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Paula pulled out one of her business cards and wrote the address on the back for him. “I’ll be glad to get the stuff to read ahead of time. Right now, I feel like I’m going blind into a hostage situation.”
“It’s all right. I promise we’ll get you to a place where you feel safe and comfortable. Once we get the contract settled, everything will be easier. How about you come over to my place about two? That will give us plenty of time to talk, and we can decide what space will be yours when you move in.”
“Move in? I’m not moving in.” Paula shook her head. “This is just a trial thing. Why would we be living together right away? I barely know you.”
Paula’s response disconcerted him. Had she not understood anything about what a 24/7 TPE relationship was about? He drew a ew deep breaths before he spoke. “Paula, this relationship is meant to be full time. That’s why they call it 24/7Total Power Exchange. I don’t know how to do that if we’re not living together.”
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you decided I would automatically move in with you. It’s too soon to talk about me moving in. If you want this relationship to be 24/7, you’ll have to figure out how to do it with us not living together.” Paula crossed her arms in front of her and raised her chin.
“All right, all right. We’ll figure something out.” Jackson would have to go more slowly than he had hoped. “In the meantime, consider what this kind of relationship looks like to you and read what I send. Imagine what it would be like to leave the decisions to someone else. Consider the positives, not the worst-case scenarios I can see running around in your mind. We probably won’t finalize things tomorrow, so you can relax about that, too.”
“I’ll try. This is kind of overwhelming. I’ve never come close to something like this before.”
“I know. We’ll find a pace that works for both of us.”
“That sounds good. I need to be getting home now. See you tomorrow.” Paula rose and started to walk away.
“Not so fast, Paula. Rule Two. When you greet me or say goodbye, you will always kiss me. Come here.”
Paula took a step in Jackson’s direction and stopped. “I’m not good at PDA, and I absolutely will not kiss you at the station or around any other cops. Nobody at work can know we’re in any kind of relationship. And what’s Rule One?”
“Please lose the attitude, Paula. We’re not at work now. We can discuss that subject tomorrow. Right now, I’d like a goodbye kiss. I’m not asking for something out of a porn movie, just an ordinary kiss. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. If you think back to the night of the wedding, you should be able to remember Rule One. Consider the matter and be ready to tell me tomorrow.”
“Okay. I’m sorry, but I did tell you I wasn’t good at relationships.”
They shared a chaste kiss, and Paula was gone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Paula woke on Saturday morning thinking back to the evening before. Had she really agreed to try a BDSM relationship with Jackson Cagney? He was a cop. She had a rule. And BDSM? What kind of spell had been in that fancy food?
She got up and fixed herself a pot of extra-strong coffee, suspecting she would need it. When it was ready, she took a piece of leftover pizza from her fridge and had her “breakfast of champions” as she liked to call it. Pizza was one of the major food groups, after all.
After she finished eating and was on her second cup of coffee, she woke her laptop and checked her email. There was the message from Jackson that started with, “Good morning, my lovely sub, I hope you slept well and aren’t have second thoughts about last night. Here are some links to get you started on the journey we’re going on together. Please start at the beginning. The first couple of articles should help ground you. Then I’ve included links for three different limit lists and several different sample contracts. I look forward to seeing you at two.” He signed the message, “Your soon-to-be-Master, Jackson.”
Jackson Cagney was really hot. They had undeniable chemistry, and she had always liked him on a personal level.It was only during the past few months that she had started to feel drawn to him and been terrified of her feelings. He was also considerably younger than she. At forty-five, getting attention from a younger man was flattering, but she was no cougar. Was she willing to try? She could at least go over what Jackson had sent. She didn’t have to commit herself today.
Three hours later, she looked up from the computer, realizing her coffee was long gone and her neck hurt from being in the same position. Was some sort of hypnotic effect built into the articles? She had read the ones Jackson had sent first but they kept sending her to other places. She read about Master/slave relationships so extreme the slave wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom without permission and others where the control seemed almost non-existent. Some couples didn’t even live together. That had been an article she found on her own. She printed it out to take to Jackson’s. She refilled her coffee and continued reading.
She looked over the limits lists and had a hard time making sense of them. What on earth was “consensual non-consent”? Who got their kicks from being denied an orgasm? Weren’t they the point of sex? There were plenty of things to say no to. Blood and scat were immediate negatives. Watersports, too, once she found out what it was. She kept seeing two acronyms everywhere—SSC and RACK. Safe, Sane, and Consensual sounded like something she could handle. Risk Aware Consensual Kink she wasn’t so sure about. What kind of risks did it mean? Was this where the whips, chains and abuse came in?
Then there were the contracts. They were all over the map in terms of what they covered. Some dictated the slave’s life twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. These she knew she wanted nothing to do with. Others had clear roles on who did what in a household—cooking, cleaning, laundry, and so on. She was surprised that all the tasks weren’t necessarily assigned tothe slave. That word again. There was no way she was going to be Jackson’s or anyone’s ‘slave.’
Eureka!
Here was a contract that looked like something she could live with. It didn’t expect the sub to live in, and the responsibilities looked like things she could deal with. She printed that one off to take with her.
Paula poured the last of her coffee into her mug and put it in the microwave. Her rumbling stomach reminded her it was past lunchtime. She looked at the clock to see it was already 12:30. She would need to get moving. She pulled the last piece of pizza from the refrigerator and left the empty box for later disposal. It would be fine there until she got home. She continued reading as she ate and found a few sample contracts they might be able to work from that she printed out before she went upstairs to shower and change.
She dressed in black jeans that emphasized her curves and a long-sleeve button-down shirt. It was bright fuchsia, not something she would usually have bought, but somehow it had called to her when she’d seen it in her favorite catalog. She hated shopping and got most of her clothes online. She caught herself wondering if Jackson would like it. Was she really that far gone on him to care what he thought of her wardrobe?
At twenty minutes to two, she double-checked that she had everything she might want for the negotiation. Since he’d asked her to bring an overnight bag, she assumed he had evening plans for them, as well. She surveyed her bedroom, the bed unmade and clothes strewn everywhere as she had struggled to decide what to wear. Well, it matched the rest of the place, and she wasn’t letting anyone in anytime soon. She’d deal with the mess later.
She pulled up at Jackson’s condo with three minutes to spare. As she approached his door, she wondered again abouther sanity, but she had made a commitment to come this far, at least.
Jackson opened the door at Paula’s knock and had to check his desire to greet her with a wolf whistle. She looked gorgeous in her strong colors, such a change from the dull pantsuits she wore to work. If it were possible, she was even more beautiful than she had been at the wedding. The casual style and button-down shirt appealed to him. One of the first things they would do would be to go through her closets to see what other treasures she was hiding.
“Hi, I’m glad you came. Right on time and with your overnight bag. That’s a very good start for us, I think.” He ushered her in.
