Page 107 of The Menagerie
[MS]it woulda happened with anyone. you’re not the hot shit you think you are.
Rowan doesn’t want to get his hopes up that that’s a fat lie and that it wouldnothave happened with anyone. He already knows that, at least in some capacity, Mal thinks of him as different from his past Doms.
But Rowan doesn’t actually know how many Doms Mal has had; all he’s gathered from his conversations with him have pointed to “more than a few.” One or more of them could definitely have been a romantic partner as well. The thought makes his stomach churn.
He blames it on the lasagna Jay made for him last night.
[MS]Iwanna do some spanking on saturday
The text comes through while Rowan is chopping vegetables for his lunch salad tomorrow, and when he reads the banner that lights up his phone on the counter, he nearly slips and cuts himself. He should really know better than to be doing anything remotely dangerous when he’s within eyesight of his phone, Mal’s texts always unpredictable and usually dirty.
Placing the knife far out of reach, he taps out his reply, silently admonishing his rapidly-beating heart for begging him to sayFuck yeah!rather than something normal.
[RC]OK, more than usual you mean?
[MS]yeah
[MS]and hard
TheFuck yeah! narrowly avoids being sent this time.
[RC]Do you have a set stopping point or max hits or anything
[MS]not really. just till i can’t take it anymore
Rowan ditches his lunch on the counter and jerks off on the couch, coming in barely four minutes to the image of his handprints on Mal’s ass.
WITH ALLthe drama of the past week, when Saturday arrives, Rowan almost forgets about the shibari class entirely. It’s nearly 5:00 p.m. when he jolts up from lazing on the couch and has to scramble to shower and change. Mal had told him to wear something comfortable, so he pulls on some dark gray joggers, a white T-shirt, and his trusty red Nikes before he bolts out the door.
Surprisingly, thanks to his lead foot, he gets to the club a full twenty minutes before the class is scheduled to start. Mal told him he’d meet him at the bar as usual before they went to the class, but he’s nowhere in sight.
A sharpcrack!rings out and catches Rowan’s attention. He scans the club, looking for the source of the noise, when it comes again, louder and definitively to the left.
To the VoyEx corner. Color him intrigued.
For the first time, rather than sit and order a drink, Rowan visits the area which he’d only glanced at during his tour the day he joined. The “corner” is actually a fairly large open room tucked around a wall that divides it from the main lounge and bar. There’s a small crowd of about ten people forming a semicircle around the main stage, which is bathed in overhead spotlights highlighting two men on stage. Both are fully naked, toned bodies catching the light attractively.
One of the men, clearly the sub, is standing with his legs and arms spread and bound to a Saint Andrew’s cross. Thin red welts cover his chest and thighs, angry and long but with no trace of blood, which speaks to the skill of the Dom whipping him with a long black flogger. The Dom reels back andcracksit across the sub’s chest, the sound of it hitting Rowan’s ears before the sub even lets out a peep.
He doesn’t know how long they’ve been at this, but the sub’s cock is flushed and hard and the wet from his cunt is dripping down his legs, catching the light as he squirms both toward and away from the flogger.
Rowan watches the exhibitionists and the crowd of voyeurs around him, half of whom are unabashedly jerking off, and lets his mind wander. To whether any of these men are married, to the slice of cheesecake from Addison sitting in his fridge at home, to the text from Clara he forgot to reply to earlier. To Mal. To their argument the other day, to the class they’re taking tonight to improve their scenes, to what Mal’s ass is going to look like once Rowan gets his hands on it afterward.
Always to Mal.
Rowan’s too caught up in him. Too emotionally invested in something that’s supposed to be casual and fun, and he can feel it start to weigh on him.
Maybe he should skip a session with Mal—tell him he’s sick or something and use one of his four precious monthly visits to the club to seek out the company of some other willing bottom. It might help. But then again, it might make things worse, especially if Mal comes anyway, seeking someone else out too. Caught playing hooky by the principal. His mind is reeling with made-up scenarios that could put soap operas to shame, and he physically shakes his head to bring himself back to the moment.
The thoughts of finding someone else are all abruptly dismissed when he realizes he’s barely turned on by everything happening around him, only a tiny blip of desire. A few weeks ago, he’d probably be whipping his dick out alongside everyone else or seeing if the pair on stage were up for a threesome later.
Something a little bit like guilt tugs at his insides as he turns away and slinks back to the bar, the whipcracks and moans fading behind him.
Jeremiah is busy chatting up a group of older-looking men, deftly preparing their drinks without missing a beat of their conversation. Maybe he should see ifhe’sup for something.
“You’re early tonight,” the bartender notes. “Shibari class?”
“Yep,” Rowan replies.
