The Mistress and the Mouse

by JJ Giles

  “Thank you,” he whispered as he turned to her.

  “Have a good day, Master,” Kitty whispered.

  It scared him a little and then it swelled inside. No one had offered him that kind of respect since... Don’t think about that now.

  Yet he returned to Morgan, who sat casually at the bar in the rather small kitchen. “I’ll see you soon,” she offered, a quite uncommitted statement.

  “When?” he asked anxiously.

  “When I get around to it.” She studied him for a moment, his eyes sparkling full of nothing but desire, nothing but a kind of adoration her Mouse often watched her with, as if she was the little girl, the one to be taken care of rather than him. “And you still need to be punished for your refusal to follow my commands.”

  His lips parted, unable to tear away from her. “Forgive me,” he whispered. “What command was that?”

  “Pay attention. You came in my slave last night and I don’t appreciate it.”

  For a moment, he stared studying the frame of her hair, the way it cascaded around her face. “I’ll make certain the penis is ready to do penance when next it feels your grip.”

  “Get out!” she snarled. “Get the fuck away from me.”

  Unable to retain a smile, he turned quickly and went to the door.

  She sat at the counter to hear the magnetic seal around the corridor door break and take him from her. Nothing...nothing but the diaper and the baby bottle shocked him or dissuaded him. She realized then that the e-mails he wrote were indeed his fantasies. But it was more than evident he was quite experienced because he should have exhibited the least bit of horror to see the beating Kitty took last night. But it wasn’t horror at all. It was desire.

  And he’d never been fed by anyone, but that wasn’t unusual, either. No. The idea that he was an experienced disciplinarian, but a rather common man in every other regard was the only thing that made sense. Her lips opened on the back of her hand and her tongue gently swept over it thinking of him. She thought of those e-mails and wondered if they could possibly be real. If he could truly inflict that kind of pleasure.

  He moved through the corridor and walked to the elevator. He’d never experienced so many little intimacies. From the moment she joined him in the shower to the moment he was dressed. Something that felt so warm...and personal. For the first time in his life he prayed. Never met a woman like her in his life. Simply didn’t exist, the very embodiment of his fantasies. Inside the elevator, he checked his wallet and found the odd thousand dollars cash and the various credit cards undisturbed. He hadn’t bestowed upon her his gift of diamonds. Didn’t have the courage for it. But her gift, still throbbing between his legs, made him want her all the more.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Come in, Cheryl,” Morgan said authoritatively. “Get your clothes off.”

  This is a no-nonsense woman, Cheryl thought. Gets straight to the point. State-your-business-and-get-the-hell-out-of-my-face kind of woman. Something Cheryl could appreciate. It was in Morgan’s directives, the way Morgan sapped every bit of will from her psyche. Cheryl had never had a Mistress before...certainly never shared one with her husband. Quickly she removed her clothing and approached her Mistress, her nipples crushed between her fingers.

  “Very good,” Morgan said softly. Her countenance moderated to something approachable. “Now, you’ll learn how to present your bottom for your Master’s pleasure whether that be discipline or penetration.”

  In her Parlour, Morgan strapped Cheryl to the horse leaving her bony little butt to Morgan’s pleasure. The first little crack of a ping-pong paddle elicited a cry. “That hurts!”

  Morgan laughed to herself. A ping-pong paddle hurts? Uh huh.

  “You need to be disciplined or you’re going to be punished,” Morgan screeched. “Which do you prefer?”

  “I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” Cheryl screamed.

  “You have to be prepared to serve your Master. You have to be available to Him, open to Him. Do you want to serve Him like this?” Cheryl’s attitude had to go.

  Rather than scream, Cheryl held it inside. Only when she quieted, did Morgan stop.

  “How does that feel?” Morgan asked.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be getting out of this.”

  Morgan went to the head of the table and stroked softly through her hair. “Men are physical creatures,” she said softly. “Most of them don’t get that women aren’t. I’m trying to save your life here, Lady. To divert your husband’s wrath away from whatever tortures him so he can pay attention to you. You have the power within you to divert that rage.”

  “So you’re gonna save me with a little sex play, huh?”

  “If that’s what you want,” she whispered solemnly. “But you can’t go screaming at him when he needs to vent. He’s being trained right now to vent physically in a less violent manner. Nobody goes to the hospital anymore.”

  But Cheryl only moaned a little, leaving Morgan even more curious.

  * * * *

  Morgan drove through the midday crush of downtown traffic toward the state road to take her and Kitty home. But there was no one there waiting for her. She turned her head and brushed a tear away lest Kitty see it.

  But Kitty did see it and she knew Morgan was totally screwed up over Mouse. What the hell was Mouse’s problem anyway? Why the hell did he have to be married to her?

  “What can I do for you?” Kitty mewed. Full of pity, she fell into Morgan’s lap.

  “What are you talking about? I’m fine.”

  Twenty minutes later, they pulled into the garage and the door closed behind them. Rather than go to the porch where Mouse would normally be awaiting her, she went straight to her bedroom. Of course, there was nothing there to remind her of him. Nothing at all other than the bed where they slept together three hundred and fifty nights a year. Nothing but the window where he often stood naked in the last light of day, the sun filling in the hard contours of his body as he studied the growth of his vision in her garden. Nothing but the sheers around the bed that he pulled when he made love to her, the empty vases usually filled with flaming red roses he made certain were always fresh.

  She ripped the blouse from her body and wiggled out of her jeans. Aching, she kicked her platform sandals to the wall softly sponged in tones of cream and lavender. She turned on the water to fill the whirlpool...and do what...sit in it alone? The very thought made her cringe. Rather, she took her laptop with her to read over the communiqués from clients in training and those who merely wanted her attention.

  Eighteen awaited her. I have to raise my prices, she thought.

  But what was this...from BA. Brian Alexander. Her little Bad Ass, her sweet Mouse.

  Hope you’re well. I’ve arranged for the clergy on 9/6 at 4:30. The

  preferable colors are lavender and black. Perhaps a little silver.

  Call Gary Simmons at your usual catering company. I think that should

  suffice. Squab and roast beef. You decide on the appetizers and sides.

  And he’ll take care of the cake also. If you have any questions, let

  me know.

  Brian

  Brian, twisted in her brain and made it convulse. Something inside of her swelled to horror, filled her with impossible and debilitating fear. How the fuck could he do this to me? raged inside of her. The pain of it coiled into her intestines; her stomach knotted as if his fist had driven down her throat.

  In a terrible rage, she threw the laptop to the mirrored wall. A magnificent sound of shattering plastic and glass reverberated in the marble-tiled room. Shards of mirror hung against the wall, blades of glass reflecting the light in grotesque contortions to mock her very soul.

  “Mistress!” Kitty screeched to hear the explosion in the bathroom. She hovered in the threshold, her fingers wrapped to the moldings as if to crush it. Her dark eyes fell on her Mistress, the hollow of her cheeks quivering with fright.

  But Morgan me
rely laid her hand over her face. Nothing else to do with this pain but contain it. Loosed, it was a dangerous and volatile thing. She must contain it until Brian comes to his senses. She peered at the sparkling essence on her finger, the diamonds, the sapphires and emeralds glimmering capriciously as if everything in the world was nothing but fire and passion. She wept even as she drove the jewels of his love, his desire, his very will to possess her into her cheek.

  “Call whoever’s on the list tonight and cancel them,” she commanded.

  “Yes, Madame,” Kitty said quickly and then darted away.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When Brian would normally be sitting on the veranda with the dogs waiting for Morgan and Kitty to put dinner on, he laid on his father’s bed. Without thinking, he trudged across the hall and opened his mother’s door.

  “Mom,” he moaned, barely audible.

  “Brian!” His name resounded around her bathroom.

  Following the echo, he moved toward it to see her applying the last of her make-up. Curiously, Brian watched as he sat on the edge of the tub. “You going out tonight?”

  “Of course I’m going out,” she snarled. “Aren’t you?”

  Stunned. A few weeks ago she was ready to jump out of a window over the loss of her husband. She’d been out every night since.

  “No,” he whispered.

  “It’s so sweet of you to be here while your father is gone. I appreciate the company.”

  Company? How were they supposed to spend any time together if he was working all day and she was out every night?

  “Is your little girlfriend upset about it?”

  “My girlfriend and I broke up, Mom,” he reiterated for the last time.

  “Oh, that’s right. I’m sorry, honey.” Carefully, she drew the lip liner brush around the edges. “Hey, you know I heard Renee Collins is divorced finally. Guess it was pretty messy. Why don’t you call her?”

  Renee Collins. Brian rolled his eyes. “I’d rather have my woman back.”

  “Oh, Brian,” she huffed. “You are too cute to get tied down by one woman. You’re too rich, too much fun to be with. That’s what life is for, Brian. To have fun. If your girlfriend doesn’t want you, screw her. There’s a thousand more waiting for you.”

  Astounding. Simply speechless, he rose and walked away. He went back to his father’s room and nestled in the chair. The first little tremor that his mother was playing him shook him violently.

  His Aunt Colleen predicted she would stick it out for the money. Alex was never fond of her. That couldn’t be all there was to it. After thirty-five years, certainly his parents had to feel something for each other.

  And what about Renee? What had she become in the last ten years? Or was she still Renee, interested only in herself? Would she insist on resuming her role as the family’s pet?

  Without will, he picked up the phone. It was answered, “Renee Collins.”

  Brian hesitated to hear that voice again. A woman he almost married.

  “Is there anyone there?” she screeched.

  “Cousin It,” Brian mewed, a name he had given her for her terribly creatively arranged genitalia.

  Brian heard the gasp through the phone. “Brian?”

  “I hear you’re divorced and easy to get along with these days.”

  “Baby, I’ll drop everything for you,” she whispered.

  “I’m at the Mansion.”

  “Give me half an hour.”

  But what could Renee do for me now?

  * * * *

  Barely twenty-eight minutes passed when Brian heard the chime at the door followed by the pounding of feet up the staircase. The door was thrown open and there she stood as tall and thin as ever she was. The soft tresses of auburn fell around her face, so totally incongruent with her gray eyes.

  “I had come to believe I’d never see you again,” Renee whispered.

  Knowing he left Renee more rudely and bruised than he left Morgan, Brian whispered, “I have a lot to apologize for.”

  “No,” she whispered. “I know how angry you were that day.”

  Ashamed, Brian looked away.

  That was all the permission she needed to run to him, to fall at the floor between his open legs and wrap around his body. Brian shivered to the feel of her warmth, her forgiveness. Slowly, his arms wrapped around her to feel her exuberance that he was back. But back for how long?

  “How you been?” he asked.

  “My life sucks,” she said cattily. “I finally got rid of that Lividia Nunn.”

  Brian smiled, remembering Lividia well. “Is she that bad?”

  “I might have gotten more from the nunnery than her.”

  Amused, Brian laughed a little.

  “Beyond that, my father is driving me out of my mind,” she scowled. “If I don’t get married and have a fucking baby soon, I’m gonna get cut off.”

  “Sounds desperate,” Brian noted.

  Ready to seduce him, she swirled toward him and perched on a knee. Digging her nails into his thigh, her fingers walked steadily to Brian’s crotch. “So are we getting married, soon, Baby? I have missed you so badly. You and your daddy both.”

  Brian clutched her wrist and twisted it only to lick the palm with deep affection. “No, Baby, we’re not getting married.”

  “Fuck you,” she whispered. Quickly, she jumped up and then perched on the end of the bed. “Then I guess I’m just here for a little toss and a tickle.”

  Yet she noted his disparaged mood. She knew Brian Abernathy better than anyone, she was sure of it. They’d been best friends since second grade. Lived together all through college and for two years beyond that. Until that day.

  “Brian,” she started soberly, “honey, what is it?”

  “It’s mom. It’s dad. Most of all, it’s Morgan.”

  “Morgan! Is this Morgan of the male or female persuasion?”

  “She’s beautiful, Renee.” Capriciously, he tossed his wallet in her direction. “I met her the day I left Abernathy...and you.”

  Eagerly, Renee rifled through it and found the picture. “Oh, God, she’s a knock-out, Brian. I don’t have to ask where you’ve been for ten years.” She flipped through a few more pictures. With a little pant she stared at a full-length picture of Morgan in her leather. “Oh, shit, don’t tell me. A dominatrix.” She dragged her sleeve over her mouth to wipe at the saliva.

  “The best I’ve ever tripped over,” Brian whispered.

  “Well, it’s no damned wonder,” Renee huffed. “I sure as hell wouldn’t have crawled over her to get to you. So what happened?”

  Brian shrugged. “I’ve been begging her to marry me for five years. I don’t know what the problem is. As far as I can tell we’ve been as a happy as two people have ever been. I feel like there’s a hole in my heart right now,” he said tearfully. “Apparently, I’m not good enough to marry.”

  “That’s bullshit, Brian,” she said most assuredly. “There has to be something else going on.”

  “You’d think in ten years' time you’d know someone pretty well, wouldn’t you?”

  Renee shrugged. “I don’t know, honey. I mean...people have all kinds of ways of hiding things.”

  Sadly, he nodded. Somehow he was able to hide from her his true identity. Even when he owned up to it not so long ago, she wouldn’t believe it.

  “What happened that day, Brian?”

  Bitterly, Brian smirked. “Well...you know that I was sitting in my office writing up the transfer papers for a leveraged buyout for Genlabs when the news that the CEO, Paul Howard, shot himself came across the screen.”

  “Yeah. Jerry had a hard-on for Genlabs, didn’t he?”

  “Enough to not give a shit if the CEO shot himself over it. But he called you to talk some sense into me, didn’t he?”

  “Yes,” she said condescendingly. “You needed some sense at the moment. I loved living in the Tower.”

  Gratefully, Brian laughed. It was good to know some things never change
, one being Renee’s self-service. “Are you okay?” he asked. Full of shame, he remembered how violent he had become at her haranguing him to go apologize to his father.

  “Honey, you’d have to get up much earlier than you do to hurt me.”

  Gratefully, Brian nodded. “So I come back to the Mansion to get a little support from my mom and what do you suppose I get? She tells me I don’t have to care what Jerry thinks because he’s not my father anyway.”

  Renee straightened with the shock. “Jerry’s not your father!?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Pray tell...who the hell is your father?”

  “Alex.”

  “Oh, my God. Oh this is delicious. No wonder you crawled under a rock and dropped out of sight.”

  Brian shrugged. “I was sitting on the curb in front of a little club that night, waiting for a bus to run over me...”

  Sadly, Renee nodded. “I probably would have been, too.”

  “It was an S/M club and it was Morgan’s thirtieth birthday. She stepped on me, took me inside and then took me home that night. I never left her side. Can you imagine how easy that was?”

  Filled with sadness, Renee nodded and slid off the bed to slither into his arms. “I certainly can,” she whispered as she held to him. Held to him dearly as he began to sob. That Brian never had the animal instinct to kill or be killed like Jerry did, she knew well. But she always wondered about Jerry and Alex. How much the same they were, yet how opposite. How Brian had inherited qualities from them both.

  Brian snuffled and wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve. “Certainly, Jerry knows I’m not his.”