The Monday before Christmas Eve, on our night together because Dawn was working an extra shift, I was at 8th Avenue before Drake, which was very rare. I brought along a couple of strings of Christmas lights and some decorations, plus a sprig of real Mistletoe I picked up from a green grocer near my apartment. I was just wandering around his apartment, thinking of where I'd want to string up the lights when he arrived, wearing his camel colored overcoat and plaid scarf, his cheeks red from the chill.

"You're here," he said, smiling. "I was running a bit late in surgery."

"I'm here, breathlessly waiting for you."

"Just the way I like you."

I smiled and helped him with his coat and packages. Once he was out of the coat, I went to him with the sprig of Mistletoe behind my back.

"What have you got there, Ms. Bennet?"

I held it up, grinning. "Just this," I said. Try as I might, I couldn't hold it high enough over his head. "I need stilts to get it over you."

"No stilts for you," he said and grabbed me, his arms slipping around me. "Too dangerous. Don't you know you're supposed to hold it over your own head? Not that I need any excuse to kiss you…"

He kissed me and the mistletoe was all but forgotten. Once again, I was amazed at how quickly I responded to him, my body immediately wet and aching at the touch of his mouth on mine.

While he grabbed my ass with one hand, he slipped the other under my skirt to feel my garters and naked pussy.

"Mmm," he said against my throat. "Slave, you are nice and wet."

I smiled, gasping a bit when his fingers slipped inside of me.

"You've got me trained like Pavlov's little submissive, Master."

He laughed at that and then pulled away. "Speaking of Russians, do you have some Anisovaya?"

I nodded and went to the sideboard where the crystal glasses waited. We did a toast to each other.

While he nibbled my neck, I brought up something I had hoped to talk about.

"I wish we could go somewhere to celebrate New Year's, Master."

He didn’t say anything for a moment.

"We'll meet here during your time off. I have no scheduled surgery for a week. I was thinking we could go to a special Fetish party for New Year's. Maybe you could pretend to get sick and we could sneak out and go. This time, we'd have to wear masks so no one would recognize us. The party I have in mind is in Brooklyn. There would be fewer people there that either of us would know compared to the one in Manhattan."

I liked that idea. It would be something special, and I was excited to see what an ordinary fetish club of ordinary Brooklynites would be like.

"What are you doing tomorrow, Master?" I asked, unable to keep from questioning him.

"I'll probably just stay around here. Play some music. You could sneak over if you can make an excuse to be alone for a couple of hours…"

I smiled. "I'll make sure. Will they dance at these Fetish parties?"

"You liked dancing with me the other night, did you, Ms. Bennet?"

"Yes," I said. "I did, Master."

I laughed when he picked me up and swung me around the way I'd seen my grandfather's generation do when dancing the Jitterbug. I giggled when he twirled me around, and then pulled me tightly against his body.

"I did learn in high school," he said. "Although I haven't had much time to practice. I know a few moves…"

Then he went to the sound system and sorted through some records until he found one. He pulled the album out of its sleeve and placed it on the turntable. When the song started, I heard some faint scratches.

"Rock Around The Clock," he said, smiling. "Bill Hailey and the Comets."

He started leading me around the room, showing me how to do the Jitterbug, tripping a bit over the loose Persian carpets on the smooth hardwoods. He picked me up, lifted me up high and then tried to swing me over his other hip, repeating the earlier move, but his foot caught on the carpet and he tripped just as I was coming down in a less-than-graceful arc. He fell backwards and we tumbled to the floor.

A little too close to the sideboard with it's sharp corner, which struck me on the side of my head, right above my eye. He was able to mostly save us, me falling on his body, his arm going back to stop the fall, but I still toppled against the sideboard. We came to rest on the floor, and immediately I knew something was wrong.  Intense pain almost blinded me and I held my head. When the pain finally subsided a little, I was on my back on the floor, stars sparkling in my vision. Actual stars. Something like warm water flowed over my cheek.

"Oh, God, Kate," he said, his voice low, hushed. "You're hurt…"

He turned my face towards his using one hand, while he cradled the other against his body. I could barely see him through the swirling sparks of light.  He left me lying on the floor, my hands touching the warmth on my cheek. My fingers came back bloody, and my whole brow hurt.

"How are you?" he asked when he ran back with some gauze and pressed the bandage against my brow. His face was pale as he examined me. "Did you black out at any time?"

"I don't think so. But I saw stars."

"Are you in pain? How many fingers can you see?" He held up a hand with three fingers out.

"Three," I said. "My head really hurt for a minute, but now it just stings."

"Look at me, in my eyes," he said, his expression so intense. I did and he examined the cut.

He exhaled. "Goddammit. I have to take you to the ER and get you stitched up. I don't have my bag here."

I smiled through the pain. "You have one of those little black doctor bags?"

"Something like that," he said, but he wasn't smiling. "Damn, Kate. You're going to have to just come with me. We'll have to risk it. That cut is too deep for butterfly sutures."

"You're the neurosurgeon."

 

After he bandaged me up enough, we took his Mercedes to St. Luke's ER. It wasn't the nearest hospital, but I didn't want to go to Harlem, because Dawn worked there. He didn't want to go to NY Presbyterian because he had too many colleagues and associates who might recognize us. The ER nurses at St. Luke's had me in an examining room within a very few minutes of registering.

I sat on the gurney in the tiny space and Drake stood between my knees, examining me, brushing my hair back, fussing over me like a mother hen. The young female physician entered and Drake stepped aside. She quizzed us about who Drake was and what happened. Drake related how we were dancing the Jitterbug, and he was clumsy and I fell and hit my head against a wooden table. She seemed upset that Drake spoke instead of me.

The physician looked at me carefully while I repeated the story. I watched Drake and smiled while I told it.

"He was a bit out of practice. Like twenty years out of practice."

"I'll be back in a bit to stitch that up," she said and left us alone.

Drake continued to examine me, his hand on my shoulder, smiling at me. He'd hurt his wrist trying to break the fall, and cradled it, a tensor bandage on it.

"I'm so sorry, he said. "I'm really not usually so clumsy." He grinned at me. "Kind of ruined the mood I was going for…"

I laughed and squeezed his good hand. "At least I was in the best hands. I mean, if you’re going to fall and crack your head, who better than a neurosurgeon to look after you?"

The young doctor came back in.

"Can you excuse us, Dr. Morgan?" she said to Drake. "I'd like to speak with Kate alone for a moment."

Drake's mouth went hard at that. "Certainly." He leaned over to me and kissed me briefly where I sat on the examining table. "I'll be right back. You'll be fine."

I nodded. When we were alone, the physician turned to me.

"I just wanted to give you the opportunity to tell me if you're concerned at all about anything."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"If there's anything happening in your life that frightens you. If you've been harmed in any way that led to that injury. I'm obliged to ask about this any time a woman comes in with her partner, injured in a domestic accident."

"You think he did this on purpose?" I said, aghast. "No, it was just as we told you. He was showing me how to do the Jitterbug and tripped on a carpet on the floor. We fell and I hit my head on the sideboard. That's it. End of story. He hurt his wrist trying to stop the fall."

She looked down at my wrists, which were bare, my sweater rolled up. There were chafing marks where the leather edge of my restraints rubbed my skin from our last session. Just a slight red mark on the back of my hands. It didn’t hurt, but I could see that she was worried.

"Just role playing," I said, smiling. My face turned bright red. "You know. We read those books, and like to try things out."

"As long as you're safe and this is your choice…"

"I'm fine," I said. "We're lovers. We got a little… enthusiastic the other night."

She nodded, a somewhat judgmental expression on her face. Then, she had me lie down and after preparing me, putting a sterile field over my eye and brow, she injected me with a local anesthetic and proceeded to stitch me up.

"Drake might want to be here for this," I said.

"Sorry about that," she said. "I can't stop now. Have to maintain sterile procedure."

Finally, Drake came back and pushed the door open to check on how I was. He stood watching the physician as she stitched me, examining each stitch carefully, holding my hand on the other side of the gurney.

When she was done, I sat back up and she gave me instructions about aftercare. Drake seemed a bit impatient with her, as if he didn’t know proper procedure. Finally, we left the hospital and went back to the apartment.

 

"You're staying here tonight," he said when we were back inside. He brought me a glass of milk instead of Anisovaya and motioned to the couch.

"No bondage tonight?" I said, disappointed. "No Anisovaya?"

"No alcohol for you, just in case. No bondage because of my wrist," he said, holding it up. "I'm useless. Not in fighting form and neither are you."

I sighed and after he shot back his vodka and I my milk, we nestled on the couch.

He'd put on some music, something old, folksy.

"What's this?" I asked. It was a solo singer accompanied only by an acoustic guitar.

"A Canadian musician, Gordon Lightfoot. One of my dad's favorites. He had every single album. He was a big fan of Canada, raving about their health care system and welfare safety net. He almost wanted to move there after the war, but he was accepted to Columbia and wanted to go study medicine."

"If he was such a socialist, why did he go to war? Couldn't he get an exemption?"

"He volunteered. He said if the poor black kids had to fight, the middle-class white kids should as well."

"That's what my dad said. No wonder they were friends…"

Drake nodded. "He almost loved Canada as much as Mother Russia. We used to go to Northern Alberta every year on vacation and he'd do surgery up in the wilds. We'd fly in to these tiny communities and he'd donate his services. We'd always stop in Montréal and eat this absolutely horrible mess of French fries and gravy and cheese curds called Poutine."

I smiled and listened to the music. It was very haunting. "What is this piece?"

"It's very appropriate," he said and went over to a stack of old albums. "This song is called Affair on 8th Avenue." He brought some sheet music over and handed it to me.

He sat back down. I glanced over the words, which told the story of a pair of lovers at an apartment on 8th Avenue.

"It's beautiful. Can you play this?" I asked as I read it over.

"I can but not with this wrist. I guess my hopes of playing with the band over the weekend are out."

"It's that bad?"

"I think I tore something. My whole arm hurts."

Despite my injuries, I felt Drake's warmth through his clothing and it in turn warmed me up.

"So, what are we going to do?"

Drake shrugged, his good arm around me. "I don’t know."

"I could do you," I said. "You don't want me to just, you know, crawl on top? You wouldn't have to do anything…"

He leaned his head back, eyeing me from the side. "You're going to try to top me, are you?"

"It's not topping and you wouldn’t be bottoming. It's just having sex. I'm a little aroused. I was really looking forward to tonight."

"Ms. Bennet, you're a horny little thing but I just can't be safe with only one working hand and arm…"

"You don't have to restrain me."

I climbed onto his lap without him requesting it but he didn't fight me. I leaned down and kissed him, and he let me. Since that first night in my apartment, he always signaled when our scene would start by embracing me, then kissing me. I'd never made the first move.

At first, he didn’t kiss me back. When I pulled away and looked in his eyes, searching for his permission, he said nothing.

"You don't want me to fuck you?" I said, a little hurt.

"Kate, I am never fucked. I fuck."

"But you're injured and can't manage. I could do all the work. If it would make you feel better, you could always order me to."

"Katherine…" He had this look in his eyes. A bit upset, but cautious. "Remember, we're always in scene at my place."

I sighed. He meant that even when we weren't having sex, I was still his submissive. Not his girlfriend.

"Drake, do I have to go home and resort to Big? I need you…" I kissed him again, angry now that he was so rigid that he couldn’t stand to have me once make the first move or do the work.

"I don't want you going home by yourself," he said when I pulled away. "I want you to stay here tonight."

"I want to lick you, and suck you, then I want to get on top and ride you. That wouldn't please you?"

"I thought you were uncomfortable taking the lead in sex, Kate. That’s why submission appeals to you."

I looked in his eyes. "I feel like I could do anything with you."

He ran one hand up my back, his gaze moving over my body, then back into my eyes.

"Convince me," he said, his voice a bit husky.

"I need you," I said, thinking of reasons. "I may see you only two or three times over a week but I want you every day and—"

He placed a finger over my lips. "I didn’t mean with words…"

I smiled. He was giving in. I crawled up a little bit closer to him, my arms around his neck, my groin pressed against his. I kissed him, starting off softly and then deepening the kiss, my tongue finding his. He was totally passive. I ground myself against him, pressing my breasts against his chest. Then, I pulled my sweater up and off my body so that I was in my bra, my skirt and of course, my garter belt and nylons. I rose up onto my knees and embraced his head, my breasts against his face.  I pulled the fabric of my bra down to expose my breasts the way he always did, then I squeezed them, tweaking my own nipples until they were hard. I closed my eyes, wanting him to suck them, but not feeling right demanding it from him, so I just imagined it while I touched myself.

Finally, he reached behind me with his good hand.

"Let me help you with that." Then, he pulled me closer, his mouth covering one nipple. After that, he pretty much kept one step ahead of me, always turning whatever I did into something he ultimately controlled. When I climbed on top of him as he lay naked on the bed, he subtly directed me, telling me where to put my hands, how fast to move, when to kiss him. But I had my way with him. He didn't tie me up, he didn't blindfold me, he didn’t make me come four times before he did.

I came once and then he did, fucking me from behind doggie style, which didn’t rely on his hand for anything.

I didn't call him Master once.

 

Afterwards, as we lay there with our limbs entwined, the sheets wrapped up around us, I turned to him.

"You survived vanilla sex yet again."

He grinned. "It's all I ever used to do."

I said nothing for a moment, wondering about his introduction to the lifestyle. "How did you start doing BDSM?"

He rubbed my back with his good hand, not saying anything.

"You don’t want to talk about it?"

"Not really. Let's just say I recognized my Dominant side, got some instruction—"

"From Lara," I offered.

"From Lara," he said.

"This was after your divorce?"

"Kate," he said, exhaling. "I'm tired. I have to sleep…"

"I'm sorry," I said, a stab of hurt in my chest. "This is hard for you. We're mixing up the food on your plate too much, right?"

"Shh," he said and shut the light off. Then he pulled closer, spooning against me the way he always did when it was time to sleep.

 

In the middle of the night, I got up and went to the bathroom. I closed the door and turned on the light to check my wound and my eye was already bruising. I was going to have a black eye.

I turned off the bathroom light and went back to the bedroom. Drake was asleep, his breathing slow and deep. Seeing him lying there, knowing that he was so uncomfortable with a normal romantic relationship, I felt a sense of grief somewhere in a dark corner.

I wanted more from him, but I had the sense that it was impossible. I'd have to settle for what he could give me. I'd have to accept only seeing him in secret several times a week, when we were lucky. It made me sad, but it was just the way things had to be.

I didn’t want to stay there feeling the way I felt, so I dressed quickly and snuck out of the apartment. I hailed a cab and went back to my own apartment. I couldn’t pretend to be 'in scene' with him after that. It felt too much like 'pretending'.

So, at just after three o'clock in the morning on Christmas Eve Day, I was getting out of a taxi outside my apartment building when who should get out of a parked car but Dawn.

"There you are," she said, rushing across the street to me as I had the key in the lock to the building. When I realized it was her, shock went through me.

"Dawn," I said, acutely aware of my bandaged head and now-bruising black eye. "What are you doing here?"

"Your father was trying to get a hold of you but you weren't answering your phone. He was worried about you and called me at work. I was so worried about you."

I pulled out my cell, curious as to why I never got any calls. Then I saw that my cell had shut off, the battery dead. "Oh crap," I said showing her. "The battery died." I shrugged.

Then she saw my injury.

"Kate, what happened?"

"I fell," I said, stumbling to come up with an explanation on the fly. "I had to go to the hospital and get stitches."

"Oh you poor kid. How did you fall?"

"I slipped on the way to the bathroom in the dark."

She saw my wristband from the hospital ER and took my wrist in her hand. "St. Luke's? Why didn’t you call me? You should have come to Harlem and I would have stayed with you."

"We're not really on friendly terms…" I said and sighed. "Listen, I'm really tired. I'm going to bed."

I opened the door and before it closed, I turned. I didn’t want to antagonize her.

"I'm sorry I didn’t answer your calls. I didn’t even know you had called. Why are you even here?  You've just been sitting in your car?"

"I got off my shift at 3:00 and thought I'd come by and see if you were at home. I was almost ready to call the police. Kate, how are you doing?"

"I'm fine," I said. "I'm over it. Look," I said, wanting to leave. "I have to go to bed. Thanks for being concerned about me but I'm fine. I'll charge my phone and send my dad a text."

I forced a smile and went inside, leaving her on the sidewalk. I just couldn’t lie to her any longer.

Crap. Almost caught.

 

I didn't sleep the rest of the night, wondering if Dawn would accept my explanation and what Drake would say when he learned I was almost caught. Instead of sleep, I looked over an article I was writing for Geist but in truth, my heart just wasn't into it. That black hole of sadness threatened at the thought that Drake and I wouldn’t be able to spend time together during Christmas, except for a few hours where we might be able to fuck. I enjoyed my time with him – more than I thought I ever could, but I felt as if something was missing. Tonight, Drake's reluctance to just be with me as an ordinary couple having vanilla sex made me sad in a way I didn’t think I'd feel so soon.

I had to face it. He was the hottest man I had ever met or could imagine. I never thought I'd have as many orgasms as I'd had with him. I never thought I could get so deeply into bondage and D/s. But if he'd hoped to keep our personal lives separate from the kinky sex, he'd failed miserably.

I knew too much about him. He was too human to me and not just a mysterious and very hot Dominant. He was someone I really liked.

Regardless, I couldn't have him that way. With another man, I might be able to have those things – going out for Sunday brunch, going to movies, spending time together with family and friends. Living a vanilla lifestyle. I knew I'd never feel with another man in a vanilla relationship what I felt with Drake.

Given a choice, at that point, I chose Drake. There was no hesitation. But I still felt this mote of sadness somewhere deep in my chest. A sense of loss.

I sighed and pushed it back into its dark dusty corner, ignoring it for as long as possible.