On The Rebound

I grabbed Don from behind, "Get out of here before someone calls the cops on you for abuse and you get sued for everything you're worth." He spun violently. My words sunk into his slow brain by the time he was facing me. Don threw his drink and stormed past me. I knew Helen would not be able to walk for a while. Lots of years playing baseball with pain from twisted ankles and hyper-extended knees told me that. I stuck my head back into the ballroom and hailed Jack, one of my dearest friends, "Jack, get Helen's coat, purse and whatever she brought. Don kicked the hell out of her. I'll carry her through the next vacant section of the ballroom and meet you at the elevators."

With Jack's and his wife's help, I loaded Helen in my car and drove to my place. They followed. Alice helped Helen clean-up and get into some comfortable clothing left behind by my ex. Jack rambled, "I've known Don for four years. I knew he was rough and a womanizer but I didn't think he would go off like that."

Alice called me when they were ready. I carried Helen back to the den and we all talked by the fire for an hour until Jack and Alice left. Alice's parting words to Helen and me were, "I'm no nurse, but that leg needs to be checked out by a doctor." As I walked them to the door, she leaned to put her mouth next to my ear and whispered, "Helen has a lot of bruises, some on her neck."

Helen is my age but she seemed like a little girl in my arms when I carried her back into the guest bedroom, tucked her in for the night and gave her a vicodin left in one of Connie's old pill bottles. Fleetingly, I thought about Eve and how her great nursing talents would be helpful tonight.

Helen must have been emotionally exhausted; she had not drunk much the night before but she slept until eleven the next day. I heard her trying to get up to go to the in-suite bathroom with some urgency. Her leg would not hold her weight. She was crying in pain, frustration and heartache. She endured me carrying her, standing her, removing her panties and helping her sit with her badly swollen, bruised leg extended out in front of her. While she did her duties, I called my personal doctor and weekly racquetball partner at home, to beg for an early Monday appointment that would not generate all the looks and paperwork that an emergency room visit would.

Dr. Carter Young and his wife were frequent dinner guests at my house. Carter loved my mysteries and Ann had been a friend of my wife. After x-rays and a CT scan, we went back to see him in his fifth floor office at OHSU, "Helen, you have some badly extended tendons in your knee. I don't see anything broken and I believe your knee will be all right without surgery. You are light enough that your body will not stress your knee too much while it heals. Healing will take a while. You have a bad bruise. Your knee will be stiff and sore. Try to flex it for exercise but keep most of your weight off it for a couple of weeks." At that point, Carter asked me to leave for a few minutes. I knew he had to ask her about being abused. I knew, he would do his duty in disclosing whatever he had to by Oregon law.

When I was summoned back, Carter talked to me, "Tom, Helen has no place to go. All her clothing and personal items are at a Mr. Dillon's house. Do you want me to have our patient services people arrange for a local women's shelter to house Helen for a while?"

"Until last night, Helen and I had never met. Still, I live in a big house and enjoy company. Helen, until you can work something out, you are welcomed to stay with me. I'll understand if you tell me that you may feel safer at a shelter."

Her admission hurt her pride and tears rolled down her cheeks, "I don't have a job or family nearby. I don't have much but what I have is at Don's. You have a beautiful home but I don't want to be a burden."

Finally, I put together all the signs and signals. Helen needed strength, to serve and to follow. In her life, she had never found what she needed. Maybe she didn't even know. However, she had found at least one relationship where a "Lifestyle" pretender abused her. She had stayed and been abused because she had no options and, yet, there was strength, even if it was abusive strength.

"Helen, there is no rush to decide anything today. Come home with me, rest and recover. We'll get whatever you need and I'll arrange to get all your things brought over from Don's."

She started to say something about how mad he would get but I stopped her before Carter pulled the cops in. "Let me take care of things. Just trust me. If I can't do it, we'll try another way."

Before we left the hospital parking lot, I called Jack, "We need a favor."

"Anything."

"Get to Don; tell him the situation and that, so far, no reports have been filed against him. However, all the ugly bruise pictures and hospital reports were prepared during her visit today. The gist of it all is, we think, Helen will heal ok. She can't walk right now and will be staying at my house. Let him know who he is dealing with and that I have an army of overpaid and under worked attorneys at my disposal. I insist that everything that belongs to Helen be delivered to my house today, even if it's midnight. Everything better be in good shape or it will cost him a fortune."

Jack started to talk, "That's really quick, I'm sure he is at work.........."

"His kick was pretty quick too. Our day at the hospital was pretty quick too. I'm pissed. Tell the asshole to expect a few thousand in medical expenses. He does exactly what I said or by tomorrow, he'll be visited by the police and will be front page news with pictures. I'll help write the story."

Helen was very quiet. Jack knew when to be quiet and when to do exactly what I asked.

After ten p.m., a U-Haul van was buzzed through the security gate and two men unloaded eight good sized boxes, a flat screen television and a dressing table into the room where Helen was staying. Don was not one of the delivery men.

I called Jack, "Thanks for the help. I'm sure knowing that she has not lost her things will make Helen feel a little better." Jack offered to help in any way. I thanked him again.

Helen's leg was now swollen to the size of one of mine from below her knee into her ass cheek. The entire area was a ugly black bruise. She was in pain, yet she tried to help in the kitchen when I made us breakfast Tuesday morning. Just by co-incidence, Maria, my house keeper and right arm, had just started two weeks' vacation. I decided to press Helen some.

"Today, I have to write for a while. I want you to be careful and not do too much. Later, I'll help you get some of your things organized and put up. Tonight, if I get you seated in the large walk-in shower in the master bedroom, do you think you can bathe and wash your hair? I'll help you with anything you can't do because of the stiffness and the pain."

"I'm sure I can bathe, if you can get me seated in the shower."

"Make sure you take one of the pain pills that Carter gave you about thirty minutes before your bath. That should help with all the moving about."

Helen wanted to please me. She struggled opening boxes and stacking a few things that she wanted to put into dresser drawers. I guess she had decided to stay for a while.

I put a chair in the large walk-in steam shower. She had a lot more trouble bathing that she thought. I could hear her huffing, puffing and groaning as she tried to stand to wash her backside. We had to get this right from the start. I stripped in front of her. She watched my half hard cock throb. I knelt in front of her, cupping her face to look at me, "Helen, you are a submissive female. I'm a dominant, alpha-male. I have the resources and connections to make things happen that I want to happen. Do you understand that?"

I could see her body recoil from the power I was presenting, point blank, face-to-face. "Tonight, I'm bathing you. You are on opiates; I might have to give you an enema in a few days. Don't make my job difficult."

She stared blankly at me and did not answer. I grasped her clit between my thumb and forefinger and I squeezed. She showed no reaction. I squeezed harder. She winced but still did not respond. She was a sub but she was a pain loving sub. I did not expect that. It was a pleasant surprise.

I squeezed even harder, "Are you listening yet." No response. I twisted her clit; she moaned and said, "Yes."

"You are free to leave; I will help you. While you are here, you will respond to my questions and try to help me when your health allows it. Do we understand each other?"

She delayed her answer until I twisted her clit again. "Yes."

We finished her bath that night without further incident. Things started changing inside me that night. I was still filled with hurt from my wife. Eve's rejection haunted me; I cared about her. Being put down by the likes of Mary Collins reminded me of how I was never good enough as a teenager because my father was and enlisted man and I was not allowed to continue dating an officer's daughter. I remembered when I was nine and my more affluent relatives made me grovel two or three times, for their amusement, to for a second helping of desert at the family reunion. The soft, sensitive, caring understanding that had been my character for half my life seemed foolish. Clearly, I saw my new role. Clearly, I would help, but clearly, those I helped would satisfy me.

For the next couple of weeks, I flirted with my new persona but was not at ease with it. Maria returned from vacation. She is twenty years older than me. She's short but outweighs me and is as wide as she is tall. She has four kids. If there is a husband, I've never met him. She noticed something was different about me on her first day back. She helped with an almost healed Helen. I had wondered, if Helen was milking her injury.

Just as Maria was arriving for work one morning, I was finishing getting Helen's breakfast. Maria muttered something. It took me a while to understand. It was something like, "The bitch can do that herself and serve you, you dumbass."

Privately, I asked Maria about what I had heard. She has been with me long enough to feel comfortable being truthful. "That is about what I said Mr. Gregory. You are a powerful man, but you don't use your power, you let these cunts walk all over you." I was angry but I held my tongue. Maria continued, "Women have babies, they are made to endure pain and hardship, to work hard and sacrifice for their men and their families. You do not see that these women are using you."

I was quiet. My face showed dissatisfaction. Maria folded, "I answered you, Mr. Gregory, because you asked me. I need this job. I'm sorry; I will never voice such a thing again."

That shook me out of my stupor, "Maria, your job is secure; unless you quit telling me the truth and kicking my ass when I need it. I have a weakness that women know how to take advantage of. You might be my only hope at finding happiness with a woman."

She looked very self-satisfied and waddled off to begin stripping the beds and cleaning the house. My male mind felt I should apologize to her that there were not cum stains on the sheets, from more than one woman.

I've read about people who experienced religious epiphanies. To me they seemed like rhetorical conventions to explain a new phase in a person's life that may have taken twenty years to develop. But Maria gave me one. One minute, I thought I had to work to earn a woman's love and caring and I needed to protect her. The next minute, if she did not return my interest, I felt no obligation or desire to pursue her. In my old way of thinking, she still had great value because I made her valuable. In my new way of thinking, she had no value if she did not return my interest and value me. For the first time in my life, I understood my own worth. I am a good man, I am wealthy, I care and I'm a good lover. Why would I devalue that by not demanding the same from my women? This sounds so ridiculous. I've been a Dom for subordinate women, but even then my motivation was only to please them. I still want that, more than anything, but now I saw clearly the only path that could lead to my happiness.

I felt a coldness and a sense of value that I had never felt before. I exercised my new power as I poured Helen's cup of coffee, "Helen, I think your leg is better now. I am not your servant, yet you are taking advantage of me. If you want to stay here for a while, you will have to be worth what you cost me. You'll have to cater to me and be submissive to me. Otherwise, take thirty days and find another Don Dillon to serve."

My writing was aggressive, hard edged and productive. About six, Maria stuck her head in and said she was leaving and handed me my messages for the day. The top one was from Eve.

I called her.

"Tom, I haven't heard from you in a while. How have you been?"

"Book tour, writing and doing the regular stuff, you know the routine. I miss us getting together over dinners and we never did make it to the zoo or anything."

"You didn't call."

"Sweet Thing, I almost begged. I went with you when you asked. I played the fool for you and you rejected my invitations. Maybe you forgot who and what I am. If you want to spend time with me, you have to pursue me at least half as much as I pursue you. I've told you how beautiful and fun you are. In response, you have either driven away from me or asked for a rain check. When you have time for me, call me. I'd love to get to know you better. Sorry, I'm repeating myself; I've already told you that."

The telephone was quiet.

"Eve, I know I've pissed you off. I've also made you important to me. I don't feel that I'm important to you. I truly wish I did. I have to get back to the keyboard. Please, call me in a few days as a friend or date."

Even my ex called that week. I met her, in Grant's Pass. Her life was going downhill. She was gaunt, like she was on meth. She looked pregnant. I always wanted for us to have a family. My blood was cold. We had a pleasant dinner and she wanted to go back to my room. I thought, "What the hell, she's a great fuck." We got to the parking lot. I saw a New York Times' book section on the front seat of her car. It was the edition that contained an article about my new book deal and the pending movie deal. I felt like only a check book again. Like I had done Eve, I pushed her over the hood of her car. This time, I put a lubricated Trojan on, pulled her panties to the side, stared at the Times to stay angry and pushed my cock up her ass. She hated that and screamed at me. I fucked her hard and filled my Trojan. She was screaming at me when I opened the door of her car and handed her the book section. Then she was totally quiet. I drove away.

Helen was still at the house. Over coffee, after dinner, I asked her, "What do you do well enough to help me here?"

I liked her sassy response, "I cook a great breakfast. You can use me anyway you want. I'm a good secretary and a hard worker. You're right, I'm a sub and I like my partner to be a little rough."

I literally ripped her blouse and bra off her. Her eyes sparkled. I pushed her back onto the dining room table, grabbed the gusset of her panties and ripped them off her. I knew she was STD free. I had paid for those tests. I licked her until she was soaking wet and ready to cum. "Show me what you can do with your mouth, your tongue and your hands."

There was no question, Helen was good. I would pay her to stay. When I came, her hands were twisting in opposite directions around the sensitive ridge of my helmet, bathed in her saliva and my pre-cum. She swallowed my offering and pulled my cock for more. She looked at me.

"I fucked my ex earlier. Sorry, there wasn't more for you. Lie back, stay still and stay quiet."

She didn't stay quiet; she didn't lie still and she certainly didn't stay dry. She squirted into my mouth and screamed three times before I finger fucked her to sleep and left her on the table.

I wasn't sure I liked the new me; I showered and got ready for bed that night. Business wise I had been successful but none of my relationships with women had worked out well. Every woman I dated had told me I am a great guy, considerate and giving. My mother must have taught me wrong. Those attributes must be the wrong ones, or at least incomplete.

Helen was much more than a good secretary. She whipped my office, my unsorted stories, my correspondence and my horrible filing into shape in two weeks. Over two months she began to proof read for me. She was indispensable at local book signings. She was often in the background of newspaper photographs. I was asked on camera one day how I kept everything in order. I pulled her forward and gave her all the credit. We had never traveled together, so there weren't any rampant rumors, yet. In fact, we had not played, sexually teased or had sex since she sucked me off and I finger fucked her into unconsciousness on the dining room table.

The night I gave her credit for keeping me organized, I asked her to visit with me in the den. "Helen, you have become a great asset around here. I would like for you to consider staying and being my secretary. We'll negotiate a good salary and I'll expect a lot more from you in terms of interfacing with my editors and answering my mail. Do you want to do that?"

She was blunt, "Will there be more than just work?"

"Such as?"

"I believe you know what I need more than I do. But my needs are frequent."

"What will you do?"

"Anything you want, short of needing hospital trips, broken bones and scars."

"Do you have a gag reflex?"

"No."

"Can you put your feet behind your head?"

"Yes."

"Toys, bondage, some pain, me directing you with another girl, water sports, me taking you in the shower during your period, anal, lots of oral, whatever I want?"

"That's nine questions? Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes."

"Will you work out a Dom/sub contract with me that includes your secretarial duties and you living here? And will you sign a non-disclosure agreement?"

"Yes and Yes."

"If I bring friends, clients or even a woman home will you play any role I tell you and not embarrass me?"

"I'm not fond of the idea of being passed around the guys but if that is what you want from me, then, Yes."

"I generally do not share my treasures. Do you like the whip and restraints?"

"Oh, yes."

"Go into the master bedroom and pull the large black footlocker out of my closet. Look through it. Come back and tell me, if you find anything that will make you change your mind."

Helen was gone for about half an hour. She walked back into the den, totally nude, her right hand was pushing a rotating, rabbit vibrator up her cunt; its little ears flopped wildly against her clit which she kept exposed by pulling at the freshly shaved skin above her pussy with her left hand. My favorite cat-of-nine tails was draped around her neck. Her eyes were challenging me to prove something to her that she had never felt, but still, after so many hurts, believed was possible.

I met her in the middle of the floor, "Keep doing exactly what you are doing." I took her face tenderly in my hands and kissed her softly and passionately. "Give me your tongue." I sucked hard and swallowed the wetness from her mouth. I grasped both ends of my whip and twisted it. She pulled back and took her tongue from me. I twisted tighter. At first her eyes showed fear but they saw knowing demand in mine. If I kept holding the whip this tight she would strangle. Still she relaxed and gave me her tongue back. "Close your eyes." I relaxed the whip's noose around her neck and made love to her mouth with mine until the rabbit began to win.

"Do you agree that your climaxes are mine?"

Her body trembled, tensed and she struggled not to cum.