Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tessica stood in front of her bathroom mirror and checked the fifth outfit she’d tried on in the past fifteen minutes. Connor was due to arrive at any moment, and her anxiety had ramped up. She wasn’t sure if she should be insulted or grateful that Connor hadn’t said goodbye before he left the club yesterday, but she’d tossed and turned for most of the night thinking about it.
She bit her lip and considered their upcoming date. What exactly should she tell him? What was she willing to reveal about her past? Was it better to keep most of it to herself? Only share if he specifically asked? Or was it better to spill her guts to someone she’d known since she was fifteen?
She also wondered where the date might eventually lead. It wasn’t as if Connor was unattractive. Back in their teen years, Tessica had a tiny crush on him. But what would that mean now? After her sham of a marriage and years of unhappiness, she doubted she’d ever want to go down that road again. But what would it be like to live with another kinky person? Maybe that had been the spark missing from her marriage.
Just as she was about to try on outfit number six, there was a knock on her front door.
“Crap.” She glanced down at the blue floral dress she’d picked, and wished she’d worn the red dress instead. This one made her feel too soft and vulnerable, whereas she wore the red dress when she was in Domme mode.
With an unhappy sigh, she went to answer her front door. Connor came in wearing a suit.
“Hi.”
“You look nice,” he said.
She wrinkled her nose with distaste. “Thanks.”
“What’s that expression for?”
“I think I’d like to change before we go.”
Connor’s eyebrows furrowed. “Okaaay.”
Tessica went to her bedroom, closed the door, and quickly stripped out of the blue dress. She put the solid red dress over her head and zipped up the back. Then she slipped off her black heels and put on the red heels that matched the dress. Feeling much more confident and in control, she went out to see him.
“Damn,” Connor said. “You’re beautiful no matter what you’re wearing, but this dress makes me itch to take it off you.”
Tessica’s breath caught in her throat, and her eyes opened wide. She couldn’t remember the last time someone told her she was beautiful. It was disconcerting.
“Sorry, my normal inhibitions are down now that I know you’re kinky. Maybe I should work on that.”
She cleared her throat and shook her head, the change of clothes already making her feel more confident. “No. That’s what tonight is all about, right? Getting to know the sides of us that we hide from everyone else. Let’s find out if we actually like each other with no inhibitions.”
Connor blinked a couple of times as if taken aback, and then slowly nodded. “No inhibitions. Bring it on.”
She grabbed her coat from the closet by the door. “Ready to go?”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Our Uber is waiting downstairs.”
She chuckled as she slipped her coat on. “And immediately our inhibitions come right back into place.”
He laughed and added, “We wouldn’t want to traumatize the Uber driver.”
They kept their Uber conversations limited to the weather, shelter animals, and Connor’s flight schedule. Half an hour later, their driver dropped them off in downtown Portland right in front of a restaurant that Tessica was certain she couldn’t afford.
Connor closed the Uber door and it drove off. “I’ve already made reservations, and I intend to pay for our meal.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And what if I want to pay for my own meal?”
He mimicked her expression. “Then you’re out of luck. I already told you we’re taking an Uber back to our separate homes, so you’re going to let me pay, and you’re not going to argue about it.”
Her stomach lurched at his commanding tone, and her heart rate sped up. That tone brought up long suppressed thoughts and desires that she almost never acknowledged. She broke eye contact and mumbled, “Okay.”
Connor opened the door to the French restaurant for her, and gently guided her forward with a hand in the middle of her back.
While Connor told the host about their reservation, Tessica took off her coat, and glanced down at her red dress with irony. So much for her Domme persona in the face of Connor’s confident dominance. But then the softer and submissive side of her was equally as valid and natural to her as her Domme side. She just didn’t let it come out much.
Once they were shown to their table, Connor ordered them a bottle of Merlot. She looked around. “Where’s the menu?”
“They don’t have one. We get seven courses, and it’s whatever the chef is making today.”
“Oh.” Tessica had never heard of anything like that. “Well, that makes it easy as long as you’re not a picky eater.”
“Are you?” Connor asked.
“Not particularly.”
He scooted closer to her in the round booth, so they were about a foot apart. “All right, time to dive in. When did you first know you were kinky?”
She took a deep breath to fortify herself. “That’s complicated. I became self-aware of my kink when I was about twenty-six. Or maybe I should say that’s when I found a title for what I was. That’s when I was willing to admit it to myself. In hindsight, I can see that I was different from an early age, but I didn’t know what it meant. And I was completely in denial from the time I was sixteen until I was twenty-six. What about you?”
“I knew I liked things that weren’t normal from puberty on, but I didn’t have a name for it until I was in boot camp.”
“When you were eighteen?” she asked.
“That’s right. One of my friends had a dirty magazine with a page about BDSM. I put two and two together very quickly.”
“You were already married?”
He nodded. “I was. I can’t remember, were you already married at twenty-six?”
“Yeah, I was.”
The waiter came back with two glasses and the bottle of wine Connor had ordered. Once Connor had tasted it and approved, the waiter poured them both a glass and left the bottle.
Tessica took a sip.
“What do you think?”
“Honestly, I’m not much of a wine connoisseur. I’m sure all the nuance is lost on me. But it tastes good.”
“Glad you like it. Tell me about being in denial for ten years. What does that mean, exactly?”
She took another sip, and stared at her glass while she spoke. “It means I hated myself for the things I thought about when I masturbated. I refused to acknowledge those thoughts or feelings at any other time of day. I told myself I was normal, and that I was going to have a happy little vanilla life with this one weird anomaly that I would never tell anyone about. Early on I believed that once I fell in love, those thoughts would go away. They didn’t.”
He put a hand on her knee, and she focused on him.
“The first time I had a wet dream, it wasn’t about something sweet and gentle. It was violent. To say I was confused would be an understatement. But pretty early on, I told myself it was okay to have those thoughts as long as I never followed through on them.”
Tessica said, “That first year, I cried more than once after an orgasm. I couldn’t understand why such horrible things would excite me in the moment, when those same thoughts disgusted me if I thought about them objectively.”
Connor scooted even closer so that their hips touched, and put an arm around her shoulders. “Tell me about those thoughts.”
Tessica’s face heated up and she shook her head.
Connor said softly, “When I was thirteen, my first wet dream was about my next-door neighbors. It was a family with two kids. The boy was in my class, and the girl was a couple of years older than us. I heard their father threaten to spank both of them over the years. In my dream, he was spanking his daughter.”
Tessica gasped and put a hand over her mouth. It was so similar to her own early orgasmic thoughts that she couldn’t believe it. She looked into his eyes, and saw nothing but honesty and vulnerability.
He continued. “A few months later, I imagined myself spanking her. That eventually moved to me forcing her onto her knees, and choking her with my cock while she cried.”
She nodded, focused on her wine glass and whispered, “The first time I brought myself to orgasm, I imagined playing house with my boyfriend. Except he wasn’t the husband in my fantasy, he was pretending to be my Baby. And he wasn’t exactly a willing participant. I was forcing it on him while he cried and begged me to stop, and then I spanked him when he refused.”
“Thank you for telling me.” Connor gave her a side hug.
“Do you think I’m sick?” she asked.
“Of course not.”
Both of them paused their conversation as the waiter brought their first course.
“Gougères for your hors d’oeuvre.”
Once the waiter left, Tessica asked, ‘Gougères?”
Four brown rolls the size of golf balls sat on a plate.
“Cheese puff pastries. Probably goat cheese.” He took his arm off her shoulders and reached for one.
She picked one up and bit into it. The puffs were fifty percent air, and the rest tasted like a rich cheese bread without the greasiness of melted cheese. “Mmm,” she hummed appreciatively.
He popped one in his mouth and chewed slowly. He took a sip of wine and picked up another puff. “What happened when you were twenty-six that made you stop lying to yourself?”
She poked at her second puff as she answered. “The internet. I mean I’d been using a computer at work for a while by then, but I didn’t have a personal computer at home until then.”
“When did you get married?”
“That same year. It was his computer.” She ate her second puff.
“Did you tell him about it?” Connor asked.
“Not at first.”
After a moment of silence, Connor said, “Maybe elaborate on that.”
She sighed. “I graduated college in ’94, with a bachelor’s degree in accounting, but I needed more credits before I could take my CPA exam. My parents helped me out for the first four years, but after that, they said I had to pay for the rest of my education myself. I got an entry-level job, lived at home, and went to night school to get the rest of my credits. I met Austin in night school. We studied together, and one thing led to another. He was handsome and funny, and felt much more mature than other guys I’d met in college. We got engaged when I was twenty-three and married when I was twenty-four.”
She took a drink of her wine. “I moved from my parents’ house into his apartment the day after we got married.”
“Were you a virgin?”
She scoffed. “No. I lost my virginity on prom night. Then in college, I dated and slept with three different guys over those four years. Plus, Austin and I had been sleeping together well before the engagement. He was a considerate lover and knew his way around female anatomy well enough.”
“Then you found kink on the internet and…?”
“And I didn’t want to admit it. I thought if I just loved him enough and focused on my family, those thoughts and feelings would go away. And then I got pregnant when I was twenty-five, and had the twins at twenty-six. That took all of my energy for the next couple of years. When the twins were two, I got on the internet more and began reading kinky stories. Eventually, once the boys were three, I got up the courage to tell Austin. It didn’t go well.” She took a big gulp of wine.
The waiter came back with two small bowls. “Leek soup.” He set a cup in front of each of them and took the empty cheese puff plate away.
They both had a spoonful of the soup.
“I’m not a huge fan of leeks, but it’s not bad,” Tessica said.
“Leek soup has grown on me over the years,” Connor commented before taking another spoonful.
They dined in silence for a few moments. When Connor’s soup was gone, he said, “I never told my first wife about my kink. I assumed she’d hate it, so I kept it to myself. Who knows, maybe she would have been a fan. But it wouldn’t have mattered, because she hated being a military wife. She wanted a husband who could be home with her. And I loved military life and flying, so we were never going to be compatible for long.”
“I was always surprised that you never got remarried.”
“I had two other long-term relationships. One vanilla and one kinky. The kinky one could have ended in marriage if I was willing to have kids with her, but I wasn’t.”
“What was it like being in a kinky relationship?” she asked. “Was it freeing?”
He nodded. “Freeing is a good way to put it. I didn’t have to hide my porn or suppress my impulses around her.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It was.” After a short pause he said, “Tell me what you meant when you said your husband didn’t take it well when you told him about your kink.”
“He called me disgusting. Called me a pedophile. Said it turned his stomach. Said if I ever brought it up again, he’d divorce me and take my kids away.”
“Fuck.” Connor put his arm around her again. “I’m so sorry.”
She shrugged and took another sip of wine. “We never spoke of it again. But after that night the sex became… rough. No kisses or gentle touches. And he never even tried to make me orgasm after that. Just used me for his pleasure. But even that dwindled. I don’t know when he first cheated, but I think the boys were about six the last time we had sex.”
“Why didn’t you divorce him?” Connor asked, anger in his tone.
“I was terrified he’d tell a judge about me, get custody, and never let me see my kids. And since he wasn’t abusive, I didn’t?—”
“Define abusive,” Connor interrupted with a scowl, “Because it sounds pretty fucking abusive to me.”
She scowled back at him. “He never hit me or yelled, and he always encouraged me to do whatever job I wanted. We made all the big financial decisions together as equals. And he was a great father, very involved in the boys’ lives. He coached Little League and took them on camping and fishing trips every year.”
Connor shook his head. “When you’re afraid to leave a loveless and sexless marriage, something isn’t right.”
She didn’t comment, because she knew he had a point. But she couldn’t go back and change the past.
The waiter came by and set a plate down in front of each of them. “For your main entrée, we have Coq au Vin.”
“Thank you,” Connor said.
“Coq au Vin?” Tessica asked once the waiter was gone.
“Chicken in a wine sauce with vegetables.”
Tessica nodded and took a bite. “Mmm, this is my favorite dish so far tonight.”
He tasted his and nodded. “I agree. It’s good.” After a few more bites he asked, “Since your husband stopped having sex with you when the boys were six, did you cheat, too?”
She shook her head as she chewed. “Never.”
“And when did you get divorced?”
“Once the boys graduated.”
“You went without sex for over ten years?”
Tessica chewed slower as she considered her answer. But even if he thought it was pathetic, she didn’t want to lie to him now. She swallowed and answered. “No. I’ve gone without sex for eighteen years.”