by Tess Lamont
She could barely follow his logic, but he seemed to think he had forced her to do the things they’d done, that he’d taken her to a place she hadn’t wanted to go. He’d been so sure he’d hurt her, he’d started going to a Sex Addicts Anonymous group.
She drank deep.
What was a sex addict anyway? Hadn’t she read somewhere that sex addicts dissociate? That they separate mind and body?
When she and Ben were in a scene, she, at least, was absolutely connected to the present—meditative, almost.
He’d written that he hadn’t wanted to leave, but, when he’d seen her slipping away, he had known he must. He believed she had hardened herself against the world because of him.
Worst of all were his personal reflections. He wrote that the root of what they shared must have been his aggression.
She winced.
Sure, she knew he’d had anger problems as a kid. He bore a slightly crooked nose to prove it. Bits and pieces of his past had come out over the years—a stepfather who was an alcoholic, a mother living in fear of her husband’s rages. But Ben had never resorted to solving a problem with his fists when they were together—not with her, not with anyone. He always treated her with respect. And he never abused alcohol.
He described their sexual power-plays as aberrant, unhealthy.
Just because their desires weren’t ones she’d want broadcast to her family, didn’t mean he was a sex addict.
To call what she and Ben shared aberrant and unhealthy was wrong. Puritanical, stupid, and wrong.
She had not thought Ben uncomfortable with his own tendencies. In fact, she knew he had been more than fine with being her Master. She’d spoken online to other subs who had dabbled in the life and they’d sighed when she’d described Ben’s level of attentiveness.
Christina and Jillian had said they had noticed her change. Apparently, Ben noticed as well, and he’d attributed it to their lifestyle.
Could he be right? Could their dominance and submission games be the reason she had changed? Or, had Jillian and Christina been right to blame the dancing?
Lisa sunk into her pillows and took another sip of wine. She had the urge to drink and drink and drink until her emotions were well and truly shrouded in a drunken fog.
No. She set her glass on the coffee table. She would not hide. She picked up her phone and dialed Jillie.
“Hello!”
“Hi, Jillie. It’s Lisa.”
“I sort of guessed—you know, since your name came up.”
Lisa blinked. “Right.”
“What’s up?”
“I read the book.”
“And?”
“And…” Lisa hesitated. She had never told her friends about her needs and her nature. Sure, she had told Christina and Jillian sex with Ben had been amazing—but she had never given up the whole truth. “Can I talk to you about something?”
“Sure, hon, what is it?”
“Ben thinks he made me lose myself,” Lisa blurted out.
“Ah. That would explain his apology. Did he say why?”
“Because…” Lisa paused, uncertain how much she wanted to reveal. Was she ashamed? No. Lisa took a deep breath and trusted her friend to understand. “Because we did a lot of experimenting, sexually. You know, ropes and restraints and things. And he thinks he―or rather some long-buried aggression―pushed me to it. Oh, and he thinks what we did makes him a sex addict.” A little hysterical laugh bubbled up. “He’s in a twelve-step program, for chrissake.”
Jillian was silent for so long, Lisa checked the phone to make sure the call had not been lost.
“Is he?” Jillian finally asked. “Is he a sex addict?”
Jillian’s casual question made Lisa’s eyebrows rise, but the knot in her chest unwound.
“No,” Lisa said. “At least I don’t think so. I don’t know what a sex addict is.”
“I suppose it’s like an alcoholic—like, maybe someone whose sexual behavior causes their personality to change,” Jillian suggested. “Or maybe it’s someone whose need for sex blots out everything else?”
Lisa’s gut seized. “I don’t think either of those things are true for Ben,” Lisa said. “I don’t know what would have made him think so!”
Reading his thoughts had been more than painful. That he thought himself deviant made Lisa feel debased in a way she never imagined. Odd that he’d drawn her naked body across his lap and spanked her, he’d bound her with ropes and set nipple clamps to her tits, but she’d never felt debased—not until he had denied who they were.
“Lisa, didn’t Ben’s mom ask his stepdad go to a twelve-step program after he got arrested for fighting?” Jillian asked, her voice soft and understanding.
“Yes,” Lisa breathed, surprised she hadn’t made the connection before. “And Ben’s stepdad has been sober ever since. I can hardly believe the guy was once the monster Ben described. The program saved Ben’s mother’s marriage.”
“Were you ever uncomfortable with anything you did?”
“No, I was never uncomfortable with anything we did. We always used safe words, and he was always careful. It was rough, but I was never truly hurt,” Lisa said definitively. She didn’t even need to think about it. When they were together, the intimacy had always been beautiful, even when it included pain.
Especially when it included pain.
In those times, they had to stay connected, they had to move through the game slowly. Ben had always made sure they stayed together while she processed each sensation.
“What if he thought he was hurting you, changing you?” Jillian asked.
Lisa sighed. “Well, I considered that. You said today that I changed. Whatever I was going through…that’s what he was reading and he blamed himself.”
“It sounds like you have it all figured out.”
“Maybe I do,” Lisa replied, realizing it was true.
“What are you going to do about it?” Jillie asked.
Well, Lisa closed her eyes and stretched out her legs, there was only one thing to do.
“If I went to him, would that make me a loser?” Lisa asked.
“No, hon. I’d consider you very brave,” Jillian said softly.
“Christina wouldn’t think so.” Lisa snorted.
“That’s her issue, not yours,” Jil said. “Do you love him, Lisa?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “More than anything.”
“Can you be happy with him?”
“Yes, if he accepts who he is, who I am, who we are together.”
“Then trust yourself. Go and get him.”
****
Ben hovered in the vestibule at Helga’s Diner for ten long minutes. Lisa had asked him to meet her here, so he had come directly after work. He was going to miss tonight’s SAA meeting, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Lisa needed him, he came…cause and effect, natural as night following day.
Through the glass, he saw Lisa in a far booth, flipping the pages of her romance novel. The story played on her face—she scowled, she smiled, she sighed.
Damn, he loved her so much he couldn’t breathe.
“Going out?” A customer held the door for him.
“Thanks, but no.” Ben shook his head. “Looks like I’m all in.”
He pulled back his shoulders and headed in to face the battle.
“Sorry I’m late, Lisa,” Ben said.
Lisa closed her book and looked up. “You came exactly when expected—ten minutes late. When have you ever been on time?”
Ben’s heart pinched. To escape her knowing expression, he kissed the top of her head. She smelled like springtime, mystery and woman. He fought the urge to drag her up from the bench and wrap her tightly in his arms.
Instead, he slid into the booth on the opposite side. He reached out and pushed her bangs away from her forehead, tucking the silky strands behind her ear. He couldn’t help touching her, making some small gesture that marked them as a couple, even though he no longer
had the right.
She was so beautiful. Never in his life had a woman attracted him like she did. He thought the program―the steps―would ease his attraction, but it hadn’t…not one bit. She still lit a fire in his gut. He sucked in his bottom lip to keep from blurting out his thoughts.
She had said she needed to see him immediately, but did not seem in a rush to launch into heavy conversation. Instead, in light and caring tones, she asked him about his work, his family, his life.
Soon, a familiar serenity stole into their conversation—easy laughter, quick understanding. Being with her was like sliding on an old glove during winter’s first snowfall. Ben knew there would never be another woman for him. Lisa was it; she was the one…which was why he refused to hurt her again, even if it meant staying away.
After they finished dinner, just when he almost forgotten their present circumstance, she placed his book on the table. Her long, slender fingers pressed lightly into the leather cover as she slid it toward him.
“Thank you for your apology,” she said. Two pink spots dotted her cheeks. “Writing this must have been very difficult for you.”
Ben’s eyes dropped to the book, almost as if it were an alien thing. His breath grew suddenly thick in his throat.
“It’s yours,” he said.
His face heated at the crack in his voice. He expected her to walk out at any second. Why else would she give back his journal? He didn’t want to watch her say good-bye.
“I can’t accept your apology,” she replied.
His eyes snapped up. What the hell? “Why?”
“I don’t believe it,” she said. She swallowed and pressed her lips together, shrinking toward the table.
“You don’t believe I’m sorry?” he asked, astonished.
She shook her head, keeping their eyes connected.
“I believe you’re sorry. I don’t believe what we did was wrong. I certainly don’t believe who we are is wrong, either,” she whispered breathily. “But your premise is wrong, Ben. You didn’t hurt me. You never forced me. You never would.”
“But you don’t know—”
“Wait.” She shifted and drew a finger to his mouth. “Hear me out. I heard you out, if only in writing.”
“Okay,” he said against her finger. Even that small touch caused weakness in his knees, heat in his neck.
“I did lose myself,” Lisa said slowly. “But it wasn’t because of you. I think…I think it was because of the dancing. But, dancing won’t make me numb anymore. I quit the club today.”
Everything in the room grew bright. He had the disconcerting sense that everything in the future hung by a thread, and he would come to define things by this day, perhaps, by this very moment.
“You quit dancing?” he managed to ask.
She smiled and nodded. “I’ve been thinking about quitting for a long time.” She took her finger from his lips and her hand disappeared beneath the table.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“I have a few things up my sleeve.” She sat up straight and placed both hands on the table. “The real question is: what are you going to do, Ben?”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember when I started dancing, I convinced you dancing was right for me because I wouldn’t have to answer to those assholes in their cheap, discount-store suits?”
He nodded.
“For the first year that was true. I felt powerful on stage, like I controlled the audience. But really, to those men, I was just a faceless pussy. The audience started to control me.”
Ben lurched. Anger flamed inside his chest. Anger so white hot he couldn’t grasp its shifting form. The image of men waving bills arose in white light, an urge to pound the ghostly forms into tomorrow followed. He struggled not to show his rage.
“Some of the girls could do it, but it wasn’t for me. I should have figured that out a long time ago.” She raised a hand and ran a fingernail down the side of his face. “But I don’t want to talk about the club. All that matters is us. I want you and I know you want me,” she said under her breath. “But what we did yesterday isn’t going to cut it.”
Ben saw her through a haze. He knew what she asked, knew what she wanted, but was she right? He felt the pull of all those meetings…all the terrible things other people had told him he was…and in the other direction, he felt the tug of Lisa’s love, her calm assurance.
“I know you think how we lived…what we explored hurt me. I’m telling you it did not. And I’m asking you to trust me. Your aggression doesn’t drive this. Was I ever just a faceless pussy to you?”
“Never,” he said without hesitation.
He tried to recall his sponsor’s words.
Silence.
No one had told him to go to the program, but he felt how distant Lisa was becoming, and he knew, he just knew, it was because of him. But what if he’d made a mistake? Did those twelve-step groups ever turn anyone away? Had his sponsor made assumptions based solely on his presence there?
He thought about it…other group members talked of obsessively searching for porn—every day. Ben liked a picture or two…okay, twenty, but he’d never needed to look at photos to get hard. Others spoke of their partners being faceless—just how Lisa spoke of her club patrons. But Lisa had never been faceless to him.
She was simply…his.
His polar-twin emotions were beyond his understanding—lust and love, the desire to protect and the desire to bind. He loved to see her kneeling naked at his feet. But he also loved to see her smile.
If they came back together in their crazy struggle—this explosive union—wouldn’t they ultimately destroy one another? Anger was there, he could feel it pulsing in his heart, pooling in his belly.
“I don’t know if we can work,” he said, looking out the window.
He’d spent so long convincing himself that what they did was wrong, he didn’t know how easily he could unwind the knots around his heart.
“To be honest, Ben, neither do I,” Lisa breathed. “All I know is that I need my master.”
Lisa shivered as a hot shade of dusty rose spread across her cheeks. Not the flush of desire, but getting close.
Who was he kidding?
“You don’t want someone better, someone…I don’t know…more fucking gentle, or whatever it is women dream about?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “No one is better for me than you.”
Relief washed over him, and it was all he could do not to sweep her off her feet and carry her right out of the diner. Caveman tendencies…could he really live with himself that way? Did she really want him to?
Lisa took two twenties from her wallet and placed the cash on the table.
“I can get it,” Ben offered.
She stood and then stepped to his side, a small smile playing about her lips. Her scent made him ache as her hair fell close to his face.
“I want a master, not a keeper,” she whispered, kissing him on the head as he’d done to her. “Look, maybe we did need to break up last year. Maybe we both learned things apart that we couldn’t learn together.”
She drew out a key and placed it on the table.
“I’m going home and I’m getting ready for my master. But this is a one-time offer. If you don’t show, this is good-bye.”
Ben watched the provocative sway of her hips as she sauntered out of the diner.
He was lost.
****
Lisa lay on her floor naked, her head tucked into her knees. Her muscles ached from the effort to keep still. Seconds stretched into minutes until time bowed, forcing her to bend to the outer limits of her patience.
The contents of her sacred box—collar, flog, rope, blindfold, leather cuffs, and jelly—were spread out on the floor in front of her, bearing witness to her silent vigil.
For some reason, she just had not been able to throw those things away. She’d never lost hope, not really.
Tears hovered behind her eyes, but she refu
sed their comfort. Part of her wanted to prepare for abandonment’s sting, but throwing up a wall against the pain would have been disloyal.
She’d made an offer to her master. She resolved to trust him.
He would come. She knew he would.
Desire slicked the folds of her quim. She ached between her thighs. Her breasts were heavy and her nipples firm against her knees.
This morning, she’d installed a hook in the ceiling beam—with a quick-release button, should she need to use her safe-word.
Her master had always wanted to hang her by her wrist cuffs, but she’d told him hanging was one of her a hard lines. To be stretched bare had seemed too much, too far. The rug softly tickled Lisa’s cheek as she imagined hanging tonight.
No fear poisoned her mind. When her master returned, she would not fear then, either.
She practiced moving her awareness from one part of her body to another…drawing full attention to places often over looked—the inside edge of each finger, the skin just under her shoulder blade.
When a key finally scraped and rasped against the lock, she wanted to cry out in frenzied elation.
Instead she lay in silence while her excitement spoke in her limbs’ involuntary trembling.
The air became charged with sexual longing, as every sense she possessed read her master’s approach.
Thud, thud, thud…on freshly vacuumed carpet. His heavy breath rushed above the light hum of the air conditioner. Without trying, without looking, she matched her breath to his.
Instinct told her to tense as he bent over her, but she rejected her impulse, forcing herself to remain loose and open.
Trust him, trust him, trust him.
He circled behind her and lifted her hair into one of his hands. A cool breeze shimmered against the sweat beading on her neck. Lisa concentrated on the sound of his breathing as he crouched beside her.
His heat radiated—close, so very close, but not touching. Anticipation spasmed at the base of her throat, but she remained folded and still, awaiting his command, be it silent or spoken.
He twisted her hair and, for the first time, Lisa tilted her face upward, just enough to release the tension. She could feel his breath on her back. He inhaled, his chest expanding.
Come on, she thought, take me.
