Odessa
“It’s you.”
The words sound hollow on my lips.
Mundane.
I sound boring and uninteresting and just flat, but it’s been a long fucking night and right now? Right now I’m just tired. I’m tired of relationships and tired of dating and tired of everything. I just want a break and sometimes it seems like I just can’t catch one.
Why is he here?
It was only a matter of time before this man walked back into my life. I hadn’t been holding my breath, but I’d been waiting for it, I suppose. I knew it was going to happen eventually, but I’m still not ready.
Not ready for him.
Not ready for any of this.
“And it’s you,” he says, sitting down next to me. He has a drink in his hand and when I glance at his wrist, I see that he’s wearing a bracelet. It’s a pink one: one that’s specific to this club. It means this guy isn’t drinking tonight. It means he’s not here to play.
June, the owner of Anchored, runs this place with an iron fist. If you’re going to have alcohol, then you aren’t going to be touching people. BDSM is hard enough when you’re sober. Why add alcohol to the mix? Even one drink means your inhibitions are lower, which might sound like a good thing. When it comes to safety, though, a good Dom needs to be on top of things. Always.
So why isn’t this guy playing tonight?
Isn’t that the entire point of belonging to a sex club?
Having fun?
If you aren’t coming here to get busy with someone, to get something out of it, why even bother coming?
I shake my head because that thought sounds stupid, even to me.
I know there’s more to Anchored than meets the eye.
I’ve been here for years, after all, and I’ve pretty much seen everything. Some couples come as a way to spice things up. Others just want to try something new. Sometimes people come here on their own or with friends because they want to try something they’ve never been brave enough to try before.
Some people just want to figure out if this is what it actually takes to get themselves off.
And then there’s Jasper.
But I don’t know why the hell he’s here.
Oh, I know why he’s at Anchored. He’s a Dom, after all, and he has his pick of the pretty submissives who hang around this place. Jasper can have any girl he wants, and he’s never had a hard time choosing. Selecting someone special has never been his problem. Jasper’s much too charming, much too good-looking for that.
I just don’t know why he’s here, sitting with me, looking at me like I’m suddenly something special.
And I don’t know why he’s here tonight, seeing as how he’s been gone for months.
I don’t want him here.
I don’t want to talk to him or even look at him because Jasper hurt me. Oh, it’s been awhile, and I should have moved on by now, but seeing him just makes the pain feel fresh.
We spent a night together, long ago, and that was it. It was over. We haven’t spoken since, so why would Jasper approach me on Christmas? Out of all of the nights on the year, why this day? Why now?
He couldn’t have picked a worse fucking night.
“What do you want, Jasper?” My words sound harsher than I intend for them to. I’m tired. I’m so, so tired. I’m not just tired today: I’m tired of everything. I’m tired of the way things have been going.
I’m tired of feeling alone.
There was a point, a long time ago, when I thought I’d found a Dom who would be everything to me. I thought I’d found a Dom who would protect me, care for me. Love me. I thought the two of us had something special going on, but as it turns out, one of us was more serious than other. We had a break-up that wasn’t terrible, but that hurt me deeply, and I’ve been too much of a coward to try again.
I haven’t tried in a very long time, and I don’t really want to try tonight.
Not with Jasper.
He’s a player, and I know what guys like him want.
He wants to dominate me, to play with me. He wants to tie me up and hold me down. He wants to toy with my body and then with my heart. He might want to show me everything he has to offer, but that’s not what I want tonight. That’s not the kind of Dom I need.
I’m not asking for a service Dom. I’m not asking for someone who just wants to make me come over and over. I’m not asking for someone who wants to worship my body. I don’t need a husband and I don’t need someone to treat me like a delicate flower.
But I am asking for someone to adore me, and that’s not Jasper.
It never will be.
Jasper doesn’t bite my head off at my harsh words. I’m being rude, but he doesn’t even glare at me. Hell, his eyebrows don’t even lift. He just looks at me curiously, and then he lifts my chin with his finger.
“Are you okay, Odessa?”
“I’m fine.”
A lie.
It’s a bold one, too. A submissive should never lie. A Dom shouldn’t lie, either. No one should. Not here. Not at Anchored. There’s a time and a place for lying, but it’s not at a sex club where communication is everything. You should never play with someone you can’t trust to tell the truth. Hard limits are everything when it comes to safety and having fun at Anchored. The number one rule of BDSM is that you don’t lie.
You never lie.
Yet here I am.
Lying.
Jasper knows I’m not telling him the truth, but he doesn’t call me out. Instead, he just sits with me for a long time. The music is loud and the lights are low. The sounds and scents of sex and adventure are all around us, but somehow, right now, Jasper and I seem to be locked in our own little world.
I don’t know if it’s a good thing.
“You don’t have to be strong all the time, you know,” he finally says, and that catches my attention. I shoot daggers at him with my eyes when I look up at him. He thinks he suddenly knows me, does he?
“Excuse me?”
I think it’s the first real thing he’s ever said to me.
Jasper and I go back. We have a weird, rocky history based around one wonderful night we spent together followed by nothing. He hurt me and I don’t respect him anymore. How could I care about a man who couldn’t even text me to see if I was feeling okay? We had an intense scene and then he just ghosted. Who does that?
“I’ve known you for a long time, Odessa. You’re the brave one. You’re always the strong one. No matter who walks through those doors, you’re always ready to help. You lend a hand to anyone who needs it. You’ll give anything if it means you can help another person, and I love that about you, but you do not have to be strong all of the time, Odessa. Sometimes it’s okay to ask for help, too.”
I should say something snarky.
I should be a brat.
This is the moment when I tell him he’s got it all wrong, that Jasper doesn’t actually know anything about me, but that’s simply not true. He does know a lot about me, apparently. More than he should.
So I stay silent.
We sit side-by-side, staring out in the crowd, sipping our drinks, pretending that everything is normal.
And for a minute, I wonder when the world stopped being normal for me.
Was it when all of my best friends ran off and got married?
Was it when they started having babies?
Was it when I decided to give notice at work?
Was it when I enrolled in college?
When did things change?
For a very long time, I was fine just being me. I was okay with being the submissive at the club everyone liked, but no one really knew that well. I was satisfied with my relationships and with my role in this place. I was okay with my friends and I was fine with how things worked, but the world is different now.
Everyone is laughing and having fun tonight. They should. It’s Christmastime, after all. It’s a time for joy and happiness and gifts and adventures. It’s a time for everything to be okay.
And it’s a time for change.
It’s a time for growth.
It’s a time for honesty.
“You’re right,” I finally say, turning back to Jasper. “I’m not okay.”
He opens his mouth, as if he’s going to speak, but I’m not done. Nope. He wanted to hear me talk, and now he’s going to hear me talk.
“We slept together. Fine. It was a one-off thing. I get that, Jasper. I’m a grown woman. You weren’t the first person to be a dick to me and you certainly won’t be the last, but you know what? Leaving the next day for months and not bothering to even call me was a shitty thing to do. Whether or not you want a relationship, the truth of the matter is that we go to the same club, jackass, so we were going to have to see each other again. You’re a bad person, Jasper, and I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
Then I stand up, and I walk out of the club in the middle of the Christmas party on the busiest night of the year, and I don’t look back.
When I get to my car, I slam the door shut, and I sit there, and I cry.
And I cry.
And I cry.