No Ordinary Love Story: Sequel to The Diary of a Submissive (13 page)

Of course the thing about operations is that there is a lot of waiting around. I burst into the hospital reception in a fluster, to find that my mum wasn’t going to be out of surgery for at least another few hours. I sat in the waiting room, fielding calls of concern, feeling ever more tense, and finally, finally, someone came through to tell me she was out. I think I must have looked like I was having a bit of a breakdown, because they told me that once she had emerged from the anaesthetic and gone up to a ward for the night they’d let me in to see her, despite the fact we were past hospital visiting hours.

Seeing her was a blessed relief. Suddenly I was aware, in that way you only really are when something like this happens, that despite the fact I felt so immature that some
days I couldn’t decide what to have for dinner, both my parents and I were ageing and there might be a time when they weren’t around any longer. I held her hand, and she smiled at me sleepily, looking pale and poorly but with enough of a twinkle in her eyes to ease my fears. I kissed her gently and then headed back to my parents’ house for the night to do the ring round of family members and friends with the update on her condition (for once I wished my mum would join Facebook, just to make it easier). I packed her a bag for the morning and started Mum-proofing things so she could cope when she came home.

She came home sooner than I expected. Arguably too soon, although I can’t complain about the quality of care she got while she was in hospital, just that they seemed keen to get her out of the bed and the next person in. Two days after her surgery I was helping her, oh so slowly, get to my car on her crutches, driving her home carefully, cursing every pothole that made the car move in a way that jarred her knee and made her wince. She was in a lot of pain, taking five kinds of drugs in four different batches through the day. Walking hurt, sitting hurt, she couldn’t climb into or out of bed without help. She veered from being irritable at needing help to weepily grateful, because she knew she couldn’t do it without me.

In the dark first days after her operation we were the centre of each other’s worlds. I slept next to her, so I could help her get up and to the bathroom if she needed to in the night. I got up when she did, went to bed when she did (although I didn’t sleep – sleep wasn’t coming easily), cooked all her meals, helped her with her pills, talked her through her mood swings, mopped up her tears, reassured
her when she was worried something had gone wrong. It was all-encompassing and exhausting and I’m not mentioning it in order to brag. The one thing the week taught me was that even with someone I love I am not a natural nurse. I am too impatient and easily frustrated. Also, lack of sleep makes me crazy.

There was no time for fun or frivolity. Even my current affairs obsession slipped, and I found myself reading the paper at ten o’clock at night, if at all. I spoke to Adam briefly on the phone a couple of nights in, but caught myself tearfully telling him the difficulties of helping Mum get back and forth from the bathroom and keeping on top of her pill cycle in such depth that I thought it was best not to inflict it on him again, not least because he was going to work, having his weekends and generally going about his life as normal. Also, if I’m honest, it scared me how much just hearing his voice made things feel better. This wasn’t something I should be relying on him to help me through. I should be able to do this on my own. Well, that was my logic at least.

My logic was bollocks.

As the days went by things got easier. My mum began to make progress. She was more sure on her feet. Getting up and downstairs on her crutches was speedier. As she began to heal, the pain became a little easier, meaning she was more her usual self. Her appetite picked up, so I felt less like a contestant on
Masterchef
who put in loads of work and then had their culinary creations cast aside after a couple of mouthfuls. And then my dad came home, and the look of joy and relief on my mum’s face was obvious.

By the time I packed up my car and drove back to my flat ready for my return to work I was exhausted. The stress hadn’t eased, and I still felt bad for my poor mum. And when I walked through the door and found nine-day-old washing-up in my sink and work clothes waiting to be washed, my heart sank. I pushed myself to get through it all and then went to bed at 1 a.m. before a 7 a.m. shift, cursing myself for being a disorganised idiot.

Things, of course, got easier. I’ve never before had a holiday where a return to work felt like a relief, but in this case it did. As I got back into the routine of work, the stress I had felt mostly cleared. But there was one weird thing that had happened somewhere along the way, and I couldn’t figure out how or when or why, but it was starting to get me worried.

I’m pretty highly sexed. This book is a fairly good sign of that, even with the caveat that it’s mostly about my sex life rather than all the other stuff I do (I could write a book about my love of drinking tea, doing Sudoku and watching reruns of
The Big Bang Theory
but I don’t think it’d be of similarly broad appeal). Since I’d started seeing Adam we’d been managing to have sex pretty much twice a day when we were together, often even more than that. But even when I wasn’t dating the only man I’d ever met who could keep up with me on that front, I had a routine. Every night I had an orgasm lying in bed before I went to sleep. You can keep your hot milk or your sheep counting or whatever it is you do, an orgasm is by far the most efficient way to get me to sleep of a night.

But I hadn’t had an orgasm for a while. I counted it. Nine days. Initially it was because I was sleeping in the
bed with my mum and, well, that would be rather disturbing. Even when she was recovered enough that I moved down the corridor to my old childhood bedroom it didn’t happen. I fell into bed exhausted, slept fitfully, but even when I tried … nothing.

I put it down to stress and tension, and tried not to worry about it, but once I’d returned home and had a couple of days back at work, I tried all the tricks (hot baths, smutty books on the Kindle, flirty emails with Adam) and nothing was doing the job. It was all incredibly fun, but there was just no release. I had been touching myself like this nightly (barring shared bedrooms and other inappropriate/inconvenient circumstances) literally since I was old enough to discover what an orgasm was, but suddenly it was like my body was a stranger. Nothing worked.

Nine days became ten. Eleven. By twelve days I was beginning to panic. This wasn’t like me. Not only was I irritable at work and sleep deprived because it took me ages to drift off at night, but I was genuinely worried. While I knew Adam well enough to know our relationship wasn’t all about sex, it formed a pretty decent foundation to it. What happens when you have a girlfriend who can’t orgasm?

I was soon to find out.

I told him about it on the phone. He’d rung one day to see how I was doing. It was unusual, because normally we talked constantly via text, email or Messenger, saving our chat for in person during the weekends or weeknights we were together (although a crazy few weeks at work for him meant midweek visits hadn’t happened either). I was so pleased to hear his voice, though also admittedly
terrified – how DO you tell your boyfriend that you’ve gone from being a high-libido, kinky sex-obsessed erotica writer to someone who hasn’t orgasmed for the best part of a fortnight? And is it even possible to do so without crying? In my case, no. It was the first time I’d cried in front of him and I felt like a melodramatic idiot. And he was lovely about it, which just made me more weepy.

He told me to stop trying, to try to stop worrying, and to come round for the weekend, starting the following night. His flatmate was going to be out until late on Sunday at a stag do, so we could have the place to ourselves. He would look after me for a bit, and I could just catch up on sleep, relax and try and regain my equilibrium.

Frankly I wasn’t sure it was going to work, but short of finding a tumble dryer to sit on I was out of ideas.

I arrived at his house flustered and already, if I’m honest, a little grumpy. Work had been busy, and my day had been filled with minor annoyances. A great chunk of the afternoon had been spent discussing a complaint made by the subject of a story I’d written and which had caused a lot of reader feedback. I could prove that he had said what he’d said and I hadn’t misquoted him, but the effort involved in digging out the Dictaphone tape, playing it to first my editor and then my managing editor, and then coming up with a response to the complaint meant that by the time I got out I was craving red wine. Preferably in my flat alone, not least because, having not seen Adam for almost three weeks by this point, I wanted to be sociable, friendly, fun and not an idiot the next time he saw me.

I’m not sure I was any of those but he did give me a big
glass of wine. Seeing him as he opened the door, I felt a surge of butterflies. It wasn’t just the usual lust; it was also affection. I fell into him, squeezing him back as he hugged me tightly, leaning eagerly into his kiss hello, opening my mouth to urge his tongue deeper.

He gave me lots of attention and fuss. He made me toad-in-the-hole and mustard mash, the kind of comforting dinner that was perfect for a chilly Friday night, especially when combined with good company. He kept the conversation light, noticeably focusing on trying to make me laugh. He offered me chocolate mousse (it would have been rude to decline) and a glass of good port, and we settled in to watch a film on DVD, taking our glasses to the sofa. As the minutes ticked by I began to feel tired, resting my head on his chest. He put his arm round me and everything felt right. Lovely, actually.

When the film finished he took my hand and led me into the bedroom. I was feeling nervous, but not in the usual D/s-ish way. This was more a kind of performance anxiety I suppose. I was torn. This was Adam, lovely, sexy, wonderful Adam, who I hadn’t seen for ages. I wanted to jump his bones, but at the same time I was desperately wondering if I could plead sleep or feign tiredness to avoid the potential awkwardness of what might happen next.

He wrapped his arms round me and began kissing me again. Soft, gentle brushes of his lips with mine to start with, developing into a passionate kiss, his tongue pushing inside my mouth, while his hands stroked my back.

He broke away to lift my top over my head, pulling me back to kiss me again, as if he didn’t want to stop until he
had to, or was worried about breaking the spell. I’d not kissed anyone as much as I had kissed Adam, and it was wonderful, romantic, gentle. Our mouths stayed glued together as he unfastened my bra. When his hands moved to my waist I mirrored his movements, and, still kissing, we unfastened each other’s jeans.

He broke the kiss once more to pull my bra down my arms and lift his own T-shirt over his head. I couldn’t stop myself grinning at him as I drank in the sight of him naked, and the last thing I saw before he moved back in to kiss me again was his own smile reflected back at me.

He walked me backwards until the back of my legs met the bed, then put gentle pressure on my shoulders to first sit and then lie me down. As I moved backwards he followed me, the tip of his cock brushing my thigh, making me shiver.

When his lips finally left mine he kissed my cheek, and then took my earlobe between his teeth, gently nibbling before moving lower. He kissed my neck and chest, reacquainting himself with my breasts, caressing them, softly licking and sucking on my nipples.

He continued down my stomach, making sure not to miss an inch of my skin. I spread my legs in lewd invitation, but he began kissing down my inner thigh instead. I moaned, in pleasure but also in frustration. I knew I was wet (which had to be a good start, right?) and I wanted him to taste me.

He kissed down to my knee and then shifted to the other leg, kissing back up. As he got close to where I was so desperate for him to be, I held my breath. I felt his warm breath on my wetness and it gave me goosebumps.
I was trembling with anticipation and eventually, finally, I felt his tongue on me. One long lick from my opening to my clit. I almost shouted with joy and relief.

He took his time, licking with the flat of his tongue over and over again before using the tip to move up and down my lips. Then he fucked me with his mouth. My eyes closed and my head went back as he pushed inside, his tongue entering me as deep as it could, his face pressed against me, coated in my juices.

He moved his tongue, his intimate kisses an echo of the passionate kisses that had left my mouth swollen just minutes before. It felt sensual, amazing, and I was shocked to feel how it had affected me. I was incredibly wet, audibly so. The idea might have made me blush earlier in the evening but I tried to push that away, to lie back and lose myself to the wonderful feelings he was evoking.

I don’t know how long he licked me, just that it was a long time, but still didn’t feel long enough. Eventually he moved his mouth and began licking my clit. He licked and sucked, getting harder and faster. I felt myself get closer and closer to orgasm, but as fast as the thought filled my mind the feeling dissipated. Suddenly non-rude thoughts entered my head. All the stressful things I’d been thinking about were there, my worries about whether this would work, the bone-weary tiredness. I knew I wouldn’t come now, and I had no idea why that was or how to get past it. And I knew he’d be disappointed and I hated that too, because he’d been so lovely and done everything he could to make the night special and it wasn’t enough. I wanted to cry.

I pulled back away from him, and for the first time ever
it wasn’t playful or bratty, it was real. I just couldn’t. Being somewhat busy and thus oblivious to my change in mindset Adam tried to follow me with his mouth. I had to push him away at the shoulder and tell him to stop. He looked up at me, confused.

‘I’m sorry, I just don’t think I can. It’s not that I don’t want to. God, I really, really do, but I just can’t.’ My voice was cracking and my eyes were filled with tears. It was ridiculous to be this upset, but I was tired, exhausted, frustrated and genuinely concerned at the fact that for the first time in my life I seemed completely incapable of getting a handle on either my own emotions or my body.