The Collectors (10 page)

“I know Jeanne is into you,” she said. “She’s talked about you with me and some of the others. That may be a first for her.”

I didn’t speak, but I was thrilled.

“A dominant is allowed to have sex with any submissive who has willingly entered our society,” she said.

She put a finger across my lips when she heard me about to speak.

“Adele has broken a rule by expressing displeasure to Jeanne about your role in Jeanne’s life, and now by sending you this drawing, trying to get you to do something against Jeanne’s wishes. Jeanne will take care of the situation.”

I felt a little sorry for Adele. I assumed she would be punished or exiled in some way. Probably exiled. It’s hard to punish people who just get off on the punishment.

I raised my hand as if I were in school. Pat smiled.

“You can ask a question.”

“I don’t understand what this society is. Is there a clubhouse? A Web site?”

Pat laughed. “A clubhouse isn’t a bad idea, but we don’t have one. Just think of it as an organized society of like-minded people. I’m pretty sure you’ll become a member yourself.”

I lay there quietly. There were a thousand questions to ask, but now I didn’t feel like asking them. I was content to have things revealed to me bit by bit. It kept me off-balance, a feeling I was growing to relish. It felt exciting. Like an adventure.

Pat kissed my forehead and left, and I slept the rest of the afternoon.

*

Jeanne summoned me to her home the following night. I was curious to see her after my experience with Pat. I wondered if I would find Jeanne somehow different, perhaps less of a magnet for me now that I knew I could enjoy what another dominant did to me. This gave me more power, for I’d be less dependent on Jeanne to satisfy my needs. But I didn’t want more power with Jeanne. I wanted even less.

Mrs. Kirchberger answered the door and led me downstairs. I was perfectly clean, groomed, and dressed for the occasion, but this ritual of preparing myself in her home was part of the whole gestalt. Without it, my experience felt less than—less satisfying, less spiritual.

When Mrs. K. let me into the garden apartment I wondered if Adele had to leave each time Jeanne had me over. Maybe the thing Adele was pissed about was being uprooted so often. I did feel bad about that, though I had no solution to the problem.

As I walked toward the bathroom I passed Adele’s bedroom. The door was closed. This was awkward. I didn’t want to see Adele, but I also didn’t want her walking in on me when I was giving myself an enema. Along with counting to ten to avoid unnecessary confrontations, my mother taught me to face head-on the situations that couldn’t be avoided. They usually proved to be less awful than I’d feared. I knocked on Adele’s door, meaning to let her know I was there and talk to her if she insisted. There was no answer. I knocked again before opening the door and sticking my head in. The first thing I noticed in the pristine room was the missing stuffed animal on the bed. The photos on the nightstand were also gone. I stepped to the closet and found it empty. The dresser also. She was gone. She’d been exiled. I had a flash vision of a bleak Siberian camp for wayward submissives. Surely, this society wasn’t as severe as that.

When I’d finished my preparations, I opened the door to the hallway to find Mrs. Kirchberger waiting. She locked the door behind me and led me upstairs. I tried to start a conversation with her, again.

“Has Adele moved out?” I was climbing the stairs behind her, her sturdy shoes making a clomping noise. She did not reply.

“Look, Mrs. K., I realize you don’t like me. Maybe it has something to do with Adele. But I swear I had nothing to do with her losing her place here. You must realize I don’t have any pull with Jeanne.”

Mrs. K. cast a skeptical look back at me. It was far more expressive than anything I’d seen before.

“Honestly. I’ll tell Jeanne right now that I mean no harm to Adele and don’t want to see her lose what she has. But I don’t think it will work, do you?”

She forged ahead, completely ignoring me. As she showed me into the study, she avoided my eyes. I am done with this, I thought. If she hates me, then I officially hate her. No more sucking up to Mrs. Kirchberger.

The study was empty. I curled up on the sofa and brooded about Mrs. K. and Adele. After about half an hour Jeanne swept into the room from the hallway, two DVDs in her hand.

“It’s movie night, my dear.” She joined me on the sofa. “In honor of our upcoming trip to Paris, we’re going to see a Truffaut double header tonight.” She looked mischievous.

“Trip to Paris?”

“As soon as you can break away for a few days from those undergraduates of yours, I thought we’d fly to Paris and track down some Balthus.”

Given how calm and contained Jeanne normally kept herself, she looked very excited about her news. She was watching me closely, waiting for me to say something.

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Just you and me and Paris and all the art you can possibly take in. And maybe some other things as well.”

“What kind of things?”

“Let’s just say I have friends in Paris. And I think you’ll like a little French style dominance.”

I took her hand and leaned in to kiss her.

“Thank you. I feel like squealing and jumping up and down, but I’m trying to act with some dignity.”

Jeanne was grinning and then suddenly was not. “Dignity is a luxury for you. I intend to strip you of it as often as possible.”

Here was the lightning-fast change in tone that played with my head so deliciously.

“While I’m in the other room getting some things, I want you to get naked and stand right here,” she said, pointing to the area in front of the sofa. Within a minute or two she was back, carrying enough rope to secure a small naval fleet. With stunning expertise, Jeanne wrapped the ropes around me until I was hog-tied on the floor. My arms and legs were lashed together behind my back, my breasts were bulging out of the rope wrapped around their base, and my head was held in place by my ponytail being tied by another rope to my ankles. Jeanne moved me around so my face was pointed toward the TV and then she settled in to watch
The 400 Blows
and
Jules et Jim
. She rested her legs on my ass and I could hear her drinking something on the rocks and munching on something.

I loved every minute of the discomfort. As the hours went by and the stiffness in my joints and chaffing of the rope grew exponentially worse, I loved it more. When Jeanne moved her foot between my legs she found me wet. When she unbound me after the second movie was over, she found me wetter still. I found I could barely move, but somehow I got onto my knees, draped over the ottoman, and I came instantly when she put on her harness and fucked me. Then I came again. I listened to her breathing and could tell she was close to coming herself, but she took a long time before crying out. And still I was wet.

We lay still for a long time, Jeanne draped over me, me draped over the ottoman, and I felt an intense closeness. I couldn’t be making it up. But soon she got up and told me to dress and leave her. She wouldn’t look at me when she gave the order. I think she wanted me to stay.

I was at the door to the study when I thought to follow up on my thoughts from earlier in the evening.

“Jeanne, do you know why Mrs. Kirchberger hates me?”

“Hates you? She doesn’t hate you.”

“Oh, yes, she does. I’ve never been treated as rudely by anyone. She’s never once said hello or even replied to anything I’ve said to her.”

“Of course not. She’s mute.”

“Excuse me?”

“Mute. She can’t talk. She had some rare mouth cancer when she was quite young. Most of her tongue is gone.”

I stood there stock-still. It didn’t seem quite right to be glad Mrs. Kirchberger didn’t have a tongue, but I was very relieved it was nothing personal.

“I find it unbelievable that no one has mentioned this to me,” I said. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

Jeanne shrugged. “It doesn’t seem fair she can’t talk, but there you go. I’m not going to make it worse by making a big deal about it.”

I opened my mouth to ask more questions about Mrs. K., but Jeanne interrupted.

“You’ve had your question for the day, Laura. Now go on home. Think about Paris.”

There was no point in arguing. The car was waiting out front for me and I was glad to slip into the comfortable backseat. My body ached. It ached from being tied up for so long, and it ached because I still wanted more from Jeanne. I was insatiable. I was curious about her and the people around her, and the curiosity made me ask her questions, which I knew she didn’t like. But it would be no hardship to give up the questions. The only thing I needed from her was her complete command over me, her willingness to go the distance it took to make me feel without a will of my own. That set off in me a feeling of freedom I’d never even thought of when I read all of those books of mine. And now there was no going back. I would never turn away from it, no matter what the cost.

As a potentially professional person in the art world, it is practically a requirement I love Paris. Or at least the idea of Paris. I’d been to the city just once before, through a college program my junior year. The trip cemented my decision to make my living in art, to study and celebrate it the rest of my life. There was hardly a better city to immerse myself in, hardly a better city for a twenty-year-old to feel bursting with life.

But during this trip at twenty-seven, I felt I actually would burst. I was eager to return to Paris, of course, but more excited still to be there with Jeanne. Was she my lover? She certainly had her way with me, tied up, strapped down, bound in countless contortions. She did with me as she pleased. Afterward, we talked about art or politics, if she felt like it, or she would just send me away when she’d had her fill.  It looked from the outside like a completely one-way relationship. Yet, I’d never felt so happy and free. She was my lover, certainly. She was my captor and my liberator as well.

There were other perks with having a rich woman dominate me and my life. We flew first class Air France to Paris, rode by stretch limousine into the city, and checked into the Ritz. I wondered if Jeanne would arrange for the Louvre to be closed for a day so we wouldn’t be bothered by tourists. Nothing she did surprised me because everything she did surprised me. I was officially numb to surprise.

The only cloud on my sunny existence was not knowing what I should or should not share with Jeanne, given that she made all the rules but only told me some of them. For instance, do I tell her Adele had been threatening me if I didn’t stop seeing Jeanne? Jeanne had made it clear she didn’t want to hear of any fighting among the women she has sex with. I thought maybe our time together in Paris would help me decide what, if anything, to say to her, without worrying whether Adele would do something crazy. It was unlikely she would be stalking me here.

At five in the afternoon on the day of our arrival, Jeanne was on the phone in our room, chattering away in French. My French was very poor, but I understood the words, “what time,” and “how many,” which exhausted my vocabulary, unless she were to ask “Where is the WC,” which she certainly would not. When she hung up, she clapped her hands together as if she’d just closed a big deal.

“That’s all set then.” She looked over to where I was tied up at the foot of the bed. We’d inaugurated the bedroom upon arrival a few hours earlier, and this is where she’d put me for my nap. I was having a hard time waking up. Jeanne seemed full of energy, and I wondered again at the twenty year difference in our ages. She seemed inexhaustible, while I felt continually sleep deprived.

Over a late night dinner Jeanne shared her thoughts on what we should see the next day, including a few visits to gallery owners she knew. Then she told me about the following night’s plans.

“It’s no surprise to you, I’m sure, that I’ve become friends over the years with dominants here in Paris. Half of them are gallery owners I’ve met while buying and selling. The art world is full of our people, which is one of the reasons I know you’ll fit right in.”

I smiled wanly. Here I was, part of yet another demographic—art-loving dominants and submissives. I knew where Jeanne was headed with her talk of the Paris members of her tribe, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. In all honesty, French people seemed off-putting enough to scare me a little. And beautiful French women who were practicing dominants? The idea of a group scene with them was alarming.

“My friend, Natalie, has a place not far from the hotel, very nice, where there are occasional gatherings of women who like to play. Luckily, we’re here for tomorrow’s soirée. I told her I was very excited to bring you along. I’m looking forward to showing you off—you and your amazing beginner’s capabilities.”

“What should I expect?” I said.

Jeanne paused for a moment and sipped her wine. “Do you really think I’m going to answer that?” She smiled and squeezed my hand. “I’ll be there with you. You’ll love it.”

The following night at eleven, after a full day of walking the city and viewing art, talking to artists and gallery owners, and a shopping spree for some new clothes for me, we arrived at her friend’s home. It was a half hour walk north from the Ritz and the Place Vendôme, on the Rue Boudreau, which Jeanne liked because it was the same as her last name. I was very quiet while we walked, mincing a bit on my new high heels.