Page 18 of Meegan
“I’ll be right back. I’ll walk you up to your room,” he told Meegan.
“Okay.” They were quiet as they rode the elevator up to her suite. When they reached the door, Meegan turned to him.
“Thank you for tonight. I had a good time, even if I was on the clock,” she said.
“I’m glad that circus bear canceled.”
“Woof. That woman was terrible. I see why you need a little assistance. I’m happy to do it.”
“I know we have our plan, but there is something I wanted to ask you. Would you ever consider letting me take you out on a real date?”
“Oh,” she said, the shock in her voice clear. “I thought you had taken yourself off the market?”
“I did. I have, but I really liked being with you tonight.”
“I liked being with you too. I—I just?—”
Olin swallowed and he realized in the moment how close together they were standing. He took a step back.
“I’m actually going to say this out loud. It’s not you, it’s me. Shit. Here. Come inside.” Meegan opened the door and led him into the quiet of her hotel room. Her things were arranged neatly on the bench at the foot of the large bed. He’d have to give Brianna a bonus for being so thorough. Meegan took a seat on the couch and he dropped down into the armchair facing her. He watched as she chewed the inside of her lip, waiting for both rejection shoes to drop. It was gonna hurt, but he wanted to hear her out. He wanted to understand. It would help put his feelings for her away where they belonged until they faded.
Meegan reached over and took his hand. “There’s no smooth way to tell you this, so I’m just going to tell you and then let you see the kind of pickle of a jam I’m in here.”
“I hope you say stuff like that to your students.”
“I do,” she chuckled a little. “Okay, here goes. So far, I do actually like you a lot and normally I would say ‘heck yeah, let’s go for it,’ and then I feel like you’d really get to know me and then you’d be like ‘JK, not for me’ and move on.”
“I doubt that, but okay.”
“I am… I was, but still am involved in a very intense BDSM scene here in LA. Do you know what that is?” she asked.
“I have a sense of it, yeah.” Olin’s mind went into overdrive thinking of every piece of leather he’d seen in a sexual context since porn came into his life as a teenager. And that one time he’d stumbled into a leather parade in San Francisco.
“I’ve stepped back a little, recently, just ’cause of some life shifts, but I joined a BDSM family and a club when I was in my early twenties. It was a big part of my life. The activities and the people. And the sex, it’s kinda the only way I do things.”
“Okay, so I can only date you if I join a BDSM club.”
“No,” she laughed. “I just— whenever I’ve very briefly dated outside of the scene, I’ve told them how important sex is to me, including the way I have sex, and then they kind of just imprinted their own fantasies on it and things quickly went south.”
Something clicked for Olin then. “Like when women like Hannah think they know me and try to set me up with people.”
“Yes! Hannah saw you, said ‘Ah, handsome single man. I shall use him like a Ken doll and set him up with my friends.’ It’s like that, but sometimes messier.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t like that either. I don’t want to impose any fantasies on you, though. I just want to get to know you outside of my own weird dating planning.”
“First off, it's not weird. It’s genius. I will tell off as many Hannahs as you want.”
“Well, tell me more about this so I can understand.” Olin watched as she sunk back into the couch.
“I just— casual is fine and easy, but I’m tired. I’m aging so rapidly, if you can’t tell.”
“Meegan.”
“Fine. I’ll be open and vulnerable. I wasn’t joking when I said I got my heart broken. My Mistress left LA and me. There were situations and complicated things, but I didn’t think to be open to wanting it all and I got left in the dust. I worry that if I tell you about the kink, then that’s all that matters, all of a sudden. I’ll forget to think about the rest of it and then I’m heartbroken again. I can just see how badly this will go for me.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because so far, all I’m seeing from you is green flags and, contrary to this bummer conversation, I am an optimist to a fault, especially when I want something. I know I can convince myself that you and I could be good together and you don’t even want to date.”