Rebecca's Lost Journals, Volume 4: My Master by Lisa Renee Jones Page A

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.”
    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