By BristolBound
*This BDSM fantasy is a work of fiction. All characters are adults*
*This story must be read in order, starting from Chapter 1 of the original series “Season”*
Chapter 3: The Semi-Final
In the two weeks between the quarter-final and the semi, I decided to say no eleven separate times, and I wore a padlocked collar to every one of them.
That was the first problem. Callum had the key, and Callum, when I asked, said “Semi-final”, mildly, and that was that. So I wore it. I wore it to the Metro, under a scarf, until the scarf started to look like a cry for help. I wore it to a lecture on supply chains, where a lad behind me leaned forward and said, “Is that a padlock?”
“Hockey thing,” I said.
“What’s the hockey thing?”
“It’s… a bet. I lost a bet.”
“What was the bet?”
“It’s complicated,” I said, and he gave me a look of such pure, patient pity that I thought about transferring to Durham.
The team were worse. Jonno took one look at it in the changing room on Monday and said, with enormous sincerity, “Mate, is that a pet tag?” and Dev had to sit down. Tom told three separate people I’d lost a bet on the football, and each time the bet was different. By Wednesday I had apparently lost a bet on the rugby, a bet on a pub quiz, and a bet involving a goat. I said “It’s a hockey thing” so many times that it lost all meaning, like a word you say until it dissolves.
And here is what I couldn’t tell anyone. Every time I touched it, every time it shifted against my throat in a lecture, or the little brass padlock knocked against my collarbone on the stairs, I felt a small, warm, ridiculous buzz. It went down my spine and settled low in my belly. It was the smallest thing in the world, and it never wore off. Somebody else had the key. I carried the lock. It was the only thing I’d ever worn that only one person could take off, and I was walking round Newcastle in it, telling lies.
