Page 14 of Ward

No acceptable reason.

“Yes,” I tell him. “Her name is Grace.”

“I take it you won’t be hosting any more play parties until she moves out,” he says.

Matthew, Fiona, our mutual friend, Dante, and I, take turns hosting dungeon parties for our broader BDSM community. In the midst of everything, I’d almost forgotten that I’m supposed to host the next one in early March.

“As long as she’s away at school, I can host.”

“Are you sure?” he says. “Because if you’re not up for it next month, I can take it—”

“I’ll be up for it.” I check my phone again. Time to go. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

Benjamin picks me up in front of the building. On the drive from the Financial District to Hell’s Kitchen, I call Jen and tell her to contact my usual caterer about ordering food and non-alcoholic drinks for next month’s party.

I have Benjamin drop me off in front of a supermarket a block away from my actual destination. The only person in my life who knows about the person I’m heading to meet is Jen, and I intend to keep it that way for as long as I can.

Liam is waiting at our regular table at the back of the café when I arrive, which strikes me as odd because he’s usually running late. The dark circles that are ever-present beneath his gray eyes are even more pronounced today.

At twenty-two, my son looks a lot like his mother did when we met. Small, pointed features. Full cheeks. Dark-brown hair that looks like it could use a wash even when it’s clean.

I was a sophomore in college when I met Carolyn, and just getting into kink. She was my age, pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way, and endearingly shy. I considered it an honor that she felt comfortable playing with me. We did a couple of bondage scenes. Then she confided to me that she’d been raped by her ex, and asked if I would play out a consensual-non-consent scene to help her “take back her power,” so to speak.

That was her intent, at least.

CNC wasn’t my usual style, but I was nineteen and cocky, convinced I already knew everything there was to know about being a Dominant, and anything I didn’t know would come naturally.

We played out the scene. It was brutal, just the way Carolyn wanted it, or so I believed. When I tried to perform aftercare, she cried and screamed at me to get away from her. I remember standing at the foot of her bed, torn between giving her the space she demanded and making sure she was all right.

I slept on her couch that night. The next morning, she finally came out to tell me she’d frozen up halfway through the scene and shut down to the point that she couldn’t speak, which meant she couldn’t say her safe word.

I’d taken her silence as a sign of submission, and inadvertently re-traumatized her.

Regret and horror swamped me, but I couldn’t undo the damage. All I could do was vow to keep my sex life and my Dominant life separate from that point forward, and for the past twenty-two years, I’ve kept that promise.

“Wow,” Liam says. “You’re here.” He says the same thing every time he sees me, like he’s expecting me to abandon him again.

I can’t say I blame him. I’m quite certain he hates my guts, and with good reason.

Carolyn called a few months after the incident with the news that she was pregnant. I asked how I could help. She told me to keep my distance. She didn’t want me involved with the pregnancy or the child’s life in any way. I didn’t fight her on it, because fighting her would’ve made me feel even worse than I already did. What right did I have to force myself on this woman, and her child, after what had happened?

When I learned about Carolyn’s suicide last fall, I decided it was time to reach out to Liam. During our first meeting, I was shocked to discover he knew exactly who I was and what’d happened between me and his mother. She’d been telling him he was a product of rape from the time he was little. He’d internalized that knowledge, let it shape and mold him from the inside.

I thought I was doing my son a favor by keeping my distance. Ten minutes into our first meeting I realized that was the worst thing I could’ve done.

“I’m here.” I take the seat across from Liam and nod to the newspaper on the table. “I take it you’ve been here a while.”

“Figured I’d get a jumpstart on the job search. Don’t worry though, I waited to order. Wouldn’t want to step on your toes while you’re trying to buy my affection.”

“No, we wouldn’t want that.” I motion for the waitress to bring us two coffees, already counting down the minutes until I can take mine to go. “What happened to the dishwashing job?”

“I was let go,” he says.

“Let go as in fired?”

He shrugs. “Semantics.”

In the short time I’ve known Liam, he’s had four different jobs.

---