The Aviary - The Caged Woman

An exercept from a yet unfinished piece...

Jasper unlocks the aviary and enters without announcing himself. Tessa, seated by the reflecting pool, looks up from the far side of the space, her reflection mirrored in the glass behind her. The reflection is looking away,  the soft curve of her neck shimmering against the darkness beyond, the peacock feather clip holding her hair up in a loose chignon, the cranes on the back of her kimono in full flight. The front of the robe is open, her nakedness facing him. He still isn’t used to it. She lifts her chin and tilts her head just slightly to the right. “Do you want to see?” she asks.


He looks down. “Not yet,” he says, walking towards her.

“Do you want to hear?” she asks, drawing the clip from her hair and shaking copper waves across her shoulders. The kimono brightens beneath her hair, its navy blue silk becoming the iridescent indigo of the eye of the peacock feather she now holds in her hand.

“I know what you’ll say,” he answers. “Let me come to you.”

She turns away, the reflection’s face now glaring at him from the glass. “I didn’t like him,” she says stiffly.

Jasper meets her stare in the glass. “You weren’t meant to.”

Immediately, she stands, letting the kimono fall from her shoulders. Bared, she faces the windowed walls but there is nothing outside to see her but an expanse of lawn, followed by an unkempt field, followed by a forest. The opposite side of her body confronts Jasper as she lifts her hair off her shoulders.

The backs of her shoulders are violet rimmed with pink rimmed with yellow, already bruising. The marks on both sides are conform, neither side having taken a greater whipping than the other. He reaches to touch her left shoulder. She winces but lets him circle the bruise lightly with the tips of his fingers. “Flogger?” he asks.

She nods, then elaborates. “He tickled me with it. Let it trail over my body. It felt good, I think. But he only let the harder blows fall on my shoulders.”

“I see that.” Jasper nods, his tone encouraging her to go on.

“You see the problem.”

“I see what you think is the problem.” He runs his hand down her back then cups each buttock in his hand. He squeezes her flesh and finds himself hardening. He steps back and kneels down, somewhat stunned by the unmarked flesh before him. “He didn’t touch it?”

“Not once,” she says, indignant. “Why am I here, if not for that?”

“I thought you were here for the stories you could tell after they were gone.”

“I thought, I’m not sure now. I can’t tell you what I thought just yet. I don‘t know.”

He gives her bottom one more squeeze. “Another time then.” He continues stroking downwards. “Is this what you really didn’t like?”

With just his index finger, he trails over thirteen cane welts laid close across the backs of her thighs. He remains on the left side, though the welts cross both thighs in full. Each is still white trimmed with pink but growing darker the longer he kneels behind her. The stripes are still raised like scars, thick and succulent. He sees her welts as if they are candy, laid out to be licked and devoured slowly, her flesh melting beneath the warmth of his mouth.

As his finger drifts over each mark, she jerks slightly, her left leg trembling beneath his touch. By the time he reaches the thirteenth stroke, she growls quietly. “You know I hate anything on my thighs. Why did you let that happen?”

Jasper stands and turns her to face him, in so doing reminding her that she came to him, not him to her. “Because you gave me these thighs,” he reaches around and pinches one of the welts. She bites her lip but does not squeal. “You gave me these shoulders,” he caresses them and her eyelids flutter and he knows he has her. “You gave me this ass,” he puts both hands on her pristine backside and pulls her to him, “and just because you didn’t get what you wanted today,” he gives her a quick swat on each cheek, “doesn’t mean you won’t get it on the next day, or the next, or the day after that.”

She rests her head against his chest. “Sometimes I become so caught up in the story, I forget why I’m here.”

He strokes her hair. “I know, Tess. But write this one down. Having your body taken, but not the part you wanted to give? You needed this.”

Nodding against him, she sighs. “I still didn’t like him. I was mad at you.”

“Are you still?”

She gathers her robe off the ground and covers her body once again, this time knotting it so she is covered completely. She clips her hair off her face with the peacock feather. She doesn’t answer.

“Tess, do you have a story?”

She nods.

“Then write it,” he says, and turns away, leaving the aviary, locking the door behind him.