Submitting to Her(29)
"Thought you might need some incentive," she shrugged, then lifted her feet up onto the top of the seat in front. In the silver-blue light from the movie screen, I could see that she hadn't bothered to replace the underwear she'd sent over to me by FedEx Express.
The rows were spacious for a movie theater, but I'm not entirely sure how I managed to wedge myself in position. I had the motivation to find a way, and as it turned out, feasting on the delicious brunette through the first two acts made it quite the most memorable movie experience I'd ever had. Zoey seemed to enjoy it too.
*
I did pretty well on the whole, focusing on Zoey's needs, dispensing with my own. Our relationship certainly wasn't nearly as extreme as some of the dominant-submissive arrangements out there, which seemed to suit both of us down to the ground.
Zoey mostly referred to it as a female-led relationship, rather than dominance and submission. She teased me, she surprised me, she denied me release until I started having the first wet dreams I'd had since being a young teenager. But there was no out-and-out humiliation, no actual bodily harm, no real pain.
I got the impression she hadn't really done this before me. I was fine about that, I was more than happy for her to learn on me. But she told me once that she wasn't a dominatrix, she didn't want to be. She liked telling me what to do, liked having me at her beck and call, but she wasn't going to set up some kind of Red Room or dungeon full of scary medieval implements. She wasn't going to degrade me and turn me into a sniveling slave - she wanted to impose her will on a man, not a mouse. She took pride in my achievements at work, encouraged me to excel. And the way she rewarded me was the best motivation a worker could ever have.
I think if she'd wanted any of that, I could have accommodated her demands. But she didn't want to hurt me, didn't want to debase me, didn't want to mock me - despite the hardship I'd put her through for all of six months after her promotion.
Outside the protections of our privacy, she treated me as just another colleague, though now she had me firmly under her thumb in the hierarchy. What we had together remained secret, for us to enjoy - though there were the occasional risks, not least the continuing use of her office after hours.
It turned out I was particularly talented at controlling myself and sticking to the rules, if I had her pleasure to focus on. I found my own pleasure in witnessing her beauty and contentment, indulging in it, and the overwhelming bliss I experienced from making her smile, making her moan, making her come.
Zoey's mood varied, naturally enough - sometimes she felt like being strict, plenty of times she'd reward me for my dedication by relaxing the rules, allowing us to spend time in "Ordinary Mode", almost like normal boyfriend and girlfriend. Plenty of times she just didn't have the energy to be overly dominant, allowing me free reign to pleasure her and soothe her aches and pains as I saw fit. I took pride in learning how to please her, and while her strength was thrilling when she imposed it, those tender periods were sweet and heavenly respites from the pressures of our working week.
And then we went to Philadelphia, and the cozy stability we'd settled into was suddenly thrown into sharp disarray as a figure from her past appeared.
* * *
2. PLEASURE AND PAIN
A perfect Woman, nobly plann'd,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.
- William Wordsworth, Perfect Woman
* * *
Chapter Ten
In our business, we're away from the office quite frequently, pursuing key clients, attending industry events at which to raise the profiles of our publications and attract new advertisers. On those occasions when Zoey was taken out of town for a few days on end, or when I flew off to another part of the country to tie up my own deal or appear at another tiresome seminar, I had time to consider just what was happening to me.
I wasn't quite prepared for how much it hurt to be apart from her for significant lengths of time, however. It had been something of a Damascene conversion as I discovered the real purpose that surrendering to Zoey's intense and irresistible authority gave to my life. Yet when we were apart for more than a day or so, it really started to become obvious the kind of emptiness I felt without her around.
Looking back, I think I always had that sense of being incomplete, and my earlier efforts to bed as many shiny but vacantly pneumatic blondes as I could lay my hands on had been a way of distracting myself from that emptiness.
Thinking about my sexual history, I realize that all the real high points along the way had been when women I'd been with had displayed little glimpses of the kind of power that Zoey lived every moment she was with me.