31 comments/  160104 views/  281 favorites

Emma's Master Ch. 01

By: MK156



It was fourteen steps to the grocery store. That was from my front door to theirs. Toe to heel. Even fewer if I could make them longer. If I could slow down and take seven steps instead of panicking and taking fourteen quick ones, arriving panting and teary eyed, practically bowling over elderly ladies in my haste to buy string cheese and turkey pastrami.

It's not that I counted them out of some idle curiosity. That I'd entered them into a mobile step tracker and was now working doggedly toward the modest goal of fifteen steps. No, it was more a desperate, cloying need that had forced me to keep track of the distance. You see, If I didn't concentrate on my feet, on the sound and the tenor, the rise and the descent of my own satisfying mark upon the earth, then undoubtedly I would begin to hear the steps behind me, the steps that weren't really there and yet drowned out all other steps. The footfalls of the one man I truly feared above all else.

He was everywhere. Behind every corner. Down every grocery aisle and if I let him, behind me now, slowly gaining on me, mowing me down. Yes I was almost sure of it now, that was him, those were his feet behind me. My pulse sped up and I started to run. Toward home. Toward the grocery store. I didn't care. Just away from him. Away from those footsteps. Oh my god I couldn't breath now. I pulled up short and went flying through the automatic doors of the store. Just in time for the jogger behind me to glide blithely by, completely unaware of the panicked girl in front of him.

Oh for goodness sakes, I thought, just a jogger. Again. Of course. Last time it had been a woman pushing a baby carriage. Oh the humanity. I drew in a deep breath. Keep it together Emma. Just get the food you need and go. I hadn't eaten in two days. Hadn't been able to summon the courage for this small odyssey around the block. I am such a fucking coward, I thought as I quickly made the rounds in the necessary aisles, trying to be as efficient as possible.

I was walking out of the dairy aisle, trying to remember how far I'd have to go for peanut butter when I heard the shots. I immediately stepped back into the aisle, well honed survival mechanism switching into full gear.

I fingered the knife in my pocket as I heard, "Okay, we're gonna do this nice and easy. Everybody on the floor. Take your cell phones out and put them in this here basket. Yep, that's it. Good," I could hear him walking closer and I clutched the knife harder while pressing my back up agains the shelf. I'd just stay right there until this whole robbery thing played out.

But sadly it was not to be, as the voice called out, "I saw you over there girlie." Maybe he didn't mean me. Maybe he meant some other girl.

"Yeah, I'm talking to you. The one pretending not to be hiding in the dairy aisle. Why don't you come on out and I won't have to hurt any of these nice people on the floor here?" Shit.

There was nothing for it. He'd find me anyway. Even if he did kill a few people first. I felt the blood race from my face as I stepped away from the shelf and hesitantly picked my way out from the quiet safety of milks and cheeses and into his fluorescent dominion.

A thin, wiry man with a cocky expression was holding a gun leveled at me, "Ah there you are now. And such a pretty one too!" I grimaced as this greasy weasel grinned at me and gestured with his gun, "Why don't you go over there girl and take a place on the floor huh?"

That's when I noticed the tattoo on his arm. Fuuuuck. This was so much worse than I'd originally thought. A simple robbery I could maybe handle but this...this douchebag just had to be a member of that shadowy organization I had spent the last five years so ardently engaged in dodging. What was he even doing out here? So far from Boston? I mean there was a reason I'd chosen this location and it wasn't to rub elbows mid-holdup with one of their tattooed ilk.

Okay, I thought, I'd just have to keep my head down and my jacket on. He wouldn't be able to see the marks with my jacket on. I dug my hands deeper into my pocket and fingered my knife again. I wouldn't make a move now. It would be stupid with him holding the gun at me like that. I didn't doubt he knew how to use it too. He wouldn't have those tattoos if he didn't.

He must have noticed something about my hands in my pocket though because he said, "now, I need to see those hands in the air. Understand? No need to be trying anything stupid now is there girlie?"

I tensed and slowly raised my hands while walking over toward the other captives cowering on the floor. I was desperately trying to keep my jacket sleeve up and over my right wrist and I almost cried in relief when I reached my fellow hostages and lowering my hands, made to get on the floor beside them.

A second later I realized I was feeling cold air on my naked wrist and I froze. Somehow, I'd let go of the cuff of my jacked and it had slipped to my forearm. I darted my hand down quickly, hoping with all my heart that he hadn't seen. Maybe, just maybe, I'd gotten it down in time. But when I looked up he was already upon me, grabbing my wrist roughly and pulling it back up to his searching eyes.

"Where's your master girl?" No No No No.

He was gripping my wrist so hard I couldn't twist it away. I couldn't laugh and flash it back up under my sleeve, flippant explanation in hand: Oh that? You see I was taking the most beautiful little quiche out of the oven when..... No, I was going to have to stall him.

"Home. He's at home."

I knew it wouldn't work but it was giving me time to reach for my knife with my spare hand. At least now that he'd seen the mark he didn't think I was a threat and he'd let his guard down a little. An arrogance I was well versed at exploiting. I kept my gaze locked on his while I reached into my pocket with my spare hand.

The weasel was still pensively examining my wrist, "Hmmm. I didn't know anybody was out here. Who did you say you belong to?"

"I didn't."

And then I acted, sweeping my leg out under his, stepping to the side as he fell forward, turning and gripping him by the hair while I held my knife under his chin. I hadn't spent the past five years watching and copying every self defense video I could get my hands on for nothing.

I pressed my mouth up to his ear and said softly, "I know how to do it so you die very, very slowly." 

I could feel his heart pounding faster and a soft "please" escape from him in a whisper. My fear was morphing into pure adrenaline and I pressed the knife a little harder, nicking a little, just to hear him draw in his breath and feel his pulse pound.

"Now, I'm going to take this gun you've got here and I'm going to walk out that door. And you are not under any circumstances going to follow me or tell anyone about me and in return I won't tell the police what those marks tell me about who you are. And where you live. And who you report to."

He nodded slowly as I backed away, warily eying the gun in my hand.

"Wait!" Said a small blond behind the cash register, "what are you doing?"

I had forgotten all about the other hostages but I was running short on luck and I had to disappear from here. Fast. Figure out the steps to another grocery store in another town.

"Don't worry I'm just going to leave. I'm not going to hurt you," I said.

I realized she wasn't talking to me too late. I was backing toward the door, my heart beating frantically when I accidentally backed into the wall. No not a wall. Walls don't breath.

I cried out as a hand snaked around my waist and held me while another wrenched the gun from my hand. I struggled violently against the unrelenting mass behind me but the hand on my stomach spun me around and I looked up into a pair of hard, black eyes. He was looking at me appraisingly, questioningly, "well, well, well what do we have here Jed? You let this little thing get the better of you?"

The weasel, now uncloaked as "Jed", was composing himself, casting a cruel smile my way. "She caught me by surprise is all, Patrick. Check out her wrist."

I pulled futilely at my arms as the behemoth called Patrick captured both my wrists and brought them to his face. His eyes widened and he said, "well aren't you just full of surprises?"

He turned his gaze toward Jed and cocked his head toward the hostages, all of whom were watching this little exchange in confused alarm, no doubt trying to gauge whether they could use the obvious distraction to their advantage. "Her master?" Patrick indicated in their direction.

Jed scanned the heads of his prostrate captives and said, "Doesn't look like it. I didn't notice the mark on any of them and no one's made a move since I grabbed her. I think she's here alone."

Patrick looked back at me, raising his eyebrows, "in this town? Where's your master girl?"

I looked right back at him defiantly.

He chuckled, "Ah okay, I see how it is. Looks like we're just gonna have to find the brand ourselves, aren't we?"

I went cold as the implications of his words shot through me. But still, I resolved I wasn't going to tell them a thing. Not one fucking thing. I wasn't going to help them send me back to Boston. No. Fucking. Way. I'd give them the slip first chance I got and then it was on to Utah or Oregon or Fiji or wherever the hell else these bastards weren't crawling like ants.

Patrick turned back to Jed, never loosening his tight grip on my wrists, "just grab some traveling cash and let's head back to the safe house. Something tells me this girl might be worth more than whatever we'd take from this job."

Jed nodded and grabbed a few wads of cash from the closest register.

Patrick pulled me against him as we walked outside and Jed wound a chain quickly around the door so no one would follow us, spilling the basket of cell phones as he did. They probably had a phone in the back but by the time the police got there we were already speeding away in the piece of crap van these guys deemed a suitable getaway car.

____________________

I squirmed on Patrick's lap as we made our way out of town and down a small country road. His grip tightened, "be still now girl. No point in struggling. We got you and that's all there is to it."

I supposed he had a point. I wasn't going to make much headway in a moving car. Besides, I could feel his erection beneath me and I didn't feel much like encouraging it.

When we finally reached a run down shack in the middle of the woods I was quickly hustled inside, no chance to scope out avenues of escape.

The minute we were through the door Patrick spun me around and asked again, "now are you going to tell me who your master is or am I going to have to figure it out for myself." He tapped a finger on my thigh.

I steeled myself but remained as still as ever, holding his gaze with a disdainful glare.

"Fine then if that's the way you want to play it let's just get you out of these here jeans and see what kind of animal we're dealing with huh?" I stiffened but clapped my eyes on a point on the wall and didn't move.

He turned me back toward Jed, "Hey man, why don't you come on over here and get this girl's pants down so we can get a good look at her?"

"Sure thing." Jed grinned hungrily as he approached me and I kicked out at him.

"Now, now that's not very friendly is it?" Jed said sweetly, "Especially when all's we're trying to do is return you to your master. How's about a little gratitude huh?"

"I'll show you gratitude" I bit out as I angled a sharp swing toward his groin. He parried away, then quickly dropped in front of me, placing a strong knee on each foot, trapping them on the floor.

I fought as he reached up for the buttons of my jeans but his fingers worked quickly and he shot me one last grin before he callously yanked them down to my knees. And then he just stared in shock.

"Holy fucking crap."

Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. I felt like my chest was going to explode. Why couldn't I have just burned over it or used a knife to alter it or any one of a number of things I had been sorely tempted but too chicken to attempt over the years? But it was too late now. Now it would be my undoing.

"What?" Said the other shit-for-brains.

"Look at this." He was still pressing my feet tightly to the ground while he motioned his partner's gaze to my thigh. I was holding on to the irrational hope that I could actually explode his brain with my mind if I glared hard enough.

"Fuck me. Is that Cannon's mark?" Now he actually looked me in the eye, undaunted by my glare. "You belong to Jack Cannon?"

"I belong to no one," I spat. I remembered the awful day I had gotten that mark they now regarded with such gravity. All he had proven was that he was stronger. It didn't mean anything.

Jed gestured to my thigh, "Now see though, little lady, that mark there begs to differ."

"And small hands are a sign of a small dick but you don't see me calling you out, dickless."

In a second he was off his knees and his hand shot out. Pain lanced across my face.

"Jesus Jed, lay off. We don't want to have to go explaining to fucking Jack Cannon why his property's all marked up now do we?"

Jed looked sheepish for a moment and said, "s'pose your right Patrick. Little bitch got the better of me for a moment's all. Won't happen again."

"Good. I'm gonna go put her away and then we've got a phone call to make."

________________________

"Hey girlie, guess what?"

I was sitting on a cot in the dingy spare room I'd been installed in when Jed came back to tell me the good news.

"Looks like your time with us is gonna be short-lived after all. Your master's on the first flight outta Boston. Gonna be here by this evening!"

This evening. This Evening. I let the words flow over me in stunned silence for a minute. This. Evening. I felt the shape of them on my tongue, let them roll around in my head until their full meaning dropped right down into my stomach.

I felt my heart seize up in my ribcage. Every breath felt like agony. Blood was pounding in my ears and every instinct was screaming at me to run, run, run! Except, this time there was nowhere to run to. No automatic doors to fall into, no senile shoppers to startle. Just a locked door and this pathetic waste of space beaming at me from across the room, a sadistic gleam in his eye.

"Seems he's real interested in seeing you again. Wouldn't be too worried about it though, seeing as you were only gone what? Five years? Not nearly long enough to come up with a real nasty punishment. No, not nearly long enough at all." And with that he turned and closed the door behind him.

I felt sick. That overpowering general kind of sick that extreme dread engenders. It had no locus. It's domain was everywhere and everything and I let it take over until I was clutching at the lip of the toilet in the small bathroom and purging myself of all the tap water and diet cola I had managed to consume in the last two days.

__________________________

It was a long time before I heard footsteps again. I had inexplicably managed in the ensuing hours to wrestle back some small measure of my self-composure. Utterly terrified and dejected as I was, I was determined not to let it show. I would face him on my own terms. I had earned as much.

Yet, despite my conviction, I reflexively shot up and backed against the wall at the sharp sound of new steps in the hallway outside my door. I knew those footsteps. They were the ones behind me, taking seven strides to my fourteen. Except this time, I reluctantly acknowledged, this time I knew they wouldn't suddenly morph into a jogger or a young mother or a wind-swept soda can. This time my fear would be realized, validated as I never wished it to be.

And there again the genuine sound of his solidified shoes on the wood floor, bringing him slowly and inexorably back into my life. I tried hopelessly to control my breathing. Measuring it to those steps. Step. Breath. Step. Breath. Step.

And then he was standing in the doorway. 

He was standing in the doorway not ten feet from me staring right at me with those cool, blue eyes that felt like quicksand. My heart pounded as I tried to read his expression. Tried to weigh just how much trouble I was in. But he just stood there at the door, remorseless gaze running over every inch of me, relearning, reclaiming, stopping briefly at the bruise on my cheek.

"Now, she got a little rough and we might have had to mark her up a bit, but shouldn't be nothing permanent Mr. Cannon." Anger flashed across his face but I wasn't sure if it was for me or the useless, sycophant at his side.

There was nothing for it. I took a few steps away from the wall. I wasn't going to face him as a cornered animal. Not after all this time. On my own. Away from that formidable stare. I lifted my chin and stared right back. 

I caught the familiar slant of his thick, black hair brushing over his high forehead, the firm shape of his arms and the smooth dip of his strong chest. Yes, I begrudgingly acknowledged, he was still just as handsome as he had ever been. It had never helped that to an outsider he did not look the part of a cruel demon. Only his ice blue eyes betrayed a coldness that I was all too conscious of.

For a minute we stayed like that. In challenge to the abyss that seemed to yawn between us. Jed looking from one to the other.

But then his mouth curved just slightly and holding my gaze, he lifted his eyebrows in challenge and pointed to the floor at his feet.

Just like that he'd closed the distance and years of pain and indignation exploded inside of me. Anger nearly boiled out of my ears. Who the hell did he think he was? It'd been five years! And he thought I was just going to go back to kneeling at his feet and kissing his shoes. Like nothing had happened? He must have lost his mind in the intervening years.

I bit back a barrage of curses as I took a breath and held my ground. I had to keep it together or I had no chance against him. He was patience personified. I gripped my fingers into balled fists and stuck out my chin out further.

He shrugged and slowly took a step forward. So what? I wasn't going anywhere. Let him try and come for me. He'd regret it. I'd learned a few things since the last time I'd knelt before him. He took another step. And then another. He was in no hurry. My skin felt like it might erupt in fury. Or fear. Or anticipation. And then he was in front me. Not touching.

And that's when I made my move.

I leapt forward and launched my shoulder hard into his chest but instead of putting him off balance as it should have, he only looked surprised before I swung my knee up for his groin. He caught it, holding my knee and forcing me on one leg while he looked at me with renewed interest, "well that's new."

I desperately attempted to wrench my knee from his unforgiving grip, trying to look as defiant as I could on one foot.

He gripped my knee harder and said, "Emma." As much in warning as in greeting.

I looked right back into his eyes and said "Jack" with all the confidence I could evince in my compromised position.

His lip quirked up slightly and I took the opportunity to assert, "I'm not going back with you, Jack."

Now he smiled fully, "well, then this is awkward," he let go of my knee and stepped back calmly "because that's exactly what I say you'll do and as I'm sure you'll remember..." He smiled again and made sure I was looking at him closely, "what I say goes." I tried to keep my calm. I really tried. But suddenly I couldn't breathe. I felt the bile rising from my stomach and the blood rushing from my face. And then everything went dark.

When I came to I was on the floor and his powerful arms were trapping me in his lap. He was looking down at me sternly, "when was the last time you ate?"

I scowled, trying to pull away from his grasp. He tightened his hands and raised an eyebrow, "answer me Emma."


Emma's Master Ch. 01



"I don't know yesterday maybe. I don't know. What do you care!" I spat out.

Jed was next to him offering him a banana.

He took it from him, "she's hypoglycemic and it's a very stupid thing not to eat."

I mumbled angrily, "what do you think I was doing at the grocery store before that fucking gorilla got me? Buying lotto tickets?"

He ignored me, holding the banana to my mouth. I reached up to take it but he grabbed my arm and held it to my waist.

"No."

"If you think I'm going to let you feed me-"

"I do think you are. And you know why? Because you plan on fighting me and if you plan on fighting me then the fainting is going to become increasingly inconvenient, wouldn't you say?"

I frowned. He had a point. It was just a little fruit anyway. It's not like it meant anything.

I opened my mouth warily and let him slide it past my lips, taking a bite. I looked up and caught him grinning slightly as he pushed the banana further into my mouth. I rolled my eyes. Seriously? His gaze darkened somewhat but he kept feeding me. I stiffened at the threat but it wasn't like I was really going to have been able to avoid punishment. Not after dodging him for five years like I had. The thought of what he had in store for me made my stomach heave again. Maybe it was a good thing I hadn't eaten so much lately.

I hadn't even noticed I'd eaten the whole thing until he was pushing me from his lap and standing up. He towered above me and I moved to rise. Fuck him if he thought I was going to just kneel there docilely. But before I could get my legs out from under me he pressed a strong arm to my shoulder and leant down to grasp my neck with his other hand.

"Emma."

"Jack," I glowered and vainly pulled against his hand.

He gave me a warning look and reached into his pocket. I saw the object in his hand and immediately lost my shit.

"NO! No fucking way Jack! Get that thing away from me or I'll tear your goddamn eyes out, I swear I will!" I was thrashing wildly, not caring that his grip was tightening around my throat.

"No Emma. You won't sweetheart. This is happening and if you'd prefer that I call Jed over here to help, I will."

I stilled slightly, chest heaving, eyes wet with tears. He was going to do it and I was powerless to stop him. God, I hated feeling this powerless but the thought of Jed's hands on me again disgusted me and I stopped thrashing. I stared up at him while he brushed my hair out of the way and fit the slender ring around my neck, locking it behind me. I could feel tears escaping now, running down my chin and over the...the "thing." He brushed them aside and tested the fit with his finger.

Just like that he'd claimed me again. After everything I'd been through. After all the years of running, of hiding. I had been on the run from him longer than I'd been his but it was all for nothing at this moment. The silver band felt like cool acid against my throat and my emotions were threatening to erupt in ways inconvenient to my resolve to exude strength. I took a deep breath and met his gaze again.

"I'm not." I said confidently. I couldn't even say the word.

He brushed my hair back again and lessened his grip on my head. "Your collar has a GPS chip in it this time, my little runaway, so don't get any ideas."

Fuck.

He gave me one more soul-stripping stare and turned toward the door "Come Emma, let's go home."

It's not my home asshole, I thought. But when I thought about it, I wasn't really sure where my home was anyway. Certainly not that dingy cupboard I'd been living in the last few months and both my parents had died years before Jack found me so there was no home there either.

He was almost to the door when he turned his head for a moment to see me still kneeling, thinking on the floor. Why was I still on the floor? I was supposed to be showing strength god damn it! I started to stand.

Jed inserted himself again and my chest contracted "I don't suppose I could persuade you to--"

"No." He was still looking at me. I exhaled in relief.

He raised an eyebrow, "Are you coming? Or would you rather stay here with Jed?"

Jed looked like he wouldn't object to the latter option. I ignored them both, my choices laid out before me as I fixed my eyes on a point beyond the door, squared my shoulders and walked right past them.

He said nothing but I could feel him a few steps behind me.

Outside on the sidewalk I didn't recognize any of the cars and I curbed my violent urge to continue walking right on down the street, past that lamppost, past that far-off mailbox and straight on into the next town and then the next and the next. Of course I wouldn't have gotten much farther than the next block with this thing around my neck but it was a nice thought.

I'd have to wait for him to show me which car was his so I stopped as he strolled right past me and the taillights blinked on an expensive looking SUV. He reached for the passenger side door, motioned for me to get in and waited. I stared at the door for a second and then glanced past him up the street. Somewhere far away I heard a sharp, shrill laugh and it occurred to me that somewhere there were people living their lives, going about their day, completely oblivious to this man standing patiently in front of me, holding open a car door. It didn't seem possible.

I knew he was waiting for me to effectively commit myself into his keeping. To step inside that car of my own volition. But I was certainly in no hurry so I dragged it on a moment longer until I heard a quiet "Emma."

Suddenly, I wasn't so sure he wouldn't just leave me there with Jed. Not forever of course but an hour would have been too long. So I jerked my chin back up and walked, with all the dignity I could gather straight into the vise-like clutches of my captor. He waited for me to get in and situate myself before closing the door softly as if we were only on the way to the movies or a night on the town.

He got in on his side and put the key in the ignition. "Put your seatbelt on." I did. The car started. And then we were on the road. Back to Boston. Back to the life that I had spent five years running from and the house that had been my prison.

He said nothing as the car made it's way along the highway, whipping past other drivers like the wind. I clutched at the door handle. He had always driven too fast and I had never liked it. I tried to concentrate on a point in the sky. A tree, a mountain. Anything.

I felt pressure on my thigh and realized that somehow he had reached out without me noticing and closed his hand on my knee, squeezing slightly. I looked up startled and caught him staring at the road as if his hand acted of its own accord. It shouldn't have but it calmed me just a little and I let his strength seep into me for just a moment. Just long enough to suck in a breath before the hand went back to the wheel.

"Don't you ever worry about getting pulled over?"

"No."

I huffed and rededicated myself to the scenery. The mountainous terrain surrounding us was actually quite breathtaking and I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of returning to a city. Not that I'd be seeing much of it, I thought despondently.

We rode on in silence for a few more hours and I could feel the tension of all the years I had managed to stay away from him between us, mounting and intensifying as the hours grew. My palms started to sweat a little and my breathing became shallow. I kept stealing small glances his way but he never looked away from the road. Well, I thought, it wasn't like he had anything to worry about.

When we stopped in a motel parking lot I looked at him bewildered. I had half-expected him to drive through the night, not even stopping for food. But he got out of the car and came around to mine.

When I had stepped out he put his hands on my shoulders and bent down so he was level with my eyes, "We are going to go inside and you are not going to say a word. You know you'd only hurt them if you did. I'd have to make a call and I know you don't want that."

I swallowed. He had that dangerous look in his eyes that reminded me again why he was the sort of man who was capable of taking a woman from her life and making her his slave. Yes, I knew I would only hurt anybody I tried to make contact with. That had been made abundantly clear the first time he'd snatched me seven years ago. Again, there would have to be another way.

I nodded and he looked into my eyes for another minute before he pulled away, apparently satisfied, and pressed his hand against the small of my back, urging me toward the main office.

____________________________

When we were standing inside the beat-up motel room he'd procured for us I let the reality of my situation descend fully. For two whole years I'd been his. Lived in constant fear of him, never daring to contradict or disobey. Not until the day I'd finally seen a way out, only to spend another five years in fear. Terrible, soul-rending fear. And now here we were. Just the two of us. Alone. No more distractions. And again I felt that sickening fear creeping back up my spine. I couldn't look at him. The atmosphere in the room seemed palpable as I stared at my shoes and felt his eyes on me.

"Sit."

Now I had to look at him. If only to prove to myself that he couldn't order me around anymore. I was my own person now. I'd fought hard for that. I held my ground and he rewarded me with a look that would have brought mountains to their knees had they been afforded the appendage.

"I said sit Emma. You look like you're about to be sick."

I looked at him for another minute. Just to be sure he knew I was sitting because I wanted to sit and then sat down on the edge of the bed. He nodded as if I had obeyed him.

"Good. Now," He pulled a chair up to where I sat, "we have some things to discuss and then I'm going to fuck the ever living daylights out of you." I sucked in a breath and felt a familiar shiver run through me. Just like that. as if he were discussing dinner.

As I opened my mouth to protest he held up a hand and said seriously, "before I came for you I checked out that rat-infested shithole you were living in to see if there was anything worth taking. How long were you living there?" I didn't even ask how he even knew where I was living.

"I don't know six months maybe?" I grumbled defensively. It was definitely not one of the more glamorous hovels I'd deemed habitable in the last five years but it wasn't the worst.

He ran his hand through his hair in annoyance, "for fucks sake, Emma, there wasn't even any food in that place! Do you realize how dangerous that is for you?"

I tensed at his anger. He so rarely let it show. "I was going to the--"

"Why were you living like that? Why didn't you just come home?"

"It's not--"

"Forget it, I don't know what I was thinking. It's pointless to pursue the matter right now."

His gaze skated proprietarily over my body and I stiffened. He met my eyes again and sighed, "I know why you left Emma. I even understand in some part why you stayed away." He did?

He ran his hand through thick hair again and followed my eyes, "So I'm letting you know right now that I'm not going to punish you for that. I think the last five years have been punishment enough."

I felt enormous relief wash over me. The single most terrifying thought I'd had during the entirety of my time away from him was what he would do to me if he ever got his hands on me again.

"You understand of course that while it's not exactly a punishment I will have to revoke all privileges you'd gained. You'll be starting at zero again." I couldn't have expected much else. In truth, the revelation that he was not, in fact, planning to kill me had me somewhat more amenable to his terms.

"Okay," I said indifferently. Besides I'd find a way out again anyway. Even if it took another two years.

His look darkened slightly as he stood up and walked toward me, "however while I am not going to punish you for running I do need to address these little rebellions of yours before they get out of hand. I know you're struggling to accept it and I'm a patient man but I am your master Emma and I will not tolerate disrespect. Turn around and bend over the bed." He gestured casually toward the end of the bed.

Oh fuck, oh fuck. This wasn't happening. I couldn't let him do this. This would only be the beginning. If I did this I would be admitting to him, to myself, that I was his again. That he had the right to do what he planned. I started to feel the panic rising up into my chest as my breathing got quicker and I started to hyperventilate.

He brushed a hand agains my cheek and sighed again, "Okay Emma, I can see this is difficult for you so I'm going to go ahead and tie you down this time." Yeah great. A regular fucking white knight.

I rigidly sat and gripped the sides of the bed as he moved over to his bag and pulled out some rope. I stared longingly at the door but I knew it was pointless. Even if I made it out before he caught me, I wouldn't make it far and the GPS chip in my new collar pretty much ruled out any long term plan. So I was forced to wait, resentfully docile, while he gathered the means for my impending confinement.

I savored the fact that at least I was still clothed and as of yet, collar incident aside, had not really cried. I was certain, however that both of these boons were teetering on the brink of destruction as he stalked toward me, rope in hand, stern expression holding me in place.

He reached out for my arm and jerked me up, turning me away from him. I struggled against him but he brushed a hand down my side, "shh, be still. I don't want to have to punish you any more than I already need to."

He pushed me roughly over the end of the bed, onto my chest and looped the rope around my wrists. I was breathing hard and squeezing my eyes shut in anticipation. He grabbed the rope around my wrists and tied it off to the iron headboard. I pulled against the bindings briefly but it was a token struggle as they were well and truly captured.

I tensed as I felt him move closer and slip his arm under my stomach. He lifted me off the bed slightly while his other hand moved to the buttons on my jeans. He undid them quickly and then held me tightly while he slowly slipped them down over my ass and around my knees. He paused briefly to run a hand over my white cotton underwear and I shivered. Why did I do that? Keep it together Emma. 

He gripped the elastic band of my panties and yanked the thin material unceremoniously down to my jeans. I flexed my trapped hands uselessly, as I was bared to his gaze. I could feel it burning into my back as he moved a hand searchingly down my thigh. I knew what he was looking for and I cringed and squirmed when his hand stopped at his brand and he rubbed the evidence of his ownership slowly, reverently.

I felt him pull away from me and tried to turn my head to see what he might be planning but he was hidden behind me. Then I heard it. The soft sound of leather sliding free of cloth. His belt. Now I knew the instrument of my chastisement but I was no better off with this information than I had been without it.

Now his hand was brushing down over my back, resting on my ass, "One for improper use of address, two for failure to obey a command and five for lying."

Eight strokes? I wasn't sure I could handle eight. That would have been excessive even back in the old days. Besides, when did I lie?

"When did I--?"

He cut me off. "You tried to deny that you were mine. You've always been mine Emma. You know that." Did I? It was no use arguing with him though. Not with him already standing over me, belt in hand, punishment spelled out.

I knew what was coming. "Count the strikes or they won't count and I'll have to start again."

He was going to make me participate in my own debasement. I felt the inevitable tears threatening to rise as the first blow came down hard on my backside. A pain I had all but forgotten in the past five years came rushing back to me and I eked out, "one!"

"Good girl," I heard him say and I blushed at the old endearment. I hated being spoken to as if I were an obedient puppy and he knew it.

I had little time to ponder my circumstances though before the second agonizing blow rained down just as hard on the backs of my thighs and I called out "two" just before the third arrived in quick succession. I felt a few tears finally escape as I numbered the next few strikes. By six I had devolved to full on sobbing. He delivered the next two quickly and efficiently, never hitting the same place twice as I screamed and writhed beneath him.

When he stopped I was crying so hard I could barely see. He sat down next to me, running his hands all over me, kissing my reddened behind, stroking down my thighs and over my back. Despite myself and to my utter vexation I felt a warmth start to seep into my body, sparking wherever his fingers trailed, sending tingling signals down between my thighs.

"Shhhh, it's over now baby. It's over. Please don't make me do that again any time soon." Make him? All I had done was insist on being my own person. Stood up for myself. Refused to kowtow to his claims of dominance. I knew it would be pointless to argue the point though and truthfully his punishment had, at least temporarily, manifested the intended affect of chipping away at my need to resist him.

I had been so afraid of what he would do to punish me that now that it was over there was actually a certain relief. As he swiped at my tears and brushed back my hair I almost slipped into a kind of subdued torpor.

After a while, he lent down and whispered in my ear, "Are you wet, little bird?"

I stiffened at his words, that old term he'd used to imply my fragility. He always had a way of tearing through whatever small contentment I had managed to attain and returning me right back to extreme unease.

I looked at him wide eyed as he raised an eyebrow and said, "should I check?"

"No!" I shouted in indignation. How dare he make the assumption that I was still so easily aroused by him. Never mind if it was true, he shouldn't just assume.

His mouth was still tantalizingly close to my ear, "No what? No you're not wet or no you don't want me to check?" His hand was moving slowly over my ass and inching toward the crevice beneath it.

I couldn't help it. His soothing touches had managed to affect me as if I had never left his keeping. The response was practically pavlovian. I wasn't going to be able to hide it so I buried my head into the mattress and whimpered. He chuckled when he reached my slit and ran a finger along it, "Ah very, very wet I see." I let out a small sob at the unfairness of my traitorous body.

"Emma," he soothed, pushing the tip of his finger just inside me. I jumped and pulled at my bonds again. "This is just your body reacting to the one who owns it. It knows who I am, even if you still can't accept it."

I gasped as he pinched my clit and drove his finger all the way inside me. Oh fuck. His free hand meandered over my right thigh and he rubbed his brand again before urging me to step out of my jeans and turn over.

I could see him clearly now. The unadulterated lust written across his face. I startled as he took out a knife but he just rubbed a hand over my belly in reassurance and quickly cut me out of my t-shirt and bra. Baring me fully to his roving eyes.

For a minute he just took me in. I was briefly annoyed that I had not spent the past five years arduously committing myself to obesity or some other ploy to make myself less attractive to him. But if anything I had firmed up with all the self defense tapes I'd been practicing with.

"You are beautiful Emma," he breathed while brushing his hand over my right breast, thumbing my nipple. It immediately rushed up to meet him and I groaned in frustration. He quickly ducked down and took it in his mouth as I cried out. His other hand traveled back down to my mound and brushed softly against my clit once, twice, "Ohhhhh" escaped me before I could clamp my mouth shut.




Emma's Master Ch. 01



He smiled down at me and swiped a stray hair from my eyes.

"Would you like my cock Emma?"

"No," I narrowed my eyes at him. There was no way he was going to get me to beg.

"Hmm you're not lying to me now are you Emma?" He pressed firmly against the little bud again and I yelped as he pushed two fingers back inside me. His mouth went back to suckling my nipple.

"No-oh-oh."

He looked up from my breast and his words brushed against the slick, erect tip, "Because you know how I feel about lying don't you?" He ran his hand against my smarting behind.

"Yes." Shit. 

"Now I'm going to ask you one more time. Do you want my cock inside of you Emma?" He slowly lowered his zipper, reached into his jeans and took out his sizable erection. I felt my insides clench at the familiar sight of it.

He leaned down over me, rubbing himself against my thigh.

"Yes," I whispered.

"Yes what?" I knew what he wanted to hear. But I couldn't say it. Couldn't even think it. He brought his cock up to my entrance and grazed it without going in.

I groaned and said, "Yes sir," hoping it would satisfy him.

"Hmmm. I guess that's good enough for now." On the last word he thrust himself inside of me. Claiming me all at once. I felt my pussy stretch and ease around him as if I were made for him and I briefly gave myself over to the wonderful feeling.

God, I'd missed this. Did I just think that? No, no I couldn't let him do this, I couldn't let him wear me down again until I was nothing but his plaything, his possession. Nothing without him. But then he pulled out slowly and thrust back in with a groan and my mind went blank.

He must have sensed my ambivalence because he leaned down to kiss me, demanding, claiming, "just give in to it baby. Just give in to me."

Somewhere in my sex-addled mind I could hear him and I railed against his order but then I felt him descend again, pressing forward onto my aching clit and I lost all sense, bucking up against him.

"That's it baby. That's it. Would you like to come?" Oh god yes. I bit back a whimper.

He stilled inside me when I didn't answer and looked down at me, "You know what to do." No. I couldn't. It would be too much. Admitting too much.

He was moving in tiny little circles. Enough to keep me on the edge but not enough to go over and into that careless free-fall I was so recklessly striving for. I curled my hands around the rope at my wrists and tried to move against him. He moved his legs to trap mine and smiled down at me."You know how long I can hold out." He gave a warning thrust and I unraveled.

"P-please. Please sir, may I come?" I intoned quietly. A tear of frustration escaping down my cheek. He kissed it away and smiled.

"Yes Emma, you may." He seemed to spring back to life, tearing into me with a renewed vigor as he sucked a breast into his mouth and flicked his tongue against the nipple. "Come for me baby."

I felt myself fly right over that precipice, plunging straight into the bright, untroubled drop on the other side.

Somewhere, in some far away realm, I heard him growl his release and moan "mine" into the nape of my neck.

Later, I thought, I'll think about it later.



Emma's Master Ch. 02



We were both still breathing heavily when he finally softened and pulled out of me. I stared at the ceiling and let myself bask in the floaty feeling of post-orgasm while he reached up for the rope at my wrists.

He rubbed where they had chafed and reddened the skin and brought them to his lips briefly.

"You took your pill this morning?" 

"Yes." I hadn't exactly sworn off sex. Well, not on purpose at least. I hadn't given up on the idea of sex and my eventually becoming a regular non fear-driven member of the great societal machine people who are not claimed as slaves generally perpetuate.

"Good. I have them." I turned away from him on my side. Now he would take over my healthcare like he had everything else, I thought with annoyance.

He slipped in behind me, drawing me hard against the length of him. His powerful body dwarfed mine on the motel queen and I slowly started to climb back out of my disconcerting reverie. I wasn't even sure how I'd let him take me that far. 

My only defense was that I hadn't gotten laid in a very, very long time. 

There had been a few men, boys really, who had made it past the threshold over the years. But then they would bend down to kiss me or fumble for my bra or push up my skirt and I would be overcome by the feeling that I was betraying him, that I had no right to let them touch me. It was absolutely absurd so I would push the thought aside but then they would speak or brush back my hair and I would find myself inexplicably showing them back to the door.

His chin was pressing against the top of my head and I said, "How long?"

"You know how long."

Always.

His hand was sprawled across my naked stomach and his thumb was slowly stroking back and forth.

Now that the fear was gone, I could give into the entirety of it. Of this claim he pressed on me. Of my obvious inability to control myself around him. Of his arms. Around me. I could feel myself slipping back into a kind of hopeless despair.

"I can't do it. I can't do it again Jack. It's not fair," but it came out more strained than angry through my tears.

He held me tighter and I felt his jaw press against my scalp, "yes, you can baby. I know you can. You just have to let go and let yourself be mine."

Never, I thought.

"Can't you just-?"

"No."

"Why not? You know I won't tell. It's been five years!"

He turned me around abruptly, pulled my head back by the hair and growled as he took my mouth in a deep, bruising kiss.

He pulled back to look into my eyes, his hand still fisted around the auburn strands of my hair.

"You're mine."

"That's not an answer!" I started audibly crying and his fist at my scalp turned into a calming stroke. He didn't speak for a while and I just cried into his shoulder while his fingers trailed lightly up and down my back.

"It'll be different this time, Emma," he soothed.

"How?" I choked out. "How could it be different if I am still-?" I still wasn't saying it.

He kept stroking, speaking softly, "It will only be me. Just me." 

It was rare but sometimes in the years before I had had to cater to any high ranking business associates of his that demanded it. I hated this more than any other part of belonging to him but it had always seemed like something that was just done. I wondered how he would manage to keep me to himself.

"How?"

"I have fewer to answer to." He tightened his hand in my hair again, "I never liked having to share you." Yeah, it must have been really hard on him.

"And Leon?"

"He'll respect what is mine."

"What about Marshall?"

He didn't answer for a minute. I think sometimes he thinks of Marshall as an extension of himself.

Finally he said, "we'll see. But I think, only if you want to." 

I stilled in shock. Only if I wanted to? I never in a million years thought I'd hear that from him.

He laughed, "Get some sleep, little bird. We're on the road again tomorrow."

I muttered quietly against his chest, "I am neither little nor a bird."

But I was already drifting off in his arms.

________________

When I woke up, the other side of the bed was cold and I was struck by a momentary sense of loss. 

It surprised me. I had spent the last five years waking up alone in strange places. This was no different. I brushed the unwelcome emotion aside and swung my feet over the side of the bed.

I pulled on my jeans and glanced down at the irreparable state of my t-shirt on the floor, wondering if he was going to make me ride back to Boston topless. I wouldn't put it past him.

Luckily after a quick sweep of the room and bathroom I found a t-shirt laid out next to a note on the bureau scrawled by an all too familiar hand:

"Went to get food. Stay." 

Stay? I crumpled up the note and threw it vehemently across the room with a satisfying curse.

Now that I knew I was alone I allowed last night to brush across my memory in sharp, stinging, blush-inducing pangs of shame. I couldn't even ingest it fully. It was flashing by in bright, little scenes flooding with emotion and then fading away. The kind that amnesia patients experience in movies. The next one ever more revealing than the one before it until my face felt like it was on fire. Had I really asked for his cock? Fuck.

OK, I conceded, obviously, the asshole could still get to me. But that had to be because of the anxiety-induced, involuntary abstinence right? Next time I'd be better prepared. I took a deep breath. Yes, that was it. I had just needed to let go of some pent up stress. I tried to console myself with this but the memory of his cock inside me, of my blinding orgasm, of his hands....It was like a gaping wound in my mind and I couldn't stop brushing up against it just to see if it had closed yet.

I looked at the door.

If we were any other couple. If this were any other day. If I was any other place. I would just get up. I would think I am hungry. Or I would like some ice. And I would get up and I would go to the door. And I would open it. And I would go outside. And I would think what a nice day. Maybe there would be someone on the other side and we would smile to each other. Maybe they would say isn't it a nice day? Maybe I would say why yes it is. And then I would go for food or ice or I would walk. I would walk and I wouldn't even count the steps. I would just walk. Somewhere else.

But instead I am just sitting here like the goddamn note ordered me to do, I thought angrily. 

So then I did get up and I did walk to the door and I did touch the doorknob and pull it down sharply. It will be locked, I thought. Of course it will be locked. But it wan't locked and the door pushed out and into the world outside. I had briefly forgotten there was a world outside and I wondered if it would still remain unchanged after last night. Last night. And there it was again, flashing by in technicolored sensation.

I looked around anxiously at the parking lot. There was no one around. How long had he been gone? What time was it? I fingered the collar at my neck and pondered the possibility of making a clean break. I'd have to get it off first. Maybe I could find a friendly locksmith in town. As long as town wasn't too far off. We had passed one not too long before we got here, I thought. Could I get there before he got back and realized I was gone?

I had to try, I told myself. If he got me back to Boston, back within that little insular community and deep inside that locked house my chances would become infinitely less promising.

I breathed in fresh air and confidence and stepped outside onto the black tar of the parking lot. I was already galvanizing as I took another step and then another. My heart was pounding as I rounded a corner and slipped into the cramped alleyway between the rooms and the main office.

I felt a rush of possibility. I could already see myself getting away. Finding a little bungalow, somewhere by the ocean maybe. Yes, it would have green window boxes and at night I would fall asleep watching the masts of faraway ships blinking against the blue black of the tossing horizon.

Someday, years from now, I would be pruning flowers in my little garden or I would be standing in line at the grocery store or someone would be driving very fast and I would think of that night we spent together in a motel room on the edge of Ohio. What a strange night, I would think. So long ago. What a silly girl I was then. And I would shake my head and inhale the scent of the sea salt air.

"Where are you going?"

I spun around and caught him standing calmly at the entrance to the alley. Suddenly my dream of the kindly old locksmith, my small bungalow and growing old against the sea seemed utterly ludicrous. It was such a silly romantic notion that I could almost feel the splintered shards of it scraping against me as they scattered and crumbled under his calm stare.

"Out," I said. It was all I could think to say.

He looked slightly amused, "Really? Where to?"

"I don't know," I said, looking at him steadily. "The ocean maybe."

"Hmm, that's a bit of a walk from here, isn't it? "

I didn't move as I stood there and for the first time since I'd been forced back into his company I noticed the difference in him. There were small creases around his eyes that hadn't been there before, a tiny sliver of a scar skated across his forehead and I wondered that we could have been apart so long that he had been injured and already healed so thoroughly. Last night it had felt like nothing, the time between us felled by desire and fear.

But now, in the light of day, I could see the tiny deviations that mark the passage from twenty-six to thirty-one. Before, his eyes had held a certain bright, almost frantic light that now I saw had been rubbed away slightly into a sharper, steadier knowingness that was, if I allowed myself to admit it, extremely disconcerting.

He didn't say anything more. Didn't order me back inside. He just waited patiently, hard eyes penetrating mine, until I sighed and let my feet begin to rise and move slowly in his direction. When I passed him he followed me across the parking lot and back into the small room I had so recently and euphorically liberated myself from.

When he had closed the door I turned around and looked at him, "I had to do it."

"I know." He was setting the bag of food down on the lone table in the room, rolling up his sleeves, "That's why I left the door unlocked."

So it had never been real. My little ridiculous vision had never been anything more than a shimmering mirage. I should have known really.

I scowled at him and snapped, "what would Marshall say if he knew you were eating that crap?"

He shot me a conspiratorial grin, "I'm not going to tell him." 

He moved closer to me, "are you going to tell on me, little bird?"

He reached for my arm and I pulled back as he steered me toward the small table with two chairs, "I told you to stop calling me that."

He gripped my arm tighter and turned me so I was looking straight into the dark, cavernous blue of his eyes and again I was struck by the power that had calcified and set there over the years.

"Excuse me? You told me what?"

His grip on my arm was starting to hurt and the memory of his punishment yesterday was still fresh so I whispered, "nothing." And then for good measure, "sir."

"That's what I thought." He nodded and sat me down at the table, "now stop sulking about your foiled escape. You couldn't have thought it would really be that easy."

"I don't know," I grumbled, "Occam's Razor and all."

He looked up suddenly and gave out a sharp laugh, "excuse me?"

"You know, the simplest--"

"I know what it is," he smiled, sitting down, pulling a fry from it's paper sleeve. "I was just remembering something."

"Fry?" He held it out to me across the narrow table and I clamped my mouth shut, unresponsive. 

I had hoped to seem defiant but to my constant chagrin, more often than not defiance comes off looking petulant on me. It was utterly infuriating.

"Suit yourself," he said as he chomped the whole thing down and reached for another. I actually was kind of hungry and I knew if I didn't eat something soon I would start to get weak again. Not smart in my current situation.

As he reached for another fry he smiled even wider and held my gaze as he delved into his pocket and scattered the contents across the table. I looked down and watched as he slowly opened a packet, poured something onto a napkin and after dipping it in, held the fry to my lips, quirking up an eyebrow. I had a weakness for barbecue sauce. Among other things, obviously.

Fuck it, it wouldn't be the first time I had taken a fry from a proffered hand. They're practically the universally recognized shared food. I could maybe allow this. I leaned my head in quickly and snapped it into my mouth. Fuck, food tastes good. He laughed at my look of utter satisfaction and ran his foot up my leg. 

After that I let him go on feeding me. My only defense was that it smelled really really good in that way that only the most unhealthy and artificial foods can simulate. Also his foot was running slowly up and down my calf and I needed to sate at least one sudden, aching need.

When we'd finished eating (or he'd finished) he pushed back his chair and watched me pensively for a moment. I felt unnervingly small across from him.

"Come here."

"Why?"

He cocked his head and lifted an eyebrow in warning.

"I-I don't know." I looked around wildly.

"Emma, come here." He gestured across his lap. "Now."

I felt the authority in that word and how it wound tendrils of influence around my limbs. I almost moved toward him but at the last moment I caught myself and darted irrationally toward the door.

I don't know what I thought I was doing. I only knew that I had to get away from him. Away from his touch. Before I lost myself in the overpowering heat of him against me.

He grabbed me before I'd gone two steps and had me up and over his lap just as quickly. My jeans and panties were down around my ankles in an instant and my whole body burned in humiliation.

In my current position my ass and pussy were readily available to him and I shivered as his fingers lightly traced circles across the bare cheeks of my behind. It was still tender from his belt and that made the contact all the more potent.

"What are you being punished for?" He asked calmly.

I strained against him, "I don't know, you were the one who left the door unlocked!"

"I did. But I did not tell you to go through it. In fact, I told you to do something very different, didn't I?" 

He pressed a hand firmly against my ass and I could feel the heat of him seeping down into the rapidly moistening folds below.

"I'm not a dog. You can't tell me to stay." I tried to twist around to confront him.

"I can't?" He idly let a finger slide down over my slit. I jerked and groaned, attempting to slide away from him but his his other hand was like a vice against my lower back.

"No! I'm," he circled his finger around the rim of my lower lips and I bucked, "I'm." 

What was I?

"Yes?" He pressed down against the apex to my thighs and rubbed the little nerve center that made my mind go white.

He chuckled. "I never said you were a dog, Emma. The word is slave. Since it keeps slipping your mind, I'll have to keep reminding you."

I moaned as he slipped a finger inside past my unresisting folds and rubbed against me from both sides. I started to arch up against him as his knowing fingers coolly pushed me past reason and right back into that indefinable, mindless longing I had so righteously foresworn only this morning.

"Hmm," he said contemplatively as his hand pulled away, "I'm not so sure you deserve to come right now Emma. This is a punishment after all." I almost cried in disappointment. Was I really this easy to manipulate?

He brushed over my ass once more before his hand came down hard against my right cheek. I screeched in surprise and he said, "what was that Emma?"

It was happening again. I couldn't stop it.

"One," I whispered.

"No." His hand slapped down hard again. "Address me properly."

I squeezed my eyes shut and said, "one, sir."

His stinging hand struck down again and again, equitably paying heed to both sides of my sore bottom. The room filled with the crisp, sharp sound of his calloused palm on my soft skin and my eyes pricked as I squirmed across his lap. It hurt. God it hurt. But there was something else too. His solicitous ministrations prior to this punishment had teased something out of me. Something dark and cruelly seductive. And if the hardness I felt grinding underneath me was anything to go on he had not been entirely unaffected either. The rising burn of his spanking was becoming unbearable as I finally settled on his knees and let the tears run over onto the floor. Finally his hand came down soft instead of hard and he rubbed it over my back a few times before he pulled me up fully into his lap.

I instinctively leaned into his chest while he held me there until I had calmed. His mouth was pressed up against the mussed hair draped against my wet cheek and he kissed the tip of my ear as he whispered, "I'm going to have to change my pants you wanton little beast."

I flushed at the mention of how wet the spanking had made me. It confused me and I didn't want to think about it. 

His mouth was still above my ear as he asked, "now, are you going to be good? I want to get home before I fuck you again and at the rate we're going we'll never leave this room."

I almost protested but I was half naked on his lap and in no position to argue so I looked at his feet and conceded, "yes, sir."

He righted me on the floor and pinched my beet read ass. "Good girl. Put your pants back on and let's get going. I want to be home before dinner."

_______________

We were back on the road once more, shrouded in dense silence. I was furious with myself for succumbing to his touch again. I screwed up my face at the window and watched the highway. I didn't understand it. How could he still do that to me? I glanced at him, one hand on the wheel, the other resting casually on the door. He looked relaxed, relieved even. It made me angrier. How could he be so nonchalant when I felt like I was drowning?

I startled when he asked me if I thought we should stop in a certain town for coffee. I was surprised that he had even asked me but he had mispronounced the name of the town. It was one of those places with an obviously European name that had been bastardized over time into something unrecognizable.

For a moment, It occurred to me that I shouldn't tell him. Let him go on saying it that way. Oh yes, I almost laughed, that would be the perfect revenge. I'll wear a collar forever and he'll mispronounce a small town in Pennsylvania for the rest of his life.

"That's not how you say it."

"What?"

I told him how they say it.

He looked at me now confused, "That doesn't make any sense."

"I know, but it's how they say it." I shrugged and looked out the window as I felt his sideways gaze on me.

"How do you know that?"

I watched as we careened past a familiar landmark. We went there once on some awful school field trip.

"I grew up around here," I said to a passing tree.

"Oh," he sounded mildly interested, "I didn't know that."

"No."

"I guess I always thought you were from Boston."

"No. I was in college, remember?"

"Oh yes, that's right," he turned his attention fully back to the road as if my life before him was hardly worth more than a cursory inspection.

I watched as my childhood sped on and out from under me. My parents had been killed on a road near her. My freshman year of college. Of course the next year I was Jack's and so I'd never come back here. Never even passed through like this. Like a stranger.




Emma's Master Ch. 02



I leaned my forehead against the cool glass and tried to remember the shape of my mother's eyes. It was hard to grasp, and it often slid out from me but I thought that if I could only hold her there, in the shape of her eyes where I felt there was such a singular structure, that I could somehow pin her to my shifting memory forever.

I stiffened then relaxed as I felt him reach out and brush my hair back behind my ear before he lowered his hand to my thigh and held it there.

"Seems like a nice place to grow up."

"It was alright."

He kept his hand pressed against my thigh until we stopped for coffee at a drive-thru in an unfamiliar place.

_______________

All at once I could see the city skyline looming in the distance as we came over some hill or other and the horizon opened up to us. It felt like the first great harbinger of things to come and I remembered when I had run from here all those years ago and I had looked back in the rear view mirror at the receding sight and promised myself I would never see it again.

And now here I was hurtling back toward it at ninety miles an hour. I shrunk down into my seat and laid my head against the headrest dejectedly. He glanced at me briefly but didn't say anything.

As the car picked it's way across the myriad Boston neighborhoods and descended unceasingly into the depths of my own personal inferno I became increasingly resigned to my fate. This was real. I was going back and and I was utterly powerless to stop it.

I sat up more alert as we slid past the street that marked the boundary to Grady Park. It seemed there should have been signs, flashing lights, rings of fire to mark the distinction of this next block from the one before it. This was it. This was the point of no return. People crossed that line in the sand and they never came back. The neighborhood had distanced itself so fully from the rest of the city that admittance past it's perimeter might as well have required a passport. 

Six years ago there had been a fire at one of the more run-down houses and the firemen had refused to enter the area. A whole block burned down. It was a huge scandal. The city offered to pay for the cost to rebuild but Grady Park refused. I think it was almost a declaration of independence. They required no city services, no government aid. There's was a sovereign piece of land in this city rife with revolution.

There were no customs officers but that didn't mean there weren't sentries of a different kind posted at the borders and I was sure our return was already being relayed back to any interested parties.

He seemed to sit up straighter as well in acknowledgement of our changed circumstances as we pulled up to a modest single story home with a well-kept yard. 

He put the car in park and looked at me, "welcome home, Emma."

The significance of his words bit into me with a vibrant poignancy. Home. Home. And I thought again, where is my home? Not here! Not here! Not this crisp, white, New England shelter, set back from the street under a white oak canopy.

I was still staring straight ahead in denial when I heard my door click open next to me and blinked up at him as he waited beside it. His expression was impenetrable as I hesitantly climbed out and into the soft, summer evening.

"Jack!" I whipped around and saw a middle aged man sitting on his stoop across the street. I remembered him but I could not recall his name. A young woman was coming out of the house and handing him a beer. She had a collar like mine and I thought her name might be Katy or something but I couldn't be sure.

"Good to see you back, man!"

Jack nodded at him, "Tilson."

"I see you've got the little runaway bitch back where she belongs," he nodded at me and I flinched.

Jack didn't answer but nodded toward the house. He started to walk and I followed him, craving distance from that repulsive man and his unfortunate chattel.

"He won't hurt you," he said. "He knows you're mine."

I stiffened. "I'm not afraid of that old lecher," I said a little too forcefully for it to ring completely true.

"Good then let's go inside. Marshall's been anxious to see you."

Marshall. I kept forgetting about Marshall. He was the one person in all this that I could honestly say I wouldn't mind seeing again. It was the only thought that made the slow climb up those ominous steps and through that heavy front door in any way bearable.

Marshall swept me into his arms almost before the door opened, "Emma! Boy are you a sight for a sore eyes."

"Marshall," I said, smiling a little, slightly uncomfortable with his blatant affection.

Marshall was Jack's closest friend and confidante. I had never quite understood their relationship. Where Jack was hard and cold and guarded, Marshall was careless and light and radiant. His warm brown eyes and quick smile betrayed every emotion with an uninhibited recklessness that I almost admired for it's audacity.

"Anything to eat?" Jack said gruffly as he walked past us into the kitchen.

"Should be some sandwiches in the fridge." Marshall turned his attention away from me and set me back down.

"Oh and hello to you too, Jack."

Jack was already walking back in from the kitchen, snacking on half a sandwich. He rolled his eyes and gave me a pointed look, "It's been a long drive." 

He tore off a bit of his sandwich and held up to me almost offhandedly.

I chanced a look at Marshall for a second but he wasn't even looking at me as he had turned his attention back toward Jack. I was starving and I didn't want to test him again so soon so I opened my mouth and accepted the small offering he placed there. I'd done it enough in the past couple days and I was too tired really to offer any kind of futile resistance. He smiled and tore off another piece as he asked Marshall about something or other to do with something I only half understood.

I looked around. It was as if I had never left. Everything was almost exactly the same.

"Emma," he was looking at me again, "why don't you go to your room and get ready for bed. I believe some of your clothes are still in the bureau."

I nodded. It had been an exhausting two days.

I slowly made my way to the back hallway and crept along it to the room I had occupied five years ago. Again, it was unchanged. Of course, he had never liked change very much. I thought, ruefully, that might have had some small part to do with his need to return me here. I had affected change in his ordered life and it had probably infuriated him. I opened a dresser drawer and looked down at a neat stack of my old t-shirts. 

It occurred to me for the first time that he had not taken another after me. It was encouraged even expected in the upper echelons of Grady Park's perverse social structure. I did not flatter myself that it had anything to do with me. He probably just couldn't stand the thought of another permanent disruption in this house.

I undressed and pulled an extra large band t-shirt over my head. The material was soft and well-worn and as it brushed against the tops of my knees I felt sleep pulling at the edges of my overtaxed mind.

I turned around to get into bed and I caught him in the open doorway. "Marshall's glad to have you back."

I was tired and annoyed so I said, "I can't imagine why. I'm sure you've been delightful company."

His mouth quirked up slightly as he entered the room and took me in. I hadn't looked in the mirror yet but I was sure I must be a mess after the long drive and the constant psychological torture I'd been subjecting myself to.

"I'm tired Jack," I said.

He walked further into the room. "Do you know how many times I've wanted to fuck you today?"

"Jack." I backed toward the wall.

He stalked closer and I felt the limit of my retreat as I pressed up against the hard, implacable wall behind me and caught the hungry glint in his eye as his smile widened like he had cornered prey.

"Jack, Please." I held up my hands and he pounced, dragging my wrists high above my head and trapping them there with one hand. He lent in for a demanding kiss and I tried to dart away from him but he grabbed my chin roughly with his other hand and bit my lip lightly before plunging his tongue past them and burning his mouth into mine.

He drove a hand up under my t-shirt and pulled on my wrists until I was unwillingly arching against him and straining up on my toes. He pinched a hardening nipple and then without warning or preparation he drew my panties to the side, took out his cock and plunged himself fully inside me.

My eyes widened and I let out at a little scream as I struggled to accommodate him. Of course, per his usual affect on me, I was not entirely unprepared. Still, it was not quite to the degree that his girth demanded.

He quickly let go of my hands and reached under me to draw my thighs around his waist so I was practically sitting on his cock before he reached back for my wrists and pinned them above me again. He began to fuck me against the wall and I closed my eyes as the slight pain of his entrance melted into something much more enjoyable.

"No. Open your eyes."

"Jack," I pleaded. I didn't want to be a spectator in this.

He thrust into me again and moved a hand up to pinch my nipple painfully, "that was an order Emma. What do you say to an order?"

My eyes flew open and I whispered, "yes sir."

"Good girl." He looked at me fiercely while he pressed my wrists harder against the wall. I worried briefly that his eyes might consume me. That I might accidentally wander into their labyrinthine depths and lose myself in the tangled passageways forever.

He held a finger to my mouth, "open."

I groaned involuntarily as he pressed me up against the wall again and he used the opportunity to slide his finger past my lips, watching me closely as I closed my mouth around it. He started to move it in and out in time with the infuriatingly shallow thrusts of his hips.

"God you are so fucking sexy." he growled.

When he was satisfied it was wet enough he pulled it out and moved his hand down under my ass, spreading the cheeks apart. I startled out of my pleasure coma as he began to circle his wet finger around the small hole there.

"Oh no." I tensed. "Please don't."

He kissed the side of my neck as he began to press it insistently against me, past the feeble ring of muscle. "Relax baby," he murmured, "It's just my finger. Just relax and it won't hurt at all."

I tried to relax but it had been so long since anyone had even thought about touching me there that I'd almost forgotten about it. I whimpered at the slight stinging sensation as he his finger slipped all the way inside and his hips shot back as he plunged into me powerfully. 

I felt the odd sensation of his finger rubbing against his cock as he fucked me against it. I was slowly giving into the helpless pleasure when I caught myself making odd little mewling sounds and shut my eyes in frustration. He made a feral sound and bit down against the side of my neck.

"No, Emma, what did I say. I want to see your eyes."

I reluctantly opened my eyes and caught the possessive gleam in his as he said,

"Are you going to come around my cock with my finger in your ass?"

He ground his pelvis against my clit and thrust his finger further inside me. I almost screamed in agonizing ecstasy. "Huh baby? Are you?"

He held my gaze and groaned as I stared up at him, my tongue darting over my lips as I swallowed unconsciously.

"Well?" He pushed my sweat-slick hair back from my forehead and smiled as he asked sweetly, "Would you like me to make you come, baby?"

I stared at him, wide-eyed with need, "yes," I managed, "please. Please let me come, sir."

"Come, baby. Come now."

I couldn't stop whispering, "please," as his hips started bucking against me in earnest. He watched me closely as I finally reached that glittering peak of exquisite perfection and shouted his name as he followed me over the ledge.

We were both breathing erratically and my chest and throat were a mottled a deep red as I continued to stare at him until he pulled away slowly and lowered my knees to the floor. I adjusted my panties with as much dignity as the situation provided and waited.

He kissed my cheek as he stepped back and gave me what could almost be called a warm look. If he was capable of those. I was still too deep to react when he said, "good night, Emma" and closed the door quietly to the light of the hallway, letting the night descend upon me.

___________________

Wait, I almost started to call him back because suddenly I realized there were no lights in this room. Oh my god there was no light in the room. The door clicked shut and I was swept into impenetrable darkness. Some great nothing closed in around me and palpated against my grasping eyes.

I was too terrified to move. It felt like my chest was constricting in on itself and I couldn't breath. Oh god, what was that? Did I just hear something? I kept trying to suck in more oxygen but every time I managed to my breath came back out in some kind of strangled cry which scared me even more. I could feel the shape of my heart against my ribs. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Fucking crime lord in the next room and I'm still afraid of the fucking dark.

I felt something touch against my thigh and I screamed bloody murder. 

"Shhh." The touch became a caress, soothing me, calming me. Strong arms pulled me against a stronger chest and I clung to it desperately, digging my head into the shoulder and sobbing, trying to get away from the darkness that was still coating my arms, my face and this anonymous figure pressed up against me.

"I'm sorry" it was Jack. "I'm so sorry, baby, I forgot."

He rubbed a hand down my back and I relaxed slightly into his hold, fingers digging into his t-shirt while I tried to calm the uncontrollable shuddering of my whole body. He kept rubbing his hands down my back and making soft soothing sounds. 

I could feel him pushing away the dark, casting it into the oblivion from which it had crept until finally, I could make out there the shadowy contours of a table leg, here the outline of an open closet door.

"I forgot to plug it in before I left. Here give me a second." He started to pull away and I clawed at him desperately.

He held me tighter, "OK, it's OK. I'm just going to reach over you here see?" He rose up and fiddled with a fixture in the wall.

Suddenly there was a dull light filling the room and I felt my body go slack with intense relief. I looked over at the outlet and saw that he had plugged in the old nightlight. What a difference five years had made. I'm such a god damn child.

"Better?" He said, looking concerned. I nodded and pulled away from him. In the light I remembered. In the light I could hate him again. I didn't need him to keep out the dark. I didn't need him at all. He let me pull away and kissed the top of my head. I think I was still visibly shaking.

"I wasn't sure if the dark was still an issue. Obviously I should have checked first. Try and get some sleep Okay baby?"

I nodded and he closed the locked door behind him.

I lay there for a long while, attempting to re-commit myself to every corner, curve and angle of the room so that maybe next time I could find them in the dark. If I could catch their definition without lights then maybe I wouldn't panic. Of course, even as I did this, I knew I would. I always do.

Once, a few years ago, when I was stuck in a mildew-infused shack in San Antonio with a chronic ceiling leak and a damp mattress, there had been a power outage. After the initial shock of fear I had shot around the house turning on my collection of flashlights and electric lanterns, lighting approximately a billion candles.

Afterwards, I had stood in the center of the kitchen (now lit up like the surface of the sun) and felt a lingering pall of grayness that I couldn't seem to shake. I had slid down in the middle of my own personal glowing beacon against the dark world outside, gripping my flashlight, pressing my back against the fraying cabinet doors and missing him so terribly it hurt to exist.



Emma's Master Ch. 03



I awoke the next morning with a start. There was no window in this small room I regarded with no small venom as my cell, so I could not tell the time of day. The only reference I had was that my internal clock seemed to be telling me to get out of bed.

When I thought about what was on the other side of that door, however, I groaned and turned around to face the wall, drawing the covers over my head.

What had been the point of all those years, I moaned, if I was so quick to submit to him every time he touched me? I buried my face in my pillow and screamed. This was unbearable. I was right back where I'd been five years ago. It was as if nothing had changed. Here I was in the same bed in the same room, wearing the same clothes, slightly sore from being fucked by the same man.

Now that I was back in this god damn house I was going to need to be stronger than ever, I thought. He was going to have to see that I wasn't the same young girl he'd known when I'd been here last. He'd have to treat me like the individual I'd become. I'd have to make him see that.

Light shafted into the room as the door opened but I didn't turn away from the wall.

"Morning Emma," It was him "Breakfast's on the table."

Something smelled wonderful. At some juncture, in addition to securing the house while Jack was gone Marshall had assumed all responsibilities regarding food and had subsequently flourished into quite the accomplished cook. It occurred to me that I had very much missed this.

I didn't move or make any sign I knew he was there.

He sighed, "I know you're awake, Emma. Is this really how you want to start the day?" The threat was evident in his voice and I stiffened.

Every part of me wanted to stay right there in bed and pretend none of this was real. Close my eyes and wake up somewhere else. Across the country, curled up around a book.

I knew he wasn't going to indulge me for much longer and, truthfully, I sensed my defiance was probably coming off more childish than strong so I threw back the covers with an angry flourish and turned around to face him.

His presence in the doorway brought back all the humiliation of the night before and I felt my eyes gleam with challenge as I stared him down.

He ignored me and walked toward the closet, tossing some articles of clothing onto the bed next to me. A skirt and white t-shirt of mine from my college days. I stared at them for a moment as I pondered that aborted future. I'd all but forgotten that girl. The girl with the bright future and Big Plans.

For the last five years my only plans had been Stay Away and now the only overpowering plan that beat against my skull at every waking moment was Get Away. Well, at least you couldn't say I was without aspiration.

He didn't seem to notice my silence and was already heading out the door, "Shower, get dressed and be in the kitchen in thirty minutes."

I grit my teeth. It annoyed me when he gave me orders I would have performed anyway. I had already planned on taking a shower. After all, I had to make sure the evidence of last night's submission was sufficiently scrubbed away.

And then, naturally, I would have gotten dressed. I didn't plan on walking around all day in my t-shirt and underwear. It was aggravating that now I would do these things and he would act like I was obeying him. I pondered spending the day half naked and dirty but I didn't think that would really prove anything to anybody.

Jack was sitting at the kitchen counter reading the paper and Marshall was setting out coffee when I entered, clean and refreshed, attempting to give off an air of regal stature. 

Marshall was technically Jack's business partner of a sort. As much as criminals had those. I was not sure how this partnership had formed but it was obvious that at some point it had been decided that Jack would lead and Marshall would follow. I do not think Marshall minded though and I suppose there was the success of their relationship.

I stood at the door for a moment hoping that my domineering stance would elicit more of a reaction but Marshall had turned back to the stove and Jack just looked up briefly over his paper.

His brow furrowed slightly, "that's not what I laid out."

"No," I smiled. I had gone to the closet and decided on a green blouse instead of the shirt he had thrown at me. He was going to learn that I wasn't so easily directed.

He shrugged and looked back at the paper. I bristled that my rebellion had been so easily dismissed and walked toward the kitchen where Marshall handed me some coffee and raised his eyebrows.

When I started to settle myself on the other stool Jack lowered his paper again and looked at me.

"No," he admonished. I was confused. 
He pointed to the floor at his feet and I saw to my utter horror a cushion had been placed there. My heart stopped. NO. It was too much. I didn't belong there. Hadn't I proven that by my time away? He folded the paper over on his lap and watched me closely. My eyes darted around the room like a cornered animal.

"Do you want a spanking? Right now? In front of Marshall? Don't think I won't, Emma."

I looked toward the living room and the front door wistfully but I knew, even if it hadn't been locked that on the other side of that door was a whole neighborhood full of assholes who would just love the chance to manhandle me a little while they dragged me back here.

I looked back at Jack who was still sitting calmly, expectantly, on the kitchen stool. Marshall shot me a sympathetic look but nodded his encouragement.

I felt the tears threatening to spill but I knew it would be so much worse if he forced me up against the kitchen counter and reddened my behind again before forcing me to my knees.

He followed me with his eyes as I very slowly made my way back over to the counter and lowered myself onto the cushion with a dejected sigh. This was worse than anything he'd made me do so far.

I whimpered as my sore ass came down against my calves and he said, "Sit however's comfortable, Emma." He reached for his coffee and opened his paper again.

I dropped my head and let my hair cover my face as I let a few hot, angry tears slide down my cheeks and onto the hated cushion. No, I thought. I won't let this get to me. He wants me on my knees. Fine. I'll defy him my knees. I'll defy him from any position. 

My body reacted at the sudden flashback of just how many positions he could put me in.

I shook my head, brightening at the resurgence of my resolve, I straightened my back and sipped at my coffee. A hand appeared in front of me holding a piece of melon.

"I'm not hungry," I spat out.

The hand went nowhere. I glared up at him but he was still reading the paper as if it were completely normal to be feeding a kneeling girl in his kitchen.

"I hate melon." I tried again but again my tendency to make defiance sound like petulance overrode the scalding affect I had intended.

"Emma," he said warningly and I caught all the meaning in the word. I was skating on terrifyingly thin ice and I knew it. 

Fine, it was no new concession. I huffed and leaned in to take the piece of fruit and chew it resentfully as I stared daggers into a point on the counter in front of me.

Marshall came around with a plate of his own and took the other seat at the counter. He sprawled out casually over the stool and glanced down at me.

"What happened there?" He said accusingly at Jack, gesturing to my bruised cheek. It had grown slightly more pronounced in that way that bruises have before they heal.

Jack looked down at me and I drew in a breath at his seething expression. "God damn thugs that grabbed her."

I was suddenly furious. "What's the difference?" I protested. I had always hated when they talked about me as if I wasn't in the room. "You beat me. They beat me. It's all the same!" I stared up at him angrily.

He was unfazed and said evenly, "You know the difference Emma."

"Do I?"

"Yes." He turned back to his breakfast.

I glared at him a little longer. His refusal to acknowledge my small signs of insubordination was starting to annoy me more than anything else. I was reaching the end of my limited patience with this man.

When he reached down with another piece of fruit I pushed his hand away and stood up to leave.

"If you're qui--" a hand shot out and grabbed me firmly around the waist before I'd even gotten the words out.

I screamed and kicked out at him in a rage. I didn't care anymore. I was beyond fury. I had crossed into some new and unnamed emotion that lived and breathed adrenaline and had lost all quality of sense.

I was pretty sure I managed to get in at least one or two direct hits but he barely flinched. Just held my waist with both hands and looked down at me.

By the the time my throat was raw and and my knuckles felt bruised the roaring in my head had started to dull to a kind of vapid, coolness and I drew in a few breaths.

He was watching me, "are you finished?"

I slapped him. Hard.

It made a wonderful cracking sound that reverberated against the kitchen walls and I couldn't suppress my satisfied grin.

A flicker of surprise crossed his face before he blinked and stoically said to Marshall, "I'm just going to show Emma back to her room." 

I twisted against the grip on my waist that was turning me back toward "my" room.

He pushed me down sitting on the edge of the bed, towering over me as if considering my transgression. When I looked up I was struck by his quiet masculinity. He had never been an overly large, muscled man nor was he lanky but there was such power in the sinewy curve of his shoulder, in the slant of his brow.

"I have to say I was expecting that at some point" He laughed as he ran a hand over his reddening cheek, "but I admit your aim has improved considerably."

"Not enough."

"I'm practically twice your size Emma. I'd almost be proud if I didn't have to punish you now."

I tried to control my breathing and remain calm as I clung to my resolve to remain unaffected by him. A futile effort, perhaps, but it was all I had.

"I'd prefer not to punish your ass again so soon." He gave me a wry smile and added, "besides, I think you enjoyed it far too much last time."

I flushed and glared up at him from the bed.

His face turned serious, "You have a choice, Emma. You can either bend over now and submit to whatever punishment I have in mind or I can make sure you're tied to the bed all day and do it anyway." Some choice.

I took an angry breath as I stared at him for another minute and considered the cost of further rebellion. I really didn't want to be tied down all day.

I continued to look into his eyes pointedly for as long as I could so that he knew I was doing this on protest before I slowly stood up and turned around.

I sucked in as much oxygen as I could, squared my shoulders and bent stiffly over the end of the bed.

I heard him rummaging for something in the dresser behind me and my heart beat faster with anticipation. I flinched when he rubbed his hand down my side, pausing at the locality of his brand there and said, "I am the master here Emma and you will learn to obey me or sitting comfortably is going to become a distant memory for you."

He flipped up my skirt and pulled my panties down around my ankles. "Step out of them."

I did.

I could feel the searing heat of his gaze on my bare behind and felt my body already betraying me.

"Now," he ran a hand up along my weeping slit. "I've got something that's going to make your day infinitely more interesting while I'm away."

I felt him insert a finger inside of me and pump briefly before pulling out and pushing something hard and lifeless up where his finger had been. It started to vibrate and I moaned. No. I was done coming for him. I was already giving too much away too quickly.

But he flipped my skirt back down, set me back on my feet and said, "no, sweetheart. You won't be coming right now. In fact you won't be coming for a very long time. But that little device inside you is going to make sure you know it."

I felt the gentle, pleasant buzzing stop abruptly and looked at him confused. "It's designed to keep you on edge."

"Turn around."

I did. He gathered my wrists together and tied a soft piece of cloth around them before I could protest. Bastard.

He looked at his watch. "When I get home tonight I expect a different attitude or this is going to become a daily occurrence."

I sighed as he grabbed some papers and walked out the door.

I lay back against the bed and groaned. 

As promised, the infernal device inside me came alive and slowly died down every twenty minutes or so. I had never felt more at the mercy of my own arousal, my hands pulling at their binding hopelessly.

About an hour later, Marshall came in with a tray of food. Luckily, my new toy had just finished a bout of torture and was silent for the moment. I looked at him, livid, when he unbound my hands so I could eat.

He gave me a small smile and said, "I'm sorry kiddo but you know better than to push him like that."

"Push him? Push him? That's a joke. He pushed me."

He shrugged, "Maybe so, but he has the advantage of size so I would reconsider any future plans for physical retribution."
 I fell back against the pillows, "I could always just shoot him."

"Hmm, you could. But then I'd have to figure out what to do with you. And you're already too much trouble as it is," he smiled.

I turned my head to him and let out a breath. "The thing is, though, is that the last time he saw me I was barely more than a child. He thinks he can subdue me with condiments and time outs."

"Some friendly advice. You don't want to be treated like a child? Don't throw any more tantrums."

I sat up and glared at him and he laughed and held up his hands, "Hey! Hey, just one man's opinion."

I swiped a sandwich off the tray and narrowed my eyes while I chewed.

"Ah stop sulking Emma and let me show you this picture of a weird dog I just saw."

He had always been like this, so easily speaking in a way that belied the situation. As if we had not only just been discussing my enslaver who had so recently consigned me to my room like an errant second grader. It was contagious and I felt myself giving in to it.

He held his phone up in front of him. Obviously unworried that I might grab it. Who would I call? The police? They were well paid not to come here.

I cocked my head, "I don't think that's a dog, Marshall. I think that's a cat."

"No, I swear it was on a leash."

"That doesn't make it a dog."

"Hmmm," he looked back at his phone. "I did think it was weird that it didn't bark."

"Yeah, that's not the only thing that's weird."

He laughed, feigning indignation, "To the man that prepares her food, she says!"

I gasped, "So you're going to poison me? And after I just cleared up your whole dog/cat hybrid debacle. Imagine if you had shown that to someone else?"

"Too late, I already tweeted it. The cat's a dog and there's no going back."

I laughed and reflected that I had missed this easy friendship. In recent years I had sometimes managed to cultivate a friendly acquaintance but they had never developed much beyond that. It is hard to grow and keep a friendship when sometimes they call and you are face up underneath the coffee table, staring at the ceiling through the glass top and wondering could I go out today? Would that be something I could do?

They would ask if I would like to go to a new bar, perhaps. It is just around the corner. Very good reviews on Yelp. But I would not be able to see it. Would not be able to see myself opening the door. Walking to the sidewalk. Slipping in beside them at the bar and saying "so good to see you." No, I would think, I could see how others might do this but I could not see myself at it. So I would say, "not today" and hang up the phone.

When Marshall got up to leave, taking my plate and gesturing for me to put my hands back behind me so he could retie them I asked, "how can you stand him?"

Marshall looked at me seriously for a moment before he said, "how can you?"

"Not by choice." But of course there was an element of untruth in this and he knew it.

___________________

I spent the rest of my day groaning in frustration on the bed as I was worked up into a sexual frenzy by the small, fiendish invader buzzing inside me. Whenever I tried to sleep or think about something else I was crudely diverted as the object came alive again. I clutched the bedcovers in my bound hands underneath me and bucked against an unseen hand.

By the time a better part of an eternity had passed the door finally opened and I sat up as Jack stood in its stead. I was wet with perspiration and felt like a coiled spring that was being held down. I was ashamed to admit that I was actually glad to see him as I hoped it would mean the end to my torment. I hoped.

"How was your day Emma?"

"Riveting."

"Hmmm should I come back in the morning perhaps?" Fuck.

I was desperate to be released from the tyranny of my own sexuality and resented that I was so reliant on him to provide me with it.

"No, sir."

He moved toward me and untied my hands, "do you want to come, little bird?"

"Yes, sir," another vibration rocked me and I nearly fell forward.

"Show me." 

I was confused but he waited patiently until I understood what he wanted. 

Mortifying realization dawned on me and I thought "I can do this" as I moved my hand to the hem at my thighs and slowly lifted my skirt up to my chest. I had never been more humiliated.

"I can't tell from here Emma. You'll have to spread your knees." 

I drew in a sharp breath an moved my knees apart slightly, looking at his shoes and turning crimson.

"No, wider." 

I spread them wider and clenched my eyes shut, close to tears again as I breathed against the rising ache between my legs.

My face flushed as I was sure he locked onto my glistening slit and said, "Yes, you have had an interesting day, haven't you?"

His eyes felt like they were burning into me and it was all I could do not to beg him to fuck me.

"Okay Emma, go ahead. Help yourself." What?

I opened my eyes wide. "You know what I mean, Emma. I'm giving you permission to touch yourself. You do want to come don't you? Or am I misreading things?"

I couldn't. That would be far to embarrassing. I would die.

"Jack, please," I practically sobbed.

"Emma, do you want me to come back tomorrow morning? I can have Marshall bring your dinner in here as well." Oh god. Could I last all night? Would my mind be able to stand it?

For a moment I just stayed like that. Holding my skirt up and looking at him as I waged war with what pride I had left.

Finally, hesitantly, I lowered one hand to my lower lips. I held them there for a moment until the buzzing inside me became too demanding and slowly began to circle my finger over my clit.

I alternated rubbing and stroking while he looked on, a wolfish gleam in his eyes. I closed mine and tried to drive him away, tried to imagine someone else touching me. But of course I couldn't shake his formidable eyes and I imagined his mouth on me, his dick rubbing up against my thigh.

After a minute he said, "what are you thinking about Emma?"

I shook my head. I couldn't tell him. He would enjoy it too much. Of course he knew. I knew he knew. But I wouldn't admit it.

"Do you want me to revoke the privilege of touching yourself?"

I thought about lying to him. Telling him I was thinking about another man. A movie star maybe, but that would probably annoy him and I really wanted to continue what I was doing.

"You, sir." I whispered.

I could hear the smile in his voice, "and what am I doing to you Emma?"

Oh fuck, he was going to make me narrate this. But I was too far gone to go back now.




Emma's Master Ch. 03



"T-touching me," I admitted.

"Where am I touching you?"

"On my pussy," I breathed. I pressed against my clit and a small sound escaped before I could bite it back.

"What about your breasts? Am I neglecting them?" Oh no.

I moved my hand to brush over one tip. "Your, your mouth."

"Yes?"

"You have it in your mouth."

I didn't know he'd moved nearer so I jumped when I heard his voice next to my ear.

"And?"

"And- and, you're sucking on my nipple," I whimpered.

"And my teeth? Do I graze it with my teeth?"

"Ahhh yes."

He brushed over the top of my ear and I almost came.

My breathing was getting harder.

"Slow down, baby, I'm not even inside you yet, am I?"

"No sir."

"Ok Emma now what happens when I start to slowly run my cock into that slick little pussy of yours."

He ran a hand down my back and it felt like he had set the area on fire.

I could almost feel his cock inside me.

"SSSo good." I shuddered.

He leaned down to kiss me and I moaned into his mouth.

"Now what happens when I start to move inside you? What happens when I brush up against that little bud of yours you're touching?"

It was unbearable, I thought I might actually ignite.

"Oh god, I'm going to come."

"Are you? I didn't hear a question Emma. Open your eyes."

I opened my eyes to his and drew in a breath at the fire I saw there, echoing my own.

He skidded a hand down my throat and rested his hand on my collar. I gasped at the contact and almost sobbed, "Please, please may I come sir."

He moved his thumb up to brush lightly over my mouth and my body almost exploded.

"Go ahead. Come. Now."

My fingers worked furiously. I could hear the wet sounds and didn't care as they slipped and pressed and thrust against my pussy.

He moved my hair away from my face and a few strands brushed softly against my cheek. I came.

I had never felt so aware of myself and everything around me. It seemed I could sense a cricket chirping three states away, I sensed every soul within a five block radius. My world was brilliant and unbearably colorful until finally the wave crested and ebbed away and I collapsed, wet with tears on the mattress.

He leaned down to my ear, wiping away my tears and whispered, "I missed you, little bird."

In the aftermath of my orgasm, I felt defiance creeping back into my limbs and I mumbled, "funny, I never even thought about you."

I had always been a terrible liar and he laughed at the overwhelming fallacy of that statement.

Of course I had thought about him. Once, in driving to some new location I had thought about the strong heat at the nape of his neck so intensely that I had crossed back over into another state before I realized in which direction I was heading. I had thought about driving back to Boston. About stopping in front of this house. About knocking on the door. I had thought about him standing in the open doorway...

But instead I had turned the car back around and settled in another lifeless county for a a cold and lonely winter.

____________________

The next morning I woke to the soft, soulful sound of strings and cellos emanating from the kitchen. Somebody had opened the door for me already and so I dressed quickly and headed in that direction.

Marshall was at the stove making what looked like pancakes and moving his hands in time with the music coming from the iPod on the counter.

"Marshall are you listening to Tchaikovsky?" I asked, with amusement.

He turned around and raised his eyebrows, "Da, my lady. I am making blinis."

"Oh boy. I think perhaps this house is too sophisticated for this block."

Marshall laughed, "I studied classical music in college, did you know?"

This was news to me and I made a face, "do you they require a college degree for aiding and abetting?"

He smiled and turned back to his blinis, "it doesn't hurt. And besides, that's where I met Jack." What the fuck was Jack doing in college?

"I don't understand, I thought he was some kind of legacy around here. Why would they send him to college?" Nepotism was definitely the name of the game in these parts and responsibility was generally assumed at the age of eighteen as far I had understood it.

He shrugged, "maybe you should ask him." Not likely, I thought. Nor was he likely to volunteer the information.

Suddenly, Marshall turned back around with a devious expression, pointing a remote in the direction of his iPod and spinning me around. A Journey song came blaring out of the speakers and I laughed, "this was not exactly what I had in mind when I mentioned the neighborhood."

"They can come over later. We'll do karaoke." I cracked up at the thought of a room full of grizzled and hardened criminals singing Lynyrd Skynyrd into a microphone.

"What's going on?" Jack was standing, disheveled and wild eyed at the door. We had obviously woken him and he was not happy about it.

"Ah, the man of the hour," Marshall said with a flourish of his hand, "come, we were just about to enjoy some blinis."

Jack shook his head and moved to take a seat, warming somewhat when he caught sight of my smile and motioning me to my cushion beside him. I had almost forgotten my servitude but I found, to my surprise, that it was not as difficult to perform the act this time.

Later, he had me follow him back to his room after an otherwise uneventful breakfast at his feet.

"What will you do today Emma?" He asked as he straightened his tie and looked at me from the mirror. An odd question, I thought. Could there be many possibilities? Read? Wait for him to come home and fuck me? But then a thought occurred to me.

"Do you think I could go outside? Just the backyard," I clarified. I could see that it was a beautiful day and I hated the thought of spending it cooped up in this stuffy prison.

My hair was still mussed from sleep and the wardrobe he'd afforded me did not contain a bra. I could see the gleam in his eyes as he said playfully, "Hmm, what would you do, I wonder. If I said yes."

Marshall had put me in a good mood so I smiled and eyed his zipper, "I can think of a few things."

He laughed, "Are you saying you'll suck my cock if I let you go outside? Won't you do that anyway?"

"Perhaps," I said as I looked down at his hardening length and smiled up at him sweetly. "But I wonder if it would be the same?"

"Oh ho! So you'd be holding out on me is that it? Isn't that a very dangerous thing to admit?"

"Maybe. Would you know?"

He regarded me for a minute and then smiled. "Okay, let's say my answer is contingent upon this cocksucking you are so sure of."

I gave him a sly look before I sank down to lower his fly, taking out his thick erection. It been a while since I had done this but I was confident I in my ability as the warm scent of him came over me.

I began the usual way. Licking up and down the length and then taking the tip in my mouth and swirling my tongue around it. I took a moment to appreciate the familiar, earthy, salty taste of him before I pressed lightly against the small hole at the head and licked up the bead of precum that had formed there. I heard him draw in a breath and I felt the power I had in that moment. I wanted to draw it out but he pushed at my head lightly and I got the message. I began to take his cock deeper into my mouth and I decided to try something I had heard about. I hummed.

He groaned and his hand fisted in my hair but I continued on relentlessly, vibrating against him as I took him deeper into the back of my throat. Here I had to go slower as it had been some time since I had fit something this large there but it was much like muscle memory and I managed to relax enough to take him without gagging after some concentration. Then I swallowed around his cock.

"Oh fuck," he almost shouted and I smiled.

As I felt him getting nearer and nearer to his climax I knew his self-control was waning and his ability to hold back from taking over and fucking my throat was probably chipping.

I kept my mouth around him as I wrapped a hand around the base and started to unbutton my blouse with the other.

When I felt him moan and start to come, I quickly darted my head away from his hand and stroked him as I opened my shirt and let him come on my bare tits.

He looked down at me in shock as he pulsed in my hand, spurting some onto my belly and upper chest as well. As he was struggling for breath I gave him a sideways smile and dipped a finger into the viscous leavings between my breasts. I brought it to my mouth as I held his eyes and sucked it past my lips. I continued until I was glistening and sticky but mostly clean of him.

Truthfully, I was as surprised as him. I had no idea where that last part had come from. I had only meant to give him a great blowjob but some crazed demon must have possessed me to do more.

He just stared at me as I sat back on my heels and buttoned my blouse back up.

"Go get a book and meet me back here," he ground out, his breathing erratic.

I stood up and walked out into the hallway to find the bookshelf. I felt like I was floating. I had never done anything like that before. It was exhilarating.

When I'd found a book that seemed interesting I walked back into his room hopefully. He was on the phone but he saw me come in.

"Well, what did you tell him?" He held up a hand to me and reached for a bedside drawer. I was distracted by the gun I saw there and didn't see what he took out. The sight of it was enough to remind me that this was not a game. The danger was very real and ever present in this neighborhood.

He made a sound and I tore my attention away from the gun and back to him as he motioned me out of the room and ahead of him.

"Well, that's unacceptable," I could hear him behind me as he steered me through the living room and to the sliding glass doors on the other side.

He slid the door across and I closed my eyes against the sudden barrage of cut grass and blue sky.

He nodded for me to step outside as he pressed a bottle of suntan lotion into my hand, giving me a pointed look. It was an order so I nodded.

"I'll talk to him about it. Leon won't be happy."

He kissed me and mouthed "five o'clock", as he stepped back and closed the door. I could hear him on the phone as he receded back inside the house.

Outside felt glorious after yesterday's imprisonment. Somewhere in my mind I knew it's possibility was shrouded slightly in the fact that this was still only an extension of my prison but I pushed that thought away. I wanted to enjoy these hours I had been afforded in the sun. Even if it was only a small backyard fenced in on all sides. I quickly applied the lotion to any exposed areas. I was very pale and did not want to forfeit future sessions on this side of those sliding doors.

_____________

Marshall stepped outside as the sun was starting to wane. I was sprawled out on the grass on my stomach, deep inside the clutches of the book in front of me.

"I heard you'd made parole."

I looked up at him, startling out of my literary reverie, "I've been instructed to retrieve you, my lady."

"Where's Jack?"

"Should be back soon if you want to come on back inside."

"Is it five o'clock already?" I asked, disappointed.

"Yes, I'm sorry."

I sighed and gathered up my book to follow him. It wasn't Marshall's fault, I knew. We were all under the same thrall of the strange and enigmatic man who called himself my master.

Marshall suggested some coffee and we headed for the kitchen. I tensed at the sound of voices on the porch outside the front door. There was the sound of a key scraping in the lock and the voices became louder.

"Jack, you see there is no other way to do it. No way at all really."

Jack was walking in to the dining room and my stomach dropped when I saw Tilson and his silent companion trailing behind him. Marshall looked up and Jack frowned at him, cocking his head at Tilson, "it appears we have company."

He had meant to emphasize that the company was uninvited and unwelcome but Tilson was oblivious, "You must talk sense to him, Marshall."

Marshall winked at me playfully, probably sensing my unease, "Sense? Sense and Jack? I'm sorry Tilson, I'm afraid I gave up on that a long time ago."

Jack rolled his eyes, laid a hand on my shoulder and leaned in to my ear, "be good."

Be good my ass, I thought angrily as I eyed the newcomers over his shoulder. Except it probably would be my ass so I let out a breath and let him pull me back with him to the table, dropping to my knees beside him.

His hand stroked through my hair as he and Tilson discussed something tersely. I could not tell what it was about. Jack always spoke about business in a kind of code around me and I was never quite sure if it was because he didn't trust me or if he was trying to protect me. What I could glean, however, from the tone of their voices was that Tilson was not happy about something and Jack was not budging.

"Listen," Tilson finally said, "why don't the girls go in the other room and see about making us some coffee so we can talk this out for real."

The other girl (Katy, I was quite sure now) stood on command and Tilson slapped her on the ass as she made her way to the door. I tensed and glanced up at Jack who looked bored but nodded at me so I rose and followed Katy into the kitchen.

We could hear the low rumble of their voices on the other side of the door but they had melted into an indefinable texture from this distance.

"Where is the coffee maker?"

I found myself slightly alarmed to hear her speak. She had seemed so docile in the other room, like an extra chair Tilson had brought along, inanimate and dumb. The fact that she was a person left me with a small aftershock of outrage. This was a person that asshole treated like furniture.

I motioned toward the coffee maker at the other end of the kitchen. "How can you stand him?"

"Eric?" She asked confused.

"Is that his name?"

"He is not so bad," she said.

"How can you say that? He treats you like dirt."

"He treats me like a slave," she looked at me with annoyance. I was struck by the life glowing behind her eyes.

"I do not expect to be treated differently. I am lucky that he does not take pleasure in beating me like some of their associates and that he does care for me in some way. He does not want me to be miserable."

"How can you not be? When you are a slave?"

She looked at me seriously, like it was very important that I understand. "Emma, it has been many years since I resigned myself to this fate. This is my life and as soon as I made that concession and looked for ways to make my life easier within the confines of that realization things became infinitely better. Trust me, you should heed this advice."

I could tell that her sanity and self worth was most likely perched atop this basic tenet but I said, "I do not know that I have it in me to do that."

She sighed, "Jack is not so bad at all Emma. You would do well to remember that."

"Leon?" I asked, wondering if she was perhaps alluding to him.

She tensed and spoke quietly, "Yes. He has already sold Lilly and claimed a new one. Lilly had become too," she grimaced, "compliant."

I shuddered at the inhumanity in that man and decided to just concentrate on the coffee for now. Katy poured milk into one hot cup and asked me, "how does Jack take it?"

"Black, I think." At least that's how he used to take it I believe. I wasn't sure anymore.

She looked at me like I had grown an extra head for not knowing my captor's preference for cream and sugar. As if, at the moment of my abduction I should have protested, "wait! Please, I must first know your thoughts on creamer."

I rolled my eyes and swiped the unembellished beverage out from under her, heading back out into the dining room.

They looked up and stopped talking when we appeared in the doorway again. Jack was leaning back in his seat, looking even more indifferent to the conversation. I could tell this was setting Tilson off and Marshall was watching him warily, ready to step in if things took a turn.

Tilson was closest to the kitchen and I had to pass him to get to Jack but I didn't notice he was jutting a foot out from the table. Probably on purpose. I stumbled over it slightly and a few drops flew out from the cup I was holding.

Out of nowhere Tilson backhanded me across the face. "You little whore! Watch where you're going!" I stumbled back, spilling the coffee fully onto the floor and reflexively bringing up a fist to fight him.

Before I could make a move, though, I heard a grunt and Tilson was on the floor beside his chair. I looked up startled at Jack who was crouching down beside him, wrapping his hands around his neck and dragging him up to face him.

"I'd tell you to get the fuck out of my house but I believe the implication is clear." His voice was low and dangerous.

He dropped Tilson's head so it fell with a thud against the wood floor and turned to steer me toward the kitchen.

Marshall was already there pulling a pack of frozen peas out of the refrigerator. Jack took it from him and said, "make sure he's gone before I get back out there or I'll kill him."

My face was throbbing and frankly his maniacal expression of rage was scaring me a little so I stumbled as I backed against the counter.

He seemed to notice my fear and the cause of it because he closed his eyes for a second and took in a few deep breaths before he opened them again. His appearance had changed significantly but I could still perceive a slight flicker beneath the cool depths.

Advancing toward me with the peas, he lifted me sitting onto the counter and pressed the frozen pack of vegetables to my burning skin.

I flinched a little when it touched the sore flesh and the fire flickered back across him for a moment.

"He is no longer welcome in this house."

Suddenly, I felt anger taking over my body. I wasn't even sure who I was angrier with, Tilson for hitting me or Jack for knowing him.

"Don't you see though? Don't you see he's not even the worst?"

He looked at me solemnly for a moment, hand still holding the frozen package to my cheek.

"This is my life Emma. It has always been this way here. My father, my father's father. I am as much a part of it as they are. As you are."

"You could leave. You could just go. Jack, you could just pack a bag. Just open the door and walk away." I could feel the desperation in my voice as I pleaded with him to see the sense in this act.

He dropped his hand and said softly, "It's not that simple, baby."

"Why not?" I was starting to cry. "I did it. I don't understand why you choose this! I can't understand it!"

He sighed, "What you had was not a life, Emma. It was a variation on hibernation."

Marshall was standing in the kitchen door quietly, "He's gone."

I turned my tear-streaked face away from him. "You all right, Emma?"

I wiped the back of my hand across my face quickly and composed myself. I could sense Jack still looking at me, the forgotten peas hanging from his right hand.

"I'm fine." If I said it enough times it was supposed to come true, right?

I turned to Jack and pointed to the peas. "Can I have those?"

He looked down at the pack of small vegetables like they had suddenly sprouted out of his hand. Coming back to himself, he said, "Yes, here. Go clean up and get into bed."

I walked back to my room dejectedly, showering and changing into a clean t-shirt. I was so worn out with emotion that the bed practically enveloped me as I fell into it.

I woke up suddenly when the mattress dipped behind me. I couldn't see him but the overpowering scent of him washed over me as he slid beneath the covers and his arm came around to grip my chest tightly.

A few minutes later, his breathing evened out and it brushed against the back of my neck.




Emma's Master Ch. 03



I stared straight ahead at the wall and it seemed that I had never before felt the him and me like this. The him and the me and the rest of everything. For a moment, I did not feel the distance between us anymore but the distance between us and the street outside, the city beyond it, the world. I thought if we could just stay in this small room for the rest of time. If he could only keep the rest out. If he would only not let go and we stayed like this. Like this.

So I reached for his hand, even though I knew in the morning it would be gone.



Emma's Master Ch. 04



I woke up alone and it occurred to me that for someone who had spent the last five years ardently pursuing independence I was feeling annoyingly bereft of company. I had only a moment to ponder this however before I caught him in the doorway watching me. He was wearing only boxer shorts, sleep still playing around his features and I thought he did not look quite so intimidating like this.

I wondered if something had passed between us the night before and if he perhaps had felt it too. But then his eyes got harder again as he said, "my room, ten minutes." He turned around and left me glaring at the vacated door frame as if it still contained his shape.

Approximately ten minutes later, I was leaning back against the wall of his room, hands pressed between it and my back watching him warily while he deftly slipped on a pair of black suit pants and turned back to his closet.

"What kind of criminal works regular hours and wears a suit anyway?" I scowled.

He grabbed a shirt from a hanger, "The kind who went to business school."

"About that."

He looked up at me from the fingers doing up his shirt and said "I had an idea."

I waited for more but he he looked away and back at the mirror, buttoning up his shirt, "I was wrong."

"You? Wrong?"

"It's a rare occurrence, mind you," he smiled at me from the mirror.

Well at least he wasn't being vague about it, I thought and frowned at the floor.

I looked up abruptly as he glanced over his shoulder in my direction, "Strip."

My breath caught, "what?"

"You heard me."

It seemed we were moving too quickly. I was descending too fast and I could feel my mind scrabbling against it as if my body was dead weight in this deep, dark well I was plummeting into.

"No." I whispered. I could make my way back up, I thought. It would be difficult. I would not emerge unscathed but eventually I would reach the top again and take that first heady breath of freedom.

He finished adjusting his tie and turned back around to face me. His eyes almost sent my fingers fumbling for the first button of my shirt but I clenched my fists to my sides.

I stepped away from the wall and started to move toward the door. "Please Jack, you have to understand, I am not this person you want me to be."

He sounded annoyed. "Emma, I am tired of this. You are who I say you are and I say you are mine. So when I tell you to strip I expect you to remove any and all clothing immediately. Now."

He walked toward me slowly and I took a few steps backward until the backs of my knees hit the side of his bed.

I had nowhere to go and he paused in front of me before reaching out and pulling back my head by the hair. He pressed his mouth to mine bruisingly as his hand reached out and ripped open my shirt. He leaned back for a moment to observe my freed breasts and smiled. My nipples were already growing hard and I groaned in frustration as he lifted a hand and pinched one slightly.

"You have always had great breasts, Emma. Time has not been unkind to them."

"Yeah it's been a real boon." I grumbled.

Before I could even finish my sentence he'd spun me around and pressed me bent over on his bed. Another minute and he had my shorts and underwear around my ankles. He held me down as I thrashed against the bed with a hand to the back of my neck.

"Stop it Emma. You're being ridiculous."

I almost screamed at him but stopped myself, begrudgingly conceding that my behavior was coming off as rather childish. Again. God damn it. If only my attempts to reclaim my dignity were not so easily reduced to tantrums.

"Did you want to be spanked, Emma? Was that it?" His hand came crashing down on my backside and I renewed my struggle for a moment, attempting to cover my offended bottom with my hands but he brushed them aside.

"Because that could be the only explanation I can think of." His palm came down harder and I screamed into the comforter in front of me.

"You're not stupid." Again.

"So I have to think you wanted to be punished." He rained down a few more harsh cracks and the tears started to pour out again. Fuck.

"No!" I muffled into the bed. Had I wanted this? Of course not! I had only wanted to reassert my will of course. Remind him of my personhood. Right?

He ran a hand along the cleft below my heated ass and countered, "Really? Because your pussy is telling me a different story."

I whimpered in humiliation as he moved a finger in and out of me for a moment before I heard the sound of his belt buckle behind me. With little more warning than that sound he rammed inside me. I screeched as he began pounding me against his bed. I knew he meant this to be a quick fuck but I felt myself starting to build toward orgasm all the same.

I let out a small, "please."

"No, Emma. This isn't for you. You do not have permission to come."

I bit back more hated tears but attempted to control myself enough before he groaned and finished inside me, pulling back and zipping up perfunctorily.

"Now I have to change again."

He brushed a hand down my back and then through my hair.

"What are you going to do next time I give you an order?"

I sighed into the bed, "Obey, sir."

"That's right, baby. Go get cleaned up for breakfast."

I reached for my shorts but he stopped me. "No, leave those."

"But Marshall--"

"Yes?"

"He could--"

"Maybe you should have thought of that before you decided to disobey me."
 I swallowed and drew back my hand, "yes sir."

_______________________

Tiptoeing slowly along the hall back to my room I sighed in relief when I closed the door behind me. What the fuck was that? Breath Emma, I thought. I got in the shower and started to wash him from me slowly, enjoying the soft caress of the water against my overheated skin.

Before I made my way back outside into his palpable domain, I somehow managed to compose myself. No small feat as I pushed open the door and felt the cool air claim me on the other side.

Marshall was making omelets and glanced up when I entered. I sat down on one of the stools at the counter and he placed one in front of me. There was no need for ceremony in front of Marshall.

Pulling a knee up to my chest, I picked at the eggs and cheese in front of me.

"I'm afraid I'm losing myself in him, Marshall."

He turned around with a plate of his own and leaned against the kitchen island while he picked up a fork.

"I don't think you're the type to lose yourself so easily, Emma. And I think Jack knows this as well."

"I don't know," I mumbled as I speared a piece of the omelet and shoveled it into my mouth. It was, as expected, mouth-wateringly good.

"Marshall! Emma! Have you seen my black suit jacket?" Jack shouted from his room.

We looked at each other over our food, remembering that we were still not alone in the house and Marshall called out, "Have you checked your closet!"

"Of course I checked the closet!"

Marshall looked at me conspiratorially and nodded his head in the direction of the living room behind me. I looked back and saw a black suit jacket was draped over one of the chairs.

"What about the bathroom door!" I rolled my eyes.

I considered just bringing him the jacket but Marshall was having too much fun.

"Maybe it's still at the cleaners!"

"No of course it's not at--" We could hear Jack's heavy footsteps coming closer as he came into the room and stopped.

I turned slightly to look at him as I swallowed a piece of omelet. He was standing in the living room looking at his jacket and cocking his head at Marshall accusingly.

Marshall just shrugged and gave me a bewildered expression, "oh is that black? I thought for sure navy."

I smirked as Jack rolled his eyes and made his way over to us.

"What are we eating?" he said, reaching for my plate and pressing a hand to my shoulder, urging me down to the floor. I unfurled my body from around my knee and let his hand direct me.

Settling myself, I frowned up at him as he took a large bite, "Mm, Marshall this is excellent."

I know! I'd been enjoying it! 

Noticing my annoyance he chuckled and said, "Oh were you eating this, little bird?"

I was still angry with him for leaving me frustrated earlier so I refused to be the subject of his amusement, "I was finished."

He smiled and shrugged, going back to the omelet, "suit yourself."

When he'd cleared the plate, he gathered up his jacket and looked down at me, "you're free to roam the house today Emma, with the exception of my room and office, of course, but no going outside this time." He said the last with a pointed expression, the implication clear that this had been contingent upon my good behavior.

I didn't answer him and he leaned down to my ear, "I'll see you tonight. Be good." He turned for the door, grabbing his briefcase from the side table.

Again, I stared at the place where he had been and wondered at the presence even his absence possessed.

__________

When Marshall was cleaning up the kitchen I ventured again, "so how did you end up out here with Jack?"

"Did you ask him?"

"Yeah, he was a regular fountain of useful information. I was like, whoa Jack slow down, TMI."

He laughed, "fair enough."

I waited.

"Ok," he shrugged, "well I guess it was that we met in college and he suggested we go to some party or other and I said sure, and the next semester he suggested we take some class or other and I said sure, and after college he suggested we get an apartment in some neighborhood or other while we looked for jobs and I said sure. So when he had to come back here, it seemed only natural that I would come with him."

I took in this new information, "why did he have to come back here?"

Something briefly marred Marshall's usually sanguine expression but he went back to scraping off the frying pan in the sink, "for that, you'll have to ask him."

"Yeah, like that'll happen."

He looked back up at me, "I know it may not always seem like it Emma, but at the core of things he is a good man. Even in this life, I've never known him to hurt anyone who did not truly deserve it."

And not for the first time I found myself wondering if he was not a little in love with Jack and if Jack was not aware of this. If he did he certainly never gave any indication of it. Truthfully, Marshall's blind faith was almost endearing but I said, "what about me?"

"What do you mean?"

I started to feel the indignation building in my chest again, "he's hurt me! Why does everyone always forget about me?"

Then he sighed and put down the pan, "here you are a slave, Emma. And even then, I do not think Jack has really hurt you, do you?"

"Depriving me of my right to freedom? Is this kindness? You realize that when most people in this country say "slave" they are referring to something very far away or very long ago. It is not a thing most say so casually over breakfast, Marshall, as if this is meant to refute all argument."

He looked at me sadly for another moment before he said, "I don't know what else to say, Emma. That is the way things are here. Have been for a very long time. It is what he knows."

Drained by my outburst, I swallowed back tears and contemplated the futility of further discussion on the topic. Marshall would always defend Jack. That is why Jack trusted him so implicitly.

We were both silent until finally he seemed to brighten up at a thought, "hey how 'bout we watch a movie, huh? I just got Die Hard 2 on blu ray."

I almost laughed, we had watched those movies together so many times in the past that at this point we could probably just act them out to each other.

So I decided to abandon my self pity for now and said, "Ok, sounds like a plan." 

"I'm just gonna wash up and I'll be right back." He left and I looked around the kitchen, wondering at the domesticity of it. To an outside observer it would never appear that we had just had a loaded conversation about my unwilling confinement.

I was heading in the direction of the living room when I heard the front door open. Jack must have forgotten something.

"Why, hello there." I took a step back.

"Your master around?" Leon.

I froze. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest. The most evil man I had ever met was standing not ten feet in front of me, giving me his most predatory smile.

I wanted to run screaming for the exit. I wanted to find a knife and bury it deep in his chest. I wanted to curse his sole existence and call upon any higher power to strike him down in a blaze of righteous fire. But I didn't. I knew what could happen to me if I did. To Jack. Not that I cared, I quickly corrected.

Instead I stood still as he raked his repulsive, snakelike eyes over me before remarking, "Hmm I wonder that I did not keep you for myself all those years ago."

Thank god for small miracles I thought, reminded again of how much worse my enslavement could have been.

I remembered that day when I had woken up, unsure of my surroundings in a brightly lit room with only a cot. I was wearing some kind of ridiculous negligee that I would have rolled my eyes at had I not been absolutely terrified. The last thing I remembered was walking to class from a coffee shop with the feeling of a shadow behind me and I had few illusions about what waking up in a strange place, dressed in lingerie might connote.

When the door opened I shot up to defend myself. I was determined they would not take me so easily. But there was no sudden attack as I braced myself in the center of the room. The two men in the door only watched me emotionlessly as I fought to stay my ground.

"I picked her out especially for you Jack, it's about time you acquired one."

Jack regarded me with disinterest, "Leon, I have told you before I have no need for a slave. They are more trouble than they're worth."

"Nonsense, I have big plans for you Jack and this will cement your place in our community."

I remember seeing something dark pass over Jack's eyes that I did not understand. His expression for me was almost one of contempt and even then I was afraid of his anger. I was not sure what I had done to earn it.

Finally, Leon actually spoke to me and I started, "this is your master now girl. Obey him in all things and he will look after you."

My anxiety escaped in a kind of maniacal laughter and I snarled, "I have no need for looking after."

Jack's anger seemed to dull slightly, "no?"

I looked at him fiercely, feigning a confidence I did not possess and said, "you just try looking after me asshole, and you'll see just how well I'll 'look after' you."

I thought for sure this would be the moment they would attack me, that I had provoked their anger into action but instead this strange man I had just been informed would be my master in all things only looked slightly amused. In fact, I could almost detect a faint grin beneath his stoic features and I remembered thinking that I did not mind the sight of it so much. I remembered this because I was struck by what a stupid thought this was.

"You know what? I think I will take her."

When he faced me again he looked right at me with those quicksand eyes and said, "what's your name, little bird?"

Years later I had asked him why he'd called me that and he'd mulled it over as if considering it anew, "I don't know. I suppose because you looked as if had the ceiling only been open you would so easily have flown away." 

If only it had been.

Leon's voice brought me back to the present and I found myself wishing Jack had actually forgotten something and would be coming back any moment, "well?"

I was unsure what he was asking and tried to remember what he had said.

"Is you're master here or isn't he?"

I let out a breath when I heard Marshall behind me, "you know he's not here Leon. He left half an hour ago."

Leon raised an eyebrow and took a step toward me, "ah, of course. I should have come by earlier." I tensed at the look in his eyes.

Marshall moved to step between us and Leon was forced to acknowledge him, "you know the rules Leon. Jack said no touching."

Leon's face clouded over with irritation before relaxing again, "yes, I remember. A pity. The slut's practically begging to be touched." Did he suffer from some kind of serious delusion? What about my paralyzing fear screamed fuck me? Of course, as I thought this I realized that he probably suffered from several of them. And this was the man in charge of this twisted neighborhood.

"Can I help you with anything, Leon?" Marshall was struggling to appear both respectful and imposing at the same time. A delicate balance to maintain.

After what seemed like an eternity, Leon finally removed his eyes from my body, "no, just stopped by to see Jack is all. I'll come back another time." It sounded almost like a threat.

When he'd gone, I practically sagged to the floor in relief.

Marshall locked the door after him and glared at it, "fucking asshole. He came by just to scare you. Gets a rise from that shit."

"Why hasn't anyone put a bullet in him yet?"

"Believe me, it's not for lack of trying."

I didn't want to think about him anymore. He had left and that was good enough for now, "Die Hard?"

"Hell yeah, let's do it," Marshall perked up and collapsed onto the couch, reaching for the remote.

I shook off the mass of terror that had descended on me again in Leon's company and shelved it somewhere in the recesses of my consciousness. It did no good to let it get the better of me.

"It's already in the machine?" I let myself fall into the couch cushions next to Marshall.

He looked at me seriously, "Die Hard, Emma. On blu ray."

I laughed and pulled my knees up to my chest. Tilson and Leon and Grady Park receded a little further behind that locked front door for now.

________________

After the movie Marshall went out for a while and I puttered around, picking up a book, putting it down, looking out the window. I was staring absentmindedly at a tree outside the kitchen when I heard the familiar sound of Jack's feet behind me. His hand came around my stomach and I felt the prickly unshaved texture of his chin against my neck. Somewhere nearby I heard the drone of a lawnmower and wondered again that there could still be life going on Out There. In the rest of everything.

"When did you get home?"

"Just now." He ran one hand down my side and slid his other hand a little lower.

"Hmmm, I've been thinking about taking advantage of you all day."

"Jack," I was getting nervous as he started to lift the hem of my shirt out of my shorts. I tried to turn around but he held me pressed against the counter.

"Yes?"

"What are you doing?" I almost squealed as his hand pushed down beneath my shorts.

"Isn't it obvious?"

"N-no not here" I shuddered as the pressure from the front of my shorts molded his fingers against me.

"You wouldn't be saying no to me again? Would you Emma?" His other hand was slowly undoing the buttons of my shirt.

"Because that would be a very silly thing to do."

He pushed my shirt aside and gently started circling my breasts and rapidly rising nipples as his other hand pressed against my clit, "wouldn't it?"

My teeth clenched as I said, "It's just, oh god, it's just Marshall could come home."

He pulled his hand out of my shorts and I experienced a moment of relief before he moved to undo the button at the front and pull down the zipper.

"I suppose he could, couldn't he?" Bastard.

I struggled again as he pushed my shorts and underwear down to my knees, "step out."

"Jack, please," I whimpered.

His voice was very low in my ear, "I said step out."

As I did this he pulled my shirt down my arms and off completely. I flushed from scalp to toes as I was now completely naked in the kitchen. Anyone could walk in now and I would have no way to hide. Not with Jack pressed up against me like this.




Emma's Master Ch. 04



He pulled back slightly and retrieved something from his pocket as I tensed over the countertop.

I screamed when he pulled my ass cheeks apart and spread something cool on the spot between them.

"NO! NO absolutely not!"

"Yes Emma, I am going to fuck you here. I've been meaning to ever since you came back. It's not going to be comfortable at first but you know I won't hurt you. You just need to relax and trust me." He ran a hand down my back.

Trust him! Was he out of his god damn mind! I reared back against him and desperately attempted to wrench myself out of his grip, "No Jack, I won't let you."

He sighed and reached for something behind him, "I had a feeling I might need these." He gripped my flailing hands easily and clicked something soft but metallic to them. The cuffs, I realized. I had had little desire to be reintroduced to this particular instrument of control. He swiftly looped the cuffs over a hook on the wall opposite me. I attempted to in vain to raise my wrists from it but I was stretched too far.

I was letting out small sounds of distress but he did not start in again right away. "Shhhh" he was rubbing up and down my back and sides and despite the fact that I knew this was the same man that intended to hurt me soon, I was starting to calm slightly.

I arched rigid when his slick finger came back to my asshole but he kept rubbing my lower back and saying, "just relax, baby. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Easy for you to say," I mumbled and gasped as his finger slid past the opening and up inside me.

"Perhaps." He slid his other hand back around to my front again and started to lightly brush over my pussy while his finger moved in and out of me from the other side. I groaned and he rubbed me a little harder as he pressed a second finger inside of me and continued stretching me.

It had been some time since I had done this and I was naturally apprehensive at the prospect. I had not entirely disliked it when Jack had done this before. In fact, my prior reactions to this treatment would be difficult to define as anything near dislike but it required a certain relinquishing of power I was still slightly uncomfortable with.

I was grateful that Jack took his time at least, headful of my fear and recent inexperience. He was in no hurry as he built up to three fingers before presenting his cock head to the small hole. He was still stroking down my side and playing with my pussy.

"Okay Emma, we're going to take this slowly, ok?"

I whimpered and he kissed the side of my neck.

As he drove into me steadily I tried to pull away but that only pushed me more firmly onto his fingers at my clit and I groaned.

When he was fully seated inside me I felt him still and wait for me to get used to his bulk. It was a strange sensation and it burned and ached slightly but I found the feeling coupled with his hand at my slit easing into a satisfying throb.

When he started to move I drew in a breath and he cupped a breast and strummed a finger over the nipple, "you feel so fucking good, Emma."

I couldn't believe I was submitting to this as I felt my arousal go up a notch and writhed against the counter.

"Do you like my cock in your ass Emma?" I almost rolled my eyes at his arrogance but I was too turned on.

"Yes, sir," I managed as he rolled his hips back into me and tapped at my clit.

My fingers were digging into my hands still confined in the cuffs as I gave in to the familiar flood of all consuming need he brought out in me.

He brushed back my hair and whispered in my ear, "are you getting ready to come baby?"

He rocked out again and I let out a sharp sound, "oh please, yes sir. Please may I come?"

I felt his tongue brush over my ear as he pushed back in and said, "soon."

He fucked me for a few more minutes like this until I was losing my mind with the need for release before he finally said, "ok come, now. I want to come while you squeeze your asshole around my cock."

I shouted my climax into the kitchen walls while he yelled, "fuck!" and I felt him spend deep inside me.

Neither of us moved for a full five minutes. I was covered in perspiration and my mind was still floating somewhere near the ceiling.

When he finally slid out of me he stroked a hand through my hair again and said, "well that was worth the wait." I couldn't exactly refute that, I thought.

He unlocked the cuffs and rubbed my wrists but I was mass of endorphins and didn't even care anymore that I was standing completely naked in the kitchen.

"You okay?" He watched me.

"Yes," I whispered.

"Do you want me to help you wash up? You look a little unsteady."

Oh boy did I ever have to pull it together I thought.

I straightened and attempted to focus my eyes on his, "no, I'll be fine."

He grabbed my chin and held my gaze for a second before he said, "ok baby, go ahead. But come back soon. I'm starving and if Marshall isn't back in the next half hour I'm going to just go ahead and whip up something myself."

I couldn't repress a look of amusement as I pulled my shorts back up, "you're going to cook?"

He contemplated this with a frown, "well, I'm going to reheat probably."

I smiled despite myself. Jack had always been useless in the kitchen, "Ok, I'll be sure to come back shortly to marvel at your culinary prowess."

His mouth curled up on one side and he swatted me on the behind, "go get in the shower smart mouth."

I started toward the door before I remembered, "Leon came by today."

His lips tightened, "Did he touch you?"

"No, Marshall was here."

"Good." That was it?

"He's awful, Jack. Psychotic."

He looked at me closely before he said, "I did not choose him, Emma."

"But you stay here with him."

His whole body tensed and I could not read the look on his face, "shower. Now."

Yes, a regular fountain of knowledge. ______________________

When I emerged again twenty minutes later, refreshed and slowly coming back to myself, I heard the shower running in Jack's room. He must have given up on his notions of cooking dinner himself I thought with relief. I went to root around in the fridge and see if I could maybe find something I was capable of cooking when for the second time that day I was caught completely off guard by unexpected guests.

There, standing in the living room, were five police officers, fully decked out in SWAT gear and leveling their guns at me. I let out a strangled scream and heard the shower go off in the other room. One of the men put a finger to his lips and motioned for another to move in the direction of the shower. I was confused. What were the police doing here? In Grady Park? This did not bode well.

"Emma what--?" I turned to see Jack dressed only in sweatpants and rubbing a towel through his hair.

When he saw what I was looking at he put down the towel and calmly surveyed the intruders, "gentlemen, to what do I owe this pleasure?"

When they did not lower their weapons he moved closer to me and said, "are those absolutely necessary? Do either of us look like we are concealing firearms? Or perhaps you're afraid Emma will overpower you with brute strength?" I felt his hand at the small of my back and wondered that I was more afraid of these police officers than the man who insisted on calling me his slave.

The man in front gave a signal and the guns were lowered, "we're here to bring you in Cannon. Your girlfriend as well." I almost laughed at the term.

"Well why don't you get to it then? No point hanging around here threatening unarmed girls with assault rifles is there?"

Jack had a way of regaining power in powerless situations that often left his attempted aggressors off balance. I almost felt bad for the officer as he struggled to reassert his authority and nodded, "put your hands behind your back."

He did and they cuffed us both, leading us out to a cruiser parked outside the house. I looked at Jack after we were secured in the back seat but he only nodded at me as if to say everything was fine. I guessed this wasn't quite the new experience for him that it was for me.

_____________

When we entered the buzzing station I glanced at Jack briefly but again he was unworried. I knew as well as he that if I meant to get away from him (and despite my recent concessions, they did not detract from the fact that I could not remain a slave, marked as chattel for eternity) this was not the place. This whole operation smacked of some overeager officer, committed to making a place for himself. I recognized too many of the faces in this station, though. Too many knowing eyes behind those desks.

We were separated and led to different interrogation rooms. When I was directed to a featureless, sterile room, a police officer followed me inside and introduced himself as Officer Johnson. I knew right away that this was the officer who had organized the raid. I could see it behind his eyes and in the way his fingers tapped against his pants.

He sat down very officially and licked his finger as he flipped open a file and spoke as if this were the first time he were reading it.

"Emma Tanner. Formerly of Pembroke Heights, Pennsylvania. Parents deceased. Two years at Harvard. First appearance in Grady Park approximately seven years ago. Known associate of Cannon's during that time until disappearance five years ago.

He put down the file. "We thought the bastard'd killed you Emma."

He waited and I wondered if he expected a response. What could I say to that? No I am not dead. I am sitting here across from him unmurdered. This should be enough.

He was, however, undaunted by my silence, "Look Emma, I'd rather not mince words here." He schooled his features until they were very serious and I waited. I was not a fan of "mincing words," either.

"We know the nature of your relationship with Jack Cannon. We've known for some time what goes on there."

Was I supposed to be surprised? Didn't most of the police department know? What else were they paid for?

I knew how I must look to him. My face was still bruised from Tilson's attack the day before and even though I'd showered I was sure I had not managed to completely wash the smell of sex away. It was too much of a cliche so I did not even bother to try and disabuse him of his assumptions.

He saw my mind wandering and slid his coffee forward, hunching down to look in my eyes in a way that said he had done this before. He had seen it somewhere perhaps. Another cop. On TV. And now he hunched forward when he spoke. I am the Police he wanted me to know with this gesture. The existentialists would say here is the very nature of despair.

"He is a very bad man." He attempted now to look even more serious with a hint of sympathetic concern. It was very obvious and almost comical.

Was Jack a good man? Was he a bad man? I was tired of this question. I had asked it myself before I had thought better of it. These were words with little meaning. I thought now that if you spend too much time dwelling on one or the other you will miss the real thing that is really there. And that of course is the danger of despair.

He seemed to think I should react a certain way to him and was perhaps disappointed that I did not. When he had sat down. When he had composed himself across from me he had meant to set in motion a progression of events that would all be very predictable. He would be the Sympathetic Cop. I would be the Traumatized Victim. It would take time. He would have to be very patient. But eventually he would convince me to trust him and I would relax in a torrent of useful information. And all the Bad Men would go to jail. They would threaten me of course. But I would not be afraid because he would promise to protect me.

But it was no use because I had seen through him. The way he leaned back in his chair. The way he stuck out his foot. He did not know himself and I could not indulge him. So I looked at him and said, "am I going to be here long?"

I had not meant to offend but he looked annoyed at my inability to cower and I could see that he had already decided to change his direction. I could see in his eyes that now he thought I must be Too Traumatized. That I must have Stockholm Syndrome. Now he must try something else. His eyes became very hard and he drew himself up.

"Now listen here, Ms. Tanner. If you can not cooperate with us I will be forced to charge you as an accessory." It was all very sad, I thought.

"To what?"

"Excuse me?"

"To what am I an accessory."

He cleared his throat, "well, murder, kidnapping, racketeering, bribery, the list goes on." He was checking them off on his fingers as if he must reach a certain number.

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't think you will."

He ran his hand through his hair in frustration and slammed it down on the table. He expected me to jump but I did not. Again the flicker of disappointment.

I almost felt bad for him. That I should apologize. "I'm sorry but I don't think I am an accessory to those things and I don't think you will charge me."

He was unprepared for the way things had turned and I wondered how long I would have to sit here until he would be satisfied.

In the end he could not find a predetermined course of action that gave the affect he sought and I was released to a hard seat in a long corridor.

"Can I take you home?" Home?

I looked up at the young officer standing in front of me, "I think your boyfriend's going to be a bit longer."

"He's not my-- Oh."

"Could you drop me at the train station?" I said, as if this were something I could say. I was very convincing, I thought. As if I am always asking to be dropped at the train station.

Of course, then I remembered, I did not need to convince him. He had meant to ask where he should drop me and he had meant for me to answer. It had felt so long since I had known the breadth of possibility in such a moment. I had anywhere at my fingertips and I had only to reach out and brush my palm against it, say, "yes I will go here" and I would go there. I would go to the train station. I would find someone kind to help me, and I would get on the train and I would watch Boston and Jack grow smaller and smaller from an ever-growing distance.

So I followed the kind officer out of the station and across the parking lot and into the patrol car. "I am leaving," I whispered to the city as I watched it fly by in a different light than when I had entered it not so very long ago. Now I could say, "oh could you stop here, I hear they have excellent coffee" or I could say, "do you know, I think I will get out here and walk." Of course, I did not say these things but I let the thought roll around in my mind and savored it.

_______________

It was late in the evening when we arrived at the train station and I thanked him for the ride. Rush hour had subsided and there was only a handful of very busy people going to some place or from some place that was very important.

I looked up at the board above the ticket agents and watched the flashing cities and towns crackle and blur into one another, fighting for purchase among the shifting destinations and wondered if I could pick one. Where should I go? Where should I go now? 

Because I had slept in my car next to the Redwood Forest, I had shouted into the Grand Canyon, I had gone swimming in a cave in Colorado where the light glittered and refracted off the walls and I had stood in front of a cabin over the Blue Ridge Mountains watching dusk descend like flurried silk. And all that while I had smiled and said, "he is not here! I have gone away and he is not here!"

But of course, from far away then it would grow louder and it would come back to me in echoed alleyways, long highways, a lake as wide as the sea. "He is not here!" They would say. "He is not here."

And I would look out over mountains, forests and cities and wonder that I could not even see if they were beautiful if he was not there to see that they were also beautiful.

I was not sure how much time passed in front of those blinking cities as I felt the years of despair stretching on before me. I could go to Paris or Alaska or the Rocky Mountains but they would all be the same. They would all be without him. And I could see my life ahead of me without him and knowing all the time I was without him. I would be no better than Officer Johnson.

"The ocean?"

I almost sobbed in relief.

"Where do you even have to go, Emma?"

That great empty nowhere came rushing back in my ears. "Nowhere!" I sobbed. "I have nowhere!"

He sighed, steering me away from that diabolical board and to a secluded bench as he sat down next to me, lifting my chin up to him. "Emma I will say this and I will not say this again so you need to listen closely." He seemed to be attempting to compose his thoughts.

A bum was moving along the sparse collection of travelers scattered around the station.

Jack moved his hand to my thigh. To the place where his mark had been etched into my skin.

"You see this. I know you've been trying to strip it of meaning. To make it one less thing that binds you to me but---" The bum was encroaching on the small territory he'd secured for us in what seemed to be our own personal dark corner. I could see the flicker of annoyance in his eyes as he turned his head slowly to the man.

Something in his stare must have given the guy pause because I could see the sudden struggle in him to either run or kneel to this new regent of the train station. He decided on hurried retreat and I almost smiled when Jack turned back to me as if nothing had happened, squeezing my upper thigh again.

"What this meant when I gave this to you is not only that you belong to me, and my position on that hasn't changed," he looked at me sternly, "it hasn't. But you see, it is also that you belong with me. Do you understand?" I didn't exactly but I had the impression for the first time that he was speaking to me. To the me that was me, and I didn't want to stop him.

He ran a hand through his unkempt hair quickly, unintentionally dislodging a lock of it to fall down over his high forehead. "You see, the reason I can't let you get on that train. And I'm sorry I can't. Not any train." He held my gaze, waiting for me to argue with him but I was too surprised that he was bothering to explain himself.

"The reason that I can't, is that I know you belong with me. And I can't stand thinking of you out there where I am not for another five years. Not when I know where you belong and who you belong with."

"So yes, Emma, you will always have somewhere to go. It is wherever I am."

I was almost too stunned to speak. In all my years of knowing him and not knowing him he had never said as much. I didn't think even he realized how much he had said.

So I said, "have you ever been to the Blue Ridge Mountains?"

His eyes furrowed, "What?"

"Have you?"

"Yes, they're beautiful."

"Yes."

______________________________

-----one more chapter to come....