Trust

is a slow-woven web

M.J.

Journey’s End

As the train rolled across the Bulgarian plain towards Varna on the Black Sea coast I wondered about how easily I had become accustomed to its constant movement. This is what sailors experience, I wondered, a constant rolling. ‘Sea legs’ were real, and dry land something that had to be learned about again after a long voyage. Our journey had not been so long, of course, but it had been filled with incident and adventure and would soon enough be over. What then?

I was soon to get an inkling of this.

“Hurtle, my sub, I have been very pleased with you on this trip.” My Mistress had said nothing for over an hour and I sat up and paid attention.

“You have served me with great care. You have entered into our nightly games readily.”

I admit, I did allow myself a small flush of pride when I heard these words.

“Have you ever been to a slave auction, Hurtle?”

“No Mistress. Never. I am aware they exist.”

“They do indeed, my sub. And we will have the pleasure of participating in one in Istanbul. A very prestigious event with Mistresses and Masters from all over Europe and the Middle East.”

“It will be an honour to attend with you, My Mistress.”

She looked at me then, with those sparkling dark eyes, a smile playing around her mouth.

“You know, you would fetch a very good price, Hurtle, with your obedience and loyalty, and your physical attributes…”

I blushed again, and as I looked at My Mistress I felt as if her eyes were penetrating right into the heart of my being. Love for her welled up in me and I was filled with a profound trust in her. She was My Mistress, my Ruler, my Domme. I knew I would do anything she asked of me, knowing her love and care for me was like a deep well. And I trusted her intelligence and her experience in this world of kink – her choices and decisions were at all times taken with care and diligence. And executed with flare. As her sub, I was blessed.

If it was her wish that I be auctioned, then she would have good reason for this, and I would stand proudly as her sub and go willingly with whoever chose me. For she was inside me now, and whatever befell me, wherever I went, I would wear her collar, like a leash, in the depths of my mind.

When she turned away to the window I saw that we were passing through Varna and I glimpsed the sea and the beaches and the throng of gaily dressed holiday makers and tourists.

We followed the coast for many miles and were once again lost in our own thoughts. This flat, fertile countryside was the ancient Thracian plain, purported by some to be the birthplace of Dionysius, the god of wine, music and ecstatic dance.

My Mistress and I talked about him for a time and thought if, in the course of his rites, he had ever felt the sting of the lash on his flesh and taken pleasure from it. We suspected he did.

We arrived at the Sirkeci Terminal in the dark, having eaten our last meal on board – both of us had chosen the sturgeon – and I felt a pang, almost of loss, to be leaving this most romantic of trains.

Our journey was at an end, but our story was not. I followed My Mistress through the crowd and out into the night.

Coda

The old man in bed 34 had been hovering on the edge of death for some days now. The nurses were quietly attentive to his needs and kept him well sedated against the pain. There was no family, so no-one had needed to be informed. The staff made sure there was someone with him the whole time.

There was surprise, then, when a visitor showed up and requested to see him. It was a woman. She was well-dressed in stylish trousers and a blouse with her hair pulled back into a ponytail.

“Are you a friend of his? It’s just that there’s no family and he has had no visitors in the three years he has been here.”

“I knew him many years ago when he worked for me. I heard through acquaintances that he was near death.”

“That he is. You may have arrived just in time. Can we get you a drink?”

“No. Thank you. I would just like to see him.”

They showed this unexpected visitor into the man’s room and left her alone with him.

She stood looking at him for a long time and then went and sat by the bed. She took his hand in hers and squeezed it gently. She felt the slightest answering pressure. A long time passed. She remembered how they used to sit in silence like this quite often.

The old man opened his eyes and looked at her. He tried to say something. She leant in close to hear the words.

“Mistress.” He managed a weak smile. “You found me.”

She smiled back at him through the tears flooding her eyes.

“Hurtle, my sub, my precious, precious sub. Of course I did.” She touched his cracked lips with her fingers. She leant in and blew gently into his ear.

“When I fastened that collar on your neck all those years ago, when we were in Istanbul, it bound us together, my sub. Me to you, not just you to me.”

He squeezed her hand again and smiled through his own tears.

When they came later to bring her some food, they found her sitting on the bed cradling his head in her lap. They understood straight away that he was dead.

She was given some more time alone with him before they began preparing the body for its final journey.

The funeral was small. The mysterious woman, a couple of staff from the home, a celebrant. Two gravediggers helped the body into the ground. There was a chilly wind blowing from the north.

The woman had paid for the plot and for the headstone, which was installed later. After the name and the dates, there was a simple inscription:

He served with his heart

© Hurtle SoMC 2020