Duality by Joshua Edward SmithMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
After the emotional turmoil in book 1 I was actually very interested in finding a closure, and I hoped that the characters would find it too... but instead it looked even more like the shattered glass chaos...or so it seemed...at first
Quite honestly I can't place ME anywhere, being scattered in thoughts just like the image presents, even more likely stirred! Rattled!
Actually, I am fucked cause some very heavy mixed, confused emotions are roaming through me...and I am spinning...
There are a lot of issues/subjects to deal with in this book, and I needed to think, i think...LOL
or not, cause if I start to think about it, and dwell upon it, it will become more complicated then it already is...it's overwhelming, for sure.
Anyway, I can't just easily sum up the story in Duality. It pretty messy, it's an illusion of freedom BUT I got the feeling that it was all compulsive reaction to utter hidden unhappiness, and as a result we get endless SEARCH through piles and piles of messy, complicated, sexually built tension in relations.
We follow the lives of Sir and Lisa, as they are together now in a sort of a relationship - Sir is still married but separated from his wife Annie, and Lisa took over the household and taking care of Sir's kids. They hide their physical involment in front of the children cause they well, obviously would NOT take very well the fact that their dad is still married to their mom but he's living with their "supposedly" nanny, who is actually their dad's submissive girlfriend.
So, if you think this is messed up, think of another parallel story where Sir takes another sub Gwen under his wing and starts the same "online" sexed relationship like he did with Lisa, his current submissive/girlfriend/pretending to be a false nanny.
And if you think that this is messed up, you may add another X to this overly sexed play is the return of the wifey Annie into the spotlight. She wants back in. She wants her kids back and since the separation was not only induced by the lack of Annie's sexual desire but also with financial depair and her lack of shopping control, the three of them find themselves in the situation of shared household and roomhate style of life, with the mixed roles, wife is a roomie, and a girlfriend shares a bed with the hubby.
Alright, and if you still don't see this as a fucked up scenario imagine a continuation of the "online" sexed D/s realtions, Sir has with Gwen, when things start happening in backwards for Lisa, as her role of a submissive becomes redundant since she's taken upon another , new role - one of a care-taker (her daugter Wendy is in essential need of her mother and Lisa cuts off the submissive relationship with Sir).
As soon as this ended Sir jumped into the physical sex with Gwen, his new sub, and then takes another step to highten the sensation, therefore, involved in threesome, as they randomly pick a young woman Ashley, into their sexual escapades.
In the mean time, Annie, the frigid wife awakens and wants her husband back, needs him on that primal level that Sir was deprived of in the first place. Sir ends the relationship with Gwen and finds long lost emotional and physical peace with and in his wife.
Dear God, as much as I tried to make this short, in which I have obviously failed, and even if it seems from my ramblings that this whole thing was just a huge "fuckfest" with too many people, it's actually more than that.
Yes, there's awesome sex in it, but I need to emphisize the potent core of it all and it starts with the main character -SIR.
SIR is the DUALITY in this story, he's the turning wheel, while his role was in another "light" in ENTROPY where he was still the guy who cheated his wife with Lisa, he was the one in need, emotional need BUT he provided a safe haven for Lisa and when their life together started he seemed content at first cause he got what he wanted out of the physical, right? He got himself the perfect submissive...what he needed and craved for.
There were to women in Lisa. He loved the obedient, submissive pet. He loved the strong, independent, decisive drill seargent who kept track of the kids' incredibly complicated lives.
BUT that was the point. Sir loved the chase. He got what he wanted.
Sir's attention was turning more and more to the women pursuing him online. The game....and they would flirt.
Duality - described in this way: "I am the earth and you are the moon, and you are the earth and I am the moon."
So when we "don't bother to make a distinction between what it acts like and what it is. We just say it. It is both things...."
Sir was a complicated man, he was extremely smart and educated, he knew his game, he was sure of himself and he knew his way around women, he knew them, he studied them, cherished them, appreciated them and wanted them and he needed to rule, to dominate, to dictate, to own and claim.
I want them all...I want all the women...
But he truly ever needed only one, and he was convinced that was Lisa.
He was happy with Lisa, and thought is was greedy and ridiculous for the two of them to be playing with other people. But there was something about both Sir and Lisa that made that urge irresistable to them. Sir loved the chase and discovering the complexities of a woman. And Lisa loved being wanted.
what Sir has with Lisa is actually a symbiosis - a relationship, where they both got what they needed from each other - Sir dominates, uses her cause Lisa needes it, she craves that escape, so it's a win-win situation.
"You serve me perfectly every single day. You keep the entropy at bay. You always obey me. You are perfect, and I love you.
and here comes the main issue I had with Sir. He tosses the words "I love you" around like the ping-pong balls...and the fact is, I saw him as the only person who actually wants and needs to be LOVED. so in the essence, he wasted the "I love yous" too many times...for the sake of his "pets" but not for himself.
Sir kept her on the pedestal. It was a strange contradiction in a dominant/submissive relationship. The submissive was supposed to serve, to worship. Yet Sir clearly worshiped and served her. It felt backward and wrong, but it made him happy, so it was also completely right.
the way I see it, Sir is actually using the BDSM mechanisms of conducting his relationships cause he (other than the fact that vanilla sex is not satisfying enough to him) needes the sense of control of the submissives' emotions, "love", so he could replace the actual lack of the same emotion in him.
It's a cover, it's an escape into the place where control is substantional to inner piece and completion BUT the actual lack of "LOVE" in Sir's marriage to Annie was the scar tissues never healed and it was the real problem that never got solved.
Sir LOVED his wife, he transferred that feeling onto his submissives cause he could control it, it could have never grow larger into anything more...(otherwise the divorce would have happen inspite of the financial problems that made them stayed married to Annie)
Sir wanted physical connection to his wife primarely, he wanted to emerge the emotional bond with the physical one. He needed Annie to want him, to desire him.
"I needed you to want sex. To want me. Without that, i could not be happy. I think that I should be with someonewho wants me to be happy. And will do whatever it takes to make me happy. i want to be with someone for whom my happiness is her priority. And vice-versa. My partner's happiness should be my priority, too."
and there's the essence of his search...search for the constant craving of the primal emotion of beloning, of being complete and fulfilled with the person he loved.
And I guess, in the end it all came to a full, complete circle.
so for the conclusion, I have to say that I am not a fan of twitter, FB, any kind of online sexting or whatever the hell that would actually imply...cause i find it totally impersonal, detached. I can understand the allure of the danger and the unknown and the lack of physical touch that could be the basis of flirt, cause you know, somewhere deep inside it's exciting and fun BUT it would never go further than that, cause it's a role you play, it's a game, a drive, a thrill of a moment where you can be "someone else" for a sec or two. BUT it's not real...
And here in the book, the characters DO go further and push the boundaries of the acceptable in the eyes of the society...they break the conventional and frameable postures of sexual liberty.
And as much as the book presents it in a very open manner and speaks freely about different stages of sexual indulging, I still had the feeling that the main character Sir wasn't the sincere one, he exceeded trust in his submissives but he was fake in my eyes...
at times, the pacing of the developments in the book made me feel like I am stagnating and waiting for smth to happen...it felt like all of them were emotionally hybernating while the sexual action itself provided only physical release, so at times I felt the lack of substance, the sex felt empty and without the essence.
condoning or not the various shapes of relationships, i have no pros or cons related to the issue, I keep my preferences to myself and I expect from others to do so.
But nevertheless, keeping an open mind to it all, and regardless the fact that I couldn't fully relate to Sir or Lisa or Gwen, their messy lives, made me realize that it all really comes down to the one basic thing - we all need to feel loved.
This author writes about intriguing, unconventional subjects, leads us through the messy relations of his characters into the mindwirl of human mistakes, dealing with personal issues, growth, challenges, undisclosed desires, expectations and making decisions in order to find their own way, a place in the sun, a way to belong and freely exist in this one hell of a confusion called life.
ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review
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