The Key – Part 2: Seven Days

By the third day he noticed everything. The smoothness of her wrist when she passed him a cup. The shape of her shoulder under a silk shirt. The small sound she made when she stretched. He had always loved her, but this was a different quality of attention, as though he had been looking at her through glass for years and the glass had been taken away.

She was never cruel. She was exact. She set him small tasks, and watched them done. She told him in the evenings, in the ten minutes, what she expected of him tomorrow, in a low even voice that he found himself waiting for all day. She corrected him with a finger under his chin. She let the silence stretch until it was unbearable, and then ended it with a question so gentle he nearly wept. How are you, my love?

"Wanting," he said, on the fourth night. "Very much."

"Good." She stroked his hair. "Is it too much?"

"No."

"Say it honestly."

"It is a lot," said Tobias. "It is exactly the right amount of a lot."

"Then we continue."

On the fifth day she wore the key outside her blouse, and every time she bent to pick something up, it swung. By the sixth he could not read a page of a book. He lay awake beside her, watching the ceiling, and the only thing in the world was the quiet breathing of the woman who held his key.

"Are you content?" she asked, in the ten minutes.

"Content, Mistress."

"Do you need the envelope?"

"No." He caught her hand. "I need you to keep going."

"I will." She kissed his knuckles. "I always will. Not one hour over, and not one hour under."

On Sunday, at six, as promised, she sat him on the edge of the bed, lifted the chain over her head and held the key between her fingers.

"Seven days," said Marlowe, softly. "You kept every term. So did I."

"Yes."

"Would you like to say anything?"

"Thank you," said Tobias, hoarsely. "I didn't know I could."

"You could. You did." She turned the key in her fingers. "Now. This is the part where I am no longer the Mistress, only myself, and I would like to tell you that I have thought about nothing else all week."

He laughed, a ragged, wondering sound.

What followed was long and slow and tender, and it belonged only to the two of them, and the door stayed shut, and the evening light moved across the ceiling and went out.

Much later they lay tangled in a heap of blankets, drinking tea from the same mug.

"Again?" said Tobias, drowsily.

"Not for a month. I have to recover." Marlowe smiled at the ceiling. "But I've already ordered a longer chain."

More consensual femdom stories: Velvet Contract · Silk and Steel · Gentle Hands, Gentle Femdom