“I didn’t stop you. If it was too much, I would have used the safe word. Honestly, when you were tying me up, I wanted to die from excitement. And what you did after… I mean, it hurt, but it felt good at the same time. It felt thrilling. Everything in my body was buzzing.”
I drained the rest of my coffee, giving up the argument for now. She had stars in her eyes. She wanted more, and it would be so easy for her to convince me to give her more.
“You know, there’s a BDSM club in this area that’s really popular. I saw it online. It’s called Underworld.”
Underworld? My God.
“Maybe we could go there together.” She ducked her head, my little innocent. “I mean, you’ve probably been there already.”
“I have.”
She looked delighted. I closed my eyes a moment, wondering how to tell her that I’d outgrown the play scenes at Underworld in my teens. For a moment, the crunching of her dry cereal was the only sound between us. I had to end this before her blush got any pinker, before she got any more excited about going to Underworld.
“I don’t want to disappoint you, because I love you so much, Alice, but we’re not doing any more BDSM together.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s too dangerous. I’m afraid you don’t really understand the sexual sadism thing.”
“I understand it fine.” She frowned, huffing out a breath. “We had such a great time last night. What am I missing? Am I crazy?”
“I told you last night that we weren’t going to go any further,” I reminded her.
“And then we did, because we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. What’s the deal? It seems like the more compatibility we find with each other, the more you shove me away.”
“Alice…I’m afraid you’re making yourself compatible because you want to promote this relationship between us that’s never going to work.”
“Why won’t it work?”
“Because I…I’m not good at relationships.” Maybe that was a way to put it that she’d actually understand. “And I don’t plan on getting married, ever, so I don’t want to lead you on.”
“I don’t care if we get married. Just because I babbled about it that one time…” She shrugged. “I don’t know if I want to get married either. Can’t we just have fun?”
“I’m not going to be your fuckbuddy. Jesus. I took advantage of your willingness last night when I shouldn’t have. What happened was a mistake, something I didn’t intend to do.”
Mistake was probably a bad way to phrase it. It definitely upset her, but I was damned either way. If I agreed to keep playing with her, things would eventually become unmanageable. If I insisted on a platonic friendship, I probably wouldn’t have a friend. And if you’d controlled your fucking urges, jackass, you wouldn’t be in this situation. She pushed back her chair, the hurt I’d caused apparent on her features.
“You make me so angry.” She didn’t stamp her foot, but the voice was classic Lala, blunt, icy, and Nordic. “Friends can become lovers, you know. Friends can fall in love and have crazy, kinky sex, and everything can still be okay.”
She was driving me crazy. I wanted to slap her, or spank her, or read her the rules of The Gallery, and ask if she still believed everything would be okay. Any submissive brought into The Gallery shall be considered communal property and shared in any way her sponsor desires. The Gallery is a no-safe-word zone. The submissive’s limits will be determined by her sponsor. She didn’t understand that my idea of crazy, kinky sex was so much crazier and kinkier than anything she could dream up in her BDSM-beginner’s brain.
She didn’t understand how much I did not want to reveal that side of myself to her.
“It’s not okay for me to…be with you in that way,” I said. “For me, it’s not okay. Please try to understand.”
The earlier warmth between us, the embrace, the chaste kiss on the top of her head, it all seemed a million miles away. She was furious, and I was a jerk. The passion we’d experienced in our all-night lust explosion had become something negative, a point of contention. I hated that everything was ruined, that she wouldn’t be able to look back on our encounter together with any fond memories.
“I’m sorry,” I said, spreading my hands in apology. “I want us to stay friends, along with our families. I want to help you whenever I can, and make you that violin.”
“I don’t want a violin from you anymore.” Her lips trembled. Tears welled in her eyes. “I’d just feel sad every time I played it. You’re making me really sad, Milo, because you’re being weird and prickly, and acting like…acting like you don’t like me at all.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“Really?” She passed a hand over her eyes and stalked from the kitchen, through the living room, and down the hall.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
I saw her wipe away a tear as she went into her room. “I’m leaving. I’m not staying here anymore.”
I followed her and got in her way. “You don’t have to leave. Can’t we just go back to how things were before last night? We’ll be friends. You can sleep in my guest room. We can hang out with Blue.”
She ducked around me and went to her closet for her luggage. “I don’t think that’s possible now.”
I didn’t help as she carried out a suitcase. “I don’t want you to leave, Alice, not like this.” I tried—and failed—to get in her way. “Do you remember what happened last time you left, or nearly left? What almost happened to you?”
“Yes, I remember,” she said, throwing her suitcase on the bed. “It’s very hard to forget that my apartment exploded. That’s why my violin’s gone, and all the clothes I liked, and all my shit. I would have exploded too, right? Maybe I should have, so I could have avoided all this embarrassment.”
“Don’t say things like that. And what embarrassment are you talking about? I’m not rejecting you. I’m trying to protect you.”
“You keep saying that, like you’re a fucking land mine or something.” She threw the contents of her underwear drawer in the suitcase, and added jeans and shirts on top of it. “I’m going to stay in a hotel.”
I grabbed her around the waist as she headed back to her closet. “No, you’re not.”
“You can’t stop me.” She broke away and started jerking clothes from their hangers. “The insurance will pay for it.”
“You’re not storming out of here to move into some random hotel, not like this. No.”
“Are you going to hold me hostage?”
She glared at me from inside the closet, and for a moment, I thought how fun it would be to hold her hostage, tie her up, put duct tape over her sassy mouth.
Yep, that was why I couldn’t be with her. Fuck me. Damn it.
I left her to her angry packing, went over by her door, and opened a window on my phone. She glared at me, throwing clothes into the other new suitcase we’d bought to replace the ones that’d gone up in flames.
“What are you doing?” she snapped.
“Calling Ella to see if you can use her place, the apartment she got through work. She mostly lives with Devin now. Do you think that would work? It’s a decent-sized two bedroom on Mercer Street.”
“I don’t want to move into your friend’s apartment. Then you’ll know where to find me.”
“So our friendship is over forever?” I threw up my hands. “You’re going to hide from me, and avoid talking to me ever again?”
“Yes, I would like to,” she yelled.
“I think you’re overreacting.” When I got angsty, more of my Italian accent came out. “Are you that hard up, that you need to be with a soulless sadist like me?”
She shoved down a jumble of clothes and slammed one of the suitcases shut. “It has nothing to do with being hard up. And you’re not soulless. Last night, I thought you were even more amazing than I knew. I thought everything felt great. I thought it was perfect.”
“Alice.” I sighed. “That feeling
won’t last.”
She shook her head and went back to packing. “You’re such a fucking asshole.”
“Thank you for finally realizing what I’ve been telling you all along.” I looked down at my phone. “Ella says you can use her place. She has the lease for two more months, so she’ll meet us there with the keys.”
Alice opened her mouth to refuse the offer, but my expression must have made her reconsider.