by Salome Wilde
(08/04/04)

Life in the Box can be dull if you don’t get taken out much, but it can be just as bad when you only see light on special occasions, like weddings or funerals. (Diamond Brooch can brag all she wants about meeting the governor, but that story is so old she can’t even remember what color dress she was pinned to.) Some days I’d give a lot to be an amethyst ring, or even a tie tack. Despite the respect, I tell you, it’s tough to be Granny Pearls.

But you wanted to hear about my adventures, not an old gal’s complaints. I could tell you about the time I slipped off and ended up under the front seat of the Town Car for two weeks, conversing with gum wrappers and lint, but I can see by your frowns that’s not what you’re asking for. Impatient trinkets: you can’t wait to get out and swing from earlobes or dance on fingers shoved deep into sticky crevices you’ve only imagined in your sparkling dreams. Ah, I remember that time of life so well, and how little hope I had -- being such a costly necklace -- of ever being in the right place at the right time. But my time did come, as will yours -- and soon enough, you wicked little baubles.

It was a lovely spring afternoon, and I was aglow with expectation, though I’d not been out of the Box in ages. Easter services that bored me to sleep, chaperoning at prom: life was not what my friends the Bangle Bracelet Quintuplets had said it would be. However, my expectations and my life changed forever that one crisp May morning. I was lovingly clasped over a tight pale blue sweater that showed off the Mistress’s eyes, and out we went. In the car -- a cramped, unfamiliar vehicle that smelled of lemons -- her fingers lingered over me, twirling my beads in a most stimulating way. I called to a big gold ring on an unfamiliar hairy finger curved around the steering wheel, and he told me in his loud, guttural voice that he wasn’t sure, but could probably guess where we were going, and that he’d definitely seen the Mistress before. He said he had talked to Wedding Ring, but found her a “stuffy bitch.” I ignored the crass insult to our most venerated Grande Dame (who else never sleeps in the Box but she?), but I looked about and realized that she was not where she ought to be. Imagine! Wedding Ring was missing from her proper place on the finger: the world was topsy-turvy!

I tried to figure out what was happening, but my mind was fuzzy from the way the Mistress’s soft, pale fingers kept playing over me. Without warning, the car stopped, and out we went. The sun was bright and filled me with lustrous pride; my head swam with pleasure and anxiousness. Gold Ring’s “Buck up, toots, this could be fun” was hardly reassuring. Nor could I relax when we walked into a dark, musty-smelling room before I’d even found my bearings.

Gold Ring hinted he knew this room well and had seen “plenty of action” here. I tried to pretend I did not grasp his meaning, but, of course, I did. Before I could offer a cutting retort or even a gasp of outrage, I felt myself smashed against the dress shirt of the man who was crushing the Mistress to his chest. I whispered “What is happening?” to a nearby button, but I could not understand its dialect. The two bodies ground me between them, and though the tight darkness was frightening, I began to enjoy the soft noises they made, the way their bodies swayed, and the way I was twisted and twirled so casually. I’d never been used so before: always, I’d been handled reverently. From the moment I’d been taken from the jewel case and placed around the Mistress’s neck, I’d known I was born to a high station and must keep up appearances. Even when she’d put me in the Box with the wonderful little ornaments and costume pieces that came before your time, I’d still felt special. But now, here I was, entirely ignored. No one to show off my delicate, translucent radiance for. Just two bodies in a small, dark, stuffy room, pressing me between them. I felt less treasured than I’d ever been in my young life, but I also felt more aroused than I’d ever been. The heat of their alien passions left me dizzy.

I thought I’d faint when Gold Ring’s owner reached his bulky fingers around to remove me from the Mistress’s neck. He was certainly not gentle. But it did stimulate me; I cannot deny it. Gold Ring snickered from his place on his owner’s finger, and I felt myself blush and giggle in return. Foolish strand!

My moment of exposure became a sudden rush of embarrassment when those hands dropped me casually to the floor. My mood snapped like a broken clasp as I fell with a thud to the moldy carpet and the Mistress and her strange bedfellow disappeared from my sight. Countless moments passed as I lay there, forgotten, their discarded clothing piling on top of me as I listened to their occasional broken moans and throaty fragments of speech.

I waited, utterly alone, for the end of their fervor, when I would -- I hoped -- be returned to my place around the Mistress’s slender throat, and we would go back to the familiar sights and smells of our home and the Box. Endless minutes passed as I lay, smothered in perfumed sweater, rumpled dress shirt, slacks, skirt, hose. I could not decide whether I was more angered at being left out of the mysteries they enjoyed, or at their disregard of my beauty and preciousness.

I must have fallen asleep for a bit, for I woke with a start to find myself suspended over the floor, held in the man’s coarse grip. “I think you’re in for it now, girlie,” Gold Ring said with a twinkle, but I couldn’t imagine what he meant. Even if he were a more cultured gentleman’s band and not an electroplated thing with a faux sapphire for a heart, I do not think he or anyone could have prepared me for what came next.

The Mistress, naked and on all-fours on the bed, was uttering some sort of half-hearted protest as the man dangled me before her eyes and then ran me down the curve of her back, all the way down to her derriere. I was shocked beyond speech to find her in this position. How could she! And how could she let me be used as part of this impropriety! Despite my silent protest, I found myself again in that space between shame and surrender, knowing I should not like being handled this way, but enjoying it nonetheless. If the Mistress was not mortified, why should I be?

But being dragged along her naked body was not to be my ultimate role in their strange scenario. After a few passes over her back, the man concentrated on drawing me back and forth between her buttocks. This made her writhe and moan, as I grew ever more radiant and warm. And then his movements became rougher: he began to use me to strike her backside. Over and over I was flung through the air, only to slap down against her flesh again. I grew disoriented, vaguely nauseated, and certain I would break. Surely I would be torn apart and my pearls scattered all over this dirty room. Never again would I see my jewelry family and friends again.

Somehow, I held together. Through minutes or hours--I could not tell which--the Mistress never demanded that he stop misusing me, and he never concerned himself with my delicacy. Instead, he ceased his whipping and began to press my clasp to her anus. Do not gasp at what I tell you, sweet trifles. It is best you learn now that there are no places in the human body that those of us in the Box may not eventually come to know. And I came to know this space intimately, as he pushed first one then another and then another and yet still another of my pearls into the space beyond that dark pucker while the Mistress cried out, until I could hear her no longer. I was crushed into that tight netherworld, dank and rich with wild and earthy smells. In the end, only my clasp and a bit of silk thread still remained outside. I felt her body clench against me and his hand tugging gently at the thread, reminding me I was still attached. I was grateful for this small gesture, as I began to lose the sharpness of my senses as I gave myself over to this moist, silent place. Huddled in on myself, I saw life anew: I was no better than the flimsiest dime-store plastic, no worse than the most perfect diamond. We are all just here to bring pleasure, my luminous lovelies, whether as gaudily paraded excess or subtle shows of wealth, whether visible to all or hidden in our Box, whether around necks or shoved into body cavities: nothing is beyond us, nothing is beneath us. The Mistress and I both learned that lesson that day.

Our permanent collection of exotica