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Last night didn’t end the way I wanted. That wasn’t her fault.
I’ve felt attraction to other women over the years, but nothing has compared to what I feel for Bliss. It’s been two days since our date and all I can think about is how I wanted to kiss her on the front porch. Hell, I’d wanted to kiss her at the Steak and Shake when she was asking about my life as a domme. I wanted to slide into the booth and tip her face up and press my lips to hers. I imagined her lips warm and yielding. The urge was so strong I ended the conversation. To be honest, it scared me a little. It’s pretty obvious the attraction is mutual, but I can’t make the same mistake I made with Celeste. I can’t go in blind.
Bliss is coming off of a bad relationship —a badstraightrelationship. I don’t want to be the ultimate rebound. I’ve seen that happen before and it never ends well.
I’d intended to ask her about her history, to ask her if she’d only been with men. But the conversation had flowed organically in other directions. I enjoyed being in her company. On the way home I began to worry that I was putting the cart ahead of the horse for both of us. My hesitancy had changed the energy and I could sense she went into the house feeling somehow rejected. That’s what kept me up last night, knowing I’d probably left her hurt and confused.
I didn’t refuse to go in because I didn’t want her, but because I wanted her so much it scared me. I still want her, even now, because as frightened as I am, she feels like what I need.
I upset a lot of people when I left Club Cross. I’d been a fixture there, giving workshops on safe, sane, and consensual BDSM. When doing scenes started to feel hollow even before Celeste. Afterwards I just didn’t want to do them with strangers anymore. I slipped into something of a depression and decided I needed professional help to sort out just what was wrong.
I found a kink-aware therapist named Lydia and, in her plant,-filled office I laid on a leather chaise lounge and poured out my frustrations. Lydia listened attentively, interjecting only to ask thought-provoking questions. Occasionally she’d peek over the top of her glasses and shoot me one of those knowing looks therapists reserve for moments when they’ve figured out something you haven’t figured out yourself.
“I don’t think you’re a domme,” she said one day.
I’d laughed at this a little too bitterly. “You might want to ask my subs if they agree.”
“Hold on.” She put up her hands. “Let me finish. You’re obviously dominant, Tandy, but you’re needs have clearly changed. Your desires are more solidified, more mature.”
“If I’m not a domme, what am I?”
She’d put her pencil down and sighed. “I think you’re a Daddy.”
“A Daddy?” I’d sat up on the lounge, pivoting towards her. I was intrigued.
“Yes.” She began to tick off on her fingers all the ways I fit this particular criterion. “You want something permanent. You’ve got a strong protective streak. You like to be in control. You’re patient, generous and indulgent. You take sexual satisfaction in correcting or playing with a sub. You’ve been piecemealing all these parts of yourself out. You’re a professional domme who’s generous with her friends. You’re a boss at work. You’ve got a strong sense of justice and stand up for others. I think what you want is a complement—someone who needs all those things —someone you can indulge and guide. If it was just the indulgence, I’d say you were more of a mommy figure. But you…” She wiggled her pen in my direction. “You, Tandy, have “Daddy” written all over you.”
“I tried the personal relationship, though,” I’d argued. “With Celeste.”
“Celeste didn’t match your energy, Tandy,” she’d said. “From what you’ve told me she came into the relationship with her jealousy issues baked in. You require someone with …for the lack of a better word …childlike trust. You need someone who can let your dominance shine.”
I didn’t go back to therapy. I didn’t have to. Everything Lydia said hit hard. My tastes had evolved, but my associations in the kink community were all through the club. I threw myself into my work, ignoring the frustration of Inez and others upset by my leaving. Maybe if I were more of an open book, I would have explained, but what I’d discovered about myself felt private and I locked it away. Or I thought I had until I met Bliss.
There’s something innocent about her. She’s like a lost little girl and if I’m honest with myself, I started falling for her the night I saved her from that guy in Quincy’s. She said she vaguely remembered my tucking her in once I took her home, but I remember every detail. I remember taking her ridiculous stripper heels off as she lay in bed and staring at the tattoos on her thighs in the soft light of her lamp. I remember wondering what meaning they had. I remember how she reached for my hand and asked me to stay until she fell asleep. I remember how she turned on her side when I sat on the edge of the bed, how she curled into herself and brought her hand to her mouth. She’d put her thumb between her lips. It looked like self-soothing and broke my heart. I didn’t want to leave and when she appeared the next day those protective Daddy feelings came rushing back.
How could she possibly understand that my desire to protect her was why I cut our evening short? She’s ten years younger than I am. She’s been hurt. What if this goes further and doesn’t work out? I don’t want to be the cause of further pain. I could fall hard for Bliss, real hard. She could get hurt. I could get hurt. Relationships are a big responsibility.
“This looks amazing, Tandy.” An hour into the appointment my client looks down at his arm at the tattoo commemorating his father. It’s the design Bliss saw in my office. The ship has been outlined, but it’s going to take multiple appointments to finish.
“Thanks, Mark.” I push my rolling chair back and reach for a soda on the nearby counter. “Want one?”
“Yeah.”
I get another and hand it to him.
“It’s rough,” he says, looking at the tattoo. “My dad and mom got divorced when I was little. He was pretty messed up with drugs and whatnot. I never had a father figure, but you can’t miss what you’ve never had, right?”
I nod at the tattoo. “I take it he came back into your life.”
“He did. I was twenty-one. He tracked me down. He said the scariest day of his life was facing me as an adult. He knew he’d let me down and that he’d have come back into my life sooner, but he could never stay clean, and my mama wouldn’t allow it until he did. And that was his motivation. He wouldn’t let himself come near me until the third anniversary of his sobriety. We had five years together until that crane accident at the shipyard.”
“That was your father? I remember hearing about that on the news.”
“Yep, that was Pop. Shipbuilder, hockey fan, bowling fanatic, and an all-around good guy. I miss him. He came into my life at just the right time, you know? Like, right when I needed him. I’d come out of a bad relationship, was drinking too much. I’d started using pills. He could see where I was headed. He recognized it because he’d been there. He wouldn’t have it, you know. There I was, a twenty-one-year-old kid with a father figure and it saved me. Fate works in weird ways. If he hadn’t come into my life when he did, I think I’d be in a different place right now.”
For the rest of the day, I think about that conversation, about how Mark’s dad came into his life when he was at his most vulnerable. I think about Bliss. The night she showed up here at the shop drunk and teetering on her too-high heels, I’d actually planned to leave early but one appointment ran longer than expected and put me behind. After work I usually go home for a beer. Instead, I went to Quincy’s. Bliss was in the back in a darkened booth. I wouldn’t have even known she was there if Lou hadn’t mentioned the sorry tip she left. I’m a logical person, but it feels like something—or someone —was shoving Bliss in my path.
On my lunch break, I decide I can’t take it anymore. I want to see her. She told me she works at Fancy Bloomers Flower Shop. I have an hour lunch break.
