Forever Bound

"At baggage claim. Home in about an hour."

The empty carousel spun as I jockeyed for position; the sooner I could get my bag and be home, the better. I was tired and frustrated. The trip itself was too long at two weeks, and I slept poorly during it. I always did when I was away from home, but especially this time. My phone dinged.

"See you soon."

Well, that was faster than Linh had responded in a while. When I was out of town this time, it was a coinflip if she'd respond at all. If she did, it was sometimes hours later. We'd fought before I left. We almost never fought. I'm a big believer in discussion and consensus; even when we strongly disagree, we almost never raise our voices. This time, though, we did.

I finally saw my bag and leaned out to grab it. I'm tall, with a good reach, so I had an advantage over the other folks there. I had made the mistake of buying a very common plain black case, so I checked the tag and found the expected "Alex Lancaster" before I started to make my way out of the terminal. I stopped briefly to help a small elderly woman that was struggling to get her comically large bag off the carousel, then headed to the parking garage to get my car.

For the entire drive, I thought about what was likely awaiting me at home. The argument. It was the same one we'd had a number of times recently. Kids. It always came down to when we should have kids.

Linh and I had been together for a little over seven years and married for nearly six of them. We had gotten together through a mutual friend. Linh had been in a bad relationship a few months before we met, and I hadn't been with anyone seriously since my junior year in college. I was quiet, analytical, and reserved. Good qualities in a researcher, not so much when trying to meet women. But our friend decided I was just what Linh needed, and it turned out she was right.

Linh is very attractive, albeit striking more than conventionally beautiful. She's petite and athletic, with an almost boyish body, expressive eyes, and long jet black hair. She captivated me from the moment we met. She has a wicked sense of humor, a kind manner, and a complete lack of tolerance for dishonesty. We shared a number of interests: fantasy and science fiction, electronic music, fitness, and a guilty pleasure programmed into me by my older sisters: trashy romcoms. We spent hours together on our first date, until the restaurant staff were putting the tables on the chairs. She kissed me at the door of her apartment, a sweet kiss with a promise of more, a promise that would be fulfilled very soon. I felt like I'd found the person I was meant to be with. We were inseparable almost immediately.

I found that we had a number of differing interests as well, which is good; it's important for people in a relationship to have things that are just their own. But on our third night spent together in Linh's bed, she confided in me that she had certain predilections that I didn't share. I've tried to indulge her since then, but it's been difficult for me.

I took the off ramp that led to our house and mentally prepared for my homecoming. I hoped that it would be loving: a kiss, small talk about the trip, perhaps a night spent making up for lost time. That would be nice. But given how we had left things, along with the fact that Linh had seemed distant while I traveled, I expected we'd get right back into the fray when I opened the door. I hoped not, but I had to be prepared.

The whole situation was frustrating. Not long after we moved in together, we had discussed when we'd like to have kids, and we had agreed to a plan: when we had a house, were established in our careers, and at least five years had passed in our marriage, we would start trying. But we had hit all of those milestones months ago, and Linh was still resistant. Her arguments weren't based on any kind of tangible reason, but on a fear of being tied down. Ironic, really. When she said this, it made me question whether my wife was as committed to our relationship as I was. I said so, and our discussion turned into an argument, then a fight. That was almost a month ago, and I didn't see a way around it.

Only a few lights were on downstairs. After getting my suit bag and suitcase out of the car, I slung my laptop bag over my shoulder and headed for the front porch. I had hoped that, perhaps, Linh would be waiting for me. But when I unlocked the door and headed inside, she wasn't there. I called her name and heard nothing. Great. She had probably used the hour head start to get out of the house before I got here.

I shook my head and started to stack my bags in the foyer. I'd deal with them later, but I was tired, unhappy, and lonely. As I went to toss my wallet and keys in their usual place, a tray on the entryway table, I saw something unexpected: a note. It was open, not folded, and in large, swooping cursive, merely said, "Upstairs." The was a lipstick print on it in Linh's favorite "Fuck Me" shade of red. Well. Perhaps this homecoming would be a friendly one after all.

I grabbed a bottle of water from the kitchen. I was dehydrated after the trip, for one, and figured that if things went well, I'd need to be as hydrated as possible. But for the other... it was kind of petty, but I felt like making her wait. Not the best way to approach our problems, certainly not what the marriage guides would say to do, but Linh had treated me like an afterthought the whole time I was gone. She could wait for me now. It's not like I was going to leave her for hours or not respond at all, as she had done with me.

I frowned at myself. I was better than this. I wanted us to be better than this. I should take the olive branch that was being offered. Perhaps we could reconnect tonight, and that would let us approach the problem with a new attitude. I started to climb the stairs, but the house was still eerily quiet.

I called her name again. No answer. I saw a sliver of dim, flickering light under our bedroom door. Approaching it, I listened for any sounds but still heard none. I pushed it open.

The lights were dimmed, and our bedside table and dresser were lined with candles. Linh was laid out on our bed. Her hands were cuffed above her head, the chain threaded through the slats of our headboard. Her body was otherwise relaxed, but her legs were spread wide. At first, I thought she had shaved off her usual manicured bush, but as I approached, I saw that she had had a full body wax; she knew how I loved the look and feel of her skin when she had been freshly waxed, but rarely went to the considerable effort. There was a glint of sparkling color between her ass cheeks, and I realized she must have one of her butt plugs in place. She was blindfolded, and her ruby red lips were wedged open by the ball gag we usually preferred. Completing her ensemble was her black leather collar, one of the oldest pieces we owned. The one that showed, without a doubt, that I own her.

Around the bed were arrayed a selection of her favorite toys; to my left were the impact toys: flogger, crop, paddle, and cane. To my right, were battery operated toys and a handful of dildoes in ascending sizes. On the bedside table were a miscellany of various clamps, weights, and chains. Her flat, toned stomach acted as a table for a box of condoms, with an envelope on top.

This was wrong. All of it was wrong. But I couldn't quite put together why yet.

I am not a naturally dominant person. I'm tall and muscular, but I haven't always been. I was very small when I was young. Bookish and shy, I stood out in class, happily answering questions and blowing curves. This made me very unpopular with some of the more physical students in my classes, and I was bullied mercilessly.

Between my freshman and sophomore year, however, I grew almost a foot and put on probably thirty pounds of muscle as puberty struck with a vengeance. The first day of my sophomore year, I found one of my regular bullies and beat the absolute shit out of him. Unfortunately, I now had a man's body, or close enough to, and I didn't know the damage a man's body could do. I ended up hospitalizing the bully. I was lucky to get off without any legal repercussions, due to a good word from the administrators and teachers at my school, plus the fact that the kid now in traction had all the makings of a future serial killer. But I never raised my hand in anger again. I didn't even shout. I could stand up for myself; I wouldn't be pushed around. But I couldn't easily impose my will on others beyond that.

This led to a problem when I began dating Linh. Linh has a submissive streak a mile wide. She loves pain and is happiest when she's being told what to do in bed. She's game for almost anything, as long as she's either ordered to do so or physically forced to submit. I was uncomfortable with all of these things. When we started dating, I think that Linh thought that, due to my stature, physical size, and quiet nature-- which she interpreted as intensity-- I would happily dominate her in bed. She was, to put it mildly, disappointed.

My saving grace was that it's not just my frame that's large. While my dick is only of average length, it is very thick. Not cartoonishly thick; no two liter bottles of soda here. But I was girthy enough that when women saw me naked the first time it inspired one of two markedly different reactions. About half of them would back slowly out of the room; the other half would stare at me like they were a mountaineer about to climb K2 for the first time.

Linh did neither of these things. She licked her lips and gazed at me with a longing that I'd never seen before. At last, her prince had come, and he was going to absolutely fucking wreck her tight little snatch. Sex with me was painful, especially the first few times, but Linh relished that, begging me to variously tear her apart, make her hurt, or, and I'm quoting here, "destroy my tiny fucking Asian cunt with that monster white cock, Daddy." I obliged.

I think, in retrospect, that was the only reason we stayed together past the first couple of months. We adored each other, but my inability to dominate her became a sticking point The fact that the basic act of sex inflicted pain for the first part of each night was enough for a while, but soon she started to grow bored. The sex itself was good; I tried to be a generous lover, providing copious and skilled pleasure with my fingers and tongue, skills that I'd learned from taking care of partners who were unable to handle my girth. She was enthusiastic in this arena as well; it was rare that a woman could take me fully into her mouth, but Linh was extremely game to try. She orgasmed regularly, and she was very, very vocal. But there was an itch that she needed scratched, and I wasn't doing that for her.

By this time, I loved Linh. I think she loved me too, although she hadn't said it yet. She told me, when we were cuddled up, how safe I made her feel, how cared for. Her last boyfriend had been a little big man, the kind of short guy that decides he's going to put on a ton of muscle and act like an asshole to make up for their insecurity. A guy like the high school bully I had hospitalized. She hadn't enjoyed the actual sex with him much, but he had scratched that itch, the one that begged for pain and discipline. Unfortunately, he often blew straight through her boundaries and laughed about it.

The last straw was when he started in with really obnoxious raceplay. She enjoyed a mild version of it, but he just started calling her all kinds of slurs while pinning her down and fucking her. Linh used her safeword repeatedly, and the asshole just doubled down. She was in tears as she told me this, until she finally fell asleep in my arms. When she woke the next morning, she kissed me tenderly, but I felt that there was a sense of melancholy there. She was leaving for business and would be gone for two weeks; I had a sinking feeling that she'd be breaking up with me when she got back.

I'm not naturally dominant, but I am an exceptional researcher. I loved Linh. I wanted to show her that I could be what she needed me to be if she'd give me a chance. I spent every spare minute for the next two days researching BDSM, especially Linh's favorite flavors. I tried to find guides on how to be a dom, but had limited luck; there were a lot of guides on how to be a dominatrix, even workshops and online courses, but most of the stuff aimed at dominant males was... not great. An unfortunately large chunk of those resources could have been titled "How to Target Girls with Daddy Issues and Get Away with Date Rape."

Desperate for help, I contacted a local professional dominatrix, Mistress Cinder. Mistress Cinder, or Cindy to her friends, was intrigued by my request. She was kind enough to sit down with me at a local coffee shop one day. Tall and statuesque with a mane of curly red hair, she was probably in her 40s, but could easily pass for her early 30s. I grabbed us both drinks, and she sat and appraised me for a bit while we drank.

Finally, she broke the silence, speaking in a faint Southern drawl. "Why are you doing this? You're a good looking guy. You can find someone who doesn't need all of this effort. Someone who's probably, and I mean no offense, a lot less fucked up than this little gal."

I thought for a moment and just went with, "Because I love her. I want to be with her."

"Why?"

"She's sweet. She makes me laugh. I love the way she nestles into me when we sleep, her tiny little snores. She's so smart. So sexy. I love spending time with..."

Cindy held up her hands. "Okay, hold up, Romeo. That's all very touching, don't get me wrong. It's a good start. But there are lotsa gals out there that could tickle your fancy. Why are you wanting to spend all this time, learning all of this shit, for this girl? Is the pussy that good?"

I considered it. "The sex is good, yeah. Great, in a lot of ways. But..." I looked off in the distance, trying to gather my thoughts, then back to her. "... that's not why. I love her. I make her feel safe. She's been with a lot of bad guys that scratched her itch, and I want to... I dunno. Even if I'm not any good at it, even if I don't end up being enough and she still leaves, I want her to see that there's guys out there that can make her both feel safe and cater to what she likes. That she doesn't have to be with some asshole to get what she needs. That she's better than that, worth more than that."

Cindy clicked her tongue approvingly, then said, "Okay, Romeo. Okay. That's a pretty good answer. Better than I expected. The good news is that you have a lot going for you that will give a leg up; your height, muscle, bearing, all of those things that probably drew her to you in the first place. What about your dick?"

I choked on my coffee, and she laughed. "Uh, I, ah. It's. Ah. Big." I related my experiences with other women and with Linh, and she just raised an eyebrow. "Well, don't that beat all?"

She shook her head and laughed. "If you're ready to get started, my rates are..."

She was expensive. Really expensive. But she was willing to give me a decent discount, because she really got a kick out of the whole thing. She was my Qui-Domme Jinn, and I was her paddlewan. By the time Linh's plane landed a week and a half later, Mistress Cinder had shown me, as she put it, a whole mess of technical skills. How to make a big noise with an impact toy without causing much pain, how to inflict pain without causing injury, how to cause injury that's almost purely superficial. How to make knots that bind both comfortably and uncomfortably. The proper use of clamps and clothespins. She'd forgotten more about the physical aspects of BDSM than I'd ever learn, and she was cramming a primer's full them into my head as fast as she could.

We also talked about the psychological aspects of it as well; she gave me some good books to read, as well as some practical lessons. She talked about how some of her lessons might not apply, because typically male submissives, her forte, needed different things than female ones. They were motivated differently. We talked about both the need for preparation and for improvisational flair; I excelled at the former, but fell far short in the latter.

Finally, on our last day of training, my instructor told me what she thought was the most important lesson. She took a drag of her cigarette as we sat outside her studio. "It's empathy. It's easy to be a pushy jerk that takes what you need. There are girls out there that will work for in the short term, but those guys just burn through subs until they stumble backwards into one that happens to mesh perfectly with the shit they like. It's a lot harder to master the give and take, the compromise of what she needs with what you're willing to give her, and when to give it to her as a reward even if you don't really like it. You seem like a really good guy, and you care about her. You're perceptive enough to know you need this to have a chance with her. Lean into that. Lean into your empathy. You'll need it."

She took one more drag and stubbed out her smoke on the brick wall. "I think our time is up, and you have someone to pick up from the airport. Good luck, Alex." She kissed me on the cheek. "I hope you sweep her off her feet, but if things don't work out with your little Linh, give me a shout, okay? And if they do, send me a wedding invite!"

I met Linh at the airport with a dozen roses. She hadn't been expecting me, and she broke into a broad, grateful grin that slowly turned into a melancholic smile. I kissed her and took her bags. On the way back to her apartment, she started to talk with pain in her voice. "Alex, I really like you. You're such a good guy. But I don't know how... I really want things to work with us. But I don't think they're going to. You know what... what I need, and you just can't..."

I put my finger on her lips. "Quiet."

She stiffened and I went back to driving. She started to open her mouth to speak, and I said, "Don't make me repeat myself, Linh. We'll talk later." Her eyes went wide and she settled back into her seat, confused but also visibly aroused.

I'd like to say that when we got to her place, I reduced her to a quivering blob of ecstatic submissive goo, but that's not what happened. I tried. I really did. But I had trouble with it. As I said, improvisation is my worst quality when it comes to being a dom, and I hadn't really had time to prepare. But Linh still enjoyed herself more than she had previously, and she could tell I was making an effort. She pushed off any serious talk for the time being and just enjoyed being with me.

When she came to my apartment a few days later, I was ready. That night, I had my meager assortment of "My First Scene" BDSM tools that Cindy had suggested I procure, the ones I had shown the most aptitude with. And I fucking rocked Linh's world that night. I was commanding, lovingly cruel, and greedy in the most giving way I could be. She almost orgasmed when I commanded her to get on her knees and fucking worship my cock. She actually did cum when I told her she'd better do a good job because it was the only lube she'd get when I fucked her ass. (It wasn't. I'm not that stupid.)

I wasn't a master, uh, Master, but she could tell how much effort I'd put into this for her. How much I cared for her. She laid in my arms and started crying, and at first I thought she was about to break up with me. But instead she spoke with adoration and wonder in her voice "Fuck, Alex. Fuck! You did all of this for me. You learned all of this shit while I was gone. Who does that? Who wastes that much effort on someone as fucked up as me? Why are you so good to me?"

I kissed her forehead. "Because I love you, silly."

She just started to sob into my neck. "Oh, god. I love you, too, Alex. I love you so much."