Chapter Nine #2
He sets the book down and comes around the island. Big and easy the way he always is. He doesn't ask what happened. He just looks at me the picked-you way and says, "Rough night."
"Yeah," I say. My voice is small.
He nods once, like that's all the information he needs. Then he says it warm and reasonable, the voice he uses for true things that don't need arguing with.
"Even with her," he says. "Even when it was the good one. Even when everything lined up and you got to be a person in the room. Same thing."
It lands heavier than it should because it's true. The world just proved it out loud. A real woman, the best shot I've ever had, confirmed it gentle and kind and it hurts worse than if she'd been cruel about it.
"Yeah," I say again.
He reaches over and tops off a glass he must have poured while I was standing there. Puts it in front of me like it's nothing.
"You did the hard part," he says. "You showed up. You let it be real long enough to see what it was. That's more than most men do with something like yours."
He doesn't say the diminutive yet. He lets the silence sit. Then he adds it, plain and warm, like he's reading a measurement off a drawing.
"That little cock of yours just isn't built for it. The world keeps showing you. Even when you do everything right."
I take the glass. The whiskey is good. I don't argue. I don't have anything left to argue with.
Graham watches me drink it. Then he says, quieter, "Come here."
I go to him. He pulls me in, not a big production, just a hand on the back of my neck and my forehead against his shoulder for a second. The picked-you steadiness. The one that makes the hurt stop for a minute.
"You've had a brutal night," he says into my hair. "Let me take care of you."
He guides me down. Not rough. Just steady, until I'm on my knees on the kitchen floor between his legs, the way we've done before.
The camisole rides up a little when I settle.
The plug shifts when I move. The cage is tight and useless against the front of my jeans.
I reach for his belt and he lets me, but when I get him out and take him in my mouth he doesn't rest his hand and let me set the pace.
He puts his hand on the back of my head and sets it himself.
Slow at first. Then deeper when he wants it. Then slower again, holding me there a second longer than I would have gone on my own. His other hand stays on my shoulder, warm and steady, keeping me in it.
"That's it," he says, calm. "Just let me use your mouth. You've been carrying enough tonight."
I sink into it. The service. The place the noise stops.
The little shell fills with the small useless push of me and holds it there.
The plug moves when I clench without meaning to.
I lick where he guides me, the shaft, then lower when his hand tilts my head.
He doesn't say anything about it. He just lets me get there and holds me to it until I do it on my own, licking the weight of him, the part that actually fills a hand, the part I'll never have.
The contrast sits there plain. My cock locked away in the tiny pink shell, straining at nothing.
The real one I'm allowed to take care of after the worst night I've had in years.
He doesn't finish me. He never does. He brings himself close with my mouth and then eases me off, breathing steady, and pulls me up into his lap on the couch like I'm something he gets to hold after a bad night.
The cage presses against his thigh through my jeans.
The plug is a constant low reminder. He doesn't comment on either.
He just keeps his arm around me and lets the room settle.
"You did right keeping it locked," he says after a while. His voice is almost offhand, like he's just remembering it. "It's still yours. Still untouched. Exactly as it was the day I met you. Saving it, not spending it on nights that were never going to work anyway."
I don't look at it too hard. He's got an arm around me and the hurt is finally quiet where it wasn't on the sidewalk. The condom is still in my wallet. I can feel it there, a thing I don't need to carry anymore.
Later, when he lets me up to go to bed, I take it out in the bathroom.
The foil packet is creased from how many times I've checked it over the years.
I look at it for a second, the one I bought for a first time that keeps receding, the one that stopped being a joke the second Nora texted back.
Then I put it in the drawer next to the box the cage came in, next to the spare keys and the lube and the plug packaging.
It goes in quiet. I close the drawer and don't reach for it again.
Graham is still up when I come out. He looks at me in the low light, the camisole soft under my shirt, the plug and cage doing their job under everything.
"Better?" he asks.
I nod. I don't have words for it. The best shot is gone and the world agreed and I'm standing here in the soft things he put on me.
He nods once, like that's the only answer he needed.
"Get some sleep," he says. "We'll talk about the rest tomorrow."
I go down the hall and lie down on my side, the plug shifting when I turn, the little cage against the sheet, holding the thing I spent ten years trying to spend.
I wait to feel better. Mostly I do. There's a part that doesn't come down with the rest, a raw spot from the walk home where the cold got into me, and it stays raw longer than I want it to.
I lie there with it and don't cover it tonight.
I'm too worn out to, and some part of me wants to see if it's still there in the morning.