Snow Bound: The Complete Story (11 page)

"For now," I told her silently.

"MINE! For now," she agreed.

I stepped forward end wrapped my arms around Allison. She turned her head sideways and wrapped her arms around me, holding on tightly.

"Will you retie me? I'd like that," she said.

"Yes," I said. "As soon as your tongue has satisfied me."

* * *

Allison spent the rest of the night rebound. I tried to blindfold her, but it fell off sometime while we were sleeping. In the morning she apologized.

I kissed her nose.

I gave her two more orgasms before I untied her. "You're not going to keep my ankles tied?" she asked. She sounded disappointed.

"I have to go," I told her.

She looked away then turned back. "I want to time my drive to be back in St. Paul at seven," she said. "I won't leave until after lunch." She paused. "You could come with."

Possessive Sarah screamed at me, "MINE!" I rudely shoved her aside.

It had been a long time since I'd wanted something as much as I wanted to say, "Yes." Instead I said, "It wouldn't work."

We both looked away. Neither of us spoke for several minutes. Finally she said, "I thought we had something."

"Allison, I can't begin to explain how much I want to say Yes. But I am one screwed up bitch."

"No you're not!" she said firmly "Please don't talk that way about yourself."

I thought about it. "Maybe I shouldn't have used that last word. But I am screwed up. We both know that." I reached out and turned her to face me. "You won't stay submissive. You're having a fun weekend, but it's a big time out for you. A reset. Halfway home you're going to have a sudden case of 'what was I thinking, letting her do those things to me?' And by the time you get home, you'll be back to normal."

She looked down, not denying it, then looked back at me. "I might not stay submissive, but I'm not going to have misgivings for this weekend. I know exactly why I let you do those things to me, and I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat." She paused. "Please don't go yet. We have until after lunch. Please tie my ankles, Mistress."

I smiled. "I never told you to call me that."

"I know," she said. "I'm trying to make a point."

"Promise to think about me as Sarah and not Mistress, and I'll tie your ankles until after lunch."

"I promise, Sarah."

I made her please me once her ankles were hobbled.

* * *

The morning was strained, but we were both happy to be together. Possessive Sarah repeatedly told me we should keep her. Competent Sarah told her she'd just get her heart broken. "You know what happens then," I told her silently. "Vengeful Sarah comes out. And we like Allison too much to let Vengeful Sarah do anything to her."

Possessive Sarah shut up after that.

I kept Allison naked through lunch. I stole one more pair of her undies, which she laughed about. "Do I get anything of yours?"

I thought about it, then walked over to my backpack and dug through it until I found the undies I had been wearing on Friday. "Do you have a scissors?" I asked.

She pointed to a drawer in the kitchen. I found the scissors and walked over to her. I handed them to her then lifted my hair. "You may take a small lock of hair, too." I turned around. She hesitated. "Unless you don't want one."

She stepped close then carefully snipped some of my hair from deep underneath where it wouldn't show. She hugged me. "Thank you, Sarah."

I packed all my things before lunch and put them in the car.  I cooked lunch for us while asking her about her job. Then I told her she wasn't allowed to feed herself, and I slowly fed us both lunch.

We made gentle love together one more time. I untied her ankles when we were done. She had tears in her eyes, but we both pretended she didn't.

I watched as she put my panties on though. We helped each other to dress, exchanging more kisses and touches.

When we were done dressing Allison turned to me. "I want to see you again."

"It won't work," I told her.

"Will you let me call you?"

I sighed. "No."

She started to cry. I kissed her tears away and held her. She pulled away eventually and said, "I know you want to see me again."

"Yes," I said. "I do."

"Will you promise me you'll think about it?"

"Allison," I said. "It's all I'm going to think about."

She smiled and dried her tears. "Will you take pictures of us together? How do you do your self portraits?"

I smiled. "I would love to have photos of us together."

So she went to the bathroom to clean up and I retrieved the things I'd need from the car. I set up my camera on the tripod and pulled the remote from the camera bag. I set everything up in the living room. I took several photos looking out the window with exposure for the sunny outside, then adjusted the settings on the camera for interior shots.

I took a few photos of us arm in arm, smiling at the camera. I took more with us looking at each other. I got one of me touching her face, another of us kissing, a few of me holding her while standing behind her.

When I was done, she asked, "Do I get copies?"

"If you give me your email address, I will mail them to you once I've fixed them up."

She nodded and retrieved a business card for me. I slipped it into the camera bag while putting everything away. I put everything back into the car and returned to the living room to say goodbye.

"I want to tell you something," she said, taking my hand. I nodded. "No one has ever made me feel like you have. I would do anything in my power necessary to keep you in my life."

I kissed her gently, then stared into her eyes.

I almost told her how screwed up I really was. I almost told her about the different Sarahs. I almost asked her for her help.

And if I had, I was sure it would have ruined everything.

"Thank you," I told her instead. "I can't even explain what this weekend has meant to me."

I hugged her once more and turned around.

I almost caved when I heard her sobs. I managed to hold my own tears in until I was a mile away, driving slowly down the slippery roads.

Snowed Alone

I stood in the driving, sobbing, while Sarah drove away. I stood watching long after her car disappeared, hoping she would turn around and come back to me.

She didn't.

I started screaming at myself. "Why didn't you stop her? Why didn't you make her stay? Why didn't you tell her more how you felt?"

I knew the answers to the first two. If I'd tried to stop her, she'd have run and never looked back. But was she looking back? She was young and beautiful, a free spirit. I was old. Well, not old, but older. I knew better. I knew better than to give her my heart.

She didn't come back.

I must have stood there for ten minutes, praying for her to come back, but the cold eventually drove me back inside. I pulled myself back together and walked around the cabin numbly. Sarah was gone, and the cabin was way too quiet.

I straightened up, washing our last few dishes. I didn't have much to pack. I kept clothes and a computer up here, so I never had to carry anything back and forth. Every few minutes I looked outside, hoping to see her car driving back up.

Staring out the back window for what must have been the twentieth time, I had another crying jag. How could she just drive away? Didn't this weekend mean anything to her? Didn't she know I loved her?

I loved her?

Oh god! I loved her. How stupid, I'd let myself fall in love with someone I knew wasn't going to stay. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I hadn't been in love for a very long time. I wasn't accustomed to let anyone get that close to me. How ironic, a relationship counselor who never had a real relationship of her own.

She hadn't even given me her phone number.

I stared at my phone anyway. Of course, it didn't ring. Finally I called Emily, my best friend and a fellow therapist. We had known each other for years. Emily was straight and happily married, but we still flirted, usually in front of her husband. He loved watching it. She'd told me once she got the best, most attentive sex from him every time I spent time at their house.

"Hey, Allison," she said. "How was the cabin?"

"Oh God, Emily," I said, the sobs bursting forth. "She left! Oh god, she left. She left. She left!"

"Oh Allison," Emily said. "Who left?"

"Sarah!" I said in a wail.

I was sobbing over the phone to my friend. I could hear the concern in her voice, but I couldn't stop crying.

"Are you home? I'm coming over."

"No. You can't. I'm at the cabin," I managed to get out.

She made calming noises over the phone at me. Finally she said, "I take it you met someone."

"Yes, but she left," I said, still crying.

"When did you meet?"

"Friday," I said. "She saved my life."

"Wait! Saved your life?" I was just confusing her further.

"There was a deer. I had an accident. She saved me."

"Oh honey! Are you okay?"

"No! She left!"

It took her twenty minutes to calm me down. "Honey," she said once I was mainly coherent. "Do you need me to drive up and get you?"

"No," I told her. I sniffled at her.

She spent another twenty minutes redirecting my thoughts. She asked me about my work schedule for the week. We didn't talk about our clients; that wasn't ethical. But she got my thinking sufficiently about work.

"Allison, drive straight here," she said. "Remember to gas up. Think about your clients the whole way."

"All right," I told her. "I'll be there about seven."

We hung up. I blew my nose and dried my eyes then went into the basement and turned the water off. I drained the pipes and turned the thermostat down as low as it worked reliably.

On my way out, all I grabbed was the thumb drive Sarah had given me, my purse, and my jacket.

* * *

I managed to hold it together all the way to Emily's. I pulled into her driveway. She and Jim stepped outside, waiting for me. I was sobbing again by the time I reached the steps.

"Oh honey," Emily said, pulling me into her arms. Jim held the door while Emily pulled me into the house. "Jim, check out her car. She was in an accident."

Emily pulled me to her living room and to the sofa. I cried messily on her shoulder. She held me while I cried myself out.

"So stupid," I told her eventually. "Stupid. I knew she'd leave."

Eventually I told her the whole story. I didn't tell her about Sarah's deeper secrets. I wanted to be able to honestly tell Sarah I had never shared any of her secrets with anyone else. But I told Emily all the rest of it, stopping my story only when Jim stepped into the room with tea for both of us.

"I have pictures," I told Emily.

"Jim!" Emily yelled. "Laptop!"

I laughed weakly.

Jim came into the room carrying his laptop. "Did you want to see pictures?" I asked him. It turns out he did. I turned to Emily. "Maybe we shouldn't let him see these. She's a total hottie."

I pulled the thumb drive from my purse and handed it to Emily. She did the computer magic thing and pulled up the images.

"Oh. My. God." said Jim three pictures in. It was one of Sarah in the tub.

"He's going to like some of the others, too," I said.

He did.

We got to one where she was flirting with me through the camera. "You took this one?" he asked. I nodded. "So it's you she's looking at. She's staring right into the lens." I nodded.

"Allison," he said. "Look at that expression. She's in love, too. She'll be back."

"No she won't," I said numbly. "She left."

"She'll be back," he said then stood up. "I can't wait to meet her."

"You aren't meeting her," Emily said. "I'm not letting you within twenty miles of her."

He laughed. "Oh sweetie," he said. "You know I might appreciate other women, but you're the only one I could ever love."

"It's not love I'm worried about," she said. But she was smiling at him.

"Allison," Jim said again. "She'll be back. She just has to figure things out for herself. She'll be back."

"No she won't," I said, starting to blubber again. "She left."

"She'll be back," he pronounced.

He left us alone again, but came out a little while later. "Dinner is ready. Dry your tears, clean up, I made my specialty."

"Frozen pizza?" Emily asked him.

"Actually," he said. "Dinner will be five more minutes. I have to go burn Emily's."

Dinner was salmon, baked and then broken into flakes and spread over a salad. I pulled myself together. "She wrote a book," I told them over dinner. "Emily, I need you to read it. I'm thinking of making my clients buy and read it. But I might not be thinking professionally. I need your honest, professional opinion."

We ate, talked about other things, and then started to clean up. "I've got this," Jim said. "Go order a copy of the book. Allison, are you spending the night?"

"No," I told him. "Do you need another look at Sarah's pictures for, ahem, inspiration?"

"No," Emily said. "He has all the inspiration he needs right here."

Emily bought an electronic copy of Sarah's book then walked me to my car. "Are you sure you don't want to spend the night?"

"I'll be okay," I told her, hugging her. "Thank you, Ems."

* * *

I managed to avoid any more crying jags that night. I went to bed feeling very numb.

In the morning, I found an email from Emily. "One AM. I read the first chapter. Then I read it out loud to Jim. After that we alternated reading the chapters. Just finished. Professional opinion: yes."

I was so pleased Emily had been impressed with Sarah's book.

* * *

I buried myself back in work, the way I always did, and tried not to think about Sarah.

Friday over lunch I checked my email. Nestled in amongst all the other email was one from Sarah. I stared at her name on the screen for a while before reading it. "Hello, Love Slave," it said.

I started to cry.

"I had a very nice time," the letter went on. "You've given me hope I can have a normal future someday. I don't think you know what that means to me. Driving away from you was the hardest thing I've ever done. I got a mile before I started crying. I almost turned around, but I know I'm not ready for a real relationship yet."