Chapter 3: Fond Farewell

About six months later, Jenny McEwan finally gets to start writing up the notes she will use as the foundation of the research proposal that she hopes will eventually lead to her doctoral thesis.

Jenny's Recollections

I watch as Joe tosses his case into the back of the taxi. He turns back towards the house for a moment and waves before getting in. We've been together three years now and I've found the partings getting harder and harder. It's difficult too know which is worse; the going away or the coming back again. The closer we get to his going away, the more I feel like I'm walking on egg shells when it comes to anything about us.

Well, maybe it's the work. This time he's going to Cambodia, north of Phnom Penh, working with the Vietnamese, helping the Cambodians to upgrade the water supply network there, Joe says. He's only to be away two weeks this time, but the trip after this will be for almost three months. I'm quite proud of him really. It's sort of heroic, I guess. At least, I say to myself, I've got something to think about while he's not here, on top of what I want our relationship to be, whether it is going where I want it to go. Assuming I know.

Maybe I'm just trying for too much. Most of the time we bump along quite happily, but I think we're missing out on something. Joe is a loving guy but, well, sometimes it seems like he's happy to let things just drift along. I like to have time to chill out and relax, but I just feel there ought to be more to it than that. When we got together I guess his steadiness and the quiet, determined, way he approached life were some of the things that attracted me to him. Now, I'd just like to see a bit of passion about something sometimes. Especially about me.

There's always plenty to think about outside of home. My job at the University is demanding, but I think I am good at it. I graduated six years ago. I'm working as a researcher in the department of psychology and I feel I am making good progress towards my doctorate. The only problem there is Professor Dawney and that's my own fault.

The two of us had a short, tempestuous, affair while I was working for my master's degree. I've always had an interest in the BDSM lifestyle - well more than an interest I guess, if I'm honest - and we met by chance at a munch. We discovered that it was a passion that we both shared. The professor and I found that our drives fitted neatly one with the other; me submissive, Professor Dawney very much the dominant partner. Subsequently, we managed to run our relationship without upsetting the university. It was hardly the first time that an academic had got involved with a student and besides Dawney wasn't one of my tutors.

Then, two things happened. I finished my master's and got a junior teaching post at the university. Shortly after, I met Joe McEwan and found myself swept up in a romantic dream of a future life with him, even if things aren't looking like turning out that way right now. That was when I told Dawney that I couldn't go on with our relationship.

The professor seemed to understand — eventually.

When Joe and I started our life together it was fine at first. Well it still is. Fine, that is. It's just that I'd like it to be better, more than just 'fine'. Maybe part of the problem for me is that he gets really closed off before he goes away on one of his trips. It's like he feels he's already on his way and doesn't want to be confused with stuff from around home. That hurts, because I really want to have a close and loving goodbye each time Joe goes away.

Also, we never really found a way to make the BDSM thing work between us. He seemed — well - diffident about it. And, when I tried to raise it he'd back away, saying it wasn't "appropriate" - whatever that meant. It wasn't that he disapproved; he enjoyed the tales I used to tell him of some of my more outrageous escapades from before we met.

One of my boyfriends was keen on fetish clubs and we used to go together. It felt great to be dressed all in rubber and led in chains into a room to sit at his feet all evening. Then there was the time a girl friend and I had decided to go to a fancy dress party as a sheikh and a harem slave. It had seemed like a great idea but she'd got hold of some slave manacles that she could lock on me. The bitch left me behind in our flat while she had a great time at the party with the guy I'd been planning to hit on. Then, when she got back, she left me chained up while she bonked the guy senseless in the next room. By the time he left, I was so hot for it that we just fell on each other. There were a few more times like that. Somehow it was always me that ended up in rope or handcuffs or straps. But, then, that was how I liked it.

Joe found the tales a turn on all right. But they didn't make him want to try any of it.

I guess it seemed more that he felt it wasn't right for him, or for him and me. But it didn't matter. Or, at least I told myself it didn't matter.

I guess that's why I didn't back away from Dawney's suggestion — even though maybe I should have. Joe always seems pleased to get home and sorry to leave, but in between? I very much needed to keep myself busy.

Dawney encouraged me into pursuing a PhD and helped me choose a research area. I shouldn't have agreed to take on something that was so close to Dawney's own area, but I needed a supervisor and the professor had always been very supportive. Now though, things were getting difficult and it was becoming worse as a result of the direction my research was taking. When Dawney suggested the topic, I should have recognised the problems that could arise, especially the fact that it was bound to venture into areas where Dawney was considered the authority. But, I didn't.

The basic idea was to explore the relationship between stress and play; analysing the role that play has in reducing stress. I thought it presented an exciting research opportunity. It was only as the work progressed, that I started to feel that Dawney hadn't let go of what we had once enjoyed together. The Professor's slant on the study of the subject matter was that I should focus in my research area to specifically examine the role of BDSM play and stress. It was a legitimate subject for such research. It neatly avoided the pitfall of an overly broad focus on play, in general—which was a good thing. But, I couldn't help but feel that an alternative topic might have been suggested if I had been a male student, or if the professor and I hadn't been previously been involved with each other in the way that we were.

The phone rings. I pick it up. The professor's voice sounds calming after the tension of the exchanges with Joe as he'd left. "I wondered if you'd be in this morning."

"Yes, sure. Why not?"

"Well, you said Joe was going away again and..."

I interrupt. "It's just his job. It's what he does. One month on, two weeks back. It's a routine. I'm used to it." I guess my one time lover knew that I wasn't. To make matters worse, next time he is going to be gone for almost three months. I'm not looking forward to that except that it will give me some more time to think about what I want from our relationship, and whether I stand any chance of getting it. "I'll be in. I need to talk to you about my work. I'm not sure which way I should be going."

"Of course. Just drop by. I'll be happy to give you some direction."

I put the phone down, remembering the insidious way in which Dawney had pushed our power games and thinking, "I'll bet you will." I gather up my papers and push them into the old, green, canvas shoulder bag I use. Last of all, I collect up the bundle of fetish magazines that I'd been working through. Once upon a time, they would just have been fun but, while the content still gives me a thrill, this time the purpose of my studies has been more "legitimate". I've been cataloguing the various references to different forms of play and picking up on the occasions when some aspect of stress, either increase or alleviation was mentioned. A forest of yellow post-it tabs stuck out from the magazines. Then, there were the copies of printed material from a whole series of BDSM discussion boards and forums. At least there was a volume of material to start working on.

An hour later, I'm knocking on the door of Professor Dawney's office. "Just a minute," comes the voice from within. I stand in the corridor hugging my pile of papers to my chest, the canvas bag hanging heavily from my shoulder. More power plays, I think. I lean back against the wall, staring down the corridor and on out through the window across the park. I'd become used to these little demonstrations of control. "Come!" Even Dawney's invitation to enter seemed designed to intimidate.

"Oh, Jenny, excellent," Dawney's greeting is fulsome. At once, I remember how I had been first attracted to the professor. Angela Dawney manages to combine a cool authoritative air with an almost Bohemian sense of the unconventional. The university is no longer the domain of the unconventional — the continued quest for funding and the need to make research "relevant" means that today's departmental heads are as much business people as academics. But Angela Dawney is an eccentric oasis in a desert of convention.