13. Christian

13

CHRISTIAN

B eing Gibson’s assistant isn’t difficult so far. At dinner with his Italian investors, I sit silently, smile when everyone else smiles, and jot down a few notes while recording the conversation as a voice memo. My mouth looks better after holding ice on it for half an hour before falling asleep for the rest of the afternoon. I look like the ladies in the building do the day after a filler injection, and in this suit, I probably seem vain enough that I would do that kind of thing.

Gibson’s working persona is another side of him I’ve never seen. He’s smooth as fuck, deploying a single eyebrow arch, a smirk, a guarded wariness when called for. His laugh is also different. Shorter, throaty. Not that deep chest laugh I was so enamored with yesterday. And yet…I’m no less charmed.

More than once during dinner when he turns that smirk on me, and his eyes tighten slightly in the corners—again—like he’s checking in, my pulse speeds up, and I have to reach for my water—suddenly parched.

Meanwhile, the wine is flowing, and I’m partaking as much as he is, matching him glass for glass—no more. I’m not drunk, but I am relaxed, and I’m no longer thinking about the spectacle I made of myself on the table in the dungeon where I nearly got milked like a cow. Before she put her hand on my cock, I was kind of getting into it.

Being trapped—especially having my head trapped—had been intense and humiliating. But the Domme was good. Easing me into the restraints and then working the paddle over my lower half—orienting me as to what I could expect. But Gibson was right—without knowing what was next—without being able to communicate—I was far too tense. At least I tried.

But maybe BDSM is too simple a solution for what plagues me. I’ll likely need to find another way to suffer my way through all these years’ worth of constant guilt and shame. Squeeze it until it fucking pops.

Tonight in The Dungeon, the screams are louder. The two Italian businessmen who came with us are clearly familiar with the place. The other two gentlemen went home to their families, so it’s just the four of us in Gibson’s booth, but I have a feeling it’s about to be down to me and him soon with the way those two are scoping things out.

Sure enough, a man comes to collect one of them. They and a woman disappear behind a wall on the other side of the room. “What happens back there?” I ask Gibson.

“The more private things,” he says.

“Like actual sex?”

Gibson shrugs, but he also gives me that assessing look. The one that makes me think he’s remembering last night, too.

“Ah…there she is,” the other man with us says, eyes lighting up at the sight of one of the tallest women I’ve ever seen.

She’s holding a leather flogger, and she snaps it to her side as if she’s telling him to heel. He’s up and moving so fast, I laugh. They head for a swing in the shadows. The crowd is thicker tonight than last night, so I can’t see as much of what’s happening on the small risers. The music is pumping, the energy is high, and there’s a distinct musk of arousal in the air .

“How are you holding up?” Gibson asks once we’re alone.

“I could go back to bed, honestly.” Or get my mouth tongue-fucked for an hour or two. Luckily, I’m not drunk enough to say that tonight. I have a nice buzz, though.

“What happened on the table today?” he asks.

My eyes narrow. “I thought we were working.”

He waves a hand dismissively. “Work’s over. You’re off the clock. What happened?”

“If you’re not paying me anymore, then I’m going back upstairs.”

He gives me the brow arch. “I’ll just follow you and keep asking.”

I don’t hate the sound of that, but I humor him. I’ve been enough of a pain in the ass today. “I was in my head. Way too tense.”

“She was too gentle with you.”

I frown. “It was my first time.”

He gives his head a dismissive shake. “You needed more.”

The comment annoys me. “How the fuck do you know what I need?”

“Because I was with you at St. Peter’s. Now, I don’t know what you asked for when you came down here, or what you were expecting, but I do know what you got wasn’t what you needed because if it had been, you would have been hard.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t always about that.”

“On a milking table? It absolutely is about that.”

“I didn’t pick the table. What should she have done differently?”

“She wasn’t the problem—she just wasn’t what you needed.”

Again with that. Why does he think he knows what I came looking for? Or what could have helped me in that moment? “Okay, I’ll bite. What do I need?”

“I think you need to know the person dominating you. If you really want to be dominated. At the bare minimum, you need to be able to set an expectation and have a conversation about your limits before you start a scene.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be dominated.”

“Then why allow yourself to be restrained?”

“I just wanted to stop thinking, Gibson. It’s not that deep.”

“It’s exactly that deep,” he says, his eyes darkening with an intensity that I swear I feel in my balls. “Everyone has limits. Soft limits that can be tested and hard limits that can’t be touched.”

“Yeah, yeah, I feel like I know enough about BDSM to have a grasp on the basics.”

“But you felt like any Italian Domme could tie you down and give you exactly what you needed on your lunch hour without any prior discussion or thought exploration on your part?”

Hot, rich, and intuitive. Lethal combo. “Okay—let me rephrase— why does it have to be that deep?”

“Because submission requires trust, and trust requires a connection. I’m not saying you have to be in love with your Dominant, but it helps to be on the same wavelength if you want to get out of your own headspace. If you just want to get off—there’s plenty of ways to do that without strapping yourself to a table and putting your dick through a big hole.”

I accidentally snort when I laugh, and it makes me reach up to scratch my nose. “On that note…”

His hand drops onto my neck, and I turn to look at him. He’s closed half the distance between us. I can feel his breath on my mouth. “Five more minutes.”

No whiskey dick tonight. It rises to attention like he just pulled it with a string. “To what?”

“Kiss me back.” The music is too loud to hear him, but I’m staring hard enough at his mouth to understand. While the demand seems to come out of nowhere, something inside me expected it and is now able to relax.

“You can’t control yourself,” I say.

“Maybe not. ”

“What are you doing, Gibson? You’re not into guys.”

“I don’t know if I’d say that. I’m into you.”

This is probably what it feels like to be chosen first in a schoolyard pick. My chest swells with something like pride. Someone this wealthy—this worldly—this hot— who’s never been with a guy wants to suck more hickeys onto my lips.

But tonight, I shake my head. “I’m going to bed.”

“Let me come with you.”

It’s incredibly obvious that he’s lonely. Lonelier maybe than anyone I’ve ever met, and it hurts to see. It hurts not to kiss him like he asked, because I do want to. There’s not much in me that doesn’t want to feel the clench of his strong hands on my shoulders or in my hair, or the warm press of his commanding tongue inside my mouth—anywhere really. I want him too much, but also not enough. Defeated, I pull away.

This is who I am, and it is hopeless. “Not tonight, Gibson. Stay here. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He nods, his hand sliding off me as I slip out of the booth.

I have no regrets as I walk away.

Over the next two days, I learn more than I ever wanted to know about commercial real estate in Italy and the ways in which millionaires work the governmental bureaucracy to get exactly what they want at rock bottom prices. Gibson has a brilliant mind, more money than a king, and he looks like a movie star. It doesn’t surprise me that the world bends to his will.

I sure the fuck would.

Or I guess I wouldn’t. I don’t even know anymore. It hasn’t come up again. I do know and fully comprehend that getting involved with him would be wrong on too many levels to contemplate, and while it might only be for the purpose of exploration and orgasms—it blurs a line that’s already smudged to begin with. Honestly, I’m all over the place about it.

I’ve been spending my mornings in the nearest ancient ruins—of what?—no clue, but I like being there and seeing them more than I thought I would. After I find a good place to sit, I drink coffee that’s stronger than anything I’ve ever had in New York, and I hold my pen very close to my journal, occasionally writing a word or two, sometimes an entire phrase, but it’s all chaos and nothingness. Sunshine and tourists. iPhones and ceramic tiles so old, I can’t understand how there’s still paint on them.

I feel utterly meaningless here. If looking up at the stars makes me feel small, sitting amongst ancient ruins makes me feel like I might as well be dead already. I’m a blip, and if I could think of a prettier way to express that I would, but blip is all I’ve got here in Rome. One thing I do write, which is not a poem, is a complete sentence that sums up this trip perfectly.

I wish I knew enough to appreciate the place I’m in.

And that can mean anything, but technically, at the time I write it, it means I wish I’d read a travel guide before coming here instead of trying to figure out how to reckon with God when Jesus is the real mindfuck. I did google where he was crucified, because wasn’t it the Romans who did it? But it turns out it was outside Jerusalem, so nowhere near Rome. Hence—the sentence.

See above , I write before closing my journal and heading back in the direction of Gibson’s hotel. We’re scheduled to leave later this afternoon, which means we’ll be traveling back in time—something else I’m struggling to wrap my increasingly crowded mind around.

I manage to buy a pistachio gelato on my walk. I tried yesterday and wasn’t able to figure out how to do it—which is one thing I’m looking forward to about getting back to New York. I understand how things work there—I know how to order a fucking sandwich at a place that sells sandwiches. Not something I’ve figured out here yet, but I’ll take my successful gelato purchase and be satisfied I got the right flavor.

It really is better here. The gelato—in the same way no place makes bagels better than New York.

I make it up all six flights of stairs for what I hope is the last time and enter the penthouse suite. The patio doors are open, and Gibson is lying on one of the lounge chairs, his head back. I can see the upper rim of his sunglasses, and his phone against his ear.

I would have gotten him a gelato, too, but I was positive I wouldn’t make it up the stairs holding two. I finish mine off and go into my room to finish packing.

As I fold my clothes, I find myself hoping that whatever weird vibe that’s found a home inside me since I got here dissipates upon landing back home. I’m planning to turn down Gibson’s job offer, just in case that’s the issue. Nothing against it or Gibson, but I don’t like how I feel right now, and if working with him—or the job in particular, which has its fair share of shadiness—has anything to do with it, I’d just as soon go back to manning the door and hiding out in the basement. Live out the rest of my blip in peace.

A knock on the doorframe turns my head. “My driver is picking us up at three.”

“I’m ready whenever,” I tell him.

“Do you mind if I ask you something while we’re both sober?”

I stand straight and face him. He’s in a white linen short-sleeved shirt that fits him perfectly over a pair of ripped jeans—the kind of jeans that look like he’s had them since high school. He’s barefoot, and his sunglasses are pushed back, tangled in his thick, dark hair. He could be photographed for any cologne ad and sell a million bottles.

He’s literal perfection in the manner of the ancient gods.

“Go ahead,” I say even as my stomach flips and my pulse races.

“Would you be interested in trying a scene with me?”