And then our mini vacation was over and we were back to work at six AM on Monday.
* * *
By the end of June, I was completely self sufficient as Veronica's assistant. The guys at the office also started coming to me when they needed something instead of straight to Veronica, which amused Veronica to no end.
She refused to let me spend a dime of what I was earning. It all went in the bank to cover expenses at school in the fall. She explained it to me like this.
"You are now doing all the little work I used to have to do myself. It takes me just as long, and sometimes longer, to do the things you're doing. I can't charge you out to the clients, because this is just the overhead of running a business, which means I also can't charge out my time when I am forced to do them. But because you're doing these things, then I can spend more time doing things I can charge for. And you've also taken similar duties off the guys, so they're billing more hours, too." She paused.
"Shane, I know you remember almost nothing from your other life, but you have some business skills that are better than mine. You might not remember ever doing these jobs, but you instinctively remember how to do them."
* * *
One afternoon in the middle of June, I couldn't find either Bob or Brian. Veronica had me running around all morning, then I'd photographed houses for both Bob and Brian in the afternoon. I wanted to share the photographs with them. I checked their schedules, and they were marked as busy, but it didn't say what for.
I asked Veronica.
"It's hush-hush," she said. "An off-the-books client, someone who has been important to us for a while."
"But-"
"What part of hush-hush didn't you hear, Shane?"
They both arrived back at the office very late in the afternoon. I heard them come in and ambushed them. "You can show us the photos in a sec, Shane," Bob said. "We need to update Veronica first."
They went into her office and closed the door. I was a little miffed. Since I'd started working for her, this was the first time she held a meeting without me unless I was otherwise running errands for her.
They came out just a few minutes later and refused to answer any questions about it. "Ask Veronica," they said. "We're not allowed to talk about this client, and you don't want to get us into trouble."
Veronica collected me at 5:30 and declared the work day over. When I tried to wrap up some paperwork, she walked over, wrapped my arm in hers, and dragged me out of the office and back to our apartment.
She unlocked the door but didn't open it. Instead she stepped behind me and put her hands over my eyes.
"What are you doing?"
"No struggling," she said. "Shane, no games, no back talk. There's something I want to show you. Behave."
"Okay."
"Reach out and open the door, then step in. I'll guide you if I need to."
So that's what we did. I made small steps with Veronica right behind me, her hands covering my eyes. We stepped into the apartment, the door closed behind us, and we took several more steps. With her hands still over my eyes, she stepped very closely behind me and kissed the back of my neck. Then she took her hands from my eyes.
While we'd been at work, someone had been in our apartment painting it.
The base color was the same. The furniture was where we'd left it. But an accent color had been added. Actually three accent colors. There was a red exactly the shade of my hair. There was a green, and there was a cream color that I decided matched Veronica's blond hair.
I turned to stare at her.
"Do you like it?"
I nodded.
"It's you and me," I said, quietly.
I walked slowly around the apartment, finding all the places the colors were added. It was always subtle, just a little bit here, a little there, and never quite the same, but always similar.
"You said you wanted shape. I wanted to tell a story, but one no one would understand."
She set her briefcase down and pulled out a sketch pad. She pulled me to the dining room table and started showing me the sketches.
"So I started with a sketch of you," she said, showing it to me. She had used colored pencils and had drawn me standing next to the window at Victoria and Wendy's. I was dressed in the corset, skirt, and heels with my hair cascading over my shoulder. She'd drawn me from behind with my face turned back to look at her.
"And then I did one of myself," she said, showing me the next sketch. She looked just like I remembered her when I first danced with her.
I reached out and caressed it.
"Then I did one of us together."
The next sketch she showed me was of the two of us dancing. It was drawn from behind me again. She'd taken liberties with it. My hair wasn't just over my own shoulder, but also over hers. She'd had to lengthen hers just a little, but it was a mirror of mine and was just caressing my shoulder.
She showed me another dozen sketches she had done, some just as detailed, most of them just a few strokes. I could see she was catching the essence of the other drawings.
"Then I gave all this to Bob and Brian and asked them what they could do with it." She waved her arm at the apartment. "This is it."
I got up and wandered the apartment. It was all subtle, but beautiful. I came back to her. She was standing there watching me. I wrapped my arms around her, squeezed her very tightly and whispered into her ear. "I'm yours, but now this apartment and everything in it is mine now, too. Including you."
"Yes Shane," she whispered back. "I am all yours."
I spent hours showing her just how much she was mine.
At the morning staff meeting, I asked the boys to stand up. Then I gave them each a huge kiss. "Thank you."
Veronica didn't even punish me for kissing someone else.
* * *
Near the end of June, I walked into Veronica's office and closed the door. "Boss, I'd like a day off next week."
"We're awfully busy, Shane. I need you."
"I know. I'd like the third off."
She put down the drawings she'd been looking at and gave me her full attention. "Why?"
I looked at the floor. "It's been a year."
"Oh." Her eyes grew big. "Oh. Oh. Of course." She thought about it for a moment. "Do you want me to be with you? It's okay either way."
"I don't know," I said. "I could use some advice. Someone died so that Shane could live. And Shane died, too. It's all very confusing. It just seems that this Shane should do something about it. Maybe something small, but I shouldn't just ignore it. I was thinking flowers, maybe, but I wouldn't know what to do with them."
"There's an Unsung Heroes Memorial at the Veterans Cemetery," she told me. "People leave flowers there all the time. Would that do?"
I crossed around to her side of the desk and hugged her. "It's perfect. Will you come with me for that part? Maybe take a couple of hours off for it is all?"
"I'd be honored, Shane."
"I think... Flowers for the Shane that was, for her soul, and flowers for the body that was, the memories that died, even if the soul is here in this Shane." I thought about it. "Does that seem tacky?"
"Not to me," she said.
* * *
On the morning of the third, Veronica went to work. I stayed at the apartment, thinking about the past year. Then I did something I hadn't been doing. I got out my laptop and started writing a story.
Once the shops were open, I walked to a florist and bought the flowers I wanted. I got three arrangements. The third was for a dog whose name I no longer remembered but who I hoped was doing well with a brother I didn't remember, either. I carried everything back to the apartment, wrote for a while, then went in search of Veronica. She was in her office, just getting ready to go. She had two arrangements of flowers herself.
"These are from me," she said. "I didn't know either of these people, but without their sacrifice, you wouldn't be in my life, and I owe them."
* * *
We both cried at the
memorial. But we dried our tears, and I decided we'd done the right thing. I hoped Shane was doing okay.
I spent the afternoon working on the story.
* * *
For the next week, I kept sneaking time to work on the story. Veronica was used to me doing homework at the apartment, so I didn't think she would find it strange. And then one evening I finished the first draft of the story, pushed the laptop away, and told Veronica I was going for a run.
That Saturday, Veronica and I elected to stay in. "I have plans for your body," she told me.
We'd been dating for months, but the sex just kept getting hotter and hotter. Veronica kept finding new ways to make me squirm, and she could make me wet with a look. There'd been one session I'd told her was "a seven and a half". But never did I have to ask her to tone things down.
That Saturday, Veronica took my clothes away in the morning. Every couple of hours, she added a new toy to the mix. At ten, I was naked. By noon, I was wearing cuffs on both ankles, although they weren't attached to anything. By two, she'd added a collar and leash, but just let the leash dangle most of the time. At four, she cuffed my legs together so I could barely hobble around. Right before dinner, she clipped my wrist cuffs together in front of me then made me bend over the couch.
By now, the feeling against my anus had become familiar, but it had always been a bedroom toy in the past. She slowly worked it in, then patted my bottom and told me I could stand up.
"Mine," she said.
"Always," I told her.
She grabbed the leash and pulled me to the dining room table and made me sit down. This pushed the plug slightly deeper inside me, and I squirmed.
She fetched the food I'd been making in the kitchen, setting it on the table. She sat down then said, "You may not speak again tonight unless it's in direct response to a question I asked," she said. "Do you understand?"
"Yes, Roni."
"I may later relax the restriction slightly, allowing you to scream my name. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Roni."
"Every single word you speak is five minutes of ice," she told me. She hadn't asked a question, so I didn't respond. I think she was disappointed I hadn't automatically said, "Yes, Roni."
She smiled sweetly and asked me to pass the salad.
I waited until we each had our plates ready, then I said, "Roni?"
"That's 5 minutes," she told me with a leer.
"I love you," I added.
"Cheeky girl! Your twenty minutes will commence after you've washed all the dishes. Do you intend to go for more?"
"No, Roni."
We finished the meal and I managed not to add to my punishment, although she'd been trying to trip me up. I did the dishes while she watched me, then she ordered me to bring a bowl of ice to the bedroom.
I thought it was especially cruel to make me bring the ice.
She met me in the bedroom. She'd put towels on the bedding to soak up some of the water that was about to melt all over. I was wondering if I'd been just a little too cheeky.
"Lie down, on your stomach, crosswise across the bed," she ordered after taking the ice from me.
I did what she ordered. She kept my wrists tethered together, then pull them past my head so that they hung off the edge of the bed. She secured them there. Then she made me kneel with my butt waving in the air and my legs spread and secured my legs that way. I could squirm like crazy, but I was completely open and vulnerable to her. She reached underneath me and attached a restraint to the collar, then pulled that down between my legs and secured it to the frame as well.
With my hands tied the way they were, my mobility to move closer towards my feet didn't exist. My feet couldn't move at all, and by extension my knees. The restraint around my neck kept me from lengthening my body and lying back down on my stomach with my head hanging over the bed. In other words, I was going to continue to kneel there with my ass waving in the air until Veronica released me.
"Any sounds that come from your throat I will consider words, and they will add to the duration of your punishment."
"Shit," I said.
"Twenty five," she said immediately. "And five extra for the profanity."
I shoved my face into the covers in an attempt to prevent any more words from leaking out, and she began teasing my toes with a cube of ice.
She was merciless. It took me a few minutes, but I realized she was making a point. She had me squirming in an attempt to escape the ice within minutes, but I kept my mouth shut for well over fifteen minutes when suddenly she slipped three cubes inside of me all at once. I arched my back, pulling my face out of the covers, and hissed.
"Thirty five," she said calmly. "I wonder if I'm going to get to do this for an entire hour."
I buried my face back in the covers for a while. She got very serious with the ice, and it was torture, but I was able to keep quiet.
Then she removed the plug, slipped two ice cubes in there, and reinserted the plug.
"Roni! Mercy! Please!"
"Fifty."
But she actually did show mercy. She didn't insert any more ice into me, and eventually she started drying me off and warming me with her hands.
"I didn't think you were going to make it," she told me quietly, laying on the bed with her face inches from mine as I turned sideways to look at her. "I thought you'd use your safe word."
"What safe word?" I asked
"Fifteen," she said.
I could feel a look of horror cross my face, and then I completely lost it.
"Nooooo!" I screamed. "Please Roni! Please no." I thrashed to try to get free and kept begging for no more.
"Okay, Shane," she said quietly. "I think you've had as much of this as you can take."
"Thank you, Roni! Thank you thank you."
She finished drying me off, then looked at me.
"Who owns you?" she asked me.
"You do."
"Who do you belong to?"
"I belong to you."
"Who controls you?"
"You do."
She got off the bed. "You like feeling helpless? The more helpless and vulnerable, the more you're mine."
"Yes."
"Gagging you makes you feel more helpless," she said, shoving her undies into my mouth. She tied them in place.
Soon after, I was screaming her name again.
* * *
I was worn out after the attention. Veronica still hadn't untied me. This wasn't a comfortable position, and she had never before left me in an uncomfortable position for this long.
"Do you know why I was cruel tonight?" she asked me.
"You weren't cruel," I said.
"Yes, I was. I knew you'd do something to earn a punishment, you can't pass up an opportunity to taunt me, and I knew you wouldn't stay quiet if I was cruel enough with the ice."
"You set me up?"
"Yep. As an apology."
"For what?"
She stayed quiet for a moment. "For reading the story you wrote."
"What?"
"You left your laptop out. I was curious. I read it. It's about us, isn't it?"
I turned to look at her with an accusatory face. "Happy early birthday," I said without being at all happy about it. "The story isn't ready yet, and I wanted to give it to you for your birthday."
She didn't say anything for several minutes, then in a small voice, "I'm sorry I ruined your surprise. But Shane, it's an amazing story."
"It's not polished yet."
"It's perfect. If this is an example of your stories, I'm so going to enjoy reading them."
I struggled against my bonds for a moment. "Veronica, if we're having a serious conversation, why am I still in an uncomfortable and extremely vulnerable position? If you're the one apologizing, why am I the one getting punished? How does setting me up qualify as an apology?"
"You're still tied up because you're angry with me, and I can't bring myself to untie you when you're mad at me. I know as long as you're like this
, you have to listen to my apology."
"That's a stupid answer. Untie me."
"No."
I struggled some more, but everything was too tight, and when it came to tying me up, she knew what she was doing. "This isn't fair!"
"Let me know when you're ready to continue talking."
I knew struggling wasn't going to get me anywhere, but I kept trying. Finally I turned and glared at her. That's when she started slipping some pillows underneath me to at least make me less uncomfortable. It helped, and I collapsed into them, my ass still waving in the air.
"Tell me about your stories."
"What about them? They're stories."
"I will untie you once you've answered all my questions to my satisfaction and have promised not to run away because you're mad at me."
"Roni, I'm not mad at you. You read a story. I wrote it for you anyway. I wish you hadn't read it yet, because I wanted to watch you read it. You won't let you buy you anything, so I wrote you a story. But what's done is done. I'm going to ask you to never do it again, and you're going to agree you were wrong, and you'll never read another story of mine before I give it to you. So I'm not mad and I'm not going to get away."
I struggled for a minute. "But I still think you should get punished."
"You're right," she said. "But I can't. I would freak out. I can't."
"Why not?" I asked her. "Don't you trust me?"
"Shane, do you want to stay like this while we talk about that, or do you want to finish answering my questions then grill me about that after."
I shut up.
"How often do you write?"
I thought about it. "I dunno. Not as often as I'd like. I'd write every day for hours a day if I could, but who has time for that? You know what our schedule is like."
"Why don't you just write less, but still write?"
"If you feed the muse, she becomes happy and gives you good stories. If you neglect her, she visits someone else instead. She's fickle, demanding, and doesn't really like playing second fiddle."
"So sort of all or nothing?"
"Yeah, for me anyway."
"Would you want to be a full time writer?"
I looked away. I wasn't comfortable with that question.
"I only have a few more questions, but you will answer them, my pet." She got her point across. Unless I was willing to leave, that was the nature of our relationship, and I really didn't want it any other way, even when it was sometimes inconvenient.
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