24

SIXTH HOUR

"Because you fell in love with me?"

He asked, sounding as if that reason was outrageous and wasn't even legit enough to be a reason to refuse the extension that he proposed.

"Yeah, that was the reason I was going to give you when you asked. It was the only one I could think of, too, under your heated intense gaze." She shrugged, strolling back to the recording set, letting her fingers run over the keyboard and the other devices connected by wire cords. It looked well preserved, too well preserved that it looked brand new even though she knew that the set was produced almost a year ago, and it was the best around the time it first came out.

"What will the reason be now?"

"I told you already, I'm not cut out for the lifestyle. I don't like it." She repeated her words she told him in the first hour.

"Then why did you say yes to more?"

"Because I have faith in you." She wrapped her arms around his neck and looked down at him, since he was sitting on the bench. He reached his arms out and rested them on her hips, pulling her closer to him until he could lay his forehead on her stomach.

"That's not good enough."

"You don't like that reason?"

"No," he shook his head against her, making her ab muscles clench and hardening her abdomen to block out the itchiness that she was feeling.

"Well, too bad, because I didn't like the response you gave me when I asked you to give me one good reason to stay."

"At least I gave you a time limit," he protested weakly, knowing there were no comparisons.

"That wasn't an answer, though," she reasoned.

"You still agreed to it," he argued.

"I did. I agreed to your proposition out of my own free will, not because you've convinced me. If I really was hesitating, your words wouldn't make me stay." She told him while smoothing her hand over his hair. She felt his arms slowly snaking around her waist and encircling it, pulling her even closer to him. "I stayed because I actually want to give you a chance to make you realize that a normal relationship is doable for you."

He chuckled and shook his head as if not believing a word she said, and she knew he was still having trouble letting the fact sink into him, so she didn't push him and continued.

"Call me selfish, but I stayed because I want to be there to see you change and I want to be the one that you trust to seek support from, to lean on. I know that my song will make you think and I know that you have the potential to change. I know that one day, you will be looking back at yourself and finally see that you're trapped in this lifestyle because it prevented you from seeing the world another way. You will change, and I know that, and I want to be there to witness it when it happens. I have every reason to believe that if any of your previous submissives see you the way I do and see your lifestyle the way I see and understand it, they would have tried to change you. They might have tried before but was shunned out by you immediately, I was lucky because you didn't shut me out. I'm sure many people has tried to turn you to a boyfriend, and I'm sure if I didn't tell you this, someone else will; and I'm also sure that if I'm just another submissive, then your future submissives will do the same. Only, you will end up falling in love with them and all my efforts will prove to be fruitless."

The long silence that followed made her doubt if she had chosen the wrong time to deliver that speech, because she knew it was an inevitable topic that they'd have to cover eventually.

"I told you, Anastasia, I am in love with you. I'm admitting it now. You make me see the world differently. You make me see color in my dull, colorless world. There's only black and white for me before you came."