CONTINUING EDUCATION

Rachel Woe

Izumi found the lingerie on the bed beside a squat black box and a letter of instruction written in Miles’s meticulous hand. She was to eat the soup he’d prepared, wash her dishes, then change into the lace bra and panties.

She crumpled the letter into a ball.

Food could not have been further from Izumi’s mind. Miles—her Master—whom she hadn’t seen in weeks, had promised to spend his first night back with her. Thanks to a snowstorm along the coast, his plane hadn’t touched down until six that morning. His text arrived shortly thereafter: an invitation to have lunch at his house. After letting herself in and seeing the table set for one, Izumi had almost walked out.

She plucked the box from the duvet, and was about to open it when her phone pealed with Miles’s designated ringtone. She swiped to accept. “Oh, good. You’re alive.”

“Just barely.” He sounded tired. “Have you eaten?”

By then, the scent of tomato and basil had wafted into the bedroom. “Not yet.”

“Not yet…what?”

She sighed. “Not yet, Sir.”

“That’s better.” Miles chuckled, his mirth a thinly veiled portent. No doubt Izumi would pay for her insolence eventually—an extra-hard flogging, a denied orgasm, no Netflix for a month. She shuddered at the thought.

“I would’ve preferred to eat with you. Sir.”

“Yes, well. Unfortunately, I had an eleven o’clock meeting I couldn’t cancel. Believe me, I would rather have spent the afternoon inside you.”

Her pelvic muscles clenched, like an empty fist, want assuaging her ire. Miles was busy; they both were. His brand of busy just happened to include extensive travel, while Izumi’s kept her tethered to a nurse’s station.

“Have you opened the box?”

“No, Sir.”

“Open it.”

She removed the lid. Inside, she found a silver bullet-shaped vibrator, surprisingly heavy for its size. “It’s so small.”

“It’s meant to fit discreetly into the pocket inside the underwear. After you eat, I want you switch it on and make sure it’s snug against your clit, then text me.”

“Yes, Sir. Will I see you tonight?”

“Perhaps. Depending on how today goes.”

Izumi frowned. Miles’s flair for topping from afar had served them well in his absence, but as his submissive, she longed to anticipate and fulfill his desires. How could she reach him if she couldn’t touch him? Or serve him in ways that made her feel of use? As long as her confidence was tied to service, she’d never measure up.

Izumi drank her soup from an oversized mug. Back in the bedroom, she stripped down, shimmied into the panties, and nestled the bullet against her clit. Unfortunately, the device didn’t so much as hum when she switched it on. She dressed in the time it took Miles to respond to her message. He told her to keep the bullet where it was, then texted a university address and a time less than an hour from now.

Curiosity piqued, Izumi copied the info into Google Maps and set off on foot.

The app directed her to a lecture hall bustling with students, where a front-row seat had been taped off: RESERVED FOR LA. Her initials? She pocketed the sign and sat down, avoiding eye contact with students, most of whom were young enough to be her children.

A moment later, the crowd hushed. She scanned the room until her gaze centered on the source of everyone’s attention: Professor Miles Pinchot.

This had to be his two o’clock introductory physics class. He shed his bag, but not his suit coat, then logged on to the computer.

“Today,” said Miles, “we’re going to set aside Newton’s celestial mechanics to touch on Einstein’s Spooky Action at a Distance, better known as Quantum Entanglement.”

The bullet inside Izumi’s panties fluttered to life. She grabbed the armrest, startling the student beside her.

“Who can give us a basic definition?” He gestured to Izumi’s neighbor.

“It’s the idea that an object can exist in two places at once,” said the girl.

Miles nodded, pacing the platform, spine straight and hands tucked into pockets. That was why the bullet seemed broken, Izumi realized; it was remote controlled. “Right now,” he said, “at the University of Maryland, there’s a group of scientists working to employ this concept in order to build a fully secure, quantum computer network.”

The vibrations sped up. Not enough to get Izumi off, but enough to hold her attention hostage. She folded her legs.

“They have a table,” he continued, “upon which sit two metal boxes, one on each end. Both containing a distinct, separate atom, pulsing and spinning at its own rate. Between them sits a contraption that can shoot a laser beam into both boxes at once.”

Izumi held stock-still, torn between arching forward to increase her pleasure, and back to try and abate it.

“When the laser hits the atoms, they spin faster, until each emits a photon. These photons then crash into each other, entangling the atoms left behind. Now, if you were to do something to affect one, the other would be simultaneously and identically affected.”

The throbbing deepened. Her legs twitched. Miles was about to make her come in front of all these people. She could leave. Safe out. He wouldn’t hold it against her. But he wouldn’t have brought her here if he didn’t want her to stay.

“So far, scientists have managed to observe entanglement at a distance of about eighty-eight miles. Theoretically, you could fly these atoms to opposite ends of the universe, and they would still be connected.”

Tension ratcheted up Izumi’s spine, and the harder she fought to stay composed, the more her legs trembled. He was going to make her come without touching her.

“It’s believed that this kind of linking occurs randomly in the natural world, all the time.”

The vibrations dulled to a whisper.

Her muscles cramped. Panic set in. She could feel her clit pulsing in anticipation of the orgasm that now dangled out of reach. Perhaps if she were able to rock her hips, but not with all these people here, their knees and shoulders and stale coffee breath pressing in on her.

Miles flashed Izumi a knowing grin. “I hope you were taking notes.”

She wanted to scream. This had to be her punishment for acting petulant over the phone.

He kept the bullet at a bare strum for the remainder of class.

By the time the door slammed shut behind the last student, Izumi could hardly think straight. Miles hopped down from the platform in front of her.

“I’ll be home in an hour. And I want the bullet inside you when I get there.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Izumi could feel him inside her right now. It didn’t matter that they weren’t touching. He could’ve been across the room, the country, the universe; it made no difference. Miles didn’t have to push in order to move her, or pin her down in order to keep her in place. She was his. Here, there, everywhere. On her back or on her knees or standing in a crowded room. They were two and one in the exact same moment. Together and apart. Entangled.