Dreamer's Tale is the story Trip was writing in the first story, Not Blackmailed.

by Tigger & L. Corvidae

 

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Image Credit: Ornamental Decorative Divider By: OCAL free for all uses from Clker.com. ~Sephrena.

Legalities: Archiving and reposting of this story *unchanged* is permitted provided that: 1) You must have contacted the author, Tigger, and have asked permission first and received said permission to host this particular work. 2) No fee be charged, either directly or indirectly (this includes so-called "adult checks") or any form of barter or monetary transfers in order to access viewing this work *and* (3) PROVIDED that this disclaimer, all author notes, legalities and attribution to the original author are contained unchanged within the work. 4) The author of this work, Tigger, must be provided free account access at all times the work is hosted in order to modify or remove this work at his sole discretion.

This work is the copyrighted material of the respective authors. ~Tigger

Author Notes: Dreamer's Tale is the story Trip was writing in the first story, Not Blackmailed. Dreamer's Tale was co-authored by the great L. Corvidae, author of Nothing Like the Sun and Red Rain (which I have received author's permission to post here at the Scratching Post!) Both will appear in sequence following the posting of this part. ~Tigger

Cautionary Notes: This story contains suggested elements of Female Dominant, Male Dominant, TV Dominant, Female Submissive, Male Submissive, TV Submissive themes. It is not 'Forced Femme' so much as 'Strongly Urged and Gently Manipulated Femme.' These elements are necessary to the story I want to tell, but I hope that most readers will not find these elements of theme too distressing. The reader should take that into consideration when deciding to read this tale. ~Tigger

Historical Notes: Originally archived at Part 1 Asstr.org in 1998, Part 2 Asstr.org in 1998, Part 3 Asstr.org in 1998 and at Tigger's Stories of Loving Dominance & Submission in 2009 ~Tigger.

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Dreamer's Tale of Blackmail
 
 
Part 1.
 
Daniel Stephens sat alone in the eerie gloom of his deserted office, the greenish radiance of his computer's monitor providing the only light. The quiet solitude of the empty building was intermittently broken by the staccato rattling of frantic keystrokes as Daniel struggled to finish the report before his boss's hard and fast 9 o'clock deadline.

Satisfied with the last-minute revisions he'd made, Daniel clicked on "save," though not before adding a "B" to the end of the filename - thus avoiding the erasure of the earlier, *error-free* version of the document.

He skimmed over the first few lines of the report as the sheets slid out of the laser printer. He caught the split infinitive in the first paragraph and felt a twinge of satisfaction. It was a little strange, to be so proud of one's mistakes, but it had been many long months since anything in the life of Daniel Stephens had seemed even remotely "Normal."

Only now the very abnormality that had marked his life for so long was swirling crazily into a new and unwelcome sort of chaos and turbulence. Something was happening - exactly *what that something was he didn't know what or why - but she was starting to hold things in and it bothered him. Far more than he believed it should or thought it could.

So, he reasoned, maybe she needed an excuse.

The clock at the bottom of the screen told him his time was scant seconds away from being up, so in a mad rush he shut down the machine and gathered up the papers and hurried to the office of Ms. Erin Young.

His boss.

His Mistress.

Daniel caught himself unconsciously sliding his foot back and forth in the now too-large Italian loafer. He'd purchased the loafers to wear with men's socks, but he had dispensed with the socks in favor of pantyhose at Mistress Erin's orders when she'd left the office at six p.m. That was his strangely mild punishment for not finishing the report during the working day and forcing *her* to return from *her* Friday night entertainments in order to review the report. She'd only assigned it to him at three o'clock, but the fact that the report could not humanly have been completed in that little time was not relevant. It was almost like in the early days, when she'd routinely set him up to fail.

Except that instead of one of the sly - almost menacing - smiles she'd throw him after those hopelessly impossible "requests," she'd dumped this latest task in his lap with a heavy sigh.

*That* wasn't like her at all, and he almost looked forward to her blowing her stack when she read what he was about to give her.

Almost.
 

 
Erin Young took one last look at the official letter held limply in her right hand, and wondered again at the lack of elation the notice aroused in her heart.

"I should be happy," she told herself firmly as if willing herself to believe it. "Dammit, I should be *proud*."

But she wasn't feeling either of those emotions. All she felt was a strange emptiness inside.

A soft rapping at her office door broke through her trance.

"Enter," she ordered with an affected snarl of contempt. She did so for his sake, really. After all, with everything that had passed between them, she wasn't sure he would even know how to deal with her outside of the roles she had so carefully scripted for them.

Then again, she wasn't sure she knew how to deal with him without those roles, either.

And that realization scared the living hell out of her. He entered, and she was, for a moment, taken with how similar, and yet how very different, he was to the cocky boy who had strutted into her office two years earlier.

And he had been a boy - there was no mistaking that - regardless of his age and experience. Talented, to be sure, but lazy, too. In those early days, he had relied heavily on his leading man good looks and charisma to dodge hard work. He'd cut quite a swath through the ladies in the office, single and attached alike, though when it came to the boss, his superficial charm kept running smack into a brick wall. Not that she wouldn't have enjoyed having him - *her* way - but her position in the "good ole boy" controlled corporate structure had simply been too tenuous for her to take the chance.

Remembering him as he had been in those days, it was impossible for Erin not to get a thrill - a tingling sensation that started at the back of her neck and eventually traveled through her entire body - every time he knelt before her. Even at this very moment, weary and saddened as she was, watching him gracefully drop to his knees sent a much welcomed frisson of pleasure through her.

He seemed to glide across the carpet, head bowed in supplication. He reached her desk and meekly handed over the sheaf of papers, maintaining his subservient pose as she looked the report over.

A cursory glance brought a weary groan from her lips. He'd made a horrible mess of it - almost as if on purpose. For a moment, she actually felt oddly touched at what seemed an obvious attempt to get a rise out of her. But of course, that was the sort of tacky, foolish stunt that a "genuine" submissive would pull, and Daniel was anything but that.

Deliberate or not, it was a damned frustrating thing for Daniel to do. The report hadn't been some little test or dommely game; but rather a genuine, honest-to-god, had-to-get-done report; the demanding nature of which had been brought about by the insanity of corporate culture rather than any impish malice on her part.

She wondered for a moment if he was beginning to backslide on her. The thought caused her heart to sink. If that was true, it couldn't have happened at a worse time.

While Erin's heart sank slowly in her chest, Daniel waited, trembling with anticipation. He had learned quickly enough that the waiting was the worst of it: the nerve wracking combination of adrenalin and an imagination let free to run wild.

Finally, after waiting for what seemed like a little *too* long, he cautiously peeked up at her from under his lashes and saw to his surprise that she had set aside his report and was instead staring intently at a slightly wrinkled piece of paper.

Erin visibly shook herself to break the single minded grip it had on her and looked down at her slave.

"You have your A.A. meeting tonight." It was not a question because she had kept careful track of his recovery.

"Yes, Mistress Young." he answered, using her mandated title. As a slave, she had said, he was unworthy to even speak her given name, even if proceeded by her honorific of Mistress. Something else Daniel had learned early and painfully in her service.

"I do have one scheduled for tonight, Mistress Young, although I will be a little late for it." In fact, he would have happily skipped it altogether. It had been well over a year since he'd last felt the slightest desire for a drink, and even his recent concern over his Mistress's somber mood hadn't been enough to resurrect those old demons.

But she insisted he continue with the program, and the penalty for skipping a meeting was still the same as it had been from the beginning: a punishment session in her dungeon the likes of which he would never forget. (Nor had he.)

Still, whenever they talked about turning your life over to a higher power, he always had to suppress a giggle.

"Your report is shit and you know it, Dani," she said coldly. "Have something that I can actually submit ready by noon tomorrow. Then we're going to go to my house. Be prepared to spend the rest of the weekend. When you leave there on Monday morning, you will be coming straight here. Are we clear on this, Dani?"

The utterly toneless voice chilled Daniel to the bone, making him wish fervently that he had not been quite so generous inserting errors into that report. The only time he could remember her voice sounding like that had been the one and *only* instance he'd chosen her dungeon over another "stupid meeting with all those whining goofs." He could still recall that awful, emotionless voice, asking him again and again as that night in Hell progressed, "So this is better than your stupid meeting?" and "Who is whining now, you stupid goof?"

"Are we clear on this, Dani?" she asked again, each word separated and clipped.

"Oh, yes, Mistress Young." Daniel shuddered as he made his bowing obeisance, his forehead touching the floor at her feet, before crawling backwards out the door.

Sweet Jesus. What *had* he just done?
 

 
What had ultimately laid Daniel Stephens low had not been the booze - that had really been little more than a symptom.

The thing that had ultimately brought him down - two things, really - had been a pair of sparkling blue eyes that had belonged to a girl named Donna. Her beauty, her grace, her simple and wonderful humanity had cut through his cynical slickster shell in a way that no one, least of all Daniel, could ever have believed possible.

He had loved her desperately. And then she'd left him.

Under ordinary circumstances, Erin would have been content simply to sit back and savor the simple justice of the situation, but reality denied her that pleasure. In those precious few weeks when Daniel had thought he'd stumbled onto true love in spite of himself, the potential that had always lurked so frustratingly close to the surface had broken through.

His work became sharp, focused, brilliant. He became a wunderkind within the company, and she was regarded as a wunderkind, too, for having stuck with him throughout his insufferable "infancy."

So, instead of being able to sit back and relish the proceedings as another macho creep got his just desserts, Erin Young had suddenly found herself in the thoroughly uncomfortable position of having her wagon hitched to an star that was rapidly burning itself out. The stylish suits began to show up at work wrinkled and the Hollywood looks became sullied with stubble and dark bags under bloodshot eyes. He would come back late from lunch, and sometimes he didn't even bother to try to cover the alcohol on his breath.

At the time, she'd known she'd had every reason to fire him, but she'd discovered that the glass ceiling was a lot more fragile when you were standing on top of it then when you were trying to break through it from below. Talk had already begun to spread that she couldn't "handle the situation" and she'd had no doubt that firing the company's newest golden boy - tarnished or no - would be the final piece of ammo her critics would need to claim she had no business "playing with the big boys."

Her decision, to give Daniel complete and total responsibility for the Pacific Rim presentation, had been the equivalent of a Hail Mary pass. She'd hoped the pressure of landing a big account would kick-start something inside of him. If only she had known just *how* big the account was going to be for the company, she would never have done it. *So* big, in fact, that when she found out, she'd literally gone right from her boss's office to the executive washroom and had thrown up.

On the morning of the presentation, Daniel had been nowhere to be found. A frantic search of his desk and his computer had turned up nothing to show for the weeks he'd had to prepare, despite his having assured her at every step that everything was "just fucking peachy." When he finally did show up, just minutes ahead of the Pacific Rim people, he'd been so drunk that Erin literally had to drag him into her office - mostly to get him out of sight.

She'd dumped his comatose body unceremoniously on the floor and then had spent the ten most frantic and terrifying minutes of her life hammering away at her laptop, cobbling together a slipshod piece of smoke and mirrors. Nevertheless, she'd still managed to sell the Pacific Rim people at the presentation itself, relying entirely on her indomitable will to push the deal through. By the time she had returned to her office, she'd been elated, but completely drained. Unfortunately for him, Daniel had still been there, on her office floor - snoring away and lying in a pool of piss. Erin had taken one look at him, closed the door, and then walked over to the phone on her desk. She'd called one of her most ardent submissive admirers, and had ordered the girl to come by Erin's office immediately. And to... "bring a few things with her."
 

 
Daniel hadn't realized it at the time, but when he finally awoke from his drunken stupor, he had entered an entirely new life in an entirely new world.

Amazingly, he had remained dead-to-the-world for the entire ride out to the "suburban-rural" demarcation line, where Erin owned a spacious, executive style house on a generous, two acre lot, nicely wooded for privacy.

He came to with a leather hood covering his eyes, and with a painful sensation between his legs unlike anything he had ever known before. He had been bound spread-eagled in a standing position, and almost immediately, he'd started to fight against the restraints.

Erin had simply watched, quietly amused, from the comfort of her wide-backed rattan chair. The more he'd struggled, the more the weights dangling from the parachute spreader had swung, yanking his testicles without mercy.

Finally, when his efforts threatened to wane, she'd set down the glass of Chablis she'd been savoring, picked up her crop, and said, "Things aren't so fucking peachy now, are they, Dani?"

At the sound of her voice, he'd exploded, unleashing a stream of obscenity laden threats while renewing his fight against his bonds with impressive, though futile, vigor.

She'd allowed him to spew and rage without interruption, watching with marked delight as he'd slowly but surely worn himself out. Eventually he could do little more than hang limply from his fetters, chin sunk low to his heaving chest, sputtering wordlessly through the cascade of sweat that poured down his face.

It was only then that she'd advanced.

"Dani, Dani, Dani," she'd clucked mockingly as she'd begun to circle him. Erin remembered the dark pleasure she'd tasted as she had reached down between his legs and played with the tip of his cock for a moment.

"No wonder she left you," she'd whispered into his ear.

"You cocksucking bitch!" he'd hissed, rallying for one last pathetic attempt to break free, but she'd shut him down short with a swift, brutal slash to his ass with her whip. Fear and pain finally overtook his anger and he began to break down in tears.

"Oh, boo hoo hoo! Life's full of little tragedies, Dani! Life goes on, and you had a fucking job to do and you left me twisting in the fucking wind!" She'd punctuated her sentence with another hard stroke and had him sobbing inconsolably by then.

"Well, now it looks like I'm going to have to 'handle' this little situation we have with you, Dani. The by-the-book response to this kind of shit is an entry in your personnel record, and a referral to a substance abuse program. That program is even covered in our health plan, so it would not cost you *anything*. But I don't really think that's the route I want to take with you. No, Dani-boy, that is just too fucking easy on you."

"So here's the deal, Dani. As of right this second, you have precisely two, and I mean *only* two options. Either agree to become my sex slave - and I mean 'slave' in every sense of the word, Dani - or not only will I fire you, I will put such a stinking stain on your reputation that you won't be able to get a job on this entire coast! Not even flipping burgers!"

"You can't do this!" he'd wailed.

"Newsflash Dani!" she'd hissed right back at him. "Right now I can do whatever the fuck I want with you!" To emphasize her point, she'd given the dangling weights a hard kick causing him to howl in pain.

"Your participation in this decision is merely a courtesy. In fact, if you don't make up your mind in the next thirty seconds, you get cut from the process altogether!"

His mind had reeled with all that was at stake. His apartment, his clothes, his car - all the things his high-paying job could provide for him. Versus.... what? What did it mean, really, to be her slave 'in every sense of the word'? Already his mind had started recovering and he'd begun to see definite possibilities in the "sex" aspect of being Erin Young's "sex slave." And besides, sooner or later she'd get bored with the game and cut him loose. By then, he'd doubtless be in the position to bring the mother of all sexual harassment lawsuits against her and the company if she tried to can him.

Erin had only watched the sly smile curl at the corner of his lips before answering it with a triumphant grin of her own.

She'd set down the crop and walked over to were she kept the big, slotted paddles.

"Let's get started, then," she'd purred. "Shall we?"
 

 
Any notion that Daniel had cherished that he could turn the situation around on her had been beaten out of him that evening. Erin had only just broken up with a sub who had been an expert at topping from below, and so she'd been especially primed to spot and shut down the slightest hint of that nonsense in her new slave. What's more, she'd worked out a lot of her lingering anger towards her ex on Daniel's luckless backside.

When she had finished, she'd loosened his bonds and had ordered him to kneel.

And he had. Sometime, during that hours-long assault - there was really no other word to describe what she had done to him - he'd surrendered.

After that, life had become pure, unadulterated fun - at least for Erin. All of her darkest, most secret fantasies of truly nonconsensual submission had been there for her - in the body and blood of one Daniel Stephens.

At last she truly *owned* a slave who could not say no to her, who was not permitted any silly limits that would interfere with her pleasure. A slave who had no choice but to do exactly what she demanded of him, when she demanded it of him.

And she had demanded - oh, how she had demanded.

But even with such absolute power, she'd been subtle; careful not to gorge on the delicacies of his fear, his self disgust and his humiliation. As she always had with her *voluntary* submissives, she'd worked relentlessly to discover what Daniel's hot buttons were - all those dark little fears and fantasies that sometimes called to him, but more often repelled him.

With her previous subs, her purpose had been to uncover, before the fact, the types of play or the secret, hidden limits that had to be approached with caution with that particular playmate. Or worse, those that simply had to be avoided altogether. That was, as the responsible dominant partner, one of her most important obligations in her "normal," consensual, mutually rewarding D/s relationships.

Only the relationship she'd intended to have with Daniel would be nothing like those earlier ones. In her mind, she'd been under no such obligation to protect *him* - and thus her relationship with him - in that way. What she'd wanted to know with *Daniel* was where to push for the most devastating effect. She'd wanted to take him into those dark, unlit corners of the mind where monsters lurk and the air is heavy with real terror and real shame.

And she had.

She had also ordered him to start attending A.A. meetings. Not out of any real concern for him, but because she refused to suffer a drunkard for a slave. Alcohol, after all, anesthetized those nerve endings and blocked those darker emotions she most wanted to play with and to torment. Still, Daniel hadn't derived any immediate benefit from attending, largely because he had not at that time admitted his addiction to himself. But he *had* stopped drinking.

She had taken over other parts of his life as well; dictating his diet and ordering him to get into top physical condition. The latter had been a particularly painful process for him, both because of how much he'd let himself go, and because of Mistress Young's special brand of "motivation." Three times a week she'd weigh him, measure him and then, she'd run him. Five grueling miles. Over very hilly terrain. And while he had to run her specified course, she would always ride alongside him on her mountain bike, keeping up easily, all the while describing for him in minute detail the price he'd pay if he did not complete the course in an acceptable time.

She really had been hell on wheels with him in those early days. Sometimes she'd felt drunk, literally *drunk* - an irony that did not escape her - on those first heady tastes of near absolute power. She'd absolutely loved finding fault with something about his slavish performance on almost a daily basis, and then naturally, punishing him for each of those faults - sometimes quite brutally.

Within a few weeks of claiming him, she'd become greatly annoyed his complete inability to give a woman pleasure. Given his former status as the office Lothario, she'd expected much better from him. Unfortunately, Erin had quickly learned that he was of the "wham bam" school of sex. The man had absolutely no idea how to properly worship a woman with his mouth and there was no way she was going to let him use any other part of his male anatomy on her - he might inadvertently enjoy that experience. She still wondered if his deficiencies as a lover hadn't been what had cost him his Donna after all.

Inadequacies were one thing, but when Daniel had shown zero enthusiasm for improving his technique, Erin had pushed the first of his buttons and she'd pushed it hard.

Mr. Macho was almost pathologically heterosexual.

By then, she had more than just the threat of termination over him; she also had the beginnings of a detailed and graphic portfolio of lovely photographs and videos of "Dani" in all sorts of compromising positions. Items which, as she seldom failed to point out, could be on the Internet within a matter of seconds following any failure to submit to her slightest wish.

Wielding this latest threat of exposure like a cudgel, she'd taken him to a private club called the Barracks. Inside that spartan, boot camp-like environment, several Masters had willingly and forcibly taught her slave how to suck cock, since, after all, he couldn't seem to be bothered to learn how to eat pussy with any degree of skill. The training had taken the better part of a weekend, but it had been worth it, for Erin at least, as a much chastened, much more malleable slave had crawled back into Erin's house forty eight hours later.

She still got hot every time she watched the videos of his harsh and painful introduction into bisexuality. The cross eyed look of shocked dismay in the close up shot of that first penis sliding past his lips. The tearing mask of abject and total humiliation on his cum drenched face as another of the Masters had wrung an unwilling orgasm from him in the course of the rough love play.

Of course, she'd ordered him to give the Masters to understand that he was just another smart assed sub who, once having agreed to the training, wanted to resist and to be "forced" into surrender. She'd even directed him to negotiate a safe word with the Masters before the training had begun, just so they would not get overly suspicious - or overly careful. Only Erin and Daniel had known the truth - that he'd had no choice and less desire - or the price Daniel would have paid if he had been so foolish as to actually *use* the safeword.

Out of necessity, she had informed a handful of her closest friends of her latest conquest. It was a security measure more than anything else, since there were times when she fully intended to push Daniel so far that she could not be certain of how he might react. Although she'd pegged him as your basic bully - loud but cowardly and therefore not a threat to her - even the meekest animal will attack if pressed too far into those dark, terror-filled corners she planned on exploring with her slave boy. In case he ever became truly violent, she'd need assistance close at hand to help control him.

Instead, she had actually ended up losing some of those friends when they'd reacted with horror to her blatant trampling of their revered credo of "Safe, Sane, and Consensual."

But at the time, the loss of those friendships had bothered her not at all.
 

 
 
Part 2.
 
As the object of Mistress Erin's not at all tender "affections", Daniel viewed the past eighteen months in a far less nostalgic light. He had never believed he could hurt so badly, or feel so deeply, basely humiliated as he could be and had been at the hands and mouth of his Owner/Mistress. She loved making him break down, forcing him to cry and to beg - forcing him to *scream*.

Following that first grim taste of her whips and paddles, the day she'd abducted him to her dungeon, he'd literally been unable to walk normally. In fact, he'd needed a sick day plus the entire weekend before he could even think of going into work. He'd spent much of that first day back on his feet, working at his drawing board and avoiding all chairs as if they'd been "cushioned" with spikes. With the one exception of his first (and only) "pass" of an A.A. meeting, none of the later corporal episodes had come remotely close to being so intense, or to having such lasting consequences.

Cynically, he reasoned that she probably didn't want to have to explain away his absences from work too many times. Perhaps she simply didn't want him physically unfit to serve her more carnal needs.

But Mistress Erin knew all too well how to scourge a man to the quick without harming the flesh at all. In lieu of the whip, she would take great delight in ripping into his masculine pride. He still shuddered at the memory of that weekend at the Barracks when the Masters had "taught" him to suck cock properly. And that was just one of many lessons he now worked diligently not to have repeated. Another time, when they'd been in New York City on a business trip, Mistress had peremptorily extended their stay through the weekend without warning him. Friday night, after their last meeting, she'd taken him to a house on Long Island and turned him over to another woman for "further training".

Daniel had left that woman's house the following afternoon corseted, coifed, made up, bewigged and dressed in a stylish woman's business suit with matching heels and purse. All of the male clothing he'd worn entering her home had literally been shredded before his eyes. Then he'd been given a ride to the Long Island Railroad station and put on the train back into the city. Once on the train, he'd been aghast to discover that his purse was empty. The two women had not even allowed him emergency phone change.

Daniel had been one very frightened, very cowed slave boy when he'd finally dragged himself, limping from walking over five city blocks in the unaccustomed heels, up to Erin's hotel room door. She'd then proceeded to put him into even higher heels, a very short skirt and much more vivid makeup and had hauled him off to a play party at one of the city's BDSM clubs.

He'd always suspected that she had set that scenario in advance. Seemingly every single person at the club had made a point of complimenting "Danielle" on *her* look, or making some comment about how much better a woman *she* must be than a man to look so good in skirts. Erin had outdone herself that night - she'd even had Danielle demonstrate "her" hard learned fellatio skills on one of the dominas who'd arrived wearing a strapon of heroic, or was that heroine-ic, proportions.

At the time, Erin had given him to understand that not having to "demonstrate" on the real thing was a "reward" for "her" good behavior that night. Daniel had since learned that real oral sex might have gotten the club shut down, but he'd believed her then, and had even been pitifully grateful for the supposed reprieve. Still, by the time Erin finally had deigned to leave, he'd been in tears from the nearly continuous mortification and from the steadily increasing agony in his arches, calves and ankles.

The final indignity had come the night they returned home - when he'd failed his fitness test by not completing the course within the allotted time limit. His punishment? He was not allowed to wear men's shoes, except at work, for the next two weeks. Erin had left him the higher of the two pairs of heels to wear in lieu of his own shoes. Since she also had keys to his home and might show up at any time for a surprise inspection, he'd had no choice but to spend fourteen hellish days walking miles in her shoes.

It had been a pretty rough year and a half for Daniel Stephens.

But as he sat there, at that late-night A.A. meeting, downing cup after cup of bitter, instant coffee and pondering Mistress Youngs's strange reaction to his report, the voices and the words of his fellow attendees began to penetrate his consciousness for the very first time.

He heard tales of careers lost, families shattered, children who now cursed their parent's names and of the horrible guilt of staring into the faces of complete strangers whose lives had just been shattered by one careless, monstrously stupid act.

What had Daniel lost, really, except his freedom? And what had he really been doing with *that*, anyway? Using it to squander his life? Pretty damned close, he admitted for the first time. He couldn't begin to imagine how many bullets he'd dodged due to pure dumb luck in his life before Mistress Young had taken control of that life. How many unremembered one-night-stands that could have left him with AIDS? How many times he'd climbed behind the wheel of his BMW after a night at the bar and had somehow managed to get out of the car again at home without having killed anybody.

And it was more than just that. Daniel liked the person he had become. He had never looked better or felt more fit in his entire life. And even Mistress Young had admitted - in a rare moment of post orgasmic candor - that he had become a "rather accomplished pleasurer of women".

Daniel had simply never imagined the joy, the pride, the sense of fulfillment he experienced when a woman would reach orgasm after orgasm with the fervent assistance of his mouth. It was a world removed from his old lovemaking style of "pulling three G's". (Get in, Get off, Get out) Hell, even referring to what he *used* to inflict on a woman as "lovemaking" was ludicrous.

There was also a seductive sense of power associated with being skilled at the art of cunnilingus. He could drive Erin right up the edge at times and then toy with her until *she* would *beg* - would actually beg *him* - screaming for release.

His crowning moment as a pussy pleaser had come one day when Erin had ordered him into her office and underneath her desk to worship her orally. She had meant it as yet another little jerk on his chain at the workplace, another ploy intended to humble him further, but he had quickly turned it around on her. In very short order, he'd had her helplessly squirming and bucking in her chair - too afraid of the noise she'd make to cum, yet too caught up in her arousal to find the will or the breath to order him to stop. Whenever she would pick up the phone or try to answer the buzz of the intercom, he'd go straight for the clit, and Erin had started many conversations that day with a sharp intake of breath. If she'd tried to give her lame explanation of suffering from hiccups, he would dive in for the kill, tongue-fucking her pussy deep and hard until she'd had no choice but to shove the toe of her shoe into his crotch to get him to stop.

Erin had gotten him back for that little incident a month later at a bachelorette party for one of the girls at the office. She'd covered his head and eyes with a leather hood (but not before effectively deafening him by inserting foam plugs into his ears) and had dragged him to the party with a trench coat wrapped around his body and only a leather bikini underneath. The women at the party had believed the gesture to be Erin's way of poking fun at her reputation as a ball busting bitch. They had mistaken the hooded Daniel for a male prostitute, precisely as Erin had intended that they think.

As the party had gone on and things had gotten a little looser, Erin had teased the women into spanking, pinching and fondling her helpless little "slave" to their hearts' content. When somebody had asked her what she called her slave, Erin'd replied "Daniel. His name is Daniel." and the room had erupted in uproarious laughter and applause.

Finally, Erin had announced that anyone who wanted a ride on "Daniel's" face was welcome to it. To her surprise, a significant number of the women there had immediately taken her up on her offer - some more than once.

The next day, when Daniel's tongue was sore and swollen, clear speech had been all but impossible for him. To make matters worse for the already humiliated male, every time he'd slurred his speech, one of his fellow workers would ask, "What's the matter Daniel, cat got your tongue?" and all the women would laugh, leaving him feeling mortified.

Of course, none of the women in the office had *really* believed that the male plaything they had been with had been Daniel. Caitlin, the buxom young receptionist who had been Daniel's last pre-Donna conquest, had summed it up best in the party's waning hours when she had confided to Erin, "I wasn't really sure if you were kidding or not, but..." Her voice had dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "Daniel was *never* that good!"
 

 
Oddly enough, given how nervous and generally unhappy he'd been entering into it, Daniel's A.A. meeting had ended up proving to be a major breakthrough in his recovery. For the very first time, Daniel had found the courage to tell his own story to the group. For the very first time, he had been able to admit publicly *and* to himself that he did, in fact, belong there. The hearty clout on the back from his guardian/partner, congratulating him for his catharsis had felt. . . liberating.

Well, he hadn't *quite* told the entire story. Daniel did not care to think how the predominantly fundamentalist Christian group would react if they knew the whole, kinky story. His "official" sponsor knew, at least that there was a D/s aspect to his relationship with Mistress Young and about her ordering him into the program, but even he did not know that Daniel had no choice about following her orders.

He left the meeting into the balmy summer night feeling... good.

Proud.

For a moment his mind chased itself in circles trying to figure out how, after all that Mistress Erin Young had done to humiliate him, to debase and to demean him, that he could end up feeling more pride in himself than he had ever felt before.

The simple truth of the matter, he realized, was that she hadn't stripped him of his pride at all. She'd simply pared away all the cockiness, the macho arrogance, the sense of entitlement that seemed be inextricably linked with a set of testes. She'd burned away all the dross in his system in the fires of her tests and games, and had provided a solid - if unbelievably taxing - medium to grow out what was left.

She had put him through hell, true, and her motives had been far from pure, but if he had learned anything from A.A., it was that salvation never came easy.

He was a better man for what she had done to him, but he couldn't shake the feeling that somehow, *that* was precisely the problem.

His suspicions only seemed to be confirmed the next day when he found a sheet of paper taped to his monitor that read: d - I'm afraid we shall have to postpone our session for another day as something even more pressing than disciplining you (hard to believe, I know!) has arisen. Please leave the REAL report ready for me first thing Monday morning. Rest assured, my Dani, we WILL have words about this - soon! M.E.Y

Daniel read the note three times and found himself feeling oddly crestfallen by it. He certainly hadn't been looking forward to enduring an out-and-out Mistress Young punishment session, and yet, the prospect of not seeing Erin again until Monday didn't hold that much more appeal, either.

Daniel printed out the "real" report, slipped it in his valise, and went home, where he repeatedly caught himself watching the telephone and counting the hours until Monday morning, not unlike a man in love.
 

 
Erin took another sip of the chilled wine. Stretching against the tension knotting in her shoulders, she returned her gaze to the sun gilt ocean, and tried once again to relax on the balcony off her rented suite of rooms. Relaxation was difficult since she was, as she had finally admitted to herself an hour ago, running away from a difficult situation by coming to the beachfront B&B today. It was a special place for her - a place of memories and of peace where she could unwind and let the pressures of being "Erin Young, the first female managing director in the company" drain away. Now, it was a place where she hoped to escape from a situation of her own making.

That had been the plan, anyway.

She kept going over in her mind the report Daniel had tried to foist off on her the night before. It was so unlike anything he'd been producing lately. In fact, she just couldn't shake the feeling that he *had* botched the thing on purpose. Normally, such a blatant attempt at manipulation would have indeed caused her to react like the furies, but for entirely different reasons than the sub intended.

Of course, some submissives simply did such things because they misread Erin as a mistress. After all, there were dominants who enjoyed being given such "excuses" to punish their subs. Erin's typical response to such games was to swiftly disabuse the errant sub of any notion that she was such a mistress and to let it be known (emphatically) that any further such shenanigans would result in the offender being sent packing.

In Daniel's case, such behavior was all the more perplexing because all of the normal constraints that kept a punishment session from getting too rough or out of hand simply weren't in place for him.

It vexed her.

But as problematic as the notion was, she clung to it; partly because the alternative - that Daniel was reverting to his old ways - was so...

Heartbreaking?

Troublesome, she decided. Troublesome *and* aggravating. She'd literally scraped him off that urine soaked floor and had molded him into a slave that any Mistress or Master would be proud of. Certainly she had, as any good property owner should, invested an enormous amount of sweat equity improving him and to think that he was going to repay her by just pissing it all away...

She had gotten too soft, she rationalized. That had to be it. But with each passing month, as he improved more and more, it had become increasingly difficult to work up the same amount of righteous anger as when they'd first started, or to dredge up the same degree of contempt that had allowed her to push him so far beyond anything she had ever done with any submissive before Daniel.

And it wasn't just that he strove so hard to please her. After all, that was only her *rightful due* as his Mistress. No, his behavior towards all people - especially women - had improved exponentially. She routinely saw the way the ladies at the office, who just eight months previously had cheered the idea of debasing him "in effigy," now sought him out whenever they had boyfriend problems, looking for a sympathetic shoulder and some sage, brotherly advice.

She would also see them, sometimes, a day or two later, giving him a quick, sisterly kiss or hug and for a moment, Erin would feel a hot jolt of jealousy . . .

Territoriality - she corrected herself. If she was "jealous" of *anything*, it was that the they would go to *him* for understanding and support, while *she* was still considered by most of the women to be the hard, unfeeling "Dragon Lady."

It was ludicrous to think that she could be jealous of quick kisses and timid hugs! Especially since *she'd* been the one who had egged on half of those women into lowering their hot, steaming pussies onto his *face*. She'd nearly cum herself just from watching!

Besides, if she was jealous of him, that would mean that on some level she *cared* about him - that she saw him as more than just some... *thing* to be kicked around and tormented for her amusement. And if she cared, then that would surely mean that someday, sooner or later, she would have to face up to the things she'd done to him.

That simply did not bear even *thinking* about.

Erin turned and looked out to sea and allowed the endless roll of the tide to carry away her troublesome thoughts and soothe her haggard spirit.

That was the plan, anyway.
 

 
Erin made no comment when Daniel handed her the corrected report Monday morning. She simply took it, and then walked into her office, closing the door behind her. Twenty minutes later, her secretary called to tell him to meet Erin at the personnel office at 10 am. Had she decided to have him fired? For messing up that report?!?

The director of personnel ("Please, call me Charles.") was an older fellow who had been with the firm for more years than Daniel had been alive. "Well, Ms. Young and Mr. Stephens, thank you both for coming. Sit down, please." he greeted them, gesturing to a small conference table in his office. Once they were all seated, the old gentleman turned his eyes on Daniel. "Mr. Stephens. . .Ms. Young already knows what this is about. Ms. Young has been promoted. She will be leaving at the end of this month to open a new office in Tokyo. We will be needing a new managing director and she has nominated you. I know you are a little young for this, and that you have only been with us for about two years, but Ms. Young as well as several other senior managers believe you are the right person for the job."

Daniel's face fell. He wasn't being fired? He was being promoted? And Erin was leaving? If she was leaving, why wasn't she making him go along? "Me??" was the only sound he could force out of his clogged throat.

Now, Erin spoke up. "With the exception of that last report." she said easily, her lips in a curiously wistful smile that Daniel could not ever remember seeing before, "You have been a superb employee as your performance evaluations demonstrate." She'd never let him see his evaluations, instead she'd made him sign the blank forms before she even filled them out. "And you are the acknowledged leader in our shop. The people come to you before they come to me. I think you will do a superb job."

The world seemed to tilt crazily for Daniel. He looked at the two senior executives. "Don't I. . . I mean, aren't there interviews? Applications?"

"Ordinarily, yes, but in the case of hiring in-house, we all know you and your work. Erin nominated you and the partners concurred."

Not ready for this, Daniel thought. "I'm sorry. . . you caught me off guard. Could I. . .I mean, could I think about this for a while?" he tried to smile and did not know if he succeeded. "Ms. Young works a whole lot harder than I do. I have to make sure that *I* think I am ready for this."

The older man nodded his head with approval. "Yes, of course. You should not run into something like this without carefully considering the issue from every perspective. I will have a benefits report sent up to you so that you can consider that aspect as well."

Erin and Daniel left the personnel office and boarded the elevator. They were alone, and she turned to look at him as the door whooshed open at her floor. "Present yourself at my home tonight at seven o'clock, Daniel. Casual clothing." was all she said before turning on her heel and leaving him alone.

And what the hell does that mean, he thought grimly.
 

 
Of all the many changes to Daniel's life wrought by his forced enslavement to Erin Young, perhaps the one that had surprised him the most, had been a clearer, deeper understanding of his father.

Not that his old man had been henpecked or had been in any way less of a "Man's man," but he had had children late in life. Dad had always delighted in regaling his son (and anyone else who couldn't find an excuse to get away) with stories of the way life used to be before television and Hollywood special effects had, in the elder Stephens' opinion, "rotted away everybody's brain cells."

"In the old days, you *never* saw the monster!" he would snap. "You only saw him in your *mind*! And that made 'em a helluva lot more terrifying than some bulked up idiot in a hockey mask! You won't ever see anything on a screen that will *ever* scare you half as bad as the shit you come up with here!" And then he'd tap his temple and lean back in his chair, looking pleased with himself. Daniel would usually shrug nonchalantly and turn his attention back to "The Magician" or "The Six Million Dollar Man."

But now, having spent what felt like a lifetime on his knees, sometimes blindfolded, always bound, awaiting punishment from Mistress Young for any number of failings, Daniel had slowly come to realize that his father had been absolutely right.

To add to all that, at least when his eyes weren't covered, he would always have an excellent view of Erin's collection of whips and plugs and clamps and paddles. His mind would try to picture how each braided strip of leather or each shiny spike would feel as it punched into his helpless flesh; how fat, slick rubber would hurt as it was forced inside him. And yet, while the actual sessions always did end up being terrible, they almost always fell a little short of the true horror show that had played in Daniel's imagination before the fact.

The demons at play in his head as he drove out past the city limits were particularly fierce. He did not put it past Erin to have held out the possibility of advancement as the ultimate tease; that she would order him to refuse and then drag him off to Japan. There he would be separated from the support system he had in his family and in his A.A. contacts. He'd be almost totally at her mercy in Tokyo because while Erin was fluent in the language, Daniel spoke very little Japanese.

Worse, suppose she decided to deny him the promotion and then left without him!??!

Worse???? *That* was *worse*?? Daniel shook his head violently to clear it. He wasn't sure why that option would be worse, yet somehow he just knew that it *was*.

As the sky turned red in the west and the shadows began to lengthen, Daniel pulled up into the driveway - careful not to block her car - and killed the engine. Stepping out onto the concrete, he checked his appearance over one last time. She had said to be casual, and a blue chambray shirt, well loved and comfortable jeans and his favorite running shoes was about as casual as he could get. Uncertainly, he hovered by his car for several moments, wondering if he was expected to go in by way of the dungeon or not. There was that *special* door, off the back for him to enter for that, yet somehow he'd gotten the sense from her that tonight would be unlike any session they'd had before.

That decision was taken out of his hands when the front door opened to reveal Erin. She was also dressed in jeans and a button down shirt, with her hair pulled back by a scarf acting as a hair band. "Are you going to stand there all night, Daniel?" she called out to him. "Come on in, please. We have a great deal to discuss this night."

As if the invitation was not surprise enough for one night, having Mistress Erin Young hold the door open for *him* and indicate that he should precede *her* into the room stunned him.

All he could think was, "What in God's name does she want with me, now?"
 

 
 
Part 3.
 
Once inside the door, Daniel began the obeisance Mistress Young had always demanded - kneeling and pressing his lips to the toe of her shoe until released. His third shock of the night came as her hand caught him mid-kneel, pulling him back to his feet. "Please, just sit down, Daniel." was all she said as she indicated a large, overstuffed easy chair in her front parlor. Immediate compliance to her slightest wish had become instinctive, so he sat, but only on the barest edge of the seat. Daniel did not know what was going on, but whatever it was, he was going to be ready to respond quickly when the next order came.

Erin saw the anxiety in his face, the cornered-animal-like wariness in his posture. Inwardly, she sighed. What did she expect? She'd never treated him like a simple guest before. "Daniel, I give you my word of honor. I am not going to pull a scene on you tonight. I simply want to talk with you. Afterwards, you will leave and go home, none the worse for wear. So please, take a deep breath and try to relax, okay?"

He sat there, still on the edge of his seat, just looking at her for several long moments. In all their time together, and through everything she had done to him or had him do, she had never lied to him. Taunted, yes. Mocked, threatened, insulted; but she had *never* lied.

In a very special sort of way, Daniel realized, he had come to trust her implicitly, and he trusted her now. Slowly, he scooted back into the chair, and willed himself to relax.

Erin nodded and moved over to a sidebar and returned with a coffee tray. Wordlessly, she poured the hot, black liquid into fine porcelain cups, and then added just the right amount of cream and sugar to one cup and offered it to him. - She *knows* how I take my coffee??? - Daniel thought as he took the cup.

Smiling sardonically at his baffled look, Erin cocked an eyebrow at him. "I'd offer to take a taste of it first, Daniel, to put your mind at ease, but knowing you, you'd just suspect I'd already taken the antidote."

"No, I mean, No, I didn't think . . ." he sighed and shrugged. "Christ, Mistress Young, I don't know what I mean, and I sure as hell don't know what is going on. I mean, it's confusing enough that you're dispensing with all the honors and ceremonies you've always insisted upon, but to make *and* serve me *coffee*?"

A sip of the beverage in question gave Erin time to frame a reply. "Well, I haven't been kidnaped by aliens who have replaced me with one of their own, Daniel. Rod Serling isn't going to come strolling out from behind a bush. I have my reasons for the way this interview is being conducted. Basically, I wish to talk to Daniel Stephens, and not to my slave."

"Mistress Young. . ." Daniel began, his tone uncertain.

She interrupted him with a raised palm. "For now, Daniel, it might be better if you called me Erin."

"*What* did you say?" Daniel's voice broke, coming out as a shocked squeal. "My God, you told me I was not even worthy to call you *Mistress* Erin."

"I know." she said softly, a frown creasing her features. "And I have changed my mind which I believe is supposed to be the prerogative of Mistresses. Please, call me Erin for tonight, in any case." He did not answer. "Please, Daniel." she repeated.

"All right." he answered, his voice shaking. "Erin." The name came out on an explosion of sound.

"Very good." she encouraged. "Now tell me. What are you going to do about the promotion offer at work?"

Minefield, he thought. Here it comes. "Whatever you tell me to do, Mistr. . .I mean, Erin. I... I really haven't thought about it."

"Oh, really?" she asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

"I mean... from that perspective. I just thought I'd be doing what you told me to do, you know. Like always."

"Like always," she echoed, sighing. "I was afraid of that."

She stood up and began to pace the room. When Daniel started to rise as well, she gestured him back into the chair. Finally, she moved back to the chair she had just vacated, leaning against its back and focusing totally on the man seated opposite her.

"Daniel, what happened with that report?"

He reeled at the seeming change of subject.

"The report?"

"Daniel, please. Tell me what was going through your head when you wrote that... piece of crap. I mean, granted, you were under the gun in terms of time, but still..."

She looked so intent, he thought, and so . . . concerned? He decided to tell the truth. "I guess I thought you needed to blow off a little steam."

"Steam? Daniel, are you saying you made those mistakes on purpose?"

"Well... yes. I mean, wasn't it obvious?"

Daniel watched, fascinated, as Erin suddenly let out a long, shuddering breath, and almost collapsed back into her chair.

"Why?" she asked.

He blinked, confused. "I just said. You've been so wrapped up in yourself for about two weeks. I guess I know why now," he added dejectedly. "You were worried about getting the promotion."

Erin bit her lip. In point of fact, it had been two weeks since Charles Steinmetz had *confirmed* - on the QT, of course - that she was getting the job. It had simply taken until the previous Friday for official confirmation to come through.

"You misunderstand me," she snapped at him, startled at the sound of her own voice. "Why would you *want* me to blow off steam, why would you care?"

Daniel suddenly found himself studying the pattern in her Oriental rug.

"Daniel, you *know* what punishment sessions are like..."

He suddenly looked up and challenged her gaze.

"I know." he said through gritted teeth.

It had been a long time since she'd seen defiance in Daniel's eyes. It stirred an equal and opposite confrontational spirit in her.

"I'm not going to apologize for what I've done, Daniel! I saw an opportunity to get something I have always wanted and I took it!" her voice rising in volume and determination. "And I'll be Goddamned if you or anybody else is going to make me feel guilty about it! I have absolutely no regrets about what has taken place between us these past two years!"

Daniel's voice seemed to come from somewhere deep inside him, rising from some unknowable depth of his heart and emerging past is lips in a raw, gravely rattle.

"Neither do I."

She gaped at him in utter disbelief, then tore herself away, curling up in her chair instinctively.

"I think you should go now," she said.

"What about the job?"

"Go, Daniel!" she yelled. "Get the hell out of here! Just go! I don't want you anymore! You bore me! You're free, okay? I release you from you bonds, now get the fuck out!" She had pulled herself into a tight ball and was rocking herself back and forth. To Daniel's eyes, she seemed to be fighting back tears.

"Do whatever the fuck you like," she said. "It's not my problem anymore. *You're* not my problem anymore."

Daniel stood up and reached over to her, but when his hand touched her arm, she pulled back hard, whimpering.

His mind spinning out of control, Daniel took his leave.

*Why* was she crying???
 

 
The next day, in her office, Erin Young's heart filled with a cold, steely rage. She simply could not believe that she had broken down like that, especially in front of *him*! She would rather have taken a hard whipping, would have preferred to have her bowels filled with a cold, cramp-inducing enema, would have rather simply dropped *dead*, *anything*, rather than have let *him* see her weepy and weak.

To compound her fury, she had, in the throes of that weakness, freed him. Not that she hadn't planned to do so - that very evening in fact. But she had written a speech, performed it in her mind over and over again. Gotten all the nuances down just so. She'd even gathered up all her evidence, all the pictures and videos, and put them into a file she planned to give to him so that he would know that her hold over him was over. She'd miss the Barracks videos, but the Japanese were really strict about bringing what they considered to be "pornography" into their country, so she would have had to leave those behind anyway.

Still, she absolutely *hated* it when things did not go according to plan. Had he tricked her, somehow? Had he learned more about *her* than she had ever imagined he was capable of learning, and then used that knowledge against her when she was confused and vulnerable?

She was half-tempted to call him into her office and inform him that his indentured servitude was reinstated, burst his balloon, and then only give him his manumission papers at the absolutely last second, as she boarded the plane for Tokyo.

A knock at her door interrupted her lovely scheme for revenge.

"Yes?"

Daniel entered, looking somber. He walked wordlessly to her desk, and placed a sheet of paper in front of her.

"What is this?" she demanded, not taking her eyes away from his to look at it.

"It's my letter of resignation," he said, tonelessly.

"What?" her eyes flew to the short letter before returning to lock on his. "Daniel? Do you have *any* idea how hard I fought to get you my position?"

"Why would you care?" he said, throwing her own words back at her.

"Because... because you're the best qualified for the job, no matter what anyone else..."

He turned on his heel, cutting her off and started to walk away.

"No!" she cried, leaping out of her seat and racing to the door. She slammed it shut and wheeled to confront him.

"All right!" she hissed at him. "All right! I wanted you to have this job because... because I wanted to see you succeed. Because I wanted you to be happy, goddamn it!"

"Why?"

"Because I love you!" she screamed, furious at her loss of control.

For a moment, they both fell silent. Erin dragged herself away from the door and staggered back to her desk, collapsing in her chair, heavily.

"Happy?" she asked, bitterly.

He turned and stared her down, fire in his eyes.

"Why is that so hard for you? Why does it hurt you so much to admit that?"

"Because, Daniel, I know that you can never love me in return."

"But... but I do!"

She looked up, eyes huge, something like hope flickering in their shimmering depths. Then she broke off the glance, shaking her head mournfully.

"No, Daniel. How can you possibly, after all I've done to you?"

"I... I forgive you!"

"I'm not *asking* for your forgiveness, Daniel!" she snapped angrily. "I don't want it and moreover, part of me doesn't feel I even *need* it!"

Daniel felt his legs go weak, he reached out and dragged a chair over to him and dropped into it.

"I'm confused," he said.

"Join the fucking club!" she growled through her tear choked throat.

Erin sniffled loudly and collected herself, drawing herself up in her chair.

"No matter what you say, Daniel, no matter what you may be feeling at this moment, neither of us can change what has happened, what I have done to you. And what's more, I don't want to! So, you see? You can *say* you forgive me, or that the past doesn't matter, but it will *always* be there, lurking in your heart, scraping and gnawing at you. And someday you will come to hate me. I can hardly believe that you don't already despise me. And while I can live with that, in principle, I... I just couldn't bear to see it in your eyes. Not now, now that you know."

"Erin, I could never hate you."

She began to shake as her need to cry overwhelmed her. "Liar! How can you possibly not!"

He took a moment, cleared his thoughts.

"I can't say that you're wrong, entirely. I don't imagine that I will ever forget what you put me through, what you've done to me. But Erin -"

He spoke her name again, softly, coaxing her to look up at him.

"Erin, I will also never forget what you've done *for* me, either."

"What's.... that?" she managed between sobs.

"Before I became your slave, I was lost. I mean really lost. What made breaking up with Donna so devastating wasn't so much losing her, although that strung like hell. It was that it made me really see just how... empty my life really was. And the thing was, I knew it at the time, while I was losing her, how empty *I* was, how shallow and self-centered, and there was nothing I could do about it! I wanted to be a better person for her, but I didn't know how. You showed me how."

"But..." she began.

"Oh, believe me, it wasn't the road to redemption I would have chosen! And I have *no* illusions that you were out for anything beyond your own twisted gratification, but right now, Erin, none of that matters. You forced me to confront things about myself that I couldn't - or maybe just wouldn't - confront if left to myself. So, while it's true that I can never forget the things you did to me, I can also never look in the mirror again and not know that I owe my life to you."

He choked out a self deprecating laugh. "All this time, for months, I've been terrified! I've been scared out of my wits that *you* hated *me*!"

"Oh, Daniel!" she laughed back, through her tears. "How could I? I've spent the last two years molding you into my idea of the perfect man - how could I possibly not want you now that it's clear that's what you've become!"

He let out a sigh of relief. "Wow! I mean, I was worried there." He ducked his head down, shyly, almost boyishly. "I.. I would have missed making love to you."

"I beg your pardon?" she asked sharply. "You must be mistaken, I never allowed such a thing!"

"Forgive *me*, Mistress," he replied, a bit of his old, cocky self resurfacing, "but there are more ways to make love to a woman than just by ramming your dick into her."

"You taught me that!" he said with a wink and a smile.

She returned that smile with one of her own; a warm, soft affectionate smile, the likes of which he had never seen cross her face before. He liked it. But then the storm clouds gathered over her once more and the smile faded.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Dani, I want so much for us to have a happy ending together, but I'm still not convinced that we can! You have got to understand, the Mistress Erin Young you've seen and suffered under all this time is who I am! I'm not going to change. I'm not going to become Carol Brady or Donna Reed no matter how much I might even want to in some woefully perverted part of my soul. I will always *need* to dominate my partner. I mean, it *would* be different, but... how can you trust me?"

"Well, for one thing, Donna Reed was a pretty tough lady before she discovered television, and for another, I *trust* you because I *love* you," he said, leaning forward and reaching across the desk to take her hand. "Besides, it already *has* been different, for quite a while now. Maybe I'm just more used to it all, the pain and the teasing humiliation, but I don't think that's entirely it. You're not as hard on me as you once were."

"I haven't needed to be."

He squeezed her hand. "And, God willing, you never will again. I love you, Erin Young, and I want to be with you, to make you happy. And if that means making sacrifices, giving up my role as 'the man,' enduring your sadistic whims, serving you to your exacting specifications, then I'm willing. ." he swallowed hard before taking a deep breath and looking deeply into her tear-bright eyes. "I'm... wanting - to do that."

"And if I asked you to go to the Barracks again?" She pulled out the big gun, knowing how he'd hated that experience.

He let out a deep sigh, and considered his words carefully. There was only one answer. "I wouldn't like it - I'd probably be miserable and I might just use that safeword this time, but I'd be able to take heart in the knowledge that it would make you happy."

She sighed. "I can't believe this is really happening. It's like a dream!"

Daniel rose from his chair and walked around the desk. She looked up at him expectantly, and he gave her arm a pinch. Reflexively, she lashed out and slapped him hard across the face. He immediately dropped to his knees before her, his head hung low in supplication.

She sat there, looking at the top of his head, her breathing hard and ragged. Slowly, she reached out and gently stroked his reddening cheek with the same hand that had just struck him.

"You really are serious about this, aren't you?" It was almost a statement. Daniel glanced up at her and nodded. She could only shake her head in wonder.

Suddenly, the efficient, professional Erin was back in control. "Well, that does put another face on it." she said firmly. She was about to say something else when her private line buzzed imperiously.

Frowning she picked up the offending instrument. "Ms. Young." she snapped impatiently. "Charles?"

Daniel smiled as he heard her greet the personnel director. This was going to be good. "Yes, fine, thank you." She listened for a few moments, then her brows knitted in surprise. Her eyes slewed back to Daniel who made an effort to look innocent. "Oh he did, did he? And did you explain to him that the position as my executive administrator at the Japanese office pays less and carries far less prestige than the one we have already offered him? I see. And he still insisted on applying for it?"

Erin went silent, listening intently to the man on the other end of the line. "Thank you for calling, Charles, but that won't work. Look, keep looking for the Tokyo Admin person. No, Mr. Stephens won't be taking that job. Yes, yes, I know, but it is not possible. Okay, good bye."

Daniel's elation turned to shock and outrage. "What? I was only quitting this job because... I mean, why, Erin, why? I want to be *with* you, dammit!"

"Because, you lovable idiot" she chided affectionately, "this company has an iron clad policy against nepotism. As your wife, I cannot be your supervisor because that means I sign your performance evaluations and sign your paysheet. I can, however, take my darling little spouse along with me to my new location at company expense. Put up or shut up time, darling," she taunted teasingly, "but first let me warn you. If you weren't serious about the marriage part, I will have to kill you."

Realizing that he was, after all, in the perfect position, he reached out and took her hand in his.

"Erin," he began, suddenly finding his newfound courage faltering a bit. (Though no more so than any other love struck young man facing the same situation.) "Erin, will you please marry me? Will you be the wife of my heart, the love of my life and the dark demanding Mistress of my dreams? The dreams you have given me?"

Slowly, regally, she rose from her seat, and then pulled him up into her arms. "Yes, I will." she said simply. "Now, kiss me, damn you. On the mouth." she teased, "*this* time, anyway."

When they finally broke apart, both were breathing heavily in frustrated arousal. "We're going to have to get married soon." she said finally. Daniel gave her a questioning look and then groaned as her hand found his suddenly straining erection and massaged it even harder. "I am not the kind of girl who has, what was it you called it, intercourse with just any man. I think we will wait for our wedding night. It will be . . . symbolic, kind of like coming to our wedding bed as virgins. Our very first time, fully together, fully joined." She sighed, quite taken with the idea and the images in her mind's eye.

"On our Wedding Night?" he said querulously, and then yelped as she gave him a firm squeeze.

"The sooner we get married, the sooner this. . . unsightly swelling goes down, Dani-boy." she went up on tiptoe to kiss him again, still holding him firmly through his slacks. "Of course, I know how weak you little boys are, so I will help by locking you into this lovely chastity belt I'd ordered before this whole Tokyo business came up."

"Chastity... belt?" he gulped.

She smiled, catlike, and nodded. "Mmm-hmmm! And I shall wear the key hung from a golden chain around my neck so that your liberty and your pleasure are always close to my heart. What do you think about that, my lover?"

Daniel did not move his mouth from hers as he answered, unable to keep himself from trying to grind his groin against her hand. "Whatever makes you happy, Mistress Young."

"Mistress Erin, from now on, Daniel." she said as she pulled back, giving his rampant manhood one last proprietary squeeze and pat. "When we are playing, that is. When we are just two boring married folks, I expect to be called by my given name and by other suitably loving endearments. Got that, Darling?"

A devilish grin flitted across his face as he thought about that. "Got it, ummmm. . sweetheart." He decided that 'sugarlips' (even if both sets *were* divinely sweet) might better be held until some future interlude when she was not feeling quite so . . . so Mistressly.

"So... we aren't going to make love until after we get married?" He made an effort to pout. Under the circumstances and in his current highly volatile condition, it wasn't all that difficult.

Erin's grin grew almost impossibly wide. "Seems to me I have been told, just recently, in fact and on *excellent* authority, that there *are* more ways to make love to a woman than just by ramming your dick into her." She winked at him and gave him a smolderingly sultry look that nearly relieved him of his immediate sexual tension in his pants. "Trust me, *you* will be making love to *me* *very* often between now and our wedding night." she said as she rose and walked over to lock her door.

He watched her as she settled herself comfortably on the large leather sofa in her office. She slowly spread her legs making Daniel's mouth go cottony and dry. "Starting now, darling?" she asked, and was pleased as he happily scrambled over and dropped back down to his knees before her. Pleasure changed to tearful, overwhelming joy when she saw him worshiping her first with his eyes, before turning his full attention and love to the task at hand . . .and mouth.
 

 
 
 
End of Dreamer's Tale of Blackmail: The Story from Not Blackmailed © 1998,2013 Tigger & L. Corvidae