Page 42 of Ezekiel
My pacing stopped as I flopped myself into a chair. She wanted to help, and not justdealwith my disorder, but to make it better. That meant I had to let her in. It meant I had to do more than just storm off in silence when it got to be too much. I needed to think. To fix how I handled things. I needed to talk to her.
“Talia?” I hollered, opening the door to my study. “Could you come in here?” I heard her footsteps down the hall as she came to me.
“Yes?” she asked, entering the study. I gestured for her to sit opposite me in a chair.
“I want to talk, but I need you to understand that this isn’t easy. It can be really hard to find the words. I’m not really sure what I’m doing here,” I chuckled humorlessly.
“Zeke, I don’t expect you to have the answers or to have the right words. I only expect you to try. That is all. Just like we discussed.” Her reassurance calmed me more than I could express.
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to order my thoughts. Slowly, I began to speak, hoping that she would understand me. “I spent most of my childhood having to explain myself and why I… well, why I am how I am. After a while, people would ask, but the question became rhetorical. It wasn’t until we built this home that I finally had enough independence and quiet that those questions really stopped. Suddenly, I didn’t have anyone to answer to. But…” I trailed off, my hands tensing again as the sounds nearly overtook all thought processes.
“But then I moved in,” she answered softly. There was so much understanding and kindness in her voice that it nearly did me in. It made me ache somewhere deep inside. This woman, who I barely knew, was perfectly happy to accept me as I am. But more than that, she wanted to make things easier for me.
“Zeke, I don’t want you to feel like you have to answer to me, but you do need to communicate. I want to make life easier for you without you being the one who always has to make sacrifices. That has to be exhausting, and it has to stop. You are valid, you are real, and you deserve the same level of respect that everyone else gets. I want to help you figure out how that looks and how we can make things easier for you. But I can’t do that if you don’t talk to me. You have to let me in a little so that I can help.” Her words floored me; that ache in my chest growing to near bursting at her sincerity. There was nothing self-serving or disingenuous about her, and it was refreshing.
“I don’t even know how to respond to that,” I huffed out in a laugh that had no humor to it. I had no idea how to navigate this situation. All I knew was that I didn’t deserve her.
“I would like to come up with some ways to help you through those times, instead of you just marching off to be alone. If that’s truly what you need, I respect that. But there have to be ways we can mitigate the reaction you have. And I want to be there to help you,” she urged passionately.
“When you put my head in your lap and play with my hair, that helps tremendously,” I admitted quietly.
“That’s a great start. Now, I’m wondering what we can do during meals to help calm you. Any ideas?” she asked, her hand reaching out to cover mine in comfort.
“Maybe, at least when it’s just the two of us, we could pause. Like have a word or something that we can just stop everything and give me a moment to breathe?” I suggested. I didn’t want to suggest that. It made me feel selfish and self-centered to ask another person to just stop their meal so I could deal with my stupid ass demons.
“I think that’s a great idea. Just sayingpauseshould be enough, I think. I can easily pick up on that and be quiet while you regain composure. What about breathing exercises? Meditation?” she offered, but I shook my head.
“I’ve tried those for years and they never work,” I brushed her suggestion off. I wished those things had worked for me. It would have made my life so much simpler.
“Is there anything that works?” she asked, her eyes searching mine.
“Being dominant over you is the only thing I have found to stop the noise. Everything gets quiet until there is only you, only us,” I admitted with no small amount of brutal honesty.
Her eyes lowered, her hands fidgeting in her lap as a smile played at the corner of her lips.
“Would that help you right now?” she asked coyly, looking up at me through her thick lashes.
“You have no fucking idea,” I groaned, running a hand through my hair.
“Then play with me, Sir.” She looked at me then, full on, without an ounce of trepidation or hesitation. All I could see there in her brilliant blue-green eyes was one hundred percent honesty and desire.
How could I say no?
“Don’t you want to finish dinner?” I asked, my smirk curling the corner of my lips.
“Fuck dinner.”
Christ, this woman was going to kill me.
“Time for lesson number three, then, Angel.” I kept my voice low and sinful, wanting to draw her in and capitalize on the sexual tension that sizzled in the air between us.
“Anything you wish, Sir,” she replied, lowering those eyes in an absolutely perfect gesture of submission.
“Fuck, you look so pretty when you submit like this, Talia. Tonight, your lesson will be on sound. I think it is quite fitting after our conversation. I want to show you how to keep your focus; how to keep your eyes trained on me so you don’t miss a single command. All without your sense of hearing,” I teased, giving her a sinister look. Tonight would be fun.
“You will keep your eyes on me, and you will follow my instructions no matter what. Unless you need to safeword, that is. Do you remember what we discussed about safewords?” I prompted. I needed to make sure she understood this before we began a scene this intense.
“Yes. Red for stop everything, yellow for pause, we need to talk, and green for all is well,” she answered dutifully, without hesitation.
