A week of photo reports from his business trip

The key to his cage spent the whole week in the top drawer of the dresser, under my gloves. I took it out twice: on Monday, to check the lock before he left, and on Sunday, to have it in my hand when he walked in.

On Monday he was leaving at twenty past seven. The suitcase had stood by the door since the night before; I packed it myself, in front of him. Into the side pocket I put a sealed envelope and told him not to open it until I said so. He didn’t ask what was inside. Before leaving he knelt in the hall; I pulled his shirt up, took the lock and tugged. The steel held. He kissed my hand and went, and I closed the door myself.

The chat

Sunday, twenty to nine. I sat in the kitchen with my phone, scrolling the week from the bottom up.

Monday: “Arrived.” One word, as I had ordered: he doesn’t like writing from trains, and I don’t like reading about trains.

Tuesday, 21:07: the first photo. The cage through the fabric of his trousers, a window behind him with a city that wasn’t ours. Caption: “All in place.” I answered with digits — the time he was allowed to call the next day.

Wednesday: three pictures. The cage, trousers off now, under a desk lamp. His wrists on the desk beside his watch. An empty hotel corridor. The last one I didn’t understand, and asked. He wrote: “So you can see I’m alone.” I sent a heart. The only one all week.

I don’t answer photos with words. A report is accepted when I have opened it; he sees two ticks, and that is enough. We settled that at home, at the table, when I explained what to send and when. He asked then whether he could call. I said: when I allow it.

Thursday I remembered without the phone. He called at twenty to ten, his voice worn down. He had worked till eight, was in his room, hadn’t eaten.

“Did you want to take it off?”

“Twice. In the shower in the morning. And at night, pulling my trousers off.”

“Open the envelope.”

Inside was a chain. Thin, steel, with a tiny padlock that snaps shut without a key. The key to that padlock had stayed with me, next to the big one. I listened to him tear the paper, to the click of the lock, to him letting his breath out.

“Tight?”

“No. I can feel it.”

“Then feel it. Until Sunday.”

Friday: a photo of the coffee machine in an office corridor, and his wrist with the chain against a shirt I didn’t recognise. Caption: “Someone asked about the bracelet. I said: a present from my wife.” I read it at work and sat still for half a minute. He was standing among people who know him from meetings, with my thing on his arm. A second photo that same night: the room key card on the desk, his palm beside it. No caption. I understood anyway: he remembers who has the key.

Saturday: “Tired. Want to come home.” I didn’t console him. I wrote: “What will you do when you walk in?” The answer came within a minute: “Put the suitcase by the door. Come to you. Kneel.” I wrote “Yes” and put the phone away.

The doorstep

The lift stopped on our floor at four minutes past nine. I opened before he rang. He came in, set the suitcase by the door where he had promised, and knelt on the mat, coat still on. He smelled of the train and of somebody else’s hotel. I held out my left hand and he kissed it. My right I laid on the back of his head and kept there. A week.

“Shirt.”

He unbuttoned the coat and pulled his shirt out of his trousers. I undid the belt, pushed the trousers down to his knees and took hold of the lock. The steel was warm from his body and held as it had on Monday. I ran a finger along the edge of the ring: the skin under it was red from a week of trains and chairs, not chafed. He knelt in the hall with his trousers down and looked at my shoes.

“Wrist.”

The chain sat snug. I took the small key from the pocket of my robe, opened the padlock, slid the chain off and put it in my pocket. A pale band was left on his skin: he hadn’t been in the sun, but in a week the skin under the steel had turned a different colour. He looked at his wrist as if something had been taken away.

“Shower. Then the bedroom. Don’t touch the cage.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

Night

He came in with wet hair, in the cage and nothing else. I sat on the bed in my robe, the key on the nightstand where he could see it. I opened my knees and he went down between them without waiting for a word.

For a week his tongue had touched no one, and you could hear it. He started too fast; I put my palm on the top of his head and pressed. He understood, slowed down. I watched from above: his shoulders, the back of his neck, his hands held behind his back the way he had been taught, and shaking. For a week he had been alone in a hotel room with my steel on him and my chain on his arm. Now he was where he belonged, doing the thing he does best. I came without a sound, holding him by the hair, and didn’t let go for another minute.

Then I took the key.

Unlocked him, slid the ring off, looked. Red lines from the edges, the smell of steel and his skin. I washed him with warm water from the bowl I had told him to set out, dried him with a towel. He knelt and, I think, didn’t breathe.

“Lie down. On your back.”

I sat down on him. He entered me and lasted less than a minute; I had known that and wasn’t angry: a week. He lay under me with his arm across his face, and I moved the arm so I could see.

“Now carry on. With your tongue.”

The second time I came on his face, and it was longer and better. Then I lay down beside him, and he brought the cage from the nightstand himself, unasked, and handed it to me with the key. I closed it, the lock clicked, the key went back into the drawer under the gloves. He fell asleep before I did, face against my shoulder, still smelling of the road.

Morning

He got up earlier and unpacked the suitcase while I slept. Shirts into the wash, the suit onto a hanger. The coffee was on the table when I came out, and he stood by the stove: he isn’t allowed to sit until I have finished.

Then he set a box in front of me: tea from that city, ordinary, from the station shop.

“For you.”

“What was the hardest part?”

He thought about it.

“Thursday. Before the chain. After it, easier.”

I nodded. He asked whether he could keep the chain for workdays. I said I would think about it, and put it in the same drawer.

• Check the lock in front of him before he leaves. He should go with the feeling of your fingers on the steel.
• One photo an evening, at the same time. Long messages blur; a picture doesn’t.
• Don’t text first. He should remember that a report is expected, not that you are waiting.
• Pack something he will put on at your command mid-week. The cage is hidden; a chain is in plain sight.
• Agree the first ten minutes after the door in advance. The homecoming is part of the week too.