but the truth was, it had been stressing both of us out for a long time. Ever since that night a few months ago when we’d experimented with going farther than usual, and in doing so, we’d made two game-changing discoveries:
One, that there was an absolute hard limit to how much pain he was willing to inflict on a submissive.
Two, how much I craved—how much I needed—pain that went well beyond that limit.
We’d tried to compromise, but there was no putting the lid back on Pandora’s box. We’d both had a taste, and we couldn’t pretend we hadn’t. I’d always been a masochist. He wasn’t much of a sadist, but he was for me because he was every inch a service top. The more I’d realized how much pain I really needed, and the more we’d realized how far my needs went beyond Will’s limits, the more stressed we’d both been.
We’d had more vanilla sex in the past few months than we’d had in years because we just could not get back on the same wavelength where kink was concerned. That stress had bled into the rest of our marriage, and if it was as easy as saying we’d stick it out no matter what, we wouldn’t have worked so hard to avoid the subject for so long.
But when he told me today that leaving wasn’t on the table, I grabbed on to his words like they were a life preserver, and I hoped like hell they floated.
Opening my eyes, I said, “So, we’re in it for the long haul no matter what. But what do we do?”
“I don’t want to just throw up my hands and say we’ll work around it, since it’s obviously making you unhappy.” He seemed to think about it for a moment, then took a deep breath. “I can try to give you more of what you need.”
I was already shaking my head. “That kind of pain isn’t your thing. We both know that. I’d rather do without it than push you into it.”
“But you are doing without it, and you’re obviously not happy.”
I pressed my lips together, dropping my gaze again.
We were silent for a long moment. Then Will said, “What if we bring in someone else?”
I looked at him. “How would that work, though? Because I don’t want to add someone to our relationship to save it. That never works.”
“No, and I’m not suggesting anything poly. But we can bring someone into the bedroom.” He played with the straw in his iced tea. “If there’s something you need that I can’t give you, and there’s someone who can give it to you…” He shrugged. “Then I’m happy to bring in someone else so you can be happy.”
My throat tightened. For all I worried myself sick that this could spell the end of our marriage, Will had always been the type to offer up whatever it took to make things work. “How do we do that, though? Because it’s fine and good if we find me a sadist, but would you really want to share me with another Dom?”
The subtle tightness of Will’s lips answered clearly enough, but he said, “If I have to choose between letting you submit to someone else, and having you be unhappy with—”
“But you shouldn’t have to make that choice. I mean, I’m fine with bringing other people in. The threesomes we’ve had in the past…” I shivered at the memories. “But another Dom? You’re not going to magically be okay with that any more than you’re going to magically be okay with hurting me like I need to be hurt.”
Will squirmed a little. “You have any ideas?”
I thought about it, then laughed humorlessly as I picked up my coffee cup. “What do you think the odds are of finding a sadist who’s also a sub?”
Will met my gaze. “I mean…it’s possible.”
I blinked. “I was joking.”
“I know, but the sky’s the limit with kink, you know? We knew that one Dom who was a total masochist. There’s no reason we can’t find a submissive who’s a sadist.”
“Isn’t sadism a control thing, though? A power thing?”
“It can be. But for some people it’s just about the pain itself.” He sipped his iced tea. “Why not?”
Well, damn. Now that he’d mentioned it, it made a lot of sense. When we’d lived in Chicago, there’d been a Dom at our dungeon who’d loved pain, but didn’t have a submissive bone in his body. We’d been part of the kink community long enough