“Ooh, just thinking, well, I’m not sure you should. This thing kinda has a mind of its own.” I attempted to demonstrate, finger-tapping the metal release, and for the second time today, I was the reason a mess was made as a fountain of water gushed out above us, hitting the ceiling and raining down on us both. I immediately removed my finger.
“Okay, maybe I should do it myself,” Leo said through his laughing. “And you’ve got settings on here. I think it’s on the jet setting right now.” He took the tap from me. “I’ve worked in a kitchen before, washing dishes as a teen. This one’s good for really going in on those crusty bits.” His eye twitched beneath the cream sticking it together. “Okay, I think this one should be a gentle one.” Raising it to his face, I watched, ready to jump in front of it in case it was going to soak him. I had to show him this wasn’t just a friend thing.
After getting the sticky cream residue off both of our faces, I held his hand, and we stood at the counter. I spoon fed him a bite of each pie, asking for his thoughts on each of them. He only had good things to say, and every time I raised the spoon with a scoop of pie, his eyes lit up.
“I think I’ll burst if I have to eat all of them,” he said.
“Just a taste is all. The rest you can take with you,” I told him.
“Before this goes any further,” he began, looking away. “I need to tell you something about me. And it’s a deal breaker. So before we get too carried away with how good it feels to have your tongue in my mouth, it’s important.”
“Anything,” I said, resting the spoon inside the pie tray. “What is it?”
He pulled his hands together against his chest, holding them there for a moment. A slow gentle head nod, like he was telling himself what to say before he was going to say it. “I like to play,” he said, still avoiding my eyes. “It’s part of who I am, and I need someone to know both sides of me.”
“I think I know,” I said, tipping a finger under his chin and focusing his gaze on me. “You’re a little.”
“A little what?” he asked, his tongue precariously placed between his teeth.
“You know... well, I hope I know,” I said, recoiling my finger with a gentle slide from under his chin. “The teddy, the cute T-shirts, the way you seem to have that... pout. It’s submissive, right?”
He nodded, then shrugged.
“And I saw the briefs you had on yesterday, when you bent over. The sweatpants kinda came down and showed off these teddy bear briefs. They looked—” Was it me, or did the kitchen become a whole lot hotter all of a sudden. “Tight.”
Leo almost choked on a breath, letting it out with a big gasp. “Oh my god, you saw them?” he asked. “I—I—”
“I’ve been involved in the dynamic before,” I admitted. It was brief. More of an introduction than a full-blown relationship. “But if I’m reading it all wrong, then we don’t have to address it at all. But I think that’s what you wanted to say, right?”
Slowly, he nodded again. “Yeah,” he let out, barely a whisper. “I didn’t think you’d know anything about it.”
“I was begging you to ask me questions,” I told him. “I don’t really know if you noticed that, but I wanted you to get to know me so I could ask you questions in return, and I kinda managed to do that yesterday.”
His face was glowing pink and red, and I wondered if the same was true for mine. Maybe there was something on in here, like an oven.
“I just wasn’t prepared for this to go as well as it did,” he said, trying to shy his face away again. I placed my hand under his chin, keeping him from tucking it any further. “So, what type ofDaddyare you then?”
“We’re jumping into that, then?” I said, taking the spoon from the tray. “I’m the type of Daddy who loves caretaking in all aspects. Let me feed you, let me clean you, let me play with you.”
Leo clenched his hands on the metal counter, leaning his weight against it. “Now I feel like you’re just saying all the things I want to hear.”
Slicing into the lemon cream-cheese pie, just the tip curved onto the end of the spoon. “You always second-guess everything.” A question and a statement. “I thought you were cute the first time I saw you. I noticed the teddy... popular in little circles, right? I think they are. It’s been a while since I’ve really engaged with it.” I raised the spoon to his mouth. “This one in particular is delicious.”
He opened his mouth, sticking his tongue out, and he practically made out with the spoon as I applied it to his lips as he wrestled to lick every part of the it from the metal. Staring into my eyes, he moaned and groaned.
“Easy now,” I said. “This is a clean workspace.”
He giggled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, for one, I don’t want you to start something we can’t finish in here, and secondly, I think those noises should be saved for somewhere private... special.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
I bit my lip a little. “It’s been a while since I’ve been called that, and I’ll take it. If that’s what you want.” I continued to stare at him, trying to assess how to approach this as a relationship.It was quite literally brand new, so I couldn’t rush or get ahead of myself. Although... counting the times we’d already met up and been together, those could all have been dates. “Obviously, taking it slow. But tell me what you want, and I’ll try to be the best Daddy you could ever need.”
He opened up in a way that felt like he was exhaling properly for the first time around me. He told me that he had too many teddies to count, and he read bedtime stories to them each night because he didn’t have anyone to read to him. He also explained that all of his past relationships never got to the little play part, they were more interested in the bedroom fun.
“Then let me be the first to tell you, I love a good a bedtime story,” I said. “And I’m more than happy to read to an audience of your closest teddies. Perhaps not all of them, but I want to see where this goes. I didn’t come all this way to start my life over again and not put one hundred percent effort in.”
