"Happy birthday," he says, and hands out a small box.

Oh, dear.

Inside is an opal pendant set in white gold, on a matching chain.

"It looked like it would go well with your earrings. Don't worry, it didn't set me back too much."

I love opals, especially fire opals like this one. "It's beautiful," I sigh. I shouldn't fret so much; he's right, if the necklace only cost as much as my Christmas earrings, which seems a reasonable assumption, the symphony tickets cost more than the earrings and necklace combined. Semiprecious stones are not generally very expensive. "Would you like to put it on me?"

"That's a very loaded question. And yes. I would."

When he fastens the clasp, tightening the short chain, the pendant barely brushes the hollow in my collarbone.

The longing look he has on his face pierces me to the core.

We sit side by side, hands clasped, under a ceiling of gold, watching a lit screen above the orchestra and singers display an English translation of Wagner's German lyrics as we listen to the performance. The lovers have just drunk wine that has been adulterated with a love potion – a potion that was supposed to have brought instant death, except that Isolde's maidservant, Brangaene, substituted a love potion for the poison at the last minute.

Isolde! Tristan!

Escaped from the world,

I have claimed you!

Supreme joy of love,

Now I am yours, I only know you!

Our hands squeeze. Yes, this is something we know very, very well.

The chorus of sailors chants in rhythm as they unfurl the sail and bring out the oars; the steady pulse of song that is the beating of oars against water is the rhythm of our hearts beating as one.

When the second act begins, and the soprano soloist sings,

However the Goddess of Love turns it,

however she ends it,

whatever she reserves for me,

wherever she leads me,

I have become her very own:

Now let me show my obedience!

I shiver and grasp Magister's hand more tightly. This, too, is something we know very well.

I glance sideways; I find that he is looking at me with both sadness and hunger. It cuts me to the bone. Oh, the fibers that we have braided into this rope we wind about ourselves. I bring his hand to my lips, quickly, furtively. I would do more, but this is a crowded concert hall, and there are certain things one just doesn't do in public.

We do manage a quick kiss on the lips during the intermission. Our hands remain clasped; in my mind, I pretend that our fingers are our limbs, our bare hands our naked bodies, fused in love, and I imagine that he is having the same longings.

In the surging swell,

in the ringing sound,

in the vast wave

of the world's breath –

to drown,

to sink,

unconscious –

supreme bliss!

Liebestod. And with it, the end of the concert. I wipe tears from my eyes. I look to my side; Magister is not crying the way I am, but his face is tensed, and his eyes are bright.

"The ending always makes me cry," I sniff. "Silly."

"Personally, I find it strange that more people do not cry at the ending." He flashes a melancholy half-smile at me, and we sit together while other patrons rise up around us and head for the exits. Eventually, my legs are strong enough to bear my weight again, and after making a brief detour to pay our respects to the case where Wagner's jeweled baton stands on display, we leave the gilded hall behind us.

Late afternoon sunlight pours down on us as we emerge, and we blink until we have adapted to the unaccustomed brightness.

Across the street from the concert hall is an art museum, which appears to be part of a well-manicured urban park. We recline side by side on a grassy slope, gazing at the waters of the shallow artificial lagoon that sits on the grounds, and at a statue of mermaids that watch over it.

"I wish this day could last forever," I say. "I wish we could last forever. Like this." This sunlight, which seems to fall on us almost brightly enough to blind, so that I have to close my eyes and turn my head away from its angle. These first violets of April. These shining waters. These arms, wrapped around me.

"Yes."

We fall silent in the face of the enormity of our longings.

I let my forehead fall against his. Our third eyes meet. I feel a warm, tingling sense of dissolving.

"Magister - my erastes – what would happen if we could make it last forever?"

"The day? Our love? Our relationship?"

"Our love already is forever, I think." I run my hand through his hair, reveling in the way it ripples under my palm's flesh. "While no day lasts forever. I meant us. What would happen if we made it permanent?" My lips seek his. He is so warm. I want him, now; I want him so much that it hurts me. I wish I hadn't said anything out loud. Desire makes me tremble – desire, mixed with fear. "Could we?"

It would be so sweet, to never have to let go, or be let go.

His eyes open wide. "Eromene, was that a proposal?"

Yes. No. Maybe. "I don't know."

As usual, I can't commit myself, and I hate myself for it.

His mouth quirks. "Well. Shame on me for getting my hopes up when tempted. However, you want an answer, and I suppose I had better provide it, because I too need to be reminded of what is advisable and what is not. So. What would happen? Permanence. Commitment. I would need an absolute commitment from you if I were to commit myself to you forever. It wouldn't be fair otherwise. This is not the first deep romantic relationship I have been in, and you are certainly not the first woman who has been in a submissive position with me, and on a couple of occasions the two states have, in fact, coincided; but I do not give my heart easily, nor do I give it lightly, and neither do I give the rest of myself lightly. I wouldn't need marriage if you didn't want it – I see a marriage license as a legal convenience, since vows of commitment can be made in private without any signing of formal paperwork, although later in life, legal marriage comes in handy because it provides such civil niceties as power of attorney, inheritance rights, tax benefits, and so on, and those can become important. However, although I see marriage itself as optional, commitment is not. I would demand monogamy, for one thing, since I myself am monogamous. What happens when you realize you need to find a slave of your own? I can't be that for you. Nor can I be a woman for you, and you would not have kissed your friend with such abandon had you not needed her to be in your arms to be kissed. You are still young, and you have a life that wants to be discovered and lived. I think you would eventually find the situation frustrating."

I sigh.

"Then there's the other aspect of commitment: ownership. What we have right now is an unusual and unique situation. I could be your lover and your partner forever, although not your teacher, since students do eventually move on. At some point, I would run out of things to teach you, anyway. What would be left, then, would be our romantic relationship. Well. If you have me forever, then you have all of me forever, as I don't think I would be happy spending an entire lifetime with my beloved without giving myself utterly, weaknesses as well as strengths; and I would want to have all of you forever as well. I would insist on possessing you, because I do happen to have quite a possessive streak that I've been trying to keep in check out of consideration for you. At the very least you could expect yourself to wear a collar. For the sake of discretion, I could make sure it looked like a necklace or a choker of some sort, but we would both still know full well what it meant." He traces his fingers along the skin of my neck, where it touches the white gold chain of my recent birthday present, and I tremble. It feels terrifying. It feels exhilarating. "Permanent marks made not just as a result of heavy play, but specifically and deliberately to display my ownership of you, would no longer be out of the question, either; we'd need to discuss that.

"And perhaps your hesitation to commit to anything permanent is wise. Perhaps commitment would destroy us both. What we have now may very well be beautiful and priceless because it is not compelled. You are your own person, for all that you surrender to me in the magickal circle we cast, and in the bedroom. You control the terms of your own bondage. You control your own destiny. What would happen if you were completely and utterly mine? Would you still be so keen to return to academia?"

I ponder this. No, maybe I wouldn't. It doesn't make sense to me that my longings would change, but they could. I might not want to go back to college full-time and get my degrees. Instead, I'd want to get lost in his arms all the time. The delirium he induces in me is heaven and hell combined; what need would I have for my dreams? I'm only back in college because he nudged me in that direction. He was the one who insisted I take courses to build up my transcript, even if I had to move in with him to afford them. He pushed me into starting my college hunt afresh. I doubt I would have ever returned of my own volition. Going back to college felt too much like trying to go back to the Garden of Eden, with its gateway guarded by an angel with a fiery sword. I had no strength to face that. I am doing something for myself to bring myself back to a life I had always wanted, and needed, only because I was initially doing it for him. If I made my life with him, for him, what need would I have for my own life?

Even if I did go back to being a full-time student – and I grudgingly admit to myself that he would have to request it – it might be nothing more than a passing of time to me, and all because I wouldn't be following my inner voice. That voice has prompted me throughout my life, telling me to teach, and not just in a classroom. It's in my blood. It's always been who I am. I apprenticed myself to Magister not because I wanted to submit forever, but because I wanted to learn the physical and spiritual arts of domination, to which my desire to teach and guide seems to be related, a sort of weird vocational cousin if not an actual twin sibling. I could forget all that if I fully enslave myself to him, however, because the part of me that defines me would never see much, if any, use. I would then cease to be myself. It wouldn't happen overnight if it even happened at all – we'd probably have years of happiness – but eventually, it could happen.

He nods. "You begin to see. And with the loss of your ambitions would come resentment. To this day, astonishingly, although we have had a painful discussion or two, we have never quarreled outright. I think that would change. You have a calling – as do we all – and calls are not meant to be ignored or denied. Abandoning your calling, which is part of your Will, would make you bitter and shrewish, and with time, that would poison us. Your love would turn to resentment, and then to hate, and – oh, God! I could not bear it if you hated me. My eromene, permanence between us might be a disaster. What we have now is incomplete, but it is happy. If that does not change, at some point we may part, but we would be left with mostly happy memories of each other. I shouldn't let myself get too attached to you. It would not be fair to you. That you bring me such joy, that I want you forever, is irrelevant. I can't own you." He trails his finger along the chain on my neck again.

Oh, my love. So much pain. All my fault.

I tighten my embrace and cover his mouth with mine.

The afternoon sun beats down on us like fire.

We burn like moths.