Chapter 14
Ash
If you’d told me a year ago that I would be in a Dominant/submissive relationship with my coach, who was thirteen years older than me and a man, I would have laughed in your face.
I didn't even know what that was–Thayer had to explain it to me. I thought I was just having a little bi-awakening for him, but it was actually a whole cultural thing…and I was totally fucking into it.
Like, really into it.
Like, Thayer calling me baby and holding on to my neck like that were two of my new favorite things these days.
Thayer explained the basics to me in the morning, over breakfast that he made for me–what it was called and what it traditionally looked like. He explained it one way, and I was super not into it at all–I didn’t want to be hit or bottle-fed–but then he explained that there were types within it.
Thayer was a soft dom.
He didn't want to hit me or be called daddy–none of that. He liked control. He liked his hand on me, having the exact effect that it did–that was apparently rare.
That two people in this were randomly the same type, but we were.
“Hey–no more using it in the locker room,” I added, making Thayer chuckle as he handed me more pancakes. “That was rough–I felt really weird after and had to take a cold shower to make my boner go down–”
“You felt weird after because of me, and I’m sorry,” he hummed, nudging his head at my plate for me to start eating again.
“I shouldn't have done it, especially when I'd already suspected you might be into this, but you felt weird because I sent you away–it was a punishment.
I shouldn't have done it in public–among other reasons, to not do it again in the locker room–I won't do that again.”
We’d been going back and forth for a while now, questions about what this was from me and setting boundaries for us both–hence how the hitting conversation played out. I liked Thayer, and I was honest about that, which seemed to make him happy–happy enough that he asked me on a date.
What a weird few days it had been…
A few weeks ago, I was suffering through boring, painful sex with Callie, taking her on dates when she’d tell me it had been too long since we went on one. Every second of dating her felt like I was walking uphill on a bum leg, but Thayer?
The only part that actually felt hard or wrong was how badly I knew this would blow up his life.
When it got out.
“Should probably break up with Callie,” I mumbled, shoveling another forkful of pancakes into my mouth with a huff.
“Ash!” he said suddenly, catching my attention with his sudden outburst. “You came over here last night and didn’t think about that before?”
“We haven’t talked in a while…and I kind of had other priorities when I came over here,” I muttered, sinking in my seat a little. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t–” He cut himself off, letting out a sigh to calm himself down. “You don’t have to be sorry, Ash, but you do need to do something here. I’m not telling you to break up with her, but you need to decide if you want to and tell me.”
“Oh, I want to,” I chuckled, cutting it off when I didn't even see a ghost of a smile on his face–he was upset. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “We haven’t talked since that day I even told you about her, and I just kind of assumed we were done–I want to be done. I want you.”
My insides twisted a little, but not in the confusing way it had been for him.
I'd been so confused by the things he stirred up in me, but now I could plainly see my insides were twisting because he was upset, and I caused it–I didn’t want him upset with me.
Thayer pushed back his chair and stood, bending over to kiss the top of my head. “I want you, too, baby…as stupid and dangerous as it is,” he mumbled into my hair, kissing it again and walking off to wash dishes.
◆◆◆
“You’re such an asshole!” Callie shouted, throwing another one of my textbooks at the wall. “I’ve been waiting for you to get your head out of your ass for weeks, and this was what you came up with?”
Callie threw a framed picture of my family and me at the wall, only barely missing my head. It cracked on impact and shattered all over the floor, followed by a flurry of papers when she threw my Econ notebook at me.
Maybe there was a better way to have approached this, but I was pretty sure dumping her would always have gone this way.
She was kind of crazy–I just used to like crazy. It was different.
Now I had a better different.
“I’m sorry, okay?” I asked, dodging another throw of books at my head. “I thought we were done anyway! You haven’t answered a text in weeks, and that’s like the basic requirement of a girlfriend–”
“So you fucked a guy?” she shouted, jaw dropped and eyes wide. “I didn’t text you back for a while, so along with cheating on me, you fucked a man–are you fucking insane?”
My mom really did raise me with the honesty is the best policy, but maybe I should have sugarcoated this one.
“Okay, I didn't fuck a guy,” I grumbled, rolling my eyes as irritation for her grew–she always put words in my mouth. “You weren’t talking to me, I assumed we were broken up, and I started having feelings for a guy…who I then let suck me off–very different things.”
“So, you’re gay now? That’s why you couldn’t get it up for me?” she scoffed, hand on her hip and a pissed-as-hell expression on her face. “You didn’t seem so gay when you were fucking me last year with no problem.”
“Hey! I got hurt,” I argued, shouting a little louder than I might have meant, but she was pushing my buttons. “I told you that was it, and it was–I’m bi or something. I still think you’re pretty, and I'd fuck you right now if–”
“If you weren’t dating a man–glad to know you found morals for him and not me,” she scoffed, shoving my shoulder. “Whatever–go fuck yourself, Ash. Good luck–I heard fags in pro sports do great.”
My stomach dropped in a very foreign way. I couldn’t put my finger on what that new feeling was sitting at the base of my gut, but I knew that I definitely didn’t like it.
Callie stormed out of my dorm, for hopefully the last time, slamming the door behind her. I stomped over and locked it, kicking it once to vent some anger, but all it did was hurt my fucking foot.
Fuck her–that wasn't cool. I got that technically cheating on her was also not cool, come on! Calling me a slur and pointing out a fact that I already knew?
That was low.
There weren't very many openly out guys in pro sports–Thayer was technically out, but he wasn't open about it at work. When he played, his teams knew, but the press didn’t, and fans didn’t, because that would have made him the first fully out hockey player in the NHL.
There were rumors for other players, but none of them ever fessed up–at least not until they retired.
It was very much a consequence I understood. I knew what dating Thayer would do to me–I just no longer cared. I cared that he didn’t get fired–he was the best coach I'd ever had, unrelated to the extracurriculars he was doing with me.
I cared that his reputation wasn’t shot, but mine?
I cared very little about it.
Times had changed, and I was a mean motherfucker–I knew that. If anyone was going to strut around the NHL with a fag poster on their back, then it could easily be me. I had thick enough skin, and sure, maybe it would turn certain teams off from drafting me, but not all of them.
Still, fuck Callie.
By the time I was at the rink, I was still heated.
I was trying to let it go because she just wasn’t worth being this angry over–a concept I'd never really grasped before, but was starting to now.
I was still irritable and upset, which put off my usual aura of don't fuck with me when I stormed into the locker room.
My routine was perfectly in sync before all this–Thayer knew it well by now, and even sucked my soul out of my body before sending me home to do homework and dump Callie.
I should have been fine, but I forgot to knock on the wall when I came in, and I felt all out of whack!
“Ash!” Thayer called out when I passed his office, hell-bent on getting back on track by knocking on the wall by the door.
I didn’t answer, but that didn’t stop him from coming out after me and following me curiously. I opened the door, stepped outside of it, let it shut, reopened it, and knocked on the wall.
It settled a little part of me, but not enough.
“Ash,” Thayer said calmly, slowly, stopping me from barreling back down the hallway to get changed. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing–leave me alone,” I muttered, pushing out of his hold.
Part of me expected him to grab me, stop me, but that would go against the boundaries we just set that morning.
A larger part of me was sad that he didn't even try.
The team left me alone while I got changed, letting me go about my routine with no more mistakes. I made it out to the ice unscathed, but still so angry, my skin overheating and tight–I felt like I was boiling on the inside.
Now that I knew how easy it was to tame the anger and how nice it could feel once it was gone, I hated it–I hated this part of me. I still had the passion and the fire that came with it, but I no longer liked the sear of the anger left behind.