(Many thanks to CambriaRose for her editing this story for me, it sure reads better now she worked her magic on it.)
Her parents called me cold. Not to my face of course, I heard them in one of those moments I wasn't supposed to. In a not so unguarded moment her mother screamed at me that I was a monster for taking there daughter away from them, her husband managed to calm her and move her away from me before apologizing. His eyes gave him away, he agreed all to well with his wife's opinion of me. But to do this now and on the day of Angie's funeral was simply not acceptable.
It was my final promise to Angie that I would bring her home to be buried, the only reason she ever left Boston was to live with me. When Leukemia stole her from me I brought her back to her final resting place and as I watched her coffin slowly being placed in the family plot I said my final goodbye to her under my breath. Her Mother was a wreck, her Dad had trouble holding his wife up and at one stage I actually thought she was going to fall in and follow her daughter.
I stayed to the very end, her folks couldn't and although the invitation to join them at the family gathering afterwards was made, her parents and I knew that it was only meant as a gesture and they would rather I didn't turn up at all. I could see it in her Mother's hatred of me in her eyes, I had taken a child that was loved and turned her into something she wasn't and when I had finished using her I brought the body back. It just goes to show just how much they actually knew and understood Angie and I, and our relationship.
Angie knew it was also the reason I never came to visit them with her. She came back for birthdays, anniversaries and I allowed her to stay a week at a time. We never talked about it on her return and our lives continued the way we wanted it, not her folks.
It's said that when you stop looking for that specific something, that is usually when you will find it. That's how I met Angie, she was working in the family run flower shop and I had gone in for a flower for my lapel before going on to meet a client. As I held the flower in my hand, there was a crash and I turned to see Angie stood in the middle of the shop staring at me as though she had seen a ghost. Her father apologies but I hardly heard him. We exchanged pleasantries and (Angie admitted to this much later in our relationship) as I pulled some bills out of my wallet to pay for my flower one of my business cards came with it.
Angie palmed it and she called me later that evening. The rest as they say is our history, away from her family she was more forward than I expected, and when I pointed this out to her she simply said she didn't have time to be anything else. She knew what she wanted, and didn't want me to get away. It was on our second date I sat her down and told her what I was and my lifestyle.
She simply looked at me and said. "I know, I felt it the moment I saw you at the shop."
There was no point explaining anything else after that. Angie's submissive side only came out when she was with me or my closest circle of friends, her Italian heritage took over at any other time and for five wonderful years I had it all. Then that fateful day I came home from work and she said those words that change lives, 'We need to talk'.
The rain had only just started when I got on the plane from Boston. I had done what I had set out to do and left no real casualties. As much as I wanted to wipe the slate clean with her family I saw no point, neither did Angie when she sat me down to have that conversation. It was my last gift to the love of my life, I kept my mouth shut and left them to their grief, it was time to go home and deal with mine.
*******
Mark and his slave had been close friends of Angie and I all through our relationship, we had a standing date to go down to his place for a week at a time and enjoy each others company and slaves. Even when I returned from Boston Mark kept in touch and for the next year still tried to talk me into coming down for the week. He understood things were still too raw and accepted a rain check. He wasn't so forgiving the second year of asking and since I didn't have much else to do I joined him and his slave.
It was while I was there he told me about a place that had opened eighteen months before and they had become members of, it sounded like an interesting evening out so Mark phoned ahead and booked me in as a guest and all three of us went. I was standing by one of the events talking to Mark when he looked over my shoulder a fraction of a second before someone tapped me on it. Mark's face went pale and I turned to see two huge men standing watching me.
One almost a mirror image of the other, both bald with eyes that showed no emotion in them and neither looked like they had a neck. These two could handle themselves and the muscle they carried in suits that were clearly made to measure seemed to attest to that fact.
"Could you come with us, please."
It was patently obvious that it wasn't even remotely a request and since curiosity got the better of me I did just that. We wound our way through corridors and into the business end of the dungeon complex stopping at a door. One of the bruisers looked at me once more before knocking. Moments later he opened the door and we all entered. The six screens against the wall showed almost every part of the complex that the public had access to. Although five of the screens would flicker and change to a different part of the complex every ten seconds, only one screen stayed locked onto a woman knelt in the middle of a room. It took me a moment to realize that the seat turned away from us actually had someone sitting in it.
"She's beautiful, isn't she?"
The chair moved around and the man sitting in it faced me. For such a long time all he seemed to do was watch me. I simply stared back, we both seemed to be evaluating each other. My own reasons were one of self preservation, I was still confused as to why I was here and with these two gentlemen behind me. I was asked to come here for a reason I'm sure the true meaning of which would finally become clear now.
"Camera six. She's beautiful, isn't she?"
I looked beyond him towards the screens behind him, it still took me a moment to find camera six and then take in the picture of a naked woman in a mask kneeling in the middle of a room. Her hands were palms up and even in her mask she seemed to be looking at a spot some two feet in front of her. There was little else in detail about the woman; the room was plainly a private cell, the tools of the trade to any master or mistress using it hanging on the wall behind the kneeling slave.
"Forgive me for my rudeness, my name is Michael Cartwright. I own this establishment. Do you know the woman on screen six?"
My attention once again went back to this man that sat in the chair, I shrugged my shoulders. He seemed to take my silence personally, I could feel his two friends take a step closer to me. Michael finally stood from his seat; I didn't feel threatened by him. His two friends were a different topic. The grey hair on both sides of his head and the lean features made him look more like a school teacher than an owner of this type of establishment.
It was his piercing blue eyes that set him apart from any school teacher I knew, this man has seen so much in his life and seemed to resign himself to the fact that he couldn't change any of it. It was plain to see that he was assessing me just as much as I was him, for a moment he smiled, came around his desk and sat on the corner of it, pointing to a chair in front of his desk as he did so.
"I'm sorry, where are my manners, please sit, we have a few things to discuss."