Off Duty

by Ellie Masters

  “He needs to eat too, but he’s a chef by passion and a total foodie, even if he is an engineer at Exxon, and he’ll think we’re trying to poison him,” she grinned.

  “Let’s get you to Luree,” Laura said. “Keys.”

  CHAPTER 47

  Over the next few weeks, we settled into a routine. A newfound respect for Keith flowed through my veins after running that shift with him. Intellectually, I knew what he endured out there, or thought I had. Being on the streets with him changed everything. There was no question I respected him as my master. That man knew exactly what I needed and how to give it to me, but I don’t think I really respected him as a professional medic until the day I rode with him in the rig.

  It was a sobering experience when brought face-to-face with that superiority complex I’d been walking around with. Trauma surgeon extraordinaire! I saved lives for a living, and I think Keith had a right to be a little derisive with me about my god complex. I didn’t think I’d had one, but he showed it to me in the most elegant manner, allowing me to see it for myself and draw my own conclusions.

  Now, I walked the halls of the hospital a little differently, attempting to really see what it was others did for me and my patients. Not that my standards dropped. I still ripped people a new one when mistakes were made. Only now, I did so with more compassion and humanity. Rather than tearing them down and pointing out all their flaws, I explained how their actions could harm the patients they touched.

  What I found, after all this self reflection, was that not only did I like myself more, but others seemed to react differently to me as well. I saw more smiles aimed at me, more jokes shared with me, and I heard them calling me Ice Queen less and less.

  All of this was attributable to the man who opened my eyes with his strength, compassion, and unwavering commitment to not only dominating me, but truly loving me.

  We spent all our free time together. Each morning, if I didn’t wake with him sliding into me, fingering me, or licking me into an orgasmic coma, I had my mouth on him, stirring him from sleep. We were insatiable when it came to each other. Weekends were spent at the property, supervising the revisions. All the furniture had been ordered and would be delivered soon.

  Keith was funny about his garage and mancave, refusing to let me inside the garage at all and allowed in his mancave only grudgingly. Which was fine with me. My new dance studio had been completed and I spent my time there.

  Work still pulled at me, and I needed to destress in my way. Sometimes he watched, other times, like now, he left me to my own devices while he disappeared into his garage. I’d tried once to peek inside, and regretted it immediately. He strapped me to St. Andy 2.0 and reminded me who in fact was in charge. He did another, more important thing for me. That list of failures and transgressions I’d kept, the one where I’d pitifully attempted to self-master, had been taken over by him.

  One of the things I feared was that as we slipped deeper and deeper in a normal life, our connection as Master and slave might fade. Life had a way of bringing monotony into everything. So far, his dedication to not just ruling over my list from work, but enforcing those rules he set for me as his slave had not slackened.

  Once I finished my dance, sweaty and exhausted, I went to check on Keith. He was still squirreled away in his garage, which left me time to explore. He’d taken to making paths through the property, and I’d taken to exploring them, loving being outdoors. Around the main complex, I mostly went naked, but when in the woods, he allowed protective clothing against chiggers, ticks, mosquitos and biting flies. Today, my path brought me by the field with the post and I had to stop and pause.

  He hadn’t brought me back here since that horrible weekend, and I kind of shuddered with the memory of what I’d endured. There are moments which really mark a person, and I’d been marked heavily on that post. Two of the cuts had scarred after they’d healed. Tiny white lines over my hips. They were a constant reminder of the choices I’d made. I both hated this post and embraced it, but I hoped to never again disappoint, disrespect, or drive him to beat me back into my submission again. I hoped I’d learned.

  I stepped close to it, regarding it with a certain reverence. I stretched out and felt the roughness of the wood and glanced up at the peg where my hands had been bound. Then my fingers fluttered at my throat, feeling the empty expanse of my skin. With everything we’d been through, he had yet to offer me an enduring symbol of what I’d become. I tried not to let it bother me, but it pricked at the edges of my thoughts. We were making a world together. In every way I felt his love, and had the blanket of his dominance guiding me. This was a thought I never expressed to him.

  He seemed content with where we were, and I didn’t want to ruin that by expressing my insecurity over the lack of a collar. I had to accept maybe this was as far as we would go.

  Under the noon sun, I went to my knees before that post, and repeated the litany I’d been working on in my head. He didn’t know about this either, but I’d made a short devotional to him. When things got tough in the OR, and I was losing a patient, or when my temper flared at work and I was moments from ripping someone apart, or any time when I felt adrift or unsure, I repeated these words in my head. They soothed me in those moments when he wasn’t with me.

  The crunching of boots sounded behind me. “Whatcha doin’?”

  I was surprised to see him out of the garage so early. He would stay in there until the sun came down, working on whatever he had hidden inside.

  “Just remembering.” I shifted around, staying on my knees, and greeted him properly. “May I serve you, Master?”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever tire of hearing those words or seeing you on your knees, slave.”

  A flush of contentment sped through me, along with a flutter of need. It was always like that with him, especially in the moments where we could fully embrace who we were.

  “Do you come out here often and kneel before the post?” His brows drew together, like he was trying to puzzle me out.

  “Not often, Master, but when my walks bring me past, I almost always stop.”

  “On your knees?”

  “Most times,” I admitted. He didn’t tolerate lies.

  “Hm,” he said, but didn’t elaborate.

  I expected him to ask me ‘what was going on in my head.’ He asked that often of me, and I’d spill whatever random thoughts were flitting through my mind. He kept his silence this time. We paused there for a long moment; him glancing at the post and me staring at him. I’d tried the whole eyes down thing, but for day-to-day interactions he preferred I look at him directly. When he felt like taking me deep into my slavery, he let me know.

  Suddenly, he spun and headed back to what we’d affectionately dubbed the compound. “Come along, slave. My arm is twitchy and I’m feeling up for some practice with the whip. And come to think of it, my dick is a bit twitchy too.”

  “Oh! Yes, Master.” I hurried to catch up to him, staying a step behind him. If he was interested in whip practice, I needed to get my head in the game.

  CHAPTER 48

  Finding her kneeling before the post made my heart do a funny lurch and flip-flop. It spoke volumes to me that Laura found the clearing and the post to be something sacred, perhaps even holy, as did I. It was where I finally broke her, where she finally embraced enslavement with that agonizing whipping.

  I’d noticed, since that whipping out here, and certainly since she’d ridden that shift with me, that a certain fresh sense of serenity seemed to have overtaken her. A woman with few friends, she and Marilyn had built a strong friendship in the wake of Luree’s injuries.

  Marilyn and Leon had been guests here a couple of times, and we’d visited them likewise. Leon was an engineer with Exxon, but not the total nerd that the career brings to mind, a rabid Astros fan and quick with a joke, and we were all in awe of the man’s culinary skills, enough so that Laura begged his forgiveness for the to-go breakfast from IHOP, a rather dramatic and emotive apo
logy that had the man doubled-over laughing at her Shakespearean antics. They were members of Holiness Church, which Laura and I had visited on three different Sundays, which I guess made us halfway members as well.

  I returned my attention from the tangent to matters at hand. Considering what was about to happen, I was tempted to whip her in like manner again out here, but discarded the notion. I won’t say I’m reserving it for only the most serious of transgressions, but I figured it to be a special occasions location on the estate.

  In the barn, she crawled to the St. Andrew, or Andy 2.0, as she liked to call it, and awaited my orders.

  “Back to the cross,” I said. “This won’t be lengthy, but I want you maintained.”

  We hadn’t seen much of one another. Two nights before, Terry Cleaver, one of the medics, was running a guy with a heart attack. He opened morphine to give the patient, but the ambulance hit a bump, and Terry punched it into his own thigh. Intravenous morphine works faster, but intramuscular, as he had done, lasts longer.

  He was stoned on arrival at the ER, and I got called to take the rest of his shift while he got shuttled home to sleep it off. I’d only gotten off at seven this morning. Fortunately, the overnight had been quiet and I’d slept. Unfortunately, the twin beds at the station are lumpy fuckers, and sure the hell were Laura-less.

  I bound her to the cross, then started lashing as she growled with rising passions in the still air of the barn. In all, I laid in forty lashes, but not hard ones, not pushing the whip to full speed and using a thicker cracker. She was welted but nowhere close to bloody by the time I was done.

  I coiled the whip and approached her, dropping my shorts, squatting a bit, then hunching upward, fucking her hard while she took it, bound and moaning. She came. She came hard, if the thrashing was any indication. A moment later, I growled as my cock erupted its seed into her. I drew back, shuddering, and kissed her deeply. She was surprised as I blindfolded her, something I seldom did.

  “Now, don’t go anywhere, my love,” I teased.

  “I guess I can hang out with Andy the Second all day,” she grinned. “He’s the strong and silent type, and I’m totally gaga for him.”

  I wandered toward the house, delighted with her sass, and got one surprise for her, then to the garage for the other. Once that was in place, I returned to the barn. “Oh, good, you stayed put,” I teased, in a grand mood.

  “What can I say? Andy is good company and hugs me well,” she returned. “I love the big lug.”

  I chuckled as I removed her bonds. I left the blindfold on and led her to the garage, where I took her blindfold off. She gaped. “Oh, God, it looks just like my daddy’s old truck,” she breathed.

  “Probably because it is his old truck,” I said. I was pleased to find the truck had a title and current registration, being used as a farm truck. The paint had mostly flaked away, but the farmer had taken good mechanical care of the ¾ ton 4x4. I bought it from him while he looked at me as though I were crazy, until I told him why. His wife wept and the farmer’s face reddened.

  “You must really love her, Son,” he said.

  “I must,” I agreed.

  But obtaining the truck was only Step One. I had the engine overhauled, along with the transmission and clutch, as well as the entire interior and instrument panel. My buddy, Ray, put an amazing metallic black paint job on it, with purple pinstriping.

  Laura approached the truck, hesitantly, weeping, then placed a hand reverently on the passenger window.

  “I won’t pretend this wasn’t one hell of a lot of effort, but I had it restored showroom new,” I grinned. “I even replaced the wiper blades and had the presence of mind to fill the tank. The title and registration paperwork are on the seat, ready to go in your name.”

  “I was heartbroken when I had to sell this truck back then,” she said. “I … I don’t know how to say thank you, Master.”

  “I do,” I said.

  Laura turned to see me on one knee, both hands upraised. In one hand was a 22-karat gold chain with a BDSM triskele pendant. The pendant had three holes. In one, I had the jeweler place an emerald, her birthstone. In another was my birthstone, a ruby. In the third was a diamond for April, when we really became a couple and not two professionals carping at one another to deny our true feelings.

  “The clasp on this only closes once, Laura. It’s your collar, something prosaic that you can wear at all times. But it won’t reopen, so it’s for life. Be mine forever.” I glanced at the other hand, in which was a box with an engagement ring. “Oh, and will you marry me, already?”

  “Oh, God,” she cried falling to her knees and into my arms, sobbing out a million emotions.

  “I take that as a yes?”

  “Forever, Master. Forever and always, yes!”

  “Drop the tailgate of the truck and bend over,” I ordered.

  Laura grinned through teary eyes and hustled to obey her master and now fiancé. After I spanked, and then fucked her, I told her to get dressed and take me for a spin in her wheels. In the truck, I pointed to the garage door remote, which would open the second bay. Now that my surprise had gone off, she would enjoy garage access.

  We went for a long drive in the behemoth Chevy truck, Laura familiarizing herself with the clutch and four-on-the-floor, recently re-acquired skills between my Mustang and her Jeep. Finally, we hit the highway, and just drove, enjoying the day and the 2/70 air-conditioning, until she ran the tank nearly dry. We filled up at a Walmart, said fuck it, bought clothes, and checked into a tawdry motel, where we wrecked the sheets in a long sexual romp until the neighbor pounded on our wall and hollered to knock it off.

  “I did, I did,” I called back, laughing, to Laura’s responding peals of delighted laughter.

  We married a month later, almost a year to the day after I punched out Bobby Z. at Louie’s. It wasn’t a huge ceremony, but our nearest and dearest were there. Even my grandfather made the trip, as well as Cindy’s parents and sister, who all charmed Laura. Cindy’s dad pulled me aside and told me he was happy for me, that after all this time I could finally let Cindy go in peace. We hugged, brethren in that moment, united in grief that was finally laid to rest.

  Reverend Hosea Washington of Holiness Church officiated. Marilyn was matron of honor and my cousin Mike, recently retired from the Air Force, was best man. Mike was in his Class-A uniform, an E-7 at retirement with an impressive array of ribbons. I was likewise in my Class-A uniform from the fire department, a uniform I seldom wore.

  As we marched out of the church through the hail of birdseed, we saw that Captain Briggs, who happily gave away the bride in Laura’s father’s stead, had been busy. A good forty men from the fire department lined either side of the walk, in dress uniforms, and saluted as we marched past, under an arch of two ladder trucks, one ours and the other pressed into service from a town over. The getaway car, a 1980 Chevy truck, glittering black and festooned in white shoe polish, even with a string of tin cans tied off to the bumper, awaited.

  We hopped into the truck, fired her up, and drove away into our new life, both of us off-duty for the coming month. A reception was held at the house, and went late into the night, before the last of the guests went home and we could properly consummate the marriage.

  “Master, a request?” she asked as we lay in bed, exhausted from our day.

  “Even my toothbrush, if thy needs require, m’lady,” I said, grinning. What can I say? I was in a grand mood and, while I wasn’t drunk, I had consumed a generous amount of champagne.

  “Put me on the post tomorrow, please,” she said. “You broke your slave out there, enslaved me once and for all out there. I beg you to start our marriage on that right step, Master, to lash me senseless, maybe scar me again, so I’ve no question from Day One that …” she seemed to search for her words.

  “That marriage only enslaves you more deeply to me?” I suggested.

  “Yes!” she exclaimed.

  What the hell, I figured. I’d decided on
my own that the post would be for special occasions, right? What was going to be more special than finally marrying my beautiful and amazing Laura? I couldn’t imagine what that might be.

  At her age, the risks of pregnancy were too high for us to make a child of our own, but we were discussing adoption, and even if we were ten years younger, I don’t think whipping her would be an appropriate response to a positive pregnancy test in any event. Besides, we wouldn’t leave for another two days, flying to Tampa to take a weeklong Caribbean cruise. I doubted I could whip her much at sea, although I had some makeshift ideas for that too.

  “After breakfast, you are to crawl to the post to be horsewhipped and re-broken,” I decided. Already, my cock was hardening at the idea as we kissed once more and drifted to sleep, master and slave, husband and wife, undeniably in one another’s thrall. I can’t imagine being happier.

  Afterword

  Ellie

  After our first live-write, people were saying we made a good team and needed to write a book together. Lucas approached me and asked what I thought. I was all on board, but I had four projects stacked up in front of any collaborative effort. He had the same, probably more. Our co-write dream faded with the passage of time. Then we did another live-write and that magic flared again.