Chapter 13

Suzanne was in bed and asleep when Andrew got back, it was later than he thought, so he undressed quietly and slipped in behind her. He had warmed his hands up while cleaning his teeth so there were no squeals of outrage when he snuggled in. After the lazy morning of the previous day Andrew was up and away running while it was still dark. Suzanne grumbled at being roused but got changed and joined him at the pool. After showering and getting dressed they were sitting having toast and coffee.

“Any plans for today?”

“None. I am going to see Mhairi and Grace at Drummonds on Monday, but the weekend is quiet. All the business stuff is dealt with until the summer. My exams are the first two weeks of 3^rd term so I am just going to study for the break. At Cambridge, here and in London. What about you? Anything you want to do?”

“Let’s go for a walk. There is still a lot that we are avoiding and need to talk about.”

Andrew looked at her and she didn’t flinch from his gaze.

“Okay. Do you want to change?”

Suzanne looked down at her jeans and heavy jumper.

“No. It is bloody freezing out there and I am not wearing a dress, not even for you.”

He smiled at her indignant expression, and stood and took her hand.

“It wasn’t the top layers I was suggesting you change.”

Taking Suzanne through to their room Andrew pulled the jumper over her head, undid and removed the shirt, lifted the camisole over her head and unhooked and removed her bra. The flat was warm and cozy and so it wasn’t the cold that caused her nipples to perk up. Another minute had her jeans off and she was standing in just her socks and knickers. Suzanne’s eyes widened when Andrew carefully removed the playsuit from one of the dresser drawers and after arranging it properly, held it for her to step into. The two bottom loops were snug against the tops of her thighs, and after spinning her round so that she faced away from him he fastened the buckles across the back of the playsuit, one at the waist and one below her neck. All this time she stood there silently, letting him first undress and then start to redress her. Other than her bra she was dressed identically as before. All that was different was the snug playsuit. And the impact of that was only 10% physical.

They dressed for a miserable Scottish winter day and as always, the miserable was and is redundant. There are no other kind of Scottish winter days. Jackets, gloves, scarves and toques were all gathered and they headed to the car. It was not the day for a walk along the coast braced against the gales so instead they headed to an old railway line that was now an easy flat scenic walk, sheltering them from the worst of the wind. Once wrapped up against the weather they headed off, Suzanne holding his hand. Andrew waited to let her start.

“I have been hiding this term, from everyone including myself. Living with Nikki and Fran is wonderful but the only thing they ever asked from me is that I bring no one back to the flat, regardless of whether it is a woman or a man. I knew that last year and I knew it this year as well. So I have to play away from home all the time. I have gone back to a guy’s place two or three times during the term, just to get laid, to keep me from going completely insane. But as to my need to be dominated, it is a total washout. I have no idea how to deal with that part of my sexuality, how to bring it up with anyone, how to find other people in my situation, nothing. As you can imagine I am a confused mess with all this. So there is the first part. Then there is us. When I spoke to you in April I made a real mess of it, but we managed to reconnect both in June and especially in September. That got us so far, but it didn’t really address the coming year, next summer anything like that. So I am a horny, unhappy, confused mess. Thank heaven for my course and especially the pool.”

She stopped for a moment but Andrew could tell there was more.

“You are the only person in the whole world who really gets me Andrew, the only person that I let behind the curtain. You have been the rock beside me for more than six years. I grew up with you, became a woman with you, explored so many parts of my life, and my sexuality with you. You are the perfect partner, adventurous, not judgemental, fantastic in the sack, everything. I have been the one in the last two years who has talked about us having an expiration date, not you. It took me a while to realise it but you never said that over the summer after 1^st year. So rather than just fuck our brains out and ignore everything else I think we should try and figure out what is going on.”

Again there was a pause before she continued.

“So here is the state of me, right at this moment. I am fit and healthy, and I am cruising through my course. That is the sum total of everything that is settled. That is the bulk of my current life so it is not insignificant. But I don’t know what I want to do when I graduate; I am not even certain that it is Edinburgh anymore; I like women as well as men; and I am submissive sexually, but not in other aspects of my life. I am lost as to how to deal with that last one and it is paralysing the rest of my thinking.

“There has never been an us Andrew, through conscious choice on both our parts. But I want you to listen to this next bit closely, because it is at the heart of a lot of my thinking. You are my best friend and you are unique, in the true meaning of the word. In the interests of having you not run away I will skip the roll call of your life and accomplishments. But from my perspective I will say that I worry and struggle with reciprocating or bringing to the table even 10% of what you do. And saying that now is the product of years of thinking about it. And, by the way, that inequality will apply to all but the tiniest fraction of women. You don’t want a trophy wife, a big titted bimbo, and you don’t want someone connected or known or influential that will pave the way for your life going forward. You have been clear for many years that you want a partner in a real way. Smart, opinionated, with plans for a career of her own.

“I have to tell you that as someone who measures up to most of those requirements, and in addition has known you for years, you are difficult to help. Not to get to know, not to have a friendship or a relationship with but to bring something to the partnership. You don’t want a stay at home mum figure, happy to build a family life in the community, like my mother or Leslie’s or Julian’s. You want to ask about my day and listen for 40 minutes while I talk about planning regulations in the Scottish Borders versus in Grampian, how they are different and the impact, either positive or negative, on my project. And you do that already, in terms of the course, my summer job, things like that.

“But you are a force of nature, especially when you get going. I don’t know if it will ever slow down, although I think it will have to, but look at your life. What can someone do to help you? You have achieved so much with this incredible network of friends and colleagues. What can I bring to the partnership Andrew? You want a smart and intelligent woman but how do I, how does anyone, be an equal partner in the combined ‘us’. That is the part that drives my expiration date thinking. One day you will find someone better than me.”

Suzanne’s face was teary Andrew could see she was leaking emotion. For once he ignored it and walked along thinking about what she had said. A tough son to parent, a tough brother to be the sister of, and now a tough man to be happily married to. The last seven years kaleidoscoped past him, an endless blurred jumble of situations but Andrew could not refute what Suzanne said. He had helped a lot of people over the years but other than Leslie there had been very little the other way. A lot of his break-ups and drifts apart were clearer through this new lens. Katie and Tanvi in particular jumped to mind. But even at university, Abi, Helena, Rupashi all backed away or never got close. It was going to take a lot of thought, and probably another walk and talk with Leslie to talk this through. It also mirrored what Ara had talked about five weeks earlier.

“So there is part of my problem. Then there are the whole two cities, never together parts of the problem as well. That is merely timing and logistics and we know that can be resolved, will be resolved in 18 months. But it does not make things easy at the moment.”

There was another of the pauses in the conversation.

“And then there is the issue of my sexuality. Which is just a huge ball of messed up thoughts and desires. Do you know what I spent the whole drive here thinking about? What it meant when you dressed me in the playsuit. I can feel it now, it is not painful or constricting or anything like that, it is just there. Different than normal and a constant reminder. And it just brings into stark relief everything else that I talked about. I want to be the kind of woman that you are attracted to, and not for you but for me. I want to be independent, with a career, and with a partner that supports me and respects me, and someone that I can be the same for him. But I also need this. I need to submit to that person, I need his, or her, dominance.

“That was what made this morning so good. You didn’t ask, you didn’t explain, you just stripped me and dressed me in the playsuit before coming out here. It never occurred to me to refuse. So just to add to the emotion of all the talks today I am also ready to go off like an Apollo rocket. Excited and yet scared at the same time. Scared that you get me so easily, and you can get me off so easily but also scared because this is the first time in three months that this has happened and it feels wonderful.”

She sighed and Andrew sensed that she was done for the moment. This had been a brain dump of epic proportions. He pulled Suzanne into a big hug and held her as he sorted through it all in his head. They separated and he started to respond.

“There is a lot to unpack in all of that so let me whittle away at a few. The notion of women not sure what they bring to a relationship with me is something that I will have to think about and will definitely talk about further. I finally get my house back after five years at the end of June. It will have been rented out for all that time and I have only ever been in it once. And that was right after I purchased it and we had to use a ladder to get to the upper floors because the staircase had been removed to let the main floor be used as a garage. This will be my home both this coming summer and going forward after graduation. If you want to get a summer job in London then you would have somewhere to stay.”

He didn’t think it was the right moment to mention his plan to redecorate the flat.

“It would let you see what other options there are for you with regard to your career. There is a pool three stops over on the Tube from Jim and Freya’s flat that I use most days when I am in London. As for us, I think that we continue to see if there is an us. I am stopping modelling after I graduate. Technically I have to do one more week after graduation but I am not carrying on. I am going to be living in London in my house and working there, probably doing engineering. I have an engineering company set up and I found offices this month that I am trying to buy. That is the settled part of my life as far as I know it right now. There are five more terms left before we graduate and the distance makes it difficult. You know I will support you any way I can.”

Andrew stopped and settled himself.

“One of the things that shook me in April was how definite you were, how you were almost dismissive of me.”

He held up his hand to stay her interruption.

“Let me carry on, it will become clearer. I have learned all about your sexuality through you, often at the same time as you. You know that I have no problem fucking with your head and trying to make things as real for you as possible. You also know that I don’t like spanking you, and it is a real struggle for me. I don’t like doing that to you, however much you enjoy it yourself. But I very clearly remember in the sex shop in Hamburg seeing a spanking video as I walked by and thinking to myself ‘we should try that, Suzanne would love it’.”

Andrew stopped again with a sigh.

“What I am trying to say is that I found myself excited about doing something that weeks or months earlier I had found unsettling. I have not talked about this because I wasn’t sure I liked who I was becoming. You know I will never be a true dominant, it is just not in my nature, but I felt then and I feel now that I can give you most of what you want. Actually it is more accurate to say what I think you want. If you want to me to help you with your desires either short term until you find someone more naturally suited for it, or longer term as a couple then I need more information to help me understand what you want from me. I don’t think I can or should guess, it makes more sense for you to help me understand what I need to do.”