Page 84 of Atlas
Most women would have been seeking a restraining order against me, but Jolene had come to talk to me about it and done her best to understand.
It had been fine as long as we spoke about my fantasies on a general level, but then I had to go and screw it all up by admitting to the specific ones I had about her.
I should have let her go, but instead, I went after her and found her downstairs in the living room with her finger running over books on the massive wall-to-wall bookshelf.
“What are you doing?” I asked and turned on one more floor lamp to offer her more light.
“I’m trying to find a book to show you. I know Liv has it because I noticed it yesterday.”
“A book?” Why not, it made sense. Liv had a degree in psychology. Maybe there was a book on perversion that Jolene wanted me to read.
“Do you want me to help you find it?”
“It’s somewhere in this area.” Jolene was standing on her tiptoes, pointing up at the top shelf. “Ah, there it is.”
Using the book ladder, Jolene climbed up while I walked over to hold the ladder, feeling worried that she might slip and fall. With her wearing only a long t-shirt and bare feet, it was impossible not to enjoy the view of her beautiful thighs.
“Look at this.” She handed me a book in gray and black tones.
"What's this?” The title looked familiar.
“It’s a book about someone like you,” she said and stepped down onto the floor again.
“Is it about someone who grew up in a cult?"
"No. It's about a man who suffered psychological and physical abuse as a child and developed a controlling sexuality. He's a Dom who falls in love with an innocent young woman. It's the old tale of Beauty and the Beast, told in a modern form."
"So, he's a monster?" I turned the book around, trying to remember why the title was so familiar.
"No. Christian isn’t a monster, although the character might seem that way in the beginning because he's cynical in the way he views sex as a mutual transaction with no emotional investment. But then he falls in love and everything changes.”
“All right, but why are you showing me this?” I sank onto the leather sofa. Jolene was quick to follow me and pull a blanket over her legs.
“I’m trying to make a point here. That book sold more than a hundred million copies. A hundred million!”
“That’s a lot of books,” I agreed.
“I assume you didn’t read it.”
“No.”
“Okay, but I’m presenting that book to you as evidence that there are women all over the world who share your fantasies of sexual domination and submission. And I would like to point out that statistically, only a small percentage of the hundred million of those book readers grew up with psychopathic parents. It’s therefore a fair conclusion to make that the fantasies that you’ve described to me do not make you as special as you think.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“You might be kinky, but so are most people in one way or the other. Maybe you need to be in control because you were powerless to help your mother and the people you loved. Our sexuality can be therapeutic for us. It’s like the cutthroat businessman who likes to be in a diaper. He needs affection and love, too, but can’t show that side of him at work and so he seeks to go back to a simple time in his life full of love and no responsibilities. Often, our kinks relate to our childhood or serves to bring balance into our lives. Domination is a very common fantasy, Atlas.”
I shook my head. “There’s a difference between reading a book and living it out in real life. If Nathan hadn’t interrupted us tonight…” I trailed off because I didn’t want to think about it.
There was a moment of silence between us, only the low buzzing sound of the fridge in the kitchen penetrating the quiet night.
“Can I give you some advice? As a psychologist and as your friend,” Jolene asked.
“Mmhh.”
“My advice is for you to make friends with your inner wolf.”
I snorted.
