The walk to the pier had been pleasant and Sofia felt like she’d regained her balance by the time they got home. Outside the condos, Lucas turned to her.

“Thank you for having coffee today. It was a pleasure,” he said.

“No, thank you,” she said, “I really enjoyed it too!” There was a pause that almost grew awkward, and then Lucas broke it.

“I’d like to go out again. Dinner Friday night?”

Sofia smiled, relieved that she didn’t have to wait to find out if he wanted to see her again. She mentally checked her calendar, “That should work,” she said.

He nodded. “We’ll go someplace near the beach, maybe go for a walk afterwards?” It was barely a question, but —

“Yes, that sounds wonderful,” said Sofia.

“I have some questions for you, and things I’d like to talk about. I’d like to share some thoughts ahead of time so you have a chance to think about them before I see you again. Do you have time – are you willing to do that?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Sofia said quickly, and then realized that she’d done it again, rushed to give him what he wanted without a thought. Oh, well, she thought. Too late to worry about it now.

He reached in his pocket, brought out a business card and handed it to her. “Email me,” he said. “Do you have a website? I’d like to see it. I want to know more about you.”

Sofia took the card, and found herself nodding again. “Yes,” and then she laughed. Still grinning she looked up at him and saluted, “Yes, Sir!”

He threw back his head and roared with laughter. “A little bossy, am I?”

Sofia just giggled. “If the salute fits…” she said, unlocking her door, and adding, “I’ll email you,” she slipped into her house.

She made herself wait until after dinner to email him. But she pulled up his website and looked at every page, read some blog post, read the reviews, and browsed Amazon wondering if she should buy one of his books. It was all pretty impressive, and her respect for him went even higher. She liked the way he thought. A lot.

And she had other things to do as well, thank goodness, she reminded herself, she couldn’t really spend all day hanging out on his website. But about 5:00 she emailed him. She thanked him again for the coffee, rewording it 5 times, gave him the link to her website, and hit send, feeling relieved to have that out of the way.

She didn’t expect to hear from him again until the next day, so it surprised her when she checked email again after dinner and saw a response. She felt her heart flutter and made a face, annoyed with herself. She really had to stop this.

But she opened the email quickly. It read:

Sofia paused. That was a great question. She had lots of thoughts about it too. She remembered times that she’d been dating Doms and had struggled to “shift gears” from her vanilla self to her more submissive self. She had a hard time going from work mode, where she was a healer, straight to bending over a bed, for example, regardless of whether she was being fucked or spanked. It was jarring and she couldn’t make it smooth, no matter how hard she tried.

She remembered lots of arguments around that, and accusations that she wasn’t really submissive. Remembering that, the tears and recrimination, made her feel a bit sick. Sometimes, work left her feeling raw, she thought. And she couldn’t just forget it. She read that part of his message again, and wondered if he really could help her make the transition so they didn’t end up fighting about it. Then she went on.

2. What boundaries would be helpful if two people are just starting to see each other and are next door neighbors? (Sounds like the setting for a 70’s sitcom, doesn’t it?)

Sofia laughed. It was a bit like that – only she imagined even earlier, with Doris Day and Carey Grant. Somebody like that. What issues were there? Oh, like if either one of them was also seeing someone else. Or if he didn’t give her space when she needed to work. She nodded. Yes, that was a good question. And the next one.

3. What social media are you on that you’re willing to share with me? I’ll take anything from FaceBook to Fetlife.

Really? She was on everything. Instagram, LinkedIn, you name it. And that was all public, she didn’t mind sharing any of that. Oh. Except. She paused. That blog she’d done for a while that was under a different name. There was that. She shrugged, she hadn’t been active there for years. He didn’t mean that.

BONUS QUESTION: What two or three things do you like best about a D/s relationship?
Feel free to email me your thoughts on any of this before our dinner Friday. I’ve put some of my thoughts in writing and will gladly share, but I’d like to hear your ideas first, please.
Except – I’ll go first on the bonus question.
Control. One thing I like a lot is having control. Knowing that when I tell my submissive to do something – whether it’s to bring me my belt from the bedroom or raise her arms so I can wrap some rope around her, I like knowing that she’s going to obey. What’s something you like?
Lucas

She was caught, she knew she was caught, but she couldn’t stop. She hit reply. She said:

Funny that you mention belts, I like belts.  

And then she paused because there was all kinds of excitement and shame mixed together, running through her. I should just stop there, she thought. But then she didn’t.

I like belts a lot, a wide, leather belt particularly.  
And I like to obey.  I like being told what to do.  
I like to be a good girl, and I like to please.

She paused. Oh. My. God. What am I thinking? And then she hit send.