AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It was nice, actually, though Lee seemed to be purposely avoiding speaking directly to him or so much as glancing his way. Brett must have seen that, as he brought the conversation around to Eli.
“Ryan, did you know that Eli is a philosopher?”
Ryan chuckled and teased, “We need one around here. Want a job, Eli?”
“Only if you want someone to come in and try to change you all,” Lee said before he took a bite of his fish.
Eli glared at him but addressed Ryan. “Heaven forbid anyone tries to change someone with issues like some people at this table.”
“I really like this fish,” Brett threw in there to try to change the subject.
That wasn’t going to happen. “Issues?” Lee was finally looking right at him. “What fucking issues?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe you being stuck in a fucking closet when you’re thirty-seven goddamned years old!”
Lee pushed away from the table and started to storm away, but then turned back and screamed, “Fuck you! Just fuck off! You’re fired!”
Eli dropped his fork on his plate as he watched Lee rush off in a fury, and he felt the others’ eyes on him. He was in a spotlight, and he wondered if he would even get a ride home. “Told you, Brett. I’m not up for this. I’m a fucking philosopher, not someone who could fix…that!”
“Eli, you’re doing just fine,” Brett said with a giggle at the end.
Ryan was silently chuckling too, and he stared incredulously at the two of them, the flicker of the candles moving over their laughing faces like a cartoon was playing.
“You want us to fight?”
Brett took a drink of wine and glanced over to Ryan, as if he were waiting for the High Master of the place to speak first. He did. “Eli, it’s about the passion. You see him, when he’s proselytizing on the senate floor, in interviews, whatever, there is no fire there. His campaign was as exciting as a slug working its way around a garden. Here? Well, he fucks like a champ, gotta say, but there’s no passion in it. You? He throws you a nasty look and there’s more passion in it than he’s had for anything. You bring it out in him.”
“Great! I make him furious. We’re destined for a long, unhealthy love affair.”
“What kind of philosopher are you?” Brett rested his hand on his fist as he smiled over to Eli. “There’s a straight line to love from hate or whatever the hell that is.”
“Wow, don’t write any philosophy books.”
“Didn’t plan on it. I was thinking a lover’s guide to leather.”
“Don’t say lover, babe,” Ryan pleaded as he cringed. “There’s no pressure, Eli, but you saw him. That’s seriously more emotion than that fucker has shown for as long as he’s been coming here.”
“How long is that?”
“Five years. Maybe more, I don’t know. That’s when Brett and I took the place over. That’s also a long time to not get into this stuff.”
Eli got up to go look for Lee. “Where will I find him?”
Brett went back to his food, so Ryan answered, “His room is two doors down from yours, but he’s more than likely downstairs.”
“That place is huge. Can you narrow it down?”
Brett swallowed and decided to help. “I doubt he’ll be hard to find. I think he gave up on you seeing him, so he’s probably figuring you’re going to be in your room. He’s gonna be in the middle of the main room.”
Ryan slapped his husband’s arm and agreed, “Good thinking.”
As the two both went back to their food, Brett pouring more wine in their glasses, Eli shook his head, wondering if they were so strange from where they lived and worked, or if the place had done it to them.
He went to the door that led to the long stone stairs, and gazed down, listening but not hearing much. He took one step down, then another, listening as he went.
He got close to the bottom and discovered that Brett had been right. Lee was there, in the center of three leather clad Masters instead of slaves. He was being spit-roasted, slapped and hair pulled, the whole nine yards.
And again, tears were streaming down his cheeks. Why was it the only time Eli would see emotion from the man, except for anger, was while he was letting himself be used and abused in a weird sex club?
