I blinked back a wave of tears. “I was just a bystander. I’m not going back there.”
“Damn right you’re not. Communicate openly with me, Gemma, about your concerns. That is what I ask you to do, that’s what we agreed. This,” he cocked is head towards the pegs, “doesn’t work unless I know exactly what you’re thinking, how you’re coping. How could you think I wouldn’t want to know about what happened today from you, my wife, not a bloody email. Jeez!” He moved away from me and kicked the bucket of pegs, which wobbled, almost toppling over.
Jason rushed at me, encasing my naked, vulnerable form in his arms. He crushed me, and his heartbeats rang in my ear. “God, Gemma, why do you bottle things up so much? Bury them. I thought you were being subbie on me, and all you are doing is hiding your emotions from me. Babe, don’t do this. Don’t make me think you’re okay when you’re not.”
“Jason, please, I didn’t hide from you. I thought you were distracting me, taking me somewhere, and I was being obedient to please you.”
“Obedient? This isn’t obedience. It’s acting. You were playing at being submissive.”
I sniffed, blotting my tears on his shirt. “I was willing. You could have put me there. You’ve done it loads of times before.”
“Only when I know the reason why you’re not there in the first place.” He tilted my chin up. “I’m not a mind reader.” A soft smile slipped across his face, displacing the displeasure.
Most days, Jason read my moods perfectly. I had to remember he was a busy man, exceptionally so, and he preferred concise spoken messages, not subliminal ones. I gave a small shrug. “I wish you were because telling you how I feel is so hard when
you’re Dominant. I’m used to the control, both expecting it and not fighting back.”
“Being a submissive doesn’t abdicate you from communicating with me. It doesn’t mean you submit or let me control you in a void, especially when you’re hurting inside. A scene is not a substitute for resolving bad days.”
“I know. I really thought you’d been told.” I had come home with such a need to please—my ideal kinky marriage rooted in my mind—I’d forgotten what an ordinary marriage was about, too. Communication was important in both types of relationships. “Sorry.”
“So am I, babe, for not reading you well. It’s been a long day, and I should have spotted the signs better. Things…there’s lots going on in work at the moment. I shall have words with Johnson. I should have been contacted in person straightaway, not via an end-of-day briefing. Important meetings don’t negate priorities, not when it comes to my family.”
Apologies done with, he put me to bed, covering me with the duvet.
“You don’t want a fuck?” I still harboured a sense of failing him.
“Not tonight. No fucking. Because I want to make love to you. When you’re ready, let me know, and I will be here for you.”
I watched him undress, eager to touch his skin. The moment he joined me, I couldn’t help myself. I lay in his arms and dredged up my unachievable wishes. I told him about my aspirations for normality: the life of an ordinary person, without the trappings of wealth. I told him I missed day-to-day mundane conversations about simple things. Not being at work, without the contact of people, had made me lose my way. He understood, not that he empathised. He’d never had that kind of need.
“There is no average life, though. You’re grieving for something that doesn’t exist. We have our this-thing-we-do lifestyle, but so do other people. Maybe not kink, but there are affairs, other perversions, secret habits and practices. We’re not alone in our extraordinariness. So stop seeking a life you don’t need or desire. You have me. I have you. I own you to keep you safe and happy. Keep giving yourself to me and you won’t want for anything else. You know that.”
I wrapped my body over his, feeling each rise and fall of his chest as he spoke. His cock hardened against my belly, my pussy filled with natural lubrication, and my eyes glistened with unshed tears. It was a simple task to slip over him, envelop his erection, and grip it tight, like a deep embrace. Each rise and dip of my body accompanied a pleasing groan from his lips. I lowered my mouth over his, breathing moist air down into his throat, and sighed with delight.
“Come, baby, come,” he whispered urgently.
Orgasm on demand had never been as easy as that night.
Chapter 5. A Bad Day
By the time the Easter bunny had left a large quantity of chocolate eggs for Joshua and the leaves had unfolded on the trees, my life continued to be mapped around the routines of family life.
Families occupied time and thoughts as Joshua grew from baby to toddler. My father decided to retire. He made the announcement one spring day. However, in reality, he’d opted to work as a part-time locum, the first step in winding down his long career as a pharmacist. My brother, John, and I were secretly relieved, and Mum wrestled between two minds—glad for his health, but unsettled by the idea my dad would be at home for longer periods, interfering in her daily routine.
John, and his wife, Andrea, had a newborn baby girl to keep them occupied. Evie Marshall, a wide-awake, hungry baby destined to be a redhead like her mum. For a while, Joshua slipped off the top of the doting grandparents’ list of priorities. I didn’t mind, Joshua had a cousin to play with, and I’d become an auntie.
Jason and I had agreed I would stop taking the pill and try for our second baby when Joshua reached eighteen months old. It made sense but, at the same time, my budding art gallery idea developed into a tangible building with layouts and the first exhibition mapped out. The idea of pregnancy, plus having Joshua, transformed the art gallery into an insurmountable goal and perhaps premature in its existence.
Jason insisted the unwritten future shouldn’t scupper the here and now. In other words, don’t count chickens before they’ve hatched. His words encouraged me to throw myself at the project while I had the time to do it.
For Jason and me the challenge was finding time to be together as a family unit. A constant barrage of events, pencilled into our combined diaries, marred weekends. Whether family visits or social functions, which Jason attended from time to time, our free time was regularly curtailed. My plans for the gallery filled my weekends as I sought out quiet time to think and review my ideas. Jason had stuck religiously to his Saturday afternoon work timetable, and he frequented the golf course on a Sunday, usually once a month.
I didn’t complain, my lack of planning was as much to blame, and I’d grown lazy when it came to being adventurous with my leisure time. It had been two years since my last visit to a nightclub and seeing my close friends, like Trudy, often relied on quick lunchtime rendezvous.
When the weather improved, I should have been keen to take Joshua out and about, but I enjoyed staying at Blythewood, taking him for a splash in the indoor pool or letting him loose in the garden while I sat on the patio trying to read up on the world of art dealing. Jason, in the end, decided we needed a break and not long after Easter, early on Sunday morning, when the weather turned warm and sunny, he announced a day trip to Brighton. As I prepared Joshua’s breakfast, one hundred things I had planned to do that day flashed through my mind.
“Today?” I slammed the spoon on the work surface.