Chapter 24

After a long while ... over an hour ... she tugged the towel down from her face and looked up at him. She still seemed nervous, reluctant to speak.

Gabriel stroked her hair. "It's okay, love."

She smiled slightly. "If you don't know what I'm going to say, how can you be sure of that?" she asked quietly.

"Whatever it is, it's okay. If you've decided you want to leave ... it would hurt me, but if it's what you need, it's okay. If you've decided you never want to make a decision again in your life ... I'd think it was a mistake, but if it was what you needed, it would be okay." His eyes held hers. "Whatever it is, love, it's okay."

Her eyes widened. "Leave? No! No, that wasn't ... I wouldn't even consider that. Not ever."

Gabriel touched her cheek. "I'm glad. I don't want you to leave."

She rubbed her cheek against his hand. "I won't. I can't. I couldn't stand it, it would hurt too bad."

"I love you." He caressed her cheek. "What did you want to say, then?"

"I ... this is hard for me," she admitted reluctantly. "If it were someone else telling me they felt this way, I'd be telling them to run away fast. It's such a ... a stupid way to feel. But I've decided that ... that I don't really care." She curled up, cheek against his thigh, not looking at him. "It doesn't matter if it's stupid, or dangerous, or anything else. It's still the way I feel, and I don't want to change it."

Gabriel smiled. "That's how I feel about you. I wouldn't change it for anything."

She peeked up at him, then back down. "It's not just the ... the connection. Not just loving you like I do. It's..." She hesitated, then asked, "Well ... what do you feel?"

Gabriel didn't answer immediately, taking the time to give the question the reflection it deserved. "You're mine. I want ... I need to dominate you, to control you. Not to hurt you, or take your choices away from you, but to..." He paused. "I want you to make your choices. I'll help you make them, I'll ... guide you, advise you, if you want, but they'll be your choices. But once you've made them, then I'll ensure that they have the ... greatest impact they can. Like this afternoon. You made the choice to submit, and you made the choice to show them your body. You made the choice to let him touch you. But once you did, you gave control over to me, and I used it to take you somewhere you didn't know you could go. Somewhere you didn't even know existed."

"So ... you need that control?" she asked, her voice trembling uncertainly.

He looked at her, his gaze steady on hers. "Yes." He brushed a thumb over her mouth. "But I won't take it unless you want me to. That's one of the choices you make."

"I ... I'd feel better if it was a choice," she said softly. "But it isn't, not really. Somehow it's just ... there now. A part of me, whether I want it or not."

"Is it really new?" he asked, equally softly. "Or is it something that lay hidden in the depths of your soul, a diamond lost in the darkness until brought into the light to reveal its brilliance?"

"I don't know," she whispered. "I can't know. I couldn't ... I never felt safe enough to even think about it before."

"That's your answer, isn't it?" he murmured. "If it hadn't been there all along, you wouldn't have needed to feel safe to think about it. If it wasn't something you wanted, you wouldn't have felt the need to protect it." He brushed his thumb across her lips again. "You wouldn't have been Bloodsong."

"Maybe ... but ... who am I now?"

"Love ... that's an easy one. You're Pandora Taiwan Harris, same as you were yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. You just know a little bit more about who she is," he said.

She looked up at him, sitting halfway up and shaking her head violently. "No. No, I'm not. I'm not even close, and wouldn't want to be!"

"Aren't you?" He cocked an eyebrow at her. "You're still who you were, love. You've just decided to be who you are, rather than letting your mother force you into her mold."

"No," she said more quietly. "I wasn't ... wasn't there. Wasn't the same. It's not just that I can be something else, it's ... it's more than that. I am different, different enough that I'm someone else. Who I was might be in there, somewhere, but who I am was not there before."

Gabriel regarded her thoughtfully. "Is it possible," he asked, "that you've grown up?" His voice was gentle. "That yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, you were a child, but that you are no longer one? That you've chosen to embrace all of who you are, and become more than you were as a child?"

"Grown up?" She smiled. "No. I would have had to have been able to be a child for that to happen. Woken up, maybe."

Gabriel shook his head. "You were a child," he said quietly. "But you were not innocent. If I had to guess ... you left your childhood behind when you came here."

"I don't think I left anything," she said. "I just ... gained a lot. More than I ever thought was even out there."

Gabriel nodded. "It's like that. Childhood is ... you don't realize how much more there is until you take your first step into a larger world. And then you look back, and you wonder how you could have ever been satisfied with the small world you inhabited before."

"I wasn't. Satisfied, I mean. I just ... thought it was all I could have."

"And then you finally decided not to settle for less than you wanted. And now you don't know how you lived without it."

"And now I can't live without it." She sighed. "That's what it comes down to ... whether I want it or not, I can't live without it."

"Do you want it?"

"I ... think so?" she whispered.

Gabriel caressed her cheek with his thumb. "Are you okay with wanting it?"

"It'd be kinda pointless not to be, wouldn't it?"

"Yes." Gabriel smiled, just a little. "That wouldn't necessarily change anything, though."

"I'm ... going to be okay with it. I think," she said. "With a little time. Because it's worth it."

Gabriel looked at her seriously. "Are you sure?"

"That it's worth it?" she asked.

Gabriel nodded.

"Yeah," she said softly, smiling up at him. "That I'm sure about. It's worth ... anything."

"And what we did this afternoon? Was it worth what it cost you?"

"I ... that's a bit less clear," she admits. "I don't, um, regret it, exactly, but..." She shrugged, sitting up and wrapping the towel around her shoulders.

"But?" he asked.

"But ... I don't think that I'd want to do it again. At least not right now." She looked at him anxiously. "I'm so sorry, I just ... it was too ... too much, um, 'not me', I guess. It's hard to tell, because like I said, I'm not sure what is 'me' right now, but I don't think being that ... public is. I'm sorry."

Gabriel nodded, slowly. "I think I understand." He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Suppose it had been someone we knew, rather than a stranger? Someone you liked and trusted, someone you were comfortable around?"

She looked confused for a moment, then answered slowly, "Um... theoretically that might make a difference. Depending on the person, and how they felt about it. But ... there isn't anyone like that."

Gabriel smiled slightly. "Isn't there?"

She shook her head. "No, there isn't. I don't really know anyone."

Gabriel's lips curved just a little more, and he raised an eyebrow.

She shook her head, looking confused. "No, there isn't."

"What about your sister?" he asked.

She looked suddenly horrified. "No! Oh please!"

Gabriel blinked in confusion. "Easy, love. I didn't say I was going to. I just wanted you to realize that there was someone."

She shook her head, eyes wide and scared. "I couldn't ever do something like that in front of her. She'd think I was ... she'd never look at me the same again."

"She'd think you were what, love?"

Pandora huddled in the towel, her head down. "Weak. Stupid. Abused."

"Are you, love?" he asked.

She took a long while to answer, then just said, "I'm not abused."

Gabriel's lips tightened. "Do you think you're weak? Or stupid?"

"Stupid ... I don't know. I'd say anyone else who claimed to want what I want was stupid, so maybe. Weak ... yeah." She hunched up small on the couch. "That's kinda what 'can't say no' really means, you know?"

"Do you think I'm weak?"

"No."

"I can't say no to you."

She shook her head. "It's different. You're not doing things that are so ... so ... things that will make people look down on you, that can hurt you."

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "I'm having sex with a fifteen year old girl. Kinky, perverted sex, at that."

"That's legality. Not ... um ... morality. And you'd already made that decision. Not the kinky part, but to take the risk."

"Most people would say it was a matter of morality," he said.

"Not really. A lot of people, maybe, but not most. Probably not even most in the US," she said.

Gabriel shook his head. "Most. Sixteen would be different, but fifteen ... you aren't even old enough to drive. There's a line there for most people." He looked at her. "But they're wrong, aren't they?"

"Yeah," she said. "And they'd agree they were after talking to me. The age thing it's just ... a guideline. Not a big deal."

"What is freedom?" he asked.

She looked puzzled. "What?"

"What is freedom? What does it mean to be free?" he asked.

"To have choices."

"And to be able to make those choices. If you can't choose to give someone power over you, are you really free?" Gabriel smiled. "C'mon. You've seen this rehashed over and over again on the boards. You aren't weak, love, and you aren't stupid. Or if you are, so am I."

"But I can't choose, Gabriel," she said. "That's what I've been saying. I don't have a choice. It's just there."

"You do have a choice, love. You could choose to deny it, to pretend it doesn't exist, to be miserable for the rest of your life. People do that every day. You're just smart enough to realize that that's what would happen. But that is a choice." He ran his hand down her back. "It's not a good one, at least in my opinion, but it is a choice. This scares you, doesn't it?"

She nodded mutely.

Gabriel smiled. "Then why do you think it makes you weak? If you were weak, love, you'd be running in the other direction, not facing what you want even though it scares you."

"Because not having it scares me more," she said. "There isn't an option that doesn't scare me, so it's not strength to chose the easiest path."

"This isn't the easiest path. The easiest path doesn't involve risk." He looked at her soberly. "Does it?"

"You don't understand. There isn't a path without risk," she insisted. "And risking losing you is far worse than anything else that could happen to me."

Gabriel tilted his head. "Tandoori."

She took a deep breath. "If I had to, I could live with losing her easier than I could with losing you. You should know that by now."

"Not submitting wouldn't mean you lost me, love."

She bit her lip and avoided his eyes. "You said you needed it, the control," she said quietly.

"But I also said it was your choice. I wouldn't leave you over it, love. I need you more than I need the control. If it was the control or you ... I'd pick you." He pulled her close. "Every time."

She shivered in his arms. "I don't know that I could stay with you and not give it to you. I ... I couldn't help myself, couldn't stop. I don't think I have a choice, not anymore, you see? It just ... doesn't matter to me. It's worth it."

"That doesn't mean you're weak. That means it's important to you."

She shook her head. "If you truly think I'm not stupid, Gabriel, please pay me the respect of knowing the difference between doing something because I choose to, and doing something because I literally can't stop myself."