No Ordinary Love Story: Sequel to The Diary of a Submissive (2 page)

Nope, I was getting my kicks through an erotica-packed Kindle and not much else lately and I was fine with that. I just didn’t feel I had the energy for anything more, especially through the always-manic festive season. I had it all planned. I’d been taking on as much overtime as work would give me, sitting through more out-of-hours council meetings than any sane person should ever want to. I’d booked time off to head home to my parents for the Christmas holidays. I was working New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. I was filling my life with work and reading and sleep, and that was fine.

Unfortunately bloody Charlotte and Tom didn’t seem to think it
was
fine.

I drank my mulled wine as fast as I was able to without burning the roof of my mouth, and excused myself to go to the loo, rehearsing the explanation I’d give for having to leave early on my way back. But when I got back to the table Charlotte had bought me another glass in my absence. My ‘thank you’ for it was through gritted teeth and she couldn’t meet my eyes when I looked at her, but even in my most antisocial of modes I wouldn’t have buggered off and left then. I drank it – a bit slower this
time – and resigned myself to listening to the conversation washing over me.

Adam was interesting. Funny. Clever. Witty. Self-deprecating. He had quite a way with words and enjoyed using puns, presumably in part due to his career as a copywriter. He was exactly the kind of person I would have enjoyed spending time with normally. Not so tonight, though. I know this makes me stubborn, but, while I liked him, I had no intention of showing that to him or – more importantly – Charlotte and Thomas, who clearly thought they knew better than me what I needed, and seemed to be suffering from a small case of that irritating condition where couples insist on trying to pair off all their single friends. Even if Adam was happy to stand for that, I really wasn’t.

He was good company, though. As a group we chatted about TV that we’d all been watching, recommending shows to each other, with him suggesting I pick up the DVDs of
The Shield
, a police show that had completely passed me by but which was made by one of the guys behind another show I had loved,
Lie to Me
. He told a great anecdote about a political campaign he’d worked on, which meant before I knew it I was sharing similar war stories from events I’d covered. I found myself leaning in to talk to him, catching myself and then deliberately moving back to feign indifference.

I finally finished my drink and headed home. My fury had eased a little, but I was still slightly stand-offish with Charlotte and Thomas as I said goodbye. I waved at Adam as I left, not even wanting to encourage their meddling by kissing him on the cheek in farewell lest it was misconstrued.

By the time I got home and was curled up in my cur
rent non-work default position – on the sofa in my PJs with a mug of tea and the late news – my phone had pinged several times.

Charlotte and Thomas had both texted, ostensibly to check I’d got home OK, but both with variants of ‘Sorry if you felt slightly ambushed’. I wasn’t forgiving them easily. I also had a Facebook notification: Adam had tracked me down and sent me a message.

I harrumphed slightly to myself as I opened it on my phone. This was exactly the kind of faff I could do without.

From: Adam

To: Sophie

I wanted to send you a brief note to apologise for tonight. Not for meeting you (that was fun) but for the fact that clearly you weren’t expecting me to be there when you arrived.

I broke up with my long-term girlfriend fairly recently and I think Charlotte was trying to encourage me to find someone new in her usual sledgehammer-like fashion. Please rest assured I’m not the sort of person to get dates under false pretences – apologies for any awkwardness.

Best,

Adam

Suddenly it all made sense. I could kick Charlotte. In her head this must have felt brilliant – two of her single friends hooking up – but now I felt even more awkward. ‘Best’? Ouch. I smiled wryly to myself for being such an egotist – so much for
me
being such a big catch!

From: Sophie

To: Adam

Bloody Charlotte! I’m so sorry. I didn’t stop to think that it might be as awkward for you too – I fear you handled it better. I might have come across a smidgen grumpy. Sorry. It definitely wasn’t personal.

I hope Charlotte’s attempts at ‘helping’ haven’t made your break-up feel any more rotten than they tend to.

Sophie

PS Fear not, you don’t look like the sort to need to get dates under duress.

His reply was quick, intriguing and made it obvious that he wasn’t any more interested in me than I was in him.

From: Adam

To: Sophie

Break-up was a long time coming and as painless as these things can be. We dated for a year pretty much to the day and had a lot of fun but fundamentally wanted different things – she loves travelling and wanted to work her way around America. I like holidays, but wanted to stay closer to home long term for marriage, kids etc. One of those things. She sent me a mail tonight actually. She’s currently working as a receptionist in a tattoo parlour in San Francisco somewhere. We’re both OK. It’s just the thing with break-ups – everyone assumes you want to be straight back in a relationship again. Sometimes it’s nice to have a break.

A

PS You were a little grumpy. It was oddly endearing though. I didn’t take it personally.

I chuckled to myself.

From: Sophie

To: Adam

I hear you on the ‘break from relationships’ front. Sometimes life is simpler being single.

Soph.

I shut down my laptop, fairly sure that would be the last I heard of him and happy that I’d made it clear I wasn’t interested in any overtures, even if any were forthcoming. Little did I know.

The next morning he sent me a message linking me to a news story about the politician we’d been discussing the night before. Before I knew it I’d tapped a brief message back. He replied, asking at the same time if I’d heard from a more-apologetic Charlotte (I had). I replied asking if he’d had anything to do with her new-found regret (he did). Suddenly we were emailing at least a couple of times a day.

It was safe. It was simple. We talked about non-contentious things: my mum’s internet-fuelled holiday planning (military invasions have taken less work), his trip to Yorkshire for a family wedding. I tracked down and watched (although admittedly from behind my hands at
points) a couple of episodes of
The Shield
at his behest and was blown away by it, but had no one else to wax lyrical about it with, so we enthused about that. I recommended a couple of political biographies which had passed him by. All in all it was surprisingly fun to chat.

I also (don’t judge me) took advantage of the fact that his Facebook privacy settings were much less locked down than mine and checked out his profile. I looked at some of his pictures (mostly holidays, family trips and parties) and skim read his most recent updates – mostly links to news stories with associated rants, comments about TV shows and films he’d just seen and geeky internet memes, all of which I found very interesting, although I didn’t dare so much as ‘like’ anything lest Charlotte or Thomas see and get the wrong idea. That first step of modern interaction – friending him on Facebook – was also a definite no-no.

Then one night the tone of things changed a little. By this point we were chatting on Messenger some evenings if we were both around – OK, if he was in, because I was still under voluntary non-work house arrest. We’d been discussing another attempt by some of his friends to set him up – this time with a secondary school physics teacher. I’d been laughing quietly to myself at his obvious horror at the awkward small talk, when suddenly a line of what he’d written caught my eye.

I sat up straighter, my heart beginning to pound a bit. My fingers were a flurry, and then stopped. Did he mean what I thought he meant or was I being over-sensitive? Obviously Charlotte knew I was submissive, by first-hand experience in fact. But would she really have told some guy I’d never met? I was torn between asking for clarification and accidentally outing myself when in fact she hadn’t done any such thing. In the end curiosity won out.

His reply confirmed my fears.

I have a tendency to set off on occasional flights of fancy. I can’t help it. Eventually my rational brain does kick in but for now my thoughts were whirring. He knew I was a sub. Had known from the beginning. Was this some kind of ridiculous long-game thing? Did he think I was playing hard to get? How could Charlotte have told him that without telling me? I was incandescent with rage.

The sudden silence at my end seemingly spoke volumes.

I cast my laptop aside to grab a drink from the kitchen, not sure what, if anything, I should say in reply. When I got back the screen was filled with text.

Thomas and I had met Charlotte at a munch – a kind of social get-together for kinky folk (rest assured, there was no leather and chains, it was just a meeting in a pub). If he’d met her in the same place … Oh.

Suddenly my brain was whirring with questions – I was curious, having never thought of Adam in those kind of terms. I guess you really should be careful about making assumptions about people. I knew he must be dominant, given he’d assumed I was submissive or switch (someone who both dominates and submits).

I wondered if I’d over-egged it. Even to my ears it didn’t sound ‘fine’. Sod it. Bloody Charlotte. Also, damn my curiosity because now more than anything I wanted to know about him.

I know. I’m incredibly nosey. But I was also curious – not least because I’d not pegged him as especially dominant.
Definitely no kinky radar (should we call it kaydar?) here, although admittedly when I met him I wasn’t looking at him in any sexual terms at all, soulful eyes or not.

I had a moment of realisation. Now I knew that Charlotte hadn’t been telling him the intimate details of what we’d got up to together it actually felt OK.

His reply was quick.

I knew he was right, but I still felt inclined to give her a stern talking to at a later date. Before I could reply, another message pinged through.

Somewhat inevitably, it wasn’t the last time we talked about D/s. Slowly, over a period of weeks and for the first time in ages, I chatted to someone about kink without there being any underlying subtext to it. Neither of us had any expectations. We were both adamant we didn’t want to date. There was no hint that this would become anything, or that we’d get together. It was just nice to chat about life with someone for whom the kink side of things wasn’t unusual – it could be mentioned in passing without it being a big or defining thing.

He told me how he’d had lots of kinky fun with his girlfriend, but their relationship had floundered because they didn’t have much in common bar their interest in sex. I told him a little about what had happened with James and his insight and kindness was a balm to my emotional bruises.

In flirtier chats – admittedly often late at night – we discussed some of our experiences. Not in explicit terms, but more generally and in enough depth that I was intrigued as to what kind of a dominant he would be. It was apparent he’d had a lot more D/s experience than me and that his interest was as much about the mental aspect of domination as physically inflicting pain. I found it intriguing. I found him intriguing. But he was also incredibly gentlemanly. He was respectful and thoughtful when we spoke – whether about general day-to-day stuff or in-depth emotional things.

Every so often one or other of us would make a passing comment about how we should meet for a drink, but we never got round to sorting it out, initially using the busy New Year period as an excuse, although by that time we were well into January. I took his lack of initiative as a sign he wasn’t interested in me that way, which of course should have been a relief. At points, though, it didn’t feel that way. I wasn’t sure I should feel insulted, but, in typically contrary terms, I most definitely did.