Going Home

When Lili awoke the next morning, she found that she was alone in her new bed. She pulled on a robe and slippers and scuffed out to the kitchen where she could smell the enticing aroma of coffee. She was still sleepy and her face had that addled expression left by too late a night. She smiled blissfully thinking that the main difference between this early morning confusion and her usual state was the cause. Normally she woke up feeling like this after a long night online. It was heavenly to wake up like this after a long night of making love with her Master.

As she entered the kitchen, she saw him sitting at the table surrounded by piles of familiar objects. He had the contents of her purse spread out and was methodically going through it a piece at a time. Her early morning stupor was gone, replaced by the rage that flared in her heart. She took an angry step toward him, ready to lash out in a lecture on privacy, but his placid smile caught her off guard.

"Good morning, pet. Would you like some coffee?" he asked.

Her mouth hung open in amazement. "What are you doing?" she demanded. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" She began picking up receipts, photos, keys, ID and credit cards and reached for the purse he held in his left hand. Before her hand was half way to it, he'd grabbed her wrist.

"The question is what do you think you are doing?" He dropped the purse as he stood up and whisked the items from her hand back onto the table.

He stepped closer so that he was directly in front of her and towered over her. He looked down into her now enraged face. "You are my pet. My property," he pronounced, slowly enunciating all the consonants. "I own you." He took her other wrist in his hand and held both behind her back now, putting her a bit off balance as he leaned into her. "Therefore, you have no secrets. And no privacy. I own what's in that purse as much as I own what's in this robe," he said, his voice steady and low and passionless. He reached into her robe and squeezed her breast, watching as lust for him leaped up in her eyes, momentarily hiding the anger. "I'm taking your credit cards, and your ID. If you need it for something, I'll get it for you. I can't have you squandering your money and I can't have you deciding you want to leave, now, can I? Your place is with me and you will own only what I say you may own."

She swallowed and nodded mutely. Part of her thought he was only doing this to reinforce in her mind how permanent her situation was now that she'd left her husband; that it was a lesson he was teaching her that would soon be over. That part thought it was a temporary measure, that this man she loved would not really expect her to live like a child, dependent on him for everything, even the ID to cash a cheque.

He watched her expression and when the initial anger had faded, he released her wrists. "Now then, lets start this morning over, shall we? Good morning, pet."

She rubbed her chafed wrists and looked up into his face, unable to return his smile. "Good morning, Master." She hesitated a moment, then asked, "May I get you a cup of coffee?"

He nodded and sat back down to finish going through her meager possessions, making two piles now, of things she could keep and things he would take for 'safe keeping'. She poured him the coffee and started mechanically making breakfast for them both, cracking the eggs into a bowl and whisking in cinnamon and nutmeg and a dash of orange juice as she made French toast.

Her mind was a blank at that moment. She couldn't believe what she'd gotten herself into. Was any degree of acceptance worth this? Was any amount of sex, no matter how intellectually and physically pleasing, worth the total loss of autonomy? She thought not. She would have to negotiate a few more rights before this all became permanent, before anything else made her feel like this, like chattel.

She set the plate down before him and passed him the syrup, then slumped in her chair with a heavy sigh. She knew she should sit straight and be attentive to him, but it just wasn't in her after what she'd watched him do to her things, after what she'd felt him do to her spirit. She pushed the toast around and traced trails in the syrup with her fork, leaning her head on the heel of her hand, watching him from the corner of her eyes.

He was not a monster. She knew that. She knew that whatever evils he'd committed were in his past and although they -made- him what he was, they did not -reflect- what he was. She had to convince herself that his display had been just that, a display of the power he -could- exercise if he chose to. She prayed he wouldn't choose to, and was thankful for a sentence she'd spoken to him once. She had said, "There are some things I can't do, Master, even for you." She inhaled deeply, letting it out with a long sigh and put her fork down. She looked him in the eye and said, "Eric, we need to talk."

He glanced up, licking syrup from the corner of his mouth and tossing his head, moving a few wayward strands of hair from his eye. "About what?"

He dropped the 'pet' just as she'd dropped the 'Master'. It seemed to be the only way she knew when they were 'playing' and when they weren't. Usually it was an okay system, but for some reason, even this irked her now. The knowledge that he could walk up to her, call her pet once and expect her on her knees or whatever put her back up. If she'd been a cat, her fur would have bristled along her spine at the thought.

"We need to set some rules and some limits. I don't like living without knowing the boundaries of things. I need to know where I stand. I don't think I want something as crass as a contract, but I want to establish my limits and you'll just have to live with them, work with them, whatever. I am not prepared to be a slave. Especially not in the manner you implied earlier when you were invading my privacy, and yes, I still have that right!" she held up her hand to hush his opposition.

"I do not mind how you treat me when we're 'playing', but I don't want, and I won't accept, a twenty-four hour type of deal. We have to decide when I'm your's and when I'm mine. I know the two cross sometimes, and I know that theoretically, I'm always yours, but I won't allow you to turn me into a thing. When this was all online, it was much easier. You couldn't do things like go through my wallet. You could give me rules to follow, tasks to do, but you had no way of knowing if I did them. You had to trust me, didn't you? Like I trust you not to hurt me, like I trust you to stop when I say you must."

She took his hand in hers. "I love you. I want to please you, but not at the expense of my own self. I will bow to you, kneel to you, belong to you, as long as I can go back to being me, to being "Lili" when it's over. I can't cope with indefinite servitude. I need to see a break somewhere, because sometimes it gets to be too much and I need to find my center again. It's like when we first started, and I spent an entire month in a daze thinking about you. It felt wonderful, incredible, but at the same time, something wasn't right. The more I was yours, the better pet I was, the less I was mine. I didn't feel 'mine' again until January! Two and a half months of not feeling like my own person, Eric, think of that. I think it was the fact that we didn't see each other online much for awhile, that made me settle back into myself."

She sighed. "I think what I'm saying is," she smiled, "you'd damn well better put my stuff back where you found it." She grinned up at him, having gotten so much off her chest. "I feel much better now. I hope you're okay with this. I hope you understand."

He smiled gently and nodded as she started to laugh. "I know, you're going to try and tell me you did this to -make- me have this reaction!" She grinned. "Well, I don't believe it for a minute. For a second, maybe, but not for a minute." She picked up his hand and kissed it, then leaned over to kiss his cheek. "I love you."

"I love you too...," he hesitated, "...Lili."

She smiled. "I guess I still have that 'proud part' after all, that part that wouldn't let me kneel at first, that part you said you loved."

He smiled back at her and stood to clear the table, scraping her uneaten food into the dog's dishes and rinsing the syrup off the plates.

She stood and stretched, letting her robe fall open and hugged him around the waist, pressing her naked body against his back. He turned in her embrace and leaned down to kiss her mouth, his tongue gently exploring her lips. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she pressed close to him, smiling. He lifted her onto the island countertop, higher than the rest, just the right height to let him enter her without crouching, and she pulled his pants down, hauling his body toward her with her legs wrapped around his hips as he pushed her robe aside and gently kissed the red spots his fingers had made in the tender flesh of her breast. She pulled his head up to kiss his mouth, staring into his eyes as she did. They made love then, as two friends, two equals, and the love she felt surging up in her was enormous and overwhelming and made her cry as she came.

He held her tightly to his chest as she sobbed and laughed all at once, then he began kissing down her body, slowly working his way over her belly and between her thighs, his tongue reaching to taste his semen as it leaked from her, making her body shake again as he lightly touched her clitoris. She held his head and stroked his hair as he knelt there pleasuring her with his mouth and inside her the last rope of anger at him broke from around her heart. She smiled as her body was lost again in a wave of ecstasy and she held his head tightly between her thighs, rocking against his face until it had passed. He stood and cuddled her in his arms until she no longer felt limp and weak-kneed, and she kissed him gratefully, whispering her love for him.

***

That afternoon they shopped for groceries and she stocked the pantry as she saw fit, since she enjoyed cooking for appreciative people and knew he would enjoy the novelty of different meals for awhile. At home, she helped him feed his horse. Horses in general didn't interest her much, but she had to admit that some of them were downright beautiful.

She sat on the back porch and played catch with his dogs, rewarding them with sloppy kisses each time they retrieved the stick, and she watched him move around the yard as he tinkered with and mended things. She loved the way his tall body looked as he loped around on his long legs. She liked the look of concentration in his eyes as he bent to a task, and she loved the way the wind kept whipping his mane of hair around, and the way he kept wiping it from his eyes.

She planned what to plant in a few weeks when the weather was warmer, and wondered what sort of flowers would grow out here in the hot, dry summers. The weather here in Colorado was the complete opposite of what she'd been used to all her life on the east coast. There was rarely rain, but when it did rain, it did it in a big way, causing mudslides and fantastically beautiful electrical storms. The nights were usually clear and extremely cold from lack of cloud cover. She doubted she'd lie awake many nights too sticky with humidity to fall asleep. She hoped her allergies would abate too, without so many kinds of trees and weeds to set it off.

Of course there were other things about Colorado that she was sure she wouldn't like very much, the poisonous snakes and scorpions, the scorching sun that would turn her milky skin lobster-red if she neglected her sun screen for even a day, and the fact that there was no salt water for hundreds of miles. Her Maritimer's heart longed for that tangy smell on the wind and for the cry of gulls that had something to hunt other than stale french fries in a fast food parking lot.

But she could see snow on the peaks of the mountains. They looked close enough to touch, but she knew they were at least fifty miles distant, their immense size making her feel insignificant, even this far away. She adored the Rockies, had since she was a child and first saw them on a visit to Alberta. Her first view of a glacier lake left her speechless, even at twelve. The water had been a gorgeous blue green and the long trout had been visible from the shore, even though they were swimming forty feet from where she stood. She smiled, remembering the Moose Bird eating the worm off her hook when she left it lying on the grass, and grimaced recalling the grueling hike that had taken her family up the portion of the mountain that was too steep to drive, even in four wheel drive trucks.

She looked up as something touched her shoulder and she smiled to see the mare tilting her head waiting to be scratched. She scritched between her ears and could almost see her gratitude in the way her body relaxed and her eyes closed. She leaned back against the railing and looked at a huge bird floating on the currents and was amazed to see it was an eagle. Her mouth fell open in wonder and she almost laughed with happiness at being in her new home.

***

For supper she made lasanga. She knew he loved it and it was incredibly easy. As she simmered the sauce and chopped the veggies, she hummed quietly to herself.

He wandered into the kitchen, singing to her in a tuneless bass. She laughed and covered her ears and smilingly begged him to stop, then said, "You know, if we were ever having a scene and you wanted to torture me, all you'd have to do is sing." She chuckled. "I'd die laughing though, then you'd have some explaining to do." She poked him playfully in the belly and stood on tip-toe to kiss his lips.

As the sauce simmered, she set the table and found a partially burned candle in a drawer and decided to add it to the setting. She made more mental notes of things she wanted, including her good china and her appliances which were on their way from her former home. She couldn't wait to serve tea and little home made pastries on her strawberry patterned dishes and to sip hot coffee from the china mugs on cold afternoons curled up by the fire.

As they ate, they held hands across the table like two love-sick teenagers and she blushed when he told her how beautiful her smile was in the candle light. Afterward, when she started to clear the dishes, he waved her away and said he'd see to it, so she smiled and went off to run a hot bath.

She'd unpacked that afternoon, and now she pulled out her favorite soap and a few other essentials and walked naked to the steamy bathroom. She piled her long hair on top of her head and secured it with a scrunchie, then stepped into the bubble-filled tub and sank into the hot water with a wince and a sigh. She leaned her head back on a towel and closed her eyes, hearing the faint clinking as he washed the dishes.

She was nearly asleep when she felt a draft on her damp breasts and looked up to see him standing there smiling down at her. He shut the door to trap the warm, moist air and knelt by the tub to kiss her. Her body responded instantly and she felt the familiar warmth between her legs as she pulled his shirt off over his head. He reached into the water and found her washcloth and slowly began rubbing it over her newly pink skin. He washed the back of her neck, trailing kisses over the wet skin and rubbed the cloth behind her ears before following with his tongue. He worked his way down over her shoulders in the same manner, and had her sit up so he could do the same to her breasts. Her nipples stood out in the cool air and he lapped them one at a time into his mouth, nipping at the sensitive buds. She went weak and leaned on the edge of the tub and felt her stomach do a flip flop as his hands submerged and stroked down her sides to her ass.

He pulled her up onto the far edge of the tub and had her spread her thighs, then stroked the washcloth from her ankles to her knees, then up to her crotch. After teasing her for awhile that way, he picked up the small can of shave cream she'd set on the ledge and passed it to her saying, "Here, pet. You're too stubbly."

She smiled and took the can from his hand, shaking it and squeezing out a small dollop of green gel that quickly expanded to quite a lot of foam when she began to spread it on herself. As she prepared her skin, he picked up the razor she'd brought and removed the plastic cover. He dipped it in the tub water as she rinsed her hands and then he handed it to her. "Here. I don't want to cut you."

She took the razor and began to carefully pare the stiff hairs from her skin, leaving it smooth and shiny again as the water dripped down her legs. After she'd finished one side, he had her sit with her back to him. He rinsed the blade and reached around her, then carefully pulled the flesh of one lip taut and stroked the razor upwards, then did the same along the crease of her thigh. He smiled at her in triumph and she grinned back thinking how innocent he seemed at times. She took the razor from his hand and finished the trickiest part, where the white of her skin met the dark pink inner flesh, and where the itchiest hairs grew. She finished and put the blade away, then sank into the water to rinse herself free of the cream. She sat up on the edge again and let him stroke his fingers over her for approval. He nodded and kissed her shoulder, then held up a large towel for her to step into. He wrapped her up and pulled the plug on the tub as she dried off and started rubbing lotion into her puckered skin. He left the room before she'd finished and she heard him rummaging around in the other room.

She hung up the towel and walked naked back to the bedroom, feeling completely at home here. She stood before her mirror and let her hair down again, liking the way the damp tendrils framed her soft face, and the way the humidity of the bathroom had made her hair fall into its natural state of long ringlets. She brushed the hair back from her face, but left most of it alone, not wanting to disturb the curls.

She turned as she saw his reflection enter the room and went to sit with him on the bed, taking his hands in hers and kissing him deeply. "I love you, you know."

"I know. I love you too." He smiled then sat back. "Okay then. If you don't want to be mine all the time, does that mean I have to ask when I can call you pet?" He gave her an odd smile.

She smiled and shook her head. "Of course not. That would defeat the purpose, but I'd like to know that if I wasn't in the mood, I mean, really truly not in the mood, even just to please you, that you wouldn't force me. When I want to do it, it makes me feel good. It makes me happy to serve you, but if you forced me, or even felt like you could force me, I'd just react like I did this morning. It wouldn't be good for either of us because I'd resent you and hate every second of it. I don't think you want me to hate the time we spend together."

He nodded. "Okay, I think I understand. To you it's like a gift you give me, but there's a difference between giving a gift freely and having it stolen."

She nodded enthusiastically. "Exactly! Like I didn't mind when you called me pet in the tub, and I don't resent shaving for you. In fact, I love having a reminder that I am yours, that I'm special to you that way."

He kissed her nose. "You are very special to me, Lili." She smiled, then saw the expression in his eyes change subtly as he said, "Now lie down."

Her heart slowed and her mouth went dry as she crawled onto the bed to obey him. She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks and the moisture seeping between her legs already as she turned to lie on her back and regarded him silently. "Don't move," he whispered as he got up and left the room. He returned in a second with some lengths of cord and she shivered where she lay, her body tremoring and her mouth opening in surprise. He smiled at her expression as he securely tied her legs apart, fastening them to the posts at the corners of the bed, then did the same to her arms. He turned the heat up a bit in the room, and she guessed she'd be naked and exposed for quite awhile or he wouldn't have done that.