Chapter 42: What now?

"Liberation Bondage — hot new exhibit goes on show today!"

Sue was reading aloud from the culture-vulture section of the Saturday morning newspaper, while Janelle stirred her coffee vigorously in vain hope of getting three heaped teaspoons of sugar to dissolve in it. It was strong coffee — today she really felt in need of a caffeine injection.

"Men can free their minds, says rooky artist Janelle at her downtown debut, if they first can submit to a woman."

"That's not what I said at all!" complained the rooky artist, before going in for another deep slurp of double-strength Brazilian.

"Wasn't it James Brown who once said "Free your mind, and your ass will follow"?"

"George Clinton, actually. Brown's bass player. But thank you for that little piece of R&B trivia."

"Look, they even got a picture."

Janelle craned her head around to see a photo of manacled Doug in the act of bolting from the armchair, face rendered anonymous by the leather hood over his head, and crotch rendered publishable by a censoring black circle superimposed over the image. The wooden carving of Mistress Sassy had it's whip upraised as if to strike him.

"Jesus fucking Christ. How embarrassing."

"Aw, c'mon Janelle! The only bad publicity is no publicity."

"You're a regular mother-lode of pithy sayings, y'know that?"

"Is that why you're so pithed off? Ha! Ha! Ha, ha ha!"

"Ha fuckin' ha. I'm pithed off 'cos I'm the only one who got publicly identified in this whole debacle! How can I go back to school after this?"

"Stiff upper lip, old girl. Just brazen it out. Act like the whole thing had been planned!"

"That's even worse. They'll all think I cooked up this stunt to upstage them, and win the prize."

"There's a prize?"

"Sure is. And if I have the extreme misfortune to win it now, I'll be dead-meat for sure when we're back in class."

"Tell me again — how did you and Doug wind up in this situation in the first place?"

"Like I said, he claimed he'd stopped by to check out my exhibit."

"Sure he didn't stop by to check YOU out?"

"He denied it, of course."

"Okay... so how'd he wind up manacled, with his prick hangin' out of his draws?"

"All my doing, I'm afraid."

"Janelle! My, my, my!"

"I know what's comin' next."

"Wrong, guess again. "Cos that's not a question I can answer. Only you can know the motivation behind that one."

"I'd like to say I was motivated by pure lust. It's been a while, y'know."

"You'd like to say it, but you won't?"

"Sue, he looked so goddamned cute. And when I grabbed his jaw, he had that Look."

"What look?"

"The one that attracted me to him in the first place. Like a frightened deer caught in the headlights. I so like that in a man!"

"So... what's next?"

Janelle sighed.

"Sue, I don't know. I mean, he still turns me on in a big way. But you say he wants a relationship. I just don't know if I have it in me to do that."

Just then Janelle's cell-phone began simultaneously glowing, vibrating, and emitting a heavy hip-hop beat. She flipped it open and held it to her ear.

"Yeah?"

Sue could hear low murmuring faintly from the other end, which Janelle interspersed with the occasional "Uh-huh, uh-huh," and finally "Okay. I'll be up in an hour."

Janelle snapped the phone shut and stared off into space, her dark eyes dreamy.

"Well?" Sue wanted to know.

"It was him. He says we need to talk."

"First sensible thing I've heard all day."

"He asked me to go see him at his apartment."

"Is that a good idea? Maybe neutral territory would be better?"

"His apartment's fine. We can talk freely there."

Janelle got up to go.

"Sue?"

"Yes?"

"Know any good websites about "Relationships"?"

"Just go into Google and... Oh! Stop teasing me! Get outta here!"