Ice cream on the corner and the quiet signal

I took the key to his cage down to the beach on a cord, together with the room key. Two keys on one cord, the cord around my wrist, and he saw the first of them every time I raised my hand to adjust my sunglasses.

We had come to the sea for ten days. That morning in the room he stood by the bed in nothing but swim shorts, and I told him to take them off and show me. The cage on him wasn’t the one from home: plastic, light, not a single steel part. I had bought it a month before the trip so it wouldn’t set off the airport scanner and wouldn’t heat up in the sun. I checked the lock with a finger, touched the skin under the ring — cool, dry — and let him get dressed.

“Three tasks today. One at a time. Normal voice, normal face.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“And no ‘Mistress’ in public. A nod.”

He nodded.

The pier

On the beach I lay down on a sun lounger; he spread my towel, put the water in the shade and stood at the water’s edge the way I like: back to me, face to the sea, so I could watch how the back held. Half an hour later I raised my hand and beckoned with two fingers. He turned before I had finished the gesture. He had been waiting.

“Two laps around the pier. Walking. Don’t look back.”

He went. The pier is long, a hundred metres or so, and I watched him walk past families with children, past a man with a fishing rod: an ordinary man in swim shorts who had decided to stretch his legs. Nobody knew there was a lock under those shorts, or that he was walking because I had said so. Two people knew. That was enough to warm me from the inside more than the sun did.

He came back and took his place again. I said nothing. Twenty minutes later:

“The towel from the room. The big one. Not now — in twenty minutes, by the clock.”

He looked at his watch, then back at the sea. I could see him counting. On holiday there is a lot of time, and I deliberately gave him nothing to keep his hands busy: only waiting. At eleven forty he left; at eleven fifty-five he put the towel down beside the lounger, folded the way I like it. I nodded. Nothing more was needed.

The corner

After lunch we were getting ready for the promenade. He was tying his trainers by the door, and I stood over him and spoke down into the top of his head:

“There’s an ice cream kiosk on the corner. Buy me pistachio, one scoop. None for you. Stand at the counter and wait until I come.”

“And if it melts?”

“Then it melts. Onto your hand.”

He left five minutes ahead of me. I walked slowly, stopped at shop windows, looked at dresses I had no intention of buying. I let him stand there for about eight minutes. When I came up, he was holding the cup in his right hand, the green had already run over his fingers, and he hadn’t switched hands and hadn’t licked them. He stood with the ice cream the way he stands with my shoes in the hall: holding until it is taken.

I took it. Licked the edge where it was melting and looked at his fingers.

“Don’t wipe them. You’ll walk like that.”

The seller was watching us with interest. Whether he understood anything I don’t know, but the gesture I used to tell my husband to walk beside me came out too sharp, the way it does at home. In public I keep my hand lower. That time I forgot. My husband noticed and dropped his eyes so the seller wouldn’t see how he looks at me, and we walked along the promenade — me with the ice cream, him with a sticky hand — talking about what peaches cost at the stalls and how they’re cheaper at home.

That is how it works away from home. In the flat we have walls, the rug by the armchair, the hook in the hall. Here there is none of that, so I have to be more precise: one sentence, one gesture, then straight into small talk so we both come back to the promenade. An instruction takes a minute. The obedience walks on with us, all the way to the room.

Dinner

In the evening the waiter brought wine to the restaurant table and poured for both of us. I turned my glass so the stem pointed at my husband. He knows: stem towards me — drink; stem towards him — don’t touch. He set his glass exactly opposite mine and didn’t lift it all through dinner. He drank water. The waiter came twice to top up his wine and twice went away with nothing to do.

I ate fish; he waited for me to start and ate in silence. I watched how he held his fork and thought that at the table he is the same as at my feet, only in a shirt. Between the main course and dessert I said, looking at the menu:

“In five minutes you’ll go to the toilet. Stand at the mirror the way you stand at the wall at home: hands behind your back, eyes down. Thirty seconds. Come back.”

“Understood.”

He got up after five minutes, by the clock, and walked off as if he had decided to stretch his legs. He was back in a minute and a half, sat down, and I could tell from his neck that he had stood: the flush was climbing up from his collar. Nobody in the room looked up. I pushed my glass towards him.

“A sip. One.”

He took a sip and set the glass back down, stem towards me.

The room

In the room I sat on the edge of the bed and stretched out my legs. He took off my sandals, then, at my nod, undressed himself and stood as he had in the morning. I touched the cage: warm from his body, a grain of sand under the edge of the ring. I ran a nail along the plastic and he drew a breath.

“What was the hardest part?”

“The ice cream. Standing there and not switching hands.”

“Not the laps?”

“Nobody saw the laps. At the kiosk they saw.”

I took the key off the cord and put it on the nightstand, on my side. I didn’t unlock him. I lay back, and he went down between my legs, onto the carpet of a hotel room that isn’t like ours, but his knees found their place quickly. His tongue was cold from the iced water, then warm, and I came looking up at a ceiling with somebody else’s light fitting, holding him by the hair and thinking that ten days is a long time and that I would think of plenty more. He stayed locked. Three tasks again in the morning, and I would give him the first one before breakfast.

• Buy a light plastic cage for the trip: it won’t set off the scanner and won’t heat up in the sun.
• A task in public is one sentence and under a minute. Save the long instructions for the room.
• Agree on silent signals in advance: the glass, two fingers, a touch on the wrist. You won’t need words.
• After a task, talk about prices or directions straight away. You both slip back into the crowd and the roles stay put.
• In the evening, ask what was hardest. The answer will tell you tomorrow’s task.