Bad Girls Don't Cry

Chapter 11

One night, Colin invited me to his friend's engagement party. I was introduced to a man named Ben on the foundation that we both smoked weed. The first thing I noticed about Ben was that he was really tall. Like really, really tall. He towered over me as he spoke and thoughts of his dominating me were inevitable. My brain swam with scenarios of what he would look like towering over me in the bedroom while I cowered in the corner. I was under his spell. His shoulders were broad, his big muscular arms were magnificent and he had a very good-looking face; something like a cross between Ashton Kutcher and Hugh Grant. The spell he had over me was intoxicating. We connected instantly due to our passions for weed and we decided to share a joint together. We walked around the corner from the bar to smoke. His presence alone made me nervous. I was shaking a bit from the cold and he put his arms around me to help keep me warm. I felt a pang of excitement at his touch. He was so tall that when I looked into his eyes, my head was tilted nearly all the way back and I felt vulnerable. He had a hunger in his eyes, but I ignored it seeing as how I didn't know if it was real or if that was just me, projecting my own desires onto him.

We finished the smoke and walked back to the bar. The future bride and groom were completely belligerently drunk, as were most of their guests. It was a funny room to be in: old 90's music you'd hear at weddings, drunk people everywhere dancing and grabbing each other wearing fancy clothes. And then there was me and this tall, beautiful man wrapped up in a conversation about hobbies and passions and taking shots at the bar. We had a lot in common right off the bat. Around 1 am, we went out for another joint, and he came really close to me and wrapped his arms around me again. By this point in the night, I was rather intoxicated and feeling brave. I had a look in my eyes that told him, 'oh really, you think so?' I was not about to give in to him just because he was gorgeous. I knew we could probably have a fun night together, but I wasn't about to start 'climbing my numbers' without getting exactly what I wanted. Climbing numbers was a concern for me at the time. It's crazy that society has told us that having many partners for a woman is dirty or taboo while many partners for a man is a triumph. I don't like these kinds of social norms, but yet they stick. I didn't realize then that the judgments of numbers was a tool for social control, and that it could easily be thwarted by self-love. But still, I wasn't about to start having meaningless sex with gorgeous men just because I could; I needed more than that. My fantasies needed to come to life or else what was the point? I wasn't about to settle for less than what I craved, not after 5 years of living complacently in someone else's world. By that point, unless I knew a man could give me what I wanted, there was no way I was going to try to get with him. My philosophy became to simply tell a man what I wanted. Always. No surprises, no worries, no questions, no doubt. Why bother trying to hide who you are and what you want? I had learned, painfully, that I would rather be open and honest about my desires and communicate properly about my limits. Boy, was I proud I finally learned that lesson!

With his big, sexy arms wrapped around me, I chuckled "I'm a very particular kind of woman. You don't know what you're getting yourself into." My challenging side was coming out again. Good, I thought I had lost you, sweet friend.
"I'm not into dominatrixes, if that's what you mean," Ben mocked.
"Kind of the opposite, actually," I said, my eyes glaring up at his to see his reaction. I was not smiling; I was serious. I wanted to know how he felt about it, because otherwise, I wouldn't bother thinking about him in that way.
"Oh really," he mused, a sly smile forming on his beautiful lips. "I've never done anything like that before."
"Well, I'm not really in the mood to teach," I said coolly. I was in control of the conversation and of myself. I had waited 5 years for someone to take me over; I wasn't about to let it be mediocre, no matter how good-looking he was. He felt the power in my voice, my self-assuredness and his interest was peaked.
"What exactly are you into?" he inquired intently. I paused for a moment, about to say the words out loud which I hadn't uttered in years.
"Rape fantasies..." I trailed, looking up into his eyes with intense curiosity.
"Well," he paused, contemplating how to form the next part of his sentence. "I once asked a girl to yell 'no' during sex. She didn't take it very well, but does that count as something you'd be into?"