Page 102 of Masters of Control

Freddy

The second day of the year was going great so far, which made Freddy feel a little hopeful his afternoon meeting wouldn’t be as difficult as he feared.

Lexie had texted him first thing that Mistress Camille had put a membership application through to the clubs, which meant he would definitely be seeing her again. Soon, hopefully.

Since he’d gotten so much done yesterday, his morning flowed smoothly right until lunch time, when he was meeting Morgan. He liked to check in on her at least every other week, if not more, to see how she was doing, especially now that she’d moved in with Master Brian.

Not that it was a romantic relationship. It wasn’t. It was a bunch of overprotective Dominants deciding she shouldn’t be living on her own. Yes, Morgan’s past made the Dominants extremely protective of her, but she would have to spread her wings sometime. She truly might not have been ready yet, though, and her living situation and Master Brian’s living situations happened to be changing right around the same time, so they moved in together platonically and shared Master Brian’s house. She had her own bedroom and studio for her work, and they were nothing more than friends.

Though the move had caused a bit of consternation around the club.

“Hello, beautiful,” Freddy said, bending down to give Morgan a kiss on the head before sliding into the booth across from her.

As always, she was stunning. Red curls flowed over her shoulders and down her back, and her wide green eyes were expertly emphasized with makeup and the green turtleneck she was wearing. She looked like Ariel from the Little Mermaid had come on land and decided to set up shop with the regular humans. Sometimes, Morgan was just as naïve as Ariel had been, too.

“Hey! Happy New Year!” She beamed at him.

“Happy New Year.”

Morgan’s energy was infectious. She’d changed a lot in the past year, having gone from an unintentionally judgmental and wary woman to someone who was excited and happy about every new discovery in her life. And there were a lot of new discoveries.

“They have corned beef hash on the menu. I always wanted to try corned beef hash.”

“Do you know what corned beef hash is?” Freddy asked. He wouldn’t deter her if that was really what she wanted, but Morgan sometimes had some odd ideas about things.

“No,” she replied happily. “Not really. But they talk about roast hash in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and I figure it’s kind of like that, right?”

Watching Morgan discover and immerse herself in popular culture had been a fascinating social experiment.

“I always assumed they were the same thing,” he confirmed, smiling at her excitement. Being around Morgan made him remember how lucky he was. Sometimes, life got him down, sure, but he’d never had to go through what she had.

“Then that’s what I want.” She put her menu down, folding her hands atop it. “Freddy…” Her voice had an odd note, drawing his full attention. Morgan only sounded like that when she needed life advice.

She’d needed a lot of life advice at first, thanks to being sheltered as a child by parents who homeschooled her, so they could control her. Then they basically sold her to a Dom, who kept her as a slave with only the barest sense of consent when they needed money. Patrick’s cousin had found out about her situation at a play party and rescued her, bringing her to Maryland to get her away from that scene and everyone there who knew her. Unfortunately, they hadn’t been able to bring the Dom in question up on charges, but he’d been kicked out of the community, which was all they could do.

“What do you need, love?” he asked, reaching his hand across the table to put it atop hers.

“How can you tell if someone is a bad friend?”

Oof. She could never ask the easy questions, could she?

“Hey, y’all, can I get you something to drink?”

Saved by the server gave Freddy some time to think while they put in their orders for both drinks and food since they were ready. Once the server had bustled away again, he met Morgan’s gaze.

“Why do you ask?”

In the beginning, her questions had often been very general, but over time, they’d shifted to become more specific. She hadn’t had any questions about friendship in a while, not since she’d made her first set. Granted, they weren’t the friends Freddy might have chosen for her, but they’d done her good in terms of confidence.

“I’ve been spending a lot of time with Sam and Noelle,” she replied, fiddling with the edges of her napkin.

“I know,” he said, smiling encouragingly and hiding his wince. Her second set of friends weren’t much better than her first. The majority of her first group of friends were heavily disliked by a lot of the other Stronghold submissives. Carolyn and Marissa were catty and often mean, but Amy was a total sweetheart, so when they’d pulled Morgan into their little group, he’d done his best to counteract Carolyn and Marissa’s influence while encouraging her to spend as much time as possible with Amy.

Lately, she’d been hanging around a lot with Sam and Noelle. Sam, otherwise known as Mistress Samantha when she was feeling her ‘top’ side—as a switch, she both topped and bottomed—was wonderful, but Noelle… he was pretty sure Noelle was going to be more bad news. So far, she’d been on her best behavior at the club, but he could feel tension gathering there like an oncoming storm.

“I don’t think Noelle likes us very much. She does all the things you said a friend is supposed to do, but sometimes…” Morgan sighed. “I don’t know how to describe it. It’s probably nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” Freddy replied immediately. Morgan was showing good instincts, and he wanted her to trust them. This was definitely growth since she had a tendency to take situations and people exactly as they appeared and not look any deeper. “You should trust yourself. What does your gut say about Noelle?”