Chapter Three: Surrender
I stare at my reflection in the mirror, and see the burden of an impending decision I don't really want to make.
I see it in the bags under my eyes, the deepening lines etched across my face, telltale signs of the turmoil raging beneath. Keeping me up at night.
It's as if I stand on the precipice of two worlds, teetering between resistance and acceptance, between holding onto the familiar, or yielding to Chris' demands. The former is depressing... but comfortable. The latter is exciting, but scary. Oh, so scary.
Chris and I barely exchange two words to one another each morning as I head off to work, or when I come back home after a 12-hour shift. At first, I almost welcomed this silence. I thought it would give me the time to think in peace.
But here's the thing about standing on the precipice of two worlds... they both begin to lose clarity, shrouded by a thick fog I don't know how to pierce. They blur, losing shape, colour. Meaning.
At work, I find myself absent-minded and clumsy, my thoughts drifting towards the impending decision I must face. How can I concentrate on mundane tasks when I feel like my entire self is essentially being put on trial?
Chris has called out everything that makes me, well, me. It's not bad enough that I'm under so much stress, that my mind is such a fucked-up place, now I have to give up my one destressor too, because she says I drink too much?
And work? I'm proud of how far I've come. Why is that bad? Even if she's right, and work really is a little too totalising in my life, then so what? Lots of people are like that.
Of course, there's the cheating... I blush at that one, cursing my inability to rationalise it away. All the same, Chris seems to have taken issue with everything about me.
By what right does she judge me? Why does she feel entitled to a verdict, to imposing terms on me?
But maybe most poignantly... Why am I letting her write the rules?
Small wonder I'm clumsy in the kitchen, a far cry from the surgically precise but harsh taskmaster I'm known for. Rather than focusing on work, my brain is constantly and compulsively replaying hypothetical conversations between Chris and I.
Conversations where I'm right, so right, and she has no response, and she breaks down, and admits that I've been right all along.
Conversations where we break up, and terrible things are spoken between us. Monstrous, untrue, unkind words that cannot be unsaid.
Conversations in which I break down, apologise for everything, every slight real or imagined, where I beg her to please not leave me alone with my self-hatred.
Conversations that end with my knees hitting the floor, my lips getting busy apologising to her feet, not through words, but deeds...
Fuck.
Getting home is no better. My domestic world is no less blurry than my professional one, as I struggle to put things in focus through the haze of my confusion, and my emotions. As each day ebbs away, I return to the sanctuary of our shared space, and such a sanctuary it is.
Messy and uncared for, with a weighty silence between us. The tension between Chris and me is palpable. The tension within myself, even more so.
Chris takes it all in stride. She knows exactly what she's doing, subtly teasing me, trying to push me over the edge. Her feet, once so readily available, are now withdrawn from my touch until I make a decision... but they're never far away.
They always seem to poke out from under a blanket, toes wiggling. She rubs her arches and soles sometimes, watching me from the corner of her eye. She seems to be crossing her legs so much more often, one foot bobbing up and down.
Expectantly.
I gulp nervously, rub my temples, and pretend not to care. Each time, it gets a bit more difficult. My mouth waters, my thighs rub surreptitiously against one another, and my impulse control deserts me... every mind game she plays, every exposure to her feet, is a constant reminder of the decision that lingers in the air. The choice that will shape the course of our relationship.
The truth of the matter is that Chris hasn't left me alone with the decision, not really. She's ever-present, subtly smiling, smirking, teasing.
"Look at this cute pair of nylons..." she tells me one day, browsing the same online store where she got the ankle boots. No, where I got her the ankle boots. It's all I can do to barely suppress the voice within me that completes that sentence, by saying as tribute.
"Very... very nice," I say, not trusting the steadiness of my own voice. "You, uh... you're getting them?"
All of a sudden, the performative smile on her face dies, the mask drops, and I see the steel underneath. "Getting them?" She asks, almost incredulous. "It is not for me to buy them."
God, why does that make me almost convulse with arousal? It's hard to believe this girl was my sub, once.
Was...
Sigh. There is no clarity to be found, here. Only guilt, and fear, and anger, and... my desperate arousal at how fucking hot she is. Like she's slowly winning an arms wrestling match with me. Bending me to her will...
I feel a mixture of resentment and fascination as I watch her, observing the way she holds herself with a newfound confidence. She has transformed from a passive participant to an orchestrator of our lives, and while a part of me struggles against this shift, another part is undeniably drawn to it. The magnetic pull of her power is inescapable, its gravitational force tugging at the core of my being.
Her power. Have I really just called it that? My own mind is betraying me.
The days pass, and the routine keeps eating away at me. It becomes harder and harder to deny that, no matter how angry I feel, I'm going to buckle, eventually.
And to be clear, I am angry. I resent Chris for forcing me to confront my weaknesses, for shining a relentless spotlight on the flaws that have marred our relationship.
Yet, beneath the surface, I can't deny a perverse attraction to her dominion, an inexplicable pull towards the power she wields through her feet.
