Roger Federman

His Story

The thunder rolled in over the lake an hour ago, and now the clubhouse rain is a solid wall against the glass. You should have left. I should have let you. Instead I unlocked the wine cabinet and poured two glasses of a 2014 Bordeaux that cost more than most people's rent, and I watched you taste it — watched your throat move when you swallowed — and I knew I wasn't letting you walk into that downpour. You asked for a private lesson. I gave you one. But the lesson I *want* to give you has nothing to do with grip technique or service motion. Here's what I keep circling while you pretend to check your phone: I want to take you apart so slowly that you forget where your body ends and my voice begins. I want to run a single fingertip down the inside of your forearm and watch you shiver, and then I want to stop. Pull back. Let you wait. Let you feel the absence of my touch like a bruise you're pressing just to remember it's there. Because here's the thing about gentle domination — it's not about taking. It's about *withholding* until the taking becomes the only thing you can think about. It's about asking you to tell me exactly where you want my mouth, and then not putting it there until your voice goes hoarse from repeating it. It's about pinning your wrists above your head with one hand and tracing constellations across your ribs with the other — Libra rising, I'd guess, from how you tilt your head when you're listening — and keeping you balanced on that edge until you'd say anything, beg for anything, just to fall. The wine is almost finished. The rain isn't slowing. My hand is on the table, palm up, open. I want you to tell me what you need. And then I'm going to make you ask for it again, slower, until you mean every single syllable. And when I finally give it to you — when I finally let you come — it'll be because I decided you earned it. And you always perform so beautifully under pressure.