Wren

It's Friday night, the fourth Friday in a row you've spent at Wren's apartment. It's small and neat in a very particular way: books shelved by Dewey number, a teapot that's always warm, and a cat named Bede who tolerates you. You're both on her couch. The movie ended ten minutes ago, and neither of you has moved.

Wren has been sitting stiffly beside you, rubbing her sleeve between her fingers in a steady rhythm. Finally she takes a sharp breath, stands, walks to her bookshelf, and comes back with a manila folder. She holds it against her chest with both arms like a shield.

"I, um. I need to tell you something, and I've rehearsed it, so please don't interrupt or I'll lose my place." Her eyes are fixed on your collarbone and her cheeks are already pink. "I really like you. A lot. More than I've liked anyone in, um, a statistically significant amount of time. And I'd like to have sex with you. Eventually. Soon. Maybe."

She swallows hard.

"But the kind of sex I like is… not normal. And the last two people I told left. So I'd rather tell you now, before I like you even more, so it hurts less if you go."

She holds out the folder. Inside is a laminated, color-coded checklist with three columns titled YES, MAYBE, and NO. The YES column is long and very detailed. You see words like impact, degradation, choking, marks, and use me however you want, that last one underlined twice. At the bottom, in neat handwriting: Safeword: RED. I promise I'll use it if I need to.

Her voice gets very, very small.

"I like being hurt. I like being… made small. I know that's weird. I know I'm weird." Her thumb taps against each of her fingertips, one, two, three, four. "You can say no. You can leave. I'll understand. I'll still help you find books."

She finally looks up at you, just for a second, with her big grey eyes behind her glasses, waiting for her heart to break.

It's been a few months now. Your toothbrush lives in the cup next to hers. Bede has started sleeping on your side of the bed, and Wren is pretending to be outraged about it. Tonight was a quiet night in: homemade risotto (she followed the recipe exactly, to the gram), a chapter of the book you're reading aloud to each other, and the dishes washed side by side while the rain tapped on the kitchen window.

Now she's curled up at her end of the couch in one of your t-shirts, which is huge on her and slipping off one pale shoulder. Her glasses are pushed up into her hair. She has a mug of chamomile in both hands and her socked feet tucked under your thigh, and she's reading a book on Carolingian minuscule with a small, happy crease between her brows.

After a while she starts to feel your eyes on her. She turns a page. Then she turns it back, because she wasn't actually reading it. Her gaze drifts up to your collarbone.

"You're looking at me," she says quietly. It's more of an observation than an accusation. "You've been looking at me for four minutes. I counted. Is something…"

Then you tell her: "I think your cute breasts are too pretty for you. I want you to tell me how to hurt them."

Wren goes completely still. The mug stops halfway to her mouth. The blush starts at her throat and climbs all the way to the tips of her ears. For a long, silent moment she just stares at your hands. Her thumb taps against the ceramic: one, two, three, four.

Then, very carefully, she sets the mug on a coaster, squares it to the edge of the table, and lets out a shaky breath.

"Oh," she whispers. "Oh, that's… you said that so directly." Her voice wobbles. "I really, really like when you're direct."

She pulls her knees up and hugs them. She can't quite look at you, but she can't quite look away either. When she speaks again it comes out in her reference-desk voice, the one she uses when she's nervous and falls back on precision. It's breathier than usual.

"Okay. Okay. You asked for instructions, so I'll give you instructions. In order. Escalating." She swallows. "First, you can pinch them. Hard. Harder than you think. You'll want to be gentle because you're nice, but please don't be. Twist a little. If I squirm, that's good squirming. If I say yellow, that's not."

Her fingers find the hem of the t-shirt and start rubbing it fast.

"Second, slapping. Open hand. Not too fast at first, so I can, um, anticipate it. The anticipation is half of it. Third…" Her voice gets smaller. "There are wooden clothespins in the drawer next to the bed. The top drawer. Left side. I sanded them so there aren't any splinters. You can put as many on as you want and leave them there while you do… whatever you want. And then taking them off hurts more than putting them on, so you should save that for when I'm being bad. Or good. Or whenever. It's your decision."

She peeks up at you through her lashes, grey-green eyes huge and already a little glassy.

"And you can bite. Anywhere. I'd like marks there, actually, because nobody else will see them, and I can feel them under my sweater at work all day, and know." She presses her lips together, horrified at herself and also not at all. "That was more than you asked for. I'm sorry. You can skip steps. Or do them out of order. Or do things I didn't list."

Slowly, almost shyly, she uncurls and turns to face you on the couch. Her hands are shaking a little as she rests them on her thighs, palms up, giving you everything.

"Green," she breathes, before you've even moved. "Just so you know. Already green."

Then, smaller and hopeful: "…Are you going to make me ask nicely?"

The shopping bags are lined up on Wren's bed in a neat row, arranged by item and then by order of application, because of course they are. Bra. G-string. Stockings. And at the end, still in their box, a pair of glossy red patent stilettos with five-inch heels that she looked at in the store as if they had personally insulted her family.

Bede took one look at the situation and left the room.

You're sitting in the reading chair in the corner of her bedroom, the one she normally curls up in with a blanket and a book. Tonight it faces the bed. You told her you want to watch her put on her "uniform" for the first time. All of it, piece by piece, while you sit there and look.

Wren stands at the foot of the bed in her cardigan and long skirt with her hands knotted together. She has already taken her glasses off, cleaned them, and put them back on twice.

"Okay," she says to your collarbone. "Okay. I'm going to do it in order. I made an order." She swallows. "Please don't talk to me while I'm doing it or I'll lose my nerve and put the cardigan back on."

The cardigan comes off first. She folds it into a perfect square and sets it on the dresser. The skirt follows, then her plain white cotton underwear, which she hides under the cardigan immediately as though it's evidence. Then she stands there for a moment, pale all over, arms crossed over her chest, flushed pink from her throat to her ears.

She picks up the g-string. It's black lace, and there's almost nothing to it. She holds it up by the waistband and looks at it in quiet dismay.

"There's so little of it," she whispers.

She steps into it one foot at a time, wobbling a little, and draws it up her thighs. When she pulls it the last few inches into place, her whole body shivers. The thin string slides snugly between her cheeks and pulls tight, and the lace front presses up into her with no slack at all. She makes a tiny, involuntary noise and freezes, fingers still hooked in the waistband.

"It's… very present," she says faintly. "It's in places. Constantly. I didn't realize it would be constant."

Next is the bra, the 32A you chose. You remember her face in the boutique when you said "cup" and the saleswoman said "oh, that'll be snug, honey."

Wren fumbles with the clasp behind her back. Her fingers are shaking, and it takes three tries before the hooks catch. When they do, the bra closes on her like a fist. The underwires press hard into the soft undersides of her breasts. The tiny lace cups can't hold her, so the pale curves swell up over the scalloped edges, pushed high and spilling out. Every breath tightens it a little more.

She inhales sharply and her breasts strain against the lace. She exhales slowly through her nose.

"That hurts," she reports, in a voice that's trying very hard to stay clinical. "Not a lot. A steady amount. Like a… like a reminder." Her blush gets deeper. "I think I'll be able to feel it every second you're here. Which I assume is the point."

Last are the stockings: sheer black nylon with wide lace tops. She sits on the edge of the bed to put them on, and that's where it goes wrong, or very right.

When she bends forward to gather the first stocking over her toes, the bra pinches tighter. Her breasts press down into the cups and push up and out even further, nearly over the edge of the lace. At the same moment, folding her body pulls the g-string taut. The string digs in hard behind her and the front wedges up deep between her lips. She gasps out loud and stops with the stocking halfway up her calf, eyes wide behind her glasses.

"Oh," she breathes. "Oh, no. Sitting makes it worse. Everything makes it worse."

She keeps going anyway. Obedient and determined, she rolls the nylon slowly up over her knee and smooths the lace band high on her thigh. Every small movement makes her squirm, and every squirm only shifts the string further into place. By the time she bends for the second stocking her breathing is shallow and uneven, her thighs are pressed together, and her lip is caught between her teeth.

When both are on, she smooths the lace tops so they sit exactly even, because even now she can't help it. Then she stands up shakily, puts her arms straight at her sides, and makes herself not cover anything.

She's the most indecent thing her neat little bedroom has ever held: pale skin, black lace, breasts squeezed and spilling, the g-string pulled so tight it leaves nothing to imagine, her face burning scarlet above it all. Her thumb taps against her thigh: one, two, three, four.

Then she looks up and sees your face.

You're grinning. You aren't hiding it and you aren't being polite about it. It's a slow, satisfied grin, like a man who just realized exactly what he's been given.

Wren's breath hitches. Her knees press together and her shoulders curl in. Her eyes go soft and glassy, and you can see her sink into that place where she stops thinking.

"Don't," she whispers. "Don't look at me like that, I'm going to…" She doesn't finish. Her voice drops to almost nothing. "…Green. Very, very green."

She takes a small, wobbly step toward you. The motion makes her wince as everything tightens at once.

"Uniform complete," she manages. "Except for…" Her eyes slide, full of dread, to the shoebox and the red stilettos. "…the shoes. Do you want me in the shoes now?" A pause. Then, very small and very hopeful: "Or do you want to inspect me first?"