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Subject: {ASSM} {AdrianHunter} Marquise--Chapter One by Adrian Hunter (bdsm, 31 flavors)[1/6]
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(Welcome back, ASSM...I'll post the rest of this epic once the group is up and
running smoothly. If you can't wait, the entire story is on my new and improved
website at http://www.geocities.com/~adrianhunter)

Marquise--Chapter One
By Adrian Hunter


This is crazy.

And don't forget stupid, stupid.

Michelle stared out her window at the millions of earthbound galaxies 

glittering like the insides of a pirate's treasure chest. From the air, 

Manhattan looks like it was designed by Disney, dozens of familiar 

tourist icons crammed onto the real fantasy island, the future 

unfolding in a diorama that shares only tenuous connections of rusting 

metal to the state that borrowed its name.

"This is the captain. I hope you're enjoying our view of New York 

tonight, because I'm afraid you'll be seeing a lot of it. The tower at 

LaGuardia has asked us to sit tight while they get some other planes 

down first. I figure about 20 to 30 minutes before we arrive at the 

gate."

She pushed her head back against the dwarf pillow and closed her eyes.

Great. More time to think.

More time to talk herself out of this.

Oh, but you're really traveling on business, Michelle. An artfully 

contrived appointment with a dim prospect who seems to be surgically 

attached to the competition. Hell, she'd be lucky to get 15 minutes and 

a cup of coffee out of the guy.

After this self-inflicted humiliation, she was going to do a little 

shopping over on the west side. Chelsea, actually. Stomping grounds of 

Edie Sedgwick and Sid Vicious and subway vigilante Bernie Goetz, among 

other notable Noo Yawk riffrafferati.

Sapphotica. A boutique for the discriminating fetishist.

She shook her head to clear away the dark, shiny visions. You're on a 

mission, girl. Focus.

Chasing ghosts and dreams is more like it, she reminded herself. She 

had no idea if the people there would know anything about Joshua. If, 

in fact, there even is a Joshua.

Oh, he's real. No artificial intelligence could push her buttons so 

effectively. And she shuddered at the thought of spending hours online 

with some pimply high-school student or worse.

Despite their mutual affection for steamy ASCII, their relationship, if 

you could even call it that, always kept one foot firmly planted on the 

floor. Joshua took her ideas and spun them into stories he posted to 

various newsgroups. She turned him on to private mailing lists and 

occasionally introduced him to some members of her dom/sub knitting 

circle. They traded pictures they found on the web. Sometimes, they 

even allowed themselves play out various roles in private chat 

sessions.

She had no idea what he looked like, where he lived, or if his name was 

really Joshua Fisher. Or, for that matter, if he was a he, a she, or 

something in between.

Just another normal, happy couple on the Internet, she laughed to 

herself.

They had met a few months ago in a chat room. She had recognized his 

screen name, and IM'd him to say how much she enjoyed his fiction. He 

had responded pleasantly, sparing her the childish come-ons and 

slobber-lipped heavy breathing so typical of these encounters. Soon 

thereafter, they began exchanging letters, short notes at first, then 

longer missives touching on topics Michelle had kept buried in herself 

since she could remember.

He made her laugh when he told her about some of the weirdos he 

attracted by "sharing my most intimate obsessions with several million 

closet pervs" (including ourselves, she often reminded him). He always 

seemed to say exactly what she wanted to hear, both in conversation and 

his more formal writing.

He didn't believe her when she told him he was an international online 

legend, even when she swore his name had been mentioned reverently 

during the course of many separate discussions with her digital 

companions.

"Joshua Fisher, man or myth?" she had joked, but she was only 

half-kidding. While his stories appeared frequently in the alt.sex 

universe, personal postings were rarer than Republican strippers. He 

wasn't so much a lurker as he was a phantom, often seen but rarely met.

So who are you, Michelle, the exorcist? Or Linda Blair?

She wasn't sure anymore. Especially after she introduced him to the 

Marquise.

During her travels through the gutter colonies of the net, she had 

chanced upon a group of lesbian B&D enthusiasts led by a rather 

forbidding dom who apparently ruled with an iron fist, or at least one 

that was severely studded. Those admitted to her inner circle were 

allowed to call her Lady Eleanor in private, but Michelle soon realized 

most of her clique of admirers preferred her formal title, especially 

those who seemed to know her IRL.

The Marquise supervised an invitation-only web site, mailing list and 

regular chat sessions that delved deep and wide in matters of sexual 

dominance and forbidden submissions. Michelle had discovered this 

secret paradise after she befriended a funny lesbian couple, "Lovely" 

Rita and "Polythene" Pam ("just like the Beatles!" they had chirped 

unnecessarily), in a public chat session. Rita and Pam were forever 

bickering about everything from sharing the keyboard to whose turn it 

was to polish all their leather, and Michelle got a kick out of their 

affectionate bitchplay. If she ever got up the guts to switch her 

sexuality, these are the kind of women she'd want to start with.

After a series of email exchanges, Rita and Pam told her about the 

club, and decided to introduce her to the Marquise as a potential 

member. Lady Eleanor had agreed to interview her online, and despite 

her predominantly hetero/dom leanings, the Marquise had agreed to take 

her on as an "apprentice sub," which Michelle felt was somewhat 

redundant until she got to know some of the other women in the group.

At first, she had not been allowed to add her comments to the weekly 

mailings, nor join in any chat sessions. Instead, she lurked, listened, 

observed and learned.

And, truth be told, giggled more than a little.

These people are nice, but nuts, she had decided. The Marquise had a 

very complicated series of rules that had to be followed to the letter. 

Variations and infractions were punished with speed and severity. The 

guilty were given detailed instructions for punishments to be 

self-inflicted, along the lines of:

"Take the keys to two pairs of handcuffs, place them at the bottom of a 

plastic gallon jug filled with water, and freeze the container for 48 

hours. When you are ready, place a large plug in your ass and a 

vibrator running on its lowest setting in your pussy (and don't forget 

fresh batteries). Then, put on a pair of rubber panties to keep them 

from being dislodged, and add some rope around your crotch for 

insurance. Get the container out of the freezer and put it on the 

floor. Gag yourself with a head harness. Place a pair of handcuffs 

around your ankles, and one cuff around your left hand, leaving your 

right hand free. Lie on your stomach, put your hands behind your back, 

and bend your knees until you can loop the chain of the cuffs for your 

wrists around the chain between your ankles. Once the hogtie has been 

established, snap the open cuff shut around your right wrist."

Michelle had been told it could take up to eight hours for the ice to 

melt.

When Lady Eleanor finally gave her permission to speak to the group, 

Michelle assiduously followed all the regulations: waiting her turn, 

always addressing members by their full formal names (some of which 

were lavishly long in the style of a faded European court about to be 

overrun by a peasant revolution), digitally curtseying to those who 

entered late, always saying "please" and "ma'am" and so on. The 

Marquise had quickly noticed Michelle's occasional lapses in spelling, 

and made it a point to mete out "behavior modifications" for every 

slip, not that Michelle had any intention of wearing tiny clothespins 

under her blouse all day at work.

But she quite enjoyed the high level of sophistication and intelligence 

of the Marquise and her "merry band of muff-munching misfits" 

(according to the home page descriptor), and they were most patient 

with her endless questions as well as generous with praise for her 

often-wobbly contributions to the letters and the endless river of the 

chat sessions.

Although it was strictly forbidden, Michelle had told Joshua about the 

Marquise, and even shared unedited chat transcripts and copies of the 

chain letters. He had been much intrigued by the thought of 20-plus 

women who treated bondage like something to do after coffee at a Junior 

League meeting, and fairly begged her to introduce him to the group as 

"Syndie," a bubbly blonde b-word who "gets all, y'know, like, hot" just 

thinking about being tied up and ravaged by women "who know how to do 

all the right things to me."

"Bad idea, Josh," she had written him back. "These dykes don't dick 

around."

He finally seemed to get the message, and the topic never came up 

between them again. But she was always wary of new members, fearful he 

had used the information she had given him to infiltrate the group 

without her help. She was especially curious about "Bottoma," a 

purportedly-young thing who claimed to be exploring her conflicts 

between being everyone's "best girl" and somewhat blacker desires. 

Michelle convinced herself that if this newbie passed muster with the 

Marquise, she must be as real as any of them.

The airplane continued to arc in wide circles over the Atlantic, her 

seatmates blissfully and mercifully asleep. Not that I'm in any rush, 

Michelle told herself. Grab a cab, check in, sleep. Tomorrow will come 

fast enough.

A little distraction might actually help right about now.

Instead, she churned the chronology for the thousandth time.

Everyone had noticed how Bottoma played to the Marquise, showering her 

with trivial flattery and fawning over her every utterance. In return, 

Lady Eleanor had favored her new disciple with special tasks notable in 

their lenience, and even gave the novice the lead role in one of her 

longer fiction serials that stretched over the course of two months' 

letters. Even Michelle had felt a tinge of jealousy while watching 

their extravagant exchanges scroll past her bemused eyes.

If Bottoma was really Joshua, he certainly never gave her the slightest 

hint of subterfuge. In fact, he seemed even more hyperactive than 

usual, babbling about everything under the sun except the Marquise and 

her "lesbian erotic writers d/s club," which he abbreviated to LEWD, 

much to her (mild, granted) annoyance.

Michelle had even tried to contact Bottoma privately, but had never 

received a reply to either her letters or instant messages. No, the 

girl had eyes only for her mistress. A few weeks later, she scarcely 

gave it a second thought.

Until two things happened: Bottoma announced to the group that she was 

going to meet the Marquise in person, and Joshua disappeared.

The first wasn't unexpected, or even unusual. Pam and Rita often spoke 

of IRL sessions with the Marquise, and others were certainly more than 

passingly familiar with details about Lady Eleanor that could only be 

learned in the flesh. Although everyone in the group took pains to 

maintain secrecy about personal geography, Michelle had deduced from 

occasional telltale references that the Marquise and her real-life 

posse lived on the east coast, most likely New York City or 

thereabouts. Not far at all, actually.

The notice in the weekly letter had named a date for this fateful 

rendezvous some six weeks ago. Around the same time, the near-daily 

flow of letters from Joshua had stopped cold. One day he was sending 

her chapter six of his latest white-slavery epic, then nothing.

At first, Michelle had brushed off his disappearance to the kind of 

unforeseen, unavoidable, life-engrossing circumstances that sometimes 

overwhelmed even the most well intentioned. But she became 

progressively more concerned when she received no response to her 

letters and his newsgroup postings ceased. Two weeks later, she caught 

herself doing a random check to see if he was online, and received a 

message declaring his screen name no longer existed.

Had she been dumped and ditched?

Not his style.

How the fuck would you know, she yelled at herself. You've never even 

seen his eyes, much less the way he acts in a relationship.

This is not a relationship.

OK, so you didn't get dumped.

Then why do you feel so bad? Not to mention worried sick?

Not to mention running after him?

"Ah, this is the captain. We've been cleared to land at LaGuardia, so I 

expect to be on the ground in a few minutes. Flight attendants, please 

prepare for arrival."

Michelle pounded the armrest next to her seat, scaring the middle-age 

man who was trying to squash his briefcase under his feet.

It's just a coincidence.

He's just a friend. And a cyber one at that.

This isn't real.

Where is he anyway?

Didn't he care?

After a month, she had been on the verge of a very real breakdown. Must 

take action, she decided, no matter what that meant. To her surprise, 

she was incapable of letting go of this so-called Joshua Fisher, even 

to the point of lying to her boss so she could get her company to pay 

for a visit to New York.

She knew this whole adventure was a long shot. She wasn't sure that the 

Marquise and her tribe were anywhere near Manhattan. But she did know 

the couple worked together at a fetish emporium, and based on their 

stories of its rich and famous clientele, she figured the store had to 

be in a major city. So hello, Big Apple.

The Village Voice featured several display ads for stores with names 

like the Noose, Purple Passion, Body Worship and Come Again. But 

Michelle was going to start with Sapphotica in Chelsea. She just had a 

hunch.

Stupid. And crazy.

Relax, girl. They don't know what you look like. Just play it cool.

The plane bumped smoothly onto the runway.

If it's even their store.

"On behalf of our flight crew, we'd like to welcome you to New York. 

The local time is...."

Showtime.

(to be continued)
___________________________________________
Stories: http://www.geocities.com/~adrianhunter
Mail: adrian_hunter-at-hotmail-dot-com


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