With Grace's head on her lap, Olivia gently stroked Grace's long brown hair and sat in silence as both her head and her heart were screaming at her; her head was screaming at her not to get overly attached. It had been many years since Alex's death, and after the funeral Olivia had sworn that she would never take on another submissive again. She had no right to claim Grace as her own, and Grace was most likely destined to end up at Coldwell Dormitory and move on with her life. On the other hand, Olivia's heart was screaming at her to not be afraid to open her heart and her home again to a submissive in need. There was something about Grace's big brown eyes that made Olivia's heart feel like it was beginning to heal and Grace brought out a piece of Olivia that the brunette detective thought had been buried in the ground long ago. Olivia pushed her thoughts of the past out of her mind as she looked down at the young submissive at her feet.
"Good girl, up you come now." Olivia ordered.
"I'm sorry, Ma'am." Grace blushed lightly as she obediently lifted her head from Olivia's lap. A submissive resting their head on a Dominant's lap was a sign of trust, and it was much too soon for Grace to be blindly giving her trust to anyone, especially since her judgement of character had proven to be questionable; Grace had thought that she was in safe hands with Sarah, and she had been very wrong.
"There's nothing to be sorry for, little one. How are you feeling this morning?" Olivia inquired.
"My back is okay, my wrists still hurt." Grace admitted.
"Let me see them. What do you say if it hurts or you get scared?"
"Red." Grace spoke the safeword Olivia had given her yesterday.
"That's a good girl." Olivia praised as she carefully unwrapped the bandages and examined Grace's wrists. The doctor at Mercy hospital had said that ointment only needed to be applied once a day at bedtime, but Olivia reasoned that an extra application wouldn't hurt anything as she gently doctored Grace's wrists with more ointment and then replaced the bandages. Grace's hands were no longer purple and had returned to their normal color overnight, but her wrists were still deeply bruised and would take much longer to heal. "Come lie down over my lap." Olivia patted her lap.
Grace hesitated for only a split second before she obediently draped herself over Olivia's lap with her hands on the floor in front of her and her feet on the floor behind her. Grace had assumed this familiar position countless times for a spanking when she was naughty, which seemed to be an almost daily occurrence in Sarah McPherson's home; Grace was often spanked just for 'looking wrong', but Grace was fairly certain that Olivia didn't plan on spanking her this morning. She was proven correct when she felt Olivia lift the back of her shirt and gently apply a generous portion of ointment to the whip marks on her back.
"You heal quickly, these scars should be healed by Wednesday or Thursday." Olivia commented as she doctored Grace's back.
Several hours later that afternoon, Olivia looked up from her computer and nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw Elliot hovering in the doorway of her office.
"What the hell, Elliot, make some noise when you enter a room!" Olivia scolded, startled by the sudden appearance of her second in command and best friend. Elliot grinned.
"Sorry, I just thought you'd want to know that Cragen's on line two, and your stray just woke up from her nap and is asking for food; I sent Churlish to find her something to eat."
"Thanks, and she's not my stray. Get back to work, I want all of your DD5s on my desk before you clock out today, and don't sneak up on me like that again." Olivia picked up the phone on her desk and pushed a series of buttons, "Hey, Daddy."
"Hey, baby. Do you still have Grace Muncy in your custody?" Cragen's voice came over the line.
"Yeah, she's been here all day, and probably bored out of her mind. I'm still waiting for Abbie to call me back about an emergency placement for her."
"Abbie is here with me, and I'm afraid we've run into a problem. Well, several, actually. The first problem is that I got your email requesting that we strip Sarah McPherson of her title, but apparently Sarah never found it necessary to follow procedure and file Grace's contract with an attorney, so SPS has no record of Grace ever being Sarah's submissive, and since there's no official record, Liz Donnelly says we can't strip Sarah of her title without an official statement from Grace, which would require a hearing. Liz's schedule is backed up for weeks, but Grace's hearing could be in as little as five or six weeks, which brings us to problem number two. Since there is no record of Grace being Sarah's submissive, then legally, Grace is considered homeless, and she needs a legal address leading up to and during the hearing. Abbie has been on the phone all day and hasn't been able to secure an emergency placement for Grace, so the only option left is Coldwell Dormitory, which brings us to problem number three. Since your detectives arrested Sarah, she has made several credible threats, and Coldwell Dormitory won't take Grace in light of these threats, seeing as they have other submissives to protect."
"What kind of threats?" Olivia inquired.
"Threats of violence against Grace's life; Sarah swears that she will find Grace wherever she goes and… well, I won't go into the gory details, let's just say that I'd put you over my knee for using such violent language."
"No, thank you." Olivia winced, the paddling she received a month ago still fresh in her mind, "So basically what you're telling me is this poor baby is screwed unless we can find some place for her to live with someone who can protect her."
"Pretty much. Sarah McPherson has been placed under twenty four hour surveillance, she won't be able to go anywhere without someone knowing where she is at all times. But unless we come up with a solution, Sarah gets to keep her title, and between you and me, I have zero confidence that this woman will do any better by the next submissive than she has done by Grace. Grace's circulation was cut off for nearly eleven hours, she's lucky she still has the use of her hands. Sarah could very easily kill the next submissive if she wanted to."
"Did Sarah McPherson have a submissive before she had Grace?" Olivia asked.
"According to our records and according to Sarah, no. But that doesn't mean much considering the fact that we had no record of Grace being in Sarah's care either."
Olivia looked up when she saw Grace walking back to the crib after a trip across the hall to the bathroom. Churlish walked up to Grace and handed her a box of food, which Grace accepted with a smile before she opened the door and disappeared inside the crib where she had been staying all day, keeping herself out of the way of Olivia's detectives while they were working.
"I'll take her." Olivia found herself saying before her brain could catch up with her mouth.
"Are you sure you're ready?" Cragen asked knowingly, and Olivia took it as a good sign that he didn't flat out deny her.
"I have no idea, but it's been eighteen years for me without Alex, and this poor baby needs help now. She's been here with me since yesterday, she might as well come home with me tonight. I can at least look after her for the next five or six weeks, and after that we'll see. Tell Abbie to bring me all of the forms and paperwork."
Olivia hung up the phone and sat at her desk in silence wondering what the hell she had just agreed to. Taking a deep breath, she stood from her desk and walked into the crib with a renewed sense of purpose. Grace was sitting on a cot wiping her face with a napkin, having just finished eating the food Churlish had given her, and she smiled when Olivia walked in.
"Down on your knees, baby." Olivia sat down on the cot and gently guided Grace down to her knees at her feet. "I need you to pay very close attention to everything I'm about to say. Can you do that?"
"Yes, Ma'am, I'm listening." Grace zeroed in on Olivia, the rest of the world didn't exist. The submissive brunette listened quietly while Olivia carefully explained the situation to her and Grace was shocked to hear that Sarah had never even bothered to file her contract with an attorney.
"That's why she never wanted to take me to a doctor." Grace realized, "I thought she was just one of those herbal medicine fanatics. Whenever I got sick, she would just give me some kind of homemade tincture. Even the one time my fever spiked up to one hundred four degrees, she just gave me a tincture and gave me a cold cloth for my head."
"You're probably right, she was probably afraid that a doctor would find out that your contract was never filed properly, and a doctor would be required to report something like that." Olivia agreed, "So what do you say? Do you want to come home with me for the next five or six weeks?"
"Yes, Ma'am, I would like that." Grace smiled shyly.
"All right, then. You're going to have to stay here with me for now, I don't want you to be home alone today. We'll go home in a few hours. Be a good girl." Olivia lovingly tapped Grace on the nose before she left the crib to return to her office. Grace fell back on her cot and sighed happily. Even if it was only temporary, she had a place to call home.
When Abbie arrived at the precinct, Olivia read through and signed every form that she needed to sign, including the form for temporary emergency placement. Grace also signed her name to each form underneath Olivia's signature.
"You have three days to negotiate a contract and file it with an attorney; if you haven't filed by then, I'll have to pick her up and take her to Coldwell Dormitory." Abbie cautioned, organizing all of the paperwork in a file.
"I'll see that it gets done, I already have an attorney on hand." Olivia nodded.
Several hours later, it was finally time to clock out for the day. In the parking garage, Olivia pointed out her car and Grace hurried ahead to open Olivia's car door for her, earning a gentle kiss to her forehead.
"Welcome home, little one." Olivia announced as she opened the door to her apartment and ushered Grace inside. "Kitchen is over there, TV is over there. The bathroom is in my room, I'll show you later. The coat closet is right here. This is the safe where I keep my badge and gun when I'm not working, and this is off limits to you. If I catch you fiddling with it, even if you don't get it open, it's an automatic spanking." Olivia warned.
"Yes, Ma'am." Grace nodded obediently, her bottom clenching involuntarily at the thought.
"Strip down to your underwear, that's how you are to be dressed when we are home alone. Fold your clothes neatly and put them on that chair over there." Olivia ordered.
"Yes, Ma'am." Grace once again moved obediently and she blushed lightly as she stood in her bra and panties.
"Good girl, you look adorable." Olivia praised as she sat down on the couch with a glass of wine, "Come kneel down."
Grace dropped to her knees at Olivia's feet and was guided to take a small sip of wine. Olivia relaxed back against the couch to enjoy the rest of the glass.
"Take my shoes off and massage my feet, little one."
Grace carefully removed Olivia's shoes and socks and set to work obediently massaging Olivia's feet. Olivia breathed a content sigh as Grace's hands worked a miracle on her sore arches. When Olivia had drained her glass of wine, she left Grace on the floor to continue massaging her feet while she picked up a pad of paper and a pen.
"I want to at least start negotiating your contract tonight, so that by tomorrow we have a good idea of where we're headed and I can file your contract with my attorney as soon as possible. What is your full name?" Olivia inquired.
"Grace Elizabeth Muncy." Grace replied, and Olivia wrote it down.
"The couple of times I've had you practice using a safeword, I told you to say 'red'. Do you want to keep using 'red' as your safeword or do you have a different word you like to use?"
"I would like to keep using 'red'. I'm colorblind, so using a color seems to fit me well." Grace smiled, making Olivia chuckle as she wrote the word down.
Olivia and Grace spent a lot of time negotiating, including punishments, rewards, and soft and hard limits. When they were finished, Olivia silently glanced over all of the information she had written down while Grace quietly massaged Olivia's feet; she hadn't been told to stop yet, so she continued.
"I wasn't expecting to get all of this done tonight, but I'm proud of us. Tomorrow I'll type it up properly and we will both sign it before I send it off to my attorney to be filed. Do you have any more questions about anything we discussed?"
"No, Ma'am, thank you for answering all of my questions."
Later that night, Olivia emerged from the bathroom freshly showered and dressed for bed in her pajama pants and tank. The brunette detective smiled when she noticed that Grace had turned down the bed sheets for her, and the young submissive was now obediently kneeling by the side of the bed waiting for her new Mistress. Olivia sat on the bed while Grace knelt on the floor smoothing lotion onto Olivia's long legs. When she was told to do so, Grace crawled up onto the bed and curled up comfortably at the foot of the bed by her Mistress's feet to go to sleep. Olivia too made herself comfortable in bed and drifted off to sleep with a wooden hairbrush laying on the pillow next to her in case it was needed during the night.