Page 16 of Puppy on a Leash

No, penetrative sex was not necessary, and having it or not having it meant nothing, but he’d never given the impression that he was the kind of person who genuinely believed as much.

“And you were okay with it?”

There was no way we’d all gotten Tony so wrong in our heads, was there? No, he had that whole attitude around him, the entire time. Marga and Jen had talked to me, and I’d cringed more than a few times.

“With what?” Tony sighed. He got himself comfortable on the couch, but it couldn’t be more than posturing. “They gave me what I wanted from them, and I gave them what they needed. It’s how it works, right?”

Didhe give them what they needed? Flashes of conversations with Marga and Jen over greasy pizza rose up to the surface. From an outside perspective, their relationship with Tony had never seemed great. Just good enough to keep everyone in it.

“Is that how you justified cheating on them?”

Tony froze. Then his nostrils flared. I didn’t care. “Is that what they’re saying?”

Scratch that. Maybe I cared after all.

Marga and Jen broke up with him a few days after the article that outed him came out. When they’d mentioned it, Sergio had lost it, thinking they were breaking up with him for being queer. They’d said it was because while we’d found out he was part of the alphabet mafia, they’d found out he was cheating on them.

“Yeah?”

It had seemed pretty clear-cut to me. The three of them had been monogamish at best. Tony would share them as part of a scene, but that was all they did outside of their dynamic. It was strange, after years of being surrounded by other polyam people,to think in terms of monogamy, but that didn’t mean it made them less valid.

Tony shook his head. “Want me to find the contract they signed when we started out? Because it states very clearly that we had an open arrangement, and only long-term dynamics had to be discussed.”

They signed a contract? That was a thing people did?

Wait—

“Really?”

He all but sneered.

Fine. I got it.

“I didn’t have anything long term with anyone,” he said.

“So you just fucked strangers who happened to pass by your office?”

Okay, I heard that, and it was way harsher than I’d intended.

Tony glared at me. “Just professors who came for a visit. No strings attached or the possibility of them.”

And if they were professors from other cities—or countries—there was no fear of being outed to his family, I bet.

“How do you identify, anyway?” Today was the day when my mouth ran faster than my brain. “I mean, are you bi? Plain ol’ gay?”

Tony snorted. Humor flickered in his eyes, but it vanished quickly. He pretended it was a fun, simple question, but he was tense. Suddenly, plating up the food was the most interesting activity in his periphery.

Too bad I had no problem waiting him out, and I hadn’t made up my mind about him yet.

“You’re actually the first person to ask me that.”

“I am?”

But he hung out with Erika? And didn’t Marga and Jen want to know when it all went down? I would have, if I’d been them. His family, too. I overheard that they’d turned their backson him, and quite literally too, but wouldn’t they have asked? Homophobic assholes tended to care about the specific labels, even when they did not believe in anything other than a gay/straight dichotomy.

Tony just cleared his throat. “As cringeworthy as I find the labels, I think I’m bisexual and homoromantic.”

He looked like it was something he’d put quite a lot of thought into, so I just let the confession sit between us. I wasn’t a total asshole, no matter what people wanted to say about me.

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