Chapter 18: Moving On

Allison was already awake beside me, she kissed my shoulder and whispered, "Go run, then take me somewhere we can talk."

I ran a quick two miles just to wake up. Mom and Dad were both up when I got back so we invited them to come with us to IHOP for breakfast. Allison and I went to the park on the way back so we could talk. I was hoping Rebecca could get us that information so we could go over the house for bugs soon. We'd already checked all the spots Rebecca had suggested for video, but until we had the right equipment, we really couldn't check for anything that was audio only. Not only did it suck to have to leave every time we wanted to have a serious conversation but it was probably a little suspicious if anyone was really paying attention.

Once we got there, Allison didn't waste any time, "It's no wonder you've been struggling so much, I know you don't like where this is going."

"No, I don't, but it's the only way," I answered. "I'm the only one that can do it. I keep finding more and more things in my life that fall into that category and I'm starting to feel like I'm drowning in responsibility."

"I know, but you love her too much to let her keep suffering the way she has been," she said. "I wish there was some way I could help you with it, but..."

"Well at least now I can talk to you about it. You do understand why I couldn't before, right?"

"Oh absolutely! This was so not your secret to tell. I'm kind of surprised she wanted me to come with her rather than just having you talk to me about it."

"That was my idea. She told me I could tell you, but I thought it might be better this way. Telling you would have been a start, but you still would have needed to go through the same stuff she was to really get a grip on it anyway. She knows how much I rely on you and, I don't know, she was confused, and you wanted to know so you could help ... I thought it would save time."

"I don't know how much help I was; mostly we just sat quietly watching the DVDs and then we sat on opposite ends of the couch reading the same book. I want to read the rest of it by the way, I'm hooked now so either flip through the rest of it and fill in my copy or give me the book so I can read it while you're at school. It was very interesting in a variety of ways. I still haven't figured out what all thirteen houses could possibly be. I can only come up with around eight, but some of those are pretty fascinating. I don't think any of them truly express what's happening with Amber but then it's fiction and this is reality so you can only expect so much. I'm not sure what to expect once she has time to really absorb what's happening. I don't know how well she'll accept this about herself. It's so very different from her life before."

"We talked about it, Lizzy and Bob and me. After what happened Saturday, Lizzy was so excited about what I'd done with Amber, when she told Bob he was really excited too and..."

She cut me off, "Whoa, back up, what happened Saturday night?"

"Did you notice a difference in Amber the other night when we were playing basketball?"

"I'll say I did. It was like she was suddenly a different person."

"She was."

"What do you mean?"

"That's what Lizzy was so excited about, and when she told Bob about it he was even more excited, but then it's his field so..."

"What? You're talking in circles and you still haven't told me what happened?"

"I ordered Amber to be Angela."

"You did what?"

"Before we went out to play with you and Shannon, I told her I needed her to be Angela or we were going to get our butts kicked. It took some prompting and I had to push a little hard, not push-push, you know, no dream tricks or anything, but I kept badgering her like a drill sergeant until she started responding as Angela. Then afterward, when I asked her to tell me whether or not she wanted me to tell you, she started to slip back, saying she would 'try, ' but I demanded that she have an answer next time I saw her. She finally told me to go fuck myself but that she would have a decision."

"Amazing. You did all that with no tricks? No wonder Bob was so excited, this means ... actually I'm not really sure what it means, but it just seems like it's a good thing."

"It is a good thing. The world she's going into is a very dark and private place. If people in the outside world knew what the players were really into it could destroy their lives. So they are all, or at least most, very much like Angela and Amber. One is a real person living in the real world; the other is in hiding and can only come out in the most controlled and safest of circumstances, surrounded by people they know they can trust to keep their secret. Only in Angela's case, the personalities are reversed. Angela is the one in hiding but Amber is the one who wants to be there. If she were a normal person then 'Amber' would only come out when she was in that world. So it's still a little confused."

"I'll say. Maybe if she switched the names..."

"No, I think that would be very bad at this point. She's struggling to keep her identity, to not lose who she is in all of this. Hopefully this will show her that what she is feeling, the desire to be dominated is not just a sick and twisted response to her kidnapping but an aspect of herself that she hadn't discovered. Anyway, Lizzy and Bob think that this will make it a lot easier to handle her life in hiding. Lizzy says that no one will even bat an eye at this sort of thing in a college environment. We haven't really talked about it yet but I think I know what they have in mind."

Have I pointed out how smart Allison is?

"They want Amber to be open about her submissive nature. Totally out of the closet and exposed, but won't that be dangerous for her? If she's out like that people will try to take advantage. She's not going to be in a safe environment surrounded by people she can trust. How are you going to ... Oh, that's it isn't it?"

"What?"

"You're going to be her master. That's why she's been acting the way she has around you. Even before she knew what was going on she was looking to you for guidance, permission even. She's going to be, wants to be, your slave."

"Yeah," I sighed. "Angela doesn't, at least I don't think so, I'm not really sure what she wants, but Amber ... Amber wants that very much. I think Amber wants a master and I'm the only one Angela will consider."

"But how can you do that when she's going to be god knows where going to school."

"I have to find a surrogate, someone I can give her to..."

"Good God, that's so..."

"Yeah, that's what I keep saying, but then I think about it and I know they're right. She is my responsibility until she grows enough to take care of herself, until then she won't feel safe unless I am there to protect her, or I find someone to act in my place and then tell her to trust them. And I have to make damn sure they don't betray that trust or..."

"That will be easy, a few nightmares about what happens if they betray that trust should be enough."

"But I can't do that, because then they would know about me."

"No, not if they never see you. What you need to do is find someone, before they meet her, this is so weird to even think about, and you need to give them a ... vision ... a premonition if you will, about her. Place them in the role of protector and then show them what will happen if they betray that trust."

"How in the world am I supposed to do all that?"

"I have no idea, but we can worry about that later. We have a more immediate problem, two actually."

"Allison, more problems I do not need right now."

"Don't worry; they're not really new problems, just steps you need to be prepared for. First of all, you need to be ready when you see her again. If she's really going to accept and acknowledge you as her master, then she may, I don't know, but she may do something ... submissive, like wolves in the wild, some sign of acknowledging you as her master. You have to be ready to respond to her. Then there is the part you're really not going to like, you have to find someone to train her."

"We already talked about both of those. Bob and Lizzy both made it clear that when she acknowledges me I have to take it for granted, like I've known all along. As for the other part; I've thought about that too and you're right, I don't like it. She is new to this whole thing, she doesn't have the luxury of learning about this world slowly, she has to be able to step into it and be completely convincing. I thought maybe Samantha could help, but..."

"No," she interrupted again. "God no. I mean yeah, she could do it, no question, she has been trained to it, but her situation..."

"Is completely different, I know. I've been over that too, Samantha is not a voluntary player in a fantasy world; she's the reality. I could never ask her to do that to someone else; it would be so very wrong. It would be validating her reality and there is nothing right about what she is going through. I have to find someone else. I'm not sure how but I have to."

"You need Lady Heather."

"Allison she's a fictional character in a television show."

"Jimmy, they got the character from somewhere. They didn't just make her up. Bob already told you that this is a very real world. There have to be places where these people go to play. I wonder if that actress, whoever she is..."

"Melinda Clarke."

"You didn't include the credits in our copy. Anyway, I wonder if she didn't model her character after a real person somewhere. I mean, the character may be more of a caricature because she needed it for a dramatic role, but still, she did such a good job, I have to wonder if she had a coach?"

"But how do I find someone like that? I doubt if they are in the yellow pages."

"Probably not, not around here anyway, but I'll bet they're on the internet, and they don't need to be around here. The hardest part will be convincing them to help you. Even in dreams, you're talking about getting a professional to help you for free. Hardly something they would be motivated to do."

"I'd be willing to pay if there was a way to do it without having it traced back to me. Of course I have no idea what something like that costs."

"We'll worry about that later. You have to find them first. I think you need to make it a priority though. If possible, before Amber comes to you. If you could be ready to take the next step it would go a long way to reaffirming her confidence in you, show her that you're serious about helping her."

"Of course I'm serious about helping her, I wouldn't be doing any of this if..."

"If you didn't love her, I understand that, Jimmy, but she's hurt, and scared, she needs to see it, she wants to see it every time she looks at you, hear it in every word you speak to her, she needs to know that you are there for her, but at the same time you can't make it too easy for her. You have to make her work for it, earn it, or it won't mean anything. She won't be confident enough to pull it off if it's too easy."

"Oh, gee thanks, Sis, no pressure there."

Mom and Dad had apparently decided to go shopping or something because they weren't there when we got home. We spent a large part of the afternoon searching the darker corners of the internet and finding far more than we wanted to know about the world we were exploring, granted we needed to know it, but none of it really put us any closer to finding the person we needed. I flipped through the rest of Kushiel's Dart before time for bed so that I could read it later, and so Allison could read it if she wanted to, but I really didn't have much else to go on. I was more than a little worried about the next step.

Usually I wake up at the beach, or in the glade and meet the girls, tonight I woke in the elevator that we sometimes use to move around between buildings. It was somewhere I hadn't been in quite some time. Taped to the inside of the doors was an envelope. I had seen this particular envelope twice before. Both times they had contained notes to help me with a particular problem. I opened this one and found another note written in the same flowing script as the first two;

Jasmine; The House of Seven Willows, Las Vegas
E.

I stared at the note for some time, wondering again where they all came from. I had assumed before that it was something in my subconscious sending me reassurance but considering what had been going on lately I was no longer willing to trust my assumptions. I sat at my desk and stared at the note for some time before deciding to act. Closing my eyes I changed my appearance to the character I use when working in dreams with strangers, and concentrated on the name.

When I opened my eyes I was sitting in an ornately decorated waiting room. The dècor was tasteful, simple, and very striking. Everything in the room was black, white, or red. Not any red, but the bright, pure crimson of fresh blood. The carpet was a pristine expanse of white pile, deep and luxurious. The walls were alternating panels of white and black cloth; each decorated with a backdrop of willows in black or white depending on the panel, and each was set as an individual display. I was seated on one of two low couches in a red silk-like material. Immediately across from me was a stand holding an exquisitely decorated pair of Katana swords surrounded by smaller weapons, some of which I had never seen before. The stand and sheaths were black; the cord wound hilts in a pattern of black and red.

There were displays of fans, kimonos, and other things I didn't recognize. The most striking design was of two entwined dragons, one black, and the other red, covering the end wall. Instead of my usual shorts and t-shirt, I found myself wearing a short silk robe and sandals, both dyed red to match the room. I was inspecting the two dragons when a panel to one side opened and a young woman entered. She was very beautiful and appeared to be somewhere in her early twenties, her black hair was cut short and framed her face perfectly, and her skin was pale perfection, smooth and unblemished with just a hint of dark color around her eyes. She wore a long dress of white silk with matching slippers. Small fans carved from some black stone dangled from either ear. Her only other adornment was a wide collar of the same deep red around her throat, and I don't mean the collar of her dress. I couldn't tell what it was made of and it would have been rude to stare but while it went very well with the rest of her outfit there was that tell-tale ring of metal where a leash would attach.

She approached with eyes averted, gave one of those half bow-half curtsies you see in the old martial arts films and said, "My Mistress bids you welcome and asks that I attend you until she arrives. How may I serve you?"

"I'm fine thank you."

With a quick movement the dress fell in a pool of white silk at her feet. The color of the dress so closely matched the carpet that only the shadows told the eye where it lay. Had I not seen it fall I may not have noticed it from ten feet away. Almost as quickly she knelt beside me, the dress pooled beneath her, besides the red collar, the pink rosettes of her small nipples were now the only color breaking the monochrome expanse of her pale flesh.

"Is there nothing you desire?" she asked, her eyes now sliding up to meet mine. Staring down into her eyes I saw at last with perfect clarity the difference between this world and the one Samantha lived in. Naked before my gaze, her pose almost identical to the one Sam adopted automatically whenever I visited her, and held until she was certain that it was really me; yet in this girl's eyes there shown a burning desire for me to use her. Samantha's eyes were beautiful but held only emptiness. Staring into this girl's eyes, I knew without question that she would do anything I asked of her. As I watched I saw a small desperation born in the depths as she realized that I would not avail myself of her offer. "Please," she whispered.

My first thought was to reach down and lift her up as I did with Samantha when she assumed this position, but instead I placed my hand upon her head and slid it over the softness of her hair to cup her face. Bending down I lightly brushed her lips with mine, feeling a tremor run through her and as I stood back up I noticed that her nipples were now tight and hard. As I stroked her hair once more her eyes closed and she leaned into the motion like a cat wanting its head scratched. I stood for a moment gently petting her until a second panel opened and another woman entered.

She was taller, about my height, with emerald eyes and a waterfall of black hair cascading to her waist. Her dress was a pale green that matched her eyes with leaves of darker green and small yellow and white flowers patterned here and there around it. If the flowers had not already told me who she was the girl's response made it clear as she went still beneath my hand, eyes once more downcast. But again there was a difference, as her body seemed to vibrate with anticipation and want. This was Jasmine, her Mistress.

"You are James?" she asked in a strong yet pleasant voice. There was no hint of the accent I had expected.

I wasn't sure I liked her knowing my name. When I reached for her hand, her eyebrow rose with it and a hint of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as I bowed and brought it to my lips. "Yes ma'am, and you can only be Jasmine. Or should that be Lady Jasmine? Forgive me, but I did not know who I was meeting or what to expect," I replied, releasing her hand as I stood back up.

"Lady is correct, but you need not be so formal. In truth I didn't know what to expect either," she replied. "I was told only to expect you; that we had a mutual interest and that if I helped you, you would fulfill a desire that has burned within me for some time." Then she turned from me to look at the girl kneeling at my feet.

"You do not find my May pleasing?"

"On the contrary, I find her quite lovely."

"And yet you deny her, and yourself." She stepped back and struck the small gong that stood before the entwined dragons. A gentle sound echoed softly through the room. Before it faded four panels slid open and four more women entered the room, all dressed as May had been in dresses of white silk, black fans dangling from their ears and wide red collars encircling their throats. "Perhaps I may offer you someone more to your taste?"

She stepped to the girl on her immediate left: a slender blonde with her hair pulled back and tied in a simple pony tail at her neck. "This is June," she said and caught the girl's chin with a finger. At the merest touch, the girl turned in place, one hand coming up to release the catch of her dress. By the time she completed the turn the garment had settled into a silken pool at her feet. Her breasts were much fuller than May's with a small silver ring dangling from the left nipple. A narrow stripe of silky hair drew a line to the otherwise cleanly shaved V between her legs. She turned once more, displaying her naked back and a very shapely ass. As she completed the second turn she knelt in the pool of her dress, eyes averted.

"Tanya," she said, pointing to the woman with short red hair next in line. Immediately Tanya released her dress, hesitated for a moment so that I may take in the expanse of her pale flesh, then held my eyes as she began her turn. Her back was a mosaic of color, displaying a scene out of the dark ages: Across her shoulders a woman was held naked over a bench by two naked men, while a third in a dark mask lashed her backside with a short rod tipped with several narrow strips of what must have been leather. The scene was dark except for the red weals that cut lines of fire across her flesh. A thin line divided the scene diagonally from the scene below where the same man was now taking her from behind. The other two stood by watching and obviously waiting their turn as the woman, who now lay across the bench without restraint, awaiting their pleasure with a look of purest ecstasy on her face. Glancing down I noticed a tracery of fine lines marking the expanse of Tanya's backside and I realized that while the woman's body had been rendered in the rounder curves of Renaissance art the face was in fact hers. There was no doubt in my mind that she had modeled the work herself. As she completed her turn I noticed that she sported a full bush of crimson fire that matched the hair on her head. As she knelt she held my eye defiantly.