Page 40 of Leviticus
“Then we have a deal.” Her words made a shiver run up my spine. We have a deal sounded very similar to us having a contract. And that thought was a titillating one, to be sure.
“I want to start off by telling you that I’m not like most men. A little over six years ago, I was sent on an errand by Reverend Jacob. I was sent in search of a car part that took me on travels throughout the neighboring towns. It took me three days to track down the part and even when I did, I had to find a very specific shop to go pick it up the next day after it had been delivered,” I began, still pacing the floor as I spoke.
“I stopped and asked for directions to this back-alley shop that I was supposed to go to. I tried to follow the man’s instructions, but it was a complete jumbled mess. I had no idea how to traverse the local towns, let alone the downtown area. It is much like a city and the back alleys got very confusing very quickly. In no time at all, I found myself lost.” I looked up, trying to gauge her reactions so far. Nothing but interest was evident on her face. I, however, was already a wreck. My palms were sweating.
“I found what I thought was the shop, but in truth it was something much, much different,” I began again.
“What was it?” she asked eagerly.
“I’m getting there. When I found this place, something drew me in. I found myself enraptured by what I saw there, but what I discovered. I could not have looked away, even if I had tried. I learned so much there, Ruth. I found myself. I found who I truly am”
“What did you find, Levi? Who are you?” she asked. There was the tiniest hint of hesitancy in her voice, but more than anything, I felt support radiating off of her.
“I discovered I am a Dominant.”
I watched her closely. Had I gone too far in my descriptions? Had I over shared? Had I completely traumatized the poor woman to the point that she had lost the ability to speak?
The silence had drug on, each minute feeling more like hours as the seconds passed by. She wasn’t looking at me, her eyes focused down on her hands instead, her brow furrowed, deep in thought.
“Ruth? Please say something. Anything,” I all but begged.
“No, just wait. I need a minute. Please give me a minute to think,” she requested. I dissected her tone, searching for any tiny tidbit or shred of proof that I had made the wrong choice here.
I had told her everything. How I had come to find the shop. How I had learned about kink. What kink meant to me. All of it. I hadn’t held a single thing back that I could think of. Granted, the whole conversation felt like a fleeting memory, and I wasn’t sure how much I had said and how much I had talked around.
I pressed the heel of my hands to my forehead, trying to quell the pressure of a headache that hadn’t quite fully begun but was imminent.
This was torture.
“It must have been so difficult for you,” she finally spoke. The words were there. I heard them. I heard them in order. And yet they didn’t make sense. Like they were some secret language only she knew. What was she saying?
“What?” I asked, completely perplexed. She looked up at me, her eyes soft and comforting, her hand reaching out to rest against my forearm in an almost supportive gesture.
“It must have been difficult for you,” she repeated. Oh. It finally clicked.
“I know these demons seem like so much to understand, Ruth. I understand —”
“Wait, demons? No! No, Levi,” she interjected. My eyes found hers and the sweet, understanding support I found there nearly brought me to my knees. “What I mean to say is that it must have been soon difficult for you to have this part of you — this part of you that directly mirrors your upbringing, yet is so quintessentially different. It has nothing to do with your upbringing. It’s like two sides of a coin.”
“I… I’m sorry. I’m not understanding what you’re saying,” I muttered. Surely, I wasn’t hearing her correctly. Surely, she was about to bolt; to head directly to her father and burn this entire farce to the ground in the most painful and damaging way possible.
Surely, she wasn’t actually accepting me.
Instead, she smiled at me.
“What I mean, Levi, is that you were raised to be all of the things you just explained to me that a Dominant is. You were raised to be all of those things, but it’s so different from how you were raised. At Zion, it’s no secret that men are the head of the household and they are taught to control a woman. Just as us women are taught to obey our husbands. But from what you are explaining to me, Dominance is so much more. It is taking the gift a woman gives to you, her power. You take it and use it to keep her safe, to protect and to guide her. And in exchange, you offer her peace. It sounds like everything Zion teaches, but it’s not. And that? Levi, that isnothinglike how we were raised. I can see the difference.”
Her words hit me in the gut, the aching pain spreading out through my entire body, my entire being. This woman, this incredible, wondrous woman, was not only understanding the things I was admitting, but she was accepting me fully for exactly who I was.
Acceptance.
It was something I had never thought I would find, not truly. And especially not at Zion.
“I want you to know something, before we go any further,” she pressed. “I want you to know that I don’t judge you. Not in the least. I understand that it must have been difficult for you to come to terms with all of that, let alone to tell me.”
“Thank you,” I barely whispered, my own hand covering hers and squeezing in gratitude.
“That being said, I have questions.” Her hand moved away from me and she made herself comfortable on the sofa.
