This is the fifth installment of the erotica series Constellations, about finding and keeping kink connections and navigating polyamorous love.
Content notes: sub/dom dynamics, daddy/girl dynamics, polyamory negotiation
An hour into their picnic date with Ella, the anxiety Bennett had felt leading up to it was starting to wane. First dates were never easy, but Ella was laughing and curious with her shining eyes, and asking so many questions. The fluttering in Bennett’s chest was starting to feel more like excitement and hope, that they might actually be compatible, that they might want the same things, rather than fear they would discover they were wrong for each other.
Ella had urged Bennett onto their back, pulling their arm once gently, and Bennett felt the electric connection of just that brief touch. But now, Ella’s hand was not touching Bennett’s, in a way that was very deliberately not touching, but almost touching, and Bennet was very aware of the centimeters between them. Bennett flicked the fingers of their other hand through the grass, off of the picnic blanket.
She sighed, a relaxed sweetness, and nuzzled her head slightly closer to Bennett’s, pointing. “Doesn’t that cloud look like a boat?”
“Yeah,” Bennett said, squinting a little, straining to see the kind of magic that Ella saw, but following. “A pirate ship! Look at the sails.” They could feel the tickle of Ella’s brown hair on their cheek.
“Yeah, or a sailboat. One of those luxury ones you can just lounge around on, and it’s safe and comfortable and just a little bit indulgent,” Ella dropped her voice softer as her lips were inches from Bennett’s ears.
Bennett was tired of hoping for something that maybe didn’t even exist, and tired of dating someone new only to discover later that they really weren’t compatible. It had been so hard to even begin to articulate to themself what they wanted in another partner, let alone to tell Paige, their primary nesting partner. But they were starting to understand better the all-encompassing power dynamic that they desired — no: that they were oriented toward. They wanted someone to control, as fully as possible. Someone to own, to demand, to accept service from, to mold and shape and train. They wanted two fully autonomous, capable, strong adults to come together and make deliberate, conscious choices about their authority exchange.
Bennett and Ella stared at the clouds a while longer, big white fluffy ones passing overhead slowly. It was a rare sunny day in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The fog would probably roll in later, but for now, the blue sky was deep, the yellow sun was shining and Ella’s sundress was baby pink — and that was really, really good.
Ella rolled to her side and brought her hands under her face to look at Bennett. “I’m glad you asked me out.”
When Paige suggested Bennett call Ella for a date, Bennett resisted at first. They felt shy, awkward, and unsure they could deal with the vulnerability of putting themself out there. But they talked it through with Paige, and with their therapist, and with Ella. Bennett planned two things: to ask questions directly in order to suss out compatibility, and to not have sex on the first date. The last person they dated, they got way too attached, even though they weren’t the right fit, and they were pretty sure it was in part because they started having sex right away.
Bennett twisted, too, and looked at the shape of her lips, her long eyelashes. She had some lipstick on, dark pink and a little shiny. “Me too,” they whispered.
Illustration by Raisa Yavneh
Ella grinned, and a firework of energy went through Bennett. She squirmed a little and moved closer. It just made sense to stretch their hand out and cross that invisible line, now just inches away, to touch Ella’s waist. Ella moved even closer. Her dress was soft cotton, and Bennett could feel the pleats of the fabric, the tighter, smooth part around her torso, and slid their hand around her back. Ella moved in closer, offering her mouth in that way that submissive girls can, her eyes lidded but still connected, lips parted softly. She was so close, Bennett could feel her breath pattern.
“Can I?” Bennett whispered. Their foreheads were touching.
Ella breathed in. “Please,” she said. “Please.”
And Bennett pulled, just a little more, with their arm, and lifted their chin so their lips touched. Soft, soft, not urgent but slow, nothing has to be fast here, savoring every second. They kissed with patience and delicious tenderness, matching each other, finding their way with hands and arms. Ella’s round breasts pressed against Bennett’s flatter chest, their bellies touching. Bennett’s jeans felt too tight, too thick next to her thin dress, but they could still feel her feet as she tangled their legs together, both of their shoes long tossed to the side of the blanket in the grass.
They kissed for a while, introducing themselves by taste, exploring each other. Ella moved onto her back gently and took Bennett with her, a little bit on top of her, an invitation, but also more comfortable for her neck. Bennett nearly growled, wanted to pounce on her like prey, wanted to sink their teeth into her neck, but they continued their dedicated slow pace and used their lips instead. Ella signed, arching her back, fingers trailing under the hem of Bennett’s shirt. Bennett did not throw her arms over her head and hold her down. Later, later, they told themself. That comes later. They did not shove their knees between her legs and press her open. They were hard, and the part of them that wanted to tear at Ella’s dress was at odds with the part that pledged they wouldn’t have sex on the first date, and they held back.
When they pulled away, Bennett’s eyes were shining and they couldn’t stop grinning in that new-lover drunkenness. Ella sighed, a half-moan, rubbing her thighs together.
“Tell me more things about you,” Bennett said, settling next to her again, voice soft, lying on their side with their arm around Ella’s waist. They touched the ribbon of fabric that tied in the back of her sundress, flicking the bow like they had flicked the grass, memorizing the texture of the fabric with their fingertips.
“Like what?” Ella said, grinning, moving just a little closer to the warmth of Bennett’s body and embrace.
“Like … what you’re looking for. How your polyamory works, what your constellation of lovers looks like. What your favorite kinky things are to do.”
Ella’s smile lit up her face. Her eyes seemed brighter, her cheeks and chin up-turned in joy. She was so expressive. “So many things,” she started. And she told Bennett many of them, but to Bennett’s ears, it just sounded like sex. Rough sex, dirty sex. Being thrown around, held down, forced orgasms, denied orgasms. Bennett was getting more and more turned on listening to her describe the ways she liked to be taken and played with. They marveled at how clear she was with her desires, how easily she described her submission and surrender.
“I get … randy,” she said, almost whispering. “Wound up. And just need to get fucked sometimes. All the time.” She took a deep breath and looked up at Bennett, her fingers still playing with a string on the blanket, looking a little shy suddenly, like she just realized how much she’d shared.
“I know that feeling,” Bennett said quietly. They wanted more sex than they had. Their sex drive had always been high. And they loved being the one doing the throwing around. They kept thinking, This might work, this could work. Could this work?
Ella went on, this time talking about her style of polyamory and her play partners, who were mostly casual. She had a friend who she described as “another babygirl,” which Bennett took to mean that she, too, identified as a babygirl. They made a mental note to ask her about that later. Ella said they mostly did “little things,” like color, together, but that sometimes they are naughty and experiment.
That made Bennett’s mouth water.
They had played with Daddy/girl dynamics before, but it hadn’t ever really clicked. But picturing Ella in a dress like this one, pulled up over her waist, bent over their lap — they felt rushes of lust through their whole body.
“It’s such a relief, to just be little for a while with someone who really gets it,” Ella said. “I don’t have any exclusively dominant partners right now though. My other main person is a really switchy sadist and we mostly do needle play. Sometimes she says she considers this a tailor-pin cushion style relationship,” she laughed. “Then, I have a few folks on the east coast I used to play with when I lived there, but I only see them every once in a while, when they’re in town or when I’m in their town.”
“I have a few of those, too,” Bennett said, thinking of Lauren. They told her a little bit about their constellation, about Paige and how well they make a home together. Ella already knew Paige, because she was friends with Tacey, one of Paige’s lovers. It’s amazing it took us this long to connect with each other, Bennett thought. Considering we have so many friends in common. But maybe I wasn’t ready until now. Maybe it’s finally time.
“Tell me more,” Ella said. “Tell me everything. What’s at the core of your kink? What do you most want?” Ella kept kissing Bennett’s fingers. Her lipstick was surprisingly smudge proof and Bennett wanted … well, everything. But they were determined to be patient and restrained.
“I’d say my main kink is control, and ownership. I don’t think I knew that as much when Paige and I got together, and she’s always been more of a submissive-leaning switch. It works well for me, for us … I dated people who were exclusively submissive before Paige and it always seemed like they had this stereotypical ideal of a dominant they expected me to live up to, and I inevitably failed. Like they wanted me to be some big bad dominant, and that just wasn’t me.”
Ella nodded. She left Bennett’s hand close to her mouth but stopped kissing it. “I’ve done that, from the other side. Expected someone to be what I thought a dominant should be, was disappointed in them when they were … themself. But, I would definitely say I learned that lesson,” she paused. “I think it’s true for submissives, too, that dominants expect some cliche stereotype of a submissive … someone to happily do housework and never expect anything in return, for example.”
Bennett nodded. “True. I suppose that all comes with having more actual experience of living with 24/7 D/s.”
Ella nodded, too, and put their hands back down into her lap, still holding. Bennett squeezed. “Go on, you were saying.”
“I mean, sex is a big kink for me, too. Rough sex especially. And I like my kink practices to be enhancing the connection and the endorphins of whatever sex play I’m doing.”
“That’s a good way to put it.”
Bennett hesitated, but wanted to put everything out there that they could. They were tired of hoping for something that maybe didn’t even exist, and tired of dating someone new only to discover later that they really weren’t compatible. “I love the way my life with Paige works. But I’m looking for something deep and all-consuming, someone I can mold and control. Not because they need it, but because they … get fed by giving themself over. That’s not something I expect to happen quickly — I’d need to build trust, for us both to build trust. I don’t even know what the right words are, to be honest. But I know I want to start slow.”
“Sounds like you might want to start with training, with having someone under consideration,” Ella sat up and crossed her legs with her hands in her lap, looking down, but still intensely listening.
“Yes.”
“I’m in a group that meets monthly,” Ella started slowly. “It’s a closed group, so I hesitate to mention it, but it’s a discussion group of mostly queer folks to talk about authority exchange relationships. We call it 24/7. Just last month we were talking about how what we want is something … more … than the usual D/s play that we see in the kink scene. I don’t really want scenes, at all — that was one of my take-aways. I want a lifestyle, I want my owner to permeate everything I do, even if what I do is wake up alone, getting myself ready for my day, working, managing my life. I want it all to be in service to something larger, and I want that larger service to be dedicated to my dominant.”
Bennett sat up, too, with one leg tucked under themself and one foot on the ground, their knee up. They tucked around Ella’s knee and reached for her, touching her bare arms, her cheek, her back. They did not pull the little ties of her dress at her shoulders, but they wanted to.
“That all sounds so right,” Bennett said. They felt almost dizzy with the possibility of it all. “I am … quite distracted by how fucking sexy you are,” they said. “But I would love to know more about this group. I want to just vehemently agree with you, but I don’t want it to be just because we have chemistry and I want to be agreeable.”
Ella grinned, that melting smile of understanding someone and wanting them, of being seen and seeing. “I love this conversation,” she said. “But I was also wondering something …”
“What’s that?”
“How do you feel about sex on the first date?”
Bennett raised their eyebrows, trying not to blush. They wanted it, they really, really wanted it. They’d made themself a promise because they didn’t want to get involved with someone who wasn’t right. But this was different. This wasn’t like last time, when Bennett couldn’t articulate what they wanted. It seemed like Ella knew more about authority exchange than even Bennett did. They could learn from her. They could trust her not to get too far out of her depth.
“Because,” Ella continued. “I have wanted your fingers inside me since you sliced that apple earlier. And I keep thinking about it.” Bennett, having convinced themself of all the reasons it was okay to break their own rule, was starting to quietly panic. They weren’t really ready for sex on the first date. They weren’t packing — even though that was a cardinal rule of dating: it’s better to bring a dick and not need it than to need a dick and not have it. But they hadn’t been dating for so long, and they had promised they wouldn’t have sex. But that was before they knew more about Ella.
Ella kissed their fingers again in between her words, taking one of Bennett’s hands in both of hers. “I know this place. Over there, in the trees. It’s quiet back there, you don’t have to go very far off the path to be out of view. I can close up the picnic basket again really quick. And then we can lay it back out, and have pie.” And she slid one of Bennett’s fingers into her mouth, just a little, slick: first the feeling of her wet tongue, then a little suction, and Bennett was eager, so eager, and so turned on.
“Yes,” Bennett groaned. “Yes, I think that’s a great idea.”
Ella slid Bennett’s finger out of her mouth, and started packing up the wicker basket she’d brought with what was left of the cheese and mixed salads. “Let’s go.”
