MASTERED: (The Novel) (17 page)

When she got to images of the
gorgeous woman posed in a variety of submissive postures, Missy was grateful
for the stream of tears distorting her vision.

Clawing at the newly-bestowed
collar, she fled. Bent double in the hallway, her focus was narrowed to the
size of a pinpoint. Two equally critical mandates reverberated in her brain.
One was to catch her breath before she fainted of hyper-ventilation.

The other was to get the hell out of
there!

Missy tiptoed past the bed where
James snored undisturbed and oblivious. Without a sound, she inched open the
top drawer of the desk. It took only a moment to locate and extract the key.

It felt eerily as though she was
observing herself from a distance. She remembered the first time she
experienced the odd phenomenon. Ironic how the exact same sensation could mark
a promising beginning -
and
a
tragic ending!

The only sound to penetrate the din
in her head was the deadbolt sliding free. Hands trembling, she carefully
placed the lock on the desk. Noiselessly retracing her steps, she abandoned the
once-precious collar at the front door as she raced naked to her car.

Inside, she dropped her head onto
the steering wheel and wretchedly keened out her anguish.
How was she going to get home in this
condition?
Missy made a herculean effort to steady her quavering
emotions. Concentrating on interjecting deep-breathing techniques between
hiccups, she somehow managed to start the engine. With one last cleansing
breath, she was negotiating the winding driveway, headed towards the main road.

When it dawned on her what James
would discover come morning, Missy had no choice. She pulled the Infinity to
the curb, once again reduced to wretched, gasping sobs.

Chapter 55

The sun took a first, tentative peek
over the horizon just as Missy pulled into her driveway. She was naked,
nauseated and numb. She was also, miraculously, still in one piece after fleeing
James’s house in what could only be described as blinding hysterics.

Twelve days later, she was nurturing
the near-catatonic state of shock that dogged her. It was easier than the
alternative; vacillating erratically between love, hate - and sheer bewilderment.

Ultimately, as one tortured day
melted into the next, Missy settled on hate. Or, so she deluded herself into
believing.

Correction: hate and chocolate. Life
was just that much easier to digest when chocolate was added; even to hatred.
The combination seemed to make even this untenable deception minutely less
unbearable.

She wracked her brain wondering who
the beautiful blonde could possibly be. More excruciating was the question of
why her image held sway over
what
was supposed to be
her
Master's
chambers. There could be no doubt; she presided uncontested over that most
privileged of realms. There was nary a dank corner left over for Missy.

Scalding shame gripped her for the
umpteenth time. While that creature waited patiently in his boudoir, Missy was
being taken anally -
in his office!

Recalling the ‘Collaring Ceremony’,
she cringed both physically and mentally. Disgrace was soon collaborating with
self-doubt, a now-predictable merger. She had tilted her head back jubilantly
to accept James’s collar, heart bursting with faith. At the same time, her
bowels were bursting from a huge deposit of his ejaculate. It was around this
point that the self-flagellation would begin anew.

Had
she the slightest inkling...

Days passed before the swelling and
tenderness of that most sordid deed began to recede. Denial became Missy's
closest ally when it suddenly dawned that, on some level; she missed the raw
sensation.

Whore!

Indeed, she refused to even
contemplate the exceptional orgasm she partook of during the depraved act
itself. She was far too busy gorging on anger and self-pity to be traumatized
by
that
singularly mind-bending
detail!

Why hasn't he called?
The question tormented her, ripping
through her brain like a bullet.

Why hasn't he come for her?
She
could no longer deceive herself. There was
only
one possible explanation. There
was
another
woman.

Another
submissive woman…

The nausea returned, as it did every
time she reflected on what lurked behind that cursed door.
A
door as outwardly innocuous as any other.

There wasn’t so much as a whisper
from James in nearly two weeks. The brutality of this left little to be said
and less to be done. Unwittingly, she had found out his secret. Since then,
he’d made his choice clear.

On this particular day, anger
triumphed over desolation. On this particular day, Missy conquered the tears
and the nausea by reminding herself of one simple fact.

His choice lay elsewhere…

Chapter 56

After three years of near-dormancy,
James's libido was reawakened with a vengeance. The instant he discerned
Missy's profoundly submissive nature, the long months of hibernation came to an
almost embarrassingly abrupt end.

Similarly, her sudden departure did
nothing to diminish it. As his mind
labored
to accept that she was lost to him, his cock had yet to receive the memo!

“Mister Cole-
tun
,
sir, with that lean
phy-sique
ya
surely don’t need any
mo
-ah cardio!”

It was Jenny Dean, his personal
trainer from years gone by. Jenny didn't speak, per se; she squealed. Every
southern-dipped word that came out of her mouth was at a damaging, deafening
decibel. James was sure she provoked hounds to howl and fillings to throb.

Aside from this one unsettling
trait, Jenny was a sweet girl. A sweet girl endowed with a killer body. Sweeter
still; Jenny Dean was not at all conflicted about bestowing that body unto
others!

A personal trainer
and
self-proclaimed free-spirit,
Jenny wasn't one to weigh herself down with mundane niceties such as panties.
O
r
morals.
The spandex micro-shorts she favored were consistently
that
much
too short and
this
much
too snug.
In other words - perfect
!
Little wonder her clientele consisted almost entirely of happy, horny, and
suspiciously unfit males.

Today, that description suited James
to a T.
More or less.
He sure as hell wasn’t happy and
he sure as hell wasn’t unfit.
But horny?
That
,
he sure as hell was!
Seemingly, without respite.

Curiously, he hadn't a single
fantasy of his long-deceased wife since that fateful night with Missy. On
that
night, Angeline's stunning
visage embedded itself adamantly in his cortex and cooed irresistibly to his
genitals.

He awakened hard and horny next to a
sleeping Missy, but jerked off to memories of Angeline!
He sensed Angeline knew that, at long last - he was leaving her in the
past where she belonged.
He speculated whether she might have played
some devious role in Missy's untimely discovery of her, as well.

James was a realist, not prone to
flights of fancy. Still, he was open-minded enough to not cavalierly rule out
any possibility.
Including that of other-worldly.

Was it simply a coincidence that on
the precise day he planned to pack away every tactile memory of Angeline, Missy
stumbled onto her? While he could only imagine Missy’s tormented confusion, to
his mind the facts remained clear.
She should have come to him with her
findings and her feelings.

How easily he could have assuaged
her fears. How innocent the explanation for why Angeline’s image still adorned
his walls. For the first time, he would have shared with another human being
his burden of guilt and loss. He would have been candid about his belief that
Angeline was the love of his life.

That is, until he met Missy!

Yes, he could have put her fears to
rest. But, alas, Missy chose a different path. One that was inexcusable in his
domain. Subsequently, they would both suffer the consequences.

There appeared no remedy for the
gaping wound to his soul. It grew larger with every passing day…

Chapter 57

Missy raced back to the '
vanilla'
world as fast as her long,
shapely legs would carry her. She did not dawdle nor meander. In fact, she
virtually sprinted! No matter that her previous existence within the confines
of 'polite' society was just that – merely an existence.

'Living'
,
she only recently discovered, was something completely
different.

Submissive...

Nevertheless, Missy was resolute.
She meant to pound the square peg that was she - into the round, uncompromising
hole that was society. She was determined to never again venture from that
straight, narrow - and safely predictable path. Not even a smidgen!

Most errors in judgment turn out to
be valuable life lessons. One took them in stride and moved forward, hopefully
the wiser. Rarely, however, the most innocent of missteps can just rip out the
innards.
James was such a misstep.

His uninterrupted silence screamed
with an intensity words could never equal. It echoed in her skull until Missy
thought her head might explode. In truth, she half-hoped it would.

Anything
to ease the pain…

She told herself it was simply
fatigue that was her undoing that dreadful day; nothing more. He just happened
to be in the right place at the right time to catch her unawares.
Yes, that was it!
She could and would
prevent it from happening again!

Industrial sized reinforcements for
that damnable ‘closet’ door were in order. She would see to them immediately.
In short order, her problems would be solved.

That was her story and she dearly
wanted to stick to it.

Unfortunately, no matter how
doggedly Missy hammered these self-deceptions into her head, they remained
stubbornly unsustainable in her heart. That traitorous organ throbbed for James
every single moment of every single day. Unimpressed with the ramblings of a
mind deep in denial, it clung obstinately to the truth.

Emotionally drawn and quartered, she
hated him all the more!

Still, his silence seemed glaringly
inconsistent with his previous words. He spoke so convincingly of honor, of
responsibility, and of self-accountability.

And
yet...

Lately, there were tortured,
sleepless nights. More and more often, Missy caught herself wondering if she
was missing something.
Something important.

True, she shouldn't have snooped. It
was wrong to enter rooms in his house without permission. But, considering her
discovery; surely
his
epic
deceit superseded her minor trespass?

Did it not?

She tried to convince herself that
her biggest miscalculation was falling head over heels for a two-timing
charlatan with an overpowering personality and a gifted tongue.

Very, very gifted...

Missy sighed.
 
She would not waver. She could not waver!

Chapter 58

James was pouring sweat.

Abusing the already overworked
elliptical machine, he glanced down at the brightly lit display panel. It
flashed and buzzed in exhausted surrender, as if pleading with him to cease and
desist. Forty minutes now, and yet, his frustration was far from slackened.

James swiped at the sweat burning
his eyeballs and increased his pace. It happened then, unbidden. Missy besieged
his thoughts, disrupting his composure for the umpteenth time. His mind
insisted on dredging up that forgettable morning on which he awoke to find her
gone. The only remnant was her scent. It wafted tauntingly from sheet still
damp and tangled.

One other item was left behind.
The collar.
He specifically recalled the pain of retrieving
it from the floor, where it had been discarded like trash.

His already punishing pace quickened
yet again. James missed her more than he would admit, even to himself. Still,
no matter how fast or how often he ran, the indisputable facts remained fixed.
Missy showed herself to be untrusting and untrustworthy. James increased his
speed.

He went to great lengths to ensure
she’d understood the symbolic import of being 'collared'. He explained in
detail the almost ritualistic aspects attached to its acceptance.

And
its removal.