“Abigail.”
Yes.
I recalled the words I’d typed this afternoon in reply to the question the blog reader sent. In this position I will find my soul satisfied. My body slipped deeper into my headspace.
“I wasn’t expecting either the note or to find you waiting like this,” he said.
“To be honest, when you told me I couldn’t wear your collar, I wasn’t planning to either.”
He sighed deeply and walked farther inside the room. “I may as well have stayed at home today. I was completely worthless.”
“I’m sorry, Sir. I didn’t mean to make your day more difficult.”
“You didn’t make it difficult. I thought about a lot of things.” When he spoke again, I heard the smile in his voice. “And had you been there, I wouldn’t have done a lot of thinking.”
“I agree,” I said and I’m sure my smile matched his. “I did a lot of thinking as well.”
“I had a chance to read your blog before I left to come home.”
Earlier in the day, I’d posted the questions I’d answered. Meagan had called shortly after to say the office was getting flooded with questions for me and I would have my pick of what I decided to answer on the show. We had a meeting scheduled for early next week to go over the finer details.
“I hope you enjoyed my posting, Sir.”
“I did.” He chuckled and the sound made me smile. “I especially enjoyed how you turned down the gentleman who came on to you.”
I laughed. “I will never stop being surprised at how people act, Sir.”
“I agree. Humans are entertaining.”
Silence followed his statement and the brief frivolity that had been present left the room. The bed rustled as he stood.
“In Delaware, when it hit me that for even the tiniest of seconds, you thought I might cheat on you, it shook me like I haven’t been shaken in years. That you would think me capable of that.”
“I’m sorry.” His words felt like a punch to my gut.
“I shouldn’t have come into the room that night. I should have never taken you when I was so angry, but I had to prove to myself you were still mine.” He framed my face with his hands and pressed his forehead to mine. His breath was warm against my skin. “It made me feel like an ass and part of me didn’t want to tell you that because I know you and I know hearing me say it will hurt you. And it pains me when you hurt.”
“I’m glad you told me, though.” But he was right: hearing how my words and actions negatively affected him wasn’t easy, but he was right to tell me. I needed to know, just as I had to tell him when he hurt me.
“Your feelings are never wrong. You are entitled to them and I would never tell you otherwise. But you need to know how I feel, too, and when you say and do things that make it sound like you don’t trust me? That hurts me, too.”
“I trust you with Charlene,” I said. “I know you would never do anything to hurt our marriage or compromise your integrity.”
“It’s good to hear you say that, because she accepted the position when I met with her after work.”
I had expected as much, so hearing him say it didn’t surprise me. What surprised me was how it didn’t affect me the way I thought it would. Realizing that my struggle with my submissive nature was normal, and something other submissives experienced too, had helped me realize that just because I felt jealous didn’t mean I didn’t trust Nathaniel. That woman’s question had helped me remember it’s only human to experience contradictory emotions. But I had always trusted Nathaniel and that was the most important thing. Whether Charlene could be trusted or not was another story, but I realized too that it didn’t matter because I could trust him to handle her.
“I know you made the right decision. You’ve run the business for a long time and you’ve been overseeing the nonprofit for just as long. If you didn’t know what you were doing, neither one would be as well-off as they are today.”
“Thank you for saying that, but I do on occasion make a mistake. I’m confident, however, that hiring Charlene isn’t one of them.”
“I no longer doubt it, Sir.”
“Thank you.”
He moved and stood behind me. His fingertips brushed the nape of my neck and I shivered at his touch.
“Another thing.” His fingers tangled in my hair. “I have a question for you, my lovely. Are we going to do this your way, or my way?”
My heart thumped in my throat and my need for him and what he was doing grew. I barely managed to get out, “Your way, Sir.”
The fingers in my hair fisted and he pulled so I met his eyes. “Be sure, Abigail.”
They say the eyes are windows to the soul and in that moment, it was true. In his eyes I found the answers I’d been searching for. “I’ve never been more sure, Sir.”
He didn’t answer immediately, but took his time, appearing to search my expression for verification of my words. Whatever he was looking for, his own features relaxed and he whispered, “Stand for me now.”
He kept his hand in my hair as I stood, pulling me into his arms when I came to my feet. Lowering his head to mine, he murmured against my lips, “I missed you.”
I wrapped my arms around him. It felt so good to be sheltered in his embrace. I sighed, content once more. “Life is lonely without you.”
His lips slowly moved over mine, seeking, looking for answers to questions he couldn’t voice. There was a gentle softness in his kiss that felt like a caress. And when he started a tender nibbling with only his mouth, I groaned in pleasure and tried to deepen the kiss.
He pulled back and whispered against my skin, “My way.”
I ran my nails over the fabric on his back. “I want you.” It was a need, urging me to drive closer and have him.
“My way,” he said again and reinforced his words by taking my hands and bringing them behind my back. “Keep them here.”
I wanted to protest, but his softly spoken, “Abigail,” made me stop.
“I’m not going to take you now,” he said. “But if I were, it wouldn’t be strength that I would claim you with. I would take you with a gentle whisper and control you with the faintest touch. Do you know why?”
“Because you’re a sadist?” I replied and I meant it a little.
“Because I don’t command you by force.”
I knew that, of course. My submission was given to him because he didn’t demand it. I still wanted to whine.
“Submission that is coerced. Obedience given in fear. Supplication offered because it feels it has no other option. These are not things that have a place in our world. They don’t belong in any relationship and I will not have them in ours.”
“You’re afraid I’m going to say I want to extend the time I’m collared because I feel I have to in order to make you happy?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t you know me better than that?”
“I used to think so.”
That one hurt. Was he implying he felt like he didn’t know me anymore?
He sighed. “The thing is, I need to know that extending our time is something you really want to do.”
“I do, Sir.”
“You’ll have to forgive me if I’m not one hundred percent convinced of that. You’ve said it before, but it’s not how you’ve behaved.”
I started to panic. What if he never wanted to collar me again? How would we live like that? We couldn’t. “What can I do to convince you?”
“I want you to give serious thought to what you want our relationship to look like. Think it through well. We’ll discuss it next Friday night.”
There was hope then if he wanted to discuss on Friday night since that was the night he typically collared me. If everything went well, maybe he’d offer me his collar. I tried not to let it show how impatient I would be to have to wait over a week.
“Thank you, Sir.”
He only nodded. I had my work cut out for me.
* * *
I met him in the library the following F
riday night after the kids were in bed. Henry was on a new antibiotic and had slept well the last few nights and we were hopeful it would continue. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous about how the coming discussion was going to go. Like he’d asked, I’d spent the week thinking about what I wanted, trying not to let what I thought he wanted influence my ideas.
That in and of itself was tough. As a submissive, his wants had always been one of the main things I took into consideration before making any decision. But I’d put that thinking aside and researched and talked to Christine. After all that, I’d sat down and wrote out a list of what I wanted, what I could live with, and what I wanted no part of.
Taking my list, I came up with a plan for what I thought our new schedule should look like. On Friday morning, I went through it one last time and wrote it out in my journal.
He waited for me on one of the couches. He was dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, and sat with a leg crossed over his knee. It really wasn’t fair he looked so relaxed with me feeling like a ball of nerves.
“Abby,” he said, greeting me by the name he used during the week to let me know we weren’t going to be formal or in our roles for the discussion. “Have a seat. I see you’ve brought your journal. Have you given my request some thought?”
“Yes,” I said, sitting down beside him. “But there’s one thing I have to know before we start.”
It was a question that had danced through my mind at odd times throughout the last week. One that on the surface didn’t seem important, but as the week went on, it bothered me more and more.
“What would that be?” he asked.
“Why the sudden change?” I asked. “I mean, I don’t ask to be difficult or anything. I’m just wanting to understand why the increased need for dominance now?”
“I’ll let you follow my thinking,” he said. “When was it you first noticed a change in my behavior or saw an increase in my demands?”
Good question. When had it been? I thought back. “It was right before I was offered the position at WNN.” I squinted, trying to nail it down. “Matter of fact, the big change came after I accepted. And picked up when I became successful.” It wasn’t until my post became so popular, following that dreadful night at the BDSM club, that he suggested we play for a week. Were the two linked?
“Right,” he said. “What does that tell you?”
“That you became more demanding after I became successful? On the surface it makes you sound like an ass, but I know that wasn’t your intent.”
“I thank you for being truthful,” he said with a smile. “That tells me you’re serious about this and gave it a lot of thought. If you didn’t say it made me sound like an ass, I’d be worried.”
“But since you didn’t do it because you’re an ass, you must have had another reason.”
“I did. Can you remember how you felt those first few weeks after the job offer when you weren’t wearing my collar? How you functioned and your mental well-being?”
I remembered precisely how I felt. “I was frazzled and stressed and didn’t function well at all.”
“Right,” he said with what looked like a half smile. “And when you wore my collar?”
I saw his thinking almost immediately. “With the exception of the issues I had with Charlene, I felt peaceful and at ease and everything felt more manageable.”
“There you go.”
I looked at him in shock. “You became more demanding because I took a job?”
“In part. As you became more successful and your responsibilities increased, your need to be dominated increased.”
I’d have to think about that a little. “Because I’m a submissive?”
“It’s the way you’re made. You need the dominance, especially in the bedroom. Your increase in position in the professional world only made that need grow.”
“Which is why you pushed me so hard while we were in Delaware.”
“Yes, you needed your limits tested. Pushed.”
I tucked my legs underneath me and curled up on the couch. “That’s quite a statement. I’ll have to think about it a bit more.”
“Of course,” he said. “You should always look into what I think and form your own opinions.”
Silence followed for a few seconds. Whether or not I believed his assessment of my need for dominance, I still wanted to discuss my journal.
“I jotted down my thoughts on how to increase our playtime.”
“Is that something you still want to pursue? Even before you make up your mind on my beliefs about your need for dominance?”
I picked up my journal and opened it to the spot I’d been working on. “Yes, I still want to increase our time. I’d decided I wanted it before you gave me your reasons. Nothing you said changed my mind.”
“You make me proud, Abby.”
Hearing those words, the despair over the angst of the last few weeks began to ease. We weren’t back to where we were, but perhaps we were on our way to a better place.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Come here.” He pulled me close and draped his arm around my shoulder. “Tell me what you have in mind.”
“I still don’t want to wear your collar twenty-four/seven.”
“Agreed.”
“But I would like to go back to wearing it every weekend. It’ll be somewhat of a challenge with the kids, but we can work it out.”
“I’m not opposed to that, but we’ll have to do something about Henry and Elizabeth. I don’t want you to call me ‘Master’ where they can hear.”
“I agree. I thought about that a lot. We need to manage their sleeping time more carefully. We can get a baby monitor for our room, and then lock the door. If they wake up, we’ll hear them and can stop our play so we can go to them if need be.”
Nathaniel nodded. “I think that’s a great idea.”
“And I’ve also been thinking. Henry is getting so active already, we might want to start him in preschool earlier than we did Elizabeth. I found a half-day school for two-year-olds nearby. That might be perfect for him. And if you can arrange to have some mornings at home, it would give us a lot more time soon.”
“Yes, I think I could arrange that. Especially now that I have Charlene taking over the nonprofit.”
I met his gaze, and had to smile.
He smiled too.
Encouraged, I went on. “I also think it’d be a good idea if we had some sort of signal we could give each other if we wanted to play during the week.”
He grinned at that one. “Been talking to Christine?”
Paul’s wife had been invaluable. “Yes, I thought it’d be a good idea to get the input of someone who’s been in the same situation I’m in.”
“I would expect nothing less and it’s a great idea. What do Paul and Christine use as a signal?”
“If he wants to play, he’ll put her collar on her nightstand. If she accepts, and he expects her to unless she has a good reason not to, she’ll bring the collar to him so he can put it on her.”
“And if she decides she wants to play?”
“She’ll approach him, kneel and ask to wear his collar. She said most of the time he’d agree, but sometimes she thinks he says no just because he can.”
He laughed. “I’m sure he does; that sounds like Paul.”
“Do you think those things will work for us?”
“The collar and kneeling?” At my nod, he consented. “Yes, I think we can go ahead and incorporate those into our weekday lives.”
We spoke a bit more about the finer details, agreed that we’d discuss how we each thought things were going on a regular basis, and decided that we should each redo our checklists about our preferences and hard limits.
When we were talked out, I took his hand and stroked his palm. “I’m looking forward to our new schedule.”
“Me, too,” he said. “But I want you to know that if for any