Page 92 of The Story of You

“I don’t deal well with brats, Lakshan.” He knows.

“Then you’d better start thinking, Raja or this will be painful for you. I’m kind of enjoying myself.”

I growl and swipe the lamp off the bedside table. It crashes to the ground. How can I think when he’s acting this way?

I stand far away and deliberate while he unbuttons his jeans. I get distracted watching. He looks good in jeans, but I love watching him take them off. He stops once they’re undone and lies on the bed, not going any further.

Crying out with a wolfish sound, I storm to the bed—lamp pieces crunching under the rubber soles of my slippers—and tear them off. It’s not really brat behavior—brats are much worse—but it is for him and it’s more than enough for me.

He called me Raja though. I must be getting closer. He gets like this whenever I’ve lost a piece of myself. That’s what I am now and all I’ll ever be—a million shattered pieces glued together. Every now and then one falls off and it has to be found and reattached.

Which piece did I lose?

The same one I lost earlier today. I keep losing it. “It’s when I was going to remove my collar from you the first time that’s how you knew I was gone,” I say tossing his jeans to the side, working off his white cotton briefs until his caged cock sits nestled between his legs. I stare at the Randall tattooed up his inner thigh.

“Yes. Stop thinking in shoulds. You don’t have to do that with me or Oliver or Darius. We rely on you to be you so we can be us. When you’re not the system falls apart. I’m sure you saw the terror in his eyes.”

I nod.

“That wasn’t all on you. It’s already bad enough when he cries. But now he knows what happened and that must have been terrifying.”

Lakshan hasn’t read the book, but I’ve been filling him in since the night of the shirt at Simon and Shane’s house.

“I’ve never had to worry about losing our bond. I’ve spent decades preparing myself for the time when we would sever it. I believed we were on the precipice of that moment. I didn’t know what I was going to do with him gone.”

“And now you feel selfish for the relief that he won’t be.”

“Yes. It feels like I’ve manipulated him.” It dawns on me. “That’s why the disobedience. Reminding me your loyalty and submission is because you want those things, not because I’ve manipulated you into giving them to me.”

“Yes, sir. And with Oliver, you two aren’t different. You’re tethered to the same Master. I know you naturally take the blame because that’s what good parents do, but you were barely an adult and suffering the same monsters. Continue to allow the comfort you experience for both your sakes. If the time ever comes to let go, deal with it then. Losing yourself in the process won’t help.”

Suddenly, he’s removing his clothing very quickly. I feel the shift in myself as the broken shard clips into place. Unbuckling my belt, I fold it in half. “You’re going to come tonight,” I inform him.

The protest is on his lips. Aside from that it won’t be the fun kind of coming, it is punishment. The demolishing of his two-hundred-and-ten-day streak. He wanted to get to two hundred and fifty for me, which would have earned him a delicious orgasm. Now he’ll have to start again. It’s so cruel that he won’t know whether to be outraged or turned on.

It’s incredibly difficult to punish a masochist like Lakshan. It’s even more difficult for Lakshan to display any misbehavior. Opportunities like this come about rarely. He’s in a corner though. If I didn’t do this, we’d be right back where we started. I very much want to do this to him, only doubts would make me question the desire.

He risked this and did it anyway.

Maybe he thought I’d go a little easy on him, but I can’t stop thinking about him telling everyone he’s a free man, not even my submissive anymore.

“M-May I have your collar back, sir?” He blinks at me with his pretty brown eyes.

I pull the collar from my pocket. “This collar? Oh no, no. You’ll earn this back. You went too far, my boy—no wait, not my boy. You’re not my submissive tonight. Just my disobedient husband.”

He might not be my submissive by definition tonight, but he’s already floated off to subspace, which is fast even for him. I must be channeling all my Silasness. Finally.

I am not Eeyore.

I sit him up to remove his shirt. “What should I call you, sir?”

I smile a devious smile. “You seemed to like calling me Silas tonight. Seems like a thing to call your husband.”

“Sir.”

“Ah, ah ah.”

“Silas. This is cruel.”