Chapter 15
Becca had made the bed and removed any trace of what had just happened while Ellie took a shower, and when she came back out in a bath robe Becca was sat cross-legged on the bed, looking gloriously happy and relaxed. She was holding two freshly made gin and tonics.
Ellie joined her, sat cross-legged too, and accepted her drink gratefully, taking a long sip.
"Tell me," Becca said after a few moments.
Ellie took a sip and gathered her thoughts.
"The sex was incredible. Like, genuinely some of the hottest sex I've ever watched.
You with Cass was..." She shook her head.
"You were a different person. The way you submitted to her, the way you responded to her dominance.
I've never seen you like that. It was extraordinary. "
"But?"
"But that's exactly the problem. You were a different person. I was watching Becca's fantasy hookup… the dominant, androgynous woman you've always had a thing for, doing everything you've always imagined that woman doing. And it was incredible for you. I could see how incredible it was."
Becca was very still, listening.
"But it was your fantasy, Bec. Not ours.
What makes the dynamic work for me, what made Kelly so transcendent, is watching you with a plausible rival.
A woman who could genuinely replace me. A woman who makes me think what if she prefers her?
That fear, that threat, that's what powers the engine.
And Cass..." Ellie paused, choosing her words carefully.
"Cass isn't a threat to me. She's your dream one-night stand.
She's the woman you'd choose for an incredible night, not the woman you'd choose for a life.
And because I knew that, could see it, I wasn't part of the story.
I was watching you enjoy yourself, and I was happy for you, but I wasn't involved. I wasn't needed."
Becca sat with that for a long time, turning it over. Ellie watched her process it, watched the therapist's mind engage with the personal, watched the understanding arrive.
"Oh my God," Becca said slowly. "You're right.
You're completely right. I didn't even...
" She put her drink down and pressed her hands to her face.
"That was my fantasy. That was the TA from abnormal psych and every androgynous woman I've ever secretly stared at rolled into one person, and I was so inside it that I didn't realise I'd left you behind. "
"You didn't leave me behind on purpose. You didn't even know you were doing it. That's kind of the point… it was so deeply your thing that it absorbed you completely, and there wasn't room for our thing inside it."
"What we need is a triangle, and just now was a line," Becca said quietly.
"With Kelly it's triangular because she could genuinely steal you from me, which means I have a stake in what's happening.
With Cass it was... I was watching you live out a private fantasy that had nothing to do with me.
A really hot private fantasy, and I don't begrudge you a second of it, but it wasn't what we do. "
"Becca's dream fling versus our shared dynamic."
"Exactly."
Becca uncovered her face and looked at Ellie with an expression that was part rueful, part grateful, part something else… the look she got when she understood something about herself that had been hidden in plain sight.
"I feel like I should have known," Becca said. "I'm literally a therapist. I should have been able to see the difference between a shared experience and my own wish fulfilment."
"You were naked with a dominant woman who was doing things to you that you've apparently been fantasising about since before you were twenty. I think self-awareness gets a pass in that situation."
Becca laughed despite herself. "Fair point." She paused. "Was any of it good for you? The watching, I mean. Honestly."
"Honestly? Yes. Parts of it were incredibly hot.
Watching you be fucked like that, the sounds you made, the way your body responded, Cass's physicality with you, that was objectively amazing.
Fucked is the only word too, it was insane and I was aroused, I was into it.
But the arousal didn't have anywhere to go because the jealousy wasn't there to feed into it.
Or maybe it was more that the jealousy was there, because she did things to you I could never do, but separate to the arousal, not feeding the fire.
It was like..." She searched for the analogy.
"Like listening to a great song but with the guitar coming from one speaker and the drums and vocals from another.
You can hear it, you can enjoy it, but the full experience isn't there. "
"Individual instrument instead of a band," Becca suggested.
"Yeah. The band only plays when the threat is real.” She paused.
“I think, as well, a little bit it needs to be someone who is my type as well as yours. Like…” The thought had only just come to her, but she realised this was the missing piece.
“Like, when I watch it’s primarily about the plausible replacement for me.
But also, I think, part of me also imagines being in your place.
Just a little. And that needs the person to be super-hot for me as well as knowing they are for you. ”
“You think maybe you’d like to swap places?” Becca asked tentatively.
“No.” Ellie shook her head emphatically. “Just that I need to be able to picture myself in your place. Maybe have my own rapport with the woman. Is that ok?”
“Very. Very ok. It makes sense.”
They sat with that for a while, sipping their drinks.
"So we learned something tonight," Becca said.
"We learned a lot. We learned that I need the plausible-rival dynamic, not just hot sex to watch.
We learned that you have a type-fantasy that's separate from our dynamic and that's completely fine but it's different, we should aim for someone who is both of our type and we’re both into.
And we learned that I can tell the difference and will call it, which is super-important. "
"What about Cass as a person? Could we see her again and work on it with a different context?"
Ellie thought about it. "No. Because you'd always respond to her as your fantasy, not as a genuine connection.
She activates something in you that's pre-existing and private, the whole dominant-woman thing, and that's always going to override the shared dynamic.
It's not her fault and it's not your fault.
It's just the wrong chemistry for what we need." Ellie paused. “But… I’d watch you two again one day, don’t get me wrong. Just with our eyes open on what that would be doing.”
“Interesting…” Becca picked up her drink again and took a sip. “Sounds to me like we need another Kelly.”
"We need another Kelly… feminine, friendly, relaxed, ideally hot, someone we could both genuinely fall for. Someone who makes me afraid, in the best possible way."
"The danger, held safely."
"The danger, held safely."
They were quiet for a while, thinking.
"You know who we should message," Becca said.
"I know."
"The group chat has been quiet for a few days."
"It has."
"Your move, I think. You're the one in charge of the story."
Ellie smiled, remembering Becca saying those words back when all of this was just a fantasy they whispered to each other in the dark. She didn't need to say Kelly's name. They both knew.
"Tomorrow," she said. "I'll message her tomorrow."
Becca held out her hand. “Let’s get into bed.”
“Is that into bed to sleep? Or into bed, into bed?”
Laughing, Becca replied, “Oh, very much the latter. I need my wife to remind me exactly why our reality is a thousand times better than my fantasy hookup…”
Ellie took her hand. “Only a thousand times?”
“Ok, you got me. A million. Is that better?”
“Much.” She hesitated and smiled. “Wait, one thing first.”
Becca looked curious. “What?”
“Downstairs in the bar earlier. What did Cass whisper to you before you came upstairs?”
Ellie’s smile broadened as she watched Becca go bright pink. “You really want to know?”
“If you’re happy to tell.”
Becca took a deep breath. “She said…” Becca’s voice dropped to a whisper, and Ellie could see her reliving it, her eyes bright, her cheeks still very pink. “‘I’m going to tell you to follow me upstairs in a moment, will you do what I tell you?’”
“That’s when you nodded?” Ellie added.
Becca nodded, an unconscious echo of earlier. “Yeah. And you want to know what she said then?” She was grinning. “She said good girl. Two words.”
Ellie’s eyebrows shot up. “Good girl?”
“Good girl. Hot, right?”
So unbelievably hot, Ellie thought. Maybe not the dynamic we’re looking for, but as another one-off in future? I’m not ruling it out...