I held her while she cried, her body trembling against me. Hanna scooted up and pressed her face into my chest, her arms clinging around me like she was afraid I’d let go. My shirt grew damp where her tears soaked through, and I could smell the faint mix of her shampoo and sweat.

  “I’m here. I’m still me. I’m still both of me. Maybe something else, too. I realized something in the dungeon.”

  “What?”

  She looked up at me, tears filling her eyes. “I’ve been an agent for seven years. I joined right out of college. I put everything and everyone else aside to be the best agent I could be. I think I’m a pretty good agent.”

  “You are,” I whispered.

  “But I’m not going anywhere. Coming here was my third office. Fourth if you count part time in Eddington.”

  Taking a chance, I stroked her hair. She slid back and laid her head down on my thigh again before continuing. I saw the hint of a smile. “It feels like I’ve done more since I’ve been here than all the rest of the time, I’ve been an agent.”

  Her head dropped again, burying her face back into my thigh as if ashamed of the words.

  Blaze lifted her head again, and looked up at me. “I feel like an outsider. I’m learning how to run the office, but I don’t really do much of that, everything else has to do with the Game. Blaze is the hero, not Hanna.”

  “Um, I see. I get that part. I’m not just an ex-sword jock and editor. I’m the First Mana Mage. I’m the Warchief. Imposter Syndrome kicked in on the first day. But you earned your fame the hard way. You built it up like everyone else has to do.” I told her as I stroked her hair.

  “The rest of you are the ones people should be emulating. You’re braver than most, but not stupid about it. That’s been all you. You directed the rescue of the other hostages. I had to talk to the reporter. That was a lot scarier.”

  This time I got a chuckle out of her. “You brought her over to our side. You’re the catalyst when things happen,” she told me. “You’re the father, big brother, mother, all rolled into one for a lot of people.”

  “You know I don’t want to do that. To be that,” I reminded her.

  “That’s why it works. You said you and your wife did kinky things before your accident. That’s how you knew who Madame Boudoir was. Were you always the dominant one?”

  “Mostly. Yeah.” Smiling at the memories, even though she couldn’t see it. “I bottomed a few times to find out how it felt, but it was mostly to learn it. It wasn’t what I wanted to do.” I answered her.

  “Was your wife your sub, or,” she hesitated for a moment, “Slave?”

  “She was on the submissive side. We played at the sub and slave thing for a while, but it wasn’t her, or me. Besides, I think we were too much in love to do that except as play time. Why?”

  “Why? Because you still put out that dominant feeling with people. You find ways to get them to do what you want. You don’t even think about it.”

  “I didn’t think you’d agree to the fight. At least not right away.” She added.

  “Why do you think I agreed to it? Now?”

  “Because I asked. And because you weren’t thinking about dominance or submission. You just wanted to help me. You thought I was asking you for some sort of help. I was.”

  “I knew something was off. I thought it would be easier than it was. All I had to do was touch you. I never meant to hurt you or draw blood. Once I knew you weren’t holding back your attacks, I had to do something.”

  Looking up into my eyes, she told me, “I wasn’t thinking either. I didn’t want to hurt you, but Will, it was like something wouldn’t let me go easy on you. Maybe it was me wanting to prove myself with you. Or dominate you. I don’t know.”

  She put her head back down on my leg. “You, you can keep stroking. It’s nice.”

  Far be it from me not to do something like that, so I did as she asked. Her body relaxed again. Softly stroking her hair felt nice to me as well.

  “Why did you want the robes. I understand the staff.”

  “I’m no longer sure. I think it was to appear different. I wasn’t Blaze any more. I was just another mob the game created for you to fight.”

  “Except it was still your face under the hood. It was you and you’re right; it wasn’t you. I never wanted to hurt you.”

  “Will. I wanted to win. To hurt you. It wasn’t practice. It was a fight. I couldn't help myself.”

  “I knew that after the first pass. Where do we go from here?” I wanted to know. This was her decision point and I sure as hell wasn’t going to decide for her.

  This time, instead of answering me, she lifted off my knee, kneeling on the floor, facing me. Her head was up, looking at me. “It’s your choice. You won. You dominated me. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

  It was her voice, and it wasn’t. She was back to being what she was during the fight. Not Blaze. Not Hanna, but something else. Someone else.

  She’d tripped decades old triggers. “Do I play the dominant role for her? It feels like that’s what she wants.” It took almost a minute before I nodded yes, not that she could see it. “I have to find out what’s behind this before I do anything I can’t take back.”

  “All right. Hand me the dagger.” She looked down at her waist, surprised, like she’d forgotten it was there. There was only a slight hesitation before she handed it to me. I put it on the end table at my end of the couch.

  “Now your sandals.” I held out my hand. Shifting around, she pulled them off and handed me both at the same time. I added them to the end table.

  “Very good. I know that the floor is hard. I know it all too well tonight.” I saw the glimmer of her smile form. Then her face went slack again. “In the closet in the hallway to my bedroom, at the bottom. There are floor pillows. Bring one of them here. When you sit or kneel on the floor, you will use it. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, just above a whisper, before getting up and doing what I instructed.

  Things I’d done two, three or more decades ago were returning. I waited. Something still felt off about this. I wanted to know what was behind it.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  A minute or so later, she brought a medium blue, fabric covered pillow back. Carefully setting it directly in front of me, she knelt on it, looking down. Her bare toes touched the floor behind her.

  “Good. That’s easier and more comfortable for you to kneel on. Also, put your knees at the front corners of the pillows. You’ll need to move forward a little.”

  She glanced up at me, then shifted as I told her.

  “Very good. You’ll find out that’s more comfortable. Now hands on your thighs, palms down, back up straight, and look up at my face. Don’t look down.” She obeyed again, keeping as neutral an expression as she could. I wanted to get her talking. Something was wrong and yes; I wanted to fix it.

  “Tell me again. Why do you want to do this? Why do you want me to,” I made finger quotes in the air, “dominate you?” I waited.

  “I don’t, exactly. I challenged you and lost.”

  “You lost, but you didn’t set a forfeit. We could have gone back to talking and finishing our coffee. There is more than that. What was it?” Raising my voice slightly on the last sentence, I stared into her eyes.

  I waited on her. Finally, it came out. “I wanted to know if you would hit me.” She looked down again.

  “Keep your head up. And pull your robe out from under your knees. I don’t want you kneeling on it.”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied, then obeyed. Lifting each knee to pull it out and drape it over her thighs.

  “You returned to the position. Very good.” I paused for most of a minute, interlacing my fingers over my belly as I waited. Silence sometimes works better than threats.

  “That wasn’t an answer to my question.” I said, “That’s why you initiated this. I didn’t agree to dominate you, as you called it, if you lost. Or submit to you, if you won. Tell me the truth this time.”

  This time, I saw tears forming in her eyes. Something was getting through to her.

  Leaning forward, I spoke quietly, gently to her. “That’s it. You can tell me. You can tell me anything. I won’t tell anyone without your permission, so please, tell me why you’re doing this.”

  Now she was shaking, bending forward, her hands over her face. I bent over too, stroking her hair. Murmuring soft words of encouragement. Finally, she spoke. It was barely above a whisper.

  “My freshman year in the college dorm. A girl on my floor. She said she had a Master. She always seemed so happy. Always wore a necklace she said was her slave collar. Said they were going to live together forever at the end of semester. Some of us were jealous of her.”

  “Come here,” I told her, pulling her up on her knees so I could hug her, her face buried in my chest, tears dampening my shirt. I stroked her hair and back. “Keep going.”

  “I, I looked up things about it online. Read about it, watched porn about it. Some of it seemed so romantic and some horrific. It was sort of a fad for a while on campus. Then it died out by the time I was a senior.”

  “Did you do anything about it?”

  “Had a couple of boyfriends for a while who claimed to be into it, but it was just a means to have sex. They talked it, but I couldn’t feel it.”

  “Are you feeling it now?”

  “Yes. A little. But it feels good. Nice. Not sexy like the stories. Why doesn’t it?”

  “Because I’m taking this slow. This doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel like you. Not the you I know.”

  Stopping, I thought again about why it didn’t feel right. “This whole thing felt wrong. The fight felt wrong. You weren’t yourself. The person I’ve gotten to know, and yes, the person I like. I checked for anything controlling you and I didn’t see anything. Nothing Game related.”

  She glanced up at me, before burying her face in my chest again. “I didn’t feel normal. I felt I had to do this. Like something was making me do it this way. I needed to win, to prove myself better than you at something.”

  Hanna lifted her head and looked at me. “It didn’t work, did it?”

  “It did. Like sports and martial arts, you may be rusty, but conditioning and muscle memory come back fast when someone’s trying to hurt you. Or kill you.”

  “That’s why I took the staff. I didn’t know if you knew it. I remembered some of it and it came back. I thought you wouldn’t know how to fight it.”

  “So, you’d win?” I asked, stroking her hair again.

  “So, I’d win. Yes.”

  “Why the robes?”

  “I remembered they added protection, like armor. And other reasons.”

  I put my fingers under her chin, and lifted it so I could see her face, and she mine.

  “What other reasons did you have?” I asked her gently, softly.

  “Now I’m getting somewhere.” Inwardly, I smiled at her struggle to speak. I kept my face and voice steady.

  “In case I lost,” she told me in a barely audible whisper.

  I smiled and stroked her hair, silently showing how I felt.

  “What did you plan to do if you lost? You know me. You said I’d treat it like practice. We’d work on doing better if we have to fight this way against others. There’re no problems between us. None at all.”

  Her head popped up, and she looked at me. “That’s not what I wanted.” Came out quicker than I expected. She tucked her face back into my chest. I could see her blush forming again.

  Thinking about it for a minute, there was only one thing that made sense. “That means she wanted to be here if she lost. The whole submission thing.” It started to make some sense.

  “Shit! This is not what I wanted. Shouldn’t have played along trying to find the answer. It still doesn’t feel right. Like something or someone else is making her do it.”

  Sometimes, memories come back when they match something that is happening now.

  Mine were my wife and I at a party a few years after we were married. Some people we knew were talking about how much fun they were having learning all these new kinky things and new toys they were playing with. We were a sort of traditional male head of house couple. It was the way our parents raised both of us. It sounded like fun.

  We both spent time in the town and campus libraries and bookstores looking for information. In those days, the internet in Eddington still existed mostly for people in computer science and a few geeks. We agreed to only do things with each other.

  Once in a while, we’d trade roles, but it was mostly her being submissive while I was the dominant. That’s the way most of the people we knew played. There were a few who went the other way.

  This situation back memories of some of our first play times. We fumbled around things, learning as we went and working out what worked for us.

  “She wanted to do this, but safely. It was just sex for most people. I doubt she’s done it since. I think she’s worried about what would happen if the agency found out.”

  Stroking a woman’s hair and body can be very relaxing. For both of us. But she was up on her knees, and I didn’t want to keep her there much longer.

  “If this isn’t what you wanted, but felt you needed?” I asked her. “Why now?”

  “Because,” she whispered into my chest.

  Instead of stroking her hair, I slipped my hand under it and took a light handhold at the base of her skull. It’s sort of like the hair carry I learned in lifesaving class many years ago. It also allows you to control someone’s head without hurting them. I closed my hand and turned her head up to face me.

  “What are you willing to surrender to me?” My voice was soft, but firm. “Everything is not an acceptable answer. Nor is whatever I want. What does Hanna Pozarkova feel is safe to put in my hands?”

  Her body tensed. I could tell she didn’t want to answer me. She wanted to put everything that happened on me. I’d played that game before. It didn’t work out well.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I thought you’d tell me.”

  “I don’t work that way. But I’ll tell you what I won’t do. I won’t tell you what to do as an FBI agent. Or how to run your office. Well, if you ask me questions, I’ll answer the same way I would have on the day we met. Do you understand and agree?”

  She tried to nod, but my grip wouldn’t let her. Finally, she said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Very good. If we do this, and I’m not sure we should, we’re going to take this very, very slow. Understood?”

  This time she answered quicker. “Yes, sir.”

  “Last, is if there’s something you don’t want to do, tell me why before doing it. That includes what I do to you, or I have you do. Understand.”

  “Yes, sir.” It was above a whisper, but not much.

  “Good girl. That’s better,” I told her as I released her head and stroked it a few times, finger combing her dark red hair back into one flowing path down her back. It was shoulder length, so it didn’t go far down her back, but it looked nice that way.

  “The exception is getting me coffee.” She burst out laughing.

  [Urako Sarutobi:] [William of Brinsford] [Help! Restaurant’s being robbed and all my gear’s in your van.]

  Fifty Shades Freed. (Which I haven't seen, but I found this when hunting for appropriate music and liked it.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shHTYg-rOAg

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