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.
I looked at you uncertainly. We had set firm parameters for this date, not just that you would not meet my kids. There would be no sex. There would be no touching of boobs or crotches. We would talk, and see if we liked each other, if we trusted each other.
Suntan lotion on my back had not been a topic of discussion. You were giving me a choice. Did I want you to touch me? It sounds naΓ―ve to say that I thought of you as one of my best friends, even though this was the first time we had met in person. You knew my deepest secrets -- had known them before you first messaged me. I had put them right in my profile. My terrible marriage, finally ending (although I didn't know then how horrible the process would be -- I still didn't understand my husband's narcissism); that although the bad sex was not the reason I was leaving, the ability to finally explore my fantasies -- submission, humiliation -- was an added bonus. I set up the profile the day I told Derrick I was finally divorcing him. I was confident in the anonymity provided by the fake name and photo of myself wearing a Halloween mask.
I heard from you a week later. Your first message was that I should be careful because there were people who would see my profile and try to take advantage of me. I responded with a thanks. You told me that you were ahead of me in the process -- divorced five years, your kids a bit older than mine. You had loved the opportunity in middle age to finally express your dominant side. You'd had a couple of relationships since, nothing too serious, and weren't looking to settle down.
We moved to email. It was months before I gave you my real name. We wrote about everything -- politics (you were more conservative than me, but nothing that made me ill), our respective house projects, our kids, our jobs. Our fantasies -- mostly mine. You were unfailingly kind, and supportive of me in the face of Derrick's roadblocks to the divorce, his refusal to move out, the things he put the kids through. I came to trust you, if for no other reason than that someone with truly evil attentions was unlikely to invest so much time into prey. (Yes, I can hear you tut-tutting at that.)
The suntan lotion. I took a breath, turned around, and lifted up my hair. Your hands were firm on my shoulders. "You have beautiful skin," you said. Your hands moved lower, under the edge of my bathing suit, and then followed the straps back up to the tops of my shoulders. They kept going forward. I stiffened. "Relax," you said, your breath in my ear. "We have rules." You gently rubbed lotion just below my collar bone. It made me nervous, but mostly I was thrilled. I was startled by the sudden warmth in my groin, which I had not associated with someone else's touch in years. You pulled me back gently, so that I was leaning against your chest. You kissed my ear. "I'm glad you're here," you said. You moved your hands down the outside of my arms. I felt like I was melting against you. I turned my face to you, wanting to kiss you on the lips. But you stepped aside at the last second. "You said there are woods?" you asked.
I nodded. "The trailhead is across the parking lot." I shoved my feet into my flip-flops.
Holding my hand, you allowed me to lead the way. A bored teenager stamped our hands for re-entry as we walked out of the water park. We crossed the parking lot and entered the woods on what was not so much a trail as a paved sidewalk that had been perfect for my kids when they were younger and needed a break from the water park crowds.
We spoke about safe topics -- the recent population explosion of both coyotes and wild turkeys in the area; your concerns about where your new boss was taking your company; our first cars. I began to relax. Today would be fine.
After about a mile we came to the pond where the path ended. We sat on a bench, taking in the view as we continued to chat. You placed my hand on your knee and turned it so that my palm was facing up. I started to pull it away. "Leave it," you said. Should I be scared by the sudden authority in your voice? I wasn't. I was excited.
Your fingers caressed by forearm, never moving higher than the inside of my elbow. You asked me about my sister. I tried to answer normally, but your touch on my arm was making my insides ache. I reached over to put my other hand on your arm, wanting to touch you back, but you stopped me. "No, sweetie," you said. "I didn't give you permission to do that." Your words sent a jolt to my clit. You smiled at me benignly. "Shall we head back to the water park?"
I was glad I was wearing loose shorts because I was certain that my bathing suit bottom was soaked through with my juices. I stood, a little wobbly. You drew me to you as we walked and put your hand on the curve of my ass. You squeezed gently and I stumbled. You caught me. "Easy," you said. I know we were still having a conversation, but I have no idea about what.
We went back into the water park. We had talked about going into the nearby town for dinner. You told me that you had made researched restaurants and made reservations. I found that both adorable -- this was not a town where you needed reservations -- and a little unnerving.
The water park was more crowded than before, and the college students were louder. The alcohol ban in the park did not seem to have deterred them even slightly.
Suddenly water flew at me, drenching me. I sputtered, unsure for a moment what had happened.