Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Avery
I drift off for an hour or so in the extremely soft bed and then I wake up, fully accepting that I’m going to have to go home for a little bit. Not just because I need to see my dad, but because I need some space. Because I need a chance to get my head on straight.
I have to take more of his soft clothes, because he destroyed the ones I was wearing yesterday.
It’s dark outside when I go downstairs. He’s sitting there in the living room, staring out the window.
“I’m going to go home,” I say.
“Are you all right?”
I nod. But I’m not sure that I feel all right. “I just need a minute.”
“Of course.”
He doesn’t kiss me or anything like that. Because that would be like a real relationship, and not this Dominant/submissive training.
I hope he doesn’t think I’m upset. About what he did.
I recognize that what he did was part of the lesson I needed to learn.
If I’m ever going to have another Dom, especially if it’s one that isn’t as experienced as him, I need to be confident in setting my own limits.
In my own power. That’s the piece that I’ve been missing.
The power that the submissive has. It’s a violation of trust to not use the safe word when it needs to be used, and I fully understand that now.
In fact I feel that I probably owe him an apology. For putting him in a position where he did hurt me, this man who is so controlled, who I know that I can trust to press a knife against my breastbone and not draw any blood.
He is the definition of power under extreme control. It is remarkable.
Maybe part of the reason I’m so fascinated by it is that no one with any authority in my life has ever behaved with control.
What a funny thought. I’ve never considered that before.
My dad has no control over his vices and my mom has no control over herself.
I’ve had to compensate by having all this control, and surrendering it to him, I know why I like that. But I think I also marvel at his strength, at the way he measures that, because I have never seen someone choose to harness themselves the way that he does.
It’s incredible, truly. And so is he.
When I pull up to the ranch house, my chest gets tight. I feel the old, familiar stress rising up inside of me. Because this place just sucks all the life out of me.
When I walked through the front door, my dad is sitting there in the living room. “Where have you been?”
“Caleb Flynn’s.”
My dad looks like he doesn’t know what to say.
“Since yesterday?”
“Yes,” I say. I make sure not to invite questions. My statement is definitive.
“Well… There’s chores to be done here.”
“I know,” I say. “And I’ll be here for most of the day tomorrow, and I’ll make sure that they get done.
But then we’re going to have to make some changes with how we structure things around here.
Because I can’t work this place all the time.
” I nearly cry as those words come out of my mouth.
I didn’t know that I was going to say them.
But I need to use my safe word here. As cheesy and stupid as that sounds.
I have been letting myself get crushed beneath the weight of what my dad expects of me, and I have got to draw a line.
Because I love this place. I really do, but it’s not the sum total of my dreams.
“I want get back to barrel racing.”
“Well, that’s not going to do anyone any good,” my dad says.
“It’s not going to make any money, not really. But I love it. So it’s going to do me some good. It’s going to do me some good to be able to do something that I really care about.”
“We’re up to our eyeballs in debt.”
“You are, Dad. You’re up to your eyeballs in debt. And I do my damnedest to try and fix it. You have any idea why I have been at Caleb’s? He gave me the opportunity to work off your debt.”
Something triggers deep in my dad’s gaze.
“He didn’t… He didn’t blackmail you into sleeping with him?”
“What would you care if he did? That’s your line?
Whether I’m scrubbing his floors were sleeping with him, what difference does it make?
You’ve put us in that position. You put me in that position.
Don’t act like you care about me now, just because you feel like that would…
What? Disgrace your name? Because you can’t have a wife that left you and a daughter who whored herself out for your debts? ”
“I’m worried about you,” he says, his voice rough.
“Since when? Because you haven’t been worried about me as I’ve worked myself to the bone all these years.
You haven’t been worried about me then. Now suddenly you’re worried?
Let me handle it. I’m paying the debt. And because I’m paying the debt, I’m making changes.
I’m going to take some control over the finances. Or I’m not going to help you anymore.”
“But without you the ranch will fail.”
“Well, it shouldn’t be that way. You’re grown ass man. So either you give me some control over this, or I’m done. And if everything falls apart, then it fucking falls apart. But I won’t do it anymore. I need to have my own life.”
Maybe my dad will hate me forever. Maybe I’ll be left by the one parent who actually gives a shit. Maybe I’ve alienated him completely, but I just don’t care anymore. Because I have been at my limit for so long, and I’ve just been letting it happen and happen and happen.
And I never said stop. I never said that it was too much. Because I didn’t think that what I wanted got to matter. But now I do. I don’t wait for him to answer, I go straight up the stairs, my stomach hollow.
I lay down in bed, and I don’t cry. I text Caleb, and I tell him what I did.
Good for you.
And then I lay there, totally unable to sleep. And I do something that seems maybe a little bit silly.
I pick up my phone and I open up the app. Because that’s where it seems like we need to have this conversation. That’s where it seems like it’s the best way for us to talk about it.
I want to do another scene.
Do you?
One that’s my fantasy. And still yours.
What would that look like? What would it look like if I could guide all the parameters? If I really asked myself what I wanted, and wasn’t afraid to tell him? Wasn’t afraid it wouldn’t be exactly what he wanted?
And so I start writing out my fantasies.
It’s actually simple. I don’t want a play-by-play.
I want you to surprise me. I want you to make it so I can’t fight you. I want you to kiss me.
Hard limits?
I need to feel like you’re with me. I don’t wan tto feel alone again.
That feels vulnerable. Asking him to kiss me feels like it would be even more vulnerable. But he’s only done it just that one night, and I crave it. I want a deeper connection.
What scares me is the isolation, what I crave is us.
And that feels frightening to ask for.
But he doesn’t deny me.
The first step that I took, contacting a Dom, that was a step toward this. But it actually took all of these sessions with him. Getting to know him, being with him, to get me where I really needed to go.
To actually make it so that I can understand what this was about all along.
I needed everything to change.
I needed to change.
I feel like maybe I finally have.