9. Arlene

NINE

Arlene

“ Y ou need to buy more flour.”

Claude stumbled into the kitchen. My heart sped up for a second. I thought I’d be quirky and cute, but maybe it came out as too much. Maybe I was overstepping, too, and I should have just stayed in bed.

Maybe I should have left when I noticed they were fast asleep? Technically, we hadn’t talked about sleeping over.

Leaving would’ve felt wrong, though.

Claude plastered on a smile before I could overthink anything more. I melted a bit. It was a combination of last night, and the way they looked today—hair sticking out in every direction, an oversized T-shirt that went past their mid-thigh, and squinted eyes they couldn’t quite open yet.

“I didn’t even know I had flour.” They flopped onto the stool by the kitchen island as they mumbled the words.

I gasped. “How could you not?—?”

I didn’t finish the question, but I’d ask my follow-up questions later. Flour was one of the most basic ingredients. I’d understand not knowing that you’d run out of… I didn’t know, apple juice, maybe. But flour?

How did one make it without flour?

“What are you making?”

“Pancakes.” My improved version of pancakes, if I said so myself. “I thought people started out by saying oh, you didn’t have to cook .”

“Shut up,” Claude groaned. I laughed. “I’m still half-asleep, and you’re better in the kitchen than I am. It’s called survival skills.”

“Sure,” I joked, “I’m sure that’s what it’s called.”

Claude grumbled something under their breath. They didn’t tell me to stay away from their pans, though, so I gave a final whisk to the batter and started pouring it into the pan.

I’d debated on adding chocolate chips, but I couldn’t find any. Maybe next time I came over, I’d bring some with me.

Huh.

It was weird, thinking about next times. It was even weirder that I didn’t question it.

“Are you one of those people that needs coffee first thing in the morning to function?”

It would and wouldn’t fit them.

“I mean, it helps, but not really.” Claude stretched on the stool. “I ran out of the one I like, anyway. I’m getting it delivered this evening.”

“Good.” I was in overdrive as I said it, though. Should I get in charge of their groceries? Yesterday, there was talk about me being a sub, and it fit, but… I liked making sure that people were taken care of, too. “Are you also getting flour?”

“Probably not.” They chuckled. “Are you really offended by my lack of baking items?”

“Not offended.” I wrinkled my nose. “Weirded out, though? For sure.”

I heard Claude move off the stool. I wanted to turn around and see what they were doing, but I needed to keep an eye on the batter. I was just flipping the first pancake when their arms wrapped around my waist. I’d haphazardly put on the dress from yesterday when I decided on my plan to cook us breakfast.

Safety first, and all that.

“I’ll buy all the baking things you want, if you agree to give me private classes,” they hummed. “I’ll need many.”

Shit.

The innuendo in their voice was impossible to ignore. My stomach fluttered, skin heating up.

“Yeah. Okay.” It wasn’t my smoothest delivery, but words clung and stuck to the back of my throat. “I can do that.”

“You don’t sound too convinced.”

I swallowed. One quick look showed Claude was just teasing, their lips tilted up in a grin.

“Maybe I’m just processing the lack of flour in your kitchen.”

“Hey, you had enough to make pancakes.”

“Barely,” I grumbled.

Claude just chuckled.

It was fine. It was all under control.

“So, are you going to stay? Or do you have to work?”

“Why would I work on a Saturday?”

“I don’t know.” They shrugged. “Aren’t finance types the ones that work 80 hours a week on a good day?”

I frowned. That had been my father’s mentality before my mother forced him to slow down.

“I don’t.”

I felt guilty about it sometimes, though. I believed my father when he said he was happy now, and when he said he wanted to look into doing more pro-bono, charity type of stuff. But there was a voice at the back of my head that sometimes wondered if it had taken him so long to slow down because of me.

I was just terrible at hustle culture.

“Good to know,” Claude hummed. “I mean, not that I want to assume anything…”

“I’d love to stay.”

“You would?” There was wonder in Claude’s voice before they realized and shut it down. “I mean, cool.”

“Yeah.”

I should tease them about it—if anything, it would be payback for yesterday and show them that I could tease, too. Well, I was probably gentler about it, but…

But I got the feeling that this was, in a way, newer for Claude than it was for me. I could let them work through it while I finished getting the stack of pancakes ready.

“No chocolate chips?”

So, Claude didn’t do well with silence when they were unsettled.

Got it.

“There would be chocolate chips if you had any.”

“Oh.” Claude cleared their throat. “Sorry. I’ll go update my grocery order.”

“Okay.” It was hard not to laugh.

It was also a good thing that they couldn’t see the grin splitting my cheeks wide. To be honest, it was actually a relief—that they weren’t acting quite themselves. I would’ve been way more anxious if they were their cooler, more collected self. If they were anxious, they kind of forced me to keep my cool. Well, to keep my cool slightly better.

Whatever.

I shook my head as I finished up plating the pancakes. At least Claude did have plenty of sugar so I could whip up a quick caramel sauce.

Dylan was not going to let me hear the end of it when I told him about this.

First, though, I should have a clearer idea of what this was, and that meant talking to Claude about it. Hopefully, they’d had time to calm down some.

“Where should I put these?”

“Lemme.”

They’d been sitting in front of their laptop when I popped my face in the living room. The moment I spoke, though, they straightened up right away. Yeah, they might need another minute or two before I could trust them to lead a conversation.

“Sure.”

I could’ve just put everything on a tray, but I couldn’t find any. Well, I was sure there were a couple behind a bunch of saucepans, but it felt too invasive to snoop around.

“Did you update your grocery order yet?”

“Yep.” Claude spoke as they grabbed plates and forks. “Not sorry for all the things I probably ordered wrong.”

“How can you order flour wrong?”

Claude quirked an eyebrow as they passed by me.

“Watch me,” they said. I snorted but followed them to the table in the living room where they’d been placing everything. “These smell amazing, by the way.”

They did. There weren’t many things I was actively proud of in my life, but my pancakes were one of them. “Thanks.”

Claude was more than happy to pile up their plate with three pancakes before even trying one. Not going to lie, it made me blush. I blushed a lot around them. It was a thing.

“We should talk about last night after breakfast, right?”

I nodded. Nerves threatened to make an appearance, but I kept them under the surface. “We should.”

Last night had been… I had no words, but I had lots of questions. In many ways, it had been revealing. As naive as it sounded, I’d learned things about my body I didn’t think I would’ve learned otherwise—not even if I’d dared to go to a kink club or anywhere else on my own. That said, discovering things about my body also brought up new insecurities.

The most pressing one was probably what it all meant going forward. It wasn’t like I could just ask Claude. It wasn’t even about what Claude thought or wanted, anyway.

I’d suspected I’d be more submissive if I ever got into a kink-based dynamic, but there was a world of difference between suspecting, having an inkling, and definitely knowing.

I had no interest in reversing the roles—with Claude, or any other prospective Dominant. Even if I tried to imagine it… I simply couldn’t.

“How do you feel about it?” Claude asked after stuffing their face with half a pancake.

I was glad they weren’t the kind of person to moan loudly around their food. I got that people wanted to show their love for food, but I never got the appeal.

“I…” My head blanked for a second. I had to blink twice before I could actually answer. “I liked it. A lot. Obviously.”

Claude hummed around the food. “These are so fucking good, by the way.”

The blunt compliment made me blush. It didn’t matter that I knew they were good. “Thanks.”

“Sorry.” They cleared their throat. “The people I’ve been with, if you can call it that, were usually more experienced and happy to lead these talks.”

“It’s okay.”

“But… how do you feel now? I know this stuff can mess with your head.”

“Yeah.” I chewed on my lip. That was one way of putting it. “I’m not sure what to think, or feel, truthfully. I never thought this would happen.”

Whatever it was that I’d said, it made Claude frown. It made them forget the half-eaten pancake too. Being under their full attention was nerve-wracking. Claude was intense when they wanted to be.

“Why not?”

Oh.

That’s what got them all frowning.

It was kind of sweet.

“I mean, you know, I’m not… the best at meeting people. Or making a move.”

“You’re fine.”

“That’s what you say,” I mumbled.

There was no heat in the words, though. Claude didn’t take the bait, either. I was happy they didn’t. Happier than I had any business being, probably.

“It messed with my head, too.”

I hadn’t realized silence had fallen between us. I snapped my head up when Claude broke it.

“It did?” I gulped.

“Yeah.” They looked away for a second, a hand running through their hair. “I’d never been so invested, I guess. It’s weird.”

“Oh?”

I frowned. I didn’t know if it was supposed to be a compliment or the exact opposite. I did not breathe until Claude started speaking again.

“When I woke up, before I came downstairs, I was thinking back to, y’know, The Video TM .” They swallowed. “How, I discovered something about myself, and it led to… the worst months of my life, basically.”

“Right.” I nodded.

I’d love to say more, but Claude hadn’t opened up about it. There was no way I could utter a word without somehow fucking up. Everything was too fresh and too new to take that risk.

The issue with not saying more than one word was that I had more time to go over what they’d said and what it meant. Claude had come to me less than an hour ago, and they’d seemed fine. Surely, they weren’t dreading whatever was happening.

Part of me screamed that Claude wouldn’t be so cruel to ask me to spend the day if that was the case. Another more insecure part reminded me that I didn’t actually know them beyond the persona they used to play in front of a camera.

“You’re freaking out,” Claude said.

And they were avoiding the topic.

“Well, yeah.”

How could I not?

Claude licked their bottom lip before they cut another piece of pancake. I didn’t know if I should be frustrated or relieved. Surely, if they were still eating, it couldn’t be so bad.

Surely.

“Sorry, I’m kind of questioning everything I knew about myself, again . I do wanna keep hanging out, though.”

Keep hanging out.

Okay. I could work with that. Not everyone jumped into things as fast as I did—I knew that was a beige-leaning-toward-orange flag of mine.

“How can I help?”

Claude didn’t need to know that I had no chill. Or that stopping so that I could think rationally was a struggle. Truth was, I was turning into a bit of a simp around them. I just wanted to keep doing more of what we’d been doing.

So, while Claude discovered whatever it was they’d discovered about themselves, I’d discovered I was kind of a horn dog.

Fun.