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“I’ve read about safe words…in your books.”

“Good. Since you’re an angel, yours will be ‘wings.’”

“Wings,” he repeated.

She dug through the briefcase for all the supplies she needed—rope, condoms, scissors. “If at any point you want to stop everything and just go home, you can say ‘wings’ and we’re done. We’ve all safed out. It’s completely okay.”

Nora shut the suitcase and slid it back under the bed. She rose up and faced him. With him in his bare feet and her in her high heels, they were almost the same height.

“Let’s practice,” she said. “I’m going to ask you to do something and you’re going to say your safe word to stop everything. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Nora took a step back and looked him up and down.

“Take your clothes off,” she ordered. Michael raised his arm and grasped the neck of his T-shirt.

“Wait,” she said and he stopped. “You’re supposed to say your safe word, angel.”

He lowered his arm slowly.

“But what if I don’t want to?”

Nora grinned at him and came so close to him she could almost hear his heart pounding in his chest.

“Then don’t.”

Michael raised his arm again and stripped out of his T-shirt. He bent over and pulled off his socks. When he got to the top button of his jeans, his courage seemed to fail him.

“Here. Let me help,” she said. Nora reached out and laid her hands flat on his stomach. They traveled down to his waistband and to the buttons. She made quick work of them and slipped a hand into his pants.

“No underwear,” she said, and Michael blushed again. “You really are one of us, aren’t you?”

His mouth was near her ear. “I want to be.” He shuddered as Nora took him in her hand. She stroked his hard length before releasing him to pull his jeans all the way down.

Michael stepped out of his jeans and stood naked in front of her.

“Do you know what these are?” she asked from the floor.

“Cuffs,” he said.

“Very good. Bondage cuffs. Two sets. One set for your ankles.” She clasped the first one around his left ankle and then his right before standing up again. “And one set for your wrists. You’ll like these.”

Michael held out his arms. Nora took his left arm in her hand. She raised it to her lips and slowly kissed the scar on his wrist. He breathed in as her mouth met his ravaged skin. She buckled the cuff around his wrist and kissed the scar on the other. She buckled his other wrist and took a step back.

He examined the cuffs on his wrists. He looked down at the cuffs on his ankles. Michael met her eyes. In his face she saw herself at age eighteen when Soren first began her training. That moment when he first revealed to her what she would become to him, how he would possess her completely when the time came…looking down at her bound wrists and ankles; it was the first time she knew what love looked like.

“Thank you,” Michael breathed.

Nora coughed a hint.

“Thank you…mistress.”

21

Soren brought Zach to another hallway—this one strangely silent and empty. Although quiet, it was far more colorful and elaborate than the other more nondescript hallways and rooms Soren had shown him. Here every door was decorated—some with extravagant S&M scenes, some with startling graffiti. One door had a faux coat of arms painted on it—a unicorn fellating a griffin. Zach had no doubt whose room that was. They stopped before a door painted only with words.

“‘We’re all mad here,’” Zach read the famous Alice in Wonderland quote aloud that was scrawled across the door in Gothic lettering. “I think she’s right.”

“There is a method to our madness. Sadomasochism was once considered a mental illness. Now for many psychologists it is an object of study rather than derision. One in ten people are said to have experimented with S&M…although I would be surprised if the number were not higher.”

“I would be in that nine.”

“I’m sure that will change. Eleanor is nothing if not persuasive.” Soren smiled at him with a smile Zach knew women must find charming but he found alarming.

“She won’t talk me into this.” Zach waved his hand at the ominously closed doors.

“Everyone should try it at least once. S&M has a curious effect on those who practice it.” Soren sounded professorial now. “The Dominant undergoes a surge of testosterone while the submissive experiences a euphoria that has been likened to the effects of opiates. But for most of us the physical sensations are the least of why we do this.”

“Why do you do it?”

Soren paused and seemed to consider the question.

“To call what Eleanor and I had ‘bliss’ would insult it. Owning her, dominating her, training her to react to the slightest command, the merest crook of my finger, the barest change in my tone, and to love someone so much that anything less than complete and utter possession is unacceptable…that is the purest joy.”

“But she left you,” Zach reminded him.

“Disobedience is as much a proof of authority as obedience. You cannot be a rebel without acknowledging a government. You cannot be a heretic until you are first a believer. And I could leave the priesthood, but I would still be a priest. The church would endure with or without me. Some vows are merely promises. But some are sacraments. Like marriage,” Soren added and met his eyes for a moment. “Yes, she did leave me, and I let her go. But she will return. Still, I imagine it isn’t simply the mix of pleasure and pain that you find disturbing, is it?”

“The hierarchy is disturbing. Women being enslaved to men. Women have fought against such treatment for hundreds of years and yet here—”

“Yet here they willingly and bravely choose to explore those aspects of their sexuality that are less than socially acceptable. Another study revealed that a shockingly high percentage of women have rape fantasies. What is the likelihood that your wife is in that minority that has not?”

“I won’t discuss my wife’s fantasies with you.”

“Did you ever discuss them with her? Forgive me. You don’t have to answer that,” Soren said in a way that was both offhanded and pointed. Zach knew Soren wasn’t asking for forgiveness at all. “Yes, we have a power structure here. Some require a power structure as they are born submissives. Others require a power structure as they are born subversives.”

“Which is Nora?”

“Which is she?” Soren smiled. “Shortly after Eleanor and I became lovers I introduced her to the blindfold. She loathed it at first.”

“Why?” Zach asked.

“I’m sure it is nearly impossible for you to imagine a virginal Eleanor, but once she was actually both timid and shy. The loss of her sight during our interludes terrified her. So naturally I employed the blindfold often.”

“Naturally.”

“One evening I noticed something strange. Just before I blindfolded Eleanor she would close her eyes. It seemed counterintuitive. Surely someone so afraid of forced blindness would keep her eyes open to drink in every precious second of sight. Then I realized what she was doing. By closing her eyes first she was choosing the darkness, blindfolding herself in a way, and subverting me with her very surrender. Astonishing. I had never been so proud of her. That’s what this place is. This is where we come to close our eyes.”