His boundaries were short but specific:
• No exchange of identifying information
•I always wear a mask
•No kissing
•Lights off during scenes
My boundary list was much longer, but for a while, his occasional “I’m in town, up for a good time?” texts fit perfectly into my life. Especially during the terrible months after my diagnosis.
Which I still hadn’t told him about, even though it had been nearly a year and a half since my ob/gyn delivered the bad news—along with a printed negative STI report to send my occasional lover, as agreed, every three months.
Usually, sex with Mr. Good Time worked like a drug, erasing my real-world problems for a few perfect hours.
But not tonight. Tonight, the question I needed to ask hung over me like a cloud made of anxiety.
“Your arms okay?” Mr. Good Time emerged from the bathroom carrying the plastic tub he always packed in his black duffel. His voice was no longer distorted. He’d swapped the LED mask for the red-skeleton ski one from his original profile picture.
He set the tub of warm, soapy water on the nightstand and picked up one of my arms, gently massaging from the elbow to the wrist.
“Any numbness or tingling?”
Maybe he was a doctor. Like Patrick Bateman. That might explain the ski mask, the hard boundaries, and the refusal to let me see his face.
Though he was a lot more muscular than the actor who played that infamous psycho.
When I first told my twin sister, Robin, about him, I said, “It’s like having sex with someone cosplaying Bane.”
She’d blinked at me. “Who’s Bane?” Which tracked. Despite being my fraternal twin, Robin was my opposite in every way.
Her fiancé, Vikram, looked like the Canadian-Indian version of Prince Charming. She was so Disney, she didn’t even know who that DC villain was—let alone why anyone would agree to a no-strings-attached relationship with him.
“My arms are fine,” I said, taking mine back. “Actually, I’ll handle this.”
I reached for the washcloth and started wiping between my legs. Technically, that was outside our rules. But it was two a.m. on Christmas morning, and my ability to mask was shot.
Usually, his aftercare cleanup—really just a soft-touch, washcloth-based lead-in to a third round of much gentler sex—was my favorite part.
But tonight, I couldn’t be that vulnerable with him.
The ski mask had real eye holes, and I looked away to avoid seeing whatever expression might be in his dark, nearly black eyes. It was such a small thing, but I’d never defied him before—at least not outside a scene.
Silence settled over the room. He sat beside me, the bed dipping under his weight.
“Did I fuck this up?” he asked quietly. “Was it the new mask? Do you want to revisit the boundaries list so this never happens again?”
“What? No!” My head snapped up. I dropped the towel into the tub, already regretting my decision to go off-script during aftercare.
“I didn’t mean to worry you. I liked it. A lot,” I said quickly. “Almost as much as primal play.”
“Good.” His shoulders eased. “Since we have the whole day together, I’ll set up an extra scene for when we’re fresh. Then we’ll do the makeup sex after that.”
My stomach turned at the idea of going through two more scenes withthe questionstill sitting there. Clawing at me.
And being an autie who’d been woken up in the middle of the night for CNC play, of course, I couldn’t mask my reaction before it showed on my face.
He stilled. “I know. You probably want to curl up under your weighted blanket and go back to sleep. But I think you need to tell me what’s going on first.”
