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“You do know food goes bad, right?”

“My freezer is almost empty.” I shrugged. “And Cece starts their period tomorrow.”

For some reason, that last minute addition made Tony pause.

“How do you know that?”

“I live with them?” I wrinkled my nose. “What, you didn’t know when Marga and Jen got theirs?”

I thought we were over the section of the day where I ripped him a new one, but I would if need be.

Tony dropped the bag on the coffee table after a short pause. “They had very irregular periods, I think. I’d get them tampons and shit when they asked, but that was it.”

“That…” I blinked. “That was it?”

Had I stepped into an alternate reality?

“Yes?”

It didn’t seem like he was open to discuss it as he retreated back to the kitchen, I was assuming. It was confirmed by the rustling of kitchenware two seconds later.

I understood he was being practical or whatever, but it bothered me having to wait until he got back with all the utensils.

My stomach growled, too. I loved the smell of Indian food, and it was my number one comfort food. It was just warm, filling, and nice.

Whatever.

I had more important shit to deal with here.

“Not that I wanna go back to talking about sex, but…” I pursed my lips. That was kind of a lie. I didn’t have a problem talking about sex, not even with him. I just didn’t want to talk about bottoming with him. One didn’t need to be too smart to know where that conversation would lead. I knew what my weaknesses were. “How couldn’t you know? Like, menstrual cycles affect horny levels and shit.”

Not to mention that, as much of a fan as I could be of messy sex while someone was on their period, certain accommodations were required.

“Do we really have to talk about this?” Tony pretended to be unaffected as he dropped a couple of plates and forks on the table.

There was a slight tremor to his hand.

I caught it.

I liked that I was observant enough to catch it—I couldn’t say that I liked that it was there. Even if I was on Team What The Fuck Is Wrong With Tony right now.

“Yep.”

Tony sighed. He didn’t try to answer until he sat his ass back down on the couch. For a second, I wondered if he was going to leave the bag of steaming food untouched, and if so, was ittoo rude to start dishing it out? But then he leaned forward and untied the knot on top.

Thankfully. I never remembered until I was fighting with it, but I always struggled to undo those. When I was alone at home, I didn’t even try; I just grabbed a pair of scissors and called it a day.

It was slightly embarrassing to do that in front of people. Adults were supposed to know how to untie knots in plastic bags, but the ones from takeout restaurants were just too tight. It wasn’t my fault.

“Marga and Jen came to me because I offered them discipline, structure, and to a lesser degree, money.” He furrowed his brow as he started to take the containers out of the bag and spread them out. “It was still a sexual dynamic, of course, but?—”

“Why of course?” I bit out.

I knew that of course had come out because he was strangely anxious. I didn’t care. There was a reason why I always beat everyone in debate club, and I wasn’t ashamed to say it had to do with how annoying I could be about language.

“Right.” Tony rolled his eyes. It was weirdly disappointing that he didn’t engage. “Anyway. There was a sexual aspect to our dynamic, but it wasn’t the main thing. There was a lot of cockwarming, but it wasn’t rare to go a week or more without penetrative sex. Plus, they said their periods were very out of whack. I tried telling them once that going three months without one on the regular sounded like something a doctor should be aware of, but they laughed me off. Didn’t bring it up again.”

I frowned. I had things to say about his wholedidn’t bring it up again—namely, it didn’t sound very Daddy-like of him. I knew he played as different roles, but he’d been a Master Daddy to them from what they’d said. It was the dynamic they’d set upin the app, too. But I was stuck in his reluctance—in the way he spoke about penetrative sex with them.