At his desk, Hannibal stared into the transparent cylinder as if all the answers he needed were swirling inside with the coffee as he pushed the plunger down. But as shadows lengthened in the room, his computer monitor drew his attention. After filling his mug, he tapped a key and thought about the community he had so recently poked his virtual nose into.
In search of more insight, Hannibal returned to one of the chat rooms he had visited Saturday night. He hoped that a stranger might tell him what neither Anita nor Marquita could: how a woman could get caught up in this game of dominance.
As soon as he logged into the chat room he was greeted by several identical messages, “Hello Hannibal Sir.” He selected one of the speakers, nicknamed charmer, and after a few fumbles managed to open a private window.
“Hello. Can we talk for a minute?” Hannibal typed. Even through the computer it felt more like hitting on a girl in a bar than like the start of an interview.
“Yes Sir,” charmer responded. “How may i serve You?”
Hannibal was tempted to tell her to drop the “Sir,” but decided that if she did, it might make her less likely to respond. “I’m new here and just trying to learn,” he said. “Would you be willing to tell me how you got involved in such violent role-play?”
A short pause. “Violent? Not sure i understand, Sir.”
“Are you new as well?” Hannibal asked. “Don’t you know what these guys do to their girls?” This time the pause was much longer.
“You aren’t familiar with the lifestyle at all, are You Sir?”
“I admit I’m not,” Hannibal typed. “Just trying to learn.” The next typed line was the first of many surprises for him.
“This is not merely online play for me, Sir. i am submissive in R/L.” This, he had figured out, was the abbreviation for “real life.” For some reason, his mouth felt drier and he gulped coffee before typing again.
“You are a masochist then?” Reading his words he wondered if he had just insulted her. To her credit, charmer surprised him again with a calm response.
“BDSM is not about violence, Sir. It’s something sexy and trusting you do with someone you care about. i trust Master completely and take joy in pleasing Him. In return, He protects and nurtures me.”
“And it’s okay for this person you care about to beat you?” Hannibal asked.
“If Master punishes me, it is because i have done something wrong and deserve it.”
He easily imagined Anita saying those words not long ago. He sipped his coffee, wanting to push the conversation farther.
“And if he decides to lend you out to other men? Do you deserve that too?”
“Master would never do that, Sir.” charmer said.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Sir, are you a reporter?” charmer asked.
“No, I promise you I’m not.” Hannibal replied. “Please help me understand how you can be so confident he wouldn’t give you away.”
“Master loves me,” charmer said. “And besides, that is one of my limits.”
“Limits?” Hannibal asked, pausing to think before typing again. “I don’t understand.”
“When He took me as His own, Master gave me His rules, which i must obey. At the same time i gave him my limits, which are the things i will not or cannot do. i would not be collared by a man unless we could agree on limits. Nor would a Master take a sub who did not respect His rules.”
Hannibal sat back farther from the glow of the screen. He knew that the collar signified ownership, but apparently it did not suspend all rights. Had Anita or Marquita established limits? That seemed unlikely. Perhaps Rod had only shown them one side of this life. And maybe this whole thing wasn’t as black and white as Hannibal had assumed.
“Your limits don’t include his beating you?”
“As i said, Sir, Master would not punish me unless i deserved to be punished.”
“But it’s up to him how much of a beating you deserve,” Hannibal said. “He could injure you, brutalize you.” At this point his thoughts flowed directly into the keyboard, almost like thinking aloud.
“Are You purposely testing me, Sir?” charmer asked. “You can tell Master that I have no fear. He is not a brute. I have never needed to use my safe word, nor do I ever expect to.”
Hannibal’s eyebrows rose at another new concept. He realized that just observing one evening had not taught him all of the code. “Please explain safe word,” he typed. This time he stared hard at the screen, watching the words pop up with even greater interest.
“This is the word Master has given me as proof that he will protect me, even from Himself. If I feel that He may hurt me more than He intends, or order me to do something that will be harmful to me in the long term, then I say my safeword and He will stop what He is doing.”
Hannibal wondered if Marquita would have taken other men if she felt she had a choice. Did she have a safeword to defend herself from actions that would destroy her spirit? His mind burned with more questions than before.
“Sir.” The word drew him back to the screen. “May i please go now? This conversation is becoming a little uncomfortable.”
He was no closer to understanding why a woman would volunteer for degradation this way, but he now knew that there were layers and shades to this “lifestyle” beyond his immediate grasp. That in itself was insight.
“Of course, you can leave whenever you want,” Hannibal typed. “I don’t own you. And thank you. You have been very helpful.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Tell your master that I said he should be very proud of you.”
“Thank You, Sir.” was the final line she posted. Hannibal shut down the Internet connection, gulped more coffee, and sat back in the dark for a long while. He sipped the dark liquid, smiling both at its flavor and a sudden thought about Anita. She may have been just like this charmer at one time, but no longer. As angry as he was about her confronting Mantooth, he was proud of her courage. She had managed to strike one blow for womankind. She didn’t scar him, but she hurt his favorite possession.
“Whoa!” The thought hit him so hard he splashed coffee on his desk. He realized that there was a reason no one had seen the car, and it had nothing to do with Mantooth leaving town. Hannibal snatched the phone off the desk, pulled a card out of his jacket pocket and punched in a phone number. He was more anxious than he wanted to admit to himself while the phone rang, and was grinning like a fool when it was answered.
“Clarence Nash,” he said, sounding as giddy as a game show host. “Thank God you’re still at the shop. This is Hannibal Jones.”
“Hannibal? Oh, yeah, I remember now. The guy in the black suit. Hey, funny you should call. You’ll never guess who was in here this morning.”
“Please tell me that bastard Rod Mantooth brought that custom car back to you.”
“You got it,” the mechanic said. “Man, he was fixing to bust. Somebody done keyed the driver’s door bad. He brought it straight to me, wouldn’t let nobody else touch it.”
“I knew it!” Hannibal was pacing the office, too excited to sit. “How long will you have it there?”
“Couple days,” Nash said. “Had to order the paint. Not much call for this particular mix today. Then there’s a couple day’s work after I pull the door off.”
“Pull the door?” Hannibal asked. “It’s a scratch, right? You fill in the paint and buff it out.”
Nash’s laugh roared out of the phone. “You sure don’t know much about cars, son, at least not this kind of car. The whole body’s dipped in chrome and airbrushed with twelve coats of paint. Each of those layers has got to dry before the next one goes on. It won’t be ready too soon.”
“Okay, Clarence,” Hannibal was calmer now, and sat on his desk, leaning against the computer to share its comforting warmth. “Can I get you to call me when it’s ready so I can meet Mr. Mantooth over there?”
“Don’t see why not, as long as you meet him after he’s paid me and left,” Nash said. “Can’t promise I’ll remember, but I’ll try.”