Chapter Seventeen
Twenty years ago, Christopher and I spent a week together in Daytona that forever shaped the course of my life, the path of my dreams, the tracks of my private tears.
In the back of my mind there’s always been that college kid staring up at the hunky Secret Service agent as he held my ankle in one hand, his cock in the other, and I breathlessly watched as he claimed me and forever branded me as his.
And then I stupidly walked away from that week and let fear immediately sweep through me again, paralyzed to the point that I was crying myself to sleep every night and couldn’t do the one thing he told me I had to do if I was serious and wanted to be with him.
That I had to make the next move.
That he wasn’t going to call or text me unless I contacted him. That he’d even give me a couple of weeks to think things through, if I needed to.
He asked me to trust him, swore that he could keep me safe, even from my father, and that I could move in with him in DC when I got there.
Promised me that if things didn’t work out between us, we could still be roommates. That, no matter what, he only wanted me to be happy.
Despite all of that, the ten-year-old boy who cowered, frozen in terror as my father towered over me at the church barbecue still, in many ways, controlled me. Without Christopher right there in bed with me, my confidence evaporated.
A day turned into a week, then a month.
I walked the stage for my diploma.
I moved to DC.
I moved on—or so I lied to myself.
Justifications were easy to spin out into certainties in my mind, and before I knew it, I was standing in a church and saying I do to the wrong person, and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it.
I blamed problems with my performance on our wedding night on jet lag and exhaustion and too much sake at dinner, despite the fact that we’d slept together before.
But this was…different.
This time, we were married.
The truth was, I couldn’t conjure up visions of Christopher right then like I usually did to be able to make love to Lauren without bursting into tears.
My honeymoon was an exercise in not imagining alternate realities where it was me and Christopher touring the sites and making love.
After a quick discussion about whether or not I need to get tested—I don’t, because I wasn’t with anyone since Lauren and got tested after our divorce because I thought I might try to date guys, which I never did—or if condoms will need to be mandatory until I do, Christopher and I move from my pool to my bathroom.
There, under the warm spray, he presses me against the wall and kisses me, a fantasy finally made real.
How many countless times have I imagined the two of us in this shower together?
Too many to count.
Too many orgasms rubbed out in here with my eyes closed and remembering that week in Daytona.
How he took his time and made sure I was ready to take him.
Like he’s doing right now, with a brand new bottle of lube he apparently brought with him and snagged from his bag on the way past, because it’s a different brand than the one I have stashed around here somewhere.
I force myself to keep my eyes open and watch his face, even as I gasp with need, my ass burning and cock throbbing while passion builds and darkens his gaze like Florida thunderstorms.
We’re both different and yet this is the same—this is us, still us, always us.
That college kid spent a week learning about sex and love and bondage and spankings.
I now come into this sadder, wiser, and with the knowledge that this man knew me better after a week than anyone ever has in my life.
And he still does.
With three fingers worked inside me, he hits that sweet spot just right and nearly makes me come.
Then the bastard uses his fingers around the base of my cock to make me hold back. “Not yet.”
I whine before I even realize I’m doing that. I need him. This feels like I’m about to have my first honest orgasm in over twenty years.
We finish in the shower and he towels me dry first, then himself, and leads me to the bedroom.
Out of his bag comes his phone and a speaker. This one’s a modern Bluetooth speaker, better sound quality than the one back then, a different phone, obviously.
He pulls me down onto the bed, on top of him, as “It’s a Hard Life” by Queen starts playing.
He sits up, dragging me over his lap and spanking me with his bare hand. I’d forgotten how sweet that first sharp, stinging slap feels. We started every morning together that week with a spanking and he introduced me to the addictive allure of subspace. There’s little I wouldn’t have done for him when I dove headfirst into that welcoming mental haze.
All this comes back to me now as he mixes squeezing my ass cheeks with more impacts, back and forth until I’m nearly frantic with need.
He pulls me off his lap and rolls on top of me again, all his weight on me. “I missed our morning spankings,” he says.
I grin. “Me, too.”
“Good, because you’re going to get them again.”
“Yay!”
That makes him smile in a way that lets me see the boy he was twenty years ago.
“Let Me In Your Heart Again” by Queen plays, as if reading my mind, before we’re treated to REO Speedwagon.
We stretch out on our sides and kiss, hands stroking, him on top of me, back and forth but Chris allowing nothing more than kissing and exploration. “Save Me” by Queen follows a medley of other songs from the ‘80s and ‘90s. When the opening strains of Queen’s “Love of My Life” plays, I realize he’s looking over at the phone with an undecipherable expression.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “That’s your playlist, right?”
He finally turns back to me. “No,” he quietly says. “That’s Pandora. It’s random. It’s not even the Queen station.” He fists my hair and pulls me in for a kiss, rolling on top of me again.
I can’t help laughing when his cock enters me to “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy,” and he’s still slowly fucking me, drawing this out as “You’re My Best Friend” takes over immediately after.
He’s kissing me while we get a ZZ Top interlude, but then Queen’s “Too Much Love Will Kill You” starts playing.
He stops moving. “Goddammit,” he hoarsely says, reaching for it.
I catch his hand. “No, leave it. Please?”
I’d forgotten how green his eyes are in real life. They shift and change, depending on the light and what he’s wearing…or not wearing. Right now, in my dim bedroom, they’re back to emerald and pine, and focused on me.
“I love you,” I say. I feel like I can’t say it enough, now that he’s back. What if he’d died without me able to tell him one more time? “I have a playlist with all the songs I remembered on it. Including these.”
A sad sigh. “I couldn’t,” he says. “After a while, listening to these just made me cry.”
* * * *
I softly groan when I awaken the next morning feeling like I’ve been run through a wringer.
Because, of course, I have.
The wringer himself still sleeps next to me, an arm and leg possessively draped over me, pinning me to the bed, unless I awaken him to get up.
Which…I really don’t want to do.
It’s nice waking up with him again. I want to savor what little time we will have together like this, now, while I have it. After burning through these two weeks, over the next two years we’ll be forced to rely on stolen moments here and there. Whole nights together will probably be rare once she officially declares and begins her campaign.
It makes me regret even more I didn’t call him way back then and choose a different path in life. The calm, sweet peace filling me now is the ethereal thing I’ve hopelessly chased ever since that week.
A peace I thought I’d never feel again.
Although, then again, once Samuels hits the campaign trail, it might be easier for Christopher to snag alone time time in a room with me than it will be in Washington. We could always claim we’re trying to save the campaign money by staying together.
Except what if he gets reassigned by Secret Service?
I know I shouldn’t worry about that, because he told me not to, but I can’t help it. It’s a fact of life. He can say all he wants that won’t happen, but he can’t promise me. Not really.
He’s sweet to say it, though.
Thanksgiving Day, we’re the beneficiaries of a warm spell in Florida, and we sit on my lanai in shorts and eat our small feast in the sun.
I’m sitting with a slightly sore ass, because yesterday Chris received an order there at my house. The package included several paddles, canes, and other objects.
I’m also sitting there with a semi-erect cock, because my body happily remembers pain and pleasure are entwined, and both are better for it.
“This is delicious, thank you.” Once again, it’s Chris cooking for us. He’s teaching me how to cook. Yes, I managed to survive on my own all these years, but DC has great takeout, and Lauren takes great pity on me.
Hey, I make a mean salad, thank you very much. And I’m a discriminating connoisseur of cereal.
“You’re welcome.”
There’s something so…domestic about all of this.
I’m terrified it won’t last once the next step begins.
“What happens after the election?” I ask. “If she wins?”
He shrugs. “I guess you’ll be chief of staff, right?”
“What about us?”
“I don’t understand the question.” He forks a piece of turkey into his mouth.
“Are we still going to be together?”
“Kev, nothing we do changes us. Logistics might change, or we might end up apart for short stretches of time during the election, or even after.” He indicates me and him. “Nothing about us changes. Can I tell you where we’ll be living? No. Can I tell you exactly what we’re telling people after that point? No. Do we need to be careful and discreet? Yes. I don’t want my business splashed all over DC, and neither do you or Shae. No, Secret Service can’t fire me for being bi. Yes, they can reassign or terminate me if they feel my private actions interfere with my job.”
Never try to bullshit a reporter. “That’s not answering the question.”
“Yes, it is, in the best way I can. I don’t want to tell you yes, we’ll be living in my condo, when we end up moving somewhere. I can’t foresee the future. She might lose and then I retire and you and I end up moving to California because I get a job with a security contractor. Or we move to New York because you get hired by a network once your non-compete has expired.”
That answer mollifies me. That he included an option of us moving for my job. “Who told you about that, anyway?”
He shrugs. “Ask Shae. She’s the one who had the intel.”
“You’re the Secret Service agent.”
Another shrug. “She’s a senator who has a lot of connections. I don’t ask for her sources, and she doesn’t ask for mine. If you really want to know, ask her.”
“Can’t you tell her to tell me?”
He grins. “I can, but I won’t. Not that I think she’d tell me anyway.”
“No. Doesn’t work like that.”
“Wait. I thought that’s how it works with us?”
He sets his fork down to give me his undivided attention. “Work is work. Will I give you some orders that overlap work but won’t interfere with it? Yes. But one of the reasons what Shae and I have has worked for so long is because work comes first. She has a lot to lose, and so do I.” He picks up his fork again. “Besides, she’s just my submissive. She hasn’t given me that kind of control over her.”
It leaves me feeling a little confused, but I don’t want to derail what has been, so far, a beautiful day. We watched the parade on TV, we cooked together.
We made love.
I decide to shelve the conversation, because I’ve wasted enough time in our lives. I don’t want to waste a moment of this precious time together.
* * * *
It’s the next Thursday night at dinner when Christopher presents the ask. He showed me how to pan fry steaks, a private celebratory dinner before tomorrow begins our descent into political madness.
I’m hesitant to leave this cocoon.
We eat sitting on my couch, with the TV on and me sitting on the floor, naked, next to his feet. Chris prefers me that way any time it’s feasible, and it’s now a standing order.
I enjoy doing it. I love resting my head against his leg and feeling his hand settle on the top of my head.
Early tomorrow morning, we fly out to Dulles. He’s already booked our flight.
During these two weeks, I’ve laughed, cried, bit back screams of pain, and begged for more of it.
These two weeks have proven to me that week wasn’t a fluke, it wasn’t just a one-off.
It was real.
And during these two weeks, Christopher has allowed a little of the sadist’s mask to slip enough to prove to me that our separation was as hard on him—or harder—than it was on me.
“We need to talk,” he quietly says.
I know this is the ask he mentioned that first night. I look up from where I’m sitting, waiting for his next words.
“I want you for life,” he continues. “No matter what public forms that has to take to protect what we have. I’ll spend the rest of our lives together protecting you, loving you, taking care of you. Again, no matter what public forms that has to take. But I ask a few things in return, and they are not negotiable.
“You belong to me. You have work, obviously, but all other aspects of your life belong to me. I won’t deny you friends. I won’t forbid you from spending time with your ex as friends. This means if I tell you to wear something, you wear it. If I tell you to do something, you do it. If I give you an order, or tell you something will be done a certain way, there is no negotiation. You also lose control of orgasms from this point on. If I tell you no, then it’s no. No masturbating without permission. I do promise I won’t be an asshole in that regard, but there will be times I withhold orgasms for punishment, or just because I’m a sadist. You also don’t get to tell me no for sex. If I want your body, you give it to me unless there’s a physical harm issue. You can tell me something will interfere with work, and I will adjust accordingly. There are no other exceptions—work, or physical harm. I might make new rules, or change existing ones at my whim.
“Being with me means accepting unconditionally that I am in absolute charge, and willfully disobeying or refusing me will result in punishment. You belong to me, my slave, and when we’re alone, or even when we’re not and it’s safe, you will call me ‘Sir.’
“This means you don’t argue with me, you don’t get to ‘safeword,’ unless something in our play is physically harming you, or it will negatively impact your job. Other than friends, there will be no one else besides you in my life but Shae, and those circumstances are limited by my schedule and hers, and will not interfere with the relationship you and I have. There’s no negotiating on that point, either. If she ever decides she’s done with this, there will be no one but you. Or if I decide that I can’t continue my relationship with her, that’s it, no others. Friends are outside of that restriction. Questions?”
I realize I’m on deck. I need a moment to process. “What if I ask you to spend time with me but then you make plans with her?”
“Scheduling will be flexible, and has to be. You know what a politician’s life is like. I will do my best to work around plans that we make. But over the next two years, what you and I have will be very…low-key, in public. I can’t retire until I’m fifty. Then I can get my pension.”
“What about after the election?”
“I told you, I can’t make specific plans for you because I can’t predict the future. The only constant is that you belong to me, and there will be no one in my life but you, and Shae, if she still wants to be in my life like that.”
There still hasn’t been a specific…ask.
It takes me a moment to digest everything. “So what’s the question?”
He sets his plate aside on the coffee table and slides to the floor next to me, on my right. From the tone of his voice to the fear in his eyes, I know he’s stripped himself emotionally bare in this moment.
“I will take care of you, Kev. I will love you. I will protect you. And you will be first in my heart, maybe the only one in my heart, if Shea leaves. I will ask everything of you, and I demand unquestioning obedience. If you can’t give me that, for life, then don’t tell me you can. These two weeks have shown me I absolutely still love you, and I cannot lose you again. But twenty-plus years have left me changed. The question is, can you accept all of those conditions, and me, as I am right this minute, for life? If you can, if your answer is yes, then you have to ask me to make you mine. I’ll give you until—”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation. Maybe I’ll pay for that later, but I lived in fear for far too long. “I want to be yours, only yours. Please make me yours.”
He studies me for a long moment. “Kev, I’m going to give you until—”
“Now,” I say, desperate. “Please make me yours now, Sir. I’ve had over twenty years to think about this. That’s long enough.”
I don’t want you to think the past two weeks have been nothing but sadism and brutality, because that’s not the case.
We’ve made love, we’ve laughed.
We’ve cried.
But some things are not mine to share, even if I was there for them.
Suffice it to say these two weeks have shown me that I need this man in my life, and there are very few things I won’t do or endure to have him.
If it means occasionally sharing him with a senator who’s now my boss…well, so be it.
“Wait here,” he says. He stands and leaves the room. When he returns a moment later, he’s holding something in his hand, but I can’t see what it is.
He retakes his spot on the floor, takes my right hand in his and turns my palm up so he can kiss it and then tuck my hand against his chest. “I’m not the man I was,” he quietly says.
“Neither am I.”
“Being owned by me will be tough, at first, Kev. I’m not going to lie.”
I shake my head. “Bring it, Sir. I will take you at your worst if it means I get you at your best, too.”
He kisses the inside of my right wrist, then fastens a bracelet around it. It’s a beefy stainless steel chain made up of smoothly rounded box-shaped links. There’s some weight to it, but I can already see it won’t trigger questions, and I can even hide it up under my shirt cuff, if need be.
With it fastened there, he holds my hand again, tucked against his chest. I feel his heart beating under my palm, strong, sure. “Then you’re mine,” he says. “Forever.”