together all I wanted was to make a home, be domestic. But toward the end I just pulled up the unwashed, rumpled sheets, not caring if they even reached the head of the bed. And now, here I was, laying down clean sheets for a stranger, half open suitcases spread throughout the room, personal valuables thrown down on a dresser next to an ever changing digital photo frame. The photos dissolved in and out; a skiing trip, a wedding, dinner at a restaurant, all with the same beautiful woman, mostly alone in the photo, sometimes with Ryan. Silent testimony of a life together. A fishing trip, a theme park, a...

What was that?

I forgot about the bed. There, in the frame, was the woman. Naked, back to the camera, arms spread out at an upward angle although I couldn’t see the hands. One wide eyed looked over her shoulder through messed up, long dark hair. Her cheek was stained with tears.

Her back and butt were covered in angry, red stripes.

What the...?

The photo changed back to domestic harmony and bliss.

What the hell had I just seen? Some kind of SM thing? That kinky couple that Jim and I knew did collars, along with padded blindfolds and silk ropes, but nothing like whips and...

There was another one! The woman was naked again, this time with some kind of weird thing on her head; thin straps that ran here and there down her face and around the head. One wide strap over her mouth gave the definite impression that something big was on the other side, forcing the jaw open. Then the photos returned to Leave-it-to-Beaver-land.

I couldn’t move. Who was this guy, Ryan Thompson? What were he and this other woman, his wife, into? Heavy SM? Don’t be a twit! That’s exactly how they had s*x. Until now I had thought something like this was just made up for bad movies and sleazy murder mysteries. But now here was proof that at least two people really got into it.

And now I definitely knew where the collar on my bed came from.

More photos. A series of them, one after another, of the woman tied up, and Ryan doing the tying. The woman was laughing, having a good time, even kissed Ryan, until he shoved a large padded leather plug in her mouth. Yet, even after that, her eyes still smiled.

The distant sound of a door creaked open, then slammed shut. “Sloane?”

Ryan. My anger had disappeared after my little cry, but with the discovery of the photos it returned with a renewed force. I glanced outside the room and found the collar still on the floor in the hall. All right, don’t chicken out again. I unplugged the photo frame right on an image of the woman bent way over forwards, breasts hanging down in front and arms tied and lifted up in back. The screen went black to match my mood and I snatched up the collar too.

Ryan was next to the dining table, looking toward the kitchen, probably not so much for me, as his food. “Sloane? Slo- Oh, there you are.”

I threw the collar down on the dining table between us.

If I expected a shocked response at his somehow being caught out by his clumsy way of having his kind of s*x with me, I sure didn’t get it. Instead a little frown formed on Ryan’s brow and he picked up the collar, as if examining it for the first time. “Is this yours?”

“You know damn well it isn’t,” I said.

The frown deepened a little. “Excuse me?”

“You put that in my bedroom last night! Admit it! You want nothing more than to have me crawling around like some s*x slave.”

“Now, just a minute. I did no such thing.”

“Don’t lie,” I said, and held up the photo frame. “I’ve got proof.”

That stopped him.

With a smirk I plugged in the photo frame. After a moment the scenes started rolling by, a few normal ones at first, then the others filled with nudity and bondage.

“What the hell?” he said.

“Oh, don’t deny it,” I said.

The frown turned into an outright scowl. “You went into my room?”

Hang on. This wasn’t going the way I had thought it would.

“You invaded my privacy?”

“What? No I didn’t.”

“The door was shut! Locked! And you still went in?" He came around the table, arms stiff at his sides, hands formed into fists.

I backed up. “I-I was changing the sheets,” I said at last. “You are a guest, after all.”

“What else did you find? What else?”

“Nothing. Nothing! I didn’t look...”

“Because I’m a guest and you were respecting my privacy." He pushed past me, turned off the photo frame on a picture of the woman on her knees, hands behind her head, breasts pushed out. “You stay right here,” he said. “Don’t move a muscle.”

He stormed down the hallway and soon returned with one of his suitcases, the one that he took from me when he arrived yesterday. He unzipped the side flap, turned the whole thing upside-down and spilled the contents on the table. “Is this what you were looking for?” he snarled. “Because I could have just showed you instead of you sneaking around.”

Leather. Ropes. Shiny metal objects of some kind along with other “marital aids”. My face warmed and conflicting feelings raged inside me. Why should I be embarrassed? He was the one with the dirty pictures, the hidden kinky stuff. But in a way he was right, it sure looked like I was poking around. Yet, that still didn’t change one thing.

I held up the collar. “Then how did this get in my bed?”

“I don’t know,” Ryan said. “I’ve never seen that before.”

“Well, it sure isn’t mine! If you want to tie me up, you sure have a funny way of asking.”

His face clouded over again. I had hit a nerve. Oh, oh.

“If I wanted to enslave you, there wouldn’t be anything you could to do stop it.”

I backed up. “You wouldn’t dare!”

In a flash he was all over me. I spun around, arms pinned. I got loose for a second and we fell, wrestling on the floor. I tore at his shirt, went for the face, but he was too fast and quick. Chairs kicked aside, the throw rug under the table bunched up; we went at it like two grunting animals. I tried to knee his crotch but instead just got his firm thigh and Ryan made sure I didn’t get a second chance. He got on top, flipped me face down and crossed my wrists behind my back. With one huge hand those strong fingers squeezed my wrists while his other hand blindly searched on the table top. Leather items rained down on me, but then I felt the unmistakable bite of thin rope on my wrists. Faster than I could have thought possible my hands were tied. Just as quick Ryan tore off my shoes, crossed my ankles and tied those too.

“You bully!” I yelled. “Let me go!”

Ryan didn’t answer. From underneath one of my arms he lifted me up like I was nothing, set one of the knocked over chairs upright and plopped me down like a sack of potatoes. I tried to get up, run, or at least, hop away, but my crossed ankles made that impossible. And then there was also Ryan’s strong hand planted right in the middle of my chest.

“All right,” Ryan said. “Since you’re so interested in my lifestyle, you might as well get the whole thing. Now sit still or I’ll use some of the heavier equipment on you.”

Heavier equipment? I glanced over at the table and the surrounding floor. Ryan sure had his pick. Some things I could well guess their use, like the fur-lined leather cuffs or the chaotic pile of short whips. But there were other things too, like a tangle of belts that were all connected by small silver rings, or a shapeless mass of leather that had what looked like mouth and eyeholes with tiny snaps at the corners. Distracted, I almost didn’t notice that Ryan tied me up even more, bringing my knees together, then also tying my upper body to the chair’s backrest. As a last thing he drew back my ankles and, by another rope, connected them to my wrists.

Ryan stood back, crossed his arms while I struggled in the ropes, my grunts a counterpoint to the chair’s legs squeaking and sliding on the hardwood floor. I went at it like my too brief struggle with Ryan on the floor, but I tired, and the ropes hadn’t given an inch.

“Let me go. Let me GO!” I said.

Ryan stood still, as if considering, but not whether he should untie me, as I soon found out. Then he said, “Sure, why the hell not.”

I stopped. He was going to let me go?

Ryan disappeared back down the hallway.

“Hey. Hey! Let me out of this!” I called after him. “You bastard!”

He came back, now with something balled up in a hand. In the other hung a white cloth, knotted in the middle. “Open your mouth.”

Silence. Then I said, “You’ve got to be kid -”

That was enough. The wadding was already halfway in my mouth before I started shaking my head to get away from that insistent pushing and shoving. Then I realized what he was using.

My own panties!?

“Take them. Take them all,” he said, half ordering, half coaxing. “You sure have a big enough mouth for them. C’mon. Good." He bent my head back, pushed them all the way in, then added another pair? f**k, this guy was serious.

“That’s better,” he said. “And I sure don’t want you spitting them out." He wrapped and tied off the cloth gag, positioning the knot just right in the middle of my mouth.

“Grrr. Grrrruuurmmm!" I shook my head, glared up at him through several locks of hair.

“Now, since you’re so nosy about my private life, you might as well see the rest,” Ryan said. He set the photo frame on the table and ran the cord to a wall socket behind me. The manufacturer’s logo flashed by and the photos started to fade in and out.

“You watch,” Ryan said, pointing his finger at me, then at the frame like some stern schoolmaster. “And don’t you think about closing your eyes. I’ve got something to keep them open if you do." He held up a metal thing. I had seen something like it once in an old movie, something about some gangbanger forced to watch violent movies. f**k, I didn’t know something like that really existed!

Ryan dropped the metal thing on the table, next to the frame amongst all the kinky stuff. Without a backward glance he left me tied up with dirty pictures.

It was about mid-morning and it was a good thing I already had something to eat and gone to the bathroom. I sat there a long, long time. So long the light from the sun through the windows moved down from the wall and almost came halfway up my legs.

There were a lot of photos – hundreds, maybe thousands. I never saw the same one twice, and the longer I sat there each one seemed more intense than the last. And not just in what the woman in the photos endured, but in the emotional quality too. There was something in her, something that seemed familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place it. What? What was bugging me about these images? In spite of the SM content (or maybe because of it) I found myself drawn in, studying each one.

In the beginning most were simple, clothed tie ups (much like my present situation) in different places, with different people, but then the clothes kind of dropped away, one piece at a time. The rope was replaced by leather, then shiny metal clamps for the n*****s hung from the breasts, her mouth filled with a shiny red ball or some type of leather plug, then a leather harness buckled around her head with the red ball, or maybe even a dildo gag. Arms were stretched overhead, her feet off the floor, or sometimes she endured a full upside-down suspension. At times her head was completely encased in a tight fitting hood and the only holes in it were for her nostrils. Other times, other hoods, you might see the eyes, wide in excitement. Whips flew, now not gagged but the mouth open in a frozen scream. Hair tossed, her back filled with red hot lines of welts. Butt and forced open legs with matching bruises from a wide, wooden paddle. And then she was free, splayed out on the floor, exhausted, but a hand clenched around a male boot. Lips kissed the boot. Ryan’s arms surrounded her, both of them locked in a passionate embrace. And then he picked her up and carried her, her arms around his neck, head nestled deep in his shoulder. They passed through the doorway to another room. The door closed.

In each photo she only got more beautiful. In each photo, only more serene.

How could that be?

And then there he was, standing off to the side, a plate full of food in his hand.

“Hungry?” Ryan asked.

As if coming out of a trance I nodded. The cloth gag slipped away, followed by Ryan picking my soaked panties out of my mouth. First came a little water, then he sat down and, much to my surprise, didn’t untie me, but started to spoon feed me.

I couldn’t recognize the food. It was edible, even tasty at times, but just some kind of mush or paste. That and the bland water made it obvious his bachelor cooking skills would keep me alive, but little else. Still, he didn’t shove it down my throat. He waited patiently while I salivated the dry paste, then lifted the glass of water to my lips and allowed me to suck through a straw. It wasn’t until near the end that he paused in the shoveling of food.

“How are you hands? Do they feel numb?”

I wriggled my fingers. Surprisingly, I could still feel them. I also did the same for my toes.

“They’re fine,” I said.

He put the glass back down, retrieved the spoon.

“That woman in the pictures,” I said. “She’s beautiful. Is she your girlfriend?”

Ryan paused, just for a second, in scraping up the food, then held up the spoon. I leaned forward, ready to take the last of the food. He said, “She was my wife.”

I pulled back. “Your wife?”

Ryan pushed the spoon forward the rest of the way, this time shoving the paste onto my tongue. He wiped a couple of globs from my chin, dropped the plate on the table and went around in back to untie me. My hands fell to the sides of the chair but I didn’t otherwise move until he finished loosening the last knot around my ankles. While he did I remembered last night, what I heard through the door, his constant apologies to someone who wasn’t there. Is that why he came here? To try to get over his divorce? Well, at least we had that much in common. Then Ryan undid the last knot that held my arms behind me. I flexed my hands, feeling some change in them and the rest of my body. Carefully I stood.

Ryan coiled the rope in front of me.

“Call the police if you want,” he said. “Charge me with assault. I won’t stop you. I don’t care." He tossed the coiled rope on the table with all the other gear, then gathered up the photo frame. The screen went dark. He turned away.

“Wait,” I said. “I’m sorry about the misunderstanding, we had earlier. This whole thing was as much my fault too.”

Ryan didn’t turn around.

“And your wife,” I said, “It’s obvious you still love her. I’m sorry you broke up.”

Ryan stood still, his back stiff. “She’s dead.”