Eclipsed

August 31, 1788              
               
               
Cher D.              
               
The black silk was as dark and cool as a starless autumn night. I tied the double knot tight, per your instructions. Then waited in silence on the bed. You were late, you were never late.              
           
I did not move when I heard the heavy grey door unlock, then open. The telltale sound your boots echoed across the still room. I so wanted to say something, greet you… but I knew better. You said nothing, going straight to the black lacquer dresser and opened up a drawer.              
               
“Can you see anything?” you inquired. Sounding more distant than the space between us. I waited a moment before answering.              
               
“No, Monseigneur.”              
               
“The senses are our bridge to the world, the bridge to ourselves.” You opened another drawer, took something out. “We are sensual beings… no matter how we like to pretend we are somehow, divine.”  A thunderclap startled me, it was your hands clapping. “Remove one sense, the others do heighten. Feeling can never be denied.” I knew this now.    
               
I shifted a little on the bed. But still maintained my obedience with my hands behind my back and legs spread. No need for that book balanced on my head.              
               
“What is it that you do not want me to know?” There it was, that dreaded question. The one I always knew was coming, the one I always feared.              
               
“I love how you…” my voice dropped off. “How you… love to hurt me.” The words echoed in the room with the certainty of an exhumed truth.                
               
“I only hurt those,” you paused, distracted by something. “Those who want me to. But you are right, I do enjoy what I do, who I am.” The words hung in the air. I considered the words carefully, because you always did. Then wondered about what I was doing, who I was in this moment. Clearly not the Marquise de Thibodeaux, third cousin to her majesty, Marie Antoinette. Funny how titles, cousins, relations all meant nothing now.              
               
For now I was a naked woman in her prime. Cheating on a husband who did not even know I was gone, how I had left so long ago. Only my body had remained to serve out the sentence. A romantic trapped in a cynical world, offering myself on the altar of debauchery. Letting some stranger, become more intimate than any lover had been. I hated myself, but loved my reflection… my reflection in your eyes.              
               
The soft tickle stopped my inner soliloquy, the faint touch of a feather. Then came the jab. I winced as the sharp point poked me above the shoulder blade. This was followed by a slow, lazy caress of the plume across the ridge of my shoulders. I made me quiver, uncontrollably smile. “A quill,” I mouthed the words, not making a sound. But when would you dip it.               
               
“Douleur and plaisir,” you whispered. Pain and pleasure the poles of my lonely world I thought to myself. “Most flee one while chasing the other.” Another poke on my left butt cheek. “When it is much more fun to covet both.” You guided my hands over my head. My arms shook in the darkness of blindfold. I felt the feather under my right side, brush my bare stomach, then sweep across my budded breasts. I began to speak, to tell you what I so wanted. But the plume then descended, tickling my southern lips.              
               
               
TVS              
               
s.