Another way (13 page)

“No, I’m not,” I said, fighting to keep my tone neutral. “But he’s different.”

“How? I’m not trying to antagonize things, I’m just curious to how you can go from me to him. Things weren’t always like this, Jess.”

“I don’t know how to answer that. We’re such good friends. I suppose it just turned into something more than friendship.” It was an abridged version of the truth, which held so many lies of omission it barely counted as the truth, but it was all I was willing to tell her.

“Is it him you go to for your kinky shit?”

I choked. I thought I was going to die. Maybe I nearly did die.

“What?” I gasped.

“Don’t, don’t you dare lie to me. I know what you’re into, Jesse.”

“What the fuck? How?” I took a pull on my beer to try and calm down.

“You come home with
welts
on your ass, Jesse! Fucking welts!”

“Shit, Adele,” I muttered.

“I was never supposed to see them, right?”

She was being sarcastic, but I still snapped, “Right,” back at her.

“Was I ever good enough for you?”

“Jesus, Adele. Yes, of course you were. But there’s no way in hell you’d ever do something like that to me. I wouldn’t ever ask you to.”

“And so you were forced to go to someone else who would.”

“No.” It was important that she understood. “I was never forced to. I could try and suppress this part of my personality, but how long was that supposed to last for? How long could I try to hide who I was?”

“I never asked you to hide who you are! You never offered to share that with me!”

“You can’t be the sort of person I need,” I said, trying to make my words softer and understanding. “I couldn’t ask you to beat me, Adele. I can’t ask you to tie me to a bench and whip me until I bleed.”

She blanched then, visibly. “How could you ever love anyone who would do that to you?”

“I’m not asking you to accept this. Or to understand it, really. I’m just trying to explain… Adele, once I realized this, once this side of me was opened up… I can’t turn my back on it now. I never understood before how much I was suppressing, how much was bottled up inside of me with no way of release. God, Adele, do you have any idea how lucky I am?”

“You’re not lucky,” she spat. “You’re insane.”

“Exactly!” I exclaimed, standing up now. “Only thirty years ago people were treating homosexuality as a mental disease that could be cured. And
masochism?
I’d be locked away for thinking the way I do, for
feeling
the way I do, for having these needs and wants.”

“You’re not gay,” she stubbornly repeated her earlier words. “And if Will loves you like I do, he’d never do these things to you. He’s brainwashed you.”

I sank to the couch with my head in my hands, balancing my elbows on my knees and laughing humorlessly, again. “He’s never claimed to love me,” I said in a low voice.

“Then why are you leaving me for him?” she screeched.

“I’m not,” I said, sitting up to look at her. “Maybe that’s the most important thing for you to understand. I’m not leaving you for Will, Adele. We’re breaking up because we want different things now. We’re different people than we were five years ago, and thank fuck for that because I sure as hell don’t want to be nineteen anymore. We were great together, Adele, but things have changed. I want you to be happy, and you’re not happy with me. If Theo can make you happy, then I want you to be with him. Or someone else who does. I’m not that man anymore.”

“What about you? What about your happiness? Being whipped and beaten and…
spanked
—that can’t make you happy, Jesse, it just can’t.” She looked like she was going to cry now. Fuck.

“I’m not asking you to understand,” I repeated. “You’ll always be special to me, Adele. I can’t… I can’t do this to you anymore. We don’t love each other the way we should.”

I was close to tears myself, and it took a deep breath and the last of my beer to wash down those emotions. Adele shifted closer to me on the couch and cupped my cheek gently in her hand. “I think I’m in love with what we were, Jesse. I’m not in love with what we are anymore.”

I shook my head in her hand. “Me too. I’m so sorry.”

I could apologize now. Now that she knew everything that I was sorry for, I could speak the words.

“Oh, Jesse. I’m sorry too. Things should not have ended this way for us.”

“We’re not going to stay friends,” I told her. It was a statement. I knew this for a fact—maybe that was why it was so hard to let go of her.

“No. At least, not at first. In time, maybe, we’ll be able to forgive each other. I think it’ll take more time to forgive myself though.”

I turned my head and kissed the palm of her hand, then stood. “I really did love you, Adele. For a long, long time. I hope you never doubt that or forget it. And I really am so, so sorry for hurting you.”

More than anything, I couldn’t listen to the sound of her tears, ones that I’d caused. There wasn’t anything left to say, not without rehashing our past and hurting each other more. I was thankful, as I collected my bag, that she wasn’t crying—not yet at least.

I couldn’t say good-bye to her either, so in the end, I just left.

I just… left.

I
SHOULD
not have gotten behind the wheel of my car, not after three beers and not in the emotional state that I was in, one that would surely only enhance the effect of the alcohol. But I needed my car. If I called a cab, I would need to wait for it to turn up. And I needed Will. Fuck, did I need him.

He lived up on Capitol Hill, of course—his choice to live in the “gay district” of Seattle never failed to amuse me. It was well beyond walking distance from the apartment though. I couldn’t think of it as
my
apartment or
our
apartment, or I’d surely break down. It wasn’t fully dark yet, and my eyes caught the clock on the dash, it was only a little after eight, we’d been arguing for less than an hour. That didn’t feel right at all, it had seemed like hours that we were going over everything.

I pulled up in front of his house, sitting and watching the last moments of sunlight slip over the horizon. It was over. Today was over. In less than twelve hours the sun would come up again, and we could start making the first steps to moving the fuck on.

Getting out of the car, I grabbed my bag from the back seat before walking up to the door and tentatively knocking, hoping he was in. I hadn’t told Will I was planning on breaking up with Adele tonight. Nor had I asked if it would be okay for me to stay. Suddenly, waiting for him, it didn’t seem like such a good idea after all.

“Jesse?” he asked as the porch light popped on above me.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice sounding rough. “I uh… I left Adele.”

“Shit. Come in.”

“I’m sorry I’m here, but I don’t know where else to go. I’ll find somewhere in the morning until I can find an apartment of my own….” I was babbling, I knew that as Will pulled the door open for me, but my feet seemed frozen to the spot.

“Jesse, what are you talking about?”

I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair in frustration. “I know you like your own space. I won’t stay long.”

“I want you to move in here. I want you to live with me,” Will said decisively.

“I
just
broke up with my girlfriend. We were together for over five years. I don’t think jumping straight into living with someone else is the best idea.”

“I’m not someone else. I’m the guy you left your girlfriend of five years for. Aren’t I?” He shook his head as though to clear his thoughts. “I don’t want my neighbors listening to this. Come in.”

He sounded mad and didn’t say anything as I kicked off my shoes and dumped them in the hall with my jacket and bag. I didn’t have a lot of stuff; once I knew where I’d be staying, then I could go back to the apartment to get the rest of it. Adele could keep all of “our” shit. I didn’t want it.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as Will locked up after me. “It was just a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

“Come here,” he commanded gently, and I fell into his embrace. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it now.”

“I never expected her to say the things she did,” I explained. “She knew I was seeing someone else. She knows that I get my… needs met, that I go to someone else for the kinky shit. She knew all of that.”

“Adele is an intelligent woman, Jesse. I’d be surprised if she didn’t even have an inkling.”

“She’s seeing someone else too,” I whispered into his shoulder. “The chef at the restaurant. I think she was with him before she came home.”

He sighed and kissed my hair. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

“Tell me you love me,” I demanded desperately, pushing away from his chest. “Tell me that I didn’t give it all up for nothing.”

He looked furious. “Jesse, I’m not going to say I love you because you tell me to. I’ll tell you when I fucking
feel
it,” he yelled, then grabbed my hand and put it on his chest. “If you don’t feel this, then fuck, Jesse, I don’t know what else to do. If you don’t know it already, then I don’t know how else to show you.”

I dropped my head so I wouldn’t have to look at him. Will just pulled me closer.

“Come on,” he said softly. “Go get in the shower or something, then we can talk.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Please let me stay.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” he said, somewhat sharply. “I’ve wanted you here for months. I’m not letting you go. Go on,” he nudged me toward the stairs. “I’ll bring you a coffee.”

I went, feeling even more like shit than I did when I arrived. I’d left my bag in the hall, so I had to use Will’s bathroom, his stuff and towels, as I turned the water on and stood silently under the spray with my arms folded while I waited for the water to warm up.

I felt the cool air rather than heard Will come in. He surprised me by stripping off his clothes and bringing the mug of coffee to me personally.

“Here,” he said.

“Thanks.” I took it and let the hot liquid burn my tongue. Will opened his arms to me, and I let him hold me for a moment while the water soaked us both.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Shitty,” I admitted. “I’m sorry, Will, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that….”

“Forget it,” he interrupted. “I’m sorry. You just left your girlfriend and came here, and I know you’re probably a bit messed up right now.”

I washed my hair and drank my coffee and ignored my erection. Damn dick popped up whenever Will was around anyway. I was going to need to learn how to control that particular instinct. He’d brought my duffel bag upstairs and put it in his room. It was a relief; at least I didn’t have to wonder where I’d be sleeping tonight.

Chapter Ten

“I’
D
ASK
you for a session tonight, but I don’t think you’d give me one,” I said as we settled in his armchair, freshly showered and changed.

“You’d be thinking right,” he said wryly and wrapped his arms tightly around me.

“I feel so… scattered,” I admitted. “When we’re upstairs together, I know exactly who I am, what my purpose is, what I need to do. Right now I’ve got so many different things going through my head.”

Will groaned lightly. “You need grounding.”

“Exactly.”

“Jesse, when we have a session together, I know what I want to do. Even if it’s a spontaneous one, I still spend a few minutes figuring out where I want to take you and how I’m going to get you there. And the results I want, I suppose. Right now, I don’t know where I’d take you. Neither of us has any idea what your headspace is like.”

“Why are you a Dom?” I asked, the words out of my mouth before I could think them through.

“A lot of reasons,” he said musingly. “Or maybe not. I figured out quite quickly after realizing that I was gay that I wasn’t going to ever have a wife or children. And that’s fine with me. I don’t have any particular desire for children, although that might change in a few years. I suppose I still have that very male need to be in control, to be the protector and provider.”

“That makes sense,” I agreed.

“Let me throw it back at you. Why are you a sub?”

“Ask Laura,” I laughed. “It was a sexual thing for me at first. Laura helped me find that place inside myself that recognized my previous desire for rough sex, for the sharp pain in my shoulders or ass when a girl would dig in her fingers. She harbored that and turned me into a bit of a masochist. But the desire to serve? And to be owned? I don’t know. I feel a lot more passionately about that than I do about the pain now. Get me a shrink, they’ll figure it out.”

“Mommy issues?” he teased.

“Oh, loads of them,” I groaned. “Abandonment issues, Mommy issues… borderline paranoia about the people I love leaving me.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” he sighed. “I understand now why Laura was so insistent that you didn’t have a gap between Doms.”

“Please take me upstairs,” I whispered.

“You need to eat,” he said, ignoring my plea.

“Will—”

“I’m not negotiating with you on this,” he said, his tone soft. “I’m hungry too. Come on, we’ll make something.”