Final

Having come from a time zone two hours earlier than NYC, Carrie and I

weren't nearly ready for sleep. We fucked until we were exhausted, then

we lay in each others arms and cuddled. "What do you think he's doing?"

Carrie asked me.

"I had a chance to find out," I said. "But he said I wouldn't be able to

tell you, so I decided I didn't want to hear it."

"Dummy," Carrie said. "It'd be better for one of us to know than for

neither of us to know. But I think that gives me the clue I needed." She

was quiet for a minute, then she said, "He's trying to make it miserable

for me to be his slave, so I'll be more willing to give it up when the

time comes. But that's not fair to you, I've got to put a stop to it."

"Do you think you'll ever be able to live without it?" I asked.

Carrie said, "Live? Sure. Be happy? I don't know. But it's my problem,

not yours. You shouldn't have to suffer because of me."

"I've been through a lot worse than William will ever subject us to," I

said. "If you think this might help you, even a little, don't say

anything to him."

Carrie gave me a long, serious look. Finally she said, "I think it might

help. But if it ever gets to be too much for you, you have to promise

you'll tell me." I told her I would.

The first thing we did the next day was go to Mr. Bishop's office. He

had all of the forms prepared, all we had to do was sign them. He even

had a small photo studio in the office, so we didn't have to go anywhere

else to have the passport photos taken. Mr. Bishop said his office would

take care of everything, and our passports would be ready in about three

weeks. Bill said he should hold on to them, and we would come back and

pick them up.

There are a lot of things to do in New York, and in two weeks we had

only scratched the surface. But Bill said he was ready to leave, and

suggested we head for Boston. After a week in Boston, we rented a car

and drove through Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont for another two

weeks. Carrie went the whole time without a spanking, a total of five

weeks. We drove back to Boston, caught a train to NYC to pick up our

passports and stay one night, then flew home.

Just as Carrie and I suspected he would, William tightened the screws on

us again as soon as we got home. It was the same level of control he

used before, thank God he hadn't thought of any new ways to oppress us.

The only new torment he added was exclusively for Carrie, for one time

only. Our first night back, he took us to the basement and attached

Carrie to the rails. After having me flog her a lot longer and harder

than I wanted to, he used the crop on her, leaving a dozen stripes all

over her ass. That really upset me, I cried and then refused to talk to

him for a few days afterward, even in bed. But the first time Carrie was

free to speak to me, she told me that it wasn't what I thought, it was

really her reward for being able to go five weeks without a spanking.

Other than that incident, our lives at home weren't really that bad,

except in contrast to the life we were used to, or the life we lived

while traveling. But after only a few days, I was looking forward to

another trip. I only had to wait a few weeks. One evening, as we ate

dinner, William started singing "April in Paris." His singing sucked,

but we got the point, April started the following week.

I love Paris, and not just in the Spring time. I spent a lot of time

there in my teens, and it's easily my favorite place in the whole world.

It was different than I remembered in a lot of ways, I guess any city

would change in eight or nine years, but it was still wonderful. For

once, I was the tour-guide, and I showed Bill and Carrie all of my

favorite places. Then we explored and found a whole new set of favorite

places.

We literally spent April in Paris. Then we spent May in Italy, June in

Switzerland and Germany, and July in England. We all had a wonderful

time. Carrie and Bill made a deal, that she would get one spanking a

month, but she was trying really hard, and she made it all the way from

Italy through Germany on only one hard spanking.

Somewhere in Italy, we decided to try dropping the two-suite hotel scam.

We were all a little tense the first time we asked for a single suite

with a king sized bed for the three of us, but no one batted an eye. We

would never have done that in the US, but we did it all over Europe

without a single comment.

Our relationship while we traveled was wonderful. I don't know how else

to describe it, except to say it was perfect. We never argued, we never

even disagreed on anything important. Bill never let a hint of the

Master emerge, he was never anything but our wonderful friend and lover,

and sometimes our protector. Anyone with Carrie's looks was bound to

attract a lot of attention, some of it unwanted. Oddly enough, I was

sometimes the one that attracted the attention, something I never

understood or felt comfortable about. Anyway, there were a few times

when Bill had to "convince" an aggressive male that he should prey

somewhere else. Not that Carrie and I wouldn't have loved to fuck some

of those guys, but we never attempted to hook up with men, because Bill

wouldn't have been willing to participate. But women were another thing

altogether, although we never looked twice at a woman who was also on

the prowl.

The details were always different, but in general Carrie found women the

same way she had found Helen. Wherever we went, we shopped, browsed, and

played tourist. As often as not, at some point, a woman would show up on

Carrie's radar. It was always someone looking for a change, for

something different, but not quite sure what. If she passed our initial

filtering process, we would meet her for drinks, or take her to dinner

or a show, and better than half the time she would wind up in our bed.

We never let any of them get close to us. I'll admit that we used these

women, and then discarded them without a second thought, but we were

always up-front about what we wanted from them.

The European tour was just the beginning. We became world travelers, but

we were only interested in places with a lot of green or blue, no brown.

Living in New Mexico, we had seen all of the brown we wanted to see. So,

when we toured Australia, it was only the coastal areas, we had no

interest in the outback. My favorite place was New Zealand, I never

wanted to leave there. Then, after living out of our suitcases for

nearly two years, we bought a house in Vancouver, BC.

We still kept the house in Albuquerque, Bill said that was the only

place William would ever be seen, but our trips there became few and far

between. Basically, we would only go there for a few days at a time,

when Bill thought that Carrie absolutely needed William again.

The last time we were with William, it was a short visit, only one

night. After dinner, he made me wait in the bedroom, on my knees, while

he took Carrie to the basement. After awhile, I heard Carrie screaming.

She was saying things like, "No, please don't, I'm not ready. I'm

begging you, please don't do that to me." It was all I could do to stay

where he put me, and as soon as William came back upstairs I broke the

formal speech rule to ask him what he had done to Carrie. A sad

expression on his face, he told me to go and see for myself.

Carrie was fully restrained in the slave bed, still crying softly. I

asked her if she was Ok. "He took out my rings," she sobbed. He left

Carrie in the slave bed overnight, so I slept in a chair, my head

resting against her side. She kept crying for almost an hour before she

finally went to sleep. When William released Carrie the next morning,

she hugged and kissed us both, then told William he had done the right

thing.

"It's over, we're done with it," Bill said. Carrie nodded. She was

trying to be brave, but I knew it was going to be very hard for her. It

was an addiction, and she had to break it cold-turkey from that point

on. My compassion and concern for Carrie tempered the joy I felt when I

realized that I was completely free, for the first time in my adult life.

About two months after that, one evening we were sitting around and

talking, our second favorite pastime. Bill reached out and put his hand

over Carrie's, and their eyes met for a long moment. "It's time, isn't

it?" Carrie asked. Bill nodded.

"Time for what?" I asked.

They looked at me and smiled. "Time for us to have a child," Carrie said.

"Right now?" I said stupidly.

"We're going to start now, it might take awhile," Bill said with a grin.

They got off the couch and joined hands, then Carrie held her hand out

to me. "It'll be your child, too," she said, "all the parents should be

there at the start."

Four months later, Carrie missed her period. She was pregnant. A few

weeks after that, as soon as we could get Uncle Phil and Bev to

Vancouver, we had the two weddings I described earlier.

We made a few changes to our lifestyle for the duration of the

pregnancy. We all stopped drinking any alcoholic beverages. We stopped

bringing the occasional woman to our bed. We still went out, because we

all loved to dance to live music, but we only went to smoke-free clubs,

and only drank diet soda. Other than that, and Carrie's morning sickness

during the first month or so, it was life as usual. Life as usual for us

meant that we were inseparable companions, and we loved to fuck.

About three months into Carrie's pregnancy, we took a trip to Denver.

That's when the awful thing happened, the thing I warned you about when

I first took over this story from Bill.

The week before we left for Denver, we had all seen the baby in Carrie's

womb on ultrasound. It was a girl. "That figures, two thirds of her

parents are females," Bill said.

Carrie kissed him on the cheek, then said, "Don't worry, this is just

the first, the next one will be a son. Two girls and a boy would be the

perfect mix."

We had to go to Denver so Carrie could take a meeting with some

executives of a company her lawyer was recommending as an investment. I

didn't know or care anything about that stuff at the time, and neither

did Bill, but we sat in the meeting with Carrie because we always did

everything together. That evening, we decided to check out some clubs in

the area, to do a little dancing and have some fun after the boring

meeting.

I guess we were having a lot of fun, because we stayed out later than we

had planned. It was late, the street was deserted, and we were walking

to our rental car. Two people appeared in front of us, backlit by the

street lights. "Hello, whore," my brother said. That was what he would

always say when he entered my room to torture and fuck me. My

conditioning took over, and I dropped to my knees and pressed my

forehead to the sidewalk.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I heard Carrie say.

Arthur said, "You mean here in Denver? I live here, bitch. You mean out

of prison? Waiting for a new trial. Lawyers, you gotta love 'em."

"I guess your father helped with that," she said.

Arthur snorted. "When my old man found out what I'd been up to with his

money, he said prison was too good for me. Screw that old bastard." He

paused, then said, "I take it this is your boyfriend, the guy who

spoiled my plans. Did you know I had already bought you? You would have

been mine when you finished your training, a matched set of whore

sisters for me to play with. But those idiots at the organization got

greedy, they thought they could get your money and mine, too, and then

the morons let you run."

"You're insane," Bill said. "You and your buddy better leave us alone,

you're in enough trouble as it is."

Arthur said, "No, this is too good an opportunity to pass up, you're

both coming with us right now." He was talking about Carrie and me, and

that really terrified me, but I didn't know what to do. I wasn't about

to go anywhere with Arthur, but I didn't know how I could prevent it. I

knew Bill had his pistol, and I hoped he would use it.

"Nobody's going anywhere with you," Bill said.

For the first time, the guy with Arthur spoke. "Hey, I'm not up for a

kidnapping."

"You shut up and do what I tell you," Arthur said.

"Bullshit," the guy said, and took off down the street behind Arthur.

I raised my head enough to see the retreating man. By the position of

his feet, I could tell that Arthur had partially turned to look in that

direction, then he quickly turned back. "Ok, put the gun down or I'll

shoot your girlfriend," he said. I should have guessed that Arthur had a

gun, or else Bill would have already kicked his ass. After a pause, Bill

dropped his pistol, and it clattered to a stop right under my face.

"Slide that gun over here, whore," Arthur said to me. I knew what I had

to do, but I was paralyzed with fear.

"You're not going to shoot anyone, Artie," Carrie sneered. "I met you

once, a long time ago, when we were both kids. You were a pussy then,

and you're still a pussy now."

"Keep it up, bitch. That will cost you fifty lashes," he snarled.

"Artie, Artie, Artie," Carrie said, taunting him.

His voice was cold now. "You don't think I'll shoot anyone? How about if

I kill your boyfriend right now? What would you say to that, bitch?"

I saw Carrie's feet move as she stepped in front of Bill, and I knew I

had to act. "Here, Master, take the gun," I said, picking it up by the

handle and releasing the safety. I knew William kept the gun safe, with

no bullet in the chamber. I hadn't heard him cock it, so I had to cock

it myself before I could shoot.

My brother must have looked down and seen me holding the gun. "Put it on

the ground and slide it over here, whore," he said. Then Carrie

screamed. I cocked the gun as I raised up, pointed it at Arthur's chest,

and squeezed the trigger. I missed his chest, but the bullet tore a big

chunk out of the side of his neck, and his blood gushed out like it was

coming from a hose. He looked down at me in disbelief, and I smiled at

him.

Arthur was still standing up, his hand to his neck. Bill began moving

around Carrie to get the gun away from him, but just then Arthur shot

Carrie in the chest, then he fell over backward.

The impact of the bullet pushed Carrie back into Bill, and they both

fell to the sidewalk. He quickly scrambled up to his knees and took

Carrie in his arms. I saw the blood running in a river down her slumped

body. Bill put his hand over the wound and pressed on it. He looked over

at me. "Get help," he said.

I ran back to the club we had come from, told them there had been a

shooting, and had them call 911. Then I looked around for anything I

could use as a compress. Finally, I grabbed a handful of linen napkins

from a serving cart, then ran out of the club and back to Carrie. By the

time I got back, a few people had gathered around, and one of them was

also talking to a 911 operator. I knelt beside Carrie and pressed the

napkins to her chest, but it was too late. She was dead. I looked at

Bill, and it broke my heart to see the look on his face. "I'm sorry, I

did the best I could," I said to him.

"You did fine, I'm proud of you," he said. Then he added, "Carrie was

proud of you, too."

Carrie and my brother were both pronounced dead at the scene. The cops

came and talked to us for a long time. All I wanted to do was be with

Bill, but they kept us apart, I guess so we couldn't make up a common

story. I didn't know how much to tell them about our background, but I

decided to tell everything. When the aid truck left with Carrie's body,

we both wanted to go with it, but they took us to the police station in

separate cars and kept talking to us separately. Finally, after I had

told them everything three times, I demanded to make a phone call. I

called the number Carrie's lawyer had given me years earlier, which he

had said I could call "at any time, for any problem."

Half an hour after my call, two lawyers, from two different law firms,

showed up, not bad for four in the morning. One lawyer was for me and

one for Bill. They got us released immediately, and took us back to our

hotel. We agreed to meet them at their offices the next afternoon. When

I asked my lawyer why we needed two lawyers instead of one, he said it

was to avoid conflicts of interest, so we would each get the best

possible representation. I told him there couldn't be any conflict of

interest between Bill and me, but he didn't reply.

The police wouldn't let us leave Denver for a couple of days, even

though our lawyers had told them to leave us alone. I could see that

Bill was going downhill fast, so finally I got pissed off. I called

Arthur's father and explained everything to him, including that his son

had held me captive for eight years and that had murdered Carrie. Then I

called the federal attorney who had overseen the prosecution of the

organization's members, bitched to him about Arthur being set free, and

told him how we were being treated following Carrie's murder. After

that, the weight coming down on the police from above was too much, they

told us the investigation was finished and we were free to leave.

We had Carrie cremated, and brought her ashes home to Vancouver with us.

Bill barely made it home before he shut down, he just didn't want to

deal with it any more. I didn't know what to do for him, but I

remembered what he did for me after bringing me home from Helen's. I

left him alone, but I tried to keep an eye on him, to make sure he was

all right and to let him know I was there if he needed me.

For the last year of her life, Carrie had usually spent a little time

every day looking at financial data, or talking to her lawyers and

investment advisors. She had really gotten into that stuff. Bill and I

had joked about it, telling her it was a replacement for the pain of her

spankings. I knew we could have left everything to the advisors, but I

decided I would take over what Carrie did. I never learned to enjoy it

like Carrie had, but it didn't take me long to figure everything out. At

first, during the worst of Bill's withdrawal, it was a way for me to

keep busy. By the time Bill came back to me, I knew what I was doing, so

I didn't have to spend any more time at it than Carrie had.

It's been about eight months since Carrie's death. We just returned home

from a trip to our Albuquerque house, where we took the sealed urn

containing Carrie's ashes to the top of the picnic hill. It took us all

day, because we had invited Uncle Phil and Bev to come with us, and Bev

had a tough time getting up and down the hill. Bill carried the urn, and

I carried the canteen and a small bag of cement. We cemented the base of

the urn to a large boulder at the very top of the hill, so Carrie can

enjoy the view she loved, in a place where she was always very happy.

Then we had a little picnic, on a blanket in front of the boulder,

enjoying the warm sun and listening to Uncle Phil and Bev tell us about

Carrie's childhood.

I thought the previous paragraph was a good place to end our story, but

now there's a better ending. Bill and I were in the hot tub last night,

talking about the surgery I'll have in two weeks. Bill kept checking his

watch, and I was about to ask him why, when the ever-present cell phone

beeped. Before I could pick it up, he quickly snatched it up from the

deck beside the tub. "Hi, it's me," he said. Then he smiled, said, "Hold

on," and handed the phone to me.

I asked him who it was, but he didn't answer, so I took the phone from

him and asked who was there. "Hello, Char," Helen said. I was

speechless. "Please don't hang up on me, Char," she said.

"I'm not going to hang up," I said, "I just don't know what to say."

She said, "I've been told that you still love me, you could tell me

that. I still love you, and I've missed you every day since you left. I

want us to be together again."

My heart was in my throat. I looked over at Bill. "Tell her you love

her," he said.

"I do love you. I assumed you had moved on."

She laughed softly. "I tried, but you ruined me for anyone else, I only

want you." She paused, then said, "Char, I'm so very sorry about Carrie.

That was a wonderful thing she did for me."

"Carrie was a wonderful person," I said. A few months after I left

Helen, Carrie bought the dress shop and made Helen the manager. Then, in

her will, she left the shop to Helen. William knew about that all along,

but I only found out at the reading of Carrie's will. As far as I know,

that was the only secret they ever kept from me.

"So, how long have you and Bill been plotting against me?" I asked.

"For you," Bill whispered. "We're plotting for you."

Helen said, "Bill read what you wrote in your story. After he thought

about it for awhile, he called me. He read me part of what you wrote. It

made me cry... Char, haven't we wasted enough time? Bill says you're

free now, you've let go of all your rage and hate. But regardless, I

want you back, I've always wanted you back."

"It helps to let go, when you can kill the object of your hate and

rage," I told her.

Helen said, "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

I said, "I'm not, I'm only sorry I couldn't have done better, to keep

that bastard from killing Carrie. We don't need to talk about him

anymore." I swallowed hard and looked at Bill again. I knew what he

wanted me to do, so I did it. "I want to see you again, too, Helen. Just

tell me where and when we can get together."

"How about right now, at your front door?" she said.

Seeing the expression on my face, Bill laughed. I quickly leaned over

and kissed him, then jumped out of the tub and ran through the house,

naked and dripping water. I threw the door open wide, and there she was.

Helen launched herself through the door, wrapping her arms around my

neck as we both tumbled to the floor. After smothering me in kisses, she

pulled her head back and looked into my eyes for a long moment, then she

slapped my face. Although it barely hurt, it was definitely a slap, and

it really surprised me. "Now we're even, and we'll never mention it

again," she said. I started to speak, but she put her fingers to my lips

and said, "Never again." I smiled up at her and nodded my agreement,

then gently pulled her beautiful face to mine for a long, tender kiss.

That was last night. Now I'm trying to add this final paragraph, but

Helen and Bill won't leave me alone, I feel lips and warm breath on my

neck, and hands everywhere. It's getting really hard to concentrate, so

I'll just say goodbye, and thanks for reading our story.

-- THE END --