Page 88 of Pierced

“So I talked myself into going alone. And it was all this dungeon stuff, right? Mostly men dominating women, but there were a few dominatrix ladies there too. And somehow…” I shake my head as I remember that night. “I was a little bit drunk, and a lot less inhibited, and the guy asked for a volunteer from the audience and… he picked me. The rest is history, as they say. I went home with him and pretty soon I was spending weekends at his house—”

“As his… submissive?” Pierce interrupts.

“Yes.” I nod. “But for months after that I kept asking myself, why me? Why in the world did he choose me? And do you know what I figured out?”

“You were a submissive?” he asks.

“No.” I laugh. “Well, yes. Because I am.” I hold up a finger real quick. “Just a little bit. Just enough. But that’s not why he chose me. He picked me because I was… alone. I was shy. I was quiet. He picked me because I was a wallflower.”

“And he wanted to open you up?” Pierce asks, trying really hard not to go down the path I’m leading him.

“No,” I say. “He wanted someone easy.”

“He told you that?”

I nod. “He did. He wanted someone easy. Someone who would just do as she was told. He didn’t want the drama, or the challenge, or the stress of training a difficult sub.”

“And what did you think of that?”

“I thought it was bullshit.” I laugh. “I threw plates at him until his cupboard was bare, I was so angry. And I was ashamed too. That I fell for his bullshit so easily. So I packed my shit up, and two months later I entered the dungeon club again, but as a top. And I liked it. I lived it. One hundred percent lived it. I mean, I had men in cages in my apartment.”

“There were there willingly?”

“Of course.” I laugh. “I know I didn’t show you my professional side this week, but I’m a professional. Or I was. I’m sorry about that.”

“You already apologized.”

“I know. But it should be said again.” I shrug. “I’m not proud of who I was back then. I’m not ashamed of her, but I don’t want to be her. I don’t want to be wallflower Myrtle, either. I just want to be me, and I thought that’s who I was with you, but it turns out, I just… fell into another kind of top/bottom relationship. I never really moved on, I guess.”

“Please don’t move on,” he says quickly. “Please don’t go. Whatever it is you need, I want to give it to you.”

And then, very abruptly, he leans in and kisses me hard.

And I let him. And then, maybe because I’m done being a top, or a bottom, or anything else having to do with power… I meet him on shared ground. And I kiss him back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - PIERCE

Once, about five years ago, Myrtle came with me to a conference in Bern. I wasn’t seeing anyone at the time and I didn’t want to go to this event alone. I knew there would be a bevy of Swiss companions from whom to choose, but I just wasn’t in the mood for whatever reason. So I asked her to attend for the simple reason that when Myrtle is around, she takes up a lot of space in the room. She draws attention. And she also scares people.

She has the ability to be both seductive and repellent all at once. And that is power. A power that is very nearly inimitable. Because I have only ever seen it successfully at play in one other person.

Myself.

There was a moment, on that trip to Bern, when I walked her to her suite after dinner, that I thought we might… kiss. Fuck. Whatever. I don’t know.

But we didn’t. And until about a hundred or so hours ago, I thought that was going to be the only opportunity I would ever have to see if there was something more between us.

Missed opportunities are very most often just that. One does not usually get second chances to do the things one wishes one had done in the first place. I will not allow the chance to find out what there could be between me and Myrtle to slip away again.

My plan for this weekend was vague, but definite. If that isn’t too much of an oxymoron. It began as a power play, morphed into a seduction design, and as of about ten seconds ago has become the intention to get her into bed for the next two days and not let her out. For someone who has a lot of feelings a lot of the time, I sure don’t understand mine very well.

I lean into the kiss, pushing her back on the sofa. She counters, pushing equally hard into me. We lock somewhere in the middle, rigid, and hungry, and wanting. A smile finds its way into my kiss and it is equaled by the smile on her lips.

We stand, still kissing, neither one of us willing to give an inch but at the same time not wanting to disappoint the other. Making our way to the bedroom, I pop loose the remaining buttons on her shirt that cling to their cotton/silk blended holds. She strips me of my jacket and does the same type of unencumbering of me from my own top.

I find the fastener on the back of her bra and remove that as well. And now our chests are pressed into each other. Flesh on flesh. My skin on hers, hers on mine.

Zip. Her skirt in the back.