The Collectors (19 page)

As I turned to leave I heard her say, “No you’re not.”

“What?”

Heather had a smug smile on her face as she sat in her chair and picked up a glass of wine. I was about to question her when Veronica came into the room.

“Listen up,” she said, as everyone turned their attention to her. “The voting is complete and they are waiting for us downstairs. Nan, will you come forward?”

Nan looked a little confused, but went to stand in front of Veronica while the rest of the women started to line up behind her.

“Wait a minute,” I said, walking up to stand next to Nan. “Don’t forget me.”

Veronica looked stricken. “I’m not forgetting you, Laura. But you have to stay here. You’ve been blackballed.”

The others gasped. My jaw dropped open, but nothing came out of my mouth. All I could think about was Jeanne and what this meant to her. I bolted toward the door.

“Wait!” Veronica cried. “You can’t go out there.”

I was already out the door, running down the long hallway toward the main house to find Jeanne. I saw Pat enter the hallway. She grabbed me as I tried to race by her. My robe was open in front, the tie having come loose during my sprint. Pat took me by the elbow and into a nearby room. I could hear the submissives starting to move down the hallway on their way to the basement dungeon.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked. I was gripping Pat’s arm.

“Jesus, I don’t know. Revolution, I guess. The vote came in unanimously for Nan, and blackballed for you. Jeanne asked for an open vote and it turned out there were five voting against you. It wasn’t just Kevin.”

“Oh, god. That’s really not a vote against me, is it?”

“No. Definitely not. They were voting against Jeanne and she knew it.”

“Where is she? I have to go to her.”

Pat tied my robe and adjusted it at my shoulders. “I don’t know. She ran out of the room after the vote. I was just going out to look for her.”

“I’m going too. Let’s split up. I’ll go to the boat house; you go toward the barn.”

Pat handed me a flashlight and we went out a side door, away from where the others could see us. I didn’t know if all the other doms were downstairs, or whether some of them were out there looking for Jeanne also. I wished I had something more than slippers, a robe, and a flashlight. Maybe a pitchfork. Isn’t that what they carry during revolutions?

My search didn’t take long. As soon as I entered the boat house, even before I turned the flashlight on her, I could feel Jeanne’s presence. She was sitting behind the steering wheel, her hand resting on top of it as if she were lazily guiding the boat through open water.

“That didn’t take long,” she said.

“You don’t sound surprised to see me.”

“I’m not. Mrs. Kirchberger is on the roof and she texted me you were approaching.” She pointed at her phone sitting on her lap.

“Mrs. Kirchberger is on the roof?”

“I can’t ever seem to shake her. I’ve just grown to live with it.”

I stared at her. Jeanne’s life was bizarre. It was fully dawning on me how different everything was in her world. It was also dawning on me how lonely she was.

“She has your back, that’s for certain,” I said. I climbed into the boat and sat next to her. “What will she do if someone unfriendly approaches?”

“Depends. If they look threatening, I imagine she’ll pick them off with her rifle.”

“Now you’re pulling my leg.”

“Am I? We’ll see.”

We sat quietly for a bit.

“Are you mad about me not making it into the membership?”

Jeanne looked at me in dismay. “I’m not mad at you, for heaven’s sake. No one would ever imagine you would be blackballed. This doesn’t have anything to do with you.” She took her jacket off and gave it to me. I was freezing in my silk robe.

“It’s hard not to take it personally. I understand it was more than one vote against me.”

“That’s why I know it’s not just someone’s jealousy or quirk. There’s no reason multiple people would be against your membership. This has to do with me.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s what I spent the day trying to find out, with only a bit of success. It looks like there’s a group who think the Society should be run along democratic principles, its rules should be formulated by committee, and on and on like that.”

I was quiet again. It was hard to argue with what the dissenters were asking. Most organizations in this country would follow that model.

“What do you think?” I asked.

Jeanne had the good sense to smile. “It never even entered my mind. To tell you the truth, I started this group and just made things up along the way. It all seemed to work fine—until it didn’t. Maybe I’m not a democratic sort.”

“Still, they could have talked to you about it before blackballing me. What are we going to do now?”

Jeanne pulled me on to her lap. “I think you and I will just sneak up to our rooms and have our own fun. I’ll figure out what to say to everyone during the meeting tomorrow.”

She nuzzled me for a bit before we climbed out of the boat. As we walked up to the house I looked back and saw a figure in black climbing down the ladder from the boat house roof. It looked like Mrs. K. actually did have a rifle in her hands. I bet she could field-strip a six-point buck and have the steaks on the grill that night. And it struck me like a bolt that the other thing Mrs. K. couldn’t do without a tongue was taste food, a horror I hadn’t even considered before. She was largely incomprehensible to me.

I also couldn’t help but marvel at how well Jeanne seemed to be taking this rebuff by her fellow doms. I knew she was used to having her own way.

“Are you upset?” I asked.

Jeanne took my hand when we reached the top of the stairs and walked across the lawn toward the brightly lit house. “Strangely, I’m not. I don’t get it, really. I’ve given this organization everything—my time, my money, my best thinking, my property. And when the vote was returned it felt like I’d been kicked in the teeth. But then I thought about how a lot of things have happened lately that seemed to be telling me I might not be as in charge of things as I thought.”

“Like what?”

“Like this little
coup d’état
. Like losing a couple of bids on paintings I’ve planned a long time to buy and was sure I would get for exactly what I wanted to pay for them.”

She stopped walking and turned toward me.

“But the thing that has rattled my cage more than anything else is you.”

I bit my tongue. There were so many ways I could fuck things up. I kept quiet.

“You’re the first true submissive I’ve ever fallen in love with.”

I gasped a little, but still didn’t speak.

“And the more I fall in love, the more I find your submission the most thrilling I’ve experienced in my life, and your participation in my life the most fulfilling. I call all the shots, but somehow I am aware it’s because you allow me to, and the shots I call seem to all have your wishes taken into consideration. It’s all very different.”

“And that’s unsettling to you?” I asked.

“Deeply.”

“We can be discombobulated together. I’m discovering a new me since I started spending time with you and it’s exhausting. I know I’m in love with you, a whole new and different sort of love.”

She got a scared look in her eye again, so foreign in Jeanne. She started walking again.

“Are you going to freak out every time I tell you how I feel about you?” I asked. “You can tell me not to do it.”

“No. That’s not it. Just don’t expect me to get all lovey-dovey.”

“I won’t.”

She stopped again. “Let’s go home. Tonight. Mrs. K. can stay and see the rest of the group doesn’t trash the house or anything. Pat will be here. I think I just want to be with you. For right now, anyway.”

We walked into the house and slipped up the stairs. We couldn’t hear what was going on downstairs in the dungeon, but my mind’s eye had a good look. I hoped it wouldn’t be too long before Jeanne mended fences with the Society and we were welcomed back in. Somehow, I knew it wouldn’t be. But for right now, just the two of us together was more than enough.

Lesley Gowan has published several novels and many stories under a different name and in a different genre. This is her first book length work of erotica. She can be contacted at [email protected].

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