by Solace Ames
“There,” he murmured. “Better now?”
“Yes.”
“You’re all cleaned up. Just rest for a while. I’ll be right here.”
“Okay.” She abandoned the struggle to keep her eyes open and drifted into sleep.
We’ll always be together, somehow.
No, that’s not true, nothing stays, she wanted to argue back, frustrated for some vastly important but increasingly hazy reason...
She woke up comfortably, her head pillowed on Paul’s thigh. Well, mostly comfortably.
“Ow, my knee.”
“Sorry about that,” Paul said. “You do have some rugburn.”
“Ah.” She licked her lips, rolled her shoulders, tested her power of speech. “Is it—what time is it?”
“Ten. We’re doing fine. I’ll get you home in time, princess.”
“Your anal princess?” She was giggling and giddy, a little sore, and a lot stunned. “That was so fucked up. I loved it. I never knew I—I forgot how many times I came. How is that even possible?”
“That first one’s designed for female pleasure. It’s very expensive.” He combed her hair back with his fingers and smiled down at her, the light too dim to mark the color of his eyes, but she remembered. Everything they’d done before filtered this moment, made it richer and more meaningful. “I’d love to geek out and explain the mechanism, but it might be a good idea to leave the room now, if you’re feeling up to it.” He flicked his eyes to the side.
Another couple kneeled and hovered by the first machine. Two women, strikingly different: one pink-haired and chubby, one tan and crewcut and lean. They looked like they belonged to each other, harmoniously contrasting. The new attachment on the saddle had two smaller dildos mounted.
Adriana wriggled halfway out of the blanket. “Oh. Yes. I’m fine. Let’s give them some privacy.” She would have liked to watch, actually, but she was getting hungry, and she seemed to remember a table set with food in the main room.
Paul helped her with her bra, her skirt, putting her together again. She really did feel like a princess. It was all gloriously bizarre, and she...accepted it.
“Was that good for you, too?” she asked as he adjusted her skirt, stretching the fabric over her curves. “I know you put me at the center. I was so gone, I couldn’t tell if you—did you—” Their hands met, and they walked out of the room together.
“You’ll have to take my word for it.” Paul sounded amused. “You were very satisfying. On a physical level, I can’t get my dick in you enough.” For emphasis, he gave her a playful slap on the ass. She was relieved when that didn’t trigger any pain or panic, only a tickling sensation and a blush. “And on a mental level? I don’t need God or drugs when I have this, with you.”
The music called to them from the other end of the hallway, harsh electronic thumping that fit the event perfectly, cerebral and animal layered together. This time, the crowd didn’t intimidate her. Whether they looked at her or didn’t look at her. Happiness made her feel beautiful. Making Paul happy made her feel beautiful.
Someone at a couch waved to them.
“Feel like being social?” Paul asked, and squeezed her hand.
“Probably.” She was wary of getting trapped in unwelcome conversations...but then, in that case she could always say it was time to go. “Let’s give it a shot.”
There was a table with canapés and granola bars and tartlets and some tempting homemade snacks, although the grapes were sadly all gone, lonely twiggy stems marking their former presence. Adriana picked out what she wanted and went to join Paul’s...friends?
Paul nodded to the tall Asian man with a chrysanthemum half-sleeve tattoo. “John. My girlfriend, Adriana. Adriana, John.”
“Protocol! That’s Sir Mister Master John, and you know it.” John’s crooked grin undercut the scolding. Adriana couldn’t help smiling along with him. “This is Robin, my better half.”
Robin perched on the couch next to John. Like the couple in the machine room, they seemed a study in opposites: she was petite, almost elfin, and model-androgynous in a stylish bondage harness of ivory-colored braided cord. Her platform high heels were lacquered in silver glitter and seemed to shine with their own ferocious light. “Hi, Paul and Adriana,” she said, in an accent Adriana couldn’t quite place. “Would you like to sit down?”
There wasn’t that much space, so Paul ended up standing, and Adriana sat next to Robin. Once they all started talking, Adriana realized there wasn’t any point in keeping secrets or holding back. John had taken the pictures that had attracted her to Paul in the first place, so in a way, he’d brought them together and started this whole crazy thing.
Robin was delighted to make the connection. “So you’ve been seeing each other—I mean, without money—for how long now?”
Adriana popped a mini-quiche into her mouth. “Only a month,” she said, and wiped a crumb from the edge of her lips. “It’s working out really well. And it’s nice being open about it with people who aren’t...judgmental.” Like you. Robin seemed genuinely happy on her behalf. She had a lovely, bright smile.
Paul and John were arguing, some abstract debate about online presences with no heat to the disagreement. Paul crossed his arms with typical cool reserve and she remembered how much she loved his body, how much she loved just looking at him.
“I saw you in there, with him,” Robin said.
Adriana’s stomach tightened.
“Oh no.” Robin’s smile flipped into an expression of concern. “I’m sorry. I mean, the rules are that the doors to those rooms stay open, so the monitors can check. And people walk by—”
“It’s okay,” Adriana said, forcing herself to breathe deeply and relax. “I knew that. Paul actually told me on the ride here, and I remember now. I was out of it in there. I’m still shaky.” Thankfully, Robin didn’t reach out to hug or pat, just nodded. “You know...” Adriana added, and touched her collar.
Robin mirror-touched her own pearl choker. “Yes. And there’s no rule that says you have to like being watched. I do, myself. A lot. But just because I like it some times doesn’t mean all the time.”
“Right.” Adriana felt comfortable enough to scarf down another mini-quiche and go for a tartlet. “Well, I’m finding out what I like. No regrets so far.” She didn’t want to make the conversation all about herself, or talk with her mouth full, so she threw out a question rising from real curiosity. “So how did you and John meet?”
“Oh, we’ve known each other forever. Since college.” There were very fine lines under Robin’s light makeup, and Adriana mentally adjusted her age up a decade from first impression. “Long story short, when I started exploring submission, I had a tough time emotionally. My fiancé and I broke up. It’s hard to meet compatible people in the lifestyle. And when I found out John was a dom...” She smiled while raising a single elegant eyebrow. “It wasn’t a seamless transition, that’s for sure, but it was absolutely worth it. On every level.”
“My husband and me got together that way—you know, friends first.”
“And you’re still...solid?” Robin asked, cocking the same eyebrow in a more ambiguous way. “I’m sorry if that’s an intrusive question, by the way. We could talk about jobs or—”
“It’s all right,” Adriana said. “Yes. We are. He’s open-minded, and he has a great heart, and he knows what he wants and what I want...well, they don’t always overlap. And we’re both going home to him tonight.”
“That’s so sweet.” Robin sighed and patted Adriana’s hand. There were still broken strands in the pattern of the world; Robin’s fleeting touch tied the last ones back together.
John suddenly sprawled into their conversation. “So, about your husband? Paul tells me we’d either kill each other or start a comedy troupe together.”
Paul stroked her ha
ir. Adriana looked up to see that he was grinning. “Maybe we’ll have a dinner party and find out,” she said.
“Good idea,” Paul said. “But now I really think it’s time to go home.”
She nodded, and rose to join him.
After they’d said their goodbyes and turned to go, Paul spoke quietly into her ear, his words barely audible above the thump of the music. “Ex-submissive at three o’clock.”
Adriana glanced to the right as discreetly as possible. The woman who knelt on the floor, eyes downcast, was an angular work of art, slimmer even than Robin, covered in mythological animals fighting and making love and melting into each other, and naked under her harness and collar.
She was beautiful, too.
The older man holding her leash was mostly in shadow, but Adriana saw him nod, acknowledging...she wasn’t sure. He’d made some kind of eye contact with Paul.
Paul spoke to Adriana in the same low voice. “I’d say hello, but her master might offer her to me. Which is potentially awkward.”
The thought sent a weird prickling sensation all over Adriana’s skin. It disturbed her, excited her, made her realize that what they’d done in the machine room wasn’t a neatly packaged experience, but an opened box.
“You’d say yes, if I let you?” she asked. Up against the wall, maybe, or on the floor, Adriana sitting neatly to the side with her hands on her lap, Jesus...
“Probably. To see if you’d like it, more than anything.”
“We should go.” She pulled his hand. He followed. They didn’t look to the left or right.
We’re both going home to him tonight.
Chapter Nineteen
Jay wasn’t used to being alone and wasn’t sure how he felt about being alone. It was an evolving relationship, he decided. Not as depressing as loneliness, not as philosophically loaded as solitude, not as cheerful as alone time.
He’d spent most of the evening watching animated sea creatures shriek at each other on the TV while the nieces and nephews piled around him shrieked right back, so at least the no shrieking part of being alone was absolutely fantastic.
He took advantage of the silence by picking up the Bolaño again. His eyes wouldn’t follow the lines on the page, kept drifting toward the front door, and he had to toss the book onto the coffee table in defeat.
Adriana and Paul would be home soon. Maybe they’d stay out later than expected. Jay didn’t like that possibility. He didn’t like not liking it, either. His ideal self was gloriously free of all negative emotion. Time alone would be spent productively in fulfilling, self-improving activities. Right.
He got up and walked to his craft chest, flipped it open, and stared into the eerie face of a half-finished doll. A year ago, he’d erased a bland, cheap Barbie face with acetone in preparation for an ambitious project: a repaint into Salma Hayek as Satánico Pandemonium. Completing the great Mexican vampire stripper project would be pretty damn fulfilling.
But he couldn’t really work on a tabletop anymore. Sitting upright, spine vertical, for more than about ten minutes would absolutely fucking wreck him. He’d gone over the workarounds a thousand times: a lap tray, a standing desk. The only way to keep going is to change.
He closed the chest. Tomorrow. Or maybe the weekend. Eventually.
Back on the couch, laptop propped on his thighs, he pulled up a website full of domestic violence video interviews. When taking mental notes got too depressing, he left the audio running and jumped to another window to plug data into travel sites about the French vacation they didn’t have the money to take anymore, which was also depressing, but in a completely different way.
The rivers Saone, Yonne and Loire have smoothed the lowlands.
Keeping it a secret was a mission that swallowed up my days and nights.
Navigate the canals of La Bourgogne in a superb spacious boat for a couple or small family starting at £900 per week.
I didn’t think I deserved to live.
After a while, after it added up and added up, a tentative, fizzy feeling close to happiness infiltrated Jay, even through his funk and fatigue. The women in the videos were talking, airing their wounds, refusing to be silenced anymore. That was inspiring as hell, once he thought about it. And as for France...it would happen eventually. Even if it took years.
Then the door opened. On time. Everything was fine. He floated to his feet to welcome them home.
Gorgeous, sleepy-eyed Adriana wobbled into his arms. “These heels are killing me,” she moaned.
He laughed and kissed her on the chin until she kicked off her heels and their height was even again, and then he kissed her lips. She tasted a little like a lemony sweet and a little like Paul, although he could have been imagining that. After all, Paul stood right behind her.
Paul was hopelessly taller, of course. Jay touched his shoulder and looked up, and Paul looked down, and something about the angle hit Jay in a very intimate and archaic way—an old Hollywood legacy, maybe, the leading man looking down with a knowing smile. The pose was almost too good to break with a kiss, but they did anyway, and if Jay wasn’t so tired, God...
“Let’s get her to bed, baby,” Paul said.
Don’t call me that. Always call me that.
“Okay,” he said, and smiled, just because he remembered how much he loved saying yes to Paul.
On the way there, Adriana tugged off her tunic dress. Jay neatly took it from her hand and threw it into the laundry hamper in the corner of the bedroom. Adriana seemed unsteady even off her heels, but not drunk or high.
“Did you have a good time tonight?” Jay asked her.
“Yes. Yes. It was a long way away, though, and I’m so tired now. I’ll—I don’t know how much you want me to tell you, baby.”
Paul turned aside the covers for her. She dove under them, yawned, and stretched her lovely naked body so that the swell of her breasts rose from the blue sheets like a goddess breaking the surface of the sea, yes, exactly that dramatic, it even gave him an idea for a doll...
“That’s a good point,” Paul said, and sat down on the edge of the bed to pull the covers over Adriana. Good night, Aphrodite. “How much do you want to know, Jay?”
“Oh. Hmm.” He shifted his weight, rubbed his tired eyes. “Maybe...in general? I mean, the rough stuff doesn’t freak me out in theory. It’s when it goes into details, that’s all. And I know it’s important to both of you. You don’t have to be super secret about it if you don’t want to.”
“You’re so sweet,” Adriana murmured, her eyes already closed.
Paul straightened her pillow. The tenderness of the motion made Jay’s chest ache. Paul treated Jay the same way, with the same protection and care, and seeing it mirrored was more than twice as good, somehow. “I wish you didn’t have to sleep on the couch, Paul. You know, we could try the bed tonight.”
“I’m up for it. I can always move later, if it doesn’t work.”
“We’ll make it work,” Jay promised. He eyed the substantial width of Paul’s shoulders and tried to estimate how much mattress real estate they’d need. Queen size was barely big enough for three sleeping quietly... “The main problem is that Adriana’s a thrasher.”
“But she looks so innocent,” Paul said, grinning.
Adriana dug the side of her head further into the pillow. “Not my fault,” she mumbled.
“Yeah, she lulls you into a false sense of security until she hits REM state, channels Satan and elbows you in the throat,” Jay warned. “But me? I’m perfect.” He lay on the other side of the bed, arms crossed on his chest, feet together, and turned to smile beatifically at Paul. “Like this. All night! I usually keep a pillow between me and Adriana. To, you know, cushion the blows.”
“I think you’re being a little dramatic,” Paul said. “It can’t be that bad.”
Paul reached over Adriana’s shoulder to ruffle Jay’s hair. “All right.”
In another ten minutes they were ready, sliding naked under smooth sheets in the close darkness. So strange, not to be able to reach out and touch Adriana, but Jay could hear her breathing softly on the other side of the bed, could feel her movements carried to him in the minute tremors of the mattress springs. Paul lay quietly on his back, his dense, vital body dividing them. Like a mountain range. The Sierra Paul. Jay wanted to love him from a distance, like he’d love a force of nature, but he kept drawing closer to Paul, closer every day.
Their shoulders touched. Jay shifted away, sensed the drop to his right, then shifted back again. He felt Paul’s breath against his forehead and closed his eyes, falling into full darkness, soaking up the warmth.
“Do you have enough room?” Paul asked.
“I think so,” Jay whispered. “Was tonight good for you, also?”
“Very, very good.” The back of Paul’s hand brushed against Jay’s thigh. As sleepy as he was, the touch triggered enough pleasure to make him skip a breath. “I felt you there, Jay, even though I didn’t...think you should be there.” Paul’s voice was low and sleepy too.
Jay took a few deep breaths to catch up, and couldn’t quite remember what Paul had just said. Something good, though. Something that showed he understood. “Mmm-hmm.”
“Being right here...” Paul never finished. A soft humming noise came from deep inside his chest. The hush of sleep fell.
“Be careful,” Jay said, and rested his cheek against Paul’s shoulder.
Dream a river, he told himself. Dream a river smoothing the lowlands.
We’ll travel together.
Dream...
* * *
Paul walked to the end of the road, where the asphalt crumbled like old black bread, then turned to face his parents’ home.
“It’s depressing,” said his sister Lydia. “The development company couldn’t even get the damn road finished. This place is worthless, and Mom and Dad are trapped in the contract. Same old shit as always. Keep moving, never get anywhere.”
