Becoming Mistress Ch 8

Firsts

The first time I ever said "yes" to being kissed, I wasn't thinking about romance.

I remember the texture of the bench--sun-warmed wood beneath my thighs, sticky from a long day of August heat. I remember the soft hiss of headphones being shared, the plasticky split of a Walkman jack adapter in my hand. And I remember how still the air was, how the moment seemed to lean in--like it was waiting.

He asked: Can I kiss you?

And I looked at him, blinked once, and nodded.

But even that nod wasn't instinct. It was decision.

It was the first time I felt the power of permission. Not because it was granted to me. But because it was mine to give.

There was no trembling rush. No cinematic swell.

Just heat, and sweat, and lips that waited--and mine that answered.

And later, I'd realize:

It wasn't the kiss that mattered.

It was the choice.

Mine.

These are the firsts that marked the line--

Not between innocence and experience,

But between curiosity and intention.

I never felt like I was racing toward womanhood.

No invisible clock ticking.

No box I was supposed to check.

I wasn't trying to "lose" anything.

Because I didn't feel like anything was missing.

I didn't want a story I could tell later.

I wanted something that made sense to me--

In the moment.

In my body.

In the way the air shifted just before someone touched me,

And I let them.

I had fantasies.

Private ones.

Ritualistic ones.

I had already discovered what made me ache.

And I knew the ache wasn't the point.

It was the control I had over it.

So when those firsts arrived,

They weren't surprises.

They weren't trophies.

They were mirrors--

Each one showing me what I already knew:

That I didn't crave permission.

I craved presence.

And meaning.

And sovereignty.

I didn't wait for someone to come along and make me feel like a woman.

Because I already knew what she felt like.

She was inside me.

Watching.

Deciding.

Choosing when the moment was real enough

To be worth giving something to.

Not surrender.

Not performance.

Just... choice.

First Kiss With a Boy (Age 14)

He was soft-spoken, with hair that curled behind his ears and the kind of smile that didn't try too hard. His name doesn't matter now--but at the time, it felt like a secret I wasn't sure I wanted to keep. He made people laugh without being cruel. And he talked to me like I wasn't a girl to impress--but someone to understand.

We were sitting side by side on the bleachers behind the gym after school, our thighs just barely touching. The late afternoon sun had already dropped low enough that everything looked amber. We were swapping headphones, trading cassette tapes--me holding onto his copy of Appetite for Destruction, him nodding along to a mix I'd made from songs I liked that summer.

There was a lull in the conversation. That teenage kind of quiet, where nothing needs to be said because everything is pulsing underneath. And then he looked at me, cleared his throat, and asked:

"Can I kiss you?"

Not Do you want to kiss me?

Not Would it be okay if...?

Just--Can I kiss you?

Like it was something I got to permit. Like I was the one who had to grant it.

And that changed everything.

Because in that moment, I didn't think about whether I liked him.

I thought about the power of that ask.

I nodded once.

And he leaned in--shaky, gentle, lips warm and slightly parted. His kiss was more breath than contact. Too light, too careful. I kissed him back, just enough to steady him. And that's when I felt it:

That this wasn't about romance.

It was about control.

Not over him--but over myself.

Over this moment.

This body.

This threshold.

There was no rush of passion. No cinematic fireworks.

What there was... was clarity.

I had allowed this.

And that meant something.

I don't remember what we said after. Something light. Something forgettable.

But I walked home buzzing--not from the kiss,

But from the knowing:

I hadn't been taken by surprise.

I had decided.

First Kiss With a Girl (Age 15)

It was late spring, and everything smelled like cut grass and possibility.

We were best friends in that way teenage girls sometimes are--intimate, entangled, a little obsessed with each other, but never admitting it out loud. Her name was Megan. She wore too much eyeliner, stole her older sister's magazines, and liked to quote Sylvia Plath like she understood her.

That night, we were lying on her bed, sprawled on top of a pile of pillows and notebooks, the kind of late-night tangle that felt more like a sleepover than a seduction. Our parents thought we were studying. We weren't. We were talking about everything and nothing--boys, teachers, our futures, the way some girls at school already looked like they knew how to move their bodies and make them mean something.

We didn't. Not yet.

Our arms kept brushing. Her hip bumped mine. I remember watching the way her mouth moved when she laughed--how she bit her lower lip like she was trying to stop something from slipping out.

And then the quiet came.

That kind of sudden silence that hums with electricity.

When something has already shifted but no one names it.

She leaned in first.

Her face close enough that I could see the tiny gold flecks in her eyes, the uneven edge of her mascara. Her breath smelled like cherry soda and spearmint gum. And she didn't ask.

She just paused.

Waited.

And in that pause, I gave her permission without a word.

Her lips touched mine so softly it felt like a question.

But I knew the answer.

We kissed once. Then again. Longer the second time. Her hand found mine between us, our fingers lacing instinctively. There was no urgency. No agenda. Just warmth and echo and something right.

And in that moment, something opened inside me.

Not lust. Not yet.

But... recognition.

Like I was being shown a version of myself I had only glimpsed in shadows.

I didn't feel ashamed.

I felt seen.

And safe.

After, we didn't talk about it. We went back to gossip and dumb jokes and sleep.

But I held that moment close--closer than any diary entry or whispered confession.

It wasn't a crush. It wasn't rebellion.

It was truth.

And I wasn't ready to share it with anyone.

Not because I was scared.

Because I didn't want anyone else touching it.

First Time With a Boy (Age 18)

It happened in late October, just as the leaves started giving up.

College still smelled new--like wet concrete and library stacks, fresh laundry and independence. I had a single dorm room, small but mine. The kind of space where I could light a candle in secret, leave my clothes on the floor, and wake up without anyone else's rhythm dictating mine.

He was in my lit seminar--quiet, smart, dry-witted. I liked how he listened. Not in a practiced way, but like he didn't need to interrupt to prove he understood. We exchanged notes at first. Then playlists. Then questions that got closer to the skin: What book changed you? What music makes you cry? What's the difference between wanting and needing?

We never labeled what was happening. It was slower than flirting and more deliberate than friendship. And the night we crossed that invisible line, everything already felt decided.

It was raining. Soft and constant. A percussive hush against the windows that made the world feel wrapped in velvet.

He came over late, carrying a bottle of cheap red wine we never opened. We sat shoulder to shoulder on my bed, half-watching a movie, legs pressed close enough to know we'd crossed the threshold of casual. When I turned toward him, our faces were inches apart--and he didn't lean in.

He waited.

That patience made my breath catch.

So I kissed him.

Slowly. Mouth parting just enough. My tongue sliding against his with careful pressure, not invitation--instruction. He followed it like a study guide.

When he touched my knee, I moved his hand higher.

When he reached for my waist, I lifted my shirt.

And when I slipped my fingers beneath the hem of his jeans, his breath hitched--but he didn't fumble.

He didn't paw or grope.

He explored.

He undressed me like I was something sacred. He looked--not at my breasts, but at the way my nipples tightened in the cool air. He ran his fingers down my side like he was reading Braille, following the curve of my hip to the soft flesh at the top of my thigh. His mouth grazed the underside of my collarbone. Then lower. His lips traced the edge of my stomach, reverent.

By the time I pulled him on top of me, I wasn't nervous. I was ready.

I opened my thighs slowly. Let the heat between them speak for me.

He pushed inside carefully--inch by inch--like he was learning my shape in real time. There was no thrust. No pounding. Just pressure and stretch, the rich thrum of being filled. My fingers gripped his back, anchoring him to me. Not because I was afraid he'd leave. Because I wanted him still. Close.

We rocked in slow waves. His chest brushing mine. My heels anchoring against his lower back. The rhythm wasn't fast. It was present. Focused.

He came first, gasping into my neck like a secret.

And I smiled.

Not because I was done.

Because I wasn't trying to impress him.

I was watching him come undone.

He stayed inside me a moment longer. Then curled beside me, his hand drawing lazy circles on my stomach, still glistening with sweat. And in that afterglow, I didn't feel used or claimed.

I felt sovereign.

His seed inside me didn't mark anything lost.

It confirmed something found.

My body wasn't something to give away.

It was a threshold.

And I had chosen who would cross it.

First Time With a Woman (Age 19)

She wasn't much older--just enough that she seemed certain of her skin.

It was the way she walked into class, half-draped in scarves and sarcasm, marking up her copy of The Bell Jar like it had personally disappointed her. She didn't raise her hand unless she had something to disrupt. She wore red lipstick that never smudged. She made eye contact like it was a dare.

I think she liked how I argued.

I liked how she annotated.

Her marginalia was aggressive--tiny black slashes of thought.

But when she looked at me, it was soft.

Like I was the sentence she'd been trying to underline.

We started talking after class. First about books, then about everything else--small rebellions, growing up too observant, the weight of being "the smart girl." She invited me to her apartment for wine and poetry one night. Of course she did.

Her place was warm and dim. Books stacked on every surface. No television. Just a floor lamp with a worn orange shade and a record humming something French in the background. The wine was already breathing.

She sat cross-legged on the floor, poured me a glass, and read Neruda in a low voice. Not performative. Intimate. Like she was giving me something private to hold.

I couldn't have told you the moment it shifted. There was no clear cue.

Just the scent of something ripe between us.

Curiosity steeped long enough to become intention.

When she touched my cheek, I didn't flinch.

I leaned in.

Her mouth met mine with certainty--no hesitation, no flutter. Just heat.

Kissing her felt like being answered.

Like something that had been echoing inside me finally had shape.

Her hands moved slowly--one to my neck, one to the small of my back, pulling me into her lap. I straddled her, gasping as her tongue deepened the kiss, grinding against her instinctively. Her teeth scraped my lower lip. Her nails grazed under my shirt.

When she undressed me, she did it with reverence. One button at a time. One sleeve, then the next. Her palms glided across my skin like they had every right to be there.

"You're so fucking beautiful," she whispered.

Not in that breathless, wide-eyed way some boys said it.

This was declarative.

Like she'd already memorized me and was simply stating fact.

She laid me back on a blanket in front of the heater, the wine forgotten, the poem unfinished. She kissed the underside of my jaw, the hollow of my collarbone, the slope between my breasts. When she reached my thighs, she didn't ask.

She just waited--eyes up, lips close, breath warm.

And I nodded. Just once.

Her mouth was gentle at first. Soft licks. Featherlight pressure. But then her hands gripped my hips and pulled me into rhythm--her rhythm.

The first moan surprised me.

The second I offered.

By the time her tongue circled my clit, slow and steady, I was already shaking. And when I came--loud, gasping, undone--it wasn't just release. It was revelation.

Because I didn't feel self-conscious. Or performative. Or afraid.

I felt seen.

There was no fumbling, no apology, no comparison.

She hadn't touched me like a girl.

She'd touched me like a woman.

After, I curled against her chest, damp and spent. Her fingers stroked my back in lazy, quiet arcs. We didn't speak for a long time. We didn't need to.

I didn't fall in love with her.

I fell in love with the truth of it.

The ease.

The heat.

The holy fucking clarity.

I didn't just feel like I'd had sex.

I felt recognized.

Like someone had knelt at an altar I didn't know I'd built inside myself--

And worshipped.

Discovering Control

After those firsts, something shifted in how I moved through the world.

Not publicly--at least not at first.

But privately.

In the quiet, unspoken spaces where desire gets rehearsed.

I started noticing my own rhythms.

Not just what I liked, but how I liked it.

I wasn't waiting to be pleased.

I was becoming the one who orchestrated pleasure.

When someone touched me, I paid attention to whether they waited.

To whether they watched.

To whether they earned their way closer.

I began to prefer those moments just before--the stillness, the breath, the tension.

The asking.

The not asking, when it came with reverence.

I didn't need control over another person yet.

I needed control over myself.

So I tested it.

I slowed things down when they started to speed up.

I told boys exactly how to touch me.

I stopped pretending to come.

I started moving their hands where I wanted them.

And if they didn't listen, I pulled away.

With women, I stayed quieter--but sharper.

I watched what made them tremble.

I timed my kisses with their breathing.

I learned how to draw a line between being gentle

and being in charge.

It wasn't about dominance. Not yet.

But it was about intention.

I practiced control like it was foreplay.

Every interaction became a chance to observe what power felt like--not just from the outside, but from the inside. The way it curled in my belly when I said no without apology. The way my hips moved when I knew I was the one directing the rhythm.

I wasn't just discovering what I liked.

I was learning how to create it.

Curate it.

Command it.

Those firsts didn't just open me sexually.

They woke something sleeping.

A kind of erotic intelligence that had nothing to do with technique,

and everything to do with awareness.

I was becoming someone who didn't chase desire.

I summoned it.

And when it arrived, I knew what to do with it.

There was no single moment I claimed the word "Dominant."

But there was a moment I realized I wasn't becoming something new.

I was returning to something I had always been.

It came to me not in the act of sex, but in the quiet after--

When a lover looked at me with that mix of awe and ache,

Still trembling, still trying to make sense of what had just happened between us.

I had orchestrated it.

Guided it.

Designed it down to the breath.

And when I asked, "Did you like that?"

What I really meant was--Did you feel me?

Not just on your skin.

But under it.

Did you feel what it means when I decide?

That's when I knew:

I didn't need someone else to unlock me.

I was the key.

Sex wasn't an arrival.

It was an expression.

A ritual of power, of play, of placement.

And I didn't want equal footing.

I didn't want exchange.

I wanted structure.

Hierarchy.

Obedience wrapped in longing.

Worship without demand.

Not because I was broken.

Not because I needed control to feel safe.

Because I had tasted what it meant to be met--

Truly met--

By someone willing to be shaped, led, unmade.

And in that space, I didn't just feel powerful.

I felt right.

These firsts didn't make me a woman.

They reminded me I already was one.

Because I didn't give anything away.

I offered.

I received.

I chose.

And in that choosing, I discovered something far more intimate than pleasure--

I discovered power.

Mine.