Page 104 of Ashes of Sin and Stardust

Chapter 27

It didn’t take longfor news to travel about what had happened between me, Jeffrey, and Becca. That news spread to a married couple who worked in the police force, and they confronted me one day.

“There’s an epidemic, Reuben. Yesterday there were twelve young women between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five who were dropped off at our station by an anonymous party.” His name was Sam Bronner, and his wife Janette stood beside him as they explained.

“From the little we could gather from them, they were all former sex slaves, sold at an auction, and someone rescued them. We’ve done what we could for them, but most of them are back on the street. Most of them are so traumatized they can’t even speak. Can you help?”

At that point, I stepped away from cooking. I spent the next six months talking to Becca, Jeff, Mike Black, and a few of my other new friends about how we could make a difference. Becca opened up about her experience as a slave, and how learning to trust me, and learning about consent and how to say no to me had been what turned the tables for her. We developed a quiet plan with only those we trusted, and began to set it in motion. All the while, I hired managers, trained new chefs, and handed off most of the work of my restaurants to other people so I could step back.

Because although I enjoyed cooking, I was finding I was not cut out for the restaurant industry. It was monotonous, boring, and routine. I made the same things every day and felt stunted in my creativity. I wanted to grow, create new things, and do something that mattered. These girls mattered.

Eventually, we established a place. I found an old house in a secluded area, and I purchased the place, turning it into a group home. Becca and I, and some of our other friends, began bringing in some of the girls who were too traumatized or broken to survive a battered women’s shelter or a rehab center. These girls were the most broken I’d ever seen. Becca had been an anomaly, being able to survive on the streets.

As we helped them, gained their respect, and taught them to trust again, I began to see what Becca was going to turn into, and I loved it. I began to figure out what I wanted, and I felt proud and fulfilled in my care for the girls. Maybe it was a way I could ease the guilt for what I’d done to Savannah, but I liked to believe it was because I had become a more decent person than I had when I was eighteen and drowning in hormones and betrayal.

I continued my education and my practice of BDSM on the side, learning what I could and playing as I needed with consenting playmates to satiate the Beast. I learned about consensual nonconsent, and how beneficial it was for the trauma victims I was working with. Becca, Simon, and I built a place where we could facilitate those scenes without the eye of the Underground members gawking, and also provide professional services to others who had the need of a Dominant in their lives. Becca worked at the treatment center to mentor the girls, went to school, became a doctor in psychology and sexual trauma, and worked at our private dungeon part-time alongside several other professional Dominants we’d hired for the same purpose.

There wasn’t enough money to care for all of the girls indefinitely though, and although I could keep them all alive and safe, it wasn’t much of a life. I started looking for people to adopt them and act as guardians and give them a real future. Sam and Janette worked as our undercover police contacts, continuing to bring us new girls. One of the other cops got involved as well, and took fingerprints and found the identities of the kidnapped girls, helping to coordinate sending them home. Eventually, the private military group that rescued the girls started working with us directly, and Lindsay and her team became our main source of victims.

Those without homes or families to return to were sent to other masters and caregivers who I trusted. One at a time, painstakingly, I found homes for the broken girls with people who had their best interest in mind. Doms who needed to be needed, who needed to have someone to love and pour into were matched with the girls who had no hope, and slowly, they learned to trust again. They learned to sayNo.

My playtime in the dungeon changed as well. I was slowly coming to terms with my desires, and not hating myself or feeling guilty about the Beast. I met several submissives who I developed close relationships with and became recognized at The Underground as a trusted player. I was enjoying my life. I felt like I had everything figured out.

Then I met Robin.

She was one of the slaves who was so broken and so locked up inside her own head, she didn’t even recognize she’d been rescued. Something about her spoke to me, and I took her into my home to care for her myself.

It took almost a year before Robin would speak. She was a silent servant, anticipatory in her labor, and following her own rituals in exacting detail. It was a long road to bring her out of herself, but we became attached to each other in the process. She called me Daddy and she was my princess and she had me wrapped around her little finger.

She had a lot of needs though, and despite my travel schedule, didn’t want to give her up. I adored her. She didn’t want to leave me; she was still so hurt and betrayed from being handed off so many times. She was finally happy, and finally felt safe. I didn’t want to risk breaking her again.

So I began looking for someone to serve me and her together. That’s when I met Megan.

I met her at a book signing. All she did was hand over her book with a silent request for me to sign it. Butmy Goddid I recognize that look. It was the same bright strength but timid need that I’d seen in Savannah. She looked at me like she wanted my torture and would stand through it with her chin high. When I saw that look on her face, I nearly dropped the book.

I put my phone number in her book instead of my signature, and I got a call from her a day later.

We began a long-distance relationship. A year later, she moved from New Jersey to DC to live with me and become my submissive, to care for Robin, and to satisfy my urges so I could keep the Beast at bay. A year after that, she asked me for slavery.

I foresaw my life, in my mind’s eye, and I thought everything would continue as it was. Robin would grow up to be a big strong girl, and be my sweet little daughter forever. Megan would be my rock and my trusted friend, my plaything when I needed it, and I didn’t have to worry about leaving Robin alone. I had other playmates and part-time submissives who allowed me to indulge in the things Megan was uncomfortable with, though I much preferred her.

But there was a day that changed everything. And if I could go back in time and change one thing in my life, that’s the day I would change.

I would have paid attention and listened to my Master. The one I shunned and avoided and turned my back on so long ago. The one who had been trying to get my attention for years, dropping hints and giving me guidance, even though most of the time I ignored it.

Back in Cullowhee,when I was sixteen and living under my father’s thumb, there had been a day when I’d stared up into the sky, silently praying for the first time in my life. My mother had just fallen for the first time and was now in a wheelchair, and I knew my life was about to change. I didn’t know what I was asking for, but I knew if there was a God, He’d hear me.

That night, the visions started. The very first one I saw was nothing more than a set of eyes, and a few words that meant nothing to me at the time. I wrote it off as a coincidence.

A few nights later, I had a dream that my mother got a phone call, reached for the phone that was too far away, and fell for a second time. Before I left for work that night, I made sure to plug in her phone, leaving it close by so she could reach it.Again, I thought nothing of it.

Months later, I saw a vision of a mudslide on the mountain. I skipped going to school that day, and when I heard there had indeed been a mudslide that would have gotten me stuck and unable to reach home, I stopped writing off the dreams.

I didn’t get them often, but when I did, I tried to listen. I wasn’t sure that I believed they were from God, but it didn’t matter. I listened to the visions because they were almost never wrong.

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