Chapter 14: The Alkali Metals

Group One Elements.

For Joe and Jenny, the drive across to Leicestershire passes in silence. It’s probably one of the longest 90 minutes that Joe has experienced lately. It is early January. The conviviality’s of Christmas and New Year are over but they were a disappointment, overshadowed by Joe’s unexpected redundancy. A new year stretches out ahead of them. It is a new year in which Joe has to find a new job and quickly, too. It is a new year in which Jenny has to work on her recovery, but she will have to move more slowly, to make progress only as fast as her mind can heal.

Joe is not sure what his wife thinks about the upcoming visit. When he told her that he wanted to talk to Andrew Edwards and Philippa about the possibility of some work, Jenny had seemed quite happy, encouraged that Joe wasn’t letting the loss of his job get him down. As the weekend came closer, Jenny became quieter, even withdrawn. That’s not unusual, though. To Joe, it seems that Jenny spends a lot of time lost in her own thoughts; she’s still thinking about her time in Russia, he imagines.

In fact, Jenny’s concerns are closer to home. She’s worried about confronting the BDSM world again outside of a known safe place, meaning Inward Bound, and outside her relationship with Joe. Once, it would have seemed a fun weekend, exciting even. Now, she is wondering how many ghosts the next two days will conjure up and whether she can happily face the idea of consensual SM play after what she has been through. She is also anxious about what Joe has told her about Philippa and Andrew’s relationship. Her ambition was once to be a sub with Joe as her Dom. Now, her feelings for Joe are switching. She would like to be his Domme and she would like him to be her sub, her very own sub, perhaps even her owned sub. Jenny also knows that when she is confronted by a “real” Domme, by Ylena or, par excellence, by Neena, then, in those circumstances, she would revert instantaneously and become a complete and abject sub herself.

As she plays with these images of herself, a half-remembered chemistry lesson about the reactivity of “alkali metals” re-awakens: how lithium reacts, how sodium reacts more strongly, and how potassium reacts more strongly still. It is as if Lithium is a sub to sodium until potassium enters the equation, at which point sodium becomes a sub to potassium... (1)

The problem is, she is not sure of herself anymore. Once, she knew: she was a sub. Later, she was sure: she was an owned slave. Now, she is unsure because she is more interested in becoming a Domme and hopes that her relationship can take that particular new direction. Will social contact with another couple who enjoy “power exchange” help or will it hinder the tender and tentative re-growth of her relationship with Joe? So many questions! So few answers!

The Plantation is not easy for Joe to find but, to one side of a narrow winding country lane, he comes to a gap in a substantial hawthorn hedge with a road leading off to the left. His satnav says “You have reached your destination,” but it does not look very much like the access point Andrew Edwards used the last time he brought Joe here. It might be only a couple of years, but a lot can change in two years — and Joe can testify to the truth of that better than most people!

To the left, the new road disappears beneath an industrial-looking gate which bears a sign: Mercian Forests. Please be patient with our Biosecurity. Please phone for access.

There is no entry buzzer or phone to be seen.

“So what do we do now?” asks Joe to no one in particular.

Jenny replies, “Why don’t you call Andrew Edwards’ mobile? If you are at the wrong gate, he can tell you where you should be?”

Just as Joe is fumbling for his mobile, the gate, all of its own accord, slides to one side and their way is open. Joe engages first gear and drives in, but it is a somewhat disconcerting feeling — and for Jenny too, he imagines, as the gate slides closed behind them.

The thick hedging is now on both sides and, after a very few yards, they reach another solid gate. It is decorated with a notice about arboreal pathology and the main sign on the gate reads once again:

Mercian Forests. Please be patient with our Biosecurity. Please phone for access.

History repeats itself. After a moment, the gate rolls to the left, to finally open the way into the Plantation.

The road ahead is compacted gravel. It winds into the woodland and almost immediately, they lose sight of the inner gate. They continue for about a half-mile, although it seems much further and finally emerge into a clearing, to be confronted by a little knot of buildings. Joe parks the car and takes stock of the new developments.

Joe and Jenny are confronted by six round buildings. Low pitched roofs overhang the walls which support them, presenting deep and generous eves.

One is tall, tall as a conventional house but a very big house such as one with generous ground and first floor storeys. its walls pierced at irregular intervals by thin lancet windows.

Another, adjacent and joined on, as if it has grown from the side of the Tower building, is single story but has a larger diameter. A segment of the wall is formed from tall panes of glass between vertical beams and provides a clear view of the forest to anyone inside.

The others are smaller, more intimate, their windows set deep in the walls, which gives them an archaic and fairyland appearance.

The whole development reminds both Jenny and Joe of a collection of field mushrooms, completely distinct and yet corresponding organically to the round trunks and boughs of the forest trees.

Jenny says, “This looks a bit like the sort of place where you might find the Elves...”

Joe asks,”Thats Hobbiton?”

And Jenny replies, “No, there are Elves living at the Last Homely House.”

Joe chuckles and says, “Well, that’s where we must be!” (2) (3)

Jenny nods, in a non-committal sort of way. She is toying, in her mind, with the idea of the buildings growing out of the soil overnight to form an enchanted circle. Jenny gets out of the car and walks with Joe along a path towards the buildings. They have barely reached it when Philippa and Andrew emerge, to meet them on the path.

“Hello, Joseph and Jenny!” says Andrew, holding out his hand.

“Hi,” replies Joe. “Did you build all these or did they just grow out of the ground, overnight?” voicing Jenny’s own private thoughts.

Jenny nods and smiles and says, “Hi,” but, at this moment, she feels diffident and out-of-place, the amusement she enjoyed moments before at the sight of Edward’s woodland development has wilted. She’s thinking about what they might be thinking. Here is that girl again, the girl who went away but won’t say why and if she was taken, she won’t say who by or why.

“Come on in.” Andrew shows the way to a big lounge that reaches the entire height of the single story extension. The glass wall looks out onto the courtyard and beyond, to the trees. The light is beginning to seep from the sky as the early dusk falls and the trees of the forest seem almost to approach the building, as if they could move.

The inside of the house is timber-framed, with thick posts and rafters. It is also warm and cosy. The warmth and the apparent solidity are a reassuring counterpoint to the eerie treescape. Joe looks over it, impressed.

“We were lucky,” Andrew says. “I managed to get some more capital. It meant we could build something that’s really comfortable. It’s only been finished for two months, though. The paint is still wet! Well, not really the paint, but maybe some of the plaster and the walls will take time to finish drying. You know how some of these projects can drag on.”

Joe nods, sympathetically. That is what he is good at — making sure projects didn’t drag on. The trouble is, he’s looking round now and he’s not sure that there’s anything left for him to do, but his curiosity is piqued.

“The walls?” he asks. In Joe’s experience, brick and concrete walls in a steel frame stabilize pretty fast. Plaster as a finishing layer is a different animal, but the walls?

“Joe, you would not believe the regulations around building in a forest. The Local Authority here, but I think this is pretty typical, are anxious about owners building in forests in case it’s a sort of ‘Trojan Horse’ development. Something that starts as a couple of conventional buildings and, before they know it, the Local Authority have the forest owners asking for a ‘change of use’ so they can put down a large residential development and that is the end of the forest for good. So, I asked for permission to build unconventional buildings with a very small ‘footprint’.”

“These are unconventional shapes, all right, but I am thinking it is more than the shapes?” replies Joe, the engineer in him now wide awake.

“Right! The small chalets are timber-framed buildings on gravel footings with straw bales to form the walls. It has been treated with a fire-retardant. The outer walls have a plaster skin for water resistance and the inner walls are plastered as the smooth finish. The whole effect is to make the chalets look very solid but in fact their eco-footprint is very small. They are also very thermally efficient. However, this building, the Tower building, and the heating plant building, they are all built of cob.”

“Cob?”

“Clay and straw. It’s traditional in Cumbria and in the South West. Dorset and places like that. You are standing in a mud hut — with some discrete reinforcement. The straw we had to buy. The mud we dug out of the ground in the forest and the tradesmen we had to get in specially. It’s a bit of a skill. What do you think?”

Joe does not know what to think. He looks at the building, at its slippery whizzing curves.

As he tries to find words, Andrew says, “Let’s have a drink! Toast the new building; toast ‘Wild Wood.’ That’s what we’re calling it.”

“Good name,” Joe says, at a loss to say anything more original.

Jenny looks out towards the birch trees and thinks again about the comical mushroom buildings and then, in an instant, she is no longer in England. She is collecting greebwee from the plantations around the Dacha with Lev (who made sure she picked only the edible ones) and also the Security Team. (4) Jenny could never quite come to terms with the incongruity of it. The armed men with gardener’s baskets in their hands ranging through the trees looking for mushrooms. She was to learn that Russians held mushrooms in very high regard, one of the many surprising discoveries she made about what became her new country.

“Jenny,” Philippa is at her side offering Jenny a glass of sparkling wine. Jenny smiles and takes it. Another false note! She’s still not used to people waiting on her.

They toast “Wild Wood,” they toast Joe’s “freedom” and, finally, Philippa insists they toast Jenny’s safe return. “I know we met Joe first and I hope you don’t mind, but Joe told us so much and, well, of course, we were so happy when we heard you’d got back.”

Jenny nods again and manages a smile. “Got back” isn’t quite how she sees it; “came back” wouldn’t be right, either. “Sent back” is how it was. If she had not been sent back, she would not be here now. Here is another reminder of how easily she becomes the other person, Vyera and when she is Vyera, she aches to be back with her Owners, at the Dacha, under the supervision of Neena, serving Alana, and helping to care for little Dmitry. For a second instant, she leaves Wild Wood. She finds herself naked, standing behind Neena who kneels to allow Vyera the slave to wash Neena’s hair. Jenny can smell the fragrance of the shampoo and feel the hot sting of the shower jet and remember the itch between her legs and the feeling in her secret self when she remembered “her situation,” as they always used to say.

“Come on, let’s show you around,” Andrew enthuses. Joe gets to his feet, keen to seem interested (which he is) and keen to try to find an “in,” something he could offer to the project as it is now.

“I am particularly proud of the biomass boiler and the central heating plant. We source the heat generation at one point, so it puts the fire risk in one place and that lets us increase the level of protection, but the boiler is just magic! We take a delivery of cut timber. That is stored in a hopper and travels to the boiler along a conveyor. All you get out of the other end of the boiler is a pile of wood-ash that we can spread on the ground. I was just astonished (as well as glad) to see just how well the system performed in every building we have put up and connected to the system.

“Do you mind if I stay here for a while?” Jenny is happy to gaze on the wonders of a biomass boiler, but she is not keen to inspect the other facilities. The Main Attractions. She’s got a good idea of what that will involve, from what Joe has told her about the project. Cells, a dungeon, stables for the “ponies.” She’s seen cells and dungeons. Real ones. Right now, she doesn’t feel the need for more. Moreover, she is still feeling disquieted by the ease with which she has, in the twinkling of an eye and provoked by an innocent word, moved in time and space, back to a shower and a beautiful young woman who still waits for her, in a grand house, in another forest, in the Padmascovnye. (5)

“Of course not. You boys go off and play. We’ll sit here and have another glass,” and Philippa shoos the two men out.

Jenny looks at her. They are about the same age, she imagines. Philippa is shorter than Jenny, not really what you would imagine as Mistress material. She has dark shortish hair in a pageboy bob with pale skin and blue eyes. The black, white and blue combination is very striking, Jenny thinks. Philippa has an open round face; she looks as if she shares her time between cooking on the Aga, bottling fruit from the garden, and dead-heading roses in the garden.

There’s something else though, something more. It’s her eyes, Jenny decides, the way she watches. The careful, slow, deep exploration of another, just by looking at them. She’s seen that before. It’s the same way that Corinne looked at her; the same way that Neena looked at her.

In that instant, Jenny is back in the Dacha once again. She has set the main dining room table for dinner. Neena has come to check her work — as one would expect — and then looks at her when she was Vyera, just as Philippa is looking at her, now she is Jenny. Neena morphs into Philippa, and Jenny is disquieted to realize that she is disappointed. She wishes to be standing before Neena, to be on her knees before Neena, to feel her lips on Neena’s feet, to kiss them and to confirm her “new situation” as Vyera, the loyal and obedient slave.

Philippa asks, “Are you all right?”

“Yes, sure, sorry. My thoughts just take off sometimes.” Flash backs are Jenny’s regular companions. It does not take much to trigger them.

“Of course. Do you want to talk about any of it?”

Jenny takes a deep breath. She pauses. She thinks. She shakes her head. She doesn’t. Not because she doesn’t want to bring the memories back, but because she’s terrified she’ll let slip some detail that could betray her Owners. “No. But tell me about this. Tell me about you and Andrew. How come you decided to build this?”

Philippa smiles. “Of course. Are you comfortable there?”

What is it about Dommes, Jenny asks herself? They can be so considerate. Maybe they have to be, in consensual play. Jenny just wants to finish the sentence, though. Are you comfortable there or would you rather be crouched at my feet? Tied to one of these posts? Kneeling at my side?

Instead, she says, “Yes, I’m fine. This is a beautiful couch. Leather? Really comfy. You’ve made this place feel very easy to relax in. A bit like being at home.”

Philippa nods. “That’s what we intended. The play space is pretty full-on. People need somewhere to cool down, draw breath. That’s what we wanted to give them.” She launches into a description of how she and Andrew got the idea for the space, how they managed to pull the funding together, and how they’ve been able to get their first bookings.

Jenny interjects with affirmative Mmmm’s and Ah’s. She just wants Philippa to go on talking; that way she, Jenny, does not have to craft any careful or clever replies.

“It was quite a project. Andrew says it was my ideal job, bossing the builders, timber workers and construction guys around. It’s a bit different when you can’t actually get a whip out, though.”

Jenny finds Philippa’s blunt affirmation of the sexual orientation, that Joe had already described, uncomfortable. But then Philippa adds, “Joe said you’d done some research work on this stuff. Attitudes to consensual SM and so on. Is that something you’ll go back to now? Or is it all too painful still?”

Jenny hasn’t even thought about this since her very unsatisfactory encounter with Angela. So strange: everyone assumes (even Angela) that she still has work to do but, of course, the academic project is over. The result has been obtained. She has graduated with a PhD degree — or rather, Vyera Anatolyevna Kuznetsova has graduated.

Jenny’s mind is suddenly back at the Dacha again. This time she is outside the dining room door. In seconds, she has to face her examiners for her Thesis. She is sure Angela is one of them. Neena grasps her firmly by the elbow. Neena says: You will go in there. You will present your report just as you did at MSU. You will answer the questions put to you. You will do no more and you will do no less!

Vyera knows that if she does not do her best, if she lets her Owners down, she will be punished. Caned. Whipped, perhaps. That knowledge helps. She walks through the door — to see that Angela is not there. What a blessed relief!

Suddenly, Jenny is back in England. She has travelled forward in time. She is sitting with Philippa Edwards. For a split second, she cannot understand exactly where she is. Then, she grasps her hands around her knees and looks Philippa in the eye. Philippa seems genuinely interested. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go back to it. The University says I can, but I’m not sure I can be objective about the data anymore.”

It seems odd talking about it like this, Jenny reflects. Of course, the most important part of her project, Angela’s project, has already been published by Mendeleyev, Romanova and Kuznetzova. The next phase would take place in Russia; to go back and take part would be an irrevocable one-way journey. If she is to return to the project now she is in the UK, how could she work without giving that part of her life away?

“Would you like more wine or some tea?”

The all-purpose British cure, thinks Jenny. Everything from broken confidences to broken legs to broken marriages can be fixed by its application but, on the other hand, it often it works rather well. “Yes,” she says, with some relief, “I would love a cup of tea.”

“Milk? Sugar?”

“No, black, thanks.” It’s how tea was always served in the Dacha, anywhere in Russia, in fact. Jenny hadn’t thought about that before, but it seems to be one way to acknowledge her secret new self, in safety.

Philippa nods. “I won’t be a minute. There’s a kitchen at the back here.”

Jenny watches her go. She looks down at the coffee table. There’s a big book on the shelf beneath. Idly, she pulls it out and starts to thumb through it. It’s a hard-bound set of photographs showing the different stages of the Wild Wood project. There’s the earth moving, the installation of the drainage, the planting, the building. The photographs are dramatic, not really documentary. They’re artistically framed, often focusing on some small detail with carefully chosen lighting. It’s an impressive piece of work.

Jenny hears a kettle whistle and turns over another page. This image is a shock. It was presumably taken as part of the opening ceremonies or something like that. In the picture, it’s dusk. Above some trees, the last of the day’s light can be seen silhouetting the top branches. It’s a track, somewhere leading towards the building Jenny is in right now. She can see it in the background, but it is what is in the foreground that has startled her. On each side of the track, three girls, naked, are tied against trees. Their arms are stretched back behind them around the trunks, their naked backs pressed against the rough bark. They are all gagged. From the strap that gags each girl, a hook protrudes. From the hook hangs a lantern. The girls are human lamp posts, each shedding a pool of light on the track.

Jenny is transfixed by the image. She doesn’t hear Philippa return with the tea. She gives a quiet whimper as once more, unbidden and in conflict with every rational response to her recent experiences, her submissive desires well up inside her.

“Are you all right?” Philippa is right beside her.

“Yes, sorry. I was just a bit startled by the picture. They’re wonderful photographs, but this one surprised me a bit, I suppose.”

“Well, don’t look any further if that one upsets you. I’m afraid the rest of them are pictures taken during the opening weekend. Some of it is a bit heavy.”

“It’s OK, really. Probably good therapy to see some everyday kinkiness.” For some reason, Jenny feels she can at least relax about her submissive responses with this woman. But isn’t that what Dommes are good at? Helping subs relax into their natural state?

She turns the page. This time, it’s a double-page spread, a close-up of the belly of a girl harnessed in a pony trap. The straps of her harness are jet black, the fittings highly polished brass, the shadows and tones of her skin say the picture was shot in the open air, in bright sunshine. Somehow, the picture has a luxurious feel to it, as though the girl and the photographer are wallowing in the sensuousness of the situation: the combination of the sensation of bondage and the head-trip of being treated as an animal.

Another page. Jenny draws in her breath. She’s conscious of Philippa watching her as she sips her tea. But that’s what Dommes do, isn’t it? Watching the reaction of the sub when a stimulus is applied. Jenny is staring down at two more pictures of submissives. One is a girl sitting on the ground in the wood. The colours are all dark muddy browns, except for where sunlight streams down through the trees across her. Her clothes are filthy and tattered, as though she’s been held captive for a long time. Her complexion is mud-streaked. She has shackles about her wrists and ankles. A heavy chain runs from the girl’s steel collar to a thick staple attached to an iron ring which encircles the trunk of a nearby tree. It is as if she’s been left as a sacrifice for the creatures of the forest.

The opposite picture has another girl with wrists and ankles shackled. This one is naked, except for a pair of black Doc Martens boots. She has been set to collecting wood. Her arms are filled with a pile of dead sticks gathered from the forest floor. Her torso carries scratches from where her load has snicked her skin. Her face carries beads of sweat. It’s been hard work on a hot day.

“How’s your tea?”

“Uh?” Jenny hasn’t touched it. She has no idea how long she has been looking at the images of the girls.

“It’s OK. I think I understand. Even in the world of kink, it’s hard for subs to keep things in their boxes. Hard for Dommes, too, sometimes.

“Please forgive me if I am speaking out of turn, but I am guessing that it is very painful for you to reconcile something you used to enjoy in imagination with something that actually happened in the real world and maybe you did not really want to happen? Sometimes, the worst thing that can happen to our fantasies is to have them fulfilled.”

For a moment, Jenny is very quiet. Is she really so obvious? Is her recent history so easy to read? But then she reflects that one less well-appreciated characteristic of Dommes is that they are usually very perceptive. To buy a moment or two of further reflection, Jenny takes a sip of tea.

“Maybe,” Jenny says, “I really need quiet space to think about it. I haven’t really processed any of that yet.”

She turns a page. This time the mood is different. In one, a foot in a spike-heeled shoe presses down against the flesh of a submissive’s back. The sharpness of the picture shows every thread of the stocking that the foot is clad in. From the background, it’s clear that whoever owns the foot is sitting where Jenny is sitting now. Jenny almost feels herself propelled from the couch to the floor. It is not right for her to be where that person was sitting. That’s completely wrong!

The picture on the facing page is of a woman’s face. Because of the way the photographer has framed it, you can only see the woman’s lips, nose and eyes. She’s wearing a black mask. It’s made of some stiff material, perhaps leather. The blackness of the mask matches the blackness of the woman’s pupils. Around them, her irises are blue. It’s an intimate picture.

“That’s you, isn’t it?” Jenny asks Philippa.

“Yes,” she says. “After all the work getting the place built, I wanted to get the chance to enjoy it. That’s me, too.” She points at the foot in the spike-heeled shoe. “Andrew was very understanding. Letting me indulge myself, while the pictures were taken.”

Indulging herself? Perhaps he, Andrew, was indulging himself, too? Jenny knows that she should have an intimate understanding of this world, but this world is to do with consensual kinkiness and her world is the world of professional kinkiness, where she was formally owned and trained and directed and retained in servitude. Jenny feels that the participants in the photographs are like people skating on thin ice who might one day, crash through the ice and disappear into the dangerous waters beneath.

“Hi, everyone,” Andrew calls as the outside door opens. “We’re back. It’s too dark to look around outside anymore today.”

Joe looks at Jenny, sensing that she has been somewhere uncomfortable. He has got used to watching for these warning signs, after the disastrous evening meal at Cathy and George Corbin’s and the even more dreadful episode when Jenny raped Cathy, Joe is always on his guard. “Are you OK, Jen?”

Jenny nods. “Yes, I’m fine,” she says with a hard edge in her voice. The edge says Don’t ask anything else. Jenny continues, “How was your tour?”

“Impressive,” Joe says. “I’m proud to have been a small part of it.”

“But it has come at a very great personal cost to you,” observes Philippa, gently.

“Their loss, not mine,” Joe says emphatically.

Jenny is surprised. She hasn’t heard Joe be so self-confident in a while. If that’s the effect of this trip, it’s a good thing they have made the journey, she thinks.

“You are going to stay over? You’re very welcome. There’s no one else booked in tonight. We can do some dinner, nothing fancy.”

“I don’t know,” Joe says. “Jenny, how would you feel about that?”

“Why not?” Jenny says, suddenly very positive. Something has thawed inside her. Unexpectedly, she feels comfortable here, as though it’s a halfway house between the world of now and the world of the not too distant past. And she’s intrigued by Philippa and Andrew’s relationship. How do they make that work? An alpha male in the workplace and a subbie in the bedroom?

They have dinner in Philippa and Andrew’s mushroom house nearby. It is surprisingly roomy inside and the round contours make for an efficient use of space. For a weekend retreat, there is everything one might need. A kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a sitting room.

It’s a kink-free meal and the talk is all of holidays and what’s been happening in sport and in politics and in entertainment. There is laughter about some of the more absurd things that Joe has seen happen in his business and some of the frustrations that Philippa had with her project management. It’s all wonderfully normal and, while it doesn’t help with her understanding of Philippa and Andrew, it does leave Jenny feeling more relaxed and at peace than she has been for a long time.

Once the meal is over, Andrew says, “I’ll see you back to the accommodation. And feel free to play with any of the toys.” He winks, as if to bandage an edgy remark in humour.

Jenny catches a stern look from Philippa to Andrew at his clumsiness and then a sympathetic one directed to herself. It’s obvious that he shouldn’t have said that, but only because of Philippa’s concern for how Jenny would react. Joe, meanwhile, seems not to have noticed, but maybe he has and is steeling himself for what might happen next?

Jenny, however, giggles. It’s a sweet gesture and she’s not offended by Andrew’s suggestion. She believes she can cope with that. She suspects Andrew is going to suffer for his careless remark later and feels pleased that Philippa is prepared to “follow through” as a Domme when the need and when the opportunity arises.

In their own pavilion, Jenny and Joe are in the big double bed in a room overlooking the courtyard and blackness of the wood beyond, through the deep-set windows. She slides up to him, snuggling her head against his chest and kissing him just above the breast. He reaches out a hand and lays it lightly on the back of her head, holding her against him. There’s no force involved, but it’s just the response she needs: firm, making it plain that she should continue, not compelling her but showing that he wants her.