“A Saint-Emilion merlot,” said Dev. “Have some. It’s a spectacular vintage.”
I raised a hand and called to the waiter. “Can I get a scotch?”
My friends exchanged a look as Devin put down the wine bottle. “Things aren’t getting any easier, I see.”
“Not really.”
Alice had been living at my place for almost a month now, leaving her scent, beauty, and energy all over my apartment, her strands of light hair, her coffee cups and charging cables. Before, she’d been a distant fantasy. Now she was always close, and too real. Worse, she believed that I didn’t want her, when the truth was that I couldn’t want her.
“It’s fucking frustrating,” I said, as our waiter deposited a neat scotch in front of me.
“I can see how it would be,” said Fort. “You’re living with a woman, while reaping none of the usual benefits.”
Devin tsked. “Have some class, man. He’s trying to be a good guy.” He turned to me. “Any timeline on her new place?”
I shrugged. “Even if she finds a new apartment she likes, which she hasn’t, it’ll take a while to close on it, and she hasn’t had much time to look since she went back to work. I’d offer to help her find something, but I don’t want her to feel pressured to leave.”
We paused to order our steaks—Coleman’s specialty—while I downed another swallow of scotch. After the waiter left, Devin tapped his fingers on the table and gave me one of his lofty, airline-pilot looks.
“I’ve been thinking about you and your ‘family friend’ Alice.” His light blue eyes fixed on me in the noisy restaurant. “You need to say something to her about your kinky fuckery, you know, slip it into some conversation. At least hint at it.”
“Hint at it?”
“Yeah, like, give her a Dom look, or play with your belt while she’s around. What if she’s kinky too? What if she’s a Grade A submissive masochist? I mean, if she’s attracted to you…”
I’d told them a little about our Strad night makeout session, although I hadn’t told them about her wanting to marry me, because they’d never leave that alone.
“I’m not exactly the ‘Gallery’ Milo when I’m around her,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter. The ‘Gallery’ Milo is still there,” said Fort. “There’s always the undercurrent. That’s why kinky radar works, why perverts usually recognize each other.”
I pointed at the two of them. “Both of you met your matches in or around BDSM clubs. It had nothing to do with radar.”
“All Fort’s saying is that she’s into you, and you’re into her. You have been for a long time. There’s got to be something going on there, you know, subliminally. Does she have any submissive-like traits?”
Fort and I both snorted at “submissive-like traits,” but I considered Devin’s question. She definitely triggered the Dominant in me. It was something about her sweetness, and the light, trusting quality of her character. And the one time I’d kissed her…
I couldn’t stop thinking about the way she’d melted against me when I kissed her, like she would have accepted anything I did to her. That was why she scared me, because I imagined she was willing to accept whatever I wanted to do, whatever urge I wanted to play out on her yielding body.
Fuck, I was getting hard. I shifted in my chair and drank more scotch, not that alcohol helped.
“It’s possible she has some submissive tendencies,” I admitted. “It’s actually probable, but I don’t know if she’s into pain, which is my main fetish. I don’t know if she’s a masochist.”
“Come on, Milo,” Dev scoffed. “She’s a classical violinist.”
“Joking aside,” said Fort, as I frowned at Devin, “we don’t know that she’s not a masochist. If you came out to her with the BDSM side of yourself, and she was amenable, you could start playing around with power exchange scenes and see how far things developed.”
“But where would they end?” I asked. “Where do our power exchange hookups always end? At The Gallery, with consensual non-consent, heavy pain, and sharing partners, and I don’t…”
Fort and Devin exchanged another amused look. “You don’t want to do that to her,” Fort said, finishing my sentence. “Hmm, where have I heard that before? Maybe from every Dom at The Gallery who’s started a serious relationship? The ones who love each other find a way to make it work.”
“You don’t understand. I really can’t do those things to her.”
“Why not?”
They both looked at me, eyebrows raised. I drained the last of my scotch and banged it on the table. “Because she’s Lilly-Alice Nyquist, and she trusts me, and she thinks I’m this amazing guy.”
“You are pretty amazing,” Dev said, batting his eyes at me.
“It’s your angsty long hair, and your eyes, and the way you make those instruments,” Fort agreed, playing along.
“Fuck you both.”
“Here’s the thing,” said Dev. “You keep saying she’s this untouchable family friend, but I’m pretty sure she wants you to touch her. Like, really touch her.”
“I wish I could.” I let out a frustrated sigh. “It’s partly the family thing, the friendship dynamic. I’ve known this girl my whole life. My parents dragged me to her fucking christening when I was in first grade. Her christening, you know, crying infant, baptismal font, long white dress?”
“We’re degenerates, but we know what christenings are, Massimiliano,” Dev drawled.
Fort’s hazel eyes widened at a sudden, perverse thought. “How many of us get a chance to work over a sub we met at her christening? I don’t understand how you’re not all over this opportunity, man.”
I called for another scotch, and they changed the subject to ward off my rising temper. They talked about work instead, and their blissfully well-adjusted relationships, which only made me feel worse. We made it through the salad and main course before they started again on my fucked-up situation with my painfully tempting roommate.
“You know, Milo, you could conceivably start a relationship with Alice and not take her to The Gallery,” said Fort. “You could keep things mildly kinky at home, show her as much of your dark side as you felt comfortable with, and visit
the club when you needed to let loose. Lots of Gallery people play outside their traditional relationships. As long as both partners are okay with it, no one gets hurt. Well, except in ways they like to get hurt.”
“Yeah, I considered something like that for about ten seconds. Here’s the shit thing.” I scowled, pushing my plate away. “I don’t want to play at The Gallery with someone else. I want to connect that way with her, and it’s so fucking wrong.”
“Why?” Dev frowned at me. “Who says it’s wrong? It’s an expression of your sexuality, and she may be on board with it. You don’t know, because you’re too chickenshit to explore the possibilities.”
“There are no possibilities.”
“For all you know, she’s a raging maso subslut who’s just waiting for you to reach out and choke her and cane her, and fuck her up the ass.”
“No.” My loud, sharp denial rung out in the restaurant, and Fort held up a hand, silencing both of us until the people at the other tables turned back to their food. “No,” I repeated more quietly, staring at Devin. “Even if she begged me for that, I couldn’t do it to her. That’s what you don’t understand.”
“That’s such a Dominant thing,” Devin said. “If I love her, why do I want to hurt her?”
“Hey, Dev,” said Fort, the peacemaker. “Maybe you should let it drop.”
My lips flattened and my hands made fists beside the table as I imagined hurting Alice, binding her, fucking her mouth and her ass, forcing her to service me. I wanted it, and I hated myself for wanting it.
Then I thought about sharing her per The Gallery’s rules, letting someone else do those things to her, and my mind shut down. “No,” I said for the third time, shaking my head. “Just no.”
“So you’re basically fucked,” said Devin, after an appropriate silence. “It’s going to be hard for you, living with her, pushing all that stuff down. Hey, I wonder if Ella’s apartment is still open, the one her science foundation provided before she moved in with me?”