He shakes his head. “I wanted to taste you again, that’s not humiliating.”
“Could any pussy taste that good?” I mock him, feeling that humiliation once again.
“I didn’t say it like that,” he speaks clearly, sucking on a piece of melted ice between his teeth. He lets it fall back to his empty glass. It pisses me off how he hides the emotion he clearly had a moment ago.
“How is that not humiliating?”
“I wasn’t aiming for humiliation,” he admits. His gaze unwavering, he fixes me with a calm and dominating stare, not moving. “I was just telling the truth.”
Not knowing how to respond, I move to the next item on the list. “Worse, you wanted me to feel bad about the note. You wanted me to feel guilty.”
“You are guilty. You’re the one who left.” Again his answer is matter of fact. Guilty. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand the word. As if all of this is my fault. The control he has makes me lose what little of it I have.
“You’re the one who didn’t change!”
“You’re the one who wanted me to change.”
I don’t know how I’m able to stand, my legs feel so weak. But I do, as quickly as I can, reaching for my purse to leave.
“Sit down.” Seth’s authority makes me pause.
“Everything hurts,” I admit to him. “I can’t be here without hurting. I can’t see you without hurting.”
When I look down at Seth, through the glaze of tears I hold back, I feel a wave of fear and desire mix. It swirls through my blood and I lose my own thoughts, my concentration. I lose everything to the way he looks at me.
“You’re going to do what I say, because you want to… and there’s no humiliation in that.”
“I never said I wanted to.”
“You’re here early, Babygirl. You didn’t have to say it.” Babygirl. The desire is immediate and warms everything. He stands and steps forward, taking my purse and tossing it back down onto the table. My breath comes faster, my head feeling lighter.
He whispers, his lips only inches from mine. “Know that I want you, too, because I stare at that painting every day, wishing I could go back to that moment.”
Taking his seat again, he repeats, “Sit down.” And this time I do.
“You’re going to obey me, because it will take that pain and that guilt away.”
I close my eyes slowly, careful to hold back any tears and calm myself down. “Not everything. I don’t agree to doing whatever you say.”
His answer is spoken with confidence. “You will. You’re better at it now than you were back then.”
“Don’t do that,” I say and glare at him. Feeling a wash of anxiousness.
“What?”
“Bring up the past.” My heart thrashes in my chest, as if it’s at war.
“You will do what I say, and I will be mindful of what I tell you to do and how I say it.” Seth’s proposition eases a burning pain that’s quick to ignite every time I think back to what used to be.
As he waits for me to agree or to continue this fight, I consider what he said… the guilt.
God it hurts.
“I just want it to stop,” I whisper, feeling the pricks at the back of my eyes.
“Want what to stop?”
“The guilt.” Admitting it out loud brings a torrent of emotion.
“Strip down,” Seth commands me, not responding to the emotion I’m clearly displaying. Not giving it any credence in the least. He doesn’t try to comfort me, and damn my desire, I want him to. I want to crawl into his lap, I want to beg for his forgiveness.
“Strip down to nothing,” he demands in a calm and controlled voice. His glass clinks as he sets it on the table and then leans back, his large hands clasped as he waits for me to obey.
The discord of what I want, what I need, who I am and what I used to be rips apart who I know myself to be.
The crackle of the fire feels like a whip against my bare shoulder when I slip off the cardigan. It glides slowly down my skin and I feel it settle against my shoes into a puddle of fabric. The blush tank top is harder to take off. Not physically, but emotionally.
I’m so aware of the fear. I feel like nothing when he looks at me. But I want to feel like everything. I have to close my eyes to do it, to pull the tank top over my head and do as he wishes.
“Look at me,” he says and it’s as though his command physically strikes me. Inhaling and exhaling, controlling my breathing and holding on to the fact that I refuse to leave here without trying, I do it.
I don’t know what I’m trying to do though. Even as I kick off my shoes and my jeans are stripped from me by my own hands, I don’t know what I want.