A Bad Scene, Part 2
by Tigger
Copyright 1996

This is a work of adult fiction, intended for adults who enjoy
stories of this nature, and who read them knowingly within the
existing laws of their locality.  Anyone not meeting all the
above criteria should exit this file, now.



Chapter 3: The Black Bag

     I was breathing hard against the anger evoked by those
memories when I arrived at the apartment building. The exercise
of lugging the weighty bag up to my rooms helped burn off some of
the adrenaline and piqued my curiosity.  What could be so very
heavy?  Before I could open it, the phone rang again - it was
Jeanne letting me know she had arrived home safely.  "I am sorry
for breaking down like that, Mark.  You caught me by surprise."

     "It's okay, babe.  I should have told you sooner.  Are you
going to be all right?"

     I heard a watery chuckle.  "I hope to be soon, Mark."  A
long, deep breath whispered through the earpiece.  "Mark?  Have
you opened the bag?

     "Not yet.  I was just about to when you called."

     "Okay.  Do it soon, please.  And Mark?"  I answered her with
a grunt."  I want to apologize for that last scene.  I never got
a chance to before now."

     Puzzled, I asked, "Why?  Why apologize and why did you do
that to me? It was a negotiated hard limit and I safeworded.  I
did not use the caution word."   

     "I know it was," was the almost whisper at the other end of
the line, "Vera felt that, given the way you reacted to any
discussion of that type of play, it had to be something you
really wanted, but felt you should not do.  We thought that if we
treated your initial safewording as if it was a yellow light, you
might be able to relax and let go.  You might have been able to
let it happen, and let yourself enjoy it."

     Anger flared anew.  "Dammit, it was a safeword and I trusted
you - both of you - to honor that."  

     She broke into a sob.  "I know, Mark." her voice broke
again.  "I know.  And I could not regret it more.  What ever it
takes, what ever you demand, I will do to make this up to you, to
help you forgive me.  Look in the bag, my love. Je t'aime
beaucoups, cheri."

     She hung up before I could decide how, or rather if, I
should answer.  There wasn't any question that I loved her. 
Hell, I'd exiled myself from her to protect her.  Frowning at
that thought, I slid the black bag in front of my chair and
opened it.  Amazed at what I found, I simply stared into the case
for several heartbeats.

     The case contained what had to be every kinky sex toy Jeanne
and I owned.  Slowly, one by one, I removed each one from the
bag, and remembered ....

     The dildo harness with the long, thin vibrating anal probe
on the outside, and the vibrating pussy plug on the other. 
Jeanne had used that toy to replay an anal sex scenario from the
book, Exit to Eden - a scenario in which Lisa the Perfectionist
screwed her lover's ass.  I had never told Jeanne, but that time
with her was not the first time someone had done that to me, and
that it was as close to safewording as I had come to at that
point in our relationship.  Instead, I had swallowed my panic,
and had concentrated on remembering who I was with, on
remembering who was *loving* me.  That night, she'd eventually
wrung an orgasm out of me that had left me reeling and
lightheaded.  The following night I extracted one of my few
sexually oriented quid pro quo's.  She was the one strung up by
her wrists getting her tush reamed.  It *had* been her first
time, but I had not needed a dildo.  She'd cum, too.  I'd
insisted on it.

     Then there was the locking belt and harness set that she
used to stop me from removing female panties and undies she would
sometimes have me wear under my suit to work.

     The realistic, lifelike sex toys she used to train me in
'fellatio', while threatening to make me do it for real.  Even
though the act of forcing me to suck off another man was outside
our negotiated limits, the threat, and the images she'd painted
with her taunts had been .... effective.

     At the bottom of the bag were two more artificial penes, but
they were not ones she used on me.  Those were the ones she kept
in her nightstand for her own use.  Why had she sent those?  Was
she telling me she was giving up sex unless I gave them back?

     I shook my head.  I was too tired to consider this anymore. 
I closed the bag, and put it on the floor of my closet. 
Tomorrow, I thought, this will all make more sense tomorrow after
a good night's sleep.


Chapter 4: A Day at the Office

     I'd been wrong.  Sleep, what little I managed to get, did
not improve my thinking one bit.  I still had no clue as to what
I should do next.  I wanted Jeanne.  That was a given, but could
I safely have Jeanne?  And what was the cost of that safety? 
Would Jeanne see the price as being worth it?  

     I puttered the morning away, only half thinking about my
work, until I was called away from my office for a meeting.  I
returned just before lunch, planning to spend the next hour doing
the work I should have been doing during the morning.  The
secretary who fronted for me and the other three project
engineers was away from her desk, probably at lunch, so I had no
warning when I walked into my office and found Vera seated at my
desk.  "Hello, Mark."  She said softly, a hint of defiance
tinging her tones.

     Swallowing, I walked into my office and sat down in one of
the chairs I use for guests.  I refused to stand for this woman. 
"Vera."  I said in clipped syllables.  "What do you want?"  

     She simply looked at me, trying to play stare-down with me. 
She lost, and dropped her gaze to the hands she had folded on my
desk.  I repeated my question, less politely.  She sighed and
said, "I wanted to talk to you is all.  And I wanted to see you -
see how you are.  Jeanne called me this morning.  You threw her
into a tizzy with that high blood pressure game you played last
night.  Don't you think that was just a little bit low, Mark, no
matter how ill used you may think you have been?"  Her sarcastic
tone cut at me, angering me as she intended it would.

     I pulled out the tiny pill bottle, and tossed it onto the
desk in front of her.  "Unlike you, Vera, I don't play cruel
games like that."  She winced at the icy contempt in my voice. 
"Those are real.  You can ask your husband, if you don't believe
me.  He's the one who called in the damned paramedics."

     She went white as she read the bottle label.  Her eyes
flitted back and forth between my face and the plastic amber tube
she held in her fingers.  She sat back in my chair, her eyes
closed.  "Damn.  I was certain you had aspirin or something like
that; that you were simply doing this to make Jeanne feel even
worse."  She stood up and came around my desk to sit beside me in
the other guest chair.  "Mark, I really do think we need to talk. 
Have lunch with me."  The look I gave her must have clearly
indicated my amazement and lack of interest in that offer,
because she took my hand in hers and became very intense.  "No,
please.  I mean it.  I can see that you are hurting as badly as
she is, and I am mostly to blame for that.  Talk to me, Mark. 
Maybe I can help."

     I pulled my hand from hers.  "Like you helped before?  Like
you helped that last night?"  My voice was low and hoarse with
remembered pain.  Her face crumpled into a mask of hurting defeat
that was the antithesis of the look of triumph she had worn that
last, fateful night.

     Reflexively, my eyes closed against the flooding mosaic of
painful and vividly clear memories.  Against my will, the images
sharpened into short, pointed vignettes, almost like point paper
bullets in video . . . 

-    Vera and Jeanne both dressed to the nines in their best
     fetish wear; Vera in red latex, her ample bosom bared, yet
     supported and displayed, while Jeanne was in her signature
     black leather and satin.  Every inch of her skin, with the
     exception of her mouth was covered by something - her thigh-high stiletto heeled boots, her corseted catsuit, satin
     opera length gloves and a leather hood that left only the
     blood red slash of her lips uncovered.  Even her eyes were
     covered by mirrored lens sunglasses.  My Jeanne was gone,
     and I was left alone with La Diamande Noire.

-    Both women strutting about wearing large strap-on dildos
     that bobbed lewdly at the apex of their thighs.  New ones -
     larger, thicker than any that I had seen before that night.  

-    Vera, her eyes blazing with excitement, overseeing my
     preparation for the evenings 'entertainments', including the
     administration of several, uncomfortably large and
     humiliating enema cleansings, and then binding me tightly to
     the large leather hassock in the living room. 

-    Vera's taunting, threateningly sweet voice promising that,
     "We are going to see that you get broken in, tonight, little
     man.  Now don't go away while I go get your loving wife. 
     She wants to help you get ready for the main event."

-    The long, slow buildup toward whatever they had planned.  I
     suffered oral and anal penetration by a variety of
     implements of progressively increasing size.  Their hands,
     teasing me, fondling me, forcing me to erection, until I was
     aroused enough, excited enough for what came next. 

-    Both women using those new strap-ons on me. Jeanne in my
     ass, Vera in my mouth.  Vera's constant stream of derogatory
     comments about my 'lack of skill' and my 'supposed manhood'. 
     The seemingly impossible further hardening of my erection.

-    Jeanne moving into my field of vision and my realization
     that it was the first time I had seen her since the start of
     the session.  Her voice, again for the first time, asking
     Vera if I was ready.  Vera's quiet answer of "As ready as he
     will ever be."

-    Vera disappearing into our kitchen, to return with her
     husband, Ed, being led in by a leash attached to a collar. 
     Vera's mocking answer to my angry epithet, "You are going to
     have it real tonight, lover.  Aren't you pleased?"

-    Bellowing out my safeword.

-    Jeanne treating my red light safeword as if I had used our
     yellow light caution word.  Jeanne moving up to kneel by my
     head, stroking my sweaty back.  Jeanne explaining that they
     have come to the conclusion that I really, deep down wanted
     this, and that they wanted it for me.  Jeanne, my wife,
     asking me, "Can't you do this for me?  Please?"

-    Raw anguish and nearly out of control rage wiping out
     everything else.  Harsh, angry words spewing from my mouth;
     angry words that chilled my soul because, in that instant, I
     meant them.  

          "I safeworded, dammit..." 

          "Saunders, you come near me, you even look like you are
          taking that zipper down and I will hunt you down.  You
          get the hell out of here while you can and take your
          bitch of a wife with you..."

          "God DAMN you, Jeanne, How can you do this to me..."

-    Vera starting to paddle me, hard, trying to force my
     attention back to their planned scene, telling me that, "I
     stop when you suck him off, Mark."  

-    Me, looking at the now frightened man pulling at the leash
     on his neck, trying to escape my glaring eyes.  "He comes
     close enough to me to get that in my mouth, Vera, and it
     will be the last time he tries it.  Tell them, Jeanne, tell
     them what I can do.  You know I am not kidding."

-    Jeanne, the sunglasses dangling limply in her fingers, with
     tears in her eyes, moving out of my vision, and staying
     Vera's hand.  Jeanne's dead, toneless voice, "It is no use."
     and then Vera's excited, pleading, "Wait.. We can do this...
     I have done it with Ed, with other submissives, and
     ultimately, they liked it.  We can't stop now."

-    Jeanne's "You don't understand, Vera." , as she frees me
     from the bondage straps.

-    Springing off the hassock, fighting the urge to strike out,
     then seeing Vera with her heavy, 24" wooden sorority paddle
     leaning on the couch beside her.  Grabbing the paddle,
     hefting its weight, and watching real fear blossom in Vera's
     eyes for the first time, and being too angry to feel shame
     at terrorizing a woman.  Yelling at her, "This is what I
     would have done to your husband and his puny dick, bitch!"
     and then breaking it cleanly in two over my head.

-    Storming into my bedroom, dressing and then leaving the
     house without another word.

     The memories hurt.  Since that night, they hurt every time I
let them slip past my mental guard, and with Vera's presence as
the catalyst, they had been particularly raw, particularly
graphic.  I blinked hard to clear my head and then looked at
Vera.  "I really think we should talk, Mark."  Her voice was
soft, almost pleading.  At my suspicious glare, she shook her
head.  "Just talk."  I continued to stare at her, unconvinced. 
She shook her head.  "Just you and me, on my honor."

     Finally, I agreed, but was unable to resist one last little
dig.  "If only to find out if you keep this promise better than
you kept the one to me about my safe words."  

     We drove to lunch, eschewing the places close to the office. 
Neither of us needed word of what we discussed floating back with
the worker bees. On a whim, I took her to the Coffee House.  When
I handed her into the shop, Momma saw us enter.  Correctly
interpreting their disapproving looks, I introduced Vera to them
as a friend of Jeanne's, who was trying to help us reconcile. 
Pop's demeanor changed instantly and he quickly seated us in a
secluded booth in the back of the little store front shop.  After
taking our orders, he bustled off to tell Momma that Vera was not
a housebreaker, after all.

     "He knows that you and Jeanne are separated?"  I nodded and
briefly told her of the previous evening's abortive meeting and
Pop's fatherly intervention after Jeanne had left.  "They seem to
care a great deal about you two."  I saw her eyes focus with
resolution, and she leaned across the table toward me, her voice
becoming soft, yet strident.  "I do want to thank you, Mark, for
not hurting Ed professionally because of what happened that
night.  I guess you figured out he was not in on the scheme." 
She sighed.  "In fact, going into that scene, he thought you were
a willing participant and was first frightened and then furious
to find out otherwise."  I watched a tear slip down her cheek. 
"He has refused to play with me since that night because I
disregarded your safe word.  He says it is a matter of
trustworthiness.  Which is so sad it is almost funny. We have not
played with a safe word in years."  Tears were running freely
now, and I handed her my handkerchief.

     "I did not think he was in on it," I said ignoring her other
revelation, "but I would not have attacked him professionally in
any case.  That is not what this is all about."

     "Then, dammit, what is it about? Okay, so I was wrong to
push Jeanne into trying to push past your knee-jerk reaction to
safeword.  I don't understand you.  Christ, the scene would have
been good for you, even if you couldn't get past that homophobia
of yours.  Jeanne would have rewarded you.  As it was, you never
gave her the gift she needed from you.  You never let her know
that she was more important than that damnable self control of
yours."  Tears still streaked black mascara tracks down her
cheeks.

     Sighing, I shook my head.  "I can't surrender that kind of
control." I whispered hoarsely.  "I must be sure . . ."  

     "Don't you trust your wife?" she interrupted, "Don't you
trust her love for you?"  

     "DAMN YOU!" I shouted, causing her to jump and drawing
surprised looks from everyone in the shop, "It is me.  I trust
her with my love and my life.  It is me." my voice grew soft and
raspy. "It is me I can't trust - me or my training."  I took a
sip of my water to clear the blockage in my throat.  "Don't you
remember what I did to that paddle?  Suppose your husband's groin
had gotten close to my head?  All I need is mere inches of
movement. And regardless of how well you thought I was
restrained, I had all I needed."  I said, defeated.

     "But, Mark, it is play.  All right, that play can get pretty
rough and intense, but it is *still* play."

     "It stopped being play when I safeworded, Vera.  That is
what a stop word is supposed to mean - this has ceased to be
play, and it has to stop, now.  You did not stop."

     "But, why?  Whatever Ed might have done, it would have been
no worse than what we had already done.  Hell, Ed is built
smaller than either of the toys we used on you that night.  Why
could you not give up and surrender to your wife?"

     "Have you ever been raped, Vera?"  Her eyes gave me my
answer.  "I thought not.  I have been, a long time ago, when I
was in school.  It took me a long time to deal with that, and it
is probably the reason I joined the Navy and became a SEAL."

     "But, you let Jeanne and I do rape scenes with you..."

     "Plastic is not real.  I could deal with it when it was not
real.  Ed was real, and I started to lose it. "I took a sip of
water.  "Vera, do you understand Fight or Flight response?"

     She gave me a strange look at my change of direction, but
nodded her understanding.  "Fight or Flight is a mammalian
survival mechanism.  When faced with danger or perceived danger,
everything shuts down except the bodily functions that supports
fighting or escape.  Yes, I know about that - it is the basis of
the adrenalin rush that is at the heart of a lot of BDSM play. 
But, Mark, regardless of what you say about it, you *were* well
restrained that night.  I did it myself.  You couldn't fight or
fly - that was part of the mind play of the scene."

     Grimly, I shook my head.  "You do not know what you are
talking about, Vera.  I can always fight.  And I would have been
loose in short order if Jeanne had not freed me first."

     "Dammit," she snarled. "You always fight us, just like now. 
You resist everything.  You never give in, never surrender that
inhuman control of yours."

     "Damnit - don't you understand, yet?  I don't dare fully
relax my control.  I could kill her if I lose control."

     "You can't know that. . ." she said, somewhat uncertainly.

     "Oh, but I do."  And I told her the story of the last
mission.  "When they pulled me off the terrorist, I had literally
broken his neck and pulled his head off.  I don't even remember
jumping him.  The guys told me it took three of them to pull me
off him."

     Silence stole over us.  I had said more than I had wanted
to, and Vera couldn't think of anything more to say.  Pop brought
the bill and broke the spell.  "What are you going to do, Mark?"

     "I don't know, Vera.  I only know that if I cannot trust
myself, I have to be able to trust Jeanne.  Right now, I don't
know how far I can trust La Diamande Noire anymore."

     "She won't be whole without expressing that part of her,
Mark.  It is intrinsic to the woman she has become."

     I knew that.  It chilled my soul, but I knew it was true. 
"Then, she may have to find that expression with someone other
than me, Vera."

     Shaking her head, Vera stood.  "She won't ever do it again,
unless she first does it with you."  She looked down at our
lunches.  Both plates were untouched.  "Thanks for lunch.  I'm
sure it would have been delicious.  I think I will get something
sinfully fattening for Ed before I leave."  I started to stand. 
"No, sit.  I will call a cab."  She held out her hand to me and I
took it in mine.  "Be well, Mark.  I am sorry.  She loves you. 
You love her.  I don't want to live with having helped destroy
that.  Find the strength to trust her and yourself.  Good bye." 
With that, she spun on her heel and left.

     "And what will you do, Mark?"  The soft, Old World accents
came from behind me.  Poppa stood there, holding the charge slip
in his hand.

     I motioned to Vera's vacated chair.  Poppa sat and waited
expectantly.  "I wish I knew, Poppa.  How much did you hear?"

     "Enough, I think.  That tattoo, on your arm.."  he indicated
my right arm.  I rolled up my sleeve to reveal the tattoo - the
Eagle and Trident of the U.S. SEALs.  "That means you are a very
dangerous man.  I can understand your fears.  Hurting a loved one
is a terrible thing.  But I think, my young friend, that you give
too much importance to this..." and he pointed to the tattoo,
"and too little to what is in there."  His hand shifted to my
chest.

     "But, Poppa, how could I live with myself if I hurt her? I
would not want to live.  I vowed to take care of her, to keep her
safe."  I faltered. "I just never thought I would have to keep
her safe from me."

     "Mark, Mark, Mark."  Poppa clucked out my name.  "Are you
really living now?  And, aren't you both hurting, anyway?  What
happened with that woman was an accident.  You and Jeanne are
smarter now, or at least you should be.  She will understand
better.  It is called learning, young man, learning from your
mistakes.  Yes, she made one.  So did you, I think.  So, I ask
you again... What are you going to do?"

     I drained my cup of decaf and grimaced - even Pop could not
make decaf taste like coffee.  "What I have to do, Poppa.  What I
have to do to keep her safe.  It's my job as her husband.  Even
if it safe from me."

     Poppa looked so disappointed.  "Tell me, Mark.  Are you
really being a husband?  Are you really being a man for her? 
Running away and not facing the issue?"  He shook his head
slowly.  "I don't think so.  I must go, and I think, so must you. 
Last night, I asked you to think about being without her at my
age.  I don't think you thought hard enough about that."