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Tales of the Cabal: Protecting the Mistress
by Tigger
Copyright 1998, All Rights Reserved.

Archiving and reposting of this work is permitted only on
sites where *no* fee (including so-called adult checks) of any
type is charged and provided that my authorship, the story
itself and this statement of rights are included and are
unchanged.

This story is based on the Cabal as I developed it in one of
my first stories, "Domination Games."  This story is archived
at the Nifty Archive.

Url:  www.nifty.org/nifty/transgender/by_authors/Tigger/

The file is Domination-Games.html

***********

Protecting the Mistress
by Tigger

Part 2: The Damsel's Distress

Tension was a living thing between them as moments passed,
mostly in strained silence.  Normal pleasantries and small
talk seemed impossible.  

"It is very hard to hold a conversation by myself, Gerry."
Mary finally said as she set aside the untouched cup of
cooling tea.  "And I guess that, along with the fact that you
can't seem to put enough physical distance between us tells me
what I came here to find out."  She stood, her face firmly
set.  She'd cry afterwards - after she was safely away from
here.  "I won't bother you again."

She was leaving he thought.  God, he didn't want her to leave.
He wanted her to stay . . . forever, but he'd lost the right
to ask for that.  Still, he had to know. "Mary?" her name came
out without conscious thought.  Uncertainty written on her
pretty features, she turned back to look at him.  "Why are you
here?  What is it that you want badly enough to chance being
in the same room with me?  Hell, I am surprised I am not in
jail for what I did to you.  I don't know how you can stand to
be near me.  How you can feel at all safe being near me."

Mary seemed to consider that for a few moments, and then sat
back down.  She took a sip from her tea and grimaced at the
lukewarm liquid.  Finally she took a deep breath.  "You are
not in jail because what happened was at least partially, if
not mostly, my fault.  I was the Domme.  It is my
responsibility to see to your safety when you are in my
keeping.  Obviously," she said sardonically, "You did not feel
safe and you tried to protect yourself."

"I almost killed you, dammit!  I hurt you - *really* hurt
you." 

"Yes, you did," Mary agreed softly.  "I still don't know quite
what happened.  One minute you were chained to the floor, and
the next second I am on my back trying to break your grip on
my throat."  Her hand went unconsciously up to touch her neck. 
"Gerry?  What did happen that night?  How did you get loose? 
If it was so hard for you, why didn't you use your safe word? 
Hell, why did you even agree to the scene?  All you had to do
was say no when I told you to ask me . . . to ask me to take
you anally." 

Unable to meet her eyes, Gerald dropped his gaze to the tea
cup he held in his lap.  "I don't know what happened myself. 
Not all of it, anyway.  It was like you said.  One second I am
handling it, telling myself over and over again that I was
okay, that I could do it. And the next thing I remember is
Richard dragging me off you.  One instant I was rationally
capable of consent and then I wasn't rational or consenting. 
There wasn't any transition.  Not that I can remember."  He
took a swallow of his tea to try and settle the roiling in his
stomach.  "As to how I got free?  Evidently over time, those
wood screws got worked back and forth, weakening the contact
with the wood.  When I blew, I ripped the eye-bolt right out
of the floor."

Mary looked at him pensively for several moments.  "Have you
ever had that kind of explosive, sudden and uncontrollable
rage before?"

"Do you think if I thought, for even one goddamned second,
that I was capable of something like . . . like that," the
last word a vile epithet, "That I would have endangered you by
letting you push my buttons that way?  I have *never*
experienced anything like that before."

"So.  Then it must have been Richard, or the surprise of
Richard coming into the scene.  But he's played with us
before, Gerry?  Why was this different?"

"I don't know." The response was flatly final.

"Speculate, please, Gerry."

"The very last thing I remember was that last plug being
removed and then something else prodding me there.  Oh, and
Richard's voice."

"You thought that I was going to give you to Richard." Mary
said tonelessly, her eyes vague and unfocused as she tried to
absorb that.  "I see."

She started to stand again.  "Well, I guess that puts paid to
what I hoped to accomplish tonight."

"WAIT!"  Gerald all but shouted as he stood and reached out to
stop her from leaving.  "What does that mean?"

A sad smile curled her lips as she shook her head to him. 
"It's something, Gerry, that I do not have the right to ask of
you.  It is too much to ask after what I put you through."

"Dammit, Mary.  You cannot just drop something like that and
then leave."

"It is my problem, Gerry. I will handle it."

Anger flaring, Gerald blocked the door.  "A problem you
evidently thought I could help you with and that was important
enough to you that its solution would drive you to face me and
the potential danger I must represent to you.  I think I
deserve to know what I could do to help . . .  " his voice
broke. "To make at least a partial amends for what I did to
you that night."

"I said I would deal with it, Gerald," for the first time
sounding like the stern, demanding domina he remembered. She
only called him "Gerald" when she was really angry with him.
"And in case it has slipped your notice, I wasn't the one who
spent the whole evening hiding on the far side of the room.  I
have nothing to fear from you."

"How can you *say* that??" he cried.

"Because it is true," was the quietly confident response.

"If that is true, then you have to let me help you.  You
*have* to, dammit," because I still love you, his mind cried.

She seemed to consider that for a very long time, before
shrugging slightly.  She went back into his living room, and
sat back down, this time in a seat much closer to where he'd
been seated earlier. With obvious effort, Gerald forced
himself to walk straight to the chair nearest her.

But she did not say anything - at least not immediately. 
Instead, she studied him for several minutes.  Finally she
spoke. "I am being tried this weekend at the Mountain Lodge,
Gerry.  As it stands right now, I will be expelled from the
Cabal during those proceedings."

Her words stunned Gerald.  The Cabal was a sort of dominance
and submission private social club.  Located on a remote
estate high in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Cabal's Mountain
Lodge retreat was unique in his experience.  Every guest room
could be either a luxurious boudoir or a full featured dungeon
playroom to suit the desires or inclinations of the room's
occupants. 

Mary had taken Gerald up there several times during what he
still thought of as their courtship, always registering
herself as a Domme.  During his first visit, she'd let him
register as an official switch, a designation that freed him
of the more rigid conventions imposed on the visitors who
registered as submissives.  He had, however, been treated to
most of those conventions the next time she'd taken him there.

"Expelled? But why?  I thought you were one of the founders? 
That you were on their ruling Council?"

"I am a founder, and I was on the ruling Council.  I was
removed from the Council pending the investigation of my
crime."

"Your crime?" Gerald asked, wondering what she could have
possibly done to merit such a punishment.

"I hurt you." She said simply.  "Evidently, I went so far over
the line that your fight or flight reaction was to attack me. 
That means that in trying to stretch your limits, I must have
shattered them.  That is one of the unforgivable crimes under
the Cabal Charter."

"Bullshit.  There was nothing you did that was precluded in
our negotiations, and besides - who accused you? Not me!"

"There are limits, and there are limits, Gerry. I knew that
you did not want to do that scene.  It was a limit even though
you had never said you wouldn't do it.  And bringing Richard
into such an emotionally difficult situation was another grave
error on my part." Mary shook her head in self disgust.  "I
thought I might need his muscle to get you over the hump once
you had, however reluctantly, agreed to my plans.  In
hindsight I can see that if I was truly worried that I would
need his strength, I shouldn't have undertaken the scene. That
would have meant that neither of us were ready.  I pushed too
hard, too quickly and I hurt you far worse than you hurt me."

"Still, nobody has the right to accuse you of anything
associated with that scene but me and I did not!" he growled
angrily.

"There was another involved in the scene, Gerry.  He felt
that, ethically, he was obligated to bring the incident before
the Cabal.  I don't hold it against him, Gerry.  In fact, I
agreed with his action.  He had to do it."

"He better hope he doesn't run into me, damn his soul.  It is
my business, not his, and I do not want you diminished by my
failure."  He fell silent as he entertained a brief fantasy of
Richard bruised and bleeding at his feet. And it was only her
word against his.  What did *that* mean?  "Why is it going to
court?  He's the only witness, other than me.  His accusations
are unsubstantiated."

A half grin flickered at her mouth. "I was there, Gerry, and I
substantiated his claim."

"Well, I don't, damn it."  Then something occurred to him. 
"Is that why you came?  To get me to come testify at the
hearing?"

With solemn dignity, Mary nodded. "I had hoped that you could
give some mitigating circumstances - something that might get
the sentence reduced from expulsion to a suspension."  She
gave a self-deprecating smile.  "I had even allowed myself to
daydream that you might get it down to a probationary period. 
BUT," she sighed.  "You don't seem to have anything to say
that would help me."

"I'll lie." The words were out before he could stop himself. 
Then he realized that he meant them.  "I won't have you
diminished because of me."

"No lying, Gerry.  I still have enough integrity that I won't
permit you to perjure yourself on my behalf."

"Then let me go as a character witness.  They have to listen
to me!"

"You'd do that for me?  Go back to the Lodge with me?"

"That's where the trial is being held?" he asked hesitantly.
"Do I have to register as a submissive?  As your submissive?"

Her heart lurched at the evident anxiety the mere thought of
being submissive to her engendered in him.  She strove to
relieve that fear.  She *needed* him.  "No, you don't register
at all.  This is not a play weekend. This will be a special
extraordinary meeting of the Council and that is all - no
playing allowed before or after the trial.  And until the
Council rules, I am not allowed to register myself - period. 
Not dominant, not submissive, not even as a switch."

"But. . . .but why?  Aren't you innocent until proven guilty?"

"No, because of the potential harm an abusive dominant can do
to a submissive.  Until I am either cleared or serve my
sentence, I have no rights at the Lodge.  I will be escorted
to and from my room, and I will not be allowed to move freely
about the compound.  In your case, I suspect they will allow
you to do much the same, but without restricting you to your
quarters."

"When?" he demanded.

"This weekend.  The hearing is to be held Saturday afternoon. 
I will be going up on Friday night.  You could follow me in
your own car, if you want the freedom to leave at will."

"I hear a but in that sentence, Mary.  What is it?"

"Well, if we arrive separately, I don't know how that will be
perceived by the Council members.  They might take it to mean
that you don't trust me which might give them cause to
question anything you say on my behalf."  At his look of
disbelief, she went on.  "This in not a real court of law,
Gerry.  They can and will take circumstantial evidence and
their own perceptions into account.  If you say I am
trustworthy, but wouldn't drive with me . . ." she let her
voice trail away.

"What time will you pick me up?"

"I would like to be there by ten p.m., and it is a three-hour
drive.  Between six and seven?"

"I will be ready," was all he allowed himself to say.

Mary nodded, stood and moved quickly to his front door.  She
opened it and then turned back to face him one last time. 
"Thank you, Gerry, for offering.  It means a lot to me. 
However, if after thinking about this some more you decide you
can't or don't want to testify for me, I will understand. 
Good night."  My love, she thought, and then she slipped out
the door.

"Drive safely." He called after her.  Beloved, he thought.

End Part 2


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