Page 40 of Submissive Lies

I had mentioned my mother several times during our conversation, and it was clear he’d picked up that I referred to her in the past tense. His questioning was gentle, circumspect, and I told him of her cancer, the abruptness of her passing. It was the one point in the conversation I saw him falter. He sat in silence, and suddenly he wasn’t trying to look or act like a Dom. His face was pinched, a man clearly trying to deal with something that ached inside. The smile he forced across his face was there to keep the pain from showing, but the grief etched in his features clearly showed he’d suffered through deaths of his own. He glanced down, took a breath and then with a new calm reached across the table and gripped my hand, squeezing down until it was almost too tight.

“I’m sorry, Jen.”

“It’s okay.” I blinked back tears that wanted to form in the corners of my eyes. Swallowing, I forced my voice not to break. Our conversation had been so nice up to now, and I did not want to lose that. “Both dad and I have said there’s a… sense of gratefulness we have that it happened as quickly as it did. She didn’t suffer or linger in pain.”

“Still…”

I pressed my lips together hard enough that the bite of pain took the edge off the memory of my mom’s passing. I pushed the thoughts away, determined to turn the talk back to where we’d been earlier. Keeping my voice neutral, I said, “It happens. You know?”

Steve nodded, and he directed the conversation away from the topic to inconsequential things, all of it light and trivial and with none of the pain of the previous subject. It was a deflection. A deviation to steer the discussion away from talk of death, and on to something else. Specifically, to a topic we’d both been dancing around. One which we had only briefly touched upon earlier. It was the matter we both knew by now was ultimately where we were headed this evening.

“So, how long has it been since you were involved with someone?”

“Fifteen months.” The lie flowed off my tongue without hesitation.

“Was he your Dom?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, halting the conversation as the server approached with the first course of our meal. It was only then, as the warmth of his fingers slipped from the top of my hand, that I realized during our exchange he had not let go of me. It’s absence now became irritating for how much I wanted it back.

The food was everything I’d expected, my earlier apprehension aside. A sublime and yet superb meal that was prepared and served with aplomb. The wines that the sommelier had paired with our dishes were perfect. Everything came together in one of those instances where it seemed unreal, as if scripted in a way that was almost dreamlike. The soft sounds of the dining room, the lighting, the quiet whisper of the wait staff as they came and went. And then there was Steve. He was both commanding and attentive, warm, yet firm. He was what I needed right now, and the sheer relief I found in being with him was like finding a life raft in an ocean storm.

“Was it okay?” He motioned to the table after they had cleared the last plates away.

“It was incredible, sir.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it. Thank you for coming with me tonight.”

“No, sir, thank you.”

Steve and the waiter talked quietly, discussing whether we wished dessert, coffee or something they kept referring to as a pousse-café. I was so damned comfortable right now that not knowing what the hell a ‘pussy café’ was only made me chuckle, drawing me deeper into this nest of contentment Steve had created. I was happy, dammit. Happier than I had any right to be.

Even happier than you were with Thomas, right?

My back snapped upright, rigid. I grit my teeth at the thought. Not because it was wrong, but because it brought back the one thing that threatened to ruin every good, wonderful, incredible feeling I’d experienced this evening so far. While Steve and the waiter continued their discussion, I snuck a peek at my phone. Nothing. Not a single goddamn word. A frisson of anger ran through me that turned my thoughts suddenly irrational. Fuck him. What right did he have to blow me off like this! An entire fucking day, and he couldn’t even send me a two-word text to let me know what was going on? He’d never gone this long without responding to me, never avoided me like this, and now? He chose now to be unavailable so that I could let go of the nagging guilt at the back of my mind. It was bullshit. It was bullshit and I didn’t know what his fucking game was here, but I was done with it. Things were over between us, they’d been over for a while, and I’d just been prolonging it by trying to be someone I wasn’t to make it work. To make it work for him. And for my efforts?

Rough sex, Thomas Kiernan style. And then today, blown off and ignored.

No. No, I wasn’t going to settle for that anymore. I recognized the mentality I had dropped back into during the day, this evening, and I seized upon it. Held onto it for dear life. I’d slipped back into old body language from my past, tumbled back into words and phrases I only drew on when in my submissive mindset. I’d not felt this alive in fifteen months. The last time I’d felt like this was the last time I’d allowed myself to be true to who I was. And I’d be fucked if I was going to give that up for Thomas Kiernan now. As the waiter walked away from the table I came out of my reverie.

“I ordered us something to share for dessert. Then coffee.” Though his smile was as warm as before, there was a change. His gaze was a furnace of desire banked behind eyes that were a storm on the horizon bearing straight down upon me. For much of the evening I’d caught him gauging me, and I suspected he was making decisions as much as I was.

“And then we should get you back to your room.”

And there it was. The next step. Back to my room. That was where this was going to lead, one way or another. Even now, the words barely out of his mouth, I wondered if it would end up being nothing more than that. A murmured thanks at the door for a wonderful evening, a gentle brush of his lips on my cheek, and then his back retreating down the hallway as he left.

He knew there was more than that going on between us. He had to know. Right?

He had to recognize the subtext behind much of what we’d spoken about tonight. To acknowledge all the subtle confirmations that littered our conversation were breadcrumbs on a path that led to something more than just a ‘This was nice. See you tomorrow.’ The anxiety of earlier returned. That all of this might be a construct of my imagination. It was obvious now that certain aspects of it weren’t, but… what if where I saw this heading wasn’t the reality? Despite every desire that screamed otherwise, it could be he was simply curious about me and nothing more. He might fear complication. Sleeping with a client wasn’t considered the best form, but I knew firsthand it did occur, commonsense be damned. In a sense, that was what would be happening here. I was a client to the company Steve worked for. A very good client. A lucrative client. That could, in fact, be exactly what he was thinking. Everything I had shared with him aside, he could be weighing all the risks, trying to decide whether this was worth pursuing or not. That idea made my stomach flutter. God, I did not want that. I would be in no position to blame him if he did, however. At some level, it was the right choice, the safe choice — for both of us. What right would I have to feel rejected if he chose to do so?

And there it was again. I’d thought I was beyond self-loathing for the evening, but I was wrong.

-Yeah! What if he decides you’re just too big a risk to mess with? Didn’t consider that possibility, did you?-

Fuck. Off.

-You’re welcome. I’ll just be here waiting…-

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