29
Evan
I pass Derek his cappuccino, which he takes before tossing a dollar in the tip jar.
“For that Magnum you’re going to need tonight.” Derek winks, and I try to fight a laugh, but I can’t help myself when it comes to Derek and his teasing.
“Thank you,” I say before he heads to the bar at the end of the counter, where Gary is on his laptop. He’s wearing his glasses, which is unusual since usually he wears contacts when he’s out. I don’t even think I’d ever seen him in glasses until he and Travis got together, when he seemed to be more comfortable with being the Superass we all know him to be.
He pushes the glasses up the bridge of his nose as Derek plants himself down on the stool beside him.
“I didn’t come here so you could look at porn all day,” Derek jokes.
“It’s an email I have to send for work. And considering that most of the time I’m on a laptop around you, it’s usually yours, and I’m usually cleaning up viruses you’ve picked up because apparently you look up some weird-ass porn.”
“It’s called research for Daddy. Knowing how to pleasure your man is a full-time job. I should be able to write it off on my taxes.”
“Hayden would kill you if he heard you say that.”
“Yeah, he would,” I pipe up as I’m finishing up cleaning the espresso machine along the wall.
Derek rolls his eyes. “Oh, please. If the IRS ever comes for me, I’m just going to be like, ‘Meet my accountant Hayden and his hottie redhead boyfriend. How do you feel about DPing?’ ”
“Derek!” Gary says, his eyes widening as he gives Derek a cross look before scanning the coffeehouse for anyone who might have overheard.
“Wait, what is going on?” I say, moving away from the espresso machine and eager to hear about this delicious piece of gossip.
Derek winces at me. “Thanks, Evan. I was going to say that everyone in Midtown already knows, so Gary wouldn’t give me shit. But guess you ruined that excuse.”
“Wait. What’s DPing?” I ask.
Gary and Derek glance at each other before turning their attention to me. “You’re kidding, right?” Gary asks.
I shake my head. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”
“Oh, my sweet summer child,” Derek says.
Gary shakes his head. “You know, it doesn’t matter because that’s not a thing we should be discussing while Evan’s on the clock, and we’re in the middle of a Midtown coffeehouse.”
I turn to Bradley, who’s on his phone on the other side of the bar, probably chatting up some guy on Grindr. “Bradley, cover me for a ten?”
“You got it, kid,” he replies without even looking up from his phone. It’s not a busy hour for us, so who gives a fuck?
I turn back to the guys and say, “Off the clock now. So this DPing thing…”
“Double penetration, Evan. Two dicks, one hole,” Derek offers, seeming to totally disregard Gary’s concern.
“Hayden and Cody did that? Like as a couple?”
Gary’s jaw tenses as he turns and gives Derek another stern look. “You see? This is how rumors get started.”
“I know how rumors get started. I’m the one who starts them, thank you very much.”
Derek turns his attention back to me and puts his hand beside his mouth as though that will magically keep anyone outside of us from hearing him. “This twink named Finn from Chicago was the guy they did it with. He’s a sweetie. And probably their most satisfied customer. They weren’t together yet when it happened. Just like messing around.”
“Oh…” I say. “Still…that sounds like a lot.”
Derek shakes his head. “I’m just horrified that no one had ever told you about DPing…or at least tried it with you. You’ve done it, right, Gare-bear?”
Gary’s eyes widen, his brows jumping up his forehead. “What? No!”
Derek’s jaw drops. “Don’t say it like that! You make it sound like you’re judging me.”
“No, I just can’t imagine sticking two dicks in my butt. Travis’s is more than enough.”
“Yeah, Frankie’s is…” I stop, realizing I’ve gotten caught up in their conversation, though they both seem eager for me to go on. “It was intimidating enough. I can’t imagine sticking more back there.”
“Good thing is,” Derek says, “you don’t have to imagine it. It can happen. Just butt science.”
I laugh, and even Gary relaxes, chuckling.
“Anyway, we all have our thing, you know?” Derek adds. “We’ve all heard about the nasty shit the guys across the way from your unit see you and Frankie doing.”
“Wait, what?” I ask, more than a little freaked out. I reflect on all the puppy play we’ve shared, wondering if we’ve ever done it in a place where people could see us.
“That was a joke,” Derek tells me. “I’m just shitting you. No one said anything to me, but now I wish I had video. What kind of kinky sex are you guys into?”
“I mean, probably nothing kinkier than you and Jackson,” I say, but I doubt that’s true. I don’t imagine Derek is running around on all fours in full puppy gear in the bedroom with Jackson. But what I’m doing really isn’t about the sex. There’s an aspect that’s hot, especially when it starts with me with a tail in my ass and ends up with Frankie’s cock in me, but what I get out of the experience is so much more than a kink. The sex is just a plus.
“Please tell me you spice things up a little bit, though,” Derek says.
“I have my little bag of tricks.” But really, what I have is more like a pull-out shelf filled with puppy gear.
“A bag of tricks?” Gary asks, pulling his attention away from his laptop. “Now you have me intrigued. Do you care to share with the class?”
“I usually save show and tell just for Frankie.” I have to admit, I’m enjoying having this secret part of me that I can just share with Frankie. It’s been nice having our friends know the truth about what we’re doing, but there’s something more intimate about the fact that the puppy play is just between the two of us. But I have been looking up PupStravaganza at the Eagle. I think we’re about ready for that. I’d at least be willing to try.
Derek sips on his cappuccino. “Well, whatever you do,” he continues, “I’m certain it can’t be any more vanilla than Gary and Travis’s sex.”
“Vanilla?” Gary asks. “We don’t do vanilla.”
“Oh, do you and Trav have some secret fetish you’re into?”
“I wouldn’t say a fetish, but we have some costumes we get out every once in a while.”
“Costumes? Really.”
“He has this…football gear that I like him to wear. And then I play the class nerd…put my glasses on…and he takes them off…”
Derek starts motioning like he’s jerking off, which makes me burst into a fit of laughter.
Gary rolls his eyes. “Whatever. We all have our thing.”
He’s right, we do. And it’s cool to see how everyone—Derek, Hayden, and Gary—all feel comfortable experimenting with different things with their boyfriends.
I wonder if that’s how Frankie and I are going to be. One day, are we going to be looking back and thinking about how we started? And if we started with puppy play, I can only imagine where we’ll end up.
It can’t get much crazier than that? Can it?
Although, I just sort of stumbled across that, and who knows what else I could find out I’m into? I didn’t even know what DPing was until today, and evidently based on Gary and Derek’s reactions, I should have.
Regardless of what I run into that I’m interested in trying, it’s nice being with a guy who I feel comfortable exploring things with, who I don’t feel like I have to hide my interests from.
Peter made me feel so ashamed of anything that wasn’t vanilla.
With the puppy play, I felt like it was stupid for me to even think about it.
Frankie was the exact opposite. He’s reminded me that not everyone’s a complete asshole.
When Gary and Derek finish their coffees, they head out, and I work the rest of my shift.
Bradley works the register while I mix drinks.
I maybe have half an hour of my shift left when a crew of guys who I recognize from around town approach the counter and order with Bradley. They’re all dressed preppy—in polos and button-ups—and as they hang by the pick-up counter, I hear them whispering to each other.
I’m at the espresso machine, working on their lattes, when I distinctly hear one of them say, “He’s the one Peter was fucking while he was still with Gary.”
Suddenly, what was a lovely day, feels like absolute shit.
“Fucking dick,” one of the other guys says.
It reminds me that, despite Derek’s attempt at salvaging what remained of my reputation, there are still those in Midtown who aren’t aware that I’m not just the heartless bastard who Peter was fucking behind Gary’s back.
Still, sometimes I feel like that.
If only they knew that Gary was sitting in here earlier, chatting me up about his sportswear fetish and his and Travis’s honeymoon, they wouldn’t be so judgy.
When I finish with their drinks, I hand them out, not able to make eye contact with any of the guys, which is more like the way I’d behave during a depressive episode than a day like today when I feel great.
They head off, leaving me struggling through the rest of my shift.
I don’t think it was just about their comment about Gary and Peter, though.
Those remarks just pushed me back to a very different time in my life—when I was still struggling through the depression, when I was with probably one of the shittiest partners I could have been with to help me through all that.
I can’t shake out of the mood it puts me in, even as I mentally walk myself through some processes I’ve picked up in therapy.
I manage to get myself to a place where I appreciate that I’m not the person who I was back then.
I’m not struggling. I have my meds. I see my therapist. And I have an amazing boyfriend who is there for me whenever I need him.
I can’t think of a person I’ve ever met who’s more understanding, who listens to me, who’d be willing to have these incredible puppy-play sessions with me and endure my awful singing during karaoke.
I don’t feel great when my shift is up, but I’ve at least talked myself into a better place about it all.
As soon as I get back to the condo, I head into my room.
Frankie’s meeting up with his mom tonight, so he won’t be able to have a training session with me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do this for me.
In fact, I feel like I kind of need it.
I open the pull-out drawer in my closet and take out the puppy hood.
I turn and look at myself in the mirror.
It’s funny to think, at one time, I was fucking trembling with this hood in my hand.
Now, it feels so normal…so right…so me.
I slide it on over my head, looking out through the eye holes, and already, I feel so much better.
I get into full gear and pull out one of the toys Frankie got for me, donning my collar.
I play with my little toy.
Normally, if I’m in gear, I’m either training or getting ready for training. But as much as I love having the sessions with Frankie, there’s something nice right in this moment…doing it on my own, for fun…being able to let go of the stress from earlier.
An ease sweeps through me—one that drowns out those voices of the guys from the coffeehouse and pushes the memories of the person I was with Peter to the back of my mind.
This is the real me—playing with my little chew toy as I bounce around on the floor in my bedroom, barking and panting.
Just having fun and forgetting all the bullshit.