Part 18 (1/2)
”I leaned down and whispered it to her. 'What do you want?' And she leaned upward to speak the answer in my ear. 'To be tested. Just like you're testing me now.' Bam. We stuck together like two magnets from that moment forward.”
”I can imagine. So what went wrong?”
”Many things. For one, she had a deep-seated need to be the 'weird' one in the relations.h.i.+p.”
”What did she mean by that?”
”She thought I was nothing more than a boring, rich businessman at first. Meanwhile she was the artistic, daring, part-time fas.h.i.+on model who had achieved a modic.u.m of fame, and therefore I was supposed to fawn over her. I did fawn over her, but not because of that. Eventually I revealed who I was, and at first she was delighted. We were very much alike and we made a kind of matched set, tall and aristocratic and kinky. But the secrecy began to chafe her, and although I did much to help her career, I wouldn't do the one thing that she wanted me to, which was to come out publicly at her side. She wanted to star in my videos. She wanted to be in all the tabloids photographed with me. It was very difficult to get her to understand that being in the tabloids would be my idea of h.e.l.l.”
”Wow.”
”She accused me of holding her back. Of not understanding what it was like to still be struggling to reach a certain level of fame. Of being jealous of her and sabotaging her success to keep her from eclipsing me.” He shook his head. ”Nothing could be further from the truth. It was those discussions about fame and celebrity that started me thinking I had to get out of the business. At first my thought was to step out of the spotlight and let her eclipse me. But a person paranoid and neurotic enough to believe that I was sabotaging her was not someone I could get along with in the long term. Our worst fight-the last fight-came when we were arguing almost constantly... except when we were having s.e.x. We were still having fantastic makeup s.e.x, which allowed me to think that deep down we were okay; we just had to work on the relations.h.i.+p a little harder. I truly believed that I couldn't have such fantastic s.e.x with someone I couldn't love.”
”But you told me you had tons of s.e.x with groupies.”
”Tons of s.e.x. Not particularly fantastic s.e.x.”
”Oh. I see.”
”So there it was. I was convinced because of how great we were in bed that our differences could be worked out. And there we were in a fight, an epic one, and I confessed that I didn't want to fight, I didn't want to have all this strife, and she burst into tears and told me it was all my fault for not being dominant enough.”
”Wait, you? Not dominant enough?”
”Yes. Because apparently what she wanted was for me to dictate every moment of her life. She felt if only I could control her enough, she wouldn't even feel the urge to argue with me or fight! Therefore the fact that we were having a fight was clearly all my fault!”
”That's... twisted.”
”I know. She really believed that if I were more dominant, she wouldn't ever be unhappy, because I'd control her happiness like a faucet I could turn on and off. She confessed she was horribly disappointed by the fact that I didn't require her to walk two paces behind me at all times, and that I didn't spank her if she left the milk out instead of putting it back in the refrigerator.”
”Wow.”
”I told her that kind of twenty-four/seven role playing would be impossible to keep up.”
”Says the man who maintains a secret ident.i.ty.”
”Yes. And you see why I am ready to leave it behind. She told me if I was a real dominant, I wouldn't feel it was role playing. I'd 'really' be like that.”
”James, I'm pretty sure you are really like that.”
”I know. At any rate, we split up. By then I had already introduced her to the society, and of course she had a crowd of suitors filling her dance card. She ended up in a relations.h.i.+p with the society's regional director and they do, as far as I know, maintain something like a twenty-four/seven relations.h.i.+p. Then again, I only see them at society functions, where of course they are in role. She seems happy. That's what matters.”
We listened to the cellos playing for a few minutes while I digested that. ”So you have women like Lucinda at one end, and you have women like Juney at the other end.”
”Juney? Oh, in London.”
”The one you dumped out of your lap.”
”Of course I did. Submissives, slaves, servants, whatever you want to call them, should have better manners than reaching into anyone's trousers without permission.”
”What do you call them?”
”Lucinda considers herself the director's property. I suppose that makes her a slave, being owned that way. Different people use the words for different things. These owner/owned relations.h.i.+ps may have a more equal standing as partners, though, than some who consider themselves servants or service-oriented. In those the inequality of the relations.h.i.+p can be part of what works for them.”
”Hmm. So not all slaves are submissive or even servants; not all submissives are servants either.”
”And not all service is s.e.xual. Though there's always that undertone, I believe. Juney thinks she wants to be a s.e.x slave, owned more like a pet than a person. And pampered like one, too. Hmm. And I don't mean a pet like the people who play at being puppies or ponies. I mean it metaphorically. She wants her master to play with her and whap her with a rolled-up newspaper when she's bad, but generally just enjoy her. A Persian cat has no duties other than to lie around looking beautiful and to be a source of affection and amus.e.m.e.nt for her owner. She'll likely find someone whom that suits.”
He fell silent again and then I asked what I had been trying to think about for a while. ”In other words, labels are complicated. But they have meaning. At least personal meaning.”
”Yes.”
”So what am I, then, James? I'm not like either of them.”
”No, you're not. We don't do what we do because we get off on the roles of master and slave, Karina. We do what we do because we get off on each other.”
”You didn't answer my question, though.”
”You're mine,” he said simply. ”You're mine, and I am so lucky that the woman I love fits me like the key to a lock.”
I sucked in a breath. ”You say that word so easily.”
”Which one? Love?”
”Yes.”
”You said it first,” he pointed out with a smile. He s.h.i.+fted onto his side so he could look at me. ”You've worked hard to get me past my fears. You showed me I shouldn't fear to speak the truth. Are you surprised I can say it so easily now?”
I kissed him. ”No. Not when you explain it like that.”
”Tell me a secret, Karina. What are you afraid of? What do you fear?”
”It's a silly fear.” I combed his hair back from his forehead with my fingers. ”Because I feel confident it's not true.”
”Fears don't have to be rational. What is it?”
”I fear that I'm going to someday discover there's one more layer of mask, one more layer of you, and when it's peeled back I won't like what's underneath after all.”
He touched my chin softly, tracing the outline of my bottom lip. ”That's not silly in the slightest, given our history. But, Karina, you have gone all the way to the core.”
”I know. I told you I didn't think it was likely.” I let out a long sigh. ”I'll tell you my worry, instead then, which is a little more rational. I think.” I hadn't, until this moment, realized what my worry was. My heart began to beat a little harder.
”What's that?”
”I worry I'm not really going to fit into your life.” I sucked in a breath, hoping he wouldn't be hurt by what I was going to say, because my chest and throat suddenly ached as I began to say it. ”I worry it's not going to work between us if we don't keep the distance, if we take it beyond you whisking me places in the back of your town car.”
He opened his mouth as if to protest, but I didn't let him.
”I worry that no matter how much you love me, you're going to decide you like me best as a plaything, that it worked better when you could simply text me an appointment and snap your fingers to have instant wet p.u.s.s.y on demand.”
”Karina,” he said darkly, ”if you have a problem with me demanding your body-”