Jessica's eyes widen as she looks around the bedroom, her mouth dropping open. “You mean it?”

“I mean it,” I reply, my chest strangely warm. I'm just doing what I promised, I don't know why this should mean so much to me, but seeing her smile, I'm touched. “This is your room now. If you choose to obey the new rules.”

“What are the new rules, Master?” she asks eagerly. “How can I... how can I please you?”

“First,” I say, pleased even by the look in her eyes and on her face, “is that this room is yours, but in giving it to you, you must keep it spotless. Each day your bed will be made to standard. The clothes, and you'll be getting a wardrobe appropriate for a lady, will be hung properly in your closet, your dresser neat and tidy. You understand?”

“Yes Master,” Jessica says, and I have to admit, a little thrill runs through me when she calls me that. I'm tempted to take her again right now, but that would bring me to my other main rule.

“Two, and this is the big one that I want you to think about. If you accept this room, then you give up the sexual contact rule we've had. This room will become your only 'safe space.' Inside it, I swear that I will not touch you or order you to do anything sexual with me. In this room, and this room only, you will be in full control of yourself and what you do here.”

“And outside this room, Master?” she asks, swallowing nervously.

“Outside this room, I will be in total control. I will still not lend you out, you are mine and mine alone Jessica, but if I tell you in the middle of cooking breakfast to get on your knees and assume the position... you better hope you don't burn the eggs.”

“May I speak freely, Master?” she asks politely, and I nod. “So my choice is.... I say yes, and I get this room and more I assume, but sexually I must always be willing to serve you, to do any and everything you demand. And if I say no, I go back to my room downstairs, where I will still have the right to have to ask you for sex?”

“Yes. Oh, one more thing,” I say, the thought coming to me. “In the training room, your safe word still applies.”

I watch Jessica's incomparable face think, then she nods. “I accept your offer, Master. When can I start moving my things?”

“We can start right now, if you'd like.”

Jessica grins girlishly. “I'd like that very much. And Master?”

“Yes, Jessica?”

“If I invite you into this room?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. I read what she's asking me and I chuckle, she's saucy inside still.

“I have the right to refuse... I doubt I will though.”

* * *

Jessica licks her lips, the last of my seed disappearing between her twin coral pink devilish bands of softness as she looks into my eyes, smiling. “Thank you Master. You're delicious.”

I don't know if she's being honest or just trying to ingratiate herself to me more, but hearing her compliment me after I just got done blowing a load into her mouth is thrilling. In fact, for the whole week since moving into her new room, it's been thrilling. We've used my training room twice, but also we've had sex every day. I'm finding myself insatiable, needing and demanding her luscious body almost as soon as my cock says that it wants more. And each time, Jessica has responded not only obediently, but with a fervor and enthusiasm that tells me she wants it as much as I do.

I stroke my hand through her hair, smiling back at her. “You're very obedient, my Jessica. I must admit, I was testing you a little. I really didn't think you'd give me a blowjob right here in the middle of the courtyard.”

She laughs, getting to her face and tucking my cock back into my underpants almost reverently before tugging my workout shorts up. “I didn't think you'd be so energetic after a hard workout, Master. Should I make dinner now?”

I nod, watching with fondness as Jessica makes her way up the stairs, her ass swaying in a way that I know Larissa taught her specifically to try and entice me. I remind myself to thank Larissa when she gets back, but the fact is I don't need any more enticing. Just putting her in better clothes has been enticement enough. She's got a body that some of the local designers don't like, they seem to only make clothes for bobble headed anorexic stick figures, but the designers that know how to dress a woman... they'd drool over what I just saw go inside.

I follow Jessica inside, where I see her taking out the wrapped package of local boar mince from the freezer. “Boar?”

“I was thinking in my room, there's a slight modification of gatto di patate con ragu that I'd like to make for you. You need lots of protein, as active as you've been,” she says, blushing slightly. “If that's okay?”

“I think your chemistry background is finding an outlet that's a lot more delicious and day to day useful than it would have been otherwise,” I reply. “What can I do to help?”

Jessica tucks a lock of her golden hair behind her ear and smiles. It's one of her best looks, when she's accepting a compliment not on her body or her heart stopping sexiness, but on her intelligence. It's sometimes hard to forget when we're having sex, but she's brainy in a good way, which makes her even more valuable in my eyes. “If you don't mind Master, would you please finely dice two carrots, four cloves of garlic, and an onion? You know, since you get to play with the sharp objects and everything.”

It's a little bit of back talk, but she's doing it in good fun, and I have to admit, having her keep me on my toes is exciting too. “Deal. What are you going to be doing?”

“Making the mashed potatoes,” she says, taking out the vegetable peeler. “Also Master, I was thinking... you mentioned the other day about cultivating your property again. Well, I don't know about what it was like down in Camden, but up where I was, there were a lot of people who kinda tried to do that whole farm to table thing, only to find they couldn't grow anything. But potatoes and herbs are pretty easy. I could even start some herbs right here on the windowsill of the kitchen.”

“That bored, are you?” I ask, chuckling. “I'll think about it. In the meantime, put together a list of what you'd need to get a garden started. Besides a lot of sweat.”

“Sweat, as you know, I can do very well Master,” Jessica teases, and I chuckle. “What?”

“I think I'm going to have a very, very sweet dessert tonight,” I reply, looking at her. “After dinner, change into that light blue short dress I gave you. No panties, they'll just get in the way of my tongue.”

Distracted by my comment, Jessica's hand slips and she catches her thumb with the vegetable peeler, cutting herself. “Shit!”

It's not deep, but I can tell that it's right on that part where everything stings, and tears come to her eyes as the salt from the water she's cooking the potatoes in starts to sting. She's brave and tries to hide it, but this isn't a training session, where the pain is supposed to have a purpose. This just fucking hurts.

“Let me see,” I say, my voice calm. I take her hand and hold it under the faucet, letting the water sluice away the salt. “Okay, that's gonna sting for a while, keep it there while I get you a band-aid.”

I find my first aid kit in the bathroom, and when I come out Jessica's still crying softly, but I can tell it's not from pain. “It's okay, Jessica. I'm sure you've cut or burned yourself worse than this before.”

She sniffs. “Yes Master.”

“Then why cry? Do you think I'm upset with you?” I ask, and she nods once, miserably. “Well I'm not. It's my fault that I distracted you, it's my fault you got hurt. So here's how we're going to make it up. For the rest of the evening, you tell me what to do to make dinner, and then a nice, quiet evening. No unexpected sex, no crazy demands. Just a nice evening together.”

Jessica perks up, sniffing and wiping her nose with her unbandaged hand. “I'd like that, Master.”

“Then what's next?” I ask, relaxing into the task of being the cook while Jessica bosses me around. She walks me through the recipe expertly, tasting from time to time and helping with one handed tasks while I finish everything else. When I scoop the meat sauce into the hollowed out mashed potato 'boats,' Jessica nods approvingly.

“Very good Master. You have a deft hand, but I already knew that.”

I chuckle, picking up the two plates. “Jessica, you don't have to praise me, you know. Not that I mind.”

“And you don't have to compliment me either, Master. But you do.”

Her comment makes me think, and I set our plates at the table, holding the chair out for Jessica. “You have a point. Let's eat.”

Dinner is delicious, in fact since giving Jessica more freedom as well as more duties, my diet's not only improved but gotten a lot tastier. “Are you sure you're not a trained chef?”

“No, I was honest when I told Larrisa that at Rutgers I barely cooked for myself at all,” Jessica says. “What about you? No amount of hard work in the warehouse is going to make up for eating crap, and you do not have a crappy body.”

I chuckle, warmed again. “I've learned more than just a few basics, but honestly, I spent a lot of my evenings outside the house, even when I didn't have work. Speaking of which, I'd like your opinion on something.”

“What is it, Master?” she asks, relishing her food. Watching Jessica eat is foreplay in itself, and I have to remind myself that I promised her no sex demands tonight.

“I might have a new position within The Network soon. A promotion to capo.”

Jessica raises an eyebrow. “That's a good thing, isn't it?”

I nod, then shake my head. “I'm pretty young for a potential capo position, but there's a special reason The Network wants me. They've decided that with the recent changes in Washington, they're seeing North America as a potential area for expansion.”

Jessica goes quiet, her face clouding, and I set my spoon down. “You don't approve.”

Jessica thinks, then shakes her head. “Master... I've come to accept, even if I don't quite like, what you do. I know there's a lot of places in the world where what you do would be considered normal, or just good business.”

“Sicily being one of them.”

She nods, her face still serious. “Yes, Sicily being one of them. But Master... North America? Would you really want to bring what The Network does to your home country? Would you really want to be part of the drug trade that floods the streets of Camden, or Philly? What about the girls, too?”

I laugh, and pick up my spoon again. “Jessica, every time I think that you're getting a clue, you somehow remind me that you're still pretty innocent in all of this. Not stupid, you're far too smart to ever call you stupid, just innocent. The Network is already in North America. It's a small potatoes operation currently, mostly on finding girls for certain clients. We've actually never had to have a situation like what happened to you, we get flooded with requests from girls in Asia, in South America, in Eastern Europe, all of them willing to take up a life ten times worse than what you have for a chance to live in America. Right now, there are four CEOs of NASDAQ listed companies who have girls who were delivered to them by The Network. So trust me, everything's already there.”

“So what do you want my opinion on?” Jessica asks.

I shake my head, unsure. “I don't know. I guess... well, how would you feel about moving back to the United States? It'd be under a false name of course, we'd have to get you some fake papers.”

Jessica thinks, then shrugs. “I don't know, Master. If I can be totally honest, there's a part of me that wants to, because I know the system. In the USA, I can get away, get my freedom.”

I nod, the same thought coming to my mind. “True. And no Jessica, I wouldn't leave you behind in Sicily while I went to America. But what about the other part of you?”

Jessica shrugs. “There's the side of me... there's the side of me that likes calling you Master for more than just the sex. The side of me that looks forward to going into the training room with you, the side of me that... the side of me that wants to serve you. That likes being yours. It's hard for me to understand it still, Master.”

“I'm not going to ask you to give me your opinion on which side is stronger right now, Jessica,” I reply, chilled deep inside. Is it all going too fast? I don't know. “Let me clear the table.”

“No Master, I can do it,” Jessica says, standing up. “I'll get dessert too. I can still handle a butter knife.”

I watch her as she walks away, feeling like I'm both the luckiest and the unluckiest man on Earth. The fact is, if I am made the capo of North America, I'd either have to be very strict with Jessica... or get rid of her. And I can't get rid of her.

Jessica takes a while to come back, and when she does, I can't help but smile. “You changed into your short blue dress. Why?”

Jessica blushes and sets the small bowl of pudding down in front of me. “Even though you said no demands Master... that doesn't mean I can't hope for a few requests, right?”

I chuckle, picking up my spoon. “Well, maybe I can find room for two delicious desserts tonight.”

* * *

The next morning, Jessica positively glows as we sit down to breakfast, but before I can pick up my fork, my cell phone rings that I have a message. Not my normal phone... my other phone. Jessica looks up, surprised. “Master?”

“Just a moment,” I say, going into the kitchen and pulling out the phone. Call ASAP. Hi pri.

Shit. I put my phone away, rubbing my temples. Not today, I don't need this shit today. Hurriedly I grab my keys, going back into the dining area. “I have to go out for a few hours. So I need you to go back to your room. You can take breakfast with you.”

Her face falls, but Jessica obeys, getting her plate and a spoon, going to her room. I watch her sit down at the small vanity table and I watch her for an instant. “Yes, Master?”

I shake my head, my mind going back to what we talked about last night. “Nothing, Jessica. I promise, just a few hours, then we'll talk. I thought about your idea for a garden, I think I'd like that. We can discuss details when I return.”

I close Jessica's door and reach for the lock, and then at the last instant... I let my hand drop away. Maybe it's a test, maybe I'm testing myself as much as her, but I turn and walk away, getting in my truck and driving two kilometers into the hills. The lake is a lot closer here, on good days you can even catch the scent of the fresh water, different from the northerly breezes that brings in the ocean most of the time. I get out of my truck and look around, making sure I'm alone before placing my call. It's picked up immediately.

“You're fast. Didn't think you'd be at home.”

“Yeah well, I didn't have anything planned this morning past a workout. Nothing's going on until this afternoon. What do you want?”

“Omar Al Gazi's weapons shipment.”

“What about it?” I ask, watching as a hawk circles in the sky. “I already sent you the details. From what I'm hearing, you guys have been doing a good job of fucking with him, he's had to twice cancel the shipment because the buyers get nervous.”

“It has to be disrupted. He's shipping nerve agents.”

“No shit, I'm the one that told you guys. What the fuck you want me to do about it?”

My contact rumbles, his voice growing rough. “Watch you mouth, you're still on our payroll. Fact is, things on this end... we can't get the shipment broken up permanently. Boss man's pissed off the Israelis and the Turks. They aren't listening to us right now. They think that it's not their backyard anyway, so fuck it.”

“And I'm supposed to stick my neck out because you guys won't play kiss and make up with them? My advice is to tell the boss not to go over there and make an ass out of himself. Fuckstick.”

“My advice to you is to remember that even though you're Deep Cover, you're still an agent of the FBI, Special Agent Campo. You have orders. Disrupt the shipment. If you have the opportunity, arrest or take out The Sultan.”

“Take out? I thought you were supposed to be the good guys. Ordering hits is what The Network does.”

“You have your orders, Campo. We'll be in touch.”

The line goes dead, and I shake my head. Fuck.

Like I didn't have enough going on in my fucking life. Well, at least they want me to take out The Sultan, I already have beef with that guy. Manufactured beef, I've been trying to take him down for a while the slow way, but still beef.

Still, I think as I slide behind the wheel of my truck and watch the lake for a while, why does it feel like even though I'm supposed to be one of the good guys, I'm working for the side that's got no balls? At least in The Network, if you want to kill someone, you man the fuck up and kill them yourself.

I sigh, shaking my head. All this, for an extra sixty seven thousand dollars a year. Chump change compared to what I get to keep from The Network.

I'll give Jessica a little more time on her test, then head home. If she passes... I think I have something for her.