Hard Rhythm

by Cecilia Tan

  My own father had said it the other night. You’re a man now and you find your own way. But just because I was a man didn’t mean I had cut off all my feelings. You don’t just sever your dreams or your hopes or the things you felt as a child like a limb you’ve decided you aren’t using anymore. This close to getting my mother back, I couldn’t throw this in her face. I couldn’t. She’d left my father because of his bondage art. She wasn’t going to take this well.

  But even if the club stayed secret, what about Madison? She was my girl now. There was no going back from that. The thought didn’t even enter my mind. I guess you could say she was as irrefutably my girl as I was my mother’s son. Nothing was going to change that. I’d heard her on the phone to Gwen the other morning and I’d agreed with every word she’d said. This was it. We’d found each other. But how did that fit with the band and the rest of our lives? We were still figuring that out.

  “Chino.” Axel’s voice came from behind me.

  Him and Mal. They were standing at a curve in the garden path where some kind of night-blooming flower climbed a trellis. Tiny lights like fairy pagodas edged the path but didn’t put much light onto our faces. I stepped closer to them. “I can’t do it, guys.”

  “It’s all right,” Axel said. “Chino, we’re not here to shanghai you into something you can’t do. But you’ve gotta admit the band is pretty blatant already.”

  “I know.” I scrubbed my face with my hands. “And there’s Madison.” And the videos I’d made with her, I realized. Well, those weren’t likely to be seen by my mother. Were they? I just didn’t know what to think. “But this is my mother we’re talking about. She’s coming out of a bad situation. The last thing I want to do is—what’s the word?—trigger her with this. She’ll never trust me again.”

  “Indeed. If you lose her trust before she breaks from her abuser, she may not make the break at all,” Mal said, his voice low and serious. “We cannot jeopardize that.”

  Axel put his hand on my shoulder, his leather jacket creaking as he did. “We’ll tell the gals they have to hold off. They wouldn’t do anything that would put your mom at risk. But once she’s free—”

  “I dunno, you guys,” I said. “Maybe I can’t protect her from the truth, but I can at least try. I can at least stave it off until she gets to know me again, until we can build up a little bit of a relationship before the shock. I don’t know if that’ll be possible if I’m giving tours of the dungeon on cable TV.”

  “So keep a low profile. Every member of the club isn’t going to be outed,” Ax said.

  “Yeah, but anyone with half a brain is going to put two and two together from the Hamiltons to you guys to the rest of the band.” I looked up into the sky. There weren’t many stars visible, only a few shining through the glow from the city. “My mother has at least half a brain.”

  “The sooner she is safe, the better everything will be.” Mal patted me on the other shoulder. “It won’t be easy no matter what.”

  “We’re here for you, Chino,” Axel said. “Whether she freaks out or what. I just…I wish you’d told us sooner that something like this was going on.”

  He sounded slightly stung and I didn’t blame him. We were supposed to be brothers, bandmates but even closer than just any bandmates, given what we’d been through together—not just the sex parties but the struggle to the top, the days when we slept in our van while on tour, all that. But I’d never talked to them about my family. I’d kept myself a secret from them and now they knew it.

  “I didn’t even really know myself,” I admitted, “until recently. You know, my stepfather threw me out when I was sixteen. I was young and stupid and believed my mother stayed with him because she loved him. I believed she’d kicked my father out and went with this guy because she fell in love. I didn’t see it. I didn’t see the way he controlled her. He seemed mostly like a threat to me, not her or my siblings who did what he said. I just didn’t see it.”

  “He kept you from seeing it,” Mal said darkly.

  “I talked to my mother for real for the first time…ever, maybe. First time he wasn’t listening in. And she told me she never loved him, that she only married him so me and my siblings wouldn’t go hungry. And now that my little brother just finished college, she’s done. Mission accomplished. She’s ready to leave. But he must sense it. Flora says he’s tightening the noose. They need to get out of there.”

  “Man, that’s rough.” Axel gave me a man-hug. “But it’s all right, Chino. You can talk to us.”

  “I know. I don’t know why I kept everything hidden from you guys. Old habits are hard to break.” Which reminded me. “I may as well tell you about my dad, too, then.”

  “Your real dad?”

  “Yeah. Turns out he’s a tattoo artist in Koreatown. He’s been there for years and I never knew until recently. He’s a bit of a whack job but, you know, not in a bad way. I don’t think he’s realized I’m famous yet.”

  Mal cleared his throat. “Perhaps if even your father, who lives in LA and clearly isn’t isolated from modern culture, hasn’t figured out who you are, perhaps your mother won’t make the connection between you and the Governor’s Club, either.”

  He had a point. “I figured I’d tell him at some point. Invite him to a show. I…don’t think I’d want to invite my mother and sister to one of our shows.”

  “Oh, because of the half-naked women suspended from the light rigs, you mean?” Axel said. “My mom was fine with those. She gets that it’s performance art.”

  “She doesn’t actually know about your sexuality, though,” Mal pointed out.

  “No, and I don’t think she wants to know the details, either,” Axel said. “She knows as much as she wants to know, let’s put it that way.”

  “In the case of my family I am certain they will be appalled at my public connection to the club,” Mal said. “They could not give a flying fig about what perversions I practice, but the fact that I would speak about it openly? That is the scandalous part.” Mal hated his upper-crust British family and loved any chance to rub their faces in that fact.

  “I guess that’s the thing. I wouldn’t mind being the best-known pervert on the planet if I wasn’t worried it would hurt my family.” I didn’t want Mal to think I was judging him. “You don’t have to give a fuck what your family thinks, but I can’t just forget mine.”

  “You walked away from them when you were sixteen,” Axel reminded me.

  “And I’d like to think I’m a better man now than I was then,” I said.

  “You are,” Mal said, and put an arm around my shoulders.

  Axel took my other side. “Now let’s get you back to Madison before she gets frantic.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  MADISON

  The following week was fraught with worry. Ricki was getting ready to confront Schmitt at the party. Ana and Flora were getting ready to leave, but we expected them to make a break next Tuesday, when there was a weekly meeting of the male church elders. Gwen’s travel agent had found a direct flight to book them on.

  The day of the party, Chino and I had lunch at a local bistro not far from my house where we could sit on the back patio and enjoy the weather. The host recognized him as someone but called him “Mr. Navarro”—apparently unclear on who exactly. Chino didn’t correct him.

  “Does he think you’re the guy from Jane’s Addiction?” I asked, after we’d been seated at a table for two and given our menus.

  “Happens all the time,” Chino said. “You’d think people would realize I’m twenty years younger.”

  “Well, to be fair, Dave Navarro doesn’t look like he’s pushing fifty.” I had seen him on cable TV fairly recently, on a show about tattooing. “Did you know he’s got a guitar strap on sale now that doubles as a bondage device? They sell it in the sex toy catalogs.”

  “Really? Maybe I should market some kinky drumsticks,” Chino joked, but his eyes were serious.

  “No kidding,” I said, putting my
hand on his. “I wonder how his family deals with him being out about his kink.”

  “Maybe they don’t,” Chino said with a shrug. “I don’t know, Maddie. I still can’t wrap my head around everyone knowing everything.”

  I felt his sadness and apprehension like there was a patch cord connecting his heart and mine. The party was tonight but the little jitters I had about that were quashed under heavier emotions. “Maybe everyone doesn’t need to know everything. My parents know I do various things and they don’t want to know all the details. What matters to them is that I’m happy, that I’m an adult who can take care of myself and that includes the choices I make about my sex life.”

  “You really think they’d be okay if they knew all the details, though? You think I’m going to ask your father if I can marry you and then…” He ran his hand possessively up and down my forearm and turned my wrist over, two fingers holding it as if measuring for a bondage cuff. “Then tell him how I’m going to tie you up on the wedding night?”

  “No, and that’s what I’m saying.” Him holding my arm like that had started my engine revving. Save it for tonight, Maddie, I told myself, but that was all it took—a touch, a look, to make desire flare in me anew. “Even if we weren’t kinky you wouldn’t be going into detail with him about our wedding night. Some things are okay to keep private.”

  “Except if the chance to do a reality TV show about the dungeon comes along, Ricki’s going to grab it. That’s not keeping it private at all,” Chino said.

  “True. But if that happened, we wouldn’t do the show. We’d sign off and let them do it if we weren’t comfortable with everyone knowing that much about our business. Speaking of which, PlayPeople just realized you haven’t sent them the model release for the videos where you appear.”

  “I barely appear. You hear my voice twice and you see my hands a couple of times.” I could hear the reluctance in his voice. Maybe even regret.

  The only thing I knew how to do was forge ahead. “Still. Chino, it’s required. Even if we don’t use your name in the promo.”

  He sighed heavily. “I feel like each thing just pushes me closer and closer to the cliff.”

  I met his eyes over the top of the menu. “Should we skip the party tonight?”

  His face was distressed as he looked left, right. “I… At the very least, you need to be there to work and to help Ricki with the Schmitt situation if necessary. And if you’re going, there’s no way I’m letting my little girl go alone.” His gaze darkened and I felt a thrill run through me.

  “Are you planning a scene for tonight? For us?”

  “If you think I haven’t been thinking about playing with you in front of everyone for the entire month since the last party, you still don’t know me very well.” He held in a smile. “But there’s always next month if you end up too busy. Either way we are not skipping this party. And that means we should talk over a few things before tonight.”

  “I was going to ask what rules we should have around being in the dungeon.”

  He gave an approving nod. “Well, there’s being in dungeons in general, and then there’s this particular dungeon where you’re an employee. I wouldn’t want to interfere with your work, but there are things I wouldn’t be happy with you doing.”

  “I want to know what those things are. You’re going to tell me, right? Not make me guess?”

  He smiled. “Yes, I’m going to tell you. This isn’t some kind of test.”

  I smiled back. “Just checking.”

  The waitress interrupted us then to take our order. I hadn’t absorbed a single word from the menu and found myself flustered.

  Chino sailed in smoothly. “I’ll take the brunch burger, the one with the fried egg on top.”

  “Kale chips or fries?”

  “Fries. Unless you can come up with a really good reason I should start eating kale.”

  I realized happily that his banter with the waitress was to give me time to figure out my own order. Being with a man that perceptive was a new experience.

  The waitress shrugged. “Kale’s the hip thing right now. I’d go for the fries, personally.”

  “Fries it is. And a black iced coffee.”

  “We don’t have iced coffee.”

  “Then I’ll order a hot coffee and a glass of ice and you can take your chances with me pouring it myself.”

  “I can probably pour it in there for ya,” she said with a knowing nod.

  “Thanks.”

  He kept her occupied enough that I was ready by the time she turned to me. “I’ll have the avocado and bacon panini and a fresh squeezed lemonade.”

  “And kale chips or fries?”

  “Kale chips. I’m going to steal his fries anyway.”

  “Smart woman. Have your kale and eat fries, too. I’ll put your orders right in.” She collected the menus and was gone.

  I took his hand again. “Thank you, love.”

  He put my fingers to his lips. “I know you don’t like looking like you don’t have all the answers.”

  I felt myself blush because that was completely true. But instead of thinking I was annoying for that, he accepted it and had even helped me maintain my cool. And how amazing was it that he realized it in the first place? I’d never come out and said something like that before. “How did you know that?”

  He smiled and shrugged. “I know you.”

  Chino then eased the small round table away from the wall and had me scoot my chair toward him. He did the same. The result was we were sitting on the same side of the table rather than directly opposite each other and now he could hold my hand under the table.

  “Now, where were we. Things I wouldn’t want you to do in the dungeon unless I was doing them to you. I said I wasn’t going to test you, but for the hell of it I’m going to ask you to guess three things and tell me why you guessed them. There are no wrong answers, Maddie.”

  “Okay.” I squeezed his fingers. “Number one, fuck.”

  “Very good.” He gave a slow blink as if the same deep throb of desire that ran through me when I said the word “fuck” also ran through him. “And why?”

  “That one’s not obvious?”

  “Even if it is, I want to hear you say it, sweets.”

  The rebuke was mild but a blush rose to my cheeks anyway. “Oh. Do you want the sexy answer or the plain answer?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “In the delivery, at least.”

  He chuckled. “The plain answer, then.”

  “The reason not to fuck is that, as previously discussed, P-I-V is special.”

  “Do you ever think about the fact that you’ll never have another cock inside you, ever? That this one here,” he moved my hand to his lap, “is it?”

  “Every day,” I said, feeling heat with my palm through the denim and a matching heat between my legs. “Unless you suddenly decide to start sharing me.”

  “I might share your mouth and ass, but not your pussy.” He moved his mouth close to my ear. “Your pussy belongs to Daddy.”

  My panties were going to catch fire, I swear.

  “You ever done double penetration?”

  “Not yet.”

  He heard the teasing tone in my reply and teased me right back. “Well, if we find a guy we’re both attracted to enough, maybe you’ll find out what it’s like.” He sat back again, his voice returning to a businesslike clip. “Now, two more things. Tell me.”

  “Well, absolutely nobody is ever blindfolding me but you.”

  “True. And can you think of a third thing?”

  “Kissing. I don’t kiss club members either.”

  “You do realize of course that you kissed me back when I was just a club member.” His grin was sly.

  “Yes, and look what happened.” I squeezed his erection through his jeans. “But I don’t know if those are really good answers, since those are three things I never would’ve done in the first place.”

  He smiled. “That doesn’t mean
we don’t agree on what they are. Now you want to hear what my actual rules would be if I had my choice?”

  “Don’t you have your choice? You’re the dom.”

  “I’m the dom, not the king of the universe,” he said. “Some things are negotiable.” He moved my hand up and down his shaft with his fingers on my wrist. “But if I had my way… other than the blindfold and kissing, I’d say the rule for when you’re in the dungeon should be above the waist you’re free, below the waist is for me. That goes for looking and for touching.”

  “That has a kind of elegance to it.” I put my hands above the table again as the waitress came back with our drinks.

  “That wouldn’t mean a free-for-all, of course. Just that you’re on your own to determine who can touch you from the waist up and how. That’d be true if we go to that party Jill and Bry invited us to, too.”

  “That party does sound like fun.” I sipped from my lemonade. The sugar was still swirling around in the bottom, undissolved. “I wonder how it would affect people like them if we were out. If people recognize us as America’s—or even the Internet’s—perviest couple, how would that affect people like Jill and Bry? Would they have to stop coming to parties with us if they were afraid of being associated with us?”

  “I don’t know. Part of me’s afraid to risk it. And I’m not usually a cautious person.” Chino gulped down some of his iced coffee and then pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. “Ouch. Brain freeze. The least erotic pain in the universe.” He moved my hand back to his crotch. “Soothe me, sweets.”

  I rubbed him and felt his blood pulse in my grip. If we hadn’t been in a restaurant I would’ve said forget the food, all I need is for my Daddy to be happy. The difficult thing about the situation with his mother and sister was there wasn’t anything more I could do at this point other than try to be supportive. I couldn’t change the facts and I couldn’t assuage Chino’s fears. All I could do was be with him, spiritually, emotionally, physically.