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“What?” he asked, pressing his leg against mine. “You were thinking something. I saw it flash over your face.”
I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
“If your thoughts didn’t matter to me, we wouldn’t be on this date. We’d be back in my basement.”
I smiled at that. He was right, of course. He wanted to know me, the everyday me, not just the me that was submissive and compliant, or fighting back so that it felt good. Then why did it feel like I was risking everything just to admit a taste difference?
“Go on,” he said. “Whatever you say is fine. I can handle it.”
“All right.” I took a slow breath and let it out as I gusted, “I like Baskin Robbins’s chocolate better.”
He lifted his brows. “Andthatwas what you were thinking?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, and why didn’t you want to tell me? I’m a big boy. I don’t need someone to agree with everything I say.” He paused then, turning to me fully after glancing around to make sure that no one had come up behind us while we sat with our ice creams. “You don’t think that’s what I want, do you? A sycophantic submissive has never been my type. I want to hear your thoughts—here, now, like this, and back in the basement too. I like that you don’t agree with me, or that you fight me from time to time. It makes you real. Not some doll.”
“I didn’t want to ruin our date.”
“I’m not an asshole like that. I like that you’re different from me.”
I considered that and nodded. I had to trust that he meant what he said. If I didn’t, then I couldn’t trust him in the dungeon anymore either, and I trusted him implicitly there. “No dolls here, just a fairy prince at your service.”
Luke smiled, and then pointed out a drip on my cone. I hurried to suck it up before it fell from the end. I laughed, remembering a stunt I’d pulled earlier in the semester, in the Before Times. “Hey, do you want to hear about a performance art piece I did?”
“Performance art?” His eyes twinkled.
“Yeah. I’m an artist sometimes, you know.”
“I didn’t, actually. But I can see it. You’re creative in other ways.” He gestured at my clothes.
“Why, thank you.” I gave him a glimmer of my sweetest sparkle. “I do take pride in my clothes. This was a genius piece of art, though. It was great. I wish Peter had filmed it—”
“Peter?”
“A friend. He’s a photographer, and he just took pictures. I wonder if he’s developed them yet. Anyway, like I said, it was fantastic. I got an ice cream cone from the university canteen—vanilla, like this one, only without the chocolate sprinkles, and I took it outside.”
Luke bit into his cone, crunching and listening to me. I was tempted to lean over and lick a drop of chocolate off his chin, but who knew if someone might see us and give us crap about being queer. I was obvious enough with just the way I was dressed. I didn’t want to push my luck, so I indicated his napkin and then waved at my own chin. He took the hint and wiped the chocolate drop away.
“And then what?” he asked.
“I laid down on the sidewalk, kind of out of the way of the main path, but not where everyone passing by couldn’t see me. Being seen was important.”
“Mm-hmm?”
“Yeah, and, oh! I have to tell you about my outfit because it was key to the performance! Absolutely key. A skin-tight sleeveless T-shirt, and a pink tutu skirt over my best blue jeans.”
“Sounds cute, baby.”
“I was very cute!” I licked some more ice cream, the sweetness coating my tongue and sliding down my throat. “So, just picture it. Me, lying there with the cone above my head.” I lifted my cone up briefly to demonstrate. “Can you imagine it?”
“Absolutely.”
“And then I let it melt, dripping onto my face. It went everywhere, all over my neck and hair too. Next to me on the ground was a sign reading ‘Cream My Face’, which was the name of the art piece I was doing.”
He chuckled then, taking another bite of his cone.
“I waited until the entire ice cream had melted, and then Iyelled, ‘Cream my face!’ and turned the cone upside down and dumped the rest onto myself. It was great! A real crowd pleaser.”
