Beautiful Disaster

She’s still breathing hard when the sound of a door falling loudly into a lock downstairs startles us both, and the deer caught in the headlights look on her face makes me laugh.

"Fuck! Do you think Jazz, ah, heard any of that?"

I have no doubt that that is the case if he got here minutes ago already and just slammed the door now to let us know, but I don’t state the obvious. I don’t even mind him hearing us, as it’s just a way for me to mark my territory, although I don’t think it needs to be marked. My home, my girlfriend I can bang in the bathroom, after all. And because I’m still not quite down from my high I don’t even hide that knowledge from Bella.

"Why, want me to ask him right now?"

"Don’t be such an ass!" she grunts in return, then tries to shove me off her, but to no avail. I still enjoy letting her struggle for a while before I pull away.

Bella sneers at me before she stalks over to the shower, slamming the door in my face to keep me out. Grinning at her through the hazed over glass I turn around and go back to the sink to clean myself up there instead. Bella is still fussing around in the shower when I’m done treating my tattoo, although from the sound of it she’s no longer under the spray but just keeping the water running until I’m done. Not really intent on angering her for real I finally retreat to the bedroom, although I leave the door ajar so that I can watch her strutting around from the bed.

When she finally joins me she seems mollified again, although she still tenses up as if to shove me away when I curl myself around her, spooning her body with my own. In a silent peace offering I kiss her neck where I’ve bitten her, noting that my teeth have barely left a bruise worth being called a hickey. For a moment I’m tempted to suck on her skin until she has one for real but then refrain from acting that childishly. As much as she seems to appreciate certain souvenirs from our play time, ‘normal’ marks don’t seem to count.

A few minutes into my musing, Bella derails my train of thought when she clears her throat.

"Are you going to punish me for that bit at the end?"

"You calling me an ass?" I ask, already laughing against her shoulder.

She sighs as if my mirth is answer enough, but then nods. "Yes, that."

"Do you think I should?"

The fact that she gives the question some thought makes it easy for me to decide not to go for it, as I feel like we have stopped playing the moment it got apparent that we’re not alone anymore, but I like that she doesn’t just jump to conclusions.

"Not really. But I won’t protest if you think otherwise."

"Good."

"Good?" she hedges, then turns around enough so she can steal a glimpse at my face. "Good as in we’re good and you will let the matter slide, or good as in it’s good I won’t make a fuss if you tan my hide?"

I let a lopsided grin be my answer for a few seconds, but then lean in to kiss her languidly.

"Good as in I’m too tired to do anything now, and tomorrow morning I would probably feel stupid about still insisting on it."

That makes her laugh and snuggle back into my embrace, although she still makes sure that her shoulder blade isn’t pressed into my chest.

"Does my little admission mean that you won’t go on with pushing my mental boundaries now?"

I shake my head.

"No, unless you want me to?"

"Not particularly, no. But will that still work? I mean, me not being all meek and selfless and all that shit."

As usual, her blunt words amuse me to no end.

"There are so many ways to play this game, I don’t think that will be a problem. And I can still keep you hanging dry for weeks at a time whether you grovel for my appreciation or curse me to my face. In face, the latter makes it so much easier for me."

The way she stays pointedly quiet makes it obvious that she’s only now realizing just how much she’s been playing into my hands with being honest – but when she finally answers with a sigh I know she doesn’t necessarily consider that as a bad thing. Neither do I.

"So what, you’ll now tease me into losing my calm, then you punish me for being a brat and don’t let me come because I haven’t been a good girl?"

"Pretty much, yes."

"I can only repeat myself, you’re such an ass!"

"I know," I chuckle, then rub my crotch over her ass until she’s giggling and I feel my c**k start to get hard again.

"There’s no real way I can win this, right?"

"There’s never a way to win for the sub of the Dom doesn’t let her. You know that."

Bella nods, then quiets down in a way that’s nearly alarming.

"Something wrong?"

"No, it’s just -" she sighs, then shakes her head. "Nothing. I’ll just have to wait and see."

"See what?"

"How I can handle disappointing you like that."

My mind grinds to a momentary halt, and it takes me a few seconds to come to the same conclusions as she must have. It has been quite a while since I’ve been on the other side of an arrangement like ours, and I think the fact that things have been going so well between us has let me become complacent about catching any possible pot holes in the road ahead.

Nudging her softly at first, I wait for her to look at me again, and when she doesn’t I roll her over so that she’s facing me. Her eyes are fixed on my chest rather than my face, and I nudge her chin up gently until she’s really looking at me.

"Bella, you’re not disappointing me. This game is set up for you to lose, not win, being unable to best me doesn’t mean you’re disappointing me."

I want to add that as long as she doesn’t deliberately f**k up she won’t be able to disappoint me ever, but I know that I won’t help her by admitting that. I still remember the psychological woes of being an overachieving type of submissive, your own worst enemy.

"But it feels like that, you know? Maybe I’ve gotten too used to trying to get everything right, but -"

I silence her with another soft kiss, this one lingering as she doesn’t seem too intent on continuing to speak. When we finally part she looks a lot less dejected, but doubt is still lurking in her eyes.

"How else should I handle things if not like this?" I try a different approach.

"Either you excel at bowing yourself to my will, you enjoy submitting to me body and mind and find satisfaction in being selfless. Or you don’t, you like every step to be a challenge, a battle of wills where eventually I force you to give in and yield. If you know a third way, please tell me, but you giving in grudgingly doesn’t leave me with the feeling that you’ve failed me, but instead that I’ve pushed you into giving something to me that you don’t fling away easily. Just two sides of the same coin."

Although she obviously agrees with me she still mulls things over until she shakes her head.

"Can’t think of any option C here. But I really don’t see us playing in that meek and gentle way. I just love you acting like a mean, domineering bastard too much. And you can never go wrong with hair pulling, down holding, rough sex!"

"Yeah, for some reason whenever I do that your protest isn’t really all that convincing."

She laughs at my dry remark, her previously glum mood lifted.

"So, how do we handle it if Jazz really heard us?"

"We just ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen? I don’t really think he’ll be gloating at us; at least from the way he’s been avoiding us today I’d say he’s trying hard not to appear as a nuisance."

"True. Let’s just hope that our attempt at don’t ask, don’t tell works better than it does for the Army. And it’s not as if he doesn’t know how we sound when we f**k."