Swallowtail Ch. 09

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. What he doesn't expect is a surprise in surgical steel.

***

We're at a Vietnamese restaurant that has become our go-to place when neither of us wants to cook. It also happens to be our six-month anniversary. Half a year since Dex seduced me at the art gallery. And while that day didn't really qualify as a first date, was the day on which I fell under her thrall.

Dex gives me a look of amused surprise when I mention it. "You're tracking anniversaries? Like in high school or something?"

"Um..."

"That's so sweet!" She leans over and kisses me on the cheek and squeezes my thigh under the table. "A whole half of a year. I think that's the latex anniversary."

"I thought it was leather. Or surgical steel."

I'm surprised when she places a gift-wrapped box on the table.

"And you thought I didn't care about anniversaries," she says.

"For me?" I ask unnecessarily. I'm surprised and touched. "Do you want me to open it?"

"Sure," says Dex, smiling.

I've always liked gifts. Giving them and receiving them. Gifts that are unrelated to a holidays or birthdays or guilt are the best. They're spontaneous and unexpected, like a windfall.

I unwrap the box, vaguely aware that fellow diners are sneaking glances my way, attracted to the shiny wrapping and glittering bow. It seems that I'm not the only one into gifts.

Dex is watching intently and I smile at her. She smiles back and there's something about it that gives me pause.

I open the box, revealing something metallic shrouded by bubble wrap.

I reluctantly lift the object out and unveil it. It's a cage of sorts, accompanied by three rings of different circumference wrapped in plastic. There's a small lock and a pair of keys. "What's this?"

"A chastity device."

I look at it, turning it over in my hands, trying to parse what Dex has said.

"For you."

I dawns on me. "Shit," I say, stuffing the thing back into its box. "Jesus," I add for good measure. "For me? Why?" I take a breath and look around the restaurant. People are either intent on their food or are embarrassed on my behalf.

"It's something I've been curious about."

"You should have bought yourself one then."

"I did. This is it." She never used to smile as much before. She's blossoming now under the new role she has carved out for herself. I wonder if I'm smiling more too. Probably.

"Don't you trust me?" I ask.

"Of course I do. That's not the point."

"Then I really don't understand."

"I want you to wear it," she says simply and I know that the conversation is coming to an end.

I shake my head.

"When you wear it, you'll think of me. You know that you'll be saving yourself for me and you'll think of when we'll uncage you... And I'll be thinking of what I hold the key to."

Dex could make the Chinese water torture sound like foreplay. I shake my head and hold my tongue. This isn't a conversation that I want to have in a crowded restaurant, so I let it drop.

On the drive home I veer from indignation to arousal and back to indignation. She shoots down my objections one by one. As a submissive, I shouldn't be objecting but Dex appears to enjoy the play. I'm sure she'll let me know if I go too far.

I'm running out of objections. We arrive at my place and I'm trotting out scenarios. "What if there's an emergency? What if I need to get out? What if I'm in a car accident or something? What if the paramedics have to perform some medically necessary procedure on my groin area and they see this contraption? They'll laugh themselves to death. Then where would I be?"

"On the side of the road with a bunch of dead paramedics." Dex walks to the kitchen and removes a water bottle from the freezer. "But if you are home, there's an emergency key in here. Melt the water and retrieve the key. The time will give you the opportunity to consider whether you really want to do it."

"Can I think about it?"

Her brow furrows. I've protested once too much and I'll be lucky to escape the cane. I have trouble at times with the whole submissive thing. This is one of those times. I wonder if I should push it. Since the first episode last month, Dex has spared me the discipline I have consented to should she feel it necessary. The cane remains in a corner of the bedroom, a reminder of the dominion I have given her over me.

"I'm really not asking and I'm not giving you any more time to think about it." She smiles, taking the sting out of the words. She's onto me.

"And if I refuse?"

"The end result is the same. How you get there is different."

I can picture it now. There may be some pain but Dex is sure to provide some offsetting pleasure. It's certainly worth the price of a few welts. I refuse.

She rolls her eyes and retrieves the cane from the corner. "Drop them."

I undo my pants and push them along with my underwear to the ground. I step out of them and Dex uses the crop to spread my legs.

At times like this, I wonder what kind of aberrant spirit has possessed me to submit to this girl in this way.

She taps my bare ass a few times, warming the skin.

"Let me know when you're ready to accede to my wishes."

I grunt non-committally.

I hold on for a few strokes.

"It's too bad," she says before directing a particularly stinging blow across both cheeks.

"What?" I gasp.

"I was going to give you something to remember..."

Whack...

"...before locking you up..."

Whack...

"But you've delayed so long that there's just no..."

Whack...

"...Time."

"Enough," I gasp.

Dex lowers the cane. "It's a shame. I would have enjoyed you."

I realize belatedly my error in having tried to play her.

I'm still suspicious of the device and Dex's motivation for bringing it into our lives. The device implies a lack of trust despite the key in the freezer. It's demeaning. It's an iron maiden of pubic torture. Perhaps that's the point, I muse. Of course I say none of these things.

Wordlessly I turn to face her. Despite my misgivings, I'm curious.

Dex removes the device from the packaging. There are three rings of different sizes and a gleaming silver cage, a lattice of stainless steel bands. I can't decide whether it looks medieval or alien, like some kind of exoskeleton for my beloved unit. Whichever, there is no doubt that it's a serious piece of hardware.

"The ring," Dex explains, "goes over your cock and behind your scrotum. The cage locks into the ring."

I examine the device. It's diabolical and my idiot cock, not knowing what it's getting into, is getting aroused by it. "There's no escape," I say.

"No."

Dex chooses the largest ring. It consists of a pair of semicircles, hinged at the bottom. Where the two halves come together is a flange with a hole.

Dex opens the ring and positions the hinge at the base of my scrotum. She tries to close the ring and I yelp as the open end pinches me.

"We have a problem," she observes.

"What?"

"You're hard."

"Hmm."

"We have to do something about that."

I'm game. "What do you have in mind?"

"A cold shower would do..."

My heart sinks.

"Or perhaps this."

I'm about to ask what this is when her mouth engulfs me. It's much better than a cold shower.

My libido, it seems, has a price and does not rise up again to protest when Dex prepares it for its ignominious incarceration. She lathers my nether regions in hand lotion. There's no stirring. She positions the open ring behind my balls and closes the ring around over the top of my now slumbering cock.

"Much better," murmurs Dex.

"It's tight," I say.

"It's supposed to be."

My cock meekly enters the stainless steel cage and Dex slips the flange into the slot. With a tiny click that should really sound more ominous, she snaps the lock closed that attaches the ring to the cage.

"How does that feel?" She asks.

I move my legs, testing the range of motion now that I have a shiny piece of hardware grafted onto my privates. My balls are squeezed between the ring and the base of the cage and my cock looks sad and forlorn now that it is imprisoned. I can feel it rising tentatively to explore its new home.

Dex unclasps the chain from around her neck and slips the key to the lock onto it. The sight of the key to my release between her breasts prompts a familiar tingle of arousal.

I look at my thickening member, encased in a network of metal. No jailbreak for you, I think.

***

The first full day of chastity passes in a state of rueful discomfort and adolescent semi-arousal.

There is a steep learning curve. For one, urinating while standing is a messy affair. I have become a sitter. In addition, I have to adopt a certain wide-legged cowboy swagger to accommodate my squashed nuts. Jogging is out of the question. I move gingerly, like an old man. I make old man noises when sitting down or standing up.

And so I spend that first day trapped in a cycle of arousal, discomfort, and limp resignation. I'm glad that it is Sunday so that I can get used to the shiny new prosthetic and I return frequently to the bathroom to gaze at it in perplexed disbelief. I poke experimentally through the holes in the cage to see if I can sufficiently arouse myself just to spite Dex and her diabolical cunning. If I can achieve release despite the cage, I will have won. There's no winning however; just cramped pain and the anguish of denial. There's no denying my submission now.

The day is replete with challenges. I have to relearn how to sit, how to walk. I experiment with clothing. However flaccid I may be, the cage nonetheless protrudes slightly. It's not codpiece-obvious, but I still unconsciously adopt a slight hunch. I discover also that my wardrobe has its limitations. Sweatpants, I learn, just won't do. Nor do my thinner dress pants. I try multiple pairs of underwear, hoping that layering will hide the bulge without making me look like I'm wearing a diaper. I debate the strategic application of duct tape. In the end, I find that jeans work the best. Chinos are okay too. Even then, I have to make sure I'm properly aligned, tucked carefully behind the zipper. Any move right or left reveals an unsightly tumescence. I turn this way and that in front of the mirror, checking the results of my sartorial deliberations. I sigh. Half of the pants I own are inappropriate now as they do little to mask the fact that my privates have been assimilated by the Borg.

Resistance is futile.

Sunday is the day on which I typically run errands. Now I'm not so sure. Despite the careful placement of my encased unit behind my zipper and my belief that no one really looks there anyway, my own focus on my nether regions and awkward gait have me convinced that I will be somehow found out, that my groin is a shiny, blinking object to which everyone's attention will be drawn. It seems inevitable that I will be held up as the object of mockery the minute I step out of my house.

There's no help for it. I have to go out. I need food, for instance. I need to do some banking. I debate it. I weigh the options and consequences. I could nip out quickly, I decide. It'll be a test drive of sorts, to see whether I can function in public with imprisoned privates.

I fidget in my car on the way to the supermarket. It's impossible to get comfortable. The lock at the top of the cage digs into me. I mutter a curse under my breath and slip my hand into my pants to adjust it. This is stupid. What kind of man accepts this kind of treatment? What kind of woman would demand it?

The internet is full of men who have demeaned themselves to whip-toting, PVC-clad women with sneering faces. I know—I've looked it up. Men who lick their boots, cry in anguish at the blows that rain on them, have their cocks twisted into pretzels.

I can't believe I'm one of them now.

I take a deep breath when I exit my car. I'm terribly self-conscious as I walk to the store, glancing down repeatedly to ensure that my alignment isn't off. I'm grateful for the shopping cart and its hitherto unexpected powers of concealment.

My cock rolls meekly around in the cage as I swagger among the fruits and vegetables. Its erect bravado of the morning has evaporated. Like me, it would prefer to hide now and avoid any possibility of detection. It's unnerving that I feel it. It's somehow wrong that I should be so keenly aware of its existence as I navigate the aisles and displays among the masses who have no idea of the deviant who walks among them.

By the apples my scrotum is pinched unexpectedly and I wince and wordlessly curse Dex for having brought me to this.

By the cantaloupes, it occurs to me that I cannot, in all fairness, blame Dex for my uncomfortable condition. Doing so, I realize, misses the point. While I may have accepted her as my mistress, she is not my jailer after all, and any anger at her for my current predicament is misplaced. I've consented to this and I have no one to blame but myself if submission isn't all sunshine and roses. It's easy, I realize, to fall into the victim trap, to forget that the dom is only dominant at the pleasure of the sub, particularly when you're tied down and being flogged, or when you're wearing a steel cage around your cock. I imagine that it's easy for the dom to forget too. For the sub to be a victim, the dom, by definition, must be a victimizer, one who preys on the weakness of others. I don't see our relationship in those terms. I'm no more a victim, having consented to this and having the freedom to stop it, than Dex is some kind of heartless tyrant.

The key to this contraption is sitting in my freezer, after all. Freedom is a short melt away.

If I remain caged, it is entirely my choice. Whether or not I choose to suffer the consequences and discomfort is again my choice.

The thought, started among the cantaloupes and completed somewhere around the deli counter, where a young girl is eager to take my order, washes over me. I am a submissive only as long as I choose to be. I have it in my power to stay or leave. As Dex once said, there's a difference between creating a pussy and taming a lion.

"Sir?" says the girl.

I'm certainly no pussy. I'm still a lion, I hope, albeit one who has recognized the benefits of being tamed. It's entirely within my rights to throw off the shackles of captivity at any time and again prowl the world as I once did...

"Sir?"

"Head cheese," I say. "Two hundred grams."

The girl turns to the slicer.

...but I am not so inclined. Dex has demonstrated that she is a master of balancing pain and pleasure, risk and reward. And so the lion gladly accepts these gifts. My keeper has grown on me...

"Anything else?"

"No thank you."

...and has introduced me to a world of heightened sensitivity and unexpected pleasure. For all the missteps we've had and frustrations she has subjected me to, I feel that Dex is the one person who has understood me the best. For whatever reason, this strange woman recognized something in me that I had no idea existed. For that reason I forgive her occasional aloofness and inscrutability.

I navigate the rest of the supermarket with more confidence now. I feel that it is incumbent on me to honor her by accepting the device without frivolous complaint. As ego is a poison for the dom, so too is diffidence for the sub. It is possible and necessary—I see that now—for the sub to be confident in his submission. Confident that his mistress is attuned to him and his needs, confident what she will respect the limits.

I buy some talcum powder to help with the chafing.

I'm less distressed and self-conscious when I leave the grocery store. Perhaps being out and about for an hour had helped. Maybe I'll even attempt the hardware store. I don't check my reflection in the windows as I walk by. I was right before—no one looks. And if they do, who cares? I can be as discreet about this as I am with other parts of my life. And if I get home without incident and the paramedics don't reveal my sad state, no one ever needs to be the wiser.

Yes, the device is uncomfortable, both physically and symbolically, but I don't believe it is an expression of mistrust on the part of Dex, nor is it designed to humiliate. It is at most a symbol of control, and because I have willingly given it up, there's little point in complaining about it now.

I get into my car with a noise, part groan of discomfort, part sigh of relief. By the time I return to my house and unpack the groceries, my nuts are chafing and there is a warning ache in my lower back.

I won't ask her to remove the device, though I'm tempted to. I won't beg. Dex would lose respect for me if I did. I'd lose respect for myself. Inasmuch as it's still possible to have self-respect while wearing a chastity device, I remind myself again that it's something I've accepted voluntarily.

I draw strength from my discomfort, knowing that each moment that passes brings release closer.

I invite Dex over for dinner. Although I won't ask for release, I'm not above hoping that she might have some kind of merciful pardon in mind.

She defers until Monday night.

That's okay with me.

***

I wake on Monday morning having had another miserable night of sleep. Every toss, every turn, is accompanied by a pinching of my swollen and distended nuts or twisting of the cage. I find myself in an array of unnatural positions that ease discomfort but deny sleep. In my dream, the cage is Dex's firm grip.

In the shower I direct a stream of icy water at my groin but even that is insufficient to the task of subduing my fevered prisoner. I think of the movie Papillon. I think of Houdini. Neither provides any inspiration or distraction. I feel that I will forever have the imprint of metal etched on my tender flesh.

I pat myself down with talcum powder.

I put on the thickest pair of chinos I have. Despite my near certainty that I am sufficiently concealed, I know I will be self-consciously crotch gazing all day.

We've just landed a contract for a series of radio spots for a home improvement chain. A script review is the first order of business on Monday morning.

I sit carefully in the boardroom. My balls, splayed out between the ring and the cage, rub my inner thighs and anything but a careful and considerate lowering of the buttocks might cause a painful crushing in that area, as I learned again this morning when I launched myself unthinkingly into the bucket seat of my car.

Roger, our lead writer, reads us the script. From the opening lines, I know exactly where he's going. It pisses me off.

While Roger tries to win us over with his idea, I think for a moment about fathers and sons. I try to apply the picture that Roger is painting to my father. I can't. I try to apply it to me and I can't either, but I know too many guys to whom it sadly does apply.

I have a theory about what happened to guys between my dad's generation and mine. My dad, it should be said, was old school. No touchy-feely bullshit for him. As far as I know, he only wept once as an adult, when his own mother died. I never saw it; I only heard about it, second hand. I remember him being busy all the time, doing the things a man used to do for himself rather than paying another man to do them for him. Fixing his car, for instance. Or building things. I remember the incessant scream of the circular saw when I, as a late teen, would be nursing a hangover on Sunday morning, cursing my dad and his bloody circular saw and what it did to television reception. He was always building things, and perhaps trying to build a son in his own image, by his example.

I came around to his way of thinking and eventually asked him for help and learned some things along the way. Like how to be a man.