Page 70 of Coiled Tight
“Okay…” Cam rubbed his arms. “I hope he doesn’t think I’m trans, though. I mean, I’m really not a good actor, and even if I was, it would feel really wrong. But then I’d have to explain it wasn’t about that, and I really don’t want to explain, um, fetishes to him?”
I nodded. “Just tell him it has no meaning or it was a gift from a friend.”
Da loved gossip, but he wasn’t the type to fish for it or push when someone looked uncomfortable. I didn’t have to tell Cam to look uncomfortable. I had no doubt that would be his default setting the next time my parents remembered to pass by the refuge.
“That can work, I guess.” Cam pursed his lips. “Or it can be a local club?”
“Sure.”
More silence followed after my acquiescence. Part of me wanted to play some music, lull him back to sleep with some soft country I didn’t completely hate even though I didn’t understand how he could stand it. Another part wanted to keep getting all the uncomfortable conversations out of the way.
“But if the diapers thing wasn’t what had you frowning, what was?”
I supposed I should’ve guessed—Cam didn’t let anything go. I had to stop comparing him to every other Little I’d been around or met. For as much as he let things stew in his head, he didn’t keep them in forever. He might give false starts to his sentences, or he had to stop before he stammered his waythrough a question, but he didn’t let it stop him. He asked for the things that worried him and the things he wanted to know.
“General life stuff.”
“Meaning what?”
“Everyone giving us shit. Side eyeing me again.”
“Are you sure Roy and you weren’t more than?—”
“Completely platonic,” I promised. It felt wrong that I felt the need to make the promise. There was nothing wrong with what Roy and I did, and I wasn’t under some misconceived notion that I owed Cam a fully wholesome dating life before him. It didn’t stop the words tumbling out of my mouth, though. “I told you I was protective of him. He’s the one who discovered age play and started to get into it. At first, I just wanted to make sure he didn’t end up in a dangerous situation with a creep, and then I started to see the appeal of it, I guess. With us in the middle of nowhere, it made sense that he’d lean on me when he needed a break, and I got what I needed from him instead of lashing out at any of the newbies with more ego than sense.”
Cam hummed. “And no feelings developed?”
“Not the ones you’re thinking about.”
Roy had been family by that point. Had I grown more attached to him? For fuck’s sake, of course I had. I was only human, and no one prepared you for another fully grown adult to cradle up to your lap while suckling on a bottle and giving you the biggest puppy eyes out there.
I loved him, but I didn’t love him in a romantic sense. I didn’t fret about sharing a life together, about keeping him close to the point it wouldn’t be considered healthy. I didn’t love him with every breath I took, with the knowledge that it was the only thing that made sense. But I had loved taking care of him. I had loved the certainty that I was the one who couldmake things better for him, that I gave him exactly what he needed and he was safe because of me.
“Where is he?”
I sighed. Didn’t stop to think what it meant that he was the first person to have asked that question.
“He got help.” It was the short story. “He moved to a psych center in Nevada and stayed there as a gardener. He emailed me a few years back.”
I never replied to the email, but it had healed a wound I hadn’t realized had been festering there.
twenty-five
cam
“The limits you gave me while we were at Damian’s…” Saúl’s words woke me up. I hadn’t fallen asleep per se—I wasn’t that bad of a sidekick—but I’d been dozing off for the last… hour, maybe?Oops. “Do they always apply, or was it just for that scene?”
Surprising no one, my brain had no problem plaguing me with images of that scene and the limits he was talking about. No anal. No CBT. No sensory deprivation.
“Is it a problem if they were?” I challenged out of principle—and because I needed some time if he wanted me to give an answer that made some amount of sense.
“No, darlin’.” He smiled ruefully. “I want to own you. I’m flexible in the how.”
Fuck.
That sounded…
I shifted on my seat. Sweatpants were still the superior roadtrip attire, but they could design some that made it easier to hide cocks thickening because they didn’t get the memo that a serious conversation was coming.
