Chapter 63

I was riding with Nicole in the Buggatti, scared out of my mind as usual, when I suddenly found my face pressed up against the windscreen. Nicole was transfixed, staring blankly out the windshield, gripping the steering wheel with both hands in a death's grip. Her foot was still jammed on the brake, the finely tuned engine idling smoothly under the hood.

I heard the birds chirping, replacing the whistling wind and my not infrequent screams of terror.

Then I felt it.

Nicole turned to me, eyes wide. I wasn't sure if she was terrified or overjoyed. Or something else.

"Master." Not a question. Not spoken. It took me a moment to realize what had happened. It was over the link.

Nicole had found our connection.

As quickly as it was there, it was gone. We sat there for a while, trying to reconnect, looking for the key. We drove back to the beginning of the skid marks on the pavement, thinking it might have been that particular spot in the road, like a nexus in the warp of time and space. Hey, after all the things we had tried before, there was nothing weird we wouldn't consider.

I worried, as the link faded, that Nicole would be disappointed. Well, I have never figured women out yet and I was so wrong this time, it amazed even me. She was ecstatic. She was thrilled. Overjoyed. And grateful. Very, very grateful. We would have to wash off the hood of the car. Again.

Sally knew instantly what had happened as soon as we walked in the door. She took one look at Nicole, gave a little squeak and the two collided in a joyous, bouncing hug, dancing around the kitchen in happiness. Hell, I knew it was important to Nicole. I just didn't have a clue how much it meant to her or to Sally.

We continued to drive together after that, Sally insistent upon it now, hopeful that we would connect again. Sally and Nicole, unbeknownst to me, had spent hours trying to connect on their own. Failing, they had concluded that if it were going to happen, it would have to be with me. My link was stronger and different than Sally's and it was growing stronger almost daily.

I think we tried had too hard, and, after that one blip, we tried even harder. Then, as I thought back, reconstructing the event, I noticed that neither one of us had been seeking the link at that particular point in time. I had been scared shitless, my usual condition in the passenger seat. Nicole had been totally focused on her driving, the roads being slightly slick.

One afternoon I turned to Nicole, pale and sweating from fear. "Nicole, I want you to take me to the Rosen's. As fast as you can. Take the route by the quarry."

"Yes, Master. Should I point out that you do not particularly like that road? It has many corners."

"I know. I need to get to clinic. Fast."

The concern in my voice convinced her I was serious. The slight quiver of terror at what I was about to experience helped convince her. I know they say that fear of the unknown is a powerful motivator. I would have taken that fear any day over the certain terror I knew I was going to experience on that road. Sharp corners, no fences, sheer drop-offs into the black waters 50 feet below. It was the stuff of nightmares and I had just volunteered to do it at top speed.

Nicole drove like a woman possessed. She thought I was ill or needed to be at the clinic. I only hoped I wouldn't need to be in one by the time the ride was over. I hoped that the link wouldn't kick in on a sharp corner. I hoped that I was right. We were getting desperate and desperate times call for desperate measures, or so I've heard.

The way I figured it was that Nicole's mind was such a flurry of thoughts going in a million ways at once that there was just too much interference for the link to work normally. I know it didn't make sense with her being so smart and all and she couldn't link but Simone could and she was presumably even smarter than her mother. But I had my theory about that, too, having to do with Simone's trauma and stuff.

If I was right, driving was the one thing that Nicole loved, maybe even more than me. It totally absorbed her, involving all of her faculties, skill and cognitive processes. By clearing her mind of other extraneous thoughts, it might also allow us to link, for that part of her mind to come through.

It happened on a slow corner, thank God. It was the second turn of a four turn combination and she had down-shifted in preparation of accelerating us through the last two turns. I had been prepared for the link when it came, so I noticed before she did. When she did sense it, she again slammed on the brakes, almost sending us sailing out into the quarry. Against my better judgment, I yelled across the link, "Drive, Nicole, Drive!"

I could tell when she figured it out, what I was doing. The burst of sunshine over the link was blinding, growing stronger the more she focused on her driving.

I felt her bemusement, Shit, she was laughing at me, as she sensed the pureness of my terror. She could not comprehend the feelings I had at not being in control of the vehicle, at having to trust her skill. Not that I didn't trust her driving. It's just that I had to and it scared the living fuck out of me.

We made it to the Rosen's clinic in record time, then turned around and came back faster yet. We stayed linked most of the time, only occasionally losing touch. The more we connected, the easier it seemed to be for her, the more she was able to do it at will. Granted, she was still new at this, but if I knew Nicole, she would be totally focused on this until she had mastered it completely. She had wanted this for so long she was not going to let this go ever again.

Sally felt Nicole for the first time that night. They shared an orgasm so intense, that both of them were flopping around on the mattress. Janey and Simone had felt it as well and they all had a good cry over it. Happy tears, but they still left wet spots on the sheets.

It was a few weeks after the race to the Rosen's that I got a call from a nearby law enforcement officer. Apparently several officers had clocked an antique foreign-made sports car-type vehicle they thought was registered to me travelling at excessive speed. It had been seen in an area Nicole had to drive through to get from our house to the Rosen's Clinic. He asked me if I knew anything about it.

"Who was driving it officer?"

"Uh, we don't really know, Mr. Sampson. Our, uh, officers couldn't apprehend the driver. In fact, we could only get close enough to catch a couple of the numbers on the plate. We think it's your vehicle. But we're not positive."

"The driver wouldn't stop?"

"Well, uh, it's kind of embarrassing, sir. We aren't sure the driver even knew we were there. Those roads are awfully tight and twisting. The cruisers we drive couldn't keep up with that little car."

He really did sound apologetic. And embarrassed.

"Oh, I see."

I thanked him and rang off.

I confronted Nicole with this conversation. Her blasé attitude about it bothered me.

"But Nicole, they can take away your driver's license if you get caught!"

"License? What license? I don't have a license! I don't need to take a stinking driver's test. I KNOW how to drive!"

She was emphatic. I was shocked, even though, by now, I shouldn't have been. So I made her a deal. Actually, I intended that it be more of a threat. I told her that any cop that caught her got to spend the evening with her in the dungeon. Doing whatever. And she paid all the fines and court costs with her own money.

Nicole thought I was bluffing. She said I was too jealous to go through with that. That was a big mistake, challenging me like that. Later I realized that she thought of it as a win-win type of situation and that she had suckered me into it. She got to drive like a bat out of Hell with my permission and if she got caught, she got to have a session in the dungeon, again with my permission. I realized too late I had been the one who had made a mistake but being the kind of guy I am, I felt I had to keep my word. So I decided to make matters worse. Of course!

I hauled her up to the bedroom and told her to dress in her canary yellow bikini, the one she had been tormenting all the high school boys with around the pool all summer. The one that was hardly there. It's small even by French standards and you have to remember that they go topless on most of their beaches. While she was changing, I went down to the dungeon and got a few items. She sashayed down the stairs when she had changed. She was excited and it was clearly visible. The minx has removed the lining of the suit at some point this summer and it was as good as transparent. I hated to think what it would be like when it was wet.