Chapter 14
When I get back from my run I see an email from Anastasia where she reminds me of the meaning of compromise. I cannot help but laugh at her smart mouth, she is not giving in without a fight. To be honest though, I am not sure that she is going to give in at all.
Next she informs me that she wishes to drive to the hotel by herself, which really irritates the fuck out of me. I was actually looking forward to picking her up, especially because the chances of her staying the night would be even bigger if she is not driving herself. You were looking forward to taking her out on a regular date, Grey. You are going soft.
The last option in my head is too depressing to even contemplate, Anastasia saying no to the whole thing and then driving away from me. I cannot stand that thought.
When Wednesday morning arrives I have a weird feeling in my stomach, one that I am not very familiar with. I feel nervous, which is very rare for me, I hardly ever feel nervous about anything but meeting Anastasia to determine our future has my stomach tied in knots.
Wednesday disappears in a blur since I have several business meetings that needs my full focus, which is a good thing since I feel queasy every time I think about Anastasia, the fear of a NO becoming bigger and bigger.
Late in the afternoon I finish up the last business meeting in order to get a bit of email correspondence out of the way before our dinner and then I need a shower and get dressed before meeting Anastasia.
I go down to the Marble Bar at 6.50pm and order myself a glass of white wine.
Sitting here waiting for her makes me even more nervous. I have no idea what to expect, if she is just going to come in, say no way and then leave again or if she is at least willing to discuss this.
At 6.58 I start to wonder whether she as actually coming at all and turn around looking towards the entrance. I see a woman standing there wearing a dress and look past her to see if I can spot Anastasia anywhere, but then my eyes land on the woman in the dress. It is Anastasia, wearing a plum coloured dress and high heels, her hair in waves and moved on one side away from her face. Wow, I think my heart just skipped a beat. She looks absolutely stunning and I smile and get up and walk towards her. Never in a million years did I picture just exactly how stunning she looks in a dress and high heels. That is my girl. But she is not your girl yet, Grey.
Since she is dressed the way she is I expect that she is not here to just say goodbye, that she in fact is here to make this work. But I am still not entirely sure that she is not going to run, so I but on all my charm and my plan is still to seduce her, so that she cannot resist me.
I lead her to a secluded booth so we can have some privacy and then I plan on having dinner with her in the private room that I've booked for the night. Unless of course she wants to have dinner in my suite, then I can definitely come up with a few tricks to make that a very exiting evening.
Since I met Anastasia and knowing that she is as inexperienced as she is I've thought a lot about ways to have sex that does not always have to be in the playroom. I think it will be too much for Anastasia to go in there every time we are going to fuck, feeding her in my kitchen and then fucking her on the breakfast bar has become one of my little fantasies. That is if she agrees to this, which I am still not sure of.
As we sit in the booth she asks me whether I was going to tell her that the contract is not legally enforceable, so I have to explain to her that I do not intend to drag her through the courts should she run, but that this represents a commitment that I want with her. She seems extremely nervous all of a sudden and I tell her that I am also nervous.
She does not want to eat in my suite, she wants to eat in public, but I have other plans. I have booked a private dining room and ordered a menu for us. First we start with oysters, I've ordered them for their aphrodisiac qualities, but I am never going to say that to Anastasia. I am using every trick in the book tonight to seduce her.
I've printed her amendments to the contract so that we can go through them point by point so she feels secure in the fact that we cover all her topics and that she does not end the evening having doubts about anything.
When we are seated at our table she starts biting her lip again and instantly my cock reacts to this seemingly little thing, but it just affects me enormously for some reason.
I fish out the email and start with her first point and agree with her that it is for the benefit of both of us.
My sexual health is something I take very seriously, with varying partners I need to make sure that I am healthy all the time, so I get tested every 6 months and of course require all my subs be healthy as well.
As I tell her all of this I feel more secure and can feel my Dom self slowly coming back. I look at Anastasia who looks slightly overwhelmed by the fact that I am going through this point by point.
I make sure to be clear on the fact that she can walk away anytime so she does not feel trapped in this, she needs to know that if it is too much, she can say no. But I also make it clear to her that if she says no, then that is it. When I say this she actually flinches as if it hurts that she would be walking away. Secretly I am glad that she reacts this way, that makes my chances even bigger for seducing her and making her say yes. She is having as much trouble staying away from me as I have from staying away from her.
When our first course arrives Anastasia looks dubiously at the oysters and tells me that she has never had one before. I tell her to just tip and swallow, that should be easy for her. My thoughts stray to our bath where she got a much deserved A in oral skills. Judging from the colour in her cheeks that is exactly what she is thinking about as well.
When she takes she oyster and squeeze some lemon on it I cannot wait to she her slide it down. Slowly she takes it to her lips and tips and then swallow. My cock is hard and I had not imagined it would be so sexy watching her eating an oyster as she slowly licks the excess juice of her lips and then smiles. She really is something special.
When I tell her that I want her to obey me in all things, she tells me that she is afraid that I will hurt her physically. It turns out that she is afraid because I once told her about the woman I accidentally hurt with rope play. Even though this is one of my favourite scenes in the playroom, it does take a long time to work up to and it would not be something that I would do with Anastasia right away, so I agree to making it one of her hard limits.
The next point on her list is the term of the contract and I have no intention of making it less than three months, that is just too little time to make it work when we only see each other on the weekends. She wants to have one weekend to herself and I agree to that if I can see her during the week that same week instead. I am already finding it hard to agree to the fact that I will only be seeing her every weekend, that will mean five days without her. But since I work as hard as I do, I cannot make time for her all the time and she will have a job of her own to take care of. She agrees to the term, if a little uncertainly. When we reach the point of the ownership I make it very clear how it works, even though I am going to go easy on her in the beginning to teach her all the things she needs to know, I have to make it clear that she will still be my sub and I will do to her what I want, when I want it. That much needs to be clear to her.
While I say this she looks at me as if she is mesmerized and she cannot take her eyes off me.
I have to ask her if she is still with me, as she looks like she cannot quite follow along. I am finding it a little difficult finding the fine line between making sure she is comfortable with all this while still maintaining my Dom self. I do not want to railroad her with my domineering ways since I still need her to agree. But I also need to show her who is in charge and who makes all the decisions.
I tell her that there is a very fine line between pain and pleasure and that I will show her just how pleasurable pain can be. It is only the punishments that hurt, anything else is just pleasure. I am not a harsh Dom, I can be very rough when I fuck and punish, but not nearly as much as some Dom's are.
But in the end it all comes down to her trusting me and even though I know it takes time to build trust, I need to know whether she trusts me even the slightest at this point, because if she does not trust me, I doubt that we will get very far.
Luckily she says that she does trust me when I ask her, which makes me extremely happy. With that in place everything else are just minor details, but Anastasia does not seem to be totally at ease yet. So I decide we should go through the rules.
She will not budge on the food rule so I will have to concede that and not be able to decide what, when or how much she eats. It really does not sit well with me, but she tells me that I will just have to trust her. Well good point made, Miss Steele.
I also have to concede the sleep, but as she says, I will just have to trust her. She asks why she cannot look at me and why she cannot touch me. She somehow thinks that Elena traumatised me when I was her sub. I do not know why but for some reason I think Anastasia sees Elena as some kind of monster. She looks disgusted every time her name comes up. When I answer her question about why I do not want her touching herself, it is like she disappears into her own little world and she is thinking.
She does not want to go over the soft limits over dinner and apparently she has had enough to eat even though she has hardly eaten anything.
We discuss her food intake and I can feel that she is not particularly happy with this topic so I tell her that I want to peel her out of her dress, but apparently she wants dessert so that seduction technique did not work very well.
She does not think it is fair that I use sex as a weapon, but she will get used to it. I always use sex as a weapon that is what I know. I can tell that she wants me because right now she is flushed and her breathing has altered and she is pressing her thighs together. I can hardly wait to peel her out of that dress and feel her soft skin, be close to her, feel her arousal and tightness around my hard cock, look into her eyes when she comes. I love watching her come and love hearing my name on her lips when she does.
Next thing she is trying to play me at my own game, that little vixen. She picks up an asparagus and sucks on it and then bites off the end. That is seriously turning me on, even though it is not a place for the sub to do this, it is really hot when Anastasia is trying to seduce me. Perhaps because of her innocence it is so hot.
At this exact moment the waiter chooses to enter to clear our plates and that breaks the moment between us. I ask Anastasia if she want dessert as she mentioned but she completely takes me by surprise by saying that she wants to go.
No, no, no, this cannot be right. She cannot leave now. Fuck!
She uses the graduation ceremony as an excuse but I honestly do not quite believe that the ceremony is the reason she is leaving. I feel like she is telling me that she does not want to agree do this. I tell her that I could make her stay because I feel like if I let her go, I will not have had enough of an opportunity to convince her to say yes and stay with me. But she does not want me to, she wants some distance between us. This cannot be a good thing, I feel rejected and the feeling is surprisingly painful, but this is all I can do and I tell her that.
I use my last resort to try and convince by kissing her passionately and I love the feel of her lips on mine, the way our tongues stroke against each other in an exotic dance. She moves her hands to my hair and run them through it and pulls me closer to her. I love when she does that.
I ask her one last time to spend the night with me but she says that she does not want to if she cannot touch me.
I am not conceding the touching and I have a horrible feeling that she is telling me goodbye.
She tells me the thing I fear the most; that she is not sure that she can have the kind of relationship that I want.
True to my word, as I also told Flynn, I cannot give her anything else so I have to let her go. It actually hurts to do this, but my conviction is greater than my emotions towards Anastasia right now.
I lead her down to the lobby and ask her for her valet ticket so she can get her car.
As we wait for her car I ask her if I can see her on Sunday after she's moved to Seattle to her and Miss Kavanaghs new apartment and she just says that we will see. Stubborn woman.
She is standing outside in that little dress of hers with no jacket on, so I give her mine and she shrugs it on and seems to be smelling it. Huh!
A minute later an old Beetle pulls up in front of us and Anastasia takes the keys from the valet. What the fuck piece of shit is she driving?
I seriously need to buy her a new car, she cannot be driving around in that old piece of junk. I cannot even imagine that it is roadworthy but she ensures me that it is, that Jose fucking photographer boy services it for her. The only comfort in this is that the boy is hopelessly in love with her, so maybe he does a good job of it, so she does not get hurt. But I will not have her driving around in this.
I help her get into her car and then she drives off in a huff of exhaust smoke.
I feel like I have said goodbye for good, as I stand immobilised in the valet area looking after her. I thought I saw some tears streaming down her cheek as she took off so at least it was not entirely easy for her.
I make my way back to my suite, but I seem to be walking around in my own little bubble. I feel odd, I should not have this much difficulty saying no to someone who does not want to have a Dom/sub relationship. This is what I do and there is no other way for me. I am not cut out for a regular relationship.
As I step into my suite I think about what went wrong tonight, I thought she was actually coming around but I guess I was sorely mistaken.
I send her an email and take a shower to rid myself of this feeling I have, but that does not help.
When I have finished she has not answered me yet, which worries me because she should be home by now. I start to worry about her and send her a text as well, but there is no answer there either.
I get increasingly worried as I think back to our evening. The more time that passes, the more I feel like I have lost something big. I really do not feel like loosing Anastasia, but I do not know what to do to put her at ease. I cannot offer her a normal relationship. Maybe I could invite her out for dinner during the week and then we can play on the weekends, that could maybe work. I do enjoy her company, but that still does not mean that I can do a regular relationship. That is a regular relationship, Grey.
I can feel me earlier steely conviction of not wanting to offer her anything more failing slightly. The hurt I feel of her ignoring me is worse than I imagined. I feel I need to do something to fix it.
I still have not heard from Anastasia, so I send her another email. I hate the fact the she is not answering me, that cannot be a good sign.
I tell Taylor to arrange for an Audi A3 to be delivered to the hotel tomorrow and then I will give it to Anastasia tomorrow after the graduation ceremony.
It is going to take some convincing of her before she will accept it, but that does not matter. She needs to have a safe car.
The covert security informs me that Anastasia has made it home and her car is parked in the car park. This puts me somewhat at ease but I am not particularly happy that she has not gotten back to me yet.
I fear that she is going to say no.