But she still wasn't engaging with the deeper questions. Still protecting herself. And I needed all of her—the scared parts, the wounded parts, the places she didn't want me to see.
We'd been at this for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of surface-level agreement and careful deflection and Sophie keeping her armor firmly in place.
I stopped her mid-sentence as she was agreeing to another rule about communication.
"This won't work," I said.
She blinked. Set her teacup down with hands that trembled slightly. "What?"
"This negotiation. This dynamic. None of it will work if you keep doing this."
Hurt flashed across her face. "Doing what? I'm agreeing to everything. I'm being cooperative. I thought that's what you wanted."
"I don't want cooperation. I want honesty." I leaned forward, making sure she couldn't look away. "You're being compliant, Sophie. There's a difference."
"I am being honest—"
"No. You're telling me what you think I want to hear. You're agreeing to rules without thinking about whether they'll actually work for you. You're not engaging with the hard questions. You're just—" I gestured at her closed-off posture, her defensive expression. "You're armored. Protected. Going through the motions so we can sign the contract and you can have what you want."
Her jaw clenched. "That's not fair."
"It's completely fair." My voice came out harder than I meant it to. I took a breath. Tried again. "A genuine Daddy Dom and Little dynamic requires complete honesty. Not just about the easy things. About everything. I need to know your limits—your real limits, not what you think I want to hear. I need to know your fears. Your triggers. What makes you feel safe and what makes you feel trapped."
The silence stretched between us. Heavy. Charged. All the things she wasn't saying filling the space.
"I need to understand what you've been through," I continued, my voice gentler now. "What shaped you. What broke you. So I can help put you back together instead of breaking you further."
Something cracked in her expression. The armor weakening. Not falling completely but showing fissures.
"He was my Daddy," she whispered. “Sergei.”
The words hung between us. Confirmation of what I'd suspected. What the pieces had suggested but I'd needed her to say.
"Tell me," I said gently. "Tell me about him. About what you had. About how it ended."
Her hands were still shaking. She pulled them into her lap, twisted her fingers together. Looked anywhere but at me.
"I can't—"
"You can." Firm but not harsh. "You need to. Because this—" I gestured between us. "What we're negotiating. It won't work ifSergei's ghost is standing between us. If you're comparing me to him. If you're carrying guilt about what happened."
"I don't—" She stopped. Swallowed hard. "I don't know how to talk about him."
"Start at the beginning," I said. "How did you meet?"
She started slowly. Halting. Like the words were being dragged out of her against her will. Sergei Aksakov had been a guest director at the ballet company where she was a soloist. Twenty-seven to her nineteen. Sophisticated. Cultured. The kind of man who quoted Chekhov and drank expensive wine and made her feel like she was the most interesting person in every room.
"He noticed me first," Sophie said, her voice barely above a whisper. "After rehearsal one day. Said I had potential but I was dancing like I was afraid of taking up space. Like I was trying to be invisible." She smiled slightly, sad. "He was right. I'd spent my whole life trying not to be a burden. Not to need too much or want too much or take up too much room."
I stayed quiet. Let her tell it at her own pace.
"We started dating. Normal at first. Dinner. Museums. He'd take me to the theatre and explain the technical elements I wouldn't have noticed. Make me feel smart for understanding." Her hands twisted in her lap. "Then one night, maybe three months in, he asked me a question. He asked if I'd ever wanted someone to take care of me. Really take care of me. Make the decisions so I didn't have to carry everything alone."
My chest tightened. I knew where this was going.
"I didn't know what he meant at first," she continued. "But he explained. DDlg. Daddy Dom and Little Girl. A dynamic where I could be small and he could provide structure and care and—" Her voice cracked slightly. "And I could stop being so fucking strong all the time."
The last words came out raw. Desperate. Like they'd been trapped inside her for three years and were finally breaking free.
