Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

Maureen

As I waited for Luna to get our coffees, my mind wandered. I'd had a nice time with Trent in the hot tub. Nothing happened but friendly banter and good conversation, but that's what was so amazing. He didn't try to talk about what I'd confessed, he didn't psychoanalyze me or manipulate me with what he'd learned.

And maybe that was why when I went to bed last night, my fantasy had him in the starring role. Only it wasn't my usual type of fantasy. And it led to the most explosive orgasm I'd ever had. The fantasy? Trent topping me.

"Ooh, we got free cookies!" Luna said, setting a tray on the table and plopping into the seat across from me. I looked up startled, my face hot with my reverie. "I told the guy we were from Rawhide, and he gave me a wink and handed me two cookies. Said he was looking forward to coming for Visitors' Weekend and he hoped to see me there. Lucky me."

I glanced at the guy behind the counter. He was handsome and well put together but he was no Drake. I wondered when she'd give in to her feelings for the guy and stop attempting to fool herself into thinking she was just interested in him as a "friend".

Luna moaned and my attention was pulled back to her. She was sipping her coffee like it was divine.

I took a sip of my own and realized she wasn't overselling it. "The coffee is other-worldly good. Thanks for bringing us here."

"Ever since Porter's Perk opened I've been dying to try it. The bakery in town is good, but I've been dying for a proper mochachino for ages." As if to punctuate her statement, she waved at the barista, took another sip and showed him how her eyes rolled back.

"So how's Drake?" Holding my cup with two hands to warm them, I watched my friend's eyes narrow.

"We're here to talk about you, girl, not Drake. Besides, how would I even know, it's not like we hang out."

The way she said his name was telling but I also knew I'd never get anything out of her about him when I'm being secretive about my own shit.

"Fine, fine. But you better believe your ass is mine if we don't have a date in a few weeks with your heart the one under the magnifying glass."

"Oooh, heart talk." Her brows wiggled. "Spill, bitch, spill."

"I'm…" I roll the words around in my head, wondering how to say them without causing Luna to do a gymnastics routine around the room. "I like someone. And it's a different kind of like than I've experienced before."

Luna leaned in, licking her lips. "Hm, I'm listening."

I gathered a breath while I mustered the courage to go on. Fiddling with the lid of the cup, I blurted, "I'm having fantasies."

"Fantasies are good. What's so different about that?"

I looked around the room. It wasn't empty but wasn't full either. The line for takeout was long, but it was on the other side of the room, so we were in a relatively private spot.

"They're submissive in nature."

Luna slapped the table so hard one of the cookies jumped from the cardboard plate and cracked in half. I scooped it up and shoved a chunk of it into my mouth so she couldn't force more out of me before I had a minute to consider how to continue.

The cookie was distractingly good, or would be in any other circumstances, but nothing could deter my mind from the trajectory it was on.

"I've never fantasized about being submissive to someone before, but this guy… he's… I don't know." I shrugged. "He's not like anyone else. And we have a past."

Luna, practically salivating, wiggled impossibly closer. "Is he perhaps the guy you've replaced me with as your running partner?"

A wave of guilt flashed through me, until I remembered she's the one who's been busy lately.

"It's that new professor, isn't it?" She pointed at me. "I heard you'd worked together before."

I chewed my lip, wondering if I should even say. It's not that I couldn't trust Luna to keep things between us, but if she knew outright who it was, she might start playing matchmaker, and I couldn't handle that.

"It doesn't matter who it is. The problem is, I'm not submissive. It's the reason our attraction didn't work the first time." I looked away because she latched onto my words like a hungry dog to a bone.

"The first time?" Her voice rose in pitch.

I groaned. "Yes, three years ago. We worked together." I gave her a warning look so she knew not to proceed with questions pertaining to that.

"We'd flirted for months and he finally asked me out and—" I blew out a hard breath, focusing my attention on the other half of the cookie on the plate. Grabbing it, I broke off another piece and popped it into my mouth. It tasted like sawdust this time.

"And?" she prompted, sounding impatient.

"And it didn't go well."

"How?" Luna picked up the other cookie and took a bite, settling in as if the story was going to be epic.

"He told me he liked me, felt a real connection with me, but before things progressed, he wanted me to know he was a Dominant, a Daddy Dom actually. And he was looking for a submissive woman, even if only in the bedroom." I shifted in the chair, embarrassed about my next confession. "I liked him and it was disappointing and I kind of freaked out…" My words trailed off.

"Freaked. Out." Her eyes narrowed. "Freaked out… how?"

I grimaced. "I went to the bathroom, climbed out the window and never saw him again."

She leaned back in the chair and held her hands up. "Wait, wait, what do you mean you never saw him again? Didn't you work together?"

I swallowed and nodded. "Yeah." I turned away, looking out the window at the small main street of Porter's Corner.

When Luna didn't speak, I turned back to her. She was pointing a finger at me, her lips pursed and her head turned to the side in thought.

"This really scared you. But why?" She wasn't really asking me, so I didn't answer her. "This is why you're such a caring Domme. You can relate. You have underlying subbie tendencies. Unfulfilled subbie inclinations. Hm." She rubbed her chin, examining me.

I kept my face blank, my breath stuck somewhere near my diaphragm.

"You are a control freak and that's why you won't even consider it." She made another hm sound. "It was your mother, wasn't it? She fucked you up."

My eyes widened at her leap, but I shouldn't have been surprised, I'd made comments before, it wouldn't be hard for someone as intelligent as Luna to figure it out.

I nodded in answer, once again looking out the window.

"Have you ever seen him scene?"

My head snapped back.

"He's really good. And if you wanted to try bottoming, I think he'd be a perfect partner. And, Maureen, you can't even imagine how amazing it is to give up control—the empowerment of it. Your mom was fucked-up, and she took it out on you, but to give up control by choice, to trust someone and be vulnerable; it's a whole other ball game."

"Pfft, who's ‘he'? I never told you who it was, and besides, it was a fantasy. Some women fantasize about rape; it doesn't mean they want to be raped."

"No, it usually means they want to experience sexual pleasure without being culpable, likely because women were shamed and oppressed for having sexual desires for centuries."

"You and your damn psychology degree," I teased. She didn't actually have one, yet, but she was studying for it.

She shrugged one shoulder, picked up her coffee and said, "Think about it and I'll shut up."

"Fine. I'll think about it." My eyes narrowed then, my gaze focused on hers. "But only if you consider your feelings for Drake."

Luna looked down at her watch. "Oh, look at the time." She rose, grabbing her stuff.

I laughed, picked up my half-full, likely cold, coffee and followed Luna out the door.

"Wanna scene next week?"

Luna turned back to me. "You going to exact revenge on me for psychoanalyzing you today?"

I shot her a half-smile and shrugged.

"I think I'll wait until you forget about today then."

I threw my head back and laughed harder before planting a smarting swat on her jean-clad ass. "Such a brat."

I looked at Mira's calendar with a frown. Her mother's surgery was the same day as my class's exam. If my memory was correct, it was also the day of Trent's exam.

Mira had come to me after class to discuss her options, but the options were few and far between.

"Can I do a make-up test?" Mira asked, her eyes starting to mist up.

"Make-up, where?" I asked, looking at the rest of the appointments filling up the small squares. There was radiation, chemotherapy, PET scans, and a million other treatment-plan appointments filling her already packed calendar. When I glanced at her, Mira's eyes welled up. She was overwhelmed and it was breaking my heart.

"I'm free now, but we haven't even covered all the material in class yet." She looked down and my eyes followed to her fingertips where she'd chewed her nails down so far they'd bled. "I'm only free now because they admitted Mom today. She was agitated and aggressive." She glanced up at me and swallowed, and I knew the aggression had been aimed at her.

"The nurses told me to go home and get some rest, but how can I rest? I need to figure this out." Her breath quickened in panic.

I knew exactly how it felt to be killing yourself to care for someone who shouted and barked insults at you no matter how much you did for them.

"Okay, easy, hon. We're going to work this out. I promise." I rubbed her arm and she nodded awkwardly, a tear spilling over her lid and dripping onto the tablet we were using.

"I'm so sorry this is making your life difficult." She sniffed and palmed her cheek to sweep away the errant tear. "You shouldn't have to make accommodations for anyone. I'm nothing but a pain in the ass."

"This is exactly the reason we allow accommodations in the first place, Mira. And did your mother tell you that?"

She swallowed but didn't answer.

"It's not true." My tone was stern. "You've never been a pain in the ass. You've never caused any trouble." I held up a hand, stopping her before she could protest—even mentally.

"And I know you're thinking I'm just saying that, or I just don't know you well enough to know just how much trouble you are, but trust me, it's not true. Your mind is messing with you, because I have no reason to lie and I have no obligation to help you, but I am." I placed my hand on her arm and squeezed. "Because you deserve to be helped. You're worth my time and effort."

I looked at the calendar again, more determined than before. "Do you think you can concentrate during the surgery to do an exam?"

She nodded, looking hopeful even though tears were freely falling down her cheeks now. "I think so. I'll be in the waiting room for a good portion of the day."

"Can you video-call me?"

"Yeah, I can do that. I'll use earbuds, and step outside as long as I'm not too far, the nurses can grab me if they need me."

"Okay, I'll give you a verbal exam then, so it won't take as long. I'll be able to garner your grasp of the material easily, even if you're a little less articulate because of the stress. I have a teaching assistant who can watch the rest of the class do their exams and I'll sit in my office with you."

This was the last straw to her strength and she started bawling. I knew it was from relief, but it still made my chest ache. She started rambling her appreciation as she fell into my arms. I held her tight, rocking her in a way neither of our mothers had done with us.

"I haven't slept since the night you punished me. I mean, a few fitful hours here and there, but that night was the only night I slept a solid seven hours and woke up feeling light and hopeful."

"A punishment can do that," I answered and she nodded against my shoulder.

"I've considered doing scenes with Doms in the Dungeon for stress release, but I don't wanna explain what's going on." She sniffed and hiccupped. "And if they don't know and I freak out or break down, I won't be able to explain myself, you know? I need someone special who I can trust to watch for physical cues, but I don't have a significant other." She pulled back and her big blue eyes swung to mine.

"Mira, are you asking me to give you a stress-relief scene?"

She licked her bottom lip and looked away, so I took her chin between my finger and thumb and turned her head back to face me.

"Would that be weird or inappropriate or whatever?" She choked a little on the words, and I grabbed a tissue from a box on my desk and handed it to her.

"No, it's not like I haven't punished you as my student. But we can talk to Master Derek, make sure he knows what's going on and approves." I released her chin, tucking a loose blonde tendril behind her ear. "I don't know where we'd fit it in your schedule though."

"Can we talk to him now? I know I should be studying for the exam but I can't concentrate anyway."

I nodded, ran a hand down her hair and pulled her back into a hug. "Let's see if he's available."

Master Derek looked at the door, his eyes soft with concern. "That poor girl."

"Master Holland and I have been on top of it, helping her to succeed, but when she asked me to scene with her because she hasn't been sleeping, I thought we'd better come see you."

"I would have liked to have been looped in sooner but you're doing everything I'd do anyway, so no harm done." Master Derek leaned forward onto his forearms. "I'm glad she told you everything. She made the right choice coming to you. Of all our professors, you're the one I'd recommend in this situation. Your compassion far surpasses anyone's I know."

"Thank you, Sir."

His eyes, serious and steady, held mine and he reached up to smooth his hand over his chin.

With his brow furrowing slightly, he said, "Can you handle this?"

My eyes widened in surprise. "What do you mean, Sir?"

"You seem as if you've got something on your mind as well." He examined my face, scrutinizing every inch as if there were invisible words written there that only he could see. "Is there any reason you shouldn't be taking this on?"

I thought about his words, about what he might mean. Did he have an inclination that I had dealt with a similar situation with my own mother? Was my baggage so visible that even Master Derek could see it?

Baggage or not, I hadn't been thinking of my mother or the trauma she left in her wake, not really. My focus had been on Mira, one hundred percent… I paused mid-thought. One hundred percent?

My feelings for Trent, the emotional push and pull over my attraction to the man, had taken up a lot of mental space too, so maybe one hundred percent wasn't accurate. But I was more than capable of compartmentalizing things while I helped this young woman get through what was surely the worst time in her life, wasn't I?

Looking Master Derek in the eye, I straightened. "My priority is Mira, and my focus will stay on her until she gets through this and graduates."

"Okay. Then I give you permission to scene with her whenever she needs it. I'm putting her in your capable hands. But please keep me updated and don't let this get out of hand. If you need me to step in, I will. No questions asked."

I nodded, rose, and went to get Mira. The girl needed me and a hell of a scene, and she was getting what she needed if it was the last thing I did.