By His Command (House of Submission 2)

‘She wasn’t serious, was she? About … what she said?’

Jasper laughed. ‘Love, she’s my mother. She doesn’t have the last word in what we choose to do with our lives. She might have been serious or she might not – what matters is whether we are.’

‘We’re together in the eyes of the world now,’ I said, watching the clouds darken while leaves picked themselves up and whirled over the lawns. ‘In the telephoto lens of the world, anyway.’

‘We were together already, never mind what the world knew.’

He clasped his hands around my waist and rested his chin on my shoulder, seeing what I saw through the window.

‘We are leaves tossed on the breeze,’ he said. ‘Except we aren’t. We choose our future, Sarah. We don’t let the weather choose it for us.’

I smiled at his apt metaphor. ‘The weather?’

‘Yes. The prevailing climate. Everything having to be done a certain way. Fuck that. We’ll do it our way, right?’

‘It’s hard to walk into a gale-force wind,’ I said.

‘Yes, but if you get to where you want to be …’

I turned and smiled at him.

‘Perhaps we should stop with the meteorology now.’

‘Suits me. What I want to know is; will you marry me?’

‘What?’ I grabbed hold of the windowsill, feeling as if the floor had tipped me sideways. ‘Are you serious?’

‘You always have to know if people are serious, Sarah. Why is that? Do people often joke about wanting to marry you? Or what?’

‘I don’t think anyone has ever mentioned marriage to me before, and now you and your mother have both done it on the same day.’

‘There you go. It’s in the air.’ He put his lips in my hair, whispering through it while he clutched me breathlessly tight. ‘It’s meant to be.’

‘How can you be sure after, what, four months?’

‘Four and a half.’

‘The half makes all the difference.’

‘Yes, it does. OK. You can think about the marriage thing. But before we go any further, I need some sort of commitment. I need you to acknowledge yourself as mine and only mine.’

‘You know I am.’

‘Yes, I know you are, but I want to see that you are.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I want to collar you.’

‘What, like a dog?’

‘No, Jesus, Sarah, have you not even Googled BDSM? Or are you being wilfully obtuse so I’ll thrash you?’

I giggled. ‘Perhaps. All right. I know about collaring. I just don’t really want some dog collar on me.’

‘Don’t be so literal. It doesn’t have to be a dog collar. I’ll show you.’

He went to his bag, still unpacked on the bed, and reached in until he found a leather jewellery box.