Julie kept her hand on Sasha’s and she whispered to her friend. Sasha nodded.
Daniel cleared his throat. “While he did the right thing by taking you to the hospital and calling me, that the scene even progressed to that point is reprehensible. And as a submissive, you should have never let the scene start in the first place. The principal group members have called for a discipline session for you both to be held at my house on Friday.”
Sasha simply nodded, but Julie’s head jerked up in surprise. “For them both? What?”
“Sasha is dealing with the consequences of her misjudgment. I can’t imagine the group to call for any action against her.”
“But they might?” Julie’s eyes grew big. “Are you serious?”
“It’s standard procedure for us to at least speak with the parties involved.”
“I can’t believe—”
Sasha cut her off. “I understand. I’ll be there.”
“And I will be, too,” Julie said.
He thought that would be a horrible idea. “Julie, I’m not sure—”
“Is there a group rule preventing my attendance?”
“No, but as your . . .” One look in her eyes told him not to finish the sentence. If he said he could forbid her as her Dom, he had no doubt that in her current frame of mind, she would tell him where he could shove his playroom. On the other hand, he feared if she attended the session on Friday night, she might tell him the same anyway. It was a lose-lose situation no matter how he looked at it.
“No,” he said. “There’s not a group rule preventing your attendance. I would just ask you to make sure you think it’s the best idea for you to attend.”
He’d known her to be a stubborn woman, but never had that been clearer than with her next words. “Just because something isn’t good for you doesn’t mean it isn’t good for me.”
She was drifting farther and farther away and there was nothing he could do about it. For a moment he wished he could command her to stay by his side, but reason soon replaced that thought. He wanted her to be with him of her own free will. And if her free will took her elsewhere, he had to accept that.
No matter how much her leaving would crush his heart.
EIGHT
Friday night, Julie drove Sasha to Daniel’s house with a heavy heart. Sasha was doing better physically and mentally, but Julie felt as if her own being were falling apart. Everything had seemed so simple before Sasha’s incident. A week later nothing made sense.
She’d avoided answering Daniel’s calls and had not returned any of them. For the last day, he hadn’t even attempted to call. She told herself she needed time to think, to reassess her need to submit. Was it really a need, or had it been desirable only because it had been Daniel she was submitting to?
And even if she had a need to submit sexually, would it be wise to give in to that need? In giving someone that much power over her, would she be placing herself in a situation to be harmed like Sasha? People denied themselves daily. It was called self-control. She had lived thirty years without submitting; she could do it again.
She pulled into Daniel’s driveway and her gaze fell on her bracelet. She had chosen not to wear the red one, but instead put on the white. Undecided. Just observing.
Or perpetual state of denial?
Guessing by the number of cars present, they were some of the last to arrive. Beside her, Sasha was silent as they made their way to the front door. But then again, she had been silent all week. The best thing Julie could say about Sasha was that she didn’t open and close her fist in a silent safe word as often as she had days ago.
Daniel opened the door at their knock. Dark circles rimmed his eyes. He looked tired but resolved. He didn’t look surprised to see her, but he did flinch when he saw the white bracelet.
“Sasha,” he said. “If you would go on downstairs, please. The room to the right of the playroom. I need a word with Julie.”
Sasha nodded and left her alone with the man she’d been avoiding for days. Julie and Daniel remained in the foyer, each watching the other, as Sasha’s footsteps grew quieter and quieter.
Julie couldn’t help but think back to the Friday nights she’d been welcomed into his house, but how very different they’d been. Before, she’d been excited and aroused. At that moment, she felt fear and sadness.
He waited until Sasha was out of sight before speaking. “I need you to understand I would have been well within my rights to deny you entrance tonight. In fact, I came very close to doing so.”
She started to speak, but he held a hand up.
“No,” he said. “You’ve refused to talk to me for days. You’re in my house now, so you can listen. I decided to let you come tonight because I won’t hide what I am. If you’re going to be with me, you have a right to know. I live by a set of rules and when those rules are broken, there are consequences. And you can wear that white bracelet if you think you can convince yourself in doing so that you’re something you’re not, but—”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
His expression grew hard. “Don’t interrupt me. The fact remains, you were born submissive and you know it. The only question is, what are you going to do about it? Because as much as you may try to tell yourself otherwise, you were never more content and at peace than you were on your knees before me.”
She shouldn’t argue with him. Deep inside, she knew he was right.
Shouldn’t argue, but she did anyway. “Sometimes we have to deny ourselves in order to survive.”
He opened his mouth as if to disagree, but instead he shook his head. “There’s a time and a place for this conversation. This isn’t it. You want to be here. Fine. Just know there is no safe wording tonight. You may get up and leave, but you can’t stop what the group decides.”
Before she could even attempt to process what he meant, he was speaking again.
“Downstairs. Room to the right of the playroom.”
Though she had walked down the stairs to his playroom numerous times before and experienced a multitude of emotions while doing so, walking down the stairs to meet with the principal group members was unlike anything she’d done in the past. There had been fear the first time, but even then, it had been tinged liberally with an underlying desire. As she opened the door beside the playroom, all she felt was fear.
Fear for what was about to happen. Fear that Daniel was right about everything. And fear that she would never again experience the joy she’d felt at his feet.
The room she entered was a sitting area of sorts with plush chairs situated in two facing lines. Sasha sat on the far left facing her, Peter on the far right. There were three chairs between them. Dena sat next to Sasha, and Jeff, the Dom who wanted to question her at the group meeting, the one Daniel had all but thrown out so he could speak to her privately, sat in the middle. The chair next to Peter was vacant.
Julie took the last empty seat in the opposite line and wished she were anywhere else, doing anything else. She only recognized Cole sitting in her row. He showed no reaction to seeing her and she wondered what, if anything, Daniel had told him. In addition to Cole’s, she counted two other black bracelets, as well as one green, and two red. She couldn’t remember if Sasha had hers on, but a quick glance confirmed the red band was in place around her friend’s wrist. Peter had no bracelet.
The door behind her closed and she jumped.
“Jeff,” Daniel said, walking into the room. “Everyone’s here, why don’t you start?”
She’d assumed Daniel would run everything, but instead he sat in the vacant seat and turned to Jeff. He didn’t look her way at all.