Mishka's Third Assignment
Carl sat with his face in his hands, confused, and all he could feel was the softness of the bed, their bed. What the hell just happened? When was she unhappy? When did she pack? How had he not noticed?
Dizziness, nausea, panic welled up from the pit of his stomach. He thought he’d throw up, it needed to come out, and his throat closed up and choked back a sob. The panic and sadness made his head spin and his shoulders shook with the heaviness he now carried.
He sat there crying with no awareness of time. He was exhausted when he stood up again and the apartment seemed so much darker and colder, his footsteps echoed when he returned to the kitchen. He looked at her bowl on the floor, her collar she had left on the table, the cold dinner they had barely touched. He had in his mind to go about his nightly routine. Instead he cut the lights off and went to bed. Their downy cover did not give any warmth.
Tossing and turning all night he woke up with a horrible headache and considered called in sick to work. No, he’d only pace and aimlessness and confusion would overwhelm him. He’d find comfort in distraction until he could come home and maybe she would talk to him then.
The distraction failed, though. She was the distraction. She could have said something. Did she try that time, and he missed it? Did he punish her instead? They had agreed. They both wanted this. How could she just change it all in an instant?
He sat in the chair at his desk, staring out the window but not really looking at anything in particular, the monitor long on screen-saver…her picture. It was of Monica at the beach last summer. That was nine months ago. That’s when she said it all began for her. Why?
He walked through the door that night and stopped. He smiled, remembering when they had started having her kneel at the door to take the mail in her mouth. It was after they had moved in and settled into a routine, just before her collaring. It was her idea actually. She wanted to take the role of a pet a few steps further. He hadn’t considered it more than a nickname, to stroke her like a pet and the occasional playtime with a leash and muzzle. Every day he looked forward to coming home because as soon as he saw her, knelt before him like a good little pup, and eating on the floor next to him, he smiled. No matter how bad his day was it made him feel better to come home to that, even more so than a homemade dinner ever could.
He dropped the mail onto the desk, sighed, and walked to the kitchen. It was empty. Where his beloved once stood finishing making dinner, she loved to cook, the food, the room, was all warm and bright. Now it sat there quiet, too quiet, dark and cold. He couldn’t stand it. He needed to talk to her and talk to her now.
He let his suitcase thump to the floor, and that’s when he heard the noise. It wasn’t the echo of his bag hitting the hardwood floor; it came from the bedroom, dropped in sync with his suitcase. “Monica?”
She poked her head out of the bedroom. “In here.” He walked to the bedroom quickly, excitedly, and then decided he perhaps seemed too anxious. He took a deep breath and walked into the room to see her finishing packing another box. His collar was sitting on top of it. “I hope you don’t mind, I needed to get some last things and was hoping you would come home and want to talk.”
“Definitely.” He didn’t sit down, or take off his coat; he just stood rooted to the spot on the old throw rug.
“I thought you would say, ‘I knew something was wrong, but just wasn’t sure.’ when I left. I didn’t think you were completely surprised by it,” she began.
“Well, I was.” He watched her turn to slowly fold her mother’s picture inside an embroidered work and gently place in the box. The silence seemed to last an hour, but it was only a pause. He needed to know what happened. What did she not tell him?
“What happened last summer?”
“It was on our vacation.” She looked down, her sadness made him yearn to hold her and make it go away, but he couldn’t.
“I thought I was pregnant.”
“What?” His eyes became as wide as saucers. He stepped forward, free from his roots on the carpet. “Why didn’t you tell me?” His heart nearly broke, the idea of being a father and he couldn’t share in that possibility.
“I wanted to be sure. I wasn’t certain how you would react. The subject hadn’t come up the last few years. Your job change, the stress at work, it wasn’t ever the right time.
The vacation would have been perfect. I could surprise you and we would celebrate and the trip would have been extra special.” That small hint of a smile as she spoke of the surprise faded completely and she frowned again. “I wasn’t pregnant though. I was so tired and so disappointed. It didn’t seem fair to bring it up when you were so relaxed and happy.”
“I don’t remember you being exactly miserable on that trip. I noticed you wanted things more gentle but you didn’t seem unhappy at all.” So, she had pretended nothing was wrong, and she did it very well. One of her worst faults was saying “I’m fine” when she wasn’t. One of his worst faults was he didn’t always catch it.
“When we got home I suddenly felt like a caged bird,” she said, looking out the window across the room, overlooking the roofs of the small town.. “The idea of us being parents was a wonderful dream come true and I was soaring with excitement. It was a new step in our lives. I had already started reading about parenting in a Master/slave relationship, what would change and the things that didn’t have to change.”
He was angry, he didn’t remember her discussing the desire to have a child so badly. “When were you going to tell me how much you wanted to have a baby?”
She hung her head again. “It was when we were visiting Jeremy and Heather. They had announced they were expecting. I overheard you talking to Jeremy in the kitchen.”
He thought back to that time, that quiet evening with friends. He and Jeremy were in the kitchen getting some extra chips and having a beer. Jeremy had leaned on the counter and confided in him that it had really thrown him for a loop. They were trying to get pregnant but once it happened he was in shock, and a little panicked at the idea of being a Dad.
Then Carl realized what she had overheard that silenced her. “Any plans of you and Monica taking the plunge?”
His immediate answer was, “No way. I like things just the way they are, so why change it?”
“What about Monica?”
“She hasn’t mentioned it. You know women, they’d say something if they really wanted something like this. Naw, she’s happy with things the way they are, too.”
He had never asked her. She was probably just getting up the nerve to talk about it.“I was just getting up the nerve to talk about it. So I thought, ‘Never mind, that’s that’. I decided not to bring it up again, or at least, not for quite a while. I wanted to see if you would change your mind."
She bit her lip, fighting back the tears that were welling up in her eyes. “I became more and more depressed while I watched Heather’s belly grow. I cried when she let me feel the baby kicking. I wasn’t crying with joy, though I tried to act like I was. I was feeling sorry for myself.
“I had asked her if anything had changed with her and Jeremy? I mean did he still expect all the same service to him, the same bondage, did she still eat off the floor, getting up and down with that big belly?”
“She laughed at me. ‘No, I sit in a chair now.’ Not much else had changed, not then anyway.” She walked to the window, gazing out over the buildings, as if she could fly away. “Do you remember that night? When I told you about it?”
He didn’t. She looked over to him, and he could see she had remembered it clearly, and he had missed it again. “You thought I was pouting, that I was envious of the things she no longer had to do and would rather be a little lazy instead.” He had spanked her, with a belt. It was an old consequence for that kind of behavior. She had learned not to pout a long time ago. “I hated it. I had never been so resentful of discipline in our 9 ½ years together.” She turned to the window again, and began to cry.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked as he walked across to her. “When did you stop talking to me?” He put his hands on her shoulders, and gave a gentle squeeze, he wanted to reassure her that he was willing to listen, that now he would hear her loud and clear.
She pulled away, just a step so that her shoulders were no longer under his touch. Her tears came harder, her shoulders shaking and she rested her hand against the windowsill, and her forehead leaned onto the cool glass pane. She shrugged.
She had forgotten the one thing they both needed to be paying attention to. She went about her days and nights as normal as always, he did the same. She stood by him patiently during the stress of the job. She wasn’t normal though. He had had to correct her more often since she had requested less work.
“It could have all been understood so easily. You don’t have to do this. All we ever needed was to sit down and talk about it.”
“You weren’t listening.”
She returned to her box and left the lid off, her things were near to overflowing. “Leave that here, Monica.” She looked up, the first eye contact since yesterday. “Wait. I won’t let anything happen to it. Wait until you know for sure you want to be gone for good. I don’t think you have to. Not yet.”
She stood motionless. He recognized the confusion on her face, he knew her insecurities and uncertainties making decisions. He moved to her, with confidence and tenderness he picked up her box and brought it back to her closet, gently putting it on the floor, to wait quietly and expectantly.
