Page 147 of For Real

Laurie doesn’t push me. In a strange way, that’s what gives me courage.

So, one day, while he’s sleeping, I ring the first restaurant on the list. They don’t have any openings, but they don’t treat me like I’m insane for asking, so I don’t immediately die of despair. It doesn’t happen at the second restaurant either, or the fifth, but I get through to the chef of the eleventh (it’s the place Laurie took me a week ago), and she asks me a bunch of questions about who I am, and what I want, how much experience I have, and when I can start. I kind of babble, but it seems she really likes the answer “Whenever” to the last question, and she ends up asking me to come in the very next day for a chat—and suddenly, I have a job.

Like a bottom-of-the-ladder job, with a salary to match, but Melissa Lake—that’s my boss, who has a Michelin star—thinks I’ve got potential. Or maybe she’s just saying that so I’ll wash dishes and sweep floors and peel potatoes, but who cares?

I’ve got a job. And potential.

Laurie’s so happy for me, he wants to take me out to dinner again. But I just tell him to take me to bed.

Once we’re both naked—something we accomplish in about two seconds of desperate handsy tugging—I shove him down and straddle him.

Mine, mine, mine.

I run my fingers down the line of his throat, hearing his breath hitch as I go. He tips his head back, offering himself, and this hot thrill of possession goes through me as I close my hand around his neck just like that very first night. I’m not ready to do anything super hardcore, but I think we both like the idea that I could. His hand comes up, takes my wrist, and he guides me so my thumb and first fingers settle on either side of his neck, against…I guess…the artery. I feel his pulse so strong here it’s like I’m holding his heart in my hand. It gets me hard as fuck, and kind of tender at the same time, and the rush of his blood is this red rush of power all through me.

“Toby?” I feel my name in his throat under my palm. “Yeah?”

“Would you… Do you think… Would you like to flog me?” His pulse jumps. “Please.”3

I totally fail to play it cool. “Oh hell yeah.”

I let him go, and we sit up in bed, and I’m kind of fluttery and nervous and excited in this first kiss, fairy tale way, and Laurie is a little bit flushed as well, so we’re kind of shy suddenly. Then I say, “Um, so—” at the same time he says, “How do you—” so we stop and go “No, after you,” and then we both start talking again, and I say, “What’s the best—” and he says, “Shall I—” and then it’s such a mess that there’s only one thing left to do, and that’s laugh.

Once that’s over, we eye each other cautiously.

“Well, that was…” I say.

“It was,” he agrees.

“I really want to do this.” Like my ridiculous hard-on isn’t giving the game away a bit, but after the party, I want to make sure he knows this is for me and for him and for both of us. And fuck anybody else.

His eyes have gone all smouldery, smoky grey and hazy gold, like when he’s on his knees, or when he’s fucking me. “I know.”

“So, how do we do… What’s best?”

“I used to have…um…furniture, but not anymore. Lying, standing, or kneeling covers most of the basics. And it depends if you want to”—his flush deepened—“restrain me.”

“Do I need to?”

“I can be still, if you want.”

I grin. The thing is, I like tying him up. The question is…how and to what? And then I remember the hooks in the bed frame, and I know exactly what I’m doing. I tell him not to go anywhere, because I’m a dork, and go grab stuff from…my room.

I’ve got the deerskin flogger, and there’s a few more in the magic chest, but since Robert left them behind, they’re probably not favourites. Also, I’m kind of limited by which ones aren’t going to knock me off-balance. There’s one, but the tails are rubber and even throwing them against the air feels whippy and scary, so I pass. There’s also a single-tail coiled up like an adder, but I’m like, Fuck no.

Then I find…I don’t know…I think it must be horsehair. It’s really beautiful—this shining white-blond fall that feels both silky and rough against my fingers. The handle is smooth wood, just as shiny and fits my hand, warming against my palm, like it’s saying, Meant to be here. It’s so light, but when I swing, fuck, those strands pack a wallop.

I practice a bit until I’m pretty sure I’m comfortable. It’s weird because it’s totally different to the deerskin flogger, but it’s like my brain has learned how to compensate without me. I’m not really thinking at all, just letting my wrist do its thing.

I also whack my own thigh a bunch of times. Not quite as hard as I can go, but less than half as hard as I can go is making me yelpy and eye-watery. It’s heavy and sharp at the same time. I guess that’s what they call “sting.”

So I take that, the deerskin, some cuffs and snap hooks because my ropework—even with The Boy Scout Knot Book—is arse. And let’s face it, it’s probably always going to be arse. I recognise it’s an art, and it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to be into, but when I want Laurie tied up, I want him tied up and fuck faffing around.4

In the bedroom, Laurie is waiting patiently, sprawled out on the covers, all strong and leonine and hurtable. He springs up as soon as I come in, his eyes lingering on my kinky swag.

I put everything down on the chest of drawers out of his way. Maybe I should have blindfolded him… Actually, maybe I should blindfold him. He’s scared of it (which, naturally, I like), and it makes him all raw and open and frantic.

That gives me an idea. But first things first.

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