Safeword: Matte - In Training

by Candace Blevins

  “Will you file to keep him away from you? A personal restraining order?”

  She shook her head. “No. I don’t think he’ll bother me again. I had a talk with his attorney afterwards, and I believe the two of them are going to have a conversation about how to make sure you lose in court.”

  “From what you’ve told me, I’m not sure that’ll matter when his temper takes over. He worries me.”

  “I can take care of myself, Ethan.”

  “I know, but I still worry.”

  * * * *

  The next couple of weeks fell into a comfortable pattern. Sam didn’t miss meeting her goals again, and she grew used to the demands of her training program. The enemas began to turn her on more and more, but she tried to convince herself it was just part of the process, and not a new kink.

  Ethan did all the hard work on the weekends, pushing her to accept the next size. All she had to do through the week was maintain what he helped her gain. It wasn’t easy, but she hadn’t expected it to be.

  On Saturday afternoons, when she’d successfully passed Friday’s test, Saturday’s depth increase, and managed to keep the marbles and beads in for the required time, Ethan gave her a full body massage. He also frequently spent an hour or more pleasuring her with his mouth and allowing her all the orgasms she could manage.

  Ethan sat in the back of the courtroom the next time she had the Mastersons in court, but he stayed quiet, and only made sure Mr. Masterson saw him walking her and Mrs. Masterson out. Ethan knew she liked to project professionalism, and she’d seen his arm itching to wrap around her. He’d placed his hand on her back as they made the turn out of the courtroom door, but it was subtle, and only for a few seconds. She thanked him later for keeping his hands to himself as they walked out, as she recognized how much he wanted to stake his claim on her in front of the man who’d physically threatened her.

  Sam had more cases on the docket, and she returned to the courthouse after seeing Mrs. Masterson safely to her vehicle and admonishing her to be sure he didn’t follow her home, and to call 911 if she saw him behind her. The asshole’s attorney was supposed to keep him talking for a while, to try to keep his client out of any more trouble, but Sam was still worried for her client.

  When court broke for lunch Sam still had one case due to be heard. She declined her client’s invitation to eat lunch, intending to walk across the street to her office to make some phone calls. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day when she stepped outside, and she quickly changed her mind. She could make her phone calls from one of the benches on the courthouse lawn.

  She strolled across the lawn and found an empty bench. She’d put an apple in her purse that morning, and now she dug it out, deciding it would be plenty for lunch if it meant she could sit outside in the sun for an hour. She had her eyes closed, savoring the sweetness of the apple when her sixth sense made her sit up straighter and open her eyes.

  Mr. Masterson was standing in front of her, sneering.

  “You’re going to tell me where my wife is. Did you really think showing me your big strong boyfriend would scare me this morning? He’s not here to protect you now, is he, little girl?”

  Sam laughed. “Little girl? Seriously? You sound like you’ve been studying bad movie villains.” She took a bite of her apple and talked around it to be intentionally rude. “Go away, little boy. I’ve no intention of telling you where to find your wife and children, and you’re annoying me.”

  She saw a policeman on a bicycle heading towards them less than a block away, and decided it’d be perfect if a police officer saw Mr. Masterson strike her before she pummeled the asshole into the ground.

  She uncrossed her legs and prepared to toss her apple and move into action before saying, “In my experience, the men who hit their wives are the ones who can’t get it up. It’s the good-for-nothing limp dicks who need to terrorize their women, so they’ll never ask for sex and the pathetic loser won’t have to admit he can’t—”

  She saw the punch coming and could’ve easily dodged it, but screamed instead, to be sure people looked around in time to see. Her instincts took over and she shifted her head down so the punch intended for her nose hit her forehead, and she allowed the momentum of the punch to knock her sideways a little, to further diminish the impact.

  He packed a decent punch, but she’d certainly felt worse, and one hit to the forehead was never going to bother her much.

  She finally came off the bench, leaning forward on her feet and staying low to deliver a one-two punch to his dick and gut before standing and aiming at the back of his head, through his nose.

  He threw another punch before she had a chance, and she caught his fist with her left hand, and punched him hard in the nose with her right before twisting his hand around and elbowing him in the ribs as she took him to the ground. She ground her knee into the vulnerable nerves around his sacrum and he screamed in pain as the officer rode up on his bike.

  He looked at the man on the ground without smiling and said, “Looks like you didn’t need me to come to the rescue after all, ma’am.”

  Sam knew Mr. Masterson had to be in a great deal of pain. His shoulder was wrenched terribly, and the pressure she was exerting on the nerves at his sacrum was likely creating more pain than he’d ever imagined.

  He’d shrieked in pain at first, but now was blubbering about how she’d attacked him, and demanding the officer get her off him.

  The officer reached for his handcuffs and cuffed the wrist Sam was holding as he said, “I think I can handle him from here, ma’am.”

  Sam immediately stood and stepped away, reaching down to brush the grass pieces and dust from her pants. A few other passersby were standing around by this point, but Sam ignored them as she spoke to the officer.

  “This man came to my office and threatened me a few weeks ago, and while I had Officer Jackson write up a report to document the incident, I declined to press charges. I will be pressing charges today, however.”

  “Good, though since I saw him throw the punch, he’ll be arrested with or without your approval.”

  He read the man his rights, asked him if he understood, and Mr. Masterson answered with, “Yeah, I get it. But you don’t understand! She called me a limp-dick!”

  Sam raised her eyebrows and said, “Officer, I can assure you I’ve never seen this man’s genitals, and have no knowledge of their...condition.”

  The officer fought to suppress a smile as he said, “What is your relationship with this man? Is this a domestic issue?”

  “I’m representing his wife. In their divorce.”

  A police cruiser pulled up and another officer got out and approached them. Sam grabbed her tablet and pulled up the two incident reports while the original officer briefed him, and Mr. Masterson continued to open his mouth and irritate the officers.

  When the explanation was finished she handed over her tablet, saying, “Here are two incident reports you may find to be of interest. When you’ve read the one on the screen swipe it to the left and you’ll see the second.”

  The original officer accepted the tablet and held it so both officers could view it. When they’d read both, the bicycle policeman made a note of the report numbers before returning her tablet.

  Sam glanced at her watch and said, “If you don’t need me for anything else, I’d like to head inside and freshen up in the restroom before court resumes.”

  “If I can get a swipe of your driver’s license before you go, please?”

  She handed it to the officer, who took it to his cruiser a few moments before returning it to her. “We’ll be in touch if we need anything more from you.”

  “Which of you will be writing the report?”

  The original officer pulled a card from his pocket and handed it to her. “It sounds like you know how this works. It will be later tonight before I have a chance to write it up, but it should be available first thing tomorrow morning. Are you sure you’re okay? From my vantage point it
looked like you took a pretty good punch to the face before you began to defend yourself.”

  Sam reached for her forehead and winced as she touched tender skin. “He was aiming for my nose and I tucked my chin and ducked, so he hit my forehead instead. I’m pretty hardheaded, so it should just be surface bruising.”

  “The bitch broke my shoulder! I need an ambulance, not these cuffs hurting me worse!”

  Sam decided it was well past time to take her leave, and she nodded to both officers before bending down to collect the apple she’d dropped and heading back in to court. The couple of bites of apple weren’t going to hold her long, and she hoped the judge reached her client’s case soon.

  She tossed the apple in the restroom’s trashcan and turned to look at herself in the mirror. Her hair had pulled loose, but it didn’t take her long to put it up again. She dampened a paper towel and wiped her shoes down, then looked her clothing over again to be sure there was no more dirt. A quick touch of lipstick, and she was good as new. She could see some swelling at her eyebrow, but it wasn’t bruising yet so she didn’t bother adding foundation.

  She was only in court another hour and a half, and stopped at a corner deli to get a salad to take back to her office. Ethan would be upset she hadn’t told him about it right away, but there hadn’t been enough time before court resumed. At this point, it seemed best to just wait and tell him when she saw him at dinner.

  * * * *

  Sam worked through the afternoon, and spent a great deal of time going over paperwork with her legal assistant. She’d forgotten the incident by the time she walked the three blocks to the restaurant to meet Ethan, but remembered as soon as she saw him looking at her forehead.

  “What happened?” He touched her eyebrow and gently ran his finger up her forehead and she winced and pulled away.

  “Gee, I’d managed to forget about it until you touched it. Now it’s starting to hurt again.”

  “What. Happened?” His already deep voice dropped a few octaves, and Sam sighed and motioned towards the restaurant.

  “Can we go in and talk about this, please? I’m starving.”

  “If Masterson laid a hand on you I’ll tear his head off.” Sam’s insides quaked at the Ethan’s low growl.

  Her instinct was to argue back and remind him he’d agreed to stay out of anything relating to her career, but she knew it was the wrong way to handle the situation so she took his hand and led him into the restaurant.

  Ethan fumed beside her as she told the hostess it was just the two of them, and she’d like something as private as possible.

  As soon as they were alone she said, “Let me jump to the end before I start. He’s currently sitting in a jail cell while his attorney tries to get an emergency bond hearing. He’ll likely be there overnight. One of my attorney friends is working to get the judge to deny bail. I doubt it’ll happen, but he should at least get it raised enough to make Masterson think twice before he does anything else. Now, are you going to let me start from the beginning without being pissed at me?”

  “Someone struck you in the face and I didn’t get a phone call?”

  “I handled the situation and had to hurry to make it back to court in time after lunch. Plus, there was no need to call you and worry you. I’m fine. I let him hit me on purpose so I’d have an excuse to pummel him. He aimed for my nose and I tucked my chin so he hit my forehead. It’s really no big deal. I could’ve kept him from striking me if I’d wanted, but a bicycle police officer was looking right at us, and…” She shrugged and smiled mischievously, but he didn’t smile back.

  “I want you to turn this case over to someone else.”

  “No.”

  Their waitress appeared to get their drink order, and when she left Sam said, “If I’d called you afterwards, what would you’ve done?”

  He shook his head and sighed. “It’s not that I’d have done anything, it’s just…” He looked away a few seconds, obviously angry, and finally looked back to her to finish his thought. “If I were in a wreck and ended up with a lump on my forehead with some bruising around it, and you didn’t know about it until you saw me that evening, how would you feel?”

  Sam sighed and slumped her shoulders. He wasn’t just angry, he was hurt. “I’m sorry. You’re important to me, and I should’ve called.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  The table had a decorative inlaid wood pattern, and Sam traced it as she thought. It wasn’t just that there was nothing he could do — she hadn’t wanted to deal with his anger, and had hoped her forehead wouldn’t look too bad, so she could tell him about it after he’d seen she was fine. However, if she put it that way, it would sound as if she was placing the blame on him. She wasn’t sure how else to word it, though.

  Looking up, she said, “I don’t want to change who you are. I love your protective streak, but I need you to let me handle this. The male attorneys don’t have their wives and girlfriends swooping in to save them, and I need to show my colleagues I can handle this without my fiancé jumping in to rescue me.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I’m getting there. Can you promise me that if I call you about something like this in the future that you won’t jump into action? I need to handle this through the legal system. I taunted him a little to make sure he hit me while the officer was looking, and I’ve pretty much slam dunked my client’s case. He tried to make it personal, but it’s business to me.”

  Ethan stared at her as he tried to figure out how to tell her he couldn’t promise, and Sam decided it was a good time to make her final point. “And one more thing — can you not be pissed at me when someone hits me?”

  Ethan dropped his head forward and stared at the table. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too; but why do you tell me you love me so often when you’re upset with me?”

  He didn’t look up as he said, “It’s not so much I’m telling you as…reminding myself.”

  Sam blinked, speechless.

  “I wanted a strong partner.” He looked up and met her gaze. “I’m trying to remember why I thought this was such an important quality.”

  “Because weak people annoy you?” Sam smiled. “Because you needed someone who could handle your intensity? Because you wanted a partner, and not someone in need of a caretaker?”

  He returned her smile. “All true statements.” His sigh was one of frustration as his smile faded. “I’m angry at him, and you happen to be the one sitting in front of me. I’m a little ticked at you for allowing him to strike you, and for placing yourself in a situation to be struck, but I’m not mad at you — though my feelings are hurt you didn’t call. I’m not sure I can promise to never swing into action when someone hits you, but I’ll promise to think my actions through before I do anything, and to try very hard to keep from intervening when it involves your career.”

  The rest of their dinner was amiable, and Ethan even smiled a few times as Sam related the details of her scuffle with Masterson.

  She saw Ethan’s face harden again when she reached for the check, but she ignored him and slid her credit card into the leather holder as she continued their conversation about what to do after they ate. He seemed to agree in principal that it was fair for her to pay every other time, but the reality annoyed him. Still, Sam thought it ridiculous for him to shoulder the burden when she made more than enough money to help.

  The air was crisp as they walked hand in hand the few blocks to the billiard club, and Sam considered how to make who paid for dinner less contentious.

  The thought of money sent her mind to considering how much he was pouring into the playroom he was constructing in one of her unused basement rooms. He spent much of his spare time with saws, sanders, drills, and tape measures, and had plans for a Saint Andrew’s Cross, a cool bondage table, and three varieties of spanking benches and horses. He’d already converted a chair he found at a yard sale into an evil looking bondage chair, and they had plans to go to IKEA one weekend
soon to buy cabinets and drawers. One wall already contained fancy hangers for his floggers and other assorted impact instruments, and looked like a piece of art.

  Last weekend four huge, solid wooden columns were delivered to her garage. He’d found them in a salvage yard, and promised to make a new bondage bed for her bedroom with them. While the idea excited her, he’d refused to let her pay for any of his materials, and she worried he was depleting his available funds more than he should. She had plenty of money and wanted to contribute, but the man was too damned stubborn-headed for his own good.

  He won their first game of pool, and as they started the second game she figured it was as good a time as any to bring up her idea. She tried to be casual as she said, “I have a proposition for you.”

  He looked up from his perusal of the table. “Sounds serious.”

  She shrugged, hoping to keep the conversation low-key. “Not really. We’ve talked about opening a joint checking account to pay our shared expenses once we’re married, and I’m wondering if it might make sense to go ahead and open it now.”

  Ethan shook his head and opened his mouth to speak and she rushed to say, “Hear me out before you say no. Okay? I’m tired of you getting upset when I pay for dinner. What if we both contribute a few hundred dollars to an account, and then you can use it to pay when we go out to eat?”

  He didn’t say anything and she added, “When it runs low we’ll both put another two or three hundred dollars in. This way you’ll get to be the one who handles the check, and I won’t feel as if I’m mooching off you.”

  He lined his shot up and sank the three balls before looking up to say, “Am I that transparent?”

  “You are to me. I don’t know about others.” She smiled, leaned into him, and stood on tiptoe to wrap her arms around the back of his neck, making sure she didn’t bash his head with the pool cue. “Sometimes I love the caveman in you, other times I want to beat you over the head with your caveman club.”