Chapter 28. Ford
BratWorld hits you with a wall of bass that displaces the air in your lungs, followed by the darkness: violet and red neon lights that turn everyone's skin the color of a bruise.
As we pass through it, I feel Jude change.
Like a switch. His smile is wider, he's buzzing.
He hasn't let go of my hand, but the grip has shifted from easy to electric.
Noa and Henry, his roommate and his roommate's Dom, are with us tonight.
A man in a harness leans against the bar, laughing; two women share a booth, a kiss, and a cigarette; a group of leather-clad regulars occupies the far corner. The air smells like sex and booze.
"There they are," Jude says. He pulls me toward the cluster of bodies near the far end of the bar, and I follow, because following Jude into chaos is apparently my evening now.
Pierce sees us first. Tonight his blue hair is slicked back on one side and spiked on the other, and he's wearing a mesh shirt.
"The prodigal brat returns!" Pierce shouts over the music. He launches himself at Jude, and they hug each other tightly. Pierce's studded accessories jingle against Jude's collar - the day collar, the chain with a padlock. He never takes it off.
"Ford." Pierce peels himself off Jude long enough to acknowledge me.
"Pierce." I offer my hand. He ignores it and hugs me instead, which I should have expected. He smells like clove cigarettes.
The evening detonates from there.
It starts small: a drink knocked sideways by Pierce's elbow. The bartender, who has clearly survived previous encounters with them, simply sighs and reaches for a towel. Then Noa shouts something at Henry across the room: AMOK!
It's an inside joke: brats like to run amok. So all of the brats around start screaming AMOK, AMOK, AMOK, like a flock of deranged chickens.
Jude is at the center of it. He's always at the center of it.
He's screaming, jumping in place, tugging at Pierce's collar, and Pierce retaliates by stealing Jude's drink and downing it in one swallow while maintaining eye contact with Elliot, Pierce's play partner for the night, who watches from across the room, amused.
The dares begin. Noa dares Pierce to ask the DJ for a song that has more curse words than normal words. Pierce dares Glynn to convince the bartender to put double shots into everyone's drinks. Glynn dares Jude to give the whole club something to watch.
Jude looks at me. Just for a moment. A flash of honey through the dark, checking. For my attention. For the assurance that I'm watching.
I raise my glass. A fraction of an inch. The smallest possible toast.
He grins. He is a good boy, deep down. He never does anything without permission. And then he's on the table.
He steps up: one foot on the seat, one on the surface. Jude finds the music immediately, hips first, then shoulders, then the rest of him. He's sexy. He's free.
The club turns. I watch a man at the bar lower his glass. Pierce whoops, Noa is clapping, another friend is filming on his phone, and Jude is dancing on a table in a BDSM club like he was born in the spotlight.
The thing expanding in my chest isn't embarrassment.
It's pride. This reckless, incandescent, impossible creature who sings Disney to my daughter and cries on my guest room floor.
He's mine. He chose me. And I'm standing in a club I'd never have entered five months ago, nursing a whiskey, watching chaos incarnate dance in purple light, and I am having, against every instinct and principle I've cultivated in fifty-three years of careful living, the time of my life.
Henry appears at my elbow. He treats me like we're old friends, even though we just met tonight.
"First time watching yours go full brat?" he asks.
"First time watching him go full brat in public."
Henry laughs. "It gets worse," he says cheerfully. "Wait till they start coordinating."
They're already coordinating. I can see it in the way Pierce has joined Jude on the adjacent table, and Noa is heading there already, practically bouncing.
I watch. I drink.
The coordinated misbehavior peaks at eleven fifteen, when Jude and Pierce execute what can only be described as a synchronized drink-stealing relay that leaves three separate tables without their cocktails and one bewildered Dom holding a glass of water he definitely didn't order.
Noa provides cover by playfully flirting with the bartender, drawing his attention long enough for the heist to complete. It's impressive. It's infuriating.
Henry shakes his head. "They've been planning this all night."
"Since before we arrived, probably," I agree. "The drink relay had choreography."
Elliot joins us at the bar, compact and bearded. He leans against it, arms crossed.
"Time to remind them who's in charge," Henry says, clearly enjoying himself. He looks at me, then at Elliot. "You're new to this," he says to me. Not unkindly.
"To the club. Not to discipline."
"Fair enough. What do you know about communal correction?"
"I know the theory. I haven't practiced it in public."
"It's simpler than it sounds. The point is the spectacle. They want attention. We give them attention. Just not the kind they were shopping for."
"Rice and corn. Center floor. Fifteen minutes," Elliot suggests. "Gives the room something to watch that reminds everyone where the lines are."
"I'm in," I say. We exchange a look, the kind of mischief usually reserved for brats.
We move together. Henry goes toward Noa.
Elliot toward the blue-haired catastrophe currently attempting to convince a sub twice his size to swap collars.
I walk toward Jude, who's back on solid ground now but buzzing with performance energy, his cheeks flushed, his eyes scanning the room for the next available disruption.
He sees me coming. I watch his face process it. He's read my body enough times to know the difference between casual and intentional. His smile doesn't disappear, but it sharpens. The playful curve tightens into something watchful.
"Daddy," he says, and the word is a dare. "Did you enjoy the show?"
"Immensely." I stop in front of him. "Which is why you're going to kneel for me now."
The effect is immediate. His pupils blow wide. His chin lifts.
"You wouldn't dare," he says, and his voice is steady, but his pulse isn't. I can see it in his throat, hammering against the skin.
"Wouldn't I, brat?"
Across the room, the scene unfolds in parallel. Henry's hand on Noa's shoulder, guiding him forward; Elliot murmuring something against Pierce's ear that makes the blue-haired brat go still for the first time all evening. The room notices. Bodies turn.
Glynn has spread a thin layer of rice and dried corn kernels in the center of the floor. The grains glitter under the overhead lights like confetti at a parade, except this confetti bites.
Jude sees it. His breath catches. He's in nothing but tiny denim shorts. Convenient.
"Kneel," I say. Heads turn. A woman near the bar sets down her drink. The DJ drops the music half a decibel, instinctively creating space for what's happening.
Jude kneels, looking at me like a lost puppy.
Beside him, Pierce descends with a theatrical hiss, his face scrunching in performative agony that's at least partly genuine. Noa follows, quieter, his jaw set, his eyes fixed on Henry.
Three brats. Three Doms. The club watching.
I step behind Jude and place my hand on his head.
His hair is damp at the temples. Sweat from the dancing, the adrenaline. I feel the tension in his neck, the muscles straining against the impulse to move, to adjust, to flee from the discomfort radiating up through his kneecaps where the rice presses.
He doesn't move. He holds.
His breathing is shallow and quick, each exhale accepting the pain. I press my thumb against the nape of his neck. His breath deepens. He leans into my hand. His hand finds my ankle. His fingers wrap around it: a point of contact, a tether. I massage his scalp. Daddy's here. Breathe. Good boy.
The fifteen minutes feel like an hour and a heartbeat simultaneously.
When Henry calls time, Noa collapses sideways, away from the rice and corn, with a groan that's mostly genuine.
Pierce launches into a tirade about Geneva Conventions that he clearly had prepared in advance.
And Jude, Jude looks up at me, and his face is a ruin of defiance and relief.
I pull him to his feet. His legs are unsteady, and he leans into me, and I hold him.
"Good boy. I'm so proud of you," I murmur against his temple. He holds me tighter.