Page 29 of See You Sometime
“Can I ask you something and get an honest answer, no matter what?” she finally asked.
“Sure.”
“Would you be interested in trying to date me?”
“Yeah. But I don’t know anything about…that stuff. I mean, I’m willing to experiment and be open-minded. But…I have a rule.”
“Okay?”
“No cheating, no sleeping with other people.”
“Ditto.” More comfortable quiet before she spoke again. “If you couldn’t play with me, would you be okay with me playing with other people if it’s non-sexual play?”
“I don’t know. You’d have to explain to me what that means.”
“I’m a really heavy masochist. I like heavy impact play. It’s very common for people who aren’t sadists to let their partner play with a sadist, within whatever rules they set up. That way, the partner who isn’t a sadist doesn’t feel obligated to try to do something they don’t want to do, and the masochist gets what they need. I mean, it’s more complicated than that, but that’s the simplistic version.”
She waited for him to answer, and he needed a few minutes. “Wow, this first date has really gotten deep fast,” he tried to joke. He laid his hand over hers on his thigh.
“I know,” she said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to go there tonight. Thanks, Dad.”
“I take it they know about this?”
“Yeah. I told them in college. I didn’t want them calling the cops on anyone I was dating.”
“That means your ex…”
“Yeah. He was my Master. ’Til I caught the rat bastard cheating on me.”
Axel didn’t want to get his heart broken. But he also didn’t want to toss this chance away without fully exploring it first.
At the next red light, he looked over at her. “Let’s talk about it over dinner. I don’t think it’s right for me to tell you that you can’t do something when we’re going to our first dinner. I mean, I prefer you don’t sleep with anyone, but…” He shrugged. “I mean, okay.”
“How about this—for now, unless or until we decide we’renotgoing to date, we don’t have sex or sexy play with anyone but each other?”
“I haven’t even had sexy play with myself in forever.” His face reddened as he realized he’d said that out loud.
She giggled. “Maybe we can talk more about me taking care of that for you, then.”
Chapter Eight
Skye wasn’t sure if this was the best or most disastrous date she’d ever had in her life.
It kept bouncing back and forth between the two extremes, and they’d only reached the goddamned restaurant.
Before they headed inside, they sat in his running car in the parking lot and talked.
She didn’t want to try to hammer out this negotiation, since they were basically negotiating, with a family of kids seated at the table next to them and overhearing everything.
“Did you want to come to the club this weekend? I’ll be volunteering, but you can hang out and see what happens.”
“Not this weekend. Not that I don’t want to, but I’d rather go on a weekend that you won’t be working.” He offered her a smile. “Wouldn’t want you to get in trouble on your first weekend there.”
“There’s going to be a private party at Cali’s house the next weekend. She said I could bring someone. She knows Rusty and Grant and Mike and all of them, so I know they’d vouch for you.”
“Sure.” He winced. “No, wait, I won’t be here. I have a conference up in Jacksonville. I’m going to be up there all weekend, from Thursday night until Sunday late. It’s a work thing.”
“Oh.”
