Swallowtail Ch. 12

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A party to remember.
6.7k words
4.78
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1

Part 12 of the 13 part series

Updated 11/02/2022
Created 06/04/2013
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ktmccoll
ktmccoll
383 Followers

Swallowtail is a novel that traces the narrator's gradual acceptance of submission.

Previously: The narrator has given Dex blanket consent and is prepared to explore what submission to her might mean. As the narrator becomes more comfortable with submission, his dom continues to test his limits.

***

There are days, perhaps weeks at a time, when Dex and I live and love as other couples do and the floggers, whips, cuffs, and other devices remain tucked away in a large steamer trunk at the foot of my bed. Though they remain largely unseen save for the crop that leans against the wall by my bed, I cannot forget them. That they exist adds a certain potential to our relationship. Whenever I become too comfortable or Dex feels the need to reassert herself or it's simply time to play, she dons the mantle of a dom and I willingly submit to her. Then there is great pleasure or great pain and often both. Rather than being unsettling, this oscillation in our relationship is the forge that gives it strength. Comfort, I've come to realize, breeds laziness.

We're lying in bed on Sunday morning. The chastity device that she often makes me wear lies between our pillows. An hour earlier I chafed in its tight and implacable embrace; now I'm in no condition to protest should it be returned. Dex fingers the piercing that she inflicted on me so many months ago—a small bar that hugs the underside of my cock, just behind the glans. It feels like an age since I got it. I think back on my jaded innocence when I entered the tattoo studio that day. Things have changed.

"Can you be obedient?" she asks. "Do whatever is commanded, no questions asked?"

Dex has her head on my chest. Her hand becomes still on my cock, so I'm not sure to whom her question is addressed.

We've had this discussion before and I'm instantly alert. Whenever Dex probes my limits in this way, I know she's up to something. She knows that she has my consent and trust but occasionally needs me to articulate it. I'm grateful for it but I make a show of doubt, because that's part of the dance too. "I don't know," I say. "Depends what you ask of me."

Dex shakes her head. "Do you trust me not to ask something of you that crosses the line?"

"Do you know where all of my lines are?" I counter.

"I have a good idea. We've come up against several already."

It's true. I've been induced to do things that I couldn't have even imagined months ago. With few exceptions, Dex has anticipated my limits well. The whole question of lines and limits is a bit delusive anyway. Every line crossed with no negative consequences establishes the new normal and draws a new line in the distance. Lines are simultaneously limits and objectives.

"Do you trust me enough?" she asks again.

"I do, but on the off chance that I can't comply, what then?"

She reminds me of my safeword and signal, in case I can't talk at the moment.

I give in. "Why are you bringing this up now? What do you have in mind?"

"There's a party this weekend. I'd like you to come."

"What kind of party?"

Dex is stroking my cock again, playing her fingernails along its length. It's distracting. "Some friends of mine. People that share the same lifestyle that we do."

I used to think of it as dabbling in kinkiness. Now it's a lifestyle. As I said, things have changed.

***

Dex tells me that a dom she knows is having a coming out party for a new sub. It's an opportunity, she explains, for a dominant to present his submissive. For the latter, it's a public statement of submission. I shake my head. I don't understand why anyone would need to make a public statement like this. Dex tells me to think of it as a wedding reception, only in this case there's a different dynamic at play. I ask her whether there's some kind of wedding register I should know about. Maybe they need a new St Andrew's cross or something. Dex scowls at me and I shut up.

She explains that it probably won't be the kind of BDSM orgy that she knows I've explored on the internet. She says that her friends are my type of people—whatever that means—and that they have strict rules and none of them are particularly into depravity or humiliation. I voice some reservations. Humiliation is in the eye of the beholder, I say. Dex says it's in the eye of the sub. If the sub sees no humiliation, then there is none. If the beholder has a problem with it, the beholder can look away.

Even then, when I imagine this coming out party and all that it might entail, I can't help but to feel for the sub, for the treatment that she might be forced to endure. I realize that I've applied my own insecurities to this sub I don't yet know but for whom I feel some kinship. We're members of the same strange and complex club. I'm not sure what to expect and tell Dex as much. She tells me that she really doesn't know what to expect either. It might be a few drinks and idle talk or it might be more than that. It depends on the dom and the sub and what they've negotiated between themselves and what they feel comfortable with.

It's a coming out party of sorts for me too and I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with that either. For the last year it's been just me and Dex on our private little island of lasciviousness, exploring the possibilities of dominance and submission. Off that little island I'm just one of the guys—ogling pretty girls, forcing laughter at blond jokes, commiserating with my peers that women just don't know what they want. It's still hard to reconcile that version of me with the version that lets himself be trussed up and flogged and compelled to wear a chastity device and do all of these things gladly. And even if I am among strangers who, as Dex says, share the lifestyle, it's still a public affirmation of a private arrangement.

I try to explain this to Dex and she flashes me a look of understanding and concern. I sense that there's something else too. I've been so focused on my own insecurities that I haven't, until now, seen that Dex genuinely wants to go to this thing. It's important to her. She wants to introduce me to her friends. She wants to come out, with me.

"But you'll do it for me, right?"

I sigh. "I'll do it for you."

"Thank you."

"Does this kind of thing happen often? Coming-out parties?" I ask a while later.

Dex shakes her head. "Depends on the dominant. Some are exceedingly private, others are into exposure and the aesthetics of submission. Some like sharing or being shared." Dex smiles. "I'm one of the private ones, in case you were wondering," she adds, anticipating my unspoken concern.

***

We enter one of the swanky condos that line the waterfront like a concrete and glass curtain that shields those with less affluence from a view of the lake. The lobby is a temple to conspicuous wealth. It is a cavernous space of marble and stone and fireplaces that are more for show than warmth. The concierge glances up. There's a look of recognition that Dex ignores.

"Quite the place," I say.

"It's okay. I like yours better."

We enter the elevator. Dex presses 37. She stares at the number for a moment, mutters a curse, and then presses 35. The doors close.

When we arrive on the 35th floor, Dex makes no move to exit the elevator.

"What's going on?"

The doors close again and we move up two floors.

She hesitates when the doors open and shoots her hand between them as they begin to close again. She steps out and I follow.

"Dex?"

She closes her eyes for a moment. "This is where I live," she says.

I'm confused. "There's no party?"

"There is. Two floors down." Dex lowers her head. "This floor is where I live. Force of habit, pressing the number." She shakes her head, seemingly bemused.

I follow Dex to a door at the end of the hall. She unlocks it and invites me inside.

"Welcome to my home."

"You live here?"

Dex nods and turns on the lights.

The entire place is starkly white with some pieces of black furniture. It's impossible to tell whether it's an attempt at trendiness or an inability to decorate beyond the monochrome. I pass the kitchen on the way to the living room. An envelope on the counter catches my attention. I glance at Dex who is standing, arms crossed, by the front door. I pick up the envelope. It's addressed to Dorothy Xavier.

I remember the small boat at the cottage then. Dorothy Elizabeth. Dorothy Elizabeth Xavier.

Dex.

"I'll still call you Dex, okay?"

She nods.

The living room features a floor-to-ceiling window that overlooks Lake Ontario. The view is breathtaking and beyond the reach of most.

I enter the master bedroom, which like the rest of the place is neat and black and white. A pair of paintings hangs over the king size bed. I recognize them. They're from the show where I first met Dex.

I back out of the bedroom and glance into a second one, smaller, and done up as an office. There is a laptop on a desk and binders. There are graphs tacked to a board behind the desk. I take a closer look. They show stock prices of various companies, with lines and acronyms that I don't understand.

Dex has approached silently. I'm jolted when she speaks. "My dad left me more than the cottage. I invested well. That's what I do—investing."

"Not piercing?"

Dex laughs tentatively. "It's my hobby." She hesitates. "I own that too."

"What?"

"The studio."

I don't know what to say.

"I'm a silent partner," she says.

"Okay."

We return to the living room and look out onto the lake. "Why didn't you tell me?"

It dawns on me that I am here, finally, in Dex's inner sanctum. A place that she has guarded from me for almost a year. A place that should reveal her essence to me but does not. Or maybe it does. It looks like a show home, like a real estate agent could, at any moment, bring prospective buyers in. Nothing is out of place. All of it is spotlessly clean. What it doesn't do is reveal her personality to me, unless that personality is one of furious anal retentiveness. I compare this place to mine, where Dex has over a period of months slowly imprinted herself and the two are as dissimilar as they could possibly be. To my place, Dex has brought flowers. She has brought artwork that both of us have admired at one time or another. I see more of her at my place on the escarpment, overlooking the town, than I do here. I have no idea what it means.

"At first I figured it was none of your business. I treasure my privacy. Later it didn't seem to matter. You didn't ask and I didn't tell. Then it felt like it was too late." Her fingers brush my hand. "Do you understand?"

Lights blink on an island and I can see a freighter further out, bound for Hamilton or one of the states on the other side of the lake. "No," I say. "Not really."

I'm not angry with Dex for having so closely guarded her privacy. I can understand it. What I am, though, is disgusted with my own lack of curiosity about Dex and how long I've allowed myself to wallow in the treacle of ignorance, content to spend almost a year of my life with someone I know next to nothing about.

"What's wrong?" she asks.

I tell her.

"Ask away," she says.

"What's your birthday?"

"May 8."

"Year?"

"1989."

I do the math. I knew how old she was but this confirms it. At least she's not younger.

"Siblings?"

"No."

"What's your favorite color?"

"Green."

"When did you lose your virginity?"

"At fourteen."

"What was his name?"

"I don't remember."

I scowl at her.

"It wasn't that memorable," she says.

"Have you been with anyone else since you've been with me?"

"No."

I can't think of anything else to ask. Here she is, answering my questions, and I can't for the life of me think of anything else.

"What else should I know about you?" I ask, buying time.

She looks at me. I think that she may be wrapping herself again in her cloak of secrecy. Then she speaks again. "I love you."

***

We're both quiet as we wait for the elevator to take us down the two floors from Dex's apartment. Her words still echo in my mind. She reaches for my hand and squeezes it tentatively. I still haven't spoken the reciprocal words. I squeeze back my reassurance but maintain my silence.

We're ushered into the condo by a trim man in his mid-fifties. He seems genuinely happy to see us. He kisses Dex on the cheek and shakes my hand warmly, as though we're old friends. The host's name is Michael and he's a lawyer. Beyond that, there's nothing about him that suggests any kind of deviance. I don't know what I was expecting about this coming out party—gay biker chic, dungeon duds, leather body harnesses and chaps—but there's nothing like that. Not even a lecherous grin. Michael is charming and affable, casually attired in slacks and a well-tailored dress shirt, open at the collar. There's no sign of his sub.

Dex and I are led to a group of people who are sipping wine by the living room windows. They're enjoying the same view that Dex and I took in two floors above. The condo itself is tastefully decorated and is more colorful than Dex's space. The place speaks of ease and comfort and casual affluence.

It's a small gathering. There are eight of us. We're the last to arrive, thanks to our detour. The group appears to be well heeled, wealthy, and professional. It's not the kind of crowd I expect my goth princess to rub elbows with, but then she's obviously more than just a goth princess now. It seems that in this as with everything, I have underestimated her. There are kisses and hugs all the way around, exclamations of how good everyone looks, idle chitchat and more than a few curious looks my way.

The other members of the party include a female doctor and an investment banker who appear to be a couple. I don't know who's who in their relationship. A nurse and an executive at a software company round out the group.

I feel comfortable with these people and can detect no undercurrent of the lifestyle that has brought us here. It's just a group of shiny people who are in good health and humor.

Michael brings us our drinks—wine for Dex and a single-malt scotch for me. I watch Dex as she exchanges pleasantries with the others in the room. I relax in the reflected glow of the comradeship that Dex shares with these people. Seeing her here, chatting and smiling, I undergo one of those shifts in perspective that leaves one momentarily disoriented. Everything I've assumed about her has germinated in that tiny erotic incubator we've created for ourselves. Here among her friends and peers I begin to recognize the dimensions of her that I hadn't, in my willful ignorance, even considered as possible. A social being. One with friends and a history. One who is valued.

If there was a part of me that felt superior to her, that part is now extinguished.

She winds her arm in mine and draws me back into the circle. I hadn't realized that I'd retreated. I'm asked questions about what I do, how long Dex and I have known each other. I'm being gently interrogated for my suitability for their friend. I answer their questions honestly and I can see the group relaxing and opening up to me. I've confirmed to them what they have heard about me. I have been accepted.

At that moment I undergo another one of those shifts. I realize that I'm proud of Dex. Proud of my relationship with her. I thought that I would have been embarrassed to be led around by anyone, but I'm not. I size up the other doms and subs here and can sense the different dynamics at play. There's a greater degree of attentiveness here, a desire to acknowledge and to please that I've seldom seen elsewhere.

I'm about to lean over and whisper reciprocity in Dex's ear when Michael stands with his wine glass raised.

"It's wonderful that you've been able to come and share in this moment. As you know, Eve has agreed to come out as it were, and as an expression of that submission and trust has agreed to be presented to you, my dear friends, in the role that she has accepted. This is," continues Michael, looking at me, "something that Eve wanted. To share this moment and herself with those she holds the most dear."

The bedroom door opens and a tall brunette enters. Save for a some straps of leather, she is nude. Full breasts are framed by a series of leather straps that extend from a central ring. Her wrists and ankles sport thick leather cuffs. She is barefoot and walks with the graceful self-assurance of a dancer.

I am struck at the obvious confidence and pride in her bearing as she enters the living room. She presents herself to the lawyer, kneeling on the floor, arms locked behind her back, assuming the position that I've seen on the internet.

The assembled guests are smiling. No one is embarrassed for themselves or for Eve. It's as though this is the most natural thing in the world, which I imagine it might be for these people.

Around Eve's neck Michael places a gleaming collar that appears to be of gold. Its beauty only partially masks its function—a golden ring sways from the front of the collar as Michael locks it in place.

"He's always appreciated theater," whispers Dex.

"You may mingle," says Michael as he helps Eve to her feet.

Eve smiles and kisses her master on the lips. I watch shamelessly and feel unmoored by Eve's casual nudity as she navigates the room.

More pleasantries are exchanged and Michael turns his attention to Dex.

"Dex, it's great that you are here."

"I appreciate the invitation. Besides sharing in this moment, it gives me an opportunity to present to you a friend of mine as well." Dex introduces us and we shake hands.

We chat about the mundane topics that people chat about at the beginning of a party. The weather (it has been hot and humid), baseball (the Jays are out of contention), and the various shows that are coming to town.

Eve eventually joins her master and smiles at Dex and me. "It's been a while," she says.

Dex smiles. "I've been busy."

"I can see why. We've missed you."

Dex nods. "May I?" she asks, looking at Michael.

"Of course."

Dex faces Eve. Smiles flicker on both their faces. Dex circles Eve, her hand trailing a circle around the woman's hips and buttocks. Facing the slave, Dex cups one of her breasts while studying the woman's reaction. Eve tries for a submissive mien but doesn't quite succeed in entirely hiding a smile. Dex brushes her fingers across the woman's nipples.

"She's pretty, as always," she says.

"Thank you," says Eve.

"She's not broken though," says Dex with mock sadness.

"I prefer it that way," says Michael. "The fun is in the attempt. I hope I never fully succeed in taming her."

"I agree," says Dex, glancing at me.

Michael doesn't miss the exchange and smiles.

Dex pinches the woman's nipple and twists. Eve gasps.

"I sense that you might enjoy the attempt," says Michael.

Dex smiles. "I would."

"I think that might be arranged, provided Eve agrees."

Eve nods. "If it pleases you."

"But first," says Michael, "I think is time to prepare our little feast."

"Will you help Eve?" Dex asks me.

"Sure." I say.

***

Eve takes my hand and leads me to the dining room. She closes the door. I see the guests through the glass panes but their conversation is muted.

Now that I'm alone with her, I feel self-conscious. I struggle to look into Eve's eyes while her nudity lends my gaze a certain gravity. "What do you want me to do?"

"Set the table."

"I can do that."

"Good." Eve arranges a cloth on the table and places a cushion at its head. She then climbs up on it and spreads her long limbs to the four corners. "I'm the table," she says.

"I don't understand."

"You will. There are lengths of rope in the credenza. Tie me up."

"Ah."

"There is also a package of alcohol wipes. Bring that too."

Eve instructs me to tie each of her cuffs to the legs of the table. Tight, she says, but not too tight. Once she is secure, she asks me to wipe her down with the alcohol wipes.

ktmccoll
ktmccoll
383 Followers
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