6. Wren

God, it feels good to kiss Amara. To feel her grow supple against my body. To taste her – as sweet as always with the added tangy goodness of champagne – and to hold her in my arms.

But it also puts the fear in me. Because kissing is one thing, but what comes next… I can't give her what she needs. I can't be who she needs.

I shouldn't even be thinking about sex right now, because we're kissing in front of Katja which is inappropriate at best and downright rude at worst. Sure, we've hired her to work for us for the evening, and much to my dismay, she's clearly aware of how things are between me and Amara, but after all the effort she just put into getting us out of our heads, it just feels wrong to keep kissing her like this in front of Katja.

So, I pull away.

It was my turn to make a noise when our kiss began, and as if to mark its end, Amara sighs deeply as we part and I take a small step back.

"Sorry, Katja," I say, turning to her, but she's moved back to the hob and she's stirring a saucepan with deft confidence, her wrist moving in a steady, quick rhythm.

"No apologies!" she says in that only a little too loud brusque tone. "It's your evening, after all."

"But you were in the middle of—" I begin.

Katja cuts me off by dropping the spoon and it makes a soft thud against the pan's edge. "Please, don't apologise," her voice is softer, "it was a pleasure to watch you two… reunite."

Her words give me pause. I know it's likely a lost-in-translation thing, but I can't help but wonder how exactly our kiss gave Katja pleasure.

"Reunite…" Amara whispers behind me and I turn back to look at her. She looks a little bewildered, a little unsure of where she is, of what's happening. Her hand goes to her mouth and her middle finger strokes along her full bottom lip.

"Maybe you should go and sit back down and continue… reuniting?" Katja suggests, wiping her hands on the tea towel that's draped over her shoulder.

"Shall we?" I ask Amara who's still looking a little confused.

"Okay," she says and when I curl my hand under her elbow, she lets me lead her back to the table.

A cacophony of cooking noises begins in the kitchen, but it isn't replicated at the table because as soon as we are seated, Amara and I fall back into silence. If it wasn't for the way Amara's lips look slightly swollen, her lipstick a little smudged at the edges, I would start thinking that the kiss hadn't happened.

But it did. I know it did because I can still feel Amara's lips on mine. It's a ghost of a feeling, so light and yet so undeniable. And I don't want to think about it not happening because in that kiss I felt something like possibility. I felt like maybe I could tell Amara what I wanted, what I think I need, and she wouldn't dislike me for it. I felt like maybe I could be honest with Amara, and she wouldn't leave me.

"Wren?" Amara's voice jolts me out of my thoughts. Her voice has an edge to it and I suspect that wasn't the first time she said my name.

"Yeah?" I turn to her, still a little dazed.

"That kiss…" Amara says and when I look at her, I instantly regret it. Her big brown eyes shimmer with moisture and her brow is creased in a frown.

"Yes?" I prompt when she doesn't finish.

"Was it a kiss goodbye?" she asks.

It feels like my stomach plummets to the ground while my chest instantly gets tighter.

"It wasn't a goodbye kiss, Ama," I slide my hand towards hers, but I don't envelope her fingers in mine. Instead, I let my fingertips touch the side of her forearm and for some obscure, inexplicable reason, that feels more intimate, more daring and more meaningful. "I still want to kiss you until my dying day."

Her shoulders lower with her exhale and it's like some of her relief is contagious as my own body sinks heavier into the chair.

"Oh, Wren," she says as the tears spill out of her eyes.

"Amara, please don't cry," I say. "I know we need to talk and I'm trying, I'm trying so hard, but please, please don't cry."

I've never been good with people crying, but Amara? Amara crying is a whole other kind of hell. This normally confident, composed and charismatic woman I love coming undone at the seams? That's what scares me most of all. And it's this version of Amara that I know is kept at bay by our bedroom dynamics. It may sound extreme to somebody who doesn't know what it takes to submit, what can be lost and gained from handing over your power to choose or even think about your next move, but I know just how deeply it affects Amara. How much it affirms her. How much it frees her. How much it makes her the best version of herself.

I know this because it's what I crave. I want to surrender control. I want to experience abandon like that. I want to finally, finally stop thinking about who I am in this world, how I present myself, what kind of space I take up and what that space looks like. I just want to be.

When it shows up like this in my head, in a perfectly formed sentence with a supporting justification that is easy to grasp and deliver, I suddenly feel ready to talk to Amara, to try and explain, to try and reassure that it's not about her. It's nothing she's done wrong. It's just that I've changed…

"Amara," I begin. "I have to tell you something. But I can't… I find it… Shit, this is too difficult."

It's like there is a hand around my throat squeezing the air out of my body and blocking my words.

"It's too difficult?" Amara spits my words back at me and her distaste, disapproval, in fact, is audible.

I tut, loudly. "We're not all master communicators like you," I spit back and I knew there'd be an edge in my voice but even I'm taken aback by how sharp it is.

In a flash of movement, she's standing up next to the table and looking down at me. "I can't do this," she says. "Excuse me."

Her consummate politeness feels almost laughable as she rushes from the room. I watch her go and feel the taut ache in my chest return.

"Oh." I hear behind me. A short blunt noise, I turn to look at Katja who is holding two plates in her hand.

I offer what I hope is an apologetic smile. "Sorry," I say. "Again."

Katja returns my sorrowful smile but then a new and very different expression rearranges her features. Her eyebrows lower and pull together, her mouth pushes into a pout. She studies me in silence for a moment.

"Well, aren't you going to go after her?" she asks me and her question feels like a direct hit.

"What?"

"Go and check she's okay," Katja says.

"But… But…" I falter. "She left for a reason. She's upset."

"Exactly!" Katja says before tsking me, loudly. She turns and places the plates back on the kitchen island and then marches, literally marches towards me. "Do you love your wife, Wren?"

Her demanding tone continues to take me aback, but her question is easy to answer.

"Yes," I say.

"Well, you need to do something or you will lose her," Katja tells me, a hand on the back of Amara's empty chair.

I scoff at Katja. "I'm sorry but you don't know us."

"I know a couple on the brink of breaking up," she says back without so much as a pause to inhale. "I know what it looks like when two people are losing one another, and it feels like nothing they can do will stop it."

I take a few breaths and see the pain in Katja's face, her scarlet lips now flattened and her eyes wide and misty.

"Your ex?"

"Yes," she says.

I shake my head slightly. "Well, I'm sorry that didn't work out, but Amara and me… We're not the same."

"In what way?" Katja challenges me again. "Because you talk all the time? About everything? Because you have no secrets?"

Each question feels like the stab of a sharp and rusting knife. I look down at my hands on the table.

"Why don't you try me?" Katja says, and before I look up at her, she's moving to sit down in the chair that Amara vacated.

"What… What do you mean?" I narrow my eyes on her.

"Tell me whatever it is you can't tell Amara," Katja crosses her legs and continues to study me inscrutably.

I feel my shoulders rise and my spine straighten. "Forgive my rudeness, but why the fuck would I do that?"

"Because you love your wife and you want to save your marriage?" Katja suggests, unperturbed by my impoliteness. "Because after tonight, you'll never see me again? And whatever it is, I won't judge you. And even if I did, my opinion doesn't matter. All that matters is you try and get off your chest whatever it is that is visibly weighing you down," she points a finger at me before directing it to the hallway Amara just disappeared down, "and tearing you and Amara apart."

"You don't know us. You wouldn't understand," I dismiss the offer again but inside I'm weighing up how awful it would be to tell Katja, to see if I have the words, and to see if they make sense once they're spoken.

"All the more reason to just tell me. Like I said, it doesn't matter what I think, because I'm nothing to you or Amara, but it will give you a chance to practise telling Amara. Because you have to tell her, you have to talk to her, or you will lose her."

My eyes dart to the hallway and I let silence fall so I can listen for any sign of Amara returning. When I look back at Katja her gaze hasn't wavered, and it pins me in place. It's not an awful feeling anymore; there's even something grounding in it. It feels like Katja is not going to let me hide away with my secrets, secrets that get heavier and heavier to carry.

I take a deep breath and open my mouth.

"I don't know where to start," I say when no other words form.

"Just start. It doesn't have to be at the beginning," Katja tells me and her voice is all gentleness and patience now.

"I want to submit," I say and as each word rolls off my tongue, I feel the tension across my chest ease a little.

"Submit?" One of Katja's eyebrows climbs high.

"Intimately, physically… sexually," I tentatively explain. "Normally I am more dominant, and Amara is submissive. Very submissive. It's how we've always been, from the very beginning."

"Okay." Katja nods when I pause again.

"She likes it when I take control. Tell her what to do."

Katja continues to look at me, noticeably composed despite what I just revealed.

"I always had a Dom role and she was my sub," I say and a bitter smile twists my lips as a certain memory enters my mind. "When she told me this was what she wanted from sex, I almost didn't believe her. She was the bossiest sub on the planet because before our first time together she gave me a long list of things she wanted me to do and she has since been very quick to tell me more things she wants to try. And at first, I was keen. I wanted to be that person for her. I enjoyed it too, or at least I think I did."

"So what changed?"

"I came out," I say with a deep sigh. "As non-binary. I embraced parts of me that I'd long kept buried, or rather disguised. Being masc presenting when really I wanted to be free of all gender influences. Being a butch lesbian when really I was gender non-conforming. Being a Dom to assert more masculine parts of my personality, when really I was misunderstanding what it meant to be masculine. When I stopped trying to prove myself, when I stopped trying to fit in boxes that weren't even made for me, when I just stopped and found peace with who I really am, as I am, I realised that there were parts of me that didn't make sense anymore. They didn't bring me the same comfort they used to. Now I'm curious about what it would feel like to submit, to surrender control to somebody else, to let go of this control I no longer want. To feel completely free, and also, worshipped, praised, and well, loved."

Katja blinks as she nods her head, absorbing all these words that have left me feeling naked and vulnerable. But once the edge of those exposed feelings passes, I am strangely grateful for the silence we share. It makes me think she was really listening, and that my words have gone somewhere.

"That is quite a journey you've been on," Katja acknowledges.

It's my turn to nod. "It was. It still is."

"Achso," Katja says, with an undeniably German firmness. "You want Amara to dominate you?"

"No," I say immediately, instinctively. "It's not that I want Amara to change, to be the Domme. And I don't think… I don't think she could, even if she wanted to."

"Why not? You haven't even told her how you feel."

"Because." I pause and gather my thoughts. "Because it's who she is. And that's who I love."

"So if her dominating you isn't an option, then…" Katja stops talking and I can almost hear the click as it all falls into place.

"You can't have two submissives together," I explain.

"You don't need to have Doms or submissives at all," Katja states with a quick wave of her hand. I don't miss how easily and comfortably those words flow out of her mouth. "You can just have sex. Good, old fashioned, vanilla sex."

I'm shaking my head as I reply, "No, we can't. At least not in the long-term. Amara needs to submit. It's part of who she is. It's her oxygen."

"You are certain of this?"

I suck in a deep, regretful breath. "Yes."

Katja makes a light scoffing noise as she shifts in her chair. "Anything is possible. Where there's love, there's a way."

I smile kindly at her. "I think the saying you mean is, where there's a will, there's a way."

Katja shakes her head and pouts at me. "No. I mean, where there's love, there's a way. You just need to both put in the work and that begins with communication."

Her bossy, slightly authoritarian voice is back and it arrests me. And not only because I bristle with what she's suggesting – my telling Amara – but also because I relinquish something at hearing the order. I let go of a little bit of the fear. It feels close to what I imagine submitting would be like.

"I don't see how it could work though," I think out loud.

"Have a little faith in yourself," Katja says. "And in Amara."

I don't know how long we sit there, Katja and I, holding eye contact, but it's long enough for me to replay the conversation we just shared. It's also long enough for me to let Katja's soothing words find a home somewhere inside me.