She reached up and kissed him.
"Good. Now, about the day after tomorrow?" she asked, trying to veer the conversation back and away from the subject of Tom.
Tom nodded.
"Day after tomorrow would be perfect. Ring me when you know what time will be best for you?" he asked and immediately she nodded.
"I will."
Lying in bed later that night, Samantha thought about the exchange, and hoped that Scott was not going to be a guy who would ask her to make a choice … between him or her best friend.
~~~~~
"So, how is it going?" Tom asked her as they settled on the swings at a local park the next day. They were too old for swings now, really, but it had always been a favourite play place of theirs and continued to be somewhere they found it easy to relax and talk when the weather was in their favour.
"It?"
"You know … you and Scott."
Samantha looked at him closely, but only saw friendly inquisitiveness on his face.
"It is fine. He is nice … and he isn't pressuring me to rush into anything physical, which I do appreciate … a lot!" She paused for a moment. "I do really like him, Tom. I think he might be one of the good ones."
Tom nodded at her, maintaining eye contact as he did.
"I think he is a good guy. Just enjoy it. You deserve it."
There was a long pause before Samantha replied.
"You deserve it too, Tom. Don't you think?"
"I don't think we were talking about me…"
"I know. But Tom…"
"No more on that subject, please Samantha. Just be happy yourself."
~~~~~
Samantha had another three weeks until her course would be starting. She was enjoying the time that she was getting to spend with Scott, knowing that once her dressmaking course started, she would be working hard with studying, determined to do well at it and work much harder than she ever had in high school.
"Samantha, I want to tell you about the last relationship I had," Scott said to her one night when they were cuddling on his small sofa. By now she was very familiar with the seat, already having experienced so many conversations and kisses on it.
"You don't have to…"
"I know, but I want to. There were aspects of it that I want you know about."
"Alright," she said, feeling a slight unease about what he was going to tell her.
Scott inhaled deeply before seeming to assemble the words in his mind.
"The … woman … I was seeing was a few years older than me - she was 23 which isn't much I suppose but she was very … experienced. So she was my first…" he started to say, his face full of blush. "But there were other aspects of our friendship apart from … sex."
Samantha listened to him, not sure why he was feeling so uncomfortable. She was a virgin, yes, but she was almost 19 years old so certainly used to hearing about sex even if she had never done it herself.
"We started out just dating but then she started taking me to a club," he said and cleared his throat, as if building something that he was finding difficult.
"Scott, I really don't need…"
"No, I really want you to know this about me. I think … it's … important." Silence. "This club that she introduced me to, I think she had been going to for years but being the innocent thing I was, I had never heard of there being such a place, and I was nervous but I gave it a go, and I really ended up loving it. I didn't know that I would … but she always said that she knew I was right for it."
"For what?" Samantha couldn't help asking, her curiosity now piqued greatly.
"For BDSM," he said, looking closely at her face to see if it would scare her off.
"What is that?"
"It … the club … is where people go to … well, when we went she - Jane was her name by the way - Jane would tell me what to do and I would have to obey her." Scott cleared his throat, knowing his being so flustered was making him speak without any clarity. "Sorry, I don't know how to explain it, really."
"Well, what did you do when you were at the club?"
Scott gulped in nervousness. It had seemed a good idea to share this side of him with her but now that he had to find the words to talk about it, suddenly he questioned his sanity in bringing the topic up at all.
"She would use … things … on me … to make me feel…"
He stopped all of a sudden and Samantha could feel his frustration emanating off him.
"This is something to do with sex?" she asked, trying to prompt him along in his speech.
"No. Yes. Sometimes. Not specifically, but yes, sometimes it would lead to sex. Actually it often led to sex, but that wasn't the point of it." He took one large breath and exhaled deeply. "She would use things like whips and things on me."
Samantha was surprised more than anything.
"She would hurt you?" she asked and he knew he would have to be more forthcoming to explain.
"Well, I guess the act is that she was hurting me, but in reality I liked it. I liked the feeling of it on my skin, and I liked that she was in control, telling me what to do."
"How could you enjoy that? How could you get any pleasure from being hit with something?"
"I know it is a difficult thing to understand. I don't understand how it works either. I just know that it does."
He watched Samantha go quiet and hoped deep inside of him that he hadn't scared her off.
"I don't expect you to do these things, Samantha. I am just telling you because…"
"Why, Scott? Why would you tell me something like that if you didn't hope that I would want to do it too?"
The question perplexed him for a moment as he processed it and wondered the same thing himself.
"Why did you and this older woman stop seeing each other? Was it something to do with this?"
"No," he said at such a low volume that Samantha hardly heard him. "I stopped it because we didn't have anything in common apart from … that. At the start everything was exciting because I was new to sex, and then she introduced me to that and I enjoyed that. But she was older than me and after a while the sex and the playing just wasn't enough for me. I need more, I've come to realise."
"More?"
"Yes! I want to go out to dinner, and go see movies at the cinema, and go for walks with the person I am with - all these things that you and I have been doing together. It means far more to me than sex or the BDSM."
At that point he said it because he really did, in the core of his soul, believe those words to be true.
2 ~ THE CLUB
After seeing each other for six months, Samantha started to see cracks in the way that Scott acted around her. First it was just small niggles - little things that made her feel like she was an annoyance to him. At that point she would back away from him, not pushing to see him and only seeing him when he initiated it.
During those times Scott found that initially he would feel a euphoric and intense sense of freedom, and would embrace it. But after a week or two, he would find himself missing her company so much that he would call her and want to see her, and they would fall back into their routines together.
He hadn't tried to push her toward sex, although they did have many 'hot and heavy petting' sessions. And Samantha knew that she still was not ready to go there yet - not with him. Not with anyone.
On the top level, as would be viewed by an outsider, they looked like the perfect couple, but for both of them something seemed increasingly not quite aligned. And yet they kept going, month after month, both pretending that it was all okay. Pretending that it was all quite a normal way to feel in a relationship.
~~~~~
"I don't want to keep doing this, Scott," Samantha finally said to him one night as they sat in his apartment. "I feel like I'm a yo-yo, or on a roller coaster ride, or something."
"What do you mean?" he asked her, still not wanting to confront even his own feelings.
"We keep pulling together and then drifting apart, and then w
e come together again," she said and paused before speaking again, taking his hand in hers. "I mean, do you even really want to be with me? Or am I here as a way to pass time until someone better comes along?"
Scott felt horrified and it showed clearly on his face and in his voice.
"No! How can you think that?"
"Scott, I can think that because something is off here. And I think you feel it and know it too."
She saw him look away from her eyes and hang his head low.
"Yes, maybe. But I'm not ready to walk away from this. I'm not ready to walk away from you."
"If you know what is wrong - what is missing - you should tell me."
He looked at her, not wanting to speak. He had wondered to himself if it was sex that he missed, but he didn't think it was. The emotions that came from that, within him, he wasn't ready to face again yet.
"Is it this club thing you mentioned? Do you need to go there again?" she asked him and saw him raise his head sharply once more and look intently into her eyes.
"What?"
"The club thing! The whipping and spanking and stuff. Is that something that you need?"
"No," he said, although sounding uncertain himself at his response. "I don't … think … so."
"Scott, I don't want us to split up. I don't think that I personally want to be whipped and flogged, but if it is something you need me to do to you…"
Scott felt a surge of energy flow through him - adrenalin - and suddenly he felt enthused, eager … aroused.
"Really? You would try it? You would use a whip or something else on me?" he asked and she nodded even though she still had uncertainty inside of her. "I … I don't know what to say."
"Well we can give it a go, but I make no promises. And I'm not sure about being in front of other people…"
Suddenly he was talking with enthusiasm and excitement.
"We can try it here first, to see how we fit together like that. We don't have to go to the club if you don't want to."
Despite her reservations, Samantha found herself nodding slowly.
"Okay."
~~~~~
That weekend, whilst in his small apartment, Samantha found herself presented with an item with a small leather loop at one end, and a solid leather handle at the other.
Holding it, she looked up at Scott with questions in her eyes.
"It's a riding crop," he said, feeling the extreme blush on his face.
"And I am to … whip you with this?"
He nodded, feeling a blend of embarrassment and eagerness in his body.
"Yes. Well I guess more strike me with it."
"Okay," she said, not sure she could do it, but willing to give it a go.
"Try it with me dressed first," he said and she was surprised at the words.
"Will you not be dressed when I do it later?"
Now she saw him go a very deep shade of red.
"Um … I didn't mention that the feelings are usually felt … on the skin?"
Samantha didn't answer but instead stood up, ready to learn something new.
"Okay then," she said, breathing out heavily. "Let's do this."
Scott looked at her, uncertain in this position of being the teacher instead of the student, as he had been with Jane.
"Alright. I am going to … go down on the floor … on all fours," he said quietly, his extreme embarrassment evident.
Samantha watched as he did that, wondering to herself how she had gotten herself into such a situation. But she had been the one to bring up the suggestion, and she would see it through.
"Now, smack me with it," he said and she laughed inwardly at the absurdity of it, but sensing he was not in a humorous mood, she followed his instruction and struck the crop against the seat of his jeans. "Try again. This time harder."
She repeated the action, this time trying to put more power into her strike, but although it must have been at least a bit harder on him, he could still hardly feel it.
"Samantha, if you are going to be my dominant, you need to be aggressive with me. Tell me what to do, and really hit me with that if you want to," he said and she immediately could see a problem in the making.
"But it isn't me that wants to do this, Scott. It is you who wants me to do it!"
He felt some frustration at the situation. If only she was already the dominating type, like Jane had been…
"I know. But can you pretend that it is you who wants to hurt me?"
He heard her sigh.
"Alright," she said and immediately struck him with as much force as she could muster.
This time she successfully took him by surprise, and he could feel her strength growing.
"I want to take my jeans off," he said and waited to hear her response but none came. "It isn't meant as any kind of move toward sex. I just want to feel it more. I will leave my boxers on."
"Okay," she said finally, disbelieving that after all this time, it would be this that would make him present himself to her in such a way, instead of him trying to have sex with her.
She watched as he only pulled his jeans down a little - just enough so that she could see his boxer shorts, and nothing more private.
Once again she delivered a blow out of the blue, with no warning, and she heard him moan, driving her on to keep doing it.
"You will tell me when you want me to stop, right?" she asked and he nodded.
"Yes. Don't stop yet. Keep trying to hit me harder and harder."
Without another word, Samantha put herself in the role, doing as he asked for. Eventually she seemed to find a position that gave her more power in her arm, and she started to feel a different kind of power flowing through her.
Even without having heard of this 'BDSM thing', she started to fit into the role, talking to him in a way that he was used to. He had told her to be aggressive, so aggressive she would be.
"Are you enjoying this, Scott?" she asked him and he groaned in reply.
"Yes."
Immediately she smacked him.
"Don't talk to me."
"But you asked…" he started to explain but felt another strike across his butt.
"I said, don't talk to me!"
Scott could feel arousal flowing through him. It was like a drug had just been released into his system, after it having been kept from him for so long.
She continued to strike him, until all of a sudden he called out.
"Stop!" he yelled and then seemed to gather himself up and run to the bathroom without another word to her.
A few minutes later he returned, looking extremely uncomfortable. He realised as he came back into the living area that he hadn't quite thought through the flow on effect from encouraging her to use the crop on him.
"Did you just…?" she asked him, wondrous at the realisation that even though he had said it didn't have to be something sexual, perhaps that was something he couldn't actually control.
He sat down beside her, looking and feeling far more composed that he had a few minutes earlier.
"Sorry, I had to … release."
"You just … went to your bathroom … and … masturbated?" she asked, not knowing how much clearer she could present the question to him.
He looked uncomfortable and embarrassed, but responded.
"Yes."
"Me hitting you turned you on that much? So much that you had to do that?"
"Yes."
Scott watched her face, feeling a wide array of feelings all of a sudden. Released from the build up in arousal … excited that she had produced such a feeling in him … embarrassed at having had to go and release as he had … and worried that she would now think he was some kind of freak.
"Oh," Samantha said, at a loss of what else to say in that moment. "Okay."
He laughed softly with a sheepish - but equally worried - look on his face.
"I tell you I went to the bathroom to do that, and you just say okay?"
"Well, when you have to, you have to."
He
heard her words but was so surprised by them that he burst out laughing at her, and she instantly joined in with him.
When their laughter died down, he leaned in and kissed her, partly because he felt such a need to, but partly because he wanted to see how she really felt about him after what had happened.
Samantha indulged in the kiss. What she had done for him - to him - had driven him to need sexual release, and she knew there was a chance that perhaps he wouldn't need her there after that, so the kiss was welcome to her. A way for her to be sure that she might still hold a place in his life, even if he needed that kind of excitement and release after all.
Their kiss ended and they came apart, looking intently at each other to assess how the other was feeling.
"Now, how about some dinner? I'm thinking cold cuts and salad. What do you think?" he asked her suddenly, as if nothing at all had happened.
"That sounds good," Samantha replied, smiling at him.
~~~~~
Over the weeks that followed, Scott introduced Samantha to new things to try, and she slowly gained confidence in using whatever he instructed her to.
"Would you feel confident enough to go into a club situation now, do you think?"
"To do that to you in front of other people?"
"Yes."
"But what if you … you know."
He smiled at her.
"You will see more than that there, I promise you. Some nights there is nothing sexual there, but on other nights sex is very full on. You have to be open to seeing other people like that."
"But will I have to…?"
"No. I have heard that some other clubs are extremely strict in their rules about sex, but the club I have been to is very relaxed. People who want to get sexual can and do, and others who have no desire for it, don't - and everyone respects those decisions."
"But will you expect me to…?"
"No. I can't help how I will be, though - the effect that might occur on my body - but I think you are used to that now, right?"
Samantha nodded at him.
"I will do as I do here - do a very quick run to the bathroom," he said, with a sound of amusement in his voice.
"Okay."
~~~~~
Another week later and Samantha found herself in his car, being driven to the elusive 'club' she had heard so much about since she had met him.
Friendship of Desire (Painful Deliverance Book 3) Page 4