Page 34 of Left of the Slash
I want to nod my head and agree, but I don't. I just stare at Olivia because she just embodied the train of thought that I wish I had. I could already tell from the confidence that emanates from her, but she clearly has embraced her kinks. She stopped running and hiding from it when she was only twenty-two years old, and I'm still trying to hide from mine at twenty-seven. This is a woman who knows who she is, and if others won't accept it, they can clearly go fuck themselves. I wish I could do the same, but I don't know what kind of person I would end up being if Igave into my dark devil. On the other hand, Olivia absorbed her darkness and look at her now—a proudly submissive CEO.
“Damn. That's dope as hell,” I admit. “I love that you own it.”
“I do,” she says proudly, maintaining eye contact with me. “It took a lot of exploring, experimenting, and learning about myself over the years, but the first step was owning it and loving myself enough to disregard other people’s opinions about who I was. Without that, I never would've gotten here. Now I know exactly what I want, the exact boundaries I have, and the willpower to accept nothing less. It even made me stronger in my life outside of the bedroom and BDSM clubs. I think I've gotten where I am professionally because I know who I am. I am in the BDSM lifestyle, and I'm also a boss. Being a submissive probably made me a better boss, because I can take control during the day, and then give it away at night. I like the dichotomy.”
“Well, you're definitely good at it, because when I met you, I never would've guessed that you're a submissive. I think it’s pretty dope, actually. I need to get on your level.”
“You're already there, for the most part,” she says. “It’s clear that you have a Dom’s personality, you just admitted to me that you liked spanking me, now all that’s left is owning it instead of saying, ‘I think I might be a sadist.’ Once you embrace it, your whole world will change. Trust me.”
I find myself in awe of Olivia. Maybe it’s the fact that she's eight years my senior, but she's so full of wisdom that I feel like she's teaching me right now. She wants to help me embrace who I am on the inside, and while I care about how dark myinsideis, she doesn't. It’s crazy, because I never would've thought that I would end up wanting to be more like her.
“Maybe all I need is your help,” I say. “You said I had a lot to learn, and I told you to teach me everything. You want to give up control and I want to take it. So it seems like we’ve got the right dynamics here.”
“We absolutely do. You're the other side of the slash.”
“What does that mean?” I inquire.
“It’s a BDSM term. Written as D/s, with an uppercase D and a lowercase S. It just means Dom slash sub. You're the left side of the slash, and I'm the right.”
“Ah, I see. Simple enough, I guess.”
“For sure,” she says. “And I'm going to help you, Quinn, because you do have a lot to learn. In fact, I think we should start right now.”
Olivia gets up from her stool and takes our plates away. She places the dishes in the dishwasher and opens a cabinet above the stove, where she grabs a few pieces of paper and a pen, and brings them back to her seat.
“What's that?” I ask.
She points to the papers. “This is a contract.”
“Oh. For work?”
“No. For us.”
Bewilderment takes control of my face and makes my eyes wide as Olivia slides the papers over to me, and I see sets of empty checkboxes next to descriptive sentences that look like definitions in the back of an English textbook.
“You drew up a sex contract for us?” I ask, part shocked, part offended, and part excited.
“Something like that,” she admits nonchalantly. “It’s more of a formal letter of agreement between us. Here, it lists all of the kinks that the two of us agree to, and the things that we’re obligated to do for one another when we have sex. This is how we’ll find out what youreallywant. For me, there are plenty of kinks that I'm into, and plenty that I'm not. This document simply states that we will agree to explore the kinks we have in common, while never crossing into the ones we don't.”
“Couldn't we just agree on this verbally?”
“Of course we could, but I want it in writing. Maybe it’s a CEO thing.”
Now I scoff without being able to hold it back. “So you can pull it out and wave it in my face if I break a rule, like a true boss?”
“Well … yeah. If it comes to that. I just want you to understand what it is that we’re doing together, that’s all, and this is the best way I know how. So, before you let it get to your head, let’s take a look at how simple it really is. Here, it lists kinks. So, which ones are you interested in?”
Stunned at the turn this conversation has taken, I follow Olivia’s finger on the paper and see what's written at her fingertip. The paper lists a multitude of kinks I've heard of, like bondage, rope play, choking, and impact play. Then I see ones I've never thought about, like piss play, electroshock, and scat. I point to each of them with eyes as wide and round as the tires on my car.
“I’m not into any of these, especiallythis one,” I exclaim, pointing to scat hard enough to push the ink through to the other side of the paper.
“Oh, that’s good,” Olivia says with a playful laugh. “I'm not into that either. See, this is why I have this, just to make sure we’re on the same page. These up here are kinks that Iaminto. How do you feel about these?”
I scan the page and nod my head as I take the pen from her and insert check marks into the boxes. “Bondage, check. Never done that before, but I’m definitely interested. Impact play, check. Breath play, check. I don't know anything about Shibari, so I’ll skip that one. Forced orgasms, check. Edging, check. Hair pulling, check. Fisting? Well, I'm down for it if you are. Breeding … wait, how doyoufeel about this?”
Olivia takes the pen from me and inserts her own checks in the empty boxes next to the ones I've filled, agreeing to participate inthe kinks I've marked down. When she gets to the breeding kink, she puts a check.
“I get tested every month and I'm on really good birth control,” she says. “How about you?”
