(c) Dean Askin writing as Aden Kains
Part one β Requiem
For an instant Morgan feared he had forgotten the small blue velvet-covered box. It had rested atop the bureau for almost two whole years, waiting, needing to be dusted regularly. Then he felt it bulging in the pocket of his tailored St. George slacks and his mind refocused on Faithe, within reach across the table from him. He knew instinctively that he'd at last found his kindred spirit again and that the time was right to offer her the collar of consideration. Tonight, on this damp late-summer evening, he felt Faithe would recognize her true desires. Soon, they would begin their journey together, willingly making dominance and submission the focus in their lives, devoting themselves entirely to their bond with each other. Just as he and Belinda had done a lifetime ago:
Morgan could still clearly remember how Belinda β he'd always called her "my beautiful slave Belinda" β had worn the chain heart lock collar in public with pride whenever she ran errands, or was permitted outings by herself, or accompanied him on business trips. And when she was within the privacy of Tremayne House and its grounds or their own property at the end of the lane, she had willingly obeyed his desire that she be collared and naked but for a leather chastity belt, with her nipples clamped, chained and erect, twenty-four seven. The black leather posture collar that had kept her head held high and her tongue respectful when she was addressed, had also enhanced her beauty.
Humble pride still overwhelmed him whenever his mind recalled the mild spring Saturday afternoon of her eighteenth birthday. As she became a woman Belinda finally recognized her secret submissive desires, and willingly entrusted him with her life, body and soul.
There had been an instant bond between them from the moment he said hello on the day her family had moved into the 1858 Shipwright's house at the end of the lane. She'd smiled shyly back at him, her seventeen-year-old blue eyes glinting in the October sunlight and strands of her long blond hair blowing astray in the autumn winds that swayed the branches of the oak tree in her front yard. Both of her parents were photojournalists, she'd said, and were often away in places like Afghanistan, Bali or South America.
"Then who takes care of you?" he'd asked, and she said she'd mostly looked after herself since she was twelve.
"I don't think I know my parents much at all anymore. In fact I don't think I remember what it's like to have anyone look after me. Maybe you could be my friend."
"I'd very much like to be your friend," he'd answered.
When, at dinner that evening his father asked the usual question about how his day of college classes went, he said, "Father, I think I finally found my kindred spirit today." He felt, he knew, that he needed Belinda as much as she needed him. Morgan knew he wanted her and longed to possess her mind, body and soul, and that he would be deeply devoted to her always.
"Then it's time," his father answered, and smiled his understanding smile while his mother concentrated on finishing her meal, making eye contact with neither father nor son. A tiny morsel of beef fell off her fork and landed on the black Lycra full-body stocking in the channel between her breasts, and she dabbed at it with a napkin. The 20-karat gold chain clamped to each nipple that protruded from cut-outs for her areolas in the Lycra swished back and forth as she dabbed at the piece of meat. After their meal, while his mother wrote her blog entry for the daily slave blog she was expected to keep for the world to read online; while his college classmates were working their part-time jobs, hanging out at Pizza Haven, or drinking themselves to oblivion and fucking any willing girl at college parties; Morgan was at last taken under his father's wing and began learning the Tremayne ways.
From that very first night of his initiation and instruction, his father had taught him that true submissives will eventually recognize their desires within, and so he simply courted Belinda, imagining their lifetime together and fighting the hardness of his cock each time he saw her.
Through the fall and winter of their respective senior years, she taught him an appreciation of Ansel Adams, and olives with peanut butter; he made her read Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice, for all she read it seemed, was J.D. Robb novels, and photography books. Always slung over her shoulder wherever they went together was her Nikon D-7x, which her father had bought for her fifteenth birthday. Sometimes it annoyed Morgan that she could go nowhere without bringing the camera. But she had inherited natural photographic talent, and Morgan was always amazed at how she could capture a landscape, a bird in flight, or a sunset and create a stunning image. It made him crave her even more.
Sometimes he would casually remark that she should try wearing her hair a certain way because he thought it would look good that way, and she would; when he told her he thought every girl looked hot in black, she would wear her black skinny jeans; when he told her her face glowed when she wore peach lipstick, she made it the color she wore on her lips most of the time.