Page 68 of Fear and Desire

“In case you’ve forgotten, submissive does not mean stupid! I know the difference between submitting from fear and submitting because I wanted and needed to please you. Because it filled me with pleasure to obey you. I admit it started out as fear, but it changed, Dan. It changed, and by the end, my submission to you was not being forced from me. You had my full consent for everything you did.”

“That’s called coercion, not consent.”

“Iget to decide what it was, Dan, not you. It was consent.Youwant to call it rape? Fine. I’m going to call it a Dom taking his sub the way she liked it—rough. You want to say you beat me? Fine. Remember it however you want to.I’mgoing to choose to remember it as a discipline you needed to give me to drive home a point. And let me tell you, Dan, yes, I was frightened while I was there—but I was never frightened ofyou. In fact, with you, I was more alive than I’ve ever felt in my life. It hit me like lightening in the midst of all of that other shit that Ilikedmost of what you were doing to me. Even after spending two days on the fucking blowjob machine. I didn’t like it at the time, but later I realized Ineededyou to demand obedience, even when I was scared.

“Remember when I was disrespectful to Master 2, when he came to check on me that evening? I was goading him. I had so many conflicted emotions running around inside my head, and somehow I knew what I needed. When he was done whipping me, I had a peace and calmness inside that carried me right through the next day. My only regret is that I wishyouhad been the one to punish me. And you know what? You were right about the nipple rings—I should have trusted you. My fear made it a whole lot worse than it would have been. By the way, I’m keeping them.”

He threw her a look of disbelief.

She took a deep breath. “Dan, the most contented times in my life were when I knelt in front of you and called you Master. I want to do that again.”

“Yesterday you said that you never wanted another master.”

She searched her memory for that conversation. “Isthatwhy you’ve pulled away from me?”

“You told me you refused to kneel at DeLeo’s feet because you never wanted another master. Which I completely understand.”

She reached over and picked up his hand. He didn’t object, but once again, he made no move to hold hers. “Dan, I meant I didn’t want another master besidesyou! I want to kneel atyourfeet! I want to move on, not live in the past—and I want to take what I’ve learned about myself and explore it withyou,when the time is right. I know we’re going to need to take it slow.”

“I’m theworstpossible choice for you right now.”

“Dan, I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. I know you’re trying to sort it out. I could tell that sometimes you were really turned on by what you were doing even as your mind told you it was wrong. I know that putting me on that machine made you incredibly hard, and I know that’s why you were so rough with me. It’sokay. I know it all messed with your head, and I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive your bosses, who thought you’d be unaffected by it. Dan, I’m not asking you to plunge into anything heavy with me right now. But I want to be with you. Please, don’t push me away until you figure it all out by yourself, because you never will, and by then I’ll be gone.”

“Yes. You’re absolutely right. Ilikedwhat I did with you. I was so fucking aroused I masturbated almost every night thinking about you. I broke every rule a decent human being is supposed to follow, not to mention arealDom, and I liked it! I’m a rapist and a thug. I’m no different from Marco. How can you ever trust me again? How can I ever trust myself?”

She’d never seen someone in so much pain. “Don’t youevercompare yourself to that scum. The only emotion any of us ever felt with him was fear. The more terrified we were, the more turned on he was. You did what you had to do. Sometimes it wasn’t what we liked at the time. I’ll admit that. But I’m a strong woman. I can live through things I don’t like and not crumble. If you hadn’t done what you needed to do, I would be dead. Claire would be dead. Staci would be dead. Don’t you see that?”

“Instead, you get to go to therapy for the rest of your lives.”

“Goddammit! I’d sure as hell rather be going to therapy than lying in a grave!”

“Tell that to Josh. I got him killed.”

“For fuck’s sake! Stop taking this all on yourself! Josh gave his life to save me and Claire! That was part of his job. Would you have done the same?”

“Of course!”

“Then don’t dishonor his sacrifice by refusing to move on with life. He didn’t do it so that you could wallow in guilt until you drink yourself into suicide.”

His head flew up, and he started to protest—and stopped. Instead, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. There was silence on the porch.

When he finally spoke, the loneliness in his voice almost broke her heart. “Then what do I do?”

“Let me in. Let me love you. Let me help heal you. Let us both heal, together. Trust me. I’m not interested in staying with someone who’s a thug. Dan, I’ve wanted to be with you since before this all happened—you know that—and knowing the truth about you, about me, about any of this, doesn’t change that. We can start out completely vanilla, if you’d prefer, and I’ll pick a safe word. Not for play, but for our relationship. If I feel there’s something not right, something of your past few years that’s creeping in between us, I’ll use it. And we’ll talk. Maybe we’ll talk with Claire if that would help.”

“What about the rest of it?”

“We’ll go slow. We’ll take time to rebuild the trust you have in yourself. I love your control. I crave it, like I still crave water. But I don’t have to have it right now if it’s going to come between us. If you prefer, we can try something positive, like taking control of getting me better. The rest can come later, if and when you’re ready.”

He stood up and looked at her, then turned and walked down the stairs and disappeared around the corner of the house without a word. She let out a frustrated cry.

“Give him time.”

She whipped her head around. Anders was leaning against the front door frame, and she wasn’t sure how much he’d overheard. “Uh, yeah, the last few years have really messed with his mind. We have a few things to work out…” she trailed off. Was she as red as she suspected she was?

He grinned. “Honey, I know exactly what you have to work out. That case was huge and anyone in the same hemisphere knew why Dan was picked for the job. Josh, too, though we didn’t know him real well before it started. We all knew being a Dom wasn’t a mask the two of them just put on, and it’s worried all of us for a long time how they were going to deal with it after the case was over. We also knew he’d been keeping in touch with you, and a few of us had bets you’d end up with him, though none of us predicted all of this.”

“And your bet was…” Flaming red cheeks or not, she needed to know where his friends stood.

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