The Original Sinners: The Red Years. Tiffany Reisz

again and stripped out of his T-shirt. He bent over and pulled off his socks. When he got to the top button of his jeans, his courage seemed to fail him.

      “Here. Let me help,” she said. Nora reached out and laid her hands flat on his stomach. They traveled down to his waistband and to the buttons. She made quick work of them and slipped a hand into his pants.

      “No underwear,” she said, and Michael blushed again. “You really are one of us, aren’t you?”

      His mouth was near her ear. “I want to be.” He shuddered as Nora took him in her hand. She stroked his hard length before releasing him to pull his jeans all the way down.

      Michael stepped out of his jeans and stood naked in front of her.

      “Do you know what these are?” she asked from the floor.

      “Cuffs,” he said.

      “Very good. Bondage cuffs. Two sets. One set for your ankles.” She clasped the first one around his left ankle and then his right before standing up again. “And one set for your wrists. You’ll like these.”

      Michael held out his arms. Nora took his left arm in her hand. She raised it to her lips and slowly kissed the scar on his wrist. He breathed in as her mouth met his ravaged skin. She buckled the cuff around his wrist and kissed the scar on the other. She buckled his other wrist and took a step back.

      He examined the cuffs on his wrists. He looked down at the cuffs on his ankles. Michael met her eyes. In his face she saw herself at age eighteen when Søren first began her training. That moment when he first revealed to her what she would become to him, how he would possess her completely when the time came…looking down at her bound wrists and ankles; it was the first time she knew what love looked like.

      “Thank you,” Michael breathed.

      Nora coughed a hint.

      “Thank you…mistress.”

      21

      Søren brought Zach to another hallway—this one strangely silent and empty. Although quiet, it was far more colorful and elaborate than the other more nondescript hallways and rooms Søren had shown him. Here every door was decorated—some with extravagant S&M scenes, some with startling graffiti. One door had a faux coat of arms painted on it—a unicorn fellating a griffin. Zach had no doubt whose room that was. They stopped before a door painted only with words.

      “‘We’re all mad here,’” Zach read the famous Alice in Wonderland quote aloud that was scrawled across the door in Gothic lettering. “I think she’s right.”

      “There is a method to our madness. Sadomasochism was once considered a mental illness. Now for many psychologists it is an object of study rather than derision. One in ten people are said to have experimented with S&M…although I would be surprised if the number were not higher.”

      “I would be in that nine.”

      “I’m sure that will change. Eleanor is nothing if not persuasive.” Søren smiled at him with a smile Zach knew women must find charming but he found alarming.

      “She won’t talk me into this.” Zach waved his hand at the ominously closed doors.

      “Everyone should try it at least once. S&M has a curious effect on those who practice it.” Søren sounded professorial now. “The Dominant undergoes a surge of testosterone while the submissive experiences a euphoria that has been likened to the effects of opiates. But for most of us the physical sensations are the least of why we do this.”

      “Why do you do it?”

      Søren paused and seemed to consider the question.

      “To call what Eleanor and I had ‘bliss’ would insult it. Owning her, dominating her, training her to react to the slightest command, the merest crook of my finger, the barest change in my tone, and to love someone so much that anything less than complete and utter possession is unacceptable…that is the purest joy.”

      “But she left you,” Zach reminded him.

      “Disobedience is as much a proof of authority as obedience. You cannot be a rebel without acknowledging a government. You cannot be a heretic until you are first a believer. And I could leave the priesthood, but I would still be a priest. The church would endure with or without me. Some vows are merely promises. But some are sacraments. Like marriage,” Søren added and met his eyes for a moment. “Yes, she did leave me, and I let her go. But she will return. Still, I imagine it isn’t simply the mix of pleasure and pain that you find disturbing, is it?”

      “The hierarchy is disturbing. Women being enslaved to men. Women have fought against such treatment for hundreds of years and yet here—”

      “Yet here they willingly and bravely choose to explore those aspects of their sexuality that are less than socially acceptable. Another study revealed that a shockingly high percentage of women have rape fantasies. What is the likelihood that your wife is in that minority that has not?”

      “I won’t discuss my wife’s fantasies with you.”

      “Did you ever discuss them with her? Forgive me. You don’t have to answer that,” Søren said in a way that was both offhanded and pointed. Zach knew Søren wasn’t asking for forgiveness at all. “Yes, we have a power structure here. Some require a power structure as they are born submissives. Others require a power structure as they are born subversives.”

      “Which is Nora?”

      “Which is she?” Søren smiled. “Shortly after Eleanor and I became lovers I introduced her to the blindfold. She loathed it at first.”

      “Why?” Zach asked.

      “I’m sure it is nearly impossible for you to imagine a virginal Eleanor, but once she was actually both timid and shy. The loss of her sight during our interludes terrified her. So naturally I employed the blindfold often.”

      “Naturally.”

      “One evening I noticed something strange. Just before I blindfolded Eleanor she would close her eyes. It seemed counterintuitive. Surely someone so afraid of forced blindness would keep her eyes open to drink in every precious second of sight. Then I realized what she was doing. By closing her eyes first she was choosing the darkness, blindfolding herself in a way, and subverting me with her very surrender. Astonishing. I had never been so proud of her. That’s what this place is. This is where we come to close our eyes.”

      Søren opened the door with the Alice in Wonderland quote. Zach let Søren enter the dark room first. When a light appeared Zach stepped inside. Søren stood by a massive bed piled high with red and gold linens. He had an oil lamp in his hand. The lamp sent lambent light into every corner of the room. It seemed to be only a bedroom, albeit one festooned like a French bordello.

      “Decadent, isn’t it? Eleanor has never learned the meaning of subtle. Perhaps you could help her with that.”

      “So Nora has her own room here?”

      “Yes. The top seven Dominants are given their own quarters for personal use. As you can see,” Søren said, bending down and picking up a white lace garter off the floor and laying it on the rumpled bed, “she has been making use of it.”

      Zach looked at the discarded lingerie and grinned.

      “White…I wouldn’t have expected it of Nora. She’s always in red or black.”

      “I doubt it belongs to Eleanor,” Søren said.

      “Then why—” Zach began and stopped before he said something foolish. Of course, Nora had been with another woman. He tried to be bothered by the fact, but the images that tiny slip of lace brought to mind evoked feelings distinctly different from disgust.

      “You appear troubled, Zachary. What