“Really? I thought being submissive means just doing whatever you’re told. That doesn’t seem strong.” I wasn’t trying to be argumentative or insulting. I truly didn’t understand.
“It’s an oversimplification of a complex state of being.”
“Sorry, but I’m really trying to follow.”
Gretchen tilted her head closer to me. “There’s a misconception that a submissive person is submissive to anyone they meet. That is typically incorrect. Submissives choose who they serve. It is a gift. That’s why they’re generally very possessive of this precious side of themselves. They won’t just give it to anyone. A true dominant understands this very well. It cannot be forced if it is real. The submissive chooses. Without that choice, nothing of value moves forward. And so the submissive truly has all the power. He or she sets the scene in motion.”
I soaked in these new revelations. “Are you saying he won’t show me that side of him because he’s not sure if I even know what I’d be giving?”
“Quite possibly.”
“What exactly would I be giving?”
“It depends on how deep of a relationship you two are trying to cultivate. Sometimes it’s for play. Other times it’s for everything. Considering you’ve just reconnected—”
“We love each other.” Instinct told me this was important to share.
Gretchen didn’t question the accelerated pace of our relationship or why I told her. “That changes everything, lovely.”
“For the better though, right?” I can’t say it enough how I hated feeling inept at anything and in this situation I was completely ignorant, inept, and out of my depth.
“Maybe. Maybe not. You mentioned he’s afraid. Has he explained how he wants to introduce you to this part of himself?”
“No.”
She pursed her lips. I took it as a bad sign.
“Then what does that mean?”
Gretchen didn’t answer me directly. “Why specifically did you ask me to lunch today, Emma?”
“Because I want to know what I can do to be part of his world. We won’t make it if he doesn’t let me in. I can’t let this end before it begins. I won’t.”
Instead of reassuring me that she could help, Gretchen asked her original question, “Do you want to be his submissive?”
“Yes!” I answered this time without hesitation or deliberation.
“Why? Is it to keep him from leaving you and finding someone else?”
I never lied to Gretchen before. I wouldn’t start now. “It’s not something I would’ve necessarily chosen for myself. I mean, everything I know about his world comes from you and what little I saw between him and his ex.”
I swallowed hard. My hands fluttered about, seemingly trying to pluck the right words out of the air. “I haven’t been with anybody else, Gretchen. I always figured I didn’t have time for relationships, that it would come later once I crossed enough items off my list, you know?”
I wrung my hands before placing them palm down on the table. Gretchen followed my movements but held her silence, somehow knowing I wasn’t finished.
“Now I wished I had dated a bit in college or even after. I’d at least have some idea of how to interact with a lover, how to make things fit together. How do people do that? How do they make it fit when the pieces aren’t even the same shape or size?”
Gretchen let me ramble on, familiar quixotic tilt to her head, until I stuttered to a breathless stop. I waited for her to say something, anything before plunging forward again.
“I’m being pushy about this, I know it, but I’m afraid about what’s going to happen if I can’t do this for him.”
In case it wasn’t yet clear, Gabriel had been the only man I’d been with. Ever. It wasn’t on purpose. It just turned out that way. It definitely wasn’t because I was saving myself for him or anything…
Or that I compared every boy I met to Gabriel. Positively and negatively.
And I was never, ever going to let that arrogant man know that he’d been the only one I’d been with. Ever. Never. Ever. Ever.
Can I say it again? Never. Ever.
So if I wasn’t saving myself for the one boy in the world I adored, why had my love life been nonexistent?
Logically, it was because the timing never seemed right and I was so busy in school, inflexible and single-minded in making the best of my incredible opportunity. What was harder to admit is that I’d lost confidence in myself. I’d been proven to have flawed decision-making skills. I never thought I’d be someone who could throw everything away for a beautiful boy who I’d known was dangerous to everything I’d work so hard to achieve.
Going to bed with someone who hadn’t yet to meet my mother?
Even now I cringe. Call me old-fashioned, but that wasn’t how I was supposed to live my life. I was supposed to be smarter than that. I was going to have a do-over. I was going to do things the right way, the way that didn’t have me sneaking out of a house in the predawn hours. I’d find a relationship where things were taken slow, where my mystery man and I got to know each other bit by bit. Romance at its most cliché and finest.
I just needed to have time to find it. Eventually.
I’ll have time to date later had been my favorite line when asked by any well-meaning acquaintances. I just need to get through (fill in the blank).
Now my lack of experience was coming in to kick me right in the tail. When it came to relationships, I was stuck as a high school senior. Which was really not a good thing considering the introverted senior I’d been.
Oh, my God. Wringing my hands, talking to my best friend about the boy I liked but was so afraid he wouldn’t like me back how I liked him. At this very moment, well past an acceptable age, I was stuck right in the throes of teenage angst.
I’m screwed.
“Lovely, where did you go?”
I looked at her in panic and whispered, “I’m lost! I don’t know the first thing about putting on leather or whatever it is he’d want! Is he going to collar me? If so, do I take it off when I go to work or switch to turtlenecks? Do I shower with it? Sleep with it on? What happens to my skin?”
I fried my brain.
“You’re still so innocent,” Gretchen observed with melancholy wonder. “Maybe it wasn’t the best life experience to have me for a roommate, lovely.”
“Don’t be silly! I wouldn’t trade those years for anything, Gretchen. You’re also the only real friend I’ve ever had. If it wasn’t for you I’d probably been sucker punched when that witch sprung all of this crap on me yesterday.”
Sympathy and affection softened her gaze. “Emma, perhaps avoidance is the best course of action for you both. Maybe this isn’t something you should explore.”
Gretchen couldn’t do this to me! “Why? Is there fundamentally something wrong with me that all of you can see?” I appreciated the overhead music’s layer of audible security considering that I raised my voice higher than desirable.
“Of course not.”
“Then what? What makes what you both are into such an exclusive club that I’m not even invited to experiment with? What do I have to do to prove how serious I am about this?”
“This, as you call it, isn’t something you can casually dabble with. It involves complete trust and commitment to your lover and to the process. You have to be fully invested in order for this to work. If there’s any doubt of how far you’re willing to go for him, it’s best to stop now before either of you get hurt. I mean it, Emma.”
Sadness overtook me. What little appetite I had vanished. I buried my hand in my napkin, wrinkling it beyond all hope. “He’s said that he’d rather close this off than risk losing me.”
“Your gentleman is quite the romantic. Are you tempted to take his offer?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I want all of him—not just the sanitized version of who he thinks I want him to be. I want him to be free to be who he is. I love him and I want him to le
t me love all of him.”
I want. I want. I want.
It was always the same. I wanted what I shouldn’t want. I expected Gretchen to continue with her previous warnings. She surprised me yet again.
“No chance of you changing your mind?”
“None.”
“All right then. I know better than to try to change your mind once it’s made. You’ll just have to work twice as hard to convince him.” Gretchen’s warm smile filled me with hope.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Given how young you both were when you first made love before parting, I imagine he’s mentally put you in a tower far above his baser side. You’re purity defined and I think he’s afraid of challenging that.”
“Do you think he’s ashamed of his kink?” I couldn’t picture Gabriel Gordon billionaire extraordinaire being ashamed of anything. Yet I knew his beauty hid an ugly view of his past deep inside. He said he never loved any of the women he was with before me. Was it over this?
“Perhaps. Some view all of this as dirty and something to be guilty of. It’s usually either religion, or trauma, or upbringing that’s the culprit.”
Gabriel definitely hit two out of the three. Things were looking worse again. “That’s not good.” I tossed my napkin on the table. “He’s experienced some messed up things growing up. I don’t want to go into it any further than that.”
“He’s sounding more and more like a reluctant dom. What do you know about his previous partners?”
“Not much. At least, not much after high school, other than they were all submissive. Except me.”
“Except you. I see.”
The waiter chose that time to bring us our food. After setting down two Cobb salads, he thankfully made himself scarce, but not before giving Gretchen a longing glance or two. Normally I’d smirk and tease her for being a mortal goddess, but not this time. Time was ticking and I didn’t feel any closer to my goal than when we first started.
“So am I the unicorn or the jackass, Gretchen?”
“Probably both.” She took a dainty bite of her food. I followed suit, biding my time before pressing the issue. Gretchen casually gestured towards me with her fork. “I have to admit I’m already worried, Emma. As I said before, I’ve never seen you like this.”
“Like what?”
“Frightened, off-balance, insecure. It’s not typically you.” Several beats passed before she asked, “Are you sure he is what you want?”
Gabriel’s image rose up in my mind. My heart leaped in joy. “Absolutely.”
“No backing out?”
“No.”
“You’re committed until the end?”
“Yes.”
“No judgments or comparisons to what you think a normal relationship should be like?”
“No.”
“You answered that very quickly. Too quickly. I’m going to ask you again, but this time I want you to think about what my question really means.”
“Gretchen…”
“Indulge me, lovely. I told you before that books are just that—books. The stories about this lifestyle usually aren’t really real. Remember?”
“I remember.” Gretchen set me straight that while the erotic romances I’d been reading were entertaining, the fiction category typically stretched into the contents as well.
“A normal relationship usually means roses, candlelight dinners, puppies and kittens. Yours might mean stripes across your ass and timeouts in the corner.”
What? Wow…okay.
“It might mean kneeling at his feet all night just for him to pet your head and leave you there alone. He might challenge you just for the excuse of punishing you. Not because you’ve done anything wrong, but simply because it amuses him. And after all of that, after you turning yourself inside and out for him, he might decide it’s not going to work and leave you for someone else anyways.”
Oh no.
A knot twisted and spread across my heart. Gretchen verbalized my greatest fear, the root of them all, one stretching all the way back to high school. It was the fear that I might not ever be enough for Gabriel, that he might decide I’m not so special and beloved after all. That he might be the one to break me forever.
It was a close thing before, back when we were two teens heady after years of dancing around the issue. Now though…
Loving him could be the most dangerous experience for someone like me.
“Not so warm and fuzzy, is it?” Gretchen’s question lacked any hint of gloat. Cruel to be kind. All should be so lucky to have someone like this girl in their life.
“No, I guess it isn’t.”
Gretchen pinned her stare to mine and succinctly repeated, “No judgments or comparisons to what you think a normal relationship should be like?”
Love. Would it be worth any of this? Self-preservation reminded me I could walk away, relatively unscathed if I called it all off now. If I really set my mind to it, Gabriel wouldn’t be able to convince me to stay. I was a hardheaded woman that way.
There was no real choice to be had. A life without Gabriel wasn’t one that was worth much anyways.
“None.”
Whatever she saw in my gaze must’ve finally convinced her of my complete sincerity. “Well then. What can I do to help?”
Appetite returning in full force, I took a healthy bite of my salad. Swallowing, I said, “Tell me everything I need to know to make him make me his perfect love slave. I’m bound and determined to be the best submissive he’ll ever have the luxury of dominating.”
“That’s my lovely. Ready to fight the world.” Gretchen then immediately burst my bubble. “But you’ll to throw all that out the window.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
“You’ll have to wait until he comes to you. If he’s any kind of Dom, and I suspect he really is to inspire you to brave this, then you’ll have to be patient.”
“Patient.”
“Patient,” she repeated blithely.
I couldn’t believe I’d gotten so little from her. “You’re kidding, right? After all the questions, all the warnings of being committed and all-in, this is the extent of your advice?”
“Pretty much.”
I waited for a wink, a sign, anything to show she was kidding. When it didn’t come I sputtered, “Gretchen…it can’t be that simple.”
“It’s not simple, but there it is.”
“I have to wait.”
“Yes.”
“Okay then! This has been sooo productive.” I stabbed a cucumber slice with my fork. “I’ll be unstoppable now with this inside track. Watch me kneel, world!”
Gretchen eyed my frustrated actions with visible amusement. “Lovely, I know you prefer to be in control your surroundings, but this is one where you can’t.”
“I’m not trying to be in control. I’m just trying to get the ball rolling on this…” I protested before trailing off. Okay, maybe that wasn’t completely true. “I’ve got an idea. What if I put on some leather lingerie, a blindfold, and then kneel on the floor while I wait for him to come home?”
“Bad idea.”
“What? Why?” I didn’t whine. Honestly, I didn’t.
Gretchen sighed and patiently explained, “You can’t force him to do what you want when you want. That’s called topping from below and that is the surest way to find yourself facedown over his knee. And not for fun.”
“There’s a fun reason to be facedown and spanked?”
“Oh yes,” she purred. “Definitely.”
I saw myself over Gabriel’s strong thighs. The image heated me instantly. Wow. I never thought I’d be so limited in my imagination prior to this moment, but now I wanted to know more about fun spankings. Would Gabriel hit me firmly or more as a tease? Would he have me pull my panties down or would he have the honors himself?
I wish I could experience a fun spanking soon, today even. I struggled to focus on Gretchen. Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all.
“However, you try to force him into giving you your way…well, I’d hate to be you, Emma. I’m sure he won’t tolerate being manipulated and neither would I.”
I imagined a 200+ pound man over Gretchen’s knee and snorted. “Do you spank your gentleman when they’ve been bad?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’m not going to ask how you accomplish that.”
“Good.” Her sly smirk hinted at dark delights indeed.
How could someone so dainty have the power to physically do what she did? I shook my head in wonder. “So recap—I should just take my time. Not push him. Be receptive to whenever he feels comfortable. If it turns out to be never, then what?”
“He’ll lead you when the time feels right to him. You can’t push it.”
“And there’s nothing I can do to nudge him along?”
“You’re the pure virgin in the tower, remember? You might never get out.”
“Even though I lost my virginity to him?”
“Especially because you lost your virginity to him.”
“Gretchen, you’re killing me. You’re supposed to be my secret weapon, my way into his world.” I eyed her in sudden suspicion. “Are you sure you’re not in league with him because you’re both the same?”
“Meaning would I aid and abet a fellow Dom against a scheming Sub? Perhaps.”
“Seriously, Gretchen?”
“Of course not, Emma!” She rolled her eyes, neatly breaking her flawless image and giving hint to her youthful age. “Be patient, be loving, and trust your gentleman. Since he’s already talked to you about his nature, chances are he’s already choreographed how he’s going to get you onto his side. You have nothing to worry about.”
“Why didn’t say so at the beginning?”
“Because I wanted to make sure you weren’t doing it because you were being bullied.”
“I’m not.”
“I know. Now.”
I swallowed, overcome by vulnerability. Her advice meant so much to me. “Do you think I can be good at this?”
Gretchen reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Of course you can. You don’t know how to fail, Emma. I have complete confidence in you. You’ll be the greatest Sub your man has ever known. All others will be compared to you and be found lacking.”
Bad for You (Mad, Bad, & Dangerous to Love) Page 6
