Rick & Renee Pt. 01

It'll sound weird, but I always liked airports. Something about the energy in them, I think, appeals to me. The comings and goings and the dynamic to and fro of humanity gives me a tingle. It's like some of the excitement from all those adventures, even little ones that only matter to the people caught up in them, rubs off and accumulates, there.

Or, maybe it was just because I loved to travel, and at the time, I was stuck there. So, playing piano in the tiny airport bar was as close as I was getting to escaping. But, you know how it is. When life is excitement all you want is calm and when things are calm, all you want is excitement.

So, there I was. It really wasn't a bad place, for the area. It was actually the nicest for a bit of a drive, which is why it often packed in a pretty decent crowd. That's how I'd found it, anyway, on a tip. I wasn't looking for work, but when somebody suggested a place around there that played blues and had decent imported beer, well, the rest was history.

It was actually pretty funny; I'd gotten into a chat with the owner a couple weeks in a row, and he thought I sang and played piano. I'd been working there a week when he noticed I didn't sing, but I tickled the keys so pretty-like, I kept the job, anyway. I played Tuesdays and Thursdays, mostly for tips. Friday and Saturday they had bands, either Jazz or Blues, and often I either helped out or worked the door. Wednesdays were dance nights. Oh, well. You have to stay home, sometimes.

So, it happened to be on a Tuesday that Renee came up and flounced down on my seat with a dramatic huff. "It's demeaning to women."

Renee was the hostess, there, and her coming up to me to chat was nothing unusual. She often would, a couple times a night, and we'd gab, as I could talk and play at the same time. She'd often say she had nobody else to talk to around there, because even though she thought I was an ass, I was the only one around there with an IQ over room temperature. In turn I told her that I'd bet she said that to all the boys.

"Of course it's demeaning to women," I answered, without looking up from the keys. "I mean, seriously, Renee, that feminism thing was cute for a while, but it's getting old. You chicks need to suck it up and get back in the kitchen before we take back the right to vote."

I didn't need to look up to know she was looking daggers at me. But I did, to flash her my best and hopefully most disarming 'only kidding' grin. But, man, if looks could kill. At least, until the grin worked, and she softened and went on.

She sighed, and growled, with a subtle little gesture of her head. "Will you look at that?"

So I did. I was doing a long improvisation at the time, with rolling cascades of notes, so I could take a glance around subtly. I'd forgotten what the melody I was building off on was, so I glanced and did some rolls into something edgy. I chose something edgy because Renee was cute when she was wound up, and I was trying to encourage it, musically.

She was looking at a friend of mine who was at the bar, talking to the owner across it.

"Yeah. His name is Frank. He's a friend of mine. A musician I was trying to get to play, here."

I glanced back to Renee, and the daggers in her eyes were back. Make those icicles. Sharp, pointy, murderous ones, and a little shiver ran down my spine as the redhead on the bench next to me turned on the chill.

"Well, I don't like how your friend treats his girlfriend."

I looked back at the couple there at the bar to see what she was talking about, but I didn't really have to. He did have his girlfriend there with him and I instantly knew what Renee was on about, then.

"Do you see that around her throat?" she whispered, leaning in towards me as I peered. And then she leaned in a bit more, hushing even lower at her perceived 'taboo' topic. "Do you know what that means?"

His girlfriend, you see, was named Gina, and around her neck was a thick collar with a D-ring. I actually thought it was kind of a nice one; oxblood colored leather, with calfskin padding and brass fixtures. Tasteful. But, also obvious.

"She has a neck injury?" I asked, smirking back into Renee's abrupt squint. Then, I chuckled. "Yes, I know what it means, Renee," I admitted, though I didn't add that I actually knew Frank and Gina from lifestyle circles, and not because we were both musicians. I especially didn't point it out because I kinda enjoyed how she was leaning in.

"So, what's the problem?" I asked, still playing. "I thought you were all about people being able to be open about their lifestyles. I thought you'd have been happy to see that?"

"Systematic abuse is not a lifestyle, Rick!"

"She doesn't look very abused to me," I pointed out, "In fact, I know both of them, and if she was I'd know and be the first all over it."

And I could almost hear her teeth grating. "Rick. Seriously? She's wearing freaking a collar. Like a dog." Renee half growled. "Would it be more obviously abusive and demeaning for you if he was making her wear a damned cow-bell?

"It depends on how he was making her, and if the cow-bell actually had a ringer," I quipped, but her look turned more warning, so I pressed on more soberly, "But, I happen to know that collar was a present, and that she loves it, and that she usually wears it because she digs it and not because he makes her." Her head tilted and for an instant she only glowered somewhat petulantly back, as though I was being pointlessly obstinate and purposefully obtuse in not seeing her point. So, I asked, "Would it bug you less if he was wearing the collar? Because before she met him and they became exclusive, she used to be a switch."

This threw Renee. Her thin, little, carrot colored eyebrows knitted together, and her big eyes narrowed and she jutted her bottom lip a little bit. She'd no doubt call it pursing her lips. I call it a pout, and she has a cute one.

"And what exactly is a switch?" she asked slowly and with a note of wariness in her tone. I knew I'd hit on something, though, from the angle of her sidelong look, and the way she peered at me, partly through her orangey eyebrows. It was no longer as clear cut a gender issue as she'd prefer, at least.

"A switch is someone who sort of goes back and forth between being submissive and dominant," I returned, informatively, which only made her squint all the more.

"Oh, don't, Rick. Please don't tell me that you're into all that, too, please."

It was kinda sweet, the way she asked it. Closed minded, judgemental, and condescending, as well, of course. But it had that genuine note of appeal, that sincere entreaty for reason, that innocent note of 'say it ain't so'.

She was so cute. So, I stopped playing.

"Look, Renee," said I, turning to regard her more fully. "You know how you've said in the past that to an extent people can't help their nature? Or at least shouldn't have to or be pressured to, if they don't want to?"

She just looked at me, not answering, but listening, waiting for the punch line. I could tell by the square of her little shoulders she was just bristling to argue whatever point I was building up to. But, I had her attention, so I went on.

"Well, for some people, the need for security in a relationship has to be met to a certain degree before they can proportionately meet their need for intimacy, or affection, or even sexuality. It's like that old pyramid. You know the one. The hierarchy of needs? Like, you really can't appreciate music if you're starving or freezing. Artistic fulfillment can only occur if your more basic survival needs are met, first. Right?"

She nodded. It was a guarded, grudging gesture, and she was still gazing at me with the wary suspicion she might fix a Nazi or axe-murderer with, but she acknowledged it.

"Well, some people, for whatever reason, simply feel more secure when they feel a degree of control in a situation. Others feel that measure of security from feeling someone else controlling it for them. The former are called dominants, the latter are called submissives. In the end, that's just it, in a nutshell."

There was a quiet moment that lingered on, so I turned and went back to playing as she mulled it; something softer, to accommodate.

"You know, you make it sound almost reasonable," she conceded grudgingly, as though vaguely disappointed by my lack of either agreement or unreasonability to argue with.

"Well, thank you. I try."

"I'd buy it if I haven't seen it, before."

I shrugged. "Seen what, before? I mean, the majority of people who practice anything, from marriage to tennis to playing piano develop bad habits that make it potentially damaging to them. That doesn't necessarily mean that the pursuit itself is inherently a flawed one."

"That's a glib, easy answer."

"Just because an answer is easy doesn't mean it's untrue. If I ask what time it is, you only have to glance at a clock."

She frowned and I played. She was thinking, I could tell. I dig chicks that do that.

"I'm not buying it."

"I'm not surprised," I said. "I kind of expected you'd feel resistant to it." I might have sighed it out in a slightly too self-assured way, and come across a little too arrogant and smug. But I was trying to provoke her a little.

And it worked, with her taking the bait like a breaching great white. You have to love redheads. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"

"Well, it's a sort of commonly acknowledged truism in lifestyle circles," I answered, in a measured, more reasonable tone, looking between her and the keys as I played. I was, no pun intended, playing that up. I think she dug the musician thing and I was trying to use it to lure her in. "The paradox that the surliest people you talk to are often the most profoundly submissive."

Renee's eyes flew wide as though I'd slapped her. "Me? Surly? Submissive?"

"Well, y'know," I smiled back, sweetly flashing teeth. "Comparatively." I didn't want to push it too far, as getting hit might've messed up my playing. I'm a professional, after all.

Her mouth worked wordlessly, and I pressed ahead, though. Often scrambling, shocked minds can be the most open and fertile. "It's because a submissive nature makes you very vulnerable, emotionally. And so people like that tend to suppress that reaction and allow it to only come out when someone makes them feel very safe and secure."

Her mouth slapped shut.

"And I suppose you're going to tell me you're a dominant."

"I happen to have a natural inclination towards that, yes."

"Isn't that convenient?"

Actually, it was. I couldn't really argue that suspicion in her narrowed, skeptical glance. I liked Renee, and I'd been thinking of asking her out for a while. What better time than now, when I was on the verge of mortally offending her?

I wanted to stop playing and focus on talking to her, but I'd just started a new tune a few bars ago and it would have been conspicuous. So, I looked at her as frankly as I could.

"Let me guess? You've had bad experiences with it? From a past boyfriend? Hm?" I didn't let her answer, but her expression affirmed it as I carried on, "It's like this. Take a typical vanilla courtship." I paused, thinking to explain, "Uhm, Vanilla is what people in the lifestyle call generally non-kinky stuff."

"I know what it means." She frowned, flatly.

"Okay! Anyway. A vanilla courtship can look like burgers and a movie, like Cyrano or Romeo under the balcony, or like a guy in a cowboy hat tossing a girl into his pickup, right? I mean none of them are necessarily right or wrong in general, but can be way wrong or way right for an individual, you know? It all depends on the needs and likes of the people who are doing it. Domination and submission is just like that. It describes a wide variety of potential activities, but everyone presupposes the most dramatic. Sadly, a lot of people get mislead into some faulty notions about 'how it's done', and so it goes badly. But how is that any different from any other sort of relationship? That's why you can't look at one couple practicing dominance and submission and say 'you've seen it', anymore than you can say you understand vanilla romance from watching one couple do it."

Now she wasn't getting it. She had ideas, I could tell, from those big, lucid, expressive blue eyes, but she wasn't sure where I was going with this.

"Do you trust me, Renee?"

Watching the unfolding play of emotions on her face, bouncing between suspicions and surprises, was utterly endearing. "Do I trust you?" she parroted. "I never trust anyone who asks me that. And, well, a little bit less, now that I know this about you."

"I think you're fibbing," I smirked, peering over at her. "I think you're skeptical of all this, and fair enough. That's natural. But, I think you'd look differently if you were really judging me for it."

She thought for another long moment, before answering, "No, I'm not judging you for it, I suppose."

"Good, then let me show you what I mean."

"No!" she chirped suddenly, eyes widening.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't like it!"

"But, we just discussed this. You don't know what it is, yet."

"I've seen it done before."

"Not like I do it, you haven't," I assured her confidently.

Now she finally broke a smile. "You're saying you do it differently than other guys, huh?"

I smiled back crookedly and winked to accentuate the humor. "That's what I'm saying, yeah."

"That's what they all say," she quipped, but she was smiling, now, as she did, and expectantly, too.

"Then you'll have to prove me wrong, won't you?"

She heaved a pretty little sigh, grappling as much with temptation as with me and my risqué, taboo ideas. "I don't want to disappoint you, Rick," she sighed, though, that ray of exuberance that had been breaking through her cloudy expression dimming.

"You won't," assured her with certitude.

"I'm not submissive."

"Fair enough."

"You don't believe me?"

"I suspend judgment pending absolute proof."

Another sigh. "I'm not going to just let you boss me about for an evening to see if I like it. I'm not going to bow or kneel or kowtow."

"Alas. But, rest assured, none of those things are what I had in mind. I'm against kowtowing on the first date."

"And just what did you have in mind, then?"

"A surprise," I said, seizing upon the initiative when I sensed another burst of positive momentum, I added, "And I like you to wear that pretty black velvet dress you wore to the Christmas party."

Her eyelids weighed down to cast her glance towards me in a dubious shade. "Really?"

"Really."

"I just said I wasn't going to let you boss me about."

"Fair enough. And I just told you what dress I'd very much like to see you to wear and we're both free to act on the other's input."

She made a little growling sound. "You're impossible."

As I'd said, Renee and I had that conversation on a Tuesday night. This worked nicely, for I'd made the plans for Wednesday, the next evening; dance night, when we were both off. I was glad for this, as I'm pretty sure that if we'd had to do another full shift together before that fateful evening, something would have been bound to interfere, or she would have made some excuse to attempt to bow out.

So, the next evening when I pulled up in front of her place promptly at the appointed hour, I was delighted to find her wearing the dress I'd asked her to, waiting on her porch. She looked lovely in it, too, the rusty red of her crimson waves and the pale skin of her arms and not to mention her white stockings painted her in bold yet elegant contrasts. So, I said so.

"You look lovely," I tried, slipping out of the car to approach her. She thinly feigned a frown as she regarded me in greeting.

The dress was a touch conspicuous, so she played it to the hilt, adding a little hat and matching gloves that she hadn't for the party where I'd seen her in it. It gave it low-key 'loligoth' elements to lend its cuteness a more racy and less wholesome flair, which I took as encouraging. Especially as her heels were higher and thinner, too. She caught me looking and tried to frown further and dismiss my compliments and approving smile.

"I thought you might like the outfit," she mused in a feline, purring tone of amusement, playing off that she'd complied with my request. "For one who claims not to be sexist you do seem to enjoy women looking feminine."

"Oh? Was this a test of some sort? I never properly said I was or wasn't sexist, you know. I don't know a good, solid definition for the term, anyway. But, if thinking you look great is an indicator, you're certainly free to draw your conclusions."

"Mmmhmm," was all she said, with a slight nod, bemused, as she watched me climb the two steps onto her porch to collect her. It obviously entertained her, giving me no signals to see how I'd fair the awkward ambiguity of how to greet her for our date. But merely smiling and leaning, stooping slightly, to kiss her cheek didn't seem amiss. In fact she even tilted her head for it, smiling herself. Maybe a little bit despite herself.

"So. I'm almost afraid to ask what these secret plans of yours are, to show me the error of my ways and prove my submissive nature."

"Well, I suppose it's safe to spill the beans, now. I was planning on ruthlessly and sadistically forcing you to enjoy an evening with me."

"Uh-huh." She was eyeing me warily and I laughed.

"You don't have to look quite that skeptical, Renee."

She sighed, turning her attitude down a couple of notches, and even smiled a bit more. "Okay, okay, let me go in and get my coat."

I shook my head, gesturing and stepping in to interpose between her and the door. "No, no, this is perfect," I said, reaching for the lapels of my own long coat to slip it from my shoulders and off. She, of course, eyed me suspiciously as I stepped in to put it around her shoulders like it was some kind of trap. Smart girl. It was.

"N-no. Really," she to decline, trying to step back as she saw my intent. "I'll just get my own coat." But, I was quick and slipped in before she could resist without turning it into some sort of physical contest.

"Nonsense. Humor me. I think it's a charming, old tradition; a lady wearing her gentleman's coat, don't you think?" I asked, trying to sound as reasonable and reassuring as I could as I settled the too large garment around her shoulders like a cloak. "Perfectly harmless. And besides. You wanted to prove me wrong, right? If you don't let me show you what I do, you'll never be able to prove how much you hate it."

This gave her pause. "You have a point," she reluctantly conceded, as she halted her resistance to let me finish placing it on her. Coupled with the slightly girlish nature of her outfit, the slightly oversized coat actually looked kind of adorable on her. And the act of settling it around her placed me behind her. This made her wary, especially when she then felt the leather at her wrist. She jerked it away, and spun on me, eyes wide on what I was holding.

"Are those- Are those handcuffs?"

They were, actually, so I said, "Yes."

I tried to do it nonchalantly to help asperse the natural wariness on her part that had her at that moment ogling me like I was wearing a mask on my face made of the skin of my past victims.

"I'm not wearing handcuffs," she stated in a flat tone of certainty that did it's best to dissuade debate. So, I knew I wasn't going to whisk her past this hurdle with a glib comment about proving me wrong.

"Okay, listen to me, Renee," I eased, calmly, speaking slowly, making my syllables soft and round with an easy slow tempo, subtly working to drag her racing thoughts sympathetically to a safer space with them. I usually don't prescribe using tricks like suggestion, NLP, or hypnosis to inexperienced dominants. It makes the process of power exchange less profound if used improperly. But, I found little strategic sprinklings of tricks helped ease the process for everyone. So I softened and slowed my tone and reasoned gently and reassuring, "You know I'm not going to hurt you. If at any point you want what we're doing to stop, say so, and we'll just stop."