Kaje Harper's Reviews > 24/7

This one is definitely the darkest of the series, and it is M/F/M menage, and more about the BDSM than a romance. Most of the sex is M/F, and there is a lot of humiliation kink in here (one of my personal least favorite forms of BDSM.) My heart ached for Gould in this book.

Gould was the most affected by Hal's death - even though they had broken up by the time Hal died, it was Gould who left, and he's haunted by the thought that he potentially sent Hal into Bills arms. He was still in love with Hal, in some ways, even if he couldn't handle Hal's erratic and thoughtless carelessness as a partner. They had loved and fought, close in a way Gould never was with anyone else. And when Hal died, some of what kept Gould tethered to reality and other people went with him.

He's been searching, trying to find a way to make himself connect with someone, trying to get out of his own head and the way his thoughts keep circling back to Hal. Submission does some of that for him. Service helps. When he focuses on what someone else wants, there's less room for the mess in his head.

He hopes to find that with Kel, whom he is deeply attracted to physically (he considers himself a Kinsey 5 but Kel is that rare woman who totally floats his boat.) Her certainty and presence and dominance are the other part of that picture that works for him. Her husband Greg, who is also her sub, considers himself heteroflexible, and is interested enough to welcome Gould pretty warmly into their play. Gould is happy to take orders from Greg too, though Greg's teasing and resistant version of submission sometimes makes Gould uncertain.

Gould wants more, though. He wants humiliation. He wants service and lack of choices, potentially a 24/7 consensual slave contract. At the same time, there are a lot of strong emotions under the surface that he's trying to bury more than clarify, with his service. And Kel, though she was part of a Master/slave group for a while, isn't sure she's ready for this. But they agree to try it for a week.

Gould goes some pretty dark places though this book. And in some ways, it highlights the risk of trying to make BDSM a substitute for therapy. Someone like Gould, who is terrible at communicating his thoughts and needs, is a risky sub, even though he's trying hard for Kel.

The ending of the book is positive, although I wasn't convinced yet that these three people had a really loving relationship anywhere except Kel-Greg. Of course, in exploring the wide range of human relationships and how they work, love doesn't always have to be part of a working BDSM relationship. (Just as sex doesn't always have to be.) This was fascinating, painful, and ultimately it does feel like Gould is moving in a positive direction at last.