Pride
Sometimes, BDSM feels like the very best sort of achievement.
I’m driving through mountains I’ve previously only ever seen in the rain. Today, even the lower peaks are covered in snow, but the sky is clear china blue as I travel north, repeatedly forcing myself to take my foot off the accelerator to remain under the speed limit. Still, it’s impossible to control my eagerness.
I’ve dressed with care — a blue rollneck sweater to match the sky, tan wool pencil skirt, fur boots and bright yellow silk scarf at my neck. I’ve relegated my winter coat to the backseat because I want to look my best for him. I’m tense with anxiety, trying not to rehearse the things I might say because I know it’s never necessary once we’re back in the same place, but inevitably practising. What if I can’t remember who I am when I’m with him? It’s been months. What if I’ve changed without meaning to, and I’m not interesting to him any more? I rehearse a smooth, pleased expression, and realise I’m in danger of making him feel like he’s being collected from the airport by a robot.
He’s already waiting outside the terminal, instantly recognisable despite the hat pulled down low over his ears, carrying a tall rucksack that makes him look like a soldier on leave. I turn the car too fast, tires grating, impatient to be sharing air with him again. I forget to take my key from the ignition and my car chimes disapprovingly, but I don’t care because I’m outside, inhaling the frigid outdoors, and then the smell of him as his arms fold around me. All thoughts of what I should say, who I should be, and whether he’s changed, are suddenly dissolving. Only he remains solid — warm and real and holding me.
In the times between, I never manage to perfectly recall his scent, and as we drive south, I enjoy the reacquaintance. This perfume is one I associate with expensive hotel rooms and big white beds, not the muddy footwells of my seldom-cleaned vehicle, which generally smells, shamingly, of spilled Red Bull. Faint but expensive cologne, soap, clean hair, leather, and something else, something that’s just him, and which is unchanged by the time that’s elapsed since our last encounter. The relief swells in my chest, a balloon of happiness making my breath a little short as we talk fast, covering vast conversational ground before we arrive at our cottage.
