Page 78 of For Real

“Toby, why aren’t you at university?”

There was a long silence. Even the flogger was still.

“Meh,” he explained.

And then nothing more.

“‘Meh’? What does ‘meh’ mean?”

“It means I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

I could have pointed out that Toby could be oddly reticent for somebody so insistent on the necessity of caring and sharing and etc. But I didn’t because his eyes begged me not to.

He twirled the flogger loose-wristed, his technique definitely improving. “So. What’s the next step?”

“I’m afraid it’s terribly unglamorous. But you practice.”

“You don’t mean on you, right?”

“On a pillow. Or a wall. Until it’s all muscle memory and awareness, and you can make those tails land exactly where you want, every single time.”

“Wow, that’s not on the internet. Bunch of doms hitting a wall.”

“I’m sorry, Toby. But the truth is kink is no different to anything else. If you want to be good at it, you practice.”12

“You say that but you have no idea how long it took me to make a soufflé that didn’t implode.” He flashed a big smile at me. “I’ve totally got this. Uh, I mean, unless you want the flogger back?”

“No, keep it.”

“It’s not weird, since it was, y’know, your bloke’s?”

“I don’t care if you don’t care.”

“Only thing I care about is all the stuff I want to do with you.” He sidled up close. “Besides, there’s plenty of ways I can hurt you without needing special training.”

“Yes.” It was a sigh of longing and surrender.

He curled his hands into claws, put them against my chest and dragged his nails across my skin. They weren’t sharp, but the touch was still too harsh to be a caress, its message unmistakable. I looked down in time to see the white lines he had given me fading slowly.

Which was when he did it again. And again. Until his fingers left a wake, a cold burn that gathered and deepened with each new journey.

“Please.” I didn’t even know what I was asking for. It certainly wasn’t cessation.

He leaned in and licked fresh fire over the places he had left raw. “Something to remember me by.”

I gave him a startled look.

“I mean till next week. Sorry, that came out way melodramatic.”

It must have been that promise of pain, making me light-headed. “You’re in me deeper than my skin.”

He pressed himself against me, bringing his lines into hot, bright life. “I wish I didn’t have to go. But, y’know, boy has to earn a pittance.”

I almost told him to quit his job, take a sick day, anything really. Just stay with me. But I was nominally supposed to be the grown-up here, so I kissed his brow and watched him scamper away in search of clothes.

I picked up his discarded dressing gown. Nothing had changed, the box was back in its usual place, but the room felt different. It smelled of us.

“Oh, Laurie,” Toby called out, his voice drifting up the stairs, “I forgot to say. You’ve got a letter. I think it’s from the Queen.”

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