Read Gayday! Gayday! - Gay 11 Online
Authors: Kim Dare
Slade turned another corner when the sat nav prompted him to do so, driving himself further and further into even less known territory by the minute. The sat nav voice cheerfully informed him that he only needed to drive one hundred metres down the road, and he would arrive at his destination.
The dominant slammed on the brake eighty metres early as he spotted a figure striding down the pavement towards him.
Rip stopped when the brakes squealed. He backed away a few paces. In the light from the headlights, he looked very small, very scared. Slade felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Rip and fear in the same thought wasn’t right. He wasn’t the type of submissive to startle and panic at the least little thing.
Leaning across the car, Slade pushed open the passenger side door. “Get in.”
It took Rip a second to recognise him. Half a second after that, he was inside the car, pulling the door closed behind him so quickly, he almost slammed it on his foot.
“Drive.”
“Rip, what the hell’s going on?”
“Drive.”
Slade stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. With Rip, it always seemed like a possibility, but he’d never actually worked out what he might do if the submissive actually took a cheerful leap into complete insanity.
The submissive took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m not trying to be bratty. I’d just really appreciate it if we left now.”
Slade reached out and touched the other man’s cheek, but Rip didn’t want to turn to face him. Realising that, only made him more determined to have the submissive look him in the eye.
Rip finally gave in.
His lip was cut. A glance at his temple showed the beginnings of a promising bruise.
“Who?” Slade bit out.
“He didn’t introduce himself, sir.” The submissive managed a contrived little smile. “I don’t think he’s the kind of dominant who believes in being on first name terms with subs anyway.”
Slade took off his seat belt. His hand was on the handle of the car door when Rip grabbed his other arm.
“Don’t.” Slade tried to pull away from him. Rip’s knuckles turned white. His hold on his master didn’t waver. “It’s already been dealt with, sir.”
Slade wasn’t interested in hearing it. He pulled at the submissive’s grip on him. The younger man put his other hand on his arm, but he didn’t try to tug him back into the car with it. The knuckles were scuffed. Slade turned back and met Rip’s eyes once more.
“I dealt with it, sir,” he repeated.
Rip could deal with most things on his own. Part of Slade had always known the submissive wasn’t a fraction as helpless as he liked to act. That wasn’t the point. Rip was his and…and he wasn’t, not really.
Slade reached out and examined Rip’s lip again. “Is this everything?”
“Whacked my head on a doorframe when I lost my balance,” Rip admitted, lifting his hand to the side of his head. “And this.” He looked back to his knuckles again.
“Anything else?” Slade pushed.
Rip shook his head. “I’m fine, sir.”
For a moment, all Slade felt was relief. Then anger came back full force. He looked back at the door into the club.
“Can we please just go home, sir?” Rip asked. There was still something off in his tone of voice, as if he was more than a little shaken by the events of the night.
Slade nodded. He wanted Rip safe at home as well—his home. The club could be examined another time. Rip needed to be dealt with now.
He put the car in gear and pulled away from the club without a word. Rip made no comment as they drove straight past the submissive’s house and went on until he stopped outside Slade’s front door.
“In.”
Rip walked into the house without a word.
Slade strode straight through to the kitchen. “Sit.”
Rip took a seat at the kitchen table.
Slade might not have been willing to let him out of his sight, but part of him was well aware he wasn’t ready to deal with the submissive’s behaviour either. He turned his back on him and poured water into the kettle. Hot, sweet tea to take care of any shock. He set a small first aid kit on the table in front of the submissive. A few seconds later, a bag a frozen peas was placed next to it.
The sub ignored the first aid box in favour of pressing the make shift ice pack to his bruised temple.
“Did you know anything about the club before you went there?” Slade asked the younger man, when he was finally prepared to trust himself to ask the question relatively calmly.
Rip shrugged.
“There are at least four different forms of bondage that will stop you moving your shoulders for the rest of the night. Do you want to try one out?”
“I heard some guys talking about it. I thought it might be…” He leaned his elbow on the table as he pushed his hand through his hair.
“You thought you might just wander into a club recommended to you by—” Slade cut himself short as he realised that he had no idea who had directed Rip there, exactly who he should be imagining throttling right then.
“Guys in the pub,” Rip muttered.
“And what exactly did the ‘guys in the pub’ say?” Slade demanded. He had the horrible feeling that he was channelling his grandmother’s attitude after discovering a muddy football resting next to a smashed vase, but he couldn’t quite pull himself back.
Rip had done some bloody stupid things, but he’d never actually put himself in danger. Slade had never actually had to truly worry that he wouldn’t get to his friend in time when called upon to rescue him. It was supposed to be a game, a silly little game. Rip wasn’t supposed to get hurt—not in ways he didn’t enjoy.
“I’m sorry, sir. I thought…”
The pain in his eyes was obvious. That only made Slade more angry right then. “You were thinking?” he snapped.
“I thought it might be somewhere you’d like, sir.” The words were barely a whisper.
Slade couldn’t scrape up any sympathy for him right then. “You thought I’d like this?” He reached out and caught Rip’s chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted his head back to glare at the marks another man had left on him.
“That wasn’t part of the plan,” Rip said, turning his face away. A moment later he was on his feet. “Thanks for the ice and stuff.”
Slade grabbed his arm when the younger man would have walked past him without another word. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Home.”
“You don’t walk out on your master—”
Rip pulled his arm out of Slade’s hand. “Except you’re not, are you?”
Slade tightened his grip on the submissive’s arm.
The younger man didn’t flinch. “You’re not my master. You’re a guy who pretends to be my master when I phone up and beg, when I play the part that—” He cut himself off with a shake of his head and tugged at his arm.
Slade swung the smaller man around and caught his other wrist in his opposite hand for good measure. “No, you started it—finish it.”
“When I play the part you like,” Rip threw at him. “Except I didn’t. I screwed up. When he back handed me, I forgot who I was supposed to be. I dropped him with a left hook and…” The words were rushed out so fast Slade could barely make them out.
“Slow down. You’re not making any sense.”
Rip glared up at him, no hint of the scared boy he’d seen outside the club left in him. “What are you more pissed off with, sir,” Rip spat at him, each word enunciated very carefully. “The fact I got a split lip or that I got a few grazed knuckles?”
“What?”
“What really bothers you?” Rip demanded. “That I got backhanded or that I spoiled the game by rescuing myself rather than waiting for you to turn up on your white horse.”
For what felt like an eternity, Slade couldn’t think of a single thing to say. “That’s what you think?”
Rip looked away. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed several times in quick succession. “I knew the score from the start, sir. I’m not asking you to change the way things are—just have the balls not to pretend it’s the split lip that spoiled the game for you.” He looked down at his knuckles in disgust.
“Tell me the score.”
Rip glanced up at him but for once, he didn’t seem to be able to hold his master’s gaze. Every muscle in the submissive’s body was tensed almost to breaking point.
“You said you know the score—tell me what it is,” Slade demanded. It was far more an honest question than he was willing to admit. It was so long since he had any idea what the hell was going on between him and his friend, it was hard to remember a time when his feelings for the submissive had been simple and easily understood, when the idea of walking away from him at the end of the night didn’t turn his stomach.
“Fine,” Rip snapped, anger sparking in his eyes as he finally met Slade’s gaze and held it. “The score—you might not particularly like men, but you really get off on playing the white knight. And I’m not above playing helpless and taking what I can get.” He looked away as the last word left his lips, his head dipped as if in shame.
Slade stared down at the bowed head for several long seconds. He watched as the submissive took a deep breath, obviously struggling to keep control of his emotions. He’d never seen the other man less than perfectly comfortable in his submission, in everything he did. He’d never seen him ashamed of anything.
“I may like a little pain with my pleasure, but I’m not masochistic enough to hang around when I know the scene was over before it bloody well started.” He looked pointedly at the grip Slade had re-taken on his arm. “I’m leaving now.”
The dominant stared down at the smaller man, so many thoughts rushing through his head, it was almost impossible to catch hold of any of them. That’s what Rip really believed everything was about between them?
The submissive pulled at his master’s hold on him once more. Slade tightened his grip and concentrated on those things he was sure of, starting with the one he’d thought had to be most obvious of all.
“I like men just fine.”
The words shocked Rip into looking up at the dominant and meeting his eyes once more. “Not funny, sir.” He wanted to sound pissed off, but the words were barely a whisper.
“I’m not trying to be,” Slade informed him. “I like men just fine.”
Except he didn’t. Rip might not have known exactly when the gayday phone calls had turned into something more than a way for him to hook up with the hottest dominant he’d ever run across, but he had never allowed himself to fall so far into his fantasies that he’d forgotten he was playing with a straight man who was occasionally willing to indulge in a little guy-on-guy kink when given the right motivation.
“I like men just fine,” Slade repeated. “I also like women. I may have more experience on the straight side of the fence, but I’d have thought it was obvious by now that I play both sides of it.”
“You don’t…” Rip shook his head trying to make his brain work. It didn’t do him any good.
“I don’t wave rainbow coloured flags and hit on every man I meet?” Slade asked. “I wasn’t aware it was compulsory for every bi man on the planet to do that.”
“You’ve never said anything about…”
“Have you ever heard me say I’m straight?”
Rip hesitated. Straight people didn’t need to say it. People were straight until otherwise stated. It was the way the world worked. He’d been very sure about that until a few seconds ago. Now he didn’t feel at all sure about anything at all. “I think…I think I must have hit my head harder than I thought.”
He lifted his hand to touch his temple in case it was bleeding. A glance at his fingertips showed it wasn’t.
Slade chuckled, a deep rich sound Rip had grown to love over the weeks they’d hooked up. Grown to love…he took a deep breath and let it out very slowly.
“Do you really think I’d have come and rescued you every time you whistled if I didn’t give a damn about you?”
“The white knight thing,” Rip reminded him. He thought about that for a few seconds before deciding it wasn’t the complete story. “And I give really good head, sir,” he added.
Slade stroked his bottom lip with his thumb and gave another chuckle. “Yes, you do.”
“I could—”
Slade’s finger pressed against his lips, silencing him.
“For future reference, while you do have a fantastic mouth, that’s not actually the only bit of you I give a toss about.”
Rip studied him very carefully. The other man hadn’t shown the least bit of interest in topping him properly before. Suddenly, the idea that it would be a step too far towards full on gayness faltered inside the submissive’s head.
Slade lowered his head. Their lips were barely an inch apart.
“Luck or judgement?”
Rip blinked. He pulled back from kiss he’d hoped for. “What?”
“You think the important question is who saved you when you got yourself in too deep,” Slade whispered to him. “It’s not. The real question is, did you save yourself through luck or judgement in that club tonight?”
Rip swallowed.
“Answer, Rip.”
He closed his eyes, not sure if he was about to make everything fit together perfectly or shatter it into a million different pieces. “A little bit of luck might have been involved, sir.”
“That’s what your master can’t accept, sweetheart.”
Rip tried to take a deep breath, but the air stuck in his throat. His master’s head remained bowed, his lips just a whisper away from a kiss. “You put yourself in danger. I’d deserve to be whipped if I put my submissive in a place where he could get hurt.”
“Have you got one, sir?” Rip asked.
“A whip?” Slade laughed. “A masochist never deserves to be whipped for his sins. It’ll only encourage him.”
“What then?” Rip whispered against the other man’s lips.
“A much simpler solution.” Slade traced his hand down Rip’s body and cupped him through his trousers. “A pretty little cage, with an even prettier lock on it. If you persist in thinking I’ll let you get off on any game that puts you at real risk, you’re going to find out that I’m quite capable of making it impossible for you to get off on anything for a very long time. Do you think you’d enjoy being locked away until you’ve learned your lesson?”
Rip shook his head very quickly.