Sera Ch. 16

"I knew he meant it, that this was no idle threat. Like I've been mentioning, I'd become very good at reading people through many different methods, including watching body language and reading tone. However, while this new dimension of self from within made these tools sharper, it also added a certain... instinctual intuition. This is what I really mean when I say that I knew he meant it. I also knew that, in addition to having a boatload of nerve, this guy was smart and dangerously self-centered. Any doubt about him being in charge of this little operation was put to rest right then and there as I took the collar from the undisputed male Alpha of the house.

"Meekly, I put it on, uncovering my chest in order to awkwardly work the buckle and finding that those points were actually sharpened. While I did this, he began to speak."

"You belong to me now," he said. "You're not my girlfriend, you're my property and, since we all share our property around here, that's why all the boys get their way with you too. I imagine you're used to a different lifestyle, but you can forget that. You do what I say, when I say and you don't say shit other than, 'yes, Master'. Got that, you Amazon bitch?"

"Y- yes, Master," I stammered, my heart racing as I stared at the floor.

"That collar isn't yours, it's mine. It's what identifies you as my property and you never take it off. Am I understood?"

"Yes, Master."

"I'd seen the steel loop on the collar, but I never would've guessed its use. He picked up the chain and held one end out to me. It had a swiveled clip and I could figure the rest out. My hands shook as they did earlier that day when I got dressed, but I managed to get the chain connected to the collar as he sat with a very satisfied smile, the other end of the chain in his hand."

"Submit to me. Do it now and make it good, or I'll change my mind and beat the living Christ out of you."

"Not surprisingly, I knew less than nothing about BDSM at the time. The collar and chain really had me freaked out and I fought to keep my composure as I struggled for something to say, actually missing the treatment I'd received downstairs in comparison to this.

"Well, my very first lesson in what is somewhat commonly known as 'the lifestyle' came at his hands, the man who blackmailed his own lawyer. He suddenly jerked my chain, almost breaking my neck in a forced face to face meeting across his desk that really scared me. That was too bad, because things would have turned out better for him if... Hm. Anyway, he spits in my face and shouts for me to look him in the eyes as I 'pledged' myself, as he put it. Heh! Yeah, really. That's what he said.

"His initial reaction was one of surprise, but then, incredibly, he actually fought me. At the time, I figured it was because I was so freaked out that I couldn't focus, and I'm sure that was in part to blame, but I've since found that a more intelligent individual will sometimes actually have the presence of mind to try defending him or herself. This guy kind of knew what was going on almost from the outset, some kind of instinctual awareness the ego has when it's being threatened. In his eyes, I saw sudden surprise, fear of the dark unknown and a desolate dread all at the same time. Yes, he knew I was attempting to take him over and he knew he was fighting for his life. He almost won, too.

"It took me about ten seconds, probably longer, and when panic over what he'd do if I let him get away set in, he almost did slip away, but... Something just changed. I forgot about niceties and taking care, forgot about the tentative, soft touch I'd been using with people and shoved hard, breaking into his mind and awareness. I may as well have smashed a bottle across his forehead, but I had him."

I smiled at the collective sigh of relief and understanding from the room, Ashleigh looking at us with a knowing grin and a quick shake of her head before she went on.

"At first, I just stared back at him. It's like I'm in his apartment, but not snooping around, if you know what I mean. He's still holding the chain that I'm straining against and I realize only then that I'm still choking, so that became my first order of business."

"L-let go of the chain," I instructed in a half believing, quavering little tone.

"He did and I fell backward on the floor, the chain running down between my legs. My heart was still hammering, eyes wide as I tried to calm myself before I exploded right there. Moments later, I got off my ass and made my way on shaky legs to the door to make sure it was locked, because the next few minutes would be crucial and I couldn't have any disruptions.

"By the time I stood in front of his desk again, I felt a little better. He hadn't moved, was still sitting there staring vacantly at the spot where my face had been, and it was immediately obvious that something was different with him, with the way my influence had settled on him, or something. Jeez, I wasn't complaining, though.

"Without removing my collar, the attached chain, or even wiping the perspiration soaked cum from my face, I grabbed a chair and sat opposite him. Nervously, I looked my biggest, riskiest venture yet straight in the eyes and got started while I had my time."

"Master, look me in the eyes."

"He does this and I take a moment to roam around, getting a feel for him and who he really is before I get down to business."

"Contrary to what you've come to believe, you do not own me."

"I do not own you," he drones back at me.

"I own you," I correct.

"You own me," he says back.

"When we're all alone, you will observe that and do as I command of you."

"Yes, I... I do what you command... of me. When we're alone."

"You answer all of my questions truthfully and immediately without fail."

"I answer your qu- questions truthfully and immediately without... fail..."

"You will never seriously hurt me, or leave any permanent marks, nor will you ever allow anyone else to do so."

"I will never, blah, blah, blah," he starts, but I interrupt him and tell him to just tell me he understands for the sake of time, if not my nerves."

We all laughed at this little detail, taking a drink afterwards while Ashleigh did the same, clearing her throat before going on.

"I told him that, as far as the public eye was concerned, I was his property and he should act accordingly as long as I wasn't harmed or marked. I then instructed him to never tell anyone of our conversation and to carry on with his business as usual.

"This all went swimmingly, but then, when it was time to put him back to rights and let him go on with what he would think was his own life, I couldn't. This was bad because I couldn't leave him like that, and it took me long minutes of increasingly panicked trial and error to close him up, but I did.

"Anyway, to make a long story short, I'd moved into that master bedroom within the week. Within the next week, moving slowly and carefully, I had Ace and Tripper, the big greasy guy in the jackshirt and work boots, under my influence. From then on, there was never a time when one of them wasn't guarding my door. I'd told Sir to get his own room and, as far as the rest of them were concerned, 'Blue eyes' was off limits to them unless he decided otherwise. Only he got in and only Tripper and Ace knew that this was only because he was my figurehead, his seemingly exclusive access to me only for the sake of appearance. Either one of them would have shot him in the head without hesitation at my slightest whim."

"Within a month of first putting that collar on, I slowly influenced all of them, even the women, and they all respected me far more than they ever respected Sir. Yet, I managed to maintain a certain balance. See, I came to love how they used me and I had to get pretty creative in making sure they'd still do that with honest gusto, while at the same time seeing me as their goddess.

"So anyway, I spent a number of years there. My room was refurbished to my standards, along with its adjoined bathroom, and I had a doorway cut into the wall to connect the next bedroom as well so that I could receive visitors without having them in my private space. I luxuriated in upper, mid-level class while I collected on all the gang's illegal activities. If we ever got busted, every one of them were pre-programmed to say the right things to lead the cops to believe that I was a sex slave that they'd brainwashed, and I damned well saw to it that any cop would see it that way, too. In any case, if he didn't, I figured I could just help him to anyway, right?"

"Umm, you mean you'd actually put the Jedi spell on a cop, Auntie?" Kitten asked with wide eyes, her hand now out from between her legs.

"Sweetie pie, one of them was a cop. They had no idea, and it was another little way I bought their unshakable loyalty. I had to wipe his mind of everything he knew about them, especially me, then I told him to go quit his job and leave the country for good."

"Whoa..." Kitten breathed, understandably impressed, "Did he?"

"Yes, he did. After that, I felt I could get settled, finally address some things that had been building in my mind. Heh. It was pretty cool, too. I mean, they literally served me, their biker queen, for over five years while doing business as usual, my bank account growing in leaps and bounds. Meanwhile, they brought anything I desired right to my door; food, booze, pot, loads and loads of books, and they were quite useful in gaining different types of information for me as well.

"And, oh my fuck, the sex. Having grown an appreciation for dress-up games from Laura, I would often go out for a while and come back dressed as... whatever. Once, I bought a nun's habit and walked in with a bible and started cursing their evil ways. They used me like... wow. ... Ha! Well, you get the picture. Once I came back as a Girl Guide selling cookies and... that went very well, too. Oh my god, and once, I ran into this mother and daughter...

"It was at one of those country markets and they were selling these nice big, handmade quilts and down filled duvets. Nothing but the best for the biker queen, right? So, they have this attitude from the start, these two whiter than white chicks. I mean, those noses couldn't be jacked any higher. Whatever, I'm not interested in their opinion of me, I just want a couple of quilts and a couple duvets, but these two high and tighties wouldn't be reasonable and knock a little off the top, considering how much I wanted to spend. Nobody else is right there, so I take them under my influence, first mum and then daughter. Originally, I only did it to get them to lighten up on their prices, but that attitude of theirs... It just stuck, even while I had them under my influence. I don't know, they just really pissed me off for whatever reason.

"So, I bought the quilts and the two duvets at full price. Yup, I did. Then I gave Ms. Perfect and her oh so flawless little offspring instructions to personally deliver them to the clubhouse. Heh... I'll show you the little home movie we'd made sometime, but the best part of the show is their priceless deliberation over which of them should be gangbanged in front of the other. Not that it mattered, they both got ganged in the end anyway. Heh. Good times...

"(Ahem) Anyway, Donna Totten, his lawyer, became my lawyer and a very good friend. She never knew how I did it, but she accepted the new order of things at the clubhouse pretty quick and, after I gave her what Sir had on her and let her kick him up the arse a few times afterwards, she was too grateful to much care. Poor dear, she died of cancer almost seven years ago."

" ... About all the books I'd collected then..." Auntie went on after banishing a sad expression. "This is when I started my research into what we really are. Like I said, being there and having achieved this new protected status finally let me think that I could start looking into this properly, since I finally had the time and resources. At least, I thought so then. I sent some of my people, my little band of outlaw bikers, far and wide to collect books, information and other curiosities of my particular interest from wherever I'd determined them to be. Some, I sent out on quests from which they never returned during my time with them. That's really all part of a different story, but I bring it up to tell you what I was up to during those five years, besides kneeling for a nice load of cum in my face, or emptying rum bottles one after another. Of course, I'd also collected close to a million dollars that Donna had skillfully laundered for me. Sir, like I may have mentioned, was a pretty smart guy, at least until I got to him, and I had to credit him for hiring her in the first place.

"But, like at other times in my life, and I'm sure both Kathleen and Sheila can identify here, there came a point when I knew it was time to move on. So, after having all my belongings put into storage, I collected Ace and another man whom, I'm sure, some of you have met. At the time, his name was Barnbreaker, but his legal, family name is Lamarr. Their mission, as I gave it to them, was to safely drive me in the Caddy back to Ontario. ... And I wasn't going back to the Sault."

"Back home," Kitten almost whispered in awe.

"Back home," Ashleigh confirmed. "I'd been reading, like I said, and I had some ideas about what Mum and I were, but I wasn't sure of anything. All I knew was my guilt over leaving, my worry for my family, my depression and anxiety as I wondered what in hell was going on without the nerve to go anywhere near my mother. I hated that I was still afraid, too. Imagine that, huh? The queen of the bikers, she who was responsible for the slow mental decline of their former leader was... afraid of her mother. It took a lot to commit to that trip, just to get into the car, but the stakes were too high not to go and the preparations had been laid.

"Both Ace and Lamarr were armed, and so was I. They were to stand off, out of Mum's immediate eye contact and shoot her should something go horribly wrong, but I knew that if things went wrong with the dark, Sith Empress, they could well end up dead, or possibly even turned against me. That's why I only took my two best men, that and because I didn't want a big scene in case Mum had to be... in case I or one of my men had to... well, you know. Fuck, we even had silencers, and don't think I didn't know how to use a gun at that point. Like I said, I learned a lot as the biker queen, but it didn't all come from books. Don't get me wrong, I didn't want it to end that way. I still fondly remembered my mother and I playing with our Barbie dolls, but who knew how she'd receive me, what condition her mind was in, or what she was capable of at that point?

"Anyway, my plan was to quickly assess the situation. Again, I was hoping Mum would have come around or something but, if not, I would remove Kathleen, Sheila and Dad if I thought the situation warranted. I figured I could deal with any tampering on Mum's part later on at the clubhouse. At best, I'd have to go back to convince Mum and try to bring her around somehow. At worst, she'd have to be left to her own devices, or... me, or one of my men would have had to put her down and... well... clean up.

"So," Ashleigh sighed, "As you can imagine, I was prepared for the worst. Yet, to find the house with another family living in it was the very last thing I expected. It took me a week to find out what had happened, but I did.

"I found the mental institution where Mum was sent, but didn't want to go see her. My two little sisters were long gone and I didn't have a clue as to where to even begin looking and, worst of all, Dad was dead. I had Ace and Lamarr drive me back to Saskatoon, sobbing in the backseat at the loss of Dad, crushed that I'd never see him again and that I'd waited too long. I had no real idea what had even happened. Nobody did because he left no suicide note, Sheila and Kathleen were gone and... The only thing that made sense was our insane mother's claim that Sheila had seduced Dad, but Kathleen had gone on record denying that before she disappeared. Even more mystifying to me was how you both disappeared separately because, given how close you two always were, that made no sense whatsoever.

"Back home, I began drinking more heavily. I took a week to slowly set an ironclad non-belief in me within the minds of my people while I re-evaluated what I was doing next. After carefully telling them a fictional account- that excluded my existence- for why things had come to the point that they had since my non-arrival on their scene, I not only told them to forget all about me, but physically and painstakingly muddied the actual memories of me in their heads. The only two exceptions were Ace and Lamarr, these two receiving special conditioning before being sent out to track my sisters down, come hell or high water. Ace was assigned to you, Kathleen, Lamarr to Sheila. Because he succeeded, I kept Lamarr on. That, and because of his cock.

"Um... what about Ace?" Mum casually asked.

"He disappeared a few years later," my aunt replied. "He told me he was getting close, and I figured he could handle the places your trail led, but he just stopped reporting in and I never heard from him again. His replacement, an actual private investigator with two bodyguards I'd hired for him, was the guy who eventually found you."

"Oh... Um, what did he look like?"

"Ace?"

"Yes. You said he was bald?"

" ... Yes. Why?"

"No reason. I just wondered if I might have seen him. He was looking for me after all, and it's possible..."

" ... What's possible?" Ashleigh asked, keeping things as light as Mum was while my blood chilled.

"Nothing, Ash."

It was more than nothing. A lot more than nothing and Ashleigh knew it as well as I did, but probably wished she didn't, also as much as I. Sheila took notice of this subtle interplay, especially with Mum, but Kitten seemed to have missed that moment. Ashleigh's eyes stayed on her youngest sister for a few seconds while she began speaking again, soon returning to the flow of her story.

Kitten

"Umm... yeah, so anyway..." Auntie Ashleigh continued after her odd little exchange with Auntie Kathleen, "If I wasn't so sure of my abilities at that point, I'd have had to tell them to go rob a bank with loaded weapons, then call the police on them just to make sure they could never come back to haunt me. Truth be told, I'd often wished I'd done that since I left them, but they never did rear their ugly heads. Nope, in the end, I just walked out of the clubhouse in my jeans and chaps, tank top and leather jacket, got on my hog and fucked off down the road.

"(Siiigh) ... At this point, it's... I think nineteen-eighty-five and I'm just about to turn twenty-six. I spent a few unforgettable years on the road, holed up someplace during snowy months with the bike safely stored. It was a good time to recharge, both financially and spiritually, and my journey indeed turned out to be a spiritual one. Again, those years and the places I went are part of another story, but I'll tell you now that it was an incredible time in my life, and so ultimately rewarding... finally leading me to someone very special."

Auntie paused here, looking down into her drink while a fond smile came over her face. She looked up, sharing it with us before she went on.

"Samantha Long. Or, as I called her, 'Grammie'."

Well, if Auntie didn't have us on the edge of our seats before, she did now. She even softly laughed at our surprise and remounted interest, showing her understanding with her next words.

"Oh, I know. With the help of Donna, I was able to track Mum's heritage and, as you can imagine, I was pretty surprised to find an actual living ancestor. Donna had the address but that was all, so I rode out here to Quebec from Northern Manitoba to see her, and damned the torpedoes.