MY FIRST SUBMISSIVE ADVENTURE
When our eyes first met across the wave pool at the water park, I could see relief flash on your face -- the same relief I was feeling. We looked like the photographs we had exchanged. We were not victims of some Russian scam.
One thing about me: I always tell the truth. Half the time people don't believe me anyway, and it's a lot easier to keep track of what I've said when I've been honest. So my description of myself on Ready2Mingle, the dating site where we first began exchanging messages, had been accurate: "I'm not bad looking considering my age (50) and that I've never had any work done. I'm white, with shoulder length brown hair and green eyes (my best feature). I'm in pretty good shape -- but I carry half my extra weight in my stomach and the other half in my two chins." The selfies I sent you after we had been exchanging emails for a while showed me to advantage, thanks to training from my older daughter about stretching my neck, lowering my head, and looking up, but they were definitely of me.
I had studied your photographs again before leaving the house this morning. Tall and a bit gangly, shaven head, brown eyes and olive skin, you were nice-enough looking but by no means drop dead gorgeous -- which was good. If you were intimidatingly handsome I might never have agreed to meet you.
You grinned and walked around the wave pool to me. "Hi, Ginny," you said, and kissed me on the cheek.
I took a step back. My kids had not yet left the park with my sister Heather. They did not need to see any PDAs. The divorce hadn't even been final for a week yet. I spotted them with their backs towards me, picking up their towels and backpacks. They were the only children in a crowd made up mostly of students from the nearby college, who were at the water park for some kind of celebration. It was still too early in the season for most families.
I stuck out my hand for you to shake. You took it, and didn't let go. I pulled away. "So glad to meet you, Tom. Would you like to meet my girls?" I sounded overly brisk, using my business networking voice. Since we had agreed that you would
not
meet my kids, my question was meant to warn you away from too much touching.
"Not this time." Your voice was softer than I expected. I had to strain to hear you. "Are they leaving soon?"
I nodded. "Now, it looks like," I said, as I watched them walk off with Heather. I knew she was purposefully not looking back at me. I would owe both her and my kids for their agreement to spend the rest of the day together. Heather was not exactly a child-friendly person, but she was willing to plop them in front of her TV and have pizza delivered. I would buy my kids off with ice cream or used books I would pick for them from the local thrift shop. But no matter how much I thanked Heather, she was likely to use her favor to me as an occasion to taunt me and insult my kids to me behind their backs at the next unavoidable family gathering. Thinking of it made me tired.
The price for my first date in 25 years might sound ridiculous, but you and I live four hours away from each other, I couldn't leave my girls with their asshole of a father for an entire day, and the friends who I usually trade favors with were unavailable. Heather lives about halfway between you and me, and the water park in her town was one of the girls' favorite places.
"Good," you said, and you took my hand again. "I thought you said you'd be wearing a red bathing suit."
"I am. Under my t-shirt and shorts." I spoke absent-mindedly, distracted by my thoughts about my sister.
"I want to see it."
"I don't want to get sunburned," I said, like I had said to my kids earlier.
You just looked at me, with an expression that said
do it
. Suddenly I was no longer thinking about my kids or my sister. You had my full attention. I shivered. I was afraid and delighted. This was what I wanted. This is what we had been exchanging emails about for what seemed like forever. This was why I had made the complicated arrangements for the day, now that I was free of my husband, my
ex-husband
, whose idea of kinky was to stay awake during sex. This day was my reward for the long, horrific struggle to get divorced, to keep full custody of my children, to not be completely financially ruined. After so many years of being strong, of everything relying on me, I was here to submit to your will. Or, to be accurate, as we had so carefully laid out in our emails, to decide if I wanted to submit to your will and if you wanted to impose your will on me.
Here you were, looking at me expectantly. I fell back on bravado. "If I take off my shirt, will you take off yours?" I asked.
"No," you answered. "I'm wearing exactly what I said I would be wearing. You're not."
That was fair. You were wearing a gray t-shirt and black Bermuda shorts. You had sent me a photo of the outfit this morning so I would recognize you.
Taking a deep breath, I pulled my t-shirt off, revealing my red tankini top, still damp from when I had played in the water with the kids. "Let me just put my shirt with my stuff," I said.
You followed me to my bag, which was on a bench near a water slide that was closed for maintenance. No one else was nearby. "You're not wearing any suntan lotion?" you asked.
"No, I am, but my kids did my back and they're not very good at it."
"May I?" You took the lotion from the top of my bag.