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“It sounds like you are describing me,” Wanda confessed in a soft voice. “For me submitting myself to a man is not about the sex at all. Sex is something I accept because I see it as one of the ways my submission can be reinforced, but I also want it to be deeper. I want the complete package where I can surrender my body and my mind to a man. That’s not happening with my guy at the moment, and I need to know if I am the only woman who feels this way.”
I shook my head, and glanced at April. I wondered if anything I was saying to Wanda was resonating within her.
“You’re committed to your guy because you’re in a relationship. Submitting to a man is a different kind of commitment. It can be a deeper connection than the ones of traditional relationships because often the women who submit to men surrender their independence. Being told by your boyfriend that you can’t go out tomorrow night may be the kind of thing that would normally cause conflict in a relationship. If you have submitted to a man, you accept those kinds of decisions because you trust him to know what’s best for you. That’s one of the reasons I encourage couples that want to explore BDSM to go slowly. You might find that your boyfriend is not the kind of man you can trust on such a profound level – especially if his interest in the lifestyle remains superficially sexual.”
Wanda made some sounds like she was thinking hard. She sighed down the line, and when she spoke again she sounded almost frightened… like she was afraid of what I would say next. “So what should I do?” she asked in a small voice.
I tried to sound reassuring. “Talk to your boyfriend first – not just a discussion about where to buy BDSM toys and how hard you want to be spanked. Tell him what you believe submission is for you. I assure you, you’re not alone, but I want to also be clear – your version of submission will be different to every other woman’s. Some come to the lifestyle purely for the sex. Others want emotional rewards. No two women will be exactly the same because fulfillment means something different to everyone.” I hoped I was getting through to Wanda. I hoped beyond her disappointment, she could see some glimmer of potential. “So start with a heart-to-heart talk and hold nothing back. If you can’t tell your guy everything you need from this lifestyle, then either he’s not the guy you could ever trust enough to surrender to… or you’re denying him a real chance to be the man you need.”
Wanda sounded a little brighter. She thanked me for the advice and I thought she was going to hang up. I saw April with her fingers poised above her keyboard.
“Can I ask one last question?” Wanda’s voice changed tone.
“Sure,” I said, and then shrugged my shoulders at April.
“Are you in a relationship, Jericho?”
I paused – long enough for April to flash me a curious glance – before I gathered myself. “I never talk about my personal life on the air, Wanda.”
April took her cue and we went into a block of music that would carry us through until 4am. She spun in her chair to face the producer’s booth and gestured. Cecily nodded her head and then turned her attention back to the phones. The remaining callers on line would be asked to call another night.
I took off the headphones and set them down on the desk. April combed her fingers through her hair. She stretched her back so that her breasts bulged full against the fabric of her dress, and then yawned.
“Good show,” she said.
“Thanks. You too.” I got out of the chair and paced around the studio, then stopped abruptly by the closed door. “Do you still feel like talking about Renata and what’s going on in your life?”
“Do you have the time?”
I thought about my intention to return to Nancy’s apartment and then nodded. “Sure,” I said. “I’ve got nothing planned that can’t wait.”
April gave me a bright smile of relief.
“You want coffee?”
I looked a bemused question. “Will I need one?”
April tried to smile again. “Maybe,” she said ominously. “I know I do.”
Chapter 32.
The radio station was deserted – long dark corridors devoid of life or light. Cecily had gone home after the show had ended and April and I sat alone in the studio, by the glow from the blank monitors.
Muted in the background was the soft sound of music that played by relay from the network’s main station in New York, turned down so that it was like a distant ethereal whisper.
April sighed and stared down into her coffee cup for a long time, like maybe the answers to all her questions would be there. They weren’t.
“You’ve met Renata… you have some idea what kind of woman she is, right?” April began.
I nodded. I said nothing.
April smiled wryly. “Well what you saw of her that night is pretty much what you get with Renata. She’s a powerful personality – very upfront, very forthright and confrontational…”
April was watching me with a careful, speculative gaze. She kneaded her fingers, then looked away. When she turned her head back and our eyes met again, she opened her mouth as if to say something more, then impulsively bit her lip.
I could see the turmoil and agitation in her face. She had a hundred questions, but she was trying to sort them out in her head – answering the ones she could and storing up the others until she was ready.
At last she leaned forward, hands clasped together, and rested her forearms on the desktop. Her back was straight, her focus suddenly intense. She licked her lips delicately with the tip of her tongue and her eyes narrowed.
“We’ve separated, Jericho. Renata has moved out.”
I was genuinely shocked. “When?”
April shrugged. “Yesterday.”
“Why?”
That seemed harder for April to answer. For a long time she said nothing. There were unshed tears welling in her eyes. Her face was pale. “The lifestyle… you…”
I sat back like I had been punched hard and felt the wind whistle from my lungs. “Me?”
April nodded her head like it was a secret she regretted revealing.
“How the hell did I get involved in this?” I frowned. “Was it because of the sub-club segments? I can’t believe Renata was jealous!”
April reached across the desk and put her hand on my arm. She lifted her face and stared me in the eyes. “When Renata took your hands at the apartment and did her psychic reading thing, she saw something she didn’t tell you, Jericho. She saw you and me… together.”
“What?”
April nodded. Her face was bleak but very serious. “She told me after you left. She said she could see you and me together – as lovers… or as Master and submissive,” she shrugged as if the definition wasn’t relevant. “She couldn’t get that image out of her mind.”
“But April, that’s ridiculous! I have always been a gentleman when it comes to how you and I relate to each other – you know that! I’ve never been inappropriate or flirted. I’ve never done anything that –”
“I know!” April squeezed my arm with her fingers. “I know, Jericho. And I told Renata that. I told her there was nothing going on between us. I even offered to stop modeling for the sub-club sessions. I even offered to quit working here at the station,” April threw her hands in the air as she explained. She shook her head and a single tear spilled down her cheek. She smudged it away with the tip of her finger.
“It wasn’t just you,” April said. “It was the BDSM too. That wasn’t working out. Renata was too aggressive. Too dominant. She didn’t understand the difference between a submissive and a slave.”
I was still angry – still somehow offended that I had inadvertently
been dragged into the demise of April’s relationship. “You could have just gone back to the relationship you both had before the BDSM,” I said hotly. “Or you could have talked more – negotiated what you both wanted to get out of the lifestyle. You didn’t have to break up.”
April was still slowly shaking her head. “We tried that, Jericho,” she said. “We talked and talked through the night. In the end, Renata is not the kind of woman to compromise, and after it was all said and done, I realized suddenly that I wasn’t either. I want to explore submission, and I won’t give that up. It’s not a kink for me – it’s much deeper than that. I need to follow this path wherever it leads me… and I am prepared to do that with or without Renata.” April’s expression became pained. “When I told her that, she started packing her bags. I didn’t stop her.”
For many minutes we sat in silence. April wiped away her tears and sipped pensively at her coffee. I stared at a wall, thoughts tumbling over themselves behind my blank eyes.
“So what do you do now?” I asked finally.
April tried a smile. “Well the apartment is in my name,” she said. “I still have that, and I still have my job. Nothing changes, and I’m not the only girl in Boston who has broken up with a partner. I move on,” she said with more determination than I believed she felt. “And hopefully I find myself a Master – someone more suitable to my needs that I can submit to.”
“You mean Mistress…”
April shook her head. “I’m not so sure about that…” she said softly.
I sat up. “You’re telling me that you’re no longer gay? Just like magic, your sexuality has changed overnight?”
April’s gaze was solemn and serious. “No, I’m still gay,” she said. “In terms of a loving long-lasting relationship my preference is always going to be to share my life with another woman, but a BDSM relationship isn’t like that, is it, Jericho? I mean, you’ve said it yourself. You even said it again on the air tonight.”
