I believed him. I believed every word he said. This wasn’t intentional. Whatever had happened with Eve, this wasn’t him repeating old behaviors. Even still—I had to know. “Tell me what happened with Eve.”
“Okay,” he said, tugging me to the bed, urging me to sit. I lowered to the edge, my muscles tight and alert. “Just please know… what I did was fucked up. And horrible. And I know that. I apologized to Eve many times for it. Layla had just left me, had just cheated on me—”
“Jude,” I interrupted. “I understand. Now, tell me.”
His hands clenched at his sides and for the briefest moment, his eyes shut. “After Layla left, I hired Eve as my submissive. My life was unraveling. I was losing control of everything—and, as you know, that’s a Dominant’s worst nightmare.”
“That’syourworst nightmare,” I said. My stomach was tight and I clenched my clammy hands in my lap to stop myself from biting my nails. Whatever he was about to admit to went so far beyond him just dressing Eve up to look like Layla. He wouldn’t be acting so nervously if that’s all this was.
Jude started pacing the room, back and forth across the carpet. It was the most fidgety I had ever seen him. “As I mentioned, I don’t do one night stands. I don’t do casual encounters. And so that left me with one choice—a professional submissive. I chose Eve specifically because at the time, she had dark hair, like Layla. They were about the same height, build, everything. I asked her to wear Layla’s clothes. I gave her Layla’s makeup to put on.”
“Sunlit Poppy?” My throat closed with the question and I barely managed to get it out.
“No. It was another darker shade of red. Like a deep burgundy.”
I exhaled the breath I’d been holding. “Good.”
“I’ve never been a sadist,” Jude continued, but with that admission he stopped pacing in the center of the carpet and looked straight at me. His body crumpled as he fell to his knees. Crawling over to me, he dropped his head in my lap, and my palm instinctually fell to the top of his head, my fingers diving into his thick strands. “But with Eve—night after night, I would dress her up as Layla and I would paddle her until she used her safe word. I used clamps. I used the whip, the crop, my hand—anything that I could use to close my eyes and imagine I was beating Layla back into submission. Beating Layla back into loving me.”
A gasp popped through my loose lips. “You pretended she was Layla andbeather?”
“Yes,” he admitted. His head hung in shame. His voice, tight and ragged. “Eve is a masochist. She likes pain. She told me she could handle it, but I took it too far. I always took it too far. It’s my job as her Dom to get close to the line without crossing it. The goal is for her not to use her safe word. And I don’t think there was a single night we spent together where she didn’t use it.” His voice cracked, and with that, he tilted his eyes to mine. “It was fucked up and irresponsible. And every time I see her, I’m reminded of what a terrible human I turned into after Layla left.”
I ached for Jude… and for Eve. I knew heartache, but never like that. I’d never had a boyfriend cheat on me so shamelessly, so mercilessly without some sort of contrition. But even still, something wasn’t adding up. I narrowed my eyes, examining Jude. There was more. “How long did this go on?”
“Every weekend for six months.”
Months?My fingers stilled at the back of his neck. I hadn’t even realized I was still stroking his hair; unknowingly comforting him. “So if this was going on for months… what else happened? Something must have been the breaking point for you to leave the club and not come back until… until now.”With me.
“The last weekend I saw Eve,” he paused, clearing his throat and his eyes were wet with a sheen of unshed tears. “She told me she was falling in love with me.” He shook his head, his eyebrows low over his wet, green eyes. “Why the fuck she was falling in love with a Dominant like me was beyond my understanding. But in that moment—she was wearing Layla’s clothes. And her lipstick. And through my gin-fueled haze, if I squinted my eyes, she almost looked like Layla. I was drunk and sad—and I lost control.”
I gasped and felt a throbbing pain on behalf of Eve. “What did you do? Did you hurt her?”
He shook his head. “Not how you’re thinking. I-I kissed her. I made love to her,” his voice broke and once again, he dropped his eyes from mine—unable to look at me. “Professional submissives aren’t supposed to be intimate with their Doms. I told her I loved her, too… because in my mind, she was my Layla. And I had accomplished what I wanted. I had beaten her back into loving me.”
Oh, my God. Poor Eve. No wonder she’s so bitter. But I understood. I didn’t condone what he did—but I understood it. Understood why, in that moment of desperation, he would succumb to the feeling of love and affection from the person that for weeks he was pretending was Layla.
Jude clutched me tighter, and continued talking. “As she slept that night, I felt so utterly and completely sick with myself. I left. I left her here in this room, alone and confused with no aftercare.”
“Did you ever explain?”
He rubbed at his bloodshot eyes and nodded. “I tried to apologize. To explain a couple weeks after. But as you can imagine, she didn’t want to hear it. She had cut off all her hair and bleached it blonde.”
“You didn’t love her at all?”
“No. I mean, there’s always a bond with a submissive. Even if it’s only for a weekend, but—I didn’t love her. Not like she loved me. I used her. When she gave herself to me and I took it, it was reckless. What she was giving wasn’t mine to take. But I was selfish. For the first time since I began as a Dom, I acted with only my interests at heart. I betrayed everything a Dominant is supposed to be. She’s one hundred percent right… I’m a fraud. I have no business teaching you this lifestyle, when I’ve barely been a part of it myself for the last seventeen months.”
“That’s not true,” I said, my voice a raspy whisper. “You’re allowed to make mistakes. As long as you own them and apologize. Which you did.”
He pulled his palm down his face and the stress had aged him. He looked tired. Distraught. Vulnerable in a way that I had never seen him before. Hearing about Jude’s monumental fuck up was comforting. From the moment we’d met, he’d been so composed. Even when anxiety was taking hold of him with the studio tour, he was rigid and together in a way that I never was. But this? This made him human. It made him more like me. And in a way, I loved him more for his mistakes and his ability to own them.
I shifted my weight on the bed, restless and wriggling beneath Jude’s clutched arms at the sides of my thighs. Jude’s fingers bit into my hips, holding me tighter. “Please, Marlena. I beg you, don’t leave me. I know I messed up, but don’t leave because of this.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said. How could I? Jude had taken me by the hand and opened my eyes to a whole new part of myself. A part I never knew existed. And a lifestyle that was healing a part of me I never realized was broken. All those acerbic concerns that were piercingly loud, howling in my mind faded to whispers. Jude had revealed a vulnerable side to himself—and did so in a way that he wasn’t justifying his actions. He was claiming them.
“I take it Eve didn’t accept your apology?”
He shook his head. “No. I tried several times and eventually gave up. I assumed it was just part of my penance. Honestly, if I was her, I wouldn’t have accepted my apology either.”
