Chapter 13

“And now we can enjoy the rest of the convention with less pressure, if less obvious fun,” Zahira declared right after we left Fuddrucker’s and Michelle texted a break-up message to Drew.

“Okay, I’m now broken up with Drew and engaged to marry you instead, Zahira ... or should I call you, ‘Mistress’? My Moorish lady, my goddess from the Barbary Coast. Yes, I Googled your historical reference. Guilty as charged! I wanted to know the history of my lady love and her people. I’m more than happy to talk about my mother’s people especially, the Apache, since that’s less well-known, though I also know about the Mormon pioneers on my father’s side. Why wouldn’t I be curious about the Berbers, the Moors, and all that? No wonder my lady dressed as a pirate!” Michelle flirted more brazenly with her self-declared “lady love.”

“You’re a fast learner, that’s for sure. For someone new to Sapphic romance, you’re a natural at playing the ultra-femme. That’s partly your Mormon upbringing, I think. You just fall easily into the traditional wifely role. One would never know that your mother’s nation was matriarchal, but that’s the LDS pioneer side of you, down to formal gowns and prairie dresses. I’m not even a bull dyke, but you make even me look butch! I’m gonna kiss you a lot while you’re getting plowed by so many guys.

“Not just these lips, but these, too. Your tasty, juicy, bushy pussy lips! I’m going to make it clear that if someone mistreats you while fucking you, it’s their ass! Literally. I’ll rape their assholes with my strap-on until they need stitches and every shit feels like razor blades if they hurt you in any way that doesn’t bring you pleasure! I will protect you, babe. Always,” Zahira told Michelle as they held hands in the Fuddrucker’s parking lot.

That was when I saw them ... they were hard to miss, as sneaky as they thought themselves. I felt a hot, burning pain in my belly ... and blacked out. I was in a wild series of dreams for quite a while, scary, painful, traumatic dreams at that. Memories mixed with present-day events in the incoherent, illogical manner of the dream state in my coma. I was out cold for how long I had no idea.

When I awoke, there were Katie ... and Amber, standing over me, along with the doctors and nurses. Both of them had tear-stained make-up on their faces, and it was clear that I had many visitors of late. I was groggy, blurry, and I felt more than a little pain, which judging from my morphine drip meant that it was running dry. I had IVs in my veins, of course, and a catheter in a very painful, unpleasant location. Hopefully, that could be removed soon enough.

“Hello, Mr. Gottlieb. I see that you’re back with us. That’s just as well. There’s a young lady outside who was in the Fuddrucker’s parking lot and insists that you took a bullet for her. Several witnesses, in fact, claim that you took that bullet, jumped in front of it in fact, with no thought of your own personal safety. You’ve been comatose for a good ... week and a half. Ten days, I’d say.

“But you’re wide awake now, out of the ICU, stable, and most importantly, alive. Don’t worry, the cops took care of the shooters. Turned them over to the Feds, I believe. They do have questions for you, though, when you get a chance, especially given that your house was torched back home,” the lead surgeon explained to me.

“Excuse me, Dr ... Mancini? Anyway, Dr. Mancini ... wow, where am I, in the middle of Melrose Place?” I joked a little with the doctor, which caused some relief.

“No, I’m not that Dr. Mancini, thank God! I’ve certainly heard my share of jokes about it. Damn that Aaron Spelling! I’m Aldo Mancini, not Michael. I come from a very large, very Italian family, though. Any idea who was the real target and why? The cops are waiting whenever you wish to answer those kinds of questions, of course. So are the Feds, for that matter.

“In any case, Mr. Gottlieb, I was afraid that we’d have to remove your spleen, but you’ve made a miraculous recovery, including the damaged organ in question. It’s regrown all of its tissue in astonishing time, which shouldn’t be medically possible, sir. You’re one helluva lucky man! I’ve never seen anything like it in all of my years in traumatic surgery,” Dr. Mancini then informed me, being the Dean Martin straight man to my Jerry Lewis act.

“Master, it’s just good to see you alive and well!” Katie exclaimed as she kissed my right hand while Amber did the same to my left.

“I guess that our plans for the rest of CosCon ... kinda fell through, didn’t they? I don’t think that the girls should feel ... that I did anything heroic, in hindsight. The bullets that I instinctively thought were aimed for them ... were clearly meant for me instead. They got ... their man. He just happened ... to survive and they were ... dumb enough to stick around, ... to get caught. I’m ... no hero. I nearly got them killed, all of you, in fact. I’m just lucky enough to not have been home when my past caught up to me,” I struggled to speak due to the pain, at which point the nurses rushed more morphine into my drip.

“Past, Master?” Amber looked at me with confusion.

“I used to be a private military contractor. A mercenary, Amber. For the Mexican and Colombian governments. For years. Against the ... cartels. I guess that the drug lords didn’t ... get the ... damned memo ... that I retired,” I gasped.

“Everyone’s got a past. You’re not using ours against us. We are damn sure not using yours against you, Master,” Katie insisted, holding my hand as tightly as she could.

“Master? You’ve called him that repeatedly,” Dr. Mancini asked curiously.

“He’s ... my fiancee ... but he’s also my loving Master, my Dom, my dominant partner, if you will. And Amber’s, for that matter. We love him and we wouldn’t want it any other way, trust me,” Katie clarified, making Dr. Mancini’s face break into a grin.

“He must be a very loving kind of Dom or Master, not the abusive, Fifty Shades of Grey poser type, for you to sit vigil for him for over a week while he was in a coma. Both of you, among others. I only hope that my subs would do the same for me, from my wife to my sister-in-law, among others. Yes, it’s a small world, but I, too, am in the community. We should compare notes sometime,” Dr. Mancini admitted, making one of the nurses lick her lips with obvious arousal and attraction to someone at least.

“Yeah, I would say so,” Amber blushed as she bit her bottom lip now, “he took my virginity, and I will never regret giving it to him on my eighteenth birthday. Just over two weeks ago. It was his first birthday gift to me and nothing could ever match it in the future.”