‘So then,’ I quaver, ridiculously nervous, my coffee cup jittering in my hand.
‘So then,’ he prompts when I don’t continue. His smile is playful, his eyes only pretend stern.
‘Just wondering what’s on the menu for today.’
‘Your choice,’ he says. Why all these curve balls? Can’t he act predictably, just once?
‘My choice? Dinner at the Ivy then?’
He chuckles and tickles me under the chin. ‘One day, I promise you. But tonight must be something we do in the schoolroom, because I have booked there. You can choose what. I have one rule.’
‘A rule? What’s the rule?’
‘What you choose, you must not have done it before.’
‘Well, that covers quite a lot of things.’
‘And it is maybe something you never planned to do. Something maybe that scares you.’ His fingertip rests beneath my chin, holding up my head, keeping my eyes fixed on his.
My scalp begins to crawl with dread anticipation. He wants me to do something that scares me. All my anxious fantasies of the past week crowd into my mind.
‘Why?’ I ask weakly. ‘Why something that scares me?’
His hand moves around to cradle my shoulder, putting me in an instantly reassuring place. ‘Because I want to make it good for you. Take your fear and kill it.’
‘Maybe it won’t be possible.’
‘If it is, I will do it. Think of a scary thing. Tell me what it is.’
I try to calm my thoughts, to come up with a workable list.
Nothing with multiple partners, for a start. That’s a scary step too far, just for now. Piercing? I picture Dimitri looming above me with a needle and a lighter flame … no. No way. My imagination takes me on a whistle-stop tour of all the most outrageous sexual practices I have ever heard of before coming to a sudden stop as something infinitely more simple, more doable, more intimate and yet just as scary occurs to me.
‘There is something,’ I say slowly, then I stop. I don’t know if I can say the words.
‘Good. So what is it?’
I hide my face in his shoulder. ‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Ohhh,’ he croons, delighted by my reticence, grabbing my hair and making me look at him. ‘You can’t tell me? Is it very bad? Very, very wicked? I hope so.’
‘I don’t think it’s that uncommon, actually,’ I say. ‘I guess lots of people do it. Just, I can’t imagine it feeling good. Not for, y’know, maybe for the person giving it, not so much for the person receiving.’
I really, really hope all my hedging and skirting is giving him a clue. I just don’t want to say the words out loud: they are so ugly, so bald, so crude.
‘You mean the cane?’ He frowns.
‘Nooo. Nothing to do with spanking. Something a bit more … intimate. I imagine it can be painful, all the same. And it does involve the same … body part.’
‘Ah!’ His bangles clash as inspiration strikes. ‘You mean anal sex, right?’
Was there any need to say it quite so loudly and emphatically? A number of people at neighbouring tables look over and smirk. I curl back up into the crook of Dimitri’s arm, pressing up close to his rangy, bony shoulder, suppressing an urge to whimper with embarrassment.
‘My God, why are you so shy about this?’ He hugs me tight, half laughing. ‘Is very common, I think. I suppose everybody here has done it, yes? Hey, look at me, stop hiding.’
But I only shake my head, forehead rubbing his shirt. He pinches the back of my neck and I squint up at him. ‘Can I change my mind?’
‘No,’ he says, but then he softens. ‘You really want to?’
The speck of disappointment in his voice nerves me. ‘No, no, it’s OK. I’ll do it.’
‘We’ll do it. You aren’t alone.’ He takes my hands and squeezes them. I can’t help but smile at him. I don’t know if your dom is supposed to make you smile as much as he does. Shouldn’t I be cowering or something? ‘Let’s go,’ he whispers.
We walk through a barrage of grins and whispers and I flush furious scarlet, imagining everyone watching my backside as I pass, knowing what’s in store for it.
I shudder slightly on the stairs, tensing my sphincter muscles in readiness.
‘You’ve done it before, I presume?’
‘Oh yeah. Of course.’
The fact that it’s no big deal for him is both comforting and alienating.
‘I mean, you really have done it? Not like when you told Mal and O you’d had a ton of submissives?’
‘I don’t lie to you, Rosie. With other people, I am acting. With you, I am myself.’