by Cynthia Dane
“Are you okay?”
Sloan looked up from her cocktail. Night had fallen in Chicago, and after such a long day, Leah was still the pinnacle of effortless beauty. Sure, she had bags under her eyes, and her hair needed a good wash, but who cared when she looked like that in her most natural state? She didn’t need makeup, which she had washed off as soon as Sloan announced they weren’t going out again that night.
“Why?” Sloan forced another smile of grand amusement.
“You look a little out of it. That’s all.”
“It’s been a long day.” Sloan swallowed the last of her cocktail. I should’ve ordered two. Her current stay in a hotel suite meant the hotel bar was more than accommodating with delivering drinks. Sometimes, Sloan ordered more drinks than food. “I wasn’t expecting this morning to be that eventful. I thought we would shake him up a little. Maybe make him cry. Tears would’ve been nice.”
“I thought I was going to cry.” Leah had barely touched her snack. Unfortunately, this was their first time having any true privacy, since the afternoon was nothing but infighting among lawyers and dinner was had with Peter and Maxine. The experienced divorcee hadn’t been kidding when she said Peter was the best in the business, and it took her referral for him to look twice at Sloan’s impending divorce. Getting video of that altercation earlier was genius. Almost as genius as Sloan recording their private conversations.
The man had been shaken enough to start talking about what it would take to get Margaret Sloan out of his life forever. Peter was certain they had a strong case on their hands. Between that day and Aaron immediately going public with a new girlfriend, Sloan would have no issues negotiating for some of the higher priced properties from her marriage. I put in the time. I gave him my youth. It’s time to take what’s mine and move the fuck on.
Sloan glanced at the woman sitting across from her. Leah had said in front of everyone that she loved the woman Aaron was so quick to dismiss. Sloan couldn’t overlook that for all the money Aaron could possibly promise. “You were amazing today. I knew you had that much confidence in you.”
Leah’s arms stiffened against the table. “It wasn’t really confidence. I… reacted. He made me so angry.”
“It was confidence, trust me.” Sloan laughed. “I’ve got enough of it to recognize it in other people. Aaron had confidence too, but his ego took a huge blow.” That laugh turned into a pitiful chuckle. “Sometimes I wonder if it was the confidence that roped me in… or the ego.”
“Must have been the ego. Because you said that I have confidence, but nothing about an ego.”
“You’re the least egotistical person I’ve ever met. It’s refreshing.”
“Sometimes I don’t think it’s refreshing. Well, maybe for you.” Leah continued to stare at a knot in the wood. Occasionally, her finger pushed into the little hole. Did she know she did that? Or was she so lost in her own thoughts that it was impossible to control her actions? “For me, though, I think I’ve been held back. When I had a baby at such a young age, the adventurous part of me completely shut down. Between my mother and… well, society, I guess, I decided to take as few risks as possible. I didn’t go away to college because I was afraid of what might happen there. I don’t know what would have happened, but I was in too deep by then.”
“Yet the moment you turned thirty, you met me by chance?” Sloan pretended to be more interested in the dirt beneath her nails. “The universe was telling you to start living life again. Maybe it was telling me the same thing. Before I met you, I was in such a rut that I was left with no friends, no family, and only the reputation of being the biggest bitch.”
“Sounds like your husband played a huge part in the friends thing.”
“He did. After we broke up, I realized that my friends were his friends. They would never side with me. Realizing that doesn’t make you think rationally. Your first reaction is to cut off everyone around you, because you can’t trust anyone.” I had female friends who turned their backs on me as soon as I broke up with Aaron and attempted to reclaim who I used to be. They had been women like her during her relationship: submissive, deferential, and malleable. They held the same opinions as their husbands, and only associated with women who mimicked their mannerisms, both in and out of the bedroom. They had been great friends to have during that period of Sloan’s life, but the fairweatherness proved she was ready to move on.
Too bad it took years for her to move on.
“For what it’s worth,” Leah said, “I think all that crap about you being a huge cunt or a bitch or whatever is just that. It’s crap. That’s not the real you at all.”
Sloan managed a weak smile. “It kinda is, though. I don’t sugarcoat my personality. I’ve always been a pain in the ass. I’ve been estranged from my parents ever since I graduated high school, and it’s because we simply do not get along.” Sloan sent the occasional updates back home to suburban Chicago, but they held no emotion, and she had no emotion for the updates her mother occasionally sent back. They appreciated what her money had afforded them over the years, and that was it. Sloan didn’t mind paying for her parents’ future nursing homes if it meant they were off her ass. After all, they had no problem paying for the first twenty-five years of her life. It only made sense to pay them back. “I thought it would protect me more, though, you know? Yet I still fell into the same trap so many other women do.”
“We all fall into traps. They’re unavoidable.” Leah’s hands wrung together. “Look at me. I got the biggest one out of my way when I was barely in middle school. Now what do I do? The biggest adventure of my adult life has been… um…”
“Going out with me?” Sloan originally intended to be sultrier with her response. “Fucking me. Bedding me. Having sex with me.” In that order. She arrived at “going out” because now was not the time to tease Leah.
Leah blushed. “Yeah. That.”
“To be fair, it’s been an adventure for me as well. I probably wouldn’t have finally kicked Aaron out of my life if it weren’t for meeting you.”
“Really?”
Sloan nodded. “I’d been wanting a divorce for years, but never got around to it. Why would I? Wasn’t like I wanted to marry someone else instead. I made a lot of money with Aaron. The less the boat was rocked, the better.”
“So how did I change your mind? Was it because of what happened when I found out?”
“No.” Sloan’s sigh deepened. “I was already making contacts and preparing events like this morning before you found out about my marriage. What changed was I realized it might be possible for me to have a viable relationship with someone new. What was I doing remaining married to a man I despised? I’m almost forty, for fuck’s sake! I needed to get the hell out. So, with or without you by my side, that’s what I decided to do.”
Leah remained removed from Sloan’s personal space. “Would you prefer to have me at your side?”
“I told you. I don’t grovel. Comes with the territory of being a snotty ass.”
“It’s not groveling if you tell me how you feel.”
Right. Feelings. Sloan had been cutting hers off for so long that she forgot what it was like to live them from moment to moment. “I feel… weird, honestly.”
“Weirder than me?”
“I don’t know how else to describe it. As much as I hate to admit it, Aaron changed me.” The most frustrating thing? She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment it happened. She knew what triggered the changes, but they happened so slowly that it was like mistaking aging in the mirror for bad hair days. “I used to be effortlessly confident. I could go up against a man like him and either leave him frothing at the mouth because he knew he was wrong, or at least so far in my distant past that I never had to deal with him again. Nor did I ever think of men like that again! Now, though… I had to force it. I knew how to act confident. I remembered what it was like to be confident. I emulated it. What I once knew so innately is now nothing but a memory. I keep convincing myself that I’l
l be like I once was one day.” She caught Leah’s eyes the next time they wandered in her direction. “You were right, you know. I was using you. I’ve used every woman I’ve been with since breaking up with my husband. Because I can’t go back like I want. I have to start all over again. I have to become someone else, and I don’t know how.”
Leah shivered. Before Sloan could offer her a jacket, however, she said, “We’re both using each other.”
“Huh?”
“I was using you too. Just because I grew feelings for you doesn’t mean I wasn’t also using you. I wanted a girlfriend who would take control of everything for me. I wanted to feel like I was the center of the universe. You offered that fantasy. For a night here and there, I could pretend to be someone who didn’t have to take responsibility all the time. I could let go. That meant I trusted you. I was angry because you broke my trust.”
“Well, shit,” Sloan said with a huff. “I still feel terrible. You didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of my frustrations.”
“Is that how you really feel?”
“Yes.”
Leah sighed. “That’s all I wanted, you know. To hear what you’re feeling. Good things, bad things… I ask about them because I care. It wasn’t enough for me to know we could hook up. If we kept going on like that, I wanted more. Maybe not a serious relationship, but to at least know a little about who you were beyond the image you projected.”
“Tough shit. I don’t know either.” Sloan got up from her seat and rounded the small table they shared in the hotel room. She sat on the edge, looming over Leah. “If there’s anything positive I took from my time with my ex-husband, though,” she began, waiting for the light of comprehension to reignite behind Leah’s eyes, “it’s that you don’t have to feel ashamed of who you are or what you like to do. As long as you’re not hurting anyone,” and that included themselves, “you can express yourself however you want. That kind of stuff we did… it can be a part of a healthy life.”
“You really think that?”
“You don’t?”
Leah returned to her knot in the table. “I want to believe it’s possible, but is it something we could do?”
“You’re worried about me, aren’t you?” Sloan meant that Leah might be worried about her personal safety. The answer she received surprised her.
“I don’t want you to regret doing it,” Leah said. “I want a partner who can give myself every part of her. Including the parts that might scare other people… but not at the expense of her well-being.”
Sloan’s grip almost upturned the table. Nobody’s said something like that to me before. Not even Aaron, when he slathered on the fake concern to rope her into a lifestyle she had never expected, pretended to be so involved in her well-being. Was that why Sloan was afraid to take on the role he once filled? Why she was so convinced she would only hurt a woman like Leah?
“I wasn’t lying when I said I started treating domination as a way to understand what he did to me.” Sloan’s knuckles had long turned white. “I thought that if I stepped into his shoes, I could reclaim the self-respect he stole from me. That’s why I hired women who could separate themselves from what we did. You, though… maybe I avoided women who were really into it because I knew what I was doing, and why it was toxic.”
“That’s the word.” Leah’s left hand slowly slid toward one of Sloan’s. “Toxic.”
One of those buzzwords that have lost all meaning. Had it, though? Had it really lost all meaning, or was she too far up her own ass to see what Leah wanted to say?
“I enjoy it,” Sloan finally admitted. “I enjoy being that woman for others, but I don’t want it to get toxic. I’ve been on the other side of that. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I truly perpetuated it.’
“I never thought it was toxic.”
You don’t understand what went on in my head when we did it. Grasping for meaning. Flashbacks to the same acts with Aaron. The driving, pounding need to purge such urges from her body. “If we did that again and I lost sight of myself…”
Leah took her hand. That gentle, reassuring touch didn’t come from a weak heart. It came from the strongest heart Sloan had ever encountered. She thinks she has no confidence… that’s all I feel in her grasp right now. “We could always try?”
Sloan wanted to say something, but couldn’t pull the words out of her throat. So she did the next best thing.
She kissed Leah and allowed herself to sink into what felt natural. For better or worse.
***
There were things Sloan couldn’t do that she always fantasized about. She wasn’t big or strong enough to pick Leah up and carry her across the room, though one clung to the other as if it were possible. Nor could Sloan achieve the same kind of sexual intimacy that she had with her husband, back when she was convinced she felt true love and adoration for him. Except those were mere physical limitations. Sloan still had all the heart and soul to give another woman. The kind of lovemaking Leah liked most was mostly psychological, anyway.
Sloan knew a few things about that. Both as the woman inflicting it, and the woman receiving it.
Binding a woman’s wrists behind her back was as good as telling her to no longer worry about a thing. What good was worrying if she couldn’t reach out and touch a damn thing? Boom. Her hands were literally tied. Anyone asking her to take care of something, to do anything, to go somewhere would be crazy. Couldn’t they see that Leah couldn’t do it if she wanted? She was stuck here. Her wrists were bound behind her back, and soon, she wouldn’t be able to see, either. Blindfolds served to further cut off a woman from the stressors of the outside world.
Must be nice. Leah didn’t have to do a thing except obey. Then again, Sloan understood how much work that was, too.
“Not too tight, right?” She meant the blindfold she had secured around Leah’s eyes, but it could also apply to the strip of fabric fastening her wrists behind her back. Leah sat on the edge of the hotel bed, her marble gray shift dress tight against her body and her naked toes wiggling in the carpet. Sloan tossed a handful of curly hair behind Leah’s shoulder and caressed her jawline. Pleasant shivers erupted beneath her touch.
“No,” Leah softly said. “I’m fine.”
“Fine?” Sloan bent down, lips near Leah’s. “You mean you’re not already so turned on that you’re bursting to have me touch you some more?”
She glanced at Leah’s chest. Her dress was thin enough that a hint of hard nipple showed, but Sloan wanted to hear it from her lover’s mouth.
The bindings holding her wrists together strained against her forming fists. “Yes.”
“How do you feel right now?”
“I’m waiting for you to touch me.”
Sloan rewarded her honesty with a peck to the forehead. “Do you know what I want to do for you, Leah?” Not to her, but for her. That was the difference Sloan was still learning. Aaron never did anything for me. It was always about his gratification. Getting off. Feeling smug that he had once again dominated me, a woman who thought she couldn’t be tamed. She would be different. Everything she and her lover did would be about their mutual benefit. Nobody could leave the room unless their needs were met. For Sloan, that included the emotional satisfaction of love well made.
Leah slowly lifted her chin. “Tell me. Please.”
Sloan’s fingers drew a long line beneath Leah’s chin. “I want to free you.”
“Yeah?”
“The more I tie you up, the more I boss you around, the more I’ll free you from everything that haunts you. Don’t tell me that doesn’t sound like a beautiful night to you.”
Leah bit her bottom lip. When it popped out of her mouth again, Sloan had to hold back the urge to kiss her so hard that she fell sideways onto the bed.
“How does it sound?”
Leah inhaled a sharp gasp when Sloan lowered her hands down her lover’s arms. “Divine,” she said.
“Tell me one thing you want to forget about tonig
ht.”
“Everything.”
“That’s not an answer,” Sloan chided. “You have to be more specific.”
She further teased Leah with fingers down the chest and light pinches to her nipples. Not the fastest way to get words out of the woman’s mouth, but it was effective in turning her on. I want you wet and ready for me, Leah. It didn’t dawn on Sloan until a few seconds later that the same sentiment was often uttered by her husband. That was a good thing, wasn’t it? The focus was more on Leah than on Sloan’s formidable past. I’m always going to think about Aaron, aren’t I? He shaped my whole attitude toward kink. Attitudes could be changed, though. How suddenly remembering those hundreds of nights they spent together affected her could change. What Sloan needed were more positive experiences. Truly positive experiences… not ones that sounded great at the time, but later became terrible stories she told her therapist.
“I want to forget what happened this morning.”
“Of course you do.” Sloan knelt before Leah, hands gripping her bare knees and voice becoming firmer. “That was stressful. I’m sorry I asked you to be a part of that.”
“I wanted to be.”
“What else is there?”
Leah hesitated. “The thought of opening my own bakery. It’s overwhelming.”
“Running your own business isn’t easy. I know.” Sloan rose up enough to wrap her hand around the back of Leah’s neck and bring her head forward for a heavy kiss. Soon. “There’s so much to consider. Even with people supporting you, it’s so easy to feel alone.” She knew that well, too. No wonder I understand what it’s like to be her. No wonder Aaron got to her so easily.
Ah, this was more like it. Since it was inevitable that she would think of Aaron whenever she played this dominant role, she might as well learn to look at it from a submissive partner’s point of view. The one she knew better than anything else. Just because she wasn’t looking to relive those days anytime soon, didn’t mean she couldn’t put herself in Leah’s place and revel in the appeal. Maybe one day we’ll switch, my dear. Until then, Sloan needed to practice, but practicing as a Domme meant exuding that effortless confidence that attracted women like Leah to her in the first place.
