A House of Cards: Deconstructing Ethan (14 page)

We sat on the couch, Lexi in my lap, as I tried to calm her. After the wedding, the letter and check from his parents and the heart wrenching experience in the playroom, she was ready to kill Kimberly. I’m not sure I would have stopped her. That is, until Kimberly actually came down the stairs with her make-up streaked like she had been crying and she looked devastated. She apologized for her behavior and walked quietly out the front door. I looked at Lexi, and she jumped off of my lap and raced upstairs.

It was then that I realized just how much Jayden meant to me. Remembering those events and actually putting them into words, just solidified the fact that I thought of him as someone that I cared for deeply. I knew that I had to distance myself from him and could not allow his powerful hold on me to continue. Listening to him pour his heart out was Lexi’s job, not mine. I had to play the hand that I was dealt.

I grabbed my keys and headed for the door. It was time to test my newfound attraction.

Chapter 7

“I’m glad you changed your mind on that talk,” Gabriel said as he opened the door. I didn’t give him a chance to continue. I stepped over the threshold and took his face in my hands. Walking him back, just a step or two, to the wall behind him, I trapped his body between mine and the wall. I kissed him hard, pressing my hips lightly against his in the process. He moaned softly into my mouth and the sound went right through me. His arms wrapped around my waist and I found that I liked the way it felt.

“Where is your bedroom?” I asked him, moving my lips to his neck. Gabriel pulled back slightly and stopped my advance. I looked at him curiously, but he just stroked my cheek.

“You’re upset, Ethan. I don’t know why, but this isn’t the way to resolve it.” Gabriel took my hand and led me to the couch in his living room. He sat down on the far side, with his back pressed against the arm and his leg along the back of the cushions. Pulling me down in front of him, he leaned me back into him and wrapped his arms around my waist. After a second of shy, awkward hesitation, I laid my head back on his chest.

“You don’t have to tell me. Let’s just stay like this for a while,” he said and I felt him rest his cheek on the top of my head. I couldn’t ever remember being held like this by anyone other than my mother and I didn’t even remember that well. I lifted my arms and placed them over his, our fingers entwining. I closed my eyes and just enjoyed the feeling of being held by someone that cared about me. As my determination was waned, I was able to more objectively analyze my motives for going there, feeling sick with myself for wanting to use him, to use our first time being intimate just to prove a point to myself. Maybe I didn’t deserve anyone at all. I deserved to be alone.

“Gabriel, I’m sorry,” I told him earnestly, turning slightly to look up at him.

“I’m not,” he replied with a shrug. “It doesn’t matter why you decided to come over here, Ethan. I’m just really glad that you did.” He tilted my face up just a bit and kissed me gently. “Look, I know that we’re going to have a different set of challenges than other people, but I’m a big boy. I’m in this for as long as we can make each other happy. Okay?” I nodded. “Oh, and I promise – on Friday night, when you’re not upset, if you still want to know where my bedroom is, I’ll certainly show you. You are so fucking sexy.” He kissed me deeply once more before pulling me back against his chest. We sat on the couch talking about nothing until the sun started to set.

“Gabriel, I will tell you what’s up with me. I just can’t right now. I am trying to come to terms with our relationship, and I just don’t want to complicate things. Not yet,” I told him, my eyes trying to implore him to understand.

“When you’re ready,” he said softly, pulling his arms out from around me so that I could stand. I immediately missed their comfort.

* * *

“Ethan, is everything okay?” Lexi asked me the following afternoon as I helped her in the kitchen. She had me chopping random vegetables for a salad while she worked on the lasagna. I continued working and thought about the day before, not only with Gabriel, but with Jayden. Was this something I could talk to Lexi about? I wasn’t sure I liked facing my emotions rather than suppressing them. I didn’t like being able to talk to only certain people about certain things. Wasn’t there someone I could tell everything too? Was that person Lexi?

“I…I don’t know where to start,” I admitted. She put the pan in the oven and then grabbed my hand, pulling me over to the kitchen table, where we sat there looking at each other for a minute before everything came tumbling out. “Yesterday, I was in a session with Jayden and I think I got jealous when he kissed Connor. Then he told me that he was jealous when he saw me kiss Gabriel on the porch after our date. We got through the session and, afterwards, he just stood staring out the window like something was bothering him. When I got back to my room, I wrote in my journal for a while and I have come to realize that being so close to Jayden isn’t good for me. I went to Gabriel’s to try to hook up with him. To prove to myself that I could have a normal relationship with someone else or even if it’s just a normal sexual relationship, but Gabriel stopped me. He was so caring and affectionate, I felt like a total dick for going over there with the sole purpose of having sex with him. I feel so confused, Lexi. I don’t know what to do.” I felt a tear fall and wiped it away quickly. These feelings, these emotions, were too much for me right now.

Lexi continued holding my hand. “I know that Jayden is having a problem keeping his jealousy in check. We actually sat and talked about it while you were out with Gabriel. But you can’t let that sabotage a potentially fulfilling relationship you could have with Gabriel. Jayden will get past it or he won’t. You have to do what is going to make you happy. Does Gabriel make you happy? Well, so far, anyway…” she asked with a smile and I nodded. “Then you should pursue that and let him care about you. Yearning for someone who’s in love with someone else is the fastest way to a broken heart.” She kissed me on the cheek and got up to finish dinner.

I sat at the table, thinking about what she’d said. I didn’t think I was „yearning’ for anyone, but then Lexi knew me better than I knew myself. She apparently saw something in me that I could not. About fifteen minutes later, Jayden walked in from work, kissing Lexi before coming to sit at the table with me.

“Ethan, I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to ask you something,” he said casually. Raising my eyebrows, I remained quiet, encouraging him to continue. I idly wondered if this had anything to do with the conversation Lexi and I had just finished. I looked over at Lexi, but she was still quietly working at the counter. “I thought maybe since you’re here with us for a while, if you didn’t mind, you could teach me about wax play?” That was just about the last thing I expected him to say. I looked at him dumbstruck for a minute.

“Sure, Jayden, I can work with you on that,” I told him, relieved that the conversation hadn’t steered back to its former emotional climate.

“Thanks,” he said, smiling at me, and then he turned to Lexi. “Do you trust me to do wax play with you while Ethan supervises?” She nodded, even if Jayden didn’t have any experience with it, she trusted me completely. We talked for a while about exactly what we wanted to do and if we wanted to include Connor. Wax play wasn’t on any of Connor’s lists, so Lexi thought that having him watch the first time would be a good way to introduce him to it.

After dinner, Connor came home from the library and we sent him up to the playroom. He was excited about playing with all of us again and was in position when Lexi, Jayden and I entered the room. Jayden and I left on our clothes on in order to administer the wax, but Lexi removed hers. Connor watched surreptitiously as Lexi closed her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair. She put it up in a loose bun to keep it out of the way and then I bound her to the table face down while Jayden bound Connor to the bondage chair. I gagged her and handed her a panic button. Lexi loved being bound; she said that it made the experience so much more intense.

Jayden brought out the torch and a good sized pillar candle and I noticed Connor shift in his seat. I wondered if he was going to enjoy this as much as we were. As Jayden set the equipment on a nearby table, I rubbed Lexi’s buttocks as she lay over the table facing Connor. I picked up a vibe from the shelf on the wall and began to tease her with it, wanting to make sure she was nice and aroused before we began.

As I ran the vibrator over her sensitive skin, she moaned, looked over to see that Connor was hard and moving his hips in a very subtle rhythmic motion. He liked watching me tease Lexi, something about that turned him on. Grinning, I slid the toy into her; her open mouthed moan resounding through the room as I fucked her slowly with the vibe, making sure to rub it against her clit each time I pulled it out. After a few minutes, she was trying to grind against my hand and grunting through the gag.

“We’re ready,” I told Jayden and he ignited the torch. From the corner of my eye, I saw Connor flinch at the noise. In a low voice, I instructed Jayden about how to get a good light flow of wax. Using too little was better than using too much, we didn’t want to hurt her. We practiced for a few minutes, letting the wax spill onto the ground until he felt comfortable. Then, he turned and positioned the candle over Lexi. The wax drizzled across Lexi’s naked back and buttocks and she screamed, more from the release and the surprise than any real pain. There were tears on Connor’s face as he was frantically trying to get out of his bonds in the chair.

Jayden's attention was focused exactly where it should be, on what he was doing with Lexi, therefore, he didn’t notice Connor's struggling when he released another, but slightly heavier, stream of wax down the backs of Lexi’s thighs. She cried out again. She was biting down on the gag, almost growling. The pleasure of the vibrator running on low inside her, coupled with the pain from the wax, would soon bring her to orgasm, but apparently Connor was too distraught to notice.

“RED! Jesus Christ, RED!! STOP IT! You’re hurting her, STOP! PLEASE!” he screamed, half sobbing.

I heard Lexi’s panic button go off. We untied her quickly and she ran to Connor, climbing into his lap to soothe him. Stroking his face and hair, she told him that she was alright. She kissed his forehead and then released his arms from the chair and, in an instant, they were around her, holding her to his chest, cradling her.

Connor murmured into her shoulder, “I couldn’t let them hurt you like that, Lexi, I couldn’t. Please, I can’t…I can’t…” She tried to explain once again that we weren’t hurting her, but he was too upset to really understand. Then, to my complete incredulity, she promised him no more wax play. And then another thought struck me as I watched her in the boy’s arms.

Lexi had never used her safe word or a panic button before. Not once. Ever. Over the next couple of days, I watched Connor and Lexi. We had ended the session with Connor’s outburst the other night, but I wanted to see if there was anything else between them. Not that I was an expert, but it just felt like there was something more going on with them. I wondered if Jayden had the same morbid curiosity regarding their behavior in the playroom or if it was just me. Jayden trusted Lexi, so did I for that matter, it was the boy I didn’t trust.

Friday night, I threw on a nice t-shirt that Lexi had picked out and noticed that it was fairly snug against my body. I sighed and wondered if that was intentional. Wanting to be comfortable for whatever was going to happen, I donned my loose jeans over boxers and ran my fingers through my hair as I wondered what Gabriel’s expectations were. He had looked fairly serious when he said he’d show me where his bedroom was. I couldn’t help but smile as I remembered his wide grin during the admission.

I don’t know what the societal norms are for this type of relationship. Do you sleep with someone on the first date? The second? The twelfth? I was so used to just having sex whenever the mood struck, I’d never thought about how it happened with traditional couples. Did hubby just come home and park one in the wife once a week out of habit? Is that how it will be with Gabriel? God, I hoped not. Maybe it would be a good idea for us to…take a test drive sooner rather than later. I couldn’t imagine myself being satisfied with bad or routine vanilla sex. This dating thing was complicated.

As I walked through the living room, on my way out the front door, Jayden spoke from a nearby arm chair. “Have fun tonight with, golden boy.”

From my conversation with Lexi, I understood that Jayden was jealous of Gabriel, but she wasn’t entirely clear on the reason. Jayden had been initially upset when we had discussed him no longer being my sub and, since arriving at his home, he had called me „Master Ethan’. Jayden was my only male friend, the one man that I was closer to than anyone, but he was driving a wedge between us. The other possibility, that one being Jayden jealous because he felt Gabriel was a rival for my affection, was too upsetting for me to contemplate. I didn’t really view that as a possibility because of the way that he and Lexi felt about each other. Lexi was my best friend. I would not hurt her like that…even if it were true.

I found myself wanting to spend more time out of the house.

“Thank you, Jayden,” I said. Reaching the door, I turned the knob and chanced a glance at him. Looking at me, the expression on his face was heartbreaking. I took a deep breath and opened the door, walking through and not looking back.

* * *

Gabriel opened the door for me and I smiled at him holding up the beer for his inspection. I had been looking forward to the night since my impromptu visit earlier that week. He was someone I could see myself being comfortable with. I didn’t feel the flash of hot flame that I felt for Jayden, but I didn’t feel the cold shoulder either; it was pleasant, consistent warmth. When I stepped in, I was immediately caught off guard as Gabriel pressed me against the front door as it shut behind me. His mouth was on mine before I could even greet him. It was my turn to moan at the urgency and need of his kiss. Soft lips melded with mine again and again as his arms encircled my waist. Almost of their own volition, my arms went around his shoulders. My chest pressed hard against his, I could feel his racing heart. The warmth was heating up rather nicely. I wondered if he was still interested in showing me where his bedroom was.