Page 45 of Bound and Branded

“You are still. You’re still enough on your own even when you’re holding your own boundaries. Because I’m not enjoying myself if you’re not enjoying yourself. And yeah. That’s a little bit fuzzy. Because sometimes you enjoy pain, and I enjoy giving it to you. But it has to stay on that edge.”

“Oh.”

“Because you are enough in your enjoyment of what we do,” he says. “I cannot stress that enough.”

It’s so weird how issues pop up over and over again. Because I chose him to be my Dom, I sought out this dynamic so that I could satisfy something in myself, but the minute that it started it got wrapped up in me wanting to please him, because that is part of the sexual dynamic. Because it is part of being a submissive. He’s right. The minute the balance is off, and it’s more pain and fear than it is the kind of pleasure that I like, I’m letting us both down if I don’t put a limit on it.

It’s my whole fucking life.

“It wasn’t the pain really,” I say.

“Wasn’t it?”

“Well, the pain was a lot, but it was feeling like you were gone. If I’d known you were there I could have taken more.”

“But did you want more?”

“I don’t know. I have a feeling I’ll get used to more.” There is a sick sort of triumph I feel, and a little bit of delight at the thought of how this will mark my body.

“I’m never going to leave you like that, okay? You can trust me.”

“Even if I disappoint you?”

He grips my chin between his thumb and forefinger, his gaze intense. “Sweet Dove, you can’t disappoint me.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, tears leaking out of the corners of them.

I’m exhausted.

My whole body is totally wrung out. And he knows that.

He wraps me up in a soft blanket and brings me something to eat and something to drink. Lets me lay there on the bed for a long time, lost and not in subspace, but in the dark trenches of my own mind.

My refusal to set a limit didn’t put me at risk – he would never physically harm me, and I know he’s well aware of limits that need to be there for actual, physical safety.

But it is such an echo of the way that I live my life that it has me feeling oppressed. Because that’s what I do. I take one more, one more, one more strike, and just keep going. I grin and bear all of my dad’s shortcomings. I’ve tried to make up for the lack of my mother being around. I’ve tried to be the ranch hand that he can’t afford, and the financial advisor that he won’t listen to, and I don’t even know what my own dreams are.

I still feel like I’m failing. It’s why I thought I was drawn to this lifestyle. Because it feels good to have someone tell me what to do for once. Because it feels good to have somebody take charge.

Because it feels good to know that he can tie me up and tie me down, that without effort, I can be what he needs. But that’s twisted up.

Because I’ve needed something more from him all this time. Or maybe I need it from myself.

Honesty about what I want. About the fact that what I want is specific and high maintenance. That I want this man to spend hours giving me pleasure. Making me into his version of art.

That I want his attention, his touch, his cock. That I feel like I deserve it.

Because he might be my alpha wolf, but I am the dove. Special, angelic and cherished, even.

That as much as I love being bound by his ropes, I love being wrapped in a blanket afterward just as much.

That I love the moments when he’s fawning over me. Giving to me.

And I’m getting something from it.

But I want to not think or try, and he gives me that. That he does all this work to have access to my body.

And God, that’s power in a way that I haven’t fully given it credit.

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