Chapter 3

May 28th

Tina came rushing into my office, too eager with suppressed information to heed my warnings about the room being "off-limits." The babysitter, who had just walked with her all the way from preschool, was hot on her trail in an attempt to corral the little filly, but she was running a distant second. "It's her birthday!" my daughter squealed. "It's Dawn's birthday!" And so (I learned, after a bit of pointed interrogation) it was. Number twenty-three.

The three of us wandered into the village together after I finished for the day, and Dawn took her leave from us so I could help Tina pick out the perfect gift. We met up with her again half an hour later outside the grocery store, where I had just purchased a carton of ice cream and one of those mini-cakes with a generic "Happy Birthday" inscribed on top. "It's perfume!" Tina announced loudly, waving a plastic sack. "But you can't see it until after it's wrapped because it's a surprise!" Dawn swore that she would certainly be surprised. She, for her part, had purchased another blouse and slacks ensemble, plus something in a bag from the nautical store.

We stopped for a carry-out pizza on the way home and rented a short cartoon movie. Tina wrapped the perfume herself (it wound up being more tape than gift paper), and Dawn ... following a minute-long ordeal unwrapping it ... played the part of surprised recipient very well. My gift to her was a small, ornately carved wooden box ... for her necklace, I told her.

It took awhile to get Tina down that night (undoubtedly due to the sugar high from the cake and ice cream), but Dawn and I were finally alone. I had packed my suitcase while Dawn had read the nightly book to my daughter and put her to bed. I was due in Amsterdam for a Saturday meeting, but the airline had cancelled the Thursday evening flight, and my office had rescheduled me for one earlier in the day. I'd have to leave the house in the morning. She came to me, hugged me, demurely accepted my tender kiss, and told me that her day had been perfect. I asked her if she was going to use the box for the necklace.

"The necklace belongs to you now, sir. Everything that was mine is now yours. I have freely given you all that I own ... all that I have ... all that I am."

I put my arms around her. I was getting used to the weirdness, but she still surprised me. "Don't be absurd," I told her gently. "I am a great proponent of women's issues. Even if you DO take this subservient attitude with me, I refuse to accept it ... especially when it comes to your possessions."

She seemed to work her body further into mine, her arms around my waist. She shrugged and sighed. "I regret to inform you, sir, that your attitude is superfluous. It simply doesn't matter to me. I belong to you now. I will continue to belong to you until you tire of me and send me away."

"Dawn..."

"And so, now the box is yours, too. But ... if you really want to give me a gift, could I request one? It's all I really want. Please, sir?"

I drew away from her enough to see her face, and I gazed at her with my sternest countenance. "This conversation is NOT over. We will discuss this when I get back from my trip. I am NOT going to have you dictate some sort of hierarchical order in MY household and..."

She smiled up at me, then she lowered her face to my chest and hugged me fiercely. "Of course, sir. I'll do anything you ask. Anything at all."

I sighed. I was holding an enigma in my arms. "Very well, then," I said levelly. "I will grant you one birthday wish. Anything you want. What is it?"

"I want you to let me call you Master," she told me simply.

The request staggered me. I sat down hard on the edge of the bed, thinking. She let go of me when I did that, of course; then she started to sit next to me in order to recapture our broken physical intimacy; but she finally just stood there before me, her gaze submissively downward, her arms at her sides, waiting. How had all this happened so quickly? Two weeks before, I was an emotional cripple over the loss of a wife through divorce; and today I was ... what... ? A master to a sex slave? At what point should I call it quits with all of this? When should I simply end this little game? But ... I hadn't solved the puzzle yet. How had such a concept as emotional slavery become so ingrained in Dawn's psyche? I had to figure this out. Perhaps just a little while longer.

"Very well," I told her; and she looked up at me sharply, a huge smile on her face. "But with one restriction." Her bright countenance didn't fade, but she cocked her head in question. "You may only call me that while you are naked," I continued. "Is that agreed?"

In fifteen seconds flat, every shred of clothing she wore lay in a heap on the floor, and she was on her knees at my feet. She threw her arms around my legs and put her head on my lap. "Yes, Master. Thank you SO much, Master." I reached down and stroked her hair, contemplating this, when she said softly: "I got what you wanted in town today, Master. Do you want it now? Do you want me now?"

She couldn't see my expression. "What did you get?"

"You know," she answered softly. "You put the suggestion in my head. I've been thinking about it all day."

I let out a long, silent breath. "Sure. Go get it."

Dawn sprang up and raced from the room, her breasts bouncing wildly, and she returned almost immediately with the plastic sack I had seen earlier from the nautical store in the village. I took it and pulled out the contents. Rope. Soft, nylon rope, about three-quarters of an inch thick. I soon discovered that it had been cut into four lengths of about three feet each, and the ends had been expertly melted so as not to unravel. She stood before me now, shivering slightly in anticipation, her hands held out in my direction, her wrists together.

I had never been a very good Boy Scout. After studying the various parts to this very simple quandary, I dropped three of the sections of rope on the bed and began tying her up with the remaining one. Then I untied it and tried crossing her wrists first. I wrapped a couple times in one direction then the other; and I tied the whole thing off with a couple half hitches. That should hold her. But ... hold her to what? After all of that, I only had about nine inches of rope left to work with. I caught her grinning at me, and when I gave her a scowl, she broke out in laughter. Ah ... wait a minute ... I had an idea. I tied another length to the end of the rope I'd just finished with, then ordered her to lie down on her back on the bed, which she scampered to do after regaling me with another "Yes, Master!"

There was no place to tie a rope on that headboard, so I endeavored to slip my hand down between the mattress and wood to attempt to tie it directly to the lower frame. I couldn't seem to make it work in the given space, but I finally figured that I could loop it around the frame; then I untied the other end again and looped it through her bound wrists. That did it. No way was she getting out of that! She struggled a bit, testing it; and she beamed up at me in approval. The feet were pretty simple, and soon, her legs were bound widely spread-eagle while her wrists were together and restrained above her head.

Triumphantly, I shed my clothes and went to work. I lay heavily atop her, kissing her for a long, long time, until her breathing became raspy and her hips began undulating against me. Then I moved to her breasts. By now, I knew just what she really liked ... and just what she really loved. I was still in the teasing phase, however, and when she was just getting to the point of begging, I licked my way down to her smooth nether region. Again I teased mercilessly while her hips strained up at me, then I reversed my efforts: back to her breasts again, then back to her lips. But this time, when I began kissing her, I reached down and worked my cock into her slippery passage. Now she was really getting into it, but I stopped (much to her disappointment) after only a dozen thrusts into her wet, slippery passage. And down I went again. I licked her for a couple minutes, then thrust into her while kissing her for awhile, then back down, then back up, over and over, stopping for little sessions on her nipples every time I encountered them. To my delight, I was able to keep the torture up for almost a full half hour.

Both of her orgasms were while I was licking her. After the second, I treated myself to simply fucking her ... slowly at first ... and then my thrusts into her became faster and harder ... and faster still ... and harder still ... and I exploded, driving deeply into her until she screamed hoarsely up at the ceiling while I clutched her and shivered ecstatically. I collapsed on her, drifting in afterglow, until her pleading whispers disturbed my somnambulant reverie. "Please, Master. Take my mind now. Please."

With a sigh, I reached over and picked up her (my?) necklace, and I dangled it just above her face. In ten seconds, I knew that her mind was my prisoner, as well.

Later, I couldn't get comfortable. Stretched out the way she was, she was taking up the whole bed. I got up and untied her; then I snuggled up to her the way I did every night now, and I drifted off to sleep.

May 29th

After breakfast, I kissed my two ladies goodbye and hit the road for Boston. For some unfathomable reason, getting through the security checkpoint at Logan was very quick and completely painless. But air travel will always result in problems, and so I wasn't overly surprised to learn of a two-hour delay. Then, after boarding, Air Traffic Control held us for two more hours due to weather in the vicinity. By the time I got through customs at Heathrow, my connecting flight to Amsterdam was long gone. I found a hotel room. Daytime flights to Europe are a treat. It's much easier to go to bed earlier than normal (U.S. time) than it is to arrive in the morning, sleep-deprived from an all-nighter.

May 30th

My watch said it was three in the morning when I got my wake-up call at eight. There was about the normal degree of hassle getting back to the airport and through security. I finally got to my hotel room in the Dutch capital (with an "a," though it's not the capitol, with an "o") by early evening. I tried to call Dawn, but she didn't answer. I phoned for room service and went over my presentation for the next day. Another call to Dawn before I went to bed went unanswered as well.

May 31st

I spent the whole morning doing training, with a big presentation just after a catered lunch. The company chief exec was supposed to be the recipient of my little talk, but he'd been called away on a family emergency. As it all turned out, the whole trip was unnecessary (as is the case all too often). The decision to go with our company's advanced package had been made days before, and the marketing director and I signed a letter of agreement to make it official. I had been scheduled to go out with the CEO that evening, but now that he was gone, just about everyone wanted to get on with their interrupted weekend; and so I was free at about three o'clock.

On a whim, I got online and studied available flights home. There was one to Shannon (on the west coast of Ireland) that evening, and I could connect with a flight to Boston in the early morning. Fortunately, the gift shop in the hotel was still open, so I bought a Little Mermaid doll for Tina. In the cab, I called home again. Dawn was there this time, and halfway through the call, she started calling me Master. I asked if she was cheating, and she insisted that she had removed all her clothes while she was talking to me... "Isn't that okay, Master? Please?" As long as no one else is in the room, I answered; and she giggled delightedly. She missed me terribly, she said. She needed me. She loved me. I asked her where she had been the day before when I called. "You know," she answered demurely. "You put the idea in my head. It was your suggestion. I couldn't do it here, so I had to take the bus to Portland. I hope you like it." I thought about that for awhile. I told that I was sure I would.

In Shannon, I got a cryptic text message from Ronald Swartz. It took me awhile to place the name. He was the president of the town bank ... I'd met him at a couple parties. He wanted me to call him, but it was too late today, I decided. I got a room and slept for about five hours before I got up and went back to the airport.

June 1st

Shannon is a relatively small international airport, and things went very smoothly. Despite six and a half hours in the air, it was still morning when we landed in Boston, thanks to the time zone changes. I turned on my phone again as the shuttle van was taking me to the long term parking lot at Logan and found another text message from Swartz. Urgent that you call me right away ... call me at home, it said. I dialed the number he'd provided when I got to my car.

"Look, Reggie..." he said after a brief pause. (I heard a door being closed, and I assumed he'd gone into another room for privacy. This meant that he didn't want his family to overhear.) "You've got that Hernandez girl living with you in your home, right?" I was shocked to realize that I'd never known her last name. To say it didn't "fit" would be an understatement. Teri (Dawn's cousin) certainly didn't look Hispanic; though, of course, that didn't mean anything.

"What's this all about, Ron?" I said in a voice that was cooler than I'd intended.

He backpedaled quickly. "I don't mean anything by that, Reggie. Honest. It's just that she tried to make two big deposits into your personal account on Saturday just before we closed. She started arguing with one of my tellers, so I took her into my office to try and straighten it out. She really knew her stuff. Started spouting state and federal banking regulations to me ... verbatim. I was just trying to protect YOU! At best, it's going to force you into an IRS audit. And ... it doesn't look good for the bank, transactions like this!"

I was silent for several long seconds. "How much are we talking about here, Ron?"

"She wanted to drain her personal account with us and transfer it to yours. That was a little over two thousand. But then there was a second party check for seven hundred."

I took a breath. "Seven hundred dollars?"

"Seven hundred thousand, Reggie." He let that sink in. "I know the check is good ... it's from a major insurance company. If SHE kept it, there wouldn't be a serious tax implication. Well, as long as she could prove it was part of an estate settlement. But in YOUR account, you'd have to claim it as income. You'd lose more than a fourth of it to taxes." He paused, waiting for me to comment. When I didn't, he rushed on. "She didn't seem to care about that at all! Claimed it was your money now, taxes be damned. Started spouting off regulations that gave her the right to give the money to whomever she pleased. I finally, finally convinced her to deposit it in her own account until the check cleared. That should happen on Tuesday. I wanted to make sure you knew about all of this before that happened. Plus, like I said, it doesn't look good for the bank. I don't really know who this girl IS ... or what she wants. She's obviously not a local ... and big insurance companies HAVE been suckered into laundering schemes."

I cleared my throat. "Thanks, Ron. I appreciate the call. I'll handle it from here." It was obvious that he didn't enjoy being summarily dismissed, but he accepted that, said goodbye and hung up.

I was home in another two hours. I was setting my bags down and closing the front door when I heard her on the stairs behind me, and as I turned, she was in my arms. She gasped and jerked away from me a little, but then she made a funny little noise as she nestled into me again. "You ... you're home early!" she accused.

"Please tell me that there isn't another man in my bed," I told her seriously. She laughed at that, stopped herself when she realized the sort of implication that had from my past, but she couldn't stop herself from laughing again.

"Oh, sir! Oh, gosh, sir, I missed you!" She shifted in my arms again, straining away a little.

"What is the MATTER with you?" I barked, grasping her by the shoulders and holding her at arm's length.

She blushed furiously and looked down, embarrassed. "You know, sir."

I let my mouth form a grim line. "Show me."

She was wearing one of her over-sized sweatshirts, which was stained and wet. (She had dropped a pair of rubber gloves on the hardwood floor just before she hugged me, and I assumed she had been cleaning bathrooms.) Without further prompting, she grasped the lower part of the garment and pulled it over her head, and then she began fiddling with some things on her chest. They were some sort of foam rubber thingies that were stuck to her breasts, all around the nipples, and she took great care in peeling them off. When she was done, I observed that her nipples had been pierced from side to side, and bright metal rings skewered her fat tits. Another ring of the same metal was attached to each, like two links of a chain. She took a deep breath, and I heard a very faint clinking sound, so I assumed that they were made from stainless steel or some other very hard metal. It sounded like two small keys jangling on a keychain.

She studied my face, then she put the back of her hand to her mouth. "Oh my gosh! You don't like them! They're just as I saw them in my mind, and so I thought this was what you wanted! Oh, sir!"

Alright ... please forgive me as I retreat from this scene for a little philosophical speculation. I am assuming that as each one of us reaches old age, there will be a time when we look back on our lives and try to determine which moments were the most important. Beyond any doubt, this particular instant was one of mine. And more to the point, I recognized it as such. Something deep down inside me told me that I should measure my response very, very carefully.

If you haven't already guessed it, I had never hypnotized Dawn. Oh, I had dangled the little gem in front of her face each night ... and I had watched as she dropped into deep slumber ... but I had never actually hypnotized her; never implanted any thoughts; never given her any suggestions about ANYTHING. The new clothes and hairdo, the sex, the shaved pubic area, her love for me, the anal coupling, exotic positions, the bondage ... none of it was my doing. She had thought it all up on her own. Perhaps she had visited some internet porn sites in search of favorite male fantasies and had somehow come to believe that I had theses flights of imagination, as well. But in reality, none of it had ever come from me.

Unlike Dawn, I am a huge fan of psychology. I apply it to my job, and it has rarely let me down. I believe that there is an underlying reason for practically everything we do. Take my dear ex-wife, for instance. She had very low self esteem when I met her; and, loving her, I endeavored to help her improve because she WANTED to improve. I hadn't counted on the possibility that as she slimmed down and reclaimed her lost beauty, she might suddenly decide that she now had a chance to be part of what Dawn had called the "ins." She can be popular now. She has a reason to believe that she can live a life that nature had previously denied her. We HAD been in love once; of that I was sure. We had laughed together, made plans together and struggled together. Oh, how we had struggled ... through my long hours of work putting her through grad school, and then HER long hours during the internship. We had been poor, busy and happy. But apparently, it had only been a start in her life ... a springboard to something else.

Dawn was still a question mark. I didn't know what drove her. It was now obvious that she had always been denied the things in life every woman wants. Love, sex, intimacy, desire; this was the first time any of them had ever been within her grasp. And, since I hadn't been proactive enough to suggest these things, her subconscious had done it for me ... yet it had also given her the impression that everything was my doing. But it went much further. The submissive attitude, the need for domination and constant direction ... where had it all come from?

I had always been a little bit on the conservative side when it came to body piercing. Oh, a pair of earrings is nice, I suppose; but beyond that, I saw it as a form of self-mutilation; and in the past, I think that my first reaction to seeing any form of it (lips, tongue, nose, etc) had been slight revulsion. What I was on the cusp of doing right now was putting a stop to ALL of this folderol. I really liked Dawn, and I especially liked what we were doing ... the sex, of course, but the intimacy most of all. No ... I loved this girl! Yes, by God, I loved her! And as an added benefit, she was a girl who really loved ME. (Why did I need that so badly?) But, I had been lying to her all this time ... or at the very least, withholding the truth. Now, she had done something I didn't particularly like.

I still hadn't solved this riddle that was Dawn. I REALLY wanted to tell her the truth ... ALL of it. But ... should I tell her my true feelings about this right now? Would it solve anything? Would it help me understand her, or would I be using it only as an opportunity. Was it just selfishness on my part? For whatever reasons, I made a choice.

"Dawn ... um ... it's not what you think. They're ... uh ... great! I'm just concerned that you're in pain. They're really ... sexy. But it must hurt a lot."

The worry melted from her features. "Oh, sir ... do you really like them? They hurt like the dickens yesterday, but there was almost no pain today ... until I hugged you. It's just that they're ... always THERE, you know? I think that's what they're really designed for ... making a woman remember something sexual ... all the time ... every second. Oh, gosh, sir ... I missed you SO much! Do you think we could ... um ... I mean ... Would you like me to ... uh ... do something for you? I could... ? I mean, I would do ... ANYTHING for you, sir!"

I laughed and grasped her shoulders again, turning her away from me so I could wrap my arms around her without fear of touching her nipples. She leaned back against me while I worked on the button of her jeans. "I want you naked, woman. Now."

She giggled and bent to peel off the last of her clothing, then straightened and pushed her back into me, resting her arms on mine as they snaked around her waist. "Now I can call you my Master again," she sighed. I led her upstairs and stripped out of my travel clothes, stretching out on my back in the center of the bed. She mounted me and rode me slowly while I stroked and squeezed her breasts, never actually coming into contact with the nipples or the rings. She was very turned on. After a minute or two, she picked up the pace, bouncing down on me hard. I let go of her globes and put my hands on her waist, slowing her down, forcing her to set up the cadence I wanted; and, of course, she complied immediately. Her huge mounds began an almost liquid undulation, the little rings clattering quietly, and I found the sight mesmerizing. I touched her in the places that I knew would shatter any remaining control she had, and she responded as I expected, gasping, moaning. A few minutes of inscribing circles around her clitoris with my fingertip brought on a moaning, screaming orgasm, and I was glad Tina wasn't with us, giving us the freedom to make as much noise as we wanted. When I came, it was soul-shattering.

Afterward, she lay in my arms and told me about her ordeal in the tattoo/piercing parlor in Portland (which she'd found through careful research online; four-star feedback, she told me). She said that the whole experience had been excruciatingly embarrassing ... much worse than the actual pain from the piercing. She had been instructed that "posts" were more popular right now, but rings were recommended for first-timers because they caused less inflammation after the procedure. She had to soak her nipples in saline solution twice a day for a week, leave them open to the air as much as possible, and I wasn't supposed to suck or pull on them for at least two weeks. She was immensely proud of them, and her sense of sacrifice melted my heart.