Charity McKenzie’s girlfriend was late.

They had been in a relationship for a year – long enough for Charity to know that Blue Barclay was at all times on time. Punctuality was a key feature of Blue’s personality. Her attention to detail was exquisite. It is what made Blue successful at her job. It made their shared home feel safe and familiar. It provided Charity the trust she needed to allow Blue to dominate her in the bedroom – to dominate her in their relationship.

Furthermore, tonight, of all nights, with all the anticipation, Charity knew that Blue would not be late unless something was seriously wrong.

And that made Charity worry.

She checked her phone again. She opened the FamTrack app which allowed Charity to see exactly where Blue was. Her icon did not appear on the map. Frantically, Charity zoomed out until even the outer suburbs of the city were displayed. Maybe Blue’s phone had died.

The Clearwater Bar, where Charity sat at a table for two pressed against the wall, was the place where she had met Blue exactly one year ago. Charity had arrived more than ten minutes early, practically trembling with excitement and, more importantly, arousal. It had been 14 days since Blue had locked Charity into her chastity belt. And despite the effectiveness of the device, Charity couldn’t help but surreptitiously press the heel of her palm against the crotch of her calf-length, boho sundress and feel the smooth surface of the cold, hard plate underneath that covered her heated sex.

But now, Blue was over twenty minutes late. Charity’s arousal had morphed to anxiety.

Blue had acquired the chastity belt for Charity several months before. It fit in naturally with their lifestyle which was steeped in the practices of dominance and submission. Charity felt a nervous thrill every time Blue slid the device up her legs – the telescoping band of the waist belt would stretch over her hips and then naturally shrink back to greedily grasp her gentle curves. Once the belt was tightened and locked, the metal plate maintained a comfortable pressure over Charity’s sex – a presence that lingered in her consciousness all the time. Every day felt like young love. The passage of every hour – both giddy and painful. Needless to say, Charity was particularly horny almost all of the time.

The belt was as sleek as a silk thong – perfectly matching Charity’s curves, causing no encumbrance to her mobility. It was smooth and slippery and left no blemish or bruise. It fit well under clothes and cleanliness was easy to maintain.

Charity remembered clearly Blue’s demonstration when she first introduced the belt. Blue opened the waistband up to a large circumference then quickly squeezed it back down like an accordion. “When I press the disk to the faceplate of the belt, there is no mechanical lock. Rather, it changes the speed at which the waistband can expand and contract. So, what I just did in seconds would take months or even years when the belt is activated. This will allow it to grow and contract with the wearer, always resulting in the perfect fit, but never in such a way as to suddenly become loose.” The casual explanation had left Charity trembling in an apex of pleasurable erotic horror as she contemplated the implications. “Even if, many years from now, you were to grow fat…” Blue had joked, pulling Charity from her trance.

“You think I’m getting fat?!” Charity screamed. She delivered a sharp punch to her lover’s shoulder.

“Never,” Blue laughed.

But the horrific, yet utterly erotic, wondered that lingered in Charity’s mind was that the time period of the application of the belt could be measured in years.

One particularly unique feature of the belt is that it was not just Charity’s burden to bear. The disk key which controlled the expandability of the belt was attached to its own ring of telescoping metal which could be drawn over Charity’s lover’s head and settled tightly around her neck. Wearing the key, thus, Blue had to kneel before her chastened lover to engage the lock. And, there the key would remain dangling from the metal collar that Blue would have to wear until they chose to couple the devices once more and be free of the wonderful toys.

While Charity could hide her deviance, Blue had to wear hers for all to see. And she did so proudly. “It’s a symbol of my love for Charity,” she would tell friends and coworkers as they puzzled over how it could be removed, wrapping her arms around Charity and pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Perfect and whole.” Blue was bold and unburdened by any conception that her BDSM lifestyle was some kind of secret.

As perfect as the belt and key were, there was one enormous drawback that limited the amount of time that Charity and her lover could play with them. The belt drove Charity’s arousal through the roof. Logic might suggest that the lack of access to her lady-parts would tend to shelve Charity’s libido. The actual result of wearing the belt, however, was nothing like that at all. Charity found her arousal would swell, each succeeding day more than before. Her engagement with the world around her slowly turned more to an erotic dreamscape filled with flittering distractions.

The longer she wore the belt, the more often Charity discovered herself unconsciously engaging in subtle acts of physical stimulation. Sometimes the acts were as simple as combing her fingers through her hair, pulling on her earrings or her lips, stroking her waist and abdomen. Sometimes the acts were even more overt – like cupping her breasts or rocking her legs open and closed, flexing her thighs together.

One day she even broke free from her reverie to find that her hand was stroking her inner thighs, shielded from view by only a pad of paper meant to be used for taking notes. She had no recollection of the past ten minutes of her psychiatric patient’s discourse.

Reluctantly, Charity and Blue realized they had to schedule their denial play strategically in order for Charity to function to the degree that she preferred.

This was the first time that Charity had worn the belt for fourteen days, and she only did so because she had suspended all her sessions for the past week while working on an art project. But, fuck, she was ready to get the belt off now. In fact, she hoped to convince Blue to skip dinner and head straight home, so she could rip Blue’s clothes off and ravish her lover until the early morning hours.

But, Blue was late.

Charity tried to call Blue again, and when the ring tone rolled over to voicemail, Charity rechecked FamTrack – the display still lacking Blue’s avatar. She cursed under her breath – almost a half hour late.

She looked around the bar trying to distract herself. About half the tables were occupied. A couple who looked like a pair of WWE wrestlers sat at the table next to Charity’s. They were proportional, just seemingly constructed too large for this world. Most people were taller than Charity, but she swore that the woman likely took the space of two of herself – the man, probably three? The bartender was obviously more interested in something on her phone and a patron at the far end of the bar was staring expectantly waiting for her attention.

The TV was on mute showing the evening news. A banner at the bottom of the screen read, “Decorated woman discovered alive in suitcase” with the word “decorated” in quotes. The story showed the suitcase from numerous angles, both opened and closed, but no pictures of the “decorated” woman. Charity thought if she was a military hero. Charity thought if it was a sex game gone awry.

Fuck! Where was Blue?

Charity noticed that her knee was anxiously bouncing and stretched her legs out. The WWE couple stood up from the table, preparing to leave the bar. On the other side of the couple was a strange woman – her long, black, frizzy hair exploding from underneath a baseball cap. Below the rim of the hat, the woman wore visor sunglasses and a KN95 surgical mask leaving no bare flesh to the open air. She sat motionless – maybe she was asleep, but Charity couldn’t help but feel that the woman was staring at her behind the dark lenses.

The couple must have been big enough to build a breeze as they moved towards the exit. Charity’s cardigan which had been filling the space of Blue’s seat suddenly fell to the floor. Charity bent underneath the table to pick it up. A sleeve had somehow tangled itself around a chair leg, and it took a moment of tugging to get it free. When she sat up the freaky, frizzy-haired woman was standing right over Charity who barked out a small yelp of surprise.

“You dropped your phone,” the woman said, holding it out in a purple, yarn-mittened hand.

“Oh! Thanks. Err…I’m a little jumpy tonight. Sorry.”

The woman gave Charity her phone and then quickly walked out of the bar.

“Weird woman,” Charity muttered as she looked for any new cracks in the phone screen. “Then again, I’m the one locked in a chastity belt without the key.”

The TV news was now showing a picture of Ash Adams, a local woman who disappeared over a year ago – an erotic dancer. Her youth and beauty garnered a lot of exposure for the story but never any leads.

“Fuck! Where are you, Blue?” Charity unlocked her phone and opened the FamTrack app again. “Oh, thank the Goddess!” Blue’s avatar was displayed on the map, although some distance away still. She tapped the avatar and placed a call.

After three rings, an unfamiliar woman’s voice answered. “Hello, this is Detective Tumola, City PD.”

“Ummm…” Charity held the phone away from her face briefly to make sure she had called the right number. Meanwhile, a host of horrible possibilities began to take root in her imagination. “Uh. I’m looking for Blue Barclay?”

“Who is this calling?” the voice said.

“Is she OK? I’m looking for Blue. Where is she? She’s OK?” Charity asked.

“Ms. McKenzie?”

“Yes. This is Charity. Is Blue ok? Did you say you are a cop?”

“Yes. Do you know where Ms. Barclay is?” the police woman asked.

“I thought she’d be with her phone. Where did you find her phone?”

“This is the phone that was in her car.”

“Yes, that’s Blue’s phone. Where was her car?” Charity was becoming frantic. She was not receiving information fast enough.

“We found her car at the corner of Jefferson and Pine.”

“Found it?!?”

“The car was idling, and the doors were locked, but there was no one in the car.”

“How did you get her phone?!” Charity began pulling a $10 bill for a tip out of her purse, already determined to get to the police station as fast as efficient.

“Her phone was in the car. Along with her purse and wallet,” the police woman said. “But, that’s not the strangest thing.”

“What!? Tell me what is going on!”

“Well… It’s like she got undressed and dumped all her clothes right there in the driver’s seat. Shirt, pants, shoes on the floorboard, with socks tucked in… undergarments… It’s like she just disappeared and left the car running in the middle of the road.”

“I’m coming down there!” Charity exclaimed, grabbing her cardigan and standing up.

“Please do,” the police woman was saying as Charity ended the call.

She took a step towards the exit, and then Charity’s phone beeped – a text message.

Charity looked at the screen: “1 new message from Keyholder”.

“Keyholder? What the fuck?” Charity opened the message, the world seeming to revolve around her faster than it should.

The message said: “I guess your cunt is mine now, bitch!”