Darla was one of the few live-in submissives that he'd come to love. Twenty years his junior, she'd finished her course work and the exams for her PhD, then took a leave from NYU without writing the dissertation.

For several years, he'd let her hide in his penthouse: cared for and indulged, disciplined and educated, petted and punished.

He'd lost Darla, or - more accurately - set her free, to pursue the life she was meant to pursue, to be the person she was meant to be. That loss had hurt, but it had been the right thing to do.

Some time later, she'd sent him a gift, a young submissive she'd named Grace.

Damaged and vulnerable, Grace needed help, discipline and control, attention and compassion, healing from the kinds of abuse that often finds natural submissives.

In short - she needed a good master.

Being a dominant doesn't mean that you don't have obligations. He took Grace in. He provided her with the menu of nurturance and punishment that she so desperately needed. He taught her to understand herself - her needs and desires, her strengths and her vulnerabilities, her blind spots and her personal history.

Almost 20 years younger than the Master - like Darla - Grace isn't really suited to being a long-term lover or companion.

Does that mean he's doomed himself to a kind of serial monogamy, a string of younger submissives, an ongoing "catch and release" program?

Or is it time that he found someone his own age to play with?