32. Declan
32
DECLAN
R ape-fucked.
He hadn’t been kidding.
I felt brutalized when he got done with me. I wasn’t lying about loving him too much to hate him. From the moment we met, he consumed me. When we were together, I wanted to touch him and be touched in return. I didn’t give a fuck how the touching happened, but it pissed me off when he yanked control from me.
To be fair, him taking control isn’t what pisses me off. It’s me giving in to him when he did. I didn’t want to give in today. I was determined to show him he wasn’t the boss of me, but the man was so much more dominant than I was that it was impossible to hang onto control when he wanted to take it. So when he asked for my color, there wasn’t a moment of hesitation. I was green. Fucking bright kelly green. I wanted him to do whatever he wanted at that moment, and I didn’t regret anything we’d done.
I didn’t know how we were going to make this relationship work. I honestly didn’t. I didn’t know how to let go of the part of me conditioned to be the dominant partner. While he was gone, I did some digging, especially after I couldn’t seem to get off without the man.
That digging led me to a role I hadn’t even known existed before meeting Hayden. It explained so damn much. I dove into all the blogs and message boards I found about switches. I wanted to learn as much as possible.
Everything I read told me that this role, switch, fit me to a tee, but only with Hayden. I couldn’t deny I hadn’t always felt comfortable being the dominant partner with male-presenting people. I was only attracted to dominant males. Just not usually as dominant as Hayden.
With female-presenting people, I didn’t struggle as much. Call me sexist or old-fashioned if you please, but I’d been raised that females could do anything, including protect themselves, and it was my job to provide them with tools and training to do so. But it was also my job to then stand in front of them so they didn’t have to use those tools and training.
All the people I messaged and chatted with, and all the articles I read, told me being a switch was about balance and that it wouldn’t always be a challenge, but it also wouldn’t always be easy. It was literally like walking a tightrope stretched between two vastly differing personalities and gave the psych major in me a headache on a good day.
Today wasn’t a good day.
Be that as it may, this was my true identity when presented with a top more dominant than me. God knows that’s Hayden. The man didn’t have a submissive bone in his body.
How he’d done so well in the Marines, I’ll never know.
“Are you trying to use some Jedi mind trick to get all those clothes to hang their selves?”
My head turned toward him slowly like a video on half-speed before looking back at the open closet Hayden and I would now be sharing. We’d moved my stuff into his house today. I still hadn’t told him about the family. After everything that happened in the shower—and what the fuck was it with me trying to assert dominance in the shower—I convinced him I wanted to move in with him. And I did. I didn’t care if we lived in a mansion or a shack. I just wanted to be with him, but me moving in with him would limit him getting clued in even more than he already had been. When Gunny, who’d refused to let us turn down his offer of help when we started talking about it in the kitchen earlier, left, I’d told Hayden I was going to unpack because I hated to iron. It wasn’t a lie. I did hate to iron. Hayden offered to help, but I waved him off. He’d come back into the room a few times, making the offer, but I kept turning him down. I wanted some time to myself. The last time he leaned against the bedroom doorframe with his ankles and arms crossed, looking sexy as fuck, I’d asked him to run to the exchange for something for dinner.
Looking down at the shirts clutched in each hand, I couldn’t tell you how long I’d been standing there, lost in thought. I dropped onto the side of the bed, tossing the shirts onto the pillows with the others I had laid out.
“Vato? Are you okay?” he asked, his voice coming from the doorway.
I stared at my hands and murmured, “I think I’m a switch.”
He came over to me, moving silently as only someone trained to do so could pull off. I expected him to sit next to me on the bed, but instead, he squatted before me, his hands on my thighs.
“I think so, too.”
Crazy how this coming out felt more stressful than when I came out to my family as bisexual and then again when I had to explain what being pansexual was after someone was trying to hook up and mentioned the other person was bisexual too. And I blurted out I wasn’t bi, that I was pan.
Still unable to look at him, I said, “Actually, I know so.”
“I do, too.”
That got my attention. “Why haven’t you said anything?”
“Because it’s not my place to tell you how to identify yourself, carin?. How you label yourself is your right, not mine.”
As dominant as he could be, and as much as we didn’t fit quite right, was it any wonder why I loved this man? So many people would have forced the observation on me, but not Hayden. His actions and my responses to him led me where I needed to be to accept the information.
We stayed still, like two statues, for the longest time, with only the sound of our breathing filling the room and the occasional din of kids playing outside in the street, interrupting the peaceful silence.
“Are you okay?” he asked again, and I nodded, my gaze still locked on my hands where they hung between my knees.
He stood, pulling me from the bed to stand with him. I thought he was going to hug me, but he grabbed all the hangers I’d gotten lost in thought hanging clothes on and tossed them in the chair between the nightstand and bed. I envisioned him sitting there in the mornings, fresh from a shower, tying on his boots.
“Hayden, they’re going to wrinkle.”
“Then I’ll fucking iron them, but I want to hold you. Is that okay with you?”
I nodded, emotion swelling until my chin trembled.
“I have a rule, though. No clothes in the bed. Boxers are fine until it’s time to sleep.”
I sighed, thankful it wasn’t something like no clothes at all in the house. A friend back home who was a sub had that rule. The number of times I stopped by their house and had to wait for him to put clothes on was crazy. He’d even been in the barn once, and his Daddy had to take clothes down to the barn for him so he could come back to the house.
I started undressing, but Hayden covered my hands, stilling my movements.
“I want to take care of you. Will you let me?”
I nodded, heaving a sigh when the weight I’d been carrying fell away. Well, most of it, since I still needed to explain to him who I was and who my family was. I was a fucking prick for not telling him the truth. My dad was right when he pointed out that withholding the truth was the same as lying, and neither made for a good marriage, but I was petrified how he’d react.
“On the blankets or under them? Up to you.”
The idea of cuddling with him under the blankets appealed to me. I reached for the comforter, but he beat me to it.
“I got it,” he said, peeling it back and holding it open so I could climb in.
I settled in, and he let the blankets drop over me. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to grab some snacks and water.”
I nodded, and he kissed my forehead. I felt amazing at the moment, but the chaos of the war between dominant and submissive took hold, and I called out, “Can you stay?”
He didn’t say a word. He just climbed into the bed next to me, scooting me over to make room for his big body. I settled against him, and everything fell into place.
“You ready to talk about why I stood in the door for ten minutes watching you stare at the closet like it held the answers to the universe while holding two shirts?”
“I’m struggling trying to wrap my head around… being submissive. I’ve never felt completely comfortable being in the dominant role. I’m a big guy; I like being in charge, but I don’t like being expected to be in charge. But I’m not dominant like you are.”
“Carin?, D/s relationships and roles are fluid. The same way gender and sexuality are. There are no boxes. There are… spectrums, sliding scales that move based on who you’re with and the situation.”
“I’m pretty sure you, my husband, are not on a sliding scale.”
“I can be. That day in Vegas in the shower… by the way, what’s with you and showers?”
I shrugged. “I asked myself that as well. I guess I like it when you’re hot and wet.”
He laughs, “Anyway, that day in Vegas…”
“You mean our honeymoon?”
He cocked his eyebrow at me, and I zipped my lips like I did as a kid.
“Thank you. In Vegas, the morning after we got married, the start of our honeymoon—better?” I nodded, and he continued, “That morning, I was much more submissive.”
I snorted and rolled my eyes.
“Don’t do that, carin?. Don’t dismiss something I’m struggling to come to terms with because I am struggling. What we need to remember is we’ve not been married for very long. When you think about it, we’ve only spent six days together if you don’t count the texting we did between hooking up and tying the knot.”
I laughed. “Think that’s some kinda record?”
“Not even close.”
I chewed my lip before I said, “I feel like everything I know about myself has been shaken and not stirred. And being a switch makes much sense. So much sense, but… I guess I just felt like now that I had an answer to why sometimes I was very dominant and sometimes I wasn’t, and why there were times when I hated being perceived… however someone perceived me to be, that it would all make sense. Like the box is okay, but sometimes I hate being in a box that I love at other times. Does that make sense?”
“Okay, wow. Let me unpack that. Cause that was a lot of words. By the way, breathing is a recommended activity even when talking.”
“Dick.”
“You love my dick, but I can understand what you’re saying that sometimes you don’t mind being dominant, and sometimes you don’t mind being submissive, but you hate when people judge you or expect you to be one of the other.”
“Yes!”