Awareness seeped in and Kara's senses returned as she drifted out of a deep sleep. She was lying on her side in his warm, soft bed. It was morning. His familiar, welcome scent was in the sheets. Out of habit she reached out for him, seeking out his body, her hands eager for him, for that first contact with his bare skin. She felt impatient to begin another day by his side. Her lover. Her husband. Her Master.
But he wasn't in bed with her.
The sudden memory of his death slammed into her then, killing whatever was warm or welcome about the morning. She lay still, feeling numbness creep over her. She'd cried so many tears in the last five weeks and now there were none left, just a miserable sigh.
She wished for the thousandth time that she'd been in the car with him when it had skidded off the road. Why couldn't she have died at his side, in the same moment? She'd have preferred it to the horror and anguish of receiving the phone call from police.
Kara had dragged herself lifelessly through the process of putting his affairs in order, calling friends and associates, reciting the same words over and over like some morbid mantra. The funeral was a nightmarish blur in her memory. She'd returned to the apartment afterwords feeling lost and hollowed-out.
And in the five weeks since, she'd shut herself away, greeting friends at the door, absorbing their condolences, then politely seeing them off. Even her sister and two nephews hadn't managed to talk their way past the threshold. Phone calls were a constant nuisance. Peter had made a lot of wonderful friends in his sixty years, and it seemed every one of them pestered her with a call or a visit. Luckily, after a week or so the intrusions dwindled and finally died off entirely, leaving her to stumble alone through the fog of her dismal thoughts and feelings.
She closed her eyes. Why bother getting up? Her days had nothing to offer her anymore.
Oh, wait.
The Masquerade.
Ugh.
It wasn't like she HAD to attend. Sure, the vendor deposit was non-refundable, but Peter's pension and insurance settlement had set her up for life, money-wise. She never had to get out of bed again.
Her friends would understand if she didn't go, surely. Besides, the idea of attending a BDSM-themed trade show without her Master made her chest hurt. They'd gone together each of the past five years, and her memories of the event were inseparable from her memories of him.
He'd want her to go.
She had a workshop full of hand-crafted wooden bondage devices to sell, and a waiting list of people eager for custom-made pieces. That had been his idea - perfect synergy between his love of carpentry and his love of kink. And she'd been swept along for the ride, as his demo model, an occasional guinea pig for a new device idea, business partner, and, eventually, fellow craftsman. They'd built pieces together, and even the ones that hadn't sold had been fun to use themselves.
She gently fingered the stainless steel collar around her neck. She'd been wearing it the day he died and hadn't taken it off since. She'd worn it to the funeral, hidden by a scarf to avoid outing herself to her family and non-kink friends. She'd slept in it. She wasn't supposed to wear it in the shower but she'd done it anyway, the few times she'd bothered with hygiene.
It was the last tangible symbol of his 'ownership'. If she removed it, that final, sacred link between them would be broken and then he'd really, truly be dead and she'd be alone and scared and life would be joyless and empty.
She was being stupid, her rational mind screamed at her. Why wasn't she healing? Why wasn't she getting better? How much longer would she feel so hopeless? Dangerous, dark whispers inside her were getting louder as each day passed...how long before she surrendered to their seductive promises of a quick escape from the pain?
Kara groaned and peeled herself off the mattress. The bedroom hardwood felt unfamiliar to the soles of her feet. She didn't bother dressing. She peed, then got the coffee maker running. There was no cream in the house. No milk, either, nor eggs, bread, vegetables, or cereal. The remnants of a dozen order-in dinners stunk up the kitchen.
SHE stunk, too - when had she last bathed? Or shaved? She tried to run her fingers through her long, brown hair but gave up immediately - it was a matted, massive tangle.
He'd hate to see her like this; weak, defeated and wallowing in self-pity, shuffling around the apartment like an old lady. She was only forty-three, for Christ's sake!
He'd want her to go to the Masquerade.
Even without him.
She snatched the coffee pot while it was still half-brewed and filled a mug, then made her way stiffly to the living room. She knelt on her pillow next to his chair and took a sip. Strong, bitter and unfit for human consumption. She set the mug down on the hardwood floor.
Why was she kneeling? She had an apartment full of furniture and now it was all hers. She was being dumb again, like with the collar. As if by obeying her protocols...what? He'd come back? Stupid!
She picked up her mug and took another sip. It was still awful.
Her bleary eyes took a moment to focus on the wall clock. Half past four in the afternoon! Where had the morning gone? It was almost time to think about ordering something for dinner. She had some planning to do, if she was going to attend the Masquerade tomorrow.
He'd want her to go. That would be his wish, and hadn't she always been attentive to his wishes?
She rose unsteadily to her feet, then staggered to the kitchen to dump her coffee down the sink. Maybe Chinese tonight? Or did she have that last night?
She decided to go to the Masquerade. Just one last time. For her beloved, departed Master Peter.
*
The Masquerade was held at the expansive main pavilion of the O'Hanlan Private Golf Club. Admittance was by invitation only, and at five-hundred dollars per couple it wasn't a cheap date. But dinner was always high-quality, the wine flowed freely and the conversations were usually engaging. If nothing else, the spectacle made it worth the price of admission.
The Masquerade had only three rules, printed prominently on each ticket. No genital exposure or contact. Get permission before touching anyone. No recording devices allowed. That was it, and although there was a strong security presence to discourage rule-breaking, the Masquerade was a permissive environment.
To begin with, 'no genital exposure' wasn't a terribly restrictive dress code and the outfits that people wore ranged from trashy to regal. Most of the attendees wore masks - it was a bondage-themed event, after all, and there was both safety and freedom in anonymity. The masks themselves could be simple or ornate.
To add to the spectacle there were 'exhibition stations' where the attendees could sample and demonstrate different implements and equipment relating to bondage and sex. There were also two or three vendor booths - like Kara's - where kinky paraphernalia of all kinds could be purchased. It was a pervert's paradise and made for an evening of lively and decadent fun.
Or it had, when Peter had been with her.
Kara was all in white as she stood in her booth; she wore a contoured corset top with a plunging neckline that showed off the tops and inner swells of her breasts, then flared out into an ankle-length lace-and-linen skirt. Elegant white, silk gloves stretched to her elbows. Her mask was a simple swath of white silk with tiny rhinestones speckling the perimeter. Kara had chosen white flats with a nod to comfort. She'd worn the same outfit last year and hadn't bothered to alter it this time.
It had taken her almost four hours to set up the booth all by herself, and she'd been dressed and ready when the pavilion opened to ticket-holders. She decided to hole up in her booth and be a spectator to the flamboyant madness all around her.
"Did we stumble into the junior prom by accident?" said a voice from behind her. "I think we're the only ones here over forty."
Kara turned to see Harold Sachs gliding up to her with his usual graceful stride, dressed in a cream-coloured, sequinned tuxedo and a truly ridiculous fake, white moustache that made him look like an elderly Yosemite Sam. Despite herself, Kara smiled. Harold possessed an aura that was corrosive to melancholy.
"Kink is mainstream now, I guess," Kara said, casting her gaze over pavilion. The crowd did appear to be largely twenty-something. "How have you been, Grandpa?"
"Grandpa?" he huffed in mock outrage. "I'm just a few years your senior, young thing."
Impossibly, she found herself chuckling. Harold was in his seventies, at least.
"And what have you done with Phil?" she asked, looking around for his partner.
"There was a rumour about a glory hole in the men's washroom, and, well, you know Phil."
She laughed at that. "Is he giving or receiving?'
"He wishes he could do both," Harold said with an impish smile.
A few moments passed as he made a show of inspecting the oak stocks, paddles and spanking bench that Kara had brought as examples of their work. They'd already drawn plenty of interest.
"I'm glad you decided to come," Harold said in a voice soft and gentle. "And Peter would be glad you came too. You're a brave girl." He patted her bare shoulder companionably.
She nodded, suddenly unsure of her voice or her grip on emotions.
"I hope you won't object if I loiter about in your booth until Phil comes back? The dinner's not for an hour yet."
She flashed him a grateful smile. Of everyone she knew, Harold's zany company would be the most welcome.
The pavilion was well-lit and crowded - it looked like there were a hundred couples, maybe more. The vendors and exhibition stations were set against the walls, giving most of the floor space to round, eight-seater dinner tables and still allowing plenty of room to stand and socialize.
And the outfits! Glittering ball gowns, cosplay homages, studded leather gimp suits, bearskin loincloths, even diapers. Two men done up as teddy bears sauntered through the crowd, arm in arm. A wealthy socialite-looking woman led three men crawling, dressed as poodles. It was equal parts sexy, crazy and surreal. Kara found herself grinning and snickering as she and Harold took turns pointing out the weird and wonderful.
Harold offered to watch the booth to give Kara a chance to wander, and she accepted, working her way along at a leisurely pace and pausing every few steps to admire the wares. Automatic fucking machines. Silicone pussies. Dildos, vibrators and plugs of every imaginable size and colour.
The exhibition stations were next. In the first, a woman scantily dressed as Tinkerbell had Peter Pan locked in the stocks and was ceremoniously swatting his leotard-clad buttocks with a riding crop as the man howled in mock agony. The crowd of onlookers was chanting the number as each blow landed. Five...Six...Seven. Good fun.
At the next station were several Sybians fashioned to look like rocking horses, and a line of both women and men were waiting for a turn. A security guard lurked nearby to ensure the 'no exposed genitals' rule was enforced, which seemed to defeat the whole purpose.
There was a performance at the next station, and Kara paused along with a sizable crowd to watch. A man dressed in a dark suit stood next to an even younger, black-haired woman dressed as a Catholic schoolgirl complete with skirt, blouse and pigtails, although the thick ring through her septum that rested on her upper lip ruined the illusion somewhat. The thirty-something man was in a dark mask, the woman was unmasked.
"Why have you been sent to my office?" said the man. He was supposed to be a principal, Kara assumed.
"I...mish...misbehaved in class...and my...my...uh...teacher sent me to be punished, sir," the younger woman replied. Kara noticed her eyes were unfocused, her face was flushed and she swayed slightly as she stood.
"We don't want these nice people to be disturbed by your whining, do we?" the man asked, brandishing an inflatable gag theatrically. Without further preamble he slid it into her open mouth and inflated it, forcing the woman's jaws apart until they were straining and she was forced to breathe through her nose.
"And now the spanking bench," he continued, gesturing to the padded furniture behind him. The bench was angled like an inverted 'V', and the young woman lay on her stomach so her head and feet were at either end of the bench, with her rear end at the highest point. When she was face-down, the man set about buckling her wrists and ankles securely into leather cuffs attached to the bench.
"The finishing touch!" the man crowed, producing a brown, leather hood from a backpack that sat under the bench. He expertly hooded her - there were no openings for her eyes or mouth, only two nostril-sized holes for breathing. The mask laced up the back.
Kara realized she was holding her breath and let it out slowly. This was a performance, after all. They'd obviously devised some way for the younger woman to communicate despite her bondage. She glanced at her fellow onlookers - they all seemed to be enjoying the show. She tried to relax.
When the young man brandished a short leather strap, there were cheers from the crowd.
"A good dozen should teach her the proper behaviour!" he shouted, then lifted the young woman's short skirt, revealing plain, white panties. The crowd hooted and clapped its approval. The man drew back and slashed the strap across her panty-clad bottom. It was a brutal blow and the smacking sound rose above the din of the crowd. The woman began to pull against the cuffs, wiggling her bum in what Kara hoped was an erotic and theatrical display.
The man turned to the crowd and said something about the sale price of the spanking bench, even stepping into the crowd to answer a young couple's question. Behind him, the woman's struggles intensified. If she was making any sound it was obliterated by the gag, hood and the noise from the onlookers.
Kara was sweating and her heart pounded, and finally she couldn't take it anymore.
"That girl is in trouble," her voice sounded small in the big crowd.
No one reacted, so Kara stepped forward and shouted at the 'principal' loud enough to be heard. "Your partner's in distress!"
"Relax, Ice Queen. It's all a show," the man proclaimed with a cold smile, then laid another punishing stroke onto the woman's ass. Kara saw the muscles in her bare thighs and calves straining against her bonds, quivering with the effort. Her elbows were jerking ineffectually, trying to free her wrists.
Long ago, Kara had been in that situation, bound and helpless and frightened. She knew what panic felt like and recognized it immediately in the other woman's frantic struggles.
"You need to get that gag out," she said, pushing her way to the end of the spanking bench.
The man was in front of her a moment later, shoving her back by her shoulders, barking something to the crowd.
And then the bound woman stilled, her arms and legs went slack in her bonds.
Kara didn't remember jerking her knee up between the man's legs, didn't recall shoving him away as he crumpled to the floor. She only heard about that part later, from witnesses.
"Call an ambulance!" Kara yelled, her voice a shriek, then bent and began tugging at the laces of the leather hood. Up close, the acrid stench of vomit was unmistakable.
She looked over her shoulder and saw Harold squeeze his way through the crowd. He started wrestling with the cuffs on the woman's ankles. Kara wrenched the tight hood off the woman's head and squeezed the release valve on the gag, deflating it. The foul-smelling contents of the woman's stomach accompanied the gag as it was removed from her mouth. Her eyes were closed. Ignoring the nauseating odour, Kara bent and checked for breathing.
"Not breathing..." she muttered. Harold had finished with the cuffs and together they lay the young woman on her side on the floor.
"Move," Kara said, and Harold backed off right away. Kara had taken a first aid course two years ago after Peter had fallen off a ladder, though she'd hoped never to need that particular set of skills. "Get an ambulance." As Kara bent over the woman's body Harold was already dialing dispatch on his cell phone.
What to do? She fought to remember. ABC. Airway, breathing, circulation. The woman wasn't breathing...so...what? The only thing Kara remembered clearly from her course was chest compressions - they'd practiced those on the dummy. She rolled the woman on her back, positioned her hands on the woman's sternum and pressed hard.
Vomit spluttered form the young woman's mouth and she started coughing violently. Coughing was good. Coughing meant she was breathing. Kara quickly rolled her onto her side so her mouth and lungs could empty themselves.
"She's breathing," she said, the relief in her voice obvious. The younger woman was alternately crying hysterically, coughing and shivering. "Get my jacket," Kara said. Harold hurried to retrieve it from the booth, still relaying information to Emergency Response.
Her old friend quickly returned with her down-filled winter jacket, and Kara wrapped her patient but kept her on the floor, smoothing hair out of her face and talking to her reassuringly. The young woman couldn't have been much over twenty and looked almost child-like, huddled and terrified on the floor.
Kara looked around for the young woman's partner but the man was nowhere to be seen. Good riddance. She hoped the coward never came back!
The paramedics were there in ten minutes but it felt like an hour. The young woman coughed and bawled and Kara cooed and hugged her and tried to ignore the disgusting smell. She stayed with the younger woman, holding her hand as the paramedics checked her vitals and took a medical history. The girl's name was Ashley Mallory, and she was twenty-one. Kara herself was interviewed by security and then by the police but fortunately there were plenty of witnesses to corroborate her version of events. The paramedics wouldn't let Kara accompany the girl in the ambulance. Maybe for the best - dressed as she was and smeared with vomit, Kara would have made quite a scene in the emergency ward.
Her night ended early, with Kara closing up her booth and hoping the smell of bile wouldn't be too difficult to get out of her clothes. She realized, too late, that the girl still had her winter jacket, but all in all not too high a price to pay.
"You saved that kid's life," Harold said for the dozenth time, shaking his head in disbelief as he kindly helped her close up shop. "You were amazing."
And somehow, amid the chaos and panic, despite not selling anything and being covered in puke, Kara felt stronger. For the first time in weeks, she was glad she'd gotten out of bed. Death had cruelly stolen Peter from her. But tonight, she'd had a measure of vengeance - she'd stolen a young woman from Death. And maybe it didn't balance the scales exactly, but she had to admit, it felt pretty damn good.
*
It took Kara three days to get her apartment cleaned, disinfected and smelling good. Her laundry was done, fresh sheets on the bed, groceries in the fridge. She wasn't in a good place by any means, but at least she was functional. She'd even met her sister and nephews downtown for some skating. The collar hadn't come off yet, but soon, perhaps.
