“Everything okay?” he asked, stepping in and closing the door.
As he started to strip his upper body, I sighed. “Yes and no.”
“Oh? Do tell?” He put his clothes on the extra chair in the corner.
“First, pick between those three and these two.” I pointed at different shades of reds and blues.
Once I had the colors he picked ready to go and he’d settled comfortably on the chair, face down so I could get to his back, I sighed again.
I’d left before his initial appointment and called him while I was walking home, so he knew it had all been about Bear and my worry.
“He’s fine. I bought him coloring books and stuff to color with, and the package arrived this morning.”
“Uh-huh. Got inspired by the munch?” Mal made an educated guess and rolled his shoulder before settling back down.
I shaved his back just in case, making sure I had a pristine surface to add the color to.
“Yeah. It’s so obvious to me that Bear is a little. Sure, he’s a submissive and gets off on that, too, but when I got home all panicky—I’m not ashamed to admit that by the way—he had gotten the package and was coloring on the living room floor. With his stuffed tiger overseeing the coloring.”
Mal chuckled. “Aww, sounds adorable.”
“It was.” I grabbed my machine, double-checked everything and then started on the red I wanted to put down first. “The thing is, he was so deep he didn’t even realize he was in little mode. How is that even possible?”
Mal hummed thoughtfully, then let out a pleased little hiss when he felt the needles hit his skin. He didn’t get off on the pain of tattooing exactly, but it was his Zen place which he said he sometimes needed to balance both his work and homelife. Apparently being a Daddy to a rascal like Jamie was as taxing and rewarding as his job as an ER doctor.
“I assume you mean that he doesn’t know he’s doing it? Doesn’t know he’s a little?”
“I guess so. I mean, I think he didn’t understand the littles and feels like it’s… not exactly weird, but different in a way he can’t really place, maybe? I haven’t asked him directly what he felt about the littles, because he’s smart enough to know I’m poking at him in that sense. I’d rather have him come to the conclusion himself.”
Again, Mal hummed. He stayed quiet for longer this time, and I almost got lost in the rhythm of coloring his back piece.
“What if that’s not the right thing to do?” he asked quietly.
I squinted at him, lifting my foot from the pedal, making the buzz of the machine stop.
“What do you mean?”
He snorted. “You’re not used to being questioned, are you?”
I rolled my eyes, which he caught as he turned his head my way. He smirked.
“Explain yourself,” I told him, shaking the machine at him playfully.
He turned his head back to rest his face in the hole as if he was having a massage. I liked this chair, it turned into a table and was comfortable for the client in most cases.
“Okay, so Bear is new to this, right?” At my hum, he continued, “What if he needs guidance instead of space to figure things out by himself?”
I’d just put my foot on the pedal, but I lifted it again. I frowned as I thought about his words.
When I didn’t comment, he sighed.
“Look, Luukas. I’ve known you for a long time now, and I feel like you’re going through something with this whole thing, too.” Well he wasn’t wrong there. “Maybe that’s your angle into this?”
We both stayed quiet for a while as I worked. What Mal said could work. If I used the… Fuck, I couldn’t even think about the word.
“But I’ve never identified as a Daddy Dom,” I blurted out in a tone that was almost a whine.
Instinctively, I lifted the machine before Mal’s shoulders began to shake with laughter.
