A Controlled Descent Ch. 04

Before Jack shut his front door in my face yesterday, he told me to return the next night at eight pm sharp. For my own good, he said. So smugly confident that I'd be back. I want so badly to hate him. So why can't I? What's wrong with me? The last twenty-four hours, I've only had one thought - be far, far away from his house come eight pm. Shouldn't be that hard, this city is literally ninety-nine percent places not Jack's front door. So where am I at 7:45? Standing at the end of his block, searching for the willpower to walk away. For the next fifteen minutes, I scroll through my phone hoping for an unavoidable emergency. Three times, I open my rideshare app to call a car; three times I don't.

In the end, I just stand on the corner watching the minutes tick down...7:58...7:59...8:00. If I can't be proactive then I can just let nature take its course and play chicken with the time. Since there are no seconds on the lock screen, I can only speculate how close I am to being officially late. Late, I'm going to be late. Jack said 8pm sharp, said it twice, actually. He was very specific about it. I start walking, if not quite running, towards his house. I go up his front steps, ring the bell, and double check my phone. It's 8:01. Queen of the meaningless act of defiance. I wait there on his stoop until it becomes clear he isn't going to answer. I ring the bell again and knock.

"I'm not leaving," I announce to no one, well aware that five minutes ago I was plotting my escape. That's how it's always been with me - I always want what I'm told I can't have. To prove I'm serious, I pound my fist on the door.

The door opens, and Jack steps out. He looks me up and down. "You're late."

"Yes." Even I'm not stubborn enough to argue the passage of time.

"Was I unclear?"

"No."

He doesn't answer immediately. "So was it on purpose, or are you just this disorganized?"

"On purpose," I say and make the most contrite face I know how.

"Well at least you're honest. That's something."

I'm an expert at getting my way even after I've fucked up, and sense this is my chance. "Does that mean I can come in?"

"No," Jack says. "But I will give you another chance. Since you told the truth."

"Another chance?"

"Tomorrow night. 8pm. Sharp."

My heart craters. "You're kidding."

"Sharp," he says and closes his door on me for the second time in two days.

I stand there in disbelief. This has to be a joke, right? Any second he's going to reopen the door, and we're both going to have a good laugh. You should have seen your face, he'll say. That Jack, such a funny guy. I stand there expectantly, but the door remains resolutely shut. Eventually, I take the hint and retreat back down the stairs with my tail between my legs. Normally if someone pulled this stunt, I'd be in a white-hot rage, but all I feel is disappointed with myself. I should be with Jack. It was right there for the taking. All I had to do was be on time, but I made damn sure that didn't happen.

What is wrong with me?

I walk east towards the nightlife on 14^th Street. It's only a little after eight on a Saturday night, the golden hour of bad decisions. I scroll through messages from men hoping to meet up, looking for just the right one to crucify myself on. Stupid, stubborn girls deserve to be punished, so I reply to a few of the most reptilian texts. Normally, this gets my adrenaline going. The anticipation of mistakes yet to come. But tonight it all just makes me tired and to my surprise all I want is to be home. So that's where I go. I get a salad on the way and curl up on the couch to watch a movie. Zodiac, if you're curious. It's about the psychic toll of obsession and unanswerable questions. I've seen it about a million times, but it feels thematically resonant tonight. My phone won't stop buzzing, and eventually I put it on airplane. I'm asleep before midnight on a weekend for the first time in years.

The next night, I'm back on Jack's corner well before eight. I've been restless all day, which has passed at a sadistic crawl. I've been to Orange Theory, a yoga class, and taken a run in the vain hope of burning off some of my excess energy. Nothing worked though, and I bounce on my toes as the minutes pass. At 7:55, I walk down to his house and reach for the bell but snatch my hand back. 8pm sharp. That's what he keeps saying to me in that disappointed tone of his. Sharp. I already know that means don't be late, but does it also mean don't be early? It feels like trap, and I will lose my mind if he tells me to come back again tomorrow night.

And that's how I come to wait on his front steps for four minutes until my phone reads 8:00pm exactly. I ring the bell and take a half step back. The door opens almost immediately. It's Jack, wearing dark blue jeans and a crisp, white button down. It's criminal how handsome he looks.

"I'm back," I say, queen of the obvious.

"I'm glad," he replies. "I've been thinking about you all day."

"You have?"

"I did not know a Sunday could pass this slowly."

"Me either!" It's the first time he's expressed any kind of impatience to see me, and I feel a bloom of warmth towards him.

"Come on in." He stands aside and guides me into the living room. "You want something to drink?"

"What are you having?"

"A bourbon."

"That sounds great." I've never had bourbon in my life.

He gestures to a pair of leather armchairs and tells me to make myself comfortable. I watch him disappear into the kitchen and then stand admiring the rows of hardback novels on his bookshelves. Music is playing quietly from invisible speakers, a man singing about pale blue eyes. I don't know the song, but it sounds old. I love the vibe.

Jack returns with two tumblers and puts one in my hand and touches his glass to mine. "Cheers."

"Cheers," I repeat and take a sip that makes my eyes water. It tastes how I imagine gasoline would taste. How do people drink this stuff? I take a second sip anyway.

"So safe to say, I'm not entirely out of your system?"

I give him a chagrined smile. "Yeah, safe to say."

"Do you still want me out though?"

"I have no idea," I say. "None."

"That's fair. It's been an interesting few days."

That was putting it mildly. "Longer than that."

He nods in agreement and asks me to sit. This time I do. If sitting in an armchair was an artform then Jack would be its Picasso. He settles back, legs crossed, and stares into his drink like a black-and-white movie star.

"You're a very intriguing girl, Mackenzie."

"Thank you?"

"You're not sure if that's a compliment?"

"Well, you don't always act like I am."

"I get how it might seem like that."

"That's how it is. You've been messing with me since we met. Maybe longer," I say, thinking back on the six months that we texted before I got into his car twelve days ago.

"Well that's because I have," he says and spreads his hands in a mea culpa.

"What?" I say, unprepared for him to come right out and admit it.

"Well, I wouldn't call it messing with you, but that would just be semantics."

I don't really care what he calls it. "Why are you?"

"Like I said, you're very intriguing," he says. "And I wanted to see how you'd respond."

I imagine a Mackenzie-sized rat running a maze. "And how did I?"

"Beautifully. You've cum three times for me, and we both know how hard that is for you."

"Four," I admit and tell him about the Frenchman.

Jack is smiling by the time I'm finished. "Four. Amazing."

"And you think I cum because you've been messing me?"

"Yes, I do."

"Throwing me out, making me come back two nights in a row? Eight sharp, all that crap? It's frustrating not arousing."

He takes a sip of his drink and takes time to savor it. "Do you know what BDSM is?"

"Yeah sure, I have the internet." Growing up, my porn consumption was...prodigious. My parents were naïve about technology and thought their little angel was just that, an angel. I started early and went down some pretty extreme rabbit holes. BDSM porn never really did it for me, but I watched enough to get the gist.

"Well, porn isn't sex, and BDSM porn definitely isn't BDSM. It's like learning to drive from watching a Fast and the Furious movie," Jack says. "But I guess it's a starting point."

"So you're what? Like a Dominant?"

"I am," he says and sips his drink.

"And?"

"And I believe that you are a submissive."

Not very polite of me, but I laugh in his face. Doing what I'm told has never been in my nature. "I've got some bad news for you there. That's not really my rep. Ask around, anyone who knows me will tell you. I'm not submissive."

"I didn't say you are submissive," he amends gently. "I said you are a submissive."

I take a big drink and am too distracted to flinch at the burn. "There's a difference?"

"All the difference in the world. Submissive people are typically weak-willed followers, subservient, obsequious. Personally, I find them dull and uninteresting. You are none of those things. A good submissive, on the other hand, is strong, intelligent, resourceful, willful. The best ones I've known are well-educated, run their lives, own businesses, and are impressively accomplished. One thing they all share is that no one in their day-to-day lives would ever suspect they're a submissive, because they only submit to one person - their Dominant."

It's a good speech; I'll give him that much. "I'm sorry, but you have the wrong girl."

"Do I?" he asks rhetorically. "Why did you stand outside my door for five minutes before ringing the bell?"

I feel my temper spike. "Because you keep messing with me. I didn't want you telling me to come back tomorrow because I was a minute early."

"And if I had? Would you have? Come back, I mean."

That's a question, isn't it? One I'd rather not think about too hard. "I don't know."

"Well I could send you home right now and settle it one way or another."

We stare each other down, two poker players alone at a dimly lit table. All I want in the world is the courage to stand up to him, to dare him to throw me out again. But one thing a life of cutting off my nose to spite my face has taught me is how to spot when someone isn't bluffing. What I know for certain is that if I do challenge Jack, one hundred percent he tosses me out. I don't get the sense it would be his first choice, but he'll do it to make his point. As a notoriously stubborn girl, I recognize I may have met my match. So the question is, do I have it in me to wait another day? The answer to that is easy. I don't. I can't. Anticipation, like poison, runs through my veins and the thought of another delay makes me ill. So, I'll just tell him what he wants to hear. Where's the harm in that? Not the first time I played to a man's ego to get my way.

"I would." I drop my eyes in my best imitation of submission. The funny part is that I actually believe I'm the one in control.

"You would what?" he presses.

"Come back tomorrow," I admit but then quickly add, "but that doesn't prove I'm a submissive or whatever."

"What does it prove then?" he asks like an armchair Socrates.

"I don't know," I say with a shrug. "That I'm a slut?"

He arches an amused eyebrow. "You don't have to come here to be a slut though, do you?"

He's got me there.

"When you left here yesterday, did you go out and find someone to fuck?"

I shake my head solemnly as if I'm on the witness stand and confessing to a capital crime. "I went home and watched a movie."

"So being a slut wasn't enough."

"No," I say quietly and feel my face redden. Why, I don't know. What's so embarrassing about going home alone? Or is it that I just admitted that just getting laid isn't enough. That it needs to be him. Suddenly, I don't feel quite as in control.

"What would be enough, Mackenzie?" he says and waits patiently for me to answer. When I don't, he carries on. "Would being a slut for me be enough?"

I nod, wary of what I might be admitting.

"I need to hear you say it."

I whisper the words inaudibly, hoping that will satisfy him. It doesn't.

"Don't mumble. Do you want to be a slut for me?"

I take a deep breath and stare a hole into the floor. "Yes, I want to be a slut for you."

"I don't believe you," he says with a sad shake of his head.

I know he's messing with me again, but I don't seem to have it in me to push back. "Just tell me how to convince you."

He considers my request. "Maybe if you stood up."

I hesitate, knowing that I am way out on a limb and Jack is a chainsaw. Pouring the rest of my drink down my throat, I rise reluctantly out of my seat. I can't bring myself to look at him but can feel him looking me up and down. My heart is racing.

"Try saying it now," he says.

"I want to be a slut for you." Even though I'm standing, and he is sitting, I still feel smaller.

"No," he says after thinking it over. "Still not feeling it."

"Why are you doing this?" I'm so frustrated I could scream.

"Why are you?" he replies.

"I'm not a submissive."

"If you say so," he yawns. "Take off your clothes."

"What?" The hair on my neck stands up.

He repeats himself slowly as if English is my third language. I stand there stupidly like I still don't understand. My nakedness has always been a superpower but now I feel shy. I know it's ridiculous. How many men have seen me naked? So why the big deal all of a sudden? Just start with your top, I tell myself. My hands don't move.

"I can't," I say.

"Can't or won't?" There's no frustration in his voice only curiosity.

"Can't."

He smiles in commiseration with my plight. "Aren't you tired of fighting all the time, Mackenzie?"

Pent up tears cascade down my cheeks at the question. God, yes. I am so tired. I nod miserably at him.

"Then don't. Take off your clothes."

"I'm really scared."

"I know you are. It will be alright, I promise."

"What's going to happen?"

"Only what you want."

"What do you want?"

"Me? Everything."

He says it in a way that sends lightning down my spine.

"I'm not a submissive," I say and pull my shirt over my head.

He doesn't argue. "Keep going."

Hurrying before my momentum fails, I unbutton my jeans and wiggle out. The air is cool and my skin prickles. I unhook my bra and peel off my panties. I stand there, my clothes in a pile around my ankles. I'm unsure what to do with my arms and eventually cross them. I feel so naked, and Jack just sits there drinking his drink and enjoying the view.

"That was one of the sexiest things I've ever seen," he says at last.

Why? I don't understand. I couldn't have been clumsier, but I see the hard outline of his cock in bold relief through his jeans. Maybe painfully awkward is his thing.

"How do you feel?" he asks.

"Nervous. Frustrated. Embarrassed."

"Well I am asking a lot of you, so that's understandable. You deserve a reward."

I do? "Like what?"

"You may give me head. Does that sound nice?"

"My reward is sucking your dick?" It might be the most arrogant thing I've ever heard a man say, but I'd be lying if I said he isn't right. It does sound nice.

"Yes, but only if you ask politely," he says and points to the floor at his feet where he wants me to kneel.

Again, I want to but can't quite remember how. Come on, I berate myself. Just stop fighting him.

"You can do it,' he says encouragingly as if I'm a kid at the top of a very tall diving board who is afraid to jump.

My legs find their bend, and I get down on my knees as I've done a thousand times before. He still hasn't moved and is studying me.

"Well, we'll need to work on that, but it will suffice for now." He sits forward and takes off his shoes, placing them to the side. Next, he stands and unbuckles his belt, stepping out of his trousers, one leg at a time. He folds them neatly and puts them on my recently vacated chair. Lastly, come the boxers, which he slides down slowly like he's unveiling a lost work of art. He sits back down and beckons me to come closer. I shuffle forward until I'm between his knees. His cock is hard against his thigh, which I feel happy about. I reach for him, and he puts up a cautioning hand.

"Ask politely," he says.

"May I?" I say, unsure if that's what he means.

"May you what?"

"May I suck your dick?"

He shakes his head at me.

"May I suck your dick...please?" Like he's doing me a favor. Maybe he is, I don't know, but asking definitely puts me in a different headspace.

"Good girl. And yes," he says and reaches for his bourbon.

"Thank you," I say, partly because I think it will make him happy and partly because I really mean it.

Holding him gently, I enjoy the heft. It is too thick for me to get a hand all the way around, which lights up animal corners of my brain. Most dicks are fairly utilitarian things to me - a means to an end - but his is actually very pretty, circumcised with a nicely shaped head, ramrod straight with no curve, and while he's not shaved himself he has done enough grooming to make a very attractive picture.

I stroke him lightly and wonder what kind of head he likes. Men are usually happy just to get their dick sucked, but very little about Jack falls under "most men." I want badly to get this right. Most of the blowjobs I've seen in BDSM porn is aggressive face fucking, gagging, drooling...that kind of thing. Maybe he's into that, but something tells me it's not what he wants right now. He looks relaxed (and so damn handsome) sitting there in his armchair, sipping bourbon from a crystal-cut tumbler. I should take my time, I think. So that's what I do.

Closing my eyes, I brush my lips along the shaft and taste his skin with the tip of my tongue. He smells and tastes clean with just a faint hint of his scent. It's heaven. He shifts slightly in his seat, widening his legs. Encouraged, I continue my leisurely exploration, listening carefully to his breathing, which is deep and contented. When I find the spot at the base of his shaft right above his balls, he growls in the back of his throat. It's the first sound of pleasure he's ever given, and I feel really pleased with myself. All I want is to make him do it again. Ordinarily, I am the queen of eye contact, but I haven't been able to work up the nerve to look at him. When I finally glance up, he is watching me intently. My eyes snap shut and won't open again for a long time.

Working my way back up the shaft, I take him in my mouth. The head feels wonderful in my mouth - the perfect combination of hard and soft. I run my tongue around the inside of my mouth, which earns me another growl. Bit by bit, I take more of him until my jaw is stretched wide and his head reaches my throat. Not quite half of him is in my mouth, and I feel like a failure. Stubbornly, I push down knowing my gag reflex will betray me. It does and my mouth floods with saliva, which I let run out my mouth and down the shaft of his cock. I do it again and again until my hands are slick and glide up and down him easily.

My mind goes pleasantly blank. I empty out. My awkwardness, my frustration, my embarrassment - it all drifts away as I lose myself to making Jack feel good. Or is it me that I'm making feel good? I couldn't tell you that or how long I kneel there. For a long time, he doesn't touch or interrupt. I'm a little girl at play with her new toy. Eventually, his hand reaches behind my head and makes a fist in my hair. I brace for things to get rough but instead he slows my tempo. My eyes flicker open as though I'm waking from a dream. Jack is gazing down at me.

"How do you feel?" he asks.

He's asking the wrong person. There isn't a thought in my head. I take his cock out and rest it thoughtfully against my cheek. "Content?"

Jack smiles approvingly. "Content is good. What else?"