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Hayden shrugged. “I’m very lucky. I’m an only child. While I was crazy jealous of my friends with siblings, I guess it had some advantages. My parents are both doctors, and they came up when even non-specialists could still make serious money. They paid for my education all the way through, and they deeded this apartment over to me when I completed residency. You might say I’m a spoiled brat,” he added with a sheepish grin. “But I really am very grateful to them for all they’ve done for me.”
“Wow,” Dahlia said. “No student debt. I can’t even imagine. My father is a rabbi and my mother is a second-grade teacher. I have two sisters and a brother, and though our parents helped as much as they could, we basically relied on scholarships and part-time jobs to get through higher education. Hence my mountain of student loans. That’s why I took that crappy apartment. I’m determined to pay as much of it off as I can before I think about finding anything nicer.”
Hayden nodded. “Makes sense.”
As much as he liked getting to know more about Dahlia’s background, he was more concerned about the way she’d pulled back so unexpectedly just now. He placed his hand lightly on her jeans-clad thigh.
“Let’s talk about what happened just now, okay?”
She gave a small nod and stared down at the brandy in her glass.
“Clearly, I miscalculated,” he said. “I apologize for that. I thought you were ready, even eager, to continue where we’d left off in our D/s adventure. Can you tell me what happened? What freaked you out?”
She drew in a breath and let it out. Lifting her glass to her lips, she took another sip. Finally, she looked at him. “My friend, Naomi, and I grabbed a bite to eat after spin class. While we were in the locker room, my towel slipped and she saw my butt.”
“Lucky her,” Hayden teased, hoping to ease the obvious tension that had entered Dahlia’s tone.
Dahlia snorted softly. “Hardly. She…she saw the bruises. From the spanking. She kind of freaked out.”
“I see,” Hayden said slowly, not yet quite sure where this was going. It had to have been embarrassing, sure, to have a vanilla person jump to incorrect conclusions. But he had a sense there was more at play here.
“Yeah. It wasn’t cool.” She looked down again. “Over dinner she basically accused me of being in an abusive relationship. Even though she knows in general terms about my interest in BDSM, she was insistent that it was never okay for a man to hit a woman, period. When I tried to explain it, it was clear she just thought I was being defensive, even…brainwashed.”
Color rose in her cheeks as she met his gaze. “The truth is, on some level, I did feel defensive.”
She set down her glass on the glass table in front of the sofa and pressed her hands between her knees. “I guess it brought up some of my own stuff—my own confusion about all this…about us. I mean, I was super turned on when you took me to that party, and I’ve loved everything we’ve done. But her reaction did shake me up. It made me question myself and what I’m doing.”
Hayden set down his brandy and moved closer to her. Putting his arm around her shoulders, he pulled her gently to him, relieved when she offered no resistance.
“I’m sorry that happened to you tonight. It can be uncomfortable when people not in the lifestyle leap to conclusions based on their particular bias. They’re applying a different set of rules and values, assuming it has to be the same for everyone. It’s not all that different from people who still think being gay is some kind of deviant, sick behavior that needs to be corrected, or at least sublimated. They haven’t learned to expand their worldview to include other ways of living, of being.”
Dahlia rested her head lightly on his shoulder and he kissed the top of her head, inhaling the fresh lemony scent of her hair.
“It’s one of the primary reasons we keep the Masters Club so private,” he continued. “We wanted to create a safe space where everyone involved feels free to fully express and share their kink in a judgment-free zone with like-minded individuals. I brought you to the masquerade party because I believed, and still believe, that you’re one of us, however untried. But that’s something we can continue to explore.”
She didn’t reply, but nor did she pull away.
“I’m not sure if vanilla folks will ever truly get it,” he said, “But that’s okay. BDSM has existed in some form as long as sexuality has been around. Things have gotten way better in the past few decades in terms of general understanding, or at least awareness. That BDSM fiction you like to read has contributed to that in no small measure, even if a lot of it is filled with misconceptions and misinformation. And, as I’m sure you know, the medical community no longer tags BDSM as a deviant behavior. Consenting adults are no longer deemed mentally ill for choosing sexual behavior outside the mainstream.”
