The Metronome – Part 1: Tempo

The metronome sat on the dresser, an old wooden pyramid with a brass weight, its pendulum still. Beside it lay a notebook, a pencil, a glass of water and a small black clock face-down.

Octavia looked at it for a moment, and then at the man sitting on the edge of her bed. Felix was thirty-nine, a concert pianist, a creature of rhythm, who had told her one night that the thing that undid him more than anything was a steady pulse that he did not control. She was forty-six, a hospital consultant, and had a rare talent for patience.

"The terms," said Octavia. "In your own words."

"No marks. Nothing that hurts. I can end it at any moment by saying Rest. If I say it, you stop, completely, and we sit and talk."

"And?"

"You will check in with me every ten minutes. I answer honestly."

"And what is the point of the evening?"

"To do what you say, exactly when you say it," said Felix, and swallowed. "And not before."

"Good." She turned the clock face-up and set it on the nightstand, close to the lamp. "Three hours. At the end of three hours, the Mistress will decide."

"Yes, Mistress."

She lifted the brass weight on the metronome and slid it to a slow beat. She flicked the pendulum, and it began to swing, tock, tock, tock, an even, unhurried pulse that filled the room like a heartbeat.

"Lie back."

He lay back on the bed with his hands at his sides. She sat on the edge beside him, her robe loose at the throat, her face calm, and began, with great deliberation, to touch him, a fingertip along his collarbone, in time with the metronome. Tock. A slow circle on the inside of his wrist. Tock. A single stroke along his jaw.

"You will not move," she said. "You will not speak, except to answer me. You will breathe in time with the beat."

He breathed. In, tock. Out, tock. The room shrank to the swinging pendulum and the cool precise pressure of her hand. Every time he drifted ahead of the beat, she paused, silent, until he came back. Every time he stayed with it, she rewarded him with another touch, slower, lighter, more deliberate.

"Are you content?" she asked, at ten minutes.

"Content, Mistress."

"Good. We have only just begun."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Presto.