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“Can’t do what?”
“This, Cam. Not now. Not tonight.” I get to my feet, panicking. “I’ll sleep in the spare room.”
He stands too, and for once his eyes flicker with emotion. “You need to make an effort as well,” he snaps.
I hunch my shoulders and wrap my arms around my middle. I feel angry and defensive and guilty and so, so lonely, all rolled into one. “I know.”
“This isn’t all about me,” he says.
I don’t say anything.
“How long are you going to punish me for?” he asks.
“Why, are you enjoying it?” I bite my lip, but it’s too late to stop the words. Shit, shit, shit. You fucking idiot, Juliette.
He gives a short, humorless laugh. “How long have you been waiting to say that?”
I brush a hand over my face. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No you shouldn’t,” he says angrily. “Not everyone likes their sex vanilla.”
My eyebrows rise. “I’m not vanilla.”
“Yes, Juliette, you are. And that’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with that, but there’s nothing wrong with wanting to experiment either. Lots of people enjoy power play—it’s really common.”
“Is that what she told you?”
“Oh, and the gloves are off. Yes, she did say that I was wrong to feel bad about wanting to experiment and try different things.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Look, I’m just saying that I’m not a freak, and I don’t appreciate being treated like one. I do have… problems, but, as I tried to explain before, seeing Vanessa was my attempt to try and work out what to do about them.”
I go stiff as a board.
He sees my face and rolls his eyes. “Don’t go ballistic just because I said her name.”
“You’ve never said it before.”
“It’s just a name.”
It is, but for some reason it makes her horribly, alarmingly real. Before, she was just a nameless, faceless symbol of his problems. When he came home after seeing her and we talked about it, he was very careful not to say anything about her—he only talked about himself. I did my best to block her out of my mind, trying to see her as a therapist who was trying to help him.
But suddenly I see her as what she was—a living, breathing woman who talked to him about our personal life, who took off her clothes with him, and who did the most intimate things to him, and let him do them to her.
“The things you want me to do,” I whisper, “I don’t think I can do them.”
Frustration flickers on his face. “Jesus, it’s not like I’m asking you to torture me or anything. Lots of people tie the other person up and use vibrators on each other, and—”
“You’re not just asking me to lovingly arouse you, Cam. You’re asking me to…” I press my lips together. “It’s not the what, it’s the how. It’s… it’s so clinical and cold.”
“It’s not! It’s sexy!”
“Not to me. I’m sorry, but I can’t be the person you want me to be.”
“You’re still talking as if I’m a fucking freak! It’s such a small thing. You’re overreacting big time.”
“I’m not overreacting.”
“You just need to loosen up a bit.”
I don’t say anything. He’s spiraling past the point of no return, and I know where this is going.
