Chapter One
The Awakening

John

I knew that Christine was more than a little reluctant tohaveto wear the bright, heavy steel rings, but she had eventually consented to having them fitted, a month previously, as my birthday gift to her.

Until now I’d left them pretty much alone, ensuring that all of the piercings healed completely and no complications arose from the emplacement of the multiple holes now willingly resident in her flesh. I wanted to make absolutely sure that all of the thick, surgical-quality, stainless steel bonds (for that is, in reality, what they were, rather than jewellery, as she’d initially thought) weren’t going to cause any unforeseen problems. She wasn’t entirely happy about being required to wear them day and night and was even less enamoured of the idea when they were welded closed so that shecouldn’t, on her own, free herself of them. They were, from that point forward and to all intents and purposes, irremovable. She though, had gradually grown accustomed to their weight and inescapable presence and eventually stopped complaining. Certainly, I’d teased her occasionally by grasping one or another and giving it a playful little flip, but for the most part just ignored them, intentionally.

Over the past six months, I’d made her more and more mine.

I had progressively fitted her first with plain, though very shiny, steel jewellery-like wrist- and ankle-cuffs. Next had come a wide and quite thick collar, and finally, a specially formed and quite severe steel waist cinch. Each time a new piece or set of pieces was fitted, I’d allowed a couple of weeks to pass uneventfully and she’d, again, gradually grown used to their weight and feel.

Although we hadn’t made any concrete plans as to the future joining of our lives, we both knew that it would happen eventually and in our various discussions, had covered the area of becoming partners in great detail. After some soul-searching, we’d decided that we really didn’t want to have the responsibility of children in our lives, and so, two weeks previously, I’d taken her back to The Clinic and hadallof her cuffs, the cinch,andher collar welded closed also. They too had become, like her rings, completely irremovable.

Today it was time to acquaint her with some of the more arcane purposes of her exotic jewellery.

“Christine!”