I give her a slow smile. "It turns me on too."
"But it shouldn't. I shouldn't need it."
Tucking her closer in to me, I kiss her shoulder. "I said it before, even if you don't agree with it. You're a director. Every day you're in charge and you're making decisions about things from the time you walk onto the lot until the time you walk off it. And sometimes even after that. And on top of that all the stuff that's being thrown at you as a woman in a field full men, it's got to be exhausting. So I don't find it weird or embarrassing or strange that you want a space where you don't have to think or make any decisions and are just allowed to feel."
Amber ducks her head against my shoulder. "I hate it when you're right."
I laugh, running a hand through her hair again and stretching it out on the pillow. After a second she pulls her head back to look at me. "But what about you?"
"What about me?"
She sighs. "You don't need the stress of that. Of making all those decisions. It seems like a lot of work."
Leaning down, I press my lips to her forehead. "I'm happy to," I say. "I'm an actor. I spend most of my day getting instructed. Consulted sometimes, but I'm not exactly at the place in my career where my fame can dictate decisions. And even if I didn't spend a lot of time being told what to do, I would be happy to do this for you."
"But—"
I cut off her words with my lips. "I love you," I say when I pull away. "I don't need to be in control to enjoy sex, but don't begin to think that I didn't enjoy that. Thoroughly." I punctuate my words with a movement of my hips so her attention is drawn to my cock for a moment. "You worry too much."
She's looking at me like she wants to protest, and I can see that this is going against everything that she thinks is true, even if it's what she wants and needs. "I'll make you a deal," I say.
"What kind of deal?"
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're really worried right now that you're putting too much on me, that it will be a burden, that I won't like it after a while."
Amber blushes again. "Yeah."
"So let's just try something, because this is still new enough that we're going to stumble and struggle and try to make it work. And I don't want to fall into habits that make neither of us happy and are too hard to change later. Plus, I think it will make you worry less."
"Okay," I can tell she's still uncomfortable, but she's listening.
“For the next week, you’ll be in charge at work, I’ll be in charge during sex, and neither of us will be in charge otherwise.”
“So…”
“So you don’t have to worry or think about what you want to do, I will take care of it. And you. I do want to hear more about your fantasies, but I’m not going to push you, because we have time. But if this is something that works for us, we’ll know.”
“I’m not going to crawl on the floor and call you ‘sir,’” she says.
“I’m not asking you to,” I say, “but I’m telling you that we’re going to sleep for a while, and in the morning before both of us have to be at work, I’m going to take you into the shower and wash every bit of you myself, and then I’m going to get you off.”
Her breath catches, chest rising and falling faster. “Yeah. Okay.”
“So you want to try it?”
She nods. “Yes. You’ll be in charge in the bedroom.”
“Good,” I say, “but I didn’t say the bedroom. I said during sex. Because I won’t promise that we’ll always be having sex in a bedroom.” I kiss her before she can blush, rolling us again so that she’s on top of me. I like the feeling of her draped across my body. It’s luxurious.
“I have one more thing,” I say, “and I think it’s going to turn you on.”
“Oh?” she giggles. “More than I am right now?”
“Yes.” I make sure she’s listening to me. “I know we don’t live together, but if we’re trying this, we’re going to try it for real. You’re not allowed to come without me. No going home and thinking about me and touching yourself. If you’re not with me and you want to come, you have to call me. Because I’m in charge of that.”
Amber goes so still that for a second I think that she’s not breathing. And then she’s kissing me and we’re both laughing and tangled together again in the sheets.
15
Amber
Past
It's perfect. The shabby little apartment that I've got in lower Manhattan is perfect. It is shabby, but it's supposed to be. New York is overpriced and crowded and even possibly saving money on dorms is hard with these prices, but I feel good about the decision. I was planning on going to college and being fully independent, and now I can do that.
I flop down on the couch, exhausted. My parents helped me move in yesterday, and my apartment is still a crazy mess of boxes and crap everywhere, but it's mine. Now I can have people over, I won't have to worry about roommates and awkward shower sharing. Yeah. This was the right decision.
Opening my phone, I flip to the text message because it's become a habit. I look in case there's something I missed, in case it's not really a message saying that the number is out of service. In case for some weird reason Peter has suddenly decided to re-activate his number and text me out of the blue. But looking at it today, I feel tired. Tired of it and the space it's taking up in my brain.
I close out of it and instead start to organize everything that I'm going to need for the first day of classes tomorrow. It's going to be crazy and I’m so excited. I've got a stack of books as long as my arm, and some extra supplies that I'm going to pick up in the morning. I haven't got a backpack, but I'm going to take the risk that film school doesn't actually require us to bring our books to class and get more of a feel for it tomorrow.
It's been months since I came here for the interview, but everything seems like it's moving so fast. I got the letter saying that I'd been accepted a week after I interviewed, almost like they'd just waited for me to come in so they could send out their decision. I sent Mr. Davidson a thank you card, because I honestly don't know if I would have gotten in if it weren't for his recommendation. He sent me a nice text afterward, but he didn't really seem to want to take credit even if it was his words.
But the week after that, we started looking for apartments, and then I was singing a lease and it's been full couple of months of shopping for furniture and dishes and everything I took for granted in my parents’ house that I never thought that I was going to need. Now I have to put it all away, but I feel the deep urge to take a nap.
I've just closed my eyes when my phone buzzes on my chest. It's my mother.
"How's my college girl?"
"Tired," I say. "I've been unpacking and I was just going to take a nap."
I can practically hear the frown in her voice. "Don't push yourself too hard."