Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
ev
“Do I have any hobbies?”
“What kind of question is that?” Sergio asked.
Kara frowned hard while she slurped on the unicorn milkshake she had ordered with extra toppings despite Mónica’s reminder that all that dairy only made her period cramps worse. “Shopping is a hobby for some people. And, like, meeting up at cafés. Kink, too.”
“Trash reality TV,” Sergio piped in.
I blushed. Hard. The last part was supposed to be a guilty pleasure I’d shared to get out of a dare one day. Apparently, Sergio had clung to the fact.
In my defense, there wasn’t a lot to do when living as part of my family, and reality TV made it easier to start conversations when I needed to show face in the sort of charity galas and functions that made me want to crawl out of my skin with discomfort.
They were also, for some weird reason, an acceptable programme in military bases, so it gave me an easy topic to keep Santos for hours on the phone.
“But is all that enough?”
“Where is this coming from?” Mónica asked.
It was just Sergio, Kara, and Mónica today.
Sergio and Kara had been dominating the conversation while trying to figure out which servers were the ones who added extra whipped cream when they asked for it.
However, I had had days now to worry about the texts with Santos.
The whole thing about hobbies. I had mostly gotten over trying to take over and fix everything for him, but I was not getting over the worry that maybe his therapist would tell me the same thing.
Did people even have proper hobbies like they did on TV, or was that another lie to idealize what adulting looked like?
Because it was Mónica asking, however, I couldn’t just ask that question out loud.
Mommy Dommes—even if they didn’t actually use the Mommy title—were some of the worst at letting go of something.
I knew it was only a matter of time before they all folded Santos into the group the same way they had done with me, and the same way they were doing with everyone who had become part of a dynamic with one of them.
That meant she couldn’t be getting ideas about my self-esteem, or insecurities, or anything else she’d then think she needed to share with him.
It was a work in progress, and I felt like I was failing more than half of the time, but dammit, Santos should be focusing on his therapy appointments, and his…life.
The only problem was that I was still a terrible liar, and Sergio was here.
Mónica might realize I was lying, but she wouldn’t push for the truth.
Sergio absolutely would, and the only thing that would make my spiraling worse was if random people overheard any of it because volume control wasn’t really anyone’s forte at this table.
“Just something Santos said.” I cleared my throat. “About finding hobbies for himself.”
It seemed important to clarify that he hadn’t been saying anything about my life and my own lack—or not?—of hobbies.
“Great, now I’m going to be freaking out because I don’t know what my hobbies are, either,” Sergio grumbled while grabbing his phone. “Abel is going to be pissed, just saying. You owe me so many milkshakes.”
“Uh, that’s fine.”
Not that I thought Abel was actually going to be pissed or feel anything other than nauseatingly fond of Sergio.
I could pay for milkshakes, though. I actually did, more than half of the time.
When Sergio didn’t manage to cover the bill while I was in the bathroom or distracted by talking with someone else.
He valued his independence more than people assumed by looking at him and how he clung to his Daddy the second he was within reach.
I kind of did the same with Santos, so I got it. No judgment.
I still wished he’d let me use the money on a more permanent basis.
“You have hobbies, little one.” Mónica shook her head before she started counting them on her left hand. “Tentacles and monster dildos. Drawing outside of your job. Going to the beach. Artisan markets. Glitter.”
“Is glitter a hobby?” Kara pursed her lips. “I think that’s taking it a step too far, Ma’am. Respectfully.”
“It is when you’re him.”
“He’s right here,” Sergio pouted, “and I don’t think that’s fair, Ma’am. I’ll get back on everything else another day.”
“Uh, guys?” I grimaced. “Can we focus on me today, please?”
Mónica gave me a sympathetic look I didn’t want to read into. “You’re into fashion and makeup and everything else Sergio and Kara mentioned. And, most importantly, you have the means to explore and easy access to every other hobby out there you want to try.”
“I don’t think I want to try anything,” I mumbled, “but isn’t that bad?”
“Are you happy with your life?”
“That’s not…” I licked my lips. “It’s complicated.”
I was happy with the people in my life, and with Santos. I wasn’t happy about my bank account, but I acknowledged I was lucky to have it. I was also lucky my parents hadn’t disowned me or sent me to a training camp or anything else like Santos’s basically did.
I shivered.
My mother texted me again to say they’d be at the house in two weeks. It had filled me with dread. It still did.
Was I happy when I still felt so out of breath, on such a short leash when it came to them?
Was I selfish for not knowing the answer to the question? Too privileged to know how good I had it, even though I tried to take the steps to unlearn all of it?
“Do you want a hug?” Kara asked.
It brought me back. Shit. I’d spent too long in my head, and they’d clearly been expecting me to elaborate on the complicated part. Only, I couldn’t.
Mónica might understand a few things—her family had some money, and she might be sympathetic to the feeling of being strangled by family members since she worked with them.
It was hard to explain.
“It’s fine.”
I sighed. I just had to get out of this funk and focus on the things that did bring me happiness. Something close to it. What even was happiness?
Ugh.
Kara didn’t get up to hug me, but she squeezed my arm. She had very soft skin. Warm, too.
I hated when I got in a philosophical mood. It never ended well.
“What’s going on with you?”
See?
I knew it.
It only made things worse.
I just wanted to exist and wear cute clothes and have someone obsessed with the idea of fucking me, and yeah, I had it, but was it enough?
Society seemed to say it wasn’t, that I needed more things outside of my relationship and my sheer existence.
I just didn’t know if it was one of those things where society got it wrong and I had to deconstruct the idea and create my own, or not.
I didn’t know how to find an answer to the question.
“Do you think my parents are coming so soon after last time because of me?”
Santos tilted his head to the side. “I’d assume they always visit because of you.”
I snorted. Wouldn’t that be a nice thought to have? “Right.”
“Babes…” Before I could complain or get more irrationally upset, Santos lifted my feet to his lap and started massaging the soles. Just like that. “What is it?”
“They didn’t really address anything last time, and now they’re going to be back, and I’m panicking.”
I was panicking about more things, but he didn’t need to hear about those yet.
Santos would take over in the same way he accused me of doing, except I didn’t have the heart to tell him no, and I’d only end up feeling worse for adding more stuff he had to worry about.
It wasn’t conducive to anything, to any stage where I’d feel like what we had was balanced and not me taking over his entire life.
“I’m sure it’s fine.” He spoke while digging his thumbs into my soles. I didn’t know when he had learned to do this, but it was taking everything not to start moaning like the wanton slut we pretended that I was. “You’ve been on top of everything, and they love you, Ever.”
I sighed. “I know.”
I knew, and I didn’t at the same time. On a theoretical level, I knew that they wouldn’t have stuck around if they didn’t love me.
I’d always been a difficult child. When I wasn’t surprising them with makeup or my clothes now, I was the shy kid who didn’t thrive at the social functions they forced me into.
Not to mention, it was hard to feel like they wanted me anywhere near when they’d kept me in boarding schools since it was legal for them to do so, and as soon as I was out, they couldn’t have run fast enough to come up with a million travels and plans that meant they never were up north.
It might be selfish—parents were adults, too; they deserved to have a life—but when I was questioning everything? The sting of rejection didn’t quite leave me.
“You can talk with them, you know?”
“Right.” Talking with them had never fixed anything.
Sometimes I wondered if that had to do with why I still had issues communicating.
Saying I never had a good example at home was an understatement.
I supposed they tried every now and then.
It was just useless. “Don’t mind me, I’m just not in the mood today. ”
“That’s fine,” he promised. “And it will be fine when they come here next week, too.”
“Sure.” I reclined against the couch. Santos had been here listening to one of his audiobooks while he worked on a notebook he’d brought with him about three weeks ago now? Time was soup. “Mónica wants me to help run a workshop at the club.”
Santos stopped his massage to raise an eyebrow in my direction. “She does?”
“I know, right?”
It was a terrible idea, but she’d texted me after that day at the café, because I guessed she’d been obsessing about it in her not-Mommy way, and now I kept thinking about it myself.
It really was a terrible idea, but she’d used words like getting more involved in the community, and engaging, and all the effort and pride, and… I might be warming up to it.
“On what?”
“It’s up to me. Chastity or feminization, I think.” They were the topics I was more familiar with, unless anyone would be interested in a workshop on how to fuck up with every Dom you scened with. “Uh, would you be there?”
I held my breath. Santos hadn’t stepped into the club yet.
I’d vowed to leave it alone. It was fine.
He didn’t have to join the club or be into any of it.
Plumas could be my space like it had always been.
But I was the same greedy person I’d proved I was ever since I met him at the airport, the one that was apparently going to push for everything until he gave in because that was who he was, and then eat myself from the inside with worry that he was going to leave the second he opened his eyes to it.
“Do you want me to?”
“I mean…” I froze, throat dry. “If you want?”
I was a coward on top of a greedy and selfish asshole.
Perfect.
“I’ll be there.”
“Yeah?”
“Of course.” He returned to his foot massage. As if I wasn’t on the verge of imploding from the inside. “Can’t say no to my pretty girl.”
Definitely imploding.
In more ways than one now.