"And there will be none," he said, "even if you beg for it."

"Why would I b-" I broke off and gasped as he slid the smooth, slick knob of the handle against my clit.

"Because sometimes you need something inside you to come. Isn't that right, Karina? You don't even know why, but that's the truth, isn't it?"

I trembled under the rising pleasure from his touch and the distress from his words. "Sometimes." I was wet now and getting wetter by the second.

"I know what happened to you, you know," he whispered. "Some dom shaped you to his will, shaped your body to fit his cock, and shaped your responses to his whims."

I sobbed as he began to move the slick pommel faster against me. Every word he had said was true. James had literally shaped my insides with dildo training, and from the very first time he'd made me come had rewired the way I experienced pleasure.

"That's the only reason you crave so very much to be with him," Damon whispered in my ear. "You think you need him like a drug. You'll rationalize your addiction any way you can."

I whimpered, my hips jerking as I tried to rub myself against the smooth metal in a way that would actually get me off. But it was never the right amount of pressure or the right amount of friction.

"I'm telling you, Karina, I can be your methadone. I can be your rehab. I can make you a whole woman again. I can fill the space inside you. I can. I know I can."

I groaned and moaned, angry at him for provoking me like this but almost wishing he'd break his promise and shove the thing inside me because at that point I thought that would trigger the orgasm I was so close, yet so far, from achieving. Almost.

Instead, I ground my teeth together, promising myself that the next thing I'd have inside me would be James's glass and nothing else. Nothing else.

And then the way to end this came to me. It wouldn't work if Damon really knew me as well as he claimed to. But if it did, well, then I would be scot-free. With a deep breath and a here goes nothing, I started to fake an orgasm.

For a moment he was startled, and nearly pulled away, but I cried out, "Don't stop, please!" and he took pity on me, or thought he did, grinding the handle against me harder. That really hurt, but cries of pain sound exactly like cries of ecstasy sometimes, and I kept it up until it seemed reasonable to go limp.

He threw the sword to the floor. I heard it clatter. Then he leaned in and kissed me, his tongue delving into my mouth while I held my breath. He thrust me away then.

"You still resist me," he said, pulling off the helm and shaking his head in disbelief. He really had thought that was all it would take to get me to give in. He was so wrong.

"My two weeks are not up yet," I said. "Now let me go."

He said nothing more. He undid the manacles, rubbed my wrists a little to warm them up again, and then left the room. When he came back a few minutes later, he was casually dressed in a pullover and slacks, his feet still bare. With my clothes held to my chest, I investigated the room he had come out of and found a small bedroom and attached bathroom. I cleaned myself up and got dressed again.

When I emerged, he shut off the video screen quickly and picked up the car keys.

He drove me home without saying anything. His silence was unnerving, but I wasn't going to rise to the bait and be the first one to say something. When I moved to get out of the car, he finally spoke.

"Five days," he said. "Five days."

"Yup," I agreed, and slammed the door.

Thirteen.

Love Is My Bet

Peter and Linae arrived the next day with several huge crates and a third helper in tow: Helen. She hugged me when she saw me, and then they set to work on moving, assembling, and whatever else was necessary to construct the installation as specified by "J. B. L." I went off to the museum as usual.

As lunchtime approached, Tristan surprised me by sneaking up on me. I was sketching some notes for the dance choreography in my notebook and he caught a glimpse. The shapes on the page didn't look anything like a person dancing. They were more indicators of arm and leg movements, combinations that I thought would work and wanted to try later.

"What's that?" he asked. "Butterflies? Hieroglyphs?"

I hadn't told him about the performance. I had been hoping I might get him to come on the Saturday of the opening weekend and miss the actual dance, so I hadn't mentioned anything about it. I was keeping to my promise not to lie and I knew once I started to explain this, it would be too late. "It's dance choreography. This is how my old dance teacher used to notate things."

"Dance! Karina, I didn't know you danced!" He put his finger on top of his head and did a joking pirouette, then stumbled, dizzy. When he recovered, he said, "This dance is for you? Or someone else?"

"For me. The dancers who were supposed to perform at the opening of the ArtiWorks had to cancel and I volunteered to fill in."

"Oh, that's fantastic! I must come to see it!"

I knew you were going to say that. I gave him the details on when it would be and the address.

"This Friday, how perfect," he said, though he didn't explain what was perfect about it and I didn't press him for details.

That evening, Michel and I worked on my costume. We had settled on something sheer for the bodysuit, close to the color of my skin, so from a distance I might appear nude except for the deep red chips of glass sewn into the fabric and the petal-like skirt made of a diaphanous fabric with frothy white swirls on it. The outfit reminded me of something a figure skater might wear, though Michel said it was much like what he would do for a ballerina. The bodysuit had three tiny snaps at the crotch just like a ballet suit, he said. He also offered to make wings to match the skirt, for a sort of Tinker Bell effect, but I felt that was too much, and kind of off topic.

The mask was still a question, but we had a few days to figure that out.

Meanwhile, downstairs the art was beginning to take shape. The next day I watched for a while as Peter painstakingly measured the space, placing various pieces where they belonged.

"It's a giant mouth, isn't it?" he asked me as he knelt on the floor to affix one piece in place, the main curve of the sculpture hanging over him. "I mean, these bits here are the molars."

I grinned. Yes, there were some blocky bits that could be seen as teeth, but the two that mattered most to me were obviously shoes, weren't they? Not to Peter, apparently.

Later that night, after everyone else had gone to bed, I had an attack of worry. What if he didn't like the dance? What if I looked ridiculous? Well, it was too late to back out. Besides, what if I was wrong? What if James really wasn't thinking about me when he designed the piece? I slipped down to the gallery, using my phone as a flashlight, and slid my feet into the shoe-shaped pieces.

They fit perfectly. I stepped aside carefully, my heart pounding with excitement. So much for the thought that he didn't have me in mind. That didn't mean, of course, that he wanted me back. All great works of art could have multiple interpretations. But I couldn't think about him rejecting me now. I had to think positive.

The phallus had not been installed yet, and I wondered if James was bringing that with him. I was sure he was.

The thought struck me that other than the slender plugs I'd worn with the chastity belt, I hadn't had anything sizable in me in quite a while. I snuck back up to my room and took out the glass dildoes. I still had a few days to go. One each day to work up to the biggest size was probably the best plan. I masturbated to make myself slippery, and I slid the smallest one into my body, imagining that his hand moved it in and out of me instead of my own. But I didn't allow myself to come, thinking about what Vanette had said about self-discipline being as important as discipline.

Three days before the event, I convinced Linae and Helen to be part of my performance. "Just at the beginning," I told them. "We're to represent the three Muses, you see." I'd gotten the idea while surfing art websites the night before, researching the Burne-Jones Perseus cycle.

I had been right all along. He had painted the three paintings with Andromeda in sequence, from the rescue at the rock, to the defeat of the sea monster, to showing her Medusa's head in the garden. Then again, he had begun another where Perseus was the nude instead of the female figure in 1877 and didn't finish it until almost twenty years later, more than ten years after Andromeda. So maybe the dates proved nothing other than there was a whole lot going on in the artist's head regarding Perseus.

One of the other Perseus paintings, not in the Tate exhibit, had been of the three Muses giving him his helmet, and that's where I had gotten the idea.

For masks, we would each be wearing an actual reproduction of a Muse's face from a famous painting. The entire dance, for the audience, could represent the ways in which art itself can devour us, and how the artist can be devoured by it. I was very satisfied that would be the main interpretation people would come away with.

Paulina made the masks, while Michel made diaphanous gowns for us to wear. Mine went over my other costume and would be shed when appropriate. I listened to the music I'd chosen over and over again, walking through the movements and steps in my mind even when I wasn't actually rehearsing.

It was exhausting. It was thrilling. Every night I fell into bed with the next larger dildo and prepared myself as best I could.

Everything was speeding along like a train out of King's Cross. Then, the morning of the performance, my phone rang.

It was my sister, Jill. "Jill, are you all right?" It was four in the morning for her.

"I got word that Mom fell," she said.

"What do you mean, Mom fell? Is she okay?"

"She's in surgery now. They gave me the name of some guy I've never heard of who's there with her. I'm guessing her boyfriend of the moment. I tried to make sure they know I'm the next of kin and they have to call me for any kind of medical decisions, but...but he's there and I'm not."

"Did they give you any idea of how serious it is?"

Jill let out a long breath. "I was pretty shocked when they called. I don't even know if I was hearing everything right. Let me see. I tried to write it down, but I can barely read my writing. Fractured kneecap, torn ligaments, broken elbow, and she hit her head, to boot."

"Wait, all that from one fall?"

"I think she fell down a flight of stairs. Wait, and a broken neck. Oh no, wait, that was what they told me she didn't have. Neck and spine okay. Sorry, sis. I was pretty shaken up by the news."

"Understandably. Holy shit, Jill!"

"Anyway, I wanted you to know as soon as possible. I only got the call a little while ago. I'll call you back as soon as I hear anything else, I guess. I'm looking at flights. The soonest I can get something under a thousand dollars one way might be Monday, though. By which time she'll probably be in rehab and good and cranky." Jill chuckled a little. "Okay, I must be calming down if I'm making jokes about it."

"Well, keep me informed. The bones I'm sure she can heal. Hitting her head is a little more serious."

"I know. I'll keep you posted. Should have an update in another hour or so, after she gets out of surgery. So how's London? I haven't heard from you except for a couple of e-mails, you know."

"London's good. My God, I've been so busy here. I told you I'm living with this couple who are building an art gallery in the cafe on the ground floor of their building, right?"

"Yeah, you e-mailed that."

"Well, I've been helping with the renovation, and doing a ton of stuff for that, plus working at the museum, plus working as an artist's model," which was true. "Tonight's the big grand opening of the gallery!"

"That's great," Jill said. Then more soberly, "I don't know how long I can stay with Mom. I mean, I know I'm the oldest. It's my responsibility. But I can't stay for a month. If she needs someone there-someone other than boyfriend of the day-you might have to pick up the baton next, Karina."

"I'm already booked on a flight to New York ten days from now," I said. "I'm sure I can get another academic leave if I need it. It's not like I need to take more classes."

"Okay. Yeah. Good to know."

"You really think she's going to be okay?"

"They didn't say get on a plane now. If someone's got a chance of dying, they usually say that. So I'm hanging on to that," Jill said. "I wish I knew how to get in touch with Troy."

The last either of us had heard of our brother had been several months ago when he'd hitchhiked his way from Colorado to California. "Can't help you there. Talk to you later, Jill. Try not to stress."

"I'll try. Love you, sis."

"Love you, too." Somehow that was easier to say when I was thousands of miles away, hadn't talked to her in nearly two months, and wasn't currently angry or annoyed at her for any reason. Also I was relieved that I didn't have to fly to Ohio immediately. For a moment there I had feared that all my careful planning would be wasted if I had to jump on the next flight out of Heathrow. But no. Jill would go first. I was grateful for that.

The phone call merely meant my already high state of anxiety over the performance was ratcheted up even more. So much so that when Tristan, the poor guy, mentioned at work that all the other docents from the museum and Mr. Martindale were planning to come to the opening tonight, I nearly bit his head off.

"What do you mean Martindale's coming?"

"You didn't think he'd want to see a new work of J. B. Lester? He's a huge fan."

"The work will be there for a month, maybe more!"

"Karina, are you all right? Usually people are happy when they find out people are coming to their gallery."

"I'm worried over my performance is all," I said, trying to hide my embarrassment. Well, the job was nice while I'd had it, and I was going home very soon anyway. Might as well confess partly. "I'm self-conscious about my dancing. I didn't really want you to see it either."

"Oh, Karina, I'm sure it's going to be perfectly lovely," he assured me. He bought me lunch, but I was too nervous to eat more than half of it. As we sat there in the cafe, I noticed Tristan was starting to seem nervous, too. He was always fidgety and awkward, but this was more than usual.

"Are you all right?" I finally asked. "You're acting like the nervous one."

He gave a weak laugh. "I have a confession to make."

"What kind of confession?"

"The kind of confession that makes blokes like me nervous to talk to women like you," he said. "See, the thing is...I'm bringing my mum to the soiree tonight."

"Your mother?" Oh no.

"Well, yes. You see, she's arriving by train shortly, and she's been haranguing me all summer about how I'm doing, how I'm getting on, you know..." He grimaced and forced himself to spit the rest out. "So, you see, I told her about you."

"What did you tell her about me?"

"That I met this American girl who works at the museum also, and about how I take you to lunch and everything..." He trailed off and looked at me helplessly.

"You let her think we're dating."

"Yeah."

Goodness knows I had been guilty of the exact same kind of partial truth to my own mother in the past. I had stopped, but Jill still did it. I could hardly blame him for that, and if I did, I was a hypocrite. But I had to make sure he knew what he was getting himself into, then. "Tristan, you're a really nice guy and all-"

"Please don't take it the wrong way! I mean, I would have loved to be dating you, Karina. But as the expression goes, you're out of my league."

"Okay, first of all, the only thing that makes me out of your league is that you think of yourself in a lower league, but let me finish what I was saying. Tristan, I think tonight's performance might be a bit more edgy than I've let on. Meaning, I don't know that it will be, well, mom appropriate."

"Oh." He bit his lip and stared at me while he worked through my possible reasons for being self-conscious. "Oh my." But then he brightened. "Perhaps it's for the best, though. She'll be scandalized and tell me I must have nothing further to do with you, and I'll say 'All right, Mother; you know best,' and we'll carry on from there!"

I couldn't help but laugh a little. "So long as she isn't so scandalized that she makes you go home."