“Wait right here by the door,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

She didn’t go far… just up to a big man with the fat-over-muscle look wearing a tight shirt that looked like it was made out of leather chainmail. He was talking with a pair of women who had collars made out of the same stuff, one tall human woman wearing pin-up style breastplate and one dwarven woman who was topless and wearing a segmented leather skirt.

When he saw her approach, he held up a hand to the women even though they hadn’t been saying anything and said to Amaranth, “Can I help you out with something there, ma’am?”

“Yes, excuse me for interrupting,” she said. She was pointing at the room. “I was just wondering if those rooms there are for anybody to use.”

“Yes, ma’am, they surely are,” he said. “Leave the door open if you don’t mind company. Close the curtain if you want privacy. Leave the door open when you’re done.”

“When the door’s closed, is it soundproofed?” she asked.

“When the curtain’s closed, it is,” he said.

“Thank you so very much,” she said.

“You’re sure welcome,” he said. “Would you be interested in hearing a proposal?”

“You know what, you have my enthusiastic consent for everything you want if you find me later, after I’ve had some fun with my toy,” she said. “Would you be interested in hearing a suggestion relating to your partners?”

“Uh, I guess I would,” he said.

“Okay, come here,” Amaranth said, beckoning him closer. He leaned in, and she whispered something in his ear that made him blush, then she turned and came bouncing back over to me. “Get the door for me, baby,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, opening it wider for her.

She slid past me into the room. It was a round space, about as big as two dorm rooms. There was a furniture of a sort… oddly curved black couches and low, contoured platforms that had loops and hooks that I was able to figure out were probably for restraints.

“Now come in and close it behind you,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, obeying.

“And the curtain.”

“Yes, ma’am,” and I did. Alert for it after hearing the description, I felt the silence spell falling into place.

“I’m assuming the reason you were sitting at Mercy’s feat was that you felt you had no choice and not that you were deliberately disregarding my orders in the worst way in order to get closer to her slave girl,” Amaranth said, taking a seat on an upward-pointing crescent. She patted her thighs

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, sitting down on her lap.

“Good,” she purred. “And I gather that she doesn’t know about our payment plan with Caron?”

“No, ma’am,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

“Good,” she said. “We’ll try to keep it that way by only talking about it in here… well, you shouldn’t be talking about anything out there, which should be perfectly safe, but I’d like to be able to talk a little more freely. I don’t want you to forget your respectful address, though. Okay, baby?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“Let’s start with you telling me what happened,” she said, and I did, punctuating it with many “ma’ams”.

Facing away from her, I couldn’t see her face, but I could feel her going more and more rigid the longer I talked. I could tell that her ire wasn’t directed at me, but I couldn’t help shrinking down smaller.

“Mercy certainly makes a lot of other people easier to love,” Amaranth said, shaking her head. “Don’t worry, baby… there’s no way I’m going to let… that… happen to you. I think she’s almost irresponsible enough for it to count as evil in its own right, on top of everything else. Not that it matters, but I’m surprised you never mentioned that she was a halfkind after the first time you met her.”

“She’s a halfkind, ma’am?”

“Yes, well, the penis does kind of give it away,” she said.

“Penis?” I repeated.

“Oh, baby, let’s not do this again,” she said. “It made such a nice bulge in her… whatever that was that she was wearing. Maybe this isn’t the time or place, baby, but since we are looking ahead to a future together, I want you to work on being more aware of people’s genitals. Breasts are nice, baby, but they’re not the sum total of a person.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“Anyway, I would have been out there a little faster, but I made an inquiry about getting up on stage,” Amaranth said. “If we run into any further trouble, we might remember that Caron swore that if we showed up, she’d see us up on stage. We don’t have that in writing, but it was an oath, and oaths can be verified. Since you signed the contract on the basis of that…” She shrugged. “It’s something to consider as a fallback.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I agreed. “So… um… what’s the story?”

“Well, Caron was straight with us… they do have a stage reserved for guests, and new people do get to the front of the line, just like she said. There are eight people ahead of us, though.”

“How the hell did that happen?” I asked. “I thought the party just started.”

Amaranth cleared her throat.

“How do you suppose that happened, ma’am?” I said.

“Better. The club was open before then, though,” she said. “Some of the people might have been here with members as their guests. Or they might have just rushed to get a slot. Anyway, they have to fix a safety rune that got rubbed out somehow. It shouldn’t take long to fix, but even if it does, the people ahead of us might give up or get cold feet or take an opening on another stage.”

“Which we can’t do, because the deal as written said we’d do it on the guest stage,” I said. “Didn’t Caron say that if she vouched for us, we’d go to the front of the list, ma’am?”

“Yes, I asked about that when I signed up,” she said. “The lady said that Caron had left our names with her, but that all the other people on the list also had member sponsorships.”

“Well, that’s convenient,” I said. “Do you suppose there’s any chance Caron didn’t sabotage the stage herself, ma’am?”

“Baby, I don’t want you jumping to conclusions like that,” Amaranth said. “It’s possible, but it’s also possible that we’ll just have to remind her of her oath I saw her, by the way… though she was a little bit too busy to see me. Her girlfriend is adorable… she’s a tiny little thing in a full-body leather outfit with mouse ears and a tail. I guess I was picturing a dwarf, but I guess she must be a gnome? Though she seems a little… foregroundy… for a gnome, though that just might be the outfit. Anyway, I’d love it if we get a chance to meet her later.”

“Caron’s girlfriend?” I said, then added, a little unconvincingly, “Ma’am.”

“Oh… I suppose under the circumstances it’s understandable,” Amaranth said. “Not fair to her… but things aren’t fair for you, either. If you aren’t interested in her friendship, that’s fine, but I remember her speaking up for us in Caron’s shop. Also, I admire the pureness of her submissiveness. She’s not turned on by any of the specific things Caron is… it’s entirely the submerging of her identity that does it for her. It’s what I try for when I’m working, but she makes it look natural. Anyway, baby, unless there’s anything else that needs to be discussed behind closed doors, I think we should get back out there… we wouldn’t want to lose our place if things go faster than expected.”

“No, ma’am,” I said, shaking my head. “There isn’t anything else I can think of.”

“Okay, then,” she said. She tilted forward and gave me a little push to slide me off her lap, giving me a pat on the butt when my feet hit the floor. “Let’s head on out.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

She stopped right before she got to the door. I thought she was going to ask me to open it for her, but instead she turned to me, looking thoughtful.

“What is it, ma’am?” I asked.

“Do you think it would help you focus more if you fed before we went on stage, or would that just make things worse?” Amaranth asked.

“Fed, ma’am?” I repeated. I didn’t know what exactly she had in mind, but after the interview with Mercy, I wasn’t all that keen on anything involving consumption.

“Yes,” she said. “While I was in the office, I took a shot in the dark and asked if they served blood. The, um, gentleman who was assisting me told me that on a busy night like this, you can sometimes find someone who will consent to bloodplay… that seemed like a little risky to be experimenting with right now… and that they also have multiple varieties of blood on tap in the bar, for the members who are PNLWV.”

“P-N what?”

“You know, people not living with vampirism,” she said.

“Vampires?” I said… perhaps just a little bit too loudly for my role.

Amaranth’s hand shot out. She grabbed the key-shaped piercing going through my right nipple and wrenched it hard… I’d swear she twisted it all the way around and then some.

“We are guests here,” she said sternly, still twisting my nipple . “If you can’t be respectful of others, we will be thrown out, and you know what that means. Do you understand?”

I couldn’t quite manage a “yes, ma’am”, but I sort of modulated my screaming a little in a way that I hoped indicated the general idea. She relented a little.

“What was that?”

“Yes… ma’am,” I gasped, and she released me. “Fuck!” I yelled. “Oh, fuck, that hurt!”

“I’ll do worse to you if you say something like that out there,” she said. “Quickly and without hesitation, so anybody who hears it thinks it’s part of a scene, or at least that I have you in hand myself. We aren’t fooling around here, Mack. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, ma’am.” I lowered my head. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay, sweetie… anyway, to get back to something a little more productive: feed or no feed?”

“If it’s not terribly fresh, I… I honestly think it would help, ma’am,” I said. “There’s so much blood in the air out there, and Lulu… I don’t think she’s going to help my self-control.”

“I’m proud of the job you’re doing so far,” she said. “What if it’s fresh?”

“I think it’ll just make things worse,” I said. “Mercy said it: it’s not like I can get full. If something triggers my instincts while people are all around, some of them bleeding…”

“Well, we’ll ask, then,” she said. “Maybe they’ll serve it on the rocks for you? That would be cold and a little watered-down, so… do you think that would make a difference?”

“I don’t know, ma’am,” I said.

She frowned.

“This is probably not the time to be experimental,” she said. “You’ll just have to practice your self-control a bit longer. But maybe after the performance, we can borrow the use of some really good restraints and figure a few things out.”

The man with the two subs was still nearby when we came out, and the women clapped for us when we came out.

“Bow, baby,” Amaranth said, and I did. “Let’s go see how things are going with the stage, okay?”

She led me past an outer dais, where one of the men in black wizard robes was grabbing a bound girl’s naked breasts with electrified hands while she writhed to the enthusiastic approval of the crowd and towards what I first took to be a big central column to the big room before realizing I was looking at black drop cloths. They stopped about a yard before the floor, where the actual raised stage was.

Big gothic letters on it read “THE VIRGIN CAGE“.

A pair of men in black jeans and black t-shirts were fussing around it with wands. They seemed to be inspecting a series of runes

“I don’t get it… we’ve re-inscribed it three times now,” he said to the other man. “What do we do now, redo the whole sequence?”

“That would take hours. We’ll just let them know to shift the virgins to the other stages and sort it out tomorrow.”

“Excuse me,” Amaranth said to him. “With so many safety runes, is one faulty one really so bad? I mean, we’ve all signed liability waivers. Did this one do something really important?”

“Look, lady… it doesn’t matter if it’s the rune of acne prevention,” the man said. “The Tomb of Horrors follows strict safety rules, and one of them is that nobody uses the equipment if there’s any problem with the safety spells.”

“What if we’re immortal and invuln…”

“If you can’t follow rules, you don’t get to play,” the man said.

“This is just bizarre, though,” the other man said. He looked just past us. “Hey, uh, Lady Caron?”

I turned to see Caron, and was shocked to see her wearing a dress… a dark purple and black tightly-corseted dress with big ruffled sleeves, but a dress nonetheless… and a diamond-encrusted tiara in her short cropped hair.

At her feet was the girl in the mouse costume. Amaranth hadn’t been kidding about “full body”… it looked like one featureless piece of glossy leather. It clung to her torso and her limbs, but the hand and foot parts were formed to look like paws with slightly curving claws of metal protruding from them. The face part had no obvious eyeholes, or even an opening for air. The snout part of it protruded out quite a bit, with an upturned nose at the end.

Amaranth also hadn’t been kidding about her size. She was about gnome-height, or she would have been if she stood upright. It was hard to say for sure, but she might have been about an inch or two shorter than Hazel and Honey. She was also far more lithe than either of them seemed to be, though I supposed it was possible that Honey’s dresses concealed a more slender figure than Hazel had.

“Yes?” Caron said to the worker.

“Were any of your guests playing up here earlier during your private thing before?”

“Oh, um, no,” Caron said. “None of my friends went near it… but they’re all pretty eager for a chance to get up there and show their stuff.”

“Well, we can try to push through…”

“Oh, no, I’m sure they’ll understand,” Caron said. “There are other stages for them.”

“Hello, Lady Caron,” Amaranth said, smiling her biggest smile at her. “Since I know you remember our deal, I’ll ask you if you remember the word you gave us.”

“Oh, of course,” Caron said. “Silly me. Hey, guys… go ahead and keep working okay?” She turned to Amaranth. “There. I can’t really do more than that. It’s a good faith effort.”

“Well, we made a good faith effort, too,” Amaranth said.

“The contract has specified terms written out,” Caron said. “The oath…” She shrugged. “This province has no contest slavery. That’s got to be why Mercy decided to operate here… or else it has no contest slavery because Mercy operates here. Either way, with a valid contract, you couldn’t block possession while you challenged it in court, and by the time you got a hearing, it would be too late. It’s not anything personal. If Mercy wants you badly enough to offer the money she’s offering, you’re going to be meat for somebody’s grill no matter what. If I manage to collect the money, I’m doing right by myself and I’m not doing a thing to you that won’t happen anyway. My hands are clean, and so is my conscience.”

“Doesn’t your honor mean anything to you?” Amaranth asked.

“It means something,” she said. “If I had to put a number to it, it would be less than your girlfriend’s worth. Feel flattered.”

“Maybe you can live with it,” Amaranth said. She pointed at the girl at Caron’s feet. “But can she?”

“The challenge will be good for her,” Caron said. “And so will the money, if she’s honest with herself. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you know my Little Mouse, just because you heard her being cranky one time.”

“I wouldn’t dream of presuming… though I’m glad of the chance to actually meet her,” Amaranth said. “She’s just so adorably petite… you could probably pick her up and carry her away in your pocket.”

“Yeah, she is pretty small,” Caron said, softening a bit.

“I mean, she’s just tiny,” Amaranth said. “Especially next to you.”

The tiny girl at her fleet flopped over on her back, wriggling her paws… that is, arms… in the air.

“You, uh… you can rub her belly if you’d like,” Caron said. “Just stay away from the groin.”

“Oh, thank you,” Amaranth said. She got down on her knees and hunkered down low. She stroked the mouse-girl’s chest with the backs of her fingertips, right down her sternum to about where her belly button would be. “This is amazing… how do you bind her breasts so tight?”

“I… uh… hey, stay away from her head, too,” Caron said, kneeling down next to the girl’s head and putting her arm in front of the pointed snout. “My Mouse is a biter, isn’t she? Oh, yes she is.”

The two then engaged in a bit of play that might have been cute, if one of them hadn’t been actively trying to sell me to someone she assumed meant to butcher me. Mouse thrashed around wildly, keeping her mask pressed against Caron’s forearm, who moved along with her, acting like she was trying to wrestle free. After several seconds of that, Caron started punching her on the “nose” with what would have been sickening force if it had been anything more than a hollow cone of leather she was hitting.

Caron was laughing in a way that was way more full of clean, good-natured (if weird) fun than she deserved. I looked at Amaranth, wondering how to react, and was surprised to see her staring at Caron kind of sideways. Had she finally found a hard limit to her tolerance at the abuse of masks, of all things?

Then I looked closer at Caron and saw what she was looking at. Caron’s sleeve had rolled up a bit around her muscular forearm from the vigorous play, exposing a couple of… welts, it looked like. Or maybe kind of oblong puncture marks that had started to heal a bit.

Something seemed oddly familiar about the size and spacing of them. I felt a sudden urge to look down at my leg. My fishnets were intact, of course, but I had the distinct memory of a pair of jeans with punctures in the legs a lot like the ones that Caron had… right where Little Mouse had been play-biting her.

Little Mouse was a goblin?

As soon as the thought entered my head, her profile clicked into shape. She was short and thin for anyone, but she was much more in line with a classical goblin shape than a gnome… and that also explained the “bound breasts” that Caron had seemed eager to distract Amaranth from.

From the way Amaranth’s expression changed when I looked back at her face, it seemed like she’d worked it out, too… and maybe something else. She had a downright canny look in her eyes. Caron was rubbing Mouse on the shiny top of the headpiece. Amaranth cleared her throat, and Caron looked up at her, the goofy grin on her face turning to puzzlement when she saw Amaranth’s face.

Then she saw where Amaranth was looking and turned white. She pulled her sleeve down, but the look on her face told me she knew the game was up.

Whatever the hell the game was… maybe a lot of people would be embarrassed to date a goblin, but Caron was a queer dwarf in an S&M club. She didn’t seem to be old enough to remember the wars where kobolds had conscripted goblins to fight against their ancient enemies. With a Kharoline human name, she couldn’t be any kind of dwarven traditionalist, anyway. There was no reason for her to care whether the nymph dating the half-demon knew that her girlfriend was…

Kobolds. Dwarves’ ancient enemies.

Kobolds tended towards a slightly leaner build than goblins, anyway…

“Lady Caron,” Amaranth said in the most level and pleasant tone I’d ever heard her muster… and that was pretty fucking pleasant, “we’ll be ready to go on stage in five minutes. Could you see that it’s ready for us by then? And there were some others who were signed up in advance of us. If any of them happen to be friends of yours, maybe you could convince them to wait a little longer or use a different stage, like you mentioned earlier.”

“Uh, sure,” Caron said. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?” Amaranth asked, the corners of her lips twitching up. Caron stared at her blankly. “Ma’am,” Amaranth prompted.

“Yes… ma’am,” Caron said.

“Well… get to it, then,” Amaranth said.

Sometime Between Friday And Sunday, Probably: A chapter some of you will skip, and some of you will read again and again.

Discuss this story on the Livejournal feed.

The use of my full first name gave me a little pause, but I’d made my decision. I wanted this to be just as serious as a collar was, in a more intimate and private way.

An ordinary piercing? I’d probably manage to lose that out on the field, or in the shower, or something. I didn’t know how easy it was for them to come undone on their own, but this was me… I’d find a way. The binding spell was functional and it was symbolic.

Amaranth could put a collar on me later, but this would give her a tiny leash on some part of my anatomy… a leash that only she could hold and only she could release.

“It’s my choice,” I said. “We’ll get the jewelry, and we’ll have fun at the club, and we’ll even make a little money.”

I remembered the creepy leather guy saying I would be a natural for that sort of thing. If it wasn’t entirely horrible, this could solve my cashflow problem.

“Excellent,” Caron said. “Let’s get you decked out. Where do you want to start?”

“Yes, well, we’ll get to that,” Amaranth said. “First, would you mind loaning us a blindfold, for the duration of our shopping? I’d like to be able to make a selection in secret.”

“Only if you don’t mind me loaning you a pair of leather cuffs,” Caron said. “Hey, like I said… I got eyes. I’m going to be thinking about this until Saturday.”

Amaranth looked at me, and I nodded. If I wasn’t going to trust that Caron wasn’t just going to throw me in shackles and drag me out of the shop, I would have left. The money Mercy was offering for me was too much for her to ignore, but she seemed to have her own sense of logic and honor that she wouldn’t break in pursuing it. It was knowing that fact that had allowed me to take her up on her offer, which was essentially a bet that I would have wussed out on going to the club. She might have been right, but me noticing the default clause meant that not going was no longer the path of least resistance.

“Alright,” Caron said, and she hurried into the backroom with the piece of paper and came back with a black and red silk blindfold and a pair of leather cuffs, and another sheet of paper. “Just fill out your name and address… I need that if you go back on me, anyway… and sign the bottom. This gives me consent to pierce you and saying you understand that all body jewelry sales are final at the time of application… that way we won’t have to interrupt the flow later.”

Amaranth took the paper from her before I could take it. She read it over, then handed it to me. I looked it over carefully twice just to make sure there were no hidden tricks, and then signed. She then handed the accoutrements to Amaranth, who administered them to me, binding my eyes first and then putting my hands behind my back.

This made balance a little iffy, so I allowed myself to be led around by Amaranth’s hand on my elbow while she discussed different options with Caron. Caron was enthusiastic and knowledgeable, but always couched her discussion of whatever Amaranth was showing her in terms that conveyed as little as possible about what they were holding, and she discussed me in terms that were distant and depersonalizing.

“This would look good on the tits,” she said of something.

“The tits”, “the clit”… “the” was not exactly as bad as “its”, but it was certainly not “hers“, either.

I decided I didn’t really care for the word “tits” much. I appreciated Amaranth’s preferred term, “breasts”, so much more. It was, for lack of a better term, a womanizing word… a word that conveyed a sense of female personhood. “Tits”, in Caron’s mouth… or the mouth of somebody like Gabe, and probably many other people who used it… was depersonalizing in a way I didn’t like.

It was depersonal depersonalization. Not “You are my love, and I will treat you like an object so you can revel in how much you enjoy being mine.” but “Oh, hey. Woman. That means you’ve got a pair of these things. I’d rather deal with them than you.”

It would have been an uncomfortable, squirmy situation, but Amaranth’s hand was on me constantly, touching my shoulder or pinching or teasing at likely insertion sites. In the end, I tuned out the conversation and focused on her, her touch and her voice… not necessarily her words.

So I was kind of caught of guard when she suddenly said, loudly and definitively, “Okay!”

“Let’s bring her over to the stool,” Caron said. “Unless you need to unbind her and check with her.”

“I don’t think we need to?” Amaranth said, making it a question and pausing after she said it. I said nothing. I was in this all the way.

They took me over to a low seat with a hard back and Caron strapped me to it, with a leather strap across my stomach, one below my breasts, and one above. They pinched and squeezed them together so that they stuck out. I had an inkling of what was coming next, and while it was miles above anything down below, I started to feel all kinds of second thoughts. This was going to hurt.

“Oh!” Amaranth said. “She’s invulnerable!”

Right. That was that. Body jewelry sales were final at time of insertion. If Caron couldn’t deliver, the deal was off.

“Don’t worry,” Caron said. “The needle’s enchanted for an easy and clean penetration.”

This was going to hurt. This was insane. Nipples weren’t meant to be impaled like marshmallows on a stick, or meat on a skewer, or… or… nipples with metal rammed through them. This was going to hurt. Why had I decided to bet my ass, so to speak, for the dubious privilege of having metal rammed through me? And had I mentioned that this was going to hurt?

It hurt.

Oh, fuck did it hurt. Caron’s piercing stool and its restraints must have been enchanted within an inch of their lives, because they held when I thought I was going to break.

And that was just the first one.

Once the second one was in place and the fire had subsided a bit, what I could feel the most was the coldness of the metal inside my throbbing tips. That was something I hadn’t counted on.

The weight was also more than I’d expected. It felt like pendants were hanging from them.

“I used the dwarven/ogre needle just to be sure it’d go through on the first try,” Caron said. I could hear the grin in her voice. “Why draw it out, I figure?”

“Thank you, Caron,” Amaranth said sardonically. Her hands brushed my face and then she tugged the ends of the blindfold and slipped it off of me. “Do you want to come see a mirror, baby?” I started to glance down, but she caught my chin with her hand and said, “I want you to see it all at once.”

“Okay,” I said weakly. “Yes, ma’am.”

They got me out of the chair, leaving my hands bound, and toddled me over to a full length mirror. The piercings were clearly part of a set, but they weren’t identical. One of them, the left one, looked like a padlock, shaped like a heart. The shackle of the lock was the part that was actually running through my nipple.

The other piece, the one in my right nipple, was a barbell shaped like a key, with the handle on one end and the toothy part on the other. Shaped like? It probably was the key. Not only did it require a release word to undo the piercings, but I’d have to literally unlock the heart to remove it.

Pain, cold, and unaccustomed weight aside, I smiled at my image. Amaranth undid my arm bindings, and I fingered the bottom of the heart, gently.

It was perfect.

I was also a little taken aback at how not huge the piercings were. They felt huge, like I was wearing big Khersentide ornaments, like they were the size of the Egg of Khersis pin Amaranth had self-pierced with back on the first day of school. They were small, though… like cute little charms.

“Right, so that’s it,” Caron said, handing stuff to Amaranth. “Here’s a care pamphlet… stay away from magical healing, use only local treatments if you need to. If you swallow a healing potion before those have healed up naturally, it’s going to get ugly. Use this vial to clean them… I don’t know if half-demons have to worry about infection but I’m going to say to do it anyway, the instructions are in there… and here’s your sample of hairlessness. That jar is meant to be single-use, but it’s intended for much larger area of application, so you should be able to get a month or two out of it. It’s not spelled out in the terms of the transaction, but please use it before Saturday. I don’t like bush. And remember, all body jewelry sales are final.”

“Right,” I said. “So now we just have to pay for them on Saturday.” I had a sudden horrifying thought. “Um… is there admission at the club?” I asked, thinking I might have to indebt myself further to somebody, or sell Feejee’s gift.

“Baby, that’s one reason why we should have talked about it,” Amaranth said. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate what you did, but don’t think you’re going to get off easily for that stunt.”

“I hope she doesn’t,” Caron said. “But no, there isn’t… not for the Veil party.”

“Good,” I said.

“You just need an invitation,” Caron said. She was grinning. “They won’t let you in without one.”

“So, how do I get one?” I asked.

“Well, that’s not easy,” she said. “In fact, it’s close to impossible, if you don’t anybody who’s a member.”

Shit.

“Would you get us some invitations, please?” Amaranth asked.

“Fuck!” Caron said, punching the stone wall with her fist. It left her knuckles scraped and tinged with red, but she immediately turned, grinning sheepishly and said, “I mean, sure, of course I will.”

“Wait, we just have to ask?” I said. “You’re not under some kind of spell that makes you act like this, are you?”

“No,” she said.

“Then why bother setting up a trick like that and just let me out of it because we ask nicely?” I asked.

“Baby, don’t argue,” Amaranth said. “Seriously… just don’t.”

“No, keep arguing. I have an open mind. I can be persuaded,” Caron said.

“I’m just trying to understand,” I said. “Is this a joke to you?”

“No… but seriously, I’m not sure you could conceive of how much money I’d get for you. That’s hard to ignore… impossible. But I’m not the sort of person who goes around looking for people to enslave, so I’m not going to entrap you without a way out,” Caron said. “I think it’s horribly dishonest to set up that kind of trap without any kind of warning or solution… that way, if you end up falling into it, it’s at least as much your fault as it is mine. My honor wouldn’t let me just take advantage of you.”

“But your honor has no problems with you selling me to Mercy if I do fall for it,” I said. “Nice.”

“Wait, you know you’re on Mercy’s menu and you still wandered into an off-bazaar shop and signed that paper?” Caron said.

“Mercy doesn’t want to eat me,” I said.

“Oh, I agree… but with the kind of money she has lined up, she’s clearly got somebody on the line who wants you badly, and she’s not in the labor market,” Caron said. “Maybe I should rethink helping you with the invitations… if you want to end up on a serving platter, who am I to get in the way?”

“That’s an admirable attitude, but really, she doesn’t,” Amaranth said. “I promise. When can we get the invitations?”

“I’ll have them sent to you,” she said. “I have your address.”

“Let me give you mine,” Amaranth said, giving me a look. “Mack’s kind of terrible with the little details of things like that.”

“Oh, is she?” Caron said. “It’s her responsibility to pay, so I think I’d better…”

“Caron, knock it off!” somebody yelled from behind the curtain… a female voice, slightly hoarse or creaky.

“Do you understand what we could do with…” Caron started to yell back.

“Just knock it off!” the woman repeated. “Seriously, leave them alone!”

Caron sighed.

“Damn,” she said. “I guess I’m going to have to stop angling for you. I’d never have a minute’s peace… though, that just might be worth… eh. It’s not like I was going to succeed anyway. I’m still sending the invitations to you, though,” she said. “It’s a long shot, but I’ll take it. The odds can’t be worse than the lottery, right?”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” I said.

“Let’s get you dressed and get you out of here,” Amaranth said, pulling me back towards my clothes.

“You might want to skip the bra for now,” Caron said. “And I’d put the first application of the cleansing elixir on before you get her dressed. It’ll do a little for the pain, though they’ll be tender and sensitive for a while. Don’t tug on them, don’t play with them, don’t mess with them.”

“Thank you,” Amaranth said, tersely. I think she preferred to be done with Caron, and I couldn’t blame her. She cleaned my piercings and helped me dress, and then we hurried out of the shop as soon as Caron had the door open.

It was raining outside, but we didn’t hesitate before running for the bazaar. Running with weights attached to fresh wounds on the ends of your breasts? Not the most pleasant thing in the world. I put up with it, though.

We stopped under an awning once we were in the public marketplace.

“Steff didn’t say anything about that place being dangerous when she took us there,” Amaranth said.

“Steff plays with life-stealing daggers,” I said. “I love her… but… Caron’s right. Her judgment isn’t something we should trust.”

“Let’s go back to campus,” Amaranth said. “We’ll figure out our costumes tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

“Is there anything else you need while we’re here?”

“I can’t think of a thing,” I said, and we headed back for the coaches.

Discuss this story.

What would Oru think if she saw me with one? It didn’t seem likely that she’d immediately assume it was from Amaranth or any of my other, non-goblinoid lovers.

“She did have some good points,” I admitted to Amaranth, who I could see was still smarting from having her idea cut down and brushed aside. “It doesn’t mean she’s right about everything, though.”

“Yeah,” Amaranth agreed. She sighed and tossed her head and said, “Come on, baby… let’s… let’s figure out what we’re doing here,” as she wandered away from the forbidden displays of chains and collars. She picked up some leather bracelets that came in pairs. “What do you think of these?”

“I really don’t know,” I said. “I’m not sure what they’re supposed to be saying. I mean, people give bracelets to their friends, don’t they?”

“Oh, well, I was thinking of them as being like cuffs, as in handcuffs or shackles,” Amaranth said. “But… I guess if you have to explain it…” She sighed. “That’s why I thought of a collar, baby. I want something… unambiguous. Something that tells the world… tells everyone… that we’re serious about this.”

“Maybe we don’t have to tell everyone,” I said.

“Maybe,” she agreed half-heartedly, and put the bracelets back on the peg she’d found them on.

“Just so you know,” I said, “I do think it was a good idea… I mean, I like having something that marks me as yours, even if it’s just in our minds… maybe for now, especially if it’s just in our minds. I mean, if Caron didn’t have any other point, she showed us that people are going to have their own ideas about anything we do.”

“Yeah,” Amaranth said.

“Writing on my forehead is kind of… obtrusive, and wouldn’t really work when I’m in classes. I don’t think most people look at the paddle twice because every other person’s got a scabbard or sheath on their belt, but it wouldn’t be appropriate everywhere.”

“Do you have any specific ideas?” she asked.

“I don’t know… I’m just thinking as I’m going,” I admitted. “I didn’t know I’d be shopping for something like this, so it’s not like I have some big plan, you know?”

“Do you want some more time to think about it?” she asked. “I mean, we could come back…”

“I think… I think the important thing for me is that it’s from you,” I said. “I mean, a collar… I understand why it means what it means, because of pets and… well… slaves… but it’s the idea of you giving it to me, you putting it on me… I mean, I don’t want you to just grab something at random, but… do you know what I’m saying?”

“I think so,” she said. She sucked on her lower lip a bit, scanning the racks. “You know, I’m less and less sure that we don’t want a collar.”

“Well… on top of everything Caron said, think about what happens if we don’t get separated,” I said. “I mean, if she’s wrong that this is just a phase or whatever that we’ll grow out of, where do we go next, if we get a collar now? The goblins have got their promise chains and then whatever they do next. If a collar’s that big a deal, maybe we should save it.”

“That is something to think about,” she said. She stepped over to a display of necklaces and picked one up, turning and holding it to out towards me. “Well, what about this?” It was a long, thin silver chain with a locket on it, with an actual lock. A key was hooked through the chain. “I could keep the key, and you could wear it… even though it doesn’t actually lock on you… that could be good, right?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I like the symbolism, but… I’d lose something like that, or I’d get it caught on stuff and it would break. And I couldn’t sleep in it, so it would have to come off. Apart from the whole losing thing… well, that would kind of defeat the purpose. I want something that I can wear literally all the time.”

“Okay, so we need something that’s close to the skin,” she said. “And waterproof. Is leather waterproof? I’d hate to go with plastic… I’m just not sure what kind of metal jewelry you could wear to bed and stuff.”

“Have you considered a piercing?” Caron asked from the curtained recess.

“Oh, no,” I said. “Hell no.”

“Just a thought,” she said. She came out into the store and looked at Amaranth. “Hey, you call her ‘Baby’. Do you also call her… ‘Puppy’?”

The basement shop suddenly was very, very cold.

“No…” Amaranth said. “We haven’t really done any of that kind of play. I don’t think she’s ready for it, and anyway, I’m not sure how much I’d enjoy it. It might be like, you know, getting to look at and smell a great big feast, but not… well…”

“Oh,” Caron said. “Because that’s the name used on a kind of bulletin that’s been going around, along with a description that sounds an awful lot like her.” She glanced at me. “Of course, she’s probably not a half-demon.” I must have jumped about a mile. “Oh, it is about you.”

“What kind of bulletin?” I asked, feeling the hair standing up on the back of my neck. Ordinarily my first thought might have been about the authorities… or that the school’s legal team was trawling for scandal or something… but only one person had called me “Puppy”.

“Well… kind of like a classified want ad,” Caron said. “I’d be careful where I shopped, if I were you… I’d stick to the open bazaar, the Walled Market, and other chain stores.”

“Why?” Amaranth asked.

“Because little out of the way shops like mine tend to have a visitors’ agreement by the door that lets the owner resolve problems privately, like mine does,” Caron said. “Remember when I said that if you tried stealing, you’d end up wearing a collar anyway?”

“Yeah…?” I said, not at all liking where I thought this was going.

“I wouldn’t have had to look around for a buyer, if you’d tried something. I could have bought this whole block outright with the money you’d bring me,” she said. “Which I would have done with a clear conscience, by the way, since I warned you first. But other shopkeepers aren’t going to have my scruples about it, especially with the price tag on your neck. You have to know that once a writ of enslavement is processed, the law’s not inclined to look too closely at the events leading up to it… and somebody with a lot of money can get things processed quickly.”

“Do you find yourself selling shoplifters into slavery often?” I asked. My opinion of Caron had gone down a little throughout the evening, but it was definitely trending strongly downwards now.

“Eh, maybe once every two, three months,” she said. “Most of the people stupid enough to try the five-finger discount on me are minors, and they just get a talking to. Hey, just because I don’t dress in metal with a horned helmet on my head and swig mead from a tankard the size of my head doesn’t mean I’m not a dwarf… and nobody in their right mind steals from a dwarf. Anyway… what were we talking about?”

“Uh, piercings,” Amaranth said, looking as disconcerted as I felt by the two abrupt shifts in the conversation.

“Oh, yeah. Why not a piercing?” she asked. “It’s a way of putting your mark on someone in a way that can both be seen and felt, but unlike a tattoo, it can come out if somebody changes their mind. And unlike a collar or a ring, it can just be a piercing as far as everyone else is concerned… meaning, if you do get separated and you do move on, you can keep your promise and keep her in a corner of your heart and not have to make any embarrassing explanations.”

“I thought you didn’t believe we were going to last,” I said.

“It’s easy to stay eternally devoted to somebody who isn’t there,” Caron said. “Just as long as that devotion isn’t getting in the way of your life. Also, depending on where the piercing is, it can mean she gets to be part of your lovemaking, no matter how many partners you go through.”

“You know… I think I like that,” Amaranth said. She looked at me. Her gaze trailed down my body, stopping considerably lower than I would have preferred, given the subject. “What do you think? You have such nice, big labia anyway…”

“Amaranth!” I said.

“She does, though,” Amaranth said to Caron. “I’ve always considered mine to be kind of a minimalist expression of femininity.” She put her hands on her inner thigh, sucking in her slight tummy and framing herself with her fingers and thumb. “There’s nothing wrong with them, obviously, since every woman is a unique experience, but I’ve always enjoyed someone with a little bit different set-up. My friend Barley has much… um…”

She trailed off and looked away. It was obvious that in the back of her mind, Amaranth still thought of Barley as her best friend and sister, her constant companion. I wondered how often she found herself thinking I have to tell Barley about this or I can’t wait to see what Barley has to say.

Caron laughed, apparently mistaking Amaranth’s sudden loss of enthusiasm for the topic for an embarrassed realization as to what she was saying.

“It’s okay,” Caron said. “I’ve seen her pussy and it is nice. Think about shaving it, though.”

“What, don’t you like body hair?” I asked. Surprise was the least crippling response I could choose.

“Dwarves aren’t allowed to like smoothness?” she asked.

“Yeah… well… I don’t think I want a piercing down there,” I said to Amaranth, not really wanting to pursue the subject of Caron’s tastes. “Doesn’t seem like it would be very, you know… clean.”

“Hey, my work is guaranteed,” Caron said. “As long as you follow the aftercare, the risk of an infection is almost nothing… and don’t students get free healing, anyway?”

“How about some nice earrings?” I asked Amaranth. I felt incredibly lame for suggesting something so completely tame, but even as I said it I could hear my grandmother condemning girls with pierced ears as “painted harlots and worse”.

“Um, it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to get your ears pierced sometime,” Amaranth said. “But it seems to me that among the advantages of a more intimate piercing is that it can be invisible, so you don’t have to worry about it being appropriate with every outfit you wear.” She looked me up and down. “Take off your clothes, baby.”

“What?”

“Caron’s seen you before, and the door wasn’t even locked then,” Amaranth said. “Take off your clothes. We’re not in public, and that’s an order. I want to see what we’ve got to work with.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, and I took off my coat and handed it to her, then started taking off my clothes. I started by stepping out of my shoes, taking as long as I could with them and my socks before Amaranth’s impatient glare prompted me to peel off my shirt. Caron’s eyes were on me the whole time. She had a very matter-of-fact leer. I wouldn’t have thought a person could be dispassionately aroused, but I thought that description fit her attitude.

I was a naked girl in her store. She was so blase about it that I might have been one in an interchangeable series. It was very depersonalizing, very objectifying.

I stopped after my bra and looked at Amaranth. I was naked except for my panties. She merely tilted her head downward, giving me a brief look over her rims. I swallowed and slid my underwear down.

“See, she’s got such dark hair that she looks bushier than she is,” Caron said.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about taking her elven-style for a while,” Amaranth said. She laughed and covered her mouth. “Ooh, I just realized that made it sound like I wanted to do her in the bottom. She does like that, though.”

“Do you have a strap-on?” Caron asked. “I don’t sell sex toys, but I can give you a good recommendation if you’re interested.”

“Oh, no thank you,” Amaranth said. She put a hand on my shoulder. Amazingly, it didn’t burst into flame, nor did she have to yank it back due to blistering heat. “Mack has enough penises in her life right now. What she wants from me is very basic and feminine.”

“There’s nothing unwomanly about active penetration,” Caron said.

“I’m not arguing that,” Amaranth said. “I’m just saying, it’s not what she’s looking for from me.”

“You can never know if you don’t try,” Caron said.

“I’m pretty sure I can know, thank you,” Amaranth said archly.

“Well, anyway… if you want to take her bald, I can give you a sample of a depilating oil, if I get to see the results,” Caron said.

“We’ll think about it,” Amaranth said.

“Right,” Caron said. “So, if you want to stick to vanilla piercings below the neck, we can do the nipples, the navel, the clit hood, or the outer labia.”

“That’s vanilla?” I asked. It seemed like she’d named all the possibilities.

“Baby,” Amaranth said. “You said it would mean more if I picked. Do you want me to decide?”

I ducked my head while I thought. Honestly, if the question were simply put to me where do you want to get a piercing?, the answer would simply be nowhere. But that just meant it wasn’t something I would choose to get for myself.

Would I choose to submit to Amaranth, if it meant accepting an extra hole in my body?

“Remember, piercings do come out,” Caron said. “They feel permanent but they aren’t, which might be ideal for you right now. Though, for a little bit extra, I can put a binding spell on them… that’s good if you’re worried about losing them, but you pick a release word.”

That made up my mind. I wanted something that would encapsulate everything Amaranth had wanted for the collar, and a piercing like that could do that… without signaling anything huge to the rest of the world, to other people in similar relationships, to any future or current lovers, to goblins, or anybody else.

“Let’s do this,” I said to Amaranth. “But let’s get the binding placed on them… and you keep the word. I don’t want to know what it is. I want it to be your right to remove them, not mine.”

“But what if Mother Khaele pulls us apart, and I don’t have a chance to get the word to you?” Amaranth asked.

“That’s fine… I don’t want to know, even then,” I said. “Look, no spell’s truly permanent, and since this is a convenience feature and one that’s off the shelf, it probably wouldn’t be too hard to break. The point is, I’d have to deliberately set out to do that. It would take effort. I couldn’t take it on the spur of the moment… I’d have to think about it.”

Amaranth listened and thought about it, chewing her lip, and then looked at Caron.

“How much does that cost?” she asked. “A binding spell like that?”

“An extra two gold,” Caron said.

“Two gold?” I said.

“Three gold if it’s a double set, like two nipple piercings,” Caron said. “It’s cheaper because I can cast them together.”

“Maybe we can get that added later,” Amaranth said to me. “Would that be okay?”

“Listen, I’ll let you have it in trade,” Caron said. “The whole thing. Any regular body jewelry with the binding spell and custom release word, plus a sample of the hair removing oil.”

“Oh, well… I don’t think we’ll be doing that,” Amaranth said, and the regret was dripping from her voice so strongly that I could practically hear it splashing on the floor. If I’d been game, this would have been the perfect solution, in her mind: me expanding my sexual horizons, and getting the spell I wanted on the jewelry, to boot.

But Amaranth knew my limits and wasn’t going to commit me to sex with a virtual stranger. She could have asked, but she had to know what the answer was. I felt deeply appreciative that she hadn’t put it on me to say no… I liked being able to feel like she was in control, and having to break out of that after submitting as far as saying I’d accept whatever jewelry she picked for me would have been disappointing.

Really, if we couldn’t get the spell put on it, it would still be okay. It would still be from her, it would still be hers… and in me, a part of me, forever.

“You haven’t heard the offer yet,” Caron said. “There’s a Veil party at the Tomb.”

“The Tomb?” Amaranth repeated. I might have blurted out the same, but I was feeling very at ease with my passive role.

“The Tomb of Horrors,” she said. “Hardcore BDSM club, with an emphasis on the S and the M. It’s this Saturday. You come, you bring her… shaved… and you put on a performance with her, and the jewelry’s yours.”

“What… kind of performance?” Amaranth asked.

“That’s up to you,” Caron said. “It hasn’t escaped my notice that you’re a nymph, so I’m sure you’ll come up with something better than tapdancing.”

Amaranth looked sideways at me.

“Baby… it’s not exactly public,” she said. “But I need to know what you think.”

“Why is that worth two gold to you?” I asked Caron.

“First, I’ve got a girlfriend, but I’ve got eyes, too,” Caron said. “I like tall, skinny bitches. More specifically, I like tall, skinny, loud, stupid bitches, and I like watching them get their asses beat on a little, if not more. It’s… cathartic.”

“Oh, Caron, we don’t call people stupid,” Amaranth said.

“Thank you,” I said sarcastically.

“Look, this is a good deal,” Caron said. “Nobody’s going to touch you there if you don’t want them to. Nobody’s going to interfere in your performance, and good ones get tips, so not only will you not be out any money, you could come out ahead. You also get a night of… education, if not entertainment. If you two are as serious about all this as you want to believe you are, this could be the next step. If not, it could be the eye-opener you need.”

“You’re being awfully charitable for somebody who tried to entrap me into slavery,” I said.

“Only if you were stupid and greedy,” Caron said. “Look, I swear to you that there’s no trap waiting for you in the club. I’m not trying to lure you there so I can trick you into slavery once you’re inside. They frown on that sort of thing, actually, since it blurs a line between consensual submission and chattel slavery that everybody would rather stays nice and solid. What do you say?”

She looked at Amaranth, and then me, and then at Amaranth.

“That’s an awfully inventive offer, Caron, but I don’t think…” Amaranth started to say.

“Wait,” I said. “We can’t spare two gold, so… sure. Let’s do this.”

“Wait… so, you’ll accept anything I want for you?” Amaranth asked. “Any piercing?”

If I wanted to keep my naughtier parts intact, this would be the time to speak up or forever hold them. But… I wanted it to be her choice.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Caron, may we borrow a blindfold?” Amaranth asked.

“Sure,” Caron said. “But, let’s get this in writing first, just so there are no misunderstandings.”

She ran behind the counter and pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and started writing. It didn’t take her long. She beckoned us over and turned the paper around to face us. It was a bill of sale, with the items listed as “1 pc. body jewelry, 1 small jar oil of depilation, 1 binding spell” and price listed as “1 performance on Tomb of Horrors guest stage” with payment due listed as “by 11:59 PM, Saturday, 17th Calendula, 222.” She handed me the pen and said, “Legally, it has to be your signature.”

“Why?” Amaranth asked. “We’re both rendering the payment. She’s wearing the body jewelry, but if this were a cash transaction I could be the payer just as easily as she could.”

“Well… I don’t care if you’re the one up on the stage with her or not, it’s her I want,” Caron said. “And if you two stiff me, she’d be the one I’d be going after, wouldn’t she?”

“You’re not just talking about the jewelry,” I said. I put the pen down and picked up the paper. At the bottom of the page there was a line saying that in the event of non-payment, the default terms on the back would apply. A quick glance at the back was enough to confirm what the default penalty was. There was no attempt to hide it in impenetrable legalese. “You sell clothing and jewelry… not even fine jewelry, and some of it second-hand clothing,” I said. “How do you justify credit terms like this?”

“Well, for starters, I don’t sell a lot of stuff on credit to begin with,” she said. “It’s not a dwarven concept. If I let somebody walk out of here with something that doesn’t belong to them outright, I’m going to make damn sure they pay. If somebody cheats me, frankly, I’d rather see them punished than get my money back. Slavery’s not a dwarven concept, either, but as long as other races are going to inflict it on each other, I’ve got no problem using it.”

“But this isn’t about punishing me for cheating,” I said. “It’s about you trying to make some gold off me.”

“Kid… if you had any idea how much ‘some gold’ is in this case, you wouldn’t be blaming me,” Caron said. “Anyway, as tempting as it is, it’s not like I’m trying very hard here to ensnare you. How often do you think I specifically warn somebody that shoplifting is punishable by slavery before I leave them alone in the store?”

“How often do you leave somebody alone in the store?” I countered.

“If you had tried to pocket something, it would have been my fault?” she asked.

“I thought you were Steff’s friend,” I said.

“Funny, I thought you were,” she said. “You know her. Why would you think that’s a recommendation of character?”

“Baby, let’s leave this,” Amaranth said, taking the paper from me and putting it down on the counter. “We can get you pierced in the bazaar, where there are more rules and people around. We don’t need a bunch of fancy binding spells. I love you and you love me… it was silly of me to think we needed anything more than that.”

“Not yet,” I said. I was feeling my old stubborn streak up. Caron had been trying to play us. Who knew how much of her collar talk had just been an excuse to try to get us angry and then give herself a reason to excuse herself?

“Is this Tomb place actually in the city?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Is it easy to find?”

“There’s no sign on the outside, but there’s a picture on the weavesite and it’s got the address and a map,” she said.

“And if we show up, there’s no hoop we’ll have to jump through to get on the stage and give our performance?” I asked. “They’ll just let us?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “I’ll vouch for you, which gets you to the head of the line if there is one, but new meat is always given consideration, and a half-demon and a nymph… well, people are going to be eager to see what you’ve got.”

“Are you willing to swear to me that you will see to it that we are able to get up on stage and give our performance, thereby rendering payment in full, before eleven fifty-nine on Saturday?”

“I do swear,” Caron said. “The party begins at nine, by the way. You really should have asked that, but your oath covers you there because I wouldn’t have been able to swear if the party started at midnight or something.”

“Okay, then,” I said, scowling because I hadn’t thought of that possible trap. I picked up the pen and took the paper from Amaranth.

“Baby,” Amaranth said.

“What if she wants nipple piercings?” I asked Caron.

“I’ll be flexible, if only because I think those tits need ornamenting,” she said, and she took the paper from me and amended it to read “or 1 set nipple piercings” and “or 1 mass binding spell”, then handed it back.

“Mack…” Amaranth said.

“I want this,” I said. I put the paper down and signed it before Amaranth could protest more. “She’s been giving us shit since we got here and I think we deserve a little something to show for it.”

“Wonderful!” Caron said. “I won’t regret this.”

Discuss This Chapter

A collar… why not? It wasn’t the sort of thing I’d pictured for myself, but I had to admit it was a little subtler than “Nymph’s Toy” written across my forehead… and it had been exciting to wear that for a day.

“Okay… so… are you looking to spice things up for Veil, then?” Caron asked. “I’ve got some spiky rubber ones with matching cuffs

“Um, actually, we were going to look for costume ideas, too,” Amaranth said. “But what we’re really looking for something permanent and real.”

Caron snorted.

“Of course you are,” she said. “Did you want that in mauve, or lilac?”

“I’m sorry?” Amaranth said.

The dwarven woman put a hand on her forehead and shook her head.

“Khersis, how old are you?” she asked from behind her hand.

“You know, I’m actually a timelessly immortal being created as a fully grown and mature adult,” Amaranth said. “So, um, my physical age isn’t really material.”

“How… old… are… you?” Caron asked again, lowering her hand and tilting her eyes up at Amaranth in an unblinking stare of pure, unadulterated authority.

“S-seventeen,” Amaranth said.

“And how old is Subby Suzie here?” she said, jerking her thumb at me.

“She’s eighteen,” Amaranth said. “Which should be old enough to buy anything in this store, and legally I’m…”

A guy came up towards the counter with a pair of tights on a card. Caron waved him over to the register and started walking back around to help him.

“Okay, you two do me a favor and go wait back there,” she said over her shoulder, waving to the a corner of the store, “while I serve these folks. I’ll take care of you when I can give you my full attention.”

I looked at Amaranth. She looked at me.

“Um…” she said. “Actually, can we just look around for…”

“You can do that or you can leave,” Caron said. “But I’m not having this conversation in front of customers.”

“What conversation?” I said, more than a little ticked at the dismissal. “We just want to buy…”

“Control her or remove her,” Caron said to Amaranth.

“I think I’ll do both, if you don’t mind,” Amaranth said, and she grabbed my wrist and started pulling me towards the door. I pulled back. “Baby, don’t embarrass me,” Amaranth said in a whisper of a hiss. “We’ll take our business somewhere else, somewhere they don’t make us go stand in the corner like a couple of little kids.”

“You asked me where I wanted to go and I said here,” I said. True, I hadn’t had a strong preference for this place so much as a dislike of the other option, and true, I hadn’t had a chance to digest the news of what exactly the intended surprise was and what it would mean, but I didn’t like being treated like I wasn’t welcome. A dwarf lesbian-body piercer-whatever else Caron might have been was the last person I’d expect to be intolerant or dismissive. “Let’s go wait… I want to hear what she has to say.”

“Fine,” Amaranth said, now pulling me towards the indicated corner, which was by the changing rooms and bereft of merchandise. “We’ll listen, and I mean listen… don’t go flying off the handle at her.”

Caron hurried the other customers along while Amaranth tried her best to act like the model of patience and I simmered. She ignored us completely until the last customer was gone, and then she went and put a sign up in the window and locked the door.

“We appreciate personal attention, but we don’t want to put you through any trouble,” Amaranth said, having apparently resolved to interpret everything that had happened in an entirely different light than the one she’d been seeing when she’d started to storm out. I was uneasily reminded of Sooni, rewriting our night together the morning after to make keeping our friendship chaste her mature decision. “All we want is to look at your collars. Any advice or…”

“Last time you kids were in here, I thought you were cute,” Caron said. “You had the new couple smell. You still do. Collars, huh? Do you just need one, or are you looking for a matching set?”

“Um… one,” Amaranth said. She pointed to me. “She’s my toy, and we want to do something to make our relationship… well… I guess concrete?”

“You guess,” Caron said. She rolled her eyes. I seethed. Amaranth calling me her toy… that filled me with such pride and happiness and security, and Caron for some reason felt the need to just absolutely shit on that. Was she just bitter? Maybe she’d never had a relationship like ours and she didn’t know what it was like.

Or maybe she knew what it was like and she was jealous.

That was probably it, I decided.

“You know… please take this as constructive criticism, but your attitude as a saleswoman could stand some improving,” Amaranth said. “This is a big deal to us, and the fact that we chose your shop…”

“Yes, I’m incredibly flattered that a seventeen-year-old girl picked my shop for her spur of the moment celebration of her freshmen fling,” Caron said.

“Who said it was spur of the moment?” Amaranth said. “I’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“And this isn’t a fling!” I said.

“Baby, hush,” Amaranth said.

“It is until it isn’t,” Caron said.

“What is that even supposed to mean?” I asked angrily.

“Baby!” Amaranth said.

“What I said,” Caron replied. Her eyes flicked to Amaranth while she kept her face towards me. “Your toy seems a little conflicted about the ownership issue. How much did you talk about this before you decided to do it?”

Amaranth turned dark red beside me.

“It… it was a surprise,” she said.

“Look… we want a collar,” I said. “Are you going to sell it or aren’t you?”

“I’m a dwarf, ‘Baby’,” Caron said. “And I’ve got rent to pay and a girlfriend who can’t find a job in the city. I’ll sell you the lining of my ass if you have enough gold for it. But do you want a collar because you want it, or because you think I won’t let you have one?”

“What is your problem?” Amaranth said. She gestured to a wall that had collars of leather and metal and chain in a glass-fronted case. “You sell them, so obviously you don’t disapprove of them… is it something about us that’s bothering you?”

“A sixteen year old boy came in here the other week asking me for advice on an engagement ring,” Caron said. “I wouldn’t buy an engagement ring from here, but he was one of those gothy kids. So, he asked me for my advice, and I told him: wait.”

“We aren’t getting engaged,” Amaranth said.

“No?” Caron asked. “Why do you want her to wear your collar?”

“To show… so she’ll know… so we can feel like she really belongs to me,” Amaranth said, starting to choke up. I thought part of it was just her reaction to being angry… part, but not all of it. “No matter where we are or what happens.”

“Forever and ever, amen?” Caron said.

“Don’t mock this,” Amaranth said, the tears drying up in a hurry as she gave Caron a taste o the over-the-lenses look. I wouldn’t have expected that to rock Caron back like it did, but part of that might have just been the surprise.

“Okay, but seriously,” Caron said. “Is this a forever thing?”

“Yes,” Amaranth and I both said. Amaranth looked at me, giving me a little nod. I stepped forward a little.

“I want to be hers,” I said. “Completely hers.”

“That’s sweet,” Caron said. “And so not at all like a ring that I don’t know what I was thinking, making the comparison. Is she your first Dom?”

“Yes,” I said.

“First girlfriend?”

“She’s my first everything, okay?” I said. “First relationship.”

“Aw, how sweet,” Caron said. “And how lucky for you that you got it exactly right the first time.”

“Some people do,” I said. “Are we supposed to break up because first relationships don’t always succeed?”

“There is a narrow patch of ground between ‘breaking up’ and ‘commitment ceremony’,” Caron said. “Try living there for a while. If you’re still together in a few years, and you’re still sure you want to go that way, I’ll give you twenty percent off any collar you want… in store, from the catalogues, custom order. Twenty percent.”

“You don’t understand,” Amaranth said, tears welling up in her eyes.

“No, no, no,” Caron said, shaking her head. “It’s ‘You don’t even understand!’ Emphasis on ‘even’. Bunch your fists up when you say it, and stomp your foot. And don’t forget to tell me that you hate me.”

“I don’t hate anybody!” Amaranth said… bunching up her fists and stomping her foot a little.

“Amaranth,” I said, touching her arm gently. She hated being angry, and I hated seeing her like that because I knew it made her miserable. “Maybe we should wait… it might, you know, mean more…”

“But we can’t wait!” she said. “We don’t know how much longer we’ll be together!”

“That’s a great reason to buy a symbol of eternal submission,” Caron said.

“Oh, shut up,” Amaranth said through tears. “My mother… she wants to keep us apart. She doesn’t think I’m ready, she doesn’t think we’re good for each other…”

“Oh, well, that completely unique story changes everything,” Caron said.

“You don’t understand…”

“I don’t even understand,” Caron said.

I hated her a little bit more for the smile on her face as she said that. It didn’t matter how stereotypically teenager-y Amaranth’s wording was or not, she really didn’t understand. Not everybody under the age of twenty was an idiot. Not everybody over the age of twenty knew everything about life… especially our lives, which were far from typical.

“I’m talking about the goddess Mother Khaele,” Amaranth said. “If she forbids us…”

“Everybody’s mother is a goddess to them,” Caron said. “Let me rephrase that: every spoiled kid who has a mother and depends on that mother for everything’s mother is a goddess to them.”

“Okay, but… my mother actually is a goddess,” Amaranth said. “So…”

“So if she breaks you two up, you lose each other twice as hard?” Caron said.

“If she breaks us up, I want Mack to have something that says she’s mine,” Amaranth said. She reached out and grabbed my hand and I gave hers a little squeeze. She steadied a bit. Her hand was so warm… I loved her so completely. “So she knows I love her, and I know that wherever she is, she’s wearing it and she loves me.”

“How wonderfully tragic,” Caron said.

“Hey, she’s trying to make the best of a bad situation,” I said.

“You want to talk about a bad situation?” Caron asked. “Let me spin a few for you. One: tragedy strikes and a cruel world sweeps you away from each other, but not before you swear to wear her collar for the rest of your life. Then somewhere down the line, you meet a new mistress and your heart learns to love again… or maybe you meet a nice boy and want to do the picket fence thing with him.”

I was about to protest that this wouldn’t happen, and then I remembered… Ian. How would this work, if I was going to put on a tangible symbol of submission and commitment to Amaranth? Was it just a symbol of what we already had… or did it signify something else, something greater?

“Right, now you’re thinking,” Caron said. “So, what do you do then? Let the opportunity pass you by? Try to make it work with the fresh new love while still wearing the ghost of your failed teenage romance around your neck? Or break your promise and spend the rest of your life feeling even more tragic because you betrayed true love?”

She paused as if to let that sink in… and sink it did. I couldn’t imagine what I’d do without Amaranth, but life could very well go on.

“I… I’d let her take it off,” Amaranth said. “If that happened. I wouldn’t want to stand in the way… she could keep it as a reminder, though.”

“Lots of things work as reminders,” Caron said. “You want a collar because it means something, and that, girly, is exactly why I think you should reconsider. If you think those scenarios are so easily dealt with, think about all that could go wrong if you overcame all the tragic portents and omens and the hand of fate and actually got to stay together.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Right now, everything about your relationship’s fresh and new and probably a lot of fun,” Caron said. “True submission… not submissiveness, which is a personality trait, but submission, which is an act, like love is an act and commitment is an act takes more than fun. It takes work. If you do spend the rest of your lives together, how much sense does it make to define your entire relationship by what you’re into right now?”

Caron turned and started walking away. At first I thought that meant she’d decided the conversation was over, which left me feeling… kind of flatfooted, actually. Except for what was honestly an ornery, contrary reaction, I hadn’t had a chance to make up my mind about whether I wanted a collar in the first place… and while Caron had some decent-ish points mixed in with everything she’d said, I hadn’t made up my mind that she was right, either.

“Come over here,” she said, gesturing us towards a low rack, three dowels arranged into an elongated triangle on which were hanging a bunch of chains of varying thicknesses and styles. Some of them lock-style medallions or pendants, like the necklace Oru had worn to the dance, and some of them had actual locks. “These are goblin chains,” she said. “They’re like a promise ring, or a varsity pin or letter jacket or whatever. It’s how the goblinoid races show a level of attachment with their sweethearts, how they show they’re serious before they’re ready or able to marry. It means they’re going steady. ”

“Oh,” Amaranth said. “You know, something like that…”

“Yeah, something like that,” Caron said. “I’m not selling you one of these because you’re not a goblin, you don’t know goblin culture, and you’re not going to ‘get it’ from a two sentence description.”

“You said you’d sell us your ass lining if we had the gold,” I said.

“If you’re interested,” Caron said. “But if you went around wearing one of these, you’d get your ass bit off and you’d deserve it, but I’d feel guilty for letting it happen.”

“Then why…” I started to say.

“I’m showing you these so you can see first, that this kind of thing does mean something to people who aren’t you, and second, so you can see that it’s not an all or nothing thing,” Caron said. “What you’re talking about when you say ‘collar’ is a for-real, for-true super serious thing… but that doesn’t mean buying one is going to make your love last forever. You don’t buy your sub a collar to find out if you’re serious… you find out you’re serious and then you get it. Until then? Get her some bracelets. Get matching lockets. Get a necklace with a collar motif.”

Amaranth looked at me, biting her lower lip. Conflict was written all over her face… she’d walked into the store with a plan, knowing exactly what she wanted and why. Now she wasn’t sure.

“You have some good points,” I said to Caron. “But you really don’t know us.”

“I really don’t,” she admitted. “And you might be really truly in love with each other, and you might actually be ready to submit for real. I’ll be the first to admit that I can’t look at a hundred young couples and tell at a glance which ones of them are going to be the ones who actually make it. Nobody can… and that’s really the ultimate point here. Your love might be for the ages, but right now it’s indistinguishable from anybody’s who isn’t. Nobody can know for sure.”

“Maybe we can,” I said.

“Sure you can,” she said. “And so can everybody else who’s in love, and most of you are going to be wrong.”

This was starting to remind me of conversations with Amaranth and Steff about the nature of gods, conversations that had made my head hurt and led to me losing my temper.

“Baby,” Amaranth said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll get… something. We’ll look around. We’ll talk about the collar. I don’t think she’s necessarily right… but it wouldn’t hurt to be sure.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Okay. Good. Great,” Caron said, holding up her hands. “Would you like some recommendations, or do you just want to browse?”

“Maybe in a bit,” Amaranth said. She took her glasses off and started rubbing the lenses with her fingers, even though they were perfectly clean. I think she was trying to cool down.

“Okay,” Caron said. “I’m going to actually leave you two alone, then, because I have to run downstairs and take care of something real quick. I’m going to trust you folks a little because I think you’re making a good decision and I don’t want to crowd you while you’re doing it. Also because the door’s locked. But if you steal from my store, you’re going to be wearing a collar sooner than you expected.” She looked at Amaranth. “Of course, you’re a kid, so the guards get to deal with you.”

“I’m not a kid,” Amaranth said.

“Sure,” Caron said. She headed for the curtained doorway. “Take your time. I’ll be back up in seven or so.”

Discuss this story.

“You wouldn’t mind waiting for the next one, would you, baby?” she asked.

“No,” I said, relieved. Another group of people could come along, of course, but I’d take the chance of scoring an empty coach versus squishing in with the departing dinner crowd. “I don’t mind.”

We sat down on the little covered bench and I huddled up against Amaranth. I couldn’t feel her warmth through my coat and clothes, but she lessened the chill of the air. A light, misty rain began to fall shortly after we sat down. It didn’t make the wait any more pleasant, but it might have helped keep anybody else from coming along and waiting for a ride.

We got into an empty coach and Amaranth sat down on the bench while I half-stood in the middle, pulling my wet coat off. It wasn’t exactly dripping, but it was warm inside and I didn’t want that barrier between us. The coach lurched forward and I swayed a little before deciding to just go with it and sat down sideways in the aisle between the two benches.

Amaranth didn’t want to push me into a submissive mode, but she was looking for reassurance about our relationship… and nobody had ever made a big deal out of me sitting on the floor, that had just felt right to me ever since I started with Ian.

I could have sat on her lap, but that was automatic mindless comfort. This was a signal, I hoped… it told Amaranth exactly where I stood, so to speak.

It seemed to work. She’d reached out to steady me when I first started to stumble, then when she realized what I was doing she looked confused for a moment, and then she smiled. She sat up straighter and arranged herself so that I was between her legs, and we rode out away from campus in silence, simply basking in each other.

I wasn’t about to take off my clothes inside the carriage… it would be just my luck not to notice when we got to town and then we’d get stopped for something… but in my mind, I was naked, laid bare before her. Amaranth’s body had nothing to hide from me, and I could hide nothing from her.

I realized that in my head, I was continuing to make up my mind before I even knew what the surprise would be… I was pushing myself further and further into that place of subservience and passiveness.

Was it really pushing if I did it myself, though?

Or was that more like just walking, casually strolling into that place ?

Amaranth had asked me what I wanted, after our first fight, and I’d told her: to be hers. She’d directed much of what came after that, but it had been my choice. I had changed… was still changing… since then… but that essential truth remained.

I wanted Amaranth to be as patient and understanding with me as I knew she could be, and I wanted her to be less concerned about who came up with each idea, but I wanted her and I wanted to be hers, metaphorical warts and all.

Was seventeen years of not-particularly-worldly experience enough to prepare her for the kind of relationship we wanted? Probably not… but I’d known people who got married out of high school. That was legally binding and usually led to… or was preceded by… children.

Our fuck-ups were our own to make, and experience had to come from somewhere.

“Did you… did you have a good afternoon?” she asked me after a few minutes of reflective silence.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Um…”

“Yes, baby?”

This seemed like the right opening to talk about the mermaids while we were isolated from even passing ears, but I wasn’t sure how to open.

If there was an actual imminent threat… like, Feejee and Iona were stalking up behind her… then obviously the thing to do would be to yell, “Lookout!” As it was, there was just a lot of talk… and even though it had become increasingly clear that the mermaids longed for something more, maybe that was all it would ever be.

Maybe they were coping with the ongoing temptation by immersing themselves… no pun intended… in an elaborate and improbably fantasy scenario. If I went crying shark over that… well, the consequences would be about the same as what I’d warned Feejee of if she acted, only it would be my fault.

And maybe that wouldn’t be a terrible thing. Mermaids in their natural habitat were a danger to humanity. Feejee and Iona weren’t innocent there… except in the sense of being innocent of the particular instance I would be accusing them of.

If I was going to be honest with myself, that was the hold-up for me… if knowing that Feejee was a member of a human-eating race and had eaten human flesh in the past was enough to condemn her for what could be idle talk and my feeling intimidated, then what of me?

“Mack?” Amaranth prompted.

“Um…” I said again, for lack of anything more organized or articulate.

“What is it, baby?” Amaranth prompted.

“I had lunch with Feejee,” I said.

“Oh, that’s nice,” she said. “I really think that the more we socialize with Feejee, and the more we encourage her to socialize with others, the more likely she’ll stop looking at her fellow beings as a source of food. You know, when they’re not willing.”

“Maybe,” I said. I gathered my nerve… this was too important for me to back down. We were alone. I was sitting with my legs drawn up, between hers. I could hardly have asked for a more secure position. I could do this. I could be firm and say what I needed to say. “But,” I began again, “you have to remember, she was hanging out with people more human than us before, and they didn’t seem to change her mind any.”

“Maybe not,” Amaranth said. “But… I think there are some good signs.”

“Amaranth…” I said, and I took a deep breath. “You need to realize that Feejee really wants to eat me.”

“I know,” she said, nodding. “And I’m proud that you’ve used that as the basis of a healthy playful relationship with her… you’ve taken something that could have been terrible and turned it into something sexy and fun, and I think that’s wonderful.”

“But she isn’t interested in the ‘just pretend’ stuff anymore,” I said. “She and Iona have started talking about how to do it for real… I think they’re sort of serious.”

“Sort of serious, or serious?” Amaranth asked, very seriously.

“Um… sort of serious, but leaning towards getting more serious?” I said. I didn’t want her to write this off but I didn’t want her to go too far in the other direction, either. “Feejee knows the repercussions could be huge… and I think Iona must, too, or else I don’t believe she’d restrain herself at all… but I think they’re trying to convince each other that they really could pull it off and get away with it.”

“Well, they have to realize that’s impossible,” Amaranth said.

“I’ve been telling Feejee that,” I said. “But when I try to point out why, she acts like I’m… I don’t know, troubleshooting or something.”

Amaranth laughed.

“I don’t think it’s funny,” I said.

“Sorry,” she said. “The situation isn’t… it really, truly isn’t. But the image kind of was.”

“Well… you should remember that one of the main reasons it’s impossible is you,” I said. “Feejee actually asked me if I knew how to, uh, get rid of you.”

“What did you say?”

“I… well… I blurted out something about your field before I stopped myself,” I said. “But I made sure she knows it’s far away and protected.”

“Baby, honesty’s a virtue, but you’ve got to learn to control yourself a little better,” Amaranth said.

“Uh, yeah,” I said, remembering the other thing I had to tell her about the lunch with Feejee. I ducked my head. “In the same conversation, I kind of… lost my temper and raised my voice a bit.”

“Was this in public?” she asked.

“Pretty much… it was the lunch room, but it wasn’t very crowded,” I said.

She sighed.

“Well… under the circumstances, I guess a little anger is understandable,” Amaranth said. “But do you understand why it would have been very bad if that conversation had attracted public attention?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, ducking down lower.

“If Feejee meant you harm maliciously and was cunning about it, acting hostile to her like that could have played into her hands. Anyway, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to have any more discussions with Feejee about this… it might just encourage her. I’ll talk to her, instead. Maybe we can come to… to some kind of an understanding.”

I snorted.

“Now what’s funny?” Amaranth asked.

“You sound like Feejee,” I said. “She wants to know why people can’t compromise with her on the whole ‘being eaten’ thing. I don’t think this is the kind of thing where it’s possible to meet halfway.”

“A compromise doesn’t always mean meeting exactly in the middle,” Amaranth said. “It just means finding the ground where you both can stand. If one side’s on shakier ground to begin with, they’re going to have to move a lot more… but if it takes a gesture or a word or a gift to make them see that, why not?”

“Should people need a gesture before they agree not to do horrible things to each other?” I asked. “I’m glad I get the benefit of the doubt, so I try to give Feejee the same… but I don’t see why I should have to reason with somebody if they really want to kill me.”

“But you’re doing it,” she said.

“Well, so far, she doesn’t want to enough to actually do it,” I said.

“You know me, baby… I don’t think anybody should hurt anybody,” Amaranth said. “But if a gesture is what it takes to get somebody to stop behaving unreasonably, is it reasonable to withhold it?”

“‘Behaving unreasonably’,” I said. “That’s one way of putting it. Well… if you approach her, just remember for now that Feejee is looking at you as the reason she can’t just do whatever she wants with me.”

“Thank you for your concern, baby, but she really can’t do anything to me… and maybe if I can offer her a better alternative, she won’t bother trying.”

I didn’t have anything else to really say on the subject, so I sat there and nodded.

“I’m still going to punish you for raising your voice, of course,” Amaranth said, looking down at me over her glasses, and I felt my bottom tingling. How was it that the same gesture could be used to convey pride and disappointment all at once?

Amaranth pulled me up off the floor into her arms as the carriage approached the city walls, and she held me on her lap as we passed through the screening spells, stroking my hair and whispering soothingly as I went rigid.

“Would you like to get dinner first, or go straight to the store?” she asked when we disembarked. The air was cold and wet, but water at least did not seem to be falling so much as simply being present.

“Let’s go to the store,” I said, wanting to… not get over it or on with it or anything else that might have implied I wasn’t looking forward to it.

I wasn’t, but I wasn’t dreading it, either. That was the thing about a surprise. I wouldn’t know how to take it until we were there and I saw what she had in mind… and after that, maybe we’d have some big thing to talk about. Until then, it was just me not knowing and her not saying. So, I preferred to minimize the part of the evening where I was in the dark.

Amaranth had a better head for the layout of the market quarter than I did. We skirted the bazaar… I wasn’t sure if she was trying to avoid it or just get to Caron’s shop faster… and we found the little door in the side of a corner building with runes over it that opened onto steps descending into the ground.

“Howdy,” Caron called from behind the stone counter as we entered. The shop wasn’t quite empty, though far from crowded.

“Hi!” Amaranth said, pulling me across the store towards her. “I don’t know if you remember us…”

“Oh, you know, I get so many giant naked women in here… Steff’s friend, right?” she said to Amaranth, looking her down and up. She turned to me. “Is that your toy under there?”

“It is,” Amaranth said, putting her hands around me from behind and opening my coat. “She’s why we’re here, actually… and I want you to know that I offered her a choice of shops and she picked yours.”

“Oh?” Caron said.

“Yes,” Amaranth said. “We’re looking for something to sort of… firm up… or celebrate… our relationship. Would you mind very much showing us what you have in collars?”

Discuss this story.

“Who’s that?” a female voice said from behind the counter before a head with short black hair and several facial piercings popped into view. “Oh, hey, Rosie!” Caron said, hauling her small but solidly built body up onto the counter with strong arms. “What brings you down?”

“I just need to get some more of those tights,” the human woman said, heading to the wall where packages of striped and patterned leggings were on display.

“What, again?” Caron asked, dangling her leather-clad legs over the front of the counter. “What the hell do you do with them, girl?”

“Eat them, of course” Rosalie said, picking out a few selections.

“I’m serious,” Caron said. “I know they aren’t running. If they are, I’m going to have to kill somebody.”

“They aren’t running,” Rosalie said. “I just keep losing them.”

“Why do you bother buying permanent tights if you can’t keep track of them?”

“Because the cheap ones don’t last a week,” Rosalie said. “I go clubbing in them once and they’re ruined.”

“But you’re in here every week anyway,” Caron said.

“Yeah, but if I ever quit losing them I won’t be,” Rosalie said. “I’m buying extra this time, too.”

“How do you lose a pair of tights?”

“Alcohol is usually involved.”

The bell over the bottom of the stairs tinkled and the sound of booted footfalls echoed down to them. A human guy in his late twenties, a semi-regular that Caron recognized without knowing his name, came into the store.

“Hey,” Caron said, giving him a little wave. “Help you find anything?”

“Nah, just need a new chain for my wallet,” he said. “So, uh, Caron… you ever stop beating your girlfriend?”

“Ha!” the dwarf woman said. “That’s funny! So funny. You know what else is funny?”

“No,” the guy replied.

“That sign to your left,” she said.

She watched him turn and read the sign placed at eye level for a human. It said “We reserve the right to refuse service to anybody.” The word “service” was scratched out and the words “unshattered kneecaps” was written above it.

“What?” he asked, turning back to look at Caron.

His confusion turned to a look of pant-wetting terror as he saw the iron-hafted mattock she’d pulled from beneath the counter, and he fled from the shop, scrambling up the stone stairs back to towards the street.

“I hate that shit, seriously,” Caron said, shaking her head.

“Fallacies of many questions?” Rosalie asked, bringing her selections up and putting them down next to Caron.

“The idea that because I’m a dwarf, I can’t be in a relationship with anybody without beating seven kinds of hell out of them,” Caron said. “I hate that. That, and humans who blame domestic violence on great-grandpa who was a dwarf. Like full-blooded humans can’t ever haul off and pop somebody in the mouth without dwarven blood being involved… anyway, that whole thing is about dwarves on dwarves. It’s why I don’t date my own race.”

“Yeah, you don’t have to tell me that,” Rosalie said. “My grandfather is a dwarf, and he was always sweet as pie to Grandma, that I saw.” At Caron’s look of skepticism, she elaborated. “Oh, they adopted my mom. I’m not saying I’m dwarven.”

“Oh, okay,” Caron said. “I was going to say something, otherwise.”

“Anyway… since I’m in here so often buying them anyway, is there any possibility I can get something like a bulk discount?” Rosalie asked.

“Sure,” Caron said. “Just open a store and buy them wholesale. Don’t make me make you read the sign, girl.”

Rosalie sighed and pulled out a coin purse.

“Seriously, I hate talking myself out of business, but if you’re back in here next week buying new ones I’m going to have to cut you off for your own good,” Caron said.

“Oh, I can afford it,” Rosalie said, dropping a small pile of coins onto the counter. “My rent’s pretty cheap, and tattoos is good money. It’s a college town, full of people out on their own for the first time, their pockets full of their parents’ money.”

“Who am I to argue?” Caron said. She swept up the money and put it into the pouch on her belt, which did not bulge out at all even after the coins were deposited. “So, what’s the weather like up there?”

“Sunny but cold,” Rosalie said. “It’s been pretty clear lately… there was one hell of a rainstorm over campus last night, though.”

“Just over the campus?” Caron asked. She shuddered visibly, then stuck out her tongue. “I don’t know how you people can stand it.”

“What?”

“Weather,” Caron said.

“Don’t you ever go up in it?” Rosalie asked.

The dwarf shook her head.

“The last time I saw the sky was twenty-three years ago,” she said. “And that wasn’t my idea, I can tell you that.”

“So… what do you do when you want to leave the store?”

“Oh I just use the underground,” Caron said. “As long as I remember what days it’s safe.”

“What do you mean?”

“We take turns,” Caron said. “One day it’s ours, the next it’s the boys’.”

“So, unfunny asshats aside, this ‘battle of the sexes’ thing really is serious business?” Rosalie asked.

Caron nodded.

“What would you do if a dwarf guy came in here?”

“He wouldn’t,” Caron said. “There are runes by both entrances telling him this is woman’s space.”

“What if he ignored that?”

“Well, then, things would get ugly,” Caron said.

“You’d fight?” Rosalie asked.

“Probably not,” Caron said. “I’m sure as stone not looking to get married… but I take my space very seriously. If he didn’t respect it, I’d have something to say about it.”

“Wow,” Rosalie said. “Can I ask why?”

“Because it’s my space,” Caron said. “You carve out a space for yourself, it should be yours forever. That’s how it works under the mountains. Sometimes you have to fight to keep it, but it should be yours.”

“I mean, why is there all the hostility to begin with?” Rosalie said.

The question surprised Caron.

“Oh… I don’t know, honestly,” she said. “It isn’t anything that I was taught to do… I was raised by a human couple. They taught me about dwarven culture, as much as humans know… I’m ninety-four and I’m still finding out bits they missed… but they didn’t grind it into my head that I had to fight with male dwarves. They did the opposite, actually… they kept telling me it was something that some dwarves did but that I shouldn’t feel like I had to.”

“But you do anyway?”

“Yep,” Caron said. “One day, they decided to introduce me to another dwarf… without warning him… and nature took its course. Once I made some contacts with other dwarven women, I learned about warning signs and things like that. They told me a story about how it all supposedly came to pass. Do you want to hear it?”

“Are you sure you’re allowed to tell me?” Rosalie asked.

“I can tell you the broad strokes,” Caron said. “They probably didn’t tell me the whole thing, anyway. They acted like I was a human as long as my human parents were still alive. I’m still treated like an outsider sometimes.”

“Okay, then,” Rosalie said.

“So, the first dwarves were… well, no, I should probably skip that part. It’s boring. But there were seven of them, anyway, all brothers. They lived together on the surface of the world until the first rains came, and they said ‘What the fuck? Water’s falling!’ and scratched out a shelter out of a mountain side. But they started fighting right away, because dwarves have always been stocky little fuckers and so each of them thought the others were crowding into the space he’d dug out. When the rain stopped, they each set out in a different direction to make their own place.

“But they’d never been on their own, so they prayed… well, that part is kind of boring. But, anyway, each of the brothers got himself a wife, and they started the first seven clans. They didn’t give a shit about sharing tunnels with their own children, because they figured they’d had a hand in making them, too, or whatever, so everything was good for a while.”

“So, what happened?” Rosalie asked.

“Well, the clans started growing all over the place and pretty soon their borders were butting up against each other,” Caron said. “And they started fighting again, only instead of just the seven brothers it was whole armies going at it with axes and hammers. It actually got so bad that at the height of it… well, that part’s boring, too.”

“You’re a terrible liar, you know that?” Rosalie said.

“I’m a terrible liar who likes her fingers where they are,” Caron said. “So, anyway, when the dust settled, half the race had been wiped out and all the kingdoms were in ruins. They took care of their dead and patched things up and then they started assigning blame. The version I heard was that the menfolk tried to pin it on the women and the women threw them out of the halls. I think the men tell a different story for that part, though.”

“So what do dwarves do with their dead?” Rosalie asked. “I mean, I can’t really see the point of burying when you live in stone tunnels anyway.”

“They haven’t told me that yet, either.”

“Oh, whatever… you’re still a lousy liar,” Rosalie said. “I wish you guys would realize that making everything a great big freaking secret just makes people more interested in finding it out.”

“It’s not really that interesting or even all that different from what other races do,” Caron said. “It’s just… ours.”

“Yeah? Would you say it’s more not all that different from what elves do, or humans?” Rosalie asked.

Caron just glared at her.

“Okay, okay… sorry I asked,” Rosalie said. “I should probably think about heading back… I told Jeff I was just popping around the corner. But, hey… am I ever going to meet your girlfriend, or is she a secret, too?”

“She isn’t, exactly… we’re just not ready to go public,” Caron said.

“What, you mean she’s in the closet?” Rosalie asked. “Because all the dwarves I know have human girlfriends, and nobody cares. Or is that different for girls?”

“It’s complicated,” Caron said. “Let’s just leave it at that.”

“That sounds like the truth,” Rosalie said. “But if you ever want to get something off your chest, remember that dwarves aren’t the only ones who can keep secrets.”

“Okay,” Caron said.

“Anyway, I’ve got to get going,” Rosalie said, gathering up her packages of tights.

“Yeah, see you next week,” Caron said with a smirk. “Hey, close the door when you go, okay? It’s time for my lunch break, too.”

“Alright,” Rosalie said, and she did.

The door was designed to lock from the inside when closed… as Caron never went out through it, she had never bothered to get a second key for it. A few moments after the lower door had clicked shut, the bell above it tinkled to signal the opening of the door at the street level. A few seconds after that, a kobold with skin the color of rust and eyes the color of rubies stepped out through the beaded curtain that partitioned off the back room. She wore black leather pants like Caron’s, but the only thing she wore above her waist was a leather collar. Her bare chest was covered in swirling tribal tattoos.

“You never told me that story,” she said.

“Only because you never asked about it, Nae,” Caron said.

“So, would you tell me the parts you skipped, if I asked you to?” Nae asked, fluttering her eyelashes.

“Oh, it’s bound to be rubbish, anyway… if your great-grandmother has a fight with your great-grandfather, it doesn’t bind you into fighting with your cousin all the time. There has to be more to it then that.”

“So that’s a no, then,” Nae said.

“Sorry, little mouse,” Caron said. She put her hand on top of her lover’s bald head and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’m going to catch enough hell if they find out about us as it is.”

Dear Diary,

I wake up when Dee comes back into the room.
She apologizes for waking me but I think I was already half awake from when she left.
She goes to bed.
I get up and take a shower and brush my teeth then return to my room.

There is a knock on the door.
It is Amaranth.
She says she hopes she did not wake us.
Dee says that it would be hard for a knock on the door to awaken her because the dorms are frequently so noisy and I am always crying.
Dee apologizes for her rudeness.
Amaranth says that she and Mack and Steff are going into town and would like for me to come if I am free.

I am free.

Amaranth and Dee talk about my crying while I get dressed.
Amaranth says that I don’t mean anything by it but she is mistaken.

I do mean it when I cry.

Amaranth says that she likes my clothes and I am glad.
She says my pajamas are pretty.

She is correct.

Once I am dressed we go to meet Mack.
She has something written on her forehead but I cannot see what it says.
Mack is wearing a skirt that I think belongs to Steff.
It looks good on her.
We go downstairs and outside.
Amaranth leads us towards the edge of campus.
Amaranth asks Mack why she is so quiet.
Mack doesn’t seem capable of answering.
Steff, who I have been told is a girl, arrives and asks Amaranth what she did.
Amaranth shakes her head at Steff.
Steff says that she wants a Mack.

We go to the carriages.
I am told to take out my student identification card and climb into the carriage.

Once we are seated in the carriage I can see the words on Mack’s forehead.
They say “Nymph’s Toy.”
I wonder if Amaranth bought Mack.
^It appears as though

Chattel isn’t allowed to enroll in classes or reside in the dorms.
I hope Mack doesn’t have to leave.
I will be sad if Mack has to leave.
It would be unfortunate if Mack has to leave.
It would be my fault since I told her that she should do what she wanted and that she wanted to be Amaranth’s.

Steff and Amaranth talk about the moon and say things that don’t make any sense.
Mack tells them that the moon is not governed by earthly laws and Amaranth makes her not sit on her lap anymore.
Steff asks them how they made up.
Amaranth says that Mack showed her some toys and said they were very important to her and that she wanted to be Amaranth’s toy and that’s how they made up.
Amaranth hugs Mack and lets her back on her lap.
I am glad.
I am glad.

Mack and Steff and Amaranth talk about sex things.
Mack says she doesn’t want to talk about them in front of me.
I am asked if I mind them talking about pussies and stuff.
I say that I do not but I am conflicted because I mind Mack being bothered but I don’t know if that counts.
I ask and am told that it does.
I say that I do mind.

Steff starts talking about clothing.
She has a lot of ideas for things that Mack should wear which I think sound nice.
Mack says she wants her date with Ian to be a date and not a weird submissive thing.
I did not know that Mack had a date with Ian.
I wonder if she made it before she became Amaranth’s toy.

Steff and Amaranth both promise to send Mack on her date looking fabulous.
I guess Amaranth doesn’t mind her toy dating.

The carriage comes to Enwich.
My runes tingle when we pass through the gate.
I think Mack’s forehead words must have tingled, too, because she cries out at the same time.
Steff apologizes and says she wasn’t thinking.
She explains that Mack must have tripped the monster detector.
Mack and Steff get upset at each other and I almost cry but then they say they’re sorry and hug.

Steff looks like she gives nice hugs.

When we get out of the carriage Steff asks what we all want to do.

I want to do what I’m told.
But I wouldn’t mind breakfast.

Also, I have been told to eat a meal when I am hungry and food is available, and food is available and I am hungry.
I tell this to Steff and she says it is a vote for breakfast even though it isn’t.
Everybody else is in favor of breakfast even though Mack doesn’t say it.
Steff calls her a senator and Mack asks if she’s even still running.
Amaranth tells Mack that’s up to her.

I think she must be new at owning people but she will probably get better at it.

We go to a cafe.
I order something that is called “banana nut waffles”.
I have never had a banana nut but I think they must probably taste like bananas.
It turns out they are waffles made with bananas and nuts.
There are little slices of bananas and whipped cream, too.
The syrup tastes good.
I put some in my hot chocolate.
I am told that this is not what the syrup is for.
I apologize and put my hot chocolate aside.
I am told to drink it anyway.

It is good.

The others talk more about Mack running for student senate.
Steff says that she would vote for Mack if she could.
I have been told to vote for Mack, but I say that I would vote for her even if I didn’t have to, because we are talking about who we would vote for.
Amaranth says that she loves Mack no matter what she does.

I hope she is not mistaken.

I am asked who else is running.
I tell Amaranth it is only Sooni and Mack.
Mack and Amaranth have a little argument about Sooni.
I think Mack is new at being owned, but after a moment Amaranth doesn’t mind.

We leave the cafe.
Amaranth and Steff are talking to each other but every time I think I understand what they’re talking about they are talking about something else.
After a while I figure out that I was mistaken and they aren’t actually talking about anything.
It only sounds like they are.

We go to the bazaar.
There are pretty birds in cages and slaves in golden chains and toys in a big pen.
Amaranth is asked how much Mack costs and she says that Mack is not for sale.
Steff and Mack argue about the Walled Market and Amaranth tells Mack not to.
I think that she’s getting better at owning Mack but then I see that she is sad.
Mack is told to stay with me.
Steff goes to talk to Amaranth.

I am asked if I would like to hold Mack’s hand.
I would.
I am asked what I’m afraid of.
I say I’m afraid of not knowing what to do and being thrown away.
I am told that people don’t get thrown away.
I say that I was thrown away and turned into a person and I don’t know what will happen if I’m thrown away again.
I am told I wasn’t thrown away.
I think I was.
I apologize for being mistaken.
I start to cry.

After a while Mack hugs me.
I hug her back.
Amaranth and Steff arrive and they hug us, too.

I am asked how I pay for college.
I tell Mack about my scholarships and my re-education grant.
I say I tried being a maid but needed too much supervision.
I am asked if I ever thought about a job at a fast food place in the union.
I shake my head to indicate that I have not.
Mack says it’s mostly following directions.
Steff agrees and says even a golem could do it.

I am a golem.

I am told to find out how to apply and do it when we’re back on campus and I have the time.

I thank Mack.

We stop hugging and a man pardons himself for interrupting but he couldn’t help overhearing.
His name is Master Hrothvar and he wants to acquire me.
He is a slaver.
He says that nobody is free which is not true but in some ways it almost is.
I am prevented from speaking to him.
I do not know what I would say to him.
I am afraid of him and of what I might say.
He offers me a card.
Mack lets go of my hand and takes it.

I am very afraid.

Mack takes my hand again.
I am asked if I think I might like being a slave.
I know that I am supposed to say no but I have been asked and I nod my head to indicate yes.
Amaranth asks the others if they’re doing something wrong by keeping me away from slavers.
I have not been asked but I think they aren’t.
But I wish they wouldn’t keep me away. I wish they would sell me to Master Hrothvar and use the money to buy nice things for Mack because all of her clothes are dirty and ugly and she should be pretty for Amaranth like the birds in the cages.
Steff tries to explain about desiring different things with different parts of your soul.
I do not have a soul but I think I know what she means.
I ask for clarification and am told that I can want different things at the same time.

I want to do what I’m told.

But I want other things, too.

And this is allowed.

I am asked if I would like to be ordered not to sell myself to slavers or otherwise give up my status as a free being.

I would.

I am so ordered.

I thank Mack and tell her I think I would make a good slave.
Amaranth says I make a better person.
I tell her that she is nice.
I tell Mack that she is smart.
Amaranth says she is smart, too.
She is kind of right.
I am asked what Steff is.
I tell her she’s a girl.
She laughs and I think I must be mistaken but then she hugs me.
She does give nice hugs.
Everybody hugs everybody and it is nice and I wish it would happen all the time.

I hold Mack’s hand and we go to the Walled Market.

In the Walled Market, Steff takes me over to look at hair accessories with her while Amaranth and her toy Mack pick out clothes.
Steff likes little sparkly clips that look like things and they are pretty.
I like bigger things like hair bows.
She says they are pretty, too, and has me try on seven different hair bands and five bows.
Amaranth comes over.
I am told that the bands are adorable and I am also adorable.
I am asked how I got to be so adorable.
I tell Amaranth I was made this way.
The hair bands are all pretty and they make Steff and Amaranth very happy so I think that I should buy them.
I am told that I have just got to get some outfits to go with them.
Steff helps me pick them out.
I am told to try on many different pieces of clothing for Amaranth and Steff.
I don’t think three people are supposed to be in the dressing room but I am told to hush.
Steff knows a lot about clothing.

I am adorable.

When we check out Amaranth and Steff feel guilty about how much my clothing costs and pay for some of it.
They still cost more money than I should spend but I have been told that I had to get the outfits.

Also, I like them a lot.

At lunch I have a cup of soup with chicken and noodles in it and a sandwich with turkey and bacon and honey mustard and tomatoes and lettuce and a slice of cheesecake drizzled with caramel and half of Steff’s slice of cheesecake.
Amaranth and Steff say they are getting a surprise for Mack.
Mack does not seem comfortable.
I tell them that some people do not like surprises.
I know I don’t and I don’t think Mack does, either.
Amaranth says they will show it to Mack and let her make up her own mind.
I feel like Steff said again. I do not like to see Mack uncomfortable but I think Amaranth should make her do what she wants.

Steff says that since Mack has been so good Amaranth should get her a treat.
I do not think that Mack has been very good because she’s been arguing but I am not asked.
Amaranth says she will if she has money.
I think everybody has spent more money than they should have and that makes me feel better even though I don’t understand why.

Steff takes us to another store and finds a skirt she likes for Mack.
She asks the owner if she can take off Mack’s clothes and Amaranth pulls off the skirt Mack is wearing.
Steff gives Mack the other skirt and she tries it on.
It isn’t what I think of as pretty but it is very short and lets people see her legs, which is good.
The owner of the store is a dwarf named Caron and she says that Mack has a nice ass.
They pick out a top and shoes and stockings for Mack.

After that we go to another store across the bazaar.
Steff suggests that I wait outside.
Mack does not want to leave me and I do not think I would like to be left.
Mack says she is not leaving me.
She really isn’t being a very good toy but I do not mind so much.
Amaranth says that there is a candy store down the street and I can pick out something sweet and wait for them there.
I have to tell her that I am out of money for the day.
Steff says that I have been good so I can pick something out and they will buy it for me.
She promises.
I let go of Mack’s hand and go to the store.

Nobody promised to come get me but it will be hard for Steff to buy candy for me if she doesn’t.
I hope she does.

Inside the store I am asked if I would like to try a sample of peanut brittle.
I would.
It is good.
There are many different kinds of candy.
I look at chocolate covered bananas but they are not very big and Steff said I could have one thing.
There is candy by the pound I do not know if one pound of candy would count as one thing or if it would be one piece so I look at the prepackaged candy instead.
They have big bags of taffy that have many different flavors including banana so I pick that.
After a while Steff and Amaranth and Mack do come and I am glad.
Mack looks like she has been a very good toy.
We go to a comic book store and Mack picks out her treat and then we go to catch the carriage back to school.

We go to Amaranth’s room and she takes the words off Mack’s face but she doesn’t say anything about giving up Mack and I think it’s just so they can put make-up on her.
Amaranth is leading Mack and me around the bazaar by golden chains and our hands are chained together so we can’t let go and I am happy.
I wake up and realize I was dreaming and start to cry.
Steff is crying, too, and Mack is hugging her.
Then they are both hugging me.
Steff asks how many times today we have cried and hugged but Mack says that she loves us guys before I can add up the answer.
I do not know if I am one of us guys and ask for clarification.
I am told that Mack loves me.
Steff says she will have to redo Mack’s make-up and we hug each other a lot more.

I wake up later in Amaranth’s bed.
I’m alone but I feel happy.
I brush my teeth, change into my pajamas, and go to bed.