Chapter 57: When He Wrote Me From Spain
"It wasn't a plea. It wasn't nostalgia. It was a letter of gratitude—from a man who once knelt at my feet, now standing on foreign soil with a full heart." — Mistress Staci
The envelope was cream-colored. Thick paper. Foreign stamp.
No return address, but I knew the handwriting instantly.
Spain.
⸻
I opened it in the garden.
She was reading beside me, legs bare, sunglasses perched on her head. She looked up when I smiled.
"From him?"
"Yes."
She didn't ask to read it. She just reached for my hand and let me read it out loud.
⸻
"Mistress," it began.
"I've walked cobblestone streets at dawn with no one to serve but the day itself. I've learned to order wine in three dialects, and flirt with old women who sell fruit like philosophers."
"I think I'm beginning to understand freedom. It's not the absence of control. It's the choice to carry discipline into the unknown."
"I still sleep on the left side of every bed, even when there's no one on the right. Some patterns never leave you."
"Thank you for shaping me into a man who can now walk without direction— because he remembers the path carved by your voice."
"I hope you are happy. I hope you are touched often. I hope you are still the center of your own gravity."
"With eternal gratitude and quiet devotion— Yours, always."
⸻
I folded the letter and tucked it into the book I'd been reading.
She kissed the back of my hand.
"That was beautiful."
"He was beautiful."
"And now?"
I looked at her. At the sun on her cheekbones. At the mark I'd left on her collarbone the night before.
"Now, I'm even more so."
Chapter 58: My Life Became Exactly Mine
"I no longer needed rituals to feel control, or submission to feel love. My life had become something rarer: fully chosen, fully mine." — Mistress Staci