I took a sip of my coffee, letting the silence stretch between us for a moment.I didn’t know her well, but I understood Dr.Smithson enough to know that her intentions were good, if misguided.If she believed she’d done something wrong, she’d chastise herself for it.She wouldn’t need me to punish her.Not for that.
“Tell me why you started the Gentleman’s Submissive.Why not teach or go back and get your counselor’s license?Go into private practice?”
“I thought I could help people.”
I bit back a snort of disbelief.
“I know.The irony’s not lost on me,” she said, holding a hand up in front of her and suddenly looking very tired.
I took her hand, cradling her slender fingers in my palm while I gently cuffed her wrist with my other hand.I wanted her to feel safe with me.Safe enough to tell me the truth.
“I wanted to be a professor—write a book about the consequences of the shifting power dynamics between the sexes.Something like that.”
She’d gone from seeming like a confident academic to sounding lost, and I stroked her wrist, feeling her pulse beat against my thumb.The desire to protect her, to soothe her had moved in and set up housekeeping in my psyche, and I had no doubt it would come back to bite me in the ass.
“Why didn’t you?”
“There aren’t a lot of professorships in gender studies.Turns out the people in the jobs have no intentions of going anywhere.Classic supply and demand.”
She looked thoughtful and I waited for a moment, giving her space to work through whatever was going on in that gorgeous head of hers.
“I think I wanted to be more hands-on.Don’t laugh,” she said, the smile lighting her up from the inside.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Bullshit.”She paused for a moment, as if deciding how much to share.“I grew up reading Harlequin bodice rippers under the soapstone counter in chem lab and then sneaking my hand into my panties in the bathroom between classes.”
“Please God, tell me you went to a Catholic school.”Images of Alexandra in plaid skirts and knee socks filled my head.I addedplay professor and naughty schoolgirlto the to-do list I’d started to compile.I’d have to see if I could dig up a wooden ruler from somewhere.
“Sorry, dirty old man, but no.”
I hit her with my best Big Bad Wolf grin and waited until she couldn’t help but smile in return.
“The point I was trying to make before you got all skeezy.”
I snorted.I hadn’t pegged Dr.Smithson as someone who’d use that word.
“The point is,” she repeated, ignoring my laughter, “I knew the books had something I wanted—a fantasy of being taken and made to feel things.I just had no idea what that meant or how to reconcile it with the other things I knew to be true about myself.And I’m not the only one.”She took a swallow of her coffee and I waited, curious to see where she’d take us.“Women want to rule the world and lots of them want to be dominated by the bad boy in the bedroom.Traditional roles for women are the exception, not the norm, anymore and the world is a better place for it.I’m not going to saywe have toorwe’re expected tosucceed in meaningful careers because for most of us work is an important part of our identities, not something we do because someone else tells us to.Women are badass powerhouses.So how is a woman who kicks ass in the boardroom supposed to reconcile that with wanting the man she loves to spank her?”
She was slipping back into the persona she’d had at the deposition, but it felt genuine this time.She was telling her truth and she’d clearly spent a lot of time thinking about it.If she ever got the chance, she’d make a damn fine professor.
“And it’s not easier for men,” she said, sitting forward in the chair as if the idea excited her.“How are they supposed to reconcile the alpha asshole thing with being the guy who picks up the kids from daycare?”
She was right.I’d known from the first moment I’d started thinking about sex that I was dominant and even I didn’t understand the full spectrum of BDSM, from a little light tie me up/tie me down to the master/slave arrangement and everything in between.I’d simply accepted that everyone had their own kink comfort zone and beyond safe, sane, and consensual, I didn’t have to have an opinion.
I watched as her expression shifted from excitement to something else, something sadder.
“I’m so sorry about what happened with Kyle.I wanted to help him find his confidence.I never meant for anyone to get hurt.”
Things would have been different if her response held any of the arrogance or posturing of our initial encounter.I might not have fallen if I hadn’t seen the honest remorse in her eyes.
“The sub he worked with would have been hard for an experienced Dom to handle.She was, for lack of a better word, a pain slut.”I hated the phrase, but in this case it fit.My firm did legal work for Bacchus.I’d reviewed the tape myself, trying to decide how to handle the potential liability.All the players signed a disclaimer but that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t try to sue.The sub had never given any indication of wanting to use her safe word, and I didn’t believe it was a case of her forgetting.“She pushed him harder than either of them should have gone.A more experienced Dom would have known how to set limits even while she seemed intent on pushing past them.”
“I guess that makes sense,” she said, looking like it was a very small comfort.
“Not knowing doesn’t make the guy a bad person, but it doesn’t absolve him either.And it doesn’t make him any less dangerous.The problem, or one of the problems, is that because of his time with you, Kyle thought hewastrained.He believed he knew more than he did, and it made him take risks he wouldn’t have otherwise.”
I felt conflicted about the direction our afternoon had taken.Being able to talk to her about what she’d been doing wrong and more importantly having her hear and understand it gave me an enormous sense of satisfaction, but I hated seeing the way her thoughts had turned in on themselves.She’d slipped out of the present in the courtyard with me and back into the spiral of her work and the past.That didn’t work for me.
