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still naked. I could feel him watching me. “Regret?” he asked.
    I made a face. “I feel like a bit of a slut,” I confessed. I had no idea why I was telling him this.
    He shook his head at me, but his expression had softened slightly. “Don’t,” he said. “We are two consenting adults; we both had fun. There’s no need to put any labels on it.”
    “I guess,” I replied. I needed time to process what I’d learned about myself today; I needed to reconcile who I thought I was with this new facet of my personality. I’d always known I liked to be spanked, but today had been more than that; today, I had felt a deep need within me to give him pleasure; I had craved his control over me. I had always been turned on reading about dominance and submission, but I’d always kept it in the fantasy realm; never thinking that I could experience powerful arousal at the act of ceding control.
    “I’ve got to go,” I muttered.
    He eyed me speculatively, but whatever he thought about my response, he kept to himself. “I’ll drive you home,” he said, coming into the room to grab his clothes.
    “That isn’t necessary,” I demurred.
    “Yes, it is.” His voice was hard. “Get dressed, I’ll meet you downstairs.”
    ***
    Magic 8-ball, I whispered to myself, when I was safely back in my apartment, lying in bed, tucked under my comforter. Should I ever do something like that again?
    Though my thoughts were still a jumble, the reply was clear.
    As I see it, yes.

Chapter 3
    Jake:
    Time was the great healer. That’s what they all said, and they said it for a reason. The months passed; work was busy, and the bustling activity of teaching, grading and research all helped to ease the pain of my failed relationship with Jenny.
    My cell phone rang early November; I looked at the screen. Jenny. I picked it up.
    “Jenny Stone,” I drawled. My voice was warm and teasing. “How’s life in the big, bad city?” I was happy to hear from her; there was no twinge of pain.
    “Jake Ballard,” she replied. “ It isn’t as big or as bad as you’d think. How are you?”
    “Good, kiddo. I can’t complain. You?”
    She hesitated. “I wanted to tell you myself; I’ve just started seeing someone. I didn’t want you to find out from Facebook, or some such thing.”
    I waited for the pain, but there wasn’t any; time had worked its magic, and the passing months had healed that tear in my heart. I was genuinely glad for her.
    “Does he treat you well, kiddo?” I asked her. Our lifestyle attracted a fair amount of jerks who didn’t understand the difference between dominance and controlling.
    “So far,” she replied. “I keep telling him that my ex will come beat him up if he doesn’t…”
    I laughed at that. If she’d been my submissive and said something like that to me, I’d have laughed my head off, then I would have put her over my lap and spanked her silly for the sass.
    “What about you, Jake? Seeing anyone?”
    An image of Emily McNamara flashed in my head; her cunt spread open in front of me, the fire in her eyes when she’d asked me to stop calling her pet. But Emily had finished her dissertation; moved to the opposite side of the country. It had been a one-night stand, nothing more. Or so I told myself.
    “Not really,” I replied.
    A silence fell over us; the same, slightly uncomfortable silence that had fallen too often over us; the reason that we’d broken up. Jenny and I – the sex was amazing, but beyond that, there hadn’t been the connection necessary to build something deeper. We’d come close; but in the end, we were ever so slightly out of phase with each other. The smallest of gaps, but one that had mattered.
    The silence stretched, and finally, Jenny broke it.
    “Look me up if you are in New York, Jake?” she asked.
    “Will do, Jenny,” I replied automatically. We said our goodbyes, and I was left staring at an empty line.
    ***
    I ground my teeth as I read the email that had just come in.