Page 18 of Bound and Branded

“Yes. A transaction. An exchange.”

“I don’t have to pay for sex.”

He looks offended, insulted, and I realize that I might’ve said the wrong thing. Even as the fantasy of it all is tearing me up inside, turning me on.

“I just meant that…”

“Are you trying to make a scene? Because you don’t just get to set the tone. And you definitely don’t get to try and manipulate all this so that you get to be in charge.”

“That’s not what I was doing,” I say. “I just…” Without thinking, I take my shirt off, let him see the shape of my nipples through my nearly see-through lace bralette. And then I unsnap my jeans and push them down my hips. I don’t usually wear sexy underwear, but because of the conversation I was having with – with him – in the app, I had done it. Because I wanted to feel aroused through the whole day. Because I wanted to keep playing the game.

What I want to do is push him past this point. Push both of us pass it. I’m tired of lingering in this uncertainty. I know that a whole bunch of it was mine. But if I had moved quicker, if I hadn’t been engaged in this agreement with him, the end result would’ve been the same. If I would’ve reached out to him on the app and then agreed to meet him, we would still be standing here. I’ve reached a point of no return, and I know that I can’t go back. I know that I need for this to happen.

I can’t move on with my life if I don’t do this.

If I’ve at least done it once, then I can find it again. I’ll figure myself out. Or maybe I’ll get it out of my system. Maybe I’m not a submissive. Maybe I just have a sexual fantasy and that fantasy needs to be satisfied. But I won’t know if I don’t do it. And this is the best way.

To really, really satisfy it.

“You are pushing,” he says. “And that’s what tells me that you’re not actually ready for this.”

“No,” I say, desperate. “I am. I am ready for it. You said that you liked to train submissives. Train me. Teach me.”

I’m begging him.

My legs are shaking. I’m exposed already, not just because I took my clothes off. Because he knows what I want. He might know what I want better than I do, and it’s galling to know that.

That this man who I’ve hated for so many years has access to something deep inside of me that I don’t fully understand.

He does.

That’s the point of finding a good Dom. At least, that’s what I’ve learned from all of my research. It’s why I landed on The Club as my way of doing this. Ineedhim to know better than me.

I drop down slowly to my knees and I look up at him, my heart pounding so hard I think I might die.

My pride is in the basement. It’s shattered.

But then it was shattered the moment I realizedhewas the one I was messaging. The moment he realized who I was. Because I’ve already uncovered all my darkest fantasies for him.

I’ve already said it. Why hold anything back now?

What am I even trying to preserve? He could reject me – and he could do it with more precision than any other man could.

The floor is hard and cold, and I’m hot all over. Trembling. Waiting.

I want to say something else. To appeal to him. To look at him. Instead I stare at the floor and I sit in my own discomfort.

I’m in control, always. Life is uncomfortable and unpredictable and the way I cope with that is to keep moving, to keep taking charge. Barreling through every moment of uncertainty and discomfort in my body and around me.

I don’t do that now. I stare at the ground and feel everything.

The weight of his gaze on me, the way my heart throbs. How slick I am between my legs in spite of the burning humiliation of the moment. The desperate uncertainty.

I can’t make him want me.

I can’t do anything but wait.

Then, he touches me. His hand on my head, and I shiver, the tremor going through my entire body as his hand slides down my face, as he moves his thumb and forefinger to cup my chin. Then he tilts my face up.

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