Page 82 of Coiled Tight

“I don’t want excuses, darlin’,” he said. “I just want to know what happened.”

I bet he’d been about to utter empty words about how the Cam he knew would never do such a thing. It was what everyone said in the movies and the audiobooks I used to listen to while I dealt with the commute to the zoo back home.

Huh.

I hadn’t thought about New York as home in months. I didn’t think it was because of feeling homesick. If anything, being here was showing me what home actually felt and looked like. But it was still weird.

Oh, well.

“I broke up with a Dom.” I pursed my lips. “I mean, breaking up isn’t the right word, is it? He was just a Sadist I met up on the regular at a club near my place. But he started seeing someone else and decided that he wanted her full time and didn’t want anything to do with me any longer.”

“I’m sorry.”

I grunted. “It seems so stupid now. I didn’t even tell her. I mean, the day it happened, she was having a really bad day. She’d had a bad nightmare, and then her ex had found her in an app she had forgotten to block her in, so she was very rattled, right? And like, I got it, obviously, but then… There wasn’t a time to tell her, and things kept building up, with issues with my bosses at work, and my own family planning a wedding I wasn’t invited to, and… I don’t know. It kept going like that, and I started to feel resentful. And hating myself for it, obviously. And then I started… I think depression got a hold of me, you know, and there was no… There was no going back. I wish I could. Go back, I mean.”

“Maybe you can now, if Kara is okay with staying in touch.”

I didn’t need to be in a fully adult headspace to hear the reluctant tone in his voice. He didn’t believe Kara would want that.

“But even then, I’ll have to explain this shit to her, and she’ll definitely hate me when she hears it.”

“Maybe she will.” The confirmation made me whimper. I got what he was doing, remembered what he said about Roy and how he’d treated him differently. It still sucked. “But isn’t having closure better?”

“But it’s scary.”

“It is.”

I nodded. “Can we stay here a bit longer?”

“We can, darlin’.”

Daddy had insistedI didn’t check my phone until tomorrow. I’d compromised that I would have a proper breakfast tomorrow because apparently my breakfasts weren’t hearty enough, but I was checking my phone.

The anxiety that would’ve come with not knowing, with wondering, it would’ve been hell. The kind that would’ve made me ignore an order from Daddy and face the disappointment and the punishment that would come with it.

To be honest, I didn’t think there would be anything. I just thought that I’d check, see that there was no reply, and beat myself over it because that felt more familiar and made more sense than going to bed with Daddy as if everything was right with the world.

There was a text, though.

soft_and_sweet

Why do you need to ask your boss for permission to adopt puppies?

Can you send pics?

These are Princess and Prince. Mónica’s nibling named them.

For a few minutes, it didn’t compute. Why was she replying like we were just… Like she usually would? It was weird.

Then again, maybe she was fumbling as hard as I was because everything was confusing, and it was hard to tell up from down.

waffles_and_whips

Well, I live with him, and it’s his place

It’s a long story

I’ll send pics tomorrow? I don’t have them with me now