I used to have this habit of finding new routes to the same places. Not faster routes, just new ones. I had four hours between classes and nothing to do but grab a bite, hang out at the library, and wander. So when I wasn't eating and reading, I was wandering. This meant sometimes I was on the outskirts of campus, and sometimes I left it entirely before circling back.

That's how I found L'Antiquité. It was this out-of-the-way antique shop that was somehow always open and always dead-empty. Looking at the price markups, I judged that it only needed to make a few sales a week to stay in business, but I'm not sure I ever saw the inventory change in my repeated visits. Hand-carved wooden furniture, fine glassware, and paintings and sculptures placed in a controlled chaos made navigating through the store a careful act.

Something about the arrangement of the items had some sort of sound dampening effect, and it wasn't until I got close to the very back of the store that I started hearing a gentle ticking. It was a deeper sound than any clock I'd been near, and far louder as I approached its source.

In a nearly empty part of the store stood a grandfather clock, my own height and intricately carved. The phase of the moon displayed above the clock face, and weights hung in the pendulum display just above the ticking pendulum itself - and it really was a tick-tock sound I'd only ever heard in old cartoons and nursery rhymes. I realized that I had truly never seen a grandfather clock in real life before, and paused to appreciate it from top to bottom.

The deep tick, tock seemed to reverberate through the space, echoing in my own head like a resonant frequency, but I didn't mind; it was rather calming, and I briefly wondered why these things went out of fashion before remembering that they were huge, heavy and probably inaccurate in some way that made modern clocks superior.

Still, as I appraised it, I found my eyes drawn down to the pendulum, moving back and forth. It would reach the far end of one side - tick! - then gently rock toward the other side - tock! - and begin its process anew. It was gravity that was making it work, constantly falling towards the center and overshooting.

That's how the shop-owner explained it to me. Falling, deeper and deeper, always grounded in the same spot but always moving down.

The shop-owner herself was a woman just a bit older than me. She appeared rather suddenly, and I hardly had time to notice her presence before she was explaining to me the intricacies of the clock I was staring at. The weights, the gears at play, the keys requires to stop and set it, all of that stuff I couldn't even see especially since I was focused entirely on the pendulum.

She didn't mind, of course. She seemed keen on finding someone to talk to, especially someone interested in this clock. She encouraged me to stare at the pendulum and relax for as long as I wanted.

I didn't get a chance to catch her name, or even introduce myself - at least, not back then - as before I realized it, my next class was rapidly approaching. I suppose it was good that, of all things to get lost looking at, I chose a clock. I had to dash out of there to make it in time, barely shouting a proper goodbye at her on my way out.

Somehow I'd lost over an hour watching that grandfather clock, listening to the shop-owner drone on about it. I wasn't too upset though - it was a fairly pleasant experience. The shop-owner had a pleasant voice, and frankly a pretty face too, though I'd barely looked at it. And I hadn't had anything else to do.

Initially, I wasn't planning on returning to L'Antiquité. But as I was prone to wandering, I eventually found it once more, and decided a quick stop wouldn't hurt. I browsed the wares politely, same as I had my first time there, until I heard the gentle ticking again. I chased after the source as if it had been my mission the whole time, and stopped in front of the grandfather clock.

I'm not sure when exactly the shop-owner found me. I got lost rather quickly in the swinging of the pendulum and the relaxing sound it made. If she was surprised to see me, she didn't make it apparent enough for me to notice, focused as I was on the clock. Instead, she spoke about how nice it was for me to be here again, and how pleasant it was to look at the clock, to listen to its ticking and the sound of her voice.

I'll admit, I wasn't paying too much attention to her words at the time. I just sort of let them fade into the background as I relaxed into the pendulum, falling along with it, swaying back and forth, ticking, falling, tocking, falling, and so on. The shop-owner once again seemed unbothered by my lack of participation in the conversation, just happy to have me there, happy to have her words sink into me without me noticing. I think she said something to that effect, though again the details of what she said I really wouldn't be able to recall.

Another hour of this passed and I had to leave, but this time we were both more prepared. I introduced myself properly and shook her hand - electricity at the touch surprising me. I realized in that moment just how attractive I found her, and how eager I would be to return to this place again. It really was nice being here.

After that I made visiting L'Antiquité a part of my routine. I visited around twice a week at first, and then found more opportunities to find that little shop with that large clock and that soothing voice that I found increasingly easy to agree to. I discovered that I was rather eager to make this woman happy, though she demanded very little of me at the time, other than listening to her words and letting them sink into me. I forgot most of what she said, but she told me that was alright. She even encouraged it!

I also discovered that I was beginning to fantasize about her. First they were the usual sexual fantasies, and then they morphed into romantic fantasies. I didn't think I'd known her well enough to be developing those sort of feelings for her - I barely even looked at her when I was at the shop, always fixing my gaze at the grandfather clock - but the heart wants what the heart wants, I suppose.

It was only natural for me to be drawn to the owner, like the weight of a pendulum is drawn down - tick! - by gravity. Whenever I was away from her, it was just the pendulum reaching the far end, before - tock! - changing directions and falling back toward her. I became a clock counting the hours before I could next see her.

By the time my semester was over and my new schedule started to make more sense, my fantasies changed again. They often involved me doing everything to please the owner, including allowing myself to be molded to her tastes. I often imagined our sessions in front of the grandfather clock - which continued far past the point that it made any sense to wander anywhere else - were actually her tinkering with the gears in my mind, as the ticking of the clock emptied my head of my own thoughts, making room for her words.

Increasingly, I thought of myself as her servant, and her my Owner - even as she still demanded very little of me. She had me listen and sway and forget, and return daily for another session. I started considering what I could possibly to for her. One day I offered to dust the shop's wares, and she relented with just a hint of a smile; performing the task brought me great joy, knowing that I was serving her. It only made me more eager to find things to do for her.

At first, it was just a fantasy, me being her servant. But eventually I started to really believe it, and accidentally called her "Owner" to her face. As I blushed with embarrassment, she looked at me with an expression I couldn't read, and then told me to get on my knees. I sank down in time with the pendulum's tick. She smiled. She told me we were going to do something different today.

I've long since graduated from school, and am happily married to my Owner. She rarely gives me commands outright, except when I beg her to, but I am always looking for ways to serve her. Eventually she closed down L'Antiquité and found another career while I started mine, but she never sold that grandfather clock. It stays with us, ticking along whenever she decides I need another session to clear my head and to fill it with new thoughts. I fall so easily, but I always swing back up, so that I can fall again. Back and forth. Tick, tock…