Heather had flipped the switch. Well, figuratively, at least… It happened that Heather had been surfing the net one fateful day when she came across a personal ad that caught her attention: “Submissive woman wanted for a secret affair – no experience needed.” It almost sounded too business-like to be real, but the words in the ad weren’t anything close to business-like. She read the ad once, twice. While not yet understanding why, the ad drew her attention at some primal level. Without consciously doing so, she found herself replying to the ad. His name was Alex.
Weeks later, after timid questions, shared erotic ideas and much courage, she had decided she wanted to meet Alex and find out what it was like to be truly submissive. He had phrased that last E-mail message with such an interesting analogy.
“As for the submissive stuff, well, Heather, imagine that there's a light switch on the wall in front of you. Currently it's in the "on" position, and you can see everything around you clearly. It’s still on because we’re both pending knowing where you stand with things and whether you really want to proceed. It's cool if you just want to continue to leave it “on” for a while. But if you want to flip it to "off" and see what happens when the lights go out, just let me know. At that point, you can start finding out what it's like to let someone else take control and direct your actions, your thoughts and your body.”
The words had sent shivers through her system, and she’d been thinking about that switch more than she cared to admit. It took another couple of weeks to commit to it, but she was now ready. Yesterday, she had decided to flip it to “off” and submit herself to whatever Alex had in mind. Within certain limits that they had talked about previously, he was going to choose what happened, every second, while they were together. “And speaking of seconds…” she thought to herself wryly, “…here I am.”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Facing her was his hotel room door. Just like he had promised, a white gardenia flower was laying on the carpet at the base of the door. His instructions yesterday had been that as long as she held the gardenia, she was in charge. The moment she handed him the flower, as symbolic as it was, she was no longer in charge. He was. So all that remained was to pick up the flower, knock on the door, and give it to him at some point. She picked up the fragrant flower, its heady scent intoxicating her, took another deep breath and followed it with a quiet knock on the door.
Alex answered the door after what seemed like hours, but was probably microseconds. She had seen his face before in pictures, but finally seeing him in person, well, she thought he looked better than she remembered. Confident, teasing and gentle, all rolled into one quick glance. She smiled at him.
Alex smiled back and invited her in. She quickly stepped out of the hallway and into his room. Heather had come this far. She had made this commitment knowing what she wanted. So why hesitate now? She hadn’t even spoken yet, but her hand reached out and offered him the gardenia. Alex smiled again and quietly said “thank you”, his eyes never leaving hers, as he took her hand and the flower together in his.