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"Who do you think shaved her head? I made her shave mine, too. Only I didn't want anyone to think I was copycatting, so I wore a brown robe and told everyone I was Gandhi. It's a wonder our mother didn't just throw herself off a cliff, all the things the two of us did."
Logan burst into laughter. The pleasure of the sound, what it did to his handsome face, eased the tension. To hell with it. Enough crazy emotional shit for one night. As if he'd come to the same conclusion, he caught her hand, tugged. "Come over and sit next to me. I want you closer."
When she obliged, she liked leaning against that large, warm body, his arm on the booth behind her. She laid her hand on his thigh, looked up at him as he took another draw at his beer, his upper torso turned toward her so he surrounded her in an altogether pleasant way.
"What if I can't be all you need me to be, in the Dom/sub department?" she asked.
"What if I can't be all you need to be happy?" he countered. "That's the risk of every relationship, Madison. That we'll both fall short of the mark. The question is whether we both think there's enough here to give it a serious go. The whole 'I'd-rather-just-keep-you-a-fantasy' thing isn't going to fly this time." He gave her a mildly threatening look over the top of his beer. "If those words come out of your mouth, I will dedicate myself to being the antithesis of your fantasy. I'll stop bathing, belch loudly in your store and make crude comments about women in crotchless panties."
She rolled her eyes, but took a healthy sip of her margarita, thinking. Then she put it down next to his beer bottle, nudged it close enough that they clinked together. "I let you cuff and beat me tonight, and that's still tons less scary than considering us in a serious relationship. Why is that?"
"You already know the answer to that. There's a detachment to pure BDSM play. You can walk away from every session, and keep treating me as the friendly store owner next door. Get involved with me, it becomes harder to do that."
He fell silent, gave her a look. Waiting. His finger slid along the side of his beer bottle and back up, leaving a slick track in the condensation. She hadn't answered his challenge, and he wasn't letting her get away with it. Sighing, she laid a tentative fingertip on top of his hand, staring at it rather than speaking to him directly.
"My mother is dead and my father is pretty much a non-entity in my life. Alice was my family. Even when we had our two-year separation, so to speak, we spoke by phone every week, and she emailed me practically every day. She was my one constant. I can't really describe . . ." She stopped, collected herself, tried again. "I put so much into every one of my relationships. I really believed, every time, that I'd found the right guy. Leroy was the one that . . . he broke something in me."
How could anyone understand unless they'd experienced it? Give someone everything, then have it rejected, like it was a tacky, inappropriate gift? Treating her like she could never imagine treating them.
"I couldn't process his indifference, the sheer cruelty at the end. The same way I can't process ugly divorces. How can you watch a couple's wedding video, see that time when there was nothing that was ever too much to ask of one another, and then, in the end, they can't even give each other basic civility, let alone compassion?"
She sighed. "After Leroy left me, it was like him and all six of my other serious relationships rolled up together into this big, messy ball of string sitting inside my gut. When I'm in a session with you, it's like I can let that go. Who I am, really me, is all there, without all those knots and tangles. As much as it sometimes freaks me out a little, it's the best I've felt about myself in a while. I'm afraid if I take it outside of that . . ."
"The ball of string will take over, and you'll lose sight of that woman again. The one seven idiots never saw, even though she was right in front of them. Though part of it was your fault, wasn't it?"
She drew back a little. "What?"
"You've thought about it yourself." He met her gaze. "Once or twice, it could be them. But seven? There's only one common denominator, right?"
She wanted to move back to her side of the booth, but he merely held on to her, kept her still. "I'm not insulting you, Madison. You're an intelligent, fascinating woman. Remember, you're talking to a guy who has repeatedly failed at relationships outside the scene. I've faced the same thing in myself."
He was right. He'd just ruffled her pride, and she'd reacted in that typically perverse human way. It was one thing to say something critical about yourself; another entirely to hear the same thing from a lover. "Yes, I've thought it."
"Did you come up with any explanation?"
"Did you?" she asked defensively. When he gave her a look, she sighed.
"No. That's what's so frustrating. I thought I did everything they wanted, everything to make them happy."
"Were you happy?"
"I didn't . . . I never really thought about it."
"Bingo. You were a chameleon. You became everything they wanted you to be, except it wasn't you. You know why things feel so different between us, Madison? It's not the D/s stuff. It's that you reached the point you've said the hell with it and you're reaching for what you want. Plus, I don't want you to become everything I think I want. We both have the track record that proves we suck at that."
At her startled laugh, he nodded, a wry acknowledgment. But the whole conversation was making her antsy. This time when she slid away, really needing to retreat to her side of the booth, he let her. She stared moodily at the basket of chips. "Knowing what we did wrong doesn't really change much, does it?"
"It can. It can keep us from going down the same path."
"And then, yay, we kiss against a magical sunset and say happily-ever-after. It's not right," she snapped abruptly. "To go through all that heartache and pain, every horrible moment, then say, 'Oh gee, it was always as simple as taking Path B instead of Path A. Be yourself, and all will be well.' People in relationships don't want you to be yourself."
"The wrong people don't." His gaze sharpened. "A lot of people assume a Dom is a misogynist who wants a woman who says "Yes sir" and "No sir," no mind of her own. I'm a strong Master, I don't deny it. I demand absolute obedience as part of the charge for us both, when the time is right, but you've already proven you have the intuition to know when I don't want that. There's a lot of room inside that circle between us. I don't want a brainless robot."
When she said nothing, a note of impatience entered his voice. "Do you want me to be any different? You might say 'Put down the toilet lid' or 'I wish you'd watch a chick flick instead of football,' but would you really want me to be that all the time? Don't the edges make the shape more interesting?"
She heard him, but it was a murmur behind her memories, playing out on the reflection of her margarita glass. Her fingers played with the damp coaster. When she heard him sigh, she looked up in time to see the ironic twist of his lips. "It's funny, isn't it?" he said. "My problem was finding a woman I wanted to be with outside of the scene as much as in it, and here you are; a woman who only wants me inside the scene because you're afraid of being hurt again. It would be perfect, except it isn't. We were both meant to reach for more."
"But you just said it. You really don't know anything about me, except what Alice told you."
