He moves toward me, almost like he is surprised his feet are leading him my way. He places his hands on my hips, his thumb rubbing along the waistband of my underwear.
“Did you get this just for me?” He asks as he watches his fingers move to dance along the back of my hand and wrist. Tracing the lines of the intricate art that’s stained there.
“Yes. You like it?” I ask him as my breath becomes laboured from those lingering touches. He doesn’t get to answer me though as a bang on the door startles us, our bubble popped.
“You should get back to work, Jamie. I’ll see you at home,” he mutters as he pulls from my reach and heads to the door, his jaw clenched like he’s at war with himself. His words a knife to my heart. Trying to stop him from seeing the disappointment consuming me, I give him my best smile. If Arnie doesn’t leave in the next 10 seconds, he might see tears from rejection.
I mentally berate myself for the stupid young love fantasy of getting all glammed up to impress a man that might not even be interested in me sexually. Turning my head to the wall away from him, I nod to let him know I heard him.
My lashes drip tears to the floor at the same time I hear the door bang closed.
Chapter 20
Arnie
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I say under my breath as I make my way out of the back rooms and towards the bar again. I run my hands through my hair, trying to sort myself out before I reach the busy front area of the club.
That was the sexiest thing I have ever experienced. The confidence, the way his body moved, he had gone all out with body art and my cock nearly burst through my pants when I saw the lace jockstrap in my favourite colour. It was beautifully erotic, and I don’t deserve any of it.
Jamie wants something I can’t give him. His emotional grey eyes were a giveaway. I know he wants me more than a D/s relationship, but I have never been in any other relationship. It is always one-sided for me.
I used to worry that the older I got, when all my friends started having sex or hooking up. My lack of automatic sexual desire, which others apparently had, made me wonder if I was broken. My worry was that people would find out and ridicule me, forcing me to navigate the world alone.
I’d always fantasised about what my parents had. I wanted to love and care for my one and only, but when I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and thought of that white picket fence I longed for, the person by my side was always faceless.
I told friends I was too busy for fun with anyone. Instead, throwing myself into my degree in psychology. Trying to figureout if my parents’ sudden death left me with a hole that no one would ever fill.
Then one day, after discussingKink in Psychological Termswith a few classmates, I discovered BDSM, and it turned my world upside down. I dashed back to my dorm as fast as I could and fell down the rabbit hole of researching fetishes, clubs, 24/7 lifestyles, and the one that consumed most of my research: sadomasochism.
I never thought the enjoyment of pain, either to myself or inflicted on others by my hand, would ever interest me. When I googled what was wrong with me and my lack of sexual desire as a teen, there was no website that told me I might not be a vanilla person. I guess it was a niche personality trait that I would either find out eventually or never come across before surrendering to a sexless life unfulfilled.
I attended my first munch on the other side of the city. After much deliberation with Mags on whether I would enjoy the fantasy of these interests, or whether it was something I genuinely wanted to be a part of in my everyday life. He was so supportive and handled me with the same grace that he always gave others.
When I willed myself to get out of the car and go into the café, I met the organiser, then the others. They were all similar, some with different needs. One or two had never been in a relationship or had sexual desires until they discovered the love for giving and receiving pain. I made friends with them immediately: Euan and Tilda. They took me to the club where I still held membership to this day, letting me speak with the owner, Burt, in a daytime setting. We had a thorough chat about my needs and wants in the community. How to deliver safe and consensual scenes. I signed up for every class the club held in those early months.
My first night at the club, I realised I wasn’t just a Dom but a switch too. Discovering it after allowing myself to be strapped down with a hood over my head while the Dom I had agreed to scene with paddled me, then whipped me while I cried. My tears lined the hood as I fell apart. Free at last to accept myself and my needs. My cock that night had never been harder.
To know I wasn’t a freak or alone. To find out that the traditional or normal taught to us at a young age was the wrong fit for me and that my own sexual needs were my normal was everything.
When I contracted with the subs Simmons found for me, the agreement was always for them and their needs. A Dom decides what happens and what doesn’t happen. I denied myself release in those scenes, as they were for them and not for my own sexual wishes. Not to say I didn’t indulge with others outside the kink community, but it wasn’t the same, no matter how much I sometimes wanted it to be.
Jamie has taken that rule and ripped it up. My arousal around him is through the roof despite only having done one scene and him never laying hands on me to indulge my painful erotic fantasies. It’s not just been tonight. That kiss after the first time he stayed over, the way his body felt on mine after he allowed me to redden his skin in my office—he’s been pulling me in this entire time.
My efforts this last week to get back from work as fast as I could and into a shower so I could get such release has got out of hand. My attention has always been on my work and my studying, with my hobbies being a small part of me, including masturbation.
When I think of Jamie strapping me down and offering blow after blow to my skin, it leaves me desperately wanting the real thing. My marks on him, his on me. A dynamic of rules, sex, and pain all tied up in a curly blond bow.
I’m unsure if Jamie would even want something like that with me. It’s certain he at least wants to sleep with me, but I’m not sure if I can even give him that with no need for those other parts of me included in it all.
I saw his face as I left the room. I know he believes I want him gone once these other issues with the uni and Jed are sorted out, but that’s not true.
No, if I want this to work or even see where it goes, then I need to take a leaf out of my own book and communicate. Tell him about my real self, offer to start over without the usual tutor/student contract, and see if he still wants me.
I go back to the bar where another bartender makes me a Moscow mule and I smile to myself, knowing that Jamie has been talking to more than just Josh about me.
Running scared from someone like Jamie would be a huge mistake. If he’s willing to want all of me, he deserves all of me. No masks, no half-measures. So, I’ll give him a choice to have the real me if he wants that.
I finish my drink, wave goodbye to Beau, who’s at the edge of the bar talking to someone. Then I text Jamie instructions before pocketing my phone and heading home to unlock the attic.
