Page 57 of Stand Your Ground

Set up for life.

I control when I have a kid and how.

I control every lesson between me and Carter.

This is a means to an end.

By the time Carter picked me up for our date lesson, I had myself back in check.

We were each two drinks in now, tucked in the corner of a rooftop bar that overlooked the Hillsborough River, the Tampa skyline glittering like scattered sequins in front of us. String lights arched overhead. A firepit flickered at our feet, our chairsside by side and angled toward one another. Music thrummed softly from the indoor lounge, muffled by glass doors and cool January air.

It was cozy and intimate and the perfect setting for a date.

It was also supremely uncomfortable for me.

Carter didn’t pick up on that — at least, not that I could tell. On the outside, I was the dominant instructor as usual. And yes, Ididfeel like I was back in control.

But I also felt like I was dancing around a room of eggshells.

I’d agreed to his request for this date lesson mostly out of my need to vacate his house after our last one. But I’d also been curious. He’d said he needed my help, and that was part of our agreement.

I just wasn’t as confident when it came to this part of intimacy.

I typically skipped dates, which was why my best friend had been so shocked when I mentioned I was going on one. Why waste time pretending like I cared about what my future sub did for work, or making up some lie about my own background, knowing I’d never feel safe enough to share the truth, when all we bothreallywanted was to get naked?

But Carter was different. He wasn’t like me. He was…good. Pure. Eager to please.

He’d make a great boyfriend to someone someday. A great husband.

And that was part of why I didn’t love toying with the whole dating thing in our lessons. There were too many opportunities for pesky feelings to creep up — especially for him. And I didn’t want to hurt him.

That was the whole reason I’d set up so many rules.

Still, so far, I’d called the shots all night. We’d started inside, where I’d perched on a barstool with my legs crossed and a smirk in place, watching him psych himself up from across the roomlike he was about to approach a total stranger. That was the exercise: act like we’d never met.

He flubbed the approach twice — once leading with a compliment that landed too sexual, once with a joke that didn’t land at all. I coached him through both, reminding him not to come in too hot, not to make it about him. Ask questions. Be curious. Eye contact, but not too much. And for the love of God, don’t open with“So, do you come here often?”

Eventually, he got me to laugh. That’s when I let him sit beside me. We ordered drinks and kept the game going. I pretended to agree to letting him take me on a date, and then we met outside the bar and acted like it was date night some days later.

He was in stride once that next phase kicked in. He’d guided me to our table with a hand at my lower back. He’d ordered our second round without looking at the menu, remembering that I’d ordered a dirty martini with extra bleu cheese olives, and sticking with a classic Old Fashioned for himself. And he’d initiated conversation with ease, skipping over the shallowso, what do you do?bits and launching right into people watching that transitioned smoothly into us trading stories.

He was doing well. Really well.

And that was the problem.

Because somewhere between lesson and leisure, the lines started to blur. And I didn’t like how that made me feel.

It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy his company. I did.

Thatwas the issue.

It made me feel out of control, like the structure I’d crafted was flimsy. The safety of the roles we’d defined from the start were written in black and underlined in red. Teacher and student. Dom and sub. Boss and rookie.

But this? Cuddling next to him, legs brushing, hearing him talk about college and his guinea pig and the time he pissed himself in a bounce house as a kid?

This felt real. This felt… soft.

And intimacy —realintimacy — had never been something I trusted. Not since I learned how quickly it could turn into a weapon.