General warning: My Skin Begs You Please is an intense book, and the story, while powerful and meaningful, won’t be a good fit for everyone. Please proceed with caution
Chapter 14
October, 1991
Luke had almost beaten me up and fucked me back there in a fit of jealousy, or the desire to prove something to me—to Kyle too, even though he’d already gone. I knew it in my soul. Like I also knew that he hadn’t been able to because, as unlikely as it seemed, he cared about me. He didn’t want to hurt me tonight. He wanted this instead.
I glanced over at him, watching him lick his ice cream cone, the light of the Bruster’s neon sign reflecting in his hair. We sat on the bench next to the open window, licking and talking about nothing much at all.
It was amazing. I’d never had anyone want this with me before. Well, not anyone who also wanted to have sex with me. I had friends—great friends—who cared about me and enjoyed spending time with me. But no guy I’d had sex with cared about me like Luke did, and no guy I’d ever crushed on had wanted to actually date me either. They’d been content with a few sucks or fucks at most. The others had never even been interested at all.
“I had the pistachio here once, and it wasn’t the best,” Luke said, ducking his head to lick a drip from his cone. “But there’s no beating the chocolate.”
I opened my mouth to say I preferred Baskin Robbins’s chocolate for flavor, but then shut it. I didn’t want to wreck this moment of easiness between us.
“What?” he asked, pressing his leg against mine. “You were thinking something. I saw it flash over your face.”
I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
“If your thoughts didn’t matter to me, we wouldn’t be on this date. We’d be back in my basement.”
I smiled at that. He was right, of course. He wanted to know me, the everyday me, not just the me that was submissive and compliant, or fighting back so that it felt good. Then why did it feel like I was risking everything just to admit a taste difference?
“Go on,” he said. “Whatever you say is fine. I can handle it.”
“All right.” I took a slow breath and let it out as I gusted, “I like Baskin Robbins’s chocolate better.”
He lifted his brows. “And that was what you were thinking?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, and why didn’t you want to tell me? I’m a big boy. I don’t need someone to agree with everything I say.” He paused then, turning to me fully after glancing around to make sure that no one had come up behind us while we sat with our ice creams. “You don’t think that’s what I want, do you? A sycophantic submissive has never been my type. I want to hear your thoughts—here, now, like this, and back in the basement too. I like that you don’t agree with me, or that you fight me from time to time. It makes you real. Not some doll.”
“I didn’t want to ruin our date.”
“I’m not an asshole like that. I like that you’re different from me.”
I considered that and nodded. I had to trust that he meant what he said. If I didn’t, then I couldn’t trust him in the dungeon anymore either, and I trusted him implicitly there. “No dolls here, just a fairy prince at your service.”
Luke smiled, and then pointed out a drip on my cone. I hurried to suck it up before it fell from the end. I laughed, remembering a stunt I’d pulled earlier in the semester, in the Before Times. “Hey, do you want to hear about a performance art piece I did?”
“Performance art?” His eyes twinkled.
“Yeah. I’m an artist sometimes, you know.”
“I didn’t, actually. But I can see it. You’re creative in other ways.” He gestured at my clothes.
“Why, thank you.” I gave him a glimmer of my sweetest sparkle. “I do take pride in my clothes. This was a genius piece of art, though. It was great. I wish Peter had filmed it—”
“Peter?”
“A friend. He’s a photographer, and he just took pictures. I wonder if he’s developed them yet. Anyway, like I said, it was fantastic. I got an ice cream cone from the university canteen—vanilla, like this one, only without the chocolate sprinkles, and I took it outside.”
Luke bit into his cone, crunching and listening to me. I was tempted to lean over and lick a drop of chocolate off his chin, but who knew if someone might see us and give us crap about being queer. I was obvious enough with just the way I was dressed. I didn’t want to push my luck, so I indicated his napkin and then waved at my own chin. He took the hint and wiped the chocolate drop away.
“And then what?” he asked.
“I laid down on the sidewalk, kind of out of the way of the main path, but not where everyone passing by couldn’t see me. Being seen was important.”
“Mm-hmm?”
“Yeah, and, oh! I have to tell you about my outfit because it was key to the performance! Absolutely key. A skin-tight sleeveless T-shirt, and a pink tutu skirt over my best blue jeans.”
“Sounds cute, baby.”
“I was very cute!” I licked some more ice cream, the sweetness coating my tongue and sliding down my throat. “So, just picture it. Me, lying there with the cone above my head.” I lifted my cone up briefly to demonstrate. “Can you imagine it?”
“Absolutely.”
“And then I let it melt, dripping onto my face. It went everywhere, all over my neck and hair too. Next to me on the ground was a sign reading ‘Cream My Face’, which was the name of the art piece I was doing.”
He chuckled then, taking another bite of his cone.
“I waited until the entire ice cream had melted, and then I yelled, ‘Cream my face!’ and turned the cone upside down and dumped the rest onto myself. It was great! A real crowd pleaser.”
“I bet,” he said, laughing. “That’s…amazing.” He peered at me with a look of discovery in his eyes. “I had no idea.”
“No idea that I’m an artist as well as the sexiest femme-boy scientist in the world?”
“Yeah, exactly that. I’ve been clueless. Not about the sexy part, but the rest.”
I preened a little before devoting attention to finishing my ice cream cone.
“So, you’re interested in science, nature, trucks, martial arts, cowboy boots, performance art, tutus, makeup, women’s clothes…” He ticked the things off. “What else will I find out about you tonight?”
“Whatever you want to know.”
He glanced around quickly and then combed his fingers through my hair, pushing a strand behind my ear, and then leaning close to brush a kiss on my cheekbone. “I’d like to know everything. But, like I said earlier, that’ll take some time.”
“We don’t have a lot of that, do we? So we better fast-track it.” I ignored his grimace at the reminder of our HIV positive state. “What about you? What are your hobbies? What do you love to do?”
Luke popped the last of his cone in his mouth, chewed, and dusted off his hands. I had a feeling he was stalling for time. Eventually, he said, “Well, my biggest hobby used to be the Dom stuff. I started out in it just for fun. Eventually some problems came up in my life that made me need to do it for money. After that, it was still fun, but it was also a job. That changes things.”
“Yeah, if I got paid to do ‘Cream My Face,’ that’d sure change it. I mean, I did get paid. I left a tip jar out for the second performance and pulled a nice wad of cash. But if I had to do it like I depended on that to live? It would feel different.”
“It would, but I don’t know if it would have the same problems associated with it as turning my Dom hobby into my Dom job. There’s a lot of responsibility to being a Dom. It doesn’t end when a sub walks out the door. I have to be careful that what we do in a scene doesn’t impact them in a negative way in the outside world.”
“Yeah, of course.” I knew from experience that what he did to me in his dungeon affected me for hours and days after it was over.
“Given all that, I had to take a break from it after my diagnosis. I wasn’t in the right space mentally for a very long time. I’m getting by with my income from the shop right now, so long as I watch my expenses and only take my subs on cheap dates for ice cream.” He winked.
I smiled. “I love this date.”
“I’m glad.” He paused. “That responsibility, though…that’s part of why I was worried about us at first. What we do is on the edge. I worry sometimes that it’ll make things harder for you, instead of better.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, putting a hand on his arm. “I’m fine. I’m doing better than I have in a long time.”
My stomach twisted oddly, and I couldn’t put my finger on why. “You’re giving me what I need.”
For now.
The thought was unwanted, but there all the same. I wondered if it flashed over my face because Luke’s expression also shifted.
I hurried on. “But that’s what you do for a job. What do you do for fun?”
“Fun…” He trailed off, a distant look coming into his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“What do you do on your days off? When you’re not at the shop, and you’re not doing the Dom stuff—” and hadn’t he said during one of our intake conversations that he hadn’t been with anyone, much less as a Dom in months? “—what do you like to do with your time?”
“Hmm.”
I could see that he had an answer, but was reluctant to share it with me. Pressure tightened my chest. I rubbed it, not sure why I felt hurt. “You don’t have to tell me,” I said, trying to fake like I didn’t care. “It’s not my business. We’re not dating. We’re just on a date. It’s not the same thing.”
“Baby,” he sighed. “It’s something I don’t talk a lot about. Not that I’m ashamed of it, but it’s private and I’ve never really talked much about it with a sub.”
“Do you do something creepy?” I asked, suddenly worried.
“What?” He chuckled. “No.”
“Then what?” I’d just told him he didn’t need to tell me, but now I had to press. I needed the worry in my chest to resolve.
Luke sighed, thought another moment, and then confessed, “I have a sister I take care of.”
I frowned. Did she live upstairs while we did whatever it was we were doing in the basement? Did she know? Gross. This too must have also reflected on my face because he laughed and took hold of my hand.
“No, no, she doesn’t live with me. She lives at Riverwoods, a facility for disabled adults over on the Cumberland Plateau. She has Down Syndrome, and my folks are older now, and they can’t take care of her any longer.”
“Oh.” Immediately, some puzzle pieces clicked into place. I could picture him with a sister who needed care. I imagined he’d be good at it. “What’s her name?”
“Betsy.”
“Is she older than you or younger?”
“Younger, by six and a half years. She’s great,” he said, a smile spreading involuntarily over his lips. For an instant, I was jealous of Betsy that he was so uncomplicatedly happy at just the thought of her.
But that jealousy faded as his smile drained away. “I helped take care of her until I left for college. I was only there a year when my dad had a stroke that left him… changed. I went back home and took care of Betsy for a long time while Mom cared for Dad, but…” He shook his head.
“It sounds like a hard situation. My friend Daniel has to take care of his younger brother and sister because his mom’s an alcoholic, and it’s rough for him too. I don’t know a lot about Down Syndrome, but it seems like maybe Betsy is, in some ways, a kind of permanent little sister?”
“She’s her own person,” Luke said a little defensively. “But, yeah, she’ll need someone to look after her to some degree for the rest of her life. In the end, as Dad’s health and mind deteriorated and took more and more of my mom’s focus, my folks decided the place for her was in Riverwoods.”
“How did you feel about it?” I sensed tension in him.
“I felt selfish.”
“Why?”
“Because part of me was glad to be able to get back to my own life, go back to being a Dom and working a real job that paid money. Being with Betsy is always fun and rewarding, but I missed having my own life.”
I scoffed. “It’s not selfish to need to be your own person. I’d go insane if I couldn’t be myself and live the way I need to live.”
Another flicker passed over Luke’s face, and I knew what he was thinking. The way I was living lately was insane enough.
Well, he had no idea how much I’d lose it if I also had to go live with my mom in the trailer, in that room where my father had asked me…
I shook the thought away.
“So, do you have a picture?” I asked, swinging my feet under the bench.
He dug his wallet out of his back pocket and unfolded a photo he kept there. He turned it toward me, showing me his sister. She was laughing with a wide mouth and broad-set eyes that were scrunched up too much to see the color, and dark, almost black hair that was cut into a messy, loose bob. “That’s Betsy.”
“She’s pretty.”
“Yeah.” He put the photo away and went quiet again. “I go to see her once a month. Riverwoods isn’t some awful institution. It’s a nice place that takes her out on field trips and gives her an appropriate amount of freedom. She’s even got a part-time job and has started dating someone. She says she’s in love.”
“That sounds good for her. See? If she’d stayed home, she wouldn’t be in love now. And being in love is great.” I took hold of his hand again. I enjoyed the way his fingers fit between mine.
Luke smiled wryly. “I hear you’re a fan of it.”
I froze, caught out and wondering what else Barry had told him about me. Obviously not enough since Luke had discovered my trauma on the fly in the middle of a scene. But if Barry had told him about my weakness for love, Luke might have the wrong idea of me.
“In the past, I’ve always loved the idea of love,” I got out, trying to phrase things carefully. “But I’m not delusional. I’ve always known I was just pretending. I knew none of them loved me back.”
Luke was quiet a moment, examining me. “You’re worth being loved back.”
“Am I?” I released his hand. “I don’t know if that’s true. But I’d like to be.” I rubbed my arms, a chill gripping me. “I don’t want to die alone.”
Another silence, and then Luke asked, “Your mother wouldn’t be there for you?”
“I won’t give her the chance.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“At the first sign of my T-cells tanking, or at my first real illness.” I slashed my hand across my throat. “Fin. Over. Dead. I won’t give anyone a chance to sit with me while I go. It’ll be fast, and it’ll be permanent.”
“Minty…” he breathed, his brows dropping low.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. You’ve got the diagnosis too. You know where this ends up.” Fuck, I’d gone down the worst possible path now. The one that acknowledged all the horrible shit he and I both wanted to forget tonight. But it was too late. It was out there.
“I’ve…” He cleared his throat, his head dropping slightly. “I’ve thought about it. Of course, I have. But—”
“We could make a pact, then. When it’s time for either of us, we’ll have a final scene together, and then we’ll let the other go do what they need to do.”
“Do what, exactly?”
“End our lives and be out of everyone else’s hair.”
He stared at me, and I could see the beginning of silver mixed into the blond near his ears. He was young to be graying, but it seemed saddest that he’d never live long enough to see it through.
“For God’s sake,” he gritted out. “You can’t say shit like that and smile through it. You can’t…”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s…I…I’m not ready to give up on my life yet.”
“Of course not,” I huffed. “But when the time comes? I’m out of here. It’s not like I’ll be missing anything. I can’t have forever. You know that, and I know that.”
“Christ…”
I tore at the napkin on the table between us. “Sorry. I’m ruining it.” I stood, straightening the silver skirt I’d been so eager to put on for the kind of date I’d longed for my entire life. “I don’t need a date. I’ve never really had one before, and this one hasn’t ended on the best note, but that’s my fault, I know.”
I wasn’t eager to go back to my dorm room to be confronted by the flowers Luke had brought me, but it was better than being confronted by his wrecked eyes.
“We should go. I should…” I stopped before I said “study,” because there was no way in hell I was going to do that.
If this evening was going to end like this, then maybe the stuff we did in the basement wasn’t enough for me after all. Maybe I simply didn’t deserve the attention of someone like Luke, someone good and loving who adored his sister and would never beat me up and fuck me without prior consent. But I knew someone who would.
“Sit down,” Luke said, using that voice. It made my body obey like I was an automaton. Once I was back on the bench, he turned to me. “Okay, I’ll agree to your pact. You’ll come to me when you’re going to do it, and I’ll give you what you need. If that’s a scene, okay. If that’s for me to hold you, make love to you, then that’s what I’ll do too. If it’s just to pretend you’re not about to off yourself, all right. All I ask is that however you do it, no one else gets hurt.”
I shuddered. I hadn’t expected that. “And you? What will I give you if you come to me first?”
He shook his head. “I won’t. I have Betsy, and I’ve gotta do everything I can to stick around for her. I owe my mom that. She needs me.”
“No one needs me, so…” I shrugged. “It won’t hurt many people when I’m gone. They’ll keep going just fine.”
Luke shook his head, took hold of my hand, and kissed the back again. “I don’t believe that, but I also don’t think it’s right to pretend that a day won’t come when I might share your thoughts. It’s true that eventually I’ll be better off leaving my family in a hurry instead of draining their bank accounts and hearts with a prolonged sickness.”
“See? I knew you were smart and would come around,” I murmured, though my heart ached to see him give up like that. I wanted him to be more optimistic for both our sakes, but I could see he knew the truth. We were doomed. It was only a matter of time and how we chose to go out.
“Sorry. I made this date kind of suck,” I said. “I think I was channeling my friend Daniel for a minute.”
“Yeah? What’s he like?”
“A party-pooper.”
He laughed. “Oh, yeah?”
“Always. But he’s still one of the best guys in the world.” I stood up. “Come on. Was this it? You were just going to take me out to ice cream and be done with it?”
“No, I had more planned.”
“Onward then.”
He glanced around before sliding his arm around me, tugging me close, and hugging me tight. I sank into his arms. “You’re a terrifying surprise,” Luke whispered. “I want to use a whip to get to the heart of you.”
“You can do that. I’ll let you.”
“I know you will. But not tonight. Tonight, we’re going to keep things light from now on. Only things that make us smile.”
I drew back and gazed up at him. As he released me, I murmured, “Deal. For the rest of tonight, only things that make us smile.”
