Free Driftwood Deeds by Laila Blake

minutes before. And there it was again, that unsettlingly knowing smile.
    “It didn’t last long,” he went on. “I was lucky. Some people get stuck in that phase, in the power rush. It makes a chill run down my spine now when I listen to them.” He shook his head but smiled at me, momentarily seeming to search for words. Finally, he threw up his shoulders and shook his head.
    “I went back into another period of doubt. This craving for power had started to feel hollow, almost... boring if that makes any sense at all. I went to meetings, talked to other people, but that didn’t help. I’ve never been one to build my identity on my sexuality and I couldn’t really find anything in common with those who did. So I stopped, I moved here and thought I’d start a new—a different kind of life. I’d made some money with the scripts I’d written and I was tired of the lifestyle in LA.
    “That was easy to quit, dominance wasn’t. It catches up with you when you least expect it. This time I went at it more carefully, slowly building on ideas I’d developed over the years.”
    He stopped, rubbed the back of his neck and tried to smile at me. There was something impenetrable in his eyes and I looked away when it made me shiver.
    “Anyway. I’m rambling, aren’t I? What it’s like for me is… intense. I’ve learned that while it may look like I have the power, that’s not really the truth. Or more accurately, it’s half true. Both open each other more deeply, right to that place that contains who you truly are. Showing that to someone makes you vulnerable—sub or dom, doesn’t matter. You know, when you kneel in front of me, there’s that tinge of humiliation, the knowledge that in any other situation it would be degrading or laughable. And you trust me not to laugh or to degrade you. But it’s the same for the dominant. It’s all over if you laugh at his attempts to lead you.”
    He reached over and tapped his finger against my nose. My eyes fell closed and I angled my face up to kiss his palm.
    “Both have power, we just exercise it in different ways. You are powerful in the way you let me see you vulnerable, in living out a sense of weakness that couldn’t be further from most definitions of that word. Without your permission, I couldn’t do a thing of what I love to do. My power is in guiding you, both of us, in planning and watching and steering. But it’s too deeply entwined, you know? Once I started to see it that way, I didn’t know how to have regular sex anymore... it just felt like mutual masturbation without that sense of giving everything inside of you to the other’s needs.”
    My tongue sneaked out to moisten my bottom lip. I hung at his words, letting them roll around my head, slowly testing and probing their worth. I wanted to think about them, wanted time and a piece of paper to write but I also wanted him to go on explaining. 
    Over his lap and in the bathroom, I had learned that indulging these fantasies did not have to feel degrading at all, didn’t have to feel like I was betraying my gender and the rights we fought for. Here at this table, I was learning about him and how he was dealing with those questions. His eyes, his mouth, his neck—my glance brushed over them all, their reactions, tension, release. He wasn’t nervous, but neither did it seem altogether easy to bare his mind like this. And I wanted to kiss him for it, for being who he was, for sharing it with me the way he did.
    “When I spanked you, I did it because that’s what you wanted, craved. And because you did, your reactions coursed through me like wild fire. When you hurt, I hurt —and we both loved it. That’s why I went on and did it harder. Everything is shared this way, every sensation, every orgasm...”
    “Yeah...” I whispered quickly, interrupting him when he inhaled. 
    He smiled at me and raised his brows. “Yeah?”
    “Yeah.”
    Whatever had been closed behind his smile seemed to dissolve. Our