“Miss Marshall?”
I looked up to see the hotel receptionist bending down, she was holding out a plastic card.
“Mr Lucas asked that I give you this. Room fifteen.” She looked embarrassed and I took the room key allowing her to scurry back to her reception desk.
I clutched the silly piece of plastic wondering how I was going to retrieve my clothes from Jason’s suite. I made my way to room fifteen, which was situated in a different wing of the hotel. A smaller size suite than the one I had been sharing with Jason. I could think of nothing else to do but lie on the bed and cry.
I reminisced about my love life. Had I ever had a love life? I had my back catalogue of men. Not quite categorised, it was a substantial list of names and faces.
Boyfriends? Probably none of them. No birthday presents had been exchanged. I had not taken them to my apartment and they were not introduced to my parents. Romantic occasions were rare and awkward in nature.
Sexual partners? Plenty of those - vanilla men and doms. I was an expert in being intimate and needy in my relationships. Sex for personal gratification and nothing else.
Dominants? Many. From those with whom I would do a simple one off scene to the handful I called master. In between there had been many ‘sirs’. Doms with whom I had regular arrangements or agreements and especially those that sought to train me in a particular skill they found pleasurable. Not all of the men I met had become my bedfellows. Many dominants I had scened with were strictly no sex types. Usually because they had monogamous relationships with vanilla wives or girlfriends. I had been their secret sub who fulfilled their kinky or fetish desires. The gratification of dominance came in many forms. Bondage being a common requirement or simply being spanked or degraded in a particular fashion. Sexual play without intercourse could be hard for me but I had sunk into the submission with glee once I knew that they were receiving their pleasure and controlling me.
Lovers? Where was the love in my sexual exploits or submission? Totally absent. I chose not to connect and form emotional bonds. Primarily because I had rarely witnessed love between doms and subs. I had assumed it was something to avoid and not actively seek out. I had witnessed scenes and participated in them. They could be intensely sensual and pleasurable but those acts had precluded romantic love and I did not want to be hurt emotionally by falling for a dom who would or could not reciprocate. My self-protective armour was tough and I wore it with pride.
As a student, during my sexual exploration of my fellow students, I had fretted I had effectively become an unpaid whore; a prostitute in all but name. Learning to submit freely had taken away that angst. Offering my sexual body to others to control was liberating and in the world of BDSM I was a sensual being with power to hand over the gift of my body. I had chosen who, when and to what extent. Those boundaries had not required love to support them. They had been understood by all those men I had submitted to with exception of one man.
Jason had been different from the outset. I was traumatised and my faith in dominants had taken a serious knock. He had understood this, so he had wooed me with vanilla love, making it his first success in winning over my heart. When he had punished me and I had cried out “red”, I had not told him the true reason for my breakdown. With the benefit of hindsight, I now knew he had guessed the cause of my safe-wording. Far from giving up on me as a lost cause to submission, he had altered his tactics. His aftercare became critical and remained poignant and thoughtful. Another positive score for my insulated heart. The barriers to my being in love had been eroded with every passing week.
He protected me beyond the routine duties of a caring dom and he feared for my safety. Aggressive in his tactics, he had kept me adhered to his person or properties at all times. I had resented him, now I was grateful.
When he had called me his girlfriend, I had accepted the description with delight. Had he used the term with honesty? With his parents and mine, he had been open about our relationship and I had moved in with him on the basis of our growing intimacy. A step of commitment that neither of us had attempted before with others. All good omens and indicators of a future together and those actions had, I thought, demonstrated love to me. Commitment, it would seem, did not mean love or romance to him. Had I misinterpreted him so badly?
Lunchtime came and went. I could not face food and managed only to sip on a glass of water. The situation needed to be resolved somehow. If I returned to his room, he would see it as me returning compliant and defeated, ready to be his submissive and nothing else. He would expect me to kneel, be lectured about my failings and be put in my place with some act that demonstrated his dominance over me. Or worse, he could reject me. A submissive who refused her dominant did not always get a second chance. He had never indicated to me that he would keep me no matter what I did wrong.
There was a knock at the door. What if it was Jason? I was grateful I could peep through the spy hole in the door. It was the hotel concierge. I opened the door and he held an envelope for me, with my name handwritten on it. In his other hand was my suitcase. I stepped to one side and he quickly placed it in the room. He did not say anything and rapidly beat a retreat, his mission accomplished. Shuttin
g the door I leant back and pondered what I was about to read. The presence of the suitcase was ominous. Taking a deep breath and settling myself in an armchair, I tore the envelope open. A letter written in Jason’s meticulous handwriting. There were no corrections evident and I suspected he took his time to compose it.
***
Dear Gemma,
You are right. I want it all. The lifestyle of a Dominant, which is all I have ever really known, is my unceasing goal. I take pleasure in the responsibilities of leading, controlling and owning a submissive. I wanted also to be something I had not been and had little practise at - the considerate lover who openly shares their life and passions without restrictions. I am well aware, as you keenly pointed out to me, that I have not been successful. My role as your Dominant, in the context of being a lover, has not been clearly defined. To suggest to you, as I did those many weeks ago, that I would let you be free and equal while reshaping you into my submissive, was implausible. I am not the right Dom for you, Gemma.
You are a strong, independent person. You have managed to cope with a horrific trauma and you did not need to be a submissive to achieve this. It was your desire to return to submission that has driven you to be with me. You know this is not what you need. You need stability and love. Perhaps this is what you have come to realise.
I will arrange you to be flown back on a scheduled flight as soon as possible. Accommodation will be found for you too.
I’m sorry our relationship has come to such an abrupt end. It never has been my intention to harm you physically or emotionally.
Jason
***
I dropped the letter on the floor and I was racked with heart wrenching sobs. He had released me completely from our arrangement.
What did I expect! Why was I so disappointed? I left him and yet it felt like he had abandoned me so readily, so, so easily.
Does he not have any love for me? That dreadful Saturday night when he had held me tightly and told me he needed me forever, now seemed to be due to the trauma of the night, nothing more. Declaring his love for me in a moment of fear had been a falsehood. A moment of madness for him. Clearly, he did not love me or else he would have fought for me to stay in that hotel room. My efforts to stay in love with him were futile and pointless. Those feelings had to be wiped away.
How could I be so foolish? I stared through tears out of the window. It was snowing, a swirling blizzard of white flakes. I looked down at the ground below; the snow was falling thick and fast and covering the hotel’s driveway rapidly. Snow was not good for airports. Now I was trapped here.
I contemplated his suggestion I did not wished to be controlled. For me submission was the relief of surrendering to another and accepting their pleasure in me, theirs to own and enjoy. When done properly, being nurtured into a power exchange dynamic, could be a wondrous achievement. Throughout my sexual life, I had always sought submission in my relationships. Standing by the window, I was lost and helpless. No. I did need it. I was hopeless without a guide, a compass, my emotions were afloat and I had nowhere to anchor them.
After my life had been turned upside down, I could not cope with the idea of submission, and I had buried it. I had tried to become conventional. I had found the new job, danced in clubs with ‘normal’ friends and avoided the other venues that signified my past. Spiralling into a void, I had become depressed and unsure of my future. Then Jason had appeared and he had gave me back the direction my life was lacking. He thrilled me and the sex was fantastic too. We had connected beyond the simple D/s dynamics of a single scene so quickly and easily.