Chapter Thirteen
The Cut-Off
I imagined that it would be confusing, that Darren would likely feel somewhat torn.
I had, as Klaus’s agent—slowly but systematically, incrementally but implacably, over time and through resistance, however sporadic and minimal—completely upended how we related to each other sexually.
As Klaus had enslaved me, I had enslaved Darren.
Klaus had been explicit and overt, however.
If I hadn’t understood the “how” of what he did, hadn’t understood the “why” of the ways in which I did and did not react, the “what” had always been completely up front:
Consent.
Desire.
Submission.
It felt like a trivial little, intellectual “holdover,” question, an echo of that earliest argument, a bad chicken and egg joke: Did Desire precede Consent or did Consent precede Des
