CHAPTER THREE
(Matthew)
I fell back on the bed, vaguely aware that I was still fully dressed but partially paralyzed and unable to do anything about it. I did pull the waistband of my sweatpants up, though. Dick-half-out was not a flattering look on anybody.
The vibrator was still running, and Charlotte batted it across the duvet toward me. “Turn that off. ”
I grinned to myself and clicked the button. “Are you two not speaking?”
“I’m going to be not walking.” Her breasts wobbled with every harsh rise and fall of her chest.
“I almost killed both of us, then?” I noted the goosebumps on her arms and reluctantly sat up, grabbing the cashmere throw off the end of the bed and tossing it over her.
“Thanks,” she rasped.
“You sound like you could use some water.” While I would have liked nothing more than to pass out with post-orgasm weakness, I had Charlotte to tend to. Even if it hadn’t been an Ascend Red-level sex production, she still needed aftercare.
I got up and went to the minifridge in the bookcase.
“Hey, since when was that there?” Charlotte asked, squinting.
I brought back two bottles and unscrewed the top from hers. “It’s been there. You didn’t stay here long enough to find it.”
She didn’t have an answer for that.
I helped her sit up and handed her the bottle. She took a drink and winced. “I got cum all over the duvet.”
“Gravity got cum all over the duvet.” I sat beside her. “How are you feeling?”
“My ass hurts. My neck hurts.” She reached up and touched the bite mark above her shoulder. Red smeared across it.
I looked away. “About that…”
“Don’t worry,” she was quick to reassure me, clamping her hand over the area where a livid bruise had already started to form. “I asked you to do it. I wanted you to do it.”
“I get that. But I didn’t like it.” There was a difference between shallow bites of teasing pressure, like the one I’d given her at the end, and what she’d wanted. “I won’t be doing that again. At least, not in a way that gets blood in my mouth.”
“Oh.” She paled. “You’re not mad at me, are you?”
“No. We tried something. One of us didn’t like it. This won’t be the only time that happens.” I paused. “What do you think will happen if I did get mad at you?”
She shrugged.
“The first thing you asked is if I was mad at you over something I did willingly. To me, that indicates that you’re worried about making me mad, regardless of whether or not you caused the thing I would be mad about.”
“You caught me,” she said dryly. “You’re the first person to figure out that I’m a people pleaser.”
“I want to know what you think will happen if I get mad at you.” Had I ever given her a reason to fear me? If I had, I wanted to clear that up right away. “And I’m not going to get mad at however you answer the question, by the way.”
She laughed ruefully. “Okay. I’m afraid that if I make you mad, you won’t want to be with me anymore.”
“From being mad at you one time?” I clarified.
She nodded and took another drink from her bottle before continuing.
“I’m not worried that you’re going to get mad and kick me out of your life over sex stuff.
I know it’s okay for me to say no to you, and I trust that you aren’t going to get mad at me if there are things I don’t want to do with you. ”
“But you’re talking about things I suggest, right?” Because the biting thing didn’t come up over a game of checkers. “You’re still worried that if you suggest something I don’t like, for example, the bite, it might make me angry?”
“Yeah, it doesn’t make sense. But you were already aware that I’m a fundamentally broken person,” she reminded me.
“I don’t think you’re fundamentally broken.” I opened my own bottle, to give my hands something to do.
“The thing is, I feel more comfortable and equal when I’m with you sexually than I do with the non-sexual parts of our relationship.
When we’re doing this—” she gestured at the bed, “—then I know exactly what the rules and boundaries are. But I’ve never been in a healthy relationship.
There’s no safe word for stuff like disagreements on loading the dishwasher. ”
“I have people who do that for me,” I said, before I realized that was a hypothetical concern.
“The truth is, I only know where I stand with you when I’m being dominated by you.” She gazed off into middle distance as she thought. “This could be so perfect if we could be a princess and her dragon all the time.”
“There’s no reason we couldn’t be,” I said. “Twenty-four-seven Dom and sub relationships are surprisingly common.”
“Wouldn’t that mean that I would have to ask you permission to talk on the phone or go out and see my friends?” She looked doubtful.
“No, that’s called parenting.” And that wasn’t anything I was interested in. “There are people who take it that far, but frankly, I can barely manage my own life. I can’t micromanage yours, as well.”
“Before I went to Ascend Red, you told me that ultimately, you would want someone who was your sub full-time.”
She was right, taking her to Ascend Red had been something of a try-out.
“That was my best-case scenario. If you hadn’t liked—”
“I love it,” she blurted.
I raised my eyebrows.
“I liked having you telling me what to do. It felt like... structure.”
“I’ve heard people say that about bootcamp,” I quipped.
She shook her head and smiled. “Why do you have to make it sound unpleasant?”
“Because it would drive me sideways if someone tried to exert full-time control over me.” It had, in fact; boarding school had been a nightmare, and I’d made sure to share that nightmare with everyone else.
“I’ve had too many people in my life telling me what to do, when to do it, which fork to use.
.. I mean, you saw the world I came from. ”
“That’s true. There did seem to be an awful lot of emphasis on conformity to complicated rules.” She put her bottle aside and drew the throw around her shoulders.
“Exactly. It’s like... the Olympics of conformity.”
“Things were so much different for me. And not just because of money or the society we grew up in. Things were different even from how Scott was treated.” She drifted off into memory.
“My parents were always right on top of him about his grades and what school he would go to and what he should want to be in life. But when it came to me, they never cared about any of that. If I got an F, it was as good as if I’d gotten an A.
If they suggested I would make a good dentist and I said I would rather bucket drum in Portland, they would praise me for having an artistic nature. There was no—”
“Structure,” I finished for her.
She nodded. “Exactly. And I know that they were trying to do their best by me. That they were trying to compensate for bringing me into the world under such weird circumstances. I’m sure they thought that it was unfair to put further expectations on me because I was born with such a huge expectation attached, but from my point of view, they didn’t want to expect anything from me because I had already failed to meet their expectations. ”
“Have you ever told them that?” I would have put cash money down that she never had.
And I was right. “And risk disappointing them again?”
I tilted my head to see the mark on her neck, and she covered it with her hand.
“Is that what you’re worried about with me?” I asked. “Disappointing me?”
“It’s a little more serious if I disappoint you.” She couldn’t meet my eyes. “My parents have to love me, right? I’m their kid. And they feel guilty for having me to save my brother. You don’t have an obligation like they do. So, if I let you down or make you mad, you can walk away.”
“There’s no world in which I could ‘walk away’ from you, Charlotte.” I took her wrist and pried her hand away from the bite mark. “I don’t want to be with the version of you that you invent in order to keep me. I want to be with you .”
“And the only time I’m me, actually myself, is when we’re playing these roles.” She sighed deeply.
“Then, let’s always play the roles,” I suggested. After all, it sounded like the solution to our problem. “How did you feel about the contract I made you sign?”
“Good. It still seems kind of ridiculous that you went to that length, but it’s weirdly comforting to see your expectations for me laid out like that. It felt like a handbook.”
I let those words roll around in my head a little bit before I answered. “So… what you’re asking for here is clear communication.”
She blinked.
“I’m fine with communicating my needs and expectations. But you have to do the same for me,” I warned her. “I’m perfectly happy to try out a full-time domination and submission situation, but you have to swear that you’ll let me know if it doesn’t work for you.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“Then we find something that does. Because I’m not willing to give up on you.”
I doubted her shiver had anything to do with our conversation; she was naked under a thin cashmere throw in an apartment with the central air cranked.
There was no better time than the present to start our little adventure. “I want you to go put some clothes on. Something comfortable. Are you hungry?”
She considered. “Well... now I am. I wasn’t when I got here, but someone made me burn a lot of calories.”
I kissed her cheek. “Think about what you want to eat, get dressed, and then you’re going to tell me about this business proposition of yours.”
* * * *
We waited in the dining room while the chef worked on our dinner. Charlotte had struggled with the concept of “anything you want,” which I should have anticipated. It sounded like she’d lived her life without limits, but also, without guidance, which left her floundering with far too many choices.
She’d finally blurted, “Spaghetti!” with such desperation, I might have found it comical. But it pained me to see her so worried and uncertain and eager to please me.
“Okay,” I said to Charlotte, nodding thanks to the servant who filled my wine glass. “Let’s hear about this business idea.”