The night Meaghan called me “daddy” was the night that changed things between us… a total power exchange. After dark, when she was home from her medical student rotation, she didn’t seem to care that I was neither hetero nor male. She sent me texts through her shift, detailing what she wanted—where to touch her, how firm, how slow. By the time I appeared on her doorstep, we both ached from hours of wanting each other.
I found her apartment with dimmed lights when I arrived. She welcomed me into the dark hallway and pulled me into a hungry kiss. I was lean and muscled from the gym and a head taller than she was. She loved the gravel in my baritone voice, lowered by years of taking gender-affirming testosterone. Although I wasn’t a man (and never wanted to be one), my gender presentation was manly enough to attract her. That night, she found new ways to show me what she wanted.
“Lick me here,” she told me, drawing her finger across her collarbone. She pointed to the cleft of her cleavage. I obeyed, tracing my tongue under the cup of her bra. She held the sides of my head while I nuzzled toward her nipple. Fireworks bloomed under my skin as I explored her body—a body similar to mine yet so tantalizingly different.
“Lower,” she urged. She may have been straight, but that didn’t stop her from wanting me. The sandpaper beard texture on my cheeks left a strawberry rash between her thighs. When she moaned, I just went deeper. Her knees began to buckle and she stumbled back, leaning against the wall while I sucked the pink tip of her clit.
She was somewhere between her third and fourth orgasm when she said the D-word. Daddy. Her commands softened to pleas—there is a world of difference between “fuck me” and “more fingers, Daddy.” Complying, I sensed our power balance shifting. She wanted me to take charge, so I did, mixing her wants with mine.
“Lick me here,” she told me, drawing her finger across her collarbone. She pointed to the cleft of her cleavage. I obeyed, tracing my tongue under the cup of her bra. She held the sides of my head while I nuzzled toward her nipple. Fireworks bloomed under my skin as I explored her body—a body similar to mine yet so tantalizingly different.
An hour later, we’d made it to her bed. Our sweat had soaked the sheet underneath us. My hand was sticky to the wrist, and I raised it to her lips so she could taste herself on my skin.
“I can’t get enough,” she sighed. “You’re better for me than a spin class. My cardio hasn’t been this good in forever, but I’m starving all the time.”
“There’s a diner near here,” I suggested. Her affirmative response surprised me.
It was almost two in the morning when we slid into a booth and asked the grizzled waitress for a couple of California-style omelets. I could feel Meaghan’s knee against mine under the table. It seemed daring, in a way—a sign she trusted that we were safe together in public. I tried not to overthink it and drew a ketchup smiley face on my hash browns.
She was the first one to bring up the D-word.
“So, have you ever done that before?” she asked.
“Done what?” I said. I wasn’t new to sex with people whose bodies were similar to mine, but I sensed that Meaghan was asking about something different.
“You bring out the freak in me,” she said, with a breathy laugh. “I can’t believe I called you ‘daddy.’ That was so hot.”
She paused and glanced at the empty booths around us, then checked to see that the waitress wouldn’t swoop in with more coffee anytime soon. The other patrons were out of earshot, but Meaghan lowered her voice anyway.
“Is that the kinkiest thing you’ve ever done?” she asked.
To me, the sex Meaghan and I shared wasn’t kink—it was loud and consensual vanilla. I had experience with bondage and sadomasochism (also called BDSM), with everything from leather restraints and rope to hours-long beatings that left my body covered in sapphire bruises.
“Tell me your definition of ‘kinky,’” I said.
She turned neon pink and started to stutter. She mentioned 50 Shades of Gray. A boyfriend once asked her to wear high heels in bed. “I guess that isn’t much by your standards,” she finally said.
She couldn’t seem to meet my eyes. To save her from feeling embarrassed, I smiled and put my hand on her left wrist.
“Everyone defines it differently,” I said. “To me, kink isn’t about what you do or what you do it with. It’s about how you do it. I think it’s less about sex than power.”
I stroked the soft skin on the inside of her arm. Nobody could see us tucked away in the booth. Although I’d been many fingers deep in her only an hour before, my touch felt exciting in a different way. Transgressive. Her breath quickened.
“Tell me more,” she said.
“Let’s play a game. This hand is mine now,” I told her. “I’ll only let it go when you say the word ‘release.’”
She agreed. I tested her, traced my fingers over her wrist until goosebumps appeared on her skin. She tensed, but did not move.
My hand circled hers in a loose cuff. If she’d actually tried to withdraw herself from my grasp, I would have let go immediately. Instead, I felt her relax. I explained that she was giving me permission to hold onto her, and I was accepting the responsibility of taking care of the part of her body she relinquished. Kink, I said, was the dynamic of her letting go—and giving up her power as an act of intimacy. I touched only a few square inches of her skin. Yet, I could feel that the subtle shift between us went far beyond that contact.
“What are you going to do with that hand?” she asked.
“Anything I want,” I said. I brought it to my lips, kissed it, and slid it into my coat pocket. “See? Mine now.”
The roses in her cheeks intensified. She told me, “We should get the check.”
She let me hold her hand all the way back to her place. Holding her hand—the non-dominant one, but the hand she used to drive, to fumble with her keys, to let us into the hallway where she first said Daddy.
She said playfully, “I can’t take my clothes off if you keep my hand.”
I linked my fingers through hers. “I want you as you are,” I said.
Her free hand toyed with the buttons on her jeans, struggling to open them one-handed. I reached down to assist her. The zipper opened a tooth at a time, making a space for my mouth, my tongue. I was never not hungry for her. Each time she reached for my face or shoulders or arms with the hand I claimed, I squeezed her fingers.
“Say ‘release’ if you want this back,” I said, my voice muffled by her panties. She shook her head. She longed to be held like that. As our bodies moved over one another in a now-familiar dance, the link between our hands began to feel more permanent. I sensed her shifting blushes and chills more acutely. With only one hand, we were profoundly connected. We were lost in one another.
Her free fingers sought me eagerly and although the way we touched started out clumsy, we soon found a rhythm that built higher and stronger and faster and sweeter with each stroke and touch.
“Don’t let go, Daddy,” she gasped as she gripped my fingers tight. Her legs were around me and we were one organism instead of two, a continuous body connected by pleasure and unquestionably bound together.
