Forever Bound

We made love later that night, tenderly and lovingly. It wasn't normally what she liked, but this time it just felt right for both of us. In the morning, we talked about us and our future. It was too early to talk about concrete plans yet, but her admission of love was a big step. She'd only rarely been in love, and never since she discovered what most motivated her sexually. Never with someone who lovingly dominated her. We both agreed to be open to what the future held for us.

As I improved, she unfolded for me, both sexually and romantically. I learned what she did and didn't like. Beyond pain and submission, she had a complicated relationship with praise and degradation. She loved praise, but if she felt it was fake or overdone, she withdrew. Degradation was similar; as part of a scene, she enjoyed it, but it was very context sensitive. Of the two, it was much more slippery, but also much more potent.

Exhibition was another that she liked, but which we weren't much able to indulge in. She wanted to be a bit more daring, but I was concerned one or the other of us would get kicked out of our apartment. Or possibly arrested if we went out in public. She was unhappy with that, but we tried to find compromises where we could; there was a fetish night at a local club I'd take her to, and she'd dress for it, sometimes baring her breasts or wearing skintight latex. It wasn't as much as she wanted, but she seemed content.

After a few months, it felt like we needed to take another step. There needed to be a tangible sign of our love for one another. After dinner at my apartment, I gave her a small box.

She lit up. "What did you get me?"

"Open it."

She smiled uncertainly, removing the ribbon, then opening it and unfolding the tissue paper. From the box, she withdrew a loop of leather with a buckle and a steel D-ring. Her face lit up. "Really? You want me to--?"

I nodded.

She got flustered. "Would you... would you put it on me, Alex?"

I stared at her, expression neutral.

Her breath caught in her throat. "I'm sorry."

"Ask again. The right way this time."

She started to mildly hyperventilate as she averted her eyes. "Will you put it on me... Master?"

I stood up and took it from her. "Of course, my beloved Pet."

She nuzzled into my arm as I wrapped it around her throat. I pulled it a little tighter than it needed to be, and she gasped with arousal as it choked her briefly. Once I'd adjusted it and fastened it, she bowed her head reverently and whispered,. "Thank you, Master. Thank you for collaring your Pet. I love you."

I tugged on the D-ring and pulled her lips to mine, devouring her. When I was finished with the kiss, I growled, "Clear the table, then strip and assume the position. You need to be reminded how you should address me."

I paddled her ass mercilessly, and she cried out in pain and ecstasy. Afterwards, I pinned her to the table, my hand bruising the back of her neck, and fucked her roughly until she was reduced to a drooling mess. We spent the night playing with our new roles; I knew she was a little disappointed that I'd chosen "Pet" instead of "Slave," but the latter just felt so medieval. I didn't like the connotations, and it made me uncomfortable. Regardless, that night she was as happy as I'd ever seen her. She felt like she truly belonged to me, and she believed that I'd always take care of her.

That was really the tipping point of our relationship; I think if I'd proposed to her that night, we wouldn't have seen as rapid an entwining of our lives. Within six months, we were moving in together, then getting engaged. We talked about the further steps in our relationship: buying a house, having kids. It was then that we set the somewhat arbitrary guidelines for when we'd start trying.

The wedding was intimate. Our family and close friends were there, along with a few special guests like Mistress Cinder. She was quite the hit, and I'm pretty sure she picked up a couple of new clients. Her wedding gift to us was both hidden under the gift table and in the top three of our most used gifts. A breadmaker is nice, but a quality, custom-crafted riding crop is a gift that keeps on giving.

As Linh's gift to me, she asked to have my initials branded on her skin. I didn't really want it; it seemed too extreme to me. But she really wanted to. She said it was for me, but I thought it was mostly for her. I didn't say that, though.

"I want something that I can never take off, Alex. Something that shows that I'm always yours." She begged.

I sighed. "I don't need that, Linh. I love you, and I know you love me. You don't need to..."

She threw up her arms. "I know I don't need to! I want to! That's why it's called a gift!"

I eventually acquiesced. My initials, "AJL," were now forever marked on my wife's skin, a series of small burn scars on her pubic mound. I held her hand as each brand was applied by a body modification professional, the same one that had pierced her nipples with the stainless steel rings she loved me to tug on when we played. Her eyes shone with love during the whole process, even through the pain. It was strangely sweet, and afterwards I was glad I had given it to her.

We quickly settled into married life, but we had to add some additional ground rules to our relationship. We had the usual "don't go to bed angry," of course, but one of our first big arguments was when an everyday concern that we had got tangled up in one of Linh's scenes. We had argued about something else, a trifling matter, but one which hadn't been resolved. When we set it aside for the night, agreeing to think about it, Linh tried to "resolve" it by playing submissive and letting me have my way. I was pissed, really pissed, and we made a rule to keep the two spheres separate from then on.

Our life together was mostly very happy. We spent time together, our sex life was active and regularly included the things that Linh needed to be happy, and we had friends and separate interests. We still had our shared interests, of course, and Linh actually started playing videogames with me, something she'd previously been uninterested in. She really dove into it, and by the time we moved into our house, just after our third anniversary, she was better than me at several of the games I'd introduced her to.

We had problems, as all couples do. Our most frequent source of contention, before the arguments about the kids, was Linh's submissiveness. It tended to leak out in strange ways. We'd be at dinner and I suddenly had to order for her, or we'd be trying to decide what furniture to buy, and she'd stop having an opinion suddenly. It wasn't "Oh, whatever you want, honey," as if she were letting me decide to keep me happy. It was more like "I'm unable to decide, you do it." I was frustrated when it would happen; I knew it was a deeply seated part of her, but it made me feel like I had to meet her more than halfway in a lot of places just to have a stable, normal home life.

We didn't really have any fights until the discussion about kids turned to an argument, then spiraled out of control. I wished I knew why the problem had suddenly appeared. But regardless of the reason that it had happened weeks before, I was now left standing in my bedroom, staring at my wife all prepped for a scene, and trying to figure out why I felt a sense of unease.

It was strange that Linh had set this up at all. She had always relied on me to lead in these matters. It had been a bone of contention at times; she rarely said what she wanted, and instead just waited for me to do what I wished with her. The problem, of course, is that what I usually wished to do with her was to untie her and make love. I put in the work for her, but I did wish that she were more vocal in what type of scene she'd like. I decided to just chalk this unusual level of initiative up to her wanting to make a special effort to reconnect.

Linh looked beautiful, of course. There was a part of me that wanted to toss aside my misgivings and completely ravish her. She must have set this all up by herself; as I walked towards the bed, I wondered offhand how long she'd been handcuffed. No more than an hour, obviously, but did she send the text immediately and then cuff herself to heighten the anticipation, or did she wait until she saw my headlights in the driveway? Something to ask later.

"Hello, Pet. You seem to have gotten yourself into a bit of a fix here." She squirmed just the tiniest bit.

I brushed the tips of my fingers up her legs, along the edge of her labia, across my branded initials, and finally up to her stomach to retrieve the envelope. I heard a tiny sigh from her gagged mouth. Turning the envelope over in my hands, it was addressed "Master" and sealed with a kiss. It smelled of her perfume, and I couldn't help but smile. Inside, there was a note.

Master

I'm sorry for how we left things before. You are too good to me, and I take advantage of it. Please, use my body as you wish. Punish me as you see fit. I welcome your judgment.

Your Loving Pet

I grunted. On the one hand, she was doing it again. She was blurring the lines between her scenes and our real life. But on the other hand, she had gone through all this effort. She was trying, really trying. I loved her. And, to be honest, I was intensely horny, and she was naked and willing. There was still the itch in the back of my head that something was wrong, but this close to her naked body, with a written invitation to use and abuse her as I saw fit? I could ignore Jiminy Cricket for a while.

First things first, though. I knew Linh. Her default behavior when we aren't being intimate is to deny herself orgasms. I've said she doesn't have to, but she told me she wants to remind herself every minute of the day who owns her body and controls her release. I might still be worried about the fight starting again as soon as we were back out of this scene, and I might be irritated that she had blurred the lines, but I loved her. And I loved to watch her cum.

I took the box of condoms off of her stomach and tossed them aside. I kissed her belly. "I missed you, Pet." She tried hard to stay still. I kissed my way down to her brand and she shivered. I kissed just above her clit, already exposed from its hood. She was almost vibrating, trying to stay still, afraid I'd continue her denial if she moved at all. I'd done it before. But not tonight.

Well, maybe just a bit. I didn't excel at improv, but I had my moments.

"Did you miss me, Pet?" My breath was hot on her slick pussy. She moaned something unintelligible into her gag, an enthusiastic affirmative muted to a nonsense noise. "No? Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." I began to sit up, and she whined in frustration. "Did I mishear you? I'm sorry, I'm tired from my trip. Perhaps I should take this up in the morning." She began to make a pitiful noise, almost a tiny wail. I tutted. "You sound very ungrateful. Isn't it enough that I'm just home? Did your whorish cunt need more than that?" A little sob. "Oh, I suppose."

I gave her just the tiniest of kisses just above her clit, then withdrew. "Goodnight, my love. I'm going to sleep in the guest room." I stood up. "It would be a shame to disrupt this wonderful scene. That. You. Didn't. Ask. Me. For." Another, louder sob. "Did you think that I'd allow you to be so disobedient as to restrain yourself, blindfold yourself, gag yourself without asking me first? Did you think there would be no repercussions?" A loud whine, something that could be interpreted as an apology, if one was feeling charitable. And I was; I just wasn't going to let her know that yet.

I walked to the door and opened it, making sure to noisily manipulate the handle. I slipped my shoes off and began to quietly disrobe. "Sleep well. I'll see you in the morning. Perhaps I'll let you suck my cock then, to start to make up for your impertinence." I slammed the door. A loud, frustrated wail, barely muffled by the gag then. A series of sobs forced through her nose. After disrobing I opened the door once more, and she stilled. I loudly rummaged through some items in the room and rattled one of her purses. "Hah, I forgot my toiletry bag. Wouldn't want to forget to brush my teeth. Good night!" And slammed the door again. She began to wail in earnest now, and I thought I saw tears beginning to trickle out from under her mask.

I crept back to the bed. She was agitated, moving to and fro on the mattress, loudly and needily baying into her gag. I savored the moment. My time with Linh had taught me to appreciate that, while this was cruel, the rewards for her would be worthwhile. I'd even come to enjoy it a little; that was hard to admit to myself at first. I knelt on the bed, my movements hidden by her thrashing. I waited until a count of three and dove between her legs. I held Linh's thighs apart with my hands and devoured her, tongue lashing out and lapping greedily at her core.

She exploded almost as soon as my tongue touched her. It had been weeks since she'd cum, and she howled into her gag as her pent up need was relieved. I was grateful that I'd remembered to hold her legs down; her thighs likely would have crushed my head. I kept licking long after she'd cum, forcing her through her overstimulation and into another orgasm once, twice, three more times. She was limp and trying to gasp, breathing hard through her nose.

I moved up the bed and removed her gag. She took in lungfuls of air. "Oh god! Oh god! Master, oh god! I love you! Thank you for being so good to this worthless whore!" The tears were still trickling down under her mask, but her face was contorted with joy. I wanted to see my wife's eyes.

When the blindfold came off, she blinked a few times in the dim light, then looked up at me with adoration. "I've missed you so much, Master. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm such a bad-- "

I kissed her, silencing her. "Shhh. We'll talk about it later. No mixing scene and real, remember?"

She frowned slightly. "I... I remember, Master. I'll try not to forget."

I nodded. "Now. You've had your fun. I. Want. Mine." She bit her lip, lust suddenly burning in her eyes.

I retrieved the box of condoms and pulled one out. Her face fell. Then, I knew. I knew why this had all been wrong. Why Jiminy Cricket had been screaming his fool head off in my ear. This was a test. And I was about to fail it.

Linh had gifted herself to me; gifted her body to use as I saw fit. She had gone against her nature to take the initiative and set all of this up for me. She knew what I wanted, what we'd agreed to. My wife wanted to give her husband children. But my Pet wanted to see if her Master would take what he wanted. I had almost refused her gift. I had almost failed her test.

I froze. I was suddenly struck by an epiphany that felt like an arrow in my heart. I realized then that I had misinterpreted Mistress Cinder's most important lesson: empathy. It didn't mean that I should be the caring, sensitive lover that occasionally indulged my wife's submissiveness as if it was some disease that needed to be managed. Empathy should have encouraged me to understand and accept that her submissiveness was a core, vital part of who she was. It was part of the whole that made my wife the woman I loved, and I should have always treated it that way.

When Linh started playing videogames with me, I was happy. It would have been enough for her to indulge me occasionally. But she threw herself into it, trying to do everything she could to meet me on my terms in the hobby that I'd grown up loving. But that's what it was: a hobby. If I had to, if time or money or other needs required it, I could put it down, albeit reluctantly. That wasn't the case with Linh and her needs.

I was not naturally dominant. But Linh was naturally submissive.

Every time I insisted that she be engaged with "our discussions" when she didn't want to be, when she instead wanted me to take the reins and say "we'll do this," I had ignored her needs. When I insisted that we separate our "real" lives from our "scene" lives, I disregarded her. Christ, when she gave me a gift that outright said "Linh will always belong to Alex" by scarring herself permanently with a set of branding irons, I treated it as if it was secretly a gift to herself.

I had failed her, not just as a Master, but as a husband. As a partner. I had wanted to show Linh, when I trained with Mistress Cinder, that she didn't need to be with a jerk and a bully to also have a dom in her life. And that was true. But I hadn't followed through.

I had been trying to segment Linh into "wife" and "Pet," because I could do that for myself; there was a clear demarcation for me between "Linh's husband" and "Linh's Master." But she couldn't, because there was no such demarcation. Every time I asked her to, I was showing her I didn't really accept her. That I was a jerk and a bully, just in a different way than the men who had forced her to do the things she didn't want. I instead tried to convince her that her needs were only wants. I had diminished her as a person. I was unworthy of her. I needed to be better.

I wanted to hang my head. I wanted to go to her and beg her to forgive me. But that was what her husband needed to do, later. I could separate those two in my head, because husband and Master were two separate things for me. But she needed me to be both to her, and right now, her Master needed to pass this test. And that meant sucking up my guilt and doing what she needed by taking what I wanted.

My face turned to a sneer. "Did you think I was going to use these? Did you think I would sheathe myself in rubber to protect your womb from my seed?"

Her face changed, a little hope dawning on it.

I snarled, "Who do you think you are, you fucking slut? First you do all of this without asking me, then you bring these things into my bed?" I threw them onto the floor.

Her voice was high, frightened. She hadn't seen me like this very often. "I'm sorry, Master, your Pet didn't--"

"There's no Pet here." I stared her down with cold fury.

Her eyes went wide with fear. "Master, please don't say that. Please, I-- "

"I only see my Slave. And she needs to understand that."

An uncomprehending joy then. "M-Master?"

I fixed her with a glare. "Do I need to repeat myself, Slave?"

Her eyes shone with tears. "No! No, Master. Your Slave..." she sniffled. "Your Slave will always listen. Always obey. I promise, Master."

"Hmph. That remains to be seen." I held her chin in my fingers and kissed her. It began as a long, loving kiss, until my tongue began to aggressively probe her mouth. Linh moaned loudly, and her body arched upwards. I broke off the kiss and stroked my hand down her neck and to her breast. She cooed, until I savagely twisted one of her nipple rings. She stifled a cry at the sudden, unexpected pain.

I sat beside her. "I think you need to be reminded of your place. You are mine. You say that, but I don't think you really believe it."

She opened her mouth to speak, but I silenced her with a glare. "If I want to hear a slut's opinions, I will ask. Open your mouth again without being asked a question, and I will leave for the night after I take your ass without lube. Do you understand?"

She nodded her head vigorously. "Yes, Master. I understand."

My hand found her throat, choking her, before I tugged at the D-ring of her collar. "Collars can be removed."

She remained silent, but I could tell it was difficult.

I removed her cuffs, taking her left hand in mine. I brought it to my mouth and kissed it, then turned it so that she could see the rings I had placed on them half a decade ago, as we pledged our eternal love to each other for all the world to see. "Vows can be broken."

Her brows furrowed, and her lips moved without opening, as if she wanted to cry out, "No!" But she remained silent, as her Master had commanded.