No Ordinary Love Story: Sequel to The Diary of a Submissive (23 page)

I laughed in mock surprise. ‘Really? You surprise me. I do have one question, though.’

His voice was curious. ‘Go on.’

I felt a bit sheepish saying it, which is odd. ‘What do you think it would have felt like if you’d fucked me while the electricity was pulsing through me?’

He leaned up to look down at me. ‘You’re amazing. Whenever I think of something filthy to do you’ve always got some idea to make it more twisted. It’s brilliant.’

I smiled at him. ‘I could say the same about you. It does make for some interesting times.’

‘That it does, gorgeous, that it does.’ He pulled the duvet up round my shoulders. ‘We shall clearly have to experiment to see what it feels like to fuck that way.’

As I drifted off to sleep, I marvelled at what I’d found with Adam. I know it probably sounds daft, but I had never really anticipated having a boyfriend who I could live with, love, do all the usual day-to-day stuff with, and who would then fuck me fifteen ways to Sunday. I felt so incredibly lucky.

When I went for drinks with Tom one night after work a few weeks later I was still full of the joys of the honeymoon period. After a pretty shitty few months in the aftermath of my break-up with James, I was happier than I had ever been. Knowing Tom and Charlotte were having similar amounts of fun just made me feel even more lucky – not only had I found a partner who was evil and lovely in equal measure, but their relationship seemed to be going from strength to strength too.

Or so I thought. It turned out Thomas wasn’t fibbing when he’d texted that things weren’t always as they seemed.

The evening started fairly well. We ordered the first of a few beers, found a booth and settled down for a bit of a catch-up. He was telling me about the latest developments at work and a promotion he was in the process of applying for. He asked after my mum and I told him how her recovery from her knee operation was progressing. We argued a bit about TV shows we were both watching. It was as easy-going and full of banter as it had always been, and I felt a surge of affection for my friend – I promise it wasn’t the beer talking.

‘I’m so glad we’ve had time to catch up. It feels like it’s been ages,’ I said. ‘It’s lovely that I’ve got Adam and you’ve got Charlotte, and us all doing stuff together is surprisingly comfortable all things considered, but it’s been a while since we’ve gone out just the two of us.’

Tom nodded. ‘Probably not since the aftermath of your break-up with James. It’s funny, I’ve never stayed friends with a girl after we’ve stopped sleeping together.’ He raised his glass in mock toast. ‘To ex-friends with benefits.’

I clinked my glass but shook my head. ‘We’re not ex-friends. We have ex-benefits. It’s not the same thing.’

Tom grinned at me. ‘Pedant. That’s the kind of smart-mouthed comment that I’d have caned you for back in the day.’

I stuck my tongue out at him. ‘Well, those days are most definitely gone. I don’t think either Adam or Charlotte would be especially impressed.’

He smiled. ‘I know Adam wouldn’t be, but I’m not sure Charlotte would mind.’

I stayed silent. One thing a life in journalism has taught
me is if you don’t know what to say, letting a silence run will usually encourage someone else to fill it. Tom didn’t disappoint.

‘We have an open relationship, you know.’

I took a sip of my beer. ‘Oh really?’ I’d kind of guessed they were open to having fun with other people, mostly from passing comments Charlotte had made about play parties and club nights they’d been to, but I didn’t know the details. I wasn’t really sure it was my business any more.

Tom clearly wanted to talk, though. ‘Charlotte’s amazing. Sexy, funny, good-hearted. She’s a great girl. In the last year we’ve done so much stuff that previously I’d wanted to do but never had the chance to. Threesomes.’ At this point I blushed, remembering my experiences with the two of them, way back at the beginning of their relationship. ‘Public play, heavy pain, 24/7 stuff. I’ve taken her to parties and made her fuck other guys in front of me. She’s dominated other women, not just you.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘It’s incredible. She’s incredible. She’s fulfilled almost all my fantasies.’

He tailed off. I wasn’t sure what he was getting at, but he wasn’t saying anything more. I cleared my throat.

‘Surely “almost all” your fantasies is pretty good? And as boundaries change you’re going to probably end up doing more, if that’s what you both want. After all –’

‘That’s not what I mean, Soph.’

I was confused. Tom isn’t great at talking about his feelings at the best of times. Having this kind of emotional conversation at all was as surreal as talking to a sea lion. At this point it made about the same amount of sense. ‘Well, what
do
you mean?’

‘I love her. I’m in love with her. And she likes me. She likes me
a lot.
’ His face screwed up and he used his fingers to make stabbing quotes marks in the air. ‘But we aren’t a couple, not really. She doesn’t want to be one.’

He looked disconsolate. I put my hand across the table and squeezed his. I honestly didn’t know what to say. ‘But I thought you were effectively dating now?’

He shook his head.

‘We see each other most weekends. We have a lot of fun. We meet up with you guys together. We go to all these kink events. But we don’t really talk about much emotional stuff. It’s mostly sex. And she’s seeing other people.’

I leaned forward in my chair. ‘Are you sure she’s seeing other people? How do you know?’

His smile was pained. ‘She’s told me. To be fair to her, she’s told me she’s OK with me doing the same. She just wants to have fun.’

I cast about for some kind of way to clarify. ‘Is she poly? Is that what she means? Does she want to be in relationships with several people?’

He shook his head. ‘If it were that, I’d give it some serious thought if we could all make it work. It’s not polyamory. She just doesn’t want a serious relationship at the moment.’

Tom looked so downhearted it made me feel sad for him. He never really talked much about his feelings – I’d certainly never seen him wear his heart on his sleeve to this extent.

‘She’s pretty much limitless, Soph. She is so filthy, so sexy. She’ll fulfil all my fantasies. She’ll literally do pretty
much anything I tell her to do. But I can’t order her to love me. And she doesn’t.’

We finished our drinks in a sombre mood. All my attempts to reassure him about Charlotte were scuppered by one fundamental truth – that he was right, he could dominate her to fulfil his every physical whim, but he couldn’t change how she felt emotionally. Poor Tom.

As the months passed – and we finally unpacked all our belongings – our life together began to take on a rhythm. It was straightforward, no-fuss, and had a soothing ebb and flow to it. I tended to cook of an evening because I usually got in from work first, but Adam would stack the dishwasher and then spend hours at the weekend marinating things and cooking elaborate and delicious meals, although he’d always make sure the kitchen was free if I had the urge to bake. Meanwhile he did the cleaning, I did the organising, ensuring his godchildren got their birthday presents and his grandparents’ wedding anniversary was marked, and everything pootled along nicely. It might feel ironic when, in sexual terms, there was such a strong D/s element – and thus an inherent power imbalance – to our love life, but in every other way we were equals. We were loving, happy, cheering each other’s highs and supporting each other through the lows.

It was just unfortunate when suddenly Adam’s career stumbled slightly.

He’d been working in a copywriting agency for eight years, and had been promoted several times, when suddenly they were bought up by a larger agency. As Adam was in a managerial role that was duplicated by a worker from the larger company he knew as soon as the merger was announced that his role might be at risk. It’s safe to
say that neither of us expected things to move so quickly, though.

I got home from work one night to find him already sat at the kitchen table with a mug of tea. I put my grocery bags on the side and leaned over to kiss him hello, and he leaned into me, his arms enveloping me in a hug. I wrapped my arms round him for a couple of seconds, before kissing the top of his head and arching away to look at him.

‘Are you OK? What’s up?’

He pressed a kiss to my breast and sighed softly. ‘They made me an offer today.’

I was, admittedly, a bit dazed and confused. As I said, we really weren’t expecting this straight away. ‘Who did?’

‘The MD. They’ve made me an offer for voluntary redundancy.’

I hugged him again, pulling him close, my mind whirring. ‘Really? Seriously? Fuck. Are you OK?’ I know, it’s a stupid question, but that’s the kind of inane thing your brain flings up when something like this happens. Trust me, I too wish I’d said something more profound.

He nodded. ‘I’m fine. But we need to have a think about what happens now.’

The offer was, on paper, a tempting one. Adam had talked often about his frustration with the management structure, even about setting up on his own. They were willing to pay him six months’ salary to go immediately, he wouldn’t even have to work more than minimal notice. As redundancy settlements are tax free they would effectively give him eight or nine months’ money up front to go. If he got a new job, or even started freelancing and building
customers for his own agency before he worked through that money, then he was in a good place. I knew what I’d do if it were me, but I also knew that, while I loved him and would support him in whatever he wanted to do, it had to be his choice.

Thankfully, he could see that taking redundancy made the most sense, and went in the next day to negotiate terms (he even ended up with a little bit more; I was very proud). But as he pointed out darkly when we toasted his new beginning less than a week later, it was somewhat ironic that in the time we had been seeing each other there had been two batches of redundancies at my paper – sadly not an industry rarity – and I had made it through both unscathed, while he ended up the one with the pay-off. All in all, though, he seemed to be dealing with it fine. He was positive about the opportunities the move offered, and undoubtedly the cushion of money sitting in his current account helped with any pangs of anxiety.

Things changed a little, though, in the first few weeks after he finished at his old company. He’d applied for a few jobs, arranged meetings with ex-colleagues and other agencies, so he was out and about at various points. But when he was home he was amazing: I came home to epic dinners most nights, the washing was up-to-date, and even a few DIY jobs around the house got done now he had time on his hands. It was brilliant. He wanted to keep busy, was laid-back about how long it was likely to take to organise a new role and wanted to make the most of the weeks he was free. Who was I to argue?

He also plotted a lot of rude fun. He bought toys
online, happy in the knowledge that there’d be no need for a trip to the dreaded sorting office because he would be around to sign for his latest goodies. He would send me emails at work hinting at what he’d bought, telling what to expect when I got home. Or I would get home and find him lurking with a twinkle in his eye and a plan in mind. It ranged from the abrupt and violent – grabbing me as I walked through the door for kisses and under-coat groping – to the gentle and loving – one grey, wintery day I got in, drenched through, to find a warm bath already run and Adam keen to help me out of my wet clothes and pass me a glass of wine. Definitely not a hardship.

Even with my horizons continually expanding thanks to my lovely dominant boyfriend, there were still things that left me somewhat perplexed when he first introduced them. That was how I found myself loitering outside a pet shop in an out-of-town shopping centre on a drizzly Saturday morning.

It was cold. We’d had our usual weekend lie-in – well, it was a sort-of lie-in: we were both distressingly incapable of sleeping in beyond 8 a.m. even when we didn’t have to worry about the alarm going off. After a leisurely fuck, not especially D/s-ish but still lovely, he’d got up and flung a pair of jeans at me.

‘Come on. Let’s go shopping.’

I was confused. Partly because we were in our own little age of austerity, trying to ensure no unnecessary dipping into his redundancy money, and partly because I knew we had plenty of food in for the weekend. As he chucked a jumper at me I stuck my tongue out at him.

‘Choosing what I wear? How überdomly of you.’ He pulled the covers away and I stood up, grumbling to myself. He kissed me on the nose.

‘Now now, don’t be bratty. Just for that, I think you should put your jeans on without knickers.’

I looked at him for long moments, trying to figure out if this was sarcastic Adam or gearing-up-to-some-kind-of-rudeness Adam. Then the penny dropped. It was both.

I mock sighed, although we both knew that my pulse had started racing a little at the undercurrent of this supposedly innocent shopping trip.

‘Fine.’ I started shimmying into my jeans. As I did them up, he put his arms round me and pulled me into a deep kiss. He was smiling when we broke apart.