Another way

by Anna Martin

  “I don’t know how you can’t see where you’re wrong!” I yelled.

  “I’ve always done this!” he yelled back. “This is part of who I am. It’s what I do, what I’ve always done in this community! People trust me to take care of new subs.”

  “But you’re with me now.”

  “I am. And nothing, especially not a new sub, is going to come between us. But, Jesse, I’m not going to let you manipulate my—the way I feel about you so that I only do things that you want me to do.”

  I wanted to know what he stopped himself from saying. But I didn’t ask.

  “This isn’t about me trying to stop you from doing something,” I started, but he interrupted me.

  “Oh, yes it is.”

  “I don’t want my fucking boyfriend touching naked women, okay?”

  “I’m gay!” he yelled. “I couldn’t fuck her if I wanted to! My dick doesn’t work that way!”

  I groaned and flopped back onto the couch, covering my face with my hands.

  “I want to understand. I just don’t. I’m sorry, but I don’t.”

  Will slid down the wall and sat on the floor opposite me, wrapping his arms around his knees. His eyes fixed on mine in a steady gaze, but he didn’t offer any further explanations.

  Eventually, I spoke, just to break the tension. “I can’t help being jealous, Will.”

  “Why couldn’t you have said that in the first place?” he groaned.

  “What? That I was jealous? I thought that was fucking obvious.”

  “What do you have to be jealous of? Maddie is a woman, Jesse! I don’t know how many times I need to keep saying that.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said sarcastically. “Maybe it’s because I’m your sub? That we’ve been together for over a year and a half? And I’m your boyfriend. We go to bed together every night, I sleep in your arms, you make love to me. I don’t want to think about you spanking someone else, turning them on like that. You say sex and submission are different things, and they are, but not for everyone.”

  “They’re different things for you, clearly.”

  “I don’t know how to even start to fix this,” I said with a long sigh.

  “For the first time, neither do I.”

  I LEANED back again and my stomach rumbled, reminding me of how hungry I was. After a quick pat I determined my wallet was still in my pocket, and leaned down to grab my shoes and pull them on. I hadn’t changed out of my work clothes, and I couldn’t be bothered to take the time to do it now. Plus, I knew from experience there was a certain something about a half dressed, disheveled man in a suit.

  “I’m going to get some food,” I announced.

  “Okay,” Will agreed from his spot on the floor. I rolled my eyes.

  “Are you coming?”

  He looked up in surprise. “You want me to?”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t offer any more than that.

  “Okay,” he said again.

  I stood and offered him my hand to pull him to his feet. He took it and lurched forward; I caught him with my hands on his hips, putting us nose to nose.

  “Are we going to be okay?” Will asked with a vulnerability I wasn’t used to seeing in him. I gripped his hips tighter and nodded.

  “Yeah. We need to figure this out, but I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

  He smiled and I leaned in to fix my lips to his in a soft, reassuring sort of kiss. Still, I was hurt and upset, and it was hard to try and cover that up. Maybe that was why I didn’t take his hand as we walked out to the car, and why he went to the passenger door of my vehicle rather than to the driver’s side of his.

  As soon as I’d turned the ignition over, I pushed the button for the CD player, so I had an excuse not to talk to him. Will looked out of the window as I drove, watching the city go by as I threaded through the early evening traffic to the little red restaurant in the heart of Seattle’s International District. This was my Seattle; away from the tourist areas in a place where the food was cheap and the people were friendly, where no one made fun of my accent because theirs was even thicker than mine, where the women took me under their wing when I told them that my family was a long, long way away.

  I’d never forgotten Yan, or the other friends I had here, but I’d moved on from the scared young boy floundering without his family’s support. Adele had taken her place. Despite this, she rushed out of the restaurant when she saw me and ushered me through to a table, ignoring my protests that I only wanted to order something to take away.

  “Sit, sit,” she ordered, forcing me into a chair. “I’ll bring you some tea.”

  “Thank you, Yan,” I said. “This is Will.”

  She greeted him with a small bow and bustled away.

  “I didn’t know you wanted to get a table,” Will said as he fiddled with his chopsticks. “I would have gotten changed.”

  “I didn’t want to get a table,” I said with a smile. “Yan’s an old friend. She likes fussing over me. Do you mind?”

  “Not really,” he said, sitting back and looking around the tiny dining room.

  “We’re pretty informal here,” Yan said as she served two cups of black tea and a couple of tall glasses of ice water. “Do you know what you would like to order?”

  “We’ll have the usual,” I said, giving her a warm smile. “Enough for two. And extra plum sauce.”

  “No problem.”

  I silently sipped at my tea, watching Will watch anything and everything except me.

  “How was work today?” I asked him, trying to reestablish some sort of equilibrium between us.

  He looked shocked, but answered, “Okay, not bad.” I nodded slowly. “We’re developing new software for a touchscreen computer system for kids to use in schools….”

  I let him slowly get into his natural rhythm of talking about something he was passionate about—his love for a job, which had been pressed on him by his father, carving out a place for himself in a company where he could have easily sat back on his name and let other people do the work. But that wasn’t my Will. I knew that he had pressed for more research into learning and development materials for children under the age of seven. I didn’t understand a lot of the stuff that he talked about, but his enthusiasm made listening to him easy and empathizing with his cause a natural conclusion.

  Yan came back with plates of food and our conversation seamlessly pulled her in for a few moments. I brought her up to date with what I was doing these days, and she seemed to be really happy for me. When she left again, we fell silent as we dug into the food.

  “This is really good,” Will said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “I used to come here all the time.”

  “Not anymore?” he asked.

  “No, not so much.”

  I’d always liked people-watching in this restaurant. It was impossible to describe a typical customer—there were young and old people of all nationalities, all classes of society, stopping by with their families or partners or on their own to read a battered paperback novel as they ate.

  “You gave up a lot to be with me,” Will said quietly, drawing my attention back to the handsome man opposite me.

  “Hmm?”

  “I didn’t have to do anything. I just let you into my house, and you fit right into my life. But you gave up so much to be with me.”

  I played with a few grains of rice back and forth across my plate. “I want to be with you,” I said.

  “I know you do,” Will said, reaching across the table for my hand. “I just think… maybe… if I want to be with you, if I want to keep you, then maybe there are some things that I have to give up too.”

  My eyes lifted and met his steady gaze. I nodded slowly, not wanting to tell him “yeah, you need to give up shit you like if you want to be my boyfriend,” but feeling that way nonetheless.

  “There has to be some kind of back and forth with our relationship,” I said. “Give and take. I’ll give you the whole fucking world, Will, but I need a little
something back in return.”

  “We can do this,” he said decisively.

  “It’s not as easy as that,” I said with a heavy sigh. “We have completely different opinions and outlooks on stuff. It’s not going to be this one argument and then smooth sailing from here on out. We’re two different people, and we’re going to keep butting heads, all the time, and we need to figure out how to deal with that.”

  “Saying ‘I don’t want you to do that’ isn’t going to be it, then?”

  “No, because we need to hang on to the things that are important to us.”

  He sighed and looked down at the empty plates in front of us. “Like dinner at your favorite restaurant.”

  “And being a respected member of the community.”

  “We just need to learn how to do those things in a way that doesn’t interfere with our relationship.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Exactly.”

  He sat back in his chair. “Could we ever go back, do you think? To what we were before?”

  “No, I don’t think so. After being with you like this, I couldn’t go back to that detachment. I think I need that intimacy between us now.”

  “Me too,” he whispered.

  “Do you think we can learn to talk about our relationship without sounding like the kids on Glee?”

  Will snorted with laughter and covered his face with his hands. “Oh god, we do.”

  “I wish we were seventeen sometimes.”

  “Why? I was horrible when I was seventeen.”

  “But you have an excuse to be melodramatic. Right now, we’re just two sad and pathetic gay men who can’t communicate. See—this is why there’s traditionally a woman in a relationship. Women coerce you into talking about your feelings whether you want to or not.”

  He openly laughed now and reached for my hand. “But, being gay, we’re supposed to be more in tune with our emotions.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I know.” He gave me one of his patented lopsided smiles that made my stomach turn over. “Jesse? Can I take you home?”

  “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  It was still strained, that night, climbing into bed and finding the nook between his head and shoulder that these days I called “home.” I think he felt it, too, the strain, and he held me tighter than usual. For much longer than normal, my hands skimmed the length of his torso, reassuring myself that he was solid underneath me and that, despite everything, he was real and he was mine.

  Chapter Fifteen

  AFTER living with Will for a few months, one morning I woke up on the opposite side of the bed from him, although this wasn’t particularly unusual. I didn’t have work, but he did, so I rolled over to gather him in my arms, enjoying the last few minutes before his alarm would go off. He wriggled back into me and sighed sleepily. I kissed his shoulder, then let myself drift.

  It wasn’t long until his alarm did sound, jolting us both awake in the rudest way.

  “Don’t go,” I moaned childishly as Will tried to move. “Stay here with me instead.”

  “I can’t, baby, I have to go to work.”

  I grumbled something unintelligible and rolled over, earning myself a smack on the ass. But I liked it. Will left to go shower, but I was awake and determined to keep myself that way so I wouldn’t miss the spectacle of him dressing in a suit.

  It was a Friday and I had the day off since I had worked the previous Sunday, but I had a full day of shit planned that I needed, or wanted to do. I joined him in the bathroom once I heard the shower running and quickly brushed my teeth. By the time I was done, we got dressed together, and I went downstairs to start breakfast for him while he fixed all of his stuff for the day. Likelihood was that I was more comfortable in jeans and a T-shirt than he was in his suit, but damn if he didn’t look fucking edible in charcoal gray Italian wool. Not many men our age could pull it off, but Will? I could rip it off him.

  We rarely ate cooked breakfast except on the weekends, but since I didn’t have to rush off to work, I grabbed the bottle of pre-mixed pancake batter—we were lazy fuckers—out of the fridge and got the pan on to heat up before starting the kettle for coffee.

  “Are you treating me?” Will asked as he joined me.

  “Yeah, it doesn’t take long to make, so….” I shrugged as he set his stuff down on the table and made coffee for us both.

  It really didn’t take long for me to make a batch of pancakes, and I covered mine in butter and syrup, promising myself I’d take an extra twenty minutes on the treadmill to work it off. I kissed Will good-bye at the door then headed back upstairs for a sweater, before leaving myself.

  I had plans.

  The first stop of the day was possibly my least anticipated.

  “Jesse Ross,” I told the lady at the reception desk. “I have an appointment with Dr. Green.”

  “No problem, take a seat,” she said. “She shouldn’t be long.”

  I nodded and sat down, flicking through a two-year-old copy of Men’s Health for a few minutes before my name was called. I dumped my magazine and nervously wiped my palms on my jeans, then followed the nurse through.

  “Hi, Jesse, take a seat,” Dr. Green greeted me. It had been years since I saw her last, but she had always been my doctor in Seattle. “What can I do for you?”

  “I, um, I need to get a STD test,” I mumbled.

  “Okay,” she said, flipping through some paperwork quickly. “Is it a general checkup, or do you have any concerns?”

  “Adele and I broke up,” I started, and Dr. Green interrupted me with an “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah,” I said noncommittally. “It was for the best. Anyway, I’m seeing someone new, and I want to make sure I’m healthy before we progress.”

  “Okay. We can run blood tests for you today, which we can usually get back within a week. Others we can run today and again in six months; for things like the HIV virus, we may not get an immediate response.”

  I nodded. “There’s nothing to suggest that there would be a problem, I just wanted to be responsible.”

  “Of course,” she agreed. “And your partner? Will she be getting tested too?”

  I tried not to bristle at the assumption. “Yeah, they have their own doctor.”

  “Excellent,” Dr. Green said, not looking up from her paperwork or commenting on my awkward phrasing. “Any concerns about birth control?”

  “None at all,” I said, trying not to snort with laughter.

  I tried not to be a baby when she drew the blood samples, choosing to look away until after she was done labeling them to send to the lab.

  “I’ll get Kate to give you a call when we have the results,” Dr. Green said. “You’ll either be told you have the all clear, or that we need to see you again and to book another appointment. The reception staff don’t know what we’re even testing you for. If you do need to book another appointment, don’t panic, it’s usually because we didn’t get a good sample from you.”

  I nodded and thanked Dr. Green for her help, checking my watch to make sure I’d make it to my next appointment on time.

  “JUST… fucking… something different. Cut it all off,” I said, waving my hand at my reflection in the mirror, much to my barber’s amusement.

  “Okay…,” he said slowly, drawling the word out and clicking his tongue ring against his teeth. He was gay, clearly, and a queen with it. So much not my type it made me cringe. But he’d been cutting my hair for years, I trusted the fucker, and yeah, I got along with him well.

  Federico ran his fingers through the length of my hair a few times. I had let it grow to chin length, and it was scraggly, too, so that what once was curls was just as often a mess. It’d grown out past sexy and tousled, and if I was getting it cut, then I might as well go with something completely different.

  “Against my better judgment, I trust you,” I said with some amusement.

  “Honey, you’re gonna look fantastic,” Federico told me.

  I was slightly conce
rned about the amount of hair that seemed to be falling to the floor and therefore, by process of deduction, not staying on my head. I’d told him I wanted a change, but I wasn’t prepared for him to bring out clippers.

  “Don’t be a baby,” Federico said in a warning voice as the clippers started to buzz. “Trust me.”

  And with that, he grabbed the back of my head, pushing it down so he could attack the sides. In truth, my head being down helped with the growing feeling of nausea. I tried to keep my eyes low as Federico finished up, rubbing gel through the hair that I had left, and I had to admit, it looked pretty good.

  On top, it was still pretty long and, being shorter than it was, some of the curls were more obvious, but the sides were short. Like, really short. My neck was cold. It hadn’t been cold in about fifteen years.

  “Wow,” I said, rubbing at my cold neck.

  “Thanks,” Federico said with a wide grin. “Do you reckon the wife will like it?”

  I gave a dry laugh. “I don’t have a wife, dude. I have a boyfriend.”

  “What!” His screech brought silence to the rest of the shop. “You’re… gay?” he hissed in a lower voice.

  “Um, yeah.”

  “Why have I never seen you out before? You look straight,” he added with an accusatory tone.

  “I don’t go out on the scene.” I shrugged. “Sorry.”

  I managed to get away from Federico, who I could tell was brimming with questions, by insisting I had another appointment to get to. In truth, I had plenty of time to get across town, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. It had taken longer than I expected for the haircut, which didn’t give me enough time to really stop for lunch, but I still managed to grab a sandwich and a Coke for physical strength and inner steel. That was the idea, at least.

  WHEN I finally got home, Will’s car was already parked outside. I rolled my eyes and smiled to myself as I went in, calling out into the house.

  “Don’t you ever do a full day’s work?”

  “It’s Friday,” he called back defiantly.

  “Still,” I said, kicking off my shoes. “Some of us don’t work for Daddy.”