“Hi, Helena!” Acacia’s voice called. “I’m home.”

It was late on Sunday night. After they’d gotten up on the Saturday following the Halloween party, they reverted to their original plan of going up to Mr. McCluskey’s for the day. Helena and Acacia had gotten dressed nicely, sort of office-nicely, and had followed him up there in their individual vehicles. Along the way, they stopped at a chain restaurant for breakfast. This came as a surprise, for the women were still wearing their collars – he hadn’t taken them off on Saturday night – though leashes and handcuffs had been removed. Even after the experience of the night before, Helena had been just a little chagrined, until she realized that a lot of people considered Gothy-type collars as sort of chic, or, at least not out of place, anymore. After last night, she wouldn’t consider wearing a collar to the office, but all of a sudden she realized that she could get away with just the collar in a lot of casual places this day and age, and no one would be the wiser.

As planned, they spent the day Saturday in session, lectures, mostly, a lot drawing on the night before, but some shibari, as usual. Helena didn’t want to think that it had gotten at all boring, because it hadn’t, and there was still a lot to learn. But the night before had been a good exercise and they’d all had fun with it. After dinner she’d left early and headed for home alone; right from the beginning, part of the deal had been that Mr. McCluskey and Acacia needed their time alone together. Although it was thoroughly understandable, and Helena wished for even more together time for her friend, it still made her feel left out and lonely.

“I’m in the bathroom, Acacia,” Helena called. “Just finished drying my hair. How was your weekend?”

“Wonderful,” Acacia smiled, looking mellow, indeed. “This has been quite a weekend.”

“Yes, it has,” Helena laughed. “I’m really looking forward to going to work tomorrow.”

“Yeah, me too,” Acacia grinned. “Boy, are we going to hear some stories.”

“You know it. So did you do anything special?”

“Oh, we played around in the basement a bit and … where were you, anyway? Wade tried to call, thought you might like to come up for the afternoon, maybe have some steaks, but he didn’t get an answer.”

“Oh, Miss Rose,” Helena said with a Cheshire-cat grin. “While you and Mr. McCluskey were down in the cellar amusing yourselves and sating your considerable passions, I was out on an actual date.”

“A date, no less?” Acacia smiled. “Nothing sordid, I presume?”

“Absolutely not,” Helena laughed. “As a matter of fact, we went to church.”

“Church?” Acacia shook her head. “You’re right, that can’t be very sordid. What are you, turning vanilla on me after Friday night? I have trouble imagining little miss ‘whip me, beat me’ in church.”

“I’ve missed church,” Helena said. “I was just getting in the door Saturday night when Andy called. We got to talking for a while, trying to set up a date, but we were having some trouble getting our schedules to work, until he mentioned he was going to head home for the day, go to church with his family, and have dinner with them. I told him I’m a Methodist, and it turns out he is, too. I told him I’d missed going to church down here, and one thing led to another, so we spent the day together. His family is about a hundred miles from here, so he and some friend have an apartment here.”

“So did you have a good time?”

“Very nice,” she replied. “It’s a little brick country church, out in the middle of nowhere, only about forty or fifty people there, and it felt very friendly. Afterward we went to his parents’ home and had an excellent roast beef dinner. Acacia, it’s been a long time since I’ve been in the middle of a family like that. I missed it.”

“What are his folks like?” Acacia smiled, leaning up against the door post.

“Very nice,” Helena smiled. “A little straight, but you expect that of Methodists. Not as straight as if they’d been, say, Quakers. Warm and loving. He has a couple younger brothers and a sister, but she’s off in college and I didn’t meet her.”

“I suppose you didn’t mention Friday night.”

“Oh, yes I did,” Helena laughed. “In fact, in some detail. The official version, of course, not the background. Actually, I let Andy tell a lot of it. Acacia, we had them laughing so hard the tears were running down their cheeks.”

“They didn’t mind the idea of you going to the party in collar and cuffs and a leash?”

“I think it was adequately balanced off by the fact that I agreed to go to church with him on our second date,” she grinned. “I guess they think I’m pretty straight. And you know what? I got to thinking about it. With the exception of one area, I am pretty straight, and, if you look at it right, even that has been pretty straight.”

“Huh?” Acacia frowned.

“Think about it, Acacia,” Helena grinned, cleaning up the scattered stuff she’d left strewn around the bathroom. “While everything we’ve done has been loaded with a heavy sex charge, we haven’t exactly had any orgies up at Wade’s, have we? I mean, the closest we got was after I had him whip me, and you shoved him out of the room before you handed me the Corvette. I mean, we’re really walking the line in that area, but we’ve managed to stay on this side of it, even the night we spent in bed. Right?”

“Yeah, well, I guess,” Acacia said, a little unsure of the concept.

“You know what’s really weird?” Helena said. “I mean, real weird, to the point that it hit me right in the gut, and I spent a lot of time thinking about it? And, worse, it makes sense?”

“I have to ask,” Acacia shook her head.

“It even fits into the Bible.”

“What?” Acacia frowned. “I mean, I was never a churchy person like you are, but that seems pretty far out.”

“I never thought about it, until the minister started preaching on Ephesians 5,” Helena grinned.

“All right, you lost me,” Acacia frowned.

“I could get out my Bible and quote it to your word for word,” Helena grinned. “But it goes something like, ‘Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy, by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle, or anything of the kind – yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands, should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and dearly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church.’ It goes on like that for a ways, more talking about the church, but ends with the phrase, ‘This is a great mystery.’ Acacia, doesn’t that sound just about like everything we’ve ever heard from Wade?”

“He goes into a lot more detail, and doesn’t get into the stuff about the church,” Acacia protested.

“Yeah, but that’s Wade all over. I want to stick that passage in front of him cold sometime and listen to him lecture about it. I mean, the minister sounded just about like Wade does sometimes, except a few words were changed, but nothing that changes the meaning.”

“That’s scary,” Acacia said. “You mean we’re straights after all?”

“Well, a lot of church people wouldn’t think so,” Helena giggled. “But there it is.”

“You do have to marry the guy,” Acacia pointed out.

“Picky, picky,” Helena smiled. “You might as well be married, you pretty well are mentally, and you could be for real if either of you got off your high horse just a little. The point is, Acacia, I have had some problems between what we’re doing, or at least I’m being trained to do, and what I feel as a Christian. If we take this D/s stuff from the way Wade has been teaching – well, I don’t see any problem, at least in the long run.”

“It’s totally beyond me,” Acacia said. “So long as you’re cool with it, I guess. But you are right, I’d like to hear Wade take a swing at it. If it gets too boring, I suppose I can always sub out.” She changed the subject. “So what about Andy?”

“What about him?”

“I thought you didn’t like him.”

“Our first date didn’t go real well,” Helena smiled. “You and Wade had a lot to do with that. I don’t think he connected the two of you with the Mykonos, although I was a little misleading. But then, he never saw Wade with his mask off Friday either, and he never got a clear view of your face back last spring. I did tell him that’s where I got the idea for Friday, and he bought that. But Andy is a nicer guy than I thought, and I’ve changed a bit in the last few months, too. Yeah, he does baseball, he does NASCAR, but I think a lot of both of them came from his roomie. We didn’t talk about it much today.”

“You’re saying he has potential?” Acacia asked.

“I’m saying I haven’t ruled him out,” Helena said. “We’re going to go out again, maybe Thursday night. Look, Acacia, I don’t know if this is going anywhere, or what, but maybe we’d better avoid double dates with him and Wade until I’m ready to come clean with him.”

Once a week, usually on Wednesdays, Helena and Acacia joined a group of other women from the office in a lunch outside the building. Usually, they brought their lunches and ate in the lunchroom, but it was really fun to get out with the group once in a while, usually to a small restaurant not far from the insurance company. It was fun to get together, be served by a waitress, and talk girl talk. Sometimes, there were as many as a dozen on the Wednesday expeditions, but today, there were only four: Sally, from Acacia’s department, and Norma, from Helena’s, had joined them.

The restaurant was usually busy at lunch hour, and it was on this Wednesday, a couple weeks after the Halloween Party. The four women were lucky to get a seat at a table with five settings and were just getting settled in when a familiar face came into the room: Andy. Helena had been out with Andy a couple times since the weekend after the party, but he was working on his MBA in the evenings and weekends, so with Helena’s schedule, it was hard to find time to get together. “There’s Andy,” Helena nudged Acacia. “Anyone mind if I were to invite him over?”

“He’s the guy you’ve been dating some, right?” Norma asked. “Sure, invite him over.”

Helena got up from the table, got Andy’s attention and motioned him over. “Come sit with us,” she invited. “If you can stand all the insurance company gossip.”

“Sure, no problem,” he smiled. “I’m glad you asked. I can’t be long.”

“What brings you over to this side of town?” Helena smiled as she led him back to the table.

“We had a presentation over near here,” Andy said. “It went pretty well. I want to get lunch before I head back to the office.”

Helena brought him back to the table, worried some that he might recognize Acacia as the woman from the Mykonos. He’d seen her at the Halloween party, but that was with the heavy makeup. If he did remember, he didn’t give any indication of it. “Boy,” he told Acacia as soon as he was introduced, “I remember you from the party. That was some spectacular outfit you had on. That eye makeup was something else.”

“It was a lot of fun,” Acacia said. “I really loved the makeup, too. Let’s face it, it’s fun to dress up like that, but you have to save it for something like a Halloween party.”

Norma started giggling. “That still gets to me,” she said. “I almost died laughing at the three of you. And then, when we got to the office on Monday …”

“I really shouldn’t have done that,” Helena smiled, and turned to Andy. “There was a lot of laughing and teasing going on about the whole affair, and Mr. Young was doing a lot of the teasing.”

“Yeah,” Norma grimaced. “But the way you did it …”

“Did what?” Andy asked.

“Oh, she went into Mr. Young’s office,” Norma giggled. “We were all watching. She dropped to her knees like she was some kind of slave or something, and said, loud enough so we could all hear it, ‘My dear sir, I beg your forgiveness and would deem it proper that I present to you the morning report.’ He wound up with his head on the desk, laughing and pounding the table. The rest of the day, all anyone would have to do was smile and we’d all get the giggles.”

“Oh, boy,” Andy giggled himself. “That had to be something to see.”

“Mr. Young is a nice man, and he does have a sense of humor, even though he rarely lets it show,” Helena grinned. “I really shouldn’t have done it, but I just couldn’t resist.”

“Sounds like you have some fun over in your shop,” Andy said. “Would you be up for tomorrow night? Class got canceled.”

“Sure, Andy,” Helena smiled. “It’ll have to be late, though. I have aerobics right after work.”

“Around seven all right?” he said. “We could do a quick late dinner and go catch a movie or something.”

“That’d work,” she replied.

“I tried to get hold of you Sunday,” he said. “But you must have already gone somewhere.”

“Sorry I missed you,” Helena smiled, knowing she would have missed what had happened a lot worse if he’d caught up with her. “Acacia and I went up to her boyfriend’s for the day.”

“Have a good time?” he asked.

“A wonderful time,” Helena grinned, the memory warming her.

“I know you go up there every now and then,” Andy smiled. “What do you guys do up there, anyway?”

Acacia beat Helena to the punch. “Oh, we grilled some steaks, spent some time in the hot tub, and just sort of hung around.”

Helena was very glad that she had been looking away from Andy just then. She glanced at Acacia, giving her a severe evil eye, and fell back into the memories. Despite the fact that it had been the middle of November, it had been unseasonably warm, with temperatures in the mid-seventies, no wind, and a warm sun shining down like it was summer, though most of the leaves were down, and the trees stood naked around the back yard.

They’d been waiting for almost two months for an opportunity to get Helena into an outdoor katori, and this seemed like it could be their last chance until spring. They waited until after noon, when it had warmed up nicely, and Helena got on a bikini and went out to the frame. While she’d been in a number of rope ties, this was her first chance at a complex suspension tie, and she couldn’t help being a bit nervous. The initial stages went fine; getting tied into a takatekote was familiar enough by now, but she couldn’t help feeling excited as she leaned forward into the ropes, and let Acacia and Mr. McCluskey tie off one leg. It had felt awkward indeed, supporting herself on the one foot she still had on the ground, struggling for balance. “Helena, relax,” she remembered Mr. McCluskey saying in his warm voice. Become one with the ropes. You don’t think they’re going to let you fall, do you? The ropes are your friends, they’ll keep you from harm.” She did manage to relax, and wow …

“Sounds sort of relaxing,” Andy commented. “A nice break from work. What else do you guys do up there?”

“Oh, we just play around,” Acacia said, noting that Helena was a little lost in the warm feelings. “Wade has a number of hobbies. We spent some time doing some shibari. That’s kind of a Japanese form of macrame. We spent some time in the afternoon doing a traditional form of a hanging called a katori.”

As Helena redoubled her evil eye at Acacia, Andy shook his head, clearly having no idea of what Acacia was talking about, but obviously thinking that making plant hangers wasn’t something he’d care to do for fun. “Well, if you like it, I guess.”

The memories were still on Helena. She’d let herself relax, become one with the ropes. The ropes were her friends, supporting her, comforting her, protecting her … yes, there was pain, but it only intensified the experience and helped her slip into a wonderful subspace. As she hung there, she could imagine that she was flying, some sort of existential human bird, and a snatch of poetry by John Gillespie Magee Jr. had entered her mind, bouncing around in her skull until it seemed to define the experience … “Hovering there, I chased the shouting wind along, and topped the windswept heights with easy grace … wheeled and soared and swung, and done a thousand things you have not dreamed of” … truly, she had. It had been hard to be taken down, after much too short a time, it seemed to her. What a mind blower – too bad that spring was so far off, it’d be months before she could do an outdoor katori again.

She gave Acacia one more evil glance, and casually shot a blusher back at her: “Oh, it’s a lot of fun, if you’re into it.”

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