Chapter 11 – Juliette's Domain

After reviewing his clothing options in the armoire and closet, Dan had decided to put on some khakis and a golf shirt.  As promised, Juliette arrived at Dan's door just before midnight, 45 minutes after disconnecting from the video conference.  She was dressed in jeans and a long sleeved tee shirt.  Initially, he thought that she had removed all of her make-up, but upon closer inspection, he realized that she was just more conventional and subtle about its application.  She was a naturally beautiful older woman.

"So, how does it feel to be a free man?" Juliette inquired playfully.

"Wonderful, but I won't really be free until I'm back with Amanda.  She is alright, isn't she?"  He asked, concerned.

"She's fine.  She's probably home asleep by now.  As you know, I've invited her for breakfast tomorrow."  She paused to see recognition in Dan's face.  "Of course, she thinks that she is coming here to decide your fate, but you seem to have taken care of that yourself."

"What do you mean 'decide my fate?'  Does she think you were going to kill me?"  Dan asked incredulously.

"No, silly.  After taking you from the shop earlier tonight, I gave her the power to decide what would happen to you.  I would have let her decide to do almost anything with you if you hadn't freed yourself by tomorrow's breakfast."

"What would there be to decide?" He asked rhetorically.  "She would have told you to let me go, and we'd have gotten out of here."

"No.  I don't think you've thought this through completely.  She would have had all night to think about this decision.  It's true that she could have decided to set you free, but there are a number of other possibilities that she might have considered."

"Oh, really?"  Dan said acerbically.

"Sure.  For example, she could have told me to keep you both on at Leather or Knot, since it did bring you both together," she said smiling.

"No way.  I'm done with the shop.  Using my safe word was my last official act as an employee, thank you very much," Dan said sarcastically.

"That's fine.  Consider your employment terminated, but you're missing the point.  Amanda could have decided anything.  She could even have decided to keep you for herself.  You certainly wouldn't have been in a position to argue about it.  Or, maybe I could have convinced her to let me keep you, you never know…"

Dan considered the implications of what might have been.

"So, if I didn't use my safe signal, she could have decided to keep me as her slave… if she wanted to?"

"That was actually the outcome that I was hoping for," Juliette said matter-of-factly.  "I have seen great things ahead for Amanda ever since I hired her, and you would have been lucky to have her," she said with a hint of sadness.  "But that's all moot now.  Let me give you a quick tour before bed."

Mindful of the late hour, Juliette decided to limit the tour to the vanilla areas of the estate before retiring.  They wandered around the grounds, and she pointed out landscape lighting in the front garden.  They toured the ball room, the conservatory, the game room, the exercise facility and the sauna.  Juliette pointed out the two pools, the stable and the four tennis courts.

She delighted in explaining that hidden within the lovely vanilla exterior was a wonderfully kinky facility.  She and her husband had originally considered having two estates: one vanilla and the other alternative, but they ultimately decided it would be more fun to have them both operating in the same house, but each completely separate from the other.  As Juliette and Dan concluded the tour in the dining room, she explained that it gave her a secret thrill to entertain her socially acceptable guests in a house infused with hidden kinkiness.

"Most of my guests have no idea, for example, that there is a hidden staircase right behind that wall that leads from this dining room to a dungeon in the basement," she said smiling like a school girl.

At that moment, Dan realized that Juliette may have had a truly playful and happy side that he hadn't seen before.

Juliette escorted Dan to a table for two off to the side of the formal dining table.  The table held a variety of late-night snacks that Dan eyed as he sat down.

"Dig in.  You must be hungry after the evening you've had," she said, nodding toward the snacks.  "We're pretty much finished with the vanilla aspects of the house.  I'll give you a quick tour of the kinkier side of the house in the light of day."

"Agreed.  I've already seen more of that side of the house than I cared to for one night."

They sat in silence for a moment.  Then Dan asked "How did you end up living like this, anyway?"

It came out more judgmental that Dan intended.  What he had meant was that he marveled at her ability to compartmentalize her vanilla and alternative sides.  For the past few months, his vanilla side and his alternative side had been co-existing without really interacting with each other, and he felt torn.

"That's a fair question, actually," Juliette said with a hint of sadness.  "It didn't start off like this.  My husband and I built this estate so that we could live out our fantasies without sacrificing all of the ordinary pleasures that we enjoyed."

"So what happened?  Where is he?"  Dan asked.

"He passed away about ten years ago.  An automobile accident, and ironically, he wasn't wearing his seat belt, a safety restraint," she answered with a sad laugh.

"That's terrible.  I'm so sorry," Dan said sincerely.  He was beginning to see Juliette as more than just an S&M caricature.

"Actually, Brent and I were rather similar to you and Amanda when we first started out.  We were getting by on what I made working at a resale shop, and Brent had just graduated with a chemical engineering degree when he invented a non-toxic, quick-setting glue that is still used by most dentists to this day," she said reminiscing.

Dan listened as she continued.

"We had experimented with bondage in the bedroom, and the money we made from his discovery allowed us to take our dark fantasies to another level by building this house.  When he died, he left me a fortune in life insurance proceeds, not to mention the royalties that I collect from his patent portfolio, but he left my heart and our house empty."

Her eyes began to water, and Dan offered her a napkin.  Juliette accepted it, rose to her feet and started walking Dan back to his suite.  As they walked, Juliette collected herself and continued.

"I see that same passion between you and Amanda even though you two probably don't fully recognize it, yet.  Brent used to call me his 'little pistol,'" she said.  "If you had read your employment agreement before signing it, you would realize that I now use that as the ultimate safe word for my employees," she said smiling sadly.

"So, if I had just said 'pistol' you would have let me go earlier tonight?" he asked, trying to gently guide the conversation back to the present.

"Yes, immediately.  But there was little chance of that happening since you were well silenced.  You would have had to hum or tap out "Take me out to the Ball Game."  While humming, she snapped her fingers in time with the words.  "Brent loved baseball."

Finally, they arrived at Dan's door, and Juliette looked at her watch.

"Well, it's off to bed.  Over the years, I have discovered that some of my guests like to indulge in any number of activities before bed.  If you would like any of my staff to help entertain you before bed, please just let me know," she said with a wink.

"No, that won't be necessary," Dan answered, a bit disgusted at the implication.

Juliette smiled and said in a sing-song voice "It would be just our little secret if you want to.  Amanda never has to know."

"Seriously, no," Dan reiterated.

"Yes, you two really are reminiscent of Brent and me when we were young," she said, half to herself.

Dan was tired and his accommodations were superb.  Nonetheless, he spent a restless night thinking about Amanda.  He had wanted to pick up the phone and call her, but Juliette had asked him not to call, assuring him that Amanda was fine.

The next morning, he awoke at sunrise and decided to take a look around in the daylight.  He dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and strolled down the wide circular staircase.  Before he stepped onto the marble flooring below, Cynthia entered the hall from the dining room.  Unlike the day before, she was dressed completely in leather: halter top, mini skirt, stilettos and gloves.

"Juliette has asked me to complete your tour from last night.  Step this way," she said professionally.

Surprised, Dan obeyed.

"So, why the leather outfit?  Dan asked to make polite conversation.

"Well, we have a limited selection of uniforms, and if you must know, I chose this one because I was punished for the way I handled your situation last night.  The mini skirt hides my red bottom," she answered, clearly a bit irritated.

Dan stopped walking.

"But you didn't do anything wrong," he reasoned aloud.  "Juliette even said as much when she directed you to let me go."

"Well, I wasn't punished for letting you go.  I was punished for removing your gag without permission and for calling my roommate from your bedroom phone."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Dan said sympathetically.

"I suppose it was my own fault, really.  I should have contacted Miss Francis immediately instead of handling it myself," Cynthia replied, motioning Dan to continue walking.  "My punishment was only two light swats with a cane, but they left marks that will last a few days.  So, I'd rather not advertise my disobedience," she said, pausing a moment.  "I won't be making that mistake again."

As they talked, Cynthia led Dan out of the residence and to an adjacent four story building.  It was the Development and Research Center of Leather or Knot, Inc.  The employees often referred to it by the acronym "DARC LOK," or "Dark Lock."  They met Juliette in the lobby and spent the next 90 minutes touring the building as Juliette pointed out the highlights of the innovative work being done.  Juliette explained that with her inheritance and her husband's connections, she was able to attract leading university scientists to develop new technology which could be used in a variety of applications, including bondage.  Some of the scientists were Brent's friends who knew of his interests.  Others simply couldn't pass up free a vacation at Juliette's estate in exchange for their research activities.

On the ground floor, the staff was conducting final tests of an inhaler that was designed to deliver a muscle-relaxer which could temporarily remove a subject's ability to speak.  The tests today were merely a quality control measure to verify the results that supported FDA approval a month earlier.  The FDA found that the inhaler was completely safe to use, with no long term side effects.  The muscle-relaxer targeted the muscle tissue of the voice box to render the vocal chords so loose that they could generate no sound.  The effects of one or two inhalations were estimated to last about 30 minutes.

On the second floor, Dan and Cynthia watched a subject receive a piercing that could be tracked by a handheld GPS device.  They witnessed a demonstration of the technology in a lab.  A pierced subject moved around a simple maze of office cubicle walls while a lab technician tracked his movements on an LCD screen.  The GPS tracking software used a proprietary algorithm that enabled it to be accurate to within two feet.

On the third floor, a team of technicians was working on an electronic blindfold which delivered energy pulses to a subject's temples temporarily interfering with the subject's vision.  The technology was at an early stage and could not even be tested on animals yet.  Juliette, Cynthia and Dan briefly sat in on a brainstorming session at which various scientists sketched out ideas on a whiteboard.

On the top floor, the tour group looked in on a team of software engineers developing applications for realitime monitoring of vital signs using specially designed cuffs, collars, cock rings and chest harnesses.  The customized restraints included embedded sensors for monitoring heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, perspiration and nerve sensitivity.  Juliette joked that they should write an application that would use the monitored parameters to simulate a lie detector.  When the technicians told her that the parameters would always suggest a lie since the biological levels of a restrained and aroused subject would continually be elevated, she said "Exactly!  That way, I can punish my slave for dishonesty every time."

After the tour, Juliette led the group to the dining room where Miss Francis was waiting with a variety of breakfast pastries arrayed along the main dining room table.

"Please, feel free to sit down for a bite to eat," she said to Cynthia and Dan.  She smiled a knowing smile at Cynthia.

Cynthia remained standing and took a sliver of cheese Danish, but Dan declined to eat due to the anticipation of reuniting with Amanda.  Then Dan, Juliette and Miss Francis sat down, and Juliette began to review the morning schedule with Miss Francis.

"Amanda will be arriving in twenty minutes, and I would like the staff to be on their best behavior," Juliette said with authority.  "I trust that you have seen to it that we have no vanilla visitors on the grounds today.  So, the staff can wear their alternative uniforms."

"Yes, ma'am," Miss Francis replied obediently.

"When Amanda arrives, please escort her to the back porch overlooking the stable where we can have drinks and talk girl-talk for ten minutes, or so," Juliette continued.  "We will then move here, to the dining room."

"Of course," replied Miss Francis.  "I will see to it that the executive continental breakfast will be served promptly."

After a short break in the conversation, Cynthia asked "Should I bring Mr. Learner in after breakfast?"

Raising her eyebrows, Juliette turned toward Cynthia.  Miss Francis slowly shook her head with a frown.

"Excellent question, Cynthia.  A bit presumptuous to jump into a conversation between your superiors, but an excellent question nonetheless," Juliette said haughtily.  "I suppose that depends on whether Mr. Learner would want to know what Amanda's decision would have been had he not used his safe gesture last night," she continued, turning toward Dan.

"I'm sure I already know," Dan replied confidently.  "She would want an equal partnership, and she would have let me go to make my own decisions."

Letting his answer hang in the air, Juliette paused before replying "Did it ever occur to you that an equal partnership could include her making the decisions for both of you?  It worked fine for husband and me."

"Well, of course you thought it was an equal partnership.  You made all of the decisions," Dan replied smiling.

Juliette raised one eyebrow.  "No," she said.  "I only made one.  To surrender myself completely to his will."

The others looked at Juliette in stunned disbelief.

Dan broke the silence.  "You mean you were the submissive?  But your personality is so strong."

"Strength comes from having the conviction to follow your dreams and live by your decisions.  Of course, it helps to find someone who loves you completely," Juliette sagely replied.  "So, the decision is yours.  You are certainly welcome to attend the breakfast with Amanda.  We can all drink Mimosas and have a delightfully vanilla time.  But if you decide to have breakfast with us, you'll never really know what Amanda's decision would have been.  Your presence will undoubtedly influence her."

She paused to let Dan consider the option.

"As an alternative, you could surrender yourself to Cynthia and allow her to prepare you as she would have if you hadn't used your safe gesture last night.  You would have just enough time to get ready if you start now.  By the time breakfast is over, Cynthia would be ready to present you to Amanda just before I ask for her decision."

"But what if Amanda decides to keep me?"  Dan asked uncertainly.

"Well, that might be the best thing that ever happened to you," Juliette answered tersely.

"But what if I get cold feet?" Dan asked with a bit more urgency.

Juliette calmly answered his question with a question.  "Are they cold now?"

"Well, no."

"Then what would possibly change between now and then?  Besides, if you were to completely change your mind, you now know the ultimate safe word and gesture, right?"  She said, smiling at him as though they were both in on a juicy secret.

"You're right.  I'll do it," he said decisively.

"I thought you might," Juliette said with a nod.  "You won't regret it.  I never have."

* * * * *

Links to Leather or Knot Chapters 1-20:
1.   First Impressions
2.   The Job Interview
3.   Dan's First Modeling Session
4.   Things Get Personal
5.   Amanda’s in a Bind
6.   Dan’s Private Modeling Session
7.   A Lapse in Judgment
8.   Honesty is the Best Policy
9.   Dan’s New Position
10.  The Employment Agreement
11.  Juliette’s Domain
12.  Dan’s Preparation
13.  Amanda’s Decision
14.  The J-2010 Training Harness
15.  Amanda’s Mistake
16.  Linda’s New Job
17.  On The Job Training
18.  The Final Tests
19.  Test Results
20.  Epilogue