Page 83 of Ours
“Do you do that often? Mentor young men in the way of kink?” Derek teased before biting into another slice.
“Heh, here and there.” Carl wiggled his head from side to side. “You lot are by far the youngest, but I’ve trained my share of boys over the years.”
“How’d you get started?” Derek was genuinely curious how someone would normally get into this sort of thing.
“Not too different from you, actually. It wasn’t internet porn, but it was the first time I saw any kind of kink.” Carl thought back to when he was just a little gayby, still coming out of his shell. “I was out to a few people at the time, just going through my life like normal. I was in college, and one night I decided to try going to a gay bar downtown. When I got there, I found out it was actually their weekly leather night. A lot of very attractive men walking around in their leathers and gear. I didn’t stay long, got too nervous, but the whole time I was there, my dick wasrock hard. I went back a few weeks later, and one of the regular doms there approached. He saw me there on my first visit and spent the rest of the night talking to me, asking me things, and telling me about kink and leather. He ended up being my first dom. We were together a little over a year.” Carl smiled as he reminisced.
“You were a sub?” Derek couldn’t picture the burly man sitting across from him as anything other than a dom.
“Yeah,” Carl answered. “I was still new and didn’t quite know what I liked then. It’s pretty common for doms to have been someone’s sub at one point. There’s a lot more switches out there than you realize, and it’s a good training tool. If you’re going to dominate a sub, then you should know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of things.”
“That makes sense.” Derek took Carl’s words in as he finished his third slice of pizza before speaking further. “Have you ever trained anyone as a dom before?”
“I’ve had a couple of boys go on to take on subs of their own.” Carl nodded.
“Would you train me?”
Carl stared at Derek, pizza halfway in his mouth. Finishing what he had chewed, he put the rest of his slice down. “You don’t ever slow down, do ya boy?”
“You’ve basically been training me already,” Derek pointed out, ignoring Carl’s question. “This would just be a more hands on approach.”
“What makes you think I’m even looking for a sub right now?” Carl challenged.
“Maybe you aren’t,” Derek admitted. “You can say no. But me being into this stuff isn’t going to go away, and if I’m going to do this, I want to do it the right way. Sir.”
Carl stared at Derek again before laughing. “You got some balls, kid.”
“Is that a yes?” Derek avoided the obvious joke.
“No. What itis,is 12:30 in the morning.” They had been talking for a while.
“Oh shit! I better get going.” Derek pushed his chair away from the table, feeling like he had definitely overstayed his welcome.
“Boy, you aren’t drivinganywhereat this hour. Unless you got somewhere to be tomorrow, you are parking your ass on that couch tonight.” Carl remained in his seat.
Derek took this as a good sign and returned to his request. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have me in your bed, sir?”
“Cut the shit, Derek.” Carl weathered his gaze at the boy who was starting to push his luck. “What you’re asking for is something serious.”
“Iamserious!”
“You’re also onlyeighteenand spent the last three hours coming to terms with some very serious shit—shit you aren’t even close to being through with yet,” Carl pointed out gruffly. “What makes you think you could handle something like that now? Why the hell are you trying to jump right back into this shit anyway?”
“I don’t know. I just… I don’t think this is something I can make go away, and I don’t know what else to do. The only other two guys I know into this stuff…” Derek trailed off.
“Come on. Let’s get the couch set up.” Carl sighed and closed the pizza box, getting up to slide it into the fridge. He hated feeling like an overprotective papa bear sometimes.
Carl grabbed some spare sheets and a couple of his own pillows and got Derek situated on the couch. The boy was mostly silent, probably worried that if he pushed anymore, Carl was going to kick him out or something. A far cry from the cocky teen Carl remembered walking into his store all those months ago.
“I’ll think about it.” Carl hoped he wasn’t going to regret this. “But that means you have to, too. This isn’t a game. This issomething I take very, very seriously. You need to think about everything this is gonna entail, and if you’re going to be able to handle that.” And Carl was going to have to weigh the pros and cons of training this boy. It was going to be a late night.
“Yes, sir, I will.” Derek smiled before sliding onto the couch. “Thank you, again. Even if you don’t say yes. You’ve been really awesome about everything, Carl.”
“Night, boy.” Carl smiled back and sighed to himself.Goddammit.
“Night, sir.”
Carl flicked off the living room light and walked to his bedroom, undressing and sliding into his own bed. He thought about texting some friends for advice but explaining why he had an 18-year-old asleep on his couch asking for training was probably going to take way longer than he had the energy for right now. His first instinct was to say no. From everything he learned tonight, it seemed like Derek’s life was in a freefall. He had been jumping head first into situation after situation until everything blew up at once. Carl was worried that this request for training was just a reaction to the fight with his friends and that agreeing would only make Derek’s life more chaotic.
