I got as far as my name and address on an application to the Paul Mitchell School. And then I stopped, the same old fears rolling through me. What if I got into a school that was far away? What if I had hours’ worth of commuting, or worse—had to move?
I wanted to stay here. In the town where I was comfortable, in the job where I was comfortable—if not exactly happy. With the friends I couldn’t live without. Why couldn’t I do that?
Because you can’t work in a mall forever. Because your life isn’t going to stay the same.
I sighed and put my head on the desk.
I imagined doing that thing from movies and TV where I’d turn and Hal would be sitting next to me. He’d be a snarky ghost, commenting on my application fails; picking up random objects in my room and being like, Wow, you haven’t changed at all, have you? And I’d be all, What’s it like being dead? And he’d say something bittersweet and ghostly like, Well, Dave, you ain’t lived until you’ve died.
But when I turned he wasn’t there. I tried talking to a photo of him on my desk, but it just felt awkward. So I settled for remembering how the five of us used to go to Mel’s every Friday afternoon for milkshakes. How the milkshakes always cost three twenty-nine, unless you got mint chocolate chip or peppermint twist. Those cost three eighty-seven.
Hal was the first close friend I’d ever lost, and grief was relatively new to me. Miles, who had taken like five classes on death and grief and whatever in college, had helped me a lot with what he called “processing.” But I still had trouble understanding my own brain. Some days Hal’s death was the first thing I thought about. But some days I hardly thought about it at all, and then I ended up with guilt worse than grief. Life really did go on. Someone died and, in the same fucking instant, was replaced by a hundred new babies. The world had never felt Hal’s loss like I did.
Sometimes I wanted to tell my friends what it was like to love them. See if they experienced it the same way—like it was something rare and ridiculous and amazing and terrifying. I was always wondering if they were happy, or if they felt lonely. If there were things each of them couldn’t share, even with the rest of the group.
After Hal died, we’d seemed so scattered. Aside from the funeral, we hadn’t spent time together for weeks afterward. Miles had turned to his family, and Gould wanted to be alone, but I’d needed company. So I’d started inviting everyone over. I’d lived in the duplex with a girl named Cara at the time, but she was gone a lot, so I’d make excuses to have the guys over. “Oh, hey, Super Bowl’s this weekend.” As though anyone but Kamen cared about sports. An Oscars party, a St. Patrick’s Day dinner; it didn’t matter. And when they were here, I’d act like nothing had changed. As though I could override our mutual grief by being some exaggerated version of myself. I ragged on them relentlessly, joked about everything. And to an extent, it had worked. They’d needed to engage with me, even if it was to tell me to shut up.
I’d tried other tacks too—made it clear I was always willing to talk, that I was there whenever they needed me. But nothing worked as well to hold us together as being a bit of a bastard.
Maybe the Subs Club was me finally stepping up. Using my experiences to do something good for others. Maybe my destiny was to guide people through the process of establishing safe kinky relationships and also give them awesome haircuts.
Inspired, I logged into the Subs Club admin page. Ricky had submitted a nauseatingly cute article about navigating the scene as a newbie. I posted it and kicked off a discussion in the comments section.
We had a slew of new comments on the review blog. Most of them were contributions to ongoing discussions, but a few were by someone called “Anonymous”—weird, because the application required you to register with a non-“Anonymous” username. They were posted on various review threads:
You ought to be ashamed of what you’re doing. You are trying to create a war in this community. You ought to be the ones kicked out of any group, organization, party, anything!!!
So just because doms aren’t up to YOUR standards, you have to write a blog liballing them all? Get a life.
If I got a hold of you I’d whip you until you couldn’t stand up. You’d all run with your tails tucked pathetic little cowards. You just need a real dom to teach you a lesson about respect.
You are all so f%#@ing stupid its like you don’t know anything about BDSM. Why would any dom even want your sorry asses?
I scrolled back through the posts, deleting each Anonymous comment. My heart was pounding. I’d get Ricky to help me figure out who this person was and block them from the site. No big deal.
But the good feeling I’d had minutes ago dissolved. Maybe I was an idiot. An instigator and a coward. I wasn’t a vigilante, I was a kid in a Halloween costume—and not a very good costume either.
I took my phone out of my pocket and dialed without thinking about it.
D picked up on the fifth ring. “Hello?”
“I know I’m not supposed to call outside of sessions unless it’s an emergency, but this day sucks.”
He hesitated. “What’s the trouble?”
“Oh, you know.” I tried to laugh.
I couldn’t talk to him about club stuff. What had I been thinking? If he knew I was reviewing his fellow doms, that I planned to review him . . .
He’d probably agree with everything Anonymous had said. I put my elbows on the desk and leaned forward, feeling like a dumbass. “I’ve been bad all weekend. Hung up on my mom. Kicked a puppy. Totaled a car. Slashed some kid’s trampoline. Shoplifted.”
“You’ve had a busy two days.”
“Yep.”
“Do you want to come over?”
I gasped. “It’s not even Thursday!”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Are you saying you want me to come over?”
“David.”
“Yes?”
“Do not tempt me to retract my offer.”
“I’m totally coming over.”
“Please do. We have a lot to address. The puppy you kicked. The trampoline you slashed.”
“We’re not really gonna ‘address’ anything, right? I didn’t really kick a puppy. I just, um . . . I can’t make myself work on these applications, and—”
“David. Just come over.”