Paper Anniversary
It was exactly one year since Jon met Vanessa. It had been a year with many awful moments. But there were good moments. Vanessa had never gone so long without disastrous developments in her life. She engaged in less self-destructive behavior. She had rewarding relationships with both Jon and Angelica. She was in extraordinary health. She was beginning to imagine a future where she was happy.
Jon told her to be prepared to celebrate their anniversary, but he hadn't said anything about how he planned to celebrate. As always, she prepared herself to be ready to make love as soon as he came home from work, but she felt certain Jon wanted to do more than that. To do something different.
She was right about that.
Vanessa met Jon at the door and gave him a passionate kiss. "Happy anniversary, baby," he said.
"I'm very happy," she said. "I hope you're happy too."
Jon carried his briefcase into the house. He never did that. "Are you ready for your gift?" he asked.
"Oh Jon, I didn't get anything for you," she said.
"You've given me a wonderful gift," Jon said. "You've worked hard to make our little arrangement succeed. You've done a wonderful job. You've done all the things I've told you to do. You're healthier than ever. You're happier. You did the most important thing I wanted - you didn't force me to send you to prison. I can't express how grateful I am."
He guided her over to the couch so they could both sit down. "I have something that I think you'll like," he said.
Opening his briefcase, Jon withdrew a thick stack of legal documents held together with staples. "Keep track of this," he said as he handed it to Vanessa. "You will need it in the future."
Vanessa looked at the documents; she couldn't tell what they signified. "A few months ago I talked to a lawyer about you," Jon said. "She suggested that it might be possible to arrange something that would make it so the mistakes you made in the past won't be such a burden to your future.
"Your criminal record has been expunged. From now on, if anyone asks if you've been convicted of a crime, you can honestly say no. Any employer who does a background check on you will find that you don't have a record."
Vanessa had lived under the cloud of her criminal background for so long that it was hard to wrap her head around the magnitude of what Jon had done. "Jon . . . I don't know what to say. Thank you. Those words are inadequate, but thank you."
"You are very welcome," Jon said. "But I have another gift."
He pulled a second stack of documents from his briefcase. "These are the records that document how you embezzled money from my company."
He ripped the documents in half. "I promise that I will never send you to prison. Starting today, you have a completely clean slate," Jon said.
Vanessa was shocked. She began crying - with joy and gratitude. "You overwhelm me, Jon," she said. "I love you so much."
"I love you too, baby," he said, wrapping his arms around her.
They sat there for a long time, enjoying the moment. "I am liking our anniversary so far," Jon said.
"I'm enjoying it a lot more," she said.
"I'm pretty sure that's not true," Jon said.
"I'm pretty sure it is," Vanessa said.
Jon pulled away from Vanessa. "There's more," he said.
"More? My God, Jon, how can there be more?"
"You're about to find out. I want to talk to you about something.
"Both of us have been seeing therapists. I've asked her to help me understand our relationship. Me and you. It's been helpful. I've learned a lot. It's a work in progress. Now, I've told her that you are an absolutely marvelous woman who regularly does baffling, self-destructive things. I've explained that this is the reason I've insisted that you agree to do everything I tell you to do. And the past year seems to prove that you are the kind of person who thrives if someone who loves you makes all your important decisions."
"That's exactly what my therapist says," Vanessa said. "He says he's never heard of a case quite like ours, but that lots of couples have the kind of relationship where one person makes all the decisions and the other does as they are told."
Jon nodded in agreement. "What my therapist says is that everyone has a part of their mind that's called the executive function. This is the part that allows people to decide which actions are smart and which are stupid. Apparently, prisons are full of people who don't have a very good executive function. I don't want to sound cruel, but this sounds like a plausible explanation for the reason you've made so many poor decisions."
"It doesn't sound cruel at all," Vanessa said. "It's very close to what my therapist tells me. Over and over, I've felt compelled to do things that a sensible person would never do. My therapist says there's something about the way my mind works that fails to stop me from acting impulsively.
"Impulsive. I like that word," Jon said. "Baby, I love you to pieces, and I'm very proud of how well you've done, but I'm still scared for you. I'm afraid of what will happen when you take back control of your life.
"I'm going to ask you a question. I don't want you to answer impulsively. I want you to think about it. I want you to sleep on it. Promise me that you won't answer this question until after you've had a chance to reflect on it."
"Ok. I'm baffled, but I promise."
"I want our romance to continue, but I'm afraid it will end tragically if we try to be like a normal couple," Jon said. "So here's the question. Will you agree to keep things exactly the way they are? Will you agree to do what I tell you to do, even though you no longer need to worry about prison? I don't want us to remain together unless I get to be in charge. I think this is the only safe way for us to be a couple."
Vanessa knew the answer. Of course she'd do that. She'd do it gladly. Jon had never told her to do anything that wasn't good for her. He was the reason she was experiencing the most tranquil period of her life. She smiled at him. "So you really don't want an answer now?" she said.
"Absolutely not. I need to hear you say what you feel after you've thought about it carefully. And I want you to prove you can keep taking orders. Don't answer now. That's an order."
"Very well, Master," she said, giggling. "Have I ever told you that you're the best Master a little slave girl like me could ever have?"
Since she couldn't tell Jon her answer, she leaned in and kissed him. He scooped her up off the couch and carried her to the bedroom. She stood quietly as he calmly removed her clothes, then laid her down on the bed. He took off his own clothes and laid down next to Vanessa, pulling their bodies together as he gave her a deep, passionate kiss. They'd been lovers for a long time now, and they knew exactly how to excite each other. When Jon began kissing Vanessa's cheeks and neck, she raised her arms over her head so he could touch her wherever he wished. He kissed her breasts and felt her nipples grow hard beneath his touch. He kissed her belly, working his way lower and lower.
They both knew exactly what would happen next. As in everything else, Vanessa surrendered all control to Jon when they made love. Sometimes he felt like being rough. Sometimes he liked playing erotic games. But on this night he felt like expressing his lovey being slow, gentle, and caring.
Vanessa knew that Jon would go down on her. She'd become so used to the way Jon excited her that she became aroused immediately. Jon had literally trained her body to respond quickly to the feel of his mouth and tongue. She spread her legs as far as she could, knowing he liked it when she opened herself for him. As she often did, Vanessa thought of herself as Jon's sex slave. It was her job to satisfy her Master, and nothing did that more than showing him how much he aroused his little slave.
She moaned as he made her cum. Jon kept kissing and licked around her pussy, avoiding her clit until she'd had time to recover. This was when she knew Jon expected her to beg. So she started to beg.
"Jon, please give me your cock," she said. "I need it so bad. Please, let me have it now. You're driving me crazy." They'd reenacted this scene so many times it unfolded naturally. Automatically. Effortlessly. Jon crawled up her body, kissing and nibbling as he went. He finally placed the head of his cock at the entrance to her pussy.