By the time lunch rolled around, the tension headache was threatening to turn into a full-blown migraine. Even Tony noticed.
“You feeling okay?”
“Working on a migraine.”
“You want to go home?”
“Not really. I’ll tough it out.”
Jenny had texted him a couple of times during the day, trying to be flirty and sexy, and he’d told her about his headache, hoping he didn’t hurt her feelings too much.
But then the sexy texts had stopped.
He felt badly about that, too. Like maybe he’d hurt her feelings.
I can’t fucking win.
But he’d created this mess by going along with it. He’d have to deal with the fallout like a man.
Finally, a few minutes before five, Tony put his foot down. “Dude, you look like hell. You sure you can even drive?”
He carefully nodded. “I’ll be okay. I’ve had worse.” He suspected the headache wouldn’t go away until he could get the talk with Jenny over with.
“If you need to call off tomorrow, do it. Work from home. I don’t want you getting in a wreck.”
“I appreciate that.”
Hell, he couldn’t even tell Tony what happened. Because he knew if he tried, he’d be puking his guts up in the parking lot.
And Tony wasn’t a parent. He didn’t know what it was like to have kids. He wouldn’t understand.
It took Mike nearly twenty minutes longer than usual to get home. He drove slowly, hoping he hadn’t overestimated his abilities.
Jenny was already home. He’d hoped he’d make it there before she did, but no such luck.
When he walked in and eased his laptop bag down onto the couch, she’d started to walk into the living room when she spotted him. “Mike?” Then she ran to his side. “Oh, honey, you look like hell. Come sit down. What can I get you?”
He knew if he chickened out now, he’d never get it done. He grabbed her hand and made her sit on the couch with him. “We need to talk.”
“What’s wrong?”
He couldn’t even look her in the eye. He closed his, which made his throbbing head only feel marginally less painful. “We can’t do this…stuff. I thought I could, but I can’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“BDSM. Yesterday, that was like a sign. What if I’d had you tied up in the living room?” Thank god he hadn’t, because that had been his first idea.
She let out a snort of laughter. “Well, then I guess Mikey would have learned to call first.”
He shook his head. “You know what I mean. What if he’d heard…seen. I just…”
“Wait a minute. What are you saying?”
He didn’t mean to yell it, but it came out that way. “I can’t fucking let my dick do stupid things, okay?”
She drew back from him. “Michael Kennedy, what the hell is wrong with you?”
“We just go back to the way things were, all right?” He didn’t have the energy to explain the subtleties to her right then. It was all he could do to not throw up all over her as his headache flared like a nuclear explosion inside his brain.
She stood. “No, it’s not fucking all right! This is our time, Mike. This is for us. Even you said that. We’ve raised our son and now it’s time for us. What the hell is wrong with you? We had a great time the other night, and then yesterday morning.”
“And then Mikey almost walked in on us. How am I supposed to explain that to him?”
“He’s a damn adult now. He can read about BDSM. He’s probably masturbated to Internet porn that’s kinkier than what we’ve done!”
Mike slowly shook his head. “I don’t care. I don’t want him to think what we’re doing is okay. That hitting a woman is okay.”
She stared at him, jaw dropped. “Hello, I thought we’d moved past that already. You were not being abusive to me. I liked it. I wanted it. I still want it. I need it.”
“Well, I need to feel okay with myself. We’ll have to find some other way to reconnect, because I can’t do this.” He got up and lurched toward the guest bath, the closest toilet, because his stomach wouldn’t wait any longer.
She followed him in. “You’re just upset, Mike. You’re not thinking clearly, and you don’t feel good—”
“I am not my goddamned father!” he screamed before leaning over the toilet bowl. “You need to accept that about me.”
“What about my needs?”
“You didn’t need me to smack you around all these years, so why start now?”
“Unbelievable. I cannot believe you’re acting like this.”
* * * *
Jenny felt torn between being a shitty wife for fighting with Mike when he felt like crap, and pissed off that he was being so stubborn about this.
He’d been all-in—literally—up until Mikey interrupted them yesterday. There wasn’t anything forced about how he’d acted.
It’d felt like they were a new couple again.
“I don’t want to give this up,” she said. “I want us to keep doing it.”
His eyes dropped closed. “Then I guess we have a problem.”
Lots of responses ran through her head, none of them kind, and most of them downright bitchy and mean. Rather than saying something she’d never be able to take back, she turned and ran, grabbing her keys, purse, and phone from where they sat on the bookshelf next to the front door. Slamming the door behind her, she stormed to her car, tears streaming down her face.
She was already in the car and driving toward Shayla’s house when she realized she might better call first.
She pulled over and dialed her friend.
When Shayla answered, Jenny didn’t even explain. “I need to talk to you. Right now. Please? Can I come over?”
“Sure, what’s wrong, honey? You sound horrible. Is everything okay?”
“I…I can’t explain on the phone. Please?”
“Come on over. Loren’s here, too. Is that okay?”
“Even better. Thanks. I’ll be there in a few.” She hung up. Before she could put down her phone, Mike tried calling her.
She sent it straight to voice mail, silenced her phone, and tossed it into the passenger seat.
Fuck. Him.
He couldn’t dangle her dream right in front of her and then snatch it from her grasp just because their son was a bonehead.
That wasn’t fair.
Mike had been perfect. Everything she’d wanted.
And now he wanted to take it away from her without even talking about it first.
I don’t want to give it up.
And if she couldn’t get him to change his mind, she honestly didn’t know what she’d do.
Chapter Nineteen
When Jenny pulled into Shayla’s driveway, she saw Loren’s car parked there, too. Both women met her at the front door and wore nearly identical expressions of concern that made Jenny burst into tears again.
“Okay, calm down, sweetie,” Shayla said as she escorted Jenny in and closed the door behind her. “What happened?”
“Nothing’s happening!” Jenny said, finally calming down and recounting what happened with Mike. “And that’s the problem! He can’t just give me a little taste of this and then back out.”
“Actually,” Loren said, “he can.”
She stared at her friend, shocked. “What? I thought you’d be on my side on this one.”
“It’s not that I’m on a side,” Loren said. “But I’ve seen this before. The guy gets freaked out when he’s really not a Dominant. A lot of pressure gets put on him—”
“But I’m not putting any pressure on him!”
The other two woman gave her those stares. Stares that said, Really?
“I didn’t think I was putting pressure on him,” she finally admitted. “I thought he liked what we were doing.”
“Some guys,” Shayla said, “are just naturally dominant. You don’t need to tell or instruct them. They were just hard-wired that way. Some guys, society
and upbringing and whatever else has short-circuited that wiring, and you have to patiently help them rebuild it. But some guys, they just aren’t dominant. The internal wiring for it was never there. There’s nothing wrong with that, either, because it’s just who they are. And trying to force them to be dominant when they’re not is no more fair than some dominant guy trying to force a woman to be a submissive when she’s not.”
Jenny hadn’t really thought about it that way.
Well, she had, but she’d hoped it didn’t apply in their case.
“I need this,” Jenny finally managed. “I really do. I didn’t think I did, but I do.”
“And that,” Loren gently said, “is something you and Michael will have to work out together.”
“But what if we can’t?” She didn’t want to cry again, but she felt pretty damn close to it. “What if he really can’t do this? What if he won’t back down and refuses to do it anymore?”
She didn’t miss the knowing look Shayla and Loren shared.
“Sometimes,” Shayla said, obviously choosing her words with care, “people grow apart. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“But I love him. We’ve been together twenty-five years. We have a son.”
“You two have literally lived an entire lifetime together since you met,” Shayla said. “People change. Look how you’ve changed just in the past few weeks.”
Jenny didn’t want to admit failure. She wouldn’t give up her marriage over something like this.
She also didn’t want to give up that deep-seated craving inside her, the one that wanted to be kneeling in front of Michael with his hand in her hair and that voice in her ear.
“Look,” Loren said, “this isn’t the end of anything. It’s just a bump in the road. It’s a warning that you are going to have to sit down and have a really deep discussion with your husband. If you need any of us there, whether for help or just for moral support, we’ll be there. But you guys sort of jumped into this without a lot of preparation. You had an idea of what you wanted, he had an absolutely clear idea of what he did not want. But the two of you never really sat down and drew the lines in the sand, did you?”
Jenny slumped back on the couch and covered her face with her hands. “Crap. How did this get so messed up? I thought this would be fun. Spice things up. I never thought it’d get this far. That I’d go this far. That we would…”
She rubbed at her eyes. “Did I just irretrievably screw up my marriage?”
“Doubtful,” Shayla said. “But things will never be the same now. You can choose to do the unhealthy thing, ignore what happened, pretend it didn’t, and soldier on. Or you can face it head-on and see what you can make of the new status quo. He might surprise you.”
“Yeah,” Loren agreed. “No offense, sweetie, but you seem to be operating on worst-case assumptions at this point.”
Jenny finally dropped her hands, but she kept her eyes closed and her head tipped back on the sofa. “I love him,” she said. “He’s my best friend, my soul mate. I don’t want anyone but him. I just want him to be more…dominant. To be my Dominant.”
“Something else that might be hard to hear,” Shayla said, “but if you really want to be his submissive, then you can’t top from the bottom and determine what form his dominance takes.”
Now Jenny looked at her friends. “You just told me I have to talk to him.”
“Of course you do,” Loren said. “You need to tell him what you want and need, as well as what’s off the table. What you do not expect of him. But if he wants to take it from there, if you’re serious about doing this as a lifestyle and not just a little bit of bedroom play, then you have to let go and let him do it.”
“I want more than just in the bedroom,” Jenny admitted. “I want us to live it. The way you two live it.”
“The way we live it,” Loren said, “is different from each other. And there’s nothing wrong with just playing around in the bedroom, either, you know. That might be where you need to set your starting point.”
“I don’t want to just do it in the bedroom.”
“If he doesn’t want to do it anywhere except in the bedroom,” Shayla said, “that’s what you’ll have to accept.”
Jenny stood and paced Shayla’s living room. “But I know he can do this. You didn’t see the way he was like that first night. He came home from work and…” She stopped, staring out the window that overlooked Shayla and Tony’s backyard. “It was…magic. And then yesterday morning, before our son showed up and interrupted us—”
She did not want to burst into tears again right now, but she felt them coming and was unable to stop them.
Shayla and Loren joined her by the window, engulfing her in a hug. “You have to walk before you run,” Loren gently said. “Yeah, I know it might look like some people just jump in with both feet, and some can. But this is real life, not a book.”
“I know,” Jenny whispered, wondering what happened to her equilibrium. “I just…I want this.”
With the exception of her marriage and her son, she wanted it more than anything.
She’d finally felt alive for the first time in…ever.
And she didn’t want to lose that feeling. Not when it was so close, just within her grasp.
“I know,” Shayla said. “But he has to want it, too. I’m sure if the two of you just sit down and talk it out, you’ll find a middle ground that works for you both.”
“Does he even know you’re here?” Loren asked her.
She took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together. “No. After I blew up, I left. I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Maybe you should go home and talk to him,” Shayla said.
“What if he says no, we’re not doing this anymore?”
“That’s still a roll of the dice,” Loren said. “Again, quit thinking about the worst-case scenario. As your friend, I’m going to give you a little tough love, here. You need to put on your big-girl panties and deal with it head-on and settle it. You might find talking this out with him, in great and uncomfortable details, gets you exactly what you want.”
Loren’s words stung all the more because Jenny knew they were dead-on true.
“You’re right.”
“Yeah, I’m right.” She hugged Jenny again before stepping back. “Running away from a problem never solved anything. And yes, as your friends, you absolutely can cry on our shoulders any time you need to, and we’ll be here. But in this case you’ve had your cry, you’ve hashed it out with us, and the only thing you can do at this point is go home and hash it out with the only other person who really matters in this equation.”
After a trip to the bathroom to wash her face and pull herself together, Jenny took a long, hard look at herself in the mirror.
I’m a mess.
Why couldn’t this be easy? Why did this have to be hard?
A conversation she’d had with Mikey a couple of years earlier returned to mind. He’d groused a little about how hard it was to decide on an Eagle project, and the work it would entail.
She also remembered her advice to him.
“If you really want it, you’ll figure it out. Whining solves nothing. I’ll give you suggestions, but you have to do the work. If it was easy, it wouldn’t be special, and everyone would be an Eagle Scout.”
It was true then, and it still applied.
I have to do the work.
She just hoped Michael was willing to do the work with her, because otherwise, she knew she’d have to settle for less than what she really wanted. There was no way she’d scuttle her marriage over this.
Scuttle her own hopes and dreams, yes.
Wasn’t like she hadn’t done that once already in her life, when she walked away from a chance at grad school to take time off to be a mom. That hadn’t been Michael’s choice, either, but her own. He’d promised to do whatever it took to help her get through school and shoulder the burden of working and taking care of Mikey, but instead she’d chosen to
skip grad school.
Big-girl panties in place…check.
When she emerged from the bathroom, Loren and Shayla were waiting for her in the living room. Jenny gave them both hugs and forced a smile she didn’t feel. “Thanks again for listening to me.”
“Feeling a little better?” Shayla asked.
She shrugged. “Calmer. Not necessarily better.”
“Go home and talk to him,” Loren said. “And let us know what happens, okay?”
“Thanks.”
After a final round of hugs, they saw her out and Jenny got behind the wheel of her car.
On the passenger seat lay her phone.
She didn’t dare pick it up. She didn’t want to read any texts, or see he’d left voice mails.
Or if he hadn’t done either.
In that case, she didn’t want to know.
* * * *
Michael lay on his side of the bed, a cold, wet washcloth over his forehead and eyes and with his phone in his hand.
Jenny hadn’t answered his calls or responded to his texts. All he had to go on was the text he’d received from Tony an hour before.
Shay just texted me. Jenny’s at our place talking to her and Loren. Call me if you need to talk.
He didn’t think he could have handled the situation any worse if he’d tried. He’d never realized how deep this need had rooted inside his wife. Nothing before in their marriage had hinted at this.
He’d been happy and content, and considering they’d been able to talk about things, he’d thought she was happy and content.
Damn books.
No, that wasn’t fair, and he knew it. He couldn’t blame the books. He couldn’t blame anyone.
Are we going to end up being one of those couples who have nothing left in common after the kids leave the nest, so they divorce?
He desperately hoped not.
Or maybe this had been something inside her all the time and she’d kept it carefully concealed from him, just waiting until Mikey was grown and out the door to finally reveal it.
Maybe I was just too clueless to see it.
That was irony for you. Financially, they were at the strongest point ever in their marriage. Hell, their retirement was pretty much guaranteed at this point from the money they’d put away, dedicatedly managing their 401k plans, and being careful with finances. Mikey’s academic scholarships hadn’t hurt any, either. Not to mention, they now had free time to spend together however they wanted.