Page 95 of Going Deep
Simon gestured with his beer bottle. “And did she get weird?”
“No.” Michael dragged a hand through his hair. “It’s not the lie.”
“What?”
“I said, it’s not the lie.” Michael swiveled on the stool to face his friend. “You know why I stopped that scene?”
“No, but I’m hoping you’ll tell me.”
“She was floating,” Michael remembered. “Barely half tied up, and already rope drunk.”
“Okay,” Simon said, clearly not understanding.
“I was tying her legs and watching her, and thinking, ‘Jesus, in a couple minutes she’ll be so gone I could stand her on her head and she’d happily go along with it’. She was that loopy, you know?”
Simon shook his head. “I’m not following you, Michael.”
Michael swallowed the bile in his throat. “And then I thought, just for a moment, that with her that far gone, that rope drunk, I could get it out of her. What happened at the job interview, why she turned it down—she’d spill it all if I took her deep enough.””
Shock froze Simon’s expression, and something akin to horror crept into his eyes. “Jesus, Michael.”
Michael nodded. “Exactly.”
Simon clamped a hand on Michael’s arm before he turned away. “You didn’t though, right?”
“Of course, I didn’t,” Michael snapped. “I stopped the scene.”
“Which was the right thing to do,” Simon said, his breath soughing out in relief. Then his face hardened. “That’s when you broke up with her, isn’t it? You ass.”
“I almost violated every code I know, everything I believe in,” Michael began.
“But you didn’t,” Simon insisted. “You pulled back, you stepped back. You’re the most ethical Dom I know, Michael. It doesn’t mean you’re not human.”
“The thought was right there, and I was so tempted. How can I trust myself?”
“Human beings get tempted, Michael. You didn’t do it.”
“No, but?—”
“How’d you feel?” Simon interrupted.
Michael stared at him. “What?”
“When you realized what you were thinking about, taking her deep so you could interrogate her—that’s what it was, right?”
Michael swallowed. “Right.”
“How’d you feel? Physically, emotionally?”
“Sick,” Michael admitted. “Queasy, a little dizzy. It took me a minute to get my balance, so I could get her out of the ropes.”
“What does that tell you?”
Michael just stared. He’d felt sick, off, and he’d called the scene. “I wouldn’t have done it.”
Simon sat back with his beer. “That’s how it reads to me.”
The relief was a physical sensation, like a rush of oxygen after holding his breath, followed quickly by another wave of sick. “I really fucked this up, didn’t I?”
