Michael took his wax pictures and finished right before Nora stuck her head in the door and asked, “So…are we going wedding dress shopping tomorrow or not?”

“I am not wearing a wedding dress.”

“It’s not for you, it’s for me,” she said.

Michael stood up and met her eyes.

“Calling Griffin and asking him was a good idea,” he said. “Thank you.”

“I have so many good ideas. For starters, all porn websites should be .cums, not .coms. Second, femdom should be taught in public schools. Third—”

“Nora.”

“So are you getting married or not?”

“I’m…going to talk to Griffin about that on Sunday. And only Griffin.”

She waved her hand. “Fine, be coy. I won’t pry. I’ll find out soon enough anyway. If it’s a yes, Griffin will call me and crow. If it’s a no, I’ll hear the weeping and wailing all the way down here.”

“Griffin doesn’t wail.”

“No, but his mother will. Alexis loooooves weddings,” Nora said, drawing out the “love” to about ten syllables. “She seriously asked me to fake-marry Griffin just so she could plan the wedding.”

This fact about Alexis Fiske did not shock him. At all. “I guess you said no?”

“I said yes, but only if I could wear a red latex catsuit in lieu of a wedding dress. She dropped the subject after that.”

While he was on the phone with Griffin, Nora had run a warm bath for him. He stripped and got in the water while Nora dug through her linen closet for towels and a sponge. She was one of two people he felt completely comfortable being naked in front of. Michael had a feeling she was on a lot of people’s “I can be naked in front of this woman with no problem” lists.

Nora knelt by the bathtub and gently scoured the dried candle wax off his chest and stomach. He could have done this himself, but he never refused an opportunity to indulge himself in some of Nora’s world-class aftercare. She’d put music on her iPhone, some gorgeous soft jazz piano he’d never heard before. The lights were low in the bathroom and the water the perfect temperature.

“This music is pretty,” Michael said.

“Keith Jarrett’s ‘Köln Concert.’ Søren played it for me years ago. Love at first listen.”

Michael watched her face as she spoke.

“You smile when you say his name,” he said.

“Keith Jarrett is very talented.”

“That’s not who I meant,” Michael said and knew she knew that, too.

“When Søren isn’t making me smile it’s because he’s making me scream…for many various and sundry reasons.”

“What about Nico?” Michael asked.

Nora blinked. “What about Nico?”

“Just seeing if you smile when you talk about him,” Michael said.

“Do I?”

“No, but you blush a little.”

Now Nora smiled.

“How is he?” Michael asked.

“Nico? He’s wonderful,” she said. “And…full of wonder.”

“I guess you’re kind of a…new thing for him?” Michael said, trying to be as tactful as possible.

“You could say that,” Nora said. “He’s never had a domme before me. He’s a very eager student.”

“He has a good teacher,” Michael said. “I guess you, um…miss him?” He needed some good gossip for Griffin and he needed it stat.

“I do. But I get to see him next week. We’re going to Salem together for Halloween.”

“Ah, cool.”

Michael waited. Nora said nothing else about it. Subject closed. At least he’d gotten a few words of gossip about Nico for Griffin. Mission accomplished.

“Do I smile when I talk about Griffin?” Michael asked.

“No, but you do something better. You get all…” She fluttered her hands like a nervous butterfly.

“He’s kind of sexy.” Michael pictured Griffin the last time they saw each other. Yesterday, at LaGuardia, Griffin wearing his “big boy” clothes as he called his black Tom Ford suit with a white shirt and an open collar. His dark hair was slicked back and he looked dapper and dangerous and way out of Michael’s league. And yet they must have been in the same league because Griffin kissed him goodbye right there two feet away from the security checkpoint with a hundred people to witness it.

“Some days, I just can’t believe he’s real, you know,” Michael said. “And he’s mine? That’s crazy. Well, he’s not mine.”

“You’re his,” she said.

“Yeah,” Michael said. “I’m his.”

“And he has back dimples.”

“He does,” Michael said. “I didn’t know I needed those in my life until him.”

“So…you got everything figured out?” she asked.

“Almost everything,” he said.

“What’s left to figure out? You already have your answer for him, right?”

“Right, but…there’s the answer and then there’s how to tell him.”

“I was thinking earlier,” she said, “about how hard it must have been for Griffin to ask you in such a low-key, no pressure way. It’s a miracle he didn’t hire a skywriter or ask you at a Mets game in front of forty thousand people.”

“Mets didn’t make the postseason.”

“Griffin would have found a way.”

“I was kind of thinking that, too,” Michael said. “He did it for me. He knows I freak out under pressure which is why he…”

“Reined himself in?”

“Yes, that. Exactly. Probably killed him to do it,” Michael said. “He likes to go crazy with the big gestures. He almost bought me a pony once.”

“A pony?”

“Don’t ask.”

“You can’t mention ponies and then say, ‘Don’t ask about the pony.’ I’m going to ask about the pony,” she said.

Michael groaned. “We went to a fair, they had ponies. I said they were cool. Griffin almost bought me a pony. I reminded him we can’t have ponies in our apartment, and that is the only reason he didn’t buy one.”

“I would have let the man buy me a pony.”

“What would you do with a pony, Nora? Seriously?”

“Pony play,” she said pertly.

“That’s a totally different kind of pony,” Michael said. He was starting to figure out that in the world of kink, all dominants were a little nutty. The only sane ones were the subs who had the thankless job of trying to rein in their doms without their doms catching on they were being reined in by their subs.

“What are you planning?” she asked. “You think since he asked you small you should answer big?”

“I think it should be kind of…special, right?”

“I think Griffin would appreciate that. He always tries to make things special for you. I remember when he got your wing tattoos.” She lifted his hand out of the water and kissed his wet wrist right on the black wing tattoo Griffin had given him as a gift to cover up the scars from his suicide attempt. The beauty of the gift had broken Michael apart. He’d spent weeks trying to convince himself he wasn’t in love with Griffin but that did him in. He’d had to stop lying to himself and to Nora and definitely to Griffin. It had all come tumbling out, and all because of those two black wings on his wrists, the perfect gift as they came with pain and, in a way, branded him as Griffin’s.

He needed to give something like that to Griffin, something like his wings but not a tattoo. They’d already done that. What could he give Griffin that would say what he needed to say, but in a way he hadn’t said it before?

“Sit up a little,” Nora said, the order intruding on his musing. “I need to scrub my initials off you.”

“Your what?”

He sat up and saw what she meant.

Nora being Nora had, of course, dipped her finger in the still wet candle wax and spelled her initials—N.S.—onto his stomach.

“Dominants,” Michael groaned. “Always marking your territory.”

“I know, we’re as bad as dogs sometimes. At least I didn’t pee on you. This time anyway.”

“This was good candle wax,” Michael said. “Didn’t smell like the other kinds.”

“I get the candles sent to me from the Dungeon Outfitters in Midtown.”

“Dungeon Outfitters? It’s actually called Dungeon Outfitters?”

“They outfit dungeons,” Nora said. “They have these special candles just for wax play. It gets really warm, but not too hot that you can’t play with it. No perfumes or weird chemicals. They’re made for kink.”

Michael watched her fingers as she scraped off the red wax from his skin.

“The good news is,” Nora continued, “your welts are already fading and the wax doesn’t leave residue behind. By the time Griffin gets back on Sunday, you’ll be a blank canvas again.”

A blank canvas.

That was it.

He knew.

He knew then exactly how to tell Griffin what he needed to tell him.

If…

“Nora, does this place in Midtown have all colors of candles?”

“Not all colors but they have the basics. Red and white and—”

“Black?”

“Yeah, they have black. You can get the black in four packs. Tell the guy at the counter Mistress Nora sent you and you’ll get ten percent off.”

“Good,” Michael said. “I’m going to need a lot of black candles.”

It was after midnight by the time he was cleaned up and ready for bed. He lay, not sleeping, in Nora’s luxurious guest bed and remembered that Griffin had slept in this very same bed last year. Griffin had escaped to New Orleans to spend time with Nora after Michael had asked for a break while he was studying for a semester in Italy. At the time it had made perfect sense. Griffin had a possessive streak a mile wide. Usually Michael loved that about him, but not when Griffin tried to make him transfer schools so they could spend more time together. Michael had been only nineteen and all of a sudden he’d felt trapped in a very adult relationship with a wealthy man, twelve years his senior, with a large family and serious adult responsibilities. Griffin had stockbrokers, lawyers, and fiduciaries—whatever the hell those were—while Michael had…a part-time job as a math tutor and a credit card Griffin gave him and ordered him to use. At yet another too-fancy party Griffin had dragged him to as part of Griffin’s attempt to make up for his “fuck-up years” to his parents, Michael had overheard two guests implying the only reason Michael was with Griffin was for his money and the only reason Griffin was with Michael was that Griffin clearly had a thing for teenage boys. That was it, the last straw. Michael left the party without Griffin and asked for the break the next day.

And now…one year later…

Michael thought of Griffin lying in this same bed and wondering what the future held for them. It held this—Michael lying in the bed and smiling at the thought of telling Griffin that yes, he would marry him. Michael had originally planned to stay in New Orleans until Sunday morning. Before letting himself sleep, he got online and rebooked his return flight so he’d leave tomorrow.

He had things to do.