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Are train tickets cheaper than bus tickets? I had no idea, and I didn’t want to get us off on a tangent. This conversation was important, but that was probably all he was going to share about his first Master until he got to know me better, and I needed to know more about his experiences. I took a few seconds to figure out what I most wanted to know that wasn’t out-of-bounds, and landed on, “I understand why you can’t tell me about whoever you were with in prison, so what about since you were out? I know there hasn’t been anyone serious, but what have you learned from those you’ve played with?”

“Mostly, that I want to belong to someone. I mean, I can handle the no-strings stuff, and it scratches an itch every once in a while, but unless the itch justreallyneeds scratching, I’m happier working, reading, exercising, and doing other things to occupy myself.”

I was going to have to be careful with this one. The Rolling Thunder guys had accepted me into their extended family. Hailey, our guitar player, is family to them, and I’m family to Hailey. I didn’t want to do anything to screw that up, and it felt like Davy was being protected by them as an employee. Not necessarily part of the family, but someone they claimed.

“Understand,” I told him, “I’m not making promises other than to say I’m interested and I’d like to see where this goes. Do you feel comfortable coming home with me? I have two homes, one on Missionary Ridge in the city and one nearly an hour north of town. We can go to the closer one tonight. Do you work with a single safeword, or two?”

“My first two Masters didn’t allow a safeword, but I’ve been working withredandyellowwith the men I’ve been playing with.”

I sat back and chose my words carefully. The dream was to have a slave without a safeword, but I hadn’t thought it was feasible so it’d never been a dealbreaker — but the knowledge he’d been with two Masters who hadn’t allowed one turned my dick to throbbing granite.

What would it be like to belt this young man, knowing he couldn’t speak a word and stop me?

But not tonight, so I told him, “You’ll have your safewords tonight and that isn’t negotiable, but I’m curious as to your thoughts on them for a long-term situation.”

He shrugged, looked down, and then back up. “It would take a lot of trust for me to agree to it, now that I know it isn’t the norm, and I don’t honestly know if I’d want it just for scenes or for outside of scenes, too. You know? But yeah, at least within a scene, I think I’d be happiest without any control at all, but only if I completely trust the man I’m with.”

He’d had two beers, and he seemed a good bit more relaxed. Was that because he was getting used to me, or was it the beer? I didn’t know, and it seemed important he was sober for whatever was going to happen.

“How much beer can you drink and still be responsible for your actions? I mean, you’re responsible for them legally no matter what, but I’m talking morally, here. On your honor, should I let you have another beer, or should I cut you off?”

“When I’m not driving, I usually restrict myself to two if there’s no food involved, sometimes three or four if I eat and it’s an extended time.”

“I appreciate your honesty. One more for you, then, and even though I’m fine with one more to drive, I’ll cut myself off so you don’t worry about riding with me.”

Chapter 3

Davy

Will was saying all the right things — understanding why I couldn’t talk to him about Bubbles, cutting himself off since he was driving, and telling me he wasn’t making assurances about our future. Saying he’s interested but that’s all he can promise until we spend more time together struck me as more caring and honest than anything I was used to from other men.

Bubbles had been clear from the start that he wasn’t into men other than for what we could do for him physically. It’d been my fault I’d started imagining he liked me for more than two holes to fuck, a gofer when he needed something, and some companionship. He’d never lied to me, and he’d been kind when he wasn’t fucking me. Even then, when he’d only been interested in getting off, he’d made sure I had enough oxygen while he was fucking my face and throat.

Maybe it was because my firstrealexperiences were with someone fucking me without regard to my feelings or pain levels, that’s what it took now to get me off. The ‘kind’ Masters Razor had introduced me to hadn’t done it for me. It was the ones Matty had found, the ones who fucked me with cruel intentions, who got me off. All of them took care of me after, and made sure I got home safe, but the actual scenes had been fantastically horrible.

“What I want, long term, it’s kind of a contradiction, because I need to be treated like a slave without feelings during scenes, but I want an actual relationship outside of scenes. I need to matter to someone, and I have no idea how anyone’s going to make that work in real life. Maybe it’s just a fantasy? I don’t know.”

“I’ve found maintenance to be an important part of any long-term relationship with an s-type.”

I had no idea what he meant by s-type, and it must’ve shown, because he said, “Slave, submissive, bottom, pet, property, even littles, though I’m not interested in that particular kink.”

“Matty calls RazorDaddy, but I don’t think Matty is a little.”

“Let’s work back to that later, if it’s okay. I wanted to talk about maintenance, and why I feel it’s so important. I think it might help you understand how we can work within your fantasy.”

I nodded, and he said, “If you become mine, you’ll have to answer verbally in that kind of situation. I’m not asking for it now, just trying to show you a little of what I’ll expect, and that brings us to things like punishment and maintenance. Let me be clear that I’m a busy guy at times, and I have a lot of downtime other times, but no matter which, I don’t appreciate having to stop whatever I’m doing to punish my property. Punishments are harsh, and the rule is if you safeword during punishment then you leave for at least a week, and possibly forever, depending on the rule that was broken and the reason for safewording. For true injury, which has never happened, there won’t be repercussions. However, if you thought injury was happening but it wasn’t, you can probably return in a week, if it just hurt and you knew you weren’t being injured? Maybe not. The first month or two, when you’re getting used to the rules, this isn’t in play, but once you settle in and know the rules, it absolutely is.

“And one of the ways I keep from having to punish my property is by regularly scheduled maintenance. I once had someone on a twice-per-week schedule, while another slave was on a once-per-month schedule. When I was home, it was the first Monday of every month. He traveled with me, and when we were on the road, we’d sometimes need to move it a day or two backwards or forwards, but we kept it pretty close. Maintenance is when punishment-type activities happen, but at about eighty percent of what a true punishment would be, and without me being displeased with you.”

He stopped talking and sat back, and I just started talking without thinking, because this was too hard to get out any other way.

“My first Master called it punishment, but I’ve learned most Masters consider what he did abuse. He’d punch me with his fists, throw me to the ground and kick me around. He broke my ribs once and they took forever to heal. Sometimes punishment was with a whip or cane, but then sometimes he’d just go off on me without any control. I’ll never accept that again, now that I know it isn’t part of the lifestyle.”

“A promise.” He met my gaze with those oh-so-intense blue eyes. Not quite as brilliant as they’d been in the sunshine, but still stunning even in the subdued lighting. “I’ll never allow anger to intrude on punishment. A Master, by definition, is in control at all times. If I’m too mad to trust myself to punish you, it means I need to step back and figure things out. Either calm down and handle it later, or go out of power exchange so we can discuss the problem as a relationship issue outside of kink.”

I appreciated the promise, and a little piece of me relaxed inside. He could be lying, but Bash had been clear I was safe with him, and that made me trust Will a little more. I took a sip of my beer and organized my thoughts. “My second Master was clear on my punishments. He talked to me about what I did wrong, told me the punishment, and then did whatever it was. He never allowed me to speak at all during punishments, but if something was wrong when he was using me, I was allowed to tell him so long as it was truly a problem. Once my knee jammed into the bedframe when he was fucking my ass, and I just said “Knee. Knee. Knee.” And he stopped and checked it out. He moved me to my back with my legs in the air to finish. It was mostly okay by the next morning, but if he’d kept going, I don’t think it would’ve been.”

“I’m glad you’ve had a Master who showed some caring, so you know that’s the ideal.”