The Agreement (29 page)

The dive itself was pretty cool, even if half of
it was spent just getting used to the equipment, trying out various safety
procedures, and practicing. Finally, we took the boat out a bit near a line of
corals and we all dove down and spent time just swimming over them, exploring
them and all the sea life they held.

After about half an hour, we returned to the
marina and when it came time to get the suit off, it proved just as hard to get
off as on. I struggled alone with the zipper for a while in the change room,
not saying anything. Finally, my father called to me.

"Sweetie? Do you need some help?"

"Yes," I said. "Its just as hard
to unzip."

Drake came in and took hold of the zipper and
gave it a few good yanks, but to no avail. We tried every imaginable way to
make the zipper budge but nothing. The instructor came in with some oil and
drizzled it over the zipper, but that did nothing to help matters, just made my
hands and Drake's hands all slippery.

Drake was in his board shorts and sandals, his
chest bare. Dad and Elaine were back in their street clothes, and there I was,
in that old worn suit that was too small in the bust, and I was starting to get
really hot.

"Phew," I said and waved my face with
a hand. "I'm getting hot."

"We need to get you out of this,"
Drake said, his brow furrowed.

"Is everything all right in there?" my
father called out.

Drake went out, leaving me in the change room.

"There's a problem with the zipper. It'll
take a bit but we may have to cut her out of the suit. Why don’t you two go
back to the hotel and we'll meet you back there for a drink before
dinner?"

My father agreed. "I'll send the limo back.
Are you sure everything's all right?"

 "No problem," I heard Drake say.

Meanwhile, I was starting to seriously sweat, a
trickle of moisture running down the back of my neck and forehead.

Drake and the instructor came in and both took
turns yanking on the zipper, but to no avail. Then just when the instructor was
going to get a pair of scissors to start cutting me out of the suit, Drake was
able to get the zipper down about six inches, right below my bust.

"Maybe you should take the top off so you
can cool off," Drake said. I tried to pull the arms off but it was too
tight, the zipper not down far enough.

"
Goddammit
," he said,
frustration in his voice. I held the top of the suit and he pulled and jerked
it but nothing.

"I'm feeling a bit faint," I said, the
sweat now running down my neck and face.

"
Christ
," he said, his voice
low. "We have to cut you out of this –
now
."

The instructor brought the pair of scissors but
they weren't up to the job and so they had to find a box cutter. The instructor
went out to his truck for a tool box, searching through his tools for one.
Luckily, Drake was a surgeon and was as good with box cutter as he was a
scalpel. He was able to cut around the zipper and down to my crotch, peeling
the suit off me. I wobbled a bit from dizziness, and just about fainted. Once
the suit was off, they had to lay me on a bench in the equipment room. The
instructor brought in a fan and Drake poured water over me, and in a few
minutes, my heart stopped beating so fast and my hearing started to recover.
But I lay there in my lacy bra and underwear, soaked through to the skin, my
pubic hair and nipples visible through the sheer wet lace.

I was too sick to be very mortified, and the
instructor just kept his eyes averted as Drake fanned me and held a cool cloth
to my forehead.

When I was finally cool enough, I sat up and
just rested for a moment, to make sure I didn’t faint when I stood up. The
instructor brought me a bottle of fruit juice and some ice cold water and soon,
I was feeling better. I put my sundress on over my wet bra and panties and
Drake and I left the marina as another group of hopeful trainees entered the
building.

We took the limo back to the hotel, and Drake
pulled me into his embrace while we drove back.

"You scared me," he said, running his
fingers through my hair, which was starting to dry. "You were overheating
and could have developed hyperthermia if we hadn’t gotten you out of the suit.
Plus, you have quite a sunburn."

"I'm just glad it's over. I thought I was
going to faint."

"You almost did."

He tilted my head up and kissed me, softly, and
I felt completely protected and cared for.

"I feel really tired," I said once we
were back at the hotel. We went up to my room and my father and Elaine came
right into the room through the adjoining door.

"What took you so long?" my father
said.

"We had trouble with the suit and had to
cut Kate out of it. She overheated a bit."

"Is she OK?"

Drake nodded. "She just needs to rest. Get
some more fluids into her."

My father came over to where I lay on the bed.
"Maybe you should stay in your room for dinner. Drake can order something
in for you. They could send up some turkey and fixings."

I nodded. I felt incredibly fatigued as if I'd
just survived an ordeal. I didn’t want to go to the dining room.

"I'll just stay here and watch TV."

Drake put his hand on my father's arm.

"I'll make sure she's all right. She needs
to just rest. We can order something from room service when she gets hungry.
You two go ahead."

My father and Elaine came by and kissed me on
the cheek and then left us alone.

"I'm hungry," he said, checking out
the menu. "What would you like to eat? Do you really want turkey? Or
something local, fresh?"

I shook my head. "Whatever you want. I'm
just going to close my eyes for a bit."

I heard him talking on the phone, his voice
soft. Then he came over and sat beside me on the bed. He took my wrist and felt
my pulse and then leaned down and kissed my forehead.

"Just rest a bit. I'll watch some
headlines."

He stretched out on the bed beside me and turned
on the television, switching channels until he found the international news. I
closed my eyes and just drifted, the sound of some news anchor's voice lulling
me into a pleasant dreamlike state.

I woke up to find Drake spooned against me, his
arm around me, his hand flat under my left breast. I rolled over onto my back
and he adjusted himself, his eyes a bit sleepy. He kept his hand on my breast.

"You like keeping your hand there?" I
said, and smiled.

"I was just taking your pulse, making sure
you were OK."

"Yeah,
right
…"

"Seriously," he said, his face
poker-straight. "You overheated. I wanted to make sure you were all right.
I was feeling your apical pulse, just under your left breast."

"Oh," I said, feeling a bit silly.
"I didn't realize doctors did that."

He leaned in, grinning and nuzzled my neck.
"No, you sweet thing, I was just kidding. I just like squeezing your
lovely breast. But I did also feel your pulse and it was perfect. I
could
have felt it here," he said, slipping his hand down my body from my pubes
to my inner thigh. "It's called the femoral pulse, but I thought that
might be a bit dangerous…"

Just then there was a knock at the door. Drake
jumped up. "That's room service with our meal."

He opened the door and a waiter came in with a
cart covered in white linen, with several dishes covered with metal domes to
keep the food warm. Drake signed for the bill and gave the waiter a tip. When
we were alone, he lifted the domes and examined the food.

"What did you order?"

"Fresh fish and vegetables, some salad. Not
much of a turkey man. Hope you're hungry, because I sure am."

My stomach did feel empty as I sat up, watching
Drake as he arranged our table, setting out the dishes and pulling the chairs
into proper position.

"Come," he said, motioning to the
food. "You need some food in you, get your blood sugar up. I'm going to
keep you busy tonight and you need your strength."

That sent a rush of desire through me. "You
have it all planned out?"

"You know it."

He pulled a chair out and motioned to me so I
got up and smoothed my hair and my sundress and sat beside him. Then, he
proceeded to feed me my meal, the fish delicious and cooked in some very simple
herbs.

"Do you always feed your subs?"

"I don't usually eat meals with my subs,
but I enjoy looking after them."

"Why?" I asked as he spooned some rice
pilaf into my mouth. "Why don't you eat with them?"

"The relationship is just about sex."

"Eating is too personal?"

He nodded. "But I like taking care of a
sub's needs.
All
of them. It also reinforces my dominance, which is
necessary for submission to work. A sub needs to feel totally cared for, totally
safe and cherished if she's going to submit completely. That, your complete
submission, is what I want."

I let him feed me, enjoying the look of pleasure
on his face as he did.

"Have you figured out why you want a
woman's complete submission?" I said and watched him eat. "I imagine,
given your training, you'd have some theories..."

He shrugged a shoulder and cut up some fish,
picked a piece and held the fork up to me. "I need control. I
love
having a woman completely under my control."

"What does that control give you?"

"When she's tied up completely, willingly,
waiting for me to do what I want to her, I am," he said and paused, taking
in a deep breath. "Completely
satisfied
. It also makes me
incredibly hard. Hearing her moans of pleasure, seeing her response to my
touch, my words? Nothing else can get me off as well. But it's that she
wants
it, that she
chooses
it, that she trusts me completely to have her under
my control that gets me off."

"Lara said she taught you to top someone.
You can't get off if the woman takes control?"

He chewed his food for a moment, his head tilted
to one side.

"I can, and did when Lara topped me. I
actually tried out pain, but it did nothing for me personally, either giving or
receiving. Lara even got me subs who were painsluts to see if I enjoyed it, but
it did nothing for me. I always felt bad for damaging such lovely flesh. A
surgeon is used to cutting into the body, but it’s always to heal, fix,
improve. We create wounds, yes, but the patient never feels pain while we do it
and we pride ourselves on a patient who experiences the least pain possible
post-op. I'm curious about sadists and masochists, but in an entirely clinical
way, not sexual."

He stopped and looked at me pointedly. "You
don't have to worry. There isn't a sadist hiding inside of me, waiting to get
out. I had ample opportunity to see if there was, and no."

"I'm not worried."

"Good. Don’t
ever
be."

I sighed. If only Dawn could understand…

"What was that sigh about?"

I shook my head. "I just wish this person could
understand, Drake. I can't see that they ever will. They had a very traumatic
experience and that's made them unable to understand. You and I? We can want
each other and be good for each other, satisfy each other's kinks, but this
will always be dangerous for you. You have to really think seriously about
this. We'll have to really be extremely careful if we carry on when we get back
to Manhattan."

"
If
we carry on? You mean,
when
we carry on back in Manhattan. I'm not giving up on you that easily. I have yet
to plumb your depths, Kate. I want to plumb them. See how deep you go."

That made me very warm, the thought he wanted to
take me as far as I could go.

We finished up the meal and I felt perfectly
satisfied.

"Let's go for a walk along the beach now that
the sun is down," Drake said.

I put on my sandals and we went out to the
beach, the last rays of the sun orange-yellow on the ocean waves. The air was
markedly cooler and it felt good on my sunburnt skin.

We walked along and he told me about his band.

"Just a bunch of guys from college,"
he said, his arm around my shoulder. "We started to play during our Junior
year and never stopped. We found our niche and even though we're older than
most bands, we enjoy playing."

"I'd like to hear you some day, or is that
also off-limits for your subs?"

He said nothing for a moment, watching the ocean
as we stood in an embrace.

"You may not like our music."

"Retro-psychedelic rock?" I said,
forcing a smile, feeling a bit hurt that he'd have to think about it.
"British Invasion? I heard you talking to my dad at the concert. I like
some of it. I've heard my father play it before on those Oldie Goldie satellite
radio stations. I don't have to hear you play, if it makes you
uncomfortable."