CHAPTER THREE
The canal was grey under a grey sky. Kate walked beside Daniel, their footsteps steady on the towpath, a narrowboat chugging past them toward the lock. Saturday morning. Sophie at a friend’s house, Oliver at rugby. The time they carved out for themselves, most weekends.
Neither of them had mentioned Sunday night. Not Monday, not Tuesday, not at any point during the week. But it was there. Kate could feel it in the careful way they moved around each other. The thing in the room had followed them out of the bedroom.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said.
Daniel didn’t break stride. “I assumed.”
A jogger passed them going the other way. Kate waited until she was gone.
“About what I said. What I wanted.” She watched the water, not him. A moorhen paddled near the reeds. “I’ve been trying to understand it. Why that … why hearing that affected me the way it did.”
“And?”
“It wasn’t what he called her.” The words came slowly, pulled up from somewhere she hadn’t fully explored. “That’s not really it. Or not all of it.”
Daniel was quiet. Waiting. A duck landed on the water ahead of them, skidding to a stop.
“She was free,” Kate said. “That’s the thing. She wasn’t performing. She wasn’t thinking about how she sounded, or what it meant, or whether she was doing it right. She was just … gone. Completely lost in it.”
They walked in silence for a moment. Another narrowboat, this one moored, curtains drawn. Someone living there, Kate thought. A whole different life.
“I’m always in control,” she said. “I always have been. Good student. Good academic. Good mother.” She kicked a stone off the path into the water. “Even with you. Sex with you. It’s good. It is. But it’s …”
“Considered,” Daniel said.
Kate looked at him. “Yes. Exactly. Considered. Equal. We check in with each other. We make sure it’s working. And that’s good. That’s right. But it means I’m never …” She trailed off.
A couple approached from the other direction, walking a spaniel. Kate and Daniel stepped aside, nodded hello, waited for them to pass.
“Never what?” Daniel asked.
“Never not thinking.” Kate shoved her hands in her coat pockets. “I’m always aware. Of myself, of you, of how it’s going. There’s always a part of my brain running commentary. Monitoring. Making sure I’m doing it properly.”
Daniel was quiet for a few paces. “And this girl in the toilet. She wasn’t doing that.”
“No. She was just … there. In it. No monitoring. No commentary. Just surrender.” The word landed between them. Kate let it sit. “That’s what I heard in her voice. Not degradation. Freedom.”
The path curved ahead, following the bend in the canal. A heron stood motionless on the opposite bank, watching something in the shallows.
“I don’t know how to get there,” Kate said. “I don’t know if I can. But I keep thinking about it. What it would feel like to just … stop. Stop monitoring. Stop being in charge of the experience.”
Daniel didn’t respond immediately. Kate could feel him thinking, choosing his words.
“You want to lose control,” he said.
“I want to give it up. There’s a difference.” She wasn’t sure there was, but it mattered to say it. “Not have it taken. Give it. To someone I trust.”
The heron took off, slow wingbeats carrying it downstream. They both watched it go.
“To me,” Daniel said. Not a question.
“Yes.”
More silence. Their footsteps on the path. The lap of water against the bank.
“What would that look like?” he asked. “Practically.”
Kate almost laughed. Practically. Such a Daniel word. But he wasn’t dismissing her. He was trying to understand.
“I don’t know exactly. I’ve never …” She shook her head. “You’d be in charge. Completely. You’d tell me what to do, and I’d do it. No negotiating, no checking in. I’d just … follow.”
Daniel absorbed this. A narrowboat engine rumbled somewhere behind them.
“Could we try?” Kate said. The words came out smaller than she’d intended. “I know it’s strange. I know it’s not how we’ve ever been. But I can’t stop thinking about it, and I thought maybe if we—”
“Yes,” Daniel said.
Kate looked at him.
“Yes,” he said again. “We can try.”
That night. Sophie at a sleepover, Oliver in his room with headphones on. Close enough to privacy.
Kate brushed her teeth, watching herself in the bathroom mirror. The same face she’d seen every day for forty-two years. She rinsed, spat, and went to the bedroom.
Daniel was already there. Sitting on the edge of the bed, still dressed. Waiting for her.
“So,” he said.
“So.”
Kate stood in the doorway. Her heart was beating faster than it should. This was Daniel. Her husband. The man she’d slept beside for twenty years. But the air between them had changed, charged with the weight of what they’d agreed to try.
Daniel stood. Crossed to her. His hand came up to her face, cupping her jaw. Familiar. Then his grip tightened, just slightly, and he tilted her head back.
“I’m going to tell you what to do,” he said. His voice was lower than usual. “And you’re going to do it.”
Kate’s breath caught. “Yes.”
“Take off your clothes.”
She undressed. Slowly, because it seemed like she should. Daniel watched, and she could see him watching, could see him deciding to watch. The observation pulled at her, kept her present.
When she was naked, he stepped closer. Ran his hands down her sides. Then he turned her, pressed her toward the bed. “On your back.”
Kate lay down. The duvet was cool against her skin. Daniel pulled his shirt over his head, undid his belt. She watched him undress and tried to quiet the part of her brain that was cataloguing everything.
He climbed over her. Pinned her wrists above her head with one hand. His grip was firm, firmer than usual. Kate closed her eyes and reached for it. The place that girl had been. The surrender.
“You like that, do you?” Daniel’s voice in her ear.
Kate nodded. She did. She wanted to.
His other hand slid between her legs. She was wet already, had been since they’d started. His fingers moved, and Kate arched into him, trying to lose herself in the sensation.
“That’s a good girl,” he said.
The words landed somewhere in her stomach. Good girl. She’d read those words, heard them in a hundred contexts. From Daniel, now, with his hand between her legs and his weight pressing her into the mattress, they were almost right.
Almost.
His fingers moved in slow circles. Kate’s hips shifted, chasing the pressure. She kept her eyes closed, focusing on the sensation, trying to quiet the part of her brain that was still watching.
“Tell me what you want,” Daniel said.
“More.”
He gave her more. Two fingers inside her now, his thumb still working. Kate’s breath came faster. She pulled against his grip on her wrists, testing it, and he held firm.
“You like that, do you?”
The phrasing. The conversational uptick at the end. Kate heard him deciding to say it, heard the question mark where a command should be. But she nodded, anyway, because she did, she was close to something, if she could just stop noticing—
Daniel’s mouth found her breast. His teeth grazed her nipple, harder than usual. Kate gasped.
“More,” she said again. “Please.”
He shifted down her body. His mouth replaced his hand, tongue pushing inside her, and Kate gripped the sheets and tried to disappear.
She came on his tongue. A good orgasm, her back arching, his hands holding her hips in place. When she opened her eyes, Daniel was watching her face.
“Good?” he asked.
Kate nodded. It had been. It was. But she was still here. Still Kate, in her bedroom, with her husband.
Daniel moved up her body, kissed her. She tasted herself on his mouth. His cock pressed against her thigh, hard and waiting.
“I want you inside me,” she said.
“Not yet.” He was trying. She could hear him trying. “I’ll decide when.”
Kate’s stomach tightened. Yes. That.
She closed her eyes and waited, letting him choose the moment.
His hand found her throat. Light pressure. Not squeezing. Kate focused on the weight of his palm, the implied control.
“You’re being naughty,” Daniel said. “Telling me what you want.”
Kate’s jaw tightened. She kept her eyes closed, focused on the weight of his hand at her throat.
“Turn over,” Daniel said. “I want your mouth.”
Kate turned, positioned herself on her elbows. Daniel knelt in front of her, his cock at her lips. She took him in, felt him groan.
He held still.
Kate waited. His hand rested on the back of her head, but gently. No pressure. No guiding. He was letting her set the pace.
She moved on him, taking him deeper, and felt his thighs tense. A sound escaped him. But he didn’t push. Didn’t thrust. Just stood there, receiving what she gave.
Kate closed her eyes and bobbed her head, working him with her mouth and hand. Good. Familiar. Daniel’s breathing went ragged.
But he wouldn’t use her. That was the word that surfaced, unbidden. She wanted to be used. Wanted him to grip her hair and fuck her throat and not ask if she was okay. Wanted to gag and keep going because he hadn’t told her to stop.
Instead, his hand stroked her hair. Gentle. Considerate.
“God, Kate,” he breathed. “That’s amazing.”
She pulled off, looked up at him. His face was flushed, his eyes soft with pleasure and something like gratitude.
“Fuck me,” she said. “Please.”
He pushed her onto her back. Climbed over her. Slid inside in one long stroke.
Kate gasped. Daniel started to move, harder than their usual rhythm. His hand found her wrists again, pinned them above her head. She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him deeper.
“That’s a good girl,” he said again, and this time Kate just breathed through it.
He was trying. She could feel him trying with every thrust, every tightened grip. When he let go of her wrists to flip her onto her stomach, there was a moment where his hand pressed her face into the pillow and Kate’s whole body lit up.
Yes. There. Almost—
But then he eased off. Shifted the angle. His hand moved to her hip instead, steadying her as he drove into her from behind.
Kate gripped the sheets. The headboard knocked against the wall. Daniel’s breathing went ragged, his rhythm losing its steadiness.
“I’m close,” he said.
Kate reached between her legs, touched herself while he fucked her. Chasing it. The sensation built, crested. She came with a cry she didn’t try to muffle, and a moment later, Daniel followed, his hips stuttering, a groan pulled from somewhere deep in his chest.
He collapsed beside her. Both of them breathing hard. The room slowly coming back into focus.
Daniel’s hand found hers in the dark. Their fingers interlaced. His thumb traced circles on her palm.
“Was that …?” He trailed off. “Did it work?”
Kate stared at the ceiling. Her body was loose, satisfied. The orgasm had been real, good even. Better than most Saturday nights.
But she was still here. Still in her bedroom, in her house, in her life. Still Kate, thinking about whether she was Kate.
The girl in the toilet hadn’t been thinking. That was the whole point. She’d been gone, obliterated, nothing left but sensation and surrender. And Kate had just had the best sex she’d had in months, maybe years, and she’d been present for every second of it.
“It was good,” she said. Because it had been. Because Daniel had tried so hard. Because the effort mattered, even if the result didn’t land.
“But?”
Kate turned her head to look at him. His face in the dim light. The man she’d married. The man who’d just pinned her down and called her a good girl because she’d asked him to.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m still figuring it out.”
“I kept worrying I was hurting you,” Daniel said. “Or that you’d think I was … enjoying it too much. The roughness.”
Kate turned her head on the pillow to look at him. His profile in the dim light. The familiar line of his nose, his jaw.
“You were worried I’d think you were enjoying it too much?”
Daniel shifted beside her. The mattress dipped.
“Yes.” He was still looking at the ceiling. “I don’t want to be … the sort of man who enjoys … that sort of thing.”
Kate let the words sit. The radiator ticked in the corner. She could feel the heat coming off his body, the inch of space between them.
“I feel a bit foolish,” she said.
Daniel turned his head on the pillow. She could feel him looking at her.
“Yes?”
Kate kept her eyes on the ceiling. A water stain in the corner she’d been meaning to sort out for months. “I was so concerned about what I wanted that I barely stopped to consider if you’d really like it.”
Daniel didn’t respond. His fingers tightened around hers, just slightly. The house settled around them. Somewhere down the hall, a door clicked in its frame.
“I did enjoy it,” Daniel said. “But I didn’t enjoy enjoying it. If that makes sense.”
Kate watched the water stain. A shape like a map of somewhere. Italy, maybe. A boot.
“Yes,” she said, “I suppose it does.”
More silence. The radiator ticked. Daniel’s thumb moved against her knuckle, a slow back and forth.
“I would have to conclude,” he said eventually, “that I am a bit inhibited.”
Kate almost laughed. The formality of it. I would have to conclude. Twenty years of marriage, and he was delivering findings like a case summary.
But she didn’t laugh. Because he was right. And because the next thought was already there, had been there all week, pressing against the inside of her teeth.
She lay there, feeling the weight of it. What she was about to say. What it would mean once it was said.
“I wonder,” Kate said. Her voice sounded strange in the quiet room. “If there are … websites. For people who want …”
She didn’t finish. Couldn’t quite. The sentence hung in the air between them.
Daniel’s hand went still in hers.
The silence stretched. Kate could hear her own heartbeat. She didn’t look at him. Couldn’t.
“For people who want what?” Daniel asked. But his voice was careful. He knew. He was making her say it.
“I don’t know exactly. People who … do this sort of thing. Who know how to …” She swallowed. “Who don’t have to think about it.”
The radiator ticked. A car passed outside. Kate counted her breaths.
“We could look,” Daniel said.
Three words. Neither of them moved.