Chapter 1

[Please read The Master Downstairs and The Master Decides first. Feedback is always appreciated and responded to.]

It’s been two months since I freed Kristen and my life has changed even more than I could have expected. In some ways, it has changed more than the first two months before we freed Kristen.

After a period of adjustment, Kristen and I decided to actually start that business I had been thinking about. Well, it wasn’t quite the business I had originally thought of. We named it “Advance and Retreat”. It occupied an older resort that had gone out of business and sat empty for a year. The Advance portion of the business was a coaching business. We would help athletes and senior management types gain focus to achieve their goals using the Device. We had developed a new version of the software, Improvement, just for the coaching business. The Retreat was the realization that our clients would want to be coached somewhere private with relaxing and comfortable facilities. A yoga retreat would be perfect for that and would be a complementary business. We thought we could probably get a few weddings as well.

Kristen had come up with a list of requirements and worked with a realtor she trusted to find the right place. It was a poorly designed hotel, but perfect for our needs. It was a good sized beautiful property in the woods, with a medium sized lake, next to a state preserve with lots of trails. It was out of the way and already had tennis courts and a gym and various buildings we could repurpose. We planned to have our clients stay with us so the hotel rooms were convenient. And we had a small army of people who wanted to help make this a success, so putting our house on the market was an easy decision, though it didn’t sell right away. I had started calling the group of people touched by the Device, “the family”, because we were all in the Secret together. Whether they were Loyal, Improved or my slave, they all talked and helped each other.

Stephanie kept her downtown location, but quickly picked the building she was going to turn into her new main studio. She would run the Retreat business. Brenda wanted to run the catering facilities. She had surprised us in a few ways, but first by selling her house and moving onto the property. We had most of the family stay with their current lives and just advise us until the right time to join us. Meghan, the chartered accountant, would eventually become our Chief Financial Office, but her income and influence was just too good to leave for now. We hired Rob’s firm to represent us, but knew he’d come over at some point. Kristen and I owned the business, but we planned for Jessica from my company to become our president when the business got large enough. All the college kids were ready to be staff whenever we needed them. In the meantime, Kristen and I stayed at our jobs, but were using up all of our vacation time quickly. One of us would be quitting in the next few weeks, probably me.

Weekends and school breaks were construction time. Anyone from the family who could, came out and helped clean up the property. There were six hotel rooms inside the main building which we concentrated on renovating first. There were more hotel rooms in two other buildings, but we left them for later. After a few weeks, it really started to look spectacular.

All of the prep work was under way but now it was time to start lining up the clients. Jessica had been building a list of senior executives who she thought we could convince to try a “free beta weekend”. Tara from the television station had a few candidates picked out as well. Kristen and some of the others had laid out a plan for how to build our clientele entirely by word of mouth and recommendations. The key was what distinguished us from everyone else: every guest had a two hour private goal setting session with the Device.

Kristen had worked with Jeremy, Amy and Dana to come up with the Improved mode of the Device. This one is very explicit about the sort of behaviors we want to see from our clients. They were told to focus on their tasks and goals, avoid self destructive behaviors, and be able to turn an emotional check on and off while evaluating decisions about their goals. They also wanted to tell the most interesting, rich or powerful people they knew about the resort. Of course, we had left in the key elements of Loyalty in preserving the Secret, helping other members of our family, and trusting Kristen and I above others. Kristen had helped test it on some people she used to be friends with. They came out and helped on the weekends. After the opening, they would start telling carefully picked people about their wonderful experiences at the resort.

We still had the large get togethers, but usually only once a month now. There was just too much to do that didn’t involve sex or an orgy. Most of the family had coupled up, and used the get together to try new things or just variety of partners. My personal sex life focused more on Kristen and Ashley. The three of us were pretty inseparable. I had offered to free Ashley like we had Kristen, but she insisted she wanted to stay my slave. Kristen agreed with her. Since Brenda was staying on site with us, we spent a lot of time with her as well. I was surprised to find that she was very well off with inheritances and insurance. I guess I knew she was widowed, but we had never talked about it. She had offered all of her money as a gift to help start the business. I insisted that a much smaller amount be treated as a legitimate investment. All the paperwork had to be above board and everyone paid. I wanted to make sure we didn’t look like a cult to anyone who wanted to look into us.

When I came into the bedroom and found Ashley and Kristen sitting clothed side by side, I wondered what was about to happen. They didn’t usually gang up on me like this.

Kristen got up and kissed me before speaking. “David, Ashley and I have been thinking about something and we want to get your opinion. It’s important to both of us, and we hope it’s important to you too.”

“Sure, you know I want you two to be happy. What are we talking about?”