I can see the light flashing in my mind before I even open the door to my flat. Setting my purse down on the table, my keys make their familiar clanking as they settle against the hard surface. My heels make their hollow clicks as I rush into the kitchen, the truth on the answering machine stops my heart. Immediately my hands begin to shake. He’s early, at least a week.
“White” The voice of my dreams echoes through my ears, long after I’ve finished playing this message. “White” Rewind. Play. “White” Rewind. Play. “White” Rewind. Play. “White”. This obsessive repeated listening is as much a ritual for me as the laws that govern our relationship. I can already feel the dampness in my panties begin to grow simply from the sound of the wind on his ‘W’.
White is the color of Master’s anger. Every color has a sacrifice. The sacrifice for pink is not getting to see his face, and the absence of penetration. The sacrifice I make in this name is a steep one. Before we meet I must make someone cry. It is the only part of our game that occurs away from the house, and extends beyond just the two of us.
It is with a heavy heart I lift the receiver to my ear. Quaking fingers dial the number I’ve known for years, missing the buttons, trying again. Third time is the charm and I try to keep my tone light as I invite my sister to lunch the following day.
On his stoop that evening, eyes still swollen from tears his laws help me create. Shivering in the snow, stripped to only white silk panties, garter belt and stalking set, and white three inch stiletto heels, I once more make the count. As the numbers fly through my mind so do the images of this afternoon. Choosing to see only the good things, because I know I will live the pain again only too soon. We pick a Bistro downtown, white tablecloth is Master’s order, although Mia has no idea of his existence. My mind circles around the giggly bits, her relaying the latest antics of her child. He’s ten and way too smart for her own good.
In the finishing room my mind sees the boy, smiling at Christmas dinner around a mouthful of mashed potatoes, as I part my hair and create a pair of french braids joining them at the back of my neck to form a single braid traveling to my mid-back. I hear the pride in her voice telling me his test scores and advanced placement, her hands toying with the strand of pearls at her neck, as I apply the fierce eyebrows, pearl shadow, and harsh crimson lips that make-up the face Master needs to see tonight.
The costume he has chosen is a satin corset, small silver rose vines stitched throughout, silk lacings drawn tight against my ribs, the boneing digging in a little as I float one more time, down the stairs. My mind is split between thoughts of Master’s sweet release, and the necessary evil of this afternoon. I feel myself being set down and suddenly hear his voice screaming in my head, “White, white, white,” over and over an angry bruise raising in my thoughts.
The bubble breaks, The Shoes have removed my cover, I feel his hand slip behind my neck, up between the braids, coming to rest with thumb and pinky each catching a braid and taking full control of my head and pulling me to my feet roughly. Bringing my face six feet from the eight by five screen. The first thing my eyes are allowed to focus on is my sister’s face, those quiet green eyes, widow’s peak and pixie chin, those heart shaped lips, tinted only a little, followed by her deep red hair tied back in a bun, a double twist, the rest spilling out in curls to her shoulders. Everything about Mia is chaste; from her hairstyle and sparse make up to her crisp pale yellow suit, that same string of pearls resting at her clavicle just above the lace of her clean alabaster top. I know Master appreciates my use of her in this way. She sits, larger than life before me, as still and straight as an arrow, not yet knowing the ways I am about to tear her soul open, wrapped for now in her armor of Christ’s Love and perceived moral superiority.
The broach I am made to wear is simple enough looking. A single white gold rosebud, a diamond set at the heart. It’s most interesting quality is something which would go unnoticed but to the eye trained to its discovery. Through a hole, no larger then the ball of a fine point pen peers my Master’s silent eye, the lens of the camera. Another mute witness to the art Master holds me with. I hear my own voice, tinny from the recording.
“Mia” I said. The camera catching a surprising amount of both the area and detail of the room restaurant, a keen eye might actually be able to pick out my inverted reflection in the water glass, “how long are you going to let this go on?”
I see her expression change, for the second time today, eyes widening, that ever present idiot grin slipping just a bit. And I have to admit to myself once again that this feels a little good. “The boy needs a father.” I hear myself say, and again watch her perfect chin begin to quiver. “Wasn’t that the agreement?” The ice on my last sentence chills me, then and now, and breaks her a little more.
“Please.” Is her almost whispered reply. The mic is a good one; at lunch the place was so loud it had been a lot harder to hear her.
On the mark of her word I feel his hands at my shoulders, forcing me to my knees. There is a distinct double slap as my heels hit the marble, having freed themselves at the bend of my foot. His hands remain, applying a constant pressure as I watch my sister’s heart begin to break on the screen just as it did before my eyes only a few short hours ago.
“We’ve had this talk before, Mia.”
“Please.” She said again, her eyes shaking, beginning to well with a mother’s tears. “I’m all he knows. I need him.” At the release of those words, I watch again as her breath pulls, her teeth coming down against her bottom lip with the realization this is the very wrong thing to say.
“You,” I hear myself hiss, “need him?” There is a venom on my tongue I have only heard on the tongue of one other. In so many ways he has taught me how to live. “Is that all you concern yourself with? You? What Mia needs?” –‘Stop!’ I cry again in my mind, just like the first time, ‘Don’t do it!’ But again I continue, “Is that why Grey still has no man to guide him? Is that why-“‘Oh God DON’T! Don’t use THOSE WORDS!’-“MY SON has been left at this tender age in want of a father?” ‘You did it. You stupid, stupid bitch!’
The tears fall, spilling across her salad, splashing onto the white table cloth. Back in reality I had seen myself at the table like a third party, watching myself hurt her, unable to stop, horrified at the sight of her and of myself. The bitch part of me taking over, I think, this is far too nice a place for her to be making a scene like this. Never mind I’m the one causing it.
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