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  Contents

  Rebecca’s Lost Journals, Volume 4

  My Master

  Journal number . . . ?

  Friday, May 4, 2012

  Saturday, May 5, 2012

  Sunday, May 6, 2012

  Monday, May 7, 2012

  Excerpt of Being Me

  Don’t forget to click through after

  Rebecca’s Lost Journals, Volume 4: My Master

  for an exclusive sneak peek at Lisa Renee Jones’s sizzling second book in the Inside Out trilogy

  Being Me

  Available from Gallery Books June 2013

  Journal number . . . ?

  (It’s been so long since I wrote, I don’t remember), Entry number 1

  Friday, May 4, 2012

  7:00 a.m.

  I

  woke up with tears streaming down my face, lost in a dream, unsure where I was . . . a dream, or was it a nightmare? How can anything “he” is in be a nightmare? But how can it not be, if I’m this tormented in its aftermath?

  I was standing naked in my Master’s private chambers, in a room filled with red and white roses. They were everywhere, the scent of them sweet and seductive, the smell of romance and passion. My skin was ivory perfection, more beautiful than I ever remembered it being. My hair was dark silk that flowed down my shoulders. I didn’t feel like Rebecca Mason. I felt like someone else. Someone compelling and enchantingly sexy.

  He entered the room, standing before me fully clothed. It was part of his power, him being dressed. Me being naked. I liked his power. It excited me. It made me burn. To be possessed by such a man, this man, was everything I wanted, everything I craved.

  He held out his hand. “It’s time.”

  Nervous excitement shot through me. Yes. I will be his. And then, suddenly I was at the door of a large room with an octagonal stage. There were theater-like seats filled with rows of people. I felt a sudden surge of panic, a need to turn and run away.

  “I’ve never claimed anyone as mine publicly,” he said softly, stroking my hair. “Only you.”

  A knot formed in my chest and my belly. This was his way of showing me commitment; maybe the only way he knew how to show it. He was claiming me and asking for my acceptance into this community, and both things meant something to him. I had to do this for him, no matter how uncomfortable it made me feel.

  He stepped forward, heading down the aisle leading to the stage, and I knew to follow, to keep my head down. I was his submissive, his slave, and he was a respected Master among what he considered his peers. I understood the dynamics, even if they weren’t easy for me to navigate—not in public. Not during any of the times when he involved other people in our time together.

  I was glad to have my head down, relieved not to have to see the eyes I felt like heavy, wet blankets on my skin. I didn’t want these people to see me. I didn’t want them to want me, yet I felt the lust and hunger of those watching me, clawing at me, suffocating me.

  Once I was on the stage he turned me to face him, his hands sliding to my face, his eyes finding mine. “Do you know how proud I am of you? How perfect you are?”

  The rest of the room faded away. There was only him, and the moment he turned me to the crowd and announced me as his. He then pressed on my shoulders and I knew to kneel down, lowering my head, my hands outstretched, palms flat on the floor as he’d taught me. A long line of people began to line up to come to the stage and, one by one, they touched my hair, my back, my arms. I could feel myself shake, and not from arousal. He was sharing me again, and it shook me to the core, no matter what the reason, no matter what the rules specific to this club said, that this was part of my being accepted publicly. I tried to fight the shivers running through me, but I couldn’t. I slid into a dark place in my mind but it wasn’t shelter enough. Every touch of a stranger’s hand sent another shiver down my spine, and my eyes burned until tears streaked my cheeks.

  And that’s when I woke up, crying as I had been in my sleep, the scent of roses teasing my nostrils (so very real, though it was imaginary), my gaze sweeping his bedroom, where I’d been sleeping with him for months now. It took a moment to realize where I was, and why I was alone. He was out of town and would be until Tuesday. “He” being my lover, my Master, and, I fear, soon my heartache. The bed was empty without him, the house emptier, but clearly my dreams and my thoughts were not. They were rich with a growing sense of unease.

  I’m in the living room now, his living room, a cup of piping-hot coffee beside me, and the television is on, but my efforts to stop my mind from racing aren’t working. Now, for the first time in months, I’m forcing myself to do more than jot down random thoughts here or there as has become my habit, or rather lack of one. I’m going to start writing down what I feel again, and face what is bothering me.

  And I know there is plenty bothering me. The nightmares of my mother trying to kill me have been back for a month, but now I’ve apparently decided to keep things interesting and have nightmares about the man I love. Who doesn’t love me.

  There it is. No more analysis needed. One journal entry, and I’ve solved the mystery that isn’t a mystery.

  He. Doesn’t. Love. Me.

  It’s that simple, and yet it’s complicated in so many ways, starting with the fact that I know he cares about me in the way he believes is the ultimate showing of affection and commitment. He simply doesn’t believe in love. He believes in belonging, in ownership . . . in contracts. I’ve often thought that he trusts what is in ink more than he trusts what is in his heart or mine.

  I can understand this. I can. Let’s face it, my mother loved me, but she lied to me. She lied in ways that I believe affected the very core of who I am.

  Looking back now, I think the security of a contract was part of what drew me to our arrangement. I know he has something in his past that makes him need that security, too, though he tells me this lifestyle is nothing more than who he is and what he enjoys. There is more in the depths of his eyes, though, more to who he is. I’d thought I’d discover what that is, who he is. I thought we could heal together. I thought we’d find love together—but he says love is a facade that twists people in knots, and yes, he’s gone so far as to say that it destroys.

  He’s wrong. Love isn’t a facade, but yes, it does twist you in knots. And he is completely wrong about love destroying what it touches. It’s people who do that. And I fear that is where this is headed for me.

  The scenes we enact together take me deeper and deeper into the places I know represent his internal hell, and yet I can’t pull him back. Instead, he’s pulling me inside that dark hole that is his escape. Only there is no escape for me anymore: not when every scene pushes me beyond the limits that mean pleasure for me. He doesn’t see that, either. And as my Master, he should.

  Oddly, as I’m beginning to find me again, I think he’s completely lost me. Or maybe I’ve lost him. My heart just contracted at this conclusion. I love him. Why did I let myself love him?

  10:15 a.m . . .

  H

  e called me as soon as I sat down at my desk.

  “My bed needs you in it.”
r />   I swallowed hard at his raspy, desire-laden words. “It had me in it. You were the one who wasn’t in it.”

  “Any bed I’m in needs you in it. You should be here.”

  “We both know why I never travel with you.”

  “Yes. And we are going to talk about that at the contract renewal.”

  I wasn’t going to agree to go public with our relationship. I already battled people thinking I was too young to have depth to my knowledge. Having them believe I got where I’m at because I’m involved with someone connected to the gallery would be even worse. “My position won’t change.”

  “We both know I can be very persuasive.”

  Yes. We both knew that all too well.

  He lowered his voice, roughened it up in that way he did that made me insanely aroused. “I can’t wait to have you beneath me again. I’ll call you later.”

  “Yes. Later.”

  We hung up and I sat there, twisted in those love knots, before grabbing my journal to write this entry, to explain what I am feeling so I can look back at it later and make informed decisions, not emotional ones. Tormented. Confused. Uncertain. Out of control. Those are the feelings that have been dictating my actions, rather than logic. Which is exactly why I need to be writing this.

  • • •

  R

  alph just poked his head into my office and held up a piece of paper that said “61 days,” his score card of the number of days my fellow sales rep Mary has been nice to everyone. It’s a record, and I suspect it has to do with the fact that she discovered a couple of pieces of very special art that Mark bought for a steal for the July Riptide auction. Of course, she hates that I’m coordinating the auction, but I think she finally feels like she is on solid ground at the gallery again. Thank you, is all I can say. Give her a big commission and keep her happy. Her meanness to me this past year has been the shark in the gorgeous water that is the gallery for me.

  I laughed at Ralph’s antics, as he intended me to. I love Ralph, I really do, but I don’t let myself get too close to him. He wants to know too much about my private life, and that isn’t going to happen.

  I’d stopped writing at work because I was worried about someone finding one of my journals. It’s why I don’t use names. It would be bad enough to have my innermost personal thoughts exposed, but worse to expose someone else’s secrets through my writing. And this time I bought a journal with a lock attached to the cover. No one needs to read my thoughts, not even “him.”

  I can just imagine if Ralph found one of my journals. Okay, leave it to Ralph to make me smile again, because thinking about the look on his face (he’s quite prudish) if he read just one of the erotic scenes I’ve described since heading on my submissive journey makes me want to laugh. I might wound our quirky, sweet little accountant for life.

  Yes. My life outside this place is definitely not for anyone else’s consumption. I started a friendship with Georgia O’Nay that I pulled away from for the same reason. She was too close to people I know, too close to the things that would allow her to know my secret lover. But it turned out she knows anyway, for no reason I could control. The truth is, there are several people who know, and fighting public knowledge is probably a lost cause. This bothers me. It really does.

  Eventually it’s going to come out that I am with him. Eventually every bit of success I’ve had will be questioned. If I believed in where he and I were headed, it would be okay. I’d deal with it. But I guess that’s what it really comes down to. I don’t believe in where we are headed.

  Maybe . . . maybe I need to leave the gallery, to find another job in art—but wouldn’t I still be in the same circle of people? And I’ll never make the money that I make with Riptide, and I’m alone, with no one else to count on.

  Yes, I have him.

  But for how long?

  8:00 p.m.

  An hour before closing . . .

  I

  ’ve decided I need to go home to my apartment tonight. I’m not looking forward to telling my Master that. We’re at contract negotiation time again and I know he’ll freak out and think I’m pulling away from him. Maybe I just won’t tell him. He won’t know; he’s off in another state right now.

  I’ll decide later. I just need some space of my own. Of course, all of the things I use daily are at his place. I’ll have to go by there, and I wish I didn’t. When I smell his scent, see his things . . . it’s hard to turn away, but I feel like that is where this is headed. I need more than another contract, and less of what he’ll want included in the new one, anyway.

  I just don’t think he can give those things to me.

  11:00 p.m.

  M

  y apartment. It’s so very strange to be here, but nice. A whole lot more humble than my Master’s elaborate place, but I like that. This is me, with my overstuffed, overused couches and my down comforter on my full-sized bed, which I’m sitting on now with all my old journals surrounding me. It’s a cozy little place, made cozier by it being mine, something I claim ownership of. He tried to pay my rent as part of our last contract, but I refused. I needed to know I had my sacred place I could go to if I ever needed to, and tonight I did.

  Though I’ve made some money from the auctions and I can afford to get a bigger, fancier place, I’m not going to. The Riptide auctions that I’m involved with are only a couple of times a year, and I want a nest egg before I start spending outside my norm. I’ve done way too much throwing caution to the wind this past year. I might splurge on a few pieces of art and decorate a little, though. Make it even cozier.

  Yes. I think I will. This idea pleases me, yet it makes my stomach burn. I’m thinking about leaving his place. I’m thinking about needing mine.

  For now, though, I just packed enough of my things for the weekend and went grocery shopping. He called while I was at the store and he knew something was wrong. He told me he did. I told him I was exhausted. And I am. Emotionally. I’m on an emotional rollercoaster ride and he’s not. That bothers me. It’s telling. But what is it telling me?

  I told him I’d call when I got home, before going to bed. I have to call him. He is my Master. At least for two more weeks.

  The call . . .

  Y

  ou aren’t at the house,” he said the instant he answered, not bothering with “hello.”

  My heart jackhammered and I didn’t ask how he knew. Probably the security system. I should have thought of that. “No.” I hesitated. “I’m at my apartment.”

  The line crackled with electricity. “Why?”

  “You aren’t there. I have no reason to be.”

  “I want you there. That’s reason enough.”

  It used to be enough. And it could be again, so very easily, if he’d just . . . what? I don’t even know. “It’s almost contract renewal time. I wanted some space to think through what that means to me.”

  “What does that mean, Rebecca?”

  My chest hurt. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

  “Figure it out at home.”

  “This is home for me.”

  “No. Home is with me.”

  He was wrong. It was his house. His couch. His everything. “And you aren’t there this weekend, so home is here.”

  “You belong to me,” he reminded me softly. “You belong in my bed. I need you there.”

  I could hear the rough quality to his voice and I knew he was upset. I knew he didn’t want to lose me. But I also heard the word choices he always makes oh-so-cautiously. I belong to him. Not with him. I belong in his bed, not by his side—or in his life.

  I drew in a deep breath and let it out. “And I need this weekend here. Please, Master, grant me this. Just while you are away.” I knew the use of “Master” away from our play would help my cause, and it did.

  There was silence, and time ticked slowly by, but when he spoke he
granted my wish. “When I return, I’m going to make sure you never want to leave again.”

  “I don’t want to leave,” I whispered.

  He was silent again, even longer than before. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

  “Okay.”

  We both sat there, and I knew he didn’t want to hang up any more than I did. We do have a bond. He does want me. I know this.

  “Goodnight, Rebecca,” he finally said, his voice low, sandpaper rough.

  My throat thickened with emotion. “Good night,” I replied, and added because I had a burning desire to please him, “Master.”

  Saturday, May 5, 2012

  1:00 a.m.

  My bed surrounded by my old journals

  I

  t all comes back to the roses . . .

  The roses in the dream (or nightmare) have been bothering me all day. The day my Master introduced me to the club, there had been no roses. My mind had to be telling me something, and I think that is part of why I wanted to be here tonight. I needed to clear my head of everything that is my Master, and get inside my thoughts.

  So I started reading my own writing. The old entries are eye-opening, especially since I’ve lost track of my feelings these past few months, sporadically at best scribbling notes in random places when, and if, I have the privacy to do so. I told myself it was because I didn’t want my Master reading about my feelings, but I think I just went through a period of denial. I didn’t want to see everything in my life clearly as I had wanted to in the past.

  One of those random entries from back in January made me pause for all kinds of reasons. It’s the entry that made me begin this entry with “It all comes back to the roses.” I’d written it the night before our last contract renewal (which we’ve continued every four months). I’d still been in my apartment as often as I was at his house, but he’d wanted that to change.