Safeword: Mayday by Candace Blevins

Chapter 37

The foursome spent most of the weekend together, but it wasn’t all sex. They went to a bougee grocery store, and yeah, both submissives wore butt plugs, but they had fun finding items for a charcuterie board, and ingredients to use for a fancy fondue meal. Later, they worked together as a team to put their extravagant meal together, and no one said the words out loud, but to Heather, it felt as if they were a family.

She knew Ruby wasn’t fully committed, knew they weren’t a family yet, but it sure felt like they were on their way.

Marcus hadn’t been kidding about managing every minute of Ruby’s time, and when he didn’t have her actively following orders, she was most often caged. Sometimes, he put a notepad and pen in with her, and gave her a writing assignment — like a scene from her past that she sometimes masturbated to, and he was clear he wanted it written in great detail. Once, he told her he wanted a list of at least twenty things he’d done in the past week that had made her angry, or that she’d had a hard time coming to terms with. He also had her write a detailed description of how a normal day at work went for her.

Kyle was only submissive to Heather during sex, meals eaten at home, their bedroom, Marcus’s bedroom, and the playroom. Could she get away with making him write a paper about what he visualized while he masturbated? Or would it be better to ask him, and have her tell him?

No, she didn’t want to read about it, she wanted to hear it from his lips, so she’d ask him, so she could look into his eyes when he told her. Also, this needed to be when it was just the two of them, without an audience.

The next week, Ruby arrived at the ranch a little earlier than Heather expected, and she was still putting Phantom through his paces. Jonah stood with Ruby and made small talk while Heather finished, and then walked her into the barn as Heather dismounted Phantom and fed him some apple pieces.

“I’ll get Phantom squared away,” Jonah told her. “The ATV is charged, if you want to take it to the wall.”

Heather had chosen an electric ATV not because it was eco-friendly, but because it was quiet and wouldn’t startle the horses. Also, it meant there was no need to store gas on the premises. They used it to pull the drag mat and smooth the riding corrals, to move around the property’s acreage, to haul equipment before they put on an event, and dozens of other uses Heather hadn’t anticipated, when she’d bought it.

She fed Phantom another piece of apple, kissed his nose, and rubbed him a few moments.

“Thanks, Jonah. Ruby hasn’t climbed before, so this’ll be climbing one-oh-one, before we get started.”

Heather helped Ruby into a harness, and then put hers on and climbed part way up the wall and came back down, showing her how the safety mechanism worked. She went over the basics, and then sent Ruby up on the simplest route, which was a mid-level course. Heather had assumed she’d never have beginners, but she should probably rethink that and create a teaching route on one of the edges, with a bell situated as high as the other commercial walls placed them.

Within an hour, Ruby had the hang of it. Heather coached her on the route to take when Ruby thought she was stuck, and once she trusted the ropes, Ruby made it nearly three-quarters of the way to the top, which was impressive for her first time.

She made it back down and started up again, and this time, Heather didn’t give her direction and let Ruby find her own path. She made it about halfway up before coming back down, and Heather thought she could use a break to rest a little before trying again.

“Let’s sit and talk.” Heather said. “I’d like to ask for a formal time out, so the two of us can talk outside of power exchange.”

“Of course, Ma’am.”

A handful of picnic tables were twenty yards from the wall because Heather had food catered in when she put on adventure weekends. Heather walked to them and took a seat, her arms resting on a table, and Ruby sat across from her.

“I’m new to this, and I know you aren’t, and you’ll speak up if something isn’t working for you, but I need to check in with you, even though I know you agreed to these things in the contract. Sometimes, I’m not comfortable with you being caged. Also, the deal with him taking away your safeword?” She shook her head. “Marcus has explained to me that the cage makes you feel secure, and that if you can safeword out of what you’ve agreed to then you don’t feel as if you’re truly owned. He says you feel like it’s play pretend if you can safeword out of something, so once you’ve made it through an ordeal once, you lose the ability to safeword out of that particular thing in the future.”

“And you want to hear it straight from the slave’s mouth?”

“Yeah, I guess I do. I need to hear you’re still okay with it, after having lived with it a while.”

Ruby met her gaze and told her, “He’s absolutely right. He owns me, and both of us are constantly pushing the limits of that ownership. If I can survive something once then I can survive it again. We’ve talked about what happens if there’s some problem that didn’t exist before — loss of circulation, for instance, and in that case instead of saying the safeword, I’ll say what the problem is. Circulation is a safeword that means he needs to check my bindings, joint pain is a safeword that means he needs to check the angle of a joint. So, if there’s a legitimate problem, something more than, ‘that hurts like a motherfucker’, I can still stop things. He hasn’t taken away all my options.”

Heather had to suppress her smile. Other than properly using fuck, ass, and other such words within the context of a scene, Ruby wasn’t allowed to cuss when under her slave rules, and the fact she had while they were out of power exchange reminded Heather this woman was following rules she’d agreed to, and that she was a strong, successful woman who knew what she wanted and had gone after it.

Still, Heather wanted to hear the rest of it, while they were on the subject. “And the cage?”

“Yeah, it’s completely fucked up, but it makes me feel secure.” She sighed. “Sometimes, I hate going into the cage, and I always get punished if I show my unhappiness, which makes me hate it that much more. But...” A small shrug. “Being caged means I belong to him. I’m his property. His asset. When you’re there and he cages me, sometimes I get really pissed. I know you’ve seen it, and I hate when you see it, but I can’t always hide it.”

She rubbed her right forearm with her left hand. “Remember when you and I first met, and you said Kyle isn’t jealous of Marcus because they give you different things? It’s kind of the same thing. Marcus can never cage you — you’d never allow it, never willingly crawl in. He owns me, and I give him something you can’t. So, even though I may hate it when he cages me so he can do something with you that doesn’t include me...” She glanced down at the table a few seconds and then met Heather’s gaze again. “Even though I may sometimes hate it, I wouldn’t change it.”

“Thank you for explaining. Okay, next issue — Marcus wants me to take charge of you more often, to give you more commands, and he wants me to punish you instead of depending on him to do it every single time. If we’re going to head in that direction, it feels like you and I should negotiate our own agreement, but Marcus says his contract with you covers your submission to me.”

“It does. I agreed you can punish me, and I agreed you can use me sexually in any way that doesn’t cross into my list of hard limits.”

Her hard limits were things Heather would never want to do. Things like shitting on her, and Heather had been surprised that actually needed to be said. Also, anything that risked infection, withholding water for more than thirty minutes after it’s requested unless she’s been given water in the past two hours, withholding food for more than forty-eight hours, and no more than eighteen ounces of blood loss across a three-day period. There was more, but it was all super-extreme stuff Heather would never even consider doing.

“I’ve never done anything sexual with a woman, but Marcus said that in your early negotiations, you said you’d gone down on a woman, and been fucked by a woman with a strap on. I’m not totally sure where I want to go in that direction, so I figured you and I could start with a conversation about it.”

“My agreement with Marcus says he can loan me to others, and gender was never mentioned. I understood that when I signed. With you, it’ll be more than a loan, but he’s been upfront about that since the beginning. Your word is the same as his. I accept that you’re basically an extension of him. If you’re asking how I feel about being ordered to go down on you? I’m attracted to power, not gender. If it’s ordered and I know I’ll be punished if I refuse, it will absolutely work for me.”

Heather understood that, because sex in general didn’t work for her unless there was either pain or power exchange in the mix.

“Okay, one more thing. I’m not comfortable taking away your safeword. You’ll keep your safeword, and if I think you’re abusing it then you’ll stand in the corner for four hours a night for a week, so don’t abuse it. A safeword isn’t play pretend with me; it’s a safety thing. I’m glad you and Marcus have come to the agreement you have, but you will use the safeword with me if you need a scene to stop, and for no other reason.”

“Okay.”

The agreement almost seemed too easy, but Heather didn’t question her about it. If she didn’t mean it, they’d deal with it using the rules of the contract.

Heather remembered something else she’d meant to talk about, and said, “I was wrong — there’s another thing. All four of us have clean lab results. Marcus is using you without a condom now, and I guess that means if you go down on me you won’t need to use a dental dam, if you’re comfortable with that?”

“Sure, we’re all clean, no need for safety precautions. I’m on the pill, and you have an IUD, right?”

“Correct.”

She sighed. “Marcus goes bare in my ass now, but he still hasn’t fucked my pussy, with or without a condom. What’s up with that?”

Heather shrugged. “If it bugs you, you should talk to him about it. That’s everything I wanted to bring up. Anything you want to talk about before we end the timeout?”

“Yes. Marcus and Kyle keep talking about the four of us moving in together. Right now, it’s kind of you and Kyle together, and me and Marcus together, and the four of us get together a whole lot, but about a third of our leisure time is spent as couples. If we were all living together, wouldn’t the dynamic be different?”

Heather sighed. “I have the same reservations. Maybe we can explore that while we’re in your three-month trial period? If Kyle and I stay at Marcus’s house for two or three straight weeks, it might show us how the dynamic will change.” It might not, though, because everyone would be on their best behavior.

“I think that might be wise, before I sign a longer-term contract with Marcus.”

“Okay, we’ll bring it up with the guys, and look at our schedules and see which two or three weeks will work best. Anything else?”

“Marcus always does something when we end a time-out period, to re-assert his dominance. Are you going to do that?”

“Do you need me to?”

“Yes, please.”

Heather hadn’t prepared for this, but she had an idea of what to do. “There’s a door to the left of the wall, leading to the stairway that goes to the top, for access to the equipment up there. Go in, close the door, and kneel to wait for me.”

The floor was concrete, but she wouldn’t be there long.

Heather washed her hands, dried them, and then went into the room. Ruby was kneeling in the dark, and Heather switched the light on. “I’m going to run my fingers along your tongue and into your throat, and I’ll slowly count to ten and pull them out. You’ll relax your throat and let me in, you’ll control your gag reflex, and you’ll look me in the eyes the entire time. If you gag on my fingers, we’ll keep doing it until you can keep from gagging.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Open wide, then.”

Ruby opened her mouth, and Heather ran the first two fingers of her right hand along Ruby’s tongue, pushing down hard at first, but letting up and going down softly as she reached the back of Ruby’s tongue, and kept going until most of her hand was in Ruby’s mouth. She pushed until she couldn’t go any farther. She looked into Ruby’s eyes as she slowly counted to ten out loud, and then pulled them out.

“Well done. I love that your eyes watered, and I’m starting to understand Marcus’s sadistic streak.” The power it gave her went right to her clit, but she wasn’t horny enough to order Ruby to suck her clit and finger her, though the idea was more appealing than it had been ten minutes before. “Do you want to do the wall anymore, or have you had enough?”

“I think I’m done, Ma’am.”

“Okay then. I’ll go to the top a few times, and then I’ll be ready to go home. Do you want to wait for me and follow me home, or would you like to leave now?”

Ruby smiled. “I’ll wait for you Ma’am.”

“Excellent. You may stand.”