“I love you too.”
“I know you do. But it’s my feelings we’re discussing right now. We’ll come to yours in due course. Because I love you, I’m ready to accept you, just as you are. I’ve always believed submission is innate, it can’t be created, or taught. If a woman is submissive, she just is. And if not, well, it would be pointless and cruel to attempt to pressure her. I love you, so if vanilla is your thing, that makes it mything too because I won’t ever try to coerce or persuade you to do anything that makes you unhappy. I know I’ve been dominant on occasions, pushed the boundaries, but only very slightly. I knew you found my pain play with Carrie difficult to accept, and you told me you didn’t want to be tied up. I might have wished it were different, but not so much that I would have lost you because of it.”
“What are you saying? I don’t understand.”
“I’m saying that I believed you wanted to keep things vanilla between us, and that I was ready to respect that. Vanilla’s not a bad offer, after all. Not when it’s with a lovely, responsive woman and the tightest, hottest pussy I can recall ever having the good fortune to sink my dick into. If you’ll pardon the expression.” He pauses as I struggle to wrap my head around what he’s saying. “But you’re not that sweet little vanilla playmate, are you? Not at heart. You’re a submissive little slut. Or you have the makings of one. Just, you’re notmyslut. And that’s the part I can’t live with.”
“Can’t… Ewan, please, I…”
He continues, almost as though I never interrupted. “So, here’s the thing. We need to backtrack from here. Either we start again, but this time as a dominant and his submissive. Or we don’t start again at all. I would have accepted being your vanilla lover if that’s what you wanted. If it’s all you wanted, all you needed. But I won’t accept that role if you then go off and get your kink elsewhere. Knowing what I now do, it’s either these…” he gestures to the cuffs and crop still lying between us on the table, “…or it’s nothing at all.”
“You’re dumping me? Because of this? Please, Ewan, can’t we talk? I can explain.”
“You have explained, and I accept what you say. I’m not dumping you. I’m giving you a choice. I want you. For fuck’s sake, I love the bones of you. But the terms need tochange.” He stands and walks around the table. He halts beside me and squeezes my shoulder. “I’ll leave you to think about what I’ve said. You’ll have questions, fears, uncertainties. I know that. I’ll help you and if you do decide to trust me, we’ll take things at your pace. You know where I am when you’re ready to talk.”
I’m still staring into the cool dregs of my tea as the door clicks shut behind him. He is gone. The cuffs and crop remain on the table.
New terms. Dominant and submissive. Ewan and me.
Is this possible? Could I?
I should have explained myself better, should have made him understand why I went elsewhere. I let him think it was because I preferred some anonymous dom in a club fifty miles away to the living, breathing, loving dom next door. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Thisisabout Caroline, and my reaction to the nature of their relationship, but not in the way he imagines.
The seconds tick past, grow into minutes. At last I glance up at the clock on the wall to see I’ve been sitting here brooding for over an hour. I’m grappling with my emotional baggage, trying to make sense of something that seems so convoluted, so complex, though in reality is probably quite simple.
Ewan and I have talked. We’ve talked a lot of over the last year or so as we’ve both come to terms with what happened on that dreadful afternoon, in the hedgerow beside that wet country road as the miserable rain drizzled on us, and two lives were extinguished before our eyes.
At first I blamed myself. For a while I actually hated myself for being alive when Caroline was not. Ewan put those misplaced notions from my head, helped me to get some perspective back. He became my friend. He encouraged me to move on, to grow, to stand on my own feet. It was his advice I wanted when I decided to start my own business, his encouragement I looked for. I got it too. He was generous, kind, supportive. Looking back, I knowmy heart was on my sleeve much of the time. I was attracted to him from the start. I was also vulnerable and lonely. He could so easily have taken advantage. But he never pushed me, never once tried to seduce me.
Instead he took me to Paris and booked separate rooms. He cooked me nice meals. He became my friend. Then, eventually, when the time was right for me too, he became my lover.
I knew he wanted more. Or was it less? It turns out his relationship with Caroline was never the merging of souls I had imagined. They did not share the bond Ewan and I have, even now. It seems to me that BDSM diminished their relationship. It was reduced to passionless sex and a rent book, just as my connection to David has nothing at all to do with my emotions. He met a physical need. I like him, no more than that. Just as Ewan liked Caroline.
Ewan says he loves me now. Would he still love me as his submissive? If he lost me, would he weep? Or would he shrug, say it was a pity, nice while it lasted, and move on?
As far as my own sensual needs are concerned, I sought out enlightenment elsewhere because, at the time, I didn’t think I could ever have a relationship with Ewan. I couldn’t see past the darkness that was now, to the bright possibility that was my future. It was still too soon, everything still too raw. The anniversary was an enormous watershed, a cathartic moment. Going back to the scene with Ewan was what I needed to do to finally understand that Ed and Caroline were in the past. I suspect Ewan was ready to move on much earlier than I was, but he waited for me.
He’s waiting still. Next door.
I pick up the cuffs and the spanking crop and head off in search of further enlightenment.
Chapter Nine
I don’t knock. We’re past that. Clutching the cuffs and crop in my hands, I stalk Ewan’s house looking for him.
He isn’t in his office, my first port of call. Nor is he in the kitchen, or the lounge. I make for the stairs.
I open his bedroom door to find that room empty too. I wander along the landing to the next door, the room overlooking the back garden. Here I find him.
Ewan has his back to me. He’s leaning on the windowsill looking out. He doesn’t turn his head as I enter.
“I’m pleased to see you.” His voice is low, even. Warm.
“You have eyes in the back of your head now? Is this a dom thing?” A tad sharp, as greetings go, but I’m nervous.
“Nothing so fanciful. You’re reflected in the glass. I notice you didn’t come empty-handed.”
