Chapter 16 #2
“What do you mean?” I ask carefully, watching her blink a little slower.
“You’re going to take these keys,” she instructs, fishing the familiar pair from her pocket and holding them out to me. “You’re going to drive the Class II out to the edge of the shelf. Shallow enough that you can drop anchor. And you’re going to break me.”
My heart stutters in my chest, and I can feel my eyes go wide. No. This is not happening. This can’t happen.
“Alice, this is a bad idea…” I start to argue, but trail off when she starts laughing. It’s humorless, like last night when I said I could protect her.
“I really don’t care,” she says, shrugging and popping her hip, a stance I’ve never seen from her before. Could she be having a breakdown? I can’t take advantage of her in this state.
“Are you high? Drunk?” I ask, and she rolls her eyes.
“No, and I suppose you’re just going to have to believe me on that one.”
“I don’t understand,” I admit, hoping she’s not asking for what I think she’s asking for.
“You said you know I’m not fragile,” she begins, looking directly in my eyes like the force of her gaze will make me understand.
“This is how I want you to prove you’re being honest, and that I can trust you in my most vulnerable state.
I’ll be a little drowsy from the cinnarizine, but I am consenting here and now to have you control my body. ”
“Alice, there has to be another way,” I argue, panic and desire ratcheting up my pulse with equal effect.
Of course I’ve imagined this before, thought about her taking every once of pleasure I have the power to give her, even when it feels like too much.
Show her a whole new world of carnality, one driven by experiencing the way every sensation can bring her closer to the edge.
But not now. Not when she’s rightfully angry. Not when we haven’t talked this through, and I can confirm that she’s in the appropriate state to consent to this. Not when I know that fear and ire are motivating her, when compassion and trust should be at the forefront.
“You said you’d do anything to prove I can trust you, and this is what I want,” she says with a finality that makes my heart sink and my blood pressure rise. “You can say jellyfish any time. Back out. But this is what I want.”
“I can’t,” I say, jellyfish on the tip of my tongue. I can’t give her what she wants. It’s wrong. I’ve lied to her, manipulated her, taken advantage of her trust and vulnerability. I can’t.
“You can,” she says, so much more sure than I’ll ever be. “Because I need you to show me that you trust that I’m not breakable, unless I want to be broken. And that I can trust you to only break me in the ways I need.”
She’s so close, but I don’t touch her. Even though I think it’s the only thing that will unbreak me.
I shouldn’t want this, but I do. Not only because dragging her along the edge of pleasure and pain would be the most exquisitely erotic thing I would ever experience.
But because I want to show her how closely I can read her body, listen to her words, taste the need on her skin.
That we can trust each other in this, and hopefully one day, everything else too.
“I’m afraid,” I admit. Her gaze softens the smallest amount, and she reaches out her hands to drag the back of her knuckles over mine. All the hairs on my arm stand on end, and shivers break out across my body.
“Fear isn’t necessary,” she promises, staring into my eyes like she can see all the way into my soul, search for the dread and excavating it like an artifact, excising it like a tumor. “If I can trust you, and you can trust me, there’s no reason to be afraid.”
-
I’m white-knuckling the steering wheel of this fucking boat, repeating her words over and over again in my mind. Fear isn’t necessary.
This is what she wants. What I want. Everything else—her father, my family, the people we are and will always be—fades away with the shoreline as I make my way further out to sea.
Alice said whatever she took will make her drowsy for an hour or so, and so she’s tucked safely away in the small sleeping quarters downstairs.
I asked over and over again, confirming a thousand times that this is what she wants.
To be vulnerable, to put her safety in my hands, to give all control up to me.
I haven’t given up anything, she said as she laid on the cot and shut the door in my face.
I know she’s right. I’ve been a part of these dynamics before, though in a much more structured and, frankly, forthcoming environment.
I may be the one driving this boat, choosing where we stop, deciding how she touches me and how she comes, but that doesn’t mean I’m in control.
The submitting partner can always safe out, can stop the scene any time.
Her choice to give up autonomy only amplifies her control of the situation.
That’s why these situations are called power dynamics. Everything is an exchange.
The problem is, healthy dynamics require communication. Honesty. Trust.
It’s inherently wrong to use kink as a test of trust. You need to establish it in advance, so everyone feels safe and secure, and knows that their partner has their best interest at heart.
Alice doesn’t know that. In her mind, there’s a significant chance that I could use this opportunity to truly harm her, or to further manipulate her vulnerability, maybe even at the request of her father or Ilya.
And yet here I am, driving this research boat further out to sea, because she asked me to. Because she told me fear isn’t necessary. Because she wants me to prove we can trust each other.
God, this is all so fucked.
The guilt of not telling her who I am claws at me, but I shove it down with the knowledge that if she found out, I’d leave this life for her. I’d abdicate my position in The Syndicate of Fate. I’d kill everyone who has ever hunted her, or hide from them beside her if that’s what she’d prefer.
When we’re far enough out, I check the radar on my phone to ensure there’s no one close enough to hear her scream.
Because that’s what she wants. To scream, to be afraid, to be used and overwhelmed and drowned in the pleasure of someone else’s choosing.
To be controlled by someone who will take care of her.
I drop the anchor and make my way around the small boat, taking time to prepare everything. Nylon rope from the spare buoy. Safety shears from the first aid kit. Reminding myself the only thing I know for certain. That Alice isn’t afraid. And she needs me to prove that I’m not either.