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10. Do you have cookies available? I want cookies now

but they have to be the right size so the hood doesn’t get in the way

and i know chocolate is toxic for dogs or whatever, but it’s a requirement

OldSchoolDS

Aaaaand we’re dropping the numbers, and the questions. But don’t think I missed you ignoring #7.

No, I don’t have cookies, and no, I’m not going to ask someone else about your identity, same reason why I wouldn’t ask someone else about your kinks, limits, or anything else that matters.

PupJ

I mean, vetting is a thing. You don’t vet subs?

OldSchoolDS

I do. Don’t try to be cute.

PupJ

Fine

What do you want to know?

I paused, fingers hovering over the keyboard. The words were right there. I just didn’t know how to phrase it. It wasn’t about being politically correct or whatever it was that the family I preferred not to think about would say.

I genuinely didn’t want to hurt him. Jaime might have all the bravado in the world, but he wasn’t shy. If he joked about it, I had to suspect that a part of it came from fear, discomfort, or other emotions along those lines. Emotions I didn’t want to inflict on him.

I grabbed my phone before I could get more in my head about it. I knew Erika wasn’t working because she’d mentioned clearing her evening for her monthly dinner with Kara, the otherLittle in their inner group who’d quickly become besties with Sergio—their words, not mine.

As expected, she picked up the phone right away.

“Tony?”

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. I should’ve texted, but Erika would have taken a while to answer as she pondered what I was and wasn’t saying. Or she would’ve checked in with Jaime. “I need advice.”

“Okaaaay.” I could see her frowning from here. “It can’t wait?”

“No.” I blew out a breath. It probably could wait, but then Jaime would start overthinking. I licked my lips. “How do you ask a person gender stuff?”

“Gender stuff,” Erika repeated, slowly.

“Yes. I mean, Eli is your slave. How did you ask them about, like, the gendered or non-gendered words they were comfortable with? That kind of thing.”

When Eli had joined the club, they had announced they used they/them pronouns and identified as nonbinary, but their kink identity was more important to them than their gender identity. As they started a more solid dynamic with Erika after years of scening on and off, Eli added it/its to the pronouns in their bio. The way I understood it, they used they/them in vanilla settings, and it/its in kinky settings where they were Erika’s object.

“What’s bringing this on now?”

I grunted. Of course, Erika was going to have questions. It wouldn’t be her if she didn’t want to weigh in every single factor before offering the kind of response I was after.

“Jaime.” I might as well put it out in the open. Erika wasn’t going to spill the beans, anyway. She wasn’t one of the subs with no filter and an obsession with playing matchmaker. Erika played matchmaker, too—she did it with Sergio and Abel—butshe was more subtle about it. “He came by the other day. I’m… trying to set something up?”

I swallowed. That couldn’t have sounded more embarrassing if I tried. What was I, a teenager figuring out hormones?

“Huh.” Erika hummed to herself. “Unexpected.”

“The commentary isn’t helpful,” I said in the driest tone possible.