Shock Wave

The girl shrugged. "My friends cleaned me up and made me do the hike. When we got back she was gone, moved out and moved on, career, life, whatever. It would've been easy to find her, but I didn't have the balls, or maybe I was too angry. Doesn't matter now. I got over it, but I could never forget."

The girl's eyes flicked up as bottomless blue as an October sky and as hard as primordial ice.

"This is for you," she said. Her slender fingers pushed a small red box across the table.

The long-shadowed memory burst free of the Dominatrix's subconscious in jagged, blinding color, its electric glare banishing all but the little box that splayed her throbbing heart as mercilessly as her chain and leather had the girl's body. Like in a dream, the Dominatrix watched rather than sensed her hands reaching out to open the box. A solitary gold stud earring gleamed on black velvet. Through tears the gold began to shimmer and dance, transporting the Dominatrix from the present to a fiery moment a decade past.

She was not the Dominatrix yet, just a young woman burning like a blade pulled glowing red from the forge, dangerous but untempered, loving but not understanding the tormenting hunger to possess, to control, to ravage. That morning, wild with desire, she had fled from herself, not the impertinent, crying girl who had awakened the dragon and divined its secret, the girl who could have ridden the dragon.

If only ...

The girl who became the Dominatrix wanted the dragon to fly wild again.

"Please stay with me," she said.

There was no answer, only a cup of cold tea, a scattering of crumbs, and an empty chair.