Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
ev
Santos didn’t knock on my door. He just spoke to me and waited until I answered. Sometimes he gave it a little kick or a nudge with his knee. Knocking was not a thing.
I didn’t know why it wasn’t, I only knew I couldn’t remember one single instance of him knocking on a door. Rasping on a doorframe might be the closest I’d seen him do.
“I’ll go down in a bit,” I called out anyway.
“Are you okay, Ev? I texted you, but I don’t think you’ve seen it?”
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Sergio.
Sergio was here, and Santos had let him up, which would have been fine, except Sergio was a rambler.
I facepalmed before forcing myself out of the cocoon I’d made in the bed.
Was the house colder than it usually was?
It felt that way. Unless I was actually coming down with something.
It would be my luck, but not the first time.
If I was feeling down about something, that was when my immune system decided to go kaput and let me grab all the bugs and anything else in the air.
Nah.
I was not going to add more to my plate right now. I was just going to open the door, convince Sergio that I was not dying, everything was fine, and I still loved him even if I wouldn’t be a member at Plumas, so he didn’t have to panic.
Of course, Erika was here, too.
Fuck.
I checked the time.
She always worked at the gym on Thursdays at this time. She was wearing athletic gear with the gym’s logo, too.
Sure, she didn’t look like she was going to tie me up to a bedpost, but as much as I respected her and followed her lead for all things kink, I’d always think of her—and León, and Tony, and all the other Domms that didn’t fall under a caretaker role—as scary.
“What are you doing here?”
“Well, you went MIA. What were we supposed to do?” Sergio huffed. Then he tilted his head to the side. “Are you okay? If you’re struggling, I can help you air the room, or clean up, or something. You can join me and Daddy for a beach walk. They help him a lot.”
“Little one,” Erika warned him. From the tone, I bet it wasn’t the first time she had to stop him today.
If she focused on him, though, she didn’t focus on me, so I wasn’t going to jump to the rescue right this moment.
“Give people room to breathe. And maybe ask to walk into a room before badgering with questions.”
“But—” Sergio spluttered. “I live with Daddy, I can tell when someone’s struggling.”
“You, and I bet every human being with a decent amount of empathy,” she drawled.
Then she focused on me. I only saw her wearing heels at the club for workshops and stuff, but even without them, she was taller than me. I didn’t know if she was looking down at me with disapproval or not, but the angle didn’t keep me from fidgeting.
“Uh, hello. Ma’am.”
Did I defer to her with any protocol now? I wasn’t a member anymore. The cancellation had gone through two days ago, exactly twenty-four hours after I’d texted Sir Ismael.
The club had a medium to high protocol, and that meant we referred to people with honorifics and any names people chose. But if I wasn’t a member, did that still apply?
More fidgeting ensued.
“Can we sit down for a minute, Ev?”
“Uh, yeah. Sure.” I appreciated that she gave me the option to keep my room private if I wanted, but I didn’t see the point in hiding an unmade bed from them when I had to be looking way worse than the piece of furniture, so I just stepped to the side and beckoned them in.
“Uh, sorry, I didn’t see your texts. I have been doomscrolling and have all other notifications off. ”
“So you didn’t block me?”
“No.” I felt guilty, though. I suspected there would be a bit of an uproar after I shared in the group chat that I was ending my membership. For some reason, I didn’t think it would involve a house visit. House visits were something we did for other people. Not for me. “I’d never.”
“Okay, good.” With that reassurance, Sergio hopped to the bed and yanked me there with him.
Erika just leaned against the doorframe after checking that there weren’t many places to sit around.
There was a chair by a desk that was a bit dusty because I never used it, but it was quite far from the bed.
“So what was that thing about leaving Plumas?”
I grimaced. Erika was not reacting. She was good at keeping a poker face, though.
She had texted me about an hour after I’d submitted the form to end the membership to confirm I wouldn’t be charged for the next month.
She’d added that she was there to talk if I needed to, but I hadn’t taken her up on the offer.
She had to be so disappointed in me. Every time someone threatened to out me, she’d had to clean up the mess, and she’d had so many talks with me about coming clean to the inner circle and about staying safe, and a million other things.
She had bothered with me more than anyone else would have on her shoes, and I was repaying all her efforts by quitting.
“It’s just what makes sense,” I mumbled. It was basically the same thing I’d said over text. “You know how people tell you that just because you love kids, or dogs, or whatever, it doesn’t mean you should have them? I think that’s me with kink.”
Sergio just blinked at me in utter confusion. “Well, that’s deep.”
I snorted.
I didn’t know when it had started, but I felt comfortable around him. Feeling comfortable meant I tended to use longer sentences and say more of the things I usually kept inside because no one would care to listen anyway.
“So what is it that means you can’t have kink?” Erika pushed off the doorframe then.
“Uh?”
I wasn’t uncomfortable around her, but she intimidated me. I could feel the knot clogging up my throat, my heart racing while I waited for her to berate me, to call me out in ways that I absolutely deserved.
“Usually, that’s said about kids or dogs if people don’t have the emotional maturity, or the time, or the means, to take care of them,” she explained. “So what’s your reason to believe that equivalence?”
I squirmed. “I don’t…I don’t think I can play safely.”
Obviously, it didn’t take long to realize that wasn’t going to be enough to satisfy either of them.
I wish I still had the cocoon that Santos had made with the blankets, but it was destroyed the other night while tossing and turning. I couldn’t get it the same.
It sucked. Cocoons were comforting.
“It’s a lot of different things,” I whispered.
“There’s…the thing you always said about who I am, and my identity.
Yeah, I have gotten better, but it doesn’t work, does it?
If I follow all the steps to keep safe, then I’m stuck with a Dom who doesn’t know my name, can’t see my face, and can’t set up proper aftercare because that would mean exposing myself to risk.
And while that is happening, I’m so caught up on it that I don’t see what’s in front of me, and I don’t reason, and I neglect others, and I refuse to do that. ”
I couldn’t push another word out if I tried. I hoped that rubbing my chest while I worked on slowing my breathing was enough of a signal for them.
If Santos was here, he would’ve already hoisted me up. Maybe he wouldn’t have gotten me out of the room, but the touch would’ve been grounding. Sergio was touching me, his hand on my thigh, but it wasn’t quite the same. It warmed me up, but it didn’t have the same effect.
It was unfair to my friend, though. I didn’t have the same connection with anyone that I had with Santos. Maybe it had to do with all the formative years we’d known each other, or maybe I was the problem, and I hadn’t let them in the way I did him.
“What does that mean?” Sergio broke the silence, of course. “Except today, every time I ask you to come with me somewhere, you do. And you invite us to stuff, too, like when we went shopping, and you come to all the munches, too.”
“Danny didn’t want to go along with the caning stuff,” I argued.
“He basically said that I shouldn’t have a Dom for the wrong reasons, and I think he had a point.
And there’s Santos, too. He’s here, and yeah, it’s cool, but I was so focused on Sir Ismael, I didn’t even think to ask him what had happened that got him discharged, and that’s fucked up. ”
“Okay…” Sergio blinked some more. “That might be a bit fucked up, but like D-types always talk about middle grounds and stuff, like… Ma’am, back me up!”
Erika snorted. “I’m not gonna do such a thing.”
“Why???”
I chuckled.
Sergio was so damn expressive. I loved that about him.
At first, it made me itch too much to relax around him, the comparisons something I couldn’t just get out of my head.
Eventually, I found comfort in how diametrically opposite to me he was.
How he was all too happy to steal the spotlight every single second of the day, while he really fucking cared about what you had to say.
“Because, if someone feels like they can’t set boundaries where they want them, I respect that feeling.” Erika held my gaze as she spoke. I pretended not to shiver. “I just remind them that the door is open for when they get their confidence back.”
I wasn’t sure when that was happening, but I appreciated the sentiment. I’d appreciate it more when I had more time to process.
Which wasn’t happening while they were here, and there was a rasp against the doorframe that had me on edge. A rasp could mean Santos.
“Everyone decent?”
León.
He was here, too.
I was not surviving today.
“I swear, Sir, you need to get your head out of the gutter.” Sergio huffed. “I’m not always fucking someone. Tsk.”
“Well, of course not, Mr. I think I’m a terrible top, please stuff me with your toys instead.”
I snorted, a dry chuckle coming out before I could help it.
Every sub in the club—except for me, obviously—had some sort of banter going on with León and Danny.
Sergio’s with León was my favorite. It only got better the more they played together when he and his Daddy went to León’s cabin to indulge Sergio’s sea monster fantasies in their hot tub.
“You’re so mean.”
“Anyway.” León focused on me. His scrutiny always had me wanting to retreat. Wanting to apologize because I wasn’t good enough. “Your man wants to know if you’re hungry.”
“Uh—”
“Wait, you’re together?” Sergio gasped. “Why was that not a part of your coming clean moment? I need details. Now.”
“We’re—”
“Nuh-uh. You tell me, or I’m gonna psych Jaime on your ass. And do you want that? No. No one does. So, speak.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I complained. The threat of Jaime worked to have me move off the bed, though. “Like, yeah, we’ve fucked, a few times, but see? That’s another thing I ruined, because it started out because Sir Ismael got in my head, and now it’s all wrong, and… It’s nothing.”
It was everything. It just meant nothing because Sir Ismael should’ve never been involved in it, and I didn’t know how to make it right now. How to turn it into everything that meant maybe not everything, but something close.
Sergio cocked his head to the side. “Please, someone tell me he hasn’t done the thing I do when I lash out about someone, and that someone happens to be right behind me.”
Oh, fuck.
I whipped my head around so fast, León had to grab me before I lost balance, but…
Nope. The coast was clear.
“You’re good, pretty boy,” León teased.
I blushed right away. I wasn’t wearing anything special.
I didn’t have gloss on, and I only had a pair of old boxers and one of the more oversized clothes Jaime had picked out for me, but I liked that he called me that.
Not in a kinky way, or in a having a crush on León way—even though I was pretty sure it was a rite of passage for every sub at Plumas. That, or people had no taste.
It was about the casual acceptance.
The problem was casual acceptance made me tear up now, apparently. It also meant that, in one sudden movement, tears were falling out, and I was clinging to León and his forest smell like it was a fucking lifeline, and he had to be hating me for it.
Sure, outwardly, he was hugging me back and making all the right soothing noises, but I wasn’t close with him.
This was embarrassing.
I was embarrassing.
It was bad enough that somehow this turned into a group hug, and now I was heating up very quickly, and that meant breathing became a struggle, but I didn’t know what to do about it because if I said something, they would pull away, and I didn’t want that.
“Word of advice?” León whispered in my ear. My fingers trembled where I was clutching his hoodie. “That man lights up every time he says your name. You don’t need an intermediary to get him where you want him.”
“But?”
There had to be a but.
Or, actually, there may not be, but I wasn’t used to León addressing me, or saying more than five words in my direction. He was the type that observed and then went with the flow of whatever you were willing to give him, and obviously, that hadn’t always been a lot when it came to me.
“I don’t know him well enough to give you a but.”
Right.
He’d taken too long to let the words out, though. It might be the other two around us, or something else he wasn’t saying, but I didn’t buy that it was so simple. Which meant I was right to be on edge and pulling the brakes on everything else.
Right?