Page 16 of Bound and Branded

He is the only person in the world who knows this about me.

I feel cut down by that. I feel reduced. I’m angry, and I want to lash out. The whole time, it was him.

I am a jumble of feeling. And the worst, most shameful feeling is the excitement that’s burning inside of me. Those words that he just sent me were the most erotic thing I’ve ever read in my life. And I am screwed up. Absolutely twisted in the head. Because the hottest thing a man has ever said to me is that he wants to tie me up so that I can’t move while he fucks me, and I want it. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything else, and it’s him.

And that makes it better and worse. It’s like he alone has the key to a lock inside of me and we are both so aware of it now.

I despise it and him.

And I’m drawn to him all the same. In spite of it or because of it, it doesn’t really matter.

“I mean it. If you think I was fucking with you to that degree, you don’t trust me enough to do this.”

I do believe him. I’m just so… Furious about it. At the universe, I guess. Or maybe God is punishing me for being a kinky slut. I’ve never really believed that, but right now I kind of feel like it. I also feel desperately, horrifically turned on, which makes me question if what I actually have is a humiliation kink. Because God knows I am so embarrassed I want to die.

But you know the same things about him. You know what he likes. That he likes power. Control. That he likes to tie women up.

It’s true. I do know that. I don’t find anything shameful in it, because it’s something that I find hot.

And that’s when the world turns upside down for me.

He doesn’t think it shameful that I want to submit to him. Because he needs women to do that.

The heat of my humiliation begins to dissipate. I’m still shocked, I’m still thrown completely off guard, but I don’t feel horrified. Not in the way that I did a moment ago. Not scalded and like he’s going to judge me. He can’t. I’m the other side of his coin. He needs me. Women like me.And you need a man like him.

“Do you believe me or not?” His prompt is hard and there’s a hidden command beneath the surface of those words, one that I’m incapable of denying.

“I believe you.”

“Is the Club the first experience that you’ve had with BDSM?”

I shake my head. “I mean I… I’ve looked at other services. Clubs. I’ve watched… I watch a lot of porn.”

He shakes his head. “That’s not necessarily going to tell you anything.”

“It told me enough,” I say.

“What did it tell you?”

“That is what I wanted. I…” I try to take a breath and try to stop sounding so timid and tentative. “It made me sure that I wanted to be dominated.”

“You haven’t done it before.”

“No. I made that pretty clear in my profile.”

“You did. But in my experience a lot of times new submissive have tried to get their partners to engage in domination with them before they seek out an inexperienced Dominant. So a lot of times what they have is a little taste of it from someone who didn’t know what they were doing.”

“I don’t even have a taste of it,” I say. “You know who my ex-boyfriend is.”

I know he knows him. And it really is unfair of me to bring John into this. But he was just another person in my life who needed to take from me. And in the end, even though he saidhe loved me, even though he said he wanted to be with me, I couldn’t do it. Not anymore.

It was just one more unbearable responsibility. And I don’t know what love is supposed to be like – love isn’t what’s on my mind at the moment. But I know what I can’t handle any more of.

The problem is, I want this. I want it so badly. I want him. The truth is, I’ve always wanted him. But I’m conflicted about that, because everything else about him is so… It’s difficult for me.

But he is the one that awakened this need in me all those years ago. The need that I didn’t even have a name for. And now it’s possible. I… I don’t even know what to do with that.Say yes.

“How long have you been…”

---