Repose

Four

A/N: I need to get my shit together and properly edit ease but the point is I changed my mind Crystal is 30 here. She was originally 35 in the first book, so she now would've been 29 in the first book.

Kaykay and Crystal were happy enough, going through life in routines they developed as fully fledged adults still without a soulmate. They were more traditional than you'd first expect, both patiently waiting for their soulmate. Crystal wanted to provide, and Kaykay wanted to be provided for, and they considered their lives without a partner merely as preparation for their life with a partner. Considering they're both much older than is considered normal to still be unmatched, it wouldn't be hard for them to be resentful of the system. They weren't. They both knew that their soulmate would come at the right moment, as a gift from the universe.

Kaykay would get up at 5:30am, have a good breakfast and be at work at the coffee shop before 7am. There was a time when she would include staring at her neck and wanting a collar in her morning routine, but that happened infrequently now. At 26, she didn't have time to dwell on something she couldn't control. She spent her days making sure she was as put together as she could be, for anyone to walk into her life at any moment. It's unlikely to be her dom, given they're notified by mail and it's the 21st century so she'll probably just receive a phone call, but what if her next customer was an important business partner of her future dom? She walks out of her small inner west  apartment with her hair in a neat low bun, and her plain black shirt perfectly ironed. 

Crystal woke at 7 each morning, moving around the small but very nice inner east apartment she lived in, before leaving for work at 8. She was positioned only a few minutes walk away from a train station, and was only a few stops away from the middle of the city. Her life could easily been seen as glamorous, something afforded to her by her more than generous salary as a lawyer, but she just spent where it mattered. Crystal wasn't too social. She prided herself on her efficiency, opting to wear pretty much the same thing to work every single day. It was a plain black suit, with either a  skirt or pants depending on the weather, patent leather black kitten heels with a pointed toe, and one of ten blouses. She only had to choose her blouse, and there still weren't a lot of options, so it streamlined her morning.

Kaykay finished work at 2pm. She would shower and proceed to immediately clean the house. Kaykay liked to clean. She didn't do everything everyday but, unless she was otherwise busy, her afternoons were for cleaning and maintaining her house. She cooked dinner, whatever was exciting to her that night, early. As a fully qualified chef who got sick of evening work and the pace of restaurants, she would occasionally work in the evenings. She was just a backup chef for a few local restaurants. Kaykay was an evening exercise kind of person, liking to do it around 6:30pm after she's had dinner. Kaykay was generally asleep by 8:30, 9:30 at the latest, so she could wake up at 5:30 all over again.

Crystal got home from work anytime between 5 and 8, depending on the day of the week and how much was going on. She was the type to meal prep, if she cooked at all. After working for around ten hours, usually, the last thing she wants to do is cook. She'd often walk in the front door around 6, put her already made dinner in the oven to reheat better than a microwave, if she wasn't getting takeaway, and have a shower. Her evenings were a mix of work and Netflix, while she tried not to pinpoint or dwell on her loneliness. She'd been an unmatched dominant for over 12 years, perfectly developing a way to live that avoided her thinking about that very fact.

Crystal checked her mail when leaving for work each morning, given it was generally an early delivery in her part of Sydney, and she choked on her own spit when she found a letter from the DIR on an ordinarily warm November Monday morning. She clutches the envelope tightly, quickly fighting herself on where and when is the best place to open it. One option would be to go back upstairs and open it now, considering she was normally early for work anyway and this seemed like a good reason not to be for once. Crystal can't let go of her punctuality, scurrying to the train station after making sure the letter is safely tucked in her briefcase.

Crystal wills herself to work and not mention it to anyone when she gets there, after all, her submissive should be the first person to hear from her regarding their pairing. Crystal grabs her coffee from the office coffee machine, for both cost and convenience sake, as she does every morning, at around 10am. Breakfast gets her though the first push so she has a coffee later to get her to lunch and beyond. She sits down with her coffee and takes a deep breath, staring at the envelope with the DIR's logo on it, before pulling the letter out and starting to read.

Dear Crystal Lauderdale,

We're sure you've been anticipating the notice of who your assigned soulmate is. Congratulations! It's finally here!

Find enclosed the details of your soulmate. As a dominant, your soulmate's contact details will also be enclosed on a different page.

We wish you all the best and encourage you to contact your local Department of Interpersonal Relations office should you have any queries.

Regards,

Commonwealth Department of Interpersonal Relations

It was nothing she, as a contract lawyer with a bit of a specialisation in the DIR, hadn't seen before, but it gave her goosebumps to finally read her own name on it. She looks to the next page, and in the shuffle of papers, realises she has two soulmates. Which was something she had seen on a few occasions through her work, it was uncommon but not unheard of. They each had two pages, one of the official pairing documents and one of contact information.

Name: Kaitlin Blaisdell
Position: Submissive
Gender: Woman
Pronouns: She/Her
Age: 26
Birthday: May 27

Name: Sierra Phuong-Thao Deaton
Position:
Gender: Woman
Pronouns: She/Her
Age: 18
Birthday: February 11

Sierra's page was interesting. She'd heard about people with no position but, even in all her time as a contract lawyer with an interest in the DIR, she'd never come across one. She had no idea how this was going to go. Sierra could be dominant or submissive, hence the colloquial term 'switch', and that was a little scary. Yes Crystal knew that her partner would be 18 whenever they got paired, given that's how it works, but it was still odd to consider Sierra being 12 years younger than her. Crystal wasn't going to initiate any conversation during the middle of a Monday, that's for sure. Besides, she wanted to read up on polyamorous relationships and switches before she did anything.

A/N: hello friends I hope this was a good insight into Crystal and Kaykay's characters, which will be continuing in the following chapters but I promise you'll see more ease characters come back as well.

Thanks for the love on the soulmate pairing last chapter, which I was so nervous for, and I'll see you again next week.

–Grace Williams xo