Molly nodded, then thought a moment. “I don’t want to work in the club. And I don’t want to be your housekeeper.”
He gave her a look. “Toppy, aren’t we?”
“I don’t want to be a service slave. I know a lot of subs get off on domestic service, but I’m not into that. You said you would help me manage my life, not make me do stuff I don’t want to do.”
“Did I say anything about you doing housework for me? Or even being my slave?”
She blushed. “No, sir.”
“My only concern is that if you have too much time on your hands you’ll find questionable ways to spend it. I’m basing this on your past behavior. Do you think I’m wrong?”
She shook her head. He stared at her until she eked out a “No, sir.”
“Here’s what I want. Every morning, I’d like you to get yourself out of bed and spend at least two hours doing something to help another person. Anyone. Your choice. Then I want you to spend at least two hours every afternoon doing something to improve yourself. Again, the activity is your choice. All I ask is that you report to me every evening at dinner what you did.”
“What happens if I don’t?”
“You’re out on your ass. No second chances. This will be our arrangement for now, until you get your life back together and decide what you want to do next. Fair enough?”
She was quiet a long moment. Then she said, “I think Clayton would have liked this. You helping me this way. You’re so much like him sometimes.” Her voice cut off in a little choke.
Let me be what Clayton was to you, then.
He didn’t say it aloud. It wasn’t the time to confront her with that.
When you’re ready, Molly. I’ll wait.
She quickly composed herself, and he made his own voice firm and businesslike. “So, do you agree or not? I want us to be clear about everything. About what’s expected of you and what you expect of me.”
She nodded. “Yes, sir. It’s clear.” He heard the relief in her voice. He thought it had probably been a while since things looked clear to her. The rest of it he could figure out. He wouldn’t be as controlling and heavy-handed as Clayton, but he’d control her enough to comfort her. He’d give her occasional orders to keep her engaged, to give her a sense of protection. He’d give her a few light responsibilities around the house to earn her keep.
That night, he also gave her a bedtime, and she didn’t fight it. When the hour rolled around Mephisto locked her in her room, with her consent, of course. Her room became then, essentially, a cage, with walls instead of bars.
He, too, would be a cage for her. He hoped it would help. He hoped it would be enough.
*** *** ***
Molly settled comfortably into Mephisto’s care, not that it was easy. When did he ever make things easy? Finding ways to help others, for instance, was a terrifying experience. She’d been focused so long on serving only one person, she’d never really thought about all the other people in the world who needed help, and all the countless types of help they needed.
The first day, she walked around opening doors for people, and picking up litter on the street. As she did, she watched people. Club Mephisto wasn’t in a terrible part of town, but it wasn’t in the most affluent area either. She saw a lot of people who looked troubled, but she was too shy to ask how she could help. Mephisto acknowledged her efforts, but encouraged her to be more proactive the next day. Proactive. What a concept. Again, the only thing she’d ever been proactive about was anticipating her Master’s wants and needs.
Mephisto pointed her to websites listing non-profit organizations in the area. She made some calls and met some people, and found right away that there was always something to do. Molly was hands-on in the beginning. She liked working on projects, helping people directly, but she knew there was more she could do. She started using some of Clayton’s money. That involved meetings with his financial planners, but the money was there, earmarked for charity. It had to be given away for tax purposes. She wasn’t sure about all the details of it, but the amount he had donated yearly to charity took her breath away. Now that she was working “down in the trenches,” as one of her new friends said, she understood the importance of carrying on his legacy.
The afternoons were more difficult. She couldn’t really concentrate on improving herself until she fixed all the things she’d messed up during her wild few weeks. Mephisto agreed, and directed her to go to a doctor first, to be sure she hadn’t done anything to her health during her month-long bender. He required STD testing too, which embarrassed her. But it was a relief to learn she’d managed to stay clean. Honestly, she’d been so out of her mind she couldn’t remember if she’d fucked anyone or not. Humiliating.
When her personal health was all squared away, the next step was putting Clayton’s house back to rights. She cleaned and polished every wall, floor, and surface, and hired people to repair any damage she couldn’t. She sorted through Clayton’s things, donating nearly everything to charity. All his thousand dollar suits, his designer shoes. His books, his electronics, crying the whole while. His family took his cars and watches, and other extremely valuable things she didn’t want.
Molly kept some things too. A belt she knew well, a pair of cufflinks, a delicate silver leash. His wedding ring and his pillow. It still smelled faintly of him. She put it in an airtight bag in her closet at Mephisto’s place, to hug sometimes when she missed him badly. She couldn’t bear to sleep on it at night. When Mephisto returned her old collar she slipped it down inside the pillowcase. That too she couldn’t bear to look at or wear, although she kept on her wedding rings.
Yes, she missed her old Master. She wasn’t angry at him anymore, or at herself. She was simply unsettled, lonely, and unsure what to do next. When Clayton’s house was empty and clean she locked it up. She couldn’t let it go, nor could she rent it out to strangers. Later. She’d decide what to do later. With that squared away, self-improvement began in earnest. She walked to the library and read books about relationships and meditation, about gardening and health, and strangely, child rearing, although her old Master had fixed her so she could never have kids. She told Mephisto every evening about what she’d read. He’d ask her such probing questions that each day she’d read more carefully than the day before.
Other days she exercised, or got her nails done. She shopped for clothes, because she had to wear them every day now, even when she was home with Mephisto.
Non-sexual. For now.
Sex wasn’t even distantly in her thoughts most of the time, until it intruded in an uneasy, powerful pang, usually when Mephisto was close to her, or looked at her a certain direct way. Authority turned her on, no matter when or how she encountered it. Those moments of sexual awareness always took her by surprise and left her feeling unsettled.
She took yoga classes and some computer classes at the community college. One day she went to the cell phone store because Mephisto ordered her to join the living and set herself up with a smart phone. She learned how to text and how to surf online and even how to send emails to Mephisto from her phone, keeping him informed of her whereabouts throughout each day. Mephisto returned her violin, restored and in a new velvet-lined case. He urged her to start back to her lessons, but she hid the instrument under the bed.
Luckily, he didn’t require her to do everything he suggested. Still, there wasn’t a moment she didn’t feel he was looking out for her, and it gave her so much strength. She knew she should have been strong enough to take care of herself without reporting to him, without him standing over her, but she wasn’t, and that was just the way it was. She could blame daddy, she could blame mommy. She could blame any number of things, but by now she understood that changed nothing. As Mephisto said, Who the fuck knew why? Who cared?
Mentally, Mephisto was all over her, engaging her, demanding her ideas and thoughts—but he never touched her. He didn’t fondle her or caress her in passing. He didn’t hug her or “accidentally” brush against her, or do anything else to make her feel physically imposed upon. Still, sometimes the memory of their past and his blatant sexual charisma invaded her mind and she almost wished he would touch her, even if the idea scared her to death. When he went out into the club to work, she never went.
Three months passed. Four. Eventually, she stopped keeping her head down and started feeling like part of humanity again. She became part of a new world where she accomplished things, where she helped people and made them smile. Men she worked with started to notice her, even flirt with her. Nice men. Normal men. Men on the street would turn and look at her and she’d feel conflicting feelings of attraction and fear.
Molly started eating lunch now and again in a neighborhood diner, mostly to study the lunch crowd, soak in the real world. Some businessmen were always there, reminding her vaguely of her Master. Today a group of delivery guys clustered around a table nearby, talking and laughing. Did any of them have slaves? Doubtful. One of them was giving her the flirty eyes. He was young. Handsome. Fresh-faced, with scruffy brown hair, a broad smile and a great laugh when his friends cracked jokes. He had that confident energy she was always attracted to. She found herself wondering what he would be like in bed.
Molly frowned and looked down. Ridiculous, to salivate over him. He looked pretty buff in his brown shorts and UPS shirt though. She cast around for any memory of urban legends about delivery guys and perversity. Hmm. Nothing there.
He caught her looking at him, and she dropped her eyes to her BLT. A minute later she looked up again. He was just so...lively. He was
sunny
. He had to know by now she was peeking at him. She forced herself to look elsewhere, to gaze around the room. A mother wrangled a toddler in the corner, while a group of college students huddled over their smart phones in a booth. Two older men, a father and son from the looks of them, argued at the table behind hers. She should have brought a book. She had nothing to do but keep looking at the smiling man. He wasn’t her physical type.
He’s no Mephisto
, she thought.
Maybe that was why the guy fascinated her so much. He wasn’t imposing like Mephisto. He wasn’t brooding or studying her like some puzzle he was trying to figure out. He didn’t have an ounce of dominance on the surface, and she doubted he had much underneath. He was still sexy in a wholesome, normal type way.
He caught her eyes again. Her face burned as she dropped her gaze to the tabletop and stared at the lettuce scattered over her plate. How long since she’d known anyone outside the BDSM universe? How long since she’d had a friend, just some normal person she knew, someone to laugh and be natural with? There was Mephisto, but he’d always been more protector than friend. There was Mrs. Jernigan... No. Not a friend. Mrs. Bobo, the woman who’d come to do her waxing? Ugh, she’d been an enemy, the sadistic bitch. Molly had spent time with Master’s sisters, but she wouldn’t consider them friends by a long shot.
Molly wasn’t even sure she knew how to have a friend anymore, and that idea really troubled her.
“Hey. Why so sad? Not enough tomato?”
Molly’s head shot up, and there he was, sitting down across from her. She clasped her hands in her lap. “What?”
“They’re stingy with the tomatoes here, huh? I always get the BLT too. But there are never. enough. tomatoes.”
Molly looked down at her plate. “I— I didn’t notice. I don’t know.” Brilliant. She was a scintillating conversationalist. Not. His easy smile and flirtation suddenly saddened her, and she didn’t know why. Because she couldn’t keep up, maybe. Because he would definitely find her weird. His eyes were blue, the same blue her Master’s had been.
He leaned closer. “You look so down. What’s wrong? I think you need a piece of pie.” Molly gaped at him. “Have some pie with me. You can’t have pie and stay sad.”
That was a lie, but Molly didn’t have the heart to call him on it. She cast about instead for something cute to say in response to his suave banter. “Um. Okay. If you buy.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes now, not with him so close, but she stared at his smile as it widened. Clean, straight teeth. Sensual lips. “Of course I’ll buy,” he said. “Cherry or apple?”
“Cherry.”
He went to the counter. His friends ribbed him, but he ignored them and returned a couple minutes later with some pieces of pie and some forks. He’d chosen cherry too. Molly took a drink of water and gave him a belated thank you. He was already tearing into his piece. This restaurant had the best pie. Flaky, oozing with fresh filling that was obviously homemade, not pulled out of some freezer. They were like the pies Master’s cook used to bake.
“My name’s Eliot,” he said. “I know, it’s awful.”
Molly heart hammered with nerves, but she forced herself to smile at him. For a moment she considered giving him a false name in return, but why? She wasn’t doing anything wrong, and he wasn’t dangerous. He was a sweet, flirty delivery guy who’d just bought her some pie to cheer her up.
“My name’s Molly.”
“Fighting with hubby?”
“What?”
He nodded down at her hands on the table. “You’re twisting your wedding rings and you seem upset. Nice diamond, by the way,” he said, eying her engagement setting. She put her hands back in her lap. “Thought maybe you were on the outs with your husband.”
“My husband died.” God, almost half a year ago. Had it been that long?
Eliot looked stricken. “I’m sorry. You have a good reason to be upset then, and here I’m buying you pie like an idiot.”
Molly smiled and took another bite. “It’s really good pie.”
She wanted another of his easy grins, but his face was different now. Not pitying. That would have irritated her. Just a little more gravity in his gaze. “How long were you married to him?”
“Eight years.”
I was his slave. He kept me like a piece of property. I loved it.
She choked a little on the bite in her mouth, and washed it down with a big drink of water. “I miss him. I feel like I lost a little of who I am since he left. Well, a lot of who I am. Or who I was.” She waved a hand. “I don’t know.” How weird, to be spilling out all this stuff to a perfect stranger, but now that she’d started she couldn’t seem to stop. “I feel like I’m in this weird Neverland between lives. I feel lost.” She shut her mouth. She tasted cherries and misery on her tongue. She didn’t want this. She wanted his brightness, not her sob stories. “Are you married?” she asked to change the subject.