AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“The only generally accepted rules of sex-play in a BDSM relationship are that whatever the participants engage in must be safe, sane, and it must be consensual.”
Leticia waved her hands at me in a sudden animated outburst. “That’s what I don’t get!” she said. “That’s the part about BDSM that I just can’t get a grasp on.”
“What? That it must be safe?”
“No! The concept that such a relationship can be consensual. How, for the love of god, is that possible?” Two glasses of wine had made Leticia animated. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkled. Her gestures, the tone of her voice, the way she held her body – everything about her became a little more real, and a little less restricted. It was as though she had begun to relax, and lost some of her prim reserve.
It had not escaped my attention that she had called me ‘sir’ just a few minutes earlier.
Had it been an accident, or was it deliberate?
“Leticia, if you desperately wanted children, would you marry a man that despised children?”
“No,” she said. “That would probably be a deal-breaker, if I had my heart set on having a family.”
I nodded. “Of course you wouldn’t. And it’s the same with BDSM play. No submissive is going to want to submit to a Master who is obsessed with whips and handcuffs, if they hate the idea of being whipped and bound.”
“You’re saying submissives have a choice.”
“Of course!” I said. “More than that, generally speaking, in a BDSM relationship, the submissive is the one who holds the real power.”
Leticia shook her head. “How can that be?”
“Because BDSM is based on consent,” I said. “The Master cannot exert control and power over someone who does not willingly –” I raised my finger to emphasize the point, “willingly offer themselves. A Master without a submissive is a guy. Just a guy. He needs someone who wishes to submit to him, in order to become a Master.”
Maybe I was doing a poor job of explaining the lifestyle, and the roles of the Master and the submissive. Leticia looked more confused now than when I had started with my ridiculous seafood analogy.
I really needed to get some better material.
The problem was that I’d never felt the need to explain the lifestyle to anyone before. Whenever I had engaged in conversations about BDSM, it was invariably with someone who already understood the lifestyle. I didn’t have the ‘sound bites’ I needed to make a convincing case for someone like Leticia – someone who was outside the lifestyle, and with very limited sexual and relationship experience.
“You called the Master a guy,” she said softly. “Can’t women be the dominant one, and the man be the submissive?”
“Yes,” I said. “Of course. Generally the stereotype is a male dominant, and a female submissive. But certainly the roles are equally valid if reversed.”
For some reason I was getting annoyed. Maybe I was irritated with myself because I had failed to present the case for BDSM clearly. “But don’t start that political correctness bullshit,” I said. “I warned you last night. I’m not a fan. So if I call the Master ‘him’ and I refer to a submissive as ‘her’, you’re just going to have to deal with it. Okay?”
Leticia flinched. I saw hurt or disappointment cloud across her face. “Okay,” she said softly. She looked down at the table.
There was a long simmering silence.
I was the one who was simmering.
The shutters of Leticia’s cool reserve were back up.
Noble, you’re a jerk!
I checked my watch. The waitress was hovering discreetly in the background, waiting to clear away the table.
“I’m sorry,” I sighed, and shook my head. “I didn’t mean to snap. I got annoyed because I can’t explain the BDSM lifestyle to you in twenty-five words or less. Leticia, it’s not that simple – but no relationship, emotional or sexual, is easy to explain. It takes time to assimilate the information. I can tell you the facts and the way it works, but you can’t understand them instantly. It’s a process of awareness and understanding. That’s why I knew an interview could never be completed in one session, and why you would never get a real understanding of the lifestyle if you asked questions that weren’t insightful and probing – and very personal.”
She looked up, smiled faintly.
I stared down at the dinner plates. “It’s like – ”
Suddenly Leticia leaned forward across the table and reached boldly for my hand. She looked up into my eyes and her expression was almost pained. “Please,” she said softly, with a mischievous glint in her eyes, “please don’t use another seafood analogy!”
For a split-second there was only brittle silence. Then I started to laugh.
And then we were both laughing and everything was all right again.
* * *
“Every night for the next three weeks I went to the guesthouse for sex,” I said.
We were back in the apartment. Leticia flicked on a lamp and then perched herself on a small two-seater sofa. I paced the floor between where she sat and the television. I glanced at her and saw her face lit by the gentle glow, and in that subtle light her features seemed to take on a new depth and dimension of beauty. I paused, distracted for just a second, and then continued speaking.
“Sometimes we would fuck, but most of the time she wanted me on my knees, licking her clit,” I said. “And if I didn’t do it right – if she didn’t come at least a couple of times – then she got angry.”
“Angry? How?”
“Threats,” I shrugged. “More threats to tell my father ever
ything. Then one night she threatened to go to the press. That was it. That was when I knew I had to wrest the power from her. She was like a stick of dynamite. Sooner or later she was going to explode, and I knew the damage would be extensive. In short – I didn’t trust her.”
“What did you do?”
I smiled bleakly. “I waited,” I said. “Then one weekend Claire said she was going to New York to visit family. Her sister had fallen down subway stairs. She left Friday afternoon, straight after study, and as soon as the cab disappeared out through the gates, I went to the guesthouse.”
“You broke in?”
I shrugged. “I had my key…”
“You broke in.”
I nodded. “And I went from room to room through the unit, looking for something – looking for anything I could use as leverage. I started in the bedroom. I went through every drawer and found nothing. There was nothing in the closets – I even went through the pockets of her coats and a couple of handbags she left behind. Nothing.”
Leticia wasn’t making notes. She followed me with her eyes as I paced.
“It was only a small guesthouse: no larger than your apartment,” I said. “There was a bedroom, a small living room, a bathroom and a kitchen. Eventually, I found what I was looking for in the kitchen.”
“What was it?” Leticia whispered.
“It was a diary,” I said. “She had hidden it in the air exhaust vent of the range hood that hung above the cooking hotplates.”
“God! She had a diary? She kept a record of everything you did together?”
“No. It wasn’t that kind of diary. It was a small, personal one – the kind of thing women keep in their handbags.”
Leticia sat back, and her shoulders seemed to slump as though she were disappointed.
“So there were no descriptions – no incriminating confessions like in the movies?”
