The Confidence Trick
From Blushes 29 I never know in advance if it will be my lover, the Master, who comes to me, or another sent by him. Tonight, at the Meeting, he was kind and smiling, so I am led to hope it will be him. But all I can do is wait and hope, for I must do his bidding, whether I wish it or not. So it is decreed, for I am his. It is the third hour of the morning, and I can tell from the silence that has fallen on this great house that the Meeting is over, the Brothers and Sisters gone home or retired to their rooms to pursue the unceasing search. My Master is my one and only lover, and I am his to command as he desires. Through my Vow of Obedience, I have taken many others in his place, but they have all been him, a succession of faces and bodies and grasping hands, all him beneath the flesh, all him! This great room echoes with silence, resonances of the past almost audible as I stand and wait for the door to open on my lover. My...