Page 28 of UnTrained: Volume One
Aiden is quiet for a long moment, studying my face. "Lana, wanting to explore your sexuality doesn't make you stupid. It makes you human."
I shake my head. "I should have known better. Who wants to pretend to be a slave?” I cover my face with my hands. “All of it is my fault.”
19
AIDEN
The words hit me like a physical blow. She's blaming herself for what those monsters did to her. I watch her crumble, shoulders shaking as she hides behind her hands, and something fierce and protective roars to life in my chest.
"Lana." I keep my voice gentle but firm. "Look at me."
She doesn't move, still hiding behind her palms like they can shield her from the shame she's carrying.
"That's not a request." I let steel creep into my tone, the same commanding voice that got her to talk in the first place.
Her hands drop immediately, those green eyes wide and glistening with unshed tears. The automatic obedience should satisfy me, but instead it makes my jaw clench. She's been trained so thoroughly that even in her breakdown, she responds to authority.
"What happened to you was not your fault," I say, each word deliberate. "You went to explore something consensual betweenadults. They drugged you. They kidnapped you. They trafficked you. None of that—none of it—is on you."
She shakes her head, fresh tears spilling over. "But I wanted?—"
"You wanted to explore your sexuality in a safe, consensual environment," I interrupt her, trying to make her see the difference. "What you wanted and what they did are worlds apart."
She shakes her head, struggling to accept what I'm telling her. How can she think I don’t understand? I do, more than most.
There’s a part of me that’s itching to show her just how much I understand. To show her how different it can be to have your pain and pleasure come from someone that you trust. Someone who will give you only what you need, push you to explore your limits without pushing you past them.
"You don't understand," she whispers, voice barely audible. "I wanted to be dominated. To be controlled. I got what I asked for."
My expression hardens, and I feel my jaw tighten. "Did you ask to be drugged? To be kidnapped? To be beaten until you forgot your own name?" I ask, my voice rising with each question, not out of anger but with growing intensity. "Did you consent to any of that, Lana?"
She flinches at my tone, her body instinctively tensing as if expecting punishment. But I keep my hands at my sides, focused on her eyes.
"Answer me," I say, my voice softening now. "Did you consent to what they did to you?"
She swallows hard, the truth caught in her throat like a stone. "No," she finally whispers. “But…”
“But nothing. What you’re describing is a common kink, Lana. Plenty of people fantasize about giving up control. And plenty of people fantasize about being the ones dominating their partners. When they consent.”
I watch her throat work as she tries to swallow around the word "consent." Her eyes dart away from mine, unable to hold contact. She's not ready to believe me—I can see it in the way she hunches her shoulders, making herself smaller.
"Lana." I soften my voice, pulling back the command that had been there moments ago. "BDSM without consent isn't BDSM—it's abuse. What happened to you wasn't kink. It was violence."
She wraps her arms around herself, a physical barrier between us. Her body trembles beneath the thin t-shirt, and I resist the urge to reach for her. Touch would only make it worse right now.
"I just keep thinking if I'd never gone to that club... if I hadn't been so curious..." Her voice is barely above a whisper.
"Then they would have found someone else," I tell her firmly, needing her to understand. "Someone else would be sitting where you are now. The only ones responsible are the people who did this to you.”
20
LANA
His words should comfort me, but they feel like trying to hold water in my cupped palms. The logic slips away as soon as I grasp it.
"I signed the papers," I whisper, my voice cracking. "I filled out the forms. I said I wanted to be a slave for the night."
"For roleplay," Aiden says, his blue eyes intense on mine. "With safewords. With limits. With the expectation that you'd go home at the end of the night."
