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It’s hugely inconvenient that Mom got seriously injured right after Matty was dropped on my doorstep. Selfish, I know, but I was counting on her coming to save me like she always has. And now, well, I’m kinda winging it.
Despite seeming like she’s okay, I’m still worried. She’s not the spring chicken she thinks she still is.
Under normal circumstances I’d hop a flight to her, enforce her resting and getting her all bent out of shape by serving her dinner on the wrong plates, or making her tea wrong. When I talked to her this morning she sounded tired, but surprisingly chipper for someone who just broke a major part of her body.
She sent a selfie at the hospital. Half a dozen of her Stich ‘n’ Bitch friends landed in on her with snacks and alcohol free wine to cheer her up post-op. Best case it’ll be six weeks, she’ll hop a plane and spend the whole flight asking the pilot “are we there yet?” as she impatiently taps her foot to get to see her new grandson.
Worst case, six weeks becomes longer, potentially much longer depending on Mom’s recovery. By the time the six week mark comes along, Addison will have settled into her new role and perhaps be more open to the idea of staying on with Matty.
Is it deceitful and underhanded? A little. Sure. Am I desperate? Absolutely.
Am I fit to be a father? Do I know how to love this kid who can't really express love for me back? Am I mature enough for this?
No. No. No. No. No.
All I’m hearing is no, all I’m feeling is the band around my chest pressing harder, crushing my lungs and stealing the air from my body.
The idea of interviewing a list of strangers and trying to find someone who gels well with my new-to-me kid is overwhelming. I can’t imagine finding someone suitable within six weeks. Addison is here, she needs work, and I’ve got money to burn. It makes sense. At least it makes sense to me. Hopefully it’ll make sense to her too. In a few weeks.
I wipe down the bar with a wet dishrag. My boss, the owner of the club, and my best friend, Slade Taylor sits on a stool to my far left, tapping a pen on a pad watching me with interest.
“Wanna talk about it?” Slade and I grew up together. Despite graduating at the top of his class from law school, it’s always been his lifelong dream to own a chain of BDSM clubs throughout the Midwest. Protocol has been open for a while now, long enough for him to think about opening a second location. He’s been scouting locations in Cedar Rapids lately, in the hopes he’s going to find somewhere appropriate that works for expansion.
“Talk about what?”
Two guys walk up to the bar and ask for alcohol free beer. There are plenty of kink clubs that serve alcohol across the country, some don’t even have a one or two drink maximum, but Slade has always maintained an alcohol free environment. He wants nothing readily available that could hinder consent in any way.
As much as I’m a huge proponent of safe, sane, and consensual kink, Slade is even more so. He’s aggressive in his pursuit of risk aware play. His dedication to making his club a safe space for open sexual expression is impressive.
And something many of his competitors—near and far—strive to emulate.
“The fact you’ve had someone else work your shift for the past two nights? The fact people ‘round here are saying you’ve got a kid. The fact you haven’t called me and talked to me about it. Anything, really. What’s going on with you, Thoren?”
It’s almost as effective when he uses it as when Mom uses it. This isn’t the space for me to talk about my personal life, though. Protocol is my safe haven, my happy place, my home away from home. The idea of bringing personal drama into these walls makes my stomach hurt. And unfortunately, Matty is personal drama right now. Ugh. That’s a shit way to put it.
“Not here.”
“You’re not talking to me anywhere. So it’s gotta be here where I can pin you to a conversation.” He tips his bottle at me. “You’ve been avoiding my calls.”
And his texts, and his voice mails. His next step is to turn up on my doorstep and demand answers. I should probably let him in, metaphorically, before he shows up at the house and scares the shit out of Matty.
“I don’t like to bring my personal stuff inside this building. You know that.”
He drops his pen, and I know I’m in trouble. “Don’t make me haul you out into the street and make you talk.” He checks his watch. “Actually, it’s still early. There are a few rooms downstairs that are open right now. I could tie you up and make you tell me.”
Chuckling, I give him a wink. “Stop threatening me with a good time.”
He rolls his eyes. But my dick stirs in my pants at the memory of a time when he did exactly that. As a dominant, I rarely trust partnering with another dom in a scene who has not at least had some experience in the role of being submissive.
Even if only in the form of allowing someone to top them from the bottom. Many experienced dominants have that in their pocket as a soft rule for partnerships. I wouldn’t trust a flogger who had not been flogged themselves. And while it doesn’t work for every role, it works for many. Especially when instruments are involved.
Like a couple other doms in the Minneapolis area, I trained under Slade. The idea that a dom needs to train under another dom before they are a dom is one that’s kind of become outdated, but in so far as Protocol is concerned, Slade tends to mentor damn near everyone who comes into the club. He never set himself up that way, it just kind of happened. He’s a good teacher, he has endless patience, and a way about him that makes people talk to him.
He even set up classes, and offers Protocol to host munches, sponsors and attends conferences, to learn and encourages patrons to attend. He’s also an advocate of paying skilled people to teach more complex things like rope and dangerous play. It’s why we have a class schedule in the club, so people can learn kink in a safe environment, and not end up submitting to a narcissist who thinks he’s the dog’s balls.
For a time, I even submitted to Slade. Or tried to. It often resulted in my attempts at topping from the bottom. It’s becoming increasingly less popular to say that a dom needs to submit before they can truly dom but I wanted to.
I don’t need to submit to know that I’m a Dominant. I don’t need to try being a vegan before I can eat meat. I don’t need to get hit with a flogger to know it hurts, and there are safe ways to learn how to do these things without trying them yourself. But I still didn’t want to do things to someone when I hadn’t had them done to me first.
