Page 47 of Bound and Branded

“You are, Dad. You’re up to your eyeballs in debt. And I do my damnedest to try and fix it. You have any idea why I have been at Caleb’s? He gave me the opportunity to work off your debt.”

Something triggers deep in my dad’s gaze.

“He didn’t… He didn’t blackmail you into sleeping with him?”

“What would you care if he did? That’s your line? Whether I’m scrubbing his floors were sleeping with him, what difference does it make? You’ve put us in that position. You put me in that position. Don’t act like you care about me now, just because you feel like that would… What? Disgrace your name? Because you can’t have a wife that left you and a daughter who whored herself out for your debts?”

“I’m worried about you,” he says, his voice rough.

“Since when? Because you haven’t been worried about me as I’ve worked myself to the bone all these years. You haven’t been worried about me then. Now suddenly you’re worried? Let me handle it. I’m paying the debt. And because I’m paying the debt, I’m making changes. I’m going to take some control over the finances. Or I’m not going to help you anymore.”

“But without you the ranch will fail.”

“Well, it shouldn’t be that way. You’re grown ass man. So either you give me some control over this, or I’m done. And if everything falls apart, then it fucking falls apart. But I won’t do it anymore. I need to have my own life.”

Maybe my dad will hate me forever. Maybe I’ll be left by the one parent who actually gives a shit. Maybe I’ve alienated him completely, but I just don’t care anymore. Because I have been at my limit for so long, and I’ve just been letting it happen and happen and happen.

And I never said stop. I never said that it was too much. Because I didn’t think that what I wanted got to matter. But now I do. I don’t wait for him to answer, I go straight up the stairs, my stomach hollow.

I lay down in bed, and I don’t cry. I text Caleb, and I tell him what I did.

Good for you.

And then I lay there, totally unable to sleep. And I do something that seems maybe a little bit silly.

I pick up my phone and I open up the app. Because that’s where it seems like we need to have this conversation. That’s where it seems like it’s the best way for us to talk about it.

I want to do another scene.

Do you?

One that’s my fantasy. And still yours.

What would that look like? What would it look like if I could guide all the parameters? If I really asked myself what I wanted, and wasn’t afraid to tell him? Wasn’t afraid it wouldn’t be exactly what he wanted?

And so I start writing out my fantasies.

It’s actually simple. I don’t want a play-by-play.

I want you to surprise me. I want you to make it so I can’t fight you. I want you to kiss me.

Hard limits?

I need to feel like you’re with me. I don’t wan tto feel alone again.

That feels vulnerable. Asking him to kiss me feels like it would be even more vulnerable. But he’s only done it just that one night, and I crave it. I want a deeper connection.

What scares me is the isolation, what I crave is us.

And that feels frightening to ask for.

But he doesn’t deny me.

The first step that I took, contacting a Dom, that was a step toward this. But it actually took all of these sessions with him. Getting to know him, being with him, to get me where I really needed to go.

To actually make it so that I can understand what this was about all along.

I needed everything to change.

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