“Yup.”
“What’s your gut instinct about the boy?”
“He’s probably a little but doesn’t seem to understand it himself. He needs somewhere safe to figure this stuff out, Allen. It’s….” I gulped down half of my drink and hissed. “Please make sure I’ll never come across Carl again. I have a hold on my temper these days unlike when I was younger, but….”
“I’ll do my best. But if you ever need an alibi….”
We both chuckled at that, sounding weary as fuck.
“I’ll figure out what we can do for him tomorrow. See if he has anywhere else to stay or if he wants to room here for now. There’s space and I kind of like having someone around.” I didn’t know where the last bit came, but I knew it was the truth. I was fine being single and having occasional play partners when the mood struck me, but I rarely felt like I wanted to have someone around when I was at home. Well, other than the obvious, extremely rare hookups, but I rarely brought those home. There were always private spaces in play parties and such for if t I felt like it. Honestly though, I didn’t really hook up all that much.
I heard another giggle and a splash and smiled.
“He’s having fun in the bathtub right now,” I told Allen. “He’s… I don’t know. There’s something about him that makes me want to go back to Carl’s and rip his head off.” I huffed in frustration. “Bear opened the door and it was pretty fucking obvious Carl had just used his mouth and the boy looked so… sad.”
Allen let out another litany of curses in a way I’d rarely heard. “That motherfucker. Yeah, we need to have the subs in on this somehow. They can make sure nobody new gets tangled up with that jerk. He’s bad news.” He sighed. “You know I love putting a slave on his knees and using him thoroughly, but all of mine have always loved it. It can’t be about me. It canneverbe just about what I want. Carl isn’t a Dominant, he’s a fucking bully and you know how much I hate that shit.”
I hummed in agreement. We’d had countless of conversations about nuance over the years. Mostly it had been prompted by situations where Allen had been balls deep in the throat of a sub who looked like they couldn’t breathe, had tears, drool, and snot running down their face, and then someone new saw this and got horrified at how he was “abusing” said sub.
There were so many ways to do kink, so many ways to play and do it safely, and Allen knew all about that. He’d been in the lifestyle longer than many of our newer members had been alive. His ways might not have been identical to the ways of the younger generation of kinksters, but that didn’t make them anyone more right or wrong than someone else.
“I know,” I murmured. “Remind me, does anyone have any parties coming up in the next couple of weeks?”
Allen chuckled. “Shows how busy you’ve been with work. You’ve not been to any parties or munches in months, Luukas. There’s a munch next Saturday at Lila’s, and she said something about a party at the Club, but I forget when it was. Why?”
“I think it’ll do Bear good to meet other kinksters. If there are littles around, even better.”
“I can definitely make sure there will be littles, if you want?”
I thought for a moment. Littles weren’t always good at showing restraint when asked to be subtle about something. If we asked them to come and then act as if they were there naturally, without having been asked for Bear’s sake….
“Maybe ask their Daddies and Mommies and not tell the littles they’re there to meet Bear?”
“Or for Bear to meet them.” Allen chuckled. “Sounds good. Our community almost failed that boy. I’m not having that. We have things to make up to him, whether he knows it or sees it like that.”
“Ask Lila to send me details when you talk to her?”
“Will do. Good night, Luukas.”
“Night, Allen.”
I made sure Bear had everything he needed for the night and left the door of his room cracked open at his request. He said he didn’t sleep well in new places.
It took me time to fall asleep. I kept listening to him just in case, and only relaxed when his soft snores started to drift into my room.
Turning to my side, I looked toward where I knew the picture frame was on top of my dresser. There wasn’t enough light to properly see it, but it had stood there for the last seven years, ever since I’d taken the picture myself.
Since I had company—in another room and snoring as he might’ve been—I spoke to Elio in my mind instead of out loud.
“Sweetheart. I’m gonna need your guidance, I think. Bear’s gonna have layers. There’s something innocent about him, I can tell already. It’s not the little thing, either. He feels a lot like you were when we first met, but we were so young then, weren’t we…?”I sighed. The connection I still had to my dead husband felt more fragile these days. It was harder to talk to him, harder to remember details. Or maybe it was the difficulty of remembering the good things after how everything had ended up.
I rolled to my back and closed my eyes. Maybe sleep would come eventually.
I woke up to a sound I didn’t recognize at first. Then it hit me: Bear was humming in the kitchen. Since I’d sent a message to my right-hand person, Sara, the shop wasn’t expecting me in today. It had been my shift for walk-ins anyway as we tended to take shifts doing those. Not going in on mine meant that someone else had to handle walk-ins and well, I would have to pick up the slack later.
I sighed at the thought as I pulled myself out of the bed and checked the time. Almost nine. Maybe Elio had sent me some good sleeping, because it was rare for me to wake up past seven thirty, no matter whether I worked or not.
I left the bedroom quietly and snuck into the bathroom so I wouldn’t disturb whatever Bear had going on.
