by W. Winters
“You look like a therapist, you know that?” I point with a chipped nail and add, “Especially in a collared shirt under that sweater.”
“You sound like a patient avoiding meaningful conversation.”
I huff out a laugh and ask, “What’s it called when you keep thinking about the same thing over and over?”
“Obsessing?”
“No.” I’m quick to dismiss that suggestion. “When it’s things that make you sad.”
He nods and says, “Ruminating. Excessive thinking about negative feelings.”
Snapping my fingers, I point at him and say, “That’s the one.”
“What are you thinking about?” he questions but then corrects himself. “What can’t you stop thinking about?”
I watch his foot tap on nothing in the air.
“Missing James,” I confess under my breath and I let my expression show the sadness I’ve been concealing as I add, “Don’t tell him. Please.”
“Zander?”
Swallowing thickly, I nod.
“He knows that you miss him. But I won't tell him anything in our conversations. It’s only between the two of us.”
“I can’t stop thinking about how if James had looked, even though he had the right-of-way, or if I’d seen it quicker and yelled.”
“That must feel heavy.”
I murmur without looking back at him, “Endless loop about my current suffering.”
“I have to be honest.” He waits for me to peek up at him before he tells me, “I’m not a fan of that loop of yours.” He offers me a kind smile and raises his brow.
“That would make two of us.”
“But I’m happy that you’re talking about it.”
“I want it to stop,” I confess to him, not hearing whatever he’s just said. “How do you make it stop?” The question reeks of desperation.
“Recognize that you are ruminating. Acknowledging that it’s not productive.”
“I do that. When I go there, I realize it’s happening at least.”
“Good. Good.”
“And then I’m angry that I’m thinking about it again and reliving it. I get so frustrated with myself … it doesn’t stop.”
“I need you to know that we are not our thoughts. Separate the feelings from the thoughts.”
“I thought you said there was purpose in suffering.” The words race out of me, nearly sounding accusatory.
“The purpose of suffering is not to suffer. The purpose is knowing why you feel that way and then what you can do, if you can do anything. In your case, you can’t.”
“I wish I could.”
“That’s understandable.”
“Help me make it stop,” I practically beg him, praying he can understand how much it still hurts. “Please.”
“Tell yourself it’s just a ball in a box. The button was pushed. Was there something that led to it or not? If there’s nothing to do, nothing to control, let it go.”
“Okay. Let it go.”
Damon makes a show of looking at his watch. “Well, we dove right in, didn’t we?”
I let out a small laugh, laying back into the pillow.
“Do you know what triggered it?”
The bedroom. I don’t answer him, though. “I think I’d rather talk about something else.”
“We can do that.”
My lips perk up into a soft smile. “You’re easy to talk to, you know that?” Damon’s broad smile is comforting. I add, “And you have a beautiful smile.”
“Well, now you’re just buttering me up for something.”
I don’t say anything, I return my attention to the lone loose thread on the knee of my jeans. Just let it go. Feel it and let it go. The advice resonates but it’s too simple. At this moment, I’m not sure how to feel about its simplicity.
“If you don’t want to talk about James, maybe we can talk about Zander?” Damon suggests.
“What about him?”
“Have your other relationships been similar? Romantically or sexually?”
“As in, have I had other Doms in my life?”
Damon nods.
“Only one. My husband. But it wasn’t the same.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I shift again, feeling colder as the breeze sweeps my hair in front of my face. “I … feel uncomfortable comparing the two of them.”
“Remember that it’s okay to be uncomfortable. There are no good or bad emotions. Only comfortable and uncomfortable, and there’s nothing wrong with either.”
“I don’t want to talk about him right now.”
“I understand. Let’s go back a bit, shall we?”
Nodding, I clear my throat. “Okay.”
“Back on the topic of sex, sexual empowerment, is that what you called it?” He references a conversation we had the other day.
“Yes.”
“You said something about having all the money in the world, but you choose to use your platform for sexual empowerment.”
“My social media following.” Yesterday and the day before, I went on little rants mostly. Apparently Damon wants to hear more of my “I am woman, hear me roar” movement.
“That’s right.”
“How far back did you go when you looked through my social media posts?” I question him nearly comically, although it doesn’t reflect in my expression or tone.
“To the beginning, skimming,” he admits which is shocking. “I wanted to make sure I understood what you meant about using your platform for empowering women and sex positivity.”
“Being called a whore and slut for years will do it, I guess.” Those types of comments started the moment I wore my first bikini … I think I was fourteen. I know my dad was still alive, so I was young, just posing with friends at the beach.
“I did notice when you got engaged so did the amount of overt expression in your posts.”
“I like posting things that make women more comfortable with their bodies and sexuality. I always have but I had to be careful. I didn’t want to sound bitchy or judgy … I just wanted women to know it was okay to want sex. To have sex. To wear what they want and to say no if they didn’t want to do something. That it didn’t make them “less than” to want some activities.”
“Was your mother an active role or voice in that subject?”
My snort is exceptionally unladylike. “No. No, not at all. I don’t remember much about my mother except …”
“Except what?”
“Fighting.”
A cool breeze blows by and I emphasize, “They were always yelling.”
“You were young when your mother died, but you remember them fighting?”
“There are very few memories I have of her,” I tell him and moments flash in my mind. “In nearly all of them, she was fighting with my father.”
“Do you want to talk about what happened with your mother?”
“You know what happened.” My blood chills and the sun starts to set, dimming the natural light far too quickly.
“Are their deaths, the trial, their fighting something you think about often?”
Staring blankly at him, I wish I could speak as easily as I just have when talking about my upbringing.
“Do you remember how you felt during those harder times?” Suddenly the topic of sex no longer seems important. Damon watches me like he’s gotten to something he’d like to dig up.
The screaming is what I remember most. I’d wake up from them screaming at each other. “Scared, angry … like any child would be.” With another breeze blowing, I brush my hair from out of my face and cross my arms.
“Guarded?” Damon pokes fun and I tsk him. “It’s just cold.” My heart does a little tap in my chest that’s uneven. Yes. This conversation makes me very guarded and I wonder if Damon saw posts or comments that he shouldn’t have. Kam said they were all removed.
“Did it ever get physical?”
“Yes.” I nod, my throat going tight and dry. “I can
still remember the sound of him slapping her so hard she fell to the ground.”
The tapping in my chest continues, intensifying and quickening when he asks, “Do you remember how old you were?”
“I had to be in middle school.”
“I imagine that was difficult.”
Enough. Enough. We’re not supposed to be talking about this. “I don’t see how any of this relates to anything at all.”
“Conflict resolution is a learned behavior. How did you learn to handle your emotions when you were dealt such severe ones at a young age? You just told me you know that you’re ruminating, but don’t know how to stop. You’ve told me a number of stories where you struggle with your emotions.”
“I think that’s normal.”
“Just because it’s normal doesn’t mean it’s healthy. I want to help you, so tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“What happened when they fought?’
With a deep breath in, I answer him, “That’s something I haven’t thought about in a while.” He starts to say something, but I cut him off. “You know how we started this conversation with ruminating? I used to stay up at night, thinking about their fights and if I could change anything.”
“And how did you cope with those feelings?” he questions and the events play in my head. Kelly, Trish and Kam … the plan. Uncovering the truth and then covering it all back up. How did I cope? I did something I shouldn’t have.
“I think we should go inside,” I whisper.
Zander
The two of them are sitting in the blue room in front of the fire, and I know right away that the session has pushed Ella to one of her boundaries. Or to a place where she needs someone else to act as a boundary for her. She needs me. Her face is pale, and her eyes shine, but she’s not crying. I pull a chair directly in front of her so I can take her hands in mine and look her in the eye. Damon watches from his seat, his face neutral.
“What’s wrong?”
Damon begins to answer. “Ella and I were discussing her past with her—”
“Wait, Damon. Quiet.” My tone wasn’t meant to come out the way it did. “Please,” I add for good measure. “I want Ella to tell me what happened.” I stroke a lock of hair away from her cheek.
Her only acknowledgement is to scoot on the sofa and make room for me to sit next to her. There’s a sadness that doesn’t leave her gaze, which flicks between the mine and the fire.
“She has a voice, and I want her to use it. Tell me.” She knows a command when she hears one, and her body settles into the sofa a bit.
“There’s a lot,” she admits, and her voice is soft and slightly shaken. “I have a lot of memories. Some of them I wish I could forget … and today,” she pauses to take in an unsteady breath, “I’m just remembering a lot right now.”
“We’re going to go over them now, in a safe place.” I don’t want to push her past what she can take, but because Ella is a submissive, I make the decision for her. She still holds the power over the conversation. She can use her safe word at any time. “I’m listening.”
“James—” Ella lifts her chin a fraction of an inch. “James knew about it. He knew about what happened, and I wish—” Now her eyes brim with tears.
It’s obvious how difficult it is for her, and I’ve never wished for anything more than I wish she didn’t have to remember these things. I wish she had a clean slate, and that her life had been the fairy tale she deserves. “I wish you already knew so I didn’t have to say it out loud.”
“You will say it out loud, and I’ll hear it, and then I’ll know,” I reassure her. “It won’t have so much power over you once you’ve told me.” I hope it’s true for Ella. I kept what happened with Quincy bottled up from as many people as possible, but it all had to come out eventually. Otherwise I couldn’t have survived it. The longer you let a secret fester, the worse it gets.
Ella takes a shaky breath, and I run my thumb over the back of her hand. “My father abused my mother. He—he beat her. Not just once or twice, Z.”
“And you saw?”
“Yes. I saw it. And it didn’t seem to matter if anyone knew. He knew I saw, and that only seemed to make it worse. If he caught me looking, he would make it worse for her.” Tears spill down Ella’s cheeks. “Watching was dangerous, and so …”
“So what? What were you going to say?”
“I don’t know. I like people to know, I like them to see what’s really there. I want them to know it all … and see it all.”
“I’m not sure this is—” Damon pipes up and makes his hesitation known. Whatever conclusion Ella’s come to, he doesn’t necessarily agree with.
“So maybe with James and other men, I liked for people to see me. It’s wrong to even talk about those things one after the other—”
“It’s not wrong,” I say, cutting off that line of thinking, although I’m still not entirely sure what she means.
“I think I like people to see and hear it all, because I wish they knew everything I knew back then. So ranting about what’s on my mind … fucking whoever I want on camera, whatever it is, I want them all to see it. They’re going to judge me anyway, so let the facts of my judgment be crystal clear and out there in the world for all to see.”
“Each part of your life affects every other part. If being a witness was wrong in your childhood, then being witnessed can be a way to take back your control over that. It’s okay, jailbird.”
The name slips out before I can stop it, but Damon says nothing. I’m going to have to ask Kam about all this shit. This is much darker than I thought it would be. Than I ever imagined for Ella.
“Maybe I wanted to be seen back then, because it wasn’t dangerous with James.”
“Do you think it would be dangerous to be seen with me?”
“I don’t know.” She doesn’t take her eyes off my face. Doesn’t glance in Damon’s direction. But the color has come back to her face and she leans closer to me, her breath quickening with anticipation. “I want to feel powerful enough to show everyone what really happens,” she whispers. “I want them to see what my life is really like.”
I take her face in my hands and pull her in for a kiss. Hard. Deep. Like I don’t give a fuck if Damon is sitting there. The truth is that I don’t. If Ella wants power, I have one way to hand it to her—by taking it from her. That’s the game we play, at its core.
With tearstained cheeks she peers up at me through her thick lashes and murmurs, “Do you still want me? Even if I’m this fucked up?”
There isn’t a second I hesitate. I stand her up between my knees and strip off her jeans and panties together at once, consumed with her body. With the delicate, elegant frame under a soft baggy sweater. It means that even when she’s naked below the waist, she’s still partially covered. Ella reaches for me over and over, not wanting to break the kiss. I let her kiss me for as long as I can stand it, and then I push her back into the sofa. I know Damon’s seated in a dark blue armchair behind us, and the angle in relation to Damon will keep her partially out of view.
But not entirely. My heart rages in my chest, wanting her to know I want her all the more for confiding in me. More than I care about anything else.
He still hasn’t moved, and I know he’s not going to. If he wanted out of this, he could have gotten up at any time. Still can.
Either way, I’m going to fuck Ella exactly how she wants to be fucked.
I spread her thighs to the edge of the chair. Her chest rises faster, and I slide my hands between her thighs and lean in close. It’s only an illusion that we’re having a private conversation. Damon can hear every word. But I do it anyway. “You can use your safe word at any time.”
Ella gives the tiniest nod of her head. Her breathing is slower and heavier.
“He can see you,” I tell her.
She takes in a quiet gasp, her head tipping back against the chair, and I can feel how much she wants this. Her thighs are already trembling beneath my pa
lms.
It only takes one movement to switch places with her. Pull her out of her seat, take her place, and pull her into my lap. I undo my pants as soon as I’m underneath her, gripping my cock and use my hands on her hips to guide her down. Ella reaches for my shoulders, her cheeks reddened. She lets out a small moan as the head of my cock meets her opening and I pull her down hard.
The gasp she gives me, with her lips parted and her eyes wide, is fucking everything.
Her pussy is wet for me, and the only resistance she offers is that she’s so tight. I curse softly into her ear as she buries her face in my shoulder and rides me. I’m going to keep her moving, keep her fucking me with the rhythm I want. She wants this too. She wants it so much that she can’t relax into my hands. Ella’s hips move faster in my grip. Almost frenzied.
In a quick glance, I note that Damon hasn’t left.
“He’s still looking,” I whisper at the shell of Ella’s ear. “He’s watching while you fuck me. Do you wish you knew how much he could see, jailbird?”
She doesn’t answer me; instead she struggles to say, “I’m going to—” Her pussy clenches, and I know. It happens again and again, the pace picking up. “I’m going to come—”
“Good girl. Come for me.”
Ella’s orgasm is a pretty, shuddering thing, her face hot on my neck and her hands fisted in my shirt.
When she moves to slow down, I stop her. I’ll lift her up and down myself if I have to. “You’re not done, jailbird. Not until I am. Keep going.”
All’s quiet at Ella’s house the next morning, except for the sputtering of a coffee pot. She’s still sleeping when Damon comes in through the back door for his shift.
When I was done with Ella, Damon had left and Silas was in the rec room, his shift having started. I messaged him a number of times, dancing around the obvious.
I’m at the countertop with a cup of coffee in my hand, and when he sees me, he cocks a brow, closing the sliding door with one hand. I wish I could say I didn’t feel the heat of slight embarrassment.
“Morning,” I tell him.
“Morning to you too.” The awkwardness is only slight.