Mentor

ONE

She's hot and she knows it. I notice others in the bar sneaking glances at her then at me and then see the puzzlement on their faces as they seem to ask themselves, "How did that happen?" I'm her mentor and she's come along with me to the PDR, the project design review - a heady thing for someone just out of college. But when you've been to a few million of them like I have over the years, it just becomes a week of grueling all-day meetings, restaurant food within the company's per diem, and sleeping alone in the sterile hotel room. Yeah, it's refreshing to have a pretty young engineer along for the ride. Even if she's young enough to be my daughter and her thigh keeps brushing mine as we nurse our drinks at the bar.

To this point, talk has been about the two days of meetings and I know we're hitting the make or break point where we either start talking about our personal lives or just call it a night. Twenty years married, I'm well aware of the cliché of the business trip affair so I begin to wrap up the conversation.

I look at her fully in the bar mirror and our eyes lock for a second. The words of leaving were stuck in my throat, caught by the frank expression, open, her eyes fixed on mine, not looking away - I feel my face flushing. Her cheeks are flushed as well and she smiles. Her hand touches my thigh and I realize that the accidental brushes all night were not so accidental.

I blink away dangerous thoughts and put my hand over hers, giving it a little squeeze, my mind registering how soft and warm she is and then filing that information away for later, for when I beat off to the empty hotel room. "I'd better head up to the room. Big day tomorrow." I let go her hand but she keeps it on my thigh, her eyes peering at me in the mirror, a not-so-subtle invitation.

Her hand slides over and caresses the bulge in my pants and she squeezes, the same little squeeze I'd just given her. I lean into her, smelling the soft floral perfume that had been taunting me these last few days and whisper in her ear, "Samantha, I'm flattered. And I'm horny. And I'd better go."

I dutifully move her hand, squeezing it again, fumble for my wallet, pay the tab and walk away, not looking back.

Hotel rooms all look the same, all feel the same, and the things we do in them are probably all the same. I slip into my typical routine - pull my laptop out of my bag, fire it up, get out of my work clothes, throw them on the small pile in the closet, slip into a t-shirt and pajama shorts, grab a bath towel to lay on the seat of the desk chair, reach for the box of Kleenex and pull up my favorite bondage porn site.

I'm rock hard and trying to hold back as long as I can, watching the pretty little blonde on my screen as she struggles so valiantly in her hogtie when I hear a soft, almost tentative knock on my door. I pause the video, glancing down at the time. 9:46. I wonder who could be bothering me at this time and the guilty realization freezes me. The knock comes again, just as soft.

I slide the boxers up, feeling the precum slime the fabric, fully aware of how hard I am, and go to the door, peering through the peephole. I instantly recognize Samantha's red hair. She's looking down the hall, but then she glances back at my door and knocks a third time.

My heart speeds up, already pumping from the bondage porn, my dick and the booze fighting with the ring on my left hand. I unlatch the door and open it a crack, peering out and into those sharp green eyes. "Give me a sec," I say, slowly pushing the door shut but her hand stops it and firmly pushes back.

"I don't mind," Sam says and the battle inside me is lost as I step away and she slips into the room, floral breeze left in her wake. I study the fire exit map on the back of the door as I swing it closed. What the fuck am I doing?

I partially turn, trying to will my erection away and my heart almost stops. Samantha Walling, Engineer I, my mentee, is standing in my hotel room wearing a sensible silk top and slacks, low heels, and is pointedly looking at the hogtied girl on my laptop screen. I take a step back, feeling the door behind me, my mind utterly void of thought as I study her face, looking for something that will give away her reaction.

She leans down and, without asking, un-pauses the video. The soft whimpers of the blonde as she struggles fills the room and Samantha slides down into the chair. I think to warn her that the towel is likely a little spotted but then I wonder that my mind is concerned with that when a young woman who I barely even know, my coworker, has found out my darkest secret in my hotel room. All alone with me. I could lose everything, the least of all my hard-won professional reputation.

"Umm, Sam, maybe - " I start to say but she turns her head to gaze at me. Her cheeks are flushed in true red-head form, her sexy lips are slightly parted and her eyes penetrate me to my core. I drop my gaze, notice her nipples are straining at her blouse and then look back up at her, nothing at all to say coming to mind.

She clears her throat, looking back at the blonde. "This is what you're into?"

"Sam, I could get fired for this. I think you should go. I completely apologize and understand this is not appropriate - "

"How does it feel?" She's still peering at the screen. "How does it feel to be tied up?" She looks at me. "Do you know?"

"Ah, Sam - "

"It's so ... hot." Her blush is full on and I wonder if she's drunk. I'm pretty sure she's horny and for some reason that eases some of my fears of getting fired. Some but not all.

"Sam, you need to leave." I say it and I know I don't mean it. A few seconds ago, when I was ready for the angry, embarrassed warning that HR would be hearing about this, I wanted nothing but her to get out so I could work on my defense, and hopefully work things out with Sam before she could file a complaint. But now ...

"How does it feel to tie a girl," she asks, eyes on mine.

I don't tell her I've only done it a few times, none of them with my wife and all before this young thing was even born. I don't tell her that my wife and I haven't had sex in years mostly due to my inability to get hard unless I was looking at a girl tied and gagged. I don't tell her what I want to do to her, right now.

"Sam - "

"I saw that movie, Fifty Shades of Grey ... it got me hot. I can't believe I'm telling you that." She unconsciously brushes a strand of red hair away from her face.

"Which is why you should get going." I start towards her. "Fifty Shades is just a movie - "

She unbuttons the top two buttons of her blouse. The very top two were already unbuttoned as I, of course, already knew. Now a fair amount of bra and breast curve is showing. A fold of her blouse catches on her straining nipple. She glances at the screen and slowly crosses her hands behind her back then sits back in the chair, pinning them there. She looks up at me, her eyes pulling me in. "Do you think you would -"

"No," I mumble. "I can't."

"Please?"

I'm sleep walking as I shuffle past her to the tie I'd folded over the other chair in the room. It was going to be ruined, along with maybe a few other important things. But I'm on autopilot now. I end up behind her. I take a deep breath, staring at her back, the tumble of red hair. I breathe in the floral scent of her. Then I gently push her forward, pulling her hands out enough so that I can wrap the tie around her wrists. I snug the end through, gently lashing them together, then tie it off. She gasps as the knot is finished.

I step away and sit on the end of the bed, watching. The muscles in her shoulders move, ever so slightly as she gets accustomed to the feeling of being tied. I can tell she's breathing hard but my view from behind her on the bed keeps me from seeing the emotions playing across her face. Beyond her, the blonde has had more tape added to her gag, the sounds coming from the laptop now muffled, urgent.

"There's, ah, safe words. If you use one I'll know you want me to slow down or stop." I can't believe I'm telling the girl who sits in the desk across from mine at work and is twenty years my junior about safe words. Then again, I can't believe I've tied her up. "Green means keep going, yellow means slow down, red means stop."

I come around the chair and lean in, catching her eyes. "Do you understand?"

She's lost. Cheeks and neck flushed, nipples fully erect, breath coming hard, eyes a haze as she watches the bound girl on the screen and works her own bound wrists. I cup her chin, the first time I've ever really touched her and whisper, "Do you understand?"

"Yes," she gasps, as if finding the voice she'd lost. "It's green ... I'm green ... but ... make it more green. Please?" She looks up at me and I think I can take her right there. Push the chair back, pop her legs up over the armrests and pound her like there's no tomorrow.

Instead, I pull her up by her shoulders and gently pull her into me and kiss her full red lips. Floral fills my nose as I feel her press her body into me and I wrap my arms around her and hold her bound wrists against her back. She tastes like the forbidden fruit that she is - heady, dangerous ... helpless. Her tongue finds my mouth first and I let her in before I exert my power over her and push back, filling her, claiming her. I hold her head as I take her lips, nibble along her neck, her ear, and finally kiss her forehead.

"I'm so turned on," she gasps, her breath on my neck as she leans into me. I scoop her up in my arms and gently lay her on the double bed. She crosses her ankles together and rolls on her side, drawing her feet up behind her. "Can you tie me like that girl?"

I nod, retrieving the handful of ties I'd laid out for the week. I'd only need one for the meetings, the rest I could use on Sam.

Sam. What the fuck am I doing? Twenty years married and I've got a twenty-something coworker tied up in my hotel room, counting my ties to see how many I can use on her. I find the chair and slump down into it. This isn't right. This can't happen.

"Green." She's looking at me expectantly, this young woman who doesn't have a clue what she's playing with. Months out of college, turned on by a mainstream bondage movie. No clue about the consequences of tonight.

"What's wrong?"

"Sam, this is some heavy shit. I'm married, we can't just -"

She's rolled over and swung her legs over the side of the bed, crunching herself into a sitting position, graceful, even with her hands lost to her behind her back. "Then don't."

"Don't -"

"- fuck me. Don't fuck me." She's staring at me with those cool crisp eyes. "Just ... do things to me." She slips off the side of the bed to her knees and crawls over to my feet, self-conscious smile touching the corners of her mouth and sits back on her ankles. "Just play with me. That stupid movie did something to me. Touched something that was already inside me. This ..." she struggles again, her mostly unbuttoned blouse doing wonders for her young, firm breasts. "... this is something I think I've always wanted. But never felt safe to ask for." She glances around the sterile hotel room. "God knows I've wanted a boy to hold me down, pin me so I can't move, even though I struggle ... I couldn't just ask them. But ... you're ok. Different. I trust you."

I snorted. "I'm old enough to be your father."

She laughs. "Maybe that's it. Whatever." She crawls forward and lays her head on my thigh, looking up at me. "I need this," she says softly. "I think maybe you do too."

I stare off at nothing and pat the top of her head, feeling the silence and hearing the creak of little door as it opens onto the dark and alluring unknown. She snuggles closer, inching her way up closer to my crotch. I gently push her back. "Ok. But no sex. If she finds out, and there's always that chance, somehow, I want to be able to at least say that. It may not matter to her but it matters to me."

"Agreed," she whispers. The following silence becomes awkward as she sits back, helpless.

"Ok, so I told you about safe words," I begin, drawing from my vast experience as a lurker on websites and avid bondage fiction reader. "What turns you on? What turns you off?"

She blushes, the red rising from her neck and up into her cheeks. She looks ravishing as she clears her throat and looks down, then to the side, anywhere but my eyes. "Um, I don't know. I like this," she says, squirming. "But I want more. More ties ... my ankles ... my knees ..." she's suddenly breathless, "... my boobs. I want you to ... spank me ... slap me ..." She looks up at me and whispers, "... hurt me. And I can't stop you ..." Her voice trails off.

Wordlessly, I reach for a tie and, bending her head closer, blindfold her. For some reason, this makes it easier. She's breathing hard as I guide her to the bed and make her lie down on her tummy. She's quiet, not moving, letting the feeling soak in, as I find one of my belts in my luggage. I loop the end around her ankles and draw the loose end up through her bound hands, then pull it snug and tie it off around her ankles, bending her into a tight hogtie.

She cries out as I smack her ass through her slacks, an unexpected sting but nothing mean. I lean over and whisper in her ear, "Too much noise and I'll gag you." She sighs and nods her head.

She's still fully dressed in blouse and slacks, so there's that. I'm careful to not crease her blouse as I use another tie to draw her elbows snuggly together and tie them off, drawing a gasp and moan. "Does that hurt?"

"No," she says immediately. "Not much."

"What color?"

"What - oh, green. It's green. It's ... good."

I gently roll her onto her side. I said no fucking. I can hold to that. But I'm going to play with her, play with her a lot.

Gently, I run my hand down the front of her blouse, feeling the soft rise of her breasts beneath the silk. My thumb traces the outline of her hard nipple and she moans, struggling against the belt and ties. My hand follows the curve of her slender waist, straying to caress the swell of her ass, then my palm ends up in front, lightly cupping her mound, my fingers resting over the dark warmth of her puss.

"Are you mine?" I invoke the words of fantasy that have floated in my mind as I watch every bondage video and beat off to the power of that question, and all that it means. And all that will follow.

"Yes," she whispers.

And in that moment we've both crossed over.

TWO

I lay down next to her and pull her against me. I feel her firm young breasts against my chest and let her feel the bulge in my shorts. As much as she can, she presses into me and I feel her soft warm breath on my neck and she snuggles against me.

"So. Now you know. How does it feel to be tied?"

She sighs. "Good ... I like it." I feel her squirming in her helplessness.

I kiss her lips, feeling the heat from her flushed cheeks, tasting her sweet breath, and she responds enthusiastically. I close my eyes and melt into her. I've forgotten what real passion feels like and it whispers to me like the devil on my shoulder. How many more awakenings will I have with this young girl. How far will this go?

I break off the kiss and gaze at the strands of soft red hair that have managed to escape the blindfold. This is wrong, and I know it. But living in a sexless marriage is also wrong too. The fact that most of the blame for my barren sexual existence lies with me and my kink and a wife that absolutely doesn't want any part of it, makes this little thing that I'm doing right now even worse. I push those thoughts away, saving them for guiltrospection later.

"You know you're at my mercy now," I whisper, kissing her nose and she gasps.

"I know," she whispers back. "You can do anything to me."

My hand finds a breast and I fondle forbidden flesh, working her hard nipple through the silk blouse and eliciting a soft, low moan. "I can be nice to you," I say, once again kissing her lips and thumbing her nipple. "Or I can be mean." I reach around and smack her ass, hard this time, and she squeals.

My hand works the belt loop around her ankles and release her from the hogtie. I gently roll her over onto her back and begin to undo her blouse. She's flicking her head from side to side, sightless in the blindfold, as I finish with the blouse, baring her lace bra. Cradling her head, I pull her up and unhook her bra, then lay her back down, gazing at her bare breasts for the first time. She's got a tattoo just above the swell of one breast, a little angel shooting a horned devil with a bow and arrow.

"Nice tattoo," I say, kissing her neck and working my way up to her lips. My lips barely graze hers and when she tries to kiss me, I pull away. "I think it's the other way around - the devil has captured the angel. And she's going to pay for waking him up."

She moans as I lean in and kiss her again, my hand cupping and massaging her breast. I find her nipple and without warning, squeeze it hard. She gasps in pain, my mouth still covering hers. Again I pinch, hard and again she gasps but the following moan trails away as I slide down and kiss the wounded nipple, rolling the hard bud in my mouth.

My hand slips down past her belly and slips under her slacks and panties. She's bare and I pause for a moment, caressing soft and naked skin. Then my fingers find the opening of her puss and I pause, savoring the moment. Her head is flicking back and forth, agitated, her thighs rubbing together, trying to draw my hand further.

I bite her nipple and send my fingers deep into her warmth. She gasps loudly as my teeth stay clamped around her nipple, my fingers thrusting in and out and then I find her little but and she arches her back, and moans long and loud, her body rigid, thighs trembling.

Then she collapses back and I release her nipple but keep my fingers in her puss, claiming her.

"Oh fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck," she gasps.

I chuckle and my mouth finds her other nipple. My tongue traces a circle around and around, and my fingers in her puss begin again. I feel the muscles in her puss working with me as I thrust in and out.

"No," she whimpers, as my teeth nibble on her nipple, my fingers in her puss picking up the pace. Her legs buck against my hand but with tied ankles, there's not much she can do except dig her ankles into the bed and grind her puss, trying to get my fingers deeper.

I bite again and pinch her clit and she explodes again, screaming. I cover her mouth with mine, sucking in the mixture of her pain and pleasure. She's digging into the bed, pushing against my hand in her pussy, and I feel her entire body trembling for what has to be 20 seconds before she falls back into the bed, moaning into my mouth.

I pull my fingers from her puss, slipping them between her lips. She moans and then sucks her juices.

"Good girl," I whisper. "You're a good little slave." Her back arches at my words and her body trembles, an aftershock, then she resumes slurping my fingers.

I've waited long enough. No fucking doesn't mean no blow jobs, another thing that's been absent from my life. Pulling my fingers from her mouth and smiling at the little pop noise her lips make, I slip my shorts off, then bring the slimy pre-cum side up to her nose.

She crinkles her nose as she smells my desire. "Clean this, slave," I whisper, loving the sound of the words and her immediate reaction as her tongue darts out and licks the fabric. "Good girl." I pat her head as she finishes up. "Now take your master's dick."

She opens her mouth wide and I slip my hard dick between her lips. She's heaven. I almost come immediately, her mouth is so warm and soft and she's good at working the tip of my dick over and under her tongue. I let her tongue do its magic, caressing the underside, sucking, pulling me in deeper. I start to slowly thrust into her, in and out, almost pulling the tip out all the way before slowly, gently going deep. Her throat accepts me and I slide in as far as I can go, my balls coming to rest on her chin. Then I pull out, letting her gasp for breath, before taking her mouth again. Again and again, and she's moaning and squirming beneath me and I've closed my eyes, my hands holding on the to headboard for dear life and I know I'm not going to hold on forever, not forever, not now, not ever ... and I come, harder than I think I've ever come before, shooting deep into her throat. I can't move for eternity as I empty into her and she swallows me, continuing to suck until I'm done.

I pull out, falling over on my side, as she gasps for breath. I fumble with her blindfold and pull it away. She's gazing at me with those sharp green eyes, the most intent look I've ever seen on a woman's face. She's smiling, some of my come pooling at the corner of her mouth.

"I love you," she whispers. A cold trickle begins in my stomach and I realize I'm fucked.

There's something called aftercare. I know it's when you help your subbie come down from an intense interplay and I'm sure that's all this is. Fuck, the cliché is that the guy blabs the "I love you" first, blurring the line between lust and love.

I pull her up so I'm cradling her head against my chest, running my hands through her hair. Her forehead is damp, sweaty, her breath warm on my skin. I feel her heart beating against me, furiously, but slowing. I reach around, fumbling with the knot on the tie around her elbows and after a few seconds it comes free, the tie undoubtedly ruined. She sighs in relief as the pressure on her elbows goes away.

I slip out from under her and crawl down to untie her wrists and then free her legs from the belt. When I look back at her, rubbing her wrists, she's positively glowing, a slight smile touching her lips. She slowly unbuttons the last few buttons on her blouse and slips out of her bra. I can do nothing but watch as she shimmies out of her slacks and panties so that she's now a beautifully naked twenty-something redhead with the devil's look in her eyes.

"I want to lay with you," she says, pulling back the covers. I nod and pull off my shirt. She's warm and soft as she curls around me and as I pull the covers up I feel young again myself. She lays her head on my chest, her leg folded over mine and traces a finger along my chest, around my nipple. This is the flicker of warmth that the cold routine of my marriage has missed. This raw passion, eagerness.

"That was incredible," she murmurs, breath soft and warm on my chest. "I've never come so hard."

I smile, staring up at the nondescript hotel ceiling. "You were beautiful."

"I felt beautiful. I felt the ties biting into me, my blood pulsing. My elbows ..."

I softly stroke her hair. "I'm sorry about that. That was too much for the first time -"

"No. That's not it. I wasn't too much. It was ... right. Having my hands and legs tied was just ... necessary to make me helpless. The elbows ... that was saying, I don't know, 'I'm going to be a little mean. I'm going to hurt you.'"

"Did it hurt?"

"Yes. My shoulders a little and it bit into my arms. But when you started playing with my boobs, my nipples ... I just felt so helpless."

She hugs me, pressing into me and I feel every curve of her body. For this moment, we are one.

"And the blindfold. I didn't know what you were going to do next. Next time I want to be gagged."

I close my eyes, my heart sinking. "Sam, there can't be a 'next time'. I'm married. I can't be doing this."

She's quiet, her finger continuing to weave a little spiral around my hard nipple. The silence of the hotel room stretches out, and somewhere out in the hall, a door opens and then closes. The soft murmur of late-night traffic on whatever they call the street outside is punctuated only by the sound of our breathing.

Like all good things, this has come to an end. I've had my little cliché business trip fling with a coworker and even though kink was involved, this will need to end the moment she goes back to her room. Whatever excuses I'll use to justify this infidelity, however severe it actually is, the fact is she's a young woman with her life ahead of her. And I have my life, too. Regardless of whether the passion of our youth has faded into a love that is deeper and without physical intimacy, I love my wife and this night, this wonderfully dark and intensely erotic night, is just an aberration. Sam and I will go our separate ways -

"I want to be your slave," she says, jolting me out of my thoughts.

I don't think I've heard her correctly. "What?"

She props herself up on one elbow, crisp green eyes intently staring into mine. "I want you to make me your slave."

I shake my head. "Sam, you don't understand - "

She gently puts her hand over my lips. "I want this. All of this. I want more. I've never felt like this. I feel alive. You ... you took me. Made me yours. There was nothing I could do to stop you except feel what you were doing to me. Experience all of it whether I wanted to or not. I felt myself just letting go. I didn't know what you were going to do to me next and it didn't matter because I could do nothing except feel. And it felt so good."

I stare at her, seeing the flush of her words echoed on her face. She's serious. "Sam - "

"Wait. Let me finish. No fucking, you said so. Just ... this. Playing. You're the master, I'm the slave. I do what you say, when you say it. You're in control."

"Sam. You said you love me. That can't happen." I run a hand along her cheekbone to her chin, then let my hand drop away. "I can't begin to love you."

"No, that's not going to happen - "

"You're a young woman. I'm an old man - "

"You're not that old - "

"Still, you need to find a young guy. Be careful, build up the trust. There are sites, kinky dating sites. There's a process. I can show you - "

"It's your wife, isn't it?" She's smiling. "She's your slave, right? But you can have two slaves - "

I rub my eyes. "That's not it. She's not my slave. But you're right, it is my wife."

"I agree to no fucking - "

"We don't have sex anymore. Me and my wife." And there, I've said it. "She's not into any of this. I love her and I won't go out on her. Tonight was enough. This ends it." I look at her, searching her face but she's gone neutral, eyes appraising mine. I imagine that young engineering mind clicking through the points, always with the intent of finding the solution as she's been taught.

After a few moments of silence she nods. "I understand," she says slipping off the bed and, back to me, begins to dress.

"Sam." Visions of being hauled into HR resurface in my mind. Basic Instinct encounters, blackmail - everything that could go wrong flipping through my mind like a trailer to a horror movie.

She turns, buttoning the last button on her blouse and smiles at me, a genuine smile. "We're good. I understand. Thanks ... for tonight."

And then she's gone, quietly, the metallic click of the door lock leaving me alone in this cold hotel room in the middle of nowhere. It's a long time before I find sleep, the guilt of what I've done fighting with the alluring possibility I've let slip away.

THREE

She finds me at breakfast the next morning in the hotel restaurant. We have one more day of meetings, the crucial day where we hammer out next actions and argue over perceived and real issues with the program. Then it's a late flight out and home. I feel a chapter of my life has closed and the next one will find me the old pervert who's lost his way, never to come back to his youth and sexuality.

"Good morning!" She's all sunshine and that brings a reflexive smile to my face.

"Hi Sam. Sleep well?" I go for the in-joke sarcasm.

She picks through her continental breakfast, the flush rising. First rise of the day, I think, then realize that's what an old pervert would think.

"Actually no. I did some googling and came across a few of those sites you mentioned last night." Here, in the stark light of a new day, so very far removed from the passion of the previous night, I'm amazed she is so direct and blunt.

"There's a whole world out there," she says, nibbling on a pineapple slice with those soft lips that only a few hours ago were wrapped around my dick as I fucked her face. I wince. Jesus Christ, knock it off.

"Yes, there is. But you have to be careful. There's a lot of jerks and predators too - both male and female. But mostly male."

She laughs. "Tell me about it. I got IM'd almost immediately after I created a profile." She forks a strawberry and looks at me directly. "I want to ask you something and I want you to think about it. Can you ... help me?"

I nod slowly. "Maybe. What are you asking for?"

She takes a sip of coffee. "Will you be my mentor? Protect me? Online? You don't have to be my master, just ... act like it. So I can say everything has to go through you first. And then, when some asshole like MonkeySpank69 floods my email with dick pictures, you can come down on him?"

"MonkeySpank69. How creative."

"I know?"

I take a bite of bagel. This could be interesting. But ... "Only online, Sam. With the goal of you learning about things safely. What you do online is your own business. I don't want to know details. But yeah, I'll help." I smile at the irony. "I'll mentor you."

The next few months are not what I expect. I create an account on the site she's chosen and from time to time, I play the enforcer. While at work, Sam and I don't talk about anything but work, but we email back and forth quite a lot from inside the site. She gradually becomes more of a daughter-I-never-had and even though I'd love to tie her down and spank that tight little ass, I lock the beast away and do the right thing.

I help her with guys she wants to play with. I vet them, I make her contact me regularly during the date, and I know where she is at all times. I'm her safety net and when I notice rope burns peeking out from under her long sleeve dress, or catch her wincing as she sits down on flesh recovering from a thorough spanking, I feel genuine warmth and hope she's happy. And, usually, on the heels of that happiness for her, comes the feeling of what might have been for me. For us. I've compartmentalized my desires and tucked them away, locking the beast up deep inside me and only giving him raw meat via porn videos. And I come to understand the price we pay for love can be pretty steep.

There's the episode of RearQuartersPounder, some douche who continued to pester Sam even after she politely refused to "meet him on the corner and suck my dick until I come down your throat, you dirty cum slut." I get him banned rather easily. There's the guy who wants to turn Sam into a doll, which is ok, except he wants to chloroform her regularly then squeeze her into skin-tight leather. Again, something Sam isn't into and again, I step in to get the guy off her back. I explain the kink jargon to her and we laugh over some of the things that are off both of our "lists", wondering at the amazing imagination the kink community has to seek happiness and pleasure. I go with her to a local munch, all the while dreading that I'll see a familiar face, which I don't, and feel Sam cling to my side for the first half of the evening, telling everyone with a demur cast of her eyes that I am her master, and then watch her engage with a gaggle of guys her age for the second half, one of which she's taken a decidedly strong liking to.

I watch Sam become more involved with the guy from the munch, Jason, a few years older than her, and after a reasonable time, her correspondence with me about him slows to vague details. Which is fine, no need to include the old pervert in a blossoming relationship. A few days after I notice she's sporting his day collar at work, Sam asks me out to dinner.

"I like the ... necklace," I say, grinning.

She blushes, that patented Sam blush. She traces her finger along the delicate choker with the little heart shaped lock box pendant in the center. "I think you know what it is."

"I do. And I'm very happy for you. Jason?"

She nods. "Sir."

I reach across the table and take her hand, gazing into her sparkling green eyes. "I wish you two the best. Just don't let him steal you away from me."

She looks down and pulls her hand back. "Actually, he's doing just that. I'm not only his ..." she glances nervously around the little diner and then whispers, "slave. Last night, he proposed. I would show you the ring but he guessed wrong on the size and it's at the jewelers."

I force a smile, trying to calm the twisting in my gut. "Congratulations, Sam! That's great!" I reach out and take both of her hands in mine. But she's not smiling. There's more.

"I'm moving to the coast. Sir ... Jason ... just accepted a dream position and I'm going with him. I've got my resume out to a number of places out there and it looks good." She smiles, tentatively squeezing my hands. "You've been a great mentor."

I hate myself for realizing a part of me has just died. She tells me about the progressive area, about house hunting and looking for that special one with a playroom for she and Jason to play, she talks about how her world is more vibrant, how more intense everything is, now that she's collared and has a loving master.

I tune most of it out, smiling and nodding at the right places. I'm caught in her eyes again, just like that first night, looking in the bar mirror and realizing she was into me. Just like when she turned to me, the whimpers of the gagged girl on my laptop echoing in the hotel room, her eyes quizzical, contemplating. And just like when she said -

"I love you." She's looking at me, my little sexy mentee. "Ever since that first night. You were my first. You'll always have a place in my heart." There are tears in her eyes now.

"I love you too, Sam." It's all I can say. Later, I kiss her goodbye, the first kiss since that night. I send her off in her cab, then hail mine. It's starting to sleet, and I sink back into the seat, the ice softly pelting the roof and window. I close my eyes. And smile.