Episode 3 #2
Mr. Moreau chuckled. “No, kitten, that is why we cook them twice. Observe and understand.”
The flour went in next, and then they took the pan off the heat and let it cool while preparing baking sheets.
The oven was already heating. Collin had missed Mr. Moreau attending to that.
It was nice to work with his hands after all the days of rest. Collin started the dishes on his own, not that there were many, while Mr. Moreau folded the eggs into the batter.
Then Mr. Moreau insisted that he help fill the piping bag and portion out the bits of dough on the baking sheets.
Once in the oven, it seemed as if they would be done, but Mr. Moreau checked the fridge and the freezer and hummed in the back of his throat.
“I think we will make whipped cream for half of them and then fill the rest in the American style with frozen custard and ice cream. There’s no time tonight to make traditional custard. ”
Collin nodded while wiping down the counter.
Mr. Moreau glanced around the kitchen. “You keep an excellent workspace, boy.”
“I’m a bartender. Well, I was. You don’t want things to stack up on you.”
“Once a bartender, perhaps always one. Never think that your knowledge and experience from that position will not come in good stead in your current role. Alcohol is an entire language. Richard sent Matthew to study with a sommelier for a summer once.”
“That’s an education of a lifetime.”
“Quite.” Mr. Moreau raised an eyebrow. “Matthew was never embarrassed by his lack of knowledge again.”
“I’m sure I don’t know as much, considering what people usually ordered.”
“You have the basics, though. The rest can be taught with time and experience. It’s not an essential skill, but it can create doorways if one is fortunate enough to have it.”
“Do you have a favorite wine?”
Mr. Moreau laughed. He poured heavy whipping cream into the mixture and added sugar and vanilla.
“I’m a bad Frenchman, I suppose. I’m not particular about my wine as long as it is French.
Or Japanese. Sacrilege, perhaps. But only according to some.
Plum wine is divine. My favorite alcohol is absinthe, but I rarely partake. ”
“It’s strong.”
“Quite.” Mr. Moreau smiled, and his eyes slid away, focusing on something far away and not present. After a moment, he shook himself and started the mixing machine. The sound was loud, and he motioned Collin out in the hall.
“How are your hands now?”
“My hands, sir?” Collin looked down at his palms and curled his fingers inward so he could check his nails. “They’re fine, I think. What, was there something wrong?”
Mr. Moreau shook his head. But he smiled a little.
He leaned back against the wall, hands in his pockets.
“A long time ago, when I was a teenager, I had insomnia. It’s how I learned to bake.
I lived with my grandmother at the time, and she swore that the older she got, the less she needed to sleep.
So, I would come downstairs and find her in the living room, reading or stitching.
And then she’d get up, and we’d go to the kitchen, and she would teach me to bake.
We baked everything. One year, she bought a book that had recipes for baked goods from around the world.
It was in English, so every day I’d translate one recipe, one day to French and the next day to Arabic.
And she’d go shopping with the list so it was ready at night. ”
“If you were baking every night, how did you get through school?”
“I wasn’t very good in school, perhaps. But I’d nap in the afternoon after classes and do homework while dough proofed or something baked. She’d sit beside me and read while I wrote essays and calculated equations. Then she’d check my work. So I didn’t do as badly as I might have.”
“She sounds awesome.”
“She was. So now, when Richard is busy at night, this is what I do.”
“You bake.”
“Yes. And I write.”
“You write?”
“Hmm. Yes.”
“What do you write?”
Mr. Moreau laughed. “Terrible things. Perhaps I’ll show you, in time.” He pushed off the wall and stepped inside the kitchen to check the oven and the cream.
Together they pierced the puffs when they came out of the oven and prepared them to go back in.
And then it was time to wait again, this time without the noise of the cream being whipped.
With all the dishes done, Mr. Moreau poured sparkling water and citrus bitters into cups over ice and motioned Collin to join him at the table.
“The puffs will come out soon. No point in leaving. They’ll have to cool for a while, and then we can fill them. Richard and Damian will still be some time before they come out.”
“Will they eat them?”
“Most likely. They’re both hungry after a session together.”
“Sex usually just makes me sleepy.”
“Me also though I learned years ago not to doze off right away.” Mr. Moreau sipped his drink. “If you are ever ungrounded, Collin, ask. It’s not a request that will be ignored.”
Collin dropped his eyes and looked down at his hands. So that was what Mr. Moreau had meant. “It’s hard not to feel like I did something wrong.”
“Damian is passionate. And he’s riding a high right now after his trip. But you’ve had a lot of changes, and, I suspect, a difficult day even before he came home. It must have been a lot for him to push you like he did.”
“I mean, I liked it. It was just…I didn’t know what was expected. And you’re all…you. And there were all of you at once.”
Mr. Moreau raised his glass in acknowledgement.
“Remember, as much as you are learning the paths of this new life, Damian is also learning what it is like to not be Richard’s only submissive.
Do not assume that everything he does is an order from Richard.
And never assume that you can’t push back even in the middle of something.
If you feel lost or ungrounded or overwhelmed, communicate it.
Safe word or safe signal. Emotional limits are just as significant as physical ones. ”
“But I liked everything that he did and what Mr. Reevesworth did too, so why was I…off?
“Yes. You did. You can like everything and want everything, and the time can still be out of place. You were starting to look like a lost lamb without voice or will. Beautiful. I look forward to all the places Richard can take you, but that’s not a state he’s going to place you in with Damian there and pushing, not before he knows you more.
Not when he’s responsible for both you and Damian at the same time. ”
“So, Damian gets the playroom and I get profiteroles?” Collin half smiled and rubbed a bead of water from the side of his glass.
“Now I believe I should be offended.” Mr. Moreau chuckled. “I forgive you only because you have not yet tasted them.”
Collin smiled. “No, I think Mr. Reevesworth was right. Damian was right there, and you were watching, and I just felt like I was trapped, alone, in the middle, naked. And I wanted to be there, but I didn’t know how to be there, and that made me…I think I started to go away.”
“The clinical term is dissociation. Something you have done frequently since you came here.”
“I do it less than I used to. In high school, I think I went away for weeks at a time.”
“It’s useful when we have no other option. Richard will teach you how stay even in the maelstrom. I saw you do it yesterday. I know you have the ability. You were exquisite.”
“That was…not going away, and I still went somewhere, but it was still very there? I don’t have the proper words.”
“That ‘there’ is referred to as subspace in English. Can you think of the differences?”
“I was…in my body. Like everything was very present even though other things, like anything not on the bed, were very far away. Thinking was far away, but feeling was…everything.”
Mr. Moreau nodded. “Precisely.”
They pulled the profiteroles from the oven and set them up to cool.
Then Mr. Moreau collected his glass and nodded for Collin to follow.
They wandered down the hall, past the bedroom and a few more closed doors, and into an open room at the end of the hall that was set up as another living space.
There were windows on two sides, giving the space an expansive feel.
It was obvious the room was the full width of the apartment and likely half the width of the entire building.
Collin stepped up to the glass. “It feels so high.”
“Yes.”
They sipped their drinks in silence for a while.
Collin sighed finally. It was easier to talk staring out the window with the whole openness of the twinkling half-asleep city spread out beyond. “I don’t understand who I am to you , though. I don’t know where the boundaries are.”
“I’m an elder and leader in the house and your dominant’s trusted confidant and partner.
He is an extension of me, and I am an extension of him, to the extent that you continue to give consent.
Your contract is with him. If you ever revoke consent in the contract for him to use me as an instrument to care for and interact with you, then I would no longer do so, but since I am in the contract, that is my role. ”
“Does that mean I should go to you the way I should him?”
“If he’s not available and you have a need, yes.”
“Then I think…no, I know that I desperately need the bathroom again. Uh, it’s embarrassing but…” Collin lifted the glass in his hand as an explanation.
“There’s a bathroom behind that door there.” Mr. Moreau pointed to a wood door behind them to the right. “And I still have the key.”
Once finished and back in the room full of windows. Collin dithered. “Can I ask something else?”
“What would you like to ask?”
“Can we sit on the couch? Not alone but together?”