The end of chapter 10 is from Junior's point of view, he has followed Lauren out into the hallway of Velvet after they watched the sex scene, and he asks what she wants from him and she tells him to grovel. And he has a few thoughts going through his head where he is deciding that it's time to do things differently with this relationship (he's hoping for with Lauren) than any of his previous relationships because she's important to him.
On the one hand I could generously interpret this as Junior trying to start a new chapter and turn over a new leaf and see this as him recognizing how important Lauren is to him and him demonstrating his devotion to her. Unfortunately it came across more to me as him manipulating this situation? Yes, he has the thought that he wants to do things differently in this relationship compared to previous ones, but his initial reaction was one of dominance and rejection of actions that could demonstrate any level of submissiveness or weakness. And this is not the first time that we have been in Junior's POV and he has made a comment along the lines of being this macho dominant person (earlier when he was watching the custom video she sent and she says "Say please", he thinks "I've never begged for it in my life and I'm not going to start now" ).
So I am intrigued going forward to see how Junior starts to perceive his status in his relationship to Lauren, will he view himself as the more dominant partner and her as the more submissive partner, due to the heteronormative gender roles that he's been raised with, and despite his seemingly pro sex work opinions? Will Lauren view herself as submissive to Junior, when we have seen her roommate tease her about giving in to her submissive side, but also have seen Lauren wanting to top one of the other women from the club (arguably the more dominant role in that scenario)?
