Chapter 3
He stands at the St. Andrew’s cross, a flogger in each hand, working them in a figure-eight across a woman’s back. She faces the X-shaped cross, wrists cuffed above her head. The falls land left, right, left, right, one arc crossing the other, no pause anywhere in it.
I watch the rising and the falling of her naked back. She’s standing there, bare but for a black thong.
The sound is a soft double thud, over and over. More people stand around this station than at any of the others, and they’re quieter here.
I watch his hands. The pattern never breaks, but it’s getting heavier, a little at a time, so gradually I can only tell by her skin going pink in two broad diagonal stripes.
Then her face. Eyes closed, mouth slack. She isn’t bracing for anything. She’s somewhere, and the rhythm carried her there, and each stroke keeps her under.
I’m wet again. Or still.
I don’t move. I don’t say anything.
The double figure-eight keep coming. Thud, thud. I catch myself imagining it from her side. Eyes closed. Wrists up. Nothing to do, nothing to decide, just the next stroke arriving on schedule.
He shifts his weight and keeps going.
The double figure-eight slow. Winding down like something running out, softer and softer, and then he drops both floggers against his thighs and steps in close behind her.
His hands go flat on her back. On the hot skin, both palms, and she makes a sound I feel.
He drags them down her sides, slow, and around, cupping her breast from behind while his other hand grips her ass, fingers spreading over the marks, the thong’s string a thin black line between flushed cheeks.
His mouth finds her ear. He’s saying something.
I can’t hear any of it, only watch her lips part at whatever it is.
She leans back into him as far as the cuffs allow, her whole body a long curve from her wrists down. It looks good. The lean. His forearms crossed over her, tendons standing up. The sheen on her shoulders under the light.
I want to know what he’s saying.
Then he steps back, takes up the floggers, and the falls land again. Thud, thud. Her face blossoms first into a smile then relaxes again into whatever state she was in before he pressed his body against hers.
Left, right. Left, right.
The pattern builds again. Heavier now, the thuds deeper, her skin going from pink to red along the stripes, and her mouth opens on each landing. Then it slows. Softer, softer, the arcs shrinking, until the falls are barely brushing her, and then they stop.
This time, he doesn’t step back.
He lays both floggers on a table beside the cross and goes to her.
One palm flat between her shoulder blades, on the hottest part of her, and holds it there while his other hand works the first cuff.
Her arm comes down slow, like it weighs something.
He folds it against her body before he reaches for the second.
When both wrists are free, she tips into him, all of her at once, and he takes it. She’s still gone. Her cheek finds his shoulder and stays.
He says something into her hair. She laughs, a small broken sound, and burrows in closer.
A woman has been standing near the bench this whole time.
I only notice her now, holding a folded blanket.
He turns the flogged woman toward her, one hand at the small of her back, a slow handoff, and the waiting woman wraps the blanket around her shoulders and gathers her in.
The two of them walk off toward the couches by the far wall, the wrapped one leaning, the other one steering, both of them easy with it, like they’ve done this a hundred times.
“Like what you see?”
I almost jump. Mona is standing at my elbow, close enough that I can’t believe I didn’t notice her, silver buzzcut catching the station light, watching me watch.
I take a breath and put my shoulders back down where they belong. “That flogging was beautiful. The woman looked so relaxed.”
“Gabriel’s a good guy.” Mona nods toward him. He’s wiping down the cross with a cloth, unhurried. “You should ask him for a demo. He likes to show off a bit.”
“Ooo.” Anjali, on my other side.
I jump, and she catches it and grins.
“Are you going to do it? Do it. Aren’t you glad your top comes off easily?”
“I’m here to look,” I say.
“You’ve been looking at that one for ten minutes.”
Mona holds up both hands. “No pressure from the house. But he doesn’t bite unless you negotiate it, and the demo version is very tame. Skin optional. Plenty of people take it over a shirt.”
“Over a shirt,” Anjali repeats in the tone she uses when an actor asks if they really have to be off book.
Gabriel folds the cloth and looks up. He makes eye contact with me and smiles.
It’s the first time I’ve seen his face straight on. Dark skin, a rounded face, the kind of smile that arrives all at once.
He raises his eyebrows at me. If he heard any of what Mona and Anjali were saying, he gives no sign of it.
Anjali’s hand lands between my shoulder blades, and I stumble forward a step, closer to the cross than I mean to be. The cloth in his hand smells faintly of disinfectant.
“Hello,” I say.
“Hi there. First time here?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Just a complete guess.”
I laugh. Nothing he said was funny.
He drapes the cloth over the table’s edge, next to the two floggers, laid parallel, handles toward him.
I glance around. Mona has drifted a polite few steps back. Anjali hasn’t drifted anywhere. A couple of the people who watched the flogging are still nearby, talking to each other, not to us.
“That was beautiful, what you did with her.” I gesture toward the far wall, where the two women sit folded together on a bench, the blanket around both of them now, the flogged one’s head tucked under the other’s chin.
“I’m Gabriel.” He holds out his hand.
“Gabriel, hi.” I shake it. His grip is warm and dry. He lets go at exactly the right moment.
“Now’s the part where you tell me your name. Or whatever you prefer to be called in a dungeon.” He winks.
“Oh. Um. Viv. Vivienne.”
He keeps looking at me, patient, and I hear myself from the outside. Hi. A handshake. My government name, twice, in ascending formality. He asks a simple question, and I’m playing a woman who has never had a conversation.
Behind me, Anjali is holding back laughter. I don’t have to look at her to know that.
“Would you like to try?” he says.
“Yes.”
It’s out of my mouth before I’ve decided anything. Faster than any line I’ve ever picked up. And I’m grateful for it, because if the question had sat there another two seconds, I’d have built a whole scene around it, weighed the pros and the cons and talked myself out of it.
“Great!” Gabriel gestures at the upper ends of the X. “You can leave your shirt on if you want, but most people prefer to feel the flogger on their backs. Hands go on these parts of the cross, and we start slow.”
I glance at Anjali, who takes my purse. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to.
“I’ll leave my bra on, if that’s all right.”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll only touch you on your shoulders, and that’s just so I can make sure I have your attention if I need it.”
I take off my shirt, and the air pricks my skin. It feels different, daring. I step up to the cross, my fingers finding their place on the cool, polished metal. The position feels surprisingly natural.
“Do I need a safe word or anything?” I ask. The play’s safe word is “Accordion.” It had us all chuckling in week one.
Gabriel chuckles, low and warm. “Your safe words are ‘No,’ ‘Stop,’ or ‘Fuck off, asshole.’ I respond to all three.”
The edge in the air dissipates. Under these lights, with the cross bracketing my vision, my chest relaxes and my shoulders drop.
“Got it,” I say, half-laughing.
He steps closer, solid behind me. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”