Chapter Thirty-Six
Lex
I exhale, and the breeze blows the smoke right back into my face, which is kind of very apt for how I’m feeling. This is a bad idea. This is a great idea. This is going to kill me. This is going to make me feel more alive than I have in years.
One thing is for certain: I shouldn’t have agreed to this.
I shouldn’t have said yes to being here.
Here, being sitting on cold stone beside the canal, a short distance away from QISS.
It’s a surprisingly mild early spring evening, and the dusk paints everything in a romantic glow as my feet dangle above the murky water below. Or maybe that’s the weed.
I haven’t smoked in years. For a long time after I first arrived in Amsterdam, I wouldn’t miss a day without a joint or some gummies or a slice of spacecake from my favourite coffee shop, Paradox.
I swore that it helped my work, but then I got lost in a week-long deep focus and ran out of supplies, and I didn’t much notice the difference.
If anything, I was more alert, less tired, and so I stopped smoking and buying gummies, and I gave my all to my art instead.
Of course, other drugs have crossed my path, being a queer artist who has often lived in shared squats and communes, but none of them held the same appeal.
Or maybe, they held too much appeal. They promised things I only dreamed of – numbing the pain, a longer, higher high – and rather than temptation, that felt like a threat.
I didn’t want to become addicted to something that could kill the brightest part of me, my art.
So I always declined and sought my escape in a paintbrush, some clay, fabrics, or simply a scrap of paper and a pencil.
But I need this. This joint that rests between my fingers. I need to slow my mind, and possibly my body. If I’m going to survive tonight, I need to feel less, not more.
“Hey Mum,” Mari’s voice pulls my eyes away from the dull, brown water of the canal.
I look around and see the top of their head at the other end of a nearby parked car.
They’re facing away from me, looking up at QISS.
They’re on the phone, to Keeley, their mum, somebody I once considered a second mother.
“Yeah, sorry it’s been a while. I’ve been busy…
Yeah, good busy,” Mari says. “How are you? How’s Dove?
Yeah, I miss you both too… Right now, oh, not much…
” I smile. So Mari doesn’t share everything with their mum.
“I just wanted to hear your voice… Yeah, really, I’m okay.
Just…I just miss seeing you. I miss drinking tea with you. You know, boring shit.”
I swallow, and my throat is dry. I miss drinking tea with my mum too.
“And I was wondering,” Mari continues. “Did you give any more thought to coming over and visiting?”
My shoulders tense. I have no idea how I feel about seeing Keeley and Dove again. Two more faces I associate with back there, with that place.
“Really? Yeah, that would be awesome. Gives me time to book my time-off… And hopefully, it will be nice and warm here then.”
I watch a pair of swans swim past, one tracking the other loyally, like it would follow their partner anywhere.
I think about Amsterdam in the summer. Barbecues in the park, bar and café terraces full and bustling, the sun still shining as ten o’clock approaches.
I think about us enjoying all that together – me, Mari, and Roos – and I feel unsettled and conflicted with how possible and impossible that all feels.
“Yeah, I promise, Mum… Yeah, Roos is fine. She’s doing really well, actually… Lex? Yeah, I guess you’ll see xem… Shit, Mum, it’s complicated. And I can’t get into it now. I’ve got to go and meet Roos.”
My eyes fill with tears, and I scowl at the blunt in my hand. You were supposed to stop this. You were supposed to dull the ache inside me. You were not supposed to have me close to crying before I even go in the club.
“Yeah, I love you too. And Dovey. I’ll call again soon. Love you. Bye.”
I don’t move. I give Mari time to move away, to go into the club, but when I turn around to check they’ve gone, I see them approaching me.
“I thought I could smell something,” they say, walking up to me between two parked cars.
I get up and hold the joint out in my hand. “Want some?”
Mari looks at it and seems to consider this quite seriously. “Go on then.”
I watch them take a long, deep pull. They cough a little as they exhale. “God, I haven’t smoked pot for a long time.”
“Same, actually.”
“Everyone back home thinks I’m doing it all the time, that that’s the reason I moved to Amsterdam.”
I take the joint back and laugh half-heartedly. “They probably thought the same for me.”
Mari squints at me. “I don’t think anyone thought that for you,” they say. “They all knew you were going to go places. To go chase something bigger than our hometown. And you did.”
My heart constricts as I hear something close to pride in Mari’s words. And that’s new. It never used to hurt me, them having the wrong idea about why I left. It never used to cause me pain, them not knowing the truth.
I take another pull and am slow about inhaling it into my lungs and then expelling it out of my mouth. Mari watches me intently as I do.
“How are you feeling about tonight?” they ask when I’ve stubbed the joint out.
“Like I was a fool to agree to it,” I say, testing out honesty for a change.
Mari’s surprise is small, but I notice it. “You can change your mind. You don’t have to come in.”
“No, I want to,” I say. “That’s the fucked-up thing, I really want to. I just don’t know if I’m ready for it.”
“Ready for what?”
I look them up and down. They’re in jeans and a cute patchwork jacket that I’m pretty sure is vintage.
That ridiculous crochet scarf is wrapped loosely around their neck.
Their hair moves in the breeze, and their blue eyes are darker than usual in the dusk light.
“I’m not sure I’m ready to touch you. I’m not sure what that will do to me. ”
Mari rocks back on their heels, as if my words have caused them a physical shock. They open their mouth to say something, and I am pretty sure my life depends on their next words, but then Roos’ voice makes us both turn towards the road.
“Hey!” she calls out with a big smile on her face, still sitting on her bike. “I’ll just park up.”
“Okay,” Mari says as I mumble something similar. They give me one more unreadable look, and then they turn to go find Roos, and I follow their footsteps, just like that swan I just saw.
“How are we feeling?” Roos asks after locking up her bike. She’s wearing a long, lightweight coat, but the black latex of her leggings is still visible. That, plus her excited expression, tells me Roos is feeling very good about this.
“Fine,” Mari says, “but Lex is – ”
“Lex is fine,” I cut in.
Roos’ face falls all the same. “Really? You don’t have to do this.”
“I want to,” I say, and it is the truth, just only part of the truth.
“And you’re happy to top with me?” she asks me, but she turns to Mari before I give my answer. “And you’re happy to sub tonight?”
Mari nods.
Maybe it’s the way Roos didn’t even wait for me to respond because to her, I’ve always been a Dominant.
Maybe it’s the way Mari’s words give me an opportunity.
Maybe it’s the weed. Or maybe it’s because I’m so fucking tired of lying to myself and to the people I love, but I find myself holding a hand up between us all and speaking.
“Actually,” I say, “I would like to sub too.”
Mari and Roos both stare at me, unmoving and unblinking.
“If that’s okay,” I add, hoping one of them will say or do something.
“Really?” Roos looks like she’s been slapped. I feel cruel for taking away that big smile and all her excitement. I open my mouth to take it back, to change my mind, but Mari is quicker to speak.
“That’s cool,” they say, their voice even. “You want me to sub with you?”
I think about them domming me too. I think about both of them pushing me to an edge I have spent half my life avoiding. I think about them both taking care of me afterwards.
God, I need that.
God, I’m not ready for that.
I hold their gaze as I reply. “Yes. Please.”
Mari nods, confirming how it’s going to go. Roos still looks like she has no clue what is going on, but when she looks at Mari, they nod with a smile just for them. “You think you can do it? Dom us both?”
“Yeah, but…” Roos’ voice trails off, and she looks at me again.
“I think this will be a lot of fun, don’t you?” Mari prompts Roos, pulling her stare away from me.
It doesn’t last long. Roos looks back at me with a serious, concerned frown. “Are you sure?”
I do my best to smile, to bring some levity to the moment. “Yeah. I’m sure.”
“Okay,” Roos says, and then she holds out her hands for us to take. “Let’s go do this.”