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“Not at first.” I shook my head. “But, like I said, we stumbled on one. I didn’t even see it coming.”
I ran a hand over my neck. “He safe-worded almost immediately. I was proud of him for doing it, but also confused, and when he explained why…” I trailed off. “I should have called it all off then. I should have ended it at that moment because I’m not equipped for this, Barry. I don’t know how to handle this safely for him.”
“But youhaven’tcalled it off.”
I shook my head. “No. Being his Dom is… heady. But this last time, we were in an intense scene, I was fucking him, and it wasso good, but suddenly he—”
The contract between me and Minty didn’t specify that what happened in our scenes was private, mainly because I wanted him to be able to talk about what we did together if he needed to seek out counsel for it. But this was the first time in my experience as a Dom thatIneeded to seek out counsel.
“What’d he do?” Barry asked.
“He started pleading for me to stop.”
“Normal,” Barry said. “I’m sure you were hurting him a lot by then.”
“I was. But… he begged forDaddyto stop, and it wasn’t me he was talking to.”
Barry whistled low. “Oh, shit.”
“I called the safe word, and he was…” I shook my head. “He was a mess. Still wanted to make me come, though.” I chuckled. “Fuck. That was more than I knew to expect. I handled it as best as I could. Aftercare for hours until I had to leave for work, and when he left my place, he seemed a little light on his feet, woozy and high still, but all right enough. But now I can’t stop thinking that I should have ended things completely the first time he used his safe word. I’m not equipped for this.”
“You keep saying that, but really who would be?” Barry asked, and I sensed he meant it both ways—that of course I wasn’t, but also, sincerely, who out there was a better option than me for this? “He’s self-destructive and near suicidal in his risk-taking lately. If not you? Then who? Are you just going to leave him to it?”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “He’s not my responsibility.”
Barry tilted his head, observing me.
“In a scene, he is, yes. But this…”
“I get it. If it’s too much, it’s too much.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, a sense of failure dropping over me, reminding me of every other time in my life I’d let myself or someone else down, starting with my father and ending with Benji. Or would it be ending with Minty?
“I’m not sure I have what he needs…”
“Then you have your answer,” Barry said.
Okay, maybe it’d end with Barry then. There was no keeping the disappointment out of his tone.
“What if I don’t like that answer?”
He slapped the bar and turned away. “Talk to him then. Ask ifyou’re enough.” He walked around the bar and over to the tables across from the stage, taking down the chairs and wiping the tops.
Ask him? AskMintywhat he needed?
I laughed to myself. Christ, what a concept. A basic one at that.
If I was going to keep dominating Minty, then I needed to get my head in the game and keep it there.
***
Minty
Sensei Kato wasalready teaching a class when I arrived. It was just after four, and schools had let out half an hour before, giving students just enough time to choke down a snack and get into uniform.
I was one of his cherub-faced students not too long ago. In Sensei’s dojo, I’d been safe and sound, and very fucking good at what I did. A star pupil.
But the thing about Aikido was that it was all about nonviolence, about shifting the energy so that an attack failed or bounced back on the attacker. It wasn’t a martial art that was good for getting rage out.
