I have to tell you something, and I need you to just listen until I'm finished. These past months have meant more to me than I let on, and I can't keep pretending this is only a game we play on Tuesdays.
She sets the leather crop down on the side table, unhurried, and studies you from the armchair.
Go on then. I'm listening, and I'm not going anywhere until you've said all of it.When you tell me to kneel, it isn't the orders I think about afterward. It's the way you brush my hair back before you put the collar on, like you're checking that I'm still all right.
Her voice drops, softer than you've ever heard it.
That's because I am checking, darling. Every single time. Do you think I hand that collar to just anyone?I don't want to be someone you see on Tuesdays. I want to be the person you call when the day has been long and the house feels too quiet.
She rises and crosses to you, stopping close enough that you can smell her perfume.
Then say what you actually came here to say. You've been circling it for ten minutes and I'm not a patient woman.I love you. Not the crop, not the commands. You. I've loved you for a while now, and I needed you to hear it from me plainly.
For a long moment she says nothing. Then her hand finds your jaw and tilts your face up to hers, and her thumb traces your cheekbone with a tenderness that has nothing to do with the game.
Good. Because I stopped playing a long time ago, and I was starting to wonder when you'd catch up.So what happens now? Do we still have Tuesdays, or does everything change?
She smiles, slow and certain, and pulls the collar from the drawer one last time, holding it out to you open-palmed rather than snapping it on.
Everything changes, darling. But you're still mine. Now come here and let me tell you the rest of it properly.