Please, Sir

Dominic sat at his desk across from the front counter. One month before, I had watched Dominic on the first night of class as he stood at the front of the studio and introduced the defense system in which he would be training us. The students stood in a row in front of him, dressed the same way he was in sneakers, black T-shirts with the royal blue KRAV MAGA logo on the chest, and loose, lightweight black pants with matching royal blue stripes down the sides.

“Krav Maga is not like traditional martial arts,” he had explained. “Traditional martial arts involve sparring, a back-and-forth, a focus on skill. Krav Maga is about dropping somebody—knocking someone out within ten seconds so you can get away.” He met the eyes of each student in the line in front of him. “It’s also not about size. The point of Krav is that it puts everyone on an equal playing field, focusing on universal vulnerabilities that anyone can exploit, regardless of size.”

His voice was calm, assured, serious. I had watched him, captivated. Dominic didn’t necessarily look like a self-defense expert. He was only slightly taller than I was, probably five foot ten. His build was slim and athletic. The denseness of his muscles, however, was evident not only under the short sleeves of his T-shirt but also in the resounding thuds that reverberated off the studio walls as he demonstrated kicks and punches, and used knees and elbows on the punching bag at the front of the room as the students watched in silence.

Despite the subject matter, there was no bravado or machismo in his countenance. I had seen from the pictures and accompanying labels hanging in the lobby that Dominic instructed in traditional martial arts as well as Krav Maga. While I had never taken any myself, I sensed in him the understated confidence I had observed before in martial artists—an exquisite self-possession and understanding of their capabilities, the assurance that there was no need to prove anything to anyone. It was like they had power over their own power. It served them rather than the other way around. There was no compulsion to use it, to put it on display; it was just there, second nature, if it was ever needed.

I smiled at him and glanced at the clock. Saturday morning class was optional, a makeup class for those who missed any of the three sessions held during the week or who just wanted an extra review. I was only about five minutes early, but there didn’t seem to be anyone else around.

I sat on the bench perpendicular to his desk, and he smiled and turned back to his computer. I didn’t need to look at Dominic to feel the way he was affecting me. It happened just from being in the same room with him. It was something that went beyond looks, beyond personality, beyond simple attraction. It was pure heat, like a raw power of undiluted wanting, craving, hunger. I felt it when I watched the nonchalance with which he taught the methodology used by the Israeli army for hand-to-hand combat, a methodology designed, ultimately, to kill people. I watched the skill, control, and focus of the lightning flashes of movement, the cracking thuds that seemed effortless to him, and felt the raw heat in my core. Every movement he executed was exactly what was called for, nothing more, nothing less. He didn’t execute power just for the sake of executing power. Power was cultivated in him so deeply that it simply came out when needed.

Five minutes later he glanced at the clock again. “Hmm. Maybe people had a little too much partying on a Friday night,” he chuckled as he stood up. “I’ve never had attendance this low on a Saturday.”

A shiver went through me, and I tried not to shudder visibly. I glanced around, not sure if I did want to take the class with Dominic all by myself. I knew his focus was strictly professional, and I might end up making a fool of myself as I practically drooled over him.

“No, come on in,” he said, indicating the studio with a jerk of his head and leading me into it. I moved to the far end toward the supply room and set my bag and purse down on the bench.

As we began stretching, my breath quickened. The training hadn’t even begun, and already I knew this was a mistake. I wasn’t going to be able to handle this kind of undivided attention from Dominic. Even if he were interested in what I was, which I had no reason to believe he was, the studio’s walls were made of glass, making the view from the street wide open. He wasn’t about to fuck me with that kind of visibility.

“Show me what you remember.” He reached forward and placed both hands around my neck, facing me. My breath caught, and I snapped my hands up and slammed my forearms into his, breaking the grip.

I was painfully aware of my ragged breathing and the wetness between my legs as Dominic leaned into me, wrapping his hands around my neck and pushing me back against the wall. I defended again and had to consciously resist pressing my hand between my legs.

“Okay, grab a kick shield,” Dominic said, nodding at a stack in the corner of the room. “I’m going to demonstrate the kick we learned on Wednesday. Remember, start with your weight on the kicking foot—hop quickly to the other foot and kick while you’re in the air. The momentum increases your power. Then recoil immediately. Always recoil right away. Limbs not up against you are vulnerable to being grabbed.”

I nodded, trying to focus. Dominic backed up, and I crouched in position with the kick pad in front of me. Dominic’s foot snapped forward, and I was almost knocked backward by the force of the impact even as the padding absorbed most of it. I shuddered as I imagined what such a blow would be like without the shield.

I did my best to kick the sexual frustration out of me as I slammed first my right then my left foot into the kick pad with a grunt. I alternated back and forth until Dominic told me to stop.

“Do you remember the series we learned earlier in the week?” Dominic demonstrated in the air the series of punches, kicks, and elbow slams to get out of a headlock and render the assailant to the ground. I nodded.

“Okay, let’s try it.” Dominic fitted his arm around my neck from behind and held firmly. My breath caught, and I almost pressed back against him. I caught myself and mimed the series, stopping each move just short of actual impact with him. My breath was ragged when I finished. The tingling in my pussy had reached the point of distraction.

He turned me around and grabbed me around the neck again, and immediately I couldn’t breathe—and it wasn’t because his hold was too strong. I started the series, slamming my elbow back toward his chest, halting right before it made contact with him. Suddenly I forgot the next move and stopped.

“I know you did. But you’re training yourself all the time here, and you don’t ever want to train yourself to pause or freeze. If you forget what you’re doing”—his eyes were serious as they penetrated mine—“just start throwing punches.”

Suddenly a body was up against me from behind, arm rough around my neck. I was in a headlock. It took me just a second to realize I needed to defend myself, and I snapped an elbow back and tried to whirl, realizing it was too late.

Dominic whipped me around and pressed me against the wall. “Okay, you weren’t expecting me there. You weren’t ready, and you paused. Assailants don’t wait until you’re ready. You have to be prepared all the time.” He eased his hold on me and backed up. I was breathless, staring in his eyes as my pussy tingled insistently.

He opened the door and disappeared through it as I stared at it. I swallowed. As if drawn by a magnet, my feet began to step toward the supply room. The door was open, and I could hear Dominic rummaging around inside as I approached. I reached the door and silently stepped through it.

I whispered it, knowing I was barely audible, and looked down at the ground, my cheeks flaming. I felt Dominic’s eyes on me and told myself the worst he could do was say no, and I could turn around and leave and never come back. The all-encompassing fixation of wanting him overruled humiliation in me as the room stayed silent for a few seconds.

The door closed. The quiet, solid thud as I sensed that he was still in the room with me sent a jolt of heat through me that almost made me dizzy. I barely breathed as I started to turn around.

With characteristic efficiency of motion, he reached with one finger and pulled my chin up. A shudder ran through me as I felt his power—the power I saw in every move he made, that he exuded at the front of the class, that he spoke when he told us what we were capable of, that coiled and expelled from him whenever he slammed any part of his body into the punching bag. This was the power that lived unquestioned within him, so seamlessly that it was as though it wouldn’t exist without him.

I moved my eyes to his. Dominic pushed forward and kissed me, hard, his body pressing against mine as I hit the wall behind me. I thrashed against him, my hands ripping at his T-shirt as I fought to breathe. I felt like I could already come.

Dominic placed a hand behind my neck and gripped my waist, pulling my body even closer to his. I pulled at his shirt again and he let go of me and stripped it off, reaching to pull mine off as well before returning his hands to the solid grip of my body and my mouth to his unrelenting kiss. I could feel his erection against me as he slowed down and eased back.

Dominic stepped back, and I walked shakily to the door in my pants, sneakers, and sports bra. I opened it and stepped through, blinking at the sunlight streaming in through the glass walls. It felt like a different world.

I retrieved my purse and reentered the supply room unsteadily. As I stepped through the door, Dominic’s hard chest hit me from behind, his arm instantaneously around my neck. I drew a quick breath and rammed my elbow to within an inch of his chest, my own chest heaving.

“Good reaction time that time,” he said, his voice low. “Particularly under the circumstances.” I felt the hardness of his cock pressing against my hip. Slowly, he brought one hand up to grip my throat, then the other to join it.

Dominic nodded slowly, eyes still on mine. He could have held me in place with them alone. He moved one hand to stroke a finger along my jawline, his eyes following it. His other hand stayed in place at my throat. He licked his lips and looked back at me.

Suddenly his grip tightened as he lifted me up against the wall by my neck. My jaw dropped, feet hanging loosely without the ground beneath them. I was exactly at eye level with Dominic now, his hand against the sides of my neck in a way that somehow barely hurt.

Dominic’s eyes blazed into mine as he reached and ran a finger from my collarbone down to the top of my sports bra. Slowly he lowered me back to the ground and pushed my sports bra up, grabbing my breasts with a firmness just short of painful. My breath came to a fiery halt in my throat.

Dominic reached up and removed my ponytail holder, then yanked my bra over my head and pulled me forward. He guided me across the room to a stack of floor mats about waist high. Pressing me up against them, he ran his hand up the back of my neck and grabbed my hair near my scalp. I whimpered as he kissed me, involuntarily gyrating against him. He lowered his hands and yanked my pants and panties down to my knees, lifting me to the stack of mats and pulling them the rest of the way off almost before I realized what was happening. I kicked my sneakers off and looked at him, breathing heavily.

Dominic lifted me back to the ground and turned me around, one hand holding my hip, the other tracing lightly over the front of my body. His fingers strayed casually, rising over the swell of my breast, dragging lightly across the nipple, then down the other side and on to the next one. The reminder to breathe was gone. I felt like I had forgotten how.

I wanted him to throw me down, ram his cock into me and fuck me hard, take full control of me, of him, of—everything. I tried to wiggle impatiently and realized that despite the calmness of his movements, the grip he had on me was like a clothespin on tissue paper. I felt his breath on my ear, steady in comparison to my almost frantic panting. Slowly he moved his hand from my breasts to the back of my neck again, sliding up through my hair and gripping into a fist. I caught my breath.

“Well, conveniently enough, I want to fuck you, too, Jackie,” he whispered smoothly, and my legs trembled. “And I think I know what you want me to do. You want me to hold you down, fuck you hard, get pretty rough with you.” I wondered if, for the first time, I would come without actually being touched. “You’re looking for power. In your own way, getting fucked rough like that will make you feel powerful. Is that right?” My vision was becoming fuzzy, and I could hardly make sense of the words he was saying.

“Everything you’re looking for, Jackie, you already have inside you.” The tone of his whisper had changed, and I barely had time to process the words before he whipped me around, forcing my mouth open with his as he kissed me again. He held my hair in a fist of steel and moved his other hand back to my body, lightly brushing my rib cage. He pulled away and I watched the slow movement of his fingers, gliding like honey running over my skin.

I whimpered desperately. He hadn’t even touched my pussy, and I felt close to a kind of climax of which I didn’t know the meaning. It felt like a near euphoria combined with a vague but deep fear that together seemed to be pushing tears seriously toward the surface.

I realized then what he was doing. He was making me wait, making me feel, making me experience every single nuance, every detail, everything that was in me, in my body, rather than slamming it all away.

The tears flowed out of me like an orgasm, fully beyond my control, my breath turning to a silent sob that felt somehow calm, even peaceful, as I felt a space open up in me I wasn’t sure I had ever felt before. Dominic’s eyes stayed on mine.

The wave moved through me, and Dominic dropped his finger to my clit. I gasped and climaxed as soon as he moved it, orgasm bursting forth in a rush so overpowering I almost felt I would lose consciousness. Steady, unabated screams pulsed through me as Dominic held my gaze as well as my balance with his unyielding grip at my neck. When it was done I fell limp, my entire body slick with sweat, legs shaking and hanging like string over the stack of mats.

Dominic lowered me onto my back and let go of my hair, then backed up and retrieved my purse. Hands shaking, I reached and fumbled through it in my horizontal position until I found the little zippered pouch. Extracting a condom from it, I pushed it into his hand.

I heard the package rip open and my purse drop to the floor as Dominic backed up. He slid me up farther on the stack of mats and leapt lightly onto them, pushing between my legs. My eyes were closed, and I opened them as he hovered above me. I was far beyond words, knowing only what was in my body.

“Breathe,” Dominic whispered again as he dropped his body onto mine, plunging into me and grasping my shoulders as his breath rushed against my ear. He thrust into me with rhythmic strength as I lay like a doll, sprawled powerlessly across the hard foam beneath me. Dominic pumped hard, holding my hips solidly. His breathing changed as he thrust just a bit harder and came inside me, my body like a deflated balloon, a beautiful, motionless receptacle for his come.

I closed my eyes again as he finished, feeling a sorrow at the impending loss of contact with his body. When he pulled out, I opened my eyes and turned to him. He leapt off the stack of mats and reached to help me down. I stopped at the edge, not ready to stand up yet.

“Whatever is in you, whatever you’re feeling—feel it. Don’t hide from it. Don’t try to ‘beat’ it. Be with it until you understand it, until you know where it comes from.” I frowned at the floor. “Then it won’t rule you anymore.”

I gathered my clothes and dressed slowly. Dominic handed me my purse as I straightened, and we walked to the door together. I turned to him; without a word, he grabbed the back of my neck and kissed me, rendering me immediately breathless as I braced myself against the door with one hand.