Myth: In the BDSM world, there are the Dominants, the submissives and a handful of switches. Oh, and everyone else is “vanilla.”

Reality: The boundaries are imaginary. The labels of each category are as arbitrary as using “pineapple” as your safe word. It might make you feel safe, but it doesn’t mean anything

“So, let me get this straight, you haven’t slept with the dude?”

“What? No way. I told you, that’s not how it works.”

“He hasn’t made you put him on a rack and flog him?”

“Of course not...”

“Hasn’t asked you to do anything to his nipples or told you to put in his pony butt plug?”

“Oh my god, Melissa I told you never to mention the butt plug thing ever again…”

“And you’ve seen him every single day this week but haven’t gone into the dungeon even once?”

I sighed.

“I know right? It’s bizarre. It’s weird, isn’t it?”

“Very weird.”

“What do you think’s going on?” I said.

She took a sip of her gin.

“Oh, it’s pretty obvious to me. You guys are dating,” she said breezily.

I slapped her arm.

“Oh come on, Melissa, don’t be ridiculous. He is …unusual. He’s not like any man I’ve met before. And the things we do together…”

Here Melissa chuckled and gave me one of her looks.

“No, no, I get it, Nora. It’s serious business. It’s a kink so extreme, even California’s most high profile Dominatrix is afraid of what she’s getting into.”

“Ok, now you’re making fun of me.”

“Am not. Besides, you’re right. Who knows, one day you two might even go to the malt shop and kiss afterwards. The craziness never ends with you, for real.”

I couldn’t help laughing now either, and she ducked out of the way as I tried to get her arm again.

I took a sip of my own drink and looked around the cocktail lounge, and all the well-dressed, slightly tipsy people milling around us.

Dating?

No way.

All the pick-up lines and rules about calling and restaurant etiquette and worrying about whether they like you and whether you should sleep with them or not and what to wear and what their text means? Nope. Dean and I were most certainly not doing any of that crap.

“On a serious note, though, he does have me worried. He keeps pushing, you know?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Like he keeps wanting to give me complete control over whatever happens, saying I can do whatever I want…”

“But… isn’t that how it always is?”

“I guess. It’s just different with him. It seems like every time we meet we break some new rules of mine that I never let clients break.”

“So then tell him to stop.”

“But… maybe I don’t want him to stop?”

She smiled mysteriously.

“Have I ever told you that you need a shrink, Nora?”

“Only every single time we meet,” I said and smiled back.

“So, when do you see him again?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Interesting. What’s the plan?”

I traced a finger round the rim of my glass.

“I… I’m not sure yet. But I’m excited.”

“God, I’m so jealous.”

“Of me?”

“Yes, of you. And it burns my ass you can’t tell me who he is, either.”

I smiled to myself.

“Oh my god, Melissa, if only you knew. He’s kind of a big deal.”

“So you say.”

* * *

The weather was hot the next morning, and so when he arrived, I led him to the patio area instead, offered him a drink before we both sat, staring out at the pool and watching the clouds roll across the sky.

I couldn’t say exactly when it happened, but we felt more familiar now, as if we had known one another for far longer than two weeks. Every encounter till now had been strange. And every time he left, he lingered in my mind for hours after, my still unsolved riddle, an impromptu actor who had stepped onto my perfect stage and ruined my whole play. I hadn’t seen another client in over a week. Not even poor Ralph.

“You look beautiful today,” he said, and nodded towards the silk kaftan belted over my white bikini.

“Thank you.”

He looked a little more casual today himself. His suit didn’t seem quite as razor sharp as it usually did, and I almost thought I detected the hint of stubble on his jaw. We sat in silence for a moment, which was something we did often, on these little visits of his. It felt easy to be quiet with him. There were a million irrelevant things I could think of to say at every moment, but none of them felt important enough to break that full, rich silence we grew between us.

Eventually, he turned in his seat to face me.

“I’ve told you that I like to play with boundaries, haven’t I, Mistress?”

“You have.”

“Well, I’d like to do more of that.”

“More? You’ve already broken almost all my boundaries, you know,” I said and gave him a teasing look.

“Have I? Which ones are those?”

“Well,” I said and sat up in my seat. The warmth of the sun beating down on the deck was making me feel sleepy. “I have lots of rules and regulations.” I held out my hand and began counting them on my fingers.

“One, I always stay in character during a session, unless the client says the safe word. Two, I always have a safe word in the first place, and three, I don’t form romantic relationships with my clients.”

I paused as I realized what I had just said. But he didn’t flinch. I looked over at him staring thoughtfully out at the pool, watching the play of light the ripples made on the ceiling of the patio.

“I’m the only one you break those rules with,” he said quietly.

“Yes.”

If you had told me a month ago that I would be having this conversation I would have laughed in your face. And yet now it felt like the most natural thing in the world to me. Dean just did something to me. I always felt on the back foot with him. Always a little off balance. And most bizarre of all, this somehow felt to me like the ultimate safety.

“I think I just thought of something that I want,” I said, keeping with the theme of all our discussions this week.

“Wonderful. What is it?”

“You must promise to do it just as I say, nothing more, nothing less.”

“You have my word, Mistress.”

I took a breath to find my nerve and then stared out at the ripples with him.

“I think what I’d most like to do is get up, and come to your chair, and then lay down over you. I don’t want you to move at all. Only if I say so. But then, if I feel like it, I might decide to kiss you,” I said slowly. “If you deserve it, naturally,” I added.

“Naturally.”

Maybe you’re judging me right now. Maybe you think I’m pitiable because this little scrap of human affection seemed so mysterious to me, seemed so scary and strange and yes, completely prohibited. I know I’m not the most emotionally intelligent woman in the world. But I hope you can see that even though it didn’t look like much, I was trying.

I got up, heart in my throat, sure my panties were about to melt right off me from the anticipation. As gracefully as I could, I lifted one leg high and then brought it down on the other side of his deck chair, so I straddled over him, legs spread wide. I watched his face like a hawk. But there was nothing there but calm curiosity. Nothing but sweet, kind attention. I lowered myself down. When my body touched his lap I felt a jolt of electricity zap right through me. He remained motionless, just as I told him to, but his eyes were alive, glued onto me, watching my every move.

I pressed that raging hot spot between my legs against him, first gently, then more firmly. The kaftan brushed lightly against his chest, concealing everything, but I could feel that he was growing stiff underneath me. Our eyes locked. I placed first one and then the other outstretched hand onto his chest and let a little more of my weight press down into him. His torso was strong and solid, so sure underneath my shaking fingers.

I hadn’t meant to, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. My hips tilted an inch and brought my swollen pussy grinding into him. And then, they moved on their own, rocking me back and forward against him. I quickly grabbed his hands and pressed them to my waist, and he obediently held me there, not guiding that delicious motion, but just feeling it, just watching each slow circle unfold.

Each little jolt of bliss that went shooting through me led me to lean in deeper, further onto him.

I didn’t know what I was doing or why. I just knew that that sweet feeling of his heft against me was the only thing that gave me any relief from the ache I felt whenever we were together. My mind threw up a delicious memory of his cock and I got a thrill thinking that I was so close to that now, that it was that outrageously meaty part of him that was touching me now, pressing up against me as his hands gently pulled me back down onto him.

“This is definitely breaking a rule,” I whispered, my breath threatening to leave me. I kept rocking, back and forward, back and forward. One of his hands slid over my stomach and came to land teasingly close to my pussy, just hovering there above that glorious spot where it was all happening.

“What about this, Mistress? Is this breaking a rule?” His voice alone was enough to make me squirm.

“It’s just my body,” I whimpered. “We can be sexual, but we can’t be …affectionate.”

He raised his eyebrow at me, but we both kept up the same slow, small rhythm. I couldn’t stop.

“Mistress, forgive me, but that doesn’t make any sense. Isn’t sex affection?”

“No. Sex is just sex. Just body. Affection is with …me.”

“But, Mistress, where does your body end and you start? How can you open your body without opening the rest of you?”

The glass was inching closer and closer to the floor again, threatening to break. I wanted to come more than I’ve wanted anything in my life. I was being tortured and there was only one thing that would soothe me, save me now: being able to come, once and for all, on this handsome stranger’s lap… Behind my eyes flickered deep, swirling images of color, the same intense swirls I had tried over and over to put onto paper, sure that if I could catch that feeling in acrylic and charcoal, I’d be closer to catching it for real, in my body. He had seen those paintings. He had liked them…

I stopped.

“Mistress?”

I awkwardly put my weight in my knees and leant away from him.

“I… I got a bit out of hand just there.”

“I see. Do you want to get out of hand?”

Goddamit with this guy.

And that’s when I kissed him.

I wanted him to stop talking. To stop asking questions I didn’t know yet how to answer. I leant forward, collapsed against him and let my lips fall into his. He responded to me easily, hungrily, devouring my lips in a kiss that was half sugary sweet, half laced with the taste of something truly devilish.

When I pulled away, his green eyes locked again with mine, and he smiled. It all felt too good to be true. He was too much. Too kind. Too sexy. I couldn’t let him get close and see how fucked up I really was. What if he needed me to be this total vixen? What if he lost interest when he realized what a neurotic mess I really was?

I hopped off his lap and straightened out my kaftan. Dean Cane made me feel constantly, unavoidably drunk. He was an intoxication, and when he was around, I simply couldn’t think clearly.

“Does Mistress need to be alone?” he asked timidly.

“Yes. Leave me now. You’ve proved yourself useful for today but I’m growing tired of you,” I said and gave him a haughty glare. He saw right through it. He knew I didn’t really mean it. That I just spoke like that because I didn’t know what else to say.

“Very well,” he said, and rose to leave.

“Let yourself out,” I said.

He looked a little hurt. I wanted to run up to him, to apologize, to kiss him again and press myself against the wall of his chest. But I sat there, icy, waiting for him to leave. He had scared me. I would have to be crazy to do shit like this. Soon I would come back from my ‘shopping trip’ and pick up all my old clients, and life would return to normal. As for the ache at the tip of my clit, I calmly told it to shut up.

I heard the front door close as he left and sat for a moment, getting acquainted to the sinking feeling in my chest. It didn’t feel good, but it did feel familiar. Whatever happened to his ‘complicated kink’ anyway? Was I going to land up in a ditch one day? No, clearly I had better get my head straight. I got up and went inside and to my office to look at the appointments I’d scheduled for the upcoming week.

I flopped into my swivel chair and took a pile of mail off the desk. Now there’s a nice head-clearing activity: opening bills. I got to work opening up envelopes and landed on a familiar looking one. I already knew what it was.

A letter from Jeff.

I frowned, opened my top desk drawer and was about to toss it in there with the others, all unopened. But something made me change my mind. I opened it.

There was nothing I could do about the many gifts that turned up at the house every day since that pig and I had our falling out. But these little letters felt like a can of worms I didn’t want to open. I didn’t care what he had to say. I just wanted him to go away. Besides, there was the obvious issue of me seeing his son now. The whole thing felt hideously unethical, and I just didn’t want to think about, didn’t want to tell either of them about the other.

I opened the letter and was surprised to see a wall of handwritten text.

Interesting.

Nora,

I understand why you’re ignoring me. And you have that right. I don’t mind how long you take to get over your anger at me. But what we experienced together the other night was no mistake, and I’m not prepared to let that go.

You want to humiliate me? Here’s the truth: you understand me. It’s frightening how much you understand me. I admit that I took that for granted. I need you in my life again, Nora. It’s more important than you know. Please reconsider.

J.

I dropped the letter like it had stung me. I was too afraid to see what the other dozen had said.

Was he mad?

I was the last person who understood him, and the thought of seeing him again made my stomach turn. I remembered the frightened woman again and groaned. Couldn’t he just go away? Hire another Dominatrix and fall in love with her instead? I stuffed the letter into my draw and slammed it shut.

Damn him for ruining everything.