Mind Caviar Fiction

James Williams is a favorite author of Mind Caviar; we've had the honor of publishing his first electronically published work, "Cage #3". James Williams has also been published in numerous publications such as Advocate Men, Attitude, Black Sheets, Blue Food, International Leatherman, Sandmutopia Guardian, Spectator, and in many anthologies such as Best American Erotica, Best SM Erotica, Bitch Goddess, Doing It for Daddy, My Biggest O, SM Futures and SM Visions. Grass Roots Press (a division of Greenery) will be publishing his first collection in 2002 entitled But I Know What You Want... Queer, Queer Tales which will include his works Cage #1, #2, #3.

E-mail James Williams.

Cage #1

She hung from the vaulted gothic ceiling in a high white macramé cage. From a single turk’s-head knot the ropes depended to a wooden platform fitted with a round white cushion she could stand or sit on. The platform was lashed to the lower third of the webbing and tied off below, where the rope-ends unraveled to dozens and dozens and dozens of floating strings and whimsical ribbons frayed and trailing away like white streamers in the breeze beneath her feet.

Her hair was so pale and her skin so translucent she almost looked like part of the cage itself. I did nothing to change the way she came to me but wrap her in a layered cloak of brightly colored feathers. When I pressed the button beside my chair she descended in an outward silence from the shadows above and I heard nothing but the thin wind as air was pressed from beneath the falling cage, and, as if it were ongoing, the glass-bell clarity of her sweet soprano that grew more present but never louder as she came closer till I could touch the cage or, sometimes, even her.

She must have sat at other times but she was always standing when the cage came down, delicate hands and loose long fingers tapering around the closest ropes without any expression on her face at all. Sometimes the cloak was wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl, sometimes draped like a toga or part of a sari, sometimes wrapped around her hips like a pareo; when it lay in a heap on the cushion she appeared more naked than any human being has a right to be before another. Once she had woven the feather fringes into the macramé, shielding herself as if behind a huge bird wing. Still she was singing, her rich lips mouthing the words to her fluid songs in a language that made no linear sense to me but that immobilized me where I sat and gently prised the casing from my helpless heart until I felt exposed from the inside out. Then her deep, sad eyes seemed to translate what I felt to her, as if I’d understood her music; as if those eyes had found me from the shadows high above long before I’d even made her out; as if she’d always meant to sing to me.

I kept her for her singing, of course, and because as the cage ascended later her voice grew fainter and fainter until I heard only its memory. Sometimes after I had sent her away her absence felt like such a piteous loss I could not bear the echoes of her silence. Once I brought the cage back only part-way down so I could hear her singing at a distance, and though I could not make myself send her up again, her false proximity made my grief seem sharper. I fell asleep to her music and woke to it at dawn, too haunted to be rid of her for days. For nights thereafter I dreamed her voice as if it were her eyes, piercing whatever shields of time or distance I placed between us, floating as if disembodied in a pool of pastel music.

Another time I thought to defeat the music. I let the cage descend until it rested on the floor. Even the old Aubusson beneath it could not muffle the tones she made, and she did not hesitate when I approached the cage and slowly opened the locks. I’d been afraid she would grow silent or try to flee, but she remained leaning as if languishing against the satin ropes, clutching at the cage that arched above her head, her eyes on mine, her song perpetual. I stepped back from the cage and still she sang. I sat down in my chair and beckoned her with a gesture of one hand. Eyes still fixed and voice still singing, she slid one leg in front of the other, flexed her foot, and took a step so quick I did not see it but she’d landed on the carpet leaning toward me on her toes, both hands clutching the ropes that were behind her now, naked breasts and shoulders still emerging from the feather cloak that settled to the cushion as if it were a single piece of down.

I pointed at my feet and she soared to me: as if she had fairy wings she stepped and knelt and bowed in a single movement curved as a fawning swan to press her lips where my finger commanded, and her song seemed to emanate from all around her as if covering her mouth had no effect on it.

I raised her up with a touch to her neck and she brought herself full face to mine. I wanted to hold her, attend to her, touch her slight body, but notes rose from her floral breath like bubbles in sweet water. When I placed my finger against her lips they parted and softly closed around me as she nuzzled, suckled, and kept on singing.

Cage # 2

Why do you keep him locked in a cage?

I don’t keep him there, I just put him there sometimes.

Why?

I like to see him contained, in my control.

Can he get out?

When I let him.

Where’s the key?

Keys. There are nine locks. I have keys for every one. Right now they’re up there on the fireplace mantle.

Do you always keep them there?

Of course not. I just put them there today.

I guess that makes them easy to reach.

Yes. I expect to let him out before you go.

You do?

Well, someone’s got to make dinner.

I guess he can’t cook in there.

No. That’s what the long chain is for.

Which long chain?

The one in the kitchen.

You keep him chained?

When he’s not in the cage I do.

Why?

For the same reasons. See what happens when I put my foot to the bars?

He kisses it.

He worships it. Look at his face: rapture. He reaches for me with his fingers, as far as he can reach through the bars. Look how he presses his lips to me: reverence. Whatever I offer he worships.

He’s pretty big for that small space.

Follow my foot. Kneel up. Follow my finger. Lie down. On your back. Spread your thighs.

Is that another lock?

Yes. It’s how I attach the chain.

You chain him by his balls?

It makes things very clear between us, doesn’t it?

I’ll say.

Hands and knees. Face down. Ass up.

Does he do everything you tell him?

Everything. Would you like to see him out of the cage? Hand me those keys.

Why does he wait for you in that position?

I taught him to. I like him to show me that he knows his place. I like to remind him that he belongs to me. But sometimes I have him kneel up so he’s more exposed in front and he can see my eyes.

Well, the door’s open. Why doesn’t he come out?

I haven’t given him permission yet.

He’s very obedient.

Yes. Come here. Kiss. Good boy.

Is he ever allowed to stand and walk?

When I say so.

When is that?

When I want him to do something he couldn’t do from his knees.

Such as?

All right, my boy. Kill.