MASTERED: (The Novel) (7 page)

Her son
hoped
she'd had a
“great time” tonight.
She hadn't. The
reality was that Missy just experienced the most extraordinary time of her
entire life!

Submissive…

Chapter 19

James sat motionless on the cedar
deck that wrapped luxuriously around his home. Since depositing Missy into the
backseat of a cab and watching it depart into the night, he'd accomplished
little else other than to relieve himself. He did, however, successfully manage
to top up his drink, select a Monte Cristo #1 from the humidor on his desk, and
install himself into this very comfortable deck chair.

 
He
attended to one other small detail, as well. James retrieved an ornately framed
photograph of Angeline from his bedside table. Setting it cautiously atop the
railing, he pulled the chair close. James leaned back, propping his booted
heels on the railing alongside it.

 
And
there he sat, enjoying the fragrant bouquet of damp cedar and fine cigar. The
serenity of his reclined physical body belied the agitation of his churning
emotions. Early on, he identified the prevalent emotion to be that of guilt.
Subsequently, he'd been wiling away the hours contemplating Angeline's
one-dimensional countenance. James was attempting to deduce why he felt not a
single modicum of remorse or longing.

 
Yes,
he felt a natural pang of guilt for relishing another after almost three years
of mourning Angeline's passing. Yet, he was the furthest thing from repentant. Truth
be told, he wanted more; much more, in fact. James had spent three long years
envisioning only Angeline in those vulnerable, tortured seconds between
wakefulness and sleep. Now, at long last, he hungered for another.

 
And
hunger for Missy he did. It was an enormous admission; one he never envisioned
making. With it came the adjacent jabs of conscience which he was presently
sorting through. He wasn't searching for her inasmuch as he didn't presume her
to exist. And then, suddenly, there she was - in as ordinary of circumstances
as one could imagine; a grocery checkout line.

 
Dumbfounded
by the foibles of fate, he understood that carrying baggage heavy enough to
require a porter was the most efficient way to destroy
any
relationship.
Including those of a
Dominant/submissive flavor.
It was time to leave Angeline where she
belonged; in the past. It was time to let go of the guilt and the pain and move
forward.
Was he capable of such?
James realized that Missy wasn't the
only one with a decision to make.

 
He
owed at least that much
to
this pure yet innocent
submissive. He desired to devour the whole of her, bite by mouthwatering bite.
James knew himself to be a demanding taskmaster. He wasn't arrogant enough to
expect Missy to surrender the very essence of
herself
simply because he asked.
A man who spent
much of his time wallowing in the past with a woman long-dead had no right to
ask in the first place.

 
He
smiled scornfully at Angeline's ever-perfect visage. It may well be that he was
squandering valuable time and energy fretting about such matters of the heart.
Chances were excellent that he’d accomplished nothing other than to drive Missy
away. At that very moment, she was probably
racing
back to the safe, 'acceptable' world from which he’d snatched her unawares.

If so, she would be all the
more
determined to adapt to the
ill-fitting fabric from which her life was woven. She might be repelled by her
own desires. Not to mention the lengths she was unmistakably willing to go to
explore them. Closing his eyes, James immersed himself in the extraordinary
depths of her submissiveness.

Green eyes flecked with gold,
they nearly popped from her head as her bladder let loose its contents.
Urinating forcefully into the toilet, Missy was horror struck. He squatted
cozily between her thighs, grinning with delight as she turned crimson from
mortification.

Ahhh
, life
is good.

The sky began to lighten with the
onset of a new day, interrupting James from his pleasant ruminations. He rose
stiffly to get some much needed sleep. He was heading up a three day seminar
for eighty sharp, ambitious businessmen today. Scheduled to begin in just a few
short hours, he must be equally as sharp.
Sharper, in fact.

He thanked the powers that be
that he instructed this particular course as often as he did. He could
virtually recite it in his sleep. Truthfully, the way he was feeling at the
moment, he may very well have to.

Placing Angeline's picture back
in its proper place, James stripped out of his clothes. He collapsed heavily
onto the stunning four-poster, king-sized bed he'd imported from Amsterdam. He had
been able to resist its ancient craftsmanship and charm.
Also, one never knew just when a solid,
hand-crafted column - or four - might come in handy!

Setting the clock a half hour
earlier than was required, James mentally organized his day. The first order of
business would be to return Missy's car.

Chapter
20

What a
difference a day makes.

 
Gradually peeling one gritty eyelid open
at a time, Missy found herself perusing the ceiling directly above her bed. The
rhythmic rotations of the fan encapsulated her complete, if minimal,
consciousness.

Yawning, she stretched
expansively. She genuinely longed to do nothing more than exactly this for the
remainder of the day. Lying prostrate in a comfy bed contemplating lazy fan
blades slicing through stagnant air? To Missy, it was much more than merely
logical; it was safe! She seriously questioned her capacity for more complex
undertakings.

She hadn't thought to draw the
blinds upon her half-naked homecoming only a few short hours ago. It was the
morning sunshine streaming through the bedroom window that had finally
succeeded in rousing her. Now, that same brilliance served to launch her into a
full-blown tizzy.

What time was it??
Bolt upright now
,
she ignored the pounding ache which defined her left nipple
and disregarded the searing heat which was her butt. Missy turned
trepidatiously
. Glaring accusingly at the alarm clock as if
it should have set itself, she all but sprang from the bed.

She was late.
Again.

Yet, punctuality wasn't the only
challenge Missy faced on this exceptional morning. Complicating matters further
was the fact that she had no vehicle to transport her to her place of
employment.

Almost immediately, dizzying
waves of mortification engulfed her. There was no way to distort the
jaw-dropping details of the previous evening. It was impossible to minimize the
series of events which had rendered her incapable of maneuvering her car from
point A to point B.

Or
herself for that matter.

Missy didn't have the age-old
luxury of blaming her bad behavior on alcohol. She hadn't a single drink, never
mind one too many. On the other hand, she was seriously reevaluating the
accepted definition of 'bad'. Blushing, she admitted that James made her feel
anything and everything
except
bad
.
If
that ‘s
bad - it’s very, very good!

Missy forced her lagging mind
back to the here and now. She wracked her brains for a solution to the issue of
transportation - or lack thereof. She
had
left James's business card
in
her car. No doubt, what remained of it was little more than a crumpled, sweat-stained
mess. Sighing, she accepted that this train of thought was leading nowhere.
Even if the card
were
available
to her, she would never have the nerve to call.

There was no use standing here debating
it. She would just have to get a cab and pay for her trespasses.
Literally.
Missy determinedly relegated the events of the
past fourteen hours to the status of ‘anomaly’. Yes, simply a glitch in the
fabric of the universe from which her life was meticulously weaved. A glitch
that just happened to send bolts of white light through her mind and waves of
desire through her body!

Missy concentrated on rummaging drawers
and closets. She mechanically selected only black garments, as mandated by the
boutique's strict dress code. Her mind refused to cooperate despite the late
hour. At the moment, it was busily exploring the animalistic passion she felt
towards a rare and mysterious man.

Staggering didn't begin to define
it. She was mortified by the lengths she was willing to go in order to convey
that passion to James.
Not to mention
the depths she was willing to plunge! It horrified her to imagine what more she
might be capable of.

A shower was mandatory this
morning. No matter that it would further delay her already overdue departure.
She felt like the proverbial horse; ridden hard and put away wet. It would
never do to show up at one of the most exclusive shops in the city stinking
like a common whore

With a shocking sense of
arrogance, Missy proudly cinched her shoulders back.
After all, this whore
was far from common!

Chapter
21

There was precious little time
for meandering thoughts. Missy was functioning under the treacherous
combination of too little sleep and an excess of sensory stimuli. This
dangerous duo made it imperative to concentrate only on the most immediate
concerns.

First and foremost she needed to
get her rosy red ass to work. Secondly, she needed to find an innovative method
of keeping it moving and productive for what
already
seemed like a
never-ending day.

She saved time by washing,
brushing, and
relieving herself
while still in the shower. She then proceeded to lose as much time, or more, by
rolling her discarded clothing into a ball and pressing them to her face. Missy
inhaled as deeply as she could - twice. His scent was tangible and mingled with
hers.

If she was her boss, she’d have
fired her own butt ages ago. Instead, Teresa would put her arm around Missy's
shoulder. She would whisper in her ear about how she didn't get to where she
was by cutting off her nose to spite her face. Missy was her most trusted and
productive employee, if not the most punctual.
“The clientele simply adore you, darling!”

Teresa once went so far as to
adjust Missy's start time; a noble attempt that failed miserably. She seamlessly
maintained her 'normal' twenty to thirty minute deferral. Yes, she was a loyal and
dependable employee. Her internal clock was simply and irreparably out of sync
with that which the rest of the world adhered.

Long ago, she gave up wearing a
watch. The only time she ever paid attention to it was when it chafed at her
wrist. Much like the bra she was attempting to fasten chafed at her nipples.
The left nipple in particular.
Missy endured the irritation
with more than a small measure of exasperation. She marveled at how a single
evening with a mysteriously charismatic man could disrupt a lifetime of
enforced convention.

She multitasked out of habit and
desperation; not cognitive capability. She managed to twist her hair into some
semblance of a knot, apply a dab of lip gloss, and call a cab. As she gave her
address to the dispatcher, she closed her burning eyes. Missy sent up a silent
prayer that it wouldn’t be the same driver as just a few short hours before
.
I'd
rather die on the spot than crawl into the backseat of that cab to die of
shame!

Hurrying to the kitchen, she
gratefully reheated a to-go mug of day old coffee. She usually brewed fresh, of
course. But, that was on those more conventional mornings when extraordinary,
life-altering encounters didn’t transpire the evening before.

She heard Christopher already
tap-tapping away, and figured he must be spreading the news of his college
acceptance. She had long worried about the momentous cost of tuition, and they
both did what they could to offset the inevitable. While student loans were already
in the works, Christopher had been delivering pizza since the day he
triumphantly got his driver's license. Conscientiously, he banked any and all
tips.

Missy saved whatever meager
remnants her paycheck allowed. Sadly, all too often it was Christopher's tips
which accounted for the lion's share. His father would be contributing nothing
towards his son's bright future. Quite the contrary; he was a constant drain on
their meager resources.

Luke's interests were short and
none too sweet: Pornography and alcohol, in any order. Third on the list was
accruing enough cash to indulge the first two.
The end.
This revered list excluded children - especially his own.