I wipe sweat from my eyes and sink down on the bench beside Olivia. She’s sweating too, but smiling like an idiot as she drops her racquet and towels off.

“If you’re planning to brag, let’s just get it over with,” I say.

She gives me an innocent look and shrugs. “Beating you at tennis isn’t really worth bragging about anymore.”

I glare at her and toss a tennis ball at her leg, but she manages to swat it away, grinning.

“Sore loser, as always,” she says, tsking at me. “When am I going to meet this girl that has you blowing me off? I want to see her play.”

I purse my lips. “It’s complicated between us. And work has been an absolute nightmare lately. I lost half my investors and we’ve been organizing street teams to round up new small businesses. The tax implications alone are going to…” I trail off when I see Olivia pretending to sleep. Her head is thrown back dramatically and her mouth hangs open. “Boring. I know,” I say.

She pretends to wake up. “What? Were you talking about your company again? I must have dozed off.”

“Yeah, yeah. Maybe you should have gone into acting instead of tennis.”

“How complicated can it be between you two? I know you’re into all that weird stuff, but I mean, at the end of the day it’s probably just like any other relationship, except you like her to call you daddy while you guys fuck.”

I cringe. “You know I hate when you talk about it.”

She smirks. “I know. That’s why I still do it. Seriously though, how complicated can it be?”

I lean back, tapping my racquet against my knee. “Apparently it can be pretty complicated. The ‘weird stuff’ is all new to her, and she’s having trouble drawing a line between the fantasy and reality.”

Olivia looks thoughtful. “Oh. That actually does sound a little complicated. You mean she wants you to be her daddy in the bedroom but she’s having trouble staying interested in you outside the sex because you’re not really her daddy?”

I give Olivia a confused look. “What is all this daddy shit? No… Look, I’m not going to detail all this with you. I have no desire to know what kind of weird shit you’re into and I don’t--”

“Pegging,” Olivia deadpans.

I stare openly at her, feeling disgust and amazement.

She barks a laugh. “I’m just kidding. That’s sick. But yeah, you’re never going to learn what weird shit I’m into. I’m the only one in this pair who has to bear that mental poison.”

I sigh. “I can’t figure out if you’re trying to help right now or if you’re trying to irritate me.”

“I can’t do both?” she asks.

I laugh. “Good point. I guess you’re always doing a little bit of both.”

“Well,” she says. “I would think even if the sex is great, the relationship is doomed if you guys aren’t compatible outside of it.”

I run a hand through my hair. “When she lets her guard down, we get along better than I’ve ever gotten along with a woman, but she just puts these walls up sometimes. I don’t get it.”

“Welcome to women, Logan. I’m proud that you’re finally learning to accept you will never understand us.”

Emmaline is bent over at the foot of my bed. Her ass is red from the paddle. She was fifteen minutes late getting to my house, which has become a habit of hers. It has been almost two weeks since I strapped her to the ceiling and ass fucked her for the first time. We’ve been seeing each other regularly since then, but I’ve started to feel a growing rift between us. I’ve been pushing the thoughts down as much as I can, but I can’t help noticing how much more wild she is getting in her tastes. She seems to be deliberately disobeying me to get as much punishment as she can, and I’ve been relying on her to tell me when she’s reached her limit, but I’m starting to think she has no limit, like she wants to be hurt.

I’ve never gotten off on pain before. I only enjoy using pain as a counterpoint to enhance pleasure. Sadism was never my kink. Wanting pain for the sake of pain is what some people are into, and that doesn’t bother me in the slightest. What bothers me is Emmaline’s sexual needs are looking more like a drug addict who is chasing the first high. I don’t believe she’s really masochistic. I think she’s just trying to escalate the danger every time we’re together to get the same rush she felt the first time. I’m not willing to start bringing the pain to a point where I’m doing real damage, and she has brought us right to the cusp of that.

Our interactions outside the play room have been hard to read, to say the least. I’ve been with her at the club the last two weekends and at my place plenty of times, but our interactions outside the play room or the club are always cut short. I’d almost think she was making excuses to leave, and I have no idea why. I just want to find out what she needs and give it to her. I’ve tried vanilla sex with her a few times, thinking she might be craving some normalcy, but she has been slightly stiff and unresponsive every time I’ve tried.

It all has me frustrated, and when I bring the paddle down on her again I do it with more force than I intended. The blow makes her lurch forward and lose her balance, falling to her face.

I kneel quickly at her side. “Emmaline, are you--”

She pushes me off. “I was late, Sir. I need to be punished.” Her eyes are distant, focused on something beyond the wall ahead.

I stand, looking down at the paddle and the angry red spot on her milky skin. A wave of disgust overcomes me. I throw the paddle down. “We’re done for today.”

“What?” she asks, turning her head toward me, eyes wide.

“I said we’re done.”

“No,” she says. “Please. I haven’t been punished enough.”

“I’m your fucking dom,” I growl. The anger boiling up in me is from the frustration of not understanding. She’s not being open with me, and she’s turning what is supposed to be a mutually pleasurable experience into something darker and twisted because she won’t tell me what’s going on. “You don’t get to decide when the punishment is over.”

She lowers her head, sinking low on her knees almost like she’s bowing to me.

“Get up. I said we’re done.”

She stands, waiting to be told what to do. Her blind obedience grates on me. I want her to be open with me. I want her to be herself. The dominant submissive relationship never bothered me before, but I was with women I didn’t care as much about. And with Lana it was always a game, something we turned on and off at will. Now all I can see is this beautiful, ambitious young woman before me degrading herself. There is supposed to be a healthy line in this kind of relationship. She’s supposed to know what we do here has no bearing on who she is outside. She’s letting this become something more than just a fantasy. She’s using it to hide from something, and I’m done helping her do it. Whether she realizes it or not, she’s only going to exacerbate whatever problems she’s facing like this.

I strip the leather mask off and throw it to the floor. I grip her by the shoulders. “What’s going on?” I ask.

She keeps her eyes on the ground. “Nothing, Sir.”

“Logan,” I say. “Call me Logan.

“Nothing, Logan.”

My hand flashes out and I only barely manage to stop myself from hitting her, not as her dom, and not for the sake of pleasure, but out of frustration. Fuck. I’ve never hit a woman, not outside of the roleplay, at least. I feel dirty and shitty immediately.

I feel worse when she doesn’t react. She just waits, expression blank like she would have deserved it if I hit her.

I clench my fists. “Emmaline...”

She looks up at me a little uncertainly. I see tears welling in her eyes and I reach out to rub them away with my thumb. She flinches slightly at my touch and it rips at my heart. I’m going to fix this. I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to make it all better. Somehow.

I sigh, leading her out of the play room and grabbing a robe for her to cover up her nudity. I sit her on the edge of my bed and sit beside her.

Fuck. Where did I go so wrong with her? I pull her close, hugging her as she cries into my arms. I felt like we were on the right path the night we watched the movie. It seemed like she was starting to let herself open up to me and she was going to try making things between us work both sexually and emotionally. After that night, everything between us just went off the rails. Hard.

Emmaline hangs her head, mumbling so quietly I can barely hear. “I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“You could never disappoint me,” I whisper as I run a hand through her hair. “Never.”

I give her all the time she needs, holding her close and waiting until she feels ready. “I can only cum when I’m dominated,” she says quietly. “I don’t know why. I don’t have a good reason. I guess I’m just a dirty slut who--”

“Hey,” I say firmly, pulling back until I can look into her eyes. “Don’t talk like that. You’re not a slut. Every fucking person on this planet is in to something. If they say they aren’t, they’re fucking liars. Everyone has a kink, whether they know it or not.”

She nods and another wave of tears rolls from her eyes. I smooth them away, hating to see her cry. I feel like it’s opening a raw hole in my chest and I need to see her happy again or it’s going to rip me apart from the inside.

I spend a long time just holding her there, mind running through what the next step is. In the past, I would have just cut ties with her. With Emmaline, that’s not an option. I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to help her find a way through this.