“And that’s just that, huh?” she remarked, eyeing Stephanie like she didn’t believe a word coming out of her mouth. Stephanie couldn’t say that she blamed her – she wasn’t even sure she believed it either.
“Is there someone else?” Kacey asked, trying to play it tactfully. Stephanie shook her head at once.
“No, no, there’s nobody else,” she replied, as truthfully as she could. And besides, it was the truth – she hadn’t so much as kissed another person yet. There had just been that little moment back in Cameron’s apartment where she had called him Sir and had seen the look on his face before he quickly directed her to the door and out of the building, but that didn’t actually count as anything, did it?
“Then what happened?” Kacey asked curiously. Stephanie shook her head and shrugged. It was too much to go into all the true details behind why they’d split up, and besides, she wasn’t sure she was actually ready to admit any of those to people who didn’t have to know.
“We just weren’t right for each other anymore,” Stephanie replied truthfully. “We wanted different things, that’s all.”
Kacey seemed to accept that, albeit it reluctantly. Stephanie wasn’t forthcoming in offering her anything new, so she had no choice but to accept it at face value.
And besides, Stephanie wasn’t sure she could go into the complicated reasons behind their break-up without revealing more than she would have cared to about herself. She was going through a burgeoning sexual revolution in the confines of her own head, and the last thing she needed was other people swinging by to drop their opinions on the matter into the equation. It was confusing enough already, and what she needed more than anything was space and time to navigate through what she was feeling.
She successfully deflected the concern of all her well-meaning friends, clearing out the last of Jon’s stuff from the apartment, and picking up his keys so they could both move on. He still seemed somewhat like he was in shock from what had happened, from the abruptness of the end of their relationship, and she felt a little guilty for it – but not so bad that she would go back on the decision she’d made. If he wouldn’t support her in this, there would be more that he would try to keep her from, and she wasn’t willing to give up the chance to discover all these new edges to her personality. Not when everything she had found out so far had proved to be so much damn fun.
But she wasn’t sure if her exploration into that world would end where it had really started, at the party with Cameron – until she received an email from the office, letting her know what her next project was due to be. She clicked open the file and felt a twist of trepidation and thrill when she saw what was waiting for her.
It was the next part of the series she had been working on. She wasn’t sure if they would give it to her or if they would dismiss it and hand it off to someone else, but clearly she had managed to pull it out of the bag. And now, they wanted her to pick up where she left off.
“Two more parts – more intense than the first one. Plots attached. Look forward to hearing from you on this. Cameron.”
At first, she thought that she should turn it down. After all, hadn’t she already wrung as much experience as she could from what had happened at that party? But then, her mind started to stray in other directions, leading her to more inviting conclusions. Yes, she had taken all she could from that party, but that didn’t mean that she had to stop there. No, all that meant was that she had to find some way to get more experience, to learn the nuances of this community as well as she could to make sure her books were authentic. That’s what her publishers wanted, didn’t they? Not for her to cower away from what they had hoped she would write for them. So what, she hadn’t had a huge amount of experience in this stuff? She would have put good money on the notion that most of the science-fiction writers out there hadn’t been to space. It was about taking the experience that she had and turning it into something useful, into something she could use, into work that they could publish.
And, of course, she knew at the back of her mind that this was a chance for her to spend some more time with Cameron, to see a new side of him that he was only just beginning to discover the depths to. It was his name on the email – had he decided on this assignment for her? Was this his way of trying to tempt her into more of their play? Maybe there was more he wanted to show her. Or maybe, like her, he had been haunted by the look on her face and wanted to see what more he could tempt out of her when it came to his twisted little kink.
He hadn’t engaged in anything during that party, and she had been plagued with wondering what it would have looked like if he had. He had always had an air of cool, calm confidence to him, of control, but she had put that down to the fact that he was her editor and actually did have that power over her. But the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if it was that there was an overflow of his dominance in his personal life. Did he have women who submitted to him? Or men? Her curiosity was getting the better of her, and she would have been lying if she’d said that it had nothing to do with her decision to take on the next two books.
When she arranged that meeting with him at his office, she wasn’t even sure what she was planning on doing or saying to him, but as she walked through the door, it became clear. Being around him soothed her in some way, allowed her to let go of the intense grip that she normally exerted on her own life. She wanted to feel that all the time – or at least, more than she was now.
She had done a little exploration on her own time, tracking down forums and conversations online and inhaling them all so she could walk into this at least knowing what she wanted to say to him. There was so much to take in – so many rules, so many regulations, so many games and intriguing power dynamics that existed out there in the world beyond her understanding. But she came to wrap her mind around the notion that there didn’t necessarily have to be anything sexual about getting involved in the BDSM world – it could be purely a sharing of power, a removal of it and the taking of it. That was what she was planning to pitch to her editor that day. It wouldn’t be the first time she had pitched something to him, but it would be the first time that it didn’t have a word count.
He was a little late to the meeting, and she sat down in his office and crossed her legs, clasping her hands in her lap. Was she already acting submissively? She honestly couldn’t tell if this was some extension of the dynamic they had explored that night together or if she was just nervous because she was about to ask her boss for something that would, for anyone else, sound totally fucking crazy.
“Stephanie, hi,” he greeted her as he came through the door in a rush. “Sorry for keeping you waiting.”
“That’s all right,” she replied, and she had to bite her lip to keep from letting a “sir” slip out. She wasn’t sure why, but it just felt so natural when she was around him.
“So you said you wanted to have a meeting about the project I sent you the spec for this week?” he remarked, settling down behind his desk. Was it her or did he look even better than normal? Maybe it was just that she could see him fully now, that he was hiding no piece of himself from her. She remembered standing next to him in that room, while those people fucked in front of them, and a shiver ran down her spine. How many times had she imagined the two of them in that very position since then? She couldn’t count, but that wasn’t why she was there today. Not entirely, at least.
“Yeah, I wanted to…” She swallowed her words, not sure how to come out with it once and for all. What was she meant to say? ‘I’ve been thinking about the fetish you showed me, and I think I need you to actually act it out on me in order for me to continue functioning in the world?’ And how as she going to frame that as research when there was clearly so much more to it?
“It’s not too much for you to take on, is it?” he pressed. “Because you could have just emailed me if there was a problem-”
“No, no, I want to do it,” she assured him quickly.
“But there’s s
omething else you want me to know too?” he asked, curiously, leaning towards her. She felt her heart jolt – it was now or never. She had to prove to him that she was capable of this, that she knew what she was getting into when it came to agreeing to an idea as wild as this one.
“Yes, there is,” she confessed. “I – I don’t think – I mean, I want my writing to be as authentic as possible…”
“In what sense?” he asked carefully. He could probably sense that he was on the edge of a lawsuit as it was and didn’t want it to go careening any closer to the edge.
“In the sense that I…I want to know more about the scene,” she admitted. He leaned back again, cocking an eyebrow at her in something that looked like amusement.
“More about the scene?”
“Everything you showed me that night, it…it fascinated me,” she confessed. “And I know that there’s far more to it than anything I know. I’m sure that I can learn it, that I can take it all in, I just need to find a way to do it. I need someone to show me that world so I don’t get lost in it.”
“And you think that person is me?” he replied, sounding surprised. She nodded, slowly, trying to gauge his reaction.
“I know it sounds crazy,” she continued quickly. “And I know that you think I’m probably setting you up for some kind of HR nightmare, but I’m not. I mean, I don’t want that to be an aspect of it.”
“What to be an aspect of it?”
“The…. the sexual side,” she explained, a flush passing across her face. She could feel the heat rising in her system, and she wasn’t sure if it was the awkwardness of explaining this to her boss that was doing this – or something else entirely.
“I know that for a lot of people, it is sexual, and that’s what I’m going to be writing about, but I don’t want to get mixed up with that with…you,” she replied, even though she knew that her body language was probably saying something completely different. “I want to understand how this dynamic works, properly.”
“So, you’re telling me that you want some kind of…submissive training?” he offered, and finally, she had the words to explain what she had been trying to get across all this time. She nodded enthusiastically.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m talking about,” she replied. “Submissive training. Nothing sexual, just…I want to know how it feels to be on the other end of that kind of treatment. I don’t want people who read the books I write to feel like I’m bullshitting them. I want them to know that it’s real, so they can relate to it, and I’m not going to be able to do that unless I actually experience what this is like.”
He paused for a moment, looking at her curiously.
“You have a boyfriend, right?” he replied at last. “What does he think about all of this?”
“No, I don’t have a boyfriend anymore,” she replied. “We split up.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he responded, furrowing his brow.
“I’m not,” she replied without thinking, and the words seemed to hang in the air between them. She wanted to reel them back, worried that she had come on a little too strong too soon, but a small smile flickered up the corners of his mouth, and she knew he was glad to hear it.
“Well, then,” he replied, clasping his hands in front of him. He had beautiful hands; it wasn’t the first time she had noticed them, but it was the first time she had really let herself check them out. Long fingers, strong. She could already imagine them wrapped around the handle of a whip, or, open-palmed, spanking her hard on the ass.
“You think that’s something we could do?” she asked, with a little too much keenness. He stared at her for another moment, clearly trying to figure out exactly how obviously bad an idea this was going to turn out to be. She gazed back at him, eyes wide, fighting the urge to shift in her seat. She just wanted to touch him, to feel his skin against hers once more, even though she knew that was crazy…
“You know that we would have to set up some pretty firm boundaries,” he warned her. “Very firm. And I’d want some rules put in place to keep it as professional as we can.”
“Of course,” she replied, already a little breathless. “And what exactly does that mean? For the two of us, I mean…”
“Well, first and foremost, that means the utmost discretion when it comes to anything we do together,” he replied firmly. “And I mean utmost. I don’t want anyone else knowing about this – nobody who might come into contact with us through work at least. We need to make sure that nobody finds out about this, because if they do…”
“We won’t be doing anything sexual though,” she countered. She wasn’t sure why, but the thought of keeping it all to herself was difficult; unpleasant, even.
“Yeah, but that’s never how people are going to read it,” he replied. “When you talk kink, people just assume that you’re discussing something that’s got some kind of sexual element.”
“I guess you know better than me,” she replied, and he grinned at her, letting out a soft chuckle.
“What?” she demanded, fluttering internally.
“Just…you’re already pretty good at this submissive stuff,” he remarked, and her stomach twisted. She wasn’t sure if it was with more pleasure or shock.
“Or maybe it’s just that you’re my boss,” she pointed out quickly. He grinned wider.
“Okay, so yeah, maybe you’re going to need a little training,” he replied. His eyes were tracing over every inch of her, as though he was trying to figure out how best to get her to do everything he wanted to. She shifted in her seat. It wasn’t that she didn’t want this – far from it, in fact – but she was impatient to know the dark machinations of his head sooner rather than later.
“What exactly does that entail?” she asked eagerly, and he shrugged and shook his head.
“It can involve anything you want it to involve,” he replied. “We need to set some ground rules, obviously, about stuff that you know you just wouldn’t be interested in. But other than that…”
“I don’t think there’s much that would be off the table for me, really,” she replied, realizing how overeager she sounded and struggling to give a damn.
“Okay, well, I think everyone has some hard limits,” he pointed out. “You need to figure those out. I’ll give you a hand, if you want.”
“Like how?”
“Maybe you could join me at another one of those parties,” he suggested. “And you could tell me what does it for you and what doesn’t. In terms of submission, I mean.”
“Of course,” she agreed, already excited at the notion of going to something like that with him once more. “And what about the when?”
“You’re really eager to get this going, aren’t you?” He chuckled, and she shrugged.
“Hey, what can I say, I’m dedicated to my craft.”
“Well, we can start it right now if that works for you,” he replied, and he fixed her with a hard look over the table, as though he was trying to scope her out. A shiver ran all the way from the base of her spine to the top. It felt like cool water being poured over her skin. She already liked it, liked the way it made her feel.
“And how exactly would we go about that?” she murmured, aware that she was treading a potentially dangerous line and struggling to care. If anyone got wind of what they were talking about in here, there would be hell to pay for the both of them. And yet, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was finding out how far he was willing to push her. If he was as fascinated by this game as she was.
“You could get to your feet, and you could go out there, and you could fetch me a drink from the café in the front of the building,” he replied. “And the whole time, you would have to keep your eyes to the ground. If I caught wind of you so much as looking at anyone…”
He let his voice trail off, the threat hanging unspoken in the air between them. She didn’t need to be told again. She hardly needed to be told in the first place.
Dominance and Submission - Write Away, Sir Page 6
