Page 2 of Submissive Lies

It was at that very moment it became perfectly clear just how ‘vanilla’ Thomas was. And how this conversation was very likely not going to end the way I had hoped it might. I understood my kink—BDSM, and specifically Dominant/submissive dynamics—quite well. I had what I considered an insider’s point of view of it. What I’d not done is give much thought to how the ignorance of someone who had little knowledge of D/s dynamics would present itself. And now I was finding out.

Thomas was an intelligent man. I’m sure if I had gone into the details of what I was trying to describe, he would have recognized some of what I meant when trying to relate my version of ‘kinky.’ Those things that had been part and parcel of my previous sexual relationships. And while he might have understood the terms and known the dictionary descriptions for them, I was quickly getting the gut-level impression that he wouldn’t quite comprehend the reason someone would want these things. Desire them. Crave engaging in them with their partner. ‘Spanking? Dirty talk? Stuff like that?’ No, I was talking about things much more explicit, and it was becoming clear that Thomas wouldn’t understand why someone would want to engage in the kinds of things I had. And wanted to again.

That’s when the light bulb went off in my head. This was not going to happen right now. This wouldn’t be the moment when things would be resolved. Much as I had hoped differently, this wouldn’t be the conversation where I could break out of my lie.

“Well, yes, again, things along those lines.” My voice was stumbling, and I sensed Thomas was picking up every tell I was handing him like a defendant being cross-examined.

“What I’m saying is that… well, I experimented with certain things like that, and I found there were things that I liked, and…” I flailed, desperately looking for a way to ripcord out of this conversation as quickly as I could.

His eyes narrowed in increments to my every word. It only intensified the feeling that I was on the witness stand, and I hated that I was responding to it as if I was.

“And?”

“Well…” I gulped, gesturing towards him. “Are there any…”

Jesus Christ, Jen! Just ask him the goddamn question!

“Is there anything like that… that you, you know, ever did? Or wanted to do?” I blurted it out, the last few words tumbling over themselves.

Thomas looked down at me with lingering traces of confusion in his eyes, the corners of his mouth turned down. I had seen this look before, most often when he was listening to an argument. It was as if he was not only absorbing the words but also looking for the subtext behind them. But this wasn’t another lawyer he was listening to. It was me. I felt like I was the one on trial even if he acted as if he was the one waiting for whatever I would spring on him. After a few seconds of thought, a gentle, knowing smile began to crease his face.

“Are you asking me if I like… rough sex, Jen?”

I almost couldn’t stop myself. I wanted to burst out laughing. I wanted to roll on my back and squeal until my sides hurt.

Rough sex? Seriously?

But I did stop myself. I had seen this before. As a submissive—back when I’d actually been engaging in my kink—I’d read all sorts of online posts where people described this very thing. New people who came into the scene fresh, still clinging to an outsider’s preconceived notion of what BDSM and D/s dynamics were all about. Sometimes it was the supposition that whips and chains were involved, and at others, it was all about spankings—thank you very much Anne Rice. And with still others, it was nearly word for word what Thomas had just said.

Kink, BDSM, whatever label was applied, it all equaled one thing. Rough sex.

To be fair, I had never talked to Thomas about BDSM, whether in this conversation or any other prior. It was certainly not something he’d ever brought up during the six months of our relationship. I could only assume he had no inkling that was where my mind was. I had said ‘kinky,’ and while the two were intertwined in my mind, any assumption I had that Thomas would equate them the same way was a poor expectation on my part. As I stared up at him I caught myself thinking this, and in that moment I became uneasy. Nervous of where Thomas’ vanilla lawyer brain might take this and head off to.

“Yeah, that’s it. You know… rough,” I said with a weak smile, my voice faltering. I hated myself so much as the words came out. It was a lie. Yet another lie in a string that had become par for the course for me lately. I had been living a lie to deal with the painful implosion of my previous relationship. And like most of us are taught when we’re children, lies have a way of coming back around on us. I was being forced to confront this, and in doing so, I was struggling with whether I could keep telling this lie until it became our truth—my truth. Or if I would have to handle this differently. At this point, the only person I’d admitted my deception to was myself. I was continuing to perpetuate the lie on Thomas because the solutions to ending it were not proving to be as simple and easy as I’d thought. For a woman as strong and intelligent as I believed I was, this whole situation was turning out to be a lot more difficult to maintain control over than I’d anticipated. I couldn’t bring myself to make the hard choice to tell him the truth. That, in turn, became the starting point of a vicious loop of self-destructive thoughts racing around inside my head.

Why? Why, for fuck’s sake, am I doing this to the both of us right now?

I didn’t have the answer to that. However, I did know that one way or another, something had to be done. I was struggling to come to terms with my circumstances. I had no one but myself to blame for this. This was a situation I had created, and for some time I had made it work. But now it felt as if it was slowly coming apart. Thomas thought he’d met a woman who was one thing, and at that time I had been that person. I had made myself into that person.

Now, not so much.

I had lied. First to myself, and then by living that lie, to Thomas. Now the foundation to my lie was showing signs of strain. I was starting to feel unsure. On increasingly shaky ground. The reemergence of my submissive desires had so many thoughts from my past worming back into my head, eating away at the conviction I’d used to help prop up my deception. The choices I’d made back then now seemed so very wrong, and yet the idea of approaching Thomas about my dishonesty, even the baby step I’d just tried, left me feeling uncertain. Edgy of all the potential risks in what I was doing. Anxious that any false move would send it all spiraling out of control.

I had to extract myself from this situation, and it wasn’t as simple as just ending this conversation. As I lay there staring into Thomas’ smiling face, I understood I had a choice: bear down and get my head back in the game, continue to maintain the lie as I had done so for the past six months.

Or…

That or was not just the obvious solution of telling him the truth. While that might be the simplest option, it was also the one that held the most risk. Risk that was all bound up in Thomas’ perception of kink. Of ‘rough sex’. Because in the solution where I told Thomas the truth about who I was, told him what I was thinking about when I used terms like ‘kinky things’ and ‘rough sex’, the danger wasn’t in the telling. The danger lay in how he would respond. That was the part which bothered me more than I wanted to admit. It bothered me because buried within it lay something dark, menacing. A single destructive word that sat at its core.

Over.

That word sat there waiting silently, ready to be the end of it all.

No.

No, I wasn’t ready to confront that. Not yet.

Thomas, no doubt having convinced himself he’d broken the Da Vinci Code of our relationship, beamed with self-satisfaction. All the concerns he’d expressed over the past couple of weeks about what was bothering me were a thing of the past. The smug set of his grin seemed ample validation of just how proud of himself he was. Leaning down, he kissed me on the forehead.

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