Page 1 of Love Language

Chapter 1 Marco

Valentine’s Day

Marco didn’t want to be here.

He’d known when Cameron texted him earlier that it was going to suck. Hanging out at a BDSM club on Valentine’s Day with a bunch of hearing people that he didn’t know and without a date was going to be a colossal waste of time.

First, it was going to be covered with tacky hearts and flowers, which, just, yuck.

Second, he was going out with a group of hearing people, which meant that even if Cameron cued, he still wouldn’t be able to understand most of the conversation. And even when Cameron bothered, he’d feel like he was being babysat.

Third, he knew that Cameron would abandon him as soon as he found a willing partner. And given that Cameron was a switch and made it sound like he knew everyone, he was virtually guaranteed to find someone as soon as he walked in the door.

But Cameron was being whiny, and Marco didn’t have that many friends who were willing to use cued speech or ASL and were also kinky, so he finally caved.

He’d never been to Escape before, but apparently Valentine’s Day was a guest night. Which, again, really? Valentine’s Day?

It was exactly as tacky as he expected. There were too many people, and even though he obviously couldn’t hear anything but a low hum with his hearing aids out, it felt noisy.

Cameron waved him over to a cluster of low couches with a tangle of strangers. Marco took a seat at the edge, but the set up was terrible for speech reading. He waved hello to Cameron’s friends, but after the first round of introductions, they fell back into conversation and he didn’t feel like making the effort.

He knew that he could probably find a willing sub, but just the idea of it was exhausting.

He wasn’t up for dealing with the language barrier tonight. He could probably find someone who’d be able to remember to look at him so that he could speech read, and it wasn’t that hard to teach someone to sign red and yellow for safewords.

But he didn’t know the subtle social customs of the new space, Cameron had clearly already forgotten that he was here despite sitting just a few cushions away, and dealing with it all was just tiring.

What were all these people doing here, anyway? Shouldn’t they be out having fancy dinners with their true loves, or drowning their loneliness at home with chick flicks and double-chocolate ice cream?

Not to mention that guest night probably meant a lot of inexperienced gawkers. Granted, he was a guest, but that was because he’d only moved to the area recently.

He’d been intending to check out Escape and probably join at some point, but he wasn’t in a hurry. He was more interested in getting involved in the Deaf community, and then looking for someone to play with or date from there.

For tonight, he’d just wanted to put in a few more hours on the project he was working on, then read a book and maybe head to bed a little early.

He couldn’t care less about Valentine’s Day. Even when he was dating someone, he thought it was a stupid, commercialized holiday and mostly went through the motions of a nice dinner and a gift because it was expected.

It didn’t help that Marco had grown up Catholic and associated the Feast of Saint Valentine with the brutal clubbing of a martyr, which really put those chalky candy hearts in perspective. He imagined his macabre amusement would surprise a lot of people.

Marco stood up abruptly. The whole evening was just as sucky as he’d expected. Everyone was voicing quickly without making any effort to look at him, and Cameron had given up on cueing.

“I’m going to order drinks,” he announced, not worrying about cutting off their conversation. “Does anyone want anything?”

Everyone looked at him for long enough to communicate that they wanted beers. Great. He could order a pitcher.

Only, of course, he couldn’t order a pitcher.

The bartender had a thick mustache and beard and wouldn’t look at him when he spoke. He understood that it was a busy evening, but he didn’t think that ordering a pitcher of beer would be that hard.

After a few rounds of back-and-forth that were equally frustrating for both of them, Marco was pretty sure that there was a drink limit for people who wanted to play, and the bartender needed to keep track of it in some way.

He was also certain that the bartender was an asshole.

If he’d just look at Marco, the way that he explicitly requested, this whole thing could have been over already.

He caught motion out of the corner of his eye and turned to glare at the person who was intruding on his space. Only then did he realize that the motion had been the downward wave of a hand that was used in ASL to get someone’s attention.

The interrupter immediately apologized and offered to interpret for him.