Chapter 6
Chapter Six
The first thing Max Rivers had noticed when he stepped into Obsidian was the bassline.
It was low and steady, thrumming through the bones of the club like a second pulse.
The air smelled of polished leather and anticipation, sweat and spunk.
The throb of the bassline was accompanied by the sounds of play: cries, moans, gasps, whimpers, the thud of a paddle impacting against flesh, the crack of a whip or a flogger as it sliced through the air…
Max scanned the room. He wasn’t there to hunt or cruise, or even to connect.
He was there to contain.
Obsidian wasn’t a place for chance encounters. Every scene was negotiated, every desire catalogued. Max liked that about the place.
Precision mattered.
Boundaries mattered.
A flogger slapped against skin somewhere to his left, the sound clean but muted, shooting straight down Max’s spine, forcing a memory to the surface. A smaller room.
Jordan bent forward, his shoulders trembling.
More, he’d whispered. I need more.
Max shook it off, his jaw set. That was then.
This was now.
He turned his attention to the guy waiting on the cross, his eyes already soft with anticipation. Negotiation had been clean: impact, breath play, aftercare. The rules were clear.
No honorifics. No Sir. No emotional entanglement.
Chains rattled as Max lifted them into place. The sound was innocuous here, a familiar background noise. But in his head, it echoed too closely.
You’re not my Dom. You’re my jailer.
He steadied himself. His voice, when it came, was calm, commanding. “Breathe for me.”
The guy obeyed instantly, his chest rising, his lips parting with a sigh, the sound of obedience and surrender. For a moment, Max was fully present, guiding the rhythm, shaping the scene.
Precision.
Control.
But then a whimper broke free, high-pitched and raw. It snagged at him like barbed wire, dragging him back to Jordan’s tear-streaked face, his body shaking in Max’s arms. His voice breaking as he begged for care Max didn’t know how to give.
Max tightened his grip on the flogger until the leather bit his palm. He forced himself to see the man before him, not the ghost.
This isn’t Jordan.
He leaned in and dropped his voice to a near growl. “Good boy.”
The submissive shuddered, his head falling forward, every line of his body visibly melting under the words.
And just like that, the ghosts scattered. The only sound that mattered was the thud of leather against flesh, the rhythm steady as a metronome, and Max’s own voice, low, relentless, the centre of gravity in the storm.
When the scene ended, the guy whispered thanks, still glowing as he drifted away into the haze of the club.
Max stayed behind, the silence pressing against him harder than the noise ever had. Chains swayed, metal on metal. The echoes would always be there.
But control was louder.
Max never lingered, and this night was no exception.
Before conversation could bloom into connection, before anyone could mistake the rhythm of the scene for intimacy, he slipped out of the club into the cold night air.
The sub’s thanks still lingered in his ears as Obsidian’s bass faded behind him, replaced by the city’s muted hum of tyres on wet tarmac, shattered now and then by sirens from a distance.
For a moment, he could still smell the leather, still hear the faint clink of chains.
Niall’s flat didn’t feel like home yet, but Max didn’t plan on getting too comfortable: this wasn’t a long-term arrangement. Niall’s secondment in the US would end at some point, and then he’d want his flat and space back.
Until then, it was Max’s bolt hole, the location perfect for getting to the rehearsals he hoped wouldn’t be far off.
We’ve got a possible four. And that only took two weeks.
After the noise of the city, the silence in the enclosed space was immediate.
He stripped off the leather, left it draped over a chair like a shed skin, and poured himself a whisky.
The ice cracked sharply, a sound that sent his mind hurtling back to the club, to the past. He swallowed hard, ignoring it.
The whisky didn’t warm him.
The flat might have been quiet, but it wasn’t still. Floorboards creaked as he crossed to the window. He stared out at the city lights until the glass blurred. His hands still felt hot from the scene, but the flat was cold, stripped of voices, of need.
With a sigh, he reached for his phone. The voice memo app was always waiting. He hummed low, grounding himself in sound, first a bass line, steady and resonant, then another layer, harmony folding over harmony, precise, controlled. Music built the scaffolding he couldn’t allow in love.
Then Jordan was back, sprawled across his lap, his dark curls damp with sweat and tears.
The first sub who had ever called him Sir.
You think you’ve left the past behind, but sometimes it’s not done with you.
It had begun perfectly. Hours of negotiation, careful boundaries. The way Jordan melted under his voice, the way he surrendered not only his body but his trust. They’d spent nights talking until dawn, their sessions bleeding into intimacy.
But what had started sharp and clean began to fray. Jordan wanted: more intimacy, more him. Submission in every hour, with every breath. Not just rules in the dungeon, but care in the quiet spaces too.
Max had tried. God, he’d tried. He gave what he thought Jordan needed. Structure. More protocols. More commands. More control, even when Max was exhausted, even when the hollow inside him yawned wider.
But rules weren’t what Jordan had been asking for.
And when he’d wept in Max’s arms, Max had smoothed his hair and whispered I’ve got you. Except he knew deep down it wasn’t true. He wasn’t giving Jordan comfort; he was keeping him contained.
The memory cracked like a whip: Jordan’s face streaked with tears, his voice raw as he spat the words Max could never forget.
“You’re not my Dom. You’re my jailer.”
That night had gutted Max. He’d left the collar behind and walked out into the cold with resolve burning in his chest to never again go through such an experience. There would be no love, no entanglements.
Scenes, yes. Contracts, yes. But nothing that could hollow him out.
The rules he’d carved into himself held firm. No one had stayed the night since then, and absolutely no one called him Daddy.
No one will ever get close enough to break me again.
Max sprawled in the chair, staring at the ceiling. He whispered into the silence, low, certain, and unconvincing.
“I’m not your Daddy.”
The flat gave no answer, only the faint groan of the radiator, like a chain dragged across stone.
The whisky glass was half-empty when Max’s phone lit up, Theo’s name on the screen.
He thought about ignoring it, then dismissed the idea. He never ignored Theo. He thumbed the answer button. “Yeah?”
Theo’s voice was low, clipped, with that hint of Edinburgh restraint Max always found strangely comforting. “You busy?”
Max watched the city lights stutter across the windowpane. “Nope. I was out a while ago though.”
There was a pause. Theo knew him too well. “Did you do a scene tonight?”
“Yeah.” A beat. “It was fine.”
Theo didn’t push, though Max could feel the unspoken questions hanging between them. Instead, he shifted gears. “Julian’s audition was something, wasn’t it? He’s got precision under all the theatrics. If he can rein it in, he’ll be good.”
Max smirked. “Rein it in? Come on, you loved it. He’s a brat. Sebastian’s got a streak of that too. This could be fun.”
A rustle of papers on the other end, then Theo’s dry tone filled his ear. “You’re not going to flirt with everyone in the group, are you?”
Max chuckled. “Only the ones who flinch when I say ‘good boy’.”
He expected Theo to laugh with him. Instead, silence fell between them. When Theo finally spoke, his tone was soft, bordering on cautious. “Just don’t lose yourself again.”
Max gripped the glass. He stared at the condensation trickling down, watched it break apart under his thumb. “I don’t have anything left to lose.”
Before Theo could answer, he ended the call. The flat was silent again, the city’s pulse muffled by thick walls. Max set the glass down and held his phone close to his mouth. The voice memo app was still recording, its red light glowing.
He hummed again, a low, steady, disciplined sound. But this time, something broke through. Words. A lyric he hadn’t meant to let slip.
You wanted control / so I gave you the fire / but I burned too.
The words hung in the air, fragile as smoke. Max froze, listening to his own voice through the playback, and for a heartbeat he let himself admit the line was more truth than melody.
Then he hit delete. Erased. Gone. No one would ever hear it.
He set the phone down, went over to the bed, and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. His chest rose and fell, his breath heavier than the silence around him. Finally, he whispered into the dark, the words dry in his mouth.
“I’m not your Daddy.”
The ceiling didn’t argue.