Awakening by Gillian Colbert, Elene Sallinger Page B

participant. Her underlying need was one many people had. She wasn’t crazy or deranged. The term Bridget had been looking for was “impact play” and Evan had just the book in mind for Claire. The problem was how to get it in her hands without giving away that he’d overheard.

Chapter Five – I Dream a Little Dream of You
     
    ‘Y OU STAYING, HON ? ’Bridget asked as their reading group broke up for the evening. The group milled around them as they grabbed coffee and snacks before heading home.
    ‘Yup,’ she said around a mouthful of chocolate chip cookie. She needed to watch how many of these she ate. She was beginning to put on weight. ‘I don’t feel like going home just yet. It’s too nice to be home.’ Claire avoided looking at Bridget as she spoke, knowing the flimsiness of her excuse showed, given that she was just going to be sitting in a bookstore rather than sitting in her house, but she didn’t want to talk about it right then. Besides, Bridget already knew why she was staying at Bibliophile rather than going home.
    Despite her confession about Charlie, Bridget hadn’t changed her demeanour with Claire. If anything, the shared confidences seemed to have opened a door that made it possible for them to talk candidly. For the first time in her life, Claire felt able to talk unreservedly with another human being and it made her grateful for Bridget’s presence in her life. That didn’t mean, however, that she wanted to pluck raw nerves again and again. Especially since two major things hadn’t changed and one had actually gotten worse.
    The first was the fact she was still unable to purchase any of the erotica books that she read. Complicating that very fact was the very real circumstance of her addiction to the genre. After that first night, she devoured the books like a starving woman confronted with food. Every new story fed a previously unknown longing inside her. She absorbed each one, taking them deep into her, and she could feel something inside her changing, growing and becoming elastic. She hadn’t yet attempted to read any of the truly hardcore books, sticking instead to sexual submission, though recently she had read a few stories with bondage and spanking.
    She was comforted to realise that she wasn’t the only person exploring the Erotica selections. Someone else was clearly going through the same process she was. She often found books sitting out on the coffee table waiting to be re-shelved. In fact, the last two books she’d read, she’d found already out. Whoever it was, though, had harder inclinations than she did. While she was picking out only light D/s stories, this person was going for harder elements. Enter the bondage and spanking.
    She’d almost put the first book back down when the story had turned to bondage. She hated to feel helpless and the thought of allowing someone to tie her down so that she couldn’t protect herself frightened her. Her body had betrayed her, though, and, as she’d come to the end of the chapter, she was once again dripping wet. A state that was becoming a near constant for her.
    When she examined her reaction, what she realised was that it wasn’t the bondage itself that frightened her, it was the reality of having to trust your partner with your physical safety. Trust was very hard for Claire. She didn’t trust anyone but Chester. Growing up, Claire’s parents had used every opportunity to humiliate and embarrass her. They weren’t physically abusive in any way; more neglectful, really. Claire began taking care of herself more or less at the age of ten, doing everything short of cooking her own meals – the one thing her father demanded of her mother. What they were was emotionally abusive, and it had devastated Claire’s self-confidence. She had learnt very young not to trust anyone with her deeper self because the only thing they would do is use it to hurt you.
    The only creature Claire trusted growing up was the family cat, Baxter.