Suddenly Leticia’s quizzical expression became concerned and self-conscious. “You can really tell that?”
I nodded. “But I won’t tell you how,” my smile was tantalizing. “It’s a secret I intend to keep.”
Chapter 13.
The fire was burning in the study, and I walked into the room and felt its musty comfort wrap around me. I loved this room – I loved what is represented, the sense of timelessness I felt when I was here… and I loved the memories. I loved that this room still carried lingering traces of Leticia. It wasn’t her perfume in the air nor was it anything tangible. It was in my memories. She had spent so much time in this room with me that to be here was to remember her.
I held the door open and Leticia came into the room. She swept passed me and I saw the same fond trace of a smile on her lips that reflected my own feelings. She went to the sofa and curled herself comfortably up in the corner like a graceful cat.
Another snapshot: another image of Leticia that would be burned into my mind forever. The firelight cast leaping dark shadows across the walls and painted the soft skin of her cheeks with a golden glow.
I took a deep breath and thrust my hands deep inside the pockets of my pants. I leaned against the cold wall and looked across the room at Leticia. She looked up into my face and her lips were slightly parted.
“Jonah, do you have an agenda – do you have a plan?”
I smiled. “Leticia, I have a plan for everything. What exactly do you mean?”
Leticia reached into her handbag for a notebook and pen. “I mean do you have a plan for us – for today?”
I nodded. “Of course¸” I said. “As I understand it, you need two more interview articles – one about BDSM in the bedroom, and another where you want me to talk directly to men, and try and reach them in their own terms about how to make love to women. Correct?”
Leticia nodded. “The editor wants the first article to be about the advantages of BDSM in the bedroom.”
I inclined my head. “Very well, then my plan is to spend the afternoon completing the articles that you require and then the evening showing you the delights a woman can experience when a man is committed to pleasing her with his mouth.”
There was a doubtful smile on Leticia’s lips – a suggestion that perhaps my plans for the evening were overly ambitious based on Leticia’s previous experiences.
I smiled back – confidently.
I started to pace around the room, organizing my thoughts while Leticia sat patiently waiting. I crossed back and forth in front of where she sat, and there was the pleasant distraction of the way she sat, for I could see the hard little points of her nipples through her blouse and the dark, mysterious triangle beneath her skirt between the fold of her legs.
“For many couples, moving to BDSM roles inside the bedroom can be a way to spark new energy into sex lives that are drifting into boredom,” I began. I glanced at Leticia. She was staring back at me.
“Aren’t you going to write this down?”
Leticia gave a little start and fluttered her hands. “Sorry! I didn’t realize you were just going to launch into the article. I thought you were talking to me…” She scrambled quick notes and then looked up again, ready to continue.
“But it is important that I make some things clear.” I stopped pacing to emphasize the next point. “BDSM in the bedroom will not work for every couple, and nor do I think it matters which person in the relationship assumes the dominant role – it can be the man, or the woman.”
Leticia made notes and I saw her underline several words.
“You will emphasize that point?”
Leticia nodded.
“Very well.” I started pacing the room again and then began to carefully explain my reasoning behind advocating the lifestyle for bored couples.
“Once a sexual relationship has become boring for couples, they often drift further apart. If neither partner accepts responsibility for adding spice to the sexual relationship, then there can never be a solution to the monotony of the few things they share in the bedroom. In other words, bored couples will settle into a routine, and then that routine will become less frequent, sometimes to the point where a sexual relationship barely still exists.
“In such cases, BDSM may – and I stress the word may – help drag those couples out of the quagmire of their boredom, and spark new excitement into their bedroom activities. But it is important, if couples choose to try BDSM activities, that one of them must completely hand over responsibility for their sexual activities and the other must willingly accept the role. There is no point in a woman approaching her husband and offering to submit to him, if the man is not truly committed to accepting the responsibility and continuing to explore and learn. If the man is not completely committed, then the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.”
I waited for a moment, watching Leticia write furious notes, and when she had finished she looked up at me with a question. “But the man can give responsibility to the woman, right?”
I nodded. “I have said that. I have said that it doesn’t matter which person hands responsibility over to the other – it only matters that the person who accepts the responsibility be committed and willing to continue to learn.”
Leticia fell silent, and looked slightly chastened. Then she asked another question suddenly. “Jonah, you make it sound like every married couple is destined to become bored with their sex lives. Surely you don’t think that?”
“Not every couple, Leticia,” I said. “But certainly most couples.”
Leticia did not look convinced. “How can you possibly believe that?”
I sighed. “Because men and women marry for the wrong reasons,” I explained. “Men marry a woman in the hope that she will never change. When they are courting, the girl is hot and passionate – she is full of sexual desire, and she can’t get enough of her man. But as soon as they marry – much to the man’s disappointment – the woman does change. Her focus drifts away from the man and onto homemaking. Similarly, women marry a man mistakenly thinking their love will be the thing that changes him. But apart from some pulp romance books, the reality is that a man will never change. That’s the contradiction of relationships. Men marry the woman hoping she will never change, and women marry a man hoping he will.”
Leticia frowned. “You’re very cynical.”
“I’m right.”
Leticia shook her head like she didn’t want to believe me. I didn’t have the time or the inclination to argue the point further.
I went on.
“Once the roles have been established, suddenly the potential for creating excitement in a couple’s bedroom returns. For many women who feel their husband has lost interest in them sexually, this can be a liberating experience, because it can often serve to reawaken the man’s interest. Once BDSM is introduced to the bedroom, it is no longer possible for previous routines to continue. Suddenly the man is confronted with the reality that he needs to create encounters that are interesting, yet still consistent with the roles of the dominant and submissive.”
Leticia threw down her pen suddenly.
I glanced at her. “Did you miss something?”
Leticia shook her head. “No. I’ve written it all down, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”
I stopped pacing. I had the sudden sense that I was going to need a drink. I went to the side table and poured half a glass of whisky. I glanced at Leticia again. She was frowning over her notes, shaking her head slowly as if trying to understand.
I filled the rest of the glass.
“Let me give you an example,” I said.
Leticia looked up and smiled. “I was hoping you would.”
“Let’s assume we have a couple who have been married for several years,” I was thinking on my feet. “For the first year or two, everything is fresh and exciting, and then suddenly routine takes over, so that once or twice a week the couple get together, and for a few brief moments the woman will use h
er mouth on the man, then for an even briefer time, the man will clumsily fondle the woman, and then he mounts her and brings himself to orgasm while the woman lays there thinking about the washing and what to make the kids for lunch the next day. Sound familiar?”
Leticia said nothing, but there was a hint of an embarrassed blush under her cheeks.
“Now, let us suppose the woman has appealed to the man and said that she would willingly submit to him if only he would set the agenda in the bedroom and learn about BDSM. What happens when that couple next enters the bedroom?”
Leticia looked at me then back to her notes, then back to me with sudden concern, as though I had asked her an exam question and she had been expected to answer.
She shrugged. “I… I don’t know.”
I smiled. “It’s okay – it was a rhetorical question. I’m about to tell you what happens…”
I sipped the whisky and carried the glass across to the window. The big, heavy drapes were drawn and I pried them apart and gazed out at the bleak, cold afternoon sky. “The man knows routine will no longer do – his wife expects him to take the lead. If he has any understanding of the BDSM lifestyle, he will know that he is now in control – and the very last thing a man ever wants to do is to fail in the eyes of his wife. So suddenly, he is confronted, and needs to make decisions. For the first few times, I have no doubt his efforts will be clumsy, and the sex will be awkward – but that’s not the point. The point is now the man must make decisions, and must assume control. For that reason alone, the sex the couples share will begin to change. As the man becomes more confident and more knowledgeable, he will discover that he no longer needs his wife’s permission to experiment with some of those darker fantasies he may have kept secret. Between an enthusiastic submissive and a keen but inexperienced Master, the sex life the couple share is likely to improve dramatically.”
Leticia sat back and nodded slowly. She clenched her fist and then relaxed her fingers like she was massaging away a cramp. “But this doesn’t work in all cases, right?”
“No, of course not,” I said. “And there are lots of things the couple needs to consider before committing to such a choice – things like trust, time, and naturally whether they have an interest in submission and domination. What I am saying, Leticia, is that if suitable couples find themselves drifting along with a boring sex life, then considering adopting BDSM roles might be a worthwhile way to re-spark their passion.”
Leticia slowly re-read her notes while I sipped at my whisky. Outside, clouds the color of old bruises obscured the pale, watery light of afternoon. I could see mist across the mountains and sensed darkness coming on with a premature rush.
“Jonah… is there any more you can tell me?”
I turned away from the window at the sound of Leticia’s voice. My smile was grim. “There is always more, Leticia. How much more do you need?”
Leticia didn’t answer me directly. “I think the editor was planning on giving these articles quite a lot of space,” she said. “If you have more you can tell me about the advantages of BDSM in the bedroom, I’d rather go to him with too much rather than too little.”
I pushed myself away from the windowsill and set the whisky glass down on the mantle piece over the fireplace and spent a long time staring into the flames.
“Leticia, people come to the BDSM lifestyle at different times in their life, and from different places. In recent years, there has been a lot of interest from women, who have become fascinated and intrigued by the concept of sexually submitting themselves to dominant men. The problem for these women has always been how to share their sudden spark of enthusiasm in something as exotic as BDSM with the man in their life – especially if that man has never shown any tendencies of being dominant in the bedroom, or never expressed an interest in the lifestyle. For so many women their fascination and urge to submit remains unrequited, simply because they are with the wrong partner – the wrong man to fulfill their fantasies. In these cases – and there are thousands of such women – they either take the drastic step of leaving their partner in pursuit of their fantasy, or they seek out a Master who can secretly satisfy their desires in order to maintain their marriage… or they immerse themselves in the secret fantasies of their imaginations, knowing it will never be their reality.”
Leticia looked somber. “It sounds like a problem that can never be solved, Jonah.”
I shrugged. “On one level, I think it’s encouraging that so many women are discovering that secret, sexual part of them that perhaps they never knew existed, or that their man had never been able to reveal in them. But on the other hand, the real issue is how to teach men how to behave – how to re-educate men and encourage them to learn and understand more about their wife’s sexual needs. The erotic romance books that women so veraciously devour to feed their fantasies are not the same books that many men would also be comfortable reading. Until women find a way to educate and inspire their man in a manner he is comfortable with, then the world will continue to be filled with frustrated wives and women searching for satisfaction and fulfillment.”
Leticia looked solemn. “Do you have a solution, Jonah?”
I shook my head. “Maybe your newspaper articles will help, because men tend to treat articles in newspapers and magazines much more seriously than they regard cheap paperback romance novels. Men respond differently to women, and so educating them needs a different approach.”
“What about self-help books for men? You know, like BDSM in ten easy steps for guys… that kind of book?” Leticia offered.
I shook my head. “That might work for some men, but not many men are willing to acknowledge the fact that their wife is unsatisfied in the bedroom, or that they may be an inadequate lover in some way. Men’s egos are far too fragile – especially when it comes to their sexual prowess. Every man likes to think he is God’s gift to women… so I can’t see your self-help book being a best seller.”
Leticia smiled and nodded, maybe accepting the truth of it, and we both lapsed into silence for a long time. I went back to the window – nightfall was coming on with a rush. In truth, I had never really considered how a woman in a frustrated relationship might be able to reach out to the man in her life. My focus had always simply been on learning the subtle art of pleasing women, and giving them an insight into what it was like to submit their bodies and minds to a dominant man.
I thrust my hands deep into my pockets, hunched my shoulders and closed my eyes, concentrating.
Leticia must have been watching me. “Well here is your chance to connect with those men, Jonah,” Leticia said at last. “You said that you thought newspaper articles were the best way to reach male readers because they treat those articles more seriously than fiction. But how do you get an important message like this through to men, especially if those men don’t feel as though they need to change what they do in the bedroom?”
I nodded heavily – and then a sudden flash of inspiration struck me. I wheeled away from the window. “With humor,” I said, “and we put the message into terms that a man can easily relate to.”
Leticia picked up on my sudden insight, but still looked bewildered. “What relatable subject did you have in mind?”
“Cars.”
Leticia blinked and then began to shake her head slowly. “You want to write an article comparing women to cars in such a way that men will get the message about sex and satisfying their partners?”
I nodded. Words and ideas were jumbling around in my head. I started to pace across the floor. “Write this down,” I snapped abruptly before the trail of ideas went cold in my mind.
Leticia snatched up her pen and leafed through her notebook to a blank page. I started talking, and as I did the ideas began to bloom in my imagination.
“Every man should look at the woman in his life as if they were a luxury European sports car,” I began. “Some men own new models, and other men have classics. But the point is that every European sports car has lovely, flowing
lines, and the ability to reach peak performance provided the man behind the wheel knows how to drive, knows where he is going, and knows how to get the most out of his car.”
I paused for a moment and Leticia looked up at me with a tiny frown of concentration. She had her pen poised above the page, but she looked mystified. “Um… Jonah… Are you sure you want to keep going with this idea? I’m not so sure women readers are going to like being compared to a car…”
I spun around. “You wanted an article that men would read and relate to, correct?”
Leticia nodded slowly.
“Then trust me. Women may not like the analogy, but if the message gets through, then they will appreciate the impact. And what do I care if women approve or disapprove of my methods?” I shrugged.
Leticia raised her eyebrows and inclined her head in surrender. She shrugged, and bowed back over her notebook.
“The first thing a man needs to understand about luxury sports cars is that they are a stick-shift – they’re not an automatic. A man can’t just slam his foot down on the accelerator because he is in a hurry to get where he wants to go,” I said. “In order for the car to respond the man has to work his way up through the gears… and also understand that women are full of tight curves. Racing to his objective is only going to bring the man undone. He has to be prepared to slow down sometimes, go back down through the gears before he can begin to accelerate again.”
I waited for a moment before Leticia finished jotting notes, and when she looked up into my face this time, she was no longer speculative. There was a trace of an ironic smile on her lips. “Very clever…”
I nodded and went on. “Luxury sports cars all have an individual key that gets their motor running. Women are exactly the same. A man needs to use the right key if he ever hopes to warm a woman’s engine up. For some women that key may be the BDSM lifestyle. For others it might be drawn out moments of foreplay… but no man can hope to get a woman’s engine running smoothly if he tries using the wrong key. She just won’t start – or if she does, the ride will be damned uncomfortable.”