“It’s your turn to go first,” I said.
Gould shook his head. “Pretty sure it’s yours.”
We were in the laundry area in the basement of the duplex. It was a really nice room with a tiled floor, potted plants, and a large table with plenty of books and magazines.
It also had the Change Machine of Darkness.
I sighed. “All right.” I took a dollar out of my wallet. “If you feel okay about making me do this . . .”
Gould and I usually did our laundry together on Saturday afternoons. We took turns being the first one to try the change machine and risk losing a dollar when it turned out to be empty of quarters.
I fed my bill into the machine. Nothing happened. “We really should just go to a bank sometime and take out, like, eight hundred dollars in quarters.”
Gould stepped forward and slapped the machine, which did nothing. “But banks are so far away. The change machine is right here. And sometimes it works.”
The machine clicked suddenly, then spat out four quarters. “Well, hallelujah!” I added the quarters to the two I already had.
“It’s our lucky day.” Gould put in his dollar next. Nothing. He jammed the button, but the machine didn’t spit the dollar back out. “Oh, come on.”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “You shoulda gone first.” I opened a washer and drizzled some detergent in.
He let out a long sigh and started searching his wallet for quarters.
“So.” I tried to keep my voice casual. “You were out awfully late last night.” I’d noticed because I’d spent last night at home, watching TV, not doing my hair school applications, and wishing it were Thursday so I could go back to D’s.
“I was trying some stuff with a rope guy.”
I dumped my clothes into the machine. “Who?” Gould had taken a strange interest in rope after Hal died. I wasn’t a therapist or anything, but it kind of bothered me.
He fished three quarters out of his wallet, then started checking his pockets. “You don’t know him. Found him on Fet. He lives like two hours away.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Had you met him?”
Gould became really interested in the quest for quarters.
“Gould.”
“We’d chatted on Fet for a long time. He’s not weird.”
“Gould.”
“What?” He set two more quarters on the top of the machine. He was one short.
“You didn’t even fucking tell me where you were!”
“I left the address on the back of a receipt in my room.”
“Who do you think I am, noted symbologist Robert Langdon? If you go missing, I’m supposed to crack your fucking da Vinci code?”
Gould patted his pockets, looking annoyed. “It wasn’t a code. It was the address written on a piece of paper. Are you going to lecture me, or are you going to ask how it went?”
“Lecture you,” I growled in his ear as I passed. I set my laundry basket on the table. I placed one of my quarters next to his. “How did it go?”
He scooped up the quarters and went to the machine beside mine. “Wasn’t the greatest.”
“You gonna tell me why?”
He loaded the coins into the slots. “You know how I’m pretty quiet. In scenes?”
Gould could disappear into subspace in a second. He’d do everything a dom told him to without protest, unless the dom asked for something that was a Gould Hard Limit, and then Gould would safeword. Actually, when I’d first met Gould, he wouldn’t safeword. He wasn’t even half the pain slut Miles was, and he’d still take anything he was given, just to avoid speaking up. Some of his stories had scared me.
“Yeah?”
Gould shrugged. “He just wasn’t super into it. Like, he wanted more reactions.”
“Why are your reactions his business?”
“I dunno. I mean, lots of doms get freaked out by how quiet I am. Just, this guy was really . . .” He met my gaze for a second, then looked away, shrugging again.
“Really what?”
“Critical, I guess.” Gould piled his clothes into the machine. “Like, he said I was hard to read and that was making it difficult for him to get into his headspace. Which is fine, it was just the way he said it. Then he said something about how he knew how to get me to scream, and I told him I wanted to stop for a minute. Then he turned out to be one of those ‘I want to stop is not the safeword’ guys. Which is true, but we weren’t doing the kind of scene where ‘I want to stop for a minute’ would have meant anything else, you know? So I just left.”
I could tell the whole thing was really bothering Gould. “Hey. You know you didn’t do anything wrong, right?”
He spent a few minutes shaking out his balled-up socks. “I used to wish Hal was a dom.”
I didn’t say anything. He didn’t usually talk about Hal unless he needed to, so I tried to just shut up and listen when he did.
Gould threw the socks into the machine. “I know he wasn’t the most responsible guy in a lot of ways, but when he and I used to do scenes together, he was great. I mean, he wasn’t a dom, and that was obvious. But he was really good at reading me.”
Keep going. Tell me.
He slammed the lid shut and turned to me. “I know doms aren’t mind readers, and I know it’s my responsibility to communicate and whatever Kink 101 shit, but sometimes I wish doms wouldn’t talk. And I wish they wouldn’t try to make me talk. I wish they’d just magically do what I want.”
I held out my arms. “C’mere.”
He glanced around. “There’s cameras.”
“You think the security cameras have never seen a hug before?”
He smiled, and his shoulders relaxed a little as he stepped forward. I hugged him hard.
“We have the review blog now,” I said. “Give him a lousy rating, then let him have it in the comments.”
He shook his head and pulled away. “No. If he heard about it, he’d know it was me.”
“Who cares? You’re not gonna play with him again. And he’s not local.”
“I’m making a big deal out of nothing. It’s just frustrating to play with people like that.”
“It’s not nothing.”
“Whatever.” He put the detergent in his empty basket and picked the basket up.
I dug my nails into my palms, still, for some reason, nervous as hell about sharing this. “I had a situation kind of like that too.”
“Yeah?” Gould picked up my basket too, and we headed out of the laundry room and up the stairs.
“I met with the Disciplinarian.”
Gould stopped and stared at me. “What?”
“C’mon.” I urged him up the rest of the steps and into our apartment.
“Yeah,” I continued once we were inside. “The first time we didn’t get along. But the second time—”
“The second time?” He dropped the baskets on the kitchen floor, and we went to the living room. Collapsed on the couch.
“I agreed to six sessions with him. One per week.”
“So you’re giving me shit about not telling you when I play. . .”
“Because the whole thing’s so weird. I don’t like him.”
“Doesn’t he have that thing about how safewords are chickening out?”
“Exactly. He’s a total I-don’t-know-what. But he’s hot. And I don’t actually think he’s a bad guy.”
“So you do like him?”
I rolled my eyes. “No. Yes. I don’t know.” I remembered being in D’s arms after the punishment. Remembered how fucking hard I’d been. How I’d gone home and spent most of the night jacking off to the memory of his voice, his hands on me. Rubbing my bruised ass against the sheets to get the pain back again. “He’s, like, some cliché manly man from the early twentieth century. Eats nothing but meat, framed a piece of hide he tanned himself. Makes all his own paddles. Drinks whiskey straight. Has that mustache.”
“Does he have a name? Besides ‘the Disciplinarian’?”
I sighed. “His name’s David.”
“Destiny.”
“Yep. But I call him D.”
“Nicknames already?”
I slumped. “He’s, like, the exact opposite of everything I ever thought I wanted. It’s infuriating.”
“Let’s just insert that sound bite into a preview for a Katherine Heigl romcom . . .”
“Shut up.”
He grinned. “I’m glad you like him.”
I sighed. “Six weeks.”
“Kim Basinger did nine and a half.”
“And didn’t that end really badly?”
“Yeah, but you’ll be fine.”
“Thanks.”
Gould picked at his thumbnail for a moment. “You’re sure he’s safe?”
I nodded, my stomach tightening. No one’s safe. Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe I like not knowing. “Yeah.”
He nodded. “Hey, I’d kill to find someone I wanted to play with more than once.”
“Poor Gould.” I leaned back, resting my head against the cushion and staring up at him. “You’ll find someone who wants a quiet boy.”
“I guess.” Gould snorted. “Even my parents think I’m like, autistic or something. I really need to learn how to talk to people who aren’t you.”
Gould’s parents were like Scooby Doo villains. They weren’t mean, exactly, but you could totally picture them haunting an amusement park in order to get ahold of an inheritance. They seemed kind of ruthless, but in an almost comic way. Like they could easily be thwarted by an unkempt pothead and his intensely phobic Great Dane. I was half-repulsed by them and half-amused, which seemed to be how Gould felt too. “They love you.”
He turned that crooked smile on me again. “I don’t think anyone else really shares your high opinion of me.”
“Then they’re stupid.” I poked him in the side.
He jerked away. “Daaave. I know I’m starting to look like the Pillsbury Doughboy, but—”
“Hey,” I interrupted firmly. “None of that.”
“I have gained weight, though.”
“No one cares but you.”
He didn’t answer. His weight had always been a sensitive issue. His mother had taken him to tons of fitness classes as a kid, because apparently having a stocky child was some kind of tragedy in Mr.-and-Mrs.-Gould world. Gould had carried that self-consciousness with him into adulthood. I tried to keep an eye on him to make sure he wasn’t trying any weird diets or obsessing too much about it.
I remembered hearing a fight between Hal and Gould years ago. I’d watched through a half-open door as Hal pinched Gould’s side and shouted, “You think I care about this? Nobody cares but you. You need to get over it.”
I hadn’t meant to use the same words Hal had. I glanced at Gould, but I couldn’t read his expression. I wondered if he was remembering the same thing.
“The Subs Club is up to thirty-two members,” Miles announced at our second official meeting. We’d decided since we spent every Sunday at my place anyway, we would also hold club meetings during that time. At our first meeting last week we’d talked briefly about how to recruit more members. This had led to a lot of jokes about “members,” which had resulted in Kamen picking up his guitar and composing an impromptu song called “All My Members.” Then we’d ordered massive sandwiches and milkshakes from Mel’s Sandwich Shop down the street and watched Space Camp.
Today, we’d resolved to get more serious.
We sat around the kitchen table. Gould was eating string cheese. Kamen was tuning his guitar, oblivious to the rest of us. He’d taken to keeping one of his two guitars at my place, so he could play when we were all hanging out.
Miles continued, “This week we had a great article by Gould about how to communicate during a CNC scene without breaking character. Lots of discussion on that one. A couple of people have commented that what we’re doing is a violation of privacy, but many more support us.” He adjusted his glasses and studied his tablet. “An interesting thread on why BDSM discourse is always so D/s oriented when a huge contingent of kinksters don’t do D/s . . . It was started by GretaHan. She’s in a domestic-discipline relationship and says she gets tired of DD being lumped in with D/s.” He glanced at me.
“Why are you looking at me?”
He shook his head. “No reason.”
A couple of years ago I’d gotten semidrunk and confessed to Miles I was interested in domestic discipline. He’d never let me forget it, even though I most definitely wasn’t interested in it anymore. Because DD was weird and Hal was dead, and just . . . no. I would never give up that level of control.
Miles cleared his throat. “So we could maybe be more inclusive in our language. Some people in the Subs Club are bottoms but not subs. And they face some of the same safety issues as subs.”
“Well we’re not calling this the Bottoms Club,” I said. “It doesn’t rhyme.”
“The word ‘bottom’ weirds me out,” Gould agreed.
Miles set the tablet down. “We don’t have to change the name. But maybe a subheading under the site title that’s like, ‘A discussion group for submissives and bottoms’ or something?”
Gould and I agreed this would be fine.
Kamen looked up suddenly, focusing on Miles. “Dude, I sent you a post I wrote about people who don’t wanna do BDSM full-time and don’t go to clubs, but they like just doing a little bit of freaky stuff at home. Can we use that?”
Miles nodded. “I’ve only had a chance to look at it briefly. It’ll need some work before it can go up on the site.”
Kamen looked a little hurt. “Okay, sweet.”
“And it doesn’t really deal with safety concerns,” Miles continued. “So if you can find a way to tie it to the Subs Club’s core values, that would be better.”
Kamen didn’t answer.
“It’s a cool idea, though,” I offered, not wanting Kamen to be bummed. “I mean, not everyone’s like us and spends too much time obsessing about kinky shit. So people who aren’t full-time players might have specific safety concerns.”
Miles nodded again. “True. They don’t necessarily have established roles or specialized equipment, and might be getting their information from Wikipedia instead of from more experienced players. I’ll have another look at the article, Kamen.”
Gould peeled off a string of cheese. “One other thing. I posted a warning on our main site and the review blog—but Bill Henson has a new username and a new profile on Fet. No pictures of his face, no mention of who he is. He’s SayImADreamer. I thought people should know.”
Kamen looked concerned. “How do you know that, dude? Are you still stalking him?”
Miles and I were quiet.
“I don’t stalk him.” Gould spoke softly, without looking at Kamen.
“No, it’s good to warn people,” I jumped in. “I’ll change his name and profile link on our site.”
“He’s getting slaughtered on the review blog,” Miles said. “Lots of past subs coming out of the woodwork.”
I’d noticed. Actually, while Bill’s overall rating was low, he did have a fair number of defenders. His thread was by far the most heated on the blog. Several members thought it was cruel to even have his name up—shooting ducks in a barrel, someone had said.
Whatever. I was thrilled with the horrible things people were saying about him. I hoped Bill would hear about the blog and know there was some secret society where his sins were routinely dragged up and rehashed.
Miles scrolled down. “Also a stay-at-home mom in Kansas makes thirty thousand a month working from home and wants us to ask her how.”
“Oh man, that would be amazing!” Kamen tightened a string on his guitar. “Let’s ask her how.”
“Kamen, buddy.” I winced. “That’s a scam.”
He looked up and grinned. “I know. Do you guys really think I’m that stupid?”
Well . . .
“Of course not,” Gould said quickly.
“Do you ever think about that, though?” Kamen put the guitar strap over his shoulder. “Like, what if some of those things that look like scams are the real deal? What if every once in a while, a legit Nigerian prince needs help, but he can’t get it because all those fake princes have cried wolf?”
I shook my head. “I have never once thought about that.”
“Well. Now you have.” He started strumming and singing:
“I’m the crown prince of Nigeria, and I own an oil well.
“I’m making tons of money, but I need your help.
“Just wire twenty grand into this private account.
“Give it a month, and I swear, you’ll make ten times that amount . . .”
“Wow. You’ve got a solid-gold hit there.”
Kamen beamed. And kept going: “I’m contacting you as a foreigner because—”
“So how many doms do we have on the review blog?” Gould interrupted.
“Thirty-nine,” I replied.
“I’ll tell you who we should put up for people to rate,” Miles said. “You know that bastard on Fet who calls himself the Disciplinarian?”
My stomach plummeted.
“Hell, yeah.” Kamen stopped playing. “My friend Pete said that guy’s insane.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Miles raised his brows. “Can Pete rate him?”
“Naw.” Kamen shook his head. “Pete never had a session with him. Didn’t get through the application thingy.” He grinned at me. “Dave tried to get a date with him.”
Miles turned to me. “Really?”
I shook my head. “Just . . . I thought about it. I thought about it . . . and then I . . . didn’t.”
I could feel Gould’s gaze on me.
Miles sighed. “Well, maybe I’ll try to get a session with him, then. I’m really not big on discipline, but I could take one for the team.”
I sat there sweating for a moment, and then I blurted: “I’m seeing him!”
They all looked at me.
“I mean, I saw him. I played with him.”
Miles tilted his head. “Oh?”
“Whoa, dude!” Kamen looked perplexed. “He took you? You’re, like, way worse than Pete at following directions.”
“It just sort of . . . happened,” I mumbled.
Gould was focused on the table, doing a terrible job of not looking guilty. Miles followed my gaze.
“Did you know, Gould?” Miles asked.
Gould nodded.
Miles shook his head, then turned to me again.
“Yeah, he’s, um, interesting,” I said in a rush. “He requires six sessions with subs as part of his training program. So I’m just gonna complete the program and then rate him at the end.”
I tried to sound casual, but they were all still staring at me. Like they knew. Like they fucking knew I was hard for danger.
“Is he, like, a dick?” Kamen asked.
“Definitely. I mean, no. He’s interesting. But weird. He looks like a combination of that guy from The Hunger Games and—wait, not The Hunger Games. What are those other games? Games of Thrones.”
“There’s only one,” Gould said.
“What?”
“Game.”
“Huh?”
“Of thrones. Game of Thrones.”
“Oh. Well, there’s like six seasons based on twenty books; how was I supposed to know they’re all about one game? Anyway, he looks like a young Davos Seaworth mixed with Teddy Roosevelt from the Night at the Museum movies.”
“And from history,” Gould said quietly.
“Right.”
Miles set his tablet aside. “So he’s a bear?”
I shook my head. “He’s definitely not a bear. If he encountered a bear—human or animal—he would skin it and turn it into a rug. He’s like . . . a man’s man. I mean, he’s a total asshole. But he’s kind of sweet.”
Miles looked too shrewd for my liking. “So how many weeks do you have left with him?”
“Five.”
“If at any point during those five weeks you eat squirrel gravy, you’re kicked out of the club,” Gould warned.
Kamen laughed. “Squirrel gravy.” He started strumming the guitar again.
“Saw a squirrel the other day,
“But I couldn’t hit the brakes.
“So I cooked it into gravy,
“And then I poured it on a steak . . .”
Gould cleared his throat. “So. This seems like a good place to end this meeting. If nobody has further discussion points, maybe we could move on to Space Camp?”
We made popcorn and then gathered in the living room to stream the previous night’s episode of Space Camp. Miles sat in the armchair, his back straight. He had a way of looking rigid during even the most relaxed of activities. Gould and Kamen took the couch, and I sat on the floor leaning against Gould’s legs.
“Man-dy, Man-dy, Man-dy . . .” Kamen and I chanted when she came on screen.
Mandy flicked her dark braid over the shoulder of her space suit and looked at the camera. A voice-over from last week’s episode: “I came to Space Camp ’cause it’s my dream to work for NISS. And I’m warning y’all I’m about to explode like The Challenger in here.”
“God, she’s ridiculous.” I reached up to grab a handful of popcorn from the bowl on Gould’s lap. “I love her so much.”
Miles gave his obligatory sigh to let us know he’d never partake in such lowbrow entertainment if we three plebeians didn’t insist. “I can’t believe I’m watching this.”
“Shut up; you love it.”
“Has any astrophysicist in history ever said ‘y’all’?” Gould asked.
We were treated to clips from last week’s episode, where the contestants had competed in the one-sixth gravity chair. Mandy turned to Parker, the nasal mathematician from Michigan. “Even in one-sixth gravity, you’re still fat.”
I spat an unpopped kernel into my palm. “She is the worst.”
“But, like, the best,” Kamen added.
“I know. How can you be the worst and the best at the same time?”
I thought about D. D was the worst and the best at the same time.
I couldn’t fucking wait for Thursday.