Training Carrie
                               Chapter 107
                                 Final
    
    Having come from a time zone two hours earlier than NYC, Carrie and I
weren't nearly ready for sleep. We fucked until we were exhausted, then we
lay in each others arms and cuddled. "What do you think he's doing?" Carrie
asked me.

    "I had a chance to find out," I said. "But he said I wouldn't be able
to tell you, so I decided I didn't want to hear it."

    "Dummy," Carrie said. "It'd be better for one of us to know than for
neither of us to know. But I think that gives me the clue I needed." She
was quiet for a minute, then she said, "He's trying to make it miserable
for me to be his slave, so I'll be more willing to give it up when the time
comes. But that's not fair to you, I've got to put a stop to it."

    "Do you think you'll ever be able to live without it?" I asked.

    Carrie said, "Live? Sure. Be happy? I don't know. But it's my problem,
not yours. You shouldn't have to suffer because of me."

    "I've been through a lot worse than William will ever subject us to," I
said. "If you think this might help you, even a little, don't say anything
to him."

    Carrie gave me a long, serious look. Finally she said, "I think it
might help. But if it ever gets to be too much for you, you have to promise
you'll tell me." I told her I would.

    The first thing we did the next day was go to Mr. Bishop's office. He
had all of the forms prepared, all we had to do was sign them. He even had
a small photo studio in the office, so we didn't have to go anywhere else
to have the passport photos taken. Mr. Bishop said his office would take
care of everything, and our passports would be ready in about three weeks.
Bill said he should hold on to them, and we would come back and pick them
up.

    There are a lot of things to do in New York, and in two weeks we had
only scratched the surface. But Bill said he was ready to leave, and
suggested we head for Boston. After a week in Boston, we rented a car and
drove through Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont for another two weeks.
Carrie went the whole time without a spanking, a total of five weeks. We
drove back to Boston, caught a train to NYC to pick up our passports and
stay one night, then flew home.

    Just as Carrie and I suspected he would, William tightened the screws
on us again as soon as we got home. It was the same level of control he
used before, thank God he hadn't thought of any new ways to oppress us. The
only new torment he added was exclusively for Carrie, for one time only.
Our first night back, he took us to the basement and attached Carrie to the
rails. After having me flog her a lot longer and harder than I wanted to,
he used the crop on her, leaving a dozen stripes all over her ass. That
really upset me, I cried and then refused to talk to him for a few days
afterward, even in bed. But the first time Carrie was free to speak to me,
she told me that it wasn't what I thought, it was really her reward for
being able to go five weeks without a spanking.

    Other than that incident, our lives at home weren't really that bad,
except in contrast to the life we were used to, or the life we lived while
traveling. But after only a few days, I was looking forward to another
trip. I only had to wait a few weeks. One evening, as we ate dinner,
William started singing "April in Paris." His singing sucked, but we got
the point, April started the following week.

    I love Paris, and not just in the Spring time. I spent a lot of time
there in my teens, and it's easily my favorite place in the whole world. It
was different than I remembered in a lot of ways, I guess any city would
change in eight or nine years, but it was still wonderful. For once, I was
the tour-guide, and I showed Bill and Carrie all of my favorite places.
Then we explored and found a whole new set of favorite places.

    We literally spent April in Paris. Then we spent May in Italy, June in
Switzerland and Germany, and July in England. We all had a wonderful time.
Carrie and Bill made a deal, that she would get one spanking a month, but
she was trying really hard, and she made it all the way from Italy through
Germany on only one hard spanking.

    Somewhere in Italy, we decided to try dropping the two-suite hotel
scam. We were all a little tense the first time we asked for a single suite
with a king sized bed for the three of us, but no one batted an eye. We
would never have done that in the US, but we did it all over Europe without
a single comment.

    Our relationship while we traveled was wonderful. I don't know how else
to describe it, except to say it was perfect. We never argued, we never
even disagreed on anything important. Bill never let a hint of the Master
emerge, he was never anything but our wonderful friend and lover, and
sometimes our protector. Anyone with Carrie's looks was bound to attract a
lot of attention, some of it unwanted. Oddly enough, I was sometimes the
one that attracted the attention, something I never understood or felt
comfortable about. Anyway, there were a few times when Bill had to
"convince" an aggressive male that he should prey somewhere else. Not that
Carrie and I wouldn't have loved to fuck some of those guys, but we never
attempted to hook up with men, because Bill wouldn't have been willing to
participate. But women were another thing altogether, although we never
looked twice at a woman who was also on the prowl.

    The details were always different, but in general Carrie found women
the same way she had found Helen. Wherever we went, we shopped, browsed,
and played tourist. As often as not, at some point, a woman would show up
on Carrie's radar. It was always someone looking for a change, for
something different, but not quite sure what. If she passed our initial
filtering process, we would meet her for drinks, or take her to dinner or a
show, and better than half the time she would wind up in our bed. We never
let any of them get close to us. I'll admit that we used these women, and
then discarded them without a second thought, but we were always up-front
about what we wanted from them.

    The European tour was just the beginning. We became world travelers,
but we were only interested in places with a lot of green or blue, no
brown. Living in New Mexico, we had seen all of the brown we wanted to see.
So, when we toured Australia, it was only the coastal areas, we had no
interest in the outback. My favorite place was New Zealand, I never wanted
to leave there. Then, after living out of our suitcases for nearly two
years, we bought a house in Vancouver, BC.

    We still kept the house in Albuquerque, Bill said that was the only
place William would ever be seen, but our trips there became few and far
between. Basically, we would only go there for a few days at a time, when
Bill thought that Carrie absolutely needed William again.

    The last time we were with William, it was a short visit, only one
night.  After dinner, he made me wait in the bedroom, on my knees, while he
took Carrie to the basement. After awhile, I heard Carrie screaming. She
was saying things like, "No, please don't, I'm not ready. I'm begging you,
please don't do that to me." It was all I could do to stay where he put me,
and as soon as William came back upstairs I broke the formal speech rule to
ask him what he had done to Carrie. A sad expression on his face, he told
me to go and see for myself.

    Carrie was fully restrained in the slave bed, still crying softly. I
asked her if she was Ok. "He took out my rings," she sobbed. He left Carrie
in the slave bed overnight, so I slept in a chair, my head resting against
her side. She kept crying for almost an hour before she finally went to
sleep. When William released Carrie the next morning, she hugged and kissed
us both, then told William he had done the right thing.

    "It's over, we're done with it," Bill said. Carrie nodded. She was
trying to be brave, but I knew it was going to be very hard for her. It was
an addiction, and she had to break it cold-turkey from that point on. My
compassion and concern for Carrie tempered the joy I felt when I realized
that I was completely free, for the first time in my adult life.

    About two months after that, one evening we were sitting around and
talking, our second favorite pastime. Bill reached out and put his hand
over Carrie's, and their eyes met for a long moment. "It's time, isn't it?"
Carrie asked. Bill nodded.

    "Time for what?" I asked.

    They looked at me and smiled. "Time for us to have a child," Carrie
said.

    "Right now?" I said stupidly.

    "We're going to start now, it might take awhile," Bill said with a
grin.

    They got off the couch and joined hands, then Carrie held her hand out
to me. "It'll be your child, too," she said, "all the parents should be
there at the start."

    Four months later, Carrie missed her period. She was pregnant. A few
weeks after that, as soon as we could get Uncle Phil and Bev to Vancouver,
we had the two weddings I described earlier.

    We made a few changes to our lifestyle for the duration of the
pregnancy. We all stopped drinking any alcoholic beverages. We stopped
bringing the occasional woman to our bed. We still went out, because we all
loved to dance to live music, but we only went to smoke-free clubs, and
only drank diet soda. Other than that, and Carrie's morning sickness during
the first month or so, it was life as usual. Life as usual for us meant
that we were inseparable companions, and we loved to fuck.

    About three months into Carrie's pregnancy, we took a trip to Denver.
That's when the awful thing happened, the thing I warned you about when I
first took over this story from Bill.

    The week before we left for Denver, we had all seen the baby in
Carrie's womb on ultrasound. It was a girl. "That figures, two thirds of
her parents are females," Bill said.

    Carrie kissed him on the cheek, then said, "Don't worry, this is just
the first, the next one will be a son. Two girls and a boy would be the
perfect mix."

    We had to go to Denver so Carrie could take a meeting with some
executives of a company her lawyer was recommending as an investment. I
didn't know or care anything about that stuff at the time, and neither did
Bill, but we sat in the meeting with Carrie because we always did
everything together. That evening, we decided to check out some clubs in
the area, to do a little dancing and have some fun after the boring
meeting.

    I guess we were having a lot of fun, because we stayed out later than
we had planned. It was late, the street was deserted, and we were walking
to our rental car. Two people appeared in front of us, backlit by the
street lights. "Hello, whore," my brother said. That was what he would
always say when he entered my room to torture and fuck me. My conditioning
took over, and I dropped to my knees and pressed my forehead to the
sidewalk.

    "What the fuck are you doing here?" I heard Carrie say.

    Arthur said, "You mean here in Denver? I live here, bitch. You mean out
of prison? Waiting for a new trial. Lawyers, you gotta love 'em."

    "I guess your father helped with that," she said.

    Arthur snorted. "When my old man found out what I'd been up to with his
money, he said prison was too good for me. Screw that old bastard." He
paused, then said, "I take it this is your boyfriend, the guy who spoiled
my plans. Did you know I had already bought you? You would have been mine
when you finished your training, a matched set of whore sisters for me to
play with. But those idiots at the organization got greedy, they thought
they could get your money and mine, too, and then the morons let you run."

    "You're insane," Bill said. "You and your buddy better leave us alone,
you're in enough trouble as it is."

    Arthur said, "No, this is too good an opportunity to pass up, you're
both coming with us right now." He was talking about Carrie and me, and
that really terrified me, but I didn't know what to do. I wasn't about to
go anywhere with Arthur, but I didn't know how I could prevent it. I knew
Bill had his pistol, and I hoped he would use it.

    "Nobody's going anywhere with you," Bill said.

    For the first time, the guy with Arthur spoke. "Hey, I'm not up for a
kidnapping."

    "You shut up and do what I tell you," Arthur said.

    "Bullshit," the guy said, and took off down the street behind Arthur.

    I raised my head enough to see the retreating man. By the position of
his feet, I could tell that Arthur had partially turned to look in that
direction, then he quickly turned back. "Ok, put the gun down or I'll shoot
your girlfriend," he said. I should have guessed that Arthur had a gun, or
else Bill would have already kicked his ass. After a pause, Bill dropped
his pistol, and it clattered to a stop right under my face.

    "Slide that gun over here, whore," Arthur said to me. I knew what I had
to do, but I was paralyzed with fear.

    "You're not going to shoot anyone, Artie," Carrie sneered. "I met you
once, a long time ago, when we were both kids. You were a pussy then, and
you're still a pussy now."

    "Keep it up, bitch. That will cost you fifty lashes," he snarled.

    "Artie, Artie, Artie," Carrie said, taunting him.

    His voice was cold now. "You don't think I'll shoot anyone? How about
if I kill your boyfriend right now? What would you say to that, bitch?"

    I saw Carrie's feet move as she stepped in front of Bill, and I knew I
had to act. "Here, Master, take the gun," I said, picking it up by the
handle and releasing the safety. I knew William kept the gun safe, with no
bullet in the chamber. I hadn't heard him cock it, so I had to cock it
myself before I could shoot.

    My brother must have looked down and seen me holding the gun. "Put it
on the ground and slide it over here, whore," he said. Then Carrie
screamed. I cocked the gun as I raised up, pointed it at Arthur's chest,
and squeezed the trigger. I missed his chest, but the bullet tore a big
chunk out of the side of his neck, and his blood gushed out like it was
coming from a hose. He looked down at me in disbelief, and I smiled at him.

    Arthur was still standing up, his hand to his neck. Bill began moving
around Carrie to get the gun away from him, but just then Arthur shot
Carrie in the chest, then he fell over backward.

    The impact of the bullet pushed Carrie back into Bill, and they both
fell to the sidewalk. He quickly scrambled up to his knees and took Carrie
in his arms. I saw the blood running in a river down her slumped body. Bill
put his hand over the wound and pressed on it. He looked over at me. "Get
help," he said.

    I ran back to the club we had come from, told them there had been a
shooting, and had them call 911. Then I looked around for anything I could
use as a compress. Finally, I grabbed a handful of linen napkins from a
serving cart, then ran out of the club and back to Carrie. By the time I
got back, a few people had gathered around, and one of them was also
talking to a 911 operator. I knelt beside Carrie and pressed the napkins to
her chest, but it was too late. She was dead. I looked at Bill, and it
broke my heart to see the look on his face. "I'm sorry, I did the best I
could," I said to him.

    "You did fine, I'm proud of you," he said. Then he added, "Carrie was
proud of you, too."

    Carrie and my brother were both pronounced dead at the scene. The cops
came and talked to us for a long time. All I wanted to do was be with Bill,
but they kept us apart, I guess so we couldn't make up a common story. I
didn't know how much to tell them about our background, but I decided to
tell everything. When the aid truck left with Carrie's body, we both wanted
to go with it, but they took us to the police station in separate cars and
kept talking to us separately. Finally, after I had told them everything
three times, I demanded to make a phone call. I called the number Carrie's
lawyer had given me years earlier, which he had said I could call "at any
time, for any problem."

    Half an hour after my call, two lawyers, from two different law firms,
showed up, not bad for four in the morning. One lawyer was for me and one
for Bill. They got us released immediately, and took us back to our hotel.
We agreed to meet them at their offices the next afternoon. When I asked my
lawyer why we needed two lawyers instead of one, he said it was to avoid
conflicts of interest, so we would each get the best possible
representation. I told him there couldn't be any conflict of interest
between Bill and me, but he didn't reply.

    The police wouldn't let us leave Denver for a couple of days, even
though our lawyers had told them to leave us alone. I could see that Bill
was going downhill fast, so finally I got pissed off. I called Arthur's
father and explained everything to him, including that his son had held me
captive for eight years and that had murdered Carrie. Then I called the
federal attorney who had overseen the prosecution of the organization's
members, bitched to him about Arthur being set free, and told him how we
were being treated following Carrie's murder. After that, the weight coming
down on the police from above was too much, they told us the investigation
was finished and we were free to leave.

    We had Carrie cremated, and brought her ashes home to Vancouver with
us. Bill barely made it home before he shut down, he just didn't want to
deal with it any more. I didn't know what to do for him, but I remembered
what he did for me after bringing me home from Helen's. I left him alone,
but I tried to keep an eye on him, to make sure he was all right and to let
him know I was there if he needed me.

    For the last year of her life, Carrie had usually spent a little time
every day looking at financial data, or talking to her lawyers and
investment advisors. She had really gotten into that stuff. Bill and I had
joked about it, telling her it was a replacement for the pain of her
spankings. I knew we could have left everything to the advisors, but I
decided I would take over what Carrie did. I never learned to enjoy it like
Carrie had, but it didn't take me long to figure everything out. At first,
during the worst of Bill's withdrawal, it was a way for me to keep busy. By
the time Bill came back to me, I knew what I was doing, so I didn't have to
spend any more time at it than Carrie had.

    It's been about eight months since Carrie's death. We just returned
home from a trip to our Albuquerque house, where we took the sealed urn
containing Carrie's ashes to the top of the picnic hill. It took us all
day, because we had invited Uncle Phil and Bev to come with us, and Bev had
a tough time getting up and down the hill. Bill carried the urn, and I
carried the canteen and a small bag of cement. We cemented the base of the
urn to a large boulder at the very top of the hill, so Carrie can enjoy the
view she loved, in a place where she was always very happy. Then we had a
little picnic, on a blanket in front of the boulder, enjoying the warm sun
and listening to Uncle Phil and Bev tell us about Carrie's childhood.

    I thought the previous paragraph was a good place to end our story, but
now there's a better ending. Bill and I were in the hot tub last night,
talking about the surgery I'll have in two weeks. Bill kept checking his
watch, and I was about to ask him why, when the ever-present cell phone
beeped. Before I could pick it up, he quickly snatched it up from the deck
beside the tub. "Hi, it's me," he said. Then he smiled, said, "Hold on,"
and handed the phone to me.

    I asked him who it was, but he didn't answer, so I took the phone from
him and asked who was there. "Hello, Char," Helen said. I was speechless.
"Please don't hang up on me, Char," she said.

    "I'm not going to hang up," I said, "I just don't know what to say."

    She said, "I've been told that you still love me, you could tell me
that. I still love you, and I've missed you every day since you left. I
want us to be together again."

    My heart was in my throat. I looked over at Bill. "Tell her you love
her," he said.

    "I do love you. I assumed you had moved on."

    She laughed softly. "I tried, but you ruined me for anyone else, I only
want you." She paused, then said, "Char, I'm so very sorry about Carrie.
That was a wonderful thing she did for me."

    "Carrie was a wonderful person," I said. A few months after I left
Helen, Carrie bought the dress shop and made Helen the manager. Then, in
her will, she left the shop to Helen. William knew about that all along,
but I only found out at the reading of Carrie's will. As far as I know,
that was the only secret they ever kept from me.

    "So, how long have you and Bill been plotting against me?" I asked.

    "For you," Bill whispered. "We're plotting for you."

    Helen said, "Bill read what you wrote in your story. After he thought
about it for awhile, he called me. He read me part of what you wrote. It
made me cry... Char, haven't we wasted enough time? Bill says you're free
now, you've let go of all your rage and hate. But regardless, I want you
back, I've always wanted you back."

    "It helps to let go, when you can kill the object of your hate and
rage," I told her.

    Helen said, "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

    I said, "I'm not, I'm only sorry I couldn't have done better, to keep
that bastard from killing Carrie. We don't need to talk about him anymore."
I swallowed hard and looked at Bill again. I knew what he wanted me to do,
so I did it. "I want to see you again, too, Helen. Just tell me where and
when we can get together."

    "How about right now, at your front door?" she said.

    Seeing the expression on my face, Bill laughed. I quickly leaned over
and kissed him, then jumped out of the tub and ran through the house, naked
and dripping water. I threw the door open wide, and there she was.

    Helen launched herself through the door, wrapping her arms around my
neck as we both tumbled to the floor. After smothering me in kisses, she
pulled her head back and looked into my eyes for a long moment, then she
slapped my face. Although it barely hurt, it was definitely a slap, and it
really surprised me. "Now we're even, and we'll never mention it again,"
she said. I started to speak, but she put her fingers to my lips and said,
"Never again." I smiled up at her and nodded my agreement, then gently
pulled her beautiful face to mine for a long, tender kiss.

    That was last night. Now I'm trying to add this final paragraph, but
Helen and Bill won't leave me alone, I feel lips and warm breath on my
neck, and hands everywhere. It's getting really hard to concentrate, so
I'll just say goodbye, and thanks for reading our story.