Amazing Grace Ch. 15-16

"What does, then?"

"Choosing to play with someone you trust. Talking about things; communicating. Telling the truth and trying not to hide things from the other person. Mostly, though it's about making good choices. There are guys out there who get off on inflicting pain. They're out to get their own kicks and couldn't care less about the other person."

"Do you get off on inflicting pain?"

Ethan frowned and glanced at me. "Not exactly, no. I get off on pleasuring my partner. Pain can be a part of that in different ways. When the pain morphs into pleasure, for example. Or when the pain causes the person to let go, much like it did for you earlier on a smaller scale."

"How do you know when to stop?"

"You mean, if your partner doesn't let you know when they've had enough?"

I thought about it. He had a point. It came down to trusting that the person would stop when you told them you couldn't handle any more.

"There are dozens of non-verbal signs that give an indication that someone is getting close, but you can't just count on the person wielding the whip to pick up on them. What you have to be able to count on is that they will stop when you say you've had enough."

"What if I'm gagged?"

"Well, for one, I hope that you'd know the person pretty damn well before allowing yourself to be bound and gagged. And you should work out a signal."

"And a safe word."

"A safe word is only as good as the agreement."

"Meaning?"

"You have to work out what it means when you use a safe word, or when you stay 'stop', or use any signal that indicates that your limit has been reached. I personally prefer you say, 'stop it, asshole', or 'I've had enough, you fucking sadist.'"

I laughed. "Like I'd dare say that to you with a whip in your hand."

Ethan shrugged and chuckled. "I'd hope you would feel comfortable saying it, knowing that I wouldn't take it out on you if you did."

"You'd just stop?"

"Absolutely. And that's something you're going to have to trust in me before I'll even consider whipping you."

"Who said I want you to?"

"Your eyes said it loud and clear. Hell, everyone in the room could feel how much you wanted to trade places with Mimi."

I could feel the heat rising up my neck and over my cheeks. I focused intently on the road out the front windshield.

"It doesn't make you a freak, Grace."

"I don't want to be hurt. I don't understand why I was feeling like that at that moment. Believe me, I don't want to be whipped."

"Do you think Melissa wants to be whipped?"

"Well, yeah. I saw the look on her face when she was there."

"That was Mimi."

"Who are we talking about then?"

"Melissa likes to refer to that part of herself as Mimi. John calls her Mimi to get her in the right frame of mind to play."

"I thought it was just his pet name for her."

"A lot of people use nicknames, not just to protect their real identity, but to get them into the proper frame of mind for role playing. Melissa is like that. My point is that Melissa doesn't want to be whipped."

"But Mimi does?"

Ethan chuckled. "When certain situations arise, Melissa, or Mimi, finds herself in the mood to be taken in hand by John." Ethan shrugged. "She isn't like that all the time."

"And you think I'm like that?"

"Do you?"

I wasn't going to repeat the answer in my head. I would've just been stating the obvious, anyway. "Do I have to come up with a nickname?"

"Not unless you want to. You could always use the pseudonym you already have."

"I was thinking about that, anyway. This crowd already knows my pen name so it just feels right. I don't like for many people to know me by both names."

"I've been careful not to use your real name. I don't think anyone heard me when I spoke it in your ear earlier tonight."

He remembers everything. "I'd still like to keep my safe word."

"Of course. I wasn't suggesting that people not use one. I was merely pointing out that it won't save the person who has made the wrong choice of partner. I want you to remember that if we ever break up."

I felt a little sick at the thought of it. "I don't think I'd do any of this without you."

"Yes you would. And you would have found it without me sooner or later. I haven't done anything special."

"Yes you have. How can you say that? I was going to leave that night and go back to my boring, vanilla existence. I planned to never return."

"And when John called you back to read again, would you have considered it?"

"Probably. But not becoming a member."

"You don't know that for sure. You were dying to get involved. You just didn't know how. Someone else would've presented you an opportunity. I just beat them to it."

"I'm glad you did."

"Me, too." Ethan grinned over at me as he was exiting the highway.

"But I disagree with you that you haven't done anything special. You've opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me. You've made me feel things I didn't even know were possible. And I've learned so much about myself, although to be honest with you, some of it wasn't good."

"There's nothing wrong with you, Grace."

"No, I don't mean that stuff. I mean the part about being hung up on what everyone thinks of me. And how much I let my past cloud the way I saw myself."

"Everyone does that, though. I mean, we're all a product of our past experiences. We can't help it."

"You don't think I can change?"

"I didn't mean that. I just meant that we can't change what has happened in the past. We can always change how we deal with it. If I didn't believe that, I'd be a lot different person than I am now."

I nodded and let it go without further prodding. He'd already divulged his past struggles with addiction, I didn't see any need to rehash it.

Ethan changed the subject. "So what did you think about Melissa being pregnant?"

"I think it's great. I mean, I don't know them all that well but, you know, they seem to be happy about it."

"They're not married."

I shrugged and shook my head. I wasn't sure where he was going with his statement of fact about their marital status. "Does that matter?"

"Hell yes it matters."

I tilted my head in curiosity. He obviously had some strong opinions on the subject.

"I've seen too many couples have kids without making any other commitment to each other. When they split up, there is no one watching out for the kid. Marriage doesn't keep people from splitting up, but divorce isn't an overnight process, and child support can be a motivating factor to stay involved."

"You've spent some time thinking about this."

Ethan shrugged. "My cousin got killed in a car accident. He was only 13. He'd been hanging with a group of older kids, getting involved in all sorts of bad shit. His mom didn't even notice that he was failing in school and his dad skipped out after he was born. I've had a lot of time to think about it."

"I take it his parents were never married?"

"No."

"But what's to say that things would've turned out any different?"

"My mom knows his dad. He's married with two kids. I have to think that if he'd been forced to take some responsibility for Ben, things might've turned out different."

"You don't think John would do that to Melissa, though; Do you?"

"No. I don't think so. But circumstances change. People change. One left turn and you don't even recognize the guy that was once your best friend."

"So you're not against marriage?"

"No." Ethan wrinkled his nose. "Did you think that I was?"

"Yeah, sort of. Something you said about not even considering marrying Holly made me think you might be against the whole institution."

"Oh, hell no. You have to know by now that Holly was just a convenient outlet at the time."

"While you were recovering from your addiction?"

"Yes."

"Is that what I am?"

Ethan frowned and sighed.

He pulled the car into his garage, shut off the engine and closed the garage door before speaking. "I'm always going to be an addict, Grace. I haven't used drugs in almost three years, but that doesn't make me less of an addict. I have an obsessive personality. That can be a bad thing, or it can be manageable. I choose for it to be manageable. And I'm finding new ways to manage it all the time.

"Last month, my way of managing it included gaming. Holly helped with that. But even far more therapeutic for me was becoming active in the BDSM community. My therapist believes that it is helping me to shift to an internal locus of control. There were a couple of times when I felt it before I met you. But now ... shit, I can't even describe the change.

"But to call you a convenient outlet? No, it doesn't feel like that at all to me."

"What does it feel like to you?"

Ethan grinned, "I don't know. Like the real thing. Something permanent."

I could feel the pin pricks at the corners of my eyes. I wasn't expecting him to say that. I'd been fighting the same feeling; trying desperately to stomp it into the ground each time the fleeting thought crossed my mind. It's too soon. We hardly know each other. I'm only just starting to learn about this side of him.

"Have I scared you off?"

"No." Maybe. A shiver ran down my spine at the thought of commitment. I wasn't sure why.

"I'm not convinced."

"It's a lot to take in, Ethan. You throw out that you're an addict and seeing a therapist like it's the most normal thing in the world."

Ethan nodded, "I told you I had more baggage than you, and that you'd wish we were dealing with your shit instead of mine."

"You did. I remember. I thought you were just trying to be nice."

"That's something I don't know how to do very well."

I shrugged. I wanted to disagree but there was no point. If he needed to feel he was a total hard-ass, then who was I to burst his bubble? "I'm a little afraid that you're just sort of shifting your addictive energies, or whatever, to me. That I'll just be part of the problem. And I don't know how to deal with that."

Ethan chuckled. "I suppose I am obsessed with you in a way. And I probably will become addicted to the feeling I get when I'm topping you. Is that so bad? I mean, there are addicts everywhere. It's just a matter of whether or not their addiction is hurting themselves or anyone else. Is being with me unhealthy for you?"

"No. Is it unhealthy for you?"

"No. It's good, in fact. I have to exercise a lot of restraint around you."

"You do? I don't understand. Why?"

Ethan's hand wrapped around my wrist and he gently pulled my hand to his crotch. The stiff bulge beneath his jeans was obvious. "Because this is what you do to me all the time."

My lips formed a silent "O".

"Yeah. So, either I tie you to my bed and spend all day and night fucking you ... which isn't a bad idea, by the way ... or I learn to control my impulses. And each time I do that, I feel stronger."

"What were you starting to say about the feeling you get when topping me?"

"That's fucking incredible. Adrenaline. Better than any drug I ever took. I don't know how to describe it to you. Can you describe what it's like to be on bottom?"

I shook my head. "I'm still working on that. For my books. But if topping gives you the same rush as being on drugs, isn't that bad?"

Ethan nodded, "It would be if I couldn't control it. That's the beauty of it. My self control is part of what gives me the high."

Sounds reasonable. I was trying to keep a positive attitude about the whole thing despite the fact that it was starting to feel complicated. The only long-term relationship I had to compare it to was my marriage. Failed marriage. I couldn't help but think of it as a total failure given the undeniable truth that the very basis of it, fidelity, was breached.

And yet, I did everything right. The way everyone says to do it, anyway. We dated for a long time. We waited until we were out of school and had jobs. We established strong ties to our families. Every ingredient of the recipe was there; whereas almost none of that applied to this relationship.

On top of that, there were some real red flags with Ethan. I think. If I sat down to tell a girlfriend about him, she'd most certainly warn me off of him. I should be warning myself off. But something inside me, some inner voice was telling me to stick it out. He was messy, that was for sure. So are you. You just hide it better. This connection we had was based on harsh truths and not on what we wanted the other person to see. Not on what we wanted anyone else to see. I'd been playing that game for too long. All my life.

"Grace, I think I can give you what you need. If you'll let me. We're good for each other. What's happened in the past is behind us."

Ethan reached over and stroked my cheek until I looked up into his eyes.

"What's your safeword, Kimber?"

I swallowed hard and tried to ignore my skipping pulse. "Stop it, asshole."

Ethan chuckled for a second but then tilted his head with one raised eyebrow as if my clever recount of his earlier statement wasn't amusing him at all.

I cleared my throat and wiped the smirk off my face best I could. "Kiwi."

Ethan nodded, "Kiwi."