Jewelry from Red Ant’s Head
Copyright © 2007 Diana Gabaldon, Red Ant’s Head. All rights reserved.

I like jewelry on women.

People figure that historically men gave jewelry to women because a) they could afford it, so everybody would know how rich they were, and b) it made the women happy, so the men got sex, and that made them happy. I’m not saying this isn’t true, but the fact is that jewelry on a woman is a real turn-on, no matter how the lady feels about it personally.

It’s about ownership, is what it is. It’s captivity. Put a chain around a woman’s neck, put rings on her fingers, and she’s yours.

She wears it on her bare skin, where everyone can see. On places you’d kiss, like the hollow of her throat, the lobes of her ears, the insides of her wrists. Where her pulse beats. It’s metal and gems, a hard wet gleam where she’s soft and tender. You’re hard and she’s soft, oh yeah.

Delicate chains and heavy links. Both good. Those tiny gold and silver chains, like spiderwebs against the skin; they could be broken with a touch, but they’re worn willingly. Heavy links and bands of gold play up the fragile bones and slender throats--you can imagine them helpless, chained to the wall...or to a bed.

Spiderwebs and slave collars. Power and possession.

When you decorate a woman with jewelry you aren’t just showing off, you’re staking a claim. Throwing a net of gold and silver over her. You touch her skin when you put it on her, close the catch of a necklace on the back of her neck, on the soft bare skin under her hair, where you might bite her...later.

Older women know this. And that’s why young women are always told not to accept jewelry from a guy unless they’re serious about him; because a guy who wants to put chains on a lady is for sure serious, at least about what he wants to do with her.

She wore a wedding ring and gold-and-onyx studs in her ears. A tiny gold cross on a spiderweb chain at her throat. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.