The Collaring of Chloe Ch. 11

Master kissed her forehead and cheek lovingly, holding her firmly while she recovered enough to be able to stand on her own. Once she was steady enough, he unhooked the spreader bar from her ankles, but left the restraints on and her wrists connected. "Do you need to come out of the shoes?" He asked her softly.

Chloe considered the answer a moment, trying to gauge her steadiness. Finally, she shook her head. "No, Master. I'd like to keep them on."

"Okay, slave." He said, using a towel to dry her face of the tide of saltwater that drenched it. "You did very well. Very good girl." He kissed her again, this time a gentle brush of the lips. "Do you want to sit down a moment?"

Chloe laughed and looked at him incredulously. "Seriously, Master? I don't think I'm going to want to sit down for a few hours." She chuckled at his smile, noting the pride in it. "I love you, Master." She said without thinking about the words. His slight frown made her tense though, but it quickly disappeared and was replaced by a caring smile and affectionate caress of her face.

"How about a little air, slave?" He asked after a moment, looking over to where Mittens was just standing there looking at them with a goofy look of adorable love and adoration. "I think we need to let my pet focus on her baking." He said in a playfully needling tone.

Mittens seemed to suddenly realize she was just standing there with a bowl of chocolate batter and turned to go back to her brownie making. Chloe chuckled, but looked to Master and nodded, letting him lead her out of the kitchen to the solarium where the door leading out to the rear yard was. They stepped out into the cool night air, moist-smelling from the pool, and they walked together along the patio.

"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself, Chloe." He said at length, looking out at the star-lit sky. "I'm happy that everything seems to be working out so well.

She looked at him in the dim evening illumination, his features painted by the shimmery blue ripples of the pool water refracting the light. She could see the conflict in his face, but she could also see that there was obvious caring in that conflict. "I am enjoying it here, Master. I'm so glad I came here and decided to become your slave."

He paused, looking towards her. "You're supposed to still be thinking on that decision, you know."

She sighed softly, looking towards the pool. "I know my answer already, Master. It's not going to change. Actually, Master, I had expected that you were going to spend these three days being as hard on me as you could, trying to see if you could make me change my mind." She looked back towards him, eyes narrowing slightly. "Instead, you've just acted..."

"Normal?" He asked with a grin, but it quickly sobered. "I want you to know what life here will be like. If you were seeking a harsh Master to make you feel more like a 'real slave', you won't find that with me. Trying to give you a false impression to prove some point would be wrong, Chloe. Still, I also worry that maybe letting you see all the good stuff is only going to cloud you from really thinking clearly about this."

Chloe looked away again, sighing heavily. "Master, I don't need to think about it. This is what I want, I don't care if you are harsh or loving. I just want to be a slave. I decided that even before I met you. Being sold to you, without my choice, to be a true slave, owned by someone without any say, is all I wanted."

He gently put a hand to her face and turned it to look at him. "I know, Chloe. This is your fantasy, to be sincerely reduced to a possession. Only, that is the fear, Chloe. It is your *fantasy*. I, however, have to also consider the reality of that fantasy. I know that everything seems so wonderful here and it seems like there is nothing that would make that fantasy go wrong, but I'm not perfect, this life isn't perfect."

"I don't want 'perfect', Master." Chloe countered quickly. "I want to be a slave, to be owned. I made that decision long before now. I know it is a fantasy and I know that reality tends to invade fantasies. But if you're afraid that I'm going into this blind, Master, I assure you that I'm not. I spent a long time thinking about this, thinking about the dangers and the chances I'd be taking. I did my due diligence, Master. I don't go into this lightly, I promise."

She gestured with her bound hands out into the night, as if indicating something unseen. "I realized that I could end up with someone terrible if I just gave myself out to be owned by anyone, that's why I had Master Herron set it all up, because I trusted him to make sure that whoever bought me would be at least someone I wouldn't regret being owned by." She looked back at him. "I never even expected anyone as wonderful as you, Master, just someone who Master Heron believed wouldn't make me regret the decision. I was prepared to be owned by someone I didn't even completely love, but was set that I would serve faithfully anyway. You though, Master, I already love you."

He sighed, looking downwards. "And that too scares me, Chloe. I appreciate that you took some precautions and prepared yourself for worse than this, but I worry that you are still caught up in the bright dazzle of not just getting your fantasy, but it seeming so much better than you ever hoped." He looked back up, meeting her eyes in the low light. "You still only barely know me, Chloe. Yet, you've already decided that you love me. That makes me think your eyes are still full of sparkles with it all."

She moved closer to him, put her linked hands on his chest, looking into his face. "I DO know you, Master. I may not know your favorite colors or what music you like best, but I know what KIND of man you are. I can see that from the devotion I see in Mittens. In the compassion and thoughtfulness that you've shown me. I saw it this evening at the grocery store when you came to my rescue. I don't need to know more of you than that to know that I care for you, Master." She grinned slyly at him. "Besides, you said you loved me too."

He chuckled, closing his eyes and grimacing as though caught with his hand in a cookie jar. "Your certainty that you want this is a bit infectious, Chloe. I do indeed feel a lot of love you already." His expression sobered a little. "But that too worries me a little." He sighed, looking up at the night sky. "Are you familiar with T. S. Elliot?"

"The poet?" Chloe asked. "A little, I guess, Master."

"I keep thinking of some lines from 'The Hollow Men', though here taken out of context as they relate to the poem." He said almost absently, his expression far away. "They go like this:

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow"

He looked at her more pointedly, putting his hands over hers on his chest. "Do you follow the meaning? Of why I consider them pertinent to this moment?"

She smiled at him. "I do, Master. I get why you're worried. You are afraid that, a few weeks or months from now, the reality of being your slave, anyone's slave, will overtake the image I had of it. That I'll realize that this isn't what I thought it would be. Or just realize that I want my freedom back."

He nodded slowly, eyes on hers. "Yes, Chloe. Because what you want, however beautiful an idea, however wonderful I might seem, isn't always so easy to maintain. There will be times when you will need space and freedom. There will likely come a day that you realize you no longer want to be a slave, but your own person. I want to make sure you have a way of—"

She reached up to put her hands over his mouth, eyes pleading him to let her interrupt. "I understand, Mas—." She took a deep breath. "James. I know why you are offering it. And, I do realize that it should be something I do want, but I don't. I wanted this to be pure before I met you, but now, having met you, I want it even more. I want to REALLY belong to you. Not in the limited, typical, way that it is done in the lifestyle, but as a real slave. I do love you, James Brooksend, my Master, because I know that, if ever there is a day that I truly need to be set free, for a few days or the rest of my life, I can trust you to see that and give that freedom to me. Otherwise, I need you to hold my only way out not because I am so fixated on the fantasy of being a real slave, but because I'm terrified of it."

There was a long moment of silence, Chloe's hands sliding back down to rejoin with Master's, who was looking at her in a little confusion. "Terrified?" He asked finally.

"Yes, Master." Chloe said, tears welling in her eyes. "I am giving up everything that I am, giving myself to someone to change into whatever they want me to be. I am handing over my freedom completely, handing over myself. That isn't lost on me. My fear and worry is that I won't be strong enough to let it all go, that I'll have a moment of doubt and I'll lose everything that I want so much. I need to know I CAN'T leave without you releasing me. It's what makes me feel safe."

There was a long moment of silence. And then he was kissing her. Not the soft little press of lips, but a deep and passionate kiss of love and need. His arms held her close and tight, holding his slave to him. Tears of joy streamed from Chloe, wanting this kiss more than anything she'd ever craved in her life. In this kiss lay a promise and a claiming. With this kiss she was suddenly, truly, his slave now. If she knew him, and she felt she did, he would still make her wait another day and a half, but they'd reached a place where they'd met each other on the issue.

Finally, their embrace parted and he caressed her cheek tenderly. "I love you, my slave." He said softly. "I want to give you your safety and I'm sure we can figure something out. But I think you need to better understand why your lock is your 'escape hatch'." She started to say something more, but he put a finger to her lips. "I don't think you are aware of this, but I didn't buy you from Master Herron."

She looked at him in confusion. "You didn't?"

"No." He said softly. "Master Herron made it very clear that he didn't own you. He wasn't willing to accept anything for you due to that. By his reckoning, you still owned yourself. So, Chloe, the reason the lock is a way for you to be free is because it is the payment I give to purchase you from the previous owner: you. I am buying you with that lock, making it the one and only thing you will own by yourself while you are my slave. You giving it back would be you returning the purchase price, reversing the sale."

Chloe blinked at him, dumbstruck. The idea of the lock being her payment made wonderful sense, even seemed beautifully romantic and meaningful. However, that was not what left her dumbstruck. The idea of receiving her own payment gave her what she didn't really want, a way out of her enslavement. In fact, she'd actually believed she'd circumvented that detail by setting up Master Herron as her seller, expecting it to be him that would accept payment, leaving her with nothing to return. She'd not realized he'd sidestepped that, obviously not telling her that on purpose.

"I...does it have to be that way, Master?" She asked, feeling suddenly deeply frustrated. "Can't you just claim me?"

Master looked at her long and hard, obviously feeling her frustration and disappointment. "I need to feel that I have given you something in exchange for your servitude, Chloe. I know it isn't what you want, but I wouldn't feel right just 'claiming' you. Mittens' bell works the same way. Her bell and your lock are symbols of the covenant between myself and each of you."

Chloe looked down, but he quickly put a finger under her chin and lifted her gaze back to him. "However, I am willing to make a compromise. In your case..." He smiled. "we'll just establish that I am under no obligation to accept your refund of it. That way, even if you try to give it back, I don't have to take it back and let you out." He raised an eyebrow. "So, that would mean it is still my choice if you get to leave, but gives me a way of knowing that you are having problems or doubts if I haven't been observant enough to see it myself. Would that suit you?"

Chloe considered the idea a moment, turning it over and over in her mind. In the end, it did still serve both ends, hers and Master's. While she didn't want an 'escape hatch', she wasn't opposed to the idea of a... "A distress signal." She said out loud, tasting the notion.

"I think that would be a good word for it." Master said, his smile widening. "If you can accept these terms of the purchase, then I don't think we really need to wait a whole extra day to take that ribbon off and put a real collar on you. We can do it tomorrow afternoon."

Chloe's breath caught, her eyes widening. "Really Master? We can make it official tomorrow?" A wild grin spread across her lips.

"I don't see anything more that we'd need to consider, I feel comfortable with that arrangement, if you are." He said, kissing her on the left cheek. "Because, well, I have to admit, infected by your enthusiasm or not, I do love you and I want you to be mine. I want to own you, Chloe Ryan." He kissed her other cheek. "Will you accept the payment of a lock for your servitude as my slave?" He kissed her tenderly on the lips.

Chloe looked deep into his eyes, feeling a heady rush of joy and love. "Yes, Master. Thank you."