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“Dad, I will tell you one more time. It’s complicated. I don’t know if things will get more serious with Kathleen.”

The car pulls up to where we’re having lunch. While we wait for the driver to get out and open my father’s door, he says, “Doesn’t matter. It’s been done. Next week we’re all having lunch at the house.”

You’ve gotta be kidding me. First, I’m taking Katie to that BDSM Manoir, and now I’m taking her to my family home to officially meet the folks as my, what, girlfriend?

Is Katie my girlfriend?

Ha! As if. That would not be likely.

No matter how you look at it, however, these next few weeks are going to be beyond interesting. I can only imagine how Kathleen is taking it all.

Chapter 43

Kathleen

Eve dithers between ordering a salad or the soup of the day at our favorite café. I’ve told her the news regarding this upcoming lunch my father informed me about, and now I’m pretty sure Eve’s brain is broken from all the hilarious implications.

“Soup, please,” she tells the server. I go with my usual chicken salad. “And you need an exorcist at this point. Pretty soon everyone will be in your casual sex business.”

I shush her, for all the good it does. While the exclusive café isn’t the busiest I’ve seen it today, there are still enough people milling about who could overhear what we’re discussing. I’m not in the mood for Ira and me to show up on Page 6 under the juicy sex scandal and gossip section. I’m tired of my sex life being other people’s business. Eve is right about that!

“I don’t know how this got out… aside from Ira hinting to her father, and her father telling her mother…”

“Ah, there you go.”

“This is so stupid.” I look around to make sure no servers will surprise me with their presence. “She and I are fully grown adults. We have our own places in the city. We have had multiple love lives independent of each other. Why are they making such a big deal out of this?”

Eve shakes her head at me. Is she mocking my naiveté I didn’t know I still had? Probably. “The simple answer is that they’re parents and want to at least pretend to care about their kids’ romances. Hey, you’re a step above my parents.” She shrugs. “Peaced out to Wyoming years ago and barely call to say hello. I think they only talk to my sister because she runs everything now. I don’t dare think about the gay thing.”

“Sorry.”

“No worries. The complicated answer is that you’re, well, you. The Mathisons care a lot about that because you’re the type they would love to see their only kid get hitched with. Again, consider yourself lucky. My sister’s been dealing with Dad’s disdain ever since Monique became a thing. Nobody wants Jacqueline Love’s ex who basically runs a legal brothel in the family…”

As usual, every topic diverts to the Warners. Sometimes it’s charming how self-involved they can be. Other times, like now, I want to smack my friend upside the head.

“What do you mean I’m someone worth getting hitched to? It’s not like that anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah, so you keep repeating. What I mean is that no matter what one of these rich pairs of parents says around here, they all want their kids to marry laterally. Sure, some may posture that they don’t care if Ms. Jane or Mr. John come from a blue collar family in Factory Town, but they totally do. Marrying rich means more money in the family pockets, a new family member who knows how to behave and what’s what, and that good, delicious breeding nobody’s allowed to talk about these days without sounding like a classist, racist asshole.”

She’s got a point. I don’t want to think about marrying Ira, though.

I’m sure she would make a great spouse for a lucky woman out there. She’s those things my father would want in a son-in-law and more. Handsome, courteous, a real go-getter in the family business… Doesn’t matter if Ira is “different,” because this is 2024 and my father knows better than to express opinions like that in front of his loud and proud bisexual daughter. He’d just be happy that Ira is masc and can pass as a man when safety counts.

Ira is far from spouse material for me, however. Besides the Domme thing – which I know I don’t want to experiment with more than a few times – we are both way too independent to deal with the other person full time.

When I imagine a longer-term relationship with Ira, I see it like this: we’ll meet up maybe once a week at most, but more like a couple times a month when we’re done working together. Depending on my mood, we might have vanilla sex or we could play around with the Dom/sub thing. I’ll stay the night – or she’ll stay the night, since we could use my place too – maybe we’ll have breakfast and watch TV, and then we part ways until next time.

Maybe we’ll see each other at Midnight, let alone with other people. That’s fine. Maybe I’ll feel a little jealous. I don’t doubt that she would too, but it’s for the best. I need to get my Domme kicks, and Ira Mathison is not going to give me that, no matter how many times I get on my knees and call her Mistress.

She shouldn’t have to, if she doesn’t want to. It wouldn’t be fun unless she was 100% wanting it anyway.

Can I say I’m disappointed by that? Because I am. I admit it. I still wish I could dominate Ira for a change. Although now that we’ve gone deeper in our sex life, I think about tying her up less. I don’t know if it’s because I can’t see her that way anymore…

Or if because I don’t want it anymore.

I look at Eve, who is so self-assured in her identity. Today she’s wearing a loose silk tank top and white cotton pants that accentuate her long legs. White stilettos. A blue teardrop necklace. Diamond earrings. That stylish hair that screams classy soccer mom or raging lesbian.

Honestly, she makes me insecure.