by Sionna Fox
Ian slumped back into his chair. “Shit. I’m sorry. Alice should have taken the lead on that anyway. She’s building the specs; I’m just there to handhold while she does the heavy lifting.”
“I know. But if you let the developers become the point person for the clients, then we don’t exactly need you, do we?” Jeff sat in the chair opposite him. “Seriously, what’s going on? If you’re having problems…”
“What exactly are you asking, Jeff?” He hated the way management always wanted to toe around what they meant. He didn’t have the extra energy to spend today translating Jeff’s careful ellipses and implications. He’d been studying it for years, was fluent enough in innuendo, but he still wished people would just say what they goddamn meant. Constantly existing in a second language was exhausting.
“Listen, you don’t have to answer—you probably shouldn’t, to be honest—but the company has a strictly confidential help line and if you need to take some time off to get yourself…straightened out, you have plenty of personal time accrued.”
“I don’t need time off. I… It’s personal and I’ll get it sorted and it won’t affect my work again.” The last thing he needed was for it to get around the office that he was completely and utterly losing his shit because his ex was back in town.
Kate had made a minimum number of appearances at office functions over the years. His coworkers had known she existed, and they had known that she wasn’t at the company picnic or Christmas party last year. But like everyone else outside their closest friends, he’d simply said they’d parted ways and changed the subject.
Kate would have reminded him he had meetings in the morning. Probably would have tucked a protein bar in his bag and poured him an extra shot of espresso as he left early to prepare. She would have helped him rehearse the key talking points and phrasing that would reassure them everything was going according to plan and budget. God, he must have made her miserable. She was playing housewife and grad student, submissive and de facto personal assistant at the same time.
He would make his amends, lay his apologies at her feet. What she did with them was ultimately none of his business, but he needed to give them to her. Then, if she wanted, he would leave her alone. They could share custody of their friends, barely crossing paths, if that’s what she needed from him.
“Do whatever you have to do, Ian. I’ll leave this here, just in case.” Jeff dropped a card with the information for the company’s supposedly confidential help line on his desk.
He didn’t need that number. Just hers. Just once.
* * *
Kate sat on the floor in Jolene and Matt’s apartment with her chin propped on the coffee table, wedding magazines spread around her like so many shiny promises. Matt was working late, and Jolene had texted, begging Kate to keep her company so she wouldn’t text Matt every ten seconds asking about wedding stuff while he was in the middle of compiling data for a grant review. They’d opened a bottle of wine, but it didn’t seem to be helping Jolene at all.
“I wish we could elope. Or go to the courthouse. Anything but putting our families together in the same room.”
“So do it. I sincerely doubt Matt gives a fuck one way or the other. He just wants a ring on your finger and a collar on your neck.”
“Ugh. He has that already.” She traced her fingers over the delicate gold necklace at her throat. “And my whole family would be mad at me for being a snob and not inviting them because I was afraid they’ll embarrass me in front of Matthew’s family.”
“Which is what you’re afraid of.”
“Yeah, but they don’t need to know that.” She sighed. “Or they’ll think I got knocked up.”
“Why would they assume that?”
“Are you kidding? Do you know how much extra scrutiny my belly got at Christmas when we told them we were engaged? Or the not-so-subtle hints that I should get pregnant so I could, and I quote, ‘lock that down’?” She took a large gulp of her wine, as if to prove a point.
They both laughed, but the way Jolene drained her glass and started banging her head on the coffee table made Kate suspect it was time for a refill and to put the magazines far away.
“Do you ever wonder if you would have wanted all this if you’d never met Matt? If this is how you are or if it’s because of him?” Kate’s encounter with Owen had her wondering if she could be vanilla. Maybe she had thought she needed someone like Ian as much as she did because she was desperate for clear expectations and rules and approval when she’d had so little of it growing up.
“At first, yeah. Like, what if I’d imprinted on him somehow, or been so desperate to sleep with him I’d have done anything, no matter how off the wall. But I figured out pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to give this up even if my relationship with Matthew didn’t work out. Recall I was about to put myself out there and start looking for new people to play with when you all sprang him back on me.”
“Like you didn’t want us to.”
“I’m not saying I’m sorry you did. But what is this with you? Are you seriously thinking you’ve secretly been vanilla this whole time?”
Kate groaned. “I don’t know. Maybe? I can’t separate the sex from the relationship in my head, you know? He wasn’t my absolute first, but he was the first who knew what he was doing, both with sex and with kink. I thought I wanted it twenty-four seven. I really did. Now I can’t figure out if I want any of it at all.”
Jolene settled back into the couch with her wine glass on her sternum. “I think you have two options. You can dig down into why you thought you wanted it twenty-four seven. Why did you want to defer almost all of your power to someone else, and what changed that made you want to take some or all of it back?”
“That sounds like therapy talking.”
“Eh. Might be.”
“What’s option b?”
“You hook up with other people and play with the dynamics. Weren’t you telling me you were flirting with a cute guy at the coffee shop today? Go sleep with him, see if you like it vanilla after all.”
Jolene was the last person Kate expected to tell her to go hook up with the vanilla wafer. But she had a point. When was the last time she’d had truly vanilla sex? She’d had sex with Ian that might otherwise be classified as vanilla, if she was bruised or tired or there were time constraints, but the power dynamic was always there. Ian was always in charge, even if her ass was purple and they had to be out of the house in ten minutes, he was completely in control. What would it be like to fuck someone without the trappings of dominance and submission after years of having it no other way?
“Maybe you’re right.” It seemed like Owen had been flirting back. And he was cute, in a cuddly, non-threatening way. Then Ian had walked in glowering and ruined it. Except the glower still made Kate’s belly flutter in anticipation. “Can I ask you a question?”
Kate took a swig of her wine and held her breath, deciding if she wanted to know or if ignorance was a far better deal. Jolene raised her eyebrows for her to go on.
“What. I. Fuck.” Maybe she shouldn’t know the answer if she couldn’t even spit the words out of her mouth. “Never mind.”
Jolene’s face softened knowingly as Kate hid behind a pillow. “He hasn’t been around much. And he’s not seeing anyone as far as any of us know.”
Kate shouldn’t have felt the twinge of relief that Ian hadn’t yet replaced her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be asking. You’re his friend too.”
“Dude. Do you have any idea how badly I wanted to know what was going on with Matthew when I came back?”
“Yeah, but you were in love with him.”
Jolene quirked an eyebrow. She spent too much time with Matt and Sarah for her own good.
“It’s not the same thing.” Kate wasn’t in love with him anymore. She wasn’t. But she had spent five years with the man, of course she would still care a little, right? The inside of her own head sounded mighty defensive.
Jolene made a derisive little
snort sound and didn’t say anything. She just kept looking at Kate like she was an idiot for missing the giant, dancing elephant in the room.
“I am not in love with Ian, Jolene.”
“Fine. Can I ask you something, then?”
Kate nodded.
“What happened? You seemed so solid together.”
“Yeah, well. Appearances. Deceiving. All that jazz.” Jolene glared, and Kate exhaled a long sigh. “I was twenty-three when we met. I’d gone straight from undergrad to grad school because I was terrified of the real world. I thought I wanted the rules, the protocols, the restrictions, and the expectations, and at the time, it worked. I guess I did need that then. It was safe that way. Then I started feeling bored and constricted and honestly, kind of taken for granted. I don’t mind serving but being furniture kind of sucks if you’re not into that. There was no one thing that happened; I outgrew him.”
“Did you outgrow Ian, or did you outgrow the dynamic? Those could be two separate issues.”
“The dynamic is Ian.”
Kate was completely certain of that, but Jolene looked at her like Kate didn’t know the man she’d spent five years with. She remembered all the times at the beginning when he’d sat her down and forced her to review their agreements, her boundaries and hard limits, encouraged her to ask for whatever she needed, whatever made her feel safe. She’d always assumed he’d done it for her sake, allowed her to think things through at her own speed, to change her mind, because she was so much younger, so inexperienced. Would he have subjugated his own needs or desires to make her happy? Did he really take his role that seriously?
But eventually he’d stopped asking, and Kate had been secure in assuming he was content with what they had. He wanted it that way. She knew that.
The apartment door swung open, and Matt dropped his messenger bag with a heavy thunk as he came to stand behind Jolene’s place on the couch. She rested her head on his thigh and kissed the inside of his knee. It was all so sweet, Kate wanted to puke. It was time for her to leave.
She got up from the couch and put their empty wine glasses on the kitchen counter while Matt and Jolene whispered their hellos. She tried and failed not to roll her eyes at them while pangs of jealousy roiled in her gut. You are happy for them, Katie. Happy, happy, happy, dammit.
Matt thanked Kate for rescuing Jolene from herself and letting him get some work done. Kate went back to her apartment and stewed over their conversation, wrestling with the idea that the entire demise of her five-year relationship could come down to each of them assuming the other would resist change and being so afraid to bring it up that they’d let the thing die instead. Goddammit, kinky people spent so much time patting themselves on the back for their communication skills; relationships like theirs were not supposed to fail for lack of fucking talking. If anything, she’d been desperate to stop talking. To stop checking in. She had wanted him to decide for her. Until she didn’t. And she didn’t tell him.
But she didn’t love Ian anymore. She didn’t want him back. It was too late for them. So she would try something else. Maybe she’d even bang the vanilla wafer.
Four
The next time Kate saw Owen, she pulled down the V-neck of her sweater and stationed herself by the creamer. Like a totally normal, sane person. They were in the middle of a brief January thaw, and his unzipped coat revealed a green-and-blue plaid shirt covering his broad chest and soft belly. Everything about him was the polar opposite of Ian. The perfect place to start forgetting him.
“Hey, Kate.”
“Hey, Owen. So, this is going to sound weird because we are literally standing in a coffee shop, but do you want to maybe get a coffee sometime? When you’re not on your way to work?” Her belly tensed. She hadn’t asked a guy out in…ever. She hadn’t ever asked a guy out. Unless whispered messages passed by friends in seventh grade counted.
“I would totally be into that.”
Oh, thank god.
“But I can’t.”
“Oh, shit. Sorry. You probably have a girlfriend. Or boyfriend. Or both.”
“Why would I have both?”
“Hey, man. Some people do.”
“True. But I don’t. Have both. Or either. I can’t do coffee after noon or I’ll be awake all night.”
“Oh.”
“But I could do a drink. Or dinner?”
“And if I drink on an empty stomach, you’ll be carting me home because I am the world’s cheapest date. So dinner?”
“Dinner.”
Kate took the pen from her pocket she’d intentionally placed there for just such an occasion and wrote her number on a napkin. “I’m doing the dissertation and semester planning thing, so, whenever. But you can text me when you’re free?”
“Let’s say Friday.”
“Okay. Friday.”
They flirted by text until Friday night when they met up at a pub for dinner. They had determined that neither of them was exactly rolling in cash, so cheap-ish and filling was the order of the day.
He told her about teaching, how he’d started in a program for recent grads working in underserved public schools and ended up getting a job in a local charter school. He also told her about getting pulled into the principal’s office and sternly reminded of the lines between student and teacher when a rash of students had tried to rearrange their schedules to get into his section of US History. She imagined a group of teenagers, following him like ducklings. In a few years the age difference would be rendered meaningless, would even be part of the appeal. She’d always liked that Ian was older, more experienced, established and completely in control. Which was yet another reason why this should be a friend date and not a date-date. There was no way this charming, earnest teddy bear would be what she needed.
But then Owen talked about how important it was to him to teach more than what was in their textbooks, to contextualize and give other, non-colonial perspectives on historical events as much as he could get away with. He was earnest and kind, and he listened with interest when Kate talked about her research, about working with doctors and nurses and hospital administrators who were on the forefront of changing maternity care for low-income women and women of color.
He asked thoughtful questions, and Kate felt a pang of guilt that what had spurred her to ask him out was the idea of proving a point to herself. He deserved better. But she did like him. A lot.
So she took him back to her tiny sublet anyway. She kissed him first and he kissed her back, his beard tickling her chin and her bare neck as they peeled off their winter layers and his lips moved from her jaw to her collarbone, pressing gentle kisses to her skin. She wanted him to bite, arched her neck, pressing back against him, trying to encourage him to be rougher with her, but he never took the bait.
With every layer of clothing, every new body part exposed and lavished with gentleness, he asked her if he could, if this was okay, if she wanted more. As much as Kate appreciated his pursuit of enthusiastic consent, frustration bubbled with the low simmer of arousal as he touched and caressed, and finally slipped gently inside her. Of course it would be different, new, awkward. She hadn’t been with anyone since Ian, who knew her body and her limits like the back of his hand, who could fuck her senseless, pat her on the ass, and be on their way to dinner in under fifteen minutes. Of course Owen didn’t know how to do that.
But Kate didn’t know how to ask.
“Can you…can you do that harder?” She lifted her hips in what she hoped was a clear and encouraging way. He went still above her instead.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re not going to hurt me.” I want you to hurt me. I need you to.
She lifted her head and shoulders in an attempt to shift position as he leaned in for a kiss, and their faces smashed together.
“Ow, fuck. I’m sorry.”
Kate was almost willing to accept that the pain of being headbutted was more arousing than sweet, gentle sex when something wet fell on her shoulder.
“Oh, shit. You’re bleeding.” He’d somehow cut his nose on her tooth when their heads cracked together. She wriggled away and went to the bathroom for supplies to patch him up.
He had the grace to laugh about it. “I’m so sorry. How’s your head?”
“No, I’m sorry. I…You are the nicest guy I’ve been out with probably ever.”
“But you don’t like nice guys.” With a cotton round pinched to his nose, he looked particularly defeated.
“Hey, I like a lot of nice guys. And this was, I mean, we have less than zero chemistry.”
He sighed. “Yeah.”
“Friends? I could use some new ones.”
“I’d like that.”
“Good.”
He left her with a kiss on the cheek, and Kate fell into bed. She didn’t even bother trying to finish what they’d started, she was so far from turned on. Definitely not vanilla.
Kate woke up to weak winter sunlight streaming through the curtains above her, and her phone chiming the “Imperial March” from Star Wars. She sat up and groaned. Fucking Evie. Was it wrong to associate someone who’d been basically family with Darth Vader? Maybe. Still didn’t make her pick up the phone. She couldn’t avoid her forever, but it was no way to start a Saturday. And definitely not the morning after her experiment with vanilla dating had gone so horribly wrong.
She deleted the message Evie left unheard, rolled over, and went back to sleep. She’d have to deal with Evie—with all of them—at some point. Like Jolene had said, she’d left, and no one had the faintest idea why.
She slept a few more hours and dreamed of Ian, of having his body with its sharp angles and planes over her the night before instead of Owen’s sweet softness. She wouldn’t have ended the night unsatisfied. She woke up turned on and hating herself for it, scenes from the first time they’d met on a loop in her head.
She’d worked up the nerve to buy a ticket to a conference, and she’d spent the day trying to be as invisible as possible before someone realized she clearly didn’t belong. She’d watched demos and ogled vendor tables from afar, too nervous to get close, to touch or feel anything. Definitely too intimidated to participate in any of the workshops.
