by Lisabet Sarai, Trina Lane, Elizabeth Coldwell, Charlotte Stein, Jane Davitt, Justine Elyot
“Connor?” Helen said blankly, glancing over at Connor’s side of the bed automatically.
The whole bed was his, technically. She was supposed to sleep on the floor unless Connor told her otherwise, but that was something else that had never really happened. Oh, one night, yes, early on, wrapped in a thick duvet, a chain running from the bed to a Velcro cuff on her wrist, but she’d taken the cuff off to go to the bathroom and it’d seemed so much easier to slide back into bed beside a warm, sleepy Connor and quiet his enquiring murmur with a blow job. After that, she’d just made sure that she was in bed waiting for him at night and he hadn’t pushed it.
“He doesn’t know. Why, do you think I should ask him? He’s never stopped me having friends over before.”
It was Belinda’s turn to sigh. “They weren’t coming to discuss your relationship with your Dom, though, were they? There’s no way that Gary would give me permission if it was behind Connor’s back.”
“See?” Helen said, aware that she sounded tragic. “I didn’t know that. It’s as if there’re all these etiquette rules and I keep eating peas with my knife or something.”
“Stop being so dramatic,” Belinda advised her, a hint of amusement audible in her voice. “Call Connor, or text him, and let me know what he says, okay?”
“Okay,” Helen said feeling forlorn.
She managed to get Connor at the airport, just minutes before he boarded, which meant that their conversation was brief and, given the way they’d parted, a little awkward.
“Of course, Belinda can come over,” Connor said. “Is that really why you called?”
“Yes!” Helen said, indignant about the suggestion that she was so dependent on him that she’d needed to hear his voice one last bloody time. “She seemed to think I should ask first since we’ll be talking about, you know, things.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I want her advice,” Helen hissed into the phone. “Sub to sub. If your ears burn, you’ll know why.”
“No,” Connor said. “Not going to happen, I’m sorry.”
Helen took a deep breath. “I won’t tell her anything personal, but Connor, I need this. I read your letter—well, sort of—and I just—I need to talk to someone who’s doing things the way you like to see if it’s something I’d like. I don’t mean copy her, but she’s just—I’ve seen the way she is with Gary and yes, I get that it’s different to how I am with you. She can help me. Look, I’m trying here, okay?”
Coherence was beyond her. She could hear the busy noises of the airport and sense Connor’s need to hang up and get on the plane and it was making her flustered and snappy.
“I’ve got a few minutes,” Connor said after a long silence. “I’ll call Gary. But use your brains when it comes to how much you share, is that clear?”
“It’s my sex life, too,” Helen said. “Trust me, I’ll be discreet.”
“You’d better,” Connor muttered and hung up after a terse, “bye.”
Helen exhaled, feeling that she’d taken a step forward. Not necessarily a good thing if she were standing on a cliff edge, but it beat spinning around in panicked circles.
* * * *
Thirty minutes into Belinda’s visit, Helen was beginning to doubt the wisdom of her idea. Belinda was staring at her with puzzled blue eyes, her riot of tightly curled brown hair quivering as she shook her head in a wordless comment on Helen’s diatribe.
“I don’t get it,” Belinda said when Helen stopped talking, having realised that she was repeating herself and getting worked up to the point of sounding hysterical. “Do you want to be Connor’s sub or not?”
Helen blinked at her in silence, taken aback by the bluntness of the question, then rallied. “I am his sub.”
“Not from where I’m standing,” Belinda said with devastating frankness. “You’re playing at it when it suits you, getting your kicks and some rock-your-world orgasms, then going back to being a live-in girlfriend most of the time. It’s obviously enough for you, but I’ve known Connor for years and I can’t see it being enough for him.” She leant back into her corner of the couch and took a slow sip of her herbal tea. “And from what you’re saying, it looks as if it isn’t.”
It would’ve been so easy to have given into the urge to defend herself but Helen knew how that would end, with a heated argument, one of Connor’s oldest friends alienated and a burgeoning friendship with someone she genuinely liked—most of the time—lost for good.
“I know it isn’t,” Helen said. “I just—this isn’t all my fault, you know. Some of the stuff I wanted to do he said was too extreme and I shouldn’t treat erotica as a textbook, so I sort of assumed most of what I’d read wasn’t, well, practical. I’m new to this and I went along with what he said, and if he didn’t like what I was doing, why did he let me keep on doing it for months then tell me minutes—minutes—before he left that it wasn’t good enough?” She took a gulp of white wine, swallowed too soon and choked, her eyes watering. “Fuck.”
“Oh, Connor’s definitely to blame as well,” Belinda said cheerfully, getting back a few brownie points. “He just fell for you hard and I don’t think he’s ever done that before. He’s had plenty of women in his life but they’ve all been casual. You’re the first one who’s moved in and the first one that I can see lasting—but not if you don’t commit to the relationship. Connor’s a Dom. It defines him. I don’t mean that he can’t function without someone to spank each day. Before you, he hadn’t been with anyone for ages and he held it together just fine, but now that he has you…”
“I get it,” Helen said with a sigh. She met Belinda’s eyes, more sympathetic now, and gave her a wavering smile. “The stupid thing is that before I met him, I thought being a sub defined me, even though I’d never done anything to make it real. Then Connor came along and when it wasn’t as, well, as intense as the stories I’d read, I told myself that I’d been silly and that they were fantasies, this was reality.”
“You’ve been acting out, waiting for him to bring you to heel, and he adores you so he let the leash get longer and longer until you didn’t feel connected to him, you mean?” Belinda said then grimaced. “God, listen to me get all therapist on you. Sorry. I know it’s more complicated than I’m making it sound.”
“It actually sounds about right,” Helen admitted, unwillingly impressed by the succinct insight.
Belinda leant forward and patted Helen’s knee. “So you’re both on the same page now and you can stop looking so tragic. He’ll get back next Friday and you can let him get over the jet lag then hit him with everything you’ve got. Make him fulfil every single one of those fantasies—you should know by now which ones are possible—and do the same for him.”
“You make it sound easy,” Helen said, unwilling to move quite that quickly past her emotional storm into calmer waters.
Belinda snorted. “Being a sub takes effort, yes, and commitment, but it’s not some sort of penance or drudgery. If you’re too hung up to give yourself permission to enjoy it, though, it’s going to be a struggle to get to where you need to be.”
“I get there sometimes,” Helen said slowly. Long, quiet hours, kneeling naked by the fire, the heat from its flames warming her skin, a living ornament, waiting for Connor to finish working or reading and walk over to her and release her with a word…
“When?” Belinda asked. “When you’re thinking about submitting to Connor and pleasing him, or when you’re just getting off on the spanking and bondage?”
“I don’t know,” Helen said and set her wine glass down on the coffee table, resisting the temptation to refill it. “I suppose I thought letting him spank me was enough.”
“I don’t want to speak for him,” Belinda said dryly, “but somehow I doubt it.”
“What’s it like with you and Gary?” Helen asked. “I don’t want to pry, but how far do you take it? Not what you do, but how much it affects your life, if that makes sense?”
Belinda nibbled her lip in t
hought for a moment. “It doesn’t affect my life because it is my life,” she said finally. “I’ve been with Gary for seven years—since I was twenty—and like with you and Connor, he’s older than me. He knew what he wanted and he set it out for me right from the start and said that there were some areas where he was willing to compromise, but not many, and that he’d like me to try it for a month and we’d negotiate after that. By the end of the month, I knew there was nothing I wanted to change, I just wanted more.”
“More of what, though?” Helen asked. “Connor’s left me these instructions and one of them—no, it’s okay, it’s nothing private—one of them is that he wants me to iron his shirts from now on.” She shook her head, smiling, inviting Belinda to share her incredulity, but Belinda’s expression was completely neutral.
“Why is that a problem?”
“His shirts? Come on! I’m his girlfriend, not his laundry maid.”
“You’re his sub,” Belinda corrected her, “and although I agree that being submissive isn’t the same as being servile, providing a personal service to your Dom—cooking, cleaning, taking care of him—can be incredibly rewarding for both of you. It’s not all about what happens in bed or over his knee.”
“I have deadlines to meet even if I do work from home,” Helen pointed out. “And Connor’s at home a lot, too, and he likes cooking, so mostly, well, mostly I let him do that. But I pull my weight around the place.”
Helen illustrated children’s books, a line of work that had brought in a small amount of money, supplemented by a day job in an office, until she’d been commissioned to provide the illustrations for a book that had been turned into a movie. The critics had raved over her drawings and that attention, however fickle, had left her with enough work to make illustrating a full-time job. Connor had converted a room into a studio for her. He’d also offered to invest her savings and in the space of a few months, had increased them in a way that left Helen grateful and secretly nervous because it seemed too good to be true. It was what Connor did, though. He came from a wealthy family and he’d taken the money he’d come into at the age of twenty-one and had invested it in a variety of small businesses. The trip to San Francisco was to look over a restaurant a friend of his had started, with a view to becoming a partner in the place.
“Which is fine if that’s the way he wants it,” Belinda said, “but if he’s asked you to iron his shirts—just his shirts, by the way?”
Helen nodded. “All his suits get dry cleaned—so do his shirts usually—and his casual clothes don’t really need much ironing. He takes care of them himself.”
Belinda shrugged. “Then it seems to me that he’s not asking you to do his laundry as such, so lose the affronted attitude. He’s ordering you, as your Dom, to perform a task and if you approach it in the right frame of mind—”
“Hello? Ironing!”
A frown creased Belinda’s forehead and her lips tightened. “Think about it as a service. Think about being completely focused on making each shirt perfect, not a single crease, something that you can be proud to do for him, no matter how long it takes. Think about him wearing those shirts, of them touching his skin, cool and smooth, so that he’s aware every moment of you, because you’re the one who made them like that. It could be anything, Helen. He could ask you to polish his shoes, or fold every towel in the house a certain way—it’s not what you’re doing, it’s the fact that you’re being obedient to a command and doing it in the right spirit.” Belinda gave her an exasperated look. “You just think it’s all about the sex, don’t you?”
Helen’s mouth was dry. She could feel fragments of ideas shifting, clicking into place, a dozen times when Connor had told her to do something and she’d laughed, teasing him or refusing without thought because it hadn’t seemed connected to their relationship as Dom and sub.
“I’ve been…I’ve been keeping the Dom and sub part of our relationship separate,” she said slowly. “Like a best dress you don’t wear every day.”
“It’s not a best dress,” Belinda said. “It’s your birthday suit.”
Helen laughed, surprising herself. “I wear that a lot.”
“You’re beautiful,” Belinda said matter-of-factly. “I’m not surprised that Connor likes looking at you. And now I want to just talk about something else, because honestly, this is all something you and Connor need to work out yourselves. You don’t need to stay in your roles every minute of the day, the way that Gary and I do, but I think you might want to try expanding a bit on what you have and that’s my final word.”
“One question?” Helen pleaded.
“I’m a sub, too,” Belinda said with a grin. “Begging doesn’t work on me.”
Helen made a soft, frustrated sound and Belinda sighed and yielded.
“Okay, just one.”
Helen gave her a grateful smile. “Just one, I promise. What’s your favourite part of the day with Gary?”
“Oh, that’s tricky!” Belinda pursed her lips. “My morning spanking, I think. It just settles everything into place and if we have to skip it because we’re running late, you can count on us both being snappy all day.”
“I get one of those, too,” Helen said, feeling a rush of relief that she was on an equal footing there, at least.
“Then I kneel by his chair in the kitchen and he feeds me breakfast before telling me what to wear—”
“We don’t do that,” Helen said, her eyes wide, picturing Connor having that much control over her life. “God, that’s just—” She shivered. “I’d love to do that.”
“Would you? Really?”
The sceptical note in Belinda’s voice made Helen flush with annoyance at being doubted, though she had to admit that Belinda had cause.
“Yes, I would. Really, I would. I just—no one’s ever really told me how far this could all go and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself.”
“You were self-conscious,” Belinda said, “but you don’t need to be. You’re not acting or role-playing, you know, this is you. This is how you are. You and Connor make it what you want it to be. There aren’t any rules beyond the ones to keep you both safe. Just let yourself go.” She glanced at her watch and put her mug down on the table. “Speaking of which, it’s time I was on my way.”
“You’ve been really helpful. Thank you so much,” Helen said politely if insincerely, getting up when Belinda did.
Belinda had been less forthcoming than she’d expected—Helen was used to girl friends who discussed their sex life and their partners in explicit, unflattering detail—but she’d given Helen a lot to think about, even so.
Belinda hugged her, her curly hair soft against Helen’s face. “No, I’ve been pushy and put your back up. But you did ask. Don’t hate me for answering.”
“I don’t,” Helen said, and meant it now. “Honestly, I don’t.”
* * * *
After Belinda had gone, Helen poured herself another glass of wine and curled up in the window seat, set halfway up the gracefully curving staircase. In the daylight, she could look out across the wood to the fields beyond and the low, rolling hills. At night, nothing was visible but a softly changing mass of shadows. The ornate chandelier that lit the hallway threw enough light into the recessed window that reading Connor’s letter was easy. Reading it without the murky filter of hurt and anger obscuring the meaning helped even more.
Connor’s usual writing style was concise and logical, even terse. This was more of a meandering train of thought, emotional, repetitive at times, and even if the actual words never appeared, it was a love letter from a reserved man goaded to communicate.
Helen read it slowly, her lips shaping the words in places just to hear them said aloud. She wished that Connor was there to read it to her in his rough, husky voice—no, she wished that he’d said it to her, weeks, months before.
If I told you that I wanted to take you out to the stables and tie you to a beam, use a riding crop on your arse, striking you over and over as you swayed, nak
ed, writhing, you’d agree. I think you’d regret it somewhere around the second stroke, but you’d agree because it’d fit your idea of what a relationship like ours is all about. You want so much that’s extreme, so much that—and yes, I know how patronising this must seem—you don’t have a clue about, not really. And I don’t want you to know. The world we’re part of has some dark corners and as far as I’m concerned, you’re never going to go near them.
You love me hurting you. You take the pain and use it to craft a pleasure so pure that I envy you at times. I can understand why you’re focused on experiencing more of that and get annoyed with my caution. But for all that I love hurting your body—and I do—I’d get just as much of a kick out of your full submission and you don’t give me that often, outside the discipline.
Do you think that I want a challenge? For you to disobey me so that I can spank you for being naughty? Because, no, I don’t. I want your submission, Helen, your complete and utter submission. Disobeying me doesn’t please me and I don’t need a fucking excuse to hurt you, just the desire to do so. You’re mine and I can spank you every hour on the hour no matter how perfectly you’re behaving if I like. Stop trying to manipulate me into giving you what you want. It won’t work, anyway. If I’m drunk or angry, I’d never lift my hand to you, ever.
You’d let me take you to the stables, let me mark you so that your skin still showed each stroke weeks later, but if I told you that what you ate, what you wore, the time you got up, went to bed, hell, how long you brushed your teeth for was mine to dictate, I wonder what your reaction would be? Or if I told you that I wasn’t going to spank you for a month. Would you still be here by the end of it?
I’m writing this and you’re kneeling beside me, fidgeting, so that I’ll need to punish you, just a little. I don’t mind. I can tell that for once, it’s not deliberate. You’re on edge, either picking up on my state of mind or just upset that I’ll be away.
I am, too. I’m going to miss you. Miss what we do together, the way we disagree on everything from the party we vote for to the football team we support but still manage to be so right for each other. And we are. I’m not giving up.
