by Selena Kitt
“True enough.”
“They say things happen for a reason,” she mused. “I have to believe that.”
“Have to?”
She shrugged. “I think Rick was in my life to show me that what I wanted existed… even if it wasn’t right with him.”
“What? You mean, like, love?”
“Sort of…” Her voice trailed off and he waited, but she didn’t go on.
“Could you be more vague?” he joked, poking her in the ribs. That made her laugh but she still didn’t say anything more. “Come on, tell me. What did this Rick have that you wanted?”
He found himself feeling jealous and sat with the feeling. How much did she care about this other guy? Of course, she loved him, he chided himself. They were married. He was being ridiculous.
“I’m afraid to tell you.” Those were the words she finally whispered. “I don’t want to… influence things.”
“Influence things. You mean… this?” This. Whatever this was. So far, a lot of flirting that had culminated in an incredible afternoon of sex. Not that he was knocking it. “You and me?”
Elena nodded.
“Tell me anyway,” he urged.
“Remember in high school, how I always liked the bad boy?” she reminded him.
Yeah, he remembered. Of course he did. That was why she’d never gone for him, after all. Don wasn’t the bad boy type, never had been.
“I never understood it either.” She sighed. “It took me a long time to figure out what I really wanted. And then, when I found Rick, I thought I’d finally…”
Her voice trailed off and it was quiet, just the soft tick of his watch marking time.
“Elena…”
“Still too vague?” She sighed.
“Um… yeah.”
“Do you know…?” She lifted her face to look at him, brushing her hair away from her face. “Do you know what BDSM is?”
He didn’t think she could say anything that would shock him, but her words surprised him.
“Bondage? Submission?” He knew what it was, vaguely. He understood the concept even if he had little experience. “You like to be… tied up?”
“More than that.” She nodded. “But yes.”
“More… so, what? Spanking? Hot wax? That sort of thing?” He’d seen enough porn. Ball gags and restraints. It was kind of hot, actually, just thinking about it.
“Yes. No.” She sighed. “It’s not about the thing… it’s not about the spanking or the rope or the crop or the flogger…”
Crop? Flogger? What the hell was she into?
“I’m just naturally submissive,” she explained. “I have this need to be… dominated.”
Don blinked at the ceiling. Now it made sense. The way she turned her eyes up to him, how she acquiesced. She seemed to like taking direction, that was for sure.
“And your… husband?” He gulped past the word. He didn’t like to think of her married. “Rick… he dominated you?”
She nodded slowly.
“And you liked it?”
“For a while.”
“What happened?” he wondered aloud. “Wasn’t all you thought it would be?”
“Something like that.”
“But…you still want it?”
“No, I don’t want it,” she whispered softly and he was flooded with relief at first. Then disappointment. Then she said, “I need it.”
Need. That was a powerful word.
“So you need to be dominated?” he mused.
“It’s like…” She sighed, sounding frustrated. “Here give me your hand.”
He did and she linked her fingers with his.
“This is nice, right?” she asked, squeezing his hand. “It’s good. Feels nice. For me, this is vanilla sex.”
“Vanilla…”
“You know, as opposed to all the other delicious flavors.” She grinned, kissing his knuckles. “But see my fingers? I can wiggle around. Twist away. Get out. Right?”
“Sure.”
“Now, hold my hand like this.” She curled her hand into a fist and put it inside of his. He wasn’t a giant man, just six feet tall, but he had big hands—it made it hard to pound a keyboard all day sometimes—and his hand swallowed hers. “Now squeeze. Hard. Harder.”
He did as she asked, although he was a little afraid he might break her fingers, but Elena let out a happy sigh.
“For me, this is like BDSM sex. Now I’m completely contained,” she explained. “There’s no wiggle room. I’m completely yours.”
Completely yours.
Considering what he’d gone through with Anne and his messy divorce, he probably should have been running far, far away at those words. Instead they thrilled him.
“I imagine it takes a lot of trust, to put yourself in someone else’s hands like that,” he mused, slowly opening his hand and extracting hers.
“Yes. Yes, that’s it exactly.” She smiled at him, nodding. “It’s about trust.”
“And safety, I bet.” He had heard of safewords. Knew the phrase, sane and consensual. “Did Rick make you feel safe?”
“Sometimes.” She swallowed. “At first.”
“Did he hurt you?” He lifted his head to look at her.
“Listen, I should get back to work.” Elena sat up on her elbow, looking around for her clothes.
“Oh no you don’t!” he protested as she hopped out of bed, starting to get dressed. “I can’t let you clean my house, not after that!”
“But—” She paused, adjusting her bra straps.
“Nope, I won’t hear of it.”
“But you’re my only client right now!” she cried, stepping into her panties.
“Oh.” He considered this, frowning, looking at his watch. “Well… let’s at least get some dinner first. It’s almost four and I’m starving.”
“Let me finish first.” She slipped on her blouse. “Then we can take a shower…”
His brain lit up at that thought. Showering with her. Washing her. Every beautiful inch of her…
He slipped behind her as she struggled to zip her skirt, wrapping his arms around her waist and murmuring, “Then I can fuck you in the shower…”
“I wouldn’t say no to that.” She smiled over her shoulder at him.
“What would you say no to?” he mused, smiling back. “I mean, isn’t that what being a submissive is about?”
“No.” She laughed, shaking her head at him. “See I can say no.”
“Guess I have some research to do.”
“You don’t need to.” She turned in his arms, fully dressed now while he was still naked. “I just… I wanted you to understand me better. I don’t expect you to be my Dom.”
“Your Dom.” He tried that phrase out in his mouth. “If I was your Dom, what would that make you?”
“Yours.” She breathed deeply, closing her eyes and resting her forehead against his chest.
He found that filled him with pride. And lust. And something else. An overwhelming desire to protect her. If he could have folded her up and put her in his pocket, he would have.
He wanted to be what she wanted.
He wanted that more than anything.
* * * *
Don wasn’t sure, exactly, how he got himself into this position.
But he had to admit, he liked it.
He’d been very hesitant at first. His actual experience with BDSM was limited to a brief time before Anne with a girl who had asked him to blindfold her and tie her up with silk scarves. It was mostly an excuse to let him do oral, which she loved, but was embarrassed about. So he could eat her pussy to his—and her—heart’s content, as long as she couldn’t protest. But he had to admit, he didn’t really know anything about safewords and scenes and something called “total power exchange,” at least, until he started reading.
He was a writer. He was used to doing research, after all. That was something easy, familiar, so he started there. Elena, on the other hand, was complicated. She laughed at his
jokes, she teased him, she flirted, she was a little firecracker in bed, but there was something about her still in reserve. He didn’t quite understand it. It wasn’t like Anne, who was cool and reserved all the time. Elena was red-hot where Anne was blue. It was different, something he couldn’t quite pin down.
So he continued to have sex with Elena on Wednesdays—either after she was done cleaning, or sometimes before, if they just couldn’t wait—and they talked on the days in between, sometimes late into the night. She got him so hot, just the sound of her voice, that he would often make himself come just remembering the last time they’d fucked. His cock hadn’t seen this much action since he’d discovered his father’s Penthouse collection in high school.
And in his spare time, he was reading. He started with porn sites, which vacillated between hot and disturbing, but they weren’t that much help. He needed more specific information. It was like watching someone fire a gun—you could get the main idea from watching, but it wasn’t quite enough information to make it safe for you to do it on your own. What he really needed was lessons, he decided, but he couldn’t imagine how he would find such an arrangement, and even if he could, how strange and awkward would that be?
So he hit up Amazon and started ordering books. Stacks and stacks of books. He hid them in his night table drawers from Diana’s prying eyes when she was around on the weekend, and that was probably the only time he wasn’t reading one of them. He learned all sorts of interesting things from those books, and the more he read, the more he wanted to try and do. He’d walked around with an erection he felt like he could pole-vault with ever since he started reading about BDSM, and even his Wednesdays with Elena—and the occasional late Monday or Friday or Thursday night, if one or both of them got too worked up and he insisted on her coming over—weren’t enough to quench the fire.
After the books, it was the forums. There were a lot of them, a whole world of people Don never knew existed who were living the “BDSM lifestyle.” He logged in and lurked. He read a lot. Then he started asking questions and he asked plenty of stupid ones, he was sure, questions every newbie everywhere had asked, but you had to start somewhere. He asked, in spite of his embarrassment at first, because he knew, this was the key to unlocking Elena. Whatever she was holding back, this was definitely the way past that barrier.
It had been almost a month since their first time together before Don felt ready to broach the subject again. Elena hadn’t mentioned it since and he wondered about that, but she wasn’t the pushy type. Obviously. Sometimes she looked at him with longing in her eyes and he knew there was something missing—and was slowly coming to understand what, exactly, that was. But he had to admit, he didn’t know where or how to start. Should they have a conversation about safewords? Boundaries? Limits? Should he draw up a contract, like the dude in Fifty Shades of Grey? All the members in every forum he’d been to had disparaged the book as “nothing like real BDSM,” and while he hadn’t read it—even he had his limits when it came to “research”—he imagined that was likely true.
So he’d started by asking her questions. What did she like? What didn’t she like? Was there anything she wanted to do that she’d never done? Was there something she’d experienced she never wanted to do again? Elena was so open, it was easy to draw this out of her over time. And from all of that, he’d finally made a plan—what he would wear, what he would do, what he would say—and then he threw it all out the window and did something completely spontaneous, shocking as well as delighting himself. And Elena too.
But it was the lion’s fault. Don couldn’t really be blamed.
“Oh my god, that’s so gross!” Diana laughed, covering her eyes with her hands as they stood at the edge of the enclosure. “Dad! Make them stop!”
“Can’t stop nature.” Don laughed, watching the male lion mounting the female. The zoo had been Elena’s idea. Don had been doubtful. Diana was a little old for the zoo, he thought, but so far it had been a hit. They’d visited the penguin house, walked through the reptile house—both girls had clutched at him and hid their faces in his arm during that trip—and now were standing in front of the outdoor lion enclosure.
He was surprised they’d put the male and female lions in together, given that something like this was bound to happen in front of the tourists.
“Gross!” Diana said again, turning away from the offending sight. “I’m going to get a snow cone. Can I have a dollar?”
Don dug a dollar bill out of his pocket, handing it over. Diana slipped through the crowd toward the guy selling snow cones from a cart. Elena leaned against the railing, looking over at him with a sly smile, one that warmed him to his toes. She looked delectable in a wrap-around knee-length jean skirt and t-shirt. He slipped behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist.
“Naughty lions,” she murmured, leaning back against him.
Don glanced over at Diana, still waiting in line. He’d told her about Elena but this was their first official meeting. He didn’t want to overdo it with the PDA. Public displays of affection grossed Diana out, whether it was lions or humans.
“See how he does that?” He pressed his lips to her ear, feeling her shiver. “Biting her neck like that?”
Watching it made him hard. The male lion had the female pinned and he couldn’t help but imagine doing that very thing to Elena.
“Mmm hmm.” Elena’s wiggle was almost imperceptible, but the way she fit her ass to his crotch made him bite back a groan.
“And now… she surrenders…” His hands slipped under her t-shirt, just enough to feel skin. He heard her sharp intake of breath, felt her go still. “Gives in to him. Gives him what he wants.”
“She wants it too,” she whispered, swallowing, her hands over his.
“But he has to take it first.” He dipped his head to kiss the side of her neck, loving the way she tilted her head for him. “It’s always a push and a pull. Like magnets.”
Elena gasped when he sank his teeth into the flesh of her neck. He didn’t bite her hard, but it was hard enough. His cock ached against her sweet denim-covered ass. He wanted to bend her over and shove his cock deep into her cunt, right here in front of everyone. Claim her as his own. He didn’t care who saw him. Smiling, he realized there was more raw animal in him than he realized.
If he couldn’t have her, he at least wanted part of her.
“Take off your panties.” His voice was a growl in her ear.
“Here?” Elena stiffened. “Now?”
“Go to the bathroom. Over there. Be quick.” Don glanced at Diana who was paying for her snow cone.
“Yes.” Elena’s breath had quickened. So had his. She glanced back at him as she started moving away, adding a soft word that sent an electric current straight to his cock. “Sir.”
Don leaned against the railing, partly to hide his erection, watching the lions copulate as his daughter returned with her cherry snow cone.
“Ugh! Aren’t they done yet?” she protested. Her lips were already bright red.
“We’ll go in a minute,” he explained. “Elena went to the bathroom.”
“Kay.” Diana nodded, wrinkling her nose and turning away from the naughty lions. People were pointing, staring.
“So… what do you think of Elena?” Don couldn’t resist asking, although he wasn’t sure she was going to tell the truth.
“She’s… nice.” Diana gave him a sideways look and he tried to gauge if she was being honest. “Fun. I like her.”
She sounded truthful enough—although he’d been sure she was telling the truth about not sneaking in to see Magic Mike with her best friend, Mary, last year, and he’d been wrong about that.
“I like her too,” he confessed.
Diana smirked. “I can tell.”
He glimpsed Elena coming back from the bathroom, making her way through the crowd. His heart tripped hard in his chest as she approached. She was flushed, eyes bright.
“Can we go to the butterfly house?” Diana asked,
sucking cherry flavoring out of her snow cone, turning the ice back to white.
“Sure,” Don agreed as Elena slipped into step beside him, her hand going into his jeans pocket. He knew what she was leaving there and smiled.
They meandered over to the butterfly house, his daughter on one arm, his new girlfriend on the other. His now panty-less girlfriend. Completely exposed under that denim skirt. When they went into the butterfly house, which was so humid it was almost hard to breathe, Diana exclaimed over the flying insects and Elena dubbed it magical. The girls held still, waiting for butterflies to light on them and then flit away. Don watched, smiling, fingering the powder blue bit of silk in his pocket.
When he suggested getting some lunch, the girls both agreed and they found their way over to the zoo cafeteria—the only place that had air conditioning, which was a welcome relief after the heat of the butterfly house. They ate hot dogs and drank Cokes and talked about copulating lions and magical butterflies. Elena praised his poetry writing, much to his embarrassment, in front of his daughter, but she wouldn’t share the poem she was talking about, the one he had tucked into her purse before she’d left last week. It was Elena who had him writing poetry again.
Diastole
Love goes serenely wild in beginnings
and in endings, births and deaths, thresholds,
initiatory passages into and out of life, red ochre
hand prints from coming through marking the walls
of vessels feeding the chambers of the heart.
Diastolic gatherings of blood and oxygen follow
those contractions of systolic trauma and, in them,
the heart reaches apogees of fullness, epiphanies
of heart that can dominate worlds yet longs only
to fill one other heart with that single infinite love.
“Oh, Dad, I almost forgot.” Diana gulped down her Diet Coke. “Mom is coming to pick me up today.”
“Oh?” Don raised both eyebrows, surprised. Anne considered his visitation with Diana just that—his. She didn’t volunteer to transport and had, in fact, refused to do so on the few occasions he’d asked. He’d learned not to ask.
