Yours Ch. 05

When I went back into her room she was still asleep, but seemed to be sobbing quietly to herself. I lay down beside her and took her into my arms again. I didn't know if she could even notice my presence in this state, but the very least I could do was to comfort her.

I softly kissed her head a few times, then started to relax beside her. She gasped in her sleep and dug her fingers into my shoulders. Was she dreaming already? Or was she still just reacting to the pain? I had no idea. I just tucked the blankets in behind her and stroked her hair away from her face.

I remembered, barely, to set an alarm for about 4 hours away. I wanted to talk to her before the morning, before the real world intruded. I just hoped she'd be somewhat recovered by then.

-

I woke up just a few minutes before the alarm, strangely. I switched it off and looked at the woman lying next to me. She seemed to have calmed down since earlier, and now was in a true, deep sleep.

I caressed her cheek, and softly called her name.

She awoke slowly, moaning softly as she came back to life. Once she opened her eyes, however, she suddenly pulled away from me.

She glared at me almost angrily, and bunched up the covers in front of her, hiding herself.

"Are you Ok?" I asked.

"Of course I'm not fucking Ok." she spat bitterly.

I frowned at her.

"Hey." I said soothingly, "What's wrong?"

She watched me suspiciously for a few seconds before letting out a huge sigh. She closed her eyes and lay back on the bed.

"It doesn't matter." she said, "Don't you have to run off now?"

I ignored her question.

"Tell me what's wrong." I said forcefully, slightly worried.

She looked at me strangely. Sadly.

"Nothing." she half whispered, turning away. "Nothing. I'm just tired."

"Talk to me." I ordered.

"It's nothing, really." she said, a soothing lie in her voice.

I stared into her eyes, trying to find the truth. Was this just because of the abuse she'd taken earlier? Was she just pissed at me for hurting her? Or maybe it was some sort of reaction from her earlier submissive daze, like coming down from a high.

"I guess..." she started, seeing I wasn't going to back down, "I guess I'm just remembering what a... disgusting slut I am."

"Jessica..." I said, surprised at her.

"I know, it's not like it's news." she continued glibly, "But sometimes my own sick, disgusting body takes me by surprise."

"You're not... sick, Jessica." I said slowly.

"I am." she said simply. "I just don't know how... I don't know why I like it... It's so fucked up..."

"Jesus..." I whispered to myself.

It was finally time, I realised.

I suddenly regretted waiting so long to have this conversation with her.

I'd been struggling with the idea that I was an actual sadist, and what that meant about me as a person, but I'd never had a single conversation with Jessica about her being a masochist, or a sub. She was ashamed of herself for it, because she didn't understand it. She'd been doing all of this, submitting to me, without ever knowing what it really was.

I'd fucked up. I'd let her go on hating herself for too long.

"Jessica, do you know what a submissive is?" I asked.

"A submissive what?" she asked.

I sat up, and she sat up with me, curling her knees up to her chest and hugging them.

"Ok Jessica." I said slowly. "We need to talk."

She frowned at me.

"Talk about what?"

"About why you like... the things I do to you." I said slowly. "Why I treat you the way I do."

She didn't answer.

"Jessica, do you know what BDSM is?" I asked, looking at her.

"Uh... is that like, S&M stuff?" she asked.

"Yeah, kind of." I said, "Do you know what S&M stands for?"

She shook her head.

"Well do you know what it is?" I asked.

"Uh, like... whips and chains and stuff?" she said.

I waited for her to get the link to what I was saying, but for a girl so smart she was taking her time to understand this.

"Jessica, S&M, or, you know, BDSM, is this. It's how you would describe our relationship, basically." I said.

"Um...Ok?" she said.

I took a step back, and realised I had to start from an even more basic point if I wanted her to understand.

She had only the most shallow understanding. I remembered how she'd told Rose about seeing my cock. She'd been embarrassed even saying that she'd accidentally seen it on the internet, and that was to her best friend. She was an incredibly intelligent woman, but everything she knew about sex was from what people told her, and thinking back, she'd probably had very few conversations about it before.

"Ok. How about this. Is our relationship... normal?" I asked her, trying to find exactly where her misunderstanding started.

"Well... no, obviously." she said, a profound sadness in her voice.

"How is it different from normal?" I asked.

"Well...for one thing, you hate me." she said, a touch of bitterness in her voice.

That made me pause for a second.

"Ignore how we feel about each other for a second." I said eventually, "Focus on what we do. What do I do that isn't normal?"

"Well... you hurt me." she said. "And you... tie me up."

"Right, and what do you do?" I asked.

"I... I don't know." she said.

She was getting confused, and I could see she was getting more and more uncomfortable. It was incredible how different she suddenly seemed to me. She was so lost, so strangely innocent and naive.

"How do I put this?" I thought aloud, "Our relationship... is based on control. Would you agree with that?"

"Uh... yeah." she said, considering it, "That sounds right."

"But most relationships aren't, at least not in the same way." I said, "Most are based on the idea of equality, but not ours, right?"

"Right." she said.

"Our relationship isn't unique." I said, doing my best to explain in a helpful way, "A lot of people do the same kinds of things that we do. It doesn't mean we're sick or wrong, at least I don't think so. It just means... we want different things from most people. We have different urges."

"Ok..." she said.

"For example, Jessica, you're a submissive." I said.

She laughed suddenly, before I could continue.

"Submissive? Me?" she laughed harshly, "I'm like the least submissive person I know!"

She had a point. Normally Jessica was as confident and strong willed as anyone you could meet.

"True." I said, "In everyday life, you don't seem to submit to anyone or anything. But you call me 'Sir'. You beg for your orgasms. You claim that I own your body."

"Yeah..." she said uncertainly.

"That's called submission, sweetheart." I said, smiling, "You submit to me, and you like it. You have these submissive traits that allow you to tolerate, and even enjoy all the things I do to you. In the BDSM community, you're known as a submissive, or a sub. Someone who finds pleasure and satisfaction in submitting to another."

By this point I was pretty much quoting a blog I'd read about "The Lifestyle" verbatim. It had been one of the more helpful things I'd read when I first discovered how satisfying it was to dominate Jessica.

She was looking down, considering my words. She looked placated for a second, but then frowned and shook her head.

"So, what's... BDSM?" she asked.

"We'll... we'll get to that." I said, wanting to talk through each aspect first. "I'm what's known as a Dominant, or Dom. Someone who gets pleasure from... well, the things I do. Basically from making you submit."

"I thought that was just because you hate me." she said quietly.

"My feelings for you... are complicated." I said, "And not what we're talking about right now. I started to dominate you because I was angry with you, but then I realised that I liked it on a different level. On a few different levels, actually..."

I trailed off.

"So that's why I like being... hurt?" she asked.

"Well, that's something slightly different." I said, "I mean, you should know this. What's it called when someone enjoys pain?"

"Um... being a freak?" she said.

"Masochism." I said simply.

"Oh." she said, surprised. Then, as if finally understanding, "Oh..."

"Yeah." I said. "Earlier today you had an orgasm from nothing but being whipped. You like pain. You're a masochist."

"I've never...I've never thought about it in those terms before... I thought...well, I don't know what I thought." she said. "I thought I was just... fucked up. Or that I liked you so much that I even enjoyed you hurting me."

I gave her a few seconds to digest this information. She looked afraid of the implications of this news.

"So you're a sub, I'm a Dom." I said, "And if you're a masochist, then I'm a..."

I trailed off, seeing if she'd answer. She didn't, but her eyes widened.

"A sadist." I finished.

She didn't move a muscle, but suddenly I could almost feel the fear coming off of her. I'd had much the same reaction when I'd first considered applying that label to myself.

Outside of the BDSM community, the only people who were considered actual sadists were usually criminals, often the most violent and hated. It was pretty much synonymous with 'evil', or 'psycho'. At least, that had been my perception of the word. Learning that there were people who lived fairly normal, happy lives who would proudly give themselves that label had been an eye-opening discovery.

"Does that scare you?" I asked in a teasing tone, "To think that the man you love is a sadist."

She flinched when I said the word again.

I suddenly felt totally vulnerable.

"It's not a surprise, is it?" I asked, "After all the times I've hurt you..."

"I don't know." she almost whispered, "I've just... I've never-"

"Thought about it in those terms?" I finished.

She nodded, still wide eyed.

"This doesn't change anything... not really..." I said.

I didn't know what else to say, so I decided to move on. I turned onto my back, looking up at the ceiling.

"The exact wording of BDSM can sometimes be interpreted a few different ways." I said, changing the subject, "But it's actually six words arranged in three couplets."

"Oh." she said, "You mean like, BD, DS, SM?"

I laughed. It took her so long to understand that she had submissive traits, but this she got instantly.

"Right." I said. "BD is Bondage and Discipline. That's when I tie you up, and punish you. They're basically just tools for dominance, at least for me. Some people like them for different reasons. There's a lot of room for personal preference and interpretation in this kind of relationship, not everyone has the same way of doing things."

It felt good to talk about all of this, about what our relationship meant to me. I wanted to tell her about what it had felt like to discover all of this, but I didn't want to get distracted.

"D/s usually stands for Dominant and submissive." I said, "Dominant is usually stylised with an upper case 'D', while submissive has a lower case 's', to highlight who's the more important one. I mean, obviously both are important, but it's another power thing. Sometimes it's interpreted as Dominant and slave, which is just another way of saying Dom and sub. I mean, some people think there's an important distinction, but I don't know..."

I knew I was rambling, but I was nervous about her reaction. This was another of those topics that I wasn't used to talking about, but had only ever discussed with people online, who were mostly just screen names to me. I'd never actually breathed a single word of this to anyone before.

I hadn't looked at her yet.

"So..." she said, surprising me, "Then SM is... sadist and masochist."

"Right." I said. "That's what 'S&M' is too, by the way... Sadomasochism. Or, again, sometimes people will say that for them 'SM' means slave and Master, but..."

I trailed off, shrugging. I was really bad at this, I was starting to learn. When faced with this kind of difficult emotional conflict my first instinct was to retreat to logic. Facts and definitions, things I could argue and manipulate. This wasn't helping her, that was obvious.

"This is a lot to take in." she said.

"I know." I answered.

"So... so I'm really not.. normal?" she asked, emotion creeping back into her tone.

"Well... I mean, it depends on-" I started.

"God, so it's not enough that I'm a slut, now you're telling me that deep down I'm some kind of... masochistic freak?" she accused, the anger in her voice rising. "Like, that all I want deep down is to be someone else's bitch?"

"I... I mean, that's one way of putting it-"

"Fuck that, that's not... you don't fucking know me, you don't know how this feels." she said angrily. "You can't just tell me I'm all fucked up and just expect me to accept it."

"I didn't say you were fucked up, I'm-"

"But I don't want it to be like this." she said, interrupting me again, "I want just want things to be normal."

I laughed. How could anything between us ever be normal?

"Jessica... you wouldn't give a shit about me if I didn't treat you like this. You don't want normal." I said.

She flinched away from me, as if she'd been slapped. Her rage seemed to dissipate, only to be replaced by a cold, intense stare.

"That's fucked up." she said, "You think I love you because you hurt me?"

"All I've done is hurt you." I said calmly, "You treated me like shit until I did the same to you, and then you fell in love with me."

She didn't respond.

"Think about it." I continued, "You had a boyfriend already, you had a normal relationship with Mike and look how that ended."

"Mike had a tiny dick." she said defensively.

"Did he ever kiss you?" I asked.

She furrowed her brow.

"Of course he kissed me, he was my boyfriend." she said.

"Did it feel the same as when I kiss you?" I asked.

She paused.

"And I assume he played with your tits whenever he got the chance. Did it feel as good as when I do it?" I asked.

"No! Ok? No, he never turned me on like you do, is that what you want to hear? Does that make you feel important?" she shouted.

"This isn't about me!" I raising my voice slightly, "All I do is hurt you. When I kiss you, I either violate your mouth with my tongue, or I bite your lip so hard you almost bleed. You literally did bleed the first time! When I play with your nipples, I twist them until you scream. That's how you want it."

She flinched again at my harsh tone.

"That's... no, that's not right..." she said.

How could she be in so much denial? After all the things we'd done together?

"You told me yourself, I remember what you said right before I fucked you for the first time, you said... 'I like it when you hurt me, it makes me feel like I'm yours.' You don't want a boyfriend, Jessica. You don't want me to get over my anger or to start treating you like an equal. You want to be used. To be fucked. To belong to me."

"Stop it." she said.

She'd said all this to me herself, why was she still fighting it?

"Jessica-"

"No, stop! Just... just shut up!" she shouted. "Just shut the fuck up!"

For a few seconds we just sat silently in the dark.

"It's been a while since you talked to me like that." I said eventually, smiling tiredly.

"Oh, what are you gonna do, whip me again?" she hissed.

"Keep it up and I probably will, yeah." I said.

"What if I don't let you?" she said. "What if I don't just bend over and accept it?"

"Then I won't do it." I said.

"So... so really, I can do whatever I want and you can't stop me." she said with a challenging tone.

"I can leave." I answered, meeting her eye.

She frowned, then sighed shakily.

"So that's it." she said, "I let you treat me like a slut or I don't get you at all."

"That's it." I said.

She seemed to think on this for a second. In the low light it looked like she was just pouting at me, but then I saw a tear well up in her eye. She cried silently, tears running down her cheeks. She covered her eyes with her arm for a second, then wiped the tears away.

I didn't know what to say to her. This wasn't how I'd thought this conversation would go. Well, maybe that was because I'd never seriously considered having this conversation with her.

"Is this really so bad, though?" I asked, "I mean, no one's getting hurt..."

I trailed off as she snorted with laughter, then wiped away another tear.

"Right, bad wording." I said, smiling, "Well, no-one else is getting hurt, and when you do get hurt, it's always something you agree to..."

She was quiet for a while, thinking about what I said.

"I want you to decide... if this is still what you want." I said.

She just looked at me, her expression unreadable.

"Decide if you still want to belong to me. To be mine. You need to think about what that means, and decide if it's a relationship that can make you happy."

Despite everything, I half expected an immediate agreement, another confession of her undying love.

But she just nodded and looked away.

"I told you from the beginning that I didn't want a girlfriend." I said, "I never misled you about anything. This is... this is how I need things to be."

"I get it." she said, a touch of bitterness in her voice.

She lay down on the bed and tried to relax, letting out a deep breath, but she still held her body too stiffly.

"We can keep talking about it, if you want." I said.

She didn't look at me.

"Actually..." she said, "I think... I need to be alone."

I opened my mouth in surprise. That stung.

"Fine." I said, trying to sound neutral and calm.

I got up and left without another word passing between us.

I crossed the hallway to the the guest room, got in and lay down on the blanket without undressing. How long was I going to be in here? How long did she need to think?

God, why did it hurt so much to be asked to leave? Was it just a bruised ego, for once not having her fawn over me and worship me? Well, partly.

But mostly I was worried. Genuinely worried that she wouldn't want me again. Worried that by tormenting her instead of being honest with her from the start that I'd ruined everything for good.

But I didn't even like her at first, I reasoned. None of this would have happened if I hadn't wanted to hurt her in the first place. It was that original dark desire that lead to all my sexual self-discovery, there was no possible way I could have handled this properly. Responsibly, like I should have.

I cringed as I remembered all that justification to myself, telling myself over and over that she wanted it and I didn't owe her any explanation. I'd been dragging her into this unknown world of pain and control, and she responded to it better than I'd ever hoped, but had no guidance or information to help her.

I'd failed her. And worse, somewhere along the line I'd started to actually care about her. That thought irritated me. I started this all for revenge and I'd ended up getting too attached to her to even enjoy it.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. I thought about her in there, alone, confused, and utterly vulnerable. Even as the guilt clutched at my stomach, I felt that same glow of sadistic satisfaction. I pictured her crying, begging me treat her better but knowing I never would.

I could break her heart right now, if I hadn't already. Just by saying a few simple words... I could destroy her.