A Fire In The Garden

I had many clients before Jackson. Cam, my first, was ugly. When he finished, he turned angry and dangerously embarrassed, scared I was interested in telling people that he was involved with “someone like me.” I put up with it for a little too long. I quickly secured a solid clientele with people that respected me and my work. I used what I knew, like how tie the different kinds of knots, when to use a paddle vs a whip, when to tickle and when to pinch, how to ask the right questions, who can handle what and who would leave my dungeon traumatized if we did something like breath control.

Saoirse, my love, my longest and truest friend, the one who took me in when I ran away from parents who only loved each other. Do you remember the little boy, the one from the playground in elementary school? The one you proved to that you have more little boy in you than he?

I was on the swings when the crowd gathered, making myself dizzy by staring at the treadmill like ground one second and throwing my head back to the clouds the next. I stretched my legs and pointed my toes, dragging them in the dirt to slow my swing to a stop.

You stood strong, tall and scrawny, brown hair with matted, dirt filled knots, fearless, staring calmly at the boy twice as thick as you, clasped hands like he owed you something and you had the time to wait for it.

The boy was screaming at you, insults, slurs, nothing deserved. Without hesitation and in one motion, you fisted his hair and struck his jaw. The crowds roar couldn’t swallow the sound of his teeth cracking. You were quick, rapidly punching his fat gut until he fell completely over, begging for a moment of pause. You climbed on top of him, your knees putting sharp holes in the dirt. I clapped for you, ferociously, astounded. I looked down at myself and saw all the work that needed to be done if I wanted to be like that. I knew I wanted you to never forget me.

Growing up, Saoirse’s mothers had a large wild garden. It was our escape. We would follow a foot trail bordered by lavender bushes, and weeping cherry trees and confess secrets, conspire, cry, and yell. We started to avoid the trail, fearful someone would think it was an invite, hopeful it would grow back if our footsteps weren’t beating it down. At least that’s how I remember it.

One of our first times in the garden, months after the fight that brought us together, she told me that before the slurs, the fat boy told her her boobs wouldn’t grow in. That same day she revealed she was getting scared now that some time had passed and her chest was still lacking, that he was right. And if he was right about that, was everything he said true, even the worst of it? I like to think that’s when we became best friends.

Who taught you how to fight like that? I asked in response to her fears.

Tonya.

Can I meet Tonya? I asked her quietly.

She shrugged, Just start coming with me to the club.

We started to do the walk together after school. Tonya taught choreography and self-defense to the dancers at Saoirse’s mothers’ strip club, Temptress. She had jet black hair and bangs that moved when she blinked, caught in her eyelashes. We grew up to be some of Tonya’s best work, the only two Dominatrix’s she’d trained.

…

Saoirse’s first and only client demanded his identity be kept a secret; he didn’t want anyone to know. She never saw his face.

She was God in his eyes, end all be all, her apartment became the perimeter of his world. He stood before her closed apartment door at dawn every Sunday for years, and undressed. Leaving his clothes in a pile outside of the apartment, quietly stepping inside, and slipping into a full body latex suit. I chuckled every time I saw his clothes folded neatly outside of the door, perfectly in line with the door matt.

Saoirse thoroughly enjoyed having him around. He brought an abundance of groceries and started the day by making her an intricate breakfast. He gave it to her in bed with coffee, spliffs and her current book. She ate while he multitasked, cleaning the apartment, calling to schedule her appointments, preparing her meals for the week, paying her bills.

Some years in I began to hate him. I started humiliating him for my own entertainment or acting as if he didn’t exist. If he stood too close to me, I would complain to Saoirse that she had rats in her apartment with bad breath and beady, lechery eyes.

We shared a room for most of our teenage years. We didn’t divide it into sides or sections, instead we shared everything, the space, the clothes. We switched which side of the bed we slept on, sometimes every night, sometimes for a season. I always most appreciated being on the side of the window during the time of year it framed glimpses of greens and violets, when it wasn’t too hot and the rain hadn’t been shy, leaving behind inflated flower buds.

As we grew older, she started demanding crude boundaries and pointing out what was hers and what was mine.

Andrew was hers. But protecting her best interest, was mine. I followed Andrew every Saturday for almost eight months. He was young and handsome, with caramelized skin, a kept beard and shaped eyebrows, lean and taller than he was in a latex bodysuit. I was jarred.

One Saturday, in the middle of October, he had the audacity to bring his kid along. She was a brat, demanding something at every place they stopped. He was resilient, calm and gentle in response to her fits. When they got to a drug store, she sat on a bench at the door, refusing to go inside. He left her there with a little black notebook and a pen that he pulled out of his briefcase. I approached her and complimented the princesses on her dress. I saw your Daddy went inside, didn’t want to go with him?

She didn’t answer me. Good for her I thought, and good on Andrew, teaching her not to talk to strangers. I knelt in front of her, putting us face to face, slowly taking the notebook and putting it on the bench, to get her undivided attention. I noticed it wasn’t a random notebook, it was filled with notes.

Do you know who Saoirse is? Mistress S?

She looked back at the drug store door. I wondered when he would come back out too.

That’s okay, I said, I know you, Tamara, and I know your Daddy.

Her face loosened at the sound of her own name. I had learned it only minutes earlier hearing Andrew use it, telling her to draw him a picture in the notebook.

He goes to see her every Sunday, haven’t you met her? She’s so delightful! She is a real-life princess!

She looked at me confused, holding on to her silence.

Ask your Mommy when you get home, sweetie.

I swiped the little black notebook from the bench out of curiosity and started reading it as soon as I was around the corner. It was boring business meeting notes. I noticed a page after a section of blank pages. It had a phone number on it, and a note, Jackson (from play party) looking for Dominatrix.

I laughed and called the number; I needed a new client, and a distraction.

…

I was grocery shopping for Saoirse. She hadn’t left the house for months, thrown into some sort of a depression about Andrew being her gold ticket. I was picking through the produce. I never bought any prewrapped in plastic, bruised or misshaped. Anything that looked like it had been picked up and put back too many times.

I didn’t see him out of the corner of my eye, I was looking directly at him and didn’t recognize him until a few minutes later. Fear shot up my spine, like shards of glass. It only lasted a moment; I was not going to let a frail man intimidate me. He looked horribly stupid, the way his eyes twitched at me with urgency. He pretended like he didn’t see me until I was standing at his side, hissing in his ear,

If I find out that you’re stalking me, Jackson, I stepped to him, but he didn’t let me finish, Goddess, I need more. More of you, I need you all the time.

Are you fucking kidding me? I whispered and spun around, leaving him in the produce section. That was going to be the end of any work between us. One session and he’s already stalking me? Shame, he paid well. I thought.

He continued to follow me around the store attentively. He wasn’t leaving my shadow. I didn’t need him following me to my car, so I filled my cart to the brim and led him to the register. I walked up to him and slapped my hand in the air. He looked at it for a few moments and then frantically searched for his wallet. I barked at him to take me to his car.

I sat in the passenger seat and waited until he was settled in to ask, Why the fuck are you following me? Give me one, one crystal clear, concise, and not fucking pathetic reason for following me.

He looked terrified, swearing its where he grocery shops but when he saw me, something went off inside him. I looked at him until he looked away.

Take your cock out.

I’m, I’m sorry, what?

You think it’s okay for you to question me?

He unzipped his pants and I laughed uncontrollably. He looked around frantically at passersby’s.

Good, you should be embarrassed, not only is it small but its ugly. I get now that this, I opened my hand and made big circles to gesture to his muscles and clean-cut hair, is over-compensating for, that. I looked at it and tilted my head.

I noticed a container of Pringles on a seat in the back. I took the container and threw a few chips, then shook the rest, opened it back up poured the crumbs all over the car. I put the empty container over his cock and got out of the car. I had one leg on the concrete when he said

I’ll never do it again.

I leaned down You’re right. You will never see me again.

He rushed, struggling to release himself from the pringles container,

I’ll do anything! He was still zipping up his pants, hurrying to catch up with me as I made my way across the parking lot.

Prove it. I continued without looking at him. I want an allowance, $20,000 a week. I told him and then maybe I’ll keep putting up with your sorry bullshit.

I never expected him to go for it. I wanted to make it clear that him being a sub of mine, was no longer feasible.

A few days later I received mail from him. I felt the shiver again, but figured it was a desperate letter and he got my address by following me home after the grocery store. It was a $20,000 check with the number one written on it. With the check came a gold membership to All You Can Eat with Mistress Lola in metallic lettering. An exclusive, extremely private, select billionaire’s only, bar, all looking to be paired with a Dominatrix, gold card holders. It was a dream, one Saoirse and I fantasized about before work turned into making a living, instead of a career. I looked over at the little black notebook I stole from Andrews daughter.