Time Out of Mind

  Cris returned about fifteen minutes later. “She’s asleep.” He tweaked the volume on the baby monitor on the kitchen counter.

  Mevi felt his nerves return with a vengeance as he stared at the three Tops. Or…whatever they were. Landry was definitely a Dominant, and apparently Tilly and Cris were both switches with each other and submissive to Landry.

  Doyle touched his arm. “I trust all three of them. I’ve personally seen all three of them play, and would trust any of them with you. But you need to negotiate if you want to do this. I can’t do that for you.”

  “I…I don’t even know what to ask about.”

  Tilly giggled. “Bingo. BDSM 101—Negotiations and Safety. It’s actually a class a friend of ours teaches, but I’m thinking that under the circumstances you should limit your club time if you want to stay anonymous.”

  “We can mask him,” Cris suggested. “Put a hood on him.”

  “Eh, true,” Tilly said. “Didn’t think about that. Except in a class, that would draw attention.”

  “Oh,” Cris said. “You’re right. Sorry.”

  “I don’t think I’d be comfortable playing at the club anyway. Not right now. Like you said, too much risk for me, and even more for Doyle if I get spotted.”

  “We don’t mind playing here if the baby’s asleep,” Tilly said. “But you need to decide what you want and how you want it.”

  He turned to Doyle for help.

  Doyle held his hands up in front of him. “I won’t do it for you. I can’t.”

  “Can you at least give me some guidance?”

  Landry held up a finger. “Might I suggest something?”

  “Sure,” Mevi said.

  “Doyle, is it crossing a line if you warn him about a red flag?”

  He seemed to consider it. “No. We’re starting to skirt technicalities now, but I don’t think it’s crossing a line for me to give him a warning.”

  “Excellent. Then how about we guide him, and you throw the red flag, as it were, if you see fit?”

  “Okay.”

  Mevi nodded. “I’m fine with that.”

  After a discussion of health issues and sexual history to determine if there were any concerns they had to worry about, they launched into the main discussion.

  “No sexual play, and no orgasm play,” Tilly said. “No offense, you’re good looking, but I only do that with Landry, Cris, and one other good friend of ours. And that’s only as a Top. I don’t bottom to anyone but Landry and Cris.”

  “I’m good with that. Does that mean you want me to wear clothes?”

  “You can wear whatever you want, or be naked, if you prefer.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “Impact play,” Landry said. “Do you have any idea of your tolerance limits?”

  “No.”

  The experienced Dom started with bare-handed spanking and listed a wide variety of implements, none of which sounded horrible to Mevi.

  “I’m going to interject here,” Cris said.

  His two partners looked at him.

  “Let’s let him go through Doyle’s toybag and see what he wants to try instead of spending an hour listing everything we have and still forgetting some.”

  Landry nodded. “Excellent point. Is that agreeable?”

  “Why my toybag?” Doyle asked.

  “You using it on anyone else?” Tilly countered.

  He finally shook his head.

  She hooked a thumb over her shoulder toward the front door. “Go get it, then.”

  Doyle finally nodded. “Okay.” He retrieved it from the rental.

  They spent the next thirty minutes negotiating, the experienced Tops leading Mevi through the process while Doyle watched and nodded to okay things. Now Mevi could see exactly why Doyle trusted them. They were thorough, and took time to carefully explain things Mevi didn’t know anything about.

  Mevi could only imagine how horribly things could go wrong if he’d tried to do something like this on his own.

  When it was finally time to move to the pool house, Tilly had one final question. “Aftercare. Who’s doing it? If he decides he wants it.”

  Mevi glanced at Doyle, after Tilly explained what it was. “Would it be okay if you did it? Would you mind?”

  He seemed to need a moment to consider it. “No problem. I’ll do that for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  * * * *

  Doyle had listened to the negotiations and fought his hardening cock as well as his growing jealousy.

  Both of which he knew were danger signs for him, and all the more reason he couldn’t be the one to play with Mevi.

  Even doing aftercare for him was iffy and approaching very grey area. Except it wasn’t sexual, and of the four of them there, he best knew Mevi. If he didn’t want Mevi crashing into subdrop, it probably should be him.

  When they moved out to the pool house, Cris bringing a portable baby monitor with them, it was Tilly Mevi ended up asking to do the actual play, and his reason impressed Doyle.

  “I think it’d be better if it’s her,” he quietly said. “Not that I don’t trust you guys,” he quickly added, “but…no offense, Tilly. You’re beautiful, and very nice, but I’m not attracted to you.”

  She smiled. “I got it. No offense taken. And that’s using your noggin.”

  Doyle laid out the contents of his toybag on the coffee table, which Landry and Cris dragged over near the kneeler. As Mevi studied all the implements, his eyes wide, he picked up the singletail.

  “How bad does this hurt?”

  “Depends on how it’s used.” She looked at Doyle. “It’s yours. You want to throw it? To demo.”

  Reluctantly, Doyle walked over and took it from her, uncurling it. It’d been years since he’d used it, but as he loosened up, he remembered how much fun he had with it. It had a polyester popper on it, one easily interchanged so he could use it on different people, and he had a baggie of several spares in his toybag.

  Taking aim at one of the couch cushions, he gauged his distance before throwing it, lightly brushing the fabric.

  “You can use it as sensory play.” He threw it again, going in just a hair, making a loud pop against the fabric. “Or for pain. Depends on the person. If you can’t play with a whip without cracking it all the time, then you don’t know how to use a whip properly.”

  He coiled it and handed it to Tilly, who stepped in and took a few practice throws with it.

  “Nice. Smooth. Kangaroo?”

  “Yeah.” She nailed the cushion hard before examining the popper. “Bet it stings like a fucker with those knots.”

  “It can, yes.”

  “Fresh popper?”

  “That one is, yes.”

  “Okay.” She smiled at Mevi. “If you want me to try it on you, we’ll do that on the cross first, and I’ll start gentle and step in until you call it.”

  He eagerly nodded. “Thanks.”

  Doyle stood back and watched as Tilly went through Doyle’s implements with Mevi and he ended up only removing four items and putting them back into the bag.

  “Wow. Brave guy.”

  “I won’t get many chances like this,” Mevi said. “I don’t want to waste it.”

  “Okay. First, shirt off, then face forward against the cross.”

  He did, getting into position.

  Tilly’s demeanor changed as Doyle watched his old friend shift into Top mode.

  Mistress Cardinal.

  He couldn’t count how many times he’d seen her in this mode over the years. It was almost a physical transformation, her face intense, her posture straight. Mevi held on to the cross and she walked up to him, tracing his spine and his shoulder blades with her fingers. He knew what she was doing—seeing how much meat he had on him before actually going after him.

  “Keep your head down and your face turned away from me,” she said, Doyle noting the change in her voice but not sure if Mevi would.

  From the way Cris and Landry watched, standing wi
th their arms crossed, he knew the two men were in Dom mode as well.

  Doyle felt out of place, wanting to be a part of this instead of an observer but knew he couldn’t cross that line with Mevi.

  No matter how much he might be tempted.

  Tilly took several gentle test throws with the singletail, both to judge her distance and to get Mevi used to it. Then she started stepping it up, always on target and barely touching him. Moving in slightly, she left slightly pink marks behind that made him flinch.

  “How you doing?” she asked.

  “It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt.”

  “Give me a yellow as soon as you can’t take it. Don’t be a hero.” She kept it up, the marks getting redder and darker, until he finally jumped.

  “Yellow,” he said.

  She immediately coiled the whip as she stepped in, caressing his back and speaking to him in soft tones.

  When she reached up and stroked the back of his head, Doyle had to force himself to stay in place, not get up off the stool he’d settled on and go over and swat her hand off his boy—

  What. The. Hell?

  He couldn’t call red on this. This wasn’t about him. It was about Mevi, and letting him have a chance to safely explore something that might very well help save his sobriety, if not his life.

  A part of himself Mevi had never been able to examine before.

  But Doyle hated seeing his friend being able to caress Mevi and he couldn’t.

  After a moment, Mevi stepped away from the cross and turned. Doyle immediately spotted the tent in the guy’s shorts, as well as the glazed look on his face.

  Cris had already spread a towel out on the kneeler. Mevi shoved his shorts down and off, exposing a nice cock Doyle wanted to wrap his hands and lips around. As Mevi climbed up on the kneeler, Landry leaned in so he could whisper in Doyle’s ear.

  “What happens after the contract ends?”

  Doyle stared at him.

  Landry arched an eyebrow, leaning out, his question not in doubt to Doyle.

  After…

  It wasn’t like he was acting as Mevi’s psychologist, an actual patient. That’s why he was very careful to call them clients. Sure, a degree of counseling happened incidentally during his SC gigs, but it wasn’t all that he did. Because by its very nature, some of what he did as an SC would be ethically prohibited as an actual counselor, the personal, private nature of his work and degree of involvement and control he had over some of his clients.

  If he wasn’t, however, under contract to work with Mevi…

  Maybe.

  Mevi hadn’t expressed a physical interest in Doyle. Not that he could tell, anyway. He might hate Doyle’s guts come Chicago. His job was to be both nanny and nagger, with contractual control—

  Dom.

  I’m his Dom.

  Shit.

  No, he technically wasn’t Mevi’s Dom, but where Doyle had privately and jokingly thought of himself as “domming” some of his clients, in this case, that line was now blurred permanently with the knowledge out in the open.

  Tilly started by warming Mevi up with her hands, spanking him, then floggers. From there she moved to slappers and paddles, not hitting him too hard, definitely playing at a far lighter level than she was easily capable of. The woman didn’t hit like a girl, and he knew that from personal experience letting her try a new paddle he’d bought on him so he could see what it felt like himself.

  She packed a wicked punch.

  And with every impact, every heartbeat throbbing through him, Doyle knew the painful truth he could never admit to Mevi. Not while they were under contract, anyway.

  I’m not just attracted to him. It’s more.

  Way more.

  * * * *

  Mevi felt a delicious, sweet haze take control and fill his brain as Tilly worked him over with her hands and the implements. Some of them hurt worse than others, but nothing he couldn’t tolerate. It felt like his brain had untethered itself from his skull and floated free.

  The music and words and mental noise he usually heard stilled, silenced.

  Time out of mind.

  That’s what this felt like.

  Like he’d stepped into a blissfully quiet sensory deprivation room and his brain no longer interrupted what his body felt.

  As she stepped it up, finally building to a couple of cane strokes that made him call a yellow, he realized this was something he had to have in his life.

  Had to.

  He didn’t know how to keep having it—

  Doyle.

  As someone wrapped a throw around him and helped him sit up, he opened his eyes to see Doyle there, his arm around him, an unreadable expression on his face.

  It was all he could do not to lean up and kiss him.

  “Are you okay?”

  Mevi nodded, unable to speak.

  “Get him onto the couch,” Tilly said. “Cris, are there any water bottles in the fridge?”

  Doyle helped him up and a moment later, he lay on the couch, his head in Doyle’s lap and a bottle of water in his hand.

  “How long was that?”

  Doyle’s fingers stroked his hair. “Over an hour.”

  “No!”

  Doyle smiled down at him. “That feeling you’re feeling right now is called subspace. Just relax and enjoy it. It’s the whole point.”

  After lifting his head to drink several greedy swallows from the bottle, he recapped it and did just that, laying his head back in Doyle’s lap.

  * * * *

  Doyle knew the last thing he should do at this point was aftercare. Not when he’d just identified the feelings surging through him.

  Don’t. Act. On. Them.

  As long as he didn’t do anything about them, he’d still be okay.

  Right?

  Besides, switching things around at the last-minute might crash Mevi when he was obviously so deep in subspace. If he had to make a decision, he’d rather bear the brunt of it, not Mevi.

  But he couldn’t help letting his fingers play with Mevi’s hair. Especially the way the guy nuzzled his hand.

  This was new to the man. Every bit of it.

  Mevi had finally tapped into something he’d never been able to access before.

  Wouldn’t this only help their rapport through the next several weeks?

  The important part was Mevi had to be kept sober so he could rebuild his life. Absolutely, the main responsibility for that was squarely on Mevi’s shoulders. He couldn’t walk the recovery path for Mevi.

  It also meant if things helped Mevi cope, helped him stay sober, and helped him stay in a healthy mindset, it was Doyle’s obligation to guide him and keep him safe.

  Tilly, Landry, and Cris wiped down the bench and cross and implements and repacked Doyle’s bag for him. Tilly mimed to him that they were going to leave them alone before the three of them did just that.

  After a few minutes, Mevi started crying. Long, heaving, gasping sobs that ripped at the fabric of Doyle’s being.

  He got it. Many people used subspace for cathartic emotional release.

  A man like Mevi who’d spent years hiding his truths in plain sight couldn’t help but have some sort of an emotional reaction to all of…this.

  To the sudden freedom it gave him to know that he wasn’t alone in the world, and there were people who would accept and love him exactly the way he was.

  Even because of who he was.

  People like me.

  Doyle squeezed his eyes tightly shut and breathed through his own conflict, even as Mevi’s sobs eventually quieted to soft sniffling.

  He didn’t rush Mevi. He wanted him to take whatever time he needed to recover. It was the least he could do for him. Finally, about an hour later, the man opened his eyes and stared up at Doyle.

  Knowing he shouldn’t, he gently cupped Mevi’s cheek. “Need to talk?”

  He slowly nodded. “Not tonight, though. I need to…process.”

  Even his voice sounded different now. r />
  Relaxed.

  Gentler.

  “Are you okay?”

  Mevi nodded again. “Is that…normal?”

  “There is no normal. Everyone’s different, and the first time can be extremely emotional if you aren’t prepared for it.”

  “Thank you for this. For trusting me and for letting me ask.”

  “Trust goes both ways. Like I told you at the beginning, I don’t expect perfection from you. I only expect honesty.”

  He helped Mevi sit up and the man took a deep breath and finished off the bottle of water. Doyle retrieved another one for him from the small fridge and handed it to him, gathering Mevi’s clothes for him, too.

  Mevi’s glazed, distant stare seemed focused on infinity. “I just changed my life, didn’t I?” he quietly asked.

  “I think that’s a fair statement, yes.”

  “Can we do this again?”

  “You’d have to talk to them. I can’t speak for Tilly or her schedule.” Already in his mind he was thinking ahead to Mevi’s birthday, just a couple of weeks away.

  Maybe he could arrange something special for him with Tilly.

  Once Mevi was dressed and had made use of the pool house’s bathroom, Doyle grabbed his bag and turned off the lights behind them as they returned to the house.

  Cris, Landry, and Tilly were on the living room couch, watching TV. When the men approached, they all stood, Cris walking over to open the sliders for them.

  “How ya doin’?” Tilly gently asked.

  “Good. Thank you.”

  She opened her arms to him for a hug and he went.

  This time, Doyle was able to suppress his jealousy. He knew Tilly had no interest in Mevi in that way. She was simply trying to help. That’s what she did, one of the reasons she was one of the best damn Tops he’d ever seen in action.

  “Can we do that again?”

  “Let’s give your body time to heal,” she said. “And your mind time to process. Doyle can give you all my contact info. Feel free to call or text me. We’ll look at one day next week to get together.”

  “We never even got to use the pool.” He sounded wistful. “I wish I could swim every day for exercise.”

  “You guys are welcomed to come use the pool or the pool house any time you want,” she said, her emphasis clear as she met Doyle’s gaze. “You have the gate code. The pool house door code is 1396. Feel free to jog around the perimeter of the property, too. It’s just under a half mile. The fences and plants mean no one will notice you. Just shoot me a text that you’re heading over. As long as it’s not in the middle of the night. If we’re playing or something, it won’t bother us as long as you aren’t bothered by it.”