" When he opened the door, he saw Mary lying on the bed. She sat up immediately. Her eyes were red and it looked like she had been crying. "You wanted...to see me," Ryan asked, trying unsuccessfully to keep his emotions from his voice."Yes," Mary said and stood up and approached Ryan. She stopped short and stared at him, as if searching his eyes for an indication of how he felt.Ryan looked away."Ryan, I don't know what to say," Mary said, her voice trembling. "I know that you are hurt and angry. Dave was a electrician, I was an apprentice at the time he was the first man I had crush on. Dave was what I would consider a 100% straight bloke that always bragged about his conquests with women, but he had the uncanny knack of being in his underwear when I called. Dave was your average man, six foot tall with broad shoulders and torso, he was quit hairy and had a type of Mexican moustache. He did turn me on and I use to have a wank about him, thinking about it now I would say I was quiet. "You know the prize" Dave grinned to her as she was led to the centre of the gym. There a bar on ropes was lowered until it was level with her head. Her wrists were pulled and fastened to each end of the bar so her arms were pulled wide open. At a signal from Dave the bar was slowly raised so her arms were pulled up until she went up on tip toes to keep the strain off her shoulders."Perfect" Dave said as he ran his hands over her. "Your thighs are stretched, your buttocks are pulled tight so. “So ... am I a black swan?”“Not yet. But you told me you were a Raven, a black bird...”“But not the ‘black bird’ in The Maltese Falcon.”“Aha! A cinema fan!”“That’s what we did in the student residence: watch black and white movies on the telly.”“Do you read, too?”“Yes. But not what people think I should read. I love Jane Austen and Muriel Spark. But I never got into Patrick White. I like some of the Americans, though. Salinger and Roth. And Trollope, too. Especially the Parliamentary novels!.