Her matter-of-fact attitude about it made me smile. “I remember those days.”

“You say that like you don’t have them anymore.”

“We really don’t. It’s hard with the kids and all.”

She nodded and took another sip of her latte. “How’s the week going?”

“Good. Lots of new experiences. I’ll have plenty to write about—that’s for sure.” I took out my notebook and flipped it open to a blank page. “Like I said on the phone, I want to keep this really casual. I won’t use your name or anything that can identify you and if you don’t want to answer a particular question, you won’t hurt my feelings. You said you met Daniel when he came into your flower shop. Did you know he was a Dom then?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I had no idea, but when he left, my friend and business partner, Sasha, tried to steer me away from him.”

“Didn’t work, did it?” I asked with a grin.

“No.” Her smile was full of the love she felt for her Dominant. “We couldn’t stay away from each other. Even though it wasn’t until I attended a group meeting with Sasha that I discovered he was a Dom.”

“You went to a group meeting?”

“I’d always been curious and Sasha was … is a submissive.”

“I see,” I said, even though I wasn’t clear on the Sasha details; was she a sub or wasn’t she?

“Daniel introduced me to the lifestyle slowly and carefully. Sometimes, I think I’m ready for things, but he holds me back and makes me wait. I don’t always like it, but I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t almost always right.”

“Pesky Doms.”

She laughed. “Yes.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you and Daniel been together?”

“About four or five months.” She ran a finger along the edge of her collar. “I’ve been collared for about a month.”

I nodded and jotted that down. To be honest, I had no idea she was so new to the lifestyle. But her enthusiasm was like a breath of fresh air.

“You really have embraced your submissive nature,” I said. “Was it easy to accept?”

“Hell, no.” She laughed. “I actually turned my back on it for a while. But it felt like I was living a lie. I couldn’t give it up and still be me, you know? It was almost as if I was playacting at not being submissive.”

I jotted her words down. “That’s an interesting way to put it. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone describe it quite that way. But it’s true—it would be like a part of yourself was missing.”

She nodded. “I’d have lost Daniel, too. He said he’d still have dated me even if I wasn’t submissive, but I couldn’t have asked him to ignore that side of his nature.”

“I don’t have to ask what it’s like having your first Dom be so much more experienced than you are. I was like that, too.”

“I think it’s better someone knows what they’re doing,” she said with a laugh. “That’s one of the benefits of belonging to a group—you get to pull from everyone’s experiences. The only problem with ours is like I told you—there aren’t any long-term couples.”

“That is a shame. Our group in New York has several.”

“Including you,” she said.

“We haven’t been very active the last few years. Since the kids were born.”

“You’re still around if someone needs you though. That counts for something. And you’re helping a lot of people with the blog. I hope I can help people one day.”

Julie was easy to talk with; she was down-to-earth, intelligent, and lively. It didn’t take much to see why she’d captured the eye of someone like Daniel.

“You’re helping now,” I told her. “With the interview. Who knows? Maybe there’ll be a woman browsing through blogs looking for someone who’s taken the leap and she’ll come across the piece I write on you.”

She smiled and twirled her coffee cup. “That’s a good way to look at it.”

The café was relatively quiet with only a few people inside with us. We’d been talking in low voices and Julie had just finished sharing about her collaring ceremony when the door opened and we both jumped.

“Julie!” a tall, willowy blond woman called, approaching our corner seats. “Sasha said I’d find you here. Sorry to interrupt. Can I speak to you for a minute?”