(Post contains spoilers for Flame Again)

Somewhere in social media, I came across a reader asking an author, “But is there consent? I don’t like reading books without it.” And the author replied something like, “Well.. that’s tricky.”
Admittedly I scrolled along, but I don’t think it’s tricky. There is either clear consent on the page, or it’s dubcon.

Flame Again, a spicy second-chance romance between longtime Dom and sub couple, Ivy and Gabe is dubcon.
We can infer that they’ve been doing this for a while and they have agreements. It’s clear that in the bedroom, Gabe controls Ivy’s orgasms. But there is no on-the-page discussion of safewords or scene negotiation. They kind of tumble into scenes.

There is one scene, where Gabe is kind of pushed to where Ivy wants him to be but maybe not in the way she wanted him to get there. She could have said, “no” and she could have backed out. Ideally, Gabe could have given her a clearer way to consent.

In this scene where Gabe decides he wants to punish Ivy, it’s a tripping point because Ivy has been asking him for more formality in their D/s. She’s been asking for structure and he’s been resistant. This scene shows what is possible to that goal.

Later on in the book, they use the traffic light system, and all of this is with consent being implied, with the background of it being in a long-term Dom/sub relationship.

But consent is damn sexy.

And the characters I wrote after Gabe & Ivy, Dax and Gardenia defintely ring loud and clear with the consent.