Page 5 of Ocean's Lost Octopus
“He is a very nice elderly gentleman who loves animals, and when I explained the charity’s purpose to him, he wanted to do something to help. He’d have preferred to donate it all but…”
“In this economy, who could?” she said. “So, shall we go in?”
“You wanted me to stay?” I glanced at my jeans and sneakers and back up. “I didn’t dress to be here.”
“You look great, and especially since your restaurant is being so helpful, don’t you want to be here to take advantage of the accolades?” When she put it that way, how could I say no. It was never easy to deny Ms. Lily anything. Her position was club-wide, but she’d always put extra effort into the little room, an area many such places stuffed into a corner if they even had one.
So, I sent the van back to the restaurant, called the shift manager to let them know I would not be back tonight, and followed Ms. Lily inside. Everything was bustling in the kitchen, and the staff setting up our trays had some questions about how best to display the trays, and before I knew it, the front doors were open and members and guests spilling inside.
I hung back by the buffet, watching everyone arrive, determined to represent the business since I was technically on the clock. It lent a different air to the whole thing, being here for work instead of pleasure.
And then, while I was thinking of how to describe our pastries without taking attention away from why we were all here, he came in. Wearing a suit this time, rather than pajamas, and looking very corporate. Gone was the vulnerability from the other night. In fact, he was dressed like a daddy, and perhaps I’d just been seeing what I wanted to the other night. He never said the octopus was his, no matter how sure I’d been of the idea.
How could I be so wrong? I probably had misheard what he said, as well, in the heat of the moment. All those people moving around and grumbling about the fire alarm. Anyone could have made a mistake. Lucky I didn’t have a chance to respond before he’d darted away.
I got into a conversation with someone I knew who wanted to talk about how much he loved the restaurant, and by the time I looked around, my fellow tenant was no longer in view. If he was a member here, I’d never met him before, but with so many evening shifts lately, I hadn’t been able to come as often as I’d have liked.
“Hey, aren’t you the man who saved my octopus the other night?” I jerked around to find him standing there, his suit even more impressive close up.
“It is you. And the octopus is yours?”
“Oh yes, so sorry I acted weird.” His cheeks colored again, utterly adorable and even wearing the suit, his littleness showed through.
“It must have been scary for you to lose something so precious.”
A little smile brightened his face. “How did you know?”
“He’s worn by love. Did your mommy or daddy give him to you?”
The sparkle went out of his eyes. “No, my uncle gave him to me a long time ago. I don’t have a daddy anymore.”
Anymore…so he had one, and he was a little.
I wanted to speak longer with him, but other people were coming up to the table and I needed to represent my company, so we parted ways. As the evening wore on, I caught glimpses of him. Bidding at the silent auction, chatting with other littles, sipping a drink.
He lived in the same building with me. The one with the faulty alarm. They’d better get it fixed before a real disaster happened. I made a mental note to contact the management in the morning and make sure it was being taken care of.
Chapter Five
Ocean
He was here.
The daddy from the fire alarm disaster was here at chained. Duncan. It was such a daddy name.
Suddenly, everything changed. My embarrassment was gone.
One thing about Chained was, if you were here, you understood that everybody had things that they enjoyed, and you sort of accepted that. For some people, it was sharing. For other people, it was leather or bondage or masochism. And for others, like me, it was playing with toys and letting your worries go to someone else for a short time. And while we may not want to live those other ways, there was a brother/sisterhood here.
Duncan was working. He was handling some of the food for the event. I didn’t know if he owned the restaurant, managed it, or was a server. Not that it mattered which. What did matter was that more than once, someone addressed him by name. This meant that even though he was working food service for the charity, he was either a member or a frequent friend of the club.
Was he a daddy? Oh, how I’d love for him to be a daddy. But a daddy who also liked men and was single and didn’t think I was too weird when I held out my hand for my stuffie. More than that, a daddy who wouldn’t freak out at having a little who, by day, was very successful, very powerful in certain spheres, and honestly had a lot of money.
For some reason, my job intimidated people outside of work, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. Because once a potential daddy was intimidated, they no longer took the power that they needed during the times I needed it most. But that was biting off a whole lot of worries, way too soon, because at thispoint, we weren’t even friends. He was just a guy who gave me back my octopus and understood how important it was to me. That was that.
I made a trip around the room, looking for anyone I might recognize, and was shocked when Barnes waved at me.
“Hey! I thought you couldn’t come.”
