Damian Ch. 10: Denouement - Wrap

10) DENOUEMENT

The one where Damian decides... is this really his future?

Damian has been contemplating suicide because of earlier betrayals. But now he considers the possibility of reuniting with his dominatrix wife, while also accepting her submissive into the relationship as a polyamorous BDSM triad.

I stand alone on the stone bridge watching the reflection of the setting sun in the river. There's no one else around. Cassie and I have shared many moments here.

I take my gun out of my waistband. I look at it sadly... it has been with me as my 'plan B.' It's my lollipop. It's been my last, best choice. My friend. My confidant. My commiserator. My ultimate painkiller.

I close my eyes and reflect. I reflect on all the crazy and horrible things that've happened to me over the past four months. I ask myself if the pain has been worth it. Like so many times before, my finger clenches on the trigger of my lollipop-gun; just one little twitch and that's all it takes. Then I'd know. I'd know once and for all.

I marvel as a flight of geese fly overhead in their classic "V" formation. All of them honking desperately to encourage the leader: the leader works the hardest, being the first to break the air. It's a beautiful symmetry: the whole greater than the sum of its living parts. Critters just work better together. Birds.... wolves...

People...

I smile and slowly open my hand, watching my fingers unfold and see gravity take its due. The gun drops heavily to the water below. It's anticlimactic, really. No sound, hardly a splash and no ripples, erased instantly by the moving waters. But my lollipop is gone: along, I hope, with most of my demons.

Then I reflect on all the wonderful things that came out of those hell months.

It all turned out wonderfully, actually. I now have two beautiful women - each with their own needs, and their own ways of fulfilling mine - and a three-way commitment. The boys are actually happy for us and forging their own relationships with Cynthia who is really getting into the role of... well... au pair?... with the boys. We're reinventing the concept of family on our own; there's no language, no model for this. DCS is fading into the background as if we'd played the Jedi Mind Trick on them: "these aren't the pervs you're looking for..." And I got a promotion at work: I don't know why, exactly, but I think it's because someone shared with the higher-ups that I was planning to move and they want to keep me.

I reflect on the whole journey with Anne. Was this what she was leading me to? Did she have a plan for my life? Was I groomed? She kept discussing my future as if she knew it; like she knew what I would become and maybe even what we would become. Then I cast that thought to the winds: does it matter? I'm happy again. We're happy. Stewing on it doesn't mean we'll change anything. And I don't really want to change this anyway. Even if Anne did manipulate me, she did me a favor, didn't she?

And Cass told me more about her original blackmail on Lily. What she blackmailed her to do - at least partly - was to be a loyal lover for me! Part of it was about her looking out for me, even when she was kicking me out of her life. I'm sure that's not all of it, but we all know how that thing with Lily ultimately turned out, so it's okay. We're okay. I'm okay.

Lily? Maybe she's okay... she seems well-adjusted when I see her at work. She treats me exactly like a work colleague - nothing more and nothing less. I haven't seen her with anyone yet, but maybe it will all work out for her in the end. Or if she gets evil again, well, the next victim was warned.

I look at the tattoo on my arm. Cassie had me get it. A phoenix. I'm a cliché again. But buried in the ashes and fire of the design there's a semicolon. Yes, I told my women about that, too: we have no secrets anymore.

I shrug and laugh quietly. Well, yeah, okay: there is the matter of the other five-ish affairs before Lily. That's one secret I keep still, but keeping it quiet is a kindness at this point.

But, what do you do about healing when your wife goes off the deep end and does what mine did to me? How can you make a punishment that fits the act, and in a way that truly satisfies and settles that hurt? What is enough but short of actual abuse? I wouldn't think about any of the abuse things, but I was challenged to do "whatever" it took. I needed to. For us. So that we can move beyond all the crap.

What was enough?

There was no punishment that could do it for me. That would be about the past and the past is the past. What I needed was to find my way into the future.

For me, it came down to trust. I needed to rebuild trust to move forward. Maybe I trust her with my thinking head, but deeper, I needed to trust her at a primal level. With my heart. Only then, with a foundation, can I rebuild the fortress of respect that we'll need to survive together. Stone by stone.

She accepted my solution unflinchingly.

I take the key from my pocket. This isn't the key to the safe; it's to Cassie's new hardware. There may be times when she plays the Dom, but I have the veto card; even for that, she'll need my permission. She cried at the piercings of her labia and clitoral hood... and, well, maybe I enjoyed watching that pain. Just a little bit. Maybe that was part of the punishment. But now, as it heals, I get to play this time. I get to learn how to use her modifications as part of our play. Me. This one's for me. Then when I'm done, I get to lock her up with her new hardware. Completely. I own her sex. I smile and put away the key. Maybe it's mostly symbolic... but it means a lot. It's her binding promise to me that she'll never go off the deep end again. I laugh to myself about the phrase 'binding promise.'

That's enough.

I fiddle with my red titanium bracelet. All three of us have them. And we wear them always. They mean something to us, something very special.

I don't think I need to cheat anymore. Just think - a household of three switches! I can't even calculate the number of permutations of ways we can play. But it's going to be fun to learn.

As the evening light disappears, I stand on the apex of the arched bridge, marveling about the universe, and remember my old poem:

"...every sunset is the promise of a new sunrise."

--

Thanks for reading. I've appreciated all your comments and ratings and welcome more.

What happens in the source Wonderland universe, we all are just now seeing. Oneagainst is covering it in his subsequent series in the origin universe: "Only Consenting Adults." (Rolling out late 2023 simultaneously to this arc being published).

AUTHOR'S NOTE: this series was written before I saw Only Consenting Adults. As a branch of Wonderland reality, it is an interesting thought experiment to see what "butterfly effects" may have caused Damian and Cassie to take different paths in the two universes. One significant difference is that Cassie asked Oneagainst to leave her family out of it in Critical Response Ch 3 (https://www.literotica.com/s/critical-response-ch-03), so the source universe was unconstrained by familial practicalities. In this universe, Cassie and Damian were both considering the boys and wanting to ensure that they had a healthy upbringing.

Another difference is Lily: her thread influences each storyline differently. As the author, I had no deal with Lily either... and promised her a comeuppance at the beginning of Chapter 1. Maybe Lily then drove Damian to his breakdown to get back at me before he dumped her.

And then there are odd details -- for example, the meeting with the judge in Ch1 sparked local action to shut down the Lost and Found after only three months from the end of When One Day We are Gone; while in the source universe, the legislation still is churning to drive that crisis on a bigger scale, but a year later. A year is a long time to harden a heart. Perhaps three months can be undone and, in this universe, Damian's PTSD opens him for personal introspection.

Little things can make a big difference in life. A conversation here, a promise there.

The reflection is to stay mindful in what we say and do... we never know what butterflies we generate.