Page 44 of For Real

I wasn’t sure whether or not to be insulted. I caught his wicked hand and brought his fingers to my lips to kiss them. “Then you’ll have to try harder.”

“Or you will.”

“You know”—God, what was I saying?—“there’s a box in the spare room. I think… I think there’s something in there you could use to…to…”

“To what?”

“Make sure I didn’t—” I felt hot and awkward in the darkness. This was certainly a new level of something. Asking for a chastity device. “It would ensure my obedience.”

“God, no. I’m not helping you.” Toby’s hand slid between us, enclosed me blissfully, and the sound I gave him was pure, heedless gratitude. “And I like being able to touch you when I feel like it.”13

“What if I come by accident?” I might have actually whined.

“Well, we’ll figure that out when you do. Either way, it’s going to be fun.” He was quiet a moment, still holding my cock with maddening tenderness. “Um, this is kind of a whole lot more than you kneeling on the floor while I wank. Are you absolutely sure we don’t need a safeword?”

It was getting increasingly difficult for me to think at all, let alone keep up with him as he jumped from topic to topic, from instinctive control to confessed uncertainty. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“But aren’t we supposed to?” He let me go, and while my body regretted him, my mind cleared a little.

“They don’t come round and check, Toby. Confiscate our sex licences.” His silence suggested he wasn’t amused, and I realised I was being too glib. Taking too much for granted. “If it would make you feel safe, then of course, we can have a safeword.”

“Fuck my safety.” He whacked a hand against my shoulder. “You’re the one who comes off worst if something goes bum end up over a barrel.”

“And you think,” I asked as patiently as I could, “a magic word is going to protect me?”

He sat up abruptly, dragging away the duvet and much of our shared warmth with him. “I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.”

“I take your comfort very seriously indeed.”

“And I feel the same way about yours. The fact you think I don’t is, like, fucking insulting, Laurie.”

It should have been absurd—a nineteen-year-old worrying about my safety. But all I felt was helplessly touched by it. “Oh, darling.” I caught his face between my hands and pulled him into a kiss, our bodies falling together once more. “Safewords are useful—necessary even—when you play with strangers, but the rest of the time, I–I don’t know.”

Light was beginning to creep into the room. Toby was a pale punctuation mark on my dark sheets. I swept my hand from his shoulder to his thigh, learning his curves and angles, his harmonies and awkwardnesses. Beautiful. And, in this moment, mine. He shivered sweetly under my touch. “Wouldn’t it stop you getting hurt, though?”

“Believe me, the things that have hurt me in my life have had nothing to do with whips or chains.”

His hand groped beneath the duvet and found mine, his fingers curling protectively round me. “I just don’t want to…do anything bad to you. Like ever.”

What could I do with a boy who had brought me to my knees twice, yet still held my hand in the dark? What could I give in return for such kindness? Such faith? I would so gladly bear all the pain he gave me, intended and incidental, and the loss of him when his inclinations took him elsewhere. “You might, but I trust you, Toby.”

He was silent for a very long moment. And then, very solemnly, “I trust in your trust,” leaving me naked and breathless, bound and on my knees all over again.

Unable to find a sensible answer, or at least one that wasn’t too much, too revealing, I babbled. “It’s my responsibility to communicate to you what I’m feeling and what’s too much, and it’s your responsibility to be receptive to that communication. I don’t necessarily believe the best way for that to happen is me saying ‘banoffee pie.’”

“That’s your safeword, is it?” asked Toby, when he had finished laughing at me.14

It had been largely an accident, but the lighter mood came as something of a relief. My wary heart and my sense of self-preservation could only countenance so many truths and confessions. “Yes. ‘Lemon meringue pie’ to slow down, ‘banoffee pie’ to stop. I’m not particularly keen on lemons—though I can tolerate them—but I really hate bananas.”

“Oh man, you just haven’t had the right lemon meringue pie.”

I was smiling foolishly, even though he couldn’t see it. “I’d eat lemon meringue pie for you, darling. Any day.”

“If you tasted my lemon meringue pie, you’d get down on your knees and thank me for it. People do, you know. Well, not the knees part. But they tell me it’s the best they’ve ever had.”

“That’s a low bar.”

He gave an outraged little squeak. “You are so going to regret that.”

---