A Whole New World : Bound

I awoke from a dream and sat straight up in bed, a ringing in my ears and my heart felt like it was going to pound out of my chest.  I looked over to my Ryan’s (my husband's) side of the bed and he was still sound asleep, breathing deeply with the slightest hint of a snore.  He was unphased by my startled slumber, but I suppose he has become used to it now after nearly 20 years of marriage.  God I loved this man.  He has always supported me with everything I have wanted to do.  Through college, children, the early stages of my career as a chef and he was the one to push me to open my very own restaurant.  It was even my wants of being bisexual that led us into the lifestyle.  Ryan was by my side as my own personal cheering section.  I would be lost without him!  Just sitting here, watching him sleep calmed me enough from my dream that I was able to catch my breath again.  For years now, I frequently have nightmares of my childhood.  Something that only Ryan knows is that I was adopted.  I was in this horrible place for the first 10 years of my life until one day I let something slip at school to my teacher.  That was the last day that I had to spend at that home and if I had known that all I had to do was say something sooner, I would have.  As it was, I was brainwashed to believe that if I said anything, the next place would be worse than what I currently had.  I was not beaten or raped, but I was mentally abused and they forced me to be their slave when I was not at school.  If I did not obey, they would not feed me.  They were smart enough to make sure I had a small amount of food for school each day, but I spent many, many nights going to bed with no food and sometimes no blankets to keep me warm while they sat on their asses all day and watched tv.  I had 3 other foster siblings whom they did the same things to.  When I was taken from that place, and was allowed to eat real food, I fell in love with the flavours which turned into a passion for cooking.  But still to this day, I have nightmares of how much pain my stomach was in because I was hungry.  I remember one time, I actually ate some of the scraps that were meant for the pigs in the barn.  I took a deep breath, reminding myself that was a whole different life and long time ago and that I was fine now.  I quietly slid out of bed in hopes not to wake Ryan and tip toed out of the room.  I walked into the kitchen as I did most nights and made a straight line for the cupboard.  I opened the door, reached in and grabbed the box of ranch flavoured crackers.  As quietly as I could, I reached in and grabbed 3 or 4, closed the box and put it back in the cupboard before I sat at the island in the middle of the kitchen and had my little snack.  When I was a teenager, I would eat the whole box because I still felt like I was not going to be allowed food for a long time even though my second foster family were angels.  Now, even 35 years later, I still sneak down in the middle of the night, but usually 3 or 4 will put my mind at ease enough to be able to go back to bed.  As I sat there nibbling on my crackers, I began to think of how excited I was about the possibility of having a second restaurant and then I began to think of how lucky I was to have the first one. We did not have all of the capital that we needed at the time to open our own restaurant and I was being treated poorly by my previous employer, so we reached out to our best friend in the world (and occasional lover) Hunter.  He was an opportunist who weighed all the ins and outs of opening a restaurant, but was easily swayed after I cooked a sample menu for him.  Ryan was a professional accountant that worked for the same firm since he graduated.  He was happy where he was and had no intention of leaving there, but he did offer to manage the finances on the side for us.  At first, he just did it in his spare time, but now with talks about opening a second location and training all new staff, it was clear to us that we would soon need to hire someone to look after it for us full time.  I wished that Ryan would take it on, but I understood that he enjoyed where he was and I needed to be more happy for him. I suppose you could say that I was a teeny bit of a princess, but when push came to shove I would work my ass off to achieve my goals.  It has only been 2 years since we became empty-nesters and have been enjoying the fruits of it as much as we could.  Sure, our daughter Tiffany came home from breaks in College and some weekends, but for the most part, if I wanted to lounge around naked on my day off, I could (and sometimes we did too).  Being that I am the head chef at our restaurant, I normally worked most nights and weekends.  My normal schedule, I took Monday and Tuesday’s off for my weekend, but I just hired a brilliant up and coming chef, it had started me thinking of other things.  Like if I trained this person to replace me here, then that would allow more time for me to do other things...but I was not sure if I was ready to stop cooking just yet and only be an owner.  On the other hand, I would have more freedom to be creative with new ideas and test out different things while my staff cooked for the customers.   For the past couple of weeks though, I have not been able to get something off my mind.  Ryan and I joined our friends Amanda, Hunter, Mike and Tina at Hunter’s lifestyle club Temptations for New Years Eve.  The six of us were having an amazing time throughout the whole night and when the back play area opened up, I was approached by a man whom I thought Ryan had set up earlier to be a part of his live demonstration of what he said was a very light taste of b**m.  He only introduced himself as Master and there was something alluring about him that I just could not refuse his invitation.  I agreed to join him and honestly had the most amazing time.  It opened my eyes to a new world of possibilities that I wanted to explore more.  Unfortunately though, I found out afterwards that Ryan nor Hunter had ever talked to this man before but in my mind, it didn’t matter.  The feeling of giving up complete control to someone and being in control over another just made me want more.   When I spoke to Ryan about it a few days later, he completely dismissed it because in his mind it was a form of abuse.  He didn’t believe that anyone should hold power over another like that and could not understand how one could be aroused by that. This was honestly the first major disagreement we have had the whole time we have been married.  Out of all 20 years, raising a child, careers heck- even joining the swinging lifestyle not one single argument until now.  I had been trying to talk myself out of wanting to look into this further, but no matter what I said to myself or how I tried to distract my thoughts, my mind betrayed me every time I fell asleep lately.  For the life of me, I just couldn’t figure out why he was being so close minded now.  Arguing with Ryan about this was putting a strain on our relationship and I didn’t know what to do about it.  Hunter was my best friend in the world, but I wasn’t sure I would be able to talk to him about this because I was not sure if he would understand either but on the other hand, if anyone should be able to separate his own feelings and just listen, it would be him. With a deep sigh, I looked at the clock on the stove.  It was only 4 am and I had only been sleeping for 5 hours.  If I wanted to function properly this afternoon, I better get my butt back to bed.  I dragged myself off of the stool and made my way back upstairs.  When I reached our bedroom door however, Ryan was no longer in bed and the light to the bathroom ensuite was on.  I hurried back into bed and pulled the covers over myself just as he was exiting the bathroom.   “Everything okay?” He asked more out of habit then sounding like he was bothered by my middle of the night absence. “Just another bad dream…”  I replied before tucking the covers tight up against my chin and closing my eyes again.  Ryan didn’t reply this time though, he just climbed back into his side of the bed and fell back asleep almost instantly.  I will admit, it annoyed me a little that he was able to do that, but at this point, we had argued so much lately that all I wanted to do was go back to sleep.  For the time being, I had no more fight left in me.