Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Alice’s Book Café, Freedom
Shay
“This is Eden’s favorite drink.” Cassian shyly pushes a cup of tea across the large mushroom shaped table. “Is it all right?”
I take a deep sniff of the floral tea, before breaking into a wide grin. “Brilliant! This is Darjeeling tea, right? This is our mum’s favorite. I haven’t drunk this since I left England. Thanks, you’re a star.”
Cassian’s pale cheeks blush sweetly.
He slips to sit next to me. “Will you take a packet of it back with you for Eden? Also, tell him that I wish he was here but—”
“He’s a dom, yeah? They may be in control most of the time, but we can have some evenings by ourselves to play,” I reply. “What the dom doesn’t know, doesn’t hurt them.”
Cassian nods, mischievously.
Cassian is dressed in soft blue jeans, a white shirt with kitten paw prints on it, and combat boots. He is small and college aged with baby blue eyes. He also has a pair of velvet kitten ears poking out of his ash blond curls.
Cassian’s Mistress is Kay — D’Angelo’s best friend who helps to run the BDSM club with him, On the RACK.
Kay is also the only other person I know who is in a polyamorous relationship with her subs, Cassian, Everett, and Axel.
Getting to know them has helped me more than I knew anything could. It has led me to accept a certain side to myself, as well as to explore it. I didn’t know how much it would mean to me to have people outside D’Angelo who I could talk to about my needs, as well as question things.
Blythe isolated me.
She told me that I wasn’t a good enough sub to want to be seen with in public, introduce to other doms, or take to clubs.
D’Angelo is the opposite. He has shown me off at fetish events and welcomed me into his friendship group.
He has opened a whole new world to me.
No matter what happens in our future, I will be forever bloody grateful to him for that.
He has unlocked something in me. I feel like I am starting to understand who I am.
No longer Shay the people pleaser. The performer.
Instead, I am Shay who deserves to be himself.
I glance at the group of subs around me who are chatting and joking, relaxed in the after-hours bookstore café.
I’m a bloody idiot because I thought that it was my twin who didn’t have friends. I have always been surrounded by a crowd of friends.
Except, they didn’t know me.
My past.
Pain.
They wouldn’t have cared. The other players on the team mocked me when I was forced to serve them in shops or at private events.
None of my friends noticed when I was starving, couldn’t afford new clothes, or go to parties with them.
They didn’t stand up against the teachers, professionals, or coach for me.
It was my brother who saved me from Blythe.
I put on an act in front of them, as much as I taught Eden to with the scripts that I wrote out for him.
Yet here amongst this raucous group of people who couldn’t be more different — but who are being more genuine than I have been in my life — I feel more seen and accepted than I have been before.
I sprawl in my seat.
I no longer fear that I will be rejected for being myself.
It’s fucking freeing.
Everett clears his throat. “What the dom doesn’t know, doesn’t hurt them…
? Unfortunately, it will hurt me. You promised to be good, Cas.
Mistress has put me in charge of you this evening.
She normally wouldn’t give me permission to go out like this.
Surely, you wouldn’t want me to be disciplined and lose this chance to meet up with our friends? ”
I flinch.
I can’t help the wave of hate that flashes through me toward Kay.
The remembered slash of the belt across my shoulders and ass from Blythe makes me shudder.
Bad boy.
Red, red, red.
It doesn’t matter how many times Everett assures me that he has consensually given Kay this much control over his life — that he needs it for his anxiety — I still struggle, when I hear him talk about it.
Everett is athletically built with beautiful, large honey eyes and long, straight white hair that falls to his waist. I am always jealous of his leather trousers, boots, and sweeping leather coat.
I am more jealous of the thick, leather collar around his neck but am trying to hide it from Robyn.
I am desperate to reach up and touch my bare neck, circling it with my hand.
I force my fingers to remain clutched around my warm cup.
Cassian’s eyes fill with tears.
This is why Kay is so gentle with her Kitten, when compared to how she treats Everett.
Everett holds out his hand, and Cassian dives into his arms, nuzzling against him gratefully. “I know that you’ll be a good boy.”
“I will,” Cassian promises.
“And are you both okay?” I assess Everett for injuries.
I can’t help it.
I check in with Everett every week. After the abuse that I suffered from Blythe, it circles my head that I could be missing the same happening to my new friends.
Everett doesn’t talk to many people. D’Angelo told me that. Outside his partners, he’s isolated as well.
I wish that I’d had anyone to check in with me, when I’d been with Blythe. I was innocent back then, barely eighteen. I had no idea what correct BDSM etiquette was, what made a good or bad dom, or what tipped into abuse.
Now, I am learning it from D’Angelo.
Finally, I have a group of people around me at this table who I can openly talk to about things.
It’s everything I’ve needed. It’s better than a bloody dream.
Cassian bounces on his seat. “I’m good. I attended three lectures, and my course is going well. Kay is happy with me. She fed me chocolates in bed this morning as a treat.”
“She’s always treating you with candies in bed,” Everett mutters.
“But these were my favorite fudge ones.”
“As long as you’re happy.” Everett’s stern expression gentles.
“I’m not hurt, Shay. My Mistress was rather strict with me.
I fell behind with my chores because things have been busy at my shop.
But that’s a time management problem, which she is helping me with.
She sat down with me after my punishment and sorted out ways for me to solve it. She always does.”
My jaw clenches at the mention of punishment.
Yet Everett looks fine. In fact, he appears calm and content.
His dynamic is different than mine, but it works for him.
“You’re okay, yeah?” I press.
Everett pushes his long hair behind his shoulder, before he leans closer to me to whisper, “My ass is sore, but the rest of me is very, very motivated not to become lazy with my chores again. Surprising how that works, right?”
When he laughs, I relax.
Robyn is watching us closely.
She is sitting next to me at a table in the café. I love that she has chosen to match our scarlet t-shirt and black jeans like we belong together, although mine have rips in them.
She is wearing the same eyeliner as well.
We had fun doing each other’s makeup and nail varnish for a change. It was brave of her to trust me.
Or foolish.
I glance down at my steel gray nails that clutch the cup, then over at Robyn’s scarlet ones, which she is tapping on the table.
I wince.
I struggled to concentrate because I was excited about coming out tonight to the first official meeting of our Bay Rebels Sub Group. Robyn’s sloppy, smudged red manicure paid the price; the varnish bleeds over her nails’ edges.
Robyn valiantly insisted that she didn’t want to redo them because she loved them anyway because I’d done it.
She’s going to make an amazing mum.
I catch myself, flushing at the thought.
Shit, where did that come from?
Robyn turns her head and catches my eye.
She smiles.
My heart bloody melts.
I hurriedly take a long slurp of tea.
Robyn’s brow furrows in confusion.
I busy myself like I am looking around at the closed café, which Cassian runs along with his college studies. Eden tells me that it is themed after the book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
The bookcases are built out of giant playing cards, while they are guarded by chess pieces. White Rabbit sculptures pose by the door anxiously checking their watches.
Vases of red roses stand in the middle of the tables.
My nose scrunches up at the rich, mingling scents of coffee, tea, and sweet pastries.
D’Angelo owns the place. He helped Cassian to set it up, when Cassian first arrived here.
“This is for all of you.” Cassian pulls a glittery emerald embossed envelope out of his pocket.
The envelope has a single ruby, high-heeled shoe, which looks like the type of thing Kay would wear on the front, beneath the line that is shaped in a rainbow SOMEWHERE UNDER YOUR BED.
I take the envelope automatically, blinking in surprise. “Ehm, thanks. This is…?”
To my surprise, Robyn whoops, snatching the envelope from me. “An invitation to your next fetish event, right? The Wonderful Wizard of Oz themed one?”
Cassian nods enthusiastically, and his kitten ears flop. “Eden and I have been exchanging emails about books. He suggested it.”
My eyes widen.
I didn’t know that my brother was part of an online book club.
Running baking and book groups and even organizing fetish events… I better not tell Eden that he’s turned into a people person, otherwise his brain will short circuit. I bet that he hasn’t realized yet.
I smile at the thought that Cassian seems to understand my brother.
Cassian also struggles to make friends at college. He’s painfully shy, although he’s comfortable enough in our friendship group.
I hate the thought that someone as soft as Cassian may be avoiding the other students at college because he’s either being bullied or ignored like Eden was.
“I’m designing the decorations for the event. This will be a dark, twisted Oz.” Everett catches my eye. “You’ll be pleased to know that there will be a lot of leather.”
“Thank you for your service,” I say. “Will your brilliant shop be providing costumes that we can buy or hire?”
Everett runs one of my favorite shops in Freedom, the 1001 Fantasies boutique.
He’s bloody talented.