Realizations, Revelations, Recriminations, Redemptions

Something Diana had said sticks in my memory now, writing all this down. It was something she'd said not an hour before I'd managed to actually cause the Amazon pain. "You have exerted your dominance over me, and I cannot do anything but submit, and therefore you have accepted responsibility at the same time." Which in one sense may be the most Wonder Woman thing I can think of off the top of my head.

I'd failed at that responsibility. I got angry and upset, and I lashed out, confident that Diana was loving every moment of it. And she was. She loved it. But she was also legitimately terrified. Legitimately traumatized. She had taken the comfortable labels off our relationship and called it what it was - ****. I had **** her to admit **** turned her on. And then I'd **** her - knowing full well this was still part of my fantasy, which her oath **** her to participate in, and her fantasy, which her oath **** her to share.

Except this wasn't fantasy. Somehow… Diana's divine power and Amazon abilities had drained out of her. She'd tried to tell me but I'd ignored her. When I'd slammed her onto the sink and **** her to look in her own eyes while I violated her, she was legitimately powerless and helpless.

And yeah, she loved it. But that doesn't change what happened.

She was clearly very upset - much moreso than she'd been when she was reeling from Poison Ivy's toxins or being stripped of her identity and **** into orgasm. I'd never seen her like this - trembling, curling in on herself… panicking. I honestly didn't believe Diana could panic.

I picked her up - which was an effort, since she was still more than six feet of Amazon muscle and now apparently she couldn't 'help' me by flying - and carried her out of the bathroom. "It's okay," I was saying. "We'll figure this out. Just breathe. Just breathe, Diana…"

She didn't answer. Her eyes were tightly shut and she was shuddering now. She certainly wasn't making it easy to move her.

I wrestled her into the bedroom, and got her onto the bed. "Shh - calm down," I said, as soothingly as possible, trying to get my own panic out of my voice. I'd broken Wonder Woman! This was - this seemed impossible! "Here. Give me your hands - that's it. Give me your hands…"

I began unwrapping the golden lariat from her wrists. I'd wrapped it around each of her bracers - which themselves had been wrapped in silk before - and then bound her wrists together, wrapping it mostly around both bracers to immobilize her hands. Since her oath **** her to 'act as my captive' any time she was bound with the lariat, I had known that she'd be caught and held as I **** her to-

As I **** her.

"I don't understand," she was was whispering. "Hera, Aphrodite, Athena… why have you forsaken me?" Her voice was low and frightened, as I unwound the golden metal rope-

The rope wrapping the wrists together came free, though it was still wrapped around both bracers. The moment her wrists came apart, she convulsed and I was thrown back off the bed, smashing into the wall behind me hard enough to crack the drywall. I cried out in pain and saw stars for a moment-

"Thomas!" Diana shouted, darting to me much faster than the eye could see. She caught me before I fell. "Are you all right?" Her eyes darted over me, looking for injuries-

"Yeah," I half-wheezed. "Got the wind knocked out of me." I shook my head. "Diana - your powers-"

"Are back," she confirmed. Her voice was calm and controlled - and not with relief. It was like a light switch had been thrown and Diana of Themyscira was back. No panic, no fear, just cool will and warm concern, all at once. And of course her strength and speed were back, too.

"What happened?" I gasped.

"I don't know," she said, sliding back through the air, carrying me and setting us both on the bed. The lariat was still wrapped around one of her bracers, locking her in truth and keeping her my captive - but the rest of her… her bearing, her being - they were all fully restored. "I lost… everything, Thomas."

"Your powers-"

"Everything." She looked in my eyes, earnestly. "Yes, my strength and durability and all my other gifts were gone, but it was more than that. I've lost my powers before, without losing my courage or will or spirit. In that moment, as you spun me and slammed me and conquered me all those were gone. I wasn't just weak. I was…"

She paused, looking away.

"You were what?" I asked.

"I was tame," she said, softly. "I was tamed. Not submissive - helpless. Not powerless - literally unable to defy you. And as you took me, I could only endure." She breathed hard as she spoke, now. "And Hera help me, Thomas, it was one of the most erotic moments of my life."

I paused for a moment. Unconsciously, I reached up to stroke her hair, and she leaned into my hand as I did it. "That doesn't make sense," I said, softly. "That's… not how kink works. Maybe after you'd figured out what happened but unless you literally find being assaulted erotic-"

"I have been in more fights than you can imagine, in more circumstances than you would believe," Diana said. "You know I… appreciate being bound, and we have established I have a legitimate **** fetish, but I promise you, being taken down or taken out usually doesn't arouse me."

I nodded after a moment. "So." I said. "It's the bracers."

She didn't answer.

"You told me that the bracers - bracelets you called them at the time - contained your Amazon rage. Without them you and your… uh-"

"Sisters."

"Right. You and your sisters would lose control of your anger and powers. It's a curse. And you said that in stories and legends they could…"

"In legends they were said to turn Amazons docile," she answered. "Tame." She closed her eyes. "And somehow you made that happen."

"Yeah," I said. I was a little blown away. Scared, confused… and on top of it all I had literally found Wonder Woman's kryptonite. How was that even possible? "I guess… when I wrapped the lariat around them-"

"My wrists have been bound many times," Diana said. "You bound my wrists. This has never happened before now."

"Yeah, but I specifically wrapped the lariat around the bracers-"

"That has also happened many times."

"Maybe. But…" I paused. "Diana. When… that first night, when I had you hanging from the pipe in the other room and I was stripping you… I wrapped your bracers in silk…"

She nodded. "You said you were recontextualizing them."

"And you moaned when I did it."

She looked away again. "…I did. I found it… erotic. In away that taking my tiara or even peeling my uniform off me wasn't - though both of those were arousing. It was like…"

"It was like the bracers themselves were an erogenous zone," I said. "I've noticed it since then, too. And when…" I took a deep breath. "And when I **** you, I started by binding them again. I recontextualized them again, as the symbol of your helplessness."

"…and I was helpless," she said, softly. "Truly helpless. The Bracelets of Submission, we call them… and… I submitted. Mind, body, will, strength…"

"…oh my God."

"That's just it," she said, still speaking softly. "I wasn't a God then. I wasn't a warrior. I wasn't even a woman or a girl. I was a ****. I wasn't even broken. I had nothing to break. And you wanted to hurt me the way I had hurt you, so I was there to be hurt and could do nothing to stop it." She looked at me. "No. More than that. I came when you hurt me. When you violated and took me and **** me to watch myself as it happened. It was intensely erotic."

I looked away, flushed. Ashamed.

"Thomas," she said, softly. "This was in your fantasies and mine alike. That **** was part of the oath."

"That doesn't make me feel better," I said.

"Then let this make you feel better." She touched my chin, and turned my face to face her's. "You have uncovered a secret that could potentially destroy me. What if it had been Lex Luthor, or Cheetah, or Sinestro or Darkseid, instead? When you realized what had happened, you stopped and immediately tried to help me. And being **** like that? Was in both our fantasies. Yes it was brutal, and yes you were hurt and lashing out, and yes that is terrible. But it was a part of what this weekend is, and it will be a part of it again. And I do not hate you for it. Honestly…" She looked at the lariat, still wrapped around her right bracer. "You may have just saved my life, or the lives of many others. Knowledge is power, and this weakness has been lurking in the depths, waiting to drag me down. As… terrifying as that was… it still happened with someone who cares about me, not someone who despises me."

I looked in her eyes for a long moment, then nodded. "I still need to do better," I whispered.

"Then do better," she said. "And if we get it wrong along the way… you called this an exploration in the oath. There are always dangers and wrong turns when you explore, Thomas."

"I don't see how you can be so…"

"Calm?" She chuckled. "Thomas? This is far from the worst thing that has ever happened to me." She paused. "And… you have no idea how powerful that orgasm - those orgasms were. Everything in me was in ecstasy in equal measure to my terror. And it was my ecstacy, because in that moment you had stripped me of the blessings of Aphrodite."

I had nothing to say to that. After an awkward moment, I looked at the bedroom door. "Want something to drink?"

"Yes, please." She sounded slightly amused. "Sprite, if you still have some."

So I went to get Sprite.