I watched her study the ring. I felt self-conscious because I wanted her to like it. I loved it. It seemed perfect to me, but she was a jewelry designer and maybe she wouldn’t feel the same. Maybe I should have just written her another poem. Words were ephemeral, mere air. Rings were…
Fuck. Did she like it?
“It’s too loose,” she said, looking up at last. Her eyes were shining. “If it’s a collar, it needs to be snug.”
And I realized her eyes were shining because she was about to cry, and it suddenly seemed like this ring was my heart laid bare in front of her, and did she like it?
She smiled at me through those gathering tears, and then I knew she loved it as much as I did. The jeweler looked at the ring on her hand, gauged the diameter with a practiced eye, then took it in the back and returned with a perfectly sized band, as if he’d measured her finger. Nice and snug.
“It’s so beautiful,” she said, staring down at it.
“You can wear it on either hand. Whatever you like. But I want you to wear it all the time, even when you can’t wear…”
The shopkeeper was standing there, and very likely understood English. I touched her neck and she knew what I meant. I paid for the ring, and the restless angst that had risen in me at my parents’ house was calmed again. She was mine, all the time. Her collar was back at the hotel, and now she had this ring she wouldn’t be allowed to take off.
It was clarity. The ring was gold and bindis, and my high self and my low self, and all the deep, emotional things in between.
Chapter Seven: Commitment
As soon as we returned from Paris, Price got busy. I tried not to take it personally. He’d missed a lot during his week away, so if he had to work late, and was gruff and distracted when he returned home, I had to accept it like I accepted all the other bad things he did to me.
But I also thought, you gave me a ring.
What does this ring mean?
I chose to believe it meant some kind of commitment, even if our relationship was an infuriating dance of advance and retreat. I hadn’t imagined the look in his eyes when he slid it on my finger. I hadn’t imagined the new closeness that developed in Paris, even if he was in full retreat by the time we returned. He could insist on rules. He could hide behind protocols and training, but I knew that the other man was there, the Price who was full of love and tenderness and poetry. Those thoughts sustained me through every stringent session in the dungeon that week.
Outside the dungeon, away from my Master’s unforgiving bondage and forms of torture, life went on. Vinod emailed that he would be visiting New York, and invited me to design some pieces for upcoming fashion lines. He sent me megabytes of photographs and sketches, and his excitement was contagious. I began to work exclusively on men’s accessories, solid, classic tie bars, rings, cuff links, and I found it a welcome change from the whimsy of women’s pieces. Men’s fashion was so much more straightforward, and I spent as much time in my studio as Price would allow.
As for my dear friend Andrew, it was nearly two weeks before I could make plans to see him. He wasn’t amused. He glared at me as I walked across the Big Apple Diner, making sure I comprehended his displeasure before he swept me into a hug.
“It’s been too long, girl,” he said, pressing his blond curls to my cheek.
“I know.”
He drew back and looked at me hard. “No, I mean, it’s really been too long. I know I come after your work now, and your fucked-up life with that sociopath you call Master—”
“Shut up, please. I have a million things to tell you.” I shoved him down into the booth and sat across from him, picking up my menu. As I scanned the familiar offerings, I wiggled my ring finger at him. “Notice anything new?”
He grabbed my hand and yanked it toward him, gazing down at the strikingly delicate, gold and garnet ring. “Wow, babes. It’s pretty. He gave it to you?”
“In Paris,” I said, nodding. “After a crazy day. He took me to his parents’ house—”
“You met his parents?” Andrew’s eyes went wide. “Are they sociopaths too?”
“They weren’t there, and he’s not a sociopath. He took me all over Paris, to all these out of the way streets and shops and this little cafe overlooking the Sacré Coeur. You would have loved it. There was so much to see, so much to paint. So much inspiration.”
The waitress came and took our order, and then I gave Andrew a quick and dirty recap of the trip, from my ill-advised viewing of Heart-Lust, to my meeting with Vinod Sushil, to our trip to the Goutte d’Or.