Safeword: Matte - In Training (7 page)

Sam considered a few minutes and finally
said, “Go ahead and make yourself something. I’ll just do protein
shakes today so I don’t have to go through another huge cleanout
this evening. I’ll get a shower and get dressed, what time were you
thinking we’d have our talk?”

“Judging by the way you’re still flexing
your hands, I’d say you’ll want to do a few rounds with the bag
downstairs, first?”

Sam circled her shoulders, squeezed her
hands into fists again, and nodded. “Yeah, I think you’re probably
right. I should do that before my shower, actually.” She walked
into her closet and gathered yoga pants, an exercise bra, and loose
tee. Ethan didn’t follow her in, but stood so he could see her as
they talked.

“What kind of shake do you want? I’ll go
ahead and get it mixed for you, so you can drink it before you get
started.”

“Banana Cream, please — one scoop in about
ten ounces of water so I don’t fill my stomach too much. How cold
is it out? I may want to do a five mile run after I attack the
bag.”

“Want company on your run?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Ethan brought Sam’s protein shake as she
finished pulling her hair into a ponytail. She drank it on the way
downstairs, and only stopped in the kitchen long enough to rinse
her glass and put it in the dishwasher. A growl escaped her throat
as she slid the top rack out — all of her glasses were lined up by
type on the outer edge, and her bowls perfectly aligned down the
center. She closed the top rack and pulled the bottom one. Her
plates were in one line, saucers in another. It certainly didn’t
look like this last night when she cleaned up after making her
salad; Sam never paid attention to where she placed things in the
dishwasher, other than to be sure plastic items landed on the top
rack, and the sharp knives at the back of the silverware holder so
she didn’t cut herself.

Ethan was in the other room, but she made a
mental note to ask him about it later, and she headed downstairs to
attack her heavy training bag.

By the time Sam was ready to run, her feet
and hands felt appropriately battered. She and Ethan ran in
relative silence, traveling up the hill and past the art museum,
running across the river on the pedestrian bridge, returning on the
Veteran’s bridge, and venturing around some of the tourist district
before finally returning to the house. Sam’s thighs screamed in
protest as she climbed the steps to her bathroom.

She started to grab her Kindle to get some
work done while soaking, but changed her mind and lay catatonic in
the warm bathwater with the jets going and the heater on to keep
the water scalding.

When she finally made it downstairs Ethan
was on his laptop in her den, and she kissed his forehead as she
passed him. She made a chocolate protein shake with a spoonful of
peanut butter and plopped down on the sofa across from him. The
first sip brought back memories of her fifth grade teacher, who’d
given out Reese’s cups for students who went above and beyond. The
couple sat in silence a few moments as Sam savored her shake and
Ethan worked.

“Thanks for giving me some space. I’m ready
to talk now, I think.”

Sam’s heart fluttered as Ethan’s gaze rose
and a smile lit his face. He nodded to the coffee table. “I printed
off the agreement, if you want to read through it and make notes.”
He gestured to his laptop and added, “If I can have another ten
minutes here I can finish what I’m working on, and then I’m all
yours.”

They were both wearing jeans and tees, and
anyone looking in on them wouldn’t have thought anything odd about
a couple hanging out together on a Saturday, unless they read over
her shoulder.

Sam used the pen Ethan had thoughtfully
placed with the contract to make her own notes, and when she made
it to the end she looked up to see Ethan watching her, his laptop
open on the table between them.

“You didn’t write this.”

He smiled. “I wrote a version of it, and
asked an attorney friend in the lifestyle to reword it for me.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I had some contract law
classes in college, enough so I can hold my own if necessary, but I
wanted you to see it as more…official?”

Did he think she’d blow it off if the
wording wasn’t exactly right? No, she didn’t think so. She looked
at him a few seconds, debating whether to push for a better answer.
Finally, she said, “I try hard to look at the intention of your
instructions, and not hold you to the letter of exactly what’s
said. If I truly misunderstand it’s different, but if I know what
you mean, that’s what I go with.”

“Are you upset at my having someone else
re-write it?”

“Not upset, just…” She shook her head. “I
want to be sure you don’t feel as if you need another attorney in
order to come to an agreement with me. I mean, this is only
important to you and me. No judge is ever going to see it, so
there’s no reason the wording has to be legally acceptable. Have I
made you feel you need help to get me to follow our
agreements?”

Ethan stood and walked to her, dropped onto
the sofa and pulled her into his arms in one motion. “I didn’t
intend to give that impression. I thought it would impress you; I
had no idea you’d see it in a bad light, but I can see why you do.
I’m sorry. You’ve never made me feel like I was at a disadvantage
in our negotiations.”

Sam pulled back to look at him, and raised
her body off the sofa to kiss his cheek. Plopping back into the
seat, she said, “No need to apologize; I just needed to know why.
Thanks for making the effort to get it right, but since your
fiancée is an attorney you can always ask her to do it, you know?”
She hugged him again and then pushed at his chest. “Now, back to
your side of the room so we can negotiate. No way can I think
straight with your arms around me.”

Ethan chuckled and kissed her forehead
before moving to the sofa across from her again. He pulled his
laptop back into his lap. “Okay, I’ll make changes here as we
negotiate, and you can do a final read through before we finalize
it.”

“I’ve already agreed to most of this:
wearing the anal ring a total of forty-five minutes a day, at least
two hours apart, at least five minutes per insertion. It sounds
like you’ll be in charge of it on the weekends and it could be
longer?”

He nodded. “We’ll move to larger rings on
Fridays, and I’ll work you enough over the weekend so you’ll be
ready to put them in yourself by Monday morning.”

“I have some concerns over the wording about
the monster plug you had me sit on. I have to be able to go a half
inch farther every Friday night, or accept one stroke of the
stainless cane for every eighth of an inch I’m short? That seems
like a lot.”

“The plug is a gradual spread, so a half
inch farther down is about an eighth of an inch larger diameter. We
need to spread you about an inch and a quarter wider than you are
now, which means it will take sixteen weeks to get there an eighth
of an inch at a time.”

He ran his hand over the top of his head and
added, “Remember, you’ll be stretching the muscles inside, and your
body will be creating more skin and longer muscles as we go. I
fully expect you’ll have a few days you’ll need to back off a size
in order to fulfill your obligations, and I need to trust your
judgment on what you can take without causing damage. The guideline
of stretching at least an eighth of an inch a week is to make sure
you stay on target to be ready by our honeymoon.”

Sam crossed out her objections and
continued. “Thank you for the provision taking away my safeword for
punishments.”

He nodded. “You’re agreeing to those
specific consequences. If there’s a problem I’m not aware of,
you’ll need to state the problem.”

“I don’t see my arms falling asleep as being
a problem for less than a dozen strokes of the cane, but I
understand your meaning.”

“The most you’ll get is six.”

Sam shook her head. “If I fail again two
days later the total is two strokes for every eighth of an inch,
and in another two days it grows to three. I don’t see myself not
gaining anything at all, but there’s no guarantee the most will be
six strokes.”

He tilted his head. “And you’re agreeing to
this, without a safeword?”

She shrugged. “You have caveats about giving
consideration if I’m sick or have a valid reason for not reaching
the goal. I trust you’ll be fair, so yeah.”

Turning the page to the strengthening
section, she cringed inwardly and said, “You never told me how long
I lasted.”

“With the marbles and anal beads?” His smile
was lovingly sadistic as he said, “You made it just shy of twelve
minutes, which means you can speak while under speech restrictions
five times with no consequences. I’ll print five coupons, and
you’ll need to give one to me each time you speak.”

The contract said he would start her at
eleven and a half minutes, and the consequences for losing more
than half of the marbles or beads within two minutes of goal were
the standard single strike with the stainless cane, twenty strokes
of the bicycle inner tube flogger to her breasts, or sixteen lashes
to her inner thighs with a belt. Losing more than half from both
places meant accepting two consequences, and for every two minutes
she fell short, everything doubled.

“If I only last five minutes, and lose from
both holes, that could mean the belt hits my inner thighs
sixty-four times, or I’d have to take sixty strikes of the rubber
flogger to my breasts?” She shook her head. “I don’t agree to
that.”

“What makes you think you’d drop so
soon?”

“What if I sneeze? Or if
I’m sore from doing it several days in a row and my muscles just
can’t hold on? I held until it
hurt
, hoping to get as many
opportunities to speak as possible!”

“If you sneeze I’ll give you time to rest
and let you start again. I intend to do this three times a week
with at least one day in between, so I don’t foresee sore muscles
being an issue.” He shrugged and added, “But if they are we’ll
discuss it and figure out an acceptable time.”

Sam gnawed on her lower lip, thinking it
over, and finally said, “I want a once a week option to do it in
two tries instead of one. If I lose too many the time stops while
you reinsert, and then starts again from where it was.”

He considered her words a few seconds before
nodding and making the changes on his laptop.

Sam turned to the depth training section. It
wasn’t very detailed, but was the part Sam had the most problems
with. She took a breath and used her best negotiator voice to say,
“I won’t agree to sleep in the long dildo.”

Ethan looked up, obviously surprised. Sam
remained quiet, and Ethan finally said, “What do you propose
instead?”

“It hurt the last couple of hours, and when
it came out, all the lube was gone. You have me sleeping in it
three times a week, what if I wear it two hours at a time, five
times a week?”

His eyebrows drew into a frown. “You’ll be
in it less than half the time I’d planned.”

Sam was tempted to tell him to stuff it up
his own ass, but instead took a calming breath and said, “You
intend to go a half inch deeper every Saturday. If I can’t keep up
with your schedule we’ll increase the number of times, but I really
don’t want it in for longer than two hours without it being
relubed.”

He shook his head. “I’d intended Friday and
Saturday night, since you’ll be careful of your food during that
time so it’ll only be one extensive cleanout, and then Wednesday
night after a single large enema. I’m not comfortable requiring
enemas more than twice a week.”

Neither spoke as they stared at each other
in a stalemate. After several minutes Sam said, “Two hours at a
time is my limit. With the chair you made I should have no problems
sitting, so having me sleep in it isn’t necessary.”

“What if you have it in six hours, but I
take it out every two hours to relube?”

“If it’s during the day, fine, but I’m not
sleeping in it.”

He nodded. “Understood, but you’ll have it
in for a good portion of Saturday and Sunday. I’m not going to put
a number on it, but you’ll be relubed every two hours.”

“And then two hours either Tuesday or
Wednesday evening?”

“No. Two hours the evening of your cleanout,
and then at least thirty minutes the following morning before work.
Put it in before you shower and leave it in while you do your hair
and makeup.”

“Right, because that’ll make the best use of
a single enema. Okay. Agreed, but I want a caveat to renegotiate if
I have too much trouble with it.”

She waited for him to finish typing and
said, “How long have you been observing my bathroom habits? I find
it a little creepy you know when I usually have bowel
movements.”

“It’s my job to know you inside and out.” He
tilted his head and straightened it. “It’s not creepy for me to
know anything about you, if it helps me know you better.”

She rolled her eyes. “After your note the
other night, I did a little research on what it takes to become
enema dependent, and it doesn’t look like anyone knows for
sure.”

“Correct, but the general consensus is if
you’re having at least two healthy bowel movements between enemas,
you’re safe.”

“Which I suppose is why you have me eating
so much fiber in between times?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not looking forward to what amounts to
a liquid diet from Friday night until lunch on Sunday, but you’ve
done a good job of accounting for my nutritional needs so I’ll
agree to it.”

“Every third week we’ll only do depth
training Friday night and Saturday morning, so you’ll have protein
shakes Friday evening and will be able to eat breakfast Saturday
morning and regular food the rest of the weekend.”