“Sorry to bother you at…bath time?”

“No bother,” she said. “Søren and I just finished breakfast. We weren’t doing anything that couldn’t be interrupted.”

“Wait. What’s his name? ‘Sir’?”

“Close enough,” she said, grinning. “Søren. A Danish name. S, slashed O, R, E, N. Looks like ‘SORE-in,’ but Danes say ‘SIR-in.’ Almost rhymes with ‘stern.’” She giggled for some reason. “You can put that in your notes. Don’t forget the slash. He hates when people forget the slash.”

“Got it,” he said, fumbling with whatever the hell a “slashed O” was supposed to look like. “He’s not really a Viking, is he?”

“Nah.” She stuck her foot out of the water and rested it on the bathtub ledge. “I’m only teasing him because he grew a beard while he was gone for a month on a cross-country road trip. I’ve never seen him with a beard before. I kind of like it. The Scandinavians were some of the first lumberjacks in America. We can thank them for deforesting most of the Pacific Northwest. Thanks, assholes!” She’d raised her voice for that last part.

“Judge not lest ye be judged, Kraut,” the Viking called back.

“Ohh…that hurt,” she said, wincing. “He always goes straight for Hitler. So unfair. Hitler was Austrian.”

“You two married?” Cyrus asked. The question made her laugh.

“No, why do you ask?”

“No reason. Look, I won’t take up any more of your time,” Cyrus said. “If you just take a look at this.”

Nora rose up out of the water to look inside Cyrus’s duffle bag, giving him a good peek at her wet bare back.

“Interesting,” she said. “Can you hand me a washcloth?”

Cyrus glanced around, found a stack of white washcloths and passed one to her. She wrapped it around her fingers and lifted the whatever from the bag.

“Have you seen one of those before?” Cyrus asked.

“Not this one exactly,” Nora asked, examining it. “Close, but this looks custom-made. Do you know anything about male chastity?”

“Only that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

She glanced up at him and smiled. Her make-up had been washed off. Her naked face looked young and vulnerable. But her eyes were something else entirely. This lady had seen things.

“Some dominants enjoy controlling a male sub’s access to his own body. Punishing unauthorized erections and that sort of thing,” she said. “It’s not necessarily long-term chastity that’s the goal. Maybe only a few hours or a night. Anyway, this is a nice cage. Very good work.”

She sunk back into the bath, and the water sloshed and parted just enough that Cyrus could see the tops of her very full breasts.

“I’m going to go out there and take my chances with the Viking,” he said.

She only smiled at him. “Have some coffee. I’ll be right out.”

Cyrus retreated to the suite. He saw the unmade, very well-used bed, but no Viking. He poured himself a coffee. When he was sipping it, he noticed the door to the terrace. The Viking was seated outdoors at a black iron table reading the Sunday paper.