Supernova

“Take your bracelet off and hold out your hand.”
She complies, turning her arms so that her veins are skywards. She convinces herself she can almost feel her blood pulsing. He slips the lead around her wrist, and fastens it tight. It’s not as cold as she remembered, but the texture of the metal is a definite contrast to the warm fuzziness she is currently feeling.

They walk. He asks where they are but she can’t reply, even though she knows. They are in cosmetic surgeon territory, she could probably name a few Dr clients she knows if she was compos mentis. If her owner wasn’t leading her around the streets of London by a chain.

She listens for the chink of the links, but the distance murmur of traffic and their footsteps on the slightly wet pavement mask any noise they might be making. It’s a pity. She relishes the noises of her submission...the harsh smack as his hand hits her arse, the hiss of his belt, the cigar depth of his voice...the sound of her lead being slowly unfurled.

Occasionally she feels her knees start to give way and she finds herself leaning against him. He is her only prop, the only thing that is stopping her from crumbling to her knees right there in the middle of the road. There are moments, she thinks wistfully, when he is her only prop, period.

She’s vaguely aware of people around them, only because she feels the pull on the lead as he slows them both down so that strangers can go past. She’s hardly aware of whether they are an old man or a middle aged woman. Everyone else has become a shadow, peripheral to what’s going on. She has to rely on him to be aware of them. He moonlights as her senses, for all hers are busy, tuning into him.

Her pulls her to an abrupt halt and they kiss in the middle of the street, his hand reaching beneath her dress and pulling her knickers roughly to one side. She’s vaguely aware that this is a public place, but she doesn’t care. He could do anything with her, even chain her to the railings as he’s threatening, and she would comply. She would submit. She doesn’t have a choice anymore. For this moment in time, she has chosen to give that up.

Who needs choice when there’s nothing else? At times like this she feels that the universe is collapsing, folding in on itself. And all that’s left is the connection between the two of them. It might be his breath on her face as he moves inside her, or his sonorous voice taking her to places she’s never been before, or the pull of her lead as he takes control of her. Whatever it is at that moment, it burns fiercely, dangerously, perhaps even threatening to implode.

She doesn’t know much about astronomy, but something she does know is that despite all the mathematical theory, analysis and guesswork, no one, for sure, knows what lies on the other side of a black hole.