Safeword: Davenport (28 page)

The staircase turned into a well-lit tunnel, the lights coming on a good twenty yards in front of them. They passed more stairs, which she discovered led to various places throughout the labyrinth, so he could reach just about any spot within moments.

Something had been bugging her, and now seemed a good time to ask. She worried about overstepping, but it felt important enough to take the risk. “Sometimes, it feels as if Jacob's doing what I tell him so you won't punish him. Eventually, if he and I keep going, I'd like to know he's submitting because of what we are to each other. Am I out of line by wanting that, when he belongs to you?"

"No dear, it just means you're coming into your own as a Domme. When you're ready to take control we'll need to have some extensive talks. You and I first, so we can discuss the rules you want to set up for him, and then the two of you."

"I think maybe I need a couple more sessions with him the way things are, and then I'd like us to have that talk. Please."

Nodding, he said, “He'll need it from you eventually, but you've got some time, so make sure you're ready before you take the step."

They reached an apparent dead end, but Brent pushed a button and another door opened. Dana laughed when she looked around and saw an HVAC unit, water heater, breaker box, and tools hanging on a wall. “I take it Jacob isn't very mechanically inclined? But he was talking classic cars with Zach?"

"He likes them for their looks, doesn't have a clue what makes them run. Let's get upstairs so we can be settled when they come in."

When Dana and Zach finally headed off to her room, she was exhausted. Once Jacob's punishment was over, they'd all stayed up talking for hours—no power play, just four friends chatting. Now that she and Zach were alone she wanted to be his again, but was hesitant to ask.

Zach's voice invaded her musings. “Penny for your thoughts?"

Chickening out, she said, “I was hoping I made the right call, suggesting you and I sleep in here, instead of with them."

"I'd have been okay either way, but I think you need time with me to reconnect and be assured what we have is real."

"Why are you being so agreeable to all of this?"

"If you'd described this situation six months ago, told me I'd be fine with it, I'd have called you crazy.” He smiled and sat sideways beside her, one leg curled between them and the other dangling off the bed. “But I find I care about you enough that I'm enjoying this journey with you; watching you figure things out and have new experiences. I won't agree to everything—there are some boundaries and stipulations I'll expect you to agree to, but I need to organize my thoughts before we begin that conversation."

He leaned in, kissed her softly. “I can tell you one of my conditions now, and I'm afraid this one's not negotiable: If we're to consider ourselves a couple, I need to be included in your adventures from here on out. I'll do what I can to facilitate whatever you feel you have to experience, but I don't want you going off without me anymore."

Dana shifted sideways, sitting with her legs crisscross, facing him. “Part of me isn't ready to give commitment promises, but the rest realizes it's time to define our relationship. I told Brent it's not fair to drag you into anything when I haven't put myself together enough to offer you a whole human being. I'm still... fractured. I thought I'd gotten beyond those feelings, but they're back."

She dropped her head, looked back up, met his eyes, hoping to show him her inner conflict. “How can I offer myself to you if I'm not sure who I am?"

"But you know
who
you are—your values, your morals—there's no doubt about who you are at your core. You're learning you have Dominant tendencies, perhaps even sadistic ones; you're also submissive, and apparently still quite the masochist. But again, these things are
what
you are; not
who
you are."

"Will you be able to give me the pain I need?"

He sighed, rubbing his forehead a few seconds before dropping his hand and saying, “I talked with Max on the phone today, and Brent and I've had some conversations, too. I'm still working through my feelings on the amount of damage you sustained. I know it'll heal, it's just short term bruising, and I'm aware you've had much worse."

He shook his head, looking a little sad. “I'll find ways to provide similar levels of pain, but I can't promise to deliver the kinds of marks you're wearing now. I'm not saying I won't, just that..."

He stopped, and Dana didn't say anything. Several moments passed and he finally finished. “I don't know. That's the best answer I can offer. I'll work on ways to hurt you without causing this sort of bruising, but I'm not sure I'll be able to do what Max did."

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Dana was thankful her therapist's sofa was soft as she took a seat. She'd called Kirsten Monday afternoon, telling her she'd need more than an hour this week, and Kirsten had scheduled her from four until six on Wednesday, instead of their usual Thursday appointment.

She began at the beginning of the weekend and ran through it quickly, wanting to talk about her current mix of emotions, but Kirsten kept stopping her to ask questions about how things made her feel. It annoyed her at first, until she realized where Kirsten was going, and by the time she'd finished telling the story she saw how important Zach had become in her life, how attached she was to him.

"Kirsten, I think I need... this might sound odd, but I need to have one final conversation with Garnet. I want to explain I'll always love him, but it's time for me to move on—to give my loyalties, and my love and trust, to someone else. I've never felt his presence at the cemetery; his body may be there, but his spirit isn't. There's this place we used to hike, up on Monteagle, called Raven Point. I want to go there and talk to him, ask him to give me a sign showing he understands, granting me permission. Is that an unhealthy thing to do?” She reached for a tissue from the table beside her and caught a tear as it spilled over.

"This is where I'm supposed to inquire if you think it's unhealthy, without giving you my opinion, but I'm going to break the rules. My personal belief system tells me those who've passed over can sometimes be aware of what we're going through, and can occasionally manage to send simple messages across in unexpected ways. However, it also tells me they don't always have access to this reality, this frequency, and then they can't hear us or convey messages. It's also my belief that time doesn't work the same in both dimensions. While it's been several years for you, he may feel as if only a couple of weeks have elapsed, or perhaps an entire decade."

"You're saying I shouldn't put too much stock in whether or not I get an answer?"

Kirsten nodded. “If you don't receive a response, consider he may not have heard the question. I believe this trip can be healthy, whether he hears you or not; however, I'm familiar with the trails leading to Raven Point, and most of them shouldn't be hiked alone. Which do you plan to use?"

"I don't know. I could take the shortcut through the pastures, but I think I'll start at the top of the mountain and take the Fiery Gizzard trail—make it kind of a quest.” She took a breath, tears threatening to spill over again. “A final goodbye to him—the Chimneys, Sycamore Falls, the Fruit Bowl—we've hiked that section together countless times. I'll need to do it during the week though, so I can cry without worrying about running into too many hikers."

"That's a ten-mile round trip, if I remember correctly, and it's a rough hike in the best of circumstances. I'm sensing you aren't planning to take anyone with you, so I'd like to suggest you have someone drop you off at the Grundy Forest trailhead and pick you up near the orchards—as that would reduce it to a six-mile trek. Do you have someone who can shuttle you back to your car?"

"Yeah—I have a friend who lives in the area and it'd be nice to have dinner with her, catch up.” She inhaled deeply and let it out, relieved to have worked it out in her head. “If I'm not up to coming home yet I think I'll camp at Foster Falls; that'll give me a chance to hike into the canyon the next day and get some negative ions from the falls."

Kirsten smiled. “Foster Falls is great for that. When do you plan to do this?"

"Tomorrow, if my friend can pick me up. I'll call her when I leave here. Zach wants to have a big conversation this weekend, and I don't think I can make the promises he deserves to hear from me until I've had this final talk with Garnet, or, with Garnet's memory, if he can't hear me."

"Why do you think Zach deserves promises from you?"

"Because he's important—I care for him, and I need to give him some kind of commitment, to show he means something to me."

By the time Dana arrived on Raven Point she was exhausted, with no tears left. She'd had to stop to cry at the Fruit Bowl, a giant hill of boulders the size of houses, tricky to navigate on foot at the best of times and impossible with tears blurring your vision. She'd left the trail for a cry at Sycamore Falls to keep from being seen by a happy couple eating a picnic lunch. And now, on the arduous last mile of the hike, straight up out of the gorge, her eyes were dry, leaving her no way to show the grief in her heart.

Thankfully, no one else was on the point when she finally reached it. She carefully made her way to the outermost tip and sat on the edge, holding onto a gnarled tree twisted by the almost constant winds. She released her ponytail and the gusts whipped her hair around her face as the warm sun shone down on her. Garnet had loved to see her hair blowing when they were up here.

The view was breathtaking, as always, and she took a moment to look all the way around her, savoring the victory of arriving before she got down to business.

Pulling the wedding rings out from under her shirt, holding them in her hand, she began with an internal conversation, but it wasn't enough, so she started over, out loud.

"Garnet, I miss you so much. At first, I couldn't imagine surviving without you; but somehow, I've managed. Some days better than others. It's been two years though, and I need to let you know I've found someone I think can make me happy. His name is Zach, and I don't know if things will work between us or not, but I have to give it a try. I've loved other people, and had sex with other people, but you're the only one who's had my total submission and trust. Those things belong to you."

She was wrong, she did have more tears in her, and they all came cascading out, her breath catching as she sobbed, so she couldn't draw air into her lungs. She gasped for oxygen, needing to finish—to voice what she'd come to say. “I miss you so damn bad; you don't know how many times I've wished I could join you. It'd be so easy right now, I'd only have to lean forward a little ways and I'd hit bottom in less than a minute, but I'm not ready to leave here yet. I've still got a lot of living to do, and I hope you understand."

The gut-wrenching sobs overtook her again, but she talked over them. “I'm asking permission—can you find a way to give it to me? Please, Master? I need you to tell me it's okay, to tell me I'm doing the right thing this one last time.
Please
."

She hugged the tree tighter, needing the stability of it, but she didn't try to stop the tears. She'd cry as much as she wanted today. Tomorrow would be about looking forward, but today was yet another goodbye. She thought she'd already said her final farewell to him, but this... she needed to do this, to at least ask permission, even if he couldn't give it to her from wherever he was now.

She sat on the point for over an hour before a group of hikers came along, but by then she was more or less composed and, she hoped, appeared tired instead of looking as if she'd been crying most of the day. They exchanged basic hiker pleasantries and Dana learned they were college kids from the nearby university. All but one had traversed this section before, and she hadn't been prepared for the strenuous trek. The group settled not too far away and pulled water bottles and trail mix out, enjoying the view as they rested. Dana's back was to them, no longer part of the conversation as they continued to talk and joke around with each other.

The girl who hadn't been prepared said, “I still can't believe ya'll told me this wasn't a rough trail. If Jake hadn't caught me on those rocks, I'd probably be dead. Seriously, Bobby, what would you do if I died?"

His speech took on that of a bad Shakespearean actor. “My heart would be broken and I'd never date again. You're my soul mate, without you I'd be stuck living alone for the rest of my miserable existence.” Changing back to a normal voice, he said, “Doves do that, right? If their mate dies they don't find another?"

There were a few seconds of silence before she answered. “I have no idea about doves, but it wouldn't be right for you to... I was joking when I asked the question, but I'd be very sad if you never dated again. Would you want me to live my life alone if something happened to you?"

Dana's skin textured into goose bumps. She wanted to turn around so she could see their faces, but felt it would be too obvious if she did. One of the other guys spoke up. “Whoa, heavy. Don't scare him like that Amanda. When he first told us about you, about how close the two of you were, and why he wasn't looking at other girls even though you were, like, a thousand miles away at another college, we didn't get it—how connected the two of you are. Now that you're here, we totally understand."

The wind stilled and a red-tailed hawk floating in the sky twenty yards in front of her screamed seconds before Bobby said, “I don't know if I'd ever date again, but I'd definitely want you to find someone you could be happy with. What I'd
really
like is to not have to think about life without you. Last semester was hell; I can't go through it again."

Dana couldn't help it, the tears started anew. She'd asked for permission, and got it. One of the guys came over to her, bent down.

"Ma'am? Are you okay?"

She nodded, reaching for a tissue from her pocket and blowing her nose, trying to compose herself enough to talk before turning to the group, her arm still wrapped around the tree.