Chapter 27. Jude
The restaurant is the kind of place that means money.
Dimmed chandeliers cast everything in a buttery haze, and the tablecloths are really white.
I'm sitting at a corner table that Ford reserved three days in advance, folding my napkin into progressively smaller triangles while my knee bounces against the table leg hard enough to make the water glasses tremble.
I check my watch. Seven twelve. Alfie said seven. Alfie always says seven and means seven twenty. A fact I've known for six years and still can't seem to remember.
"You're going to shred that napkin," Ford says beside me. He's in a crisp button-down. Navy, no tie, the top button undone. His beard is freshly groomed. He looks ridiculously good.
"I'm not shredding it. It's origami. You always say you like structure, so appreciate this too."
He laughs.
The restaurant smells like truffle and browned butter and expensive wine. The couple at the next table is having a quiet argument. A jazz standard plays from hidden speakers.
"He's going to love you," I say to Ford, and it comes out too fast, too eager. Alfie hasn't gone to BratWorld. He said he couldn't bring himself to go. But he invited us to dinner instead, as an apology. A really good one, because the guy almost never leaves his cave, also known as his house.
"You've said that three times."
"Because it's three times true."
"You've also bitten your thumbnail down to the quick. Stop that."
I tell him about Alfie's ex-Dom. "If it's hard for me to get over a good Dom, imagine what he went through with an abusive one.
The guy was an asshole. He got banned from BratWorld.
He was manipulative, he cheated on Alfie, he tried to make everybody hate him.
He used to lie, gaslight. This is all to say that it's very dangerous to be in BDSM.
Some dynamics are hard to get over. They mess with our heads.
We're really vulnerable as subs. As Doms too, but imagine as subs. "
I look at my thumb. He's right. A thin crescent of skin is ragged where I've been worrying it without noticing, and I tuck my hands under my thighs like a child caught stealing.
Ford's hand finds my knee under the table.
Firm, warm. A single press that says I'm here and behave and it's going to be fine. My leg stops bouncing.
Then the door opens, and the whole room tilts.
He's wearing a suit I've never seen before. It’s beige, tailored.
His mustard-colored hair is pushed to one side, and his olive skin glows against the white of his shirt collar.
He's not wearing a tie either. Heads turn.
Not all of them, but enough. He's that good-looking, and he's always smirking and winking.
A server carrying a tray of oysters loses his rhythm for half a step.
Alfie walks around like he's at Paris Fashion Week.
Like there will be paparazzi any minute.
And honestly, I've caught people taking pictures of him when he wasn't looking.
Alfie doesn't notice. Or rather, he notices everything and chooses to acknowledge nothing.
I watch Ford watch him approach. One predator recognizing another's territory.
"Alfie," I say, standing, and my voice does something embarrassing: it lifts, pitches up, goes bright. I hug him before he can deflect it, and he lets me, his arms coming around my shoulders. I'm one of the few people he lets hug him.
He turns to Ford, and they both look like they're in a negotiation.
Alfie extends his hand. "Ford. The man himself."
"Alfie." Ford takes it. They sit. A waiter fills his glass immediately with water.
"So. You're the one who's managed to tame our little chaos demon."
"Tame might be generous," Ford says. "Redirected, maybe. At most."
"Oh?" Alfie says. Just that.
The appetizers arrive. Tuna tartare with avocado mousse for me, burrata for Alfie, and for Ford, cured meats and pickled things.
"Remember the champagne incident?" Alfie says, and I groan, dropping my face into my hands.
"No. We are not telling that story."
"We are absolutely telling that story. Ford deserves to know what he's gotten himself into." Alfie turns to Ford. "Glynn. You know Glynn?"
"The gatekeeper," Ford says. "Short, ginger, silver chain. Runs BratWorld like a small, terrifying country."
"That's the one. So Glynn had this rule: no open containers on the main floor. Simple rule. Clear rule. Written on a sign. And Jude…"
"I was twenty-five and I was an idiot!"
"Jude decided that a magnum of Moet was not technically an 'open container' if you were drinking directly from the bottle."
Ford turns to me. The look on his face is indescribable. Part horror, part awe. I chuckle.
"In my defense," I say, "I was right. Technically."
"He was right technically," Alfie confirms. "He was wrong in every other way. Glynn banned us both for a week. Me, because I was holding the second bottle. And I was his Dom! The nerve."
"There were two bottles?"
"There were three. We don't talk about the third one."
Ford laughs. Dinner arrives.
Then Alfie tells another story. "There was one time Jude thought it was a great idea to get a couple of brats to watch porn without their Doms' permission.
One of the brats was Glynn. The other was Jude himself.
They were watching it in the middle of the club.
Just watching, not doing anything else, but obviously to get the Doms' attention. Well, they got what they wanted."
"What did you guys do?" Ford asks, extremely amused.
"Hm. I don't think this is PG enough for this room. But there were consequences. Finishing what they started, basically. Collectively. Forcefully," Alfie says. To my surprise, Ford laughs again. Something tightens low in my stomach.
"You're the ringleader of the brats, aren't you?" Ford asks me.
"I used to be, for sure," I say, and I don't feel as sad anymore when I think about how things were before.
Alfie sounds a little sad, though. He mentions Glynn again, more carefully now. He explains, for Ford's benefit, how his dynamic with Glynn shifted. How they were Dom and sub for two years, how it was good until it wasn't.
"I had some problems with my ex-Dom…" Alfie says.
He doesn't look sad, but the story is. It was terrible.
"And it reflected on Glynn and me, unfortunately.
I deeply regret it. I couldn't manage both.
But I'm glad Glynn was able to move on." His voice doesn't change, doesn't crack, but his hand moves to his own neck.
"Glynn still wears the chain. I think it means something different now. Something just for them."
Ford nods. He doesn't ask the obvious questions, and I love him for that.
"Ford directs the choir like a general," I tell Alfie, steering into safer waters. "He made Helen, seventy-two-year-old Helen, cry once because her diction was sloppy."
"Her diction was sloppy. And she thanked me afterward."
"She thanked you because she was afraid of you."
"She thanked me because she sounded better. There's a difference."
I laugh. Alfie laughs too.
"You do look scary, Ford. I was wrong," Alfie says. Ford raises his eyebrows.
"Oh?" he asks. Alfie nods while he drinks his white wine.
"Because you're a real Dom, not one of the fake ones who are always trying to prove themselves, and I know what that means. True discipline," Alfie says. Ford looks mildly embarrassed, but it's true, and he knows it. "Good. It's exactly what Jude needs."
“Thank you. It’s high praise coming from another seasoned Dom such as you,” Ford says. Alfie smirks.
Then, he swirls his wine. "So. Edging or denial? With him."
I nearly choke on my water. "Excuse me, I'm right here."
They both ignore me.
"Both," Ford says. "Denial is more effective for correction. Edging is more effective for breaking down the attitude."
"Interesting. I always found denial alone was enough. But I never had him for more than a scene or two, so the stakes were different." Alfie tilts his head, considering. "What about impact? He'll tell you he can take anything."
"It’s all talk. But, to be fair, he can take a lot, but I don’t like to break him too much, or it stops being fun."
"Hello? I am literally sitting between you two."
Alfie doesn't even glance at me. "That's good. You caught that fast. It took Emmett months."
"I pay attention," Ford says simply.
"The hardest part with him," Alfie continues, and he leans forward slightly, his voice dropping, "is that he'll use bratting to avoid vulnerability.
He'll escalate and escalate until you punish him, because punishment is easier than saying what he actually feels.
If you let him turn every conversation into a scene, he never has to be honest."
Ford is quiet for a moment. Then he nods. "I know. I redirect him when I see it. We talk first. The punishment comes after if needed."
Alfie sits back. Something in his expression settles. Relief.
"Okay," Alfie says. "Good."
"I have feelings, you know," I say. "And ears. And I'm right here. At this table. That I'm sitting at. With both of you. Who are discussing me like I'm a horse at auction."
"A very pretty horse," Alfie says, not looking at me.
"Excellent temperament," Ford adds. "Tends to bite."
"I hate you both," I say, but my face is on fire and something in my chest is glowing, because two people who love me just agreed, without saying it, that they're going to keep me safe. Even from myself.
Dessert arrives. A crème br?lée for me, a dark chocolate torte for Alfie, nothing for Ford because Ford doesn't eat sugar after seven, a fact that I find both admirable and psychotic.
He drinks an espresso instead, and the small white cup looks absurd in his large hands, like a toy from a dollhouse.
His phone buzzes on the table. He glances at the screen.
"Excuse me," he says, already rising. "It's my mom. Probably just church stuff, but with her, you never know." He's moving before he finishes the sentence, the phone pressed to his ear, his free hand already gesturing even though Martha can't see him.
Alfie watches him go. Then he turns to me.
The shift is instantaneous. His public face drops away, the composed, witty, impenetrable surface, and underneath is the Alfie I know. The one who sits on the phone with me for hours when I can't speak.
He leans across the table. The light catches the angles of his face, the sharp jaw, the shadows under his eyes that no amount of tailoring can disguise.
"He's good for you," Alfie says. "I can see it."
My face goes hot. I reach for the crème br?lée and tap the caramelized surface with my spoon, watching it crack into golden shards. "Don't start."
"Don't be silly. That's why I came. I've been evaluating all night and I'm rendering my verdict." He leans closer. "He looks at you like you're the most fascinating puzzle he's ever encountered. Something he wants to understand, not fix."
I crack the br?lée harder than necessary, but I laugh. "That makes no sense. You're projecting."
Alfie's hand covers mine, and he's not a man who touches easily. "I know you're scared. I know what happened last time. But this isn't last time. This man sat on a floor with you while you cried about a cat video and didn't make you feel small for it. You told me that yourself."
I stare at my dessert. The crème br?lée stares back, its perfect surface ruined, the custard underneath exposed and trembling.
"I just don't want to ruin it," I whisper.
"You won't."
"How do you know?"
"Because you've never once ruined anything worth keeping.
You've only ever ruined things that were already broken.
" He sits back, picks up his fork, and takes a precise bite of his chocolate torte.
"Now eat your dessert before he comes back and sees you being emotional.
He'll think I upset you, and frankly, I'd like to survive the evening.
He really is terrifying in that quiet, actual-Dom way. "
I laugh, and I eat the crème br?lée. I always do as told, it seems.
Ford returns two minutes later, sliding back into his chair. "Angel's fine," he says. "She refused her bottle for Martha and then accepted it from the cat."
"You don't have a cat," I say.
"Martha's cat. She brought the cat." He sighs. "Apparently Angel finds the purring soothing."
"Angel has taste. Cats are bloody amazing," Alfie says, his London accent surfacing, as it does when he's relaxed. Ford chuckles and shakes his head.
"Are we done, gentlemen?" he asks, looking at our empty plates, and when we nod, he signals for the check. I reach for my wallet.
"Don't," he says.
"Daddy!"
"Jude."
"This is a three-hundred-dollar dinner."
"I'm aware of what things cost," he says.
"Let your man pay for your dinner," Alfie says. I roll my eyes.
"Exactly, Alfie. Help me talk some sense into this boy."
I roll my eyes again. He pays.
Outside, the air is cool and smells like recent rain. Alfie pulls me into a hug and kisses my cheek. Then he reaches into his jacket and produces a business card, extending it to Ford.
"In case you need someone to talk to about Mahler," Alfie says. "Or about him." A tilt of his head toward me.
Ford takes the card and smiles. Then he produces one of his own. They exchange them.
"What the fuck? Why am I the only one with no business cards?" I complain. They both laugh.
"Because you're a baby. And I thought we had discussed this mouth of yours? That's one tally."
"No, Daddy!" I protest. Alfie laughs again. He's a kinky freak.
"What are his consequences for a potty mouth?" he asks. Ford smirks.
"One day in chastity per tally," he says. Alfie whistles.
"Strict. Love it," he winks. They shake hands.
"Thank you for coming," Ford says.
"Thank you for showing up," Alfie replies, and the double meaning hangs in the air. Alfie turns and starts walking toward his car, and we go the other way.
"He's extraordinary," Ford says quietly, watching Alfie's retreating figure.
"He is."
"He loves you very much."
"I know. I love him too."
Ford's thumb traces a small circle against my spine. I lean into it.