Dane
I SAID TO HELL with it and lit a fire tonight. It got down into the fifties, and while I tend to run hot, the flames sounded like a good idea while I finished up some current client work.
The song over the new speakers I installed in my cabin switches, and I close my eyes to listen to the instrumental music playing. Tonight, I’d gone for my favorite film composer, Dustin O’Halloran, over Bach or something similar. I found I needed a more modern soundtrack to focus me.
I open the attachment on Lindsey’s email. I scan it to double-check that she answered everything like she said and then open my standard agreement template.
The questionnaire has two parts. The first part is about what she wants from our relationship, the things she needs help with. The second is about hard and soft limits and contains the optional questions that she answered.
I read the first part, making notes in the draft agreement for what she’s seeking help with.
It’s standard. Help with schedule and routine, like waking up without snoozing her alarm multiple times and moving her body more.
She also says that she feels out of control in her life, like she never has time for what’s important because she’s always working or taking care of others.
I make a note to ask her more about that on our call, because that could mean a lot of things.
She also wants financial advice, getting her finances in order so she doesn’t have to work as often.
There’s a sentence about not liking her body, which makes me angry. Her body is perfect, and I’ll make it a mission of mine to help her love it, to help her love and accept all parts of her.
I continue to read and make note after note, coming up with a simple plan for her to follow in the beginning that we’ll adjust as we go.
I do that for the next hour until I reach the second part of the questionnaire.
This part will help me understand her further and adjust anything I need to in my plan.
Unlike the first part of the questions, in this section, my clients rate their experience level for each item listed from zero, which means no experience, to five, a lot of experience.
Then there’s another column where they rate their limits and interest. A zero means a hard limit, a line not to be crossed.
A five means it’s at the top of their list.
It starts off with an easy question about praise. In this case, I ask if she likes praise—i.e. being called a good girl when she’s done something that pleases me. In the box, she rates a zero on experience level and a three with limits and interest, which means she’s willing to try. Good.
I mark that note for our call she scheduled on Wednesday, eager to see how she responds to it. In my eyes, this doesn’t have to be sexual, and it isn’t for many of my clients. It’s about my tone and how I use it.
I read further through the list. Her answers are pretty standard for someone new to submission. Following orders and rules both get fives, while more restrictive behavioral rules are marked with a three.
She’s given a clear no to things like humiliation and certain types of teasing, which aligns with my own limits. I don’t believe in tearing a submissive down. I’ll never call them worthless or anything like it.
My eye catches a note she left beside the teasing question, which she marked as something she’s open to: “But not in a mean way, like calling me stupid or something like that.”
My skin prickles, and I wonder who hurt her in the past. Lindsey’s not worked with a Dom before, so it can’t be that. Ex-boyfriend, maybe? Or a friend? Could even be a family member.
The burning desire to protect her flares in my gut as my gaze drifts to the fire that’s nearly out now.
I mull over everything I’ve learned about Lindsey from her questionnaire, unable to deny that some of her answers aroused me.
We’re compatible in many ways, having many of the same likes and dislikes.
My thoughts drift to the memory of her soft body pressed to mine that afternoon at the Lumberjack Games. I shift in my chair, painfully aware of how tight my jeans have become…and how long they’ve been that way.
That nagging voice in my mind from earlier returns, poking at me, asking me why I’m having such a strong reaction to a new client—not only physically, but emotionally. I don’t know her past, and I don’t know her.
I inhale and exhale multiple breaths. Within a few minutes, I’ve convinced myself that I’m simply horny.
While what I do with my clients isn’t sex, I know that many of them derive sexual pleasure from our sessions, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
But it’s why I reiterate both before and in our agreement that they can do what they want once our call ends as long as they respect my boundaries and do not tell me about it.
It’s important to me to keep things professional and that my clients feel safe with me and I with them. Lindsey won’t be any different.
With that thought looping in my mind, I assure myself that, like my clients have natural reactions at times, I’m having one, too.
There’s nothing to be ashamed of. The fact that it’s been too long since I’ve let myself have a release plays into it as well.
It’s the best explanation for how I feel right now.
It has nothing to do with Lindsey being beautiful and that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since our run-in at the games.
I close my laptop and set it on the side table.
I can finish our agreement in the morning with a clear head.
For now, I need a cold shower and a reality check.
Lindsey is a client. If I wanted to have “fun,” as Levi calls it, or pursue a relationship—which is not in the cards for me right now given how busy I am—I should have declined her emails and made a move at the hospital.
But I made my bed, a bed without a warm, full-figured body next to me, and now I must lie in it.