by Gabi Moore
“You’ve never once had a favorite?” he pressed. “Met someone you thought was maybe a little …different?”
You I wanted to say. You aren’t my regular sort of client at all. You’re different. But I held my tongue and shook my head.
“No. I’m a professional, Dean. It’s important to maintain boundaries.”
“I understand. Will you do this work forever? What if you meet someone one day that wants to marry you?”
I nearly choked on my drink.
“Marry me? Not likely. Never say never, of course, but no, I’m not the marrying type.”
“What type are you?”
Our eyes got tangled again. I sighed.
“I like my independence. I don’t want anyone telling me what to do.” The words felt harsh but I couldn’t help smiling, couldn’t keep up my usual stern expression when he kept staring at me with those eyes.
“A bit ironic, no?” he said.
I shrugged.
“I take care of my clients. And besides, they like being told what to do,” I said decisively.
“So what do you like to do?”
I gulped. I knew what he was trying to do. But for some reason, I didn’t feel like stopping him. Didn’t feel like telling him that this was inappropriate, that we were here to talk about his warped sexuality and not mine. Dirty thoughts instantly popped into my head and I couldn’t shake them. I wanted to tell him that I was broken. That I wasn’t born with all the same buttons as the other girls. That my darkest secret was that I had none, that I was blank inside, empty, a cold hollow where my sexuality was supposed to be.
“Well, I love being the boss, I love nothing more than to have complete, perfect control over my playthings, and I—”
“Is that really true though?” he said.
I shot him a hard look.
“Would you be able to tell me what you really want?” he said, so quietly it was as though he was sharing a secret with me. My face felt hot.
“That is what I want.”
“I don’t believe you.”
When he got up off his sofa and came to sit beside me I thought I’d pass out for sure. I sat taller upright, painfully aware of just how close his thigh was to touching mine.
“I’m fascinated by boundaries, Mistress,” he said in that same whisper. “Will you tell me if I’m pushing too much? If I step out of line?”
I frowned.
He was making me incredibly uncomfortable, it was true. But the other truth was that I didn’t want him to stop. I said nothing.
“I have a theory that all men are submissive, by nature,” he said. “That at the core of every man is only one thing: the desire to serve the right woman. Over and over again.”
His words felt like a spell. Like they were bewitching me. I only stared ahead, the chilled crystal glass balancing heavy on my knee. I don’t know if I was going insane, or if it was this client doing strange things to me, but I felt completely thrown off center. A tight, desperate little knot of pleasure bloomed between my legs, and I squeezed my knees tightly closed to stop the throbbing.
“I’m so intrigued by what you do, because you seem to understand all that. How erotic it can be for a man to devote himself completely to servicing a woman, to pleasing her every need, not to be her slave, but her worshipper, someone who knows her desires before even she does and can--”
“Sounds like old school chivalry to me,” I said bluntly. “Not BDSM.”
He was so close I could hear him breathing. I was too afraid to turn to look at him in case I got caught in his gaze again and then who knew what would happen. The room around us felt electrified. I wondered what he looked like under his suit. What his skin smelt like. What noises he made when he came…
“I’d like the opportunity to serve you, Mistress, but I won’t be content with the same old predictable formula.”
“No?”
“No. If I do something, I do it perfectly. If something’s important to me, I make sure that I’m the best at it. No exceptions.”
“You don’t sound much like a sub, then.”
“On the contrary. If I submit to a woman’s will, it will be because I know that that submission is ultimately pleasing her. That’s it what she really wants.”
“Alright, fine. Get up right now bow down before me, if you’re so eager to please.”
“No.”
I spun to face him, mouth hanging open.
“Excuse me?”
“I won’t do that, because that’s obviously not what you really want. If you don’t want it, then I don’t either.”
I was getting irritated. I was just about to tell him that he was annoying me and that if he wanted to have a stupid discussion like this, then he could just leave. But then I realized: I didn’t want him to leave.
The room fell silent again, but my mind was rushing. I could feel him sitting next to me, and it was so wildly distracting I could barely think straight. I tried to breathe. Tried to calm my heart and pretend that the sweet aching at my clit was nothing to worry about, and that he had no idea what was happening to me under the surface, what effect he was having on me.
What did I want?
Good question.
I wanted to fuck him now, right here on this sofa. Oh God, no of course I didn’t. I wanted …to be left alone. I didn’t know how to flirt, for Christs’ sake. I wanted to run away. I wanted to stay here all day and listen to his soft, deep voice. Fuck. And just as I was sure I was ready to spontaneously combust, he did something I never allow clients to do, something that is strictly verboten unless I permit it, something that is, you might say, taboo for a Dominatrix like me.
He touched me.
Again.
But this time he didn’t try to pass it off as a casual gesture. This time he meant it. In silence we sat there, side by side in my stupid overdone white living room, and he carefully reached over and took my hand in his, folding warm, dry hands around my fingers and clasping me there.
I stared straight ahead, throat dry.
I’m well-versed on all the kinky fabrics of this world, and all the most perverted textures from rubber to brushed leather to surgical grade steel. But at that moment, his skin on mine felt like the most outrageously taboo thing I had ever touched, a sensation that I had all but forbidden myself from for years now.
I was on fire. Melting from the inside out and soaking under my dress. And every gorgeous sensation, every dirty thought and outrageously sexy image gushed out from this one spot: the delicious place where his warm hand met mine.
I bet you think all this is ridiculous, right? I guess I can see the comedy. A seasoned Dominatrix with a black heart and a sexual resume that would make anyone blush is brought to her knees by a hot guy holding her hand in the sitting room. And yet… that’s what was happening.
He kept his hand there, and I did nothing to stop it. My usual response would be to let go with a teasing torrent of insults, to slap off his hand and demand he endure some ‘punishment’ for daring to touch the almighty Mistress without permission. But all of that felt so phony now. He’d already seen through it. And he was right. It wasn’t at all what I wanted.
So, what happened next?
We sat.
Together.
Holding hands.
It was the sexiest moment of my life. And the most confusing. I wrestled internally. Should I pull away? Tell him he had the wrong idea, that whatever he wanted I wasn’t going to give it to him and that he should find someone else? Act disgusted that he had taken liberties and made assumptions about me, a woman he barely knew?
But I did none of these things. His hand stayed where it was, and I left it there. Eventually, enough time passed that it officially became weird. But I didn’t want it to stop. We were now sharing something together, something small but remarkable. He didn’t try to touch me further, didn’t try to kiss me or turn towards me. Our hands warmed against one another and I wondered if I could feel his heartbeat, or faint twit
ches under the skin.
I soon relaxed. I was waiting for him to say something, to break the spell and make a demand.
But he didn’t.
Could he possibly be enjoying this as much as I was? What was he playing at anyway? It’s not like I wanted him to suddenly reveal himself as a serial killer, only that him being one would have made a lot more sense to me then. Perverts I know what to do with. Sweet men who want to hold my hand? Let’s say my circuits were completely fried.
I had no idea how much time had passed, but when the doorbell rang, I nearly leapt out of my skin, jumping up and realizing with horror who it was.
Angie.
Fuck.
I checked the time and couldn’t believe my eyes. Surely not. Had we really run through more than an hour? Plus, Angie was early. Oh fuck. The doorbell chimed again. He got to his feet calmly, put his hands on my shoulders and stared at me.
“Expecting someone?” he said, suave as can be. I shrugged him off.
“It’s my sister. Shit. You aren’t supposed to be here,” I said, and started to panic. “Just… you’re here to look at a broken boiler or something, OK?” I said, and he nodded, a little sideways smile on his plush lips.
I rushed to open the door, already hearing Angie’s excited chatter.
“Maeve! Please come on in.” She entered, peered over at Dean behind me and smiled.
“This is just a plumber, he’s here to fix the boiler. My uh, boiler broke,” I said, sounding like the worst liar in the world.
She looked at his black suit and glossy leather shoes, then at me, but said nothing. Angie smiled and ran over for a hug, and I threw my arms around her. I hated anything from my work life touching my life with Angie. That I had her and a client in my home at the same time riddled me with guilt. The fact that I still felt wildly turned on was not helping either. No, he had to go.
“Ok, honey,” Maeve said. “I’m going now, you be good for Nora and I’ll see you tomorrow, OK?”
Angie nodded and took the backpack from her, but her face scrunched up as she took a closer look at it.
“Now honey, we spoke about this, your other backpack broke, remember? So we got you another one. You like this one, remember?”
We all watched as Angie’s face twisted up into a scowl and then burst into angry tears. She began shaking her head, and threw the backpack down.
“No! Wrong! Not this one!” she sobbed.
One look at Maeve’s exasperated face told me this wasn’t the first backpack fight they’d had today. I tried to intervene.
“Honey, Angie baby, you want another Spongebob one? I can get you another one. How about we go shopping right now and get you the one you want, huh?” I said quickly, but she was inconsolable.
Dean was standing off to the side, watching everything unfold with interest. Not only had we had the most awkward encounter a few moments ago, but now he was meeting my 32-year-old ‘little’ sister …and she was having a tantrum about a Spongebob Squarepants backpack. It was too much. I caught his eye with an apologetic look but to my surprise he was smiling.
“Hey, Angie, is it Angie?” he said.
She kept on bawling, looking as though she was ready to throw herself on the ground and raise hell. Easy as you please Dean knelt down, picked up the offending backpack and turned it over in his hands, looking at it with curiosity. Angie stopped screaming for a moment. In fact, both Maeve and I froze and watched him. He simply crouched and kept staring at it like it was some alien artifact.
“I’m, I’m sorry… this is just… I think this is the nicest backpack I’ve ever seen,” he said, with a face that could win an Oscar. Maeve and I exchanged looks. He hugged it to his chest like a long lost love.
“It’s just so cool. It’s so colorful and, look, it has these awesome side pockets. I know I can never have it, it’s just…” here he cast me a secret wink and then went back to waxing lyrical about the backpack. I couldn’t help smiling but quickly caught on.
“No, I’m sorry sir, you can’t have that backpack, it belongs to Angie” I said. I could tell we had caught her interest. Dean looked up at the ceiling in total anguish, still clutching the bag. It was hilarious.
“Really? Are you sure I can’t just hold it for a little longer?”
Maeve caught out drift and jumped in.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said, “you can keep it, Angie doesn’t even want it, do you, Angie?”
We all turned to Angie to see if the ploy had worked. She had stopped crying, was staring hard at Dean, and then shyly shook her head.
“Sorry,” she said sweetly, and pried it from his arms.
I gave him a consolatory pat on the back. “I’m sorry, but not everyone can have such a cool backpack, you know.” Angie beamed and ran off to the living room, backpack in hand, and we all smiled after her.
“Nice work,” Maeve said to him, still eyeing his crisp black suit. And it was nice work. I had never seen someone so effortlessly diffuse one of Angie’s oncoming temper tantrums. And he had done it in a minute, without breaking a sweat. He shrugged and smiled.
“Yeah, a little trick I learnt at Rainbow House, nothing like creating the illusion of scarcity to drive up market value, huh?”
“Rainbow House?” Maeve stepped closer to him. “You worked at Rainbow House?”
He blushed and looked at his shoes.
“Sure. My partner and I established it more than a decade ago. It’s a nonprofit designed to get kids with learning disabilities to experience the arts, you know, painting, needlework. Have you heard about it?”
Maeve looked like she was about to explode.
“Heard about it? I …I volunteered there back in the day. Are you saying you own the foundation?”
He nodded.
Maeve grinned broadly, shook his hand and then gave me an evil look at having lied about the identity of such a saint.
“You’re a good man, truly. Those were some of the best months of my life,” she said.
I stared on in amusement. This guy was full of surprises.
“Anyway, I’m off,” she said and made for the door.
“I should go to, too” he said breezily.
Yes, I thought. Leave now before you do something else completely unexpected. Maeve shot off and I was left standing at the front door with him. I could hear the sound of Cartoon Network blaring inside. One look at his kind face and milky eyes and instantly, like a kick, I was reminded of that secret stirring down below.
“I apologize for the interruption,” I said, wondering where on earth I could go to get away from that penetrating stare of his.
“Not at all. It was good to meet your mom and sister.”
“My mom? Oh no, that’s Angie’s caseworker. My mother is passed,” I said. He nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I’m the one who should say sorry for this weird afternoon.”
“Weird? I thought it went perfectly,” he said. I raised an eyebrow. He was looking at me with the same deep curiosity that he had a moment ago given to that stupid backpack. Only this time it felt real. I couldn’t stop myself staring at his mouth. At that juicy pucker on his lower lip. About how I was irresistibly struck with the fancy that I could order him to kiss me.
“But we didn’t do anything,” I said, choking on my own voice. He laughed.
“Ouch! Didn’t do anything? Now you’ve gone and hurt my feelings,” he said playfully.
“But--”
Before I could jump in an apologize again, to explain that that wasn’t what I meant, he was gone, in his car and pulling off.
I stared after him.
If I were smart, I would find some way to use him to get to his father. A powerful man like Dean would know things, would have connections. And I was nicely placed to milk those connections. It was too perfect, him landing like this in my lap. I couldn’t figure him out, either. Going to a professional Dominatrix to hold her hand? It didn’t make any sense. I hated t
hat my first thought was Jeff Cane and what he had to do with any of this. He had already shown me a side to him I never thought existed, so who knew what else he was capable of? If I were smart, I would figure out a way to get a handle on this.
But I didn’t feel smart just then.
I stared down at my hand, and it felt cold and empty now without him. I touched my own palm and tried to make sense of the strange twinge I felt. Not just that disquieting pulsing between my legs, but somewhere deeper inside still.
Have you ever walked in a forest and found a log or a stone, and thrown it over only to discover a whole pale world of wriggling worms and bugs underneath, hidden till that point? And you feel like you’ve stumbled on a whole separate unfolding drama, tucked away from the rest of the forest? That’s what I felt right then. Like I had unearthed a patch of my mind and was surprised to find strange, wriggling life inside. There were parts of me that I never knew were alive.
Parts that hadn’t seen the sun in a very, very long time.
Chapter 7
Myth: BDSM is all about pain
Reality: BDSM is all about pleasure. Pain is just one kind of pleasure
“Open your hand,” he said. I stared at him, tears in my eyes.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Just relax your fingers and open your hand.”
I looked down at my fist, the knuckles white from the effort. His green eyes looked at me, begging.
“I can’t.”
“What are you holding onto anyway? Just let it go, you don’t need it anymore,” he said, and gently held my fist, trying to stroke the tension away from my fingers. But they were almost glued shut, like nothing in the world could wrench them open.
I felt near hysterics.
He stared hard at me, and I realized we were both naked. His eyes in mine, he firmly pressed a finger into the knot of fingers and wriggled it in, trying to unball my fist, to dig out the treasure I was gripping so tightly. If I couldn’t give it to him, he’d have to take it from me.
“Open,” he said resolutely.