PrimeDefender (7 page)

It didn’t. Not with them. Matt could stay
this way forever, loving this woman who’d offered the one thing he’d needed as
a young, troubled man—the control she’d given back to him when he’d persuaded
her she needed his strength to fight the weight demon that had begun to
undermine her health. “Tell me how you want it, sweetheart.”

“Hard. Fast. Show me who’s boss and make me
like it.”

So typical. Submissive or not, Keisha
didn’t have slow and easy in her vocabulary. She went into everything like gangbusters,
whether it was her career or diet, or sex. It made no difference whether she
was Mistress or slave. “Hold on.” Grasping her shoulders to steady her on the
bed, he fucked her hard and deep, faster and faster.

The way she held on, the pressure of her
cunt against his straining dick, had him gasping, trying in vain to control the
need to come
now
, ease the raging lust that drove him to pound into her
body. She strained upward, took him even deeper. His balls tightened.

He was too close. “Damn it, come now.”

“Oh yeah. I’m comin’.”

When she tightened her legs around him and
clutched his shoulders, he felt her cunt contract around his cock. Her breathy
moans mingled with his shout of satisfaction as they came in unison.

Not Master and slave, nor Mistress and
slave. Not tonight. Tonight they were just lovers taking their vanilla pleasure
together.

Chapter Three

The following April…

“See you in an hour,” Matt told Keisha as
he dropped her off at the doctor’s office for a final checkup. He’d stay and
wait for her as he usually did, but he had something else on his mind.

He needed to put his old hang-ups to rest,
for good, because if he couldn’t, he wouldn’t be able to give her what she
wanted most—a family of their own. After he watched her go inside Dr. Stein’s
office, he pulled into a parking slot across the courtyard and went to see the
psychologist who’d been treating him—make that talking with him—for the past
six months. Steeling his nerves against the panic that threatened to overtake
him, he strode across the parking lot and into the doctor’s office.

Today there would be no talking. The shrink
had been pushing this for months now but Matt had balked. He wouldn’t balk
anymore. No matter how much he feared the truth, he’d let the doctor hypnotize
him. And he’d face whatever it was that had him terrified at the idea of having
a kid. So afraid that he’d had a vasectomy as soon as he had the money, right
after signing with the Rebels. After he did that he’d see about having the
surgery reversed, the way Keisha wanted him to do.

* * * * *

He tried to concentrate on the swinging
pendulum in the doctor’s hand, but the pendulum was here and now. He was
somewhere else.

Mind and body separated, his mind traveled
back…

“You’ll be twelve years old next week,
Matthias. Where are you now?”

He saw a soot-stained brownstone on a
narrow street. A few straggly flowers—petunias his mother had planted in the
spring—still survived along the cracked walkway to the front door. He
hesitated. Something stopped him. Was someone screaming?

Not screaming. A pigeon screeched as it
dived for the crumbs his neighbor lady put out each morning. He made himself
move, took the stairs two at the time, flung open the scarred, black-enameled
door and went inside.

“I’m going home. I got suspended from
school for fighting on the playground.”

“All right. You’re in your bedroom now,
Matthias. What do you see?”

“My bed. Football on the chair. A
bookshelf. My new sneakers.”

“Think carefully. Who else is in the
house?”

“Mom.” A door slammed and heavy footsteps
grew closer. “Oh, no, Dad’s home.”

“Why is your father home? Shouldn’t he be
at work?”

“They called him from school.” Another door
opened. His door. “Dad?”

A fist connected with his cheek. “Brat.
I’ll teach you to disgrace me.”

His jaw hurt so bad he couldn’t talk. He
thought it might be broken. Another fist got him. This time in the gut. He
doubled over, vomited.

“Clean it up or I’ll kill you.” More fists,
more curses and threats. His dad had him by the throat, choking the air out of
him.

“No, Abel. He’s just a boy.” His mother
grabbed his father. He scrambled out from under the deluge of fists.

“Shut up, bitch.” His father hit her over
and over while he watched and screamed. Blood ran out of her nose and mouth.

“I want to pummel my father, protect my
mother. But I’m too little. Too helpless against him.”

“Matthias, what’s happening now?”

“I hear sirens in the distance. Now they’re
inside. The cops are dragging my father off my mother.” He gasped for air,
couldn’t breathe.

“Are they taking him away?”

“They’re putting handcuffs on him. He’s
fighting them. Oh God, I hear more sirens.”

“Your mother. Where is she?”

He sank to the floor, took his mom’s limp
hand. “On the floor. She’s bleeding. Not moving. The ambulance people are here.
They’re lifting her onto a gurney and taking her away.”

The doctor gave the signal—a snap of his
fingers. “Come back now, Matt. Do you remember everything?”

He did. How the fuck could he have buried
this nightmare so deep inside him that it had taken twenty years and a hypnotist
to drag it out of his brain? “Some of my fears make sense now, Doctor.”

“You mean the reasons you’re so afraid of
having a child? Or why you’re a sexual submissive?”

“Both. Seems to me the two are pretty much
tied together.” Now that he remembered why his dad had killed his mother he
understood his guilt, his fears. Understanding them, he believed he was halfway
toward overcoming them. “I imagine I’m still gonna need a few more sessions—but
no more hypnosis. I don’t think I could take revisiting any more of my
childhood, at least not that up close and personal. I always remembered my mom
dying in the hospital and my dad being sent up for manslaughter, just not
exactly the way it came about.”

The doctor’s expression was one of
sympathy. “Perhaps you should share this new knowledge with your wife. It might
help her understand your feelings. How is her weight-loss program going?”

Matt grinned. “She’s met her goal. I’ll be
going back to being my submissive self as soon as we can gather a few good
friends together to witness the renewal of our vows.”

“Isn’t four years a pretty short a time to
have passed before renewing
vows?”

“We’ve been married just four years, but
it’s been more than six since she collared me. We switched places this last
year while we tackled her weight loss together. Her dominance and my
submission—that’s the vow we’ll be renewing. You don’t understand the BDSM
lifestyle, Doc, but it suits both of us just fine.” Matt stood and held out his
hand. “I need to go meet Keisha now.”

“Good luck. You’ve come a long way.
Congratulations,” the doctor said as he walked Matt out of his office.

Chapter Four

As they’d done six years ago, Matt and
Keisha sat across from each other, only this time it was at the conference
table in Keisha’s office at their house rather than the dinette set in his
bachelor digs at a Savannah condominium. Instead of the pizza and beer they’d
enjoyed back then, they snacked on a tray of fruits and veggies with assorted
dips, with sparkling water to wash it down.

“I’m afraid I’m gonna always miss the
pizza,” Keisha said, making a face at the carrot stick and dip she was about to
put in her mouth. “How about you?”

He looked up from her list of demands and
grinned. “If it will keep you on the straight and narrow, I’ll gladly eat
healthy and supplement my diet with protein drinks whenever I’m feeling
starved. Have you had a chance to go through my wish list?”

“I’ve looked at them. I’ve got no
objections as long as you’re okay with mine.” She noticed he’d called his
demands a “wish list” instead of what they were, but she found she didn’t mind.
“Do you?”

“Not at all, Mistress. I went ahead and
drafted a new contract, just in case you’d be okay with what I want.”

She liked that Matt was still submissive,
but also that he’d gotten over the need to be punished for things he now
understood and realized had never been his fault. Slipping reading glasses on,
she began to peruse the document Matt had prepared.

On Sunday, the sixth of April, six years
since the covenant of dominance and submission was entered into between
Mistress Keisha Harris and slave matthias rubin, we reaffirm our desire that
our lives be intertwined forever as treasured Mistress and beloved slave. Today
we celebrate the love that has sustained us in bad times and let us share good
times, and we promise we will always treasure our relationship as we have up
until now. We promise to support each other in our search for sexual, emotional
and intellectual fulfillment, always trying to bring out the best in ourselves
and each other.

To that end, slave promises Mistress his
complete obedience in all things sexual and his support, protection and honor
in his every action, confirming the vows he made at the time of his collaring.
He promises further never to use his superior physical strength against her and
grants permission for her to punish him physically and emotionally in any way
that may give her pleasure. Finally, slave vows he will take every possible
step to enable his Mistress to bear his child.

Mistress promises slave her love and
protection, and her sexual domination which shall not include unearned physical
punishment or unjustified restraint of his sexual performance but shall include
any actions which bring pleasure to herself or slave.

May our renewed vows add strength to the
home we have built together. May it always be a home full of love, and may we
continue celebrating the passage of time and life with joy. Because our love
has grown in wisdom through sickness and health, may we always give thanks for
our blessings and the pleasure of our shared lifestyle.

When Keisha looked up at Matt, she felt
tears streaming down her cheeks. His smile confirmed the love she’d seen in
every line of the document he’d once told her he’d borrowed in part from
traditional marriage contracts that were part of Jewish wedding ceremonies.

She’d felt his love before, in his
submission and in the dominance he’d been forced to assume when he’d thought he
might lose her. She’d felt it in his concern that he might hurt her when he
took sexual control, and in his gentle care for her when she was ill. She felt
it now more than ever, in the simple promise she’d never expected that he’d
include.

Slave vows to take every possible step
to enable his Mistress to bear his child.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. It may not work, you know,
and if it does I’ll be a basket case before it happens, but I know you’ll be
there telling me it will be okay. That I won’t end up being an abuser like my
dad.”

“You won’t. Since your recollaring’s set
for,” she glanced at the contract, “April sixth, what say we head on to Rebels’
Roost since that’s today.”

Matt laughed. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Epilogue

Her breath caught in her throat as she
stood before Tawny and Jack, Coach Zanardi and Susan, and Sid and Talia. Close
friends who’d come to see them renew their commitment to the lifestyle they
shared.

This time she’d left off the bodysuits that
had been her costumes in the dungeon ever since she’d decided to play as a
Domme. Her nakedness no longer bothered her because her beloved slave thought
her beautiful. She was still a big, statuesque woman—his gorgeous Amazon he
called her—but she no longer shrank from curious eyes when she played here with
her lover, her Master and now her slave. Because he saw her as desirable, she
felt that way and stood proudly for all to see.

Her cunt clenched with anticipation when
she saw him in the spotlight, beautifully naked head to toe as he’d promised
he’d be. His olive skin glowed as if he’d oiled it, tempting her to touch and
caress every square inch of the baby-smooth skin that covered all his buff,
massive muscles. “Come to me.” The gold barbell in his ampallang piercing
sparkled and drew her gaze to his massive erection.

As he’d done before, he knelt before her,
holding out the leash he’d never put on her during the time they’d switched
places. He bent his head, lifted one of her bare feet to his lips and drew each
toe into his mouth. It felt good—even better this time than it had before.

“Do you want to be my slave, to love, honor
and obey me in all things?”

He lifted his head and met her gaze, a look
of eagerness in his expressive, brown eyes. “I want that above all else,
Mistress.”

She returned his smile. He was so much more
comfortable in his submissive skin now. “Why?”

“Because I’m a sexual submissive. I want
all our friends here to know I’m your loving, obedient slave, that you control
my mind and my cock.” He couldn’t have said the words six years ago, but now
they seemed to flow easily from his lips.