Tymber Dalton - Domme By Default

But because I was in control.

I could keep them in control, under control, or at the very least from getting too much out of control.

How fucking stupid could I be?

My filter had shifted as I watched my friends laughing and talking. I could be any of their husbands sitting here, waiting for them to finish to drive them home. When they weren't drinking, I was one of the girls. Although...

When Angie's husband was away on business, I was the one she called for advice on the lawnmower or the garbage disposal.

When Jane's husband was still gone on deployment, I was the one she called in the middle of the night when her water heater split wide open and flooded her utility room.

I got the call early one morning when Susan's husband had already left for work and her car wouldn't start.

Caroline frantically IM'd me when she turned on the central heat system and smelled something "funny."

Why she didn't call 911 immediately, to this day I'll never understand. Fortunately it was just normal dust burn off from sitting unused in the Florida heat for a year.

Me.

Not my husband. Not their own male relatives or neighbors.

Moi.

I pretended to smile and nod at another story they thought was amazingly funny in their inebriated state. Frankly, I hadn't paid the slightest bit of attention. I was too stunned.

When I worked for other people, I was the natural leader despite not wanting the role. I always ended up appointed team leader, like it or not. The project manager, even when others volunteered and I sat there praying the boss wouldn't see me. The one everyone joked, "Give it to her, she always gets everything done. You're always so busy I don't know how you have time for it all!"

Well, it had to get done, one way or another.

I never refused, although I could have.

So it should only be natural I ended up with a husband who subconsciously saw me in the same light, right?

Strong.

Safe.

Reliable.

I was so sick of it on a cellular level. I wanted to be taken care of. I didn't want the decisions. I didn't want the responsibility.

It took every ounce of my will to not stand up and silently walk out of there without my friends.

I wanted to go home and hit my husband. Not bend him over the bed and playfully spank him until his ass and my hand both looked like the skin on a MacIntosh apple, but slug him in the jaw and call him a bastard for forcing me into this position.

Which was exactly why I didn't move. I stared into my glass of tea. When the waiter returned, I nodded when he offered me a refill. My friends were still drinking, would be good for at least another round and thirty minutes.

I couldn't go home like this, feeling like this. I needed to calm down.

I needed to regain control.

Part of me hated my husband, for my guilt, for my shame.

I never wanted to be a Domme. I wanted to be a loving wife.

I wanted a strong, dependable husband.

Now I think I understood maybe one reason why our variation of BDSM seemed to be the exception, not the rule.

No matter what Tony or my new acquaintances from the Munch said, it seemed like many dominant women in "the lifestyle" were full-blown Dominatrixes or whatever term they wanted to use for themselves, turning their men into playthings.

At least that's the information I kept finding. I intellectually knew there had to be more to it than that, but a serious lack of information I could relate to left me feeling lost and alone.

Maybe this was why, because eventually some women became aggravated at what they'd been pushed into and took on the role wholeheartedly.

Or, maybe not. I knew some women genuinely enjoyed the full-fledged kink, but I wasn't one of them.

It was difficult to find information on men like my husband, who only wanted to serve, not be used and abused. Even more difficult to find information on women like me who wanted to fill that need for them, not because they wanted and craved the control over their man, but because they wanted to fill that need for their man because they loved him.

I wasn't doing this for me, that's for damn sure.

I finally got my friends out of the restaurant and safely poured into their respective homes. I'd texted my husband before I left the restaurant and told him my approximate return time.

I'd also told him to be waiting for my return.

I opened the front door and he was sitting exactly as I'd instructed, naked, on his knees on the floor, his arms behind him, waiting with an eager smile on his face.

"Did I please you, Mistress?" he asked.

I nonchalantly dropped my purse onto the couch and nodded. How could I ever admit to him what I'd felt earlier? A horrible wave of guilt washed through me. I didn't want to be selfish, I wanted to make him happy.

This made him happy.

"You pleased me," I lied.

Part of me worried I'd come home one day and she'd stop me before I could strip, tell me the game was over, and we'd go back to our vanilla ways.

I would, if she asked me to.

I prayed she wouldn't.

It never failed that my cock hardened every day as I packed to leave work and drove home. I wanted to strip my clothes off on the way to the front door so I could kneel, naked, before her as soon as I walked in.

I loved the feel of her hands on me as she gently buckled the collar around my neck, the soft snick as the lock snapped into place.

A weight lifted from me. A physical sensation of lightness that I was home, with my Mistress.

Where I belonged.

Where I could relax and forget the day and focus only on her or on what she allowed me to focus on.

I could spend hours kneeling on the floor beside her, my head resting against her knee, as she sat on the couch with her computer in her lap. I loved it when she tangled her fingers in my hair and kept her hand there, touching me.

Owning me.

She wanted me.

Maybe I'd died and I was now in Heaven, because that's what it felt like.

I always took her hand and kissed it after she collared me.

It wasn't something she asked of me, it was something I felt I needed to do. I wanted her to know how much I loved her for this, for doing this.

I knew I was the luckiest bastard in the world.

My first major meltdown came four months after we took up our new "lifestyle."

What a fucking euphemistic word that's absolute meaningless bullshit.

I was on my knees late one Saturday morning in the guest bathroom, trying to fix the goddamn toilet. I couldn't get the supply line detached and yelled for my husband to bring me a pair of Channellock pliers.

Just as I was about to get up and get them myself, I heard him in the bathroom doorway. Saturdays were always play days, and he wore nothing but his locking leather collar.

I reached back, my palm open. He laid the tool in my hand.

A monkey wrench.

I bit back my sarcasm and tried again. "No. This isn't what I asked for. This is a wrench. I need a pair of Channellock pliers. They look like regular pliers, only they're larger, longer, and the business end looks offset and weird.

"Okay."

He took the wrench back and I knew from his tone of voice he felt badly.

A few minutes later, he returned. "Is this it?"

I turned to look, not really wanting to get up because it'd taken me a minute to wedge myself down there in the first freaking place.

He held up a pair of needle-nosed vice grip pliers. They looked nothing like Channellocks.

I closed my eyes and tried to count to ten. I didn't make it past five.

"Never mind," I whispered, prying myself out of the tiny fucking space between the tub and toilet.