John’s Long Journey into Night – Part Four by Doc Nolan

Synopsis of Part Two:  John, recently divorced, goes to his high school reunion, and meets an aggressively fascinating lady Lenore, who takes him home.  He discovers she is a domme when he meets her friend Mandy, also a domme.  He, like Mandy’s husband, is soon caged and told by the two women that he is now embarked on a new adventure: serving them!  Leonore promises to explain how Mandy’s husband became her caged pet.   Fast forward…

John woke up with a start – stretched his leg out – and then it hit him a bucket of cold water.  He was in a cage in Leonore’s house.  He was a five hour drive from his home.  His car was still parked someplace (he didn’t know where) with his travel bag inside it.  Leonore had driven him here and he didn’t even know where here was.  He was free-falling again.   The living room was quiet, and the rays of a morning sun were shining into the living room, but through a high window.  He could only see blue sky.
John turned to the adjacent cage, expecting to see Fred.   The cage was empty.  He was alone… no, he wasn’t.  He could hear the distant sound of a coffee grinder in the kitchen.  Someone was awake.  The clock ticked.  Gradually the smell of fresh-brewed coffee wafted into his nostrils.  He still waited.   And Leonore walked in, attired in a ratty old bathrobe.  She walked over to the sofa, sat down, curling her feet under her.  John noticed her feet and her fingers.  Long and thin.  He also paid attention to her petite ears, peeking out from her disheveled dark hair.  She gazed down at him, wordless.  He locked eyes with her, too.
Time stopped.
“Well, John, we have some things to talk about, don’t we,” she said.  She then glanced over at the cage.  “Don’t ask.  He and Mandy are gone.”  John felt something like loss.  That shocked him.  Leonore read his mind.  “No, not for good.  Mandy and he are out shopping; they’ll be back later”. She paused.  “The question really is, ‘Are you going to be here when they return this afternoon?’”  Leonore had a strange look in her eyes.  John was getting nervous.
“Miss,” he said, “last night you and Mandy were going to tell me about how Mandy and Fred met.  But….. “. Leonore laughed.  “You fell asleep, John.  Too bad…. You’ll just have to wonder for a while.” She grinned.  “Don’t look so disappointed.  You’ll eventually hear about it – if you’re still around.”
“Still around?,” he mindlessly repeated.  “What do you mean?”  Leonore sipped her hot coffee.  John realized he was cold. He involuntarily tried to rise – and felt the cold steel on his back.  The cage.  Of course.
Leonore laughed out loud.  “John, wasn’t last night was a lark, a fling, an experiment, an adventure?   You have a home and responsibilities to return to, right?  Besides, what good are you to me?”
John was paralyzed, not so much by her words (which rang true), but by his reaction.  He didn’t want to go back home.  He didn’t want to return to his rut and his responsibilities.  He was fucking sick of his home town and his memories and his stupidity and all the things that reminded him of his ex.   John was shocked that he felt good in this steel cage, and felt freer than he had in a long, long time.
Leonore was looking at him very intently.  He was afraid she could read his mind.
She spoke first.  “John, I have this feeling I can read your mind,” she said, without the glimmer of humor in her voice.  “I want you to tell me why I should even consider keeping you around even for a day.”  John felt a couple of tears rolling down his cheek.  His eyes were welling up.  He felt as if Leonore’s grip was extending from his body into his mind.  It felt good.  Very, very good.
“Leonore, my life is a fucked up mess.  I have no purpose or reason or focus in it.  Margaret is gone.  I have no pole star anymore.  I’m just a meaningless ‘thing’.  And I don’t want to go back.  I have no idea why, but the last hours have been….”  He struggled to find the word.  He could only come up with the word “meaningful!!!”   Leonore didn’t respond.  She simply held his gaze, sipped a bit more coffee, and then said, “You’re interesting, John. “
Then she added, “Later on I may let you have some coffee.  I made enough for two people.”
She paused again, “Last night I told you ‘The first thing tomorrow I’m going to ask you a question:  “Do you want to leave and never see me again, or do you want to stay here until I decide to dispose of you perhaps weeks and perhaps month from now?”
“I remember, Miss”, he said softly.
“And?”
“I don’t want to leave.”
She smiled softly.  “That is obvious…. But I’m glad you are brave enough to admit it to yourself and to me….. But John, it isn’t that easy.”  He frowned, puzzled.  “Let me explain.  You were not quite the ‘casual pickup’ you think you were.  After I tell you the background, you may hate me and storm out of here.  If so I’ll drive you back to your car and you can curse me all the way back to your empty shell of a house.”  She shifted her weight.  John noticed her robe had ridden up higher; she apparently hadn’t noticed.  He had.  Though his eyes were wandering, his attention had not.  He was focused.  “What is she talking about?” his brain screamed.  “What the hell is going on here?”
More silence.  More gazing.
“John, I’ve known your ex-wife Margaret for years.  We worked at the same firm years ago and kept in touch.  At one point we were lovers.  That ended years before you ever came on the scene.  Yes, John, I knew all about you, and her, and her new love (your boss), and your dismissal.”
John’s shock, dismay, anger, and horror overwhelmed him. “What!?!?!  You????” He grabbed the metal and began tearing at his cage.  He felt as if he’d been thrown from a plane, tossed into space in this fucking cage!
Leonore shrunk back a bit, though she’d expected this reaction.
“John, I had nothing to do with it.  Margaret was a bitch, is a bitch and always will be a bitch. I dumped her – thought she didn’t know it – because I realized what she is.  And you, John, were the next damned fool to be taken in by her.”  Leonore rose to her feet.  “John I brought you here because I felt sorry for you.”  She stopped.  “No, let me be honest.  I brought you here because of everything Margaret told me about you…”
John shouted, “I don’t want to hear!”  He meant it.
Leonore’s face now showed cold fury.  She took her cup of now lukewarm coffee, threw it in his face, and shouted, back – even louder – “Shut the fuck up, John.  Shut the fuck up.”. She was screaming.  She was out of control.
John didn’t understand what happened next.  He abruptly stopped being angry.  It was as if a light switch had gone off in his head.  He looked at the furious woman.  He only felt one thing.  Ashamed.
“I’m sorry, Leonore.  I just….”
She glared at him for a second, and then realized how intensely sincere he was.  It was written all over his face.  She sat down again.  It took several long seconds for her face to go from bright red to anything resembling normal.  Finally, having recovered, she spoke.  “John, I brought you here to test you.  I wanted to see what kind of person you are.  I wanted to see if your  ex-wife was describing you as you are.”
The man in the cage simply said in a flat voice: “Disappointed?”
She shot back, almost instantly, “No.  Not at all.”
She then said, “No commitments.  No promises.  No nothing John.  I don’t want to hear any bullshit.  My proposition to you is simple.”  She paused.
“Yes Miss?” he mumbled.
“You stay here for a while.  I continue to test you, use you, amuse myself with you – maybe loan out to Mandy if she gets the urge.  Whatever.  In short, John, I give you purpose and I use you and get to know you by using you. You do whatever I tell you to do.”
My simple question to you is this: “Yes, or no.  Interested or not?”
John looked at Leonore’s face, and the ratty bathrobe.  Her hair was unwashed.  She had no makeup on.
He simply said, “I’m interested.  I want to stay.”
She replied, “You’ve just passed your first test.  You are now my lab rat, John.”  She grinned.  “Oh, and from now on I’ll be calling you Fido.”  She turned and left the room.  John wondered when and if he’d get that cup of coffee she’d promised him.
 (to be continued)