Chapter 2 – Chapter 2

In a meeting, sitting at the back of the room, bored at the droning on about that week's changes in security check procedures, I heard the quiet buzz. I'd forgotten to turn the cell phone off. I'd do so, but I might as well check the text message first.

The stud revolving around your nipple, rubbing the tender flesh, sending signals to the very quick of you.

I stifled a moan, reddened up and switched the phone off.

In the cafeteria, instinctively clicking on the phone when it buzzed. Another text message.

Sliding the tongue stud down to your navel. Exploring. My hand going lower, possessing.

I clicked it off and acted like nothing was happening. But I had to hold my glass with both hands, I was trembling so hard.

At home, in the evening, trying to read, the cell phone sitting next to me on the table. Trying not to look at the phone. Not wanting it to buzz. Knowing it would. Wondering why it hadn't. Then it did. His voice this time.

"Are you home?"

"Yes." A faltering reply.

"Alone?"

"Yes."

"Are you wearing a ring?"

"Yes."

"Unzip your pants. Take your cock out. Run the underside of the ring on your finger up and down the top of it, along the vein."

At each instruction, there was a pause. And without thinking or resisting, I responded to the command in his voice.

"I hear you breathing harder. You have done it, yes?"

"Yes." Almost a whimper.

"Go to the door. You'll find a package outside. Bring it in. Go to your bedroom, strip, and lay on the bed and open the package."

"Steve . . ."

"Are you going to the door?"

A pause. And then, in a low, tortured voice. "Yes."

"Are you there, on the bed, now, naked?"

"Yes."

"Open the package and do it. Do not hang up. I want to hear you come."

The package contained a thick dildo with knobs on it and a small bottle of lube.

"There, that was nice," he said when I was finished. "Now, come to me. We begin."

"Steve . . . I can't . . . I . . ."

Using all of the strength inside me I switched the phone off.

It was raining, and dark, and I hadn't ever driven in that section of town at night. I didn't even know if I'd be able to find the tattoo shop that was advertised on the card he'd given me that first Saturday at the airport. My hands were trembling and were slick on the wheel of the car. I wanted to turn around and go home—to get rid of the cell phone. To get a new one. To move, even, because he knew where I lived.

I couldn't do this. This wasn't me. I didn't want to be dominated this way.

I found the street. I could see the bar up ahead. It's lights were on. That made sense; it was the height of the night there. But a business. It surely wouldn't be . . . but there it was. The tattoo parlor had its lights on and an Open sign was blinking in the window.

He was standing behind the counter when I entered—smiling. A new piercing, one at a nostril. Piercing fourteen.

"Come into the back room," he said, holding his hand out to me. With his other hand he lifted a stainless steel tray holding needles and forceps.

I whimpered, hardly managing to croak out, "Steve . . . I don't want—"

"Yes you do, you want. It's what I do. Come with me. We begin."