Owning Pita Ch. 01

His acquaintances, if she could have spoken with them, knew little more about his habits than she, except for the few who knew of his "exotic tastes." His friends had been with him for years but seldom saw him. They had known Mattie and weren't offended that he was rarely in public these days.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the hat turn as she looked again. She didn't appear especially perceptive, but if his feelings were on his face, she might imagine him suddenly devouring the picture. He studied the delicate, little-girl image in his hand again.

Pita's face was deceptively angelic. Sometimes his breath caught when he imagined her. But he did not want to commit himself to anyone again. If that happened, he needed to be sure he was done with the past and would not repeat it before he sank too much of himself into the sensuality in her voice: deep, soft, southern. Her laughter carried the sound of truth.

Months ago, only weeks after he met her on a forum where she asked for money advice after an "ugly" divorce, he had caught himself hoping the "relationship" would make it for longer than a week of exploration in a hotel. But he knew how dreams could be spoiled by reality....

Weeks later, a dream woke him with both lust and anticipation and left him eager and unsettled. In it she was not angelic, nor innocent. The next morning, the dream was vague. But he was certain he hadn't been dreaming of Mattie. He felt relieved that he hadn't waked up sweaty with fear again.

When pita got home late from work that night, he told her the bits he could remember. She listened closely and laughed when he told her about the fierce erection he had when he woke up.

The next night, he had the dream again. He woke, ill at ease and aroused again. So he told her again. This time she said "I know about it. I have it too."

"That's not possible," he replied archly.

"I think I do," she said, her voice confident. "It is my dream, too."

He chuckled. "And what might it be, pita? Look deep in your crystal ball."

Her voice was even when she spoke: "I'll wait. Sir. If you figure it out, it won't matter. If you don't, I'll tell you ... at the right time." She was not going to back down. He liked that, and her self-assurance intrigued him.

"How are you so sure, pita?"

"You are able to know my mind, Sir. I know yours just as well."

He guessed that her strength came from caution learned through disappointment. She had been lied to and used, a phenomenon familiar to submissives. Each day she asked him if he was coming for her; she, too, was afraid to hope. He knew how she felt.

When he arrived, she would know he was serious. Real trust didn't just leap into the heart. It took time, together. Once, she worried about her inexperience with BDSM. "I played with a flogger once," she told him. "But it was just a toy Philip got at Spencer Gifts."

"Did you like it?" he asked.

"Yes, but I wonder if it would be painful with a real one, enough that I would be frightened and ruin it."

"It can be painful, and sensual. How you react depends a lot on how your top handles it," he told her. "And fear is part of the experience and pleasure."

"Sure," she admitted. "But there's fear, and then there's panic. What would you do if I panicked? Or," she added as an afterthought, "tried to fight you off."

"The first times you have a safe word," he said, "and I'd calm you if you started to panic.

"And resistance," he told her, "can be fun. If I didn't want you to resist, I could restrain you. But when you use your safe word, everything stops immediately."

The banter was gone from her voice. "How would I know," she asked, "that you would listen?"

"Pita," he said, "At this point, you have to trust your instincts. I'll challenge you, but I won't push you too far ... you will need to take a chance on me."

"Oh, I know that." Now she was animated again. "I want to believe it."

Her words rushed. "It's hard to believe the words men use with women. If my family life with my father and then Philip wasn't enough, I constantly see men lying: waiters with insulting excuses, married customers who claim to be single to the women with them, who set off my crap detector while the silly girl on his arm thinks 'this guy is different,' not noticing he's an obvious jerk who will leave her crying just because he can. It's disgusting."

He waited. She said: "I'm sorry. You didn't deserve all of that."

"You needed to say it," he said. "And I know I have to earn trust. I won't lie to you, pita."

"I don't think you will," she said. She paused and said sheepishly. "You look honest and I believe your face."

Joe peered into the cam with a raised eyebrow – he knew how he was looking, and "honest" was not in his aging face – he reached for his glass of soda without comment and took a sip.

He said: "My question is whether you want submission and will obey."

"And what sort of faith do you need to trust me?" she asked. She was not sarcastic.

"We both need actions, not more words."

He was on a plane to her now because he needed her to take action toward trust. His plan was simple. She knew his flight number, and that he was eager... but she didn't know where they were going.

He hadn't told her they would stay in Orlando, but he had let her assume it. The fact was that she was ticketed to return to New England with him for the week.

She wouldn't expect it; if she wanted an excuse to back out she would have one. But if she was willing to risk trusting him enough to step onto the plane ... in that instant ... their lives could move ahead rather than trickle out into the dry streambeds of her desperate divorce and his empty heart.

They both needed to free themselves from the quiet despairs haunting them. Since Mattie's death over two years earlier he had resisted his personality's insistence that someone should be in submission to him. He called her as his plane reached the gate.

"Are you here, Sir?"

Doubt springs eternal. "You're ready to leave? Dressed as I said?"

"Yes, my Joe." Her voice was even softer than usual, and there was a quiver.

"You're frightened, pita."

"Not much, Sir."

She took a breath. "I'm worried about work, I guess. And about Philip. A little, Sir." She was afraid of her ex-husband, a self-absorbed bully who once threatened to "keep her." There was a restraining order and he wouldn't come to the house.

Joe just assumed that pita was not only wondering about Philip but about himself, too. It would be strange if she didn't wonder if he was just another belligerent and ego-centered tormentor who wanted to keep her weak.

They would have to learn to trust. But they could do only one thing at a time.

He reviewed the call forwarding for her phone with her. He made her hang up and then called her house so she could see it would forward to the cell phone he had sent. He reassured her. He told her to meet him and to park in the long term lot; when she started to ask why, he interrupted: "Because you trust me, pita. It's what I want you to do."

She was to meet him at the Southwest ticket counter, traffic willing, in forty-five minutes, where he would locate her. "Call me if you can't be on time," he said. "Now that I'm here I'm feeling responsible." She laughed nervously. He could hear her breathe. She was not hanging up.

"I want you, pita," he said and talked to her. He felt her relax and was smiling when he closed the phone and clipped it to his belt.

He walked down the concourse to the terminal area for Southwest. He spoke with a skycap, a small black man who was eager to please, and who became even more obliging when Joe handed him two twenty-dollar bills along with a plain, white envelope. The skycap's eyes were attentive as Joe gave instructions. The black man nodded enthusiastically.

The little man's eagerness had Joe smiling when he turned to look for the bartender in the VIP lounge. This time, he passed three twenties to the pretty Asian woman as he related his instructions. He pointed to a table with a chair facing the large windows looking out on the concourse. When he left the lounge, he took an escalator to the mezzanine where he could look down on the main floor to wait for the nervous submissive to arrive. He saw the bartender put a "reserved" sign on the table he had pointed out to her.

He watched the travelers. For as long as he had been aware of his attraction to BDSM, Joe H-for-Harrison Wilson had played with people-watching to guess which were in "the life" or might want to be. He knew it was a pointless excuse to watch for women who would like life beneath the whip. Mattie had often teased him about it. When a tall redhead walked into the terminal, his heart spiked, but then he realized she was all wrong. She walked up to a young man and embraced him; when they separated, the man stroked her bottom, but she stiffened, obviously not approving his possessive touch.

Joe recalled awkward moments with pita. She was thrilled by fantasies she had enjoyed privately for years but never discussed; the idea of realizing them made her insecure. "Do I have to give up all of my limits?" she wondered to him.

"I want to know your hard limits," he said, "and I want to know what you think are soft limits. What I won't accept is the idea of no-limit play. That might come later, or never."

Her constant fear wasn't pain. She was self-conscious about nakedness. He reassured her. She sent pictures. He reassured her again.

She said, "I worry about you seeing me naked. You say you think I'm beautiful, but I don't feel beautiful, I feel fat."

He pushed a little: "Since this is so important for you, maybe I should challenge you when we meet." She laughed, as if he were joking.

"You are beautiful. If you are collared, it will be because you accept what I see."

But even when she was frightened, she wanted to submit. "I want to accept what you want from me," she told him one night, late enough that the crickets had become quiet outside his window. When he asked her about her fear of exhibition and public play, she told him: "I don't want to give you a list. I want you to help me break down my limits and beat my defenses.

"My fantasies and fears control me now; I don't want them to limit me anymore."

Unlike many, who had a list of "requirements" they brought out even before they showed they had a desirable service to offer, pita never tried to "interview" him. She planned, she said, to offer "complete submission, ownership, and obedience, if you offer me your collar and teach me. I mean if," she added, "I love you once we're together, and accept the collar."

"If I offer it, little one," he had said, "the collar will be temporary. We need time before we make a collar permanent....

"But the 'love' part isn't necessary. It will be enough for me to own you, and for you to obey."

His fear, though he hadn't talked about it, concerned her drinking, which seemed to occur a couple of nights a week. One night when she was tipsy, she said she didn't like it.

He asked, "So why do you do it?"

"What are you like when you drink?" she asked him, avoiding his question.

"Other than a little wine with a meal, I rarely drink," he said, and she changed the subject. He had dealt with alcoholism and, even more than love, it was nothing he wanted to try again.

Joe abruptly returned his attention to the crowd moving beneath the mezzanine, and this time he saw pita, directly in front of the Southwest ticket counter. He gripped the railing as his breath caught. She was tall, her red hair a light to his desire, stunning. She looked confident, intimidating to men who preferred "perky" women or waifs. She did not look submissive, whatever that meant; in fact, on occasion he'd heard the ferocity in her beauty and called her "little red tiger."

But beneath the bravado, her core was vulnerable and pure. Right now she was looking for him. She didn't notice, or ignored, the glances and outright stares she excited from men, and from some women, around her.

He had told her to wear the dark green dress he'd sent. The skirt swirled silk each time her body turned right or left to look for him. Every few seconds she touched her choker, black cords with a heart-shaped padlock and a tubular sterling pendant engraved in script with her name: "pita." He had sent it months earlier.

The eager skycap hurried up to her. He handed pita the envelope Joe had given him. He said something, hopefully what Joe had told him to say: "your Sir wants you to read this." She looked confused. As the little man scurried away, she opened the note and caught the plane ticket as it fell out. Pita read the note, then looked around frantically.

She was thoroughly surprised and confused and looked ready to cry. Joe pressed the speed dial, then her cell phone was ringing, and she pressed her bag against her stomach so she could get at it, her hair getting in her way. She nearly dropped the phone.

"Hello pita," he said, his voice calm and steady.

A middle-aged businessman walking past noticed her cleavage, kept on going but looked back at her. Joe saw the lace on the merry widow in the plunge of her dress, and he knew pale green garters were holding up her lacy stockings. She looked delicious.

"Sir, where are you?" Her voice was bordering on shrill.

"I'm here, pita. Don't be frightened. I'll take care of you." The familiar phrases settled her voice a little.

"Sir, I can't leave ...."

He interrupted her gently. "Be still, pita. Listen to me." He could see her fidget and then bite a fingernail. "Take a deep breath and let it out, pita.

"Are you listening?"

"Yes," she said, "Sir."

He felt his own tension. "You want to belong to me," he said. "To please me."

"Sir, this is crazy. I have work and Lexi. Someone could recognize ...." Her voice fell off.

"OK, pita. I have made arrangements for your daughter with Dawn. And leaving with me isn't as dangerous as staying here. If we remain here, someone you know will be likely to see you." He took a breath. "You know I'm thorough, so I'm done explaining. You have a choice to make.

"On the left side of the ticket counter there is a door to a VIP lounge. Go in. Sit down, and I'll call. You can decide then."

"Yes, Sir," she said and started to close the phone.

"And pita," he caught her. "You look fantastic."

"Thank you, Sir."

"Do you have a bra or panties on?"

"Just the corset, Sir, like you told me."

"Quit chewing your fingernails, pita."

Through the large windows along the concourse, Joe could see into the VIP lounge. The only two people there were businessmen in love with their cell phones. When she entered and went to a table, one, a tall blonde man, watched her closely. She fidgeted in her chair, with her hair, nibbled at a fingernail. Joe waited for the bartender.

She was skittish, full of spirit and intelligence, easily bored and needing constant challenge to keep her attention and interest. She was challenged now.

Pita stood up quickly and walked toward the bathrooms. The watchful businessman's eyes followed her high heels and the dark seams of her stockings across the hard floor. Joe's pulse followed the sway and flip of her dress hem and, knowing she wore nothing beneath but a seafoam green corset and the stockings, his breath caught again. He had an urge to be waiting as she came from the restroom, to catch her by surprise ... to grasp her hands and hold them hard against the wall above her head, to grind his mouth against hers, to push his tongue between her lips. He took a step.

A dark door in the back of his mind opened, and the dream he had told her about, which he had not been able to recall, fell into the light of awareness with a rush of detail. He stopped where he was, imagery surging. He was behind her, reaching for her arm and spinning her around. He was closing his arm tight around her waist. Strangers were rushing by. She looked up at him, her mouth silently shaping words. He grabbed her arms and clamped them to her sides and pulled her against him.

Impassioned and aggressive, she leaned into him, pressing her mound against his thigh, and her hand suddenly cupped him. He knew he was hard, and startled. She whispered into his mouth: "Please Sir. I need you to fuck pita."

The surge of images and emotions stopped Joe in his tracks. When his head cleared, pita was out of the bathroom and nearly back to her seat. He watched the bartender approach and steer her to the table he had selected where he would be able to see her. The pretty Asian woman placed a napkin in front of pita and offered to bring a drink. Pita nodded and held two fingers out, parallel to the table top.

Joe cringed. The gesture was the same Mattie had used to order doubles. The last time he had seen the gesture, he had told her to quit drinking for the night. She became wildly angry and rushed out the kitchen door. Anger and fear surged in him, then pulled back. It hadn't been his fault.

Pita was settled, her cell phone next to her hand on the table, and the bartender brought her order, tall and dark in the glass, likely her favorite Pepsi and Cap'n Morgan's. Pita reached for her purse and looked surprised when she did not have to pay. Two years had passed since the last night with Mattie. He would only consider this pita, he had told himself a hundred times. Dominance was one thing, and love was another.

Pita finished rummaging in her purse and put it aside. The blonde businessman approached, smiling broadly. When she noticed him, she smiled back but then shook her head enchantingly at whatever he said. Self-consciously she raised her left hand to the choker and Joe quickly understood the gesture was a retreat to a touchstone, a talisman of comfort. His heart warmed. The businessman smiled some more and left.

He called her. She had the phone in her hand and answered it immediately. "Where are you, Sir? I'm frightened."

"Nothing bad will happen, pita. Be patient."

"I don't feel so well, Sir."

"Breathe deep and slow, pita. Say your mantra, three times, slow." He could hear her reciting the poem and saying his name.

When she finished, she said: "Where are you, Sir?"

"Who was the man you were talking to, pita?"

"Please let me see you, Sir."

He didn't answer. After a pause, she said: "I think he liked me, Sir." She was not so frightened that she forgot to tease him as usual. He could feel a smile in her voice. "He wanted me to go to lunch."

"Did you want to?" She needed to be distracted.

"You know I don't ...." Her tone was serious now.

"All of this stress and teasing. Are you aroused, pita?"

She was silent, and he watched her shift in her chair. "A little bit, Sir." She drew a breath. "I want you, Sir."

He took a breath of his own. "Let me answer some of your questions, pita –

"You won't need many clothes, but I've brought things for you. If I forgot something, I will buy it later.

"I've spoken with Stephen at the restaurant. He is prepared for you to be gone a week or more.

"At eighteen, Lexi probably doesn't really need any one, but Dawn has agreed she can stay with her. She is picking her up at the high school today.

"Are you listening, pita?"

She was quiet for a heart beat. "Sir, it's amazing."

"Pita, if you want, you can turn around to go back home. That way your fantasies remain imaginary. Or you can get on the plane with me. If you use the ticket, you trust me with your safety, but your dreams have a chance.

"It's time to decide."

She let silence hang between them.

Her answer came slowly and thoughtfully. "I want you, Sir. I want to be owned, possessed, cared for. By you. And I want to serve."

He found he'd been holding his breath. He let it go. "In ten minutes go through security, and go to gate B5. You are in the "A" group. Stand by that sign when you get to the gate. Take a seat in the back of the plane and save the aisle seat for me."