The afternoon didn’t last a lot longer, but they dragged it out until the last possible minute. All too soon, Acacia and Helena were back in their dresses, standing outside the house, with Wade dressed in blue pants and a jacket with the EMS logo on it. Acacia gave him a huge, longing kiss, and Helena just envied her a little more. How nice it would be to have a man to care for like that, that cared for her, well, not like that, exactly, but sort of. Just at the moment, she was feeling awful lonely.

Finally, Wade and Acacia pulled apart, and he turned to her. “Helena, it’s been wonderful meeting you and getting to know you,” he said. “I really appreciate the diversion from my troubles that you’ve been today. You seem to be a neat person, and I really appreciate your putting up with some of the odd things that we do. I know some of this has seemed a little weird, but you’ve taken it in stride. I hope you’ll join us again, some time. I think I can say that both of us would love to have you visit us again.”

“Thanks, Wade,” she smiled. “I learned a lot more than I expected, and I expect that I’ll be a while making sense of it. But I think you are one hell of a guy, and Acacia is lucky to have you.”

“Thanks, Helena,” he said. “See you again sometime.”

He turned back to Acacia for a final hug, and Helena heard her say, “Hang in there, Divebomber.”

“I’ll be OK, now,” he said. “You hang in there, too. I have really got to get moving.”

“I guess we do, too,” she said. “Bye.”

Helena and Acacia got in her car, and Wade got in his, and in a minute they were heading up the road. “What was that you called him right there at the end?” Helena frowned.

“Divebomber,” Acacia said. “He doesn’t like me calling him that except when he’s in his EMS uniform, and I wouldn’t have done it then if it weren’t for what I know he’s going to be facing. It’s kind of a way for me to say hang in there, you’ll make it.”

“Divebomber?” Helena frowned.

“It’s a work nickname. I guess he had it in the Marines, too.”

“What in the world?”

“It’s kind of complicated, and I can’t tell it right. Ask him yourself sometime, but only if he’s in his EMS uniform. He puts that uniform on, it’s sort of like when he puts the collar on me. I don’t see Divebomber much, and frankly, I’m just as glad. I really don’t like Divebomber very much, except that he sort of goes with the package. Divebomber is kind of a hang-out-with-the-guys sort of guy. Look, you saw the difference between My Lord and Wade, Divebomber is just a third persona, and he kind of likes to keep him separate from the other two. You can probably understand why.”

“Yeah, I think I can see a number of reasons,” Helena grinned. “It’s a little weird, but if it’s how he copes, then it’s how he copes. God knows, I’ve seen weirder stuff today.”

“You did,” Acacia grinned. “You’ll never see all of it, I’m sure, since a lot of it is pretty personal, just between us. But frankly, you saw more than I expected. I think he was pretty cool. Like I said, he’s a very honest guy.”

“He was pretty open and upfront about everything I asked,” Helena agreed. “A lot of it I didn’t understand, but some of the pieces are starting to fall into place. But you were right, I was impressed at how kind and gentle he is. The politeness is heartwarming, and the formality could grow on you.”

“It grew on us,” Acacia agreed. “I was pleased about the way that you sort of fell into it, too. It showed you were really making an effort. He was right, you’re the first and only person we’ve exposed this to. I wish I could be more open about the fact that I am Lady to My Lord, but let’s face it, I can’t. Hell, even the D/s types around here would think we’re weird.”

“D/s?”

“Good God, how naïve are you? Oh, that’s right, you went to that stupid Christian college. Dominant/submissive. Capital D, small s. Like I said, there’s a few others around, and we knew others at college. We don’t have much contact with them. A lot of them really seem to think a woman is dirt. ‘Slave, more beer!’ It sickens My Lord, and I would not tolerate that kind of treatment. We’ve worked out our own rules, they work for us.”

“It’s kind of sad,” Helena said. “I mean, to have to cover up your love like that, although I see why you have to.”

“Yeah,” Acacia nodded. “God, am I happy you came with me today, and it worked out all right. Like My Lord said, last weekend was only the second time we’ve been out around here as My Lord and My Lady. We knew it was a risk. Divebomber could get caught once by someone he works with and get away with it, we think. He could cover it up as a bet, a dare, something like that. But I got him to take that small step last weekend and when you caught us I figured I’d never get him out that way again. But it worked out, maybe.”

“What was that he said about the first time he took you out on a leash?”

“Oh, God,” Acacia shook her head in laughter. “That was a riot. I’d never do anything like that around here. This was clear down in Key West, at Fantasy Fest, this festival they have going into Halloween. We were even in masks. Well, he was, anyway. It was an absolute scream. We were all over the place, and just not out of place at all. I mean, we were some of the less weird people there.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask what you were wearing,” Helena giggled, sensing something outrageous.

“There are a lot of people running around wearing nothing but body paint. I mean nothing,” Acacia laughed. “They have a rule that if a woman has her nipples exposed, they at least have to have opaque paint on them. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my nipples are pink and sort of small, so I had big, dark nipples painted over them, and a nipple chain. Collar and leash and handcuffed behind, of course, and a big ball gag. That made me probably the most sober person in town.”

“Nothing on your bottom?”

“Oh, I was very modest there,” Acacia laughed. “My Lord locked my chastity belt on me.”

“Chastity belt! Are you kidding?”

“No, I am not kidding. It’s a very good one, stainless steel, fits, well, like a glove, but stronger. Helena, do you remember when we were talking about punishment, and he said that spanking me was counterproductive?”

“Yeah,” Helena grinned, pretty sure what was coming.

“Let me just say that living in a chastity belt in college for a month was not counterproductive.”

“You mean … oh, my God, I guess it wouldn’t be. But didn’t that sort of lock him out?”

“Not from my mouth,” she replied. “He said that if I wished to use my mouth, to use it to please him. My jaw was very sore before it was over with.”

Helena was silent for a moment. “Acacia,” she said finally. “While you were inside, after he took off your collar, he and I got to talking about your turning him down on his marriage proposal. I can see you really love him. I know what he said, but what’s your side?”

She let out a long sigh. “Divebomber,” she said finally. “He thinks that it’d be too hard to be Divebomber at work and My Lord when he gets home. That’s why we don’t even live together. The work really is important to him, in a number of ways, some of which he won’t tell me about, though I know more than he thinks I do. What he did was offer me a ring full time or a collar part time. For practical purposes, I think that accepting the ring means marrying Divebomber, not Wade, not My Lord. At least, that’s how he looks at it. I think we can manage Wade at home, and My Lord once in a while, sort of like we do now. It’s not what I really want, but I will accept it.”

“What do you want?”

Acacia shook her head. “The collar. I want it full time. He doesn’t think we could handle that. Maybe he’s right. I’d damn sure like to try, though.” She was silent for a moment, then continued, “Helena, given a choice, I wouldn’t just have it locked on. I’d have it welded on.”

Over the course of the next week, Helena had a lot of time to reflect on the events of that Saturday. It had certainly been one of the most interesting days of her life, and easily the most thought-provoking. As the pieces fell into place, one by one, the most overwhelming impression was her envy of the obvious charge that Wade and Acacia had between them. There was a huge sex charge, obviously – it had already been clear to her, the incident by the pool just rubbed it in her face – but equally in other areas. They were easily the closest couple she’d ever seen, and it was just a damn shame that they couldn’t be married and really let themselves go.

A week later, she was still thinking about it. It was an “off” weekend for Wade – like a fireman, he worked twenty-four hour shifts, one day in three, although his schedule rotated in some manner that Helena didn’t understand. Acacia left early enough on Saturday morning to have a good breakfast waiting for him when he got home, a huge smile on her face, and the lust and eagerness obvious to Helena, who wished her good luck with a lot of envy. She didn’t expect to see her roommate until just before time to go to work on Monday, and could only imagine what those two days would involve.

It was a boring weekend for Helena. Andy had asked her out Saturday night, but she’d given him a pass on it. By Saturday she wished she hadn’t – an evening of babble about stock car racing and baseball would be preferable to sitting at home, dazed and bored by the TV. It wasn’t the first time she’d had second thoughts about coming down here to work. In the months that she’d had her job at the insurance company, she really hadn’t gotten to know much of anyone. Acacia was a good friend, and she’d known her for a long time. After last weekend, Wade was well on the way to being a friend, too, but since he was Acacia’s boyfriend, it was a lot different – she had first call on him by a long ways. Although she liked the job she had, and loved the grown-up feeling it gave her, the truth was that her life was pretty bleak.

On Sunday morning she slept late – there really wasn’t anything else to do – and took a late, leisurely shower, wondering what Acacia was doing at that moment. There were a huge number of things that seemed to open themselves as possibilities, some of them pretty weird. Some of them, she knew about, sort of. A few of them, she could almost imagine herself in her roommate’s place, but the vast majority were just far beyond her capability to imagine.

She was standing nude in the bathroom, just finishing drying her hair, when she heard the phone ring. Maybe it was her parents, she thought. It would be nice to talk to them, even though it seemed awful early for them to be out of church.

“Good morning, Ms. Curtis!” she heard Wade’s familiar, warm voice in the phone, sounding happy indeed. “I trust the morning finds you well.”

“As well as can be expected, sir,” she replied, falling easily into the formality that seemed to cloud around him. “What may I do for you today?”

“My Lady and I were discussing you a few minutes ago,” he said. “She said you were likely at home today with nothing in particular to do, and suggested that I might invite you up here for a while, that you and she might use the pool again. I thought we might also throw some steaks on the grill. She’s tied up at the moment, so I took the liberty of calling you.”

Helena suppressed a giggle. If what she’d seen last weekend was any indication at all, Acacia was literally tied up at the moment. A vision passed through her mind of her roommate bound and helpless, watching while Wade – well, it about had to be Mr. McCluskey – placed the call. “That sounds absolutely delightful, my dear sir,” she replied, a sparkle in her voice, pumped up a little by the vision. “How soon would you like me to be there?”

“Oh, whenever you get here will be fine,” Mr. McCluskey said. “I’m just glad you will be able to visit us again.”

“I’m honored by your request, dear sir. I shall be there shortly.”

She’d learned the weekend before that Mr. McCluskey thought that pants were at best inappropriate on women, and that he appreciated efforts at a good appearance. It didn’t take long to get makeup on and to put on a nice dress, but even with light Sunday traffic it was still over an hour before she pulled into the driveway of Mr. McCluskey’s house. She was just getting out of the car when he came to the gate to the pool area to greet her. “Good morning, Ms. Curtis,” he smiled. “You look very nice today.”

“Thank you, dear sir,” she said. “Is Acacia here?”

“She’s hanging around,” he smiled. “We’ve been working on shibari. It’s a casual avocation that we both enjoy, and while we were preparing it, she suggested that you might be interested in seeing it in action, that it might answer some questions we didn’t manage to address last weekend. I should caution you that at the moment, she’s deep in her own mind, and may not easily become aware of your presence. Please keep your voice down and speak softly, as I will need to bring her out of it slowly.”

“Shibari?” Helena frowned. “Is that some kind of meditation thing, or something?”

“No, it’s actually more of an art form, but there are some mental aspects involved,” he said, opening the gate for her.

After last weekend, and thinking and talking with Acacia about it over the last week, Helena had come to think that she was ready to handle any of the surprises that Mr. McCluskey and his roommate could throw at her. The gasp that she gave at the sight before her eyes proved her wrong.

On the far side of the pool, from a frame that Helena had seen the week before but not thought about at the time, Acacia was hanging horizontally, face down in mid-air, dressed only in a yellow bikini, suspended by a number of ropes. Her arms were pinioned behind her back, a number of thick, white ropes encircled her upper arms and chest, both above and below her breasts, and ropes ran from the ropes in her armpits to a hook far above. Her knees were folded back, and tied with ropes that bound her ankles to her thighs, and went on up to the hook. Another rope encircled her hips, helping to support her. Her head was upright – held there by a rope tied to her hair! She was indeed hanging around, and it looked hideously uncomfortable.

“But … but …” Helena whispered, obeying the injunction to keep her voice down. “She’s been like that since before you called me?”

“Yes,” Mr. McCluskey smiled. “That’s a traditional form of shibari, called a katori. Ms. Curtis, I hadn’t expected you so soon. Though it strikes me as rather impolite to leave My Lady like that with a guest present, I’m reluctant to bring her down so soon, since she enjoys it so.”

“She …” Helena started to gasp again, and brought herself up short. Acacia enjoys that? In an instant, she realized that her roommate had said that she had to beg Mr. McCluskey to whip her … well, maybe she did enjoy it but, My God … Helena gulped, then said graciously, “Sir, she so rarely gets the time to do the things she enjoys, I have no objection.”

“I didn’t think you would,” he smiled. “I am awed by your forbearance, Ms. Curtis.”

“It … it just takes getting used to,” Helena said, shaking her head, formality slipping a little. “God, that looks uncomfortable.”

“She would tell you that it is moderately uncomfortable in the beginning, but that the discomfort helps take her to that place in her mind that she enjoys. I would not ask her now, since she’s only slightly aware of us, but if she could speak she would tell you that the discomfort is of little moment to her, and her pleasure far outweighs her pain. We spoke of this last week, you will remember. Remember how you enjoyed the pain of having your back scratched? It’s merely on a bigger scale, and more intense.”

“Yeah, but … are you sure she’s going to be all right?”

“She is at no risk,” he smiled. “We have done this before, although it takes a high degree of cooperation on both our parts. Come, Ms. Curtis, I am aware of My Lady’s limits, and this is well within them. On top of that, I am a paramedic. Do you honestly think I would put My Lady in any degree of danger, especially in your presence?”

“Well … No, I guess not,” she said after reflecting for a moment.

“Think about that, Ms. Curtis,” he smiled. “While you’re thinking about it, I have a favor to ask. Even though there is no chance that anything may go wrong, I still dare not leave My Lady alone for an instant in that condition, yet I have some preparations I must make for our dinner. May I ask you to stay with her for a few minutes, in her sight? If she struggles or cries out, just shout and I will come running, since I’ll just be in the kitchen.”

Mr. McCluskey left her seated in a lounge chair by the pool. Outwardly, Helena appeared calm, but inwardly her mind was racing faster than any stock car Andy could ever dream of. She did not dare take her eyes off Acacia, but she could tell from the glassy expression on her face that she was way, way out in la-la land. It was one thing to talk about this stuff, but to actually see it … My God, it really was real. Mr. McCluskey leading her around on a leash may have been one thing, sort of a role playing thing – but this was something far different. The reality of it … well, it was real. What the hell must that be like? And how the hell could Acacia enjoy it? A lot of things that had seemed to make sense after last weekend … now they didn’t, after all. From somewhere in the conversation of the weekend before, she remembered Mr. McCluskey remarking that Acacia had a tendency to get wrapped up in her submission and tune out the world. That made sense, sort of, but nothing like this …

After a while, which seemed an eternity, Mr. McCluskey came out and lit the grill. “It will be a while before we can eat,” he smiled. “But since it will take My Lady a while to come back to us, I think the time has come to let her down.”

“Can I help?”

“No … well, yes, you might. I will have to talk to her gently as I start the process, but once I get a leg down, she will be sorrowed, like she was when I removed her collar last week. If you are here, she may become aware of you and recover more quickly. I’d ask you to just stand in front of her, and talk to her gently and supportively.”

“I’ll try,” Helena smiled.

Though she could not understand how Mr. McCluskey could have gotten Acacia up where she was without a winch, the process proved to be simple – he merely untied one of her legs, and lowered it to a platform below her. “Oh, My Lord,” she moaned as he let it touch the ground. “Do we have to?”

“I’m afraid we do,” he smiled. “Ms. Curtis is here now, and we must show the proper respect.”

Only then did Acacia really take notice of Helena standing in front of her. “Oh, hi, Ms. Curtis,” she said dreamily, and Helena realized instantly that she was still far away.

Helena was just a little dumbfounded at what she might say to her roommate, who now had one toe on the ground, a leg cocked up behind her, her body still suspended by the ropes. “Thanks for inviting me,” was the best she could manage.

“Wasn’t that awesome?” Acacia said, still dreamily.

“It was very pretty, Miss Rose,” she replied. “That was something special to see.”

It took a few minutes to get Acacia down – Mr. McCluskey took his time, hanking each rope up as he was done with it, and Helena realized that the idea was to release her slowly, to give her time to rejoin them. But clearly, from the way Acacia was talking, he had been right – she’d been far off, in a world of her own, and didn’t come back easily. “My Lord,” Acacia said as soon as the last rope was off. “That was wonderful. Thank you, sir, thank you.”

“Come, My Lady,” he said as soon as a long and obviously heartfelt kiss was over with. “Let’s get you over in a lounge chair to relax.” Mr. McCluskey had to help her walk the first few steps, but she was getting along by herself when he helped her to sit down and lean back. By now she was mostly back to reality, but Helena still looked at the red marks the ropes had left on her body, and had to wonder again just what was going on between her roommate’s eardrums.

Soon Acacia seemed almost normal – except for the rope marks – and something had happened to the intensely formal atmosphere, as well. Though she still wore her collar, and still was very deferential to Mr. McCluskey, it wasn’t anything like the formality of last week, though it clearly lay not far below the surface. “We originally were going to do something more advanced,” she explained. “But as we were getting organized, I thought you might like to see this, so I went and got a bikini on.”

“You were nude?” Helena asked. Any possibility of amazement had by now been washed out of her, she was just casually checking.

“We almost always do it that way,” Acacia continued. “Except when it’s cold out. Then I sometimes wear a leotard.”

“And sometimes she doesn’t,” Mr. McCluskey added. “There’s no place in the house with the ceiling clearance to do suspension work like that, though there are modified forms we can use. We much prefer to do it outside, which is no problem, except in the winter.”

“You both have to like it,” Helena observed.

“It’s an art form of its own,” Mr. McCluskey said, then added with a grin, “One that I have heard said gives some perspective to the Bataan Death March. It’s really not that bad, if done properly. I’m no great master at it, but do enjoy it, as does My Lady.”

“It may be an art,” Helena said, “but it’s got to be uncomfortable.”

“A simple katori like that one is actually pretty easy,” Acacia replied. “Perhaps a little too easy. It was slow sinking into subspace.”

“Subspace?” Helena frowned. “I haven’t heard that term before.”

“That dreamy state she was in,” Mr. McCluskey said. “I see it in her in different ways at different times. You’re going to have to go to My Lady for help on this one. On the few occasions that I’ve tried something of that nature, I haven’t been able to get into it, except maybe very superficially. But then, I’m not a sub, either.”

“It’s very hard to describe,” Acacia said. She looked off into the sky for a moment. “This will sound like utter babble to you, but it’s sort of accepting the ropes, accepting the pain, letting them become a part of you, becoming one with them. It’s … very enjoyable. It’s like I’m in another world. I haven’t done drugs for a long time, but it’s kind of a high.”

“I’ll debate the doing drugs,” Mr. McCluskey grinned. “But let’s come back to that another time. My Lady, you’ve said there are several different ways that you feel it.”

“I, uh, dunno,” she said. “It’s not always the same. There are different levels. Some are pretty mild. Like, when I’m wearing handcuffs, well, I know I have them on. It’s sort of a relaxation, an acceptance. My focus on things narrows, I’m not aware of a lot of things, like maybe time passing. It takes a conscious effort to concentrate on things, except what My Lord is saying to me.”

Helena felt a little shiver go up her spine. “Last weekend, when we were walking back to the car,” she said. “I really don’t remember a lot about it. I … uh, wasn’t uncomfortable wearing the handcuffs. They were just, uh, sort of there. I remember trying to concentrate on how it felt, and I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to our trip through the park … uh, except when Mr. McCluskey stopped and said something about the swans, and I wished he’d just shut up and not distract me.”

The statement was met with a silence, but one in which Acacia and Mr. McCluskey exchanged some serious looks. “Yeah, sort of like that,” Acacia said finally, words that Helena didn’t really want to hear. “At least, right on the surface. As it gets deeper, I sort of just focus on how wonderful it is. Sometimes, depending on the situation, I get very horny. Sometimes I just space out, and sometimes it’s all mixed together. If it gets deep enough, you can get pretty high, like I was out there today. A couple of times I’ve been so far away that I feel like I’m taking a trip out of my body, sorta like I can look back at what’s happening to my body and see that it’s of no importance. I guess it’s sort of how my body and my mind react to pain.”

“It’s beyond my experience,” Mr. McCluskey said quietly. “About the deepest I’ve ever been is like you talked about being in last weekend in the park. That wasn’t playing around, it was in the Marines and it … well, it was in response to something that wasn’t a happy time. Maybe it wasn’t the same thing.” He shook his head, obviously not wanting to discuss it. “Helena, how would you like your steak?”

“Medium,” she said, irritated at the distraction; her attention was mostly drawn to that nasty, sinking knot in the pit of her stomach. If what she heard was right, when she’d worn the handcuffs the previous weekend, her first experience at anything like it, she’d fallen easily into something like a simple level of this subspace, whatever it was. Something Mr. McCluskey couldn’t do – but that Acacia could do easily.

And what did that say about her? She looked at Acacia, the red marks of the ropes still on her body. My God, did her own future lie down that road?

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