But some things I just can't tell her. Because some things I can't even tell myself.
Chapter 8
I want to be anywhere but here. Really anywhere. Even at the hospital for one of those endless 40 hours shifts. Just not here.
Bella's loud groan yanks me out of my glum thoughts. She just put her legs up onto the seat in front of her and is kneading her aching thighs. I probably should have made sure I didn’t wear her out that much in the first place, but I think the time spent cuddling in bed afterwards was worth it.
And it's not like she complained about my efforts to gently knead the kinks out of her legs and back again, either.
“You know, we can always catch the next bus home and spend the evening on the couch, watching TV or something,” I offer, but even though I try to sound supportive, the words come out more like a whine.
Bella shoots me a dark look before she stretches languidly.
“We've talked about this before. Like a hundred times. You didn't have to come with me, but I sure as hell won't stay away from my friends just because you want to mope.”
I guess I deserve her scorn, and also her snide tone. I can't even hold it against her, the topic has been coming up nearly every time we talk. That doesn't keep me from being a little resentful, though. It's not often that I have a full day and a half of free time close to or on a weekend, and right now I just want to snuggle with Bella and forget about the rest.
The cynic in me is having a field day, a chance of drama ahead, me pu**y whipped as never before, the perfect recipe for disaster. The realist in me knows that it's something else – something that's probably even independent of my aversion to meeting the people I used to call my closest friends.
It's a weird mental state, really. Common literature calls it 'top drop', as opposed to 'sub drop' when it happens to the passive partner. Bella's had a few over the last months, and scared the living shit out of me when it happened the first time, at the end of our second session no less. You get all clingy and weird and need comfort within an inch of your life – which isn't that hard to imagine for a sub after a pretty intense scene that threw her right over the edge of her comfort zone. But it happens to Doms, too, and I feel like I'm hurtling right into a black hole that tries to leach all the energy from me.
I don't even need to think hard to come up with an explanation. As much as I love setting a faster pace, pushing her until I'm edging along her limits, when it comes down to the gritty details, I'm hurting the woman that I love.
She likes it, we both get off on it, we could both have ended it any moment if we hadn't thoroughly enjoyed ourselves – but sometimes intense scenes where I'm going all out being a bastard, I'm feeling drained afterwards and in dire need of comfort and appreciation.
When we cuddle after a scene, it's as much for my benefit as Bella's. We both need grounding, we both need to find our way back to the persons that we are, leave behind the one-sided, black and white world of the playroom where rules are simple and satisfaction is guaranteed. I need to know and feel that she loves me, doesn't see me as the monster I could be if the context were any different. I need to know that she needs me to be exactly as I am. I need her.
I hate being so vulnerable. Being like that always reminds me of my time with Tanya, and that's not a state of mind that I want to revisit ever again. I know it's an irrational resentment as even if our roles were reversed, Bella wouldn't get off on leaving me raw and bleeding, emotionally. Still, for her I want to be strong and independent, I want to be the rock she can cling to and the light that illumines her life – and what I actually am is a mopey wuss.
In a way Bella seems to feel that I'm extra needy tonight as she keeps leaning into me even when she sneers at me, her finger drawing idle patterns on my thigh while she snuggles close, my arm across her shoulder. I still don't want to go to that club, but I know it means a lot to Bella, so of course I'm tagging along.
I murmur a belated “Sorry,” into her hair that she accepts with a gracious nod, before she turns her head and plants a soft kiss onto my jaw. I hug her even closer, and we spend the rest of the ride in silence.
Too soon we're at our stop, and minutes later inside the dark, loud, heated atmosphere of the club. The girl at the coat check smiles flirtatiously at me but I ignore her and make sure to keep my arm around Bella's waist in hope of avoiding anyone else looking at me. I've never been comfortable with random women throwing themselves at me, and with Bella so close it's even weirding me out. Can't they see that I'm clearly not interested?
Thankfully my girl is as oblivious to the flirty looks I'm get ting as she is resistant to any advances from the male crowd. Sometimes I wonder if she's only playing innocent, but I've come to read her quite well over the years, and I think she really has no clue that she's always been a true head turner. Tonight is no exception, and I do my share of glaring and scowling as I follow her through the people milling around, absolutely not minding that she's leading the way as I get a good eye full of her pert ass.
With the dress out of commission, she has chosen to wear dark pants and a thin, white and blue striped halter neck top. I have to grin every time my gaze roams down her bare arm to her right wrist where a wide silver bangle is hiding her leather band and the rather ominous grazes she obtained somewhere along our session this afternoon. She was as stunned as I when she found them while we were cooking together, and I got a swat with the dish towel for that. Not that she's angry, it's more like an inside joke between us. We both end up with weird bruises sometimes with no idea how or even when we got them, but this time I'm clearly to blame. It's nothing serious so I don't have a guilty conscience, but it's things like that that define our lives nowadays. Check every bared inch of skin for marks before you leave the house unless you want to answer awkward questions.