So these people knew him as an artist. Interesting.

"And then there is one, the one that is actually taking up all my time and energy. It's essentially done, but it isn't what they are looking for. I don't know whether that one will ever see the light of day. Few institutions are daring enough to exhibit that sort of material. With glass, all they want is beauty. Dale Chihuly's work is astounding and wonderful, but overall it is beautiful. But where is the angry glass? Where is the glass art about war and heartbreak and tragedy?"

I heard Damon joke, "Well, no one likes broken glass," and several polite laughs.

All through this, the tails of the flogger were slapping against my skin, so rhythmic I almost felt I was being hypnotized by it. My body was there, my skin heating up under the touch of the leather, but my mind was in the corner of the room where James sat. What was he wearing? Was he there with someone? Could I toss my head and catch a glimpse of him? It sounded like he was behind me and to one side.

Suddenly the flogger tails swung sharply across my ass, making me yelp.

"Making sure you're still with me," the director said. "Now that you're warmed up, we can begin."

Oh. He started a new rhythm then, faster and harder, and all my thoughts flocked to the surface of my skin. The leather battered me like relentless wind or rain, feeling less like violence and more like an irresistible force, wearing away my tension, my fear, everything I held so tightly inside.

I lost myself in that sensation, in the waves of impact, my resistance washing away. Eventually I began to cry, not because of any physical pain, but because of all the pain I held inside that I couldn't keep in any longer. The director made crooning sounds at me, encouraging me to let it all out, his flogger never stopping in its rhythmic path tearing me apart.

The last time I'd felt like all my boundaries were worn away by sensation had been when James had made love to me at that party. To have it happen again now, with him sitting in the room, was too much. I cried and sobbed and shuddered. This wasn't like some romantic, sexy misting of my eyes. I was flat-out bawling. The director didn't seem the least dismayed by that. In fact, he seemed quite proud of himself for having brought me to such a state.

When he was done, he praised me for being so obedient, for never letting go of the bar, for letting him take me "so far." He wrapped a blanket around me and lowered me to the floor right on the spot, not even trying to get me to a chair. He petted my hair and asked someone to bring a glass of water.

Various people drifted out of the room, now that the show was over, but I could hear James and Damon had stayed put.

Their conversation was smattered with art-world talk. "Yes, I take two or three trips a year to Greece, dealing in antiquities, so my relationship with the museums is quite good," Damon was saying.

I realized Damon must have figured out he was the one, though, when he began to ask James leading questions.

"I hope you've been enjoying the hospitality on this side of the pond. I haven't had the chance to go to America yet. I've heard the society is quite different?"

James cleared his throat. "Yes, quite. The socializing is much more centered on private parties."

"That must make it more difficult to find suitable partners. How do they bring in fresh blood?"

"Oh, well, there is recruiting of various kinds. People meet partners outside the society and bring them in, or through the nightclubs and the Internet."

"Daring," Damon said. "You never know who you'll meet through the Internet. Here, with the trainee program, you know the submissives are extensively screened."

James chuckled. "All the screening in the world won't guarantee love, though."

Damon chuckled in return. "Well, of course not. Some members, of course, are satisfied to have a juicy fanny at their disposal."

"Trophy submissives instead of trophy wives?" James asked, his voice deep with skepticism.

"Sometimes," Damon allowed. "But we do pride ourselves on being able to play matchmaker. What sort of woman would you be looking for, my friend?"

James made a noncommittal noise, deflecting the question with a question. "You have submissive members of the society, too, don't you? Do you train doms as well?"

"We do. Vanette is very skilled at teaching women to bring out their dominant side, and both she and the director have a skills-training curriculum. And of course we have an endless supply of practice bottoms with the trainees. Ah, here come two of our recent trainees now. Miss Juniper, Miss Nadia, come say hello."

While they made their introductions, the director pulled my hood free and I gasped in fear. But I was still turned away from the room with the director curled behind me, dabbing at my tear-stained face with a handkerchief. I held it over my eyes. No one but the director seemed to be paying any attention to me, though.

From the chatter and rustling, I could hear it sounded like the two women were settling in with Damon and James. I heard the sound of kissing.

Then Juney's voice. "Oh, what have we here? Oh, sir, I'm trained to take care of problems like tha-Ahh!" She yelped and I heard a thud as if she had fallen to the carpet.

"I say!" said the director.

James's voice was tight, and I could hear he was livid. "Is this how you train them on this side of the ocean now, to be wanton, undisciplined creatures?"

"I was only going to suck it a little," Juney said, sounding confused. "No one's ever complained before."

"My apologies, Miss Juniper, if your training did not include such niceties as asking first. It takes a very special woman to get into my trousers. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I've had enough for one night."

He left amid a burst of protest from Damon and the women.

"Well, la-di-da," Juney said. "I guess I'm not special enough for Master Fancypants."

The second she said it, I knew it was a mistake. I finally lowered the handkerchief to look in Damon's direction.

His jaw was set. "Miss Juniper," he said in a very low voice. "Strip and take your place at the bar."

"Here you go, darling. Let's get out of the way," the director said to me. He helped me up and we moved to a nearby chair while Juney pouted and started to shimmy out of the black minidress she was wearing.

Damon stopped her with a hand on her waist, pulling the dress down just enough to free her ample bosom. He discarded her bra, then hiked the bottom of the dress up to show she was wearing thigh-high stockings but no undies. Her pubic hair was as blond as her head.

"Nadia, my dear, fetch my canes."

"Yes, Mr. George." She hurried out of the room. When she returned, Vanette stood in the doorway, her cool eyes taking in the scene.

She gestured to me. "If I might borrow Ashley a moment, Director?"

"Why, certainly," he said, helping me to my feet, taking the blanket from my shoulders and replacing my short robe.

I followed Vanette down the hallway to another door. She opened it and led me into a small but elegantly appointed bathroom.

"I thought you might need this," she said. When I nodded, she pulled up one of her sleeves to show a gold charm bracelet. One of the charms was the key that opened the locks on the chastity belt. "It's much neater if you take everything off. When you're done, you can replace the items and close the locks again yourself. I'll wait outside the door. Knock if you need help."

I nodded and she smiled, seeming pleased that I remembered not to speak.

I did as she suggested and then sat down tiredly, taking the opportunity to collect myself. I was aroused from the flogging, from the environment, and from hearing James's voice. I felt a surge of hope, and even a little pride, thinking about what he had said to Juney. He was back to the way he was when we'd first met. Damon George would let any woman suck his cock who offered. Not so James.

Only a special woman could get into those pants. What could I do to show him I was still that special woman, the woman he fell in love with? What could I do to find out if he was still in love with me?

Ten.

Driven by the Night

Damon gave me a ride home that night. All my things were still in the car, after all. The spacious back of the limo was much larger than the town car Stefan drove. This one had seating for six or seven, more than enough room for Damon to drag Juney along. I sat on one side, while he held her by the hair on the seat across from me. Her hands were bound together, a gag was in her mouth, and although she was still wearing the black minidress, it remained bunched up around her midsection, leaving her as good as nude.

Once we were in the car, Damon thrust his fingers into her and made her moan around the gag, but he wasn't looking at her. He was looking at me. "So that was him," he said.

"That was him," I affirmed. "He...he has a habit of running off when he's upset."

"So I gathered, and why this one"-he thrust his fingers into her harder-"is being punished for scaring him off."

Juney made a whining noise like she was trying to say something in her own defense, except she couldn't speak. Damon responded by thumbing her clit until she grunted.

"What are we going to do now?" I asked.

"Well, I'll do my best to entice him back to the premises," Damon said. "In the meantime, you'll start training with Vanette. I'll apologize and explain we'd like to make it up to him. If he's polite, he'll realize he can't refuse entirely without making enemies of us. By then you'll be trained in voice and service of some kind and it will be easier to isolate you two for your crucial conversation."

I sighed. How long was this going to take? I'd already waited long enough. But if that was what it was going to take, I could suck it up and hang on.

"You're hopeful, aren't you?" Damon said.

"I am."

"Because he rejected Juniper, here?"

"Well, yeah."

"I wouldn't get your hopes up too high. He's probably one of those repressed types."

Well, sort of, I thought. That was the James I knew, anyway.

"I'm going to have you, Karina."

I looked and saw Damon had his cock free of his fly and was stroking it. I looked away.

"After tonight, I want you even more than before. In the same car with you like this, I can barely hold back. Good thing Juney's here, eh?" With that he mounted her, pushing her down on the seat so that she was flat on her back with her knees in the air.

He was still fucking her when I got out of the car at the curb outside the ArtiWorks. I could see the lights were burning on the second floor. Even in the wee hours, either Paulina or Michel was awake. I exited the car quickly and slammed the door, though there was no one on the street at that hour to see what was going on inside.

Upstairs I found Paulina in the midst of baking half a dozen fruit pies. She served us some while it was still steaming hot, with vanilla ice cream on it.

"Your stomach is happy but the rest of you is not," she said, as she put the kettle on. We had eaten the pie sitting on stools in the corner at the one bit of countertop space that wasn't covered in kitchen gadgets, cookbooks, jars of pasta and flour, or cans of tea. "Something wrong?"

I was still brooding about having to spend however long as a trainee at the club, hoping that James would come back. What if he didn't? Did Damon hope I'd forget him eventually? That all the chastity devices and flogging would wear me down? It occurred to me then that Damon could lie to me, too. He could say he was trying to get James to come back, when really he was just training me to be his own personal sex slave.

Okay, maybe that was a bit extreme. I felt like I could trust Damon because he clearly stuck to the rules, but I didn't think I should rely solely on him. Sitting there with Paulina, I realized I had another avenue to try. "So when do you think the gallery will be ready to open?"

"Oh, we're drawing very close now. Not more than a month. In fact, we'll probably be finished before then, but it takes at least thirty days to promote the opening show, you know. To get in all the listings calendars and book everyone."

"I really would like to see the place in operation before I have to go back to New York," I said. That reminded me I needed to book my ticket home soon, but I couldn't really think about that yet. A month. This might work. "I have an idea for an artist who might be suited for the opening."

"Do you? We need someone edgy and underground but famous enough to give us some oomph, you know?" She flipped the kettle off and let the water cool a few moments before she poured it over a basket of tea leaves sitting in the pot. "Which is a difficult combination to find. Michel has a friend who knows Damien Hirst, but he's gone so mainstream now, ugh."

I didn't know contemporary art that well, but I had a vague memory of Hirst as the guy who did a lot of paintings of spots. Or was he the guy with the dead animals in formaldehyde? That might have been the same guy. Either way, yuck. "You don't want something that is just stuck on the wall, either," I said. "You want someone who can bring a performance art aspect to things."

"Most definitely!" she said excitedly. "That might be our slogan. You know, 'Art is in the air, not on the wall!' Or something like that. I want to have musicians, too, and maybe some dancers for opening night. The ArtiWorks should be multimedia, a space where all art thrives. The performing arts are visual arts, don't you think?"

"I totally agree," I said. "You still haven't heard my suggestion."

"So I haven't! What is it? Or rather, who?"

"J. B. Lester," I said.

"Oh, the glassblower?" She pulled the basket from the pot and then poured two cups, setting one in front of me.

"Glassworker is probably a more accurate description," I said. "It's not all blown glass." Some of it, I knew, was cast, some fused, some etched. Not to mention broken, glued, and constructed. "I know where he's working in York."

"Oh, you brilliant girl! And you met him there? He's a recluse, yes?"

"I know some people who were working with him and I saw his workshop. He's got a major work, very edgy. It's a whole installation, and he's dying to exhibit it somewhere and has nowhere to do it. The ArtiWorks would be absolutely perfect, wouldn't it?"

"Sounds like it would," she said.

"I'll put you in touch with the people who can talk to him." I sipped my tea cautiously so as not to scald myself. "He'd be an absolute fool to say no." I was already thinking through the logistics. The glass would be heavy. He wouldn't want to ship it overseas. This installation alone must weigh half a ton. Maybe more. It was about the size of a car, and glass was even denser than steel. So he'd want to show it in the UK.

Paulina sipped her tea for a while before musing, "And you say it's a project he has no backer for, no commission, no museum already waiting?"

"Yeah. The Tate is waiting for something else from him and this isn't it. It's like he's got to get this out of the way first."

"The muse works in mysterious ways," Paulina said. "If this is the demon that has been gnawing his soul, then of course it would emerge first."

I didn't know if breaking up with me was on par with a demon gnawing his soul, but I sure hoped it was. I thought of all the drawings of me on his worktable. If he wasn't still in love with me, he was at least still quite obsessed.

A wave of sleepiness came over me then. Between being flogged to tears, hearing James's voice, and now having schemed a plan to draw him out of hiding that didn't involve Damon's help, I was exhausted and hopeful. I apologized for the fact that I couldn't finish my tea and dragged myself upstairs to bed. The sun would be rising very soon. I collapsed into a very deep sleep.

I called Helen the next day before I left for the Tate. "How'd it go?" she demanded.

"Terrible," I said.

"I thought you raced back to London to go to a party he would be at?"

"I did. He left in a huff, though, before I could talk to him. He might be headed back to York. I'm not sure. But listen, I've got a gallery owner here, opening a new place in about a month. I need you to play matchmaker between him and the gallery."