Switch (A BDSM Romance Novel)

by Astrid Knowles

  There was she could intrude on so perfect, so valuable a time. The two seldom showed any indication of a relationship, no matter how she teased them. Instead they wore open smiles and shared glances, the small brushes of their hands against each other and nothing more. They were content in their love, and in each other, and so Jenna understood how they felt no need for public declarations and jealous claims.

  They trusted and had each other.

  She didn’t realise, when she finally tore herself away, only opened her vision against the tears once more to find herself walking another familiar route, down another familiar road where she had found solace seldom before. A Master and slave, Daniel and Craig only showed professional fronts laced with informal laughs and shared jokes that betrayed their knowledge of each other. Their advice was based in the principles of the life that they chose to lead together, not of emotions. And it was exactly what she needed, that simplicity that gave her confidence and certainty. She couldn’t take the selfishness brought to herself, the emotions that made her useless as a submissive, and hateful of herself.

  She couldn’t take the image of another couple, so closely drawn together with no offerings and no promises, only the mutual attraction, and the agreement to explore it together, privately, to see what magical places that it led. Daniel was more like her, his love for his Master evident alongside the distinct lines that defined the hows and the whys of his relationship.

  In fact, he was the one who answered, his expression smooth and schooled as he opened the door, for once fully clothed, and drew her near silently into his home.

  “Have you seen Henry?” She asked, the question bursting from her before he even managed to draw her into the hallway. His hand on her arm, he shook his head, and drew her into the kitchen before he released her.

  He put the kettle on before he turned to her, his face pained as he waited for it to boil.

  “Have you spoken to Amelia?” He asked, his voice no louder than a whisper. A hoarse, throaty whisper.

  Jenna nodded, her mind frantic.

  “And she gave you her opinion?”

  Another nod.

  “Then I think that you may be best listening to her on this. Do you not want him to be happy?”

  “What if he isn’t?” She whimpered. “What if he is unhappy, too. What if he left because I made him that way?”

  “If he left because of his relationship with you, then it was not the relationship that either of you needed.”

  “But it was what I needed! More than anything!”

  “And do only your needs matter?” Daniel asked harshly, his voice louder as he slammed two teacups on the table. “Is your purpose not to serve him in any way possible?”

  “I love him.” She hissed miserably, her voice a feeble protest. “I want him to be happy.”

  “Everyone has to make sacrifices.” He replied bitterly, the whisper returned as he stared up at the ceiling. “Everyone.”

  Frowning, Jenna clutched onto the teacup tightly, drawing the warm heat close to her. What if Daniel was right? What if he was wrong.

  “But what if the sacrifice is his leaving me?” She cried, the tears spilling over once more and trailing slowly down to drop into her teacup like raindrops.

  “Then take his happiness when news of it reaches you, and be content.”

  “But I don’t know if he is. He has left with no reason, no note, no nothing.”

  “For now, hope that he will be, and live as if he were still with you.”

  How easy that was to say. How could she do that now, when nothing was left of his time with her? The memories remained, but they would fade and she would become more and more uncertain. She could not put herself in his shoes. She could barely handle her own.

  “Craig has never left you.”

  “Craig frequently leaves me. Haven’t you heard the sounds?”

  “The what?”

  “The noise upstairs.”

  Not understanding, Jenna listened, the background noise making itself suddenly and startlingly apparent.

  “The shrieks and moans, and thuds of my Master taking another lover. It is not my place to disagree, or cause conflict. Ours is not an arrangement that allows for that.”

  “Oh.” Jenna scowled, unable to stop hearing the thuds and groans now that she had been made aware of them. Daniel watched her, his eyes dry and defeated.

  “It does not mean that our relationship is changed in any way, because it does not concern me. Who am I to deny my Master pleasure, simply because it is not at the hands of myself? He is free to do as he will, because of the life that he has given me. I am thankful for him, for the fact that out of all of us, I am the one that he chooses to keep and care for as his own.”

  “But I am no longer Henry’s. And why are you still here if you are unhappy? That’s not normal. I think that you need a new contract.”

  “Normal relationships don’t have contracts, Jenna. Ours are more important, built on higher principles and more intense. We ask for more, and so we must give more in return. Would you ever consider entering a vanilla relationship?”

  “No. I need a Dominant. I am pointless on my own.”

  “Then you need to accept that what happens to you is at the whim of the person whom you choose to make your choices for you. And you need to accept that they give just as much as we do, if not more.”

  “Really?” Jenna asked wryly. “Seems like I was asking to be walked all over, to me.”

  “Yes.” Daniel told her firmly. “They accept responsibility for our successes and failures as well as their own, putting all of their energy and care into making us well and happy. While they may not be perfect, no one is. They are as close as we can ask for, because they know and accept us for what we are and what we need. If there is anything that we can do for them, we must. We are not the only people entering the relationship with a gift. The security that we are given motivates us just as much as a need to serve. More, in fact, for some. If anything goes wrong in the relationship, we discuss it. We know that we have something to valuable to lose. But we also live in doubt; and then more than us. It can be easier to dominate, than to safely submit. They know that we need to find someone, in desperation, anyone, who can provide us with control. They doubt us because the desire for dominance may be more than our love for our Dominants themselves. They need love too, no matter how they might wish to hide it, and in an emotionally complicated relationship, the trust is more than paramount.”

  “Are you saying that I have broken his trust?”

  “I think you know that you have. Is there any way in which you have behaved that might be classed as unacceptable?”

  Defeated and clear of nuisance thoughts and self-centred worries, Jenna nodded. “Yes.”

  “And may you have rushed into your relationship with him, and a Dominant before you wanted the man?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then don’t you think, if you have broken his trust and shown signs of seeking Dominance only, it is well in his rights not to leave any kind of reason for his leaving? While the civility and closure may be part of our teachings it may not fit you two as a couple, or your relationship. Honestly,” He leaned towards her to continue, his voice hushed. “You may have hurt his feelings, and made him feel much like you do now.”

  “I only wanted to please him.”

  “He needed to trust you. Particularly because of his situation. If he feels unable to behave as he deems appropriate, and you show signs both of wanting him to be that way, and also not respecting him in that manner, what is he to believe?”

  “Do you believe that Craig respects you?”

  “With every ounce of my heart. He respects me, but our relationship is D/s, not vanilla. We are together because of our mutual desires and our affection for each other.” He smiled sadly. “We are a good fit.”

  “But not enough for each other?”

  “It is not a matter of ‘enough’. It is not saying that I am lacking in any way becau
se of Master finding others. I know of them, and I know what he does with them. I also trust that if Master was unsatisfied with our relationship, he would let me know and try to fix it. We regularly make concessions with each other, because what we have is special and we wish to keep it. When we eat here, Craig eats vegetarian to show respect for me. He also only buys vegan toys. Any that aren’t are ones that he bought before me, and so I allow him to use them; to discard them would be wasteful.”

  She sighed deeply, her head dipped towards the table, wholly unable to meet his eyes. “What you have is such a question of give and take.”

  “And what you had wasn’t? Everything is, only you have to trust each other to give what is necessary and take only what is offered. You need to discuss any bounds that are broken and build your own to suit your relationship as it builds and shifts. You need to put the effort in, effort that is visible, so that Henry knows the significance of your situation, and how important he is to you as a person, regardless of his abilities. He needs to know that you would help him should he fail.”

  “That makes sense. But it would make more if only I knew where he was.”

  “I shouldn’t tell you, because Amelia has told Master, and he has told me that you are not to know.”

  “Please-“

  “But I am going to tell you anyway, because I know that Master will understand, and that I will be in little, if any, trouble for helping you. He is at Amelia’s.”

  “What?! But she didn’t say a word! I phoned her and-“

  “And she told you likely what he had said to say. As a councillor of sorts, I should tell you that he sent his words through Amelia and therefore you should do as she asked, knowing full well that they are the orders of your Dominant as well as the requests of your friend.”

  “You said as a councillor. What of as my friend?”

  “As your friend I think that you need to communicate to him how much you need him, not just his skills. I think that he needs to feel wanted. I overheard him talking to Craig and Amelia earlier, and he is fully aware of your ‘research’, which was rather wrong, by the way.”

  He knew. She felt herself slump a little further, that tiny hope that he didn’t know the extent of her failures extinguished.

  There was nothing left for her to do. What if he refused to see her? What is Amelia didn’t even allow her to ask him?

  She was off again, energy seeping off of her as she made her way along her new journey, the path that could lead her to happiness with the man of her dreams. It wasn’t her obsession with him, that initial spark that had filled her mind with something to latch on to.

  Her ankle twisted as she ran up the steps carelessly, shooting pain through her that meant nothing. She carried on, precariously making her way to the door, hammering the door as if there were an emergency. “Henry!” She yelled. “I love you! Henry!”

  The door swung open, taking away Jenna’s breath, but it wasn’t her missing lover.

  “If Henry wishes to talk to you, then he will be in touch.” Amelia told her stonily, her voice hard. “Unless you are here to speak to Dom or myself, I suggest you leave.”

  She barely gave Jenna a moment to consider, before she retreated back into her home, the heavy door closing shut behind her. Staring at it, it took Jenna a while to move. She was so close to him, why couldn’t he just come out? Did he feel that truly he owed her no explanation?

  She needed a plan.

  That night, restlessly she tossed and turned, the tiny sliver of parted curtains taunting her mercilessly. It wasn’t the light that kept her awake, instead it was that part of her that refused to sleep until it had analysed ever moment of their time together and found a solution, a sure way for him to forgive her and realise that he couldn’t be without her.

  But first she needed to show that she couldn’t be without him. She needed to inspire the same feelings of trust, love and safety that he invoked in her, to beg him to see things in the way that she did. Forget that Psychology bullshit, he needed to understand what it was like for himself, to feel what it felt like to be on the bottom.

  Growling softly to herself, Jenna rose, unable to remain beneath the stifling covers when all that consumed her was Henry, her essay and the lengths that she had gone to to hopefully please him, to show him how perfectly compatible she could be to his needs.

  She still didn’t know what they were. She wanted to learn them, to watch them interact fully with hers, but how could she know when he wouldn’t say? He had seldom spoken in terms of himself when they had been together, and it had been a mystery to her of both his past and present. He had withdrawn from her because of her breaching his privacy, and yet she herself could not trust him to communicate openly. She, who would not press any issue for fear of displeasing him, for fear of his finding her impertinent and unsuited to him.

  He would not give an inch out of role, and so she felt wholly unable to ask for more than that.

  If their roles were the issue, then she needed to force him to behave otherwise.

  Resolved in some way, but not in many others, Jenna abandoned her statute like stance in front of her small bedside table, and slipped awkwardly back into bed, her essay mocking her as it glared from its place on the polished wood. A small ring sat on it, the stain of a mug placed down without a coaster. Jenna took comfort in it, her small finger tracing over it mindlessly until finally she felt tired enough, at ease enough to drift off into sleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jenna was patient, she thought, in allowing Henry to stew on his own a while. He went to Amelia’s parties for the next three weeks, every time meeting some excuse as to why Henry was absent. She went about her routines as usual, only without Henry in it to make it feel valuable. She treasured the moments which she had spent with him, and keenly felt the loss of that comforting, loving being that had brought light into her colourless, pointless existence.

  Finally, she somewhat understood what her sister had been going through. Not her way of tackling the situation, but how she had come to such a state of ridiculousness in the first place. If she hadn’t made such a big thing about Jasmine’s behaviour, she imagined that she may behave somewhat similar. Instead, she brought every ounce of her stubbornness to the surface, losing many more nights’ sleep running around in circles that never lead her mind anywhere new until finally, finally she had an idea that may be crazy enough to work. If would require help, but surely even begging verbally would be better than crying loudly and exaggeratedly until someone decided to help simply because they couldn’t stand the racket any longer.

  “Please,” Her voice was thankfully steady, but her arms were wrapped tightly around herself as she stood in the doorway to Amelia’s home, the cold wind whipping her hair in front of her. “I’ll do anything, I promise. If he tells me to leave, then I will. I just need to try and gain back his trust. Even if he can’t forgive me, I at least want to apologise.”

  “You have disobeyed him by coming here.”

  Jenna took a deep breath, hugging herself tighter as if she would collapse otherwise. “He has taken himself out of a position that allows him to give me orders. To refuse to speak to me is simply a lack of respect.”

  “He isn’t here.”

  Jenna swallowed, her lips parting again to speak before she had even thought of how to respond. She couldn’t assume that it was a lie; it could easily be a truth. But she could only push so far.

  Thankfully, Amelia continued. “He has gone out, and will not be back until this evening.”

  “Do you know where he has gone?”

  “That is irrelevant. If you want to talk to him, come back this evening.” She raised her eyebrows. “And shouldn’t you be at work?”

  “I’m on my lunch break.” Jenna mumbled, already turning away. “I’ll see you later.”

  The next couple of hours went agonisingly slowly, punctuated by numerous cups of tea and far too many glances at the clock. She had her plan in force, and she had everything t
hat she needed for it in a waterproof bag that sat beneath her desk.

  All in all, she couldn’t be more prepared unless she already knew the outcome.

  She wanted to run over to Amelia’s the moment she left the godforsaken building, but evening could mean any time, couldn’t it? And she didn’t know where Henry had been, how long it had taken him to get there.

  What was there to do?

  Steeling herself for a long wait, Jenna scurried over to Amelia’s as quickly as possible, pounding on the door in her haste. It could work out better this way, she realised.

  If she was waiting for him, then surely she would have the upper hand? The element of surprise at least, even if Amelia had already informed Henry of her decision to barge her way, uninvited, back into his life.

  Dom answered the door, but he did so silently, the lack of clothes and lowered eyes betraying the situation to her.

  Any other time, she would blush. Now she came to the conclusion that Amelia was simply avoiding her, and making certain that she couldn’t grill Dom for information either.

  Infuriating woman.

  Dom lead her into the house and up the stairs, nodding towards a bedroom that Jenna had often stayed in after a long night of sulking in corners. It was, as Amelia used to call it, her ’brooding area’, and unless Jenna was present (and sulky), no one usually used it. It doubled up as the locked room in which any items which Amelia didn’t want to be destroyed or used lay. As well as any stock which was lingering about the house; she would go blue at the idea of her guests let loose on an order.

  Well, things would certainly be very lively.

  The idea of Henry in her room made Jenna smile softly, running her hands over the doorknob before experimentally opening it, her breath releasing in one relieved gust as it swung open. It was clean and tidy, the bed was made, the window was partially open and a glass of water rested on the bedside table. Henry’s bag lay, empty and folded down, beneath the bed, and Jenna blinked rapidly as she opened the wardrobe to see the sparse collection of clothes which had before resided beside her own. They smelled like him, but unfamiliar, too.