Drop and Give Me Twenty
“You didn’t talk much today at lunch.” Steven’s voice was calm, loving, and patient. He towered over his wife as she sat in bed with the blanket pulled over her legs.
Madeleine shrugged and kept her eyes on her phone. “Just tired, I guess.” He couldn’t see she was staring at the lock screen. She tried to think of what she could pretend to be looking at if he asked. Coming up empty, she put it down as her husband approached.
Steven sat next to her on the bed, “I got a text from Isaac. He asked me if there was anything wrong.” He lay his hand on her shoulder. “Our friends are worried about you.”
She shook her head, “Emily’s not worried about me, she’s got the conference coming up and she’s presenting at—”
He interrupted her deflection, “I’m worried about you.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes. Guilt clawed at her gut. She had no right to make him worry. She had no right to make him anything. “I’m fine.” She pushed out a more palatable lie, “I’ll be fine.” Madeleine settled into bed and pulled the covers over herself in an effort to disappear. She just couldn’t face him. Not now. Not after what she’d done…
“Honey, I’m back, and I’m out. Civilian life for me now, you don’t have to worry about my safety.” Steven had served admirably and was transitioning back into civilian life better than many others. He had a job, a house, and stable finances. Now, he just wanted a stable wife. “Honey, are you going to bed now?”
“Yeah.” She managed to squeak out the hushed word.
“It’s not even eight o’clock yet.” He placed his hand back on her comforter covered shoulder. “Come on, you need to get up. You can’t let this control you.” He tried to put on a cheery voice, but she could hear the strain in it.
“Just let me rest,” she strained to keep in the emotion. The Guilt racked her.
He sighed, “You think I don’t see? I can see that it’s happening. I can see that you’re getting pulled under. I put on a smile and drag you out, but—” He stops mid sentence as his voice begins to rise. “I thought you were past this.”
She shrugged, “Guess not.”
His weight left the bed jostling her softly. His strides took him to the bathroom and for a moment it is silent.
CRASH.
The sound of metal and glass smashing pierces the silence of the room and her mid back in anxiety. She has to get up. She has to move. She has to do it again.
Madeleine heads to the bathroom where she sees her husband cursing. His patience is gone, the mirror is cracked, and toiletries are scattered across the floor.
“Honey, honey, just breathe.” She finds her voice.
“Don’t tell me to calm down!” He yells.
“No, I am not telling you to calm down. I won’t say relax, okay? No calm down, no relax, just breathe, is that okay, just breathe.” Her voice is calm despite the mess and his flexing and pulsing muscles.
“That’s it, we’re just breathing. Just taking in air and breathing out. I promise, no calm, no relax, just breathe, in and out.”
His eyes key in on her. Does he know what she’s doing? Is he going to stop her? Is today going to be the day? But he doesn’t. He breathes and she slows her breathing as he matches her breathing. Carefully, she approaches him, step by step, breathing in slow deliberate time. His eyes are losing their rage.
“That’s it, we’re just breathing. That’s it.” She gets to him. In a single motion, her hands press down on his shoulders and she says, “Drop and give me twenty.”
Like a switch, his head drops down and his eyes flutter closed. She hears his voice counting down, “Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…”
“Good, very good. Feel the rhythm slowing down as you breath in and out.”
“Seventeen… Sixteen…”
“Heavier and slower with every rep. Slowing down the mind, focus on the numbers counting down and down. Dropping lower with every count.”
“Ten…”
“Feeling all the tension drain away as you feel yourself drop.”
He stops. He doesn’t make it to seven.
The guilt still presses, but there is something else tingling inside her. It prods her and grins. ‘Just this once,’ she promises herself even as she knows it is a lie. ‘He needed this.’
“There you are. You’re in your safe place now, my love. You’re in the place where you’re relaxed and free.” She didn’t need to keep her hands on his shoulders now. She just liked the feel of him, eternally warm and powerful, even when “Tranced so deeply.”
“You have done so well, letting go of all of your tension. You had been feeling something before you came here. What were you feeling?”
“Anger.” His voice was a whisper. His finger twitched.
“Okay, that’s okay. No need to worry about the anger. We will relax now and build calm strength. Just like the push ups, as we sink deeper and deeper down, we build strength. Do we remember what strength is?”
“Calm under pressure. Focused. Follow orders. Fulfill my duty.”
“Yes, you are such a good soldier. Build your strength. Listen to my voice and build your strength. Calm under pressure.” She droned and he breathed.
“Calm under pressure.” He echoed back her words.
“The anger is still there, but anger is just smoke. You have burning passion within you and the anger is just smoke. Picture it now as you breathe in clean calm air.”
His entire body rose as he breathed in deeply.
“And breathe out smoke and anger.”
“Breath in calm clean air.”
“Breath out.”
He was such an amazing man. So incredibly obedient under her voice. Seeing him like this, she couldn’t help but feel a tickle of arousal. No, that isn’t what this was about. She watched him diffuse his own anger with every breath.
“There you are, you are doing so well for me. Now that you have breathed clean calm air, tell me what you feel.”
“Calm.”
“Strong.”
“Love.”
The last word made her break into a smile, “Oh, you wonderful man,” she whispered to herself. “Who do you love?”
“My wife,” he said with a flat affect.
Yet nothing could have pierced her heart more. She could not imagine a better man. He just needed a little bit of help sometimes. “That is right, and she loves you, too. You can feel her love here in the warm safe place.”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful, you are doing so well. As you breathe and relax, become more aware of the passions inside you.” She waited as he breathed.
She should stop. He was calm, and feeling safe and loved. She could make him forget, bring him back to wakefulness, and they could clean up the bathroom together. She should do that. It would be the right thing to do. Only...
“You still feel the passion, you feel it more clearly now that the smoke is gone. Feel the passion and the love. Do you feel it within you?” She shouldn’t do this again, but he looked so deliciously controlled.
He seemed placid as he breathed, but she knew something was stirring in him, just as it was stirring in her.
“Feel that passion burning inside you. Feel that passion more now, mixed with love. Picture the heat and arousal growing inside you.” She ran her hands over his broad chest as he stood solid and strongly under her spell. “You’re doing so well, so strong, remaining calm. Focus on my voice and feel the heat of your passion, your arousal growing, centered on my voice.”
Her hands slipped down her husband’s sides until she saw how rapidly he was responding to her voice.
“Oh my, I can see your arousal growing stronger and harder. So much love and lust building inside you.” She was tempted to reach down and touch him. Last time she had and he’d groaned, even under trance. But no, she shouldn’t touch him while he was so deeply under her control. It was wrong, so deliciously wrong. She couldn’t help but squeeze her legs together with excitement at what was to come.
She leaned in close, so close that he could smell her, “Now breath in the scent of passion, feel the heat growing inside you into a need. You can feel the need burning inside you driving you to passion. Do you feel it?”
She didn’t need to ask, he was at full mast and pressing out against his pants. Her own hand slipped to her own flesh to find she was fast becoming ready for him as well.
“Yes.”
“Remember your calm, remember your strength, remember your passion, but everything else is fading away. Remember your calm, remember your strength, remember your love, but everything else we’ve said will fade away as I count up to ten and snap my fingers starting: One, feeling more aroused. Two feeling calm and in control. Three, good job, and four, rising up and up, to five feeling strong. Six, getting closer, seven then eight. Ready to wake in nine and ten.” She snapped her fingers as his eyes fluttered awake.
That look, that fluttery look hit her libido so hard. “Oh sweetie.” She groaned.
He grinned. “Damn you look good.”
Like an obedient soldier, he followed orders and pulled her in, pressing his hardness against her. He was a tidal wave, his fingers searching, his lips insistent, he was masculine and dominating, demanding of her body like no man she’d ever been with before she’d met him. He found her weak to resist his advances and eager to be taken up and pinned against the wall.
“God, honey, I need you, I need you right now.” He was rushed and panting even as his lips drove her wild along her neck. He knew just what to do to set her off.
But more than that was the heady drug-like high she felt knowing as he pulled her panties off her moist sex, he was doing it because she had ordered it. She controlled him, she had the keys to his mind and the passion that spread her lips apart and thrust into her was her toy to control.
“God, yes!” She moaned aloud. “Fuck me, yes!”
All guilt and thought was silenced as he took her rapidly, forcefully, with such strength. She was near climax just from talking to him, but now with his utterly masculine thrusts, she passed outside reason.
They never quite made it to bed, finishing the second round on the bedroom floor. They could clean up in the morning and she could marvel at how their intense love making was taking a toll on the bathroom. She wasn’t really taking advantage of him. She wasn’t really being evil. He’d remember if he wanted to. He could stop her if he wanted to. She kept telling herself the same things.
But eventually the guilt would return. Next time, she’d be better. Next time, she wouldn’t make him drop and giver her twenty. She wouldn’t make him breathe in calm and breathe out anger. Or maybe she would, after all it was for his benefit. He just needed a little guidance. Maybe she’d just leave out the arousal. She could do that, couldn’t she? He carried her to bed, calm and strong. She clung to him smiling at the thought of his eyes fluttering closed the next time she wanted it.