Chapter 21

Dana marked Valerie’s first month with a candle-lit dinner; the romantic overtones of such a celebration were subverted by the fact that, opposite her at the table, Valerie was clad from the neck down in black latex, and bound tightly to the dining room chair. She had just enough range of motion in her hands and arms that she could reach her own food and wine, but she couldn’t reach any of the knots or hardware that held her in the chair.

“It seems to have gone by so quickly,” Dana murmured in between bites of mushroom croquette. “Don’t you think?”

“I..” Valerie’s voice quivered, and she moaned softly before she could fully articulate the thought.

Aside from the bonds themselves, a vibrator was positioned against her dick, and a matching plug buzzed away inside her. Electro-stim pads were stuck around each nipple and on her inner thighs, providing a counterpoint to the vibrations. Dana controlled them all from a smartphone sitting next to her plate; between bites, she would reach over and adjust the patterns and intensities. The stimulation varied from intensely pleasurable to a buzzing, clenching pain; just beyond what Valerie thought she could bear. Each time it crested just a little bit higher, she found she could survive it, after all.

Valerie was panting and shaking slightly by the time the stimulation tapered off. It took her a few moments and a few gulps of water to collect herself again. “Hiii..” she managed, having forgotten the topic of conversation. “Sorry.. what..?”

“I said that this last month seems to have passed so quickly.”

Valerie blinked silently as the words assembled themselves into rational concepts.

“I, um..”

The stimulation had tapered off, for the moment, to a low tingle, and just enough of on occasional buzz from the vibrator to remind her that that part of her anatomy existed; Valerie was more collected, but unsure how to respond. The uncertainty was visible on her face, and her gaze slanted away from Dana’s, avoiding eye contact.

“Tell me.” Dana’s voice sounded genuinely concerned, but also held a note of command.

“It’s just..” Valerie started, and paused, chewing on her lower lip. “When you’re working or.. you’re out.. sometimes.. uhm..”

She felt embarrassed and a little afraid to continue; but she was also aware she’d been given a command. She drew back into the chair, into her bonds, a little bit- not that she could move much; and her eyes were fixed downward staring at her latex-clad thighs. She felt trapped, hesitant to disobey the command but also hesitant to speak her truth.

Dana lifted one arched eyebrow, a silent order for Valerie to continue the thought.

“Sometimes I don’t have much to do and I get a little bored,” she finished, hurriedly.

Her eyes flicked upward briefly just to gauge what kind of impact her words had made on Dana.

Dana took a thoughtful sip of her wine, savoring the flavor as she thought about what Valerie had said. Valerie moaned slightly as the stimulation started to ramp back up; but Dana reached over and tapped a button on the control app on her phone.

For a brief moment, Valerie thought she was about to be hit with the punishing kind of shocks she knew the e-stim devices were capable of, and which Dana had used on her earlier in the evening. The stimulators were capable of rapid and inescapable spikes of electricity, which felt like the perfectly-timed and relentless strikes of an evil stick on her most sensitive places.

Instead, the stimulation and vibration shut off completely. She gasped for breath like a weight had suddenly been removed from her chest.

“Why didn’t you say something earlier?” Dana asked, mildly.

She didn’t sound upset to Valerie; she sounded slightly.. disappointed. Valerie was not sure that this was better. She felt guilty, and ungrateful; the emotions gnawed at her core.

“I don’t.. I didn’t.. um.. you..” Valerie’s fumbling made it clear she didn’t really know why, but she grasped for an explanation nonetheless.

“You thought I would be upset,” Dana offered. The crimson blush that climbed Valerie’s cheeks was all the confirmation she needed.

“You’ve done so much..” Valerie’s voice was soft; small; and she was on the verge of tears. “I didn’t want to make a fuss.”

The truth was that the boredom had been the hardest part for Valerie, after the initial novelty had worn off. Dana rarely worked full days, but it was also rare that she didn’t spend an hour or two at least coordinating her personal or professional business, and at least once or twice a week she would put in a full eight hours or more.

The woman had investments to attend to, and she was the main organizer for a co-op of mostly trans and queer independent professionals. She was not compensated for her work with the co-op, but it was a point of pride that she could user her skills and contacts to put work in the hands of people she felt needed it; and she spent a substantial amount of time being the professional face of the organization, especially when dealing with old-fashioned clients that could balk at the sudden appearance of a troupe of pink-haired transgender hackers.

These activities, plus a social life that she had largely not included Valerie in, kept Dana busy most days and more than a few evenings; and frequently saw her flying out for short one- or two-night trips to attend to work. Valerie had been largely left to her own devices during these trips, with no way to leave the house, no access to any of the computers or other devices, and nothing much to do but wander the property. The smart lighting and other systems wouldn’t even respond to her commands. She had memorized the ingredient list of every item in Dana’s pantry.

The boredom had been so maddening that she had even taken to working out in Dana’s small home gym, of her own accord.

“You’ve been trying so hard, little toy.” Dana said, after a few moments of thought.

Those cool dark eyes of hers watching Valerie contemplatively. Freed for the moment from the distraction of the stimulators, Valerie found herself lost in the woman’s eyes.

“I didn’t think about how much free time you have,” Dana continued. “I’ll be sure to keep you a little more occupied from now on.”

Valerie didn’t have time to fully process whether she could detect a hint of deviltry in the woman’s words; Dana immediately reached over and resumed the stimulation program, which picked up in the middle of a peak moment. Valerie gasped at the sudden onslaught, and made a sound halfway between a moan and a strangled scream. She strained both to escape the chair- which was completely fruitless- and to try and reach the e-stim pads, but sealed as they were beneath the locked-on latex, she could find no relief there, either.

The stimulators tapered down a moment later and she breathed heavily, and collapsed into her bonds, eyes crossed and unfocused.

A week later found Dana in elegant repose on a sofa, and Valerie bound lightly but thoroughly with bright red rope; resting on a cushion on the floor, leaning against the couch with her head against Dana’s thigh. They watched the credits of a movie scroll by.

“That was.. much better than I expected,” Dana murmured, petting Valerie’s hair. “I never knew you were such a cinephile.”

Valerie blushed softly, somehow feeling more embarrassed by the compliment than by the fact that she was bound and naked save for a leather collar and what felt like a mile of soft hemp rope.

“I didn’t have much, um, energy for it, before.. with work.. and everything..”

“You have good taste.” Dana leaned over and kissed the girl softly on the top of her head. “I want to watch more of the movies you like.”

“Oh- um, okay..” Valerie discovered she felt a little giddy at the approval. Dana had been hesitant about the film- she tended to prefer lighter and more modern fare, and the forty-plus-year-old lesser-known Herzog was certainly not that.

“Also, I have a couple pieces of good news for you.”

Valerie craned her neck upward to regard Dana. She still felt a little thrill as the ropes pulled on her body as she strained to turn and look. This mix of casual bondage with cozy domesticity was almost more of a turn on than the intense and focused kink that Dana regularly engaged in with her.

Dana produced a flat, square box of richly polished black wood, about six inches along each long side and an inch thick.

“You won’t need to wear that leather collar anymore.” She opened the box with a small flourish and lowered it down in front of Valerie so that she could see it.

The collar nestled inside the box looked… elegant. And expensive. It looked like jewelry, like art. It was a band of metal about half an inch tall; and perhaps a quarter-inch thick. Understated, as far as collars could go. The leather one she wore, by contrast, was slightly more than an inch high. It looked like it would be too small for her neck, but she felt sure Dana would not make a mistake like that.

The collar was primarily some shiny metal that Valerie thought was perhaps steel. The outside was decorated with a swooping organic motif rendered by way of selectively sanding the outside material to a silky finish, more matte than the reflective metal that constituted the background of the pattern. In four spots placed equally around the collar, the organic forms arched away from the polished background, leaving gaps that conveniently looked like carefully-placed attachment points. A ring dangled from the front of the collar, just big enough to easily slip a thumb or finger through. More than big enough for a lock or the snap hook of a leash.

The collar curved in three dimensions, nothing so simple as a circle or an oval, but instead a graceful shape that looked designed to precisely hug her throat and rest gently just on top of her collarbones. The collar was two separate pieces, with some kind of precision-machined interlocking mechanism at the joints, allowing the two halves to mate together.

Dana produced a key, and unlocked the leather collar from Valerie’s neck. She felt strangely naked without it; she’d worn it constantly over the past several weeks, but for a handful of short breaks. She was surprised by how much she felt its absence.

“I’m sorry it took so long, but the manufacturers needed very precise measurements, and there’s some lead time.”

“It’s a tungsten and titanium alloy,” Dana explained, as she fitted the collar around Valerie’s neck.

The circle of metal was still loose while she worked the mechanisms closed; it was heavier than she expected.

“Designed as a wear-resistant surface for heavy, precision industrial machines. Not magnetic, so it shouldn’t trip metal detectors, and it should even be MRI safe.”

Valerie felt, but couldn’t see, some kind of tool get fitted into the attachment points that straddle one of the machined joints. A thin piece of plastic slipped under the joint as the tool closed it made sure it didn’t pinch the soft skin of her neck.

“There’s a short range-” Dana grunted with the effort of squeezing the closing tool until a substantial click signaled the first of two latches was closed.

“-short range tracking beacon, unpowered, good up to about a mile. And an air tag,” she waggled a hand, “basically- which we’ll need to keep charged.”

“Just in case I lose you again,” Dana murmured in Valerie’s ear, with a smile, and a small peck of a kiss on the girl’s earlobe.

She repositioned the tool to work the other latch closed.

“I’m told that-”

Dana grunted again as she worked the second and final latch closed with another heavy click.

“-that a properly equipped machinist can probably cut it off of you safely, if I ever want to remove or replace it. But otherwise, it may as well be a part of you, now.”

Dana ran an appreciative finger along the side of Valerie’s neck, just above the line of the collar. Valerie hesitated a moment as she processed Dana’s final words, and the import of the two clicks she felt.

She started to hyperventilate, panicking at the suddenness of having a band of titanium locked permanently around her neck, or near enough. She struggled to raise her hands to the collar to feel it, to try to pull it off; but the ropes had too little slack for that. The leather collar had been locked on basically 24/7, but she always knew that she’d be able to get it off easily enough with some heavy shears or a steak knife.

“Hey, hey…” Dana coos in her ear, petting the side of her head. “It looks so beautiful on you. There’s a good toy, easy, now, shhh…”

It took Valerie several minutes to stop struggling, during which time she made no progress in loosening her bonds or reaching the collar. The feelings surging in her head and heart were too muddled for her to articulate any thoughts about it, and she only gasped and whined as she fought with the expertly-tied ropes.

Finally, she rested, exhausted from pulling against unyielding rope, and leaned heavily against the side of the couch. Her heart hammered in her chest, and she could feel the tempo of it against the embrace of the collar- so perfectly fitted that it didn’t feel like it pressed against her skin, but nevertheless every beat of her pulse and every swallow reminded her of its presence.

“Also, I need to leave for a client kick-off next week.”

The change of topic seemed to help Valerie calm down a little more and refocus, its suddenness snapping her out of her panicked spiral.

“Next- for.. for how long?”

Dana had not traveled since their talk during the anniversary dinner- a trip meant a day or two or three of long, empty hours. This didn’t land with Valerie as good news, as Dana had promised.

“Hey, hey.” Dana gently scratched on the side of her head. “The good news is that Lucca is going to come take care of you. They’ve been asking about you, anyway.”

Valerie blinked in surprise; she had not really exchanged more than a few words with Lucca the night of her rescue, and had not had a conversation with them since then. She knew, however, that Dana and Lucca usually spoke at least a couple times a week.

“Does.. uhm.. does she know…”

“She knows about the contract, yes.” Dana smiled down at her. “She’s into this kind of thing too, though she has a different..” the woman’s smile widened ever so slightly, “..style than I do.”

Valerie nodded. She already felt anxious about the new collar, and the idea of being handed over to someone like a pet or a piece of property entwined itself within that anxiety. She found, unexpectedly, that she wasn’t sick with fear or outrage- she felt helpless, and aroused, and any words of complaint she may have had were instead transformed into a small whimper.