"Congratulations," Lexa said when she slid into the booth.
"Too soon for that," she replied, picking up the menu.
"It looked pretty well established to me." Lexa took a sip of the water the waiter set down in front of her then wiped the condensation off her hand onto her napkin. "How is the reality measuring up to the fantasy?"
"Even though it wasn't my fantasy to have things go the way they did when I went home with him from the bar, I wasn't exactly surprised by how they went," she started, spinning the straw in her iced tea. Since she was fourteen she had fantasized about what a night with him would be like. But back then the fantasies were juvenile. The unrealistic musings of an inexperienced girl. Now she was older, and her desires had changed. "I was surprised when he showed up on my doorstep, though. I hadn't been very nice to him."
"Amazing what hurt pride will do to a man," Lexa said, her teeth peeking through the curve of her lips. "That was the plan, though. You tested him and he passed."
"Yeah, he did. I mean, to show up on my doorstep twice—"
"Twice?" Lexa cut her off. "I thought it was only once."
"That's because I didn't tell you about the second time." She looked away from Lexa's narrowed eyes, pretending to take in the scenery of the room.
"Why?" Lexa asked, the domme coming out in her voice.
"He was drunk, and he..." she paused, trying to think of a mitigating way to phrase it. "He attempted to take something he didn't have permission to have."
"He assaulted you?" Lexa's pale eyes shot through her.
"No—"
"Morgan, I told you to trust your gut. You can get hurt—"
"I did trust my gut," she fired back. These were the games she and Lexa sometimes played, and never once had she ignored her intuition. "He showed up at my house at night and I live alone in the middle of nowhere. My options were limited."
Lexa sat back, crossing her arms over her chest. "So what happened?"
"Things got a little... strange." It wasn't that these games always went as planned, but she never anticipated this one ending the way it had. But much like correlation did not equal causation, improbability was not equal to impossibility, and nothing in life was impossible.
"Strange?" Lexa asked, raising her eyebrow.
"Well, I whipped him to get him away from me—"
"Whipped him with what?" Lexa interrupted.
"A leather strap. Kind of like a belt but a little wider." She held up her hand and squared her pointer finger and thumb, demonstrating the width. "I only hit him a few times, until he was on his elbows and knees with his hands covering his head..." A soft tingle started in her stomach when the image chased the rest of the thought from her mind.
"And?" Lexa prompted, leaning towards her.
"And I may have accidentally shed my sheep's clothing earlier than I had wanted." It wasn't supposed to happen the way it had, but she was more than willing to adapt to the scene as it unfolded. "The male thought process never ceases to amaze me," she continued. "Even given all that had happened up to that point, he still couldn't resist the sight of my nipples showing through my dress."
Lexa stared at her silently for a moment, then laughter burst from her lips. "You didn't let him come, did you? He hasn't earned that privilege yet."
"I may have..." she replied, stuffing a forkfull of salad into her mouth.
"I raised you better than that," Lexa scolded.
"And I made a decision in the moment based on my expertise in the field of behavior. And clearly it worked since he showed up on my doorstep a third time."
Lexa slowly chewed on a piece of french bread, her expression taut. "I still don't understand how you went to high school with this man for four years and he doesn't have a clue who you are."
"Three years. He was a year ahead of me," she replied, breathing out the tension she had held in anticipation of a lecture. "And nobody knew me."
"How do you manage to go to a small town high school for four years and have nobody remember you?"
"It's not that difficult, really." For all the secrets they had shared, she had never spoken much about her high school experience. Finn was the only piece from that part of her life she had told Lexa about, and there hadn't been much to tell. He was popular, a charming womanizer, and a star athlete in their high school rodeo district. He had never wronged her. Never even spoken to her, which made her predicament even worse. Not knowing him personally made it easy for her to morph him into whatever she wanted him to be.
"I run a classroom full of kindergarteners and they all know who their classmates are, as well as who the kids in the other two kindergarten classes at the school are," said Lexa, raising a spoon of potato soup to her lips.
"Well, first you have to have a mother who believes the small town elementary and middle school are full of incompetent morons, so she drives you to a private school in a city thirty minutes away," she explained. "Then, when you're forced to go to the small town high school starting freshman year because your parents get a divorce, everyone knows everyone else but you."
"And by then the cohorts are already set," Lexa said, nodding in understanding.
"Exactly. After that, staying incognito is easy." She took a sip of water and pushed her plate to the side. "All you have to do is make sure to enroll in every advanced placement class the school offers, and have a few big brothers to drive you to the junior college two towns over to take them, since the school in your town is too small to have them on campus."
"Ah yes, three very attractive big brothers..." Lexa interjected.
"Yes, three very attractive and incredibly non-submissive brothers," she replied, knowing Lexa would never try to enslave anyone without her blessing.
"No worries. I'm a married woman now, remember?" Lexa winked at her, then used the opportunity to once again flash the rock on her ring finger. "Anyways, continue..."
She sighed and rolled her eyes at the ring, knowing full well the most important ring in the marriage was the one Lexa had pierced through her husband's perineum. "For the one or two periods you actually have to take at the high school, you make sure to sit in the left corner of the front row while everyone else sits in the back because you always forget your glasses and have a hard time seeing the whiteboard. Oh, and make sure not to wear attention seeking clothing. Plus, you have the fact that teenagers are incredibly self absorbed to help you out."
