“Not at all,” I said. “I want something else. Something specific. Pure obedience is boring. What a submissive does with a command is the intriguing part.”
“You want someone to disobey you?” she asked, her eyes, focusing in. A dynamic like that would be a brat, and that wasn’t what I wanted either. My desires were more subtle, more calculated. “You want to punish someone?”
“I need a woman with her own mind.” I peered down below us, trying to find an example of what it meant to be a strong-willed submissive. I looked back at Mara. “To fight for that control, to make her surrender.” Our eyes locked. “To earn my dominance over her. A strong, fiery woman.”
Mara’s eyes were misty, her lips parted in yearning. I could kiss her on that balcony and no one would be the wiser. Mara wouldn’t tell. She might revoke our entry, drop out from being my TA, but I had faith that she would never go to administration. She wouldn’t betray me. She touched her neck, as if to check if she was sweating, and her lips were dewy with moisture. I imagined holding her wrists behind her back as my tongue dived inside of her supple mouth, searching for what was mine. Her determination to resist, then feeling her body surrender to my demands.
But there was a darkness that lurked inside of me. The violence that had been unleashed. I couldn’t do that to another person ever again. I wouldn’t let myself.
Especially not Mara. She had so much before her: a promising career, optimism in the world. And it would be fucking foolish of me to risk my career for her, when I was so close to my goals that I could taste tenure, the damn near impossible dream I had been pining after, for years.
Even if Mara was straight forward, she wasn’t worth risking everything.
“A woman like that doesn’t exist,” I said. I walked towards the stairs, eager to be alone.
“That’s not true,” Mara said, following after me. “There are plenty of strong women—”
She reached for my arm, and I flinched, then carefully removed her grasp. We were both crossing the line.
“Not for me,” I said. Not you, I thought.
We stood still. I glared at Mara, daring her to defy me.
I wanted her to. I wanted to believe I was wrong.
“I only said that as your friend,” she finally said.
“Is that we are now?” I asked. “Friends?”
“We’re not here as student and teacher, Nate,” she said.
