Saving Sunni (28 page)

“I’ve been feeling…frustrated, mostly,” she said, glancing at me and then back at Sir. He only nodded. “I don’t know what to do to fix any of this.”

We both looked at her curiously. “Why do you feel you need to fix anything?” Sir asked.

She looked surprised. “Well, I…they’re my problems too.”

“But why is it your responsibility?”

She was silent. Finally she simply shook her head in confusion.

“This situation belongs to all of us,” he said to her firmly, “and we will deal with it as a family. It is not your responsibility to find a solution. It is all of ours and mine to make sure it happens.”

“But—”

“I am the master here, and while it will take all of us working together to solve our problems, the final responsibility is mine,” Sir said almost angrily. sage turned bright red.

Sir turned to me. “sunni, what about you?”

I thought about Geri’s advice while sage was talking, and knew I had to get a couple of things off my chest.

“I’ve been feeling guilty over this whole thing with Randy, but I think it’s turned into more than that. I feel like you don’t trust me.”

He looked at me questioningly.

“You won’t even let me keep my own phone. What do you think is going to happen? He’s going to talk me into running away with him? Do you think I’m that stupid?” I needed to stay calm, but there was so much frustration and anger still inside me that it was difficult keeping it under control.

sage openly gaped at me and Sir tried to keep from getting angry. His jaw tightened and his fingers opened and closed a few times as if trying to make a fist.

“I am trying to keep you from being harassed,” he said sternly.

“I know that, Sir.” I pushed my anger down and matched his tone. “But you are supposed to be helping us to grow and develop, not treating us like slow kindergartners who can’t be left unsupervised for two minutes. I’m not with you to be protected from the world. It doesn’t do anything for either of us if that’s what you’re trying to do. And this whole thing, like you said, belongs to
us
, as a family, and we should all be involved in finding a solution. But you are so busy trying to save us from every possible situation that none of us are accomplishing anything.”

Sir took another deep breath, and I imagined him counting to ten in German before he let it back out.

“Do either of you feel like you want out of this relationship?” he asked suddenly. Neither of us answered. “Things are not good right now. I am unemployed, it’s possible that I will be deported, and the level of connection and communication between all of us has been very low.” He paused, but still neither of us spoke. “If it is getting too bad for either of you, I would rather know now, while you’re still considering it, than waiting until you’ve made your decision and are ready to leave.”

We both stared at him, speechless. Since I had expressed my frustration, the anger had mostly dissipated, but I considered what Sir was saying. If I stepped out, that would probably make things easier for Sir. He and sage could get married, which would solve his citizenship worries, and if it didn’t, I was pretty sure sage would go back to Europe with him.

That thought made me think back to my marriage with Randy. He had been sweet and charming at first, a lot of fun when he wasn’t drunk and angry. Maybe sage had been partly right and there was a very small piece of me that missed the carefree, irresponsible girl I had been. Relationship issues were much simpler then; I could blame Randy for all of the problems, and I was sure he’d just as readily blamed me. We had just been kids playing at being responsible adults. I imagined running away with Randy now. It would be a way to start over, a new adventure. But I wasn’t interested in the kind of adventure that involved becoming a religious fanatic, and I had no interest in starting over, either.

Our relationship had come a long way. When I moved to Denver to be with Sir, I’d counted on him to take care of me. He had a really good job and he’d allowed me to do whatever I wanted. When sage came, things had changed. sage acted so grown-up and responsible, and suddenly Sir wasn’t as willing to let me get away with things as he’d been before. There were some rough spots, but I gradually learned to deal with being in a poly relationship as well as a Master/slave one. sage was usually pretty fun to have around when she wasn’t freaking out about some goofy thing, and when it was just the two of us we got along really well.

When Sir was there it was totally different. It wasn’t that he wasn’t funny, although it took me a little while to get used to his European sense of humor. But the dynamic was completely different. The structure that came from the situation itself allowed us to know when it was okay to joke around and when it was time to be serious. Somehow having a boundary between them was surprisingly freeing. I would never have guessed that I would like not being the one to decide when I could be bratty and when I couldn’t. But I came to see that there were benefits to working in a framework like ours.

Now that Sir had lost his job, things had changed even more. I’d gotten a little better about controlling my jealousy and my need to be the center of attention, and even my playfulness when it went too far into insolence. Now it was time to accept my place as a partner in our family. It wasn’t about Sir taking care of me, or even us. It was about all of us working together.

I visualized myself leaving, finding another master who would let me be a brat without responsibilities. I would never go back to Randy, but I could find some nice guy to wind around my finger. I’d done it before. I’d even done it to Sir for a while. But things weren’t like that anymore, and the thought of bossing around a man while pretending to be submissive just wasn’t appealing now. I thought about my job at the Fringe Element, about Geri with her little quirks and surprising bouts of wisdom. I pictured Debi, wavering between being a rebellious teenager and an adult choosing her own way of life because it was what she wanted, not because it was the opposite of her father’s advice. I thought about sage studying hard to become a relationship counselor, and a pang of compassion for her went through me. She had probably felt guilty for leaving her full-time job right before the shit had hit the fan with Sir’s job.

It was time for me to grow up too. We each needed to help work this out. We were just getting frustrated trying to come up with individual solutions. I looked around to see Sir watching me as if he could read my thoughts. Knowing Sir, I wouldn’t have been too surprised if he could. Remembering Geri’s advice, I realized that I couldn’t sit back and wait for Sir or sage to say something that would make it better. It was up to me just as much as either of them to put things back on the right footing.

I thought back to things we had done when the relationship was newer and stronger, trying to find something symbolic that would re-establish the structure we’d had. Finally I walked over to where Sir sat and knelt in front of him.

“Sir,” I said, my voice sounding stronger than it had in a long time. “I don’t want to leave. I believe that we can work through this. If you still want me for your slave, then I’m staying.”

“Thank you, sunni,” Sir said seriously. His accent was soft, but noticeable. He gave me a small nod. “sage?”

“I agree,” she said slowly and thoughtfully, joining me on her knees in front of Sir. “I have no interest in leaving, and I think we can get back the good relationship we had.”

She glanced at me and we exchanged a frank look. There was a comment running through my head about how if she wanted things to get back to normal she needed to get over some things and drop her holier-than-thou attitude. But now as we really saw each other for the first time in weeks, my resentment drained away. I really did love her, and I loved Sir, and I did want this to work. Poly was really tough at times. You didn’t have the option to just assume that all the problems were on the other side of the table. In some weird way having more than two people in the relationship changed the balance of power. It forced you to look at your own shit and kept you from hiding behind any convenient anger.

sage shrugged very slightly, as if letting go of some comment of her own, then said, “I’m sorry I got pissed at you for hitting me the other night.” I wondered briefly if she meant it completely, but there was no point in those kind of thoughts. We were trying to make amends, and it was offered as a means of doing that.

“It’s okay,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound sulky or condescending. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more careful.” She nodded but didn’t say anything else.

“Thanks for making cookies for the puppy meeting,” I said, breaking the ice completely. “That was really nice of you.”

She finally smiled at me, and I returned it. “I had some dough in the freezer.” She shrugged as if it negated the thoughtfulness.

“I appreciated it anyway,” I said, leaning toward her for a hug.

She hugged me back, and I heard a sniff. “I love you,” she said in a husky whisper.

“I love you, too.” I had trouble keeping the emotion out of my voice as I realized we’d never said that to each other before. We held the contact for a few seconds to give each other time to regain control, then turned back to focus on Sir. As it should be.

“Very nice, girls,” Sir said, putting a hand on each of our heads. “I appreciate the expression of commitment to me, our family, and each other. Please go back to your places on the couch now. We still have some re-negotiation to do.”

The anxiety returned. Sir was less angry now, but he had a serious, thoughtful demeanor, as if he wasn’t completely convinced that we meant what we had said.

“sunni, do you understand the underlying issue in all of this? The thing that has me so angry?”

I fought down the urge to say, “Randy, maybe?” and instead took a steadying breath before answering. “It feels to me as if you don’t trust me to take care of myself. You think I’m going to stupidly let Randy hurt me again.”

Sir shook his head from the moment I started talking. “No, no, no! That isn’t it at all. Randy is just the surface issue, not the underlying problem.”

“What is the underlying problem?”

“Trust.”

“Trust?” I frowned, confused. I thought he didn’t trust me, and now he was arguing that I didn’t trust him? That seemed odd.

“Yes, trust.” His voice filled the room with a quiet intensity that was almost physical. “The Master/slave dynamic is built on trust. Without it there can be no relationship. For this to work we have to be able to trust each other to fulfill the roles we have negotiated and agreed upon. Without that trust we cannot have a deep connection. Without that deep connection why bother with all of the extra work involved in this lifestyle?”

The silence deepened as we all thought about it. He continued, “You say you don’t want to throw away the life we have all built together.”

I nodded.

“Then we need to have a change. If we are to salvage this relationship then there are things that will need to be worked out. Are you willing to discuss it?” His tone was brisk and businesslike, as if he had no personal stake in my answer but was simply curious.

“I am willing to discuss things, Sir,” I said slowly. “I don’t want to give up on our relationship—our family. But I am not a little girl to be coddled and protected from the world. You need to understand that I am an adult. I need to make my own mistakes and take responsibility for my own choices.”

I wasn’t sure how the conversation was going to go at this point.
Did
I have the right, in a Master/slave relationship, to make my own mistakes? It was tempting to pretend that you could give up all power and authority to your master, but Geri was right. There was no such thing as abdicating all responsibility for your own life. He could be my master, my mentor, my lover, and my guide, but I was still ultimately in charge of my life and my share of the relationship.

Sir nodded, and I had the uncanny feeling again that he could read my thoughts. “I do understand that you are an adult. I will attempt to keep that in mind, but I am the master in our family and protecting you is part of the job description, whether you like it or not. It is a huge part of who I am, and I can only change that so much. I will try and let you deal with your own issues if we can come to an understanding on common-sense precautions. I need to be confident that you accept the possibility that bad things can happen.”

I had no illusions that bad things didn’t happen.

“It is hard for me to let either of you be put in a position where harm could come to you,” Sir continued. “And despite your assurances that Randy wouldn’t hurt you, his past actions tell a different story. But I realize that if I expect you to grow up and accept the consequences of your actions, I will have to do exactly that. So, to that end, let’s deal with the Randy issue first, shall we?”

I nodded again.

“If Randy shows up anywhere that you are, I would like your word that you will call me immediately and will not confront him until I am there. In exchange, I will agree to try not to interfere and will let you handle the situation—with the provision that if he raises his hand to you I will remove it from his body and use it to beat him to death.” The last was said with a grim smile. He was joking, but at the moment I might not have sworn to it.

“All right,” I agreed. “If it is at all possible I will call you right away and will wait for you to get there before talking with him.”