Harriet's Arrangement

Friendship

The following week, Harriet arranged to meet Jennifer at Eleanor's flat, feeling that she needed to give Jennifer space to talk about the parts of her relationship with Malcolm that perhaps weren't as easy to talk about freely with anyone else. She'd observed how she was with Tom, and it was clear that in that relationship, Jennifer saw Tom as a Dominant: she treated him with flawless respect, never challenged him and rarely initiated conversations. It saddened Harriet to see her like that, and hated to think what it must have been like to be a fly on the wall in the Crawford household.

Tom wasn't entirely supportive of this suggestion, feeling it would put Harriet in an unnecessarily uncomfortable position, but understood why she wanted to offer Jennifer that support. At first he'd tried to insist he was there to in turn support her, but she'd persuaded him that doing that would rather defeat the object of the conversation; it would be afterwards she would be grateful for that. For similar reasons Jennifer had chosen a day when her mother and her mother's partner would be out, and when Harriet arrived at the address Jennifer had given her, she found a nervous but happy Jennifer waiting for her, eager to make her feel welcome.

The irony that the day the meeting was happening was a Thursday was not lost on either of them, although neither of them mentioned it. Instead Jennifer seemed to be going to great lengths to make Harriet feel as comfortable as possible, reeling off the longest list of potential refreshments Harriet had ever heard, and bringing out plates laden with home-baked cakes and biscuits from the kitchen. Harriet, a little taken-aback by this show of generosity, smiled warmly at Jennifer and said a coffee would be great. She sat in the living room waiting for Jennifer to return, trying not to draw parallels or otherwise between this Thursday and all of the Thursdays she had spent in the study – when she'd been unaware of Jennifer's presence.

Returning with a tray with a cafetière, a sugar bowl, a milk jug and two mugs, Jennifer set it down on the coffee table next to the cakes and plunged the filter before pouring the coffee out into the mugs. She smiled at Harriet. "Milk or sugar?" she asked.

"Oh, no, just black – thanks, Jennifer," Harriet said, smiling back, "These cakes look amazing."

"Thank you!" Jennifer said, clearly pleased by the compliment, "I've always loved baking. It used to keep me sane. Still does, I suppose."

"I've always been terrible at baking," Harriet said, "Nothing ever rises, and I just find it immensely stressful. But," she added, helping herself to one of the cakes as Jennifer held the plate out to her, "I'm always happy to sample... especially when they look this good."

Jennifer laughed. "I think I got it from mum," she said, "We used to bake together when I was a kid – after dad left I think that was how mum stayed sane too... and it was something I managed to hang onto through all the years with Malcolm. He used to buy me baking things and books after being particularly nasty..."

Harriet didn't say anything, watching Jennifer dive back through the years.

"I never set out to be a submissive," Jennifer said, after a few moments of silence, "Not that he ever particularly used that word. I had no idea that people lived their lives in those relationships all the time. I'd vaguely heard of it, I knew this sort of thing existed, but never imagined it would be every second of the day, permanent submission, no independence."

Harriet waited a moment to make sure she wasn't cutting Jennifer off before saying quietly, "You know it doesn't have to be like that?"

Jennifer looked up. "Well, you and Tom certainly don't seem to be that way," she said, "But I didn't know if that was the case behind closed doors. Malcolm was always... softer in public, of course. I used to just accept it, but it's one of the things I've wondered about since I saw you. You're so... independent, strong... but you're a submissive?"