“After your stunts today, I don’t think you deserved to come.”
Had he really just said that to me?
He continued, “Between refusing to see me, disregarding my feelings, and ignoring my calls, you didn’t deserve it.”
“I didn’t—”
He cut me off before he even heard which part of his sentence I objected to most. “Danielle, do not spoil a hot night by picking a fight.”
He had never called me Danielle before, had he? In that second, I hoped he never would again, especially not when it was wrapped up in the greatest travesty of a ‘hot night’ I had ever known.
Instead of picking the fight he had indirectly told me we’d be having if I continued, I changed tack. “I should clean up.”
He nodded and then as if this night hadn’t been shocking enough, he made it even more so. “I have a busy day tomorrow so probably best if you go back to yours. Be sure to close the door when you leave.”
He could not be serious. His expression confirmed that he was.
“Mike, I need to clean up, I am covered in cum!” I all but screeched the last word.
“Yes, you do, and yes you are, but perhaps had you not gone to work dressed ready to fuck, you wouldn’t be.” He allowed me to drop to my feet before pulling his clothes back into place. “Do you need me to show you out?”
NOW
“Mike really ‘embraced’that dominant thing, didn’t he?”
With a short nod, I prepared to offer an explanation not that the counsellor made me feel like he was expecting one. “He did, except, it was more, wasn’t it?” My question was rhetorical and as such I didn’t need to wait for a response. “My first lover, not that there were many, but my first was special to me,” I laughed as I saw the counsellor’s face and the naïve sounding words I’d spoken. “I know everyone says your first is special, but he was, special to me. He was older than me, quite a bit older, he came to do a series of lectures at uni, and he made me feel safe and worshipped and he was dominant, but not like Mike.”
“Were you hoping to recapture what you’d had with your first lover?”
I nodded, there was no point denying it. “I wanted dominant, but consensually dominant, with parameters we both knew and respected, but I didn’t get that with Mike.”
“Was it your first lover or consensual dominance you were seeking?”
“I’m unsure that I was seeking either, certainly not actively, but in Mike, I was hoping to find some of the qualities that my first lover had possessed.”
He offered a very short nod and an expression that said he understand what I was saying. “Did you discuss what happened that night with anyone after you’d been sent home?”
Looking at the counsellor’s expression, I knew he meant someone professional.
“Jess. I told Jess when I got home. I was upset and confused and she was still up.”
“And what did your friend say?”
“She told me to dump Mike and to never put up with shit like that again.” I hesitated. “Jess didn’t like Mike. From the first time they’d met there’d been some tension. He had tried to charm her over the next year or so and she was immune to it. She tried to talk me out of seeing him again and had never tried to disguise how much she disliked him, in turn, he disliked her and that left me stuck in the middle of them.”
“And how did you balance that, being stuck in the middle?”
I laughed, not that being in that position had ever been fun or funny. “Badly. Mentioning Mike’s name resulted in eye rolls, huffs and many swear words, plus, Jess would tell me to dump him and list all of his faults.”
“His faults?”
“Yes. I accept some responsibility for that because I think when I confided things in her, like telling her about that night, it influenced her view of him.”
“Hmm, I can see why you might think that, but the things you told her that influenced her view, were they accurate or did you lie or exaggerate events?”
“What? No! Of course not . . .” Yeah, this man knew exactly what he was doing.
“Exactly. It may have influenced her views and opinions but that doesn’t make them inaccurate.”
