Certain Requirements

by Elinor Zimmerman

  She looked at her hands. Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she winced a little. “I’ve tried to be a girlfriend, and inevitably, I disappoint because I never have time for normal things. My last girlfriend started out perfectly happy with what I had to offer, but by the end, she wanted someone who’d be home for dinner, who she could marry and who’d spend Sunday morning getting brunch with her.”

  “Fuck brunch.” That made her laugh, a big, loud guffaw.

  “It’s not unreasonable. But I’m not going to change how much I work or how I live my life. So I can’t be what most women want from a girlfriend. But I still have things to offer.”

  “Is that what happened with your last sub? She wanted more?”

  Kris shook her head. “We were involved for two years, but we weren’t exclusive. She had other partners. I didn’t have time for other regular partners, but once in a while I played with someone else if the stars lined up. She and I saw each other about once a week. I wanted to play more often, but my schedule was tough and she couldn’t drop everything when I happened to be available. After a while, I told her about my live-in sub fantasy. We talked about it, but she wasn’t interested. She moved to be with her partner in San Diego. We’re on good terms though.”

  I eyed her suspiciously. “You seem too good to be true.”

  She lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. “Look, I won’t ever be your girlfriend. I’m not available for a lot of things. I work too much and that makes me boring. Those sound like small limitations now, but eventually, they become a problem.”

  I rolled my eyes. “The last thing I’m looking for is a girlfriend. I have plenty going on in my life as it is.”

  “So is this an option?” she asked.

  I looked around the perfect living room. “This is an option.”

  “Good. I think so too.”

  “Your house is amazing, by the way.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But, ugh, where am I going to park?”

  “Do you really need a car? It’s only a fifteen-minute walk from BART, and there are buses, and the Muni.”

  “On Mondays and Wednesdays I teach two classes an hour apart at different studios. It’d be cutting it too close getting there on public transit.”

  “You could use my car,” she said. “I can walk to work. I could schedule around when you need it.”

  My eyes widened. “Really? Isn’t that a little much?”

  “It’s just sitting in the garage most of the time anyway. If you figure out the insurance, it’s no problem to me.”

  I stared at her. I noticed that she’d kicked off her shoes and they were half-hidden under the couch. Her bare toes dug into the rug.

  “If you don’t want it, say no,” she commanded me, the first hint of what she sounded like in dominant mode.

  I considered it as I uncrossed my legs. My old Hyundai was paid for, and I could probably get a couple thousand for it. Without the cost of rent and a boost from selling my car and meager furniture, my budget could relax. I’d need to stay frugal, but I could get a massage every now and then, see a show, buy a sandwich. And even if the arrangement only lasted a little while, my budget would still be eased during the early months of striking out as a performer.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’d really appreciate using your car.”

  “So do you want to get together next weekend and decide if we’re doing this?”

  “What’s left to decide? I’m on board.”

  She frowned at me. “The sex? The kink?”

  “Right.” I gulped. “Well, I find you attractive, so I’m on board for that too.”

  “There’s also the STI talk,” she said.

  “Um, I haven’t had sex since the last time I got tested, so I’m good. You?”

  “Same here.”

  “So, we’re settled?”

  “Phoenix, we need to negotiate about what we like,” she said seriously.

  “Oh, yes, right. Sorry.”

  “So, what do you like?”

  I blinked at her.

  “Your list?” she said.

  I dug my list out of my purse and handed it to her. I’d printed it off the night before and labored over it all morning. The list was four pages long, an alphabetical list of kinks, each with space to mark whether or not you’ve had experience with said kink, rate your willingness about it on a scale of zero to five, and room to write notes. I’d written a lot of notes.

  Despite years dabbling in kink, I had never looked over a list like that before. When I’d told Amanda of my recurring fantasies of being spanked and ordered around, she’d recoiled and said she could never do something like that. Our one attempt at anything kinky had ended with me handcuffing her, something neither of us enjoyed, and that marked the beginning of the end for us. Carolena and I had stumbled into BDSM ignorantly, buying restraints from Good Vibrations with nothing more than a sales clerk’s explanation of basic safety, trying on roles and games with enthusiasm but no clue what we were doing, or what to do if either of us got uncomfortable in the middle of it. It wasn’t until I met Meghan that I actually read a BDSM book or blog.

  I’d only gone to kinky spaces with Ronnie, and then just to learn specific skills that we hadn’t mastered via YouTube videos. Ronnie was barely more experienced with kink than I was, and other than one wild play party before we met, was not part of a BDSM scene either. By the time any fantasies or preferences had come up in my life, I’d already been invested in the relationship, and sexual and kinky likes and dislikes had been discussed gradually, a little at a time over months. When I tried to broach the subject with Beth, she’d told me the only thing she wanted to know about kink was the “psychology that made people like stuff like that.” For our whole relationship and the year since we’d split, I’d never even mentioned my interest in BDSM while on a date.

  So the list made me think about what I wanted in a way I hadn’t before. Some were an easy yes in terms of experience and a five in terms of willingness, like being bitten, light bondage, hair pulling, face slapping, following orders, giving and receiving oral sex, wearing high heels and lingerie (with a note that she was very welcome to buy me these), a wide variety of spanking and hitting with and without implements, punishment scenes, all sorts of genital sex, and strap-ons (with some notes about the many, many ways I enjoyed strap-ons).

  Some were an easy no and a zero in terms of willingness, like permanent marks, piercing, suspension bondage, cages, gags, filming or photographing what we did, vomit, feces, and urine (with a note that I guess I could pee on her if she really wanted, but nobody was going to pee on me). But a lot of them left me stumped. How did I feel about body paint, leather or rubber or latex clothes, corsets, uniforms, or shoe and boot worship? Mostly, I felt that these things weren’t particularly sexual to me, and I thought I’d feel silly, but it wasn’t a hard no, so I wrote that again and again.

  Others left me confused, like Saran wrapping, manicures, and wearing symbolic jewelry. I wrote, “I’m confused by this,” next to them, and marked them a one. I noted that I had to look up “Violet Wand” and “metal thumbcuffs” and marked zero willingness to try these. I wrote “meh” next to some and marked them a two, like “standing in the corner,” tickling, blindfolds, hot wax, ice cubes, and erotic dancing.

  I marked four for things I’d never tried but wondered about, like intricate bondage, group sex, fisting, and “play kidnapping,” and then immediately worried that Kris would think I was too weird. Some I marked moderate interest in, like stocks, with the note, “This seems complicated, and I would not want to set this up.” I made an elaborate note next to “anal sex,” reading, “I’m not usually into anal, so don’t ask. If it’s the one day a year I’m in the mood for it, I’ll tell you,” and then worried it was too bossy. I crossed out things about blood four different times before scrawling, “No drawing blood, but period sex is okay.”

  I worried a lot while filling it out. What if she loved outdoor sex and I m
arked it “no”? I said the backyard would be fine, but not somewhere we could get caught. What about exhibitionism or voyeurism? I marked them a two and said I didn’t feel any particular way about them. What if she had strong preferences about types of restraints? I said they were all fine. Slutty clothing? I wrote, “Most of my clothes are slutty clothes,” and then worried I sounded too flippant. Food play, teasing, kneeling, wrestling? “I think it depends and maybe warrants a deeper conversation,” I wrote, and then thought I was too vague. Domestic service? “Duh,” I noted. “That’s what we’re doing, right?” but I was afraid she’d hate my answer.

  The thought of her reading through my weird, vulnerable answers while I just sat there made me squirm. Luckily, she pulled her own list from her pocket and handed it to me. “I thought you’d like to see my answers too,” she said. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  Kris’s answers were not covered in notes. She’d tried a lot of things, and had plenty of zeroes and ones on her list, along with lots of fours and fives. She didn’t have as much in the middle as I did. I relaxed seeing she wasn’t interested in anyone peeing on anyone else, or choking, breath play, age play, or either of us pretending to be any kind of animal. I was disappointed, though, that she’d marked “zero” next to “weapons (knives, guns, etc.).”

  “Oh, period sex, I’d never thought about that on this list,” she said without looking up from my list. “Change my answer to that. Period sex is good.”

  “What about knives?”

  “What about them?”

  “I, um, like knives.”

  “If one of us isn’t comfortable with something, we shouldn’t do it together, even if the other likes it. Are knives essential for you?”

  “No,” I said too quickly. “I just, I don’t know, it was different with my exes. We just tried things.” I thought of an elaborate doctor scene I’d done with Ronnie, despite how un-aroused it left me. “No medical play,” I added. “I didn’t write that down, but I want to add it.”

  “Okay.” Kris went back to reading.

  At the bottom of the list was a space for allergies, medical conditions, aftercare requests, and other comments and ideas. I’d marked “none” for allergies and medical conditions, requested only water and somewhere soft to sit for aftercare, but written a lot for “other.” So much that it spilled over to the back of the page.

  “Don’t call me a bitch. Don’t tell me I’m ugly. Nothing racist or homophobic,” I’d written, thinking of a particularly miserable encounter when Carolena had attempted to incorporate painful words that had been slung her way in high school. As much as eroticizing it took the sting out for her, they hit too close to home for me. It shut me down and turned me off. Just thinking about it, even years later, made me feel queasy.

  “Don’t hit me with a squid or anything,” I’d written, with the explanation, “(I read about it in an article on edgeplay). Humiliation is a maybe. Being stripped could be hot but being made to cry would not.”

  I’d followed that with, “I don’t like tons of pain. I don’t want to be screaming in agony. But I like being hit safely! Don’t punch me in the stomach or the kidneys or things like that. Don’t damage me. The kind of performance I do hurts. I get rope burns and calluses and abrasions, and I’m proud of being able to withstand it so I can do something beautiful. It also grounds me and puts me in my body. There’s an edge of pain that’s good and satisfying, and it’s different from pain that’s telling me to stop, and I like finding that edge. I don’t like going over it. I want to feel, not just hurt. That’s how I feel about pain in a scene too. I like it, to a very specific degree.”

  Kris’s answers were simpler here too. About aftercare, she’d written, “I like string cheese and apples, water, to hear all the things you liked, verbal reassurance, and occasionally cuddling.” For “other,” she wrote, “I don’t like subbing, but I like bottoming sometimes.”

  “What’s the difference between subbing and bottoming?” I wondered if I should already know.

  “I like being fucked and touched and getting head, but as a dominant,” she said. “I like to be in charge when that happens. Well, I like to be in charge always, but especially if that’s happening.”

  “Oh, okay.” I looked back down at her list.

  “Yours is very thorough.” She sounded impressed. “It’s very helpful. Like here.” She pointed to my comments on the back. “Now I know that when you say that’s enough pain, it doesn’t go further. This gives me great guidelines.”

  “Thanks. I felt like I wrote too much.”

  “No, it’s perfect.”

  “You didn’t say as much.” I pointed at her list.

  “I didn’t have as much to say.”

  “I don’t believe that. You have this whole domestic service fantasy, but you barely wrote anything about it here.”

  Now it was her turn to look embarrassed. “I don’t talk about it much.”

  “No fair! I never talk about my fantasies and I didn’t get to use that as an excuse.”

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “Most of all what I like is to give orders and have them followed, and to reward or punish according to whether or not they were. Whatever a reward is for you, we’ll talk about it beforehand, and I’ll give it to you. And you’ll tell me how to punish you too. I like taking control and giving someone exactly what she wants, without her having to ask in the scene, without her needing to say anything. And sometimes, I just want to take a beautiful girl, hold her down, and control her. But I don’t want to control her completely. I tried twenty-four seven before, if I can’t be a decent girlfriend, I really can’t be a good twenty-four seven dominant. It’s too much energy for me, and it doesn’t fulfill the need I have.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’ve had this fantasy since I was in middle school, of a beautiful woman in a red coat, long hair, heels. She has an entire life outside of me, but for a little while, I take her into a room and do anything I want to her, and she lets me. She gives in to me, and when I’m done, she puts her coat back on and walks out the door, back to her other life that has nothing to do with me, that I don’t have a part in. She’s so close, but she’s never exactly mine. I can have her, but I can’t keep her. What makes it hot is that she is powerful the rest of the time, that she can say no to me—sometimes she does, sometimes she shuts me down and I can’t do anything about it—and she has all this power, and chooses to let go with me. She lets me take control, but she doesn’t need me to. I want that feeling that I have to give her exactly what she wants, even as I take what I want. I have to give her the things she wants but won’t ask for. Because even though I’m in control, I have to earn that control from her. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, but where do the domestic service fit in?”

  “I want to be reminded of that dynamic every time I look around my home. I want to pick up a T-shirt in the morning and think it was put there by a hot, naked woman as an act of service. I want a woman who will let me make her do these things, even when I’m not there, but who won’t give up control of her whole life to me either.”

  I fidgeted, feeling my clit starting to throb at the description. “I like the sound of that,” I said.

  “Which part?” She leaned toward me.

  “All of it.”

  “How would I punish you?” She laid a hand on my bare knee. “And how would I reward you?”

  “You’d reward me by making me come.”

  “Happily. Any which way in particular?”

  “I like almost everything. Mouth, hands, penetration, all of it works for me. Sometimes, being tied up, or being hit for a while, anything that brings that edge of pain, makes it more intense. That could be part of the reward.”

  She grinned. “What about punishment? What do you want then?”

  “Just use me.” I shocked myself with how shameless I sounded. “Make me wait, don’t let me get off, deprive me. Use me to make yourself come.”

  My cheeks felt hot.<
br />
  “Excellent.”

  “What about you?” I asked. “How do I please you?”

  “By doing what you’re told whenever we play,” she said a little sharply. “Do you have a safe word? Or do you just use ‘no’?”

  “Red, yellow, green,” I said. “Sometimes I like it when I say ‘no’ and it’s ignored.”

  “As a reward or a punishment?”

  “A punishment. But also, sometimes I’ll come, and I’ll say I’m done, but if someone keeps going, I’ll keep going, you know?”

  “And you like that?”

  “Yes,” I exhaled. “A lot.”

  “Come here,” she said. I got up and sat next to her on the arm of the chair. She pulled me onto her lap. “You want to try this?”

  “Yes.” I turned toward her face. Up close, I could see a dusting of freckles on her nose, and how unexpectedly long her eyelashes were. Her lips looked soft.

  “Usually, I’m home by eight o’clock.” She ran her left hand up my thigh. “At eight thirty Monday through Thursday, I’m going to tell you it’s eight thirty, and for an hour we’ll play and have aftercare, and then we’ll stop. I’ll give you any orders during that hour, and the rest of the day, your time will be your own. How does that sound?”

  I could feel myself getting wet. “Yes.”

  “I want one longer evening and one afternoon on the weekend. Pick which day you want off.”

  “Saturday,” I said. “I’ll be teaching on Saturdays, and that’s usually the night when I get gigs.”

  “So Friday night and Sunday afternoon, you’re mine?” she said, her voice low.

  I nodded. I didn’t teach at all Friday, and Sunday I finished teaching before noon.

  “Friday at eight, for two hours, and Sunday from one to four. How is that for you?”

  “I think it’s good. But what if I get a Friday night gig?”

  “You’ll tell me and we’ll reschedule. But you have to tell me right away, and you have to say please.”

  “Yes.” I moaned as she slipped her hand between my thighs, resting it tantalizingly close to my hardening clit.

  “If I can’t get away from work, I’ll text you. I’ll tell you what I want you to do, and you’ll do it, even if I’m not there to reward you or punish you right then.”