I looked at Jim suspiciously, “What do you mean? I’m not a meta.”

Jim sighed. “Dude. I was born during the day, but not yesterday. Hell, there was even a betting pool going on about when you were going to come out of the closet.”

“What do you mean?”

Jim chuckled. “I have known you since you were 14. You come back and start working out like a fanatic barely weeks after the accident that almost cut you in half. You always learned the katas and strikes easily, but you were faster, way stronger, and hit a ton harder when you were kind of slow and weak for your size before.”

“Then you come back and start building. You build more in a year than most professionals could in ten years, even without a personal trainer. I have trained lots of powerlifters. They always look fat because of their insane core strength, even without an ounce of fat on them, but you look more like a bikini model, and even the day you left you were pushing power lifter-sized loads of steel that were impossible with your build. I mean hell, you have gotten bigger since you left, and have an amazing body, but you still don’t have the bulk to push the steel you did the day you left.”

“That and you took beat downs in the ring that would have laid up pros for weeks, You were fast and could hit like a semi filled with lead weights if you chose to hit, and you were back the very next day like nothing happened. So I just used stay in the closet etiquette with you and told the other guys to keep their mouths shut.”

I raised an eyebrow, “Stay in the closet etiquette?”

He nodded, “Yeah, when a guy sets off your gaydar in all the worst possible ways. He loves Streisand, dresses beautifully in bright colors, cares about nutrition and taking care of his body, takes out girls he doesn’t bang afterward and is smart and funny and popular with all the girls, it’s pretty obvious he’s in the closet. Doesn’t want to admit it even to himself. The thing to do is just play along, pretend you don’t notice, and wait for him to figure it out. That’s why I kept letting you in the ring with those monsters and saying you were too slow. If you actually fought, a blood test would have outed you immediately. You weren’t too slow and could have mopped up, but it would have been illegal.”

I sighed. Yes, I was an idiot. Between the gym thing and the way I lugged stuff around the Home Workshop, never getting tired or sick, never having a bad day, always working overtime even with a heavy school load, never needing to sleep, and looking the way I did, I bet not a single person in the place had the slightest doubt I was a hidden meta. Hidden metas were prime targets for criminal groups to indoctrinate or snatch, as they could be an enormous asset if swayed, blackmailed, addicted, or otherwise brought to heel.

They were probably keeping an eye on me for years, and when Ramone showed up to work at the Home Workshop right under their noses, his fate was sealed. He and my brother sold me out, plus the fact that I started interacting with known heroes, was probably the trigger for the snatch. And when they went to my apartment to get me, I wasn’t there. Some metas could detect just about anything, and they were usually the thief types, so I bet someone immediately realized the value of my stash and it was time to pick up the package. Paul’s betrayal was still unforgivable, but I would have gotten snatched anyway. Maybe I’d let him live. I wondered if I could track down my old weight bench? A promise is a promise, after all, and his knees wouldn’t break themselves.

“How about a compromise? I still need to spar, and the meta weights take a lot of construction. I can help invest in the place, probably about two hundred grand, which should cover the construction costs at least. You could put that set in the back, and keep the ring inside. Most metas won’t worry too much about when it gets cold, or we could put one of those mega tents over it. That would lower the chances of damaging the gym, and you wouldn’t have to close for a month for construction, and if a meta doesn’t want gym bunnies watching them, it’s easier to shoo them all back to the gym, especially if you get the tent.”

He nodded, “I hear ya. Much better idea. I also won’t lose the hard cores in the winter either, and the bunnies love watching two guys beat the hell out of each other, for some reason. I will work it up with my accountant and see what we will need, plus getting you a share gives me someone to force to buy the place whenever I decide to retire that won’t fuck it up. Congratulations, Heir.”

I sighed. I bet he had this whole thing planned from the moment he saw me.

After the girls got finished cleaning up, we went back to the house to finish setting things up there and try to set up a schedule for when the fall semester started in about a week. We stopped at the Basics to pick up a set of laptops, and I decided to contact Kjootoo to see if he needed more product. I had thought a half million would be enough for a while, but the prices at the University had gone way up, and with the investment, I was going to make at the gym my pockets would soon be bare.

We also got groceries. Lots and lots of groceries. Three metas and a fit guy go through a lot of food, and I was planning a special meal. We got back to the house much later than I had expected, but I got to work making enough Beef Wellington to feed an army. It wasn’t chemistry, but I quite enjoyed cooking and turned out the crisp-coated beef, Yorkshire pudding, potato salad, and a veritable mountain of steamed vegetables.

After we finished dinner, I had Glinda, who apparently preferred being called Lauren, clean up the dishes and went out into the forest to get a workout in. I hadn’t really had a chance at the gym, but the house I had purchased was a big sprawling farmhouse set on twelve less-than-desirable acres near a state park, a little too far away and hilly to be truly valuable. It was, however, quite private. I was lucky and found a fallen tree heavy enough to get some real lifting in, and lots of running and various uses of local trees later, I was finally sweaty enough to feel like I had gotten some exercise in. It took about three hours total, and it was almost eleven when I finally headed back to the house. I noticed Baldwin sitting on the porch, and realized he had been watching me while I worked out.

“You know, you could have stayed inside and watched TV or something,” I remarked.

He grinned, “What part of Bodyguard slash parole officer are you having trouble understanding?” he asked.

I shrugged, “The part where you have to spend every waking moment watching me without any real breaks when I am shouting distance away and kind of bulletproof?”

He shrugged, “I am here until I am relieved or I get a backup. I already contacted the Department, and if the DMA doesn’t send someone in a couple of days, they will send another serviceman and charge it to the DMA. Win-win.”

I nodded and sighed, and then headed in. I had to do something I was not looking forward to, I had to talk to Vectress.

She and Alison were sitting on the couch, watching TV. I was a little grumpy, but they were watching my favorite movie, the original version of Sabrina, with Audrey looking absolutely delicious. I watched for a few minutes, it was the part where the younger brother was just about to Seduce Sabrina before getting interrupted, and I asked Alison, “Hey, are you ready for me to scan you yet?”

She sighed and shook her head, “Not yet, I am sorry.” This conversation had happened before, several times.

So I asked, “Would you be okay with Putting Toby down?” Toby was sitting on Glinda’s lap, fast asleep, and she carefully transferred her to Alison’s lap.

I glared at Glinda a little and then said, “I am going to take a shower. We need to talk. Come upstairs.” She hopped to her feet, following me up the stairs.

I entered the master bedroom. Hey, I paid for the place, I should at least get the biggest room. I started shedding clothes as I headed toward the shower. I noticed that Glinda was starting to peel off clothes as well, and I held up my hand. “No, I am not going to demand sex. I just think best in the shower.”

She sighed and nodded. She was wearing a blue tube top with a floppy loose white tank tee over top of it and a pair of yellow shorts. “Yes sir.” She said, and when I had stripped, I started getting the old-style shower to the proper temperature. I noticed she was watching my every move, but after the time I had spent naked I was not particularly body-conscious. I stepped into the shower.

It was almost as good a place for thinking as an exercise mat, so I started washing, turning around in the hot spray as I said, “I need to know what the hell is going on.”

I couldn’t see her, but I could hear her voice. “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

“What I mean is, this was supposed to be punishment. You were supposed to be hating every minute of this whole situation, I was going to punish you for maybe a year or two, and then you were going to go your merry way, able to take care of your boy, with a nest egg, a career, and without the need to work for the cartels ever again. It was this or kill you because you are way too dangerous and convenient for them to have access to.”

Lauren was silent for a few minutes, and then said, “I deserve whatever you choose to do to me, sir, but this is not a punishment.”

I opened the curtain slightly, now that I had gotten my major rinse on, and started lathering up my hair. I had been keeping it short ever since someone had casually remarked that I belonged on the cover of a trashy romance, and I decided I’d rather be on the cover of a milfic. I still sported the half-day-beard thing, though, because I liked the look.

“Why not? Do I have to step it up? I have been making you do every shitty chore I can find, run and fetch, making you make me sandwiches during the best parts of movies, the only thing I haven’t been doing is spanking you like a child or making you sleep naked like I did. I know you weren’t responsible for my first kidnapping and torture, but you did enough.”

“Torture?” She asked, frankly looking at me lathering up in the shower. “I thought you were a cook.”

I laughed, “These are the cartels you were working for, sweety. Once they figured out I could survive almost anything, the time I didn’t spend cooking if I did anything that even slightly pissed them off or they were bored or wanted to try out new torture, I was the guinea pig. I’ve been stabbed and had my throat slit dozens of times, had my genitals removed seven times, been butterflied twice, been gutted six times, and I have lost count of the times they took off fingers, toes, and once my whole hand just to hear me scream. Add to that the two years I spent in prison with guards that were issued elephant-strength tasers and loved any excuse to use them, yeah, I think that qualifies as torture.”

She had started to wilt as I described the tortures. Those were just some of the big ones. There had been thousands of other, smaller tortures I had endured, from starvation to being locked in hot boxes when I ran out of energy to make rapture, to one particularly nasty girl that enjoyed splitting my manhood in half if she showed me her boobs and I got hard, but I wasn’t going to mention those.

She was on the floor sobbing, serious heart-wrenching sobs, and I sighed. “Stop. Please. I don’t need your sympathy, I just want you to know exactly why you are being punished. When you ran that current into me, and then kidnapped me it was like I never got away. I was still in that cage, with people about to torture me until they got whatever they wanted and then kept on going.”

She nodded, trying to stifle her sobs. “God, I am so sorry. I didn’t know, I just thought you were another cook that they wanted back. I really do deserve the worst you can do, I am such a horrible… I am not even human. If Caelo hadn’t talked to her dad when I asked for help, and his Loas hadn’t told me to bring you to him, I would have put you right back there. Maybe you should kill me. Just promise you won’t hurt Toby.” She was looking at me with tear-streaked eyes, and weirdly I was suddenly rock-hard and felt like taking her, right then. Since when did crying women make me horny?

I shook my head and closed the curtain again, starting to rinse myself off. Nope, that was just creepy. “You don’t deserve to die. It worked out, but I am not letting you off easy. I still plan on using you as my slave until you get your feet under you before I cut you loose.”

“But…” She was still sniffling, “I don’t want you to cut me loose!”

I had worried that that would be the case, after my discussion with Baldwin, so I just asked her, “Why?”

I finally finished cleaning up and rinsing off, and opened the shower curtain, under marginally better control. “Why don’t you want your freedom?” I said as I stepped out. Surprisingly, she had one of those fluffy beach blankets that we had bought in preference to regular towels because normal towels were just too small.

She handed me the beach blanket and watched as I started toweling off. “Because I hate being alone. I have been alone since Lily died. I am happy to do whatever you tell me to, no matter how bad it is, but I don’t want to be alone. I hate having to decide how to live, how to eat, and what to do. I love being protected, you take better care of me and Toby than I ever could, or did, and even though I know you hate me I love you.”

I was flabbergasted, so I answered eloquently, “Whut?” Before adding, “But you have known me for only a month.”

She nodded, biting her lip, “I know, but in that month you have been a better person, a better man than I have ever seen in my life. I love calling you sir, every time you touch me it drives me crazy even though you never do anything, and I would do anything to make you happy.” She sobbed again, “Even give up Toby if I have to.”

I shook my head. “No one is asking you to give up Toby. That would be inhuman.”

She nodded, “That is it exactly! I mean, I brought back all the most horrible tortures you ever went through, and yet, here you are, letting me see you naked even though you won’t touch me. You are feeding us, caring for us, and wanting to help us get better. I mean you are even trying to get school for me, and I saw the prices, they were insane! You saved Toby, you saved me, and all you are asking for in return is stuff I would have had to do for myself anyway. You are like Lily, only a man too. When Uncle Ferron would come after me, Lily would get in his way and make herself look sexy so he wouldn’t…” and she sort of collapsed on the floor again, crying a lot more softly.

Hmm. Uncle Ferron. Ferron Grumman? He didn’t move to the top of my list, but he had just managed to insert himself right below Rainbow and right above Paul. That was pretty impressive, especially since he will probably be easier to find than Paul and more accessible than Rainbow Warrior.

I lowered myself to the floor, wrapping the towel around my waist, and tugged her into my arms, with her head on my shoulder. She was still crying softly, and I should have been enjoying the moment, but I knew that she was missing her sister and freaked out at the same time.

After a moment, when her crying eased a little, she said, “Sir? If a girl may speak?”

I chuckled a little. She was tiny against my chest. “I think we are a bit past that right now.”

She shook her head, pulling back a little, “No sir. This is right. I should ask.”

I nodded to her. “Speak, girl.”

She sighed and leaned back into my chest again. “This is what I mean. I saw you destroying that Cartel. You are impossibly dangerous, and yet I have seen you with Aquantis, you are impossibly gentle too. I don’t understand you, but I do love you and I want to. You don’t try to maneuver me into anything, you just tell me what you want, and you don’t want anything you are not willing to take.”

I sighed a little. “Well, I am still pissed at you, and I guess I am going to figure out another way to punish you.”

“You are already punishing me, almost more than I can take.”

“How do you mean?” I asked her curiously.

“You won’t do anything to me. Every night I lay awake half the night at the foot of your bed, hoping you will get angry at me and pay attention to me, spank me, yell at me, force me to do something sexual or scary, but you don’t. That’s why I argued with Baldwin.”

“Oh?” I asked curiously

She nodded against my shoulder and leaned back a little, “He wanted me to lift weights for real, but if I did, I would get all nasty and sweaty.”

I coughed a little, “You know, that’s sort of the point of going to the gym.”

She nodded, “Yes, but also there were lots of cute men there. Not like you, but if I got all sweaty and gross they wouldn’t pay attention to me.”

I nodded, “I get it, I am not paying enough attention, so you were hoping someone else would?”

She shook her head, “Not like that, I was hoping that if cute guys noticed me, maybe you would get jealous.”

“Why?” I asked her.

“Because then you would get jealous and pay attention, or punish me, or something. Even touch me. Maybe even rape me. I don’t care, I just wanted it.”

“Rape you?”

She nodded, “Yes, I want you to take me so bad it hurts. I want you to take me so I cannot resist, so it’s not my choice. I mean, I know it’s my choice, but I don’t want it to be. I hate having to choose that. I want you to want me so bad that you just do what you want to me. Or you punish me.”

I sighed, “You know I have a girlfriend, right?”

She nodded, “Yes, but I also know that sometimes she is so tired and worn when you are done with her that she cannot recover for days. I don’t know what you do to her, since you won’t let me in, but I know she is incredibly happy and would do it again if she could. I want Aquantis to like me, so when she cannot, you can do whatever it is to me that you do to her, even if it wears me out too. I know she said that it was okay for you to look for others, and I don’t want to take you away from her, but I want to call you sir, and maybe master, I think, and I don’t want her to be called slave or girl. She is your girlfriend. I don’t want to be your girlfriend, I want to be your… property.”

This was going to be tough to deal with. “Well, we have sex.” I said, “And there’s no chance of that. We have an interesting relationship.”

She nodded, “I know, I have seen it. I don’t want that. She is her, you are you, and you like each other and come together for fun and support and it is nice, but I don’t want to be just me that comes to you when I need it. I want to be there when you need me even if you are currently with someone else like if you need a towel to wipe off because you count on me to be there and know I will be and it makes me feel… like I mean something.”

She sighed, “I am not stupid, I know exactly what sex is, even though I haven’t done it myself, but Lily always made those choices for me, even once we left Uncle. I heard what you and Baldwin were talking about, and I think he’s right. I cannot help but think I would do anything you told me to, but you would also protect me, and keep me from making stupid choices like I was making. I want that.”

I nodded, and made a decision, letting her go and standing up. I had to re-wrap my towel. “Okay, then the game has changed. I am not letting you go ever. Do you want a decision? I am making one. I will not touch you for now. You aren’t allowed to find someone else to touch you either. You cannot touch yourself, and I am talking about sex. Your punishment is fitting to your crime, and your bad decision. I would make an ultimatum, an if-then proposition, but you don’t have room to make the choice. You aren’t getting any until I decide you will.”

That should also give me time to talk to Mariah and figure out what to do. Mariah was pretty darned submissive also, but because of that, she should have had a better idea of what was going on in Lauren’s head.

“Girl, you need to clean up the bathroom. You will go to sleep, as usual, on the floor at the foot of my bed, but this time you won’t wear anything. You can have a blanket to wrap up in, but that’s all. It will be cold.”

Weirdly, instead of getting upset, she just started to clean up the bathroom with a little hint of a smile on her face.

When I finally went to bed it was 2 am. It had been a long day, and it would be even longer tomorrow. I wasn’t terrifically tired, but I wish I had someone sleeping on my chest. Aquantis would be the best, but I wouldn’t mind Akiko or Caelo. That reminded me, that I would get to see her again since I was going to need more in the way of funds. I remembered what I had told Antonia, that corporations would pay out the ass for my talents, but I’d rather put in a day for Kjootoo and see Caelo, she was amazingly relaxing and sexy.

Almost as if called, my dreams suddenly stabilized and I was back in the bedroom. I knew it was a Dream, there was an indescribable sensation of lightness to it that I recognized from the last time, and I was sitting on the bed, unclothed, when Caelo stepped into the room.

She was wearing a cute miniature tee-shirt that barely ended below her breasts and a tiny little pair of panties. I growled at her in appreciation but wondered what sort of emergency had prompted her attention. Without a word, I stood and wrapped her in a hug, and she hugged me back.

“Hi,” I said, smiling and nuzzling her hair a little. Okay, yeah, I was kinda pressing against her, but this was a dream, right?

She murmured, “Hi. I kind of picked up that you were thinking about me, and it’s nice to talk to someone.”

I chuckled, I loved her voice, it was low and melodious, and her mother’s professional singing voice was very obvious. It was a shame I had never heard it in the real world. “Did you need me for something?”

She shook her head, “No, I just wanted to talk. And stuff.” I wasn’t very good at controlling myself in a dream, and I kind of used that as an excuse to run my hand across her bare tummy. “What kind of stuff?” I asked her, nuzzling her slightly-kinky hair out of the way so I could start nibbling under her ear. “How much time do you have?”

She giggled a little, “I can keep it up for a little while. I am learning more control, maybe 15 minutes, maybe more?” She squirmed slightly and put her hand on my bare chest, starting to trace it with her fingertip. I could smell her this time in the dream and could tell that she was excited and slightly aroused, and she even felt more firm, more real than before.

“Did you want to talk, or… exploit the heck out of this dream to do things we could never get away with?” I asked teasingly, slipping a little farther behind her so that I was rubbing against the back of her lower bottom and panties with my now-charged shaft.

She gasped, holding my hand with hers as she slid her bottom against me, and answered, “I want to talk, but I would like to do that more.”

I smiled evilly and nibbled my way from under her ear to the base of her throat, gently digging my tongue into the split of her collarbone where all sorts of fun nerves waited to be played with. “Oh, that definitely sounds like fun,” I said. This was not the real world. She could not get away with teasing me here, but I had to find out if a lot of other things worked.

“So what would you like to talk about?” I asked her, as one hand slid under the baby tee to start teasing along the underside of her breast. It felt much more real, more solid, than ever before. “Would you like to talk about this delightful little outfit you are wearing? I haven’t seen you in anything like it before, and I am looking forward to seeing you out of it.”

She was catching her breath, making little gulping noises in her throat, and she slid her hand up mine, pushing it up to cover that delightful little breast until my fingertips, covered by hers, started stroking her nipple. “I. I don’t know…” She answered, and I could see her licking her lips as she started to squirm, even more, her bottom rubbing a little too firmly against my cock so it pushed her panties slightly to one side. I lowered my other hand to the band of her little panties and started to nudge them downwards, flicking my fingers over the thin whisp of curly pubic hair that was revealed.

“I sometimes wear not a lot to sleep, but I decided to wear this because I was hoping to talk to you, and I wanted to flirt, but this is a lot more than flirting.” She gasped, as I tugged downwards with my fingers, slipping her panties so that they rolled down her bottom past my cock and I could start exploring those delightful little curls with my fingertips.

I nodded my hand on her breast lifting upwards, and she obediently lifted her arms, her shirt tugging over her head. “Do you want me to stop?” I asked her curiously as her shirt flopped to the ground, followed in moments by her panties. “You are amazingly beautiful and this is sort of a consequence-free zone, right?” I lowered myself for a moment, lifting again so that the head of my cock was pressed up against the small hollow between her legs. I was running my hand up and down her front, while the other hand inexorably explored lower and lower to finally dip between her thighs. She couldn’t maintain the dream forever, and I might never get to do this in the real world, so I was going to make sure she remembered me. Yes, it might lead to a messy bed in the real world, but that’s what I had a slave to clean up, right?

She shook her head, “No, I don’t want you to stop.” She whispered. “I wish we could do this in the real world too.” I chuckled a little and started licking her earlobe, moving up to gently flick my tongue into the curve of her inner ear while my hand found something fun and started gently rubbing and pinching it. As she started moaning, I move my hips forward slightly, so that my waist was pressed against her delightfully curved buttocks and my cock was nestled deeply into the little triangle between her legs, and I started slowly moving back and forth. I wasn’t inside of her but with the way her thighs were together, the head and top of my cock were held firmly against her sensitive little nubbin as I slowly moved back and forth.

She shuddered and I suddenly realized that she came! Right in her dream. I couldn’t use my scan here, but I could feel every muscle twitching. I rubbed more firmly against her sex, feeling the delicately moist little lips practically kissing the top of my shaft as I ran it back and forth, and slid my right hand up to her breast again, teasing and stroking at her surprisingly large nipple. Both of them were already engorged and beautiful, and I whispered, “Maybe someday we really can do this for real, and more. I would very much like to be inside you when I do this in the future. I will be visiting soon, I look forward to looking into your eyes when I can see you.” I started pushing even more, firmly stroking her clit with the top of my shaft as both hands lifted to her breasts.

I could feel her coming again, really hard, and she started squeezing her thighs together tightly, gripping my shaft and bringing me to the edge. “I cannot…” I heard her whispering just as I was starting to come, and I was suddenly out of the dream.

I was holding Glinda against me, exactly the way I had been holding Caelo in the dream, and to both my scent and analysis she was coming around me, her thighs tightly clenching my cock while I played with her nipples. I spilled myself out onto her thighs, groaning as I came, matched by her moaning cries.

Oh, shit.