Tales of A Good Catholic Dom

Dom. It has sort of an old-fashioned sound now, doesn't it? Well, perhaps I've already become old-fashioned. It happens to us all. Dom was what we were called back when I first learned the trade.

My first teacher was a woman named Michelle. Perhaps more exactly, we learned together, she as my first sub and I as her first dom boyfriend. Like most important things in life, chance was responsible for our finding each other, and hence for my finding myself. This is the story of how it started.

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My father is a wealthy doctor. He and my mother had to live frugally in their early years together, while my father did two residencies and then tried to establish his practice. When the money finally started arriving, they made up for lost time by insisting on the best of everything for themselves and their growing family. My mother, to whom appearances were always uppermost, was the driving force behind that. My father sincerely loves medicine and, once his family was well provided for, thought only of that.

Both my father and my mother are still devout Catholics. We children (I'm the eldest of five) went through Catholic schools and were thoroughly indoctrinated, at home and at school, that the church was indispensable to a good life. I was the stereotypical good Catholic boy—good grades, athletics, student politics, regular sacraments and devotions. The system worked for me, and until I was 18 I never questioned it. I assumed that I would grow up, get some kind of professional degree, marry, and raise my own family in the church. I would become the sort of influential Catholic layman that my background had destined me to be. Destiny, however, doesn't have a chance against chance.

I met Michelle in the Catholic high school we both attended, though I scarcely noticed her then. I was one of the student body elite, she was nobody in particular. I remembered her as a smallish girl with sandy hair and a somewhat mousy demeanor. Not pretty, not ugly, just indistinguishable from many others.

After graduation I went to a prestigious Catholic university in the same city. So did Michelle, but I took no note of it. About twenty percent of our graduating class went there. It was large for a private school and entirely urban, so student life there had none of the relative closeness of a smaller, more isolated campus.

I took a standard liberal arts course for the first couple of years, realizing for the first time that I was strongly drawn to philosophy, particularly ancient philosophy, and to the Greek and Latin it was written in. This university excelled in the field. I planned to major in philosophy, then get graduate degrees and, presumably, someday teach at a university like this one, since there are few other places that will pay you to be a philosopher.

I joined several campus organizations, since it came naturally to me then to think of myself as a "leader." At meetings I would listen carefully, say little but ask a few questions, and then near the end would summarize what I thought the sense of the discussion had been. I could often frame my own view as, in reality, merely the consensus of the meeting, or at least of a majority. I don't think I'm being too self-complimentary. I was asked more than once to hold offices and organize projects.

But there were growing perturbations this ideal life.

One was my faith. I still practiced, but it was becoming something of a routine. Prayer, which before had been an important means of self-knowledge, was not up to my growing intellectual sophistication. I was reading modern as well as ancient philosophy, and a good deal of science, particularly physics. It was becoming clearer to me all the time that the classical-Christian fusion that had driven over a thousand years of Western culture, and that I still admired so much, was being gradually left behind. Perhaps deservedly so.

The other was sex. At 20 I was still a virgin. In high school I had dated female counterparts of myself—Catholic achievers. I liked some, kissed a few of them one time, one of them a quite a few times, but there was no question of premarital sex. Nice girls, and nice Catholic boys, didn't do such things. At the university, the few girls I asked out were, though they didn't know it (and even I didn't then think of it this way), auditioning as my future wife. I was no longer so hung up about non-marital sex, but I still assumed that sex without sincere attachment was wrong. There had to be some kind of emotional commitment. And I didn't feel that toward any of these girls.

I read Freud and all his spawn, I read popular marriage manuals, I even dipped into erotica, but I still couldn't really imagine me pulling a young lady's knickers down. I wasn't sure what I would do if faced a real live vagina. Yes, I knew what should, in theory, happen, I understood that it was perfectly natural and that the ancients wouldn't have made a big deal of it, but all that still remained an alien territory in my mind. And I was getting very dissatisfied with myself over that.

That is what you need to know about my life before Michelle.

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I was reading alone in the student union coffee shop when a woman's voice addressed me.

"Gus? Hi, how are you?"

I looked up and saw Michelle. For a second I didn't even remember her name, but then it came to me. I put some artificial heartiness into my voice as I greeted her.

A couple of years (and shedding that ridiculous school uniform) had not harmed Michelle's appearance. She was cuter than I remembered. Her hair was shaped more artfully. She was dressed, unusually for the campus, in a tidy skirt and a pretty long-sleeved white blouse that nicely set off a trim waist and an upper story somewhat more noticeable than I had remembered.

We chatted about something for a few moments, and then my good Catholic boy manners kicked in and obliged me to ask if she cared to sit down. I would really rather have gone back to my book. Michelle might look better than she used to, but she was still nobody in particular to me.

She quickly pulled out a chair and sat down; it looked like she'd been hoping for an invite. The conversation quickly turned surprisingly personal, considering that we had only the most distant relationship. Michelle said that the last weeks had been emotionally really hard for her. She had been going with Bob Kuhn, another member of our St. Benedict's graduating class. Now they had broken up for good.

"I just cry when I think about it," she said. "Sometimes I'm so upset I can't study."

Bob was something of a math genius, though his performance in other subjects was less impressive because he cared only about math. Bob's personality was also erratic. He alternated between being withdrawn into his own math world, and being hyperactively, inappropriately, social. He said things that I remembered as simply strange, not profound.

Michelle and Bob had been seeing each other, off and on, for a year. She described it in generalities, and then said, "We tried to work it out, but it seems we really just don't like the same things."

"As in?" I asked, stupidly.

After hesitating a few seconds, Michelle said, "As in sex." Her lips pursed, she pushed her hair back, and then looked up at me intently.

"Well," I said patronizingly, "it's a big world. Everybody ought to be able to find somebody." (Despite the fact that that is exactly what I was failing to do.)

"I'm looking," Michelle answered. Again the look.

She returned the conversation to her feelings, and I slipped into the big-brother-comforting role. I asked no questions about sex, but she managed to work back to that anyway, finally saying bluntly, "I think that Bob really just doesn't like sex very much. I do."

I ignored that flashing signal. Undeterred, she asked if I was seeing anybody. I admitted I wasn't. I could have just dismissed it by saying I was too busy with school and activities, but I didn't. In fact, I said it somewhat ruefully.

"I'm surprised," Michelle said. "I'd think girls would be lining up for somebody like you." She paused and pushed back her hair again, then said, "I'd join that line."

Now I had to smile. "Michelle," I tried to say jokingly, "you sound like you're trying to pick me up."

"Why not?" She shrugged. "I've always liked you. Back at St. Benedict's I had a crush on you."

"Really?" I was genuinely very surprised. I had never thought of anybody as having a crush on me.

"Yes, and you're nice to me now. You're always nice. Why shouldn't I want to pick you up?"

I decided to stop moving pawns and moved my knight. "Sex, maybe?" I suggested. What I meant was that, if sex was so important to her, it might be a good reason not to be interested in me.

"Are you inviting me, Gus?"

"No, no, of course not, Michelle. I wouldn't presume."

"She shrugged. "I'd sleep with you. No questions asked."

No girl or woman had ever been that blunt with me. I started to feel a curious this-isn't-real sensation.

"Michelle," I said in my best big-brother, let-me-sum-up fashion, "this is an emotional rebound kind of thing, isn't it? You've just broken up with Bob. You shouldn't be making that kind of decision just yet."

"Oh, Gus," she said, "I said I'd sleep with you. Not that I'd love you, or ask you to love me. Or even that I'd date you. Where sex is concerned, I usually know what I'm doing." She paused. "Although with Bob I didn't."

I hesitated before saying, "Well, Michelle, where sex is concerned I don't know what I'm doing."

She looked at me questioningly.

I stared down at the table. Now I'd gone too far. I pretty much had to say something by way of explanation. I couldn't think of anything but some version of the truth. Slowly I said, "I mean, I don't have much experience."

She shrugged and smirked. "It's a big world. Everybody ought to be able to find the experience he wants. If he knows where to look."

We looked at each, now like gunfighters in a standoff. Michelle's expression vaguely defied me to judge her. She felt she'd been forthright with me. Considering that I hadn't asked for her confidences, I would have been within my rights to say simply that I had to get back to studying. But the butterflies in my stomach told me I was actually very interested in this conversation. In spite of my confidence in other things, I'd never been able to pick girls up. But here was a girl, a fairly cute girl, who was trying to pick me up. I decided to match forthrightness with forthrightness.

"Um, Michelle . . . . what I mean is, well, I don't have any sexual experience." I just couldn't bring myself to say "virgin." I felt like I was still six years old or something.

Michelle's face lit up, although she quickly got it under control. "Gus, dear sweet Gus, please, please don't feel bad about that. I don't want to put you under pressure, but I'd give anything to be your first. It would be a thrill." She paused. "A thrill," she said again. "With you, especially. I had a crush on you."

I started to say I was terribly flattered and all, but my voice trailed off. I didn't care about being flattered. I didn't care about Michelle's crush, either. I could see her black bra under her blouse. That was what I found myself caring about.

There was some more delay on my part, some trying to lay out clear terms of engagement. I had to convince myself it was OK to have sex with a woman I did not love and was sure I never would love. I also felt I had to lower her expectations. Michelle handled it all with the patience and skill of an accomplished seductress. Everything I said was fine. We didn't have to do anything, just cuddle. I could change my mind at any time, absolutely no commitment on either side. We didn't ever have to see each other again, if either of us felt that way, and I wouldn't need to feel bad, because all she was asking was for me to get into bed with her, just this once. She was on birth control, so no need to worry about that.

I still hesitated, grinning with embarrassment and shaking my head ruefully. Michelle stood up, smiled, held out her hand, and said, "C'mon, Gus. It'll be so much easier than you think." Now she was in charge, a woman on a mission.

"Where?" I asked.

Michelle shared an apartment with two other girls, but they each had their own bedroom. I didn't like the possibility of people I didn't know being around, but since I still lived in my parents' home, it was take it or leave it.

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And so we ended up in Michelle's bedroom. Her roommates weren't home. Michelle disappeared into the bathroom for a few minutes, while I tried to deal with my mounting excitement. I now really did want to be here, wanted to come face to face, so to speak, with a live vagina. It had to happen sometime. I'd stewed about sex for a long time without knowing what I could do about it. And now mere chance, with no effort on my part, had answered that question. My heart thumping, I hoped I'd be up to it.

When Michelle came back she had changed into black tights and a loose wrap-around Indian-print shirt with a sash around the waist. It had a fairly deep neckline, allowing me to see her upper chest and a bit of cleavage. Michelle had what I think of as Scottish coloring, with sandy-red hair and faintly red-tinged skin. In her present costume, I was most struck by the darker glow of her body skin. Although she had few freckles on her face, her upper chest was heavily freckled. Up to now, I had known Michelle only as a face. Her body for a moment seemed to belong to a stranger. That made it more exciting. It also made me more nervous. How many more surprises?

She sat on the bed and asked me to sit beside her. There was a silence. She put her hand rather tentatively on my thigh and said, slowly, as if wanting to choose her words carefully, "Gus, please let me lead. I'm not trying to be bossy. It really will be easier for you that way. I don't expect anything except a cuddle with a boy I once had a crush on. If you want to go farther, well, like I said, I'd be thrilled."

I just gulped and nodded. Yes, it would be easier that way. I was always comfortable in a learning mode.

Michelle said, "Why don't we just hold hands?"

So she slipped her small one into mine, squeezed it, and we sat that way for a while. It didn't especially help. There's a kind of nervous indecision, which I was familiar with from pre-game jitters, that makes you long for action, any action, right now. So I turned to her, put my hands on her shoulders (so slender! so vulnerable!), and we looked each other in the eyes. And to my surprise, we looked at each other with a kind of steady, wanting, but still calm, gaze that (I realized only much later) goes with your both knowing that you're past the point of decision. My heart gave a leap. We kissed for a while. Michelle made them soft, lingering, a trifle wet (but no tongue, yet), and in between we shared that special gaze. I wanted to look into Michelle's blue eyes a lot.

She suggested that I untie her sash. OK, this was it! I was actually going to undress a woman! I untied it, trembling a little. I stopped when the sash fell loose. We kissed and gazed again.

"Now open my shirt, Gus. I want you to see me."

My dick wasn't exactly soft at this point, but that last sentence made me suddenly go stiffer. I slowly pulled her shirt open. Her lacy black bra showed me the size and shape of her breasts and the secret hollow between them. Their color, the same dark, lightly freckled red glow, excited me; I didn't know women came in such colors. The bra didn't let me see her nipples.

"I like to be looked at, Gus. It excites me when a man looks at me like you are now. If you want to stop what we're doing at any time and just stare at me, that's part of it. I will happily let you look all you want. There's no hurry."

We kissed some more. I stared some more. Then Michelle said, "Why don't you take my bra off?"

I thought she would turn her back to me so I could unhook it, but instead she leaned into me, folding her shoulders together and putting her face into my neck. Suddenly I was very aware of her heat. I could smell her hair. I put my arms around her and felt for her bra snap.

I had of course heard jokes about getting bras undone. But I'd never done it, and it frustrated me like it has many another man. In my nervous state I was clumsy, struggling with the tiny things. But Michelle snuggled into me and murmured against my skin, "Take your time. The slower the better."

I finally got the damn thing undone. By now, our skins were both hot and soft, we breathed in each other's humidity. Michelle sat back up, and said, "Now take my shirt off." She turned partly away from me so I could lift it off her shoulders. Her bra still hung loosely over her breasts. I thought she would slip it off herself, but she said, "Now take my bra off."

She shrugged her shoulders forward and I lifted the bra off. The prominent, upwardly-angled red nipples shocked me as much as the rest of her skin did. But something made me put them aside for a moment. "Michelle," I said, "I want to look."

I turned her to one side, so part of her back was toward me. I studied it with interest. Her back, though tinged reddish, was paler than her front. A few small moles. I gently touched them. Less than two hours ago I was reading Brentano on intentionality. Now I was examining the naked back of a woman I hardly knew.

I turned her around. She raised her eyes, then dropped them while I studied the whole enchilada. I simply couldn't get over the dark, flushing skin of her chest and her breasts, with their endless mosaic of freckles. I wanted to stroke her, but didn't quite dare. I studied her jutting nipples. Michelle would have to give me permission first before I'd touch them. I directed my question to her eyes.

"Gus, why don't you start by just stroking my breasts a little? Very gently. Let's save the nipples for a bit. The more you wait on these things, the more exciting it gets."

So I touched her breasts, learning their heat and marveling at their heaviness. I cupped each one, one hand on the outside and the other in her cleavage. She gasped, looked at me, and sort of simpered. So, she could act girlish as well as in charge.

I wanted to say something about her body, but I was absolutely tongue-tied. Me! Anything that came into my head sounded so trite and inadequate. Like imitation porn. But, finally, I choked out, "Shouldn't I take something off, too?"

She said, "You can if you want. Sure. But if you're OK with it, I'd rather you undressed me first. It will excite me to be completely nude while you look at me with your clothes on."

I was getting that she wanted to be looked at. So I said, "OK, lie on the bed and let me take your tights off." I thought she'd lie on her back, but she turned on her stomach with her arms folded next to her breasts. Her hips were just a trifle wide, but her firm ass fit her tidy physique perfectly. I grasped the waistband of her tights and started tugging them down. At first I got her panties, too, but I thought it was more fitting to just take the tights first. She wiggled around to help me, and they slid down her legs and over her feet.

Now I could examine her legs. She wasn't a tall girl, so they weren't especially long, but they were firmly sculpted. Her calves for some reason made my heart lurch for their cuteness. The skin was like her back, faintly reddish but pale.