by Nix Knox
“Tell me about that.”
“Not much to tell.” Noah swirled a fry in plastic cup of ketchup and popped it in his mouth. “Accounting pays well, but it’s not very exciting. All I do are payables for a multistate construction company.”
“Payables?”
“There are different kinds of accounting. The place I work for is so big they have a full-time accountant just to pay their vendors.”
“So you don’t do payroll?”
“No.” Noah grinned. “There are five or six people who do just that.”
“Wow. They must be huge. What does this company build?”
“Houses, mostly, in those huge housing developments. But when the housing market crashed, they expanded into other areas. Well, I take that back. They’ve always built other things, like office buildings, strip malls—that sort of thing, but they upped that kind of job when the housing market slowed.”
“I thought the housing market was back?”
“It is, but for a while, new construction was really stalled.” Noah ate another batch of fries. “Can I ask about you?”
“Of course.”
“Why would you do that—what we did—for money?”
“Because I wanted the boundaries of the relationship clear.” Ronan thought Noah wanted to talk, but he had to get what happened sorted out in his own mind first. If he waited and kept the lines between them open, eventually, Noah would communicate.
“And money does that?”
“An exchange of money tends to define the limits of a relationship.”
“I don’t see how.”
“When you take your car in for service, you expect the mechanic to fix the car, right?”
“Sure.” Noah popped a small fry in his mouth. “That’s why I’m taking it in.”
“But you don’t expect to hang around with him afterwards and go for a beer, right?”
“No. I can’t imagine what we’d have to talk about.”
“That’s exactly it. The expectation of friendship simply isn’t there.”
“But what you do is more…intimate.”
It was with you. That was what Ronan wanted to say but didn’t. He had a feeling if he did, Noah might pull back again. “Just because your clothes are off doesn’t mean there’s intimacy. Think about your doctor. You have your clothes off in his office. You pay him to keep you healthy and then go on your merry way.”
“Oh. Right. I would never think to ask my doctor out for a beer. Well, honestly, I’ve never asked anyone out for a beer. I doubt that I would.”
“Not much of a beer drinker?”
“When I drink, I feel nauseous.” Noah considered while he ate another bite of his burger. “That might be why the two separate halves of your life never crossed.”
“It is.” Ronan nodded. “That’s why I stopped. I didn’t know it then, but I do now.”
“You stopped without knowing why you were quitting?”
“I had to step back. That was all I knew at the time. I lost my enjoyment and felt disconnected from my partners. I realized I wasn’t going to find what I was looking for if I kept right on doing the same things I’ve always done.” Ronan had always been interested in Zen, but when he’d become almost pathologically dissatisfied with almost every facet of his life, he became even more interested in letting go and finding a way to have peace.
A sudden light seemed to kindle in Noah’s eyes.
“What?” Ronan sensed Noah had had another insight.
“That’s exactly what prompted me to seek you out.”
Ronan nodded, hoping Noah would go on.
“I had this life that was just moving along toward something, and I was so busy trying to stay on the narrow path that I never looked around me.”
“But you didn’t know what you were moving toward?”
“Not really.” Noah glanced at the remains of the food on his plate. “It’s like someone put me on this path and told me what I had to collect.”
“Like a scavenger hunt?”
“Kind of like that. But they never told me the point of everything.”
“What were you supposed to collect along the way?”
“A degree. A job. A wife. A home. A pet. Kids.” Noah took a deep breath. “I got the first two, but I couldn’t even get more than one pity date.”
Ronan realized in his desperation to move forward, Noah had skipped over getting a wife and moved on to getting a home. “Were you truly interested in the women you asked out?”
“Yes.” Noah answered automatically, then tilted his head to the side, obviously considering. “I liked them okay. They were nice.”
“They were safe.”
“Safe?”
“Were they all good girls who were members of your ward?” A ward was what the Mormon Church called local congregations.
“Well, yes, but that’s not why…” Noah trailed off, thinking again. Ronan could tell when Noah was deep in contemplation because a little line settled above the bridge of his nose.
“Who suggested them to you? Your mom? Your dad?”
“My mom.” Noah looked a little gobsmacked by the insight.
“If you could have asked out anyone, who would you have invited on a date?”
“Casey Marcum.” Noah startled at how quickly the name came to mind.
“Tell me about her.”
“Him. Casey Marcum was—is a boy.” Noah shook his head and laughed uneasily. “I can just imagine what would have happened if I’d asked Casey out.”
“Tell me.”
“Are you serious?”
“I’m curious what you think would have happened if you’d asked a male out on a date while you were in high school.” Ronan wanted to help Noah. To do that, they had to talk about his perceptions. When Ronan realized he was practically psychoanalyzing his date, he almost pulled back, but then continued. What else could he do? He couldn’t leave Noah twisting. With just the smallest push in the direction of self-acceptance, Noah might come out of his shell.
“I would have gotten the crap beat out of me, for one.” Noah took a bigger bite of his burger, almost as if the notion of asking out Casey would be biting off more than he could chew.
“By Casey?”
“By him and all the other guys in school.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Noah looked at Ronan as if he were nuts. “Are you kidding?”
“I honestly want to know why someone would beat you up for liking a boy.”
“Because it’s wrong!” Noah was shaking his head and frowning. “Boys date girls.”
“And we’re right back to what we talked about earlier.”
Noah was so startled, he shot to his feet. He looked cornered, even though he had plenty of exits. He impressed the hell out of Ronan when, instead of running, he sat back down.
“Just because animals do that doesn’t mean I should.” Noah picked up his burger and defiantly ate another big bite.
Ronan had a feeling they were getting very close to what had happened to Noah when they went out. “And if you did actually date a male, people would know, wouldn’t they?”
“All they’d have to do is look at me and they’d know. They’d know what I am.” Noah slumped back into his chair.
Saddened by Noah’s torment, Ronan wished he could wave a magic wand and make it all better, but he couldn’t. He could help Noah, but it was going to be a long, rocky road. “Noah.”
Noah ate another fry, refusing to look up at him.
“I want to help you. But in order to do that, you have to be completely honest with me. If you don’t think you can trust me—”
“It’s not you.” Up came Noah’s head, his expression concerned. “Everything we did was… I’m happy about that. For the first time ever, I felt free.”
“But?”
“But everything slipped away once we went outside. As soon as I was back in the real world, I felt exposed.” Noah closed his eyes. “We walked into that place, and I
felt like what we had done was written all over my face. I felt them all looking at me. They knew. And my family was going to find out.”
And there it was. That was the crux of the matter. Noah didn’t want anyone to know he was gay, especially his family. Worse, it was sounding like he had a strong case of social anxiety to go with his indoctrinated homophobia. Suddenly, the idea of having the two separate halves of his life cross made Ronan think of merging oncoming traffic lanes. He had a feeling things were going to get very, very messy.
Chapter Eight
“When we left, I was on top of the world. I had this insight while on the table.” Even though he’d told Ronan about it, he wanted to share it again, mainly to remind himself, because he’d completely lost the feeling he’d had. Slowly, carefully, recalling the exact wording, Noah said, “No vicious word or cutting look could harm me unless I granted that person the power to do so.” He met Ronan’s concerned gaze. “I know it’s similar to what someone else said. A historical quote, I think.”
“Eleanor Roosevelt said, ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.’”
“That’s it.” Noah grasped that concept but couldn’t seem to apply the idea to himself, at least not for very long. “On the table, it just hit me, and it was like this glorious insight. I didn’t have to worry about what other people thought anymore. I wasn’t going to give them the power to hurt me, but then I walked into that place and that feeling was just gone.” Noah snapped his fingers. “I was left with all my same old fears. Did you know that while I was standing on the corner today, I thought if I looked at people, they would know what I was doing?”
“They would know you were going to a Dom?”
“Crazy, right? How would they know?” Noah was so frustrated by his own silly brain he didn’t know what to do. “It’s like a part of me knows that isn’t possible. Intellectually, I know other people can’t look at me and know things about me. But there’s this other part, this part I don’t even have a name for, that’s convinced all they need is one glance and they know everything.”
“You’re not alone, you know. In feeling that way.” Ronan placed his elbows on the table, leaning closer. “A lot of people have that same concern.”
“They do?”
“Yeah. I’m not an expert, but I think it’s called social anxiety.” Ronan reached out and took Noah’s hand. His touch was amazingly soothing. “I can help. If you want me to.”
“How?”
“Every time you have that insight during a session, chances are you’ll hang on to it longer.”
“I don’t understand. Are you saying what we did is like therapy?”
“In a way. It’s unconventional, to say the least, but that doesn’t make BDSM any less valid.” Ronan kept on holding his hand, but he put his other hand on top and traced the back of Noah’s hand. The motion was arousing and soothing at the same time. “Part of this is therapeutic. You’ll discover things about yourself as we go along. The deeper we go, the more likely you are to keep having similar experiences.”
“I’m not the first?”
“Nope.” Ronan’s smile was warm and genuine. “It’s another reason why I kept myself distant. I thought a therapist—even a makeshift one—shouldn’t be too involved with his patient.”
“Sex as therapy?” It sounded unlikely, but then again, Noah had learned more about himself in an afternoon with Ronan than he had in a lifetime.
“It wasn’t sex. It seems that way at first, but most of what we did was happening in your head.”
“Your finger going inside me wasn’t in my head.” Noah wasn’t able to make that point while looking directly at Ronan. He only found the courage after he finished speaking.
“True.” Ronan grinned. “But that wasn’t the main drive of the encounter, was it?”
“But I climaxed.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he felt himself turning red. “What’s wrong with me? I can do that with you, but then I can’t use certain words without feeling like I’m going to be struck by lightning.”
“That’s what we were working on in there, even though it doesn’t seem like it.” Ronan took him into the living room, where they sat on the couch. “It seems almost counterintuitive to act out what you most fear—the idea that someone knows what you’re thinking. What I said during our session—that I know you’re a dirty boy with filthy thoughts—seems like it would send you into a shame spiral of epic proportions. But by acting out your fear in a controlled environment, you were able to not only grasp the truth intellectually but also emotionally.”
“The truth?”
“The truth that someone reading your mind simply isn’t possible. The more you do that, the more you confront that idea and really challenge it, the deeper that belief will get into your psyche. Eventually, it will be automatic.”
Noah frowned, not understanding.
“Think of it like the advice to turn into a skid. Sounds crazy, right?”
“Right.”
“But if you do, you actually regain grip for the wheels.”
“That sounds like if I do what you’re suggesting, then I’ll only entrench the fears.”
“Okay. Good point. My analogy isn’t as good as yours about finding the extra room in your house.”
As the details of their previous conversation came back to him, Noah began to understand what Ronan was trying to say. “So by acting out my greatest fears, I take away their power?”
“That’s the best summation I’ve ever heard.” Ronan continued to gently stroke Noah’s hand. “If you run from your fears, you reinforce them. They get bigger and scarier. If you head right into them, you run over them. When you look back, they’re a lot smaller because you’re moving away.”
“Still trying to make that skid analogy work?”
“I am.” Ronan laughed.
“What if you’re skidding on a motorcycle?”
“That’s a whole new ballgame.” Ronan kissed the back of his hand. “The point is that if you keep pushing forward with our sessions, you’ll be able to have that inner peace no matter where you are or where you go. You’ll have challenged that fear so much that it simply won’t have the same power over you.”
Noah thought about that feeling he’d had on the table. He’d been fearless in that moment and for quite some time afterward. “I’d like to feel like that all the time.” Frankly, he’d pay almost any amount of money to feel like that for even a handful of hours.
“I’d like to help you get there.” Ronan squeezed his hand.
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but…”
“Why?”
“Yes. I know it’s like looking a gift horse in the mouth, but why would you want to help me? What are you getting out of this?” After Ronan’s previous reaction when Noah offered him money, he wasn’t about to make that same mistake twice.
“I already told you that I’m getting back what I thought I’d lost. I enjoyed what we did. Helping you helped me.”
“But what if I never want to go further?”
“What do you mean? You just want to act out that same scenario over and over?”
That wasn’t quite what Noah meant, but it was close enough, so he nodded.
“I would be okay with that.”
“You would?” Noah thought that Ronan would want to act out his own desires, not just go with Noah’s.
“But I can honestly tell you I don’t think you’ll want to keep hammering away at the same scenario again and again. You’ll want to repeat it until you’ve gained all that you can from it, but…”
“Eventually it won’t give me any more insights?” Noah guessed.
“Right. Also, each time you play in that room, you’ll be in a different mood. The first time you were filled with apprehension because you don’t know exactly what will happen. You have the safeword, and that’s your gleaming sword in the darkness. When you start to really trust in your ability to wield it, you’ll want to go further.”
“I though you said you’d push me?” Noah wondered if perhaps Ronan hadn’t pushed him because he perceived Noah as too weak to push too hard.
“I did. But I only pushed you the direction you wanted to go. You wanted to be spanked without any pain. I gave that to you, then slowly increased the pain level. I was watching you jump, but then you were lifting your perfect little ass up higher.”
Noah blushed. He remembered when he’d realized how the pain hadn’t really felt like pain at all.
“You said you wanted a little penetration, but you opened up to my finger so eagerly, I knew if I pushed a little harder, you would have taken more.”
“Why didn’t you?” Noah could barely get the words out. He couldn’t believe that Ronan spoke of such intimate acts without any embarrassment. Unlike Noah, who kept feeling his body tightening as his voice went higher, Ronan stayed relaxed and his tone was even regardless of what he was saying. When he remembered how experienced he was, it actually made sense. Noah couldn’t imagine a time when he would be able to do the same. If nothing else, Ronan was proof that BDSM as therapy had benefits. Ronan was a secure Dom now, but Noah doubted he’d been this confident and secure his whole life.
“I felt you weren’t ready.” Ronan leaned over and kissed the side of Noah’s head. “I didn’t want you to use the safeword your first time.”
“What if I’m never ready?”
Ronan cupped Noah’s chin, lifting his face. “Noah, you’ve asked me that twice. I need you to be honest with me. In this type of relationship, you can’t be coy and demure, hoping that I’ll pick up what you’re putting down. What are you trying to tell me?”
“What if I’m never ready to have sex with you?” The very idea of having Ronan’s cock go inside him scared Noah so much he could barely speak the words. He thought Ronan would be upset and feel Noah had somehow led him on, but Ronan’s reaction was as mild as his attitude toward everything else.
“This isn’t about sex.” Ronan released Noah’s chin. “What we do in there isn’t the same was what we would do in my bedroom.”
On the way to the shower earlier, Noah had gotten a peek into Ronan’s bedroom. It was dark because the shades were drawn, but he’d still been able to make out the masculine color scheme of burgundy, hunter green, and black. It was a man’s room, with a big, sturdy bed and little else. Noah had a feeling the idea of being on that bed with Ronan peering down at him was going to occupy a huge amount of his ongoing fantasy life. However, the thought of actually taking Ronan’s cock into his body was still stone-cold terrifying. Not only was he huge, but there were consequences. A dozen questions crowded in his brain to get out, but he didn’t have the courage yet to ask them. Maybe someday.
