Читать книгу Confessions of a Kinky Wife - Justine Elyot - Страница 9

He waited until after dinner to bring the subject up. Of course, I couldn’t eat. I was too busy trying to second-guess his reaction, but he was playing things totally straight, being normal Dan, full of stories about his colleagues and complaints about form-filling.

I was washing up in the kitchen when he wandered in, picked up a tea towel as if preparing to dry, and flicked it at my bottom, making me jump and rub at it.

‘Oi!’ I said.

‘What? You like that, don’t you?’

‘Not always. Not when I’m not expecting it.’

‘Oh, so it’s you calling the shots, is it?’ He stood behind me and clasped his arms around me, holding me there with his chin on top of my head. ‘Funny, that.’

‘Why funny?’ I asked guardedly.

‘I thought you were into that whole submissive thing these days.’

I twisted my neck round to look at his eyes. His face was quite grave.

‘You saw that book,’ I said.

‘Yeah, I did. You can’t seriously tell me that, after everything you say and do at work, day after day, you believe all that guff about fixed gender roles and male and female energies?’

‘No, Jesus, no, I don’t!’

‘Well, thank fuck for that. I thought a tornado had taken our flat and transplanted it in Stepford.’

I shook my head. ‘I believe the same things I’ve always believed.’

‘That’s what I thought. You like a bit of kink in the bedroom but you’re still the same person … this book is a bit weird, though. I can’t figure it out.’

I took a deep breath.

‘Look, Dan. The thing is, I like kink. I like to be spanked for fun. But … I think I want something a bit more than that too.’ I put my hand in the washing-up water, which was far too hot, and withdrew it rapidly.

‘Put the Marigolds on,’ he said.

I made a face. I hated putting the Marigolds on. They made my hands smell fusty for hours afterwards.

‘I’ll be all right,’ I said, tipping a handful of cutlery into the bubbles.

‘You’ll scald yourself. Put them on.’

I ignored him, picked up the cloth, plunged my hands quickly into the water and gasped as I withdrew a fork.

‘Jesus, Pip, why? Your hand looks like it’s been skinned. I can’t watch.’

He let go of me and took a step back.

He was right. That water was boiling and my hand throbbed so much I could barely hold the fork. I put it under a stream of cold water, exhaling with sweet relief.

When the burning was soothed, I turned around and leant against the sink, facing him.

‘That sums it up,’ I said. ‘That’s what I mean.’

‘What?’

‘You’re so sensible, Dan, and so capable, and I’m not. I do things like that all the time, and I get frustrated with myself and then I get angry with myself and then … I don’t know. It just boils away in my brain, a great big swamp of self-loathing that keeps getting added to and added to. It’s not good for me.’

‘It’s no big deal, love. Just a silly mistake. Don’t be so hard on yourself.’

‘Exactly. I don’t want to be hard on myself. I want you to be hard on me.’

My heart pounded, and the palm that had been hot and itchy from the scalding water was now sweating.

‘Like the guys in your book, you mean? You want me to actually … discipline you?’

I nodded vigorously.

‘I want to be held to account. I want to be corrected.’

He laughed, a tad nervously, and looked up at the ceiling.

‘I’m sorry, Pip, I don’t mean to laugh at you. It’s just … uh … unusual. Isn’t it? I’ve spent my whole life trying to be respectful of women, you know …’

‘It’s not about you being a man and me being a woman. It’s nothing to do with that at all. It’s to do with me wanting to submit and having this need. Oh, I don’t know if I’m putting it very well.’

‘So if I wanted you to spank me, that would be fine?’

‘Well, I’d find it hard, because I don’t like dominating, but in principle, yes.’

‘Right. I don’t, by the way. Want you spank me, I mean. I’m not that way inclined.’

He tried a smile. I tried one back. It was encouraging, at least, that he hadn’t walked out of the door with words of a ‘no dice’ variety.

‘I’m not asking you to do anything you don’t want to,’ I said. ‘It’s just a thought. Just a thing I’ve been pondering. I wanted to find out a bit more about it so I got a book. I’m not demanding anything of you.’

‘You’re not?’

‘No. God, Dan, I’m happy with you. I love you. I don’t want you to change and I’m not some unsatisfied wife eaten up by sexual frustration. Far from it. But I think, for me, this discipline thing would work so well … it’s just a thought. That’s all.’

‘You have some interesting thoughts, don’t you, Twink?’ he said. ‘Now put those flaming Marigolds on, for Christ’s sake.’

And there the matter ended. (I did put the gloves on.)