Page 128 of Season of Gifts

“So I do.”The shaggy throatiness in Henry’s voice matched the moments right before he sent them to the playroom or asked them for their safewords.“My life would be incomplete without it.”

Jay oh-so-slowly teetered sideways and laid his head on Henry’s shoulder.He rested his hand on Henry’s under the table.After a fierce squeeze, Henry relaxed all the way down his arm.Sighing softly, he laid his own head on Jay’s.

One good, important lesson out of their agonizing days of separation.Henry did need him.All the time, even when he thought he couldn’t show Jay how much.Jay would have to tell Emma she was right about dominants, how even they needed pushy caretakers, because they took too much on themselves.And the deep cracks were tougher to see under their stoic outsides.

Jay and Alice could help Henry heal the right way.They’d dug all the way to the bottom of the wound, and they’d all howled with the pain of it.But once cleaned out, the hurt could be mended from the inside out, and this time Jay and Alice’s love would be stretched across every layer.

Henry offered Jay a speared cherry from his fork.“Have you collapsed in a sugar coma, my dear boy?”

“Getting my second wind.”He snatched the treat with his teeth.“What’s on our agenda tonight?Anything we gotta get done before tomorrow?”

Christmas Eve.Henry’s brother would show up tomorrow with his wife and their two sons.At the farm, there’d be church—early service for the children’s pageant—and then supper and the old black-and-white movie Mom and Dad loved before bedtime.They did things differently here.The room with the tree didn’t even have a TV set.Henry’s bedroom had a little one, but it had never been on in all the times they’d visited.

“A few things, perhaps.”

The things turned out to be food prep stuff for Christmas dinner.Henry would have a bunch of dishes ready to cook after the gift opening.Christmas Eve would be deli platter fixings, cold sandwiches and mountains of appetizers for snacking until midnight.

After kitchen cleanup, they chatted around the tree.The empty skirt filled in some with the gifts they’d brought and the ones Henry’s mom sent him to fetch, but they left a big open space for Santa Claus to stash presents for Henry’s nephews later.Mom tuckered out not long after nine, and Alice offered to help her get ready for bed.

Jay followed Henry in a silent parade from room to room, checking doors and windows, before they climbed the stairs.The bedroom door ticked shut behind them.Jay flipped the wall switch, and the lights chased the darkness into the corners.

“Jay.”Henry spun slowly and faced him.“If you’d like…”

The sentence just ended, except Henry kept touring Jay’s face with his eyes.

“If I’d like?”He shunted aside the urge to drop into waiting pose; that hadn’t gone so well last time.Tucking his hands behind his back, he stood at ease.More ease than Henry, at least.

Henry stroked Jay’s cheek, his touch so ghostly it tickled.“If you’d like privacy for an evening shower, you needn’t ask my permission.Your daily routines have been upended.That’s unfair to you.”

“To you, too.”He’d had his usual morning shower today, with whispered instructions from Alice before he’d rolled out of bed.No post-work shower, though, and no after-dinner playtime.He could stand tall in a heartbeat if Henry and Alice gave the command.Butcoulddidn’t meanmust.“You spend a lot of nights choosing things Alice and I wanna do.What do you want to do?”

Green eyes shut tight, closing him out.The Adam’s apple bobbed in Henry’s throat.

Henry gave him tasks and assignments all the time—but they focused on meeting Jay’s needs, not Henry’s.They must’ve met Henry’s needs in some ways, yeah, but for five years, Jay’s needs had come first.His emotions were the ones Henry tried to keep stable and satisfied and happy.But the better Jay knew Henry’s moods, and maybe the needs Henry wouldn’t always voice to his submissives, the stronger their marriage would be.“It’s okay for the answer to be go to sleep early, you know.Or listen to the classical station, or read a book.It’s okay to—” He trembled, but only a little.“To not want to be my dominant all the time.”

Henry’s eyes flew open.“What I want is to be the partner you deserve.”Voice rough, eyes narrow, Henry gripped Jay’s face in both hands.“Just as Alice longs to be perfect for you—”

So that’s why she kept questioning herself after their scenes.

“—so too do I, despite knowing the fruitlessness of such a lofty goal.Right now, I am…” Laughing softly, Henry pressed his forehead to Jay’s.“I am so far from perfection that I may barely glimpse the light of it.I would be an unsafe partner today, my beloved boy.My mind is too distracted to engage in play, my body too tired to seek it out.But I would not have you suffer for my failings.”

His sex drive had been neglected lately, sure.But that hadn’t caused all the pain.

With tentative hands, he laid his palms flat against Henry’s chest.His sweater was thin; the heat of him spread straight through to Jay.The heartbeat beneath was reassuringly steady, maybe fast, but constant.Predictable and looping.

“I was only suffering because you wouldn’t let me help you.Not relying on your Jay, that was the failing.All the other stuff, it’s secondary.You and Alice accepted my service.In front of all our friends.”The happiest day of his life.Tears scratched at his throat.“But when you needed real service, important service, you didn’t trust me to give it.”

Henry rocked back.His gusty sigh bit down on thin note of pain.“I—” He breathed slowly, and Jay matched him.Twice.Three times.“I am deeply sorry, Jay.My miscalculation was rooted in my woefully inaccurate estimation of myself, not in anything you have or haven’t done.I have worked through these experiences in therapy, and I know better than to believe that such work can eradicate them entirely.Inform and guide us to more considered, healthier responses, yes.I refused to acknowledge the old fears taking hold of me, and in my arrogance, I hurt you.”

“If you’d told me and Alice about the stuff that happened back then, we might’ve figured out sooner that this was abreak glass in case of emergencykinda moment.”His chest hurt.Danny said feelings were temporary states and it was important to remember that even when they felt all-consuming, they weren’t forever.“When we get home, I want to add something in our contract—for Alice, too—about openness and vulnerability being a two-way street.I don’t want untouchable perfect dom who never needs me.I want my Henry.The man who gets as much out of our relationship as I do.”

Henry gasped.His mouth trembled.He dragged his hands deeper across Jay’s cheeks, beneath his ears, and linked his fingers at the back of Jay’s neck.“Then you shall have him.”

Resting his forehead on Jay’s shoulder, Henry sagged against him.Jay braced his feet and held on, folding his arms around Henry’s back.When he’d met Henry, he’d been so broken he couldn’t even imagine being whole.Henry had waited a long time for Jay to heal.Waiting for Henry to heal wasn’t a hardship, now that Henry understood Jay’s place was always beside him.

The door inched open, and Alice slipped inside.Hand on the knob, she froze.Met Jay’s gaze.Tipped her head back toward the hall.Should I go,she mouthed.

Stay.He waved her in, grabbing her hand when she got close enough and sandwiching Henry between their bodies.They swayed in place, silently rocking.

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