Rae flicked off the TV, aware she had no idea what was on the screen. What the hell was the matter with her? She should be dancing for joy, leaping around the apartment calling, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, free at last!"

So why did she feel so empty?

The thought made her realize she was, in fact, empty. She hadn't touched the muffins he'd put on the table. She hadn't eaten since their lunch the day before-chicken salad and wedges of crisp apple, shared with Sam.

After she'd gotten used to being fed, she'd come to enjoy their meals together. Sam always let her eat her fill, alternating bites with her, watching her to see if she enjoyed it. He seemed to take satisfaction in her pleasure and he really was quite a good cook. She, on the other hand, could burn water. Frozen microwave dinners and takeout were more her speed, when she remembered to eat at all.

Sam had forced her to slow down-to taste the food, to savor the moment. He would even pat her chin and wipe her lips afterwards with a napkin, almost like a father for his child, though it had never felt like that at the time. There had been a certain sensual element to the meals, something she'd certainly never experienced before. Something, she admitted now, that she quite liked.

Pushing herself from the recliner, Rae walked into the tiny kitchen and pulled open the small refrigerator. There were some condiments in the door and a lone bottle of tonic water on the shelf next to a tub of margarine. Sam had cleared out the perishables, she recalled now, not that there had been that much to start with.

Along with two trays of ice cubes, the freezer contained a blob of freezer-burned meat that was probably chicken, and a box of spinach, both items, she now recalled, she'd bought with the intent to make a homemade meal, though clearly that had never come to fruition.

She shut the door with a sigh and turned toward the pantry cabinet, where she found box of crackers and some Cheese Whiz. There was also a bottle of premium vodka with a good four inches remaining.

"Food for the gods," she murmured, taking the items, including the vodka, from the cabinet and carrying them to the table. Grabbing a paper plate, she tore open the one remaining packet of crackers in the box and dumped some on the plate.

She winced with pain as she pulled at the cap on the Cheese Whiz can, the cut on her palm suddenly reminding her of their last bizarre session in the dungeon. Her snack for the moment forgotten, she held out her right hand and carefully pulled back the gauze held in place by paper tape.

Beneath the butterfly bandage, she could see the cut was only about an inch long but it looked deep. She found herself wondering if it would leave a scar-a ridged reminder of when she had been Sam's sex slave. Again that curious sense of pride moved through her as she stared at the wound. It was like a badge of courage-a reminder of what she'd been through.

She reached absently for her collar, stroking the stiff leather with practiced fingers. Her slave collar! Why the hell was she still wearing it? Standing, she hurried into the bathroom and flicked on the light, positioning herself in front of the mirrored medicine cabinet that hung over the sink.

She stared for a long time at her face. The angular planes of cheekbone and jaw were softened, making her look closer to nineteen than twenty-nine. Her skin was clear, a natural blush of soft pink on her cheeks instead of the tan foundation she had applied as part of a full makeup regime every day, whether staying home or going out. Must be all that fresh fruit and meat he gives me, she thought with an inward grin, not to mention the constant orgasms, before her mind had a chance to form the thought in past tense.

Before the dungeon, she used to spend at least an hour after each shower, carefully drying and styling her hair into a sleek, smooth curtain of dark satin. As often as not, she'd sweep it back in a French twist, thinking this gave her a more formidable, serious presence in the business world. Now as she stared at her reflection, her hair looked thick and unruly, falling in a tumble of waves around her face.

Beyond the physical changes her time with Sam had wrought, there was something else-something in her expression as she gazed back at herself, almost a kind of inward smile, the enigmatic smile of someone who has a secret. A good secret.

She touched the collar again as she stared at herself. She was so used to wearing it that she only thought about it when Sam used the ring to tether her in place, or when he removed it so she could shower. She herself had never been permitted to take it off. It was, he would remind her, a sign of his ownership.

"Well," she said, trying to make her voice bright in the stillness of her apartment. "I'm a free woman now."

Opening the medicine cabinet, she found a box of bandages and a tube of antibiotic ointment. Without removing the butterfly bandage, she squirted a bit of the ointment along the edges and taped a new, fresh gauze pad over the cut. As she worked, her thoughts veered back to the Sam's careful aftercare following the knife session.

She'd actually passed out at some point during the intense session, her mind and body shifting into sensory overload as a result of all he was doing to her. When she came to, she was in her bed, with Sam carefully washing her body and patting her dry. She'd lain still with her eyes closed, not wanting him to realize she was conscious, afraid he'd stop taking care of her if he knew.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry...

His words drifted back to her now, uttered with the pained conviction of a broken heart. At the time she'd been so focused on what had just happened-the knife, the blood, the terror, the tenderness of his aftercare-that she'd barely processed those words or their meaning.

All at once she understood. He hadn't let her go because of something she'd done wrong. He'd let her go because of what he'd done wrong. The realization should have filled her with vindicated satisfaction, but it only left her feeling even more bereft than before.

Reaching behind her neck, she fingered the buckle of the slave collar and pushed the leather strap through it. She pulled the collar free and dropped it into the sink. She put her hand on her throat, lightly wrapping her fingers around it, as Sam sometimes did when he stared into her eyes.

Her nipples perked in response to the memory and she dropped her hand, confused by her reaction. She reminded herself she was hungry.

Returning to the kitchen, she retrieved the bottle of tonic from the fridge and got out a glass from the cabinet. She added ice cubes and poured in plenty of vodka. Though she wasn't in the habit of drinking hard liquor at six in the morning, she gave herself permission. She'd just been through two weeks of pure hell. She was celebrating her freedom.

She blinked away the sudden tears, telling herself they were from fatigue.

The food tasted surprisingly good, the crunchy buttery flavor of the crackers nicely offset by the gooey, salty cheese spread. She ate a few off the plate and took a healthy swig of the strong drink she'd prepared herself. The tonic was flat, but better than nothing. She wished she had some fresh lime.

She finished the crackers and cheese and stood from the table, wondering what to do next. She drifted aimlessly around her small apartment, straightening a picture on the wall, running her finger over the spines of the books in the narrow built-in cases on either side of the TV, stopping to stare out the window at the play of color against the buildings as the sun edged upward into the summer sky.

She reached again to finger her collar, but it wasn't there. Her neck felt oddly naked without it. At the same time, her clothes felt constricting, the underwire of her bra cutting into her ribcage. She kicked off her flats and unbuttoned her blouse, pulling it off. Reaching behind herself, she unclasped the hooks of her bra and shrugged it off with a grateful sigh. Undoing her jeans, she slipped out of them, dragging her underwear along with the pants.

That felt better. It was good to be naked. It felt right somehow. Again she put her hand on her throat, feeling the lack there. She finished the vodka and tonic, letting its warmth move through her chest and loosen the stranglehold of tension she held in her gut.

Without taking too much time to examine her motives, she returned to the bathroom and reached for the slave collar. Pushing her hair back, she buckled it around her neck and look defiantly at herself in the mirror.

Maybe now she could sleep.

Sam awoke with a start, disoriented and confused. He looked around and realized he had fallen asleep in the dungeon, on Rae's bed. He reached for his cock, which was erect from lingering dreams involving Rae naked and bent over in the stocks, her back arched, legs spread, her ass a lovely cherry red from a recent paddling, the skin hot to the touch.

He stroked himself, letting the images play out. He loved the little grunts and sighs he pulled from her with the lash of the whip, almost indistinguishable from the gasps of pleasure when he fingered her cunt until she begged for permission to come. He loved the way the skin on her chest and throat mottled, the coins of color rising on her cheeks when she neared orgasm.

"Please, Sir, oh please! May I come..." That breathy, sweet entreaty and her pout of frustration when he denied her.

He pulled at his cock, wishing it was her hot, wet mouth instead of his hand moving over his shaft. If she were here now, he would have her lie on the edge of the bed, her head hanging just off the mattress. Standing in front of her, he would lower his cock into her mouth, not stopping until she'd taken the full length of it. Gripping her head on either side, he would ease himself in and out, urging her to take it, to surrender herself fully to him while he fucked her mouth.

He loved not only the warm, enfolding clutch of her tongue and throat muscles against his throbbing cock, but also the exhilarating rush of power he got from using her in that way. She became his vessel, the place where his cock went. She existed at that moment solely to pleasure him, to serve him, to submit to his whim and his lust.

He stroked himself faster, closing his eyes and letting himself pant. The sheet fell over the side of his face as he shifted and for a moment he thought it was Rae's silky hair. He pressed his nose into the soft, lingering scent of her skin on the sheets as he pushed himself toward a climax. He came suddenly, several small, shuddering, unsatisfying spurts of spunk onto his stomach.

He lay there a while before reaching for the edge of the sheet to wipe it away. Had she been there, he would have had her lick it up. No. Had she been there, he wouldn't have been jerking himself off.

He looked around the room, the place that had been Rae's world since he'd brought her home. She'd spent all her time in the dungeon, save for the occasional trip to his office, where for the most part he'd kept her on her knees between his legs.

Why had he never brought her up to his bed?

Because she was a sex slave, that's why. She was there to be punished, not adored. And he'd punished her, all right. He'd knocked that sassy, willful arrogance right out of her. He'd molded her into a willing, compliant slave girl, all in the space of a few steady weeks of constant stimulation, training and erotic pain. He'd even had notions of making her his permanent slave girl, bound not by the terms of his blackmail, but by mutual consent and desire.

What a joke. His own secret longing had blinded him to the truth. She'd brought him sharply back to reality, that was for damn sure. The venom in her tone when she'd snarled: There is no us. She'd just been playing the game, pretending to submit, doing her time. And who could blame her?

He'd been so sure of himself and of her-telling himself she was only denying her true impulses, rejecting them because they didn't fit into her image of herself as a modern, independent woman. Under the guise of the thirty-day punishment, he'd planned to show her the potential power of true submission. He'd been confident he would be able to guide her and train her to accept and embrace her true nature.

Arrogant bastard. Who the fuck did he think he was?

Letting her go was the one right thing he'd done since this whole mess started. He would move on, put her out of his mind.

"If I never see Rae Johansen again, it will be too soon," he said aloud to the empty room. Even before the words were out of his mouth, he knew they were a lie.

Rae woke up with her fingers buried in her cunt, the scent of her own sex ripe in the air. She let her legs fall open, lingering on the sensual feelings brought out by the dream that was already fading from her memory.

As she came fully awake, she jerked her hand away with a small cry and reached for the sheets. Sam might be watching on his closed-circuit TV! He'd punish her with a trip to the cage for touching herself. She hated the cage, hated being left there and ignored, unable to move or get comfortable until he decided she'd had enough.

Then she remembered.

She wasn't in the dungeon. She was home, alone, free. She could touch herself as much as she wanted. There was no one watching, no one who gave a damn if she came without permission, or if she came at all.

Licking her fingers, she returned her hand to her pussy, ignoring the light throb of the cut on her palm, determined to rub herself to orgasm. It was her cunt, her body. She could do whatever the fuck she wanted.

She closed her eyes and willed the image of Johnny Depp, so sexy as the anti-hero in The Libertine, his liquid brown eyes mesmerizing her as his hand moved, buried in her crotch beneath her silk and taffeta as they rode toward London in their carriage...but it was Sam's face she saw, with his blue-grey eyes flashing as he commanded her to come... Come for me...do it... now...

She is bent facedown over the padded sawhorse, a butt plug nestled fully inside her, the Hitachi wand whirring at her spread cunt. Her nipples throb from the clover clamps, weighted with lead teardrops. The wand is removed. She feels a lubricated dildo pressing its way inside her, sliding against the plug buried in her ass, separated only by the thin membrane between anus and cunt.

The wand returns, sending vibrations in concentric circles radiating from her clit into her full orifices, making her shake as the orgasm rises. She's been tethered to the sawhorse for hours, teased nearly to orgasm again and again, always denied at the last second. This time, she knows, she won't be able to hold back.

Don't stop, she begs silently, don't stop.

He doesn't stop, but keeps moving the ball of the wand in teasing circles over her labia, flicking it lightly across her clit until she is panting and nearly faint with need.

"Please, Sir, may I come?"

Rae dropped her hand, her orgasm receding in the shock of realization at what she'd just done. Though he'd set her free, or if she were going to be more honest about it, kicked her out, Rae had just begged the man she was supposed to despise for permission to come. The man who had cut her with a knife, who had carved demeaning words on her body, who had raped her while she was bound and gagged.

Stop it, she told herself. Don't dwell on it. It's over. You're free.

If it felt like she'd been abandoned and kicked unceremoniously to the curb, it was only some kind of weird Stockholm Syndrome reaction. She'd been conditioned to crave what he offered, trained on a diet of constant stimulation and deprivation. She wasn't yet herself. She just needed time to recover. Time to put him and the whole sordid ordeal behind her.

She would start fresh. She would reinvent herself in a new city, maybe a new state! There was nothing and no one holding her in Manhattan. She'd burned every bridge. She was well and truly alone. And that was fine. Rae Johansen needed no one to feel complete. She was better off on her own. She didn't need some man telling her when to pee, when to come, when to eat, when to think.

If she never saw Sam Ryker again, it would be too soon.

Rolling to her side, she ignored the trickle of tears sliding onto the sheets. Pulling the pillow over her head, she waited for exhaustion to pull her into sleep.

Chapter Fourteen.

Rae touched her collar, which for some reason she still hadn't removed. She'd even worn it when she went out for groceries and no one had batted an eye. This was, after all, Manhattan.

Opening her laptop, she went to her email, just in case he'd written.

Nothing.

She herself had typed several emails to Sam, hitting delete each time, the words all wrong. She told herself she should just let it go. Move on and put Sam Ryker and the whole strange experience from her mind.

She tried to tell herself he was a power hungry madman, a sadistic bastard who had blackmailed her into submission, but she knew that wasn't true. Maybe at first he'd just been intent on getting revenge, but things had shifted between them. She wasn't entirely sure how or when the change began, but it was real. And she couldn't forget it. Her age-old tactic of stuffing things down and ignoring them was no longer working.

She could still hear his voice, ragged with pain and emotion as he tended to her cuts after the dangerous knife play. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. As odd as it was, even to her own ears, she'd fallen in love with him in that moment and she had no idea what to do about it.

It was that man she needed to reach, to tell. Even if she couldn't have him, Rae felt she owed Sam at least something of the truth. Girding her courage, she tried again.

From: Rae.Johansen@RykerSolutions.net To: Samuel.Ryker@RykerSolutions.net Subject: Sir I don't really know how to begin, so I guess I'll do my usual and just dive right in, leaping before I look. When this whole thing started, I mean, when you busted me and offered your terms, I figured this was just your perverted way of getting into my pants again. You had backed me against the wall. I felt I had little choice.

Before I say anything else, I want to say how sorry I am that I stole from you, that I didn't trust you enough to seek another solution. I can't undo that, but I still plan to pay you back, no matter what else happens (or doesn't) between us.

Back to these past weeks. I hated you at first, Sam. I guess you knew that, as I didn't try to hide it. I was shocked and terrified to be held in your dungeon, chained and at your mercy. My god, who wouldn't be? I've had a lot of time to think things over, both when you left me alone in the dungeon, and these past two days since I've been back at my place.

One thing I've realized is I have spent my whole life running as fast as I can to get away from myself. I know that sounds odd, but it's true. I think somehow I figured if I kept moving, accomplishing things, making my way in the big bad world on my own, I wouldn't have to slow down and realize how lonely I was, or that I really had no idea what I wanted or needed in my life.

I've never been in a committed relationship, not one where I really gave of myself, where I allowed myself to be vulnerable. I went to a shrink for a while in my early twenties-trying to figure out why I was unable to really click with anyone. Why I never felt that rush, that thrill that my girlfriends all seemed to feel when in the throes of a new relationship. The therapy didn't go too far-I felt like I was being lectured and I just bagged it. I told myself I was too strong a woman to fall in love. Love was for weaklings, for women who needed to lean on a man to feel complete.

I never told the therapist I felt broken inside. Is that the right word? Like there was a connection missing, something that caused a short circuit every time I got close to a real feeling, to being vulnerable.

When we went out that time last year, the one time, the circuit was completed, maybe for the first time in my life. You told me I was hiding from my own feelings when I rejected the bondage and dominance you offered, and my reactions to it. I told you that you were just egocentric and used to getting whatever you wanted with a woman, and that we'd be better off being just friends and business associates.

But the truth was, I was terrified. Which is ironic, given that I'd always been seeking that kind of intensity of connection. But when you appeared, offering it, I ran for the hills! My therapist would have said it was me denying my real feelings so I could continue to stay safe from getting hurt. I was like this person encased in an impenetrable plastic bubble. Nobody was going to get in, period.

These past few weeks-I don't know how to say this, but you managed to find a way in. I'm honestly not sure anyone could have reached me, not the way you have. Yes, your measures were drastic, even extreme. And yes, I know I'm supposed to be outraged and horrified at what you did to me-keeping me chained and enslaved, using me like an object, your personal property, your sex slave...

I was outraged and horrified. That wasn't an act. But beneath it. OMG, Sam, beneath it, you were finally, for the first time, piercing the bubble I spent a lifetime building around my heart and soul. You reached me, that secret, vulnerable little girl place inside where I hide my true feelings and needs. You pulled away the curtains and tore down the walls.

You brought out feelings and desires I never knew I possessed. You showed me, whether you meant to or not, that at my core I am submissive. That I need what you gave me. I long for it. I miss it.

I want it back.

Remember when I said there was no us? I was lying. For the first time, I find I am part of an "us", or at least I was, for those few weeks we spent together.

And now it's gone.

And here I sit. Alone again, not sure how to find my way back to what I used to be. Knowing in my heart I don't really want to.

Rae stared at what she'd written, not ready to send it, but not quite willing to delete it either. Without hitting the send button, she logged out of her email and closed the laptop lid.

Once over lunch when they were first working together, Sam had made the observation that the world moved so fast now, no one had time to just sit down and write a letter by hand. Everything was instant, composed in a flash and sent with a press of the finger on a keyboard. Rae had said, wasn't that a good thing? Sam had nodded that yes, he supposed it was, but didn't she think that sometimes, something handwritten on real paper made more of an impact? Forced us to slow down, at least a little? At the time she'd shrugged this off, but now she understood.

She glanced out the window-it was still light out, still time for what she wanted to do. She dressed in jeans and a blouse, not even bothering with makeup, which would have been inconceivable before her time with Sam. Grabbing her keys, wallet and cell phone in case he called, she left her apartment, a woman on a mission. Down her block was a small stationery store, sandwiched between a dry cleaners and a deli. It was an old-fashioned mom-and-pop kind of place that had somehow managed to survive, despite the incursion of superstores.

She breathed in the dry, musty scent of paper and ink as she moved along the narrow aisles cluttered with office supplies. She stopped at the stationery section, looking over the selection. Underneath boxes of thank you and get well soon cards, she found what she was looking for-a box of pale ecru bond paper with a dark blue edge. It came with matching envelopes, the inside of each envelope the same blue as the stationery's borders.

She searched the pen section for a long time before finally spying what she wanted in a dusty box on a top shelf. It was a fountain pen, black with a silver nib, and came with a few ink cartridges. It cost quite a bit more than she'd expected to pay, but she decided it was worth it. She made her purchase and returned to her apartment.

Sitting at her desk, she took the pen from the bag and spent a few minutes placing the ink cartridge inside it and testing it out on a cheap piece of printer paper. She practiced writing her name until the ink flowed smoothly. It was a rich, royal blue. She realized it had been some time since she'd used a pen, any pen, for much more than grocery lists or the occasional check. She liked the feel of this fine pen, its solid weight and smooth nib lending a kind of loftiness, an importance, to her words.