Strange Sympathy: Chapter 16 - Communication Part 2

Dave suddenly realized the vulnerable position he was in. Why had he obeyed her orders? There was no way they were going to get a real conversation out of this. He didn't know how to start. He looked down at Lauren's foot resting on his nuts and then slowly back up at her.

Lauren was looking down at him with a hint of contempt. "Go ahead... *talk Dave,*" she poked her toes into his scrotum insistently.

Dave squirmed a bit, looking up at her with pleading eyes. He opened his mouth but no words came out, his mind was completely blank except for thoughts of how turned on he was by this whole scenario. But what was this game she was playing with him? He felt at a clear disadvantage, as if he didn't know the rules. If he said the wrong thing, would it piss her off like yesterday? If she got angry, would she crush his nuts with her foot? She had threatened something similar the day before. But just yesterday she also reassured him that she would never hurt him too badly. She said he could trust her, but did he? He must trust her or else he wouldn't have allowed her to put him in this situation in the first place, or maybe he was just letting his penis do the thinking for him.

Lauren was fondling Dave's scrotum with her toes, moving his balls around but not hurting them. He looked like he was enjoying it but she felt like she'd lost him to his thoughts again. She gave him a couple of firm taps with the ball of her foot.

He jolted in his seat, letting out a quiet moan with each tap and tentatively looked up at her, "What are you going to do to me?" he asked nervously.

"Well, we are going to talk like you wanted, and I am going to sit here playing with my favorite toys so I don't get bored," she wiggled her toes into his nuts. "and if you start pushing your luck, then I'm going to push you..." she said firmly pressing her foot into his balls until he winced and then she removed the pressure, "Just think of it as a barometer for how much you are testing my patience." She said with a sense of warning.

This was so unfair, Dave thought. How was he supposed to know how to avoid pushing boundaries when he wasn't even sure what the boundaries were? He started to suspect this was going to be a very painful conversation, even if it didn't end badly.

"Sound good?" she asked.

"Yes Sweetie"

Lauren pressed her foot firmly into Dave's balls.

"Oof" Dave grunted and grabbed onto her foot. This was off to a terrible start.

"Stop with the terms of endearment!" she demanded before easing the pressure on his balls.

"Why?!" he whined, "this is so unfair, you are the one who started it, you were calling me Baby yesterday and the time before that, why can't I call you Sweetie?"

"That was while we were playing" said Lauren.

"I'm so confused!" Dave said exasperated. "Look at what is happening right now. Are we not playing? Why are the lines so blurred in this whole..... thing that we're doing? I don't even know what to call it, that is how confused I am. Could you please explain what is going on with us, in its entirety?"

"Well, we are just having fun, and we can keep having fun as long as you don't bring emotions into it."

"That is so vague, I don't understand" Dave complained "it's not like I can just shut my emotions off, can you?"

"I can compartmentalize so that whatever I feel for you doesn't spill out into the rest of my life."

"Oh, I see. So you just have our relationship mentally packed away in a storage locker in your mind? How many other dudes do you have locked away in there?" he felt Lauren's foot twitch in annoyance.

"Meaning what exactly?" she said, sounding offended. She curled her toes and they pinched the loose skin of Dave's scrotum.

Dave was a bit scared, not only because she might flatten his balls if he said the wrong thing but also because if he offended her she might decide to just end things between them. He felt a pang of dread as he thought about what it would be like if they still lived side by side but were no longer on good terms. Even before they started being sexual together, there was part of him that had lived for the moments where he'd catch a glimpse of her out his window or a wave hello in the driveway. "It just seems like you might be hiding something from me, or maybe hiding me from someone, I don't know! You've got my mind so messed up I'm having a hard time expressing myself! I'm sick of these mind games you are playing with me, I don't mind you torturing my balls the way you do but the way you are fucking with my head is going to be the end of me!" His voice was shaking and he was on the verge of tears as he finished speaking.

Lauren could hear how upset Dave was getting. She used her foot to stroke his penis for a few moments to calm him down. She did feel kind of guilty about how much she had been messing with him. It was a lot of fun to do but she didn't like seeing him in this state. She lifted her foot, "How about you take my foot" she wiggled it in front of him and he grabbed it, looking at her inquisitively. "and you can put it wherever you want ok, wherever makes you feel better."

Dave looked at her confused, gently rubbing her foot.

"You can put it on the floor, back on your balls, wherever you want it to be while we talk for a while. I want you to feel more relaxed during our conversation, so you decide where it will make you the most comfortable."

Dave thought about it for a moment and put her foot back on his penis and held it there, still rubbing it. It felt good gently moving around on the underside of his erection while he rubbed her foot.

"Ok so what was it you were asking about other men?" Lauren asked calmly.

"Well it's just that you seem very..." he hesitated, wanting to choose his words wisely or this could blow up in his face, or somewhere between his legs, at least he could think better now that her foot wasn't on his balls. "...routine about all of this, it all seems to come so naturally to you, like you have a lot of experience with this kind of stuff. Also, the way you are so vague about the rest of your life it's like you've got this wall up between us."

Yeah, with a wide glory hole cut into it just for you Dave. Lauren smirked to herself. "Well yeah I've been with other men before, of course."

Dave waited for more and when nothing else was said he asked, "doing the same thing as you are with me?"

"Not always" Lauren quickly replied.

There was another brief pause before Dave yelled, "This is what I'm talking about, you are so closed off!"

"It's personal!" Lauren said irritated. She lightly shoved his penis with her foot.

Dave was so frustrated, why was this so difficult? He decided not to push too much and just ask what he really needed to know. "Are you seeing anyone else right now? Anyone else at all, are you dating, busting, having sex with any men other than me right now? Is that why you don't want to commit to me?" His voice was starting to shake with emotion. He hated now needy he sounded.

Lauren looked down at him, feeling sorry for what she had been putting him through, she needed to open up a bit or she might lose him and she didn't want that. "You are the only one, there's no one else ok? I haven't been with anyone since before I moved here." She gave him a small smile.

Dave smiled back, he was relived to hear it but there was so much more he wanted to know. "Why are you so against exploring something more with me, as a couple?"

"I'm just not comfortable with all of that couple stuff, I don't really want to get involved in your personal life and I don't want you to get involved with mine. I love what we have where we can just have fun together during our free time without getting too personal."

"What is it about my personal life that makes you not want to get involved?" Dave asked, sounding kind of offended.

Lauren hesitated, she didn't know how to say it without hurting him, it was as if he was going out of his way to ask these probing questions and then twist every answer into a personal attack. "I try to minimize the amount of people I need to deal with, you know... more people more drama. So while I am ok with letting you in, I am not interested in getting to know the rest of your family or anyone in your life, no offense."

Dave let go of her foot. That explanation hurt more than anything she had ever done to his balls. He couldn't be with someone who didn't want to be a part of his family. He wanted someone who would accompany him to family events at his dad and stepmom's house, to help him host guests at his place, to bring along to work events like company Christmas parties so he could show her off to everyone at the office. He wanted to introduce her to his friends so they could be jealous of him because of his young, hot girlfriend - or maybe one day, wife, he had wished.

Lauren pulled her foot back and put it on the ground in front of her. "It's not personal Dave," she said apologetically, "that's just how I am ok? I don't want to be with anyone in that way, can you understand that? It goes the same way for me. I don't want my significant other mixing with the people I work with, my family, my friends and I don't like those groups mixing together either, I like to keep everything separate." She kneeled down between his feet and reached for his hands, they held hands and looked at each other. "And you're right ok? I know I put walls up. I know I play mind games and I'm sorry, they are defense mechanisms so I can stay in control. Same with me cutting out and compartmentalizing people. The more people involved and the more they mingle, the more they gossip about me and then I start to freak out and you wouldn't like me when I'm like that. I don't like feeling scrutinized so I only let people know what they need to based on the context of the relationship. I also really like my alone time, so if we were a couple I wouldn't want to spend much more time together than we already have been." She paused, looking into Dave's sad eyes. "See, we could never work out as a couple, we want different things and we'd end up resenting each other. Do you understand now?"

Dave felt terrible hearing all of this. His erection had withered. He understood what she was telling him and those were some pretty clear and restrictive boundaries she was setting. Not much room for a relationship in there, not the one he had imagined anyway. Why had she decided to live this way? She must have been hurt really badly in the past. He wanted to ask her about it but he thought he'd be overstepping at this point. "I understand" he said sadly, letting go of Lauren's hands.

Lauren sat back on the chair and leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and her chin resting on her clasped hands. "So with that in mind, how would you like to proceed?"

Dave was quiet for a long time as he tried to process his thoughts. He was disappointed... but he couldn't lose this. It hurt that things couldn't go the way he wanted but he didn't want to give up what he had with Lauren. He smiled and leaned forward, grabbed her foot and put it back on his balls. Grinning up at her, he held onto her foot and felt his erection growing as she wiggled her toes on his balls.


https://www.reddit.com/r/BallbustingStories/comments/1fzlymr/strange_sympathy_chapter_17_bonding_boundaries/