“You never know what ends up floating your boat. Or long boat, in the Viking scenario,” Serena replied. “You get two kids in and suddenly it’s freeing to be Helga with the braids and the intact hymen. But I digress. What I was trying to say is that the pretending isn’t about leaving yourself behind. It’s about finding parts of yourself that don’t get attention. I write all day. I write about romance and sex, and there’s still a part of me that needs both romance and sex. I write words, and words don’t fulfill our physical needs. It can be easy to get stuck inside your head and forget you have other parts that need tending.”
“That’s what a vibrator is for.” A vibrator didn’t care that she worked late and knew more science than it did. She’d found men often took offense.
Serena’s lips quirked up. “Oh, baby girl. I used to be you. Okay. Let’s try something. I want you to close your eyes and take a deep breath. I’m going to take your hand and you follow me. I won’t let you trip.”
But she tripped so easily, and she often did it with her eyes open. “Why?”
“Because I want to show you something,” Serena explained. “Come on. I promise I won’t let anything bad happen, but it will work better if you don’t open your eyes until I tell you to.”
“I don’t see how this is supposed to help me with training…” The other woman’s eyes had narrowed, proving she absolutely wasn’t one of those submissive outside the bedroom types. And she was a brilliant author who actually lived the lifestyle. “Sorry. I’m not used to being out of control.”
She closed her eyes and felt Serena’s hand take hers.
“I understand the need for control. It’s precisely why a lot of powerful women enjoy submitting when it comes to sex.” Serena moved slowly, guiding her only she knew where. “Although you’ll find the right Dom tends to quietly top you outside the bedroom as well.”
“Why would you want that?”
“Oh, for things we can’t do for ourselves,” Serena said. “It would be great if we were all completely perfect when it came to balance, but most women find it hard to ever put themselves first. I used to work all day. I mean from the minute I got up to right before bed I would have my computer on. Shortly after we got together Adam started making dinner at night and he asked if I wouldn’t mind not bringing the computer to the table. I said yes, of course. And then we would watch a movie and Jake would rub my feet, and that’s not conducive to working. Slowly but surely I found myself working normal hours and enjoying my time off. And weirdly I became more productive.”
“They trained you not to work after dinner was served,” Maddie surmised. “Well, I don’t have anything to do, so work is kind of comforting.”
“Only until you know what real comfort is.” Serena stopped. “Now I want you to think about yourself. Think about how you look, how you present yourself to the world. Think about how you dress and how you want others to see you. Think about the secret you, the Madeline you only share with your lovers, and I don’t mean the kind that require batteries. Even if you haven’t had one in a while, think about a time when you enjoyed someone in bed. It could be a man or a woman. It could be more than one, just a simple time when the world melted away and nothing mattered but how your body felt.”
Electric. Young. So filled with potential. Nothing had mattered when Deke kissed her. Her brain went on the fritz the minute he put his hands on her, and while she was with him, she could let go of all her worries and cares and simply be. She’d been able to breathe in those moments, able to float when she so often felt anchored to the ground.
I’ve never loved any one like I loved you.
And he’d still left her.
I’ll pretend to be in your bed. Why not simply be in your bed?
Why not prove to herself that the memory was false and the sex wasn’t that good? Why not take what he was willing to offer and be the one to leave him this time?
Serena continued. “Think about the difference between the professional woman you are every day and the secret, intimate woman you get to be when you walk into this club, when you share yourself with your Dom. Now open your eyes.”
Maddie opened her eyes and stared for a moment, completely shocked at what she saw.
She was a woman who wasn’t defined by her body. Not in any way. Her body was nothing more than a tool to house her brain. She wasn’t soft and sweet. She was logical and sometimes cold. In the last few years, she’d traded any sexuality for a hard exterior because she’d learned that the men in her world would view her sexuality as a weakness to be pounced on.