Switch

by Clarice Clique

  ‘Yes.’ His voice sounded distant, but still the pleasure surged through me.

  ‘I’ll put that skirt on and come to you now.’

  ‘We’re on a break. It means we don’t see each other. We don’t contact each other. And either we come back together or we move on to different experiences. It is not an end, but it is a pause.’

  ‘How long does a break last for?’ I sounded like a sullen schoolgirl, far more so than when we played that fantasy out.

  ‘You’ll know. Switch off your panic button and think sensibly, then you’ll know when you’re ready.’

  ‘Why don’t you trust me to love you?’

  ‘Because I cannot withstand pain as well as you do.’ He hung up.

  I went back upstairs to lie on the bed, but instead, with a burst of energy, I changed the sheets and began a manic cleaning session that lasted all the way to Sunday evening. When I had scrubbed and dusted everything in sight, I tried to divert my emotions into anger. What gave him the right to decide I needed a break? That I was too young to make mature adult decisions? But my anger disappeared with a whimper. I liked being in his arms, feeling young. I liked the freedom from responsibility as he thwacked his whip across my breasts. I liked to dissolve into the pain, into him.

  And it had been my suggestion to go out and fuck other men. He started a conversation about marriage and I somehow came up with the idea that I should have more experience. It’s a fool who pretends she understands all her own motives, but from his perspective my reaction to spending the rest of my life with him wasn’t encouraging.

  A tear formed in my eye for the solitaire diamond ring I never saw. I brushed it away.

  This lying in bed in the dark, the hourly texts – had I just been playing at someone who was heartbroken in a typically teenage way?

  I bit down on my lip and caressed the places on my body where he’d last whipped me.

  What was love anyway?

  That sweet, sickly smell that intoxicated every breath.

  Limbs entwined under twisted sheets.

  Fingers probing, scratching, knowing my most private orifices.

  A smile over the breakfast table containing everything we’d done in the night.

  A small gesture, his hand brushing across my nipple.

  A big movement, the weight of his body crushing the air out of my lungs.

  His lips pressed against mine.

  Everything feeling like a dream.

  Feeling that all my life before knowing him was a dream.

  Glancing him out of the corner of my eye and sensing that we’d always been together.

  Falling together into the darkness, our bodies wrapped around each other.

  Not being alone.

  I was struck with a sudden resolve.

  We would have this break. I would play with other people. Then I would return to him and we’d be stronger. He would get down on his knees and ask me to marry him. I’d say yes. We’d get married on a beach in the Caribbean, watched by strangers. We’d fuck in the sand watched by strangers. And we’d live happily ever after. That was how this would work. I was certain.

  Chapter Four - New

  Dean had never argued with Helena before, not properly, not shouting at each other, not feeling the hate surge through him as if it was a physical thing that could punch through his skin.

  It seemed so petty afterwards. All the things she’d circled in those glossy wedding magazines: £20 for a tiny candle for each guest; £1000 for a sponge cake; £3000 for an engagement ring. And that was before she’d gone through the supplements on perfect venues.

  He’d treated it like a joke. That was a mistake. He picked up a sheet of paper where she was making menu lists. ‘Who are you planning to invite, the royal family and their friends? The people we know will spend five minutes guzzling through “smoked Barbary duck with apricot dressing”, then me and you will be eating baked beans for the rest of our life trying to pay off the debt.’

  She hadn’t laughed.

  Weeks later, thinking about the look she gave him still made his stomach tighten.

  He couldn’t remember all the words; he blanked them from his mind. Just the desire she had to verbally hurt and wound him, and how he reciprocated with equal venom. There was an unfamiliar power in fighting; if she was screaming about how physically unattractive he was, then he could say her perfume made him feel sick.

  It was liberating, he could almost feel the words bubbling in his mouth. ‘I don’t want to marry you.’ His heart beat fast; he waited for her to say something that would warrant and justify his reply.

  But her anger and accusations turned into whimpers and tears. He couldn’t shout back, he couldn’t defend himself, when she was crying.

  ‘Do you love me, Dean?’ She hid her face in her hands. ‘Do you love me? Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ He put his arms around her and pulled her body into his. ‘How can you doubt it?’

  There was no pause in his response. It was afterwards, through many sleepless nights, that he realised that had been his opportunity to be honest, to say he had no idea what he felt, that he was scared, that the idea of marrying her gave him no happiness and that had to be wrong.

  Instead, since that argument, he’d made every effort to please her. In the little he recalled, Helena had said the worst things, but it was him who apologised, it was him who was heavy with guilt.

  He drove through a storm to ask her father’s consent to marry her; he enquired about bank loans and filled out forms to get new credit cards; he phoned some of his contacts he had through his photography hobby to find who could do the traditional style she wanted; he agreed with everything she said and chose. He tried to cuddle her more. But there was a tension between them which he couldn’t get through. He decided it must just be in his mind, though, as Helena bought more wedding magazines and went to wedding shops, and their time together was spent browsing wedding sites on the internet.

  Dean tried to envisage their life together, when they were doing something mundane like him washing up and her drying, discussing which supermarket was the best value. He could almost imagine it: having children; spending evenings bickering about what to watch on the telly; going to church every Sunday; growing older and older.

  When she wasn’t with him, out of the corner of his eye he saw some leaflet to do with wedding shoes and it took a couple of moments before he realised what they were doing in his flat. It wasn’t quite that Helena ceased to exist for him, more that she faded into an area at the back of his mind next to aunts he sent Christmas cards to every year, and the neighbour who’d once helped him jump start his car. Was that what marriage was like, should be like?

  He convinced himself that it showed how comfortable they were with each other, how relaxed; that they didn’t have to jump through hoops and be overly affectionate or romantic with each other to prove their love.

  He mentally tried on the mantle of husband as he would physically try on a new coat, stretching himself out, testing the fit, thinking how other people would view him and judge him.

  He read the Bible. Thou shalt not commit adultery. He wanted to be a good husband. He would be a good husband. His fingers flicked almost subconsciously to the Song of Solomon. His eyes found his favourite verses immediately.

  Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.

  The king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine

  A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts .

  He shall lie all night betwixt my breasts .

  He shall lie all night betwixt my breasts .

  He repeated the phrase out loud, his tongue forming around the word “breasts” as if it was a caress. He was little more than a teenage boy in his experiences; a few letters on a page gave him an erection. But the experience he did have was
so significant. He remembered the woman, Crimson, the things she’d made him do. How she’d ordered him to open his coat, the way she’d looked at his genitals, the confidence with which she’d made him clean her flat.

  Dean went to his computer, switched it on and logged on to his favourite website.

  ‘I’ll be a good husband. I’ll get this thing out of my system now,’ he reassured the empty room.

  Crimson had blocked him from contacting her after they met, and the previous mistress, Tigerlady, who had often spoken to him on the phone, said she didn’t want anything to do with him after he told her he met another lady.

  ‘But you knew I have a girlfriend, and that never bothered you, and you said you didn’t care if I flirted with other women online, so why does it matter that I met another mistress in real life?’ he’d pleaded.

  ‘Fuck off,’ she’d said.

  The phone had gone dead. Dean leant against the wall, clinging onto his mobile for half an hour before the hollowness left him, and he was certain he wouldn’t give in to the deep need to phone her back and beg for her to reconsider. That would have been too disrespectful to a mistress who had been so good to him.

  Now he wanted a new woman, someone he could connect with and build up a relationship with, but who would be casual enough not to care he was engaged to someone else. Could you have a casual relationship with a mistress? Mistress Crimson had said he needed training. But no, he didn’t need training, he would only need training if this was something he was going to continue doing. This was just a bad habit like smoking, something he’d be able to quit when he needed to, when he got married and committed his life to Helena, but it wasn’t harming anyone to indulge in it a little until that time. Was it?

  He ignored his own question. Instead he concentrated his mental energy on browsing his own profile. The first thing he did was change his screen name from “worm80” to “slavetothee”. It had a nicer ring to it, sounded more polite.

  His tag was “here to please you”; after a moment’s thought he rewrote it as “willing to please and serve to your demands”. Did that make sense? Damn his dyslexia. At work he could get someone else to check his written reports, but that was hardly an option here. He smiled at the idea of phoning up Helena and saying he needed help making a profile on an erotic dating site.

  Then his heart ached. It wasn’t a joke.

  But he didn’t want to think about Helena and the engagement and her insistence that they set a definite date for the wedding.

  He erased everything he’d written in the “describe who you are and what you want” section of the profile and replaced it with “obedient, looking to worship a mistress who demands obedience”.

  He read through it a few times. It was good to keep it short, less chance he’d make an error. Still, he looked again at his description and inserted an extra word.

  “Obedient, looking to worship a strict mistress who demands obedience”.

  The rest of the profile was fairly simple and didn’t need much altering. He hovered over where he’d put his relationship status as “single” but did not change it. He read it all out loud, hoping he didn’t sound too boring.

  Star sign: Leo

  They are: single

  Orientation: straight

  Looking for: erotic mail or chat

  Smokes: no

  Drinks: social

  Tattoos: no

  Drugs: no

  Accommodate: no

  Travel: yes

  Height: 5’ 8” (1.73m)

  Weight: 10st 7lb (67kg)

  Build: slim

  Eyes: blue

  Hair: dark brown

  Glasses: contact lenses

  Face: clean shaven

  Race: white-Caucasian

  Endowed: average

  Shaved: smooth

  Pierced: no

  Cut: no

  He hoped it wasn’t misleading to mark his cock as average; Mistress Crimson had said she wouldn’t have let him into her house if he’d had a small penis. He glanced down at himself; he was erect. Being on this site, and thinking of the women who had already spoken to him and the opportunities that might lie before him, excited him as much as any porn he’d seen. To his eyes, his cock looked bulging and ready to explode. He hoped it was large enough to count as average.

  Under his preferences he moved “oral giving” up from 50 to 100 per cent, “master/slave” from 99 to 100 per cent and left “bondage” at 77 per cent and everything else at 0.

  He glanced through it all again, but was satisfied he’d done the best he could. Now came the anticipation, the tease, the expectation whether there was any lady who would like him enough to talk to him.

  Dean studied who was online and combed through their profiles with the same diligence he gave to his work or he’d once given to his exams. There were more than a dozen new women, some of whom had put “master/slave” above 50 per cent. One had put 100 per cent in everything and left the rest of the profile blank; he dismissed that one as being one of the men who pretended to be women to get free site access and got off on winding up other men.

  He checked their ages, knocking out anyone below 30, and then started approaching the profiles with photos, always with the same opening chat line.

  Excuse me, madam, may I please ask you a question.

  The first one replied, Sure, go ahead.

  This could be a lucky night. He flicked back to her profile page and enlarged her photo. She had beautiful eyes.

  He typed as quickly as he could. I noticed that you score “master/slave” at 51 per cent, can I ask if you are a sub or a dom?

  He waited.

  He waited.

  He looked at her photo again.

  He gently wanked his cock.

  He waited.

  Then he closed the chat window and moved on to the next woman.

  He got a couple more replies along the lines of “don’t know why I rated that, not really my thing”, but at least they answered him.

  The last woman on his list responded ten minutes after he gave her his question.

  You tell me this first, are you married?

  Dean stared at the words on the screen. They seemed to bore through his eyes and into his very being.

  You are, aren’t you, you stupid fuck? I know your type. Cheating on your wife, lying to the women you meet on here. People like you should be castrated.

  Dean pushed his chair back from the computer and took some deep breaths. He felt like he’d been slapped; he felt like beautiful, good Helena herself had discovered who he really was. But Helena would never speak like that. This woman speaking to him did not know him, she couldn’t hurt him.

  Another sentence appeared on the screen. He didn’t want to read it but his eyes seemed to focus on the words against his will.

  I hope you meet the other fucking perverts and liars and bastards on this site and they deal with you in a way you deserve.

  The woman closed the chat window and Dean felt relieved. His cock was rock solid and yearned for more humiliation, desperate to find and meet all these perverts who would give him what he deserved. But he could separate himself from his sexual desires. He could think logically. And spiritually.

  That had been it. That had been a sign. He had to stop this; he had to commit to his real life. This was all a game, a distraction from what really mattered.

  He would delete his profile, he would cancel his subscription, he would plan his wedding.

  And he might have done all those things if a new chat window hadn’t opened.

  He stared at it for a couple of seconds. Women never initiated the conversations on these sites; it was always the men who had to do the chasing. He recognised the name: “Wickedgirl”, that was one of the new female members, the one he had dismissed as being a man as there was 100 per cent in all areas of the profile. He was probably right; it was a man who had picked on him to tease.

  But still he opened the chat.

  You looked at
my profile.

  That was quite a simple, non-sexual, start for a male.

  Dean typed a reply. I did.

  Wickedgirl’s immediate response: So why didn’t you talk to me? I like your name.

  Was there a chance that it wasn’t a man, that it was really a woman? I wasn’t sure you’d be interested in me.

  Wickedgirl: I’m not sure that I’m interested in you.

  He filled with a yearning to make her interested in him, but he didn’t know what to say apart from his standard line. Madam, may I please ask you a question?

  Wickedgirl: If it’s an appealing one.

  Was his question an appealing one? What was an appealing question? He typed his reply, watching the stark black letters appear on the screen with a nervous jittering in his stomach. I noticed on your profile that you show an interest in master/slave play. May I enquire whether you are submissive or dominant?

  There was a long pause. Dean looked at the time on his computer; he looked up at the second hand ticking around the wall clock.

  The reply appeared after three minutes and 49 seconds.

  Wickedgirl: submissive

  Something in Dean sunk, but there was also an unmistakable sense of relief. Forgive me for wasting your time. I am looking for a new mistress.

  He didn’t close the chat window, though, and neither did she. He continued to stare at the computer screen not sure what he was waiting for until, after 93 seconds, another message appeared from her.

  Wickedgirl: I can try domming if that’s what you like.

  Dean swallowed hard. I would like that very much.

  Without being entirely conscious of it, he put his hand on his cock and stroked its length. He flicked on to the profile that had made him immediately reject contacting her. The bulk of the profile was still blank.

  May I suggest that you would get better responses if you give more details on this site? I’d like to know what colour eyes you have.

  Wickedgirl: Don’t ask questions. That’s your first rule. I’ll tell you anything that you need to know. I’ll ask the questions, like why does it take you so long to reply? It’s not acceptable to keep me waiting. I bore easily. How many other women are you talking to right now?