“Was it anything like what you expected?”
I thought about this and shrugged. “I really... really don’t know what I expected.” Like he, I had my eyes fixed on my palm and the casual, yet oddly deliberate motions of his fingers. It tickled only just enough to feel good. “But I couldn’t have expected this. Can I ask you something, too?”
“Of course, anything.”
“What’s it like for you?” I scratched my neck. It was still burning hot under my fingers. “I mean, if for me it’s all about surrender of the self, and pain and giving up power. What’s it like for you?”
Paul’s finger stilled. I could see that he was considering the question, that this time, he had to find the words to explain something inherently inexplicable.
“Firstly, it’s... not really a choice for me. I assume the same is true for you. I can rationally understand what submissives feel, why it gives them so much pleasure and I can see it in your eyes, in the way you move, in the tension of your muscles. So I know it works, but I could never feel it exactly the way you do. Similarly, you might not ever feel exactly what I’ll try to explain. It’s... I’m not a psychologist but I have come to believe that not unlike sexual orientation, there’s nothing I can do about what I need sexually, but of course I tried, especially when I was younger.
“I have never met a conscientious dominant who hasn’t gone through that phase of self-loathing and doubt, where you can hardly distinguish yourself from some common wife beater or rapist just because those images and fantasies resonate with you in a way you know they shouldn’t.”
I blinked and looked down at the table. My heart was racing and my fingers shook a little around the glass. “I kind of... I thought something was wrong with me, too.”
Paul squeezed my hand. “There’s nothing wrong with you Iris, nothing at all.”
“How... how did you stop feeling this way?” I asked.
Paul looked at his salad—he hadn’t eaten much of it, concentrating instead on the prawns, his Camembert and bread.
“You know this stuff was much more difficult before the Internet. Now that I’m older, I can usually feel my way through a conversation, get a feeling for a woman but back then I was pretty lost. I suppressed it for a long time. It didn’t turn me into a nice guy, believe me.” He looked down and an expression of pain crossed his face. He quickly recovered though. “I got a divorce and spent some time throwing myself into work. And then there was the Internet and a little later than most people I realized that with a few clicks there were hundreds of women interested in receiving exactly what I had always wanted to give. It was... like a fresh start.
“But you asked what it is like for me. It’s not easy to answer without a long story. In the beginning, there’s that undeniable rush of power. The very idea that a beautiful woman would lay down her individuality, her decisions, her basic human instincts to do what you say... it was addictive. Makes you feel so much larger than life, you know?”
I nodded although I didn’t. In a way, even listening to it froze a certain part of me that had been hot and throbbing only minutes before. And there it was again, that unsettlingly knowing smile.
“It didn’t last long,” he went on. “I was lucky. Some people get stuck in that phase, in the power rush. It makes a chill run down my spine now when I listen to them.” He shook his head but smiled at me, momentarily seeming to search for words. Finally, he threw up his shoulders and shook his head.
“I went back into another period of doubt. This craving for power had started to feel hollow, almost... boring if that makes any sense at all. I went to meetings, talked to other people, but that didn’t help. I’ve never been one to build my identity on my sexuality and I couldn’t really find anything in common with those who did. So I stopped, I moved here and thought I’d start a new—a different kind of life. I’d made some money with the scripts I’d written and I was tired of the lifestyle in LA.
“That was easy to quit, dominance wasn’t. It catches up with you when you least expect it. This time I went at it more carefully, slowly building on ideas I’d developed over the years.”
He stopped, rubbed the back of his neck and tried to smile at me. There was something impenetrable in his eyes and I looked away when it made me shiver.
“Anyway. I’m rambling, aren’t I? What it’s like for me is… intense. I’ve learned that while it may look like I have the power, that’s not really the truth. Or more accurately, it’s half true. Both open each other more deeply, right to that place that contains who you truly are. Showing that to someone makes you vulnerable—sub or dom, doesn’t matter. You know, when you kneel in front of me, there’s that tinge of humiliation, the knowledge that in any other situation it would be degrading or laughable. And you trust me not to laugh or to degrade you. But it’s the same for the dominant. It’s all over if you laugh at his attempts to lead you.”