Things got steadily worse in the days that followed. First, Mandy got voted off Space Camp. The good news was that she’d fallen in love with Parker, the mathematician, who’d been voted off the week before. The tabloids were abuzz with news of their engagement. “Yeah,” Mandy said in her closing sound bite on the show. “I told him to make like Saturn and put a ring on it.” She flashed her rock, then glanced away from the camera. “I’m sicka throwin’ up in the gravity chair anyway.”
A day later, I got a message from D:
Dear David,
I regret that I will not be able to meet with you this week. I will get in touch if something changes.
Best,
D
What the hell kind of message was that? Seriously, what the fuck kind of paltry-ass message was that to give to someone you’d spanked, slept with, let read your screenplay . . . We were more than “Dear David” and “I regret” and “Best,” weren’t we? But I couldn’t shake the awful feeling this had something to do with the Subs Club.
I messaged him back.
Dear D,
Why not?
David
David,
Best if we don’t see each other for a while.
D
I spent the whole day worrying about it. Evening found me on my knees by my living room window, staring out at the darkening sky with my arms folded on the sill. Gould arrived home from work and didn’t speak to me. I’d spent all day waiting for him, hoping I’d have the nerve to apologize when he showed up. But he walked past me, and I couldn't even make myself open my mouth.
I waited for him to go to his room. Then slipped out of the house and drove to D’s, passing the brightly lit Finer Things, where I’d called him a drooling cartoon wolf. Where he’d pinched my ass. I pulled up to his house, hopped out of the car, and slammed the door. I strode up to the porch. Knocked furiously and then rang the bell for good measure. No answer, but the lights were on and I could hear a TV. I knocked again. I kept knocking, I don’t know for how long, until D answered the door.
He was a mess. He had on a T-shirt and rumpled pants, and his hair stood up. His eyes were bloodshot and he looked, for a second, like he didn’t even know me.
“Hey.” I was too surprised by his appearance to say more than that.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“What do you think, Sir? You blew me off. I was worried about you.”
He glanced past me into the dark yard.
“Hey,” I said. “What’s going on?”
He rubbed his forehead. “I was on Fetmatch the other day to make some adjustments to my profile. There was a lot of hullabaloo in my feed regarding what I’m told is a project of yours.”
Shit. No.
Panic didn’t quite eclipse anger. “So you thought you’d dump me over Fet message instead of talking to me about it man-to-man?”
“I don’t know that you have any business yelling at me,” he said quietly.
My stomach sank. He let me follow him into the kitchen.
He went right for the coffee. “An acquaintance of mine saw that I was online and messaged me about what was going on. He said my name was on some blog that you ran. A blog where you rated doms.” He still spoke softly, but I could hear the edge in his voice.
“That blog is meant for submissives only. It’s supposed to be a place where we can talk about what sorts of doms are safe and what sorts are assholes.”
“I don’t like being discussed behind my back. Not by someone I thought was . . .” He shook his head. “‘Man-to-man?’ What about you? If you have a problem with me, talk to me. Not the internet.”
“I never rated you. I never even wanted your name to go up there. Someone else put it up. I deleted it as soon as—”
“What about the other doms on your blog? You think they don’t want to keep their private lives private?”
“Put the damn coffee down.” I walked up to him. “If you’d give me a chance to explain—”
“Please, do.” His voice sounded rough with an emotion I couldn’t quite identify. It wasn’t just anger.
“I’m sorry if it hurt your feelings. But this project is important to me.” It’s just gotten massively out of hand. “I wanted to stop people from getting hurt. You know Fet wouldn’t let abuse victims c—”
“How is it okay to rate dozens of people who are doing something incredibly intimate, that involves so much trust and care, like they’re—like they’re sellers on eBay?”
“That’s not what we’re doing! We’re having discussions. I want to know what’s so bad about—”
“Because what you and I do here is private!” He was as close to shouting as I’d ever heard him. “And what I’ve done with my other partners is private. I would think that’s common sense.”
“Nobody’s talking about your cock size or debating whether you’re a good lay. They’re talking about your ability to be safe and respectful in a scene.”
“I don’t care what they’re saying. I don’t want to be fodder for your discussions.”
He wouldn’t face me. I got angrier and more panicked.
I tried again. “Well, then—”
“All my life! All my goddamn life, I’ve tried to stay out of peoples’ way. I’ve tried to live quietly. I haven’t even made friends because I don’t want to—to have to worry about what people think of me. Don’t want to have to worry that I’m failing them. But I have this one thing—this one damn thing, David—that I need from other people. And I thought I was getting it from you.”
“You . . .” I had no idea what to say. The magnitude of what I’d done was slowly sinking in.
He was breathing hard. “And I thought maybe I wasn’t doing such a bad job of giving you something back.”
God, had I ever fucked up.
I couldn’t hold it together. Not myself, not my club, not my friends. Not D and me. And that realization scared me like nothing else.
I had hurt him. This giant, meat-loving, mustached manly man.
I’d hurt his feelings.
And I’d turned myself into someone he couldn’t trust.
I swallowed hard. “Please, I need to tell you—”
“Just stop talking,” he said without looking at me.
I stared at him, anger slowly overtaking fear. I wasn’t wrong. The Subs Club wasn’t wrong. But if he wasn’t going to talk about it with me, then we were going nowhere.
You don’t get to snap your fingers and order me onto the mat for this. I am trying to tell you something important.
“I’d like you to leave.” His voice was rough.
That did it.
“No problem!” I snapped. “Thanks for letting me explain. Thanks for trying to understand the one fucking thing I’ve done in my life that’s made me feel useful.”
I left.
I went to Riddle. The weather was lousy and it was too early for more than a handful of people to be inside.
Kel was refilling spray bottles of disinfectant by the front counter. “David.” She sounded surprised.
I walked past her without speaking, worried that if I opened my mouth, I’d lose it.
This was a fucking nightmare. D hated me, Miles was out of the club, Gould was mad at me, and probably everyone in the community knew I was behind the review blog and wanted me to die.
I couldn’t control how they felt.
I couldn’t control who lived or died or fell in love or got hurt . . . anything.
Give it up.
I found myself in Tranquility, staring at the bench where Hal had died. ”Fuck you,” I said to the bench. “Seriously, fuck you.”
I kicked it.
And then I kicked it again, because kicking it felt wonderful.
“David?” Cinnamon stepped out of the shadows at the far end of the room. She was wearing a harness and a hood with ears, tall black boots, and her butt plug tail made of real horsehair.
“Oh God.” I rubbed my temples and sank down onto the bench. “I’m so not in the mood right now.”
She came over to me. “Relax.”
I looked around. “Where’s your jockey or whatever?”
“He’s getting some stuff out of the car.” She sat beside me on the bench, sweeping her tail underneath her as she did.
“How can you sit with that thing in?” I asked.
“I’m used to it.” She didn’t sound as haughty as usual, and she glanced at me with what might have been concern. “You don’t look so good.”
“I’m not so good. I hate Bill Henson. I hate that he’s allowed to play here. And I’ve fucked up pretty much everything I could possibly fuck up over the last few days. You’ve probably seen the Fet group dedicated to how much I suck.”
She didn’t answer. Yep, she’d definitely seen it. It had probably made her day.
“And none of the stupid shit I’ve done or tried to do has brought my friend back. So . . .” I raised my hand and let it fall.
She let out a long breath. “I want to tell you something. If you don’t want to hear it, that’s fine. But I thought you might like to know what I saw that night.”
No. That is the last thing I want.
“I know what you claim you saw.” My voice was bitter. “You took Bill’s side.”
She stared at her . . . hooves. “What I said at the trial was true. I didn’t see Hal try to safe signal. I didn’t see anything that indicated he’d been pressured into the scene, or that he was nervous about it. I’d been stabled right over there—” She pointed across the room.
“Don’t say stabled.”
“Hal and Bill were talking. Hal was laughing. I didn’t even notice they were doing breath play at first. I just saw Bill standing behind Hal and kinda yanking him by the hair and stuff. The next time I looked over, Hal looked deep in subspace. I mean, Bill would say something to him, and Hal would just moan and sort of laugh.”
The poppers. Hal had probably been giddy. Relaxed.
“Bill left the room. I saw Hal’s legs move a couple of times after that—not—not frantic or anything. Just little movements. And then Hal was lying so still, and I started to feel uncomfortable about him being there with no one, like, checking on him. So I walked over. The rope was really tight around his neck. It had gotten caught on one of the screws in the bench. But he never . . .” Her eyes welled up. “I’m sorry. But that’s what I wanted you to know. I never saw him struggle. He just looked really peaceful. Like he was sleeping.”
My hands were shaking so bad I had to ball them into fists. “You don’t leave someone tied up alone. Ever. There’s no excuse for that.”
“I know. I know, but Hal had one arm free. The knot was a quick release. And Bill only left to get Hal some water. It really was an accident.”
“Oopsy-fucking-daisy.”
Her voice was quiet. “I understand if you don’t want to give Bill a second chance. But he’s going to be fucked up for the rest of his life, and—”
“Shut up!” I rose. “Please, just shut up. I’m so tired of hearing how Bill’s fucked up for life. Hal’s life is over.”
She stood too. “I know you think I messed things up at the trial. But I only told what I saw. There’s always a slight danger in what we do, and . . . I . . . just . . . I’m not on anyone’s side.”
I didn’t have the energy to shout anymore. I put my face in my hands and shook my head. Inhaled through my nose and looked up, my fingers steepled under my chin. I started laughing, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stop. When I finally calmed down, I gave the bench one last kick, but it was more affectionate than angry. “I’m also so fucking sick of hearing about how BDSM’s a dangerous game, when the only reason I ever played it was to feel safe.”
I left her there and returned to the front of the club. GK was with Kel now. My stomach churned, but I made myself walk up to both of them. They gazed at me warily, and when I opened my mouth, I wasn’t sure what would come out.
“I’m ready to talk,” I told them. “I need to talk.”