by Quin Perin
“Dima? Dima! Is that you?”
I’d barely stepped into the café when a familiar but hard-to-place voice directed itself at me. My fingers were buried in my scarf, keeping warm, and my hat was pulled low on my face. It was getting colder and colder. Soon I wouldn’t be able to comfortably sit at the shore and listen to the water. Tony had already told me he didn’t want me getting sick and threatened to tie me up if I didn’t listen. With him added to the forces of Zoe and Jan, I’d probably have to give it up until winter was over.
Footsteps approached as I pulled my hat off and shook my hair out. “Yeah?” I asked.
“I thought that was you!” The woman’s tone was cheerful, and she stopped in front of me. “You look exactly the same.”
Twisting the hat between my fingers, I cocked my head to the side. “Uhm...hi?” I offered. I recognized the person’s voice, somewhere in the back of my head, but I couldn’t quite place it.
“Oh, right. I’m sorry.”
I resisted the urge to cringe when her tone turned empathetic. I knew that tone quite well. She was sorry for me. Because I couldn’t see.
“It’s Karen. I taught you for a semester.”
An imaginary light bulb dinged over my head, and it all came rushing back to me. Karen. She’d been one of those hip professors who insisted you call them by their first name. She taught one of the first photography classes I’d taken. I’d liked her. She was pleasant and sweet. She wasn’t much shorter than me—and from what I remembered—with short brown hair and kind blue-grey eyes that were always hidden behind a pair of blue glasses. She looked every bit like an artsy professor, and it had always made me smile.
“I remember you,” I said quietly, shifting on my feet. Even after being out of school, it felt weird to see a teacher outside of it. “How are you doing?”
“Good, good,” she said. “Had something I needed to buy in this part of town, and well, I remembered you used to make mattetaart and decided to indulge a bit. I wasn’t sure if you’d still be working here though.”
Right, I’d added the Belgian pastry to our revolving menu of specialties after running it by her a couple of years ago. My professors and classmates had been test subjects when I worked part-time at the café. I’d bring them what I was working on, and if they liked them, I’d put the pastries into my rotation, and if they didn’t, I’d adjust the recipe. It felt like ages ago. I’d had so many people around all the time. Now, I mostly kept to my small corner of the town.
“They’re still pretty good,” I said with a smile, anxiously ruffling at the back of my hair.
“How’ve you been doing, Dima?” she asked. “You know, we all miss you at the university.”
I glanced toward my feet, closing my eyes. “Yeah. I miss it too.”
“I still have that picture you took of the shore in my office. Your eye for detail was amazing,” she said and then inhaled sharply, the air between us growing heavy. It stretched and stretched. “Dima, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said quietly. It hurt. So much, but it wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t anything but faulty genetics that got me here. “And thank you. I really liked that one. I have a copy hanging up in my apartment too.”
Everything lightened again. “It was really nice seeing you, Dima,” she said. “I have to finish my errands, but you should stop by campus sometime. I bet all your teachers would be happy to see you.”
“Maybe I’ll stop by…it was nice seeing you too,” I said politely.
“Bye, Dima!” A happy chirp and she stepped past me, the door dinging open.
“Bye…”
I wouldn’t be visiting there. That was one place I’d completely avoided the past two years. Too many memories. Too much pain. It had all become too much in those last few months before I had to drop out. I wasn’t strong enough for that. Would never be strong enough.
THIRTY-FOUR
Tony
“Can you work next Friday as well?” Marcel asked as she dried off a glass I had cleaned. I thought about it for a moment, then nodded.
“Sure thing, Fridays are okay. Saturdays and Sundays are…”
“Not ideal,” she finished because I’d said it many, many times before. Saturdays and Sundays were for Dima. Sometimes, I did work on the weekends, but only if it was absolutely necessary. I had checked the bar calendar Marcel had put up in the back, and Tim worked this weekend. Thank God. Even Marcel had noticed the tension between us when we worked on the same day, which was probably why she had rescheduled a few of our shifts. Fine by me.
Marcel left me to cleaning glasses and drying them off as new customers filled the bar. Friday evenings were usually busy. Loud music, sometimes even live music, and a lot of laughter and booze. It was good fun working on Friday nights because time flew by in a blink of an eye. I handed Paul, who usually came in at the end of the week to relax and unwind, his Kilkenny beer and smiled. Paul raised his glass to me and mumbled, “Cheers,” when the door of the bar cracked open. A waft of cool air blew in. Summer was long gone, and winter inched closer. With the winds from the sea, the temperatures plummeted even faster around town. In walked a very familiar face. Zoe. Attached to her side was Dima, fingers interlaced.
I swear my heart stopped for a beat. He looked so good, wearing his usual black jeans plus his thick coat. Finally, he’d listened to us plead and beg him to start wearing his warmer clothes. He also wore a dark red headband that I was certain Zoe had made him wear. Black hair, porcelain skin, and that ruddy red made a wonderful combination. My grin widened as Zoe caught me staring. She walked over with Dima attached to her hand.
“Hoi, knapperd...hey, handsome,” Zoe said as they walked by and waggled her eyebrows at me. Dima huffed beside her and smacked her side with the headband he’d pulled off.
“Quit flirting, will you?” Dima mumbled. They sat at the other end of the bar and settled in. I hadn’t expected them to come over, but I was glad they had. Paul eyed me curiously, having noticed how my mood had brightened considerably when they came in.
“That your girl?” Paul asked before he took a big sip of his beer. I laughed and shook my head, ready to head over to take their order. But Marcel beat me to it.
“Nah, see who she’s with?” I asked Paul and nodded toward them.
They had settled on their seats, and Zoe tried to hook their coats below the counter of the bar when I heard Marcel say: “That boy draws girls like pollen draws bees. The girls are all over him, and he rather enjoys it, if you know what I mean.”
The corner of Dima’s lips twitched. Oh, boy. That couldn’t be good.
“Yeah, I see him.” Paul followed my line of sight, waiting for me to continue.
Marcel kept talking, but I didn’t hear her anymore. All I saw was the darkening look on Dima’s face until he glanced away so he wouldn’t have to face her.
“What about him?” Paul probed and ripped me out of my stupor. I stirred in my spot and blinked, trying to get back on track.
“Uh, yeah, I’m with him.”
“You don’t say,” Paul blurted, stunned, then looked between the two of us. He grinned. “Oh, I can totally see who wears the pants in this relationship.”
I deadpanned. “What?”
“He does.” Paul laughed, and I would have too if I hadn’t been surprised by his bluntness.
Marcel walked over with that smirk on her lips and told me their order. Like a flash she was gone before I could ask her what else she had said to them. I got their drinks ready. Two strawberry cocktails with marshmallows and cut, fresh strawberries on the rims of the glasses. Paul couldn’t stop teasing me about how Dima had wrapped me around his finger. He could tell, he said. Just from the way I looked at him. But really, I was too busy worrying about what Marcel had told him to listen to any married-men wisdom Paul had to share. From the looks of it, she had said more than necessary and made him uncomfortable.
I set the drinks in front of them and reached for his hand. The moment I took
it, Dima snatched it back. Zoe’s eyebrows visibly jumped at his reaction.
“A moment?” I mouthed, and she nodded. With the pink cocktails between us, I leaned closer. The room buzzed with conversation, music, and laughter; from the corner of my eye, I saw a customer get up and stroll toward the bar, so I had to make this quick.
“What have I done?” I asked, oblivious.
“You flirt,” Dima snapped at me through ground teeth, his face turned away from me.
“It’s my job to…” Before I could finish, Dima scoffed and grinned that silly grin, which meant I was in deep shit. He shook his head at me.
“I wasn’t aware you had to flirt to serve drinks.”
“Baby, listen—” Again, he waved me off, eyebrows drawing together. I couldn’t even be mad at him. From what I’d heard about his ex, I knew that trusting someone was a big deal. We hadn’t been going out for long, just a couple of weeks. I couldn’t imagine what it was like, not knowing where my boyfriend’s eyes wandered when we were together, let alone when we weren’t. So of course he was upset about me flirting. If he only knew what I saw when I looked at him. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. Flirting was simply a way to increase my tips, nothing more. “Yes, I do flirt a little here and there, but not once have I been serious about it.”
I reached down to grab his hand and didn’t give him the choice to pull away. “Listen to me, Dima.” Beside us, two people waited to be served; I could see them shift and tap their fingers on the bar. Dima turned his head, eyes in my direction. His chest heaved with a long inhale, his fingers were ice cold. “I will kiss you right here, right now, to show everyone that I am yours,” I told him, our fingers interlacing.
“Then do it.”
Without hesitation, I moved the cocktails aside, put his chin between my forefinger and thumb, and leaned over the bar. Fully aware everyone could see us, I pulled him into a tender kiss, my tongue ghosting over his. Dima melted into my touch, a quiet sigh escaping him when I broke our connection after a long moment. Heavy-lidded eyes fluttered, lips parted. I still held his chin.
“I’m yours,” I whispered a bit kiss-stoked, tasting his lip balm on my lips. When I released him to tend to the customers at the bar, Dima gripped the edge of the counter to steady himself. I fought a smirk but failed. I loved the effect I had on him.
I unlocked the door of Dima’s apartment around 2 AM. He and Zoe had stayed until midnight when she declared she was “too old for this shit” and had to go to bed. Once more, I had kissed Dima, this time outside, right in front of the doorway to the bar. Long and deep, until we had to come up for air. The way he whimpered against my lips, needy and desperate, nearly made me leave early. I wanted to. God, I did, but I needed to make a living after all, and my funds were running dry. I couldn’t keep him in cookies and milk if I was broke. His fingers had tangled in my shirt, tugging so hard I had to bend to give him another parting kiss.
Marcel hadn’t said a word. Obviously annoyed at my public display of affection, she avoided me the rest of the evening, mumbling to herself and tending to customers so she didn’t have to talk to me. I knew she wouldn’t let me go because of this though. If I’d snapped at her for making Dima jealous, yeah, perhaps that would have cost me my job. But there wasn’t much she could do about me kissing him. Unless she wanted people to think she fired me for my sexual orientation. Plus, she needed me around anyway.
I flicked on the lights in the living room and clicked the door shut, my gaze darting over to the couch. Dima had curled up under a blanket, a half-empty homemade cocktail on the coffee table. As I toed off my shoes, I watched him sit up.
“Why are you still up? You should be sleeping.”
Dima let out a long sigh and then scowled into space, the cream-white blanket dipping off his shoulders. “Fun fact...not being able to see the light or darkness fucks with your sleep pattern sometimes.”
I chuckled at the tone in his voice, shrugging off my jacket.
“And also, I’ve been horny since this afternoon when you sent me that dirty voice message.”
Oh. My jacket dropped to the floor, missing the hook next to the door completely.
“Tony!” Dima scolded.
“Sorry…” I pulled my jacket off the floor and put it up next to his coat.
“Before Zoe and I headed to Marcel’s, I got ready for you…” Dima said casually, as though it was the most normal thing to do.
Getting ready meant...stretching and possibly inserting his plug...tail. Fuck, yes. Despite it being past 2 AM, my body was ready for whatever he’d want, kicking up gears, cock swelling swiftly at the prospect. I stepped in front of him, my fingers going straight to his hair. With his dark eyes, he gazed up as my hands cradled his face.
“What are you doing to me?”
Dima smirked at that, tilting his head against my left hand. “What I have been doing for you is fairly obvious, isn’t it?”
He shifted out of my grasp, pushed the blanket aside, and revealed his slender and almost naked body. Ass up in the air, arms stretched out over the length of the couch. Like a cat. He wore a black lace jockstrap which took my breath away. I had no idea these things existed. Then again, before meeting Dima, I knew little to nothing about sex toys and kinks…
Between his taut ass cheeks glinted a silver plug. That was new. Tracing my fingers along the straps made of black lace, I admired the curve of his spine and the way his balls and cock perfectly nestled inside his fancy jockstrap. I bit the side of my lip, the heel of my hand rubbing over the silver plug, pressing against it.
“You were gonna surprise me at the bar.” It wasn’t a question. I knew Dima by now. He was kinky as fuck. Yeah, he did wear the pants in this relationship. But who was I to complain?
THIRTY-FIVE
Dima
The café was always busiest on weekends, but I had an arrangement with Jan. I didn’t like the crowds, and since I rarely dealt with the customers personally, he didn’t need me there. My Friday shifts were spent baking for the weekend, and then I was allowed to do whatever I wanted on Saturdays and Sundays—like Tony.
I’d left him snoring in bed, stretched out and tangled in my sheets. It had taken all my effort to extract myself from him. He’d gotten home so late, and then I’d kept him up even later. I was determined to let him sleep in and do something special for him. Especially after acting like a bit of a jealous fool the previous evening. That fucking bitch Marcel. She’d reveled in telling me those things about Tony. She wanted him. I could tell, and the reason I’d bitten my tongue and not told her to shove a bottle of vodka up her ass was that Tony needed the job.
Scowling now, I set the pan down on the stove a bit harder than I intended and took the butter out of the fridge. I turned it on, letting the pan heat up to melt the butter, and went to grab my eggs.
I stood up, carton in my hands when the bedroom door opened and footsteps headed toward the kitchen. They were heavy and stumbled a bit, making me smile. Sleepy Tony. It had been so hard leaving him in bed when all I wanted was to nestle up to him and stay that way forever. He had to look cute when he slept. I knew it. Just knew it.
“Morn-oh. Jesus, Dima. Do you ever stop?” Tony’s voice murmured from behind me. It was hoarse with sleep.
I set the eggs down, padding over to the coffee pot. There was a mug already set up with a few teaspoons of sugar, waiting for Tony; I started to prepare it for him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I cooed, stirring in some milk.
“Sure you don’t,” Tony said, stepping closer. He rested one hand on my exposed ass, giving it a squeeze. He slid his fingers between my cheeks, tapping the base of the plug. “You’re not trying to tease me at all.”
I’d taken a quick shower when I’d woken up and, after drying off and prepping myself, had slipped the silver plug back in and put on the jockstrap. I’d paid a fair amount of money—and scarred Zoe a little—to get it, and I was going to get my use out of it. Tony had removed it
with his teeth rather early into the night. I was in no way delusional about what this day was going to consist of.
“I’m not trying to tease,” I purred sweetly. Not tease. More a promise than anything. “I’m trying to make you breakfast.”
I picked up the coffee and was about to hand it to him when Tony moved his hands on my hips to still me. “Mhm.”
He reached and pulled the mug from my fingers, setting it on the counter. I heard the click of the stove turning off as well. “I want something else for breakfast.”
Blood pulsed downward, and I shivered. Sleep had faded from his voice, but it was still husky in the way I liked. He rubbed his hand over my stomach, forcing me back against his body. The material of his briefs ground into my skin, his cock half-hard as it prodded me. “So no French toast?” I asked, rocking against him.
“Nu-uh.” Tony kissed my bare shoulder, teeth digging into skin. “Want something else.”
“Waffles?”
Tony chuckled and squeezed my hip. “Not waffles.”
“Then what do you wa-oh.”
My teasing words cut off as Tony dropped to his knees, the floor shaking under his weight, and spread my cheeks open. Gripping the counter, I arched my spine and bit on my lower lip. Not quite what I had planned to start our day out with—I’d wanted to serve him breakfast in bed—but damn if I was going to complain about it.
“See?” he hummed, breath tickling over my skin. “This is so much better.”
“Mmm.” More shivers ran down my spine, and I let out a quiet sigh as my head fell forward.
He rubbed his tongue around the edge of the plug. Warm and wet flicks teased my stretched hole. Icicles of pleasure spiked along my back, and I let out a cracked moan. My heart pounded in my chest, and everything felt warm. Too warm. My cock had swollen. Engorged and leaking, it strained against the dark material of the jockstrap. Tony had such a crazy effect on me. One that worked so quickly. Like the best kind of drug.