Liability

  “That’s because it’s more fun that way,” Cris playfully added.

  Mason shook his head and leaned in. Kim had ended up sitting next to him, on Mason’s left side, with Cole to her left. “Landry’s a sadist and enjoys confusing people,” Mason explained. “So does Tilly. Cris and Tilly mix it up with each other depending on their moods, and Tilly’s sort of our group’s appointed pit bull. If she thinks someone’s messing with one of her friends in a bad way, she’ll put a hurting on them.”

  “That’s for sure,” Cris said.

  “Hey,” Tilly said, slightly indignantly. “I’m the sweetest sadist you’ll ever hope to meet.”

  “I heard about the can of wasp spray in your car,” Mason told her.

  “That was prudent,” she said. “And I turned out not needing it, either.”

  “Wasp spray?” Kim asked.

  Tilly shrugged. “If you ever need a good makeshift blowtorch, it’s wonderful.”

  “Uh…”

  “Tilly,” Leah playfully chastised, “don’t scare the newbies.”

  Tilly’s face broke into a beaming grin. “Sorry. It’s a really long story. Improvised defensive weapon.” She shot a frown at her husband. “Master Fussypants here won’t let me get a concealed carry permit.”

  Everyone else at the table, besides Kim, Cole, and the other new couple, of course, immediately said, “Prison orange is not your color.”

  “Harumph!” Tilly rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

  Mason leaned in again. “As you can see, friendships sort of blur the lines and become like adopted family. Even when idiots like me move away for a while and come back.”

  “Hey, that was your fault, Mase,” Tilly said. “You should have known better than to try to move away from the kink capital of the world.”

  “Sarasota?” Kim asked, now feeling really confused.

  Nearly everyone laughed and again, in unison, said, “Florida.”

  Chapter Five

  Mason thought the new couple next to him was absolutely adorable. Leah and Seth had joined them at the table, as well as another newbie couple, and Tilly, Landry, and Cris.

  If Tilly didn’t scare the newbies off, they’d probably keep coming around.

  Cole and Kim had been dating for about two years, but even though they were in a stable, permanent relationship, they didn’t live together. There was a divorce alluded to in Kim’s past as to the reason she hadn’t yet moved in with Cole.

  “So do you have a submissive?” Kim asked Mason.

  It hadn’t come up yet that he was gay, so this seemed as good a time as any to put it out there. “No man in my life right now,” he said with a smile, hoping this didn’t freak them out. “Hoping to find a single and kinky submissive guy, now that I’m back in Florida.”

  “I have a cousin who’s single,” Cole said. “But I can’t vouch for the fact that he’s kinky.” He smiled, a friendly, honest smile. The kind that put Mason at ease.

  Mason felt a little tension roll from his shoulders. Question answered, they were open-minded. “We have a saying in the lifestyle, that you have to fish in the right pond. I’m hoping that being back in Florida means I start getting nibbles again.”

  “I told you,” Landry drawled from across the table. “I’ll loan you Cris if you want to borrow an ass to stripe.”

  “Don’t I get a say in that?” Cris joked.

  “No,” Landry teased right back.

  Even though Mason considered all three of them to be friends, Mason still couldn’t get past having first met and known Cris when Cris was Tilly’s Master…and then hearing how he’d up and left her. Yes, he knew the whole story now, as did all their friends, but Mason would leave striping Cris’ ass to Landry and Tilly.

  “I appreciate that, Lan, but I’m sure compared to you he’d think I was just swatting flies off his rump. Not that it’s not a shapely rump, Cris. No offense.”

  Cris, who’d been taking a sip of his iced tea, tipped his glass toward him. “None taken.”

  The longer Mason talked with Kim and Cole, the more easily the conversation between the three of them flowed. They both asked a lot of questions, and he could tell from their questions that they were adorably clueless but eager to learn.

  Just from watching them together, studying their body language, Mason could see how much Cole loved Kim, yet that she’d been the driving force in getting them there tonight. At least Cole appeared to be genuinely open-minded about this. Cole didn’t seem to be humoring Kim simply to shut her up, just based on the questions he was asking.

  That boded well for their continued long-term success.

  Lucky girl.

  Cole had distracting blue eyes that Mason kept finding himself wanting to stare into the longer they talked.

  Straight and taken, buddy. Forget it.

  Now that Mason was living back on the Suncoast, and settled into his new condo and new job, he wanted to become active again in the local lifestyle community. If he didn’t meet anyone to date and play with that way, he’d start filtering into more events in the gay community.

  But the first item on Mason’s list was to reconnect with all his old friends in the Suncoast Society and at Venture.

  As he talked with Kim and Cole, he kept getting sidetracked by people coming up to talk to him, or going over to talk to other people. Tilly, Landry, and Cris, who’d been absent for a while working out in Los Angeles, were also playing social butterflies and hardly at their seats long enough to eat. Seth and Leah were busy talking with the other couple at their table.

  Finally, about halfway through dinner, Mason made Cole and Kim an offer.

  “Sorry it’s so busy tonight. A lot of people here I haven’t seen in a while. If you want, we can meet somewhere one night this week and have dinner and talk some more. Then I’d be able to give you my undivided attention.”

  He watched Cole’s reaction more than Kim’s. The man immediately nodded. “That’d be nice, thank you. We’ll take you up on that. I’m sorry that I’m not better prepared tonight with questions. I honestly wasn’t sure where to start.”

  “I kind of blindsided him with all of this,” Kim admitted.

  Cole smiled. “Not exactly.”

  They’d already voluntarily admitted some of their bedroom activities to Mason, and they were definitely falling closer to the vanilla end of the scale. Which was absolutely fine, nothing wrong with that. It was easier to educate someone who didn’t already have a bunch of deep-seated, wild-assed, unrealistic fantasies that could never be made real.

  Mason suspected the fact that he was gay somewhat reassured both of them, although he hadn’t seen Cole react negatively to any of the other Doms in the room.

  Another thing that was a not uncommon issue with some guys. Sometimes, when it was the woman bringing the couple into the lifestyle, the vanilla male partner felt threatened and saw any male Dominant as an automatic threat, real or perceived, to their relationship. Usually perceived and not based in any reality other than the guy’s already shaky ego and inherent insecurities.

  It was refreshing to not only have an in-depth conversation with someone this new to the lifestyle, but who was openly looking for guidance and advice without any kind of defensive mode being engaged.

  At one point, when Kim had left the table to go use the restroom, Cole took the opportunity to ask Mason a question he sensed had been on the man’s mind all evening.

  “What happens if she ends up wanting to do stuff I just…can’t do? I love her, but I don’t want to make her miserable.” Cole’s focus was on the hallway where Kim had gone. “Do I just make the decision to let her go so she can be happy and find what she needs?”

  Wow. Had Freddie only been this open-minded and not a jealous sandspur, maybe they’d still have something resembling a relationship, albeit a long-distance one.

  “For starters, don’t panic,” Mason reassured him. “It’s not automatically an either-or situation. It’s common for people to start out ov
erwhelmed in this and then quickly grow into loving things they’d been terrified of at the start. It’s also very common for couples to have agreements where one or both partners can play with others. Not every person knows every technique. Like fire cupping. Not everyone does that. So if someone wants to get that done, it’s okay for them to go play with someone who does it. Or if one partner is Dominant, but they’re not a sadist, they might green-light their masochistic submissive partner to play with a sadist under certain rules.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. It’s all about communication and trust.”

  Cole slowly nodded. “I hadn’t thought about it like that before. I mean, about…division of labor, so to speak.” He smiled again, and Mason couldn’t help but smile back.

  “Take me, for example,” Mason said. “I’m not a service Top. Not my thing. Before I moved away, there used to be a friend I’d meet at the club, and she liked to be caned. Really heavy play. Lucky for her, I enjoyed the hell out of caning her. Her husband didn’t like doing that, but he let her play with me. I wound her up, returned her to him, and he got to do whatever it was they did after they left the club.”

  “Are they here tonight?”

  “No, unfortunately they moved to Washington state a few years back. And nothing against service Tops. In your case, it might be a good idea to get to know some reputable ones who frequently play at the club. They can help you and Kim figure out what it is you do and don’t like.”

  After Kim returned, Mason was curious to see how Cole would handle their conversation in her absence.

  Again the man surprised him. Cole immediately summarized their conversation to her, finishing with, “So what do you think?”

  She looked a little like a deer in the headlights. Adorably overwhelmed. Enough so it turned his sadistic crank another notch.

  That wasn’t a gay or straight thing for him. It was completely related to the situation and individual people for him, not tied to a gender or sexual orientation at all.

  “I…I didn’t know that was a thing,” she said, looking to Mason. “How would we go about doing that?”

  “I think the safest thing is to start by coming to the club on a regular basis and attending classes. I’m planning on being there this coming Saturday afternoon for Seth and Leah’s flogging 101 demo, if you’d like to go. It’s free, and you don’t have to participate. You can just watch. Some of us are going out to dinner between that class and the evening play session, too, if you’d like to join us. And you can come back with us later to the evening play session.”

  “We’re not members, though,” Cole said.

  “The classes are open to non-members. You can attend that night as my guests, or you can join.”

  Kim still looked a little terrified. Like maybe she was beginning to think she’d gotten in too far over her head. “I thought it’d be hard to join.”

  Mason grinned. “Naw, it’s easy. They dropped the blood oaths and new-moon goat sacrifices a few years back.”

  Cole immediately laughed, but Kim’s eyes widened, like dinner plates, before she realized he was teasing and started laughing, too.

  Another half turn of his sadistic crank.

  Hmm. This could be fun.

  Cole looked down at her. “It’s up to you, honey. I’m fine with going, if you’d like to.”

  She looked like she was trying to decide if the net positioned just below where she was about to jump off the cliff was real or not.

  Finally, she turned to Mason and nodded. “Thank you. That’s very kind of you. Yes, I’d like that.”

  * * * *

  That morning, after Mason had gotten up and found another text from Freddie, he’d set the man’s number to mute all activity. Calls, voice mails, and texts. Later that evening, once the munch had broken up and after exiting the restaurant, Mason sat in his car and scrolled through his phone.

  He had four texts from Freddie and a missed call where the man hadn’t left a voice mail.

  The texts weren’t as snippy in tone as they had been yesterday, but Mason could tell they might head in that direction.

  Rather than calling Freddie, because Mason didn’t want to reinforce that kind of behavior in the guy, he opted to send him a tersely worded text.

  Had dinner with friends. Heading home. Good night.

  He was going to slide his phone into his shirt pocket when he saw a reply come in from Freddie.

  Can we tlk few min 1st?

  Mason opted to ignore the barely readable text and returned his phone to his pocket. He had spent the entirety of his “relationship” with Freddie holding back, trying not to be a dick once he knew Freddie wasn’t really submissive or kinky, despite the man’s assurances when they’d first met that he was. And Mason had openly revealed all of that to Freddie at the start.

  Maybe if I hadn’t been so lonely, I wouldn’t have missed the warning signs.

  Mason was done with that. He’d told the guy to move on, that they were finished, just friends. He was under no obligation to be anything but his honest self with the guy now.

  And in retrospect, Mason realized he had tolerated a lot of behavior from Freddie over the past several months that he never would have tolerated from a submissive or a slave.

  I wanted a relationship. I was tired of being alone.

  He’d settled, tried to rein himself in, and it had come back to bite him in the ass in a massive way.

  Never again.

  Settling sucked for more than one reason.

  As he drove home, Mason replayed the evening’s conversation with Cole and Kim in his mind. There was something interesting there with the couple, and not just Cole’s drop-dead gorgeous blue eyes, either.

  Too bad the boy’s straight and taken.

  He’d caught sight of the guy’s ass in his khakis and yeah. Yeah, he’d gladly tap that. Or spank it. Or cane it.

  Or—

  Dammit, I need a submissive.

  Hell, not even a submissive. At this point, he’d settle for a masochist of either gender just to let loose on for an evening. He could take care of the sexual tension with his own hand, that wasn’t a problem.

  He hadn’t been able to beat someone’s ass in too damn long. Draw a moan or a whimper from someone, raise welts and bruise flesh.

  He’d missed being able to play. To be himself.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have dismissed Landry’s offer to borrow Cris quite so quickly.

  Being in Nebraska, Mason had to keep the fact that he was gay not quite on the down-low while at work, but down low enough that it didn’t raise any eyebrows or cause any ripples. There were actually lots of gay men in his urban corner of Nebraska just outside of Omaha. But the few eligible gay men he’d met, who he’d been attracted to, were…

  Taken. Or, well, Freddie. Early on after he’d started dating Freddie, when Mason had mentioned the possibility of trying to also find a male submissive to play with, Freddie had pretty much freaked out.

  Mason had never mentioned it again. Especially considering he hadn’t really found anyone else besides Freddie, so it wasn’t worth the hassle of mentioning it.

  When Mason had gotten the lead on the job here in Florida, he’d already been considering backing away from Freddie for a number of reasons. Flying down here to interview for the job had been a burden off his mind, to do it before Freddie had found out about him doing it.

  Okay, answers that question. Who the fuck was the adult in that relationship, again?

  Damn sure hadn’t been him if he couldn’t stand up to the guy, when Mason considered himself to be a Dominant.

  I guess I deserve to deal with this bullshit now since I let it drag on for so long.

  He parked in his spot at the condo complex and got out to head to the front door. When he pulled his phone out of his pocket at the front door, he found another text awaiting him from Freddie.

  PLS talk 2 me. I miss U.

  Unlocking the door, Mason headed inside and fought the urge to
slam it behind him. He didn’t appreciate Freddie making him feel like a heel, and he didn’t appreciate being guilt-tripped.

  Although he’d stuck his own head in the sand and ignored Freddie’s flaws during their short-lived relationship.

  Thank god I didn’t get a land-line put in. I’d never get rid of him.

  Mason headed for the bedroom to try to get some sleep.

  Chapter Six

  Cole couldn’t help but notice how quiet Kim was after dinner as he drove them back toward her apartment.

  “You all right?” he finally asked ten minutes after leaving the restaurant.

  “Yeah. Just a lot to think about.” He was focused on the road but out of the corner of his eye noticed that she turned to look at him. “What did you think?” she asked.

  “I think we have a lot to talk about, huh?”

  “Yeah. Are you really okay having dinner with Mason on Wednesday? And going to the club Saturday?”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t have agreed to it if I wasn’t.”

  He’d exchanged cell numbers with the guy before leaving the restaurant. Even better, Mason had invited him to feel free to text him if he had questions or wanted to talk about all of this before Wednesday. There was also a site called FetLife that Mason told them about and gave them his username to look up. He’d welcomed them to friend him there. Cole planned on signing up tonight.

  More quiet from her.

  He finally broke the silence. “Kim, look, I love you. As I’ve told you before, I’m willing to…explore things with you. I don’t want to hold you back.”

  “But I don’t want to lose you by being stupid, either.”

  “You won’t lose me. I’m not going to be okay with you screwing around on me with every guy who looks at you. But if we work on this and I find I can’t do certain things for you, I’m okay with the other option Mason talked about. Letting someone else do that for you. If that’s what you want. I need you to be honest with me, though. Don’t not tell me stuff just because you think you’re sparing my feelings. We can figure this out together. I’ve told you about me and the things in my past. I’m not threatened by helping you try to figure this out.”