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Thirty-Three
Nora
“You know,a girl could really get used to this aftercare thing.”
I lean back in the bathtub with my glass of champagne. Bubbles float all around me in the hot water, filling the air with the lightest popping sounds.
And Clive — oh, sweet Clive — sits at the other end of the large tub with my foot in his hands.
“Have thirty minutes of rough sex,” I say. “Receive hours of pampering.”
Clive runs his thumb up the arch of my foot. “Nora, exactly what kind of shitty boyfriends have you had?” he asks.
I roll my eyes. “You don’t want to know.”
He chuckles and gestures for my other foot, which I promptly set in his very capable hands. “Well, it’s nice to know where I stand in your little, black book.”
“Very highly,” I assure him.
I lay my head back against a rolled-up towel on the tub’s edge and moan to myself.
“Sub life,” I sing.
Clive laughs and keeps rubbing my foot.
I take a deep breath, smelling the warm, scent air. “Hey, Clive.”
“Yes?”
“Why did you become a Dom?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, obviously,” I raise my head, “why does anyone have any preference, but I mean… I stumbled on Red Brick to explore ways of relieving stress. Why did you go there, at first?”
His eyes fall on the water between us. “My leg,” he answers.
I say nothing, hoping that he’ll continue himself.
“My mother, she…” He pauses. “My father disappeared when I was fifteen. He left behind a mountain of debt that my mother had no idea existed. We were already making just enough to get by and now we had to dump whatever spare cent we had into his damn debt or we’d lose everything. I didn’t want to go to college but she, being a teacher, pushed me to go. When I saw how hard it was for her to pay for my school, make her ends meet, and pay down that debt, I couldn’t in good conscience continue so I dropped out and I joined the Army. Every dime I made, I sent home to her.
“After my injury, I felt so awful being a burden to her again. I couldn’t hold down a decent job and the jobs I could get didn’t pay much — mostly just enough to afford painkillers, but still, every dime I made, I gave to her. I lived with the pain instead. I needed something else, something that would help me manage it, and that’s when I found Red Brick.”
“You took it out on subs?” I ask.
“No, it wasn’t like that. It was…” He pauses, gathering his thoughts. “Inflicting pain on a lover, even controlled pain, it was something we shared. I watched them overcome it, no matter how much it hurt. I thought if they could do it, then… Experiencing pain and pleasure as one in the same is the only thing that helped me. Eventually, I healed but I keep going back because it’s just who I am now.” He looks at me. “Does that make sense?”
“Yeah,” I say. “It does.”
“Life doesn’t have a safe word. Pain either fades away or we adapt and learn to live with it. Sometimes, you can’t even tell the difference.”
My lip trembles. “How did she die?” I ask.
“Car accident,” he says. “Died on impact. I remember thinking how lucky she was. She didn’t have to fight anymore. Without her around, I stopped fighting for a while, too, and… well, shit happens.” He breathes a short laugh. “Before we met, I had just started earning enough for a studio apartment. How’s that for timing, eh?”
“Ugh,” I grunt.
“What?”
