23. New Proficiency
Chapter twenty-three
New Proficiency
Cameron
Apparently, there is a specific kind of friendship where you can walk into someone's house one week before her wedding and say, Hi, thanks for dinner last month, can we see your sex dungeon?
Side quest accepted. Tour somebody else's sex dungeon. Apparently this is my life now.
I didn't know I needed that kind of friendship until Alexis opened the door and hugged me.
“Thank God,” she says.
I laugh as I hug her back. “That's a weird response to seeing me.”
“You're a distraction.”
“Aw. Friendship.”
“Do you know how many people have asked me a question about wedding things in the last forty-eight hours?”
Behind her, Carter calls from somewhere inside the house, “At least twelve.”
Alexis closes her eyes.
“Thirteen, apparently.”
Ronan steps in behind me, Micah following him.
“Should we leave?” Micah asks.
“No.” Alexis immediately catches my wrist and pulls me farther inside. “Absolutely not. You're all staying until I remember there are things in my life that don't involve dresses, seating charts, or whether ivory and cream are actually different colors.”
“They are,” Carter says as he appears from the kitchen.
Alexis points at him. “You are not helping.”
He grins and kisses her temple as he passes.
The house feels different than it did when all eleven of us were here. Quieter, obviously, although with this many people living here, quiet is relative.
Jeremiah comes down the stairs a minute later.
I've only met him the once, but there's something immediately familiar about the way he carries himself.
Not because he's exactly like Ronan.
He's not.
Jeremiah's energy has sharper edges. Ronan can walk into a room and take control without seeming to move much at all. Jeremiah feels more like he's consciously keeping something contained.
Today, maybe even more than last time.
His eyes go briefly to Alexis before landing on Ronan and Micah. “You guys ready?”
Ronan nods.
Very calm.
Very normal.
Like he is not being invited upstairs to inspect a professionally equipped room designed for sadism and bondage.
Micah is marginally less convincing.
I catch the look he gives Ronan.
Something passes between them—small and private.
Hot enough that I suddenly become very interested in the fact that they're both going upstairs without me.
I turn toward Alexis.
She narrows her eyes and smiles. “Let them do their testosterone thing first.”
“I'm not—”
“You are absolutely pouting.”
“I am not pouting.”
Ronan looks back at me from the stairs. “You're pouting.”
Traitor.
Micah's mouth curves.
Jeremiah looks between all three of us with an expression that says he's already figured out enough of our dynamic to be entertained.
Carter claps Ronan once on the shoulder. “Come on. Let us show you how irresponsibly we've spent money.”
Jeremiah starts back upstairs. “Most of it was responsible.”
Carter follows him. “See? This is why you two are going to get along.”
Ronan gives me one last look.
Then the four men disappear upstairs.
Alexis taps my arm with her hand. “Come on. Coffee?”
“Yes.”
“And I'll show you the room after they finish comparing load-bearing hardware.”
I stop. “They're going to compare load-bearing hardware?”
“Oh, one hundred percent.”
I look toward the stairs again.
Fuck.
Ronan
Carter calls it the blue room.
The name is technically accurate, though once I step inside, the color is considerably less interesting to me than the amount of forethought built into everything around it.
Oddly, Micah and I have never talked about putting an actual bed in the basement, but the bed is a center point in this room.
It has attachment points along both the frame and headboard. Restraints are organized by material and purpose rather than simply displayed.
Impact implements occupy two walls, with smaller equipment stored out of sight in drawers. An overhead suspension bar spans above the room near the bed.
I stop beneath it and look up.
Carter notices immediately. “That was Ethan and me.”
I glance at him. “The bar or the room?”
“Most of it. He and I built it out together before any of this got as complicated as it is now.” He gestures around us. “The bar was professionally installed, though. We had enough sense not to DIY the part meant to potentially support a person.”
“Good.”
Carter laughs. “I feel like I just passed an inspection.”
“Not quite yet.”
That makes Micah smile.
Jeremiah folds his arms, looking entirely too entertained.
Carter points above us. “Reinforced across multiple joists. Installer knew exactly what we planned to use it for.”
“What is it rated for?”
Carter answers.
I ask about the attachment hardware, and when the answer becomes more specific than Carter remembers, he pulls out his phone. “I have the original invoice somewhere. Ethan probably remembers the exact hardware because he remembers useless shit like serial numbers.”
“That isn't useless if you're suspending a human being from it.”
“Okay, you and Ethan are also going to get along when it comes to these things.”
Jeremiah makes a quiet sound that might be a laugh.
I look at the bar again, mentally comparing it to my basement.
I have a ceiling-mounted restraint point, but its purpose is entirely different.
Cami's hands go above her head. It gives me positioning and limits movement, but I have never treated it as a load-bearing suspension system because it isn't designed to be one.
This is.
The distinction matters.
“What do you use as a secondary safety?”
Carter shows me—and he walks me through that too, explaining what they changed after living with the room for a while instead of pretending their first setup was perfect.
That answer interests me more than perfection would have.
People who never revise their systems are generally people who stop noticing their failures.
While Carter and I discuss the room itself, Micah has moved toward the wall of impact equipment.
There are floggers arranged by weight and material, riding crops, paddles, canes, and several things Cami would look at once and immediately ask me whether I had ideas.
Micah picks up a flogger and tests the falls against his palm.
Jeremiah's attention shifts toward him. “You use impact?”
“Not much, but I’m definitely interested.”
Micah turns the handle over in his hand, studying the workmanship before setting it down and picking up another.
Jeremiah moves beside him and explains the differences between several of them. He becomes more technical as Micah asks better questions—how materials change sensation, which tools create surface sting rather than deeper impact, how placement changes risk.
This seems to be where Jeremiah is most comfortable.
Not showing off what he owns.
Discussing exactly what it does.
Micah eventually drifts toward the collars and chokers.
He picks up one of the more rigid ones, running his thumb along the attachment point. “This is nice.”
Carter grins. “You sound like you're shopping.”
“I am evaluating.”
I look at him.
Micah looks back at me, and the smile he gives me has absolutely nothing to do with objective evaluation.
My attention drops briefly to the collar in his hand.
Then back to him.
That is a conversation for later.
Jeremiah catches the exchange but, thankfully, says nothing.
Micah returns the collar to its place. “Have you ever used an anal hook?”
There is a brief silence.
I turn fully toward him.
Carter's eyebrows climb.
Jeremiah simply looks interested. “No,” he says. “I've looked at them.”
Micah nods like he asked whether Jeremiah has tried a particular brand of tattoo needle.
Carter points toward him. “Okay. You have layers.”
Micah shrugs.
I've known him for years. I've kissed him. I've restrained him. I've watched him surrender enough control to accidentally fall into the edges of subspace.
Apparently there are still categories of information I have not collected.
He notices me watching him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
His mouth curves.
Jeremiah moves toward a cabinet built into the opposite wall, and the conversation shifts with him. “This is what got me interested in suspension in the first place.”
He opens it and shows us a purpose-built harness system.
Not rope, but a functional swing.
Micah steps closer, immediately studying where the body would be supported.
“We needed positioning we couldn't safely maintain otherwise,” Jeremiah explains. “Support Alexis's weight, control her angle, and leave… access where we wanted it.”
“For how many people?” Micah asks.
Jeremiah doesn't hesitate, tone business-like. “Four of us at once. Three vaginal, one anal.”
Even Micah pauses at that.
Jeremiah adds, matter-of-factly, “Holden wasn't involved. He doesn't participate in group play or use this room. At least not yet.”
Carter nods. “He has his own relationship with her and is completely fine with the rest of us having this.”
The matter-of-factness is more notable than the logistics.
No defensiveness and no implication Holden's boundary diminishes anyone else's experience.
Jeremiah continues, describing the suspension setup with almost clinical detachment. They weren't trying to create anything artistic. It was a positioning problem they solved with equipment designed to hold Alexis's body safely while allowing several people access to her at once.
“The important part,” he says, “was that the equipment held the position instead of requiring her muscles to do it.”
“So she could actually let go,” Micah says.
“Exactly.”
I look at the harness again. “Where was your emergency release?”
Carter answers this time.
He shows me the hardware, then adds, “We've had to use emergency procedures before.”
That gets my attention. “How?”
His expression loses some of its humor. “She went unconscious during a scene.”
Jeremiah's jaw tightens almost imperceptibly.
Carter continues before I need to ask.
“She was restrained here.” He gestures toward the overhead bar. “Wrists above her, ankles secured below. She had a very intense orgasm and blacked out.”
Micah's posture changes. “Vasovagal?”
“That was Holden's conclusion afterward.”