Chapter Text
Adam didn't know how he had let himself get pulled into this. Well, that was a lie, he knew exactly how it had happened. He needed to stop confiding his problems to Blue and Noah. He should stop confiding his sexual life to them, too, but that would have to wait, specially considering it had been them who very ardently suggested the BDSM club membership, he doubted he could escape telling them the outcome. He parked his car two minutes away from the direction his phone indicated and took a deep breath, preparing himself for the night. Deep down, Adam was fully aware he could not pin the responsability on his flatmates. Just because they had suggested it did it mean they had forced him. No, he was doing it because he wanted to. It didn't make him any less nervous.
It's just one night, he thought to himself. If I don't like it, I'll never come back.
He was sure it wouldn't be amongst the worst things he had experienced. Even if it was unpleasant, he could just take it for a few hours. Even better, he could just leave whenever he wanted to, and no one could stop him. He was in charge, Adam reminded himself one last time before exiting the car.
He walked the two minutes in the chilly December night. The building looked big, but otherwise unimpressive. If he had passed it down —he probably had driven past it before, he realized— he would have thought it was abandoned or, at least, out of use. There was no queue, probably because he had come in some hours after they opened. A security guard asked for ID before letting him in. Adam walked into an entry hall with a counter occupied by a woman dressed in all black and a big, green neon sign that read "CABESWATER."
"Hello." He walked up to her. "I applied for a membership online and it got vetted."
"Alright, let me check. ID, please?" He handed it over and waited for her to type whatever she had to type into a computer. "Adam Parrish?"
"Yeah," he said, even though she was holding his literal ID card with his name on it.
"Everything seems in order, then. Do you want to leave your coat here for three dollars?"
Adam nodded and took off the coat. In the back on his mind, he worried that he was about to be told he hadn't dressed up to the dress code. The website had said he didn't need anything too kinky, and he wasn't going to be ordering anything for what might end up being a one time thing —leather is expensive—, so he was just wearing black jeans and a tight, mesh top he didn't remember he owned that Blue had managed to unearth from his closet. However, there was no comment from the woman, who just took his coat and put it back while he deposited three dollars on the counter.
"First time?" she asked as she handed him the number tag for his coat. Adam bit the inside of his mouth before nodding. "In this club or in general?"
"General."
"'Kay, so. Right this way you have the chill-out room. There are signs on the walls, but in case you miss them: no sex allowed there, alright? You've got music, drinks and snacks, and you can do kink, but no sex. For sex, you either go to the hallway in the left, or you go downstairs, alright? If you want to go to a private room with someone, you come here and ask for a key, but there might not be avaliable rooms. Nothing I can do for you in that case. Got that?"
"Got it." Adam nodded.
"Now, I would recommend you don't do anything too intense for your first time. If I were you I would spend the night talking and watching, but you do you. We do demos on Monday and Wednesdays afternoons and Friday mornings on different topics, I'd recommend those too. There are dungeon monitors going around with a pink lanyard on them. If you get overwhelmed, feel free to go to them. They're there to help. If someone makes you feel unsafe, we have security around, and it's very important that you go to them if you need. Any questions?"
"If I decide I do not like it and want to revoke my membership…"
"With only one night, we could talk about a partial refund, if that's what you worried about." That was precisely it, and a partial refund was better than what he had expected, so he nodded again and told her it sounded great. "Alright, I need to keep your phone here. No cameras."
"Sure."
He took the phone out, texted his groupchat with Blue and Noah that he was going to drop the phone in the cloakroom, and switched on flight mode before handing it to the woman.
"Thank you… And that's all! Have a great time, Adam."
Adam wasn't sure he managed to thank her back, nerves having made his throat dry, but he tried not to dwell on it as he entered the chill-out place she had seen. The inside was crowded, which didn't surprise him considering it was a Friday night. There was music coming from speakers, lower and less annoying than at a normal disco, which he guessed made sense considering it was a kind of place you needed to be able to converse in.
He looked around to study the crowd. Everywhere his eyes fell made Adam feel like a voyeur. There wasn't anyone having straight up sex, but just the fashion choices of the majority of the patrons was enough to make the place feel filthy. He guessed that was the point. Wherever he looked, he saw couples or groups of couples sitting around big, sunken booths, laughing and caressing or doing whatever it was they were doing. Truth be told, Adam was struggling to see anyone else who was by themselves, and he definitely was not about to stand next to a group of people and ask "can I join?" like a kid in a playground. He swallowed. He had tried to talk himself up the whole week, reminding himself that he was unknowable, that no one was going to be able to read the inexperience off his face, but he was starting to doubt it.
His hand reached into his pocket, tempted to text Blue for help, but he had just left his phone behind in the counter. Fuck everything, he thought as he clicked his tongue. Adam was getting overwhelmed way too soon and way too fast. Had he been stupid to think this could work for him? It all felt like private school again: a place in which everyone was in their element but him, a place in which everyone could tell he was not meant to be there. Adam didn't want to think about that, lest he started the night crying. That'd be a very pathetic BDSM try-out result.
Just one night, you can leave if you want, partial refund. Just one night. I can leave. Partial refund.
He repeated the words to himself as he made his way to the bar. He wasn't especially thirsty, but he had nothing to do with his hands and holding a water bottle seemed like a great solution to the problem. So, Adam got to the bar, ordered his water, found a wall with no group of people who already knew each other, and rested his back there as he observed from afar. He was still nervous, but at least this time he could squeeze the plastic in his hands. Yesterday at night, he had gone into a rabbithole about what to do in a place like this for the first time, and everything had suggested being talkative. At 3 AM, it had seemed like a more achievable task. Now, he had no idea how he was supposed to walk up to someone and ask for sex. Not even sex, just hypothetical sex in some days, because he was not even sure he could or should commit himself to hard, rough sex with a stranger right after meeting them.
The fuck did I get myself into?, he thought to himself at the same time the promise of a partial refund tried to soothe him.
Adam quietly sipped his water, trying to lay eyes on someone that was also alone that he could maybe approach —what he would say, he didn't know yet, but he'd cross that bridge when he got there—. His eyes were roaming around so much he didn't notice a brunette man walking up to him. Adam straightened his back and put on his most neutral face. He was unknowable. There was no reason the other man had to know he was nervous. He could act chill and unbothered, he told himself as he tried to become the physical embodiment of chillness and unbotherness.
"Hey," he said.
"Hello! Are you playing with anyone?" Adam shook his head no as he observed the guy. He had glasses, which he hadn't seen many people around wearing, and brown hair and eyes. Much like 90% of the people in the place, he was wearing all black: leather pants and a mesh blouse, under which Adam could clearly see a lace bra. It had a flower pattern etched on the fabric. That was cute, he mused.
"No, not yet," he replied, as if he had plans to play with anyone later. "Are you?"
"Nope, not yet either. My friend and I saw you and we were wondering if you were new."
Realistically, Adam knew he could not pretend that he was experienced, because that would be a safety hazard. But he didn't have to say it straight away.
"I moved for work recently." It wasn't a lie. He had only spent one month in town, that was pretty recent. "It's my first time."
"Are you by yourself?" Mentally, Adam thanked him for not pointing it out directly, even if it was obvious that he was by himself. He nodded. "Wanna come with us? I bet Ronan would love to meet you."
Adam did a mental re-cap. He had gotten approached, and now he was being asked to join someone, which meant he didn't have to approach anyone by himself anymore.
"Sounds good, yeah."
The man held out a hand for him to take and Adam followed behind him. They walked through the room —Adam heard a few people addressing them, commenting on whether the guy had finally "switched teams," which he figured was friendly banter between patrons by how the brunette only laughed and waved his hand no—. Eventually, they made it to one of the booths. The only person waiting for them, whom he guessed was Ronan, was a very tall, very pale, very muscular man basically sprawling in the seat. Adam hoped the other two didn't notice him swallowing at the sight.
"Did you show him 'round the whole building?" he asked as he changed postures in order to not occupy three times the room he needed. His voice was faintly accented. "It took you ages."
"Kept getting compliments on the way here, you wouldn't know how much it delays you," the man said, sitting on Ronan's right. He patted the seat at his right for Adam, but he gestured with his heard towards Ronan's left.
"Can I sit there? I'm deaf in this ear."
"Yeah, that's grand." Ronan scooched over to the other man so Adam could sit comfortably and reached out a hand. "Ronan Lynch."
"Adam," he said as he shook his hand. "Parrish."
He would love to say he hadn't noticed Ronan's outfit —or, better said, lack of one—, but it would be a lie. His pants were very similar to the other guy's, and Adam considered the possibility of a buy one get one for free situation. On top, however, he was purely naked except for a harness made out of skinny metallic chains. The metal did nothing to hide his milky skin. From where he was sitting, Adam could see a giant tattoo covering his upper back.
"Adam just moved into DC," chirped in Glasses Man. Ronan raised an eyebrow.
"From where?"
"Middle of nowhere in Virginia, you wouldn't know."
He didn't try to mask his accent, because he doubted his origin made much of a difference in a BDSM club. He was about to ask if they were from DC —he couldn't quite pinpoint Ronan's accent, and Glasses Man's just sounded posh, but not geographically from anywhere— when a tall, slender woman came behind them and rested a hand on top of the sofa. Glasses Man looked up and smiled.
"Can I borrow you?" she asked, nails going to his scalp and brushing soft brown hair.
"Can I leave you two alone?" he asked, mostly to Ronan. He was smiling a lot, enough to strike Adam as suspicious, but he still said yes.
"I think we can manage," Ronan replied before sending him away. He sighed, turning to Adam. "There goes Gansey."
Adam, who had opened his water bottle again, had to try not to spit it at the name.
"His name's Gansey!?"
"I've heard them worse," Ronan shrugged.
"Well, I haven't," he replied. That seemed to strike Ronan as amusing, judging by the canine smile that appeared on his face. "Are you two, like…?" He wasn't sure how to ask. Gansey had said they were friends, but he wanted to make sure.
"Nah, he doesn't do guys." Right, Adam knew that. "What 'bout you?"
"I do everything," he replied. Ronan, who had been slouching, straightened his back at that. "You?"
"Just guys. So, first time here?" Adam nodded. "How'd you find the place?"
"Been alright so far."
"No, I mean how'd you find out it exists."
"Ah, well. My flatmate found it for me," he explained. "She had heard about it, and I told her I wanted to try kink but didn't know how to bring it up to night-one-stands, so she gave me the name."
"Try kink?" He had forgotten he wanted to delay coming out as inexperienced, but Ronan didn't seem like he'd judge him. Adam shook his head affirmatively. "It's your first time?" Another nod. "And what's your horny origin story?"
He snorted at that, Ronan smiled with pride.
"I just felt there was something missing from regular sex, I don't know. Nothing special, just felt like I would enjoy rough sex more." Ronan nodded along at the explanation. "Do you have an interesting horny origin story?"
The man leaned back against the sofa and looked up to the ceiling, one hand scratching his head. He had a buzzcut.
"Horrible first boyfriend liked it rough, had some pretty hot and hazardous sex with him at 17 until shit went down. Don't know what it says about me that I liked it enough to keep doing it. At least I left the hazardous part out as I grew up."
"I'm sorry to hear," Adam started, not sure what to say. Ronan made a hand gesture as if to say it was water under the bridge. "What 'bout Gansey? Did you meet him here?"
"Nah, we go way back." He shot a shiny, mischievious look at Adam. "Ask me where we met."
"Where'd you meet?"
"Middle of nowhere in Virginia."
"Really?"
"I never lie," Ronan replied.
"You don't sound from Virginia," Adam tried to argue.
"My parents were Irish," he explained. Adam tried not to dwell on the past tense. "From Belfast. I go there from time to time. Gansey says I sound very Irish whenever I come back, but he's got no idea."
"Did you go recently?" He was starting to notice how easy it was to talk to Ronan.
Ronan nodded. "Getaway trip with one of my brothers. We flew back like three days ago. Why'd you move to DC?"
"I don't know, really. There's nothing like a tiny conservative town in rural Virginia for the queer youth." It was a grim joke, but Ronan laughed at it. "Got a job in a law firm here."
"You are a lawyer!?" Ronan sounded so surpriesd that it could have read as he being an ex-convict and Adam being about to send him to jail.
"I am an attorney," he said. A part of him felt like a pedant asshole everytime he specified that, but he couldn't help to carry it around like a badge of honor. "I can represent people in court, a lawyer just has the degree. What do you for a living?"
Ronan leaned in. The chains in his chest fell forward with gravity, and Adam wondered how it would be like to grab around one of them and push. He shook the thought off his head. There was a thousand things he should ask Ronan before doing that.
"Ask me."
"Hm… Tattoo artist?"
"I'm qualified, but no."
"Bouncer in a disco?" He had the body to be intimidating.
"Couldn't stand it. Last try."
"I'm out of ideas. What do you do?"
"I am a tragic heiress," Ronan replied. Before Adam could reply that that was cheating and didn't count as a job, he added: "I also rent this building in DC to a friend. She uses it for a BDSM club, or something."
Technically, landlord had also never counted as a job in Adam's book, but he was too taken aback to mention that.
"You own this place?"
"Just the building," Ronan said. Owning a building seemed like a lot to Adam, not a "just this," matter. "I get a discount."
Adam thought about saying he was gonna get a partial refund, but he realized he wasn't going to. He was enjoying the night, even if he had done nothing but talk to a handsome guy and drink water. It was unfair to ask for his money back when he was having fun. He thought about going back home and talking to Blue and Noah. He had feared coming back disappointed and having to be comforted, pitied, but now he was sure the only thing waiting for him when he came back with Ronan-talk would be gossip and banter. Much better.
"How often do you come here?" Adam asked, aware he was reaching into uncharted territory. He was still nervous, but no longer uncomfortable, and he wanted to know more about the man in front of him.
"Once a week, twice when I can," Ronan replied. "I don't have sex if it's not kink."
"Woah," Adam couldn't prevent himself from saying it. He was going to apologize, but Ronan didn't seem offended, so he shot his next shot instead. "And what do you like to do?"
Icy blue eyes looked at him with interest. Adam was surprised to find himself looking back with matching interest, instead of hiding in fear. He wanted this.
"I sub, if that's what you're asking," he said. It surprised him a bit, even if he knew height and strength had nothing to do with sexual preferences. However, rather than disappoint him, it only fueled him more. "What 'bout you?"
"I haven't done neither," he admitted. "But I would like Domming."
"Have you found anyone to try it with?" Ronan asked.
"I don't know," Adam whispered, low and heavy. He fought the urge to close his hand around the chains once more. "Have I?"
Ronan smiled pleased, but sat back up, separating them a bit. Disappointment and anxiety creeped at Adam for a bit until the other spoke again.
"Depends. What do you like, specifically?"
He swallowed, then reminded himself he wasn't taking a test. This was not lawschool, this was not private school. Here, Adam had nothing to prove. Worst came to worst, Ronan told him he didn't want to sleep with him, and that was it. He could probably even pair him with someone else he'd be compatible with, if he asked.
"Again, I haven't tried anything, but I want to. I'm interested in restriction and chastity, sensation and, eh, impact play?" he listed. "I know it's not super special."
"Doesn't need to be," Ronan mumbled in response. "How do you feel about degradation?"
"I could do that if the other person wanted to, no problem. Just, maybe not everytime. I think I would prefer humiliation."
Silence hanged between them for a second in which he was tempted to ask "is that alright?" Ronan didn't say anything for a while, looking serious and calculating something. He turned at him after a while.
"Do you think you could deal with a brat?"
Adam tensed. He had thought about it, minutely, but being faced with it as an actual possibility, as something that could actually be very real, was very different. He had hoped this wouldn't happen, but his mind still went to his father, hitting him and shouting at him, calling him ungrateful brat and all other kinds of names. What did it say about him, if he did the same thing to Ronan? Adam had thought about asking Noah and Blue about it, about whether they thought he was becoming like his father, but he had been too afraid. Now, he was dealing with the consequences of bearing with his own worries by himself.
What do you want? He wanted Ronan. He didn't need him, of course. If it had to be someone else who didn't require taming, so be it, but he wanted Ronan. And the thing standing between him and Ronan, it seemed, was that he wasn't willing to hit discipline into him. Adam thought about it. He was smart, he was a problem-solver, and he liked to get what he wanted when he could.
"I cannot physically punish you. I mean, someone," he quickly corrected himself, but Ronan didn't seem annoyed. "I can't do impact play as punishment. It would have to be something else."
Ronan raised an eyebrow, but didn't ask him to follow up with an explanation. You have nothing to prove, no answer you give is wrong, Adam reminded himself.
"Well, that sounds fine."
"Really?" he asked, hating that he sounded surprised.
"I would love to see you get creative." Ronan smiled like he meant it. Adam guessed it was true that he never lied. "I'm not gonna do anything with you tonight, 'cause you're new and I know better than that. But if you want, we can compare kinksheets more slowly downstairs, and try something next week."
Adam wanted to nod fervently and run towards the counter, but he refrained. Ronan had said he only had sex when he came to this place, and he came once a week. He didn't want to be what stood between him and his weekly lay, if Ronan didn't want to wait.
"Is that alright with you? I don't want you to make you wait too long."
"Listen," Ronan stood up. "I could lie and say that I am a very patient man, but that's not my style, or I could say the truth and say that I want you. Which one do you want?"
Adam wasn't going to be the person that made Ronan Lynch into a liar.
. . .
They had gotten their respective sheets and a room key at the counter. Ronan had handed Adam both papers and walked him across the hallways until they got to the place they were meant to go, and he couldn't help himself from taking a small peak at Ronan's. His heart did a little jump at the section in which they asked for age, having realized he had completely forgotten to ask. Luckily, it seemed like they were both 27. He still went to tell Ronan, who seemed surprised he hadn't thought to ask either. It probably shouldn't, but it made Adam feel like if Ronan, experienced and a regular, could forget things, he could too.
They reached the door they needed and Ronan opened it for them, gesturing for him to get inside. The bed in the middle seemed simple, but fluffy. Ronan immediately went to lie on it, bouncing slightly with the way he dropped himself. Adam clicked his tongue at the fact he was wearing shoes on the bed, but said nothing as he sat in a corner.
"Do you go through this every week?" he asked as Ronan rose from the bed.
"Nah," he said. "If it's someone I know does something I like well, I ask if they want to do it to me. And there's a few people I have fucked with more than once. But I like comparing sheets with people I have never talked to before, specially if they're newbies." At the same time he explained, Ronan looked over his shoulder to Adam's sheet. "We got the first one almost entirely the same," he spoke, pointing at the question regarding their preferred tone for scenes.
They went over the rest of it together. Their role-playing section wasn't too far apart, with the difference that Ronan seemed way more into certain things than he was.
"I can do religious scenes, but I have to research a bit first. It looks interesting to put into play," Adam told him, seeing Ronan had marked it higher than he had. "I, uh, I don't think I can do 'daddy.'" Not if he was going to be hitting him, but Ronan didn't need to know that. "If, eh… If we get to know each other better, maybe, but…"
But no pressure, he wanted to say. Still, Adam couldn't bring himself to it. The problem with growing up having close to nothing was that it had made it very hard for him to accept he could not keep everything life gave him forever, which was specially true for people.
"But what?" Ronan raised an eyebrow. He bumped one of his legs against Adam's, jokingly. "What, Parrish, don't wanna get to know me?"
"I do!" Fuck, had he sounded too earnest? "I just don't expect you to stay with me long-term." Maybe that was something they should discuss now. "How many times would you like to be with me, maximun?"
"Hopeful wording you use there, I see. Look, I think we should do a non-sexual scene first to test the waters, I'd say two to make sure, and at least a sexual one to test those waters. And if that goes well, we can do another one, and then another one, and then…"
"What will happen if it doesn't go well?" He had an inkling, but still wanted confirmation that it would be alright.
"We remain friends and I see if I can think of a friend compatible with you."
Adam nodded along. Another question came to his mind, and he knew he had to ask even if it made him sour.
"While we are testing the waters and doing the hypothetical other ones," he started, "are you going to have sex with other people?"
Ronan looked at him in silence for a second. Adam feared the tone he had used had been too easy to read, enough for it to be obvious that he wanted exclusivity, even if it didn't feel fair on the other's end.
"Do you think we could see every week for a month? Or every other-ish week, 'cause Christmas and shit." Adam thought about it for a second before nodding. He didn't work on weekends, so he was sure they could do something. "We can be exclusive, then. But it works both ways."
"I know that," he replied. Then, in a kinder voice, he added: "Thank you."
"'Course, man. Anything else you want to bring up? This is the moment."
"Is it just for the club?" he asked. When Ronan tilted his head, he asked again. "As in, do you want me to… Wait, no. Fuck."
Adam tried not to let Ronan's giggle mortify him. He wasn't sure he succeeded.
"Are you asking if I want you to avoid sleeping only with people in this very niche club?" Ronan asked.
"No! No, no, no," he rushed to clarify. "What I mean is, do you want me to text you outside of the club?"
"Yeah, I usually think it's polite to talk to a person you're gonna be hooking up with for a month."
Adam couldn't stop himself from rolling his eyes. Ronan laughed again, making him wonder if that was what it would be like in scenes. He couldn't wait for a context that allowed him to get back at him properly instead of playing nice by ignoring him.
"I mean, I know some people keep the dynamic outside of the club. Do you want that?"
"Think you could do that?" Ronan asked, more sincere than judging. Could he? He had read some things about low and high protocol, but hadn't been thinking about it too much, given his initial assumption that he wasn't going to have a good first experience at the club.
"I want to try." He did his best to sound firm. "It wouldn't be anything too big, I don't think."
"How about we finish checking everything and then we talk about what that could look like?"
They kept checking the list. In the bondage section, Ronan had marked he would like to feel vulnerable and safe during it. They weren't the only things, but they struck Adam as the most important. Maybe it was the sheer size of him or the way he looked like he could beat him up if he wanted, but he didn't think he had been fully aware of the extreme amount of vulnerability Ronan had entrusted him so soon after meeting him. He couldn't fuck this up. Adam swallowed and made a mental note to go to the demos on bondage as soon as possible. To go to as many demos as he could, rather.
"Would I have to get you one?" he said, wistfully, pointing at where Ronan had highlighted collar as the highest rated tool in bondage. "I can do it, I just need to prepare in advance."
"I have one at home. You can ask me to bring it when you need me to."
Adam nodded, trying to paint the mental image of Ronan with leather wrapped around his neck, solid black against milky white skin. In his imagination, it looked meant to be.
"Is it a dog thing? We didn't really stop at that earlier."
"It's not not a dog thing," Ronan replied. "More a bitch thing than a puppy thing. Grew up hearing Gansey being told to leash me, and that was about the only assignment I followed though with."
If he was still drinking the water from earlier, he would have actually spit it this time.
"I thought Gansey didn't do boys?"
"We did some platonic stuff when he started out, it just didn't work." Adam raised an eyebrow at that. When Ronan replied, his eyes were wide open and lost, as if experiencing shell-shock, though Adam could tell it wasn't genuine. "It's just, submitting is just weird when it's Gansey. And, well, he gave up on Domming really quickly."
"At least you both figured things out?" he offered. Ronan nodded appreciatively. "So, how exactly do you feel about pet play, then?"
"I like being collared and leashed. I haven't yet, but I'm not opposed to being muzzled." The image his mind conjured was almost enough to have Adam close his eyes and sigh, but he reigned himself in. "But that's it, I don't care for tails or ears or anything. I'd rather avoid them. I like being called a bitch, getting degraded and told I need to behave, and I like to be put into place."
He swallowed at the words, suddenly way less nervous about looking at non-impact punishments.
"I can do that," Adam said. "Is there anything else you like to get called?"
"You can fuck around and find out, it's not the same for everyone. I'll tell you how I feel. What do you want me to call you? Sir? Master? Just Adam?"
"Sir's fine." Then, to sound more confident, he added: "I like it."
The impact play section had intimidated Adam a bit, so he braced himself to go over it with Ronan. Once more, he tried to remind himself that, technically, no answer was a wrong answer, and that Ronan wouldn't judge him for what was basically wanting to hit people. It became easier when he saw how his sheet had enthusiastically drawn circles around all the body parts avaliable for hitting, and around a little "other: face-slapping" written on the margin. If that had made him feel at ease, seeing that he had marked everything from "a little pain" to "make me cry" in the intensity question had Adam elated.
"No marks?" Ronan asked, eyeing Adam's answer sheet, where he had answered he needed them go as soon as possible.
"Not visible ones, I mean. Otherwise, they can last a week. You?"
Ronan, who on account of being a sad little heiress did not have to go to an office every day, had specified marks left on him could last a week or more. When paired with the specification that he bruised easily, the information was making Adam desperate to see for himself.
"Have you ever tried any of these?" Ronan asked him, pointing at the tool list. Adam shook his head no. "Do you know what they are?"
"Yeah, but I don't know how much each of them hurt. I'm only closed to belts, I don't wanna do that," he stated. Ronan didn't seem too dismayed by that, even if he had written down that he liked belts. Everything else seemed to compensate well enough.
Their expectations and wishes for sensation play were also quite similar. Adam was glad to see Ronan was into wax play, given it was something he had really wanted to try. He also had quite a hard rating for nipple clamps, which once more forced the blonde to control himself.
"Hope you don't love hair pulling too much," Ronan joked as they moved to the next section. Adam, who had not been expecting it, laughed way more than he usually would.
"Bet there's more we can look at, come on now." They had, indeed, very similar ratings for begging and serving as furniture. However, Ronan had way more of a preference for exhibitionism than Adam did. He was about to say he could work on it, but he changed his wording before speaking: "We could discuss it further along."
"Sure," Ronan accepted. Everything else after that was once more pretty matched up, until cross dressing, which had Adam stopping to ask about it. Ronan explained diligently, though the subtle blush that was starting to cover his face didn't escape Adam. It occurred to him then that he was not the only one of them affected and yearning, and that eased him. "I like lingerie. I don't mind dressing up."
He seemed out of breath thinking about it. Adam's mind filled with a myriad of possibilities of how to use the information, on how to rile up Ronan. He wanted to get him out of breath beneath him.
"Would you like being called a girl?" Ronan had to close his eyes to think about it. Adam used the instance to smile proudly at himself, and he added: "A pretty girl?"
"Yeah, I'd like that," Ronan admitted, swallowing after as if it had been a monumental effort. Poor thing's no lies policy seemed to get hard at times, Adam mused. How cute.
Taking pity on the man, Adam moved to the next section. They both had a huge interest on chastity, both physical and mental, and orgasm control and denial.
"How long could you hold back for?" he asked.
"Depends on what you do to me," Ronan said before clarifying. "I can do one week. One week and a half if, eh…"
Adam straightened and shot a look at him. The flush on Ronan's face was rapidly spreading down his neck. He was beautiful, all sharp edges and roughness, all of it put together and starting to come undone at the edges.
"Stay with me," he said, hoping it was the right thing to say. Magically, he remembered he still hadn't finished his water, and he grabbed the bottle off where he had left it to offer it to him. Ronan gladly finished what was left and looked up at him. "What were you going to say? Don't be shy."
"I can do one week and a half if there's a good reward," Ronan finally let out. "I don't know how long I can be caged for. Not that long, for sure. I have never been caged for more than some hours."
"Is it something you would like to try with me?"
"Not yet," he said in response. "I don't know when."
"I can wait and ask after a while, so you don't have to bring it up," Adam suggested. Ronan nodded. "Good."
The last section of the sheet that wasn't explicitly about sex, which they reached after finding out that neither of them cared much about any form of edge play, was all about kinkwear and clothing. Ronan had marked a lot. The only things he had crossed out as hard limits were head to toe spandex and high heels and boots. He had his preferences for everything else (leather more than anything, then and lace and satin before rubber and PVC).
"Is this really important to you?" Adam asked, mouth starting to feel dry. "I don't… It may take me a while to build a decent wardrobe." Ronan looked up at him, silent. His eyes, rather than disappointed, had a flame of desire lit behind the icy blue. Adam saw him bite his lip and quieted a comment about how lying by omission still counted as lying. Instead, he said: "What's on your mind?"
"Could I help you?"
Adam frowned at that. "I don't need a sugar daddy."
"Not like that. Can I help you pick? I know the good brands."
He thought about it again. Not wanting Ronan to think he was upset after his clarification, he placed a hand on his knee.
"You can give me suggestions," he settled after a while. He wanted to be in control, that was the whole point of why this did it for him, but the idea of having Ronan tell him what he liked more and, maybe, using it against him —or in his favour, depending on how you looked at it— wasn't too bad. "Would you want me to do the same? After a while?"
"Yeah," he hadn't hesitated a second.
They moved on to the last section: sex acts. They both wanted everything on the list. Ronan, Adam could tell, was pleasantly surprised at the fact he was more than fine bottoming. When Ronan asked about the sex toys listed, he was happy to actually be experienced with something on the list at all. He couldn't help himself from saying that he would love to use all of them on Ronan —though he needed to be shown how to work with a fucking machine—. The other thing they discussed Adam found himself familiar with was the red light system, though he made sure to teach him the names in ASL.
"If it's a crowded area or just a loud place, I can't always hear properly," he explained after having taught him'red.' "You don't gotta do it perfectly because I'll understand what you mean. I'll tell you if I'm having trouble hearing you."
The mention of it had him thinking of the complete opposite; not of being unable to hear Ronan, but about the possibility of hearing him. Adam wondered briefly whether he would be loud or quiet, whether he whined a lot, whether he was very verbal. He intended to find out.
The very last question was other erotic activities.
"Thoughts on erotic dancing?"
"I can only do trad Irish dance." Adam wasn't sure he knew how that looked like, but he doubted it was too erotic. Ronan, he was starting to realize, talked the exact same way regardless of how serious he was. "Have you thought about the rest? Like, munches or play parties?"
"Not really. I would like to make more friends before I do anything like that." He thought about Blue finding the club for him and helping him get ready for the night, about her sending him off with a playful "and I want a review when I come back!" Maybe he could also just convert the friends he already had.
"That's alright. I can introduce you to my friends if you want," Ronan offered. "And you should definitely talk to Gansey again." He scrunched his nose, as if the thought of Gansey was suddenly unpleasant, and turned to face him. "I should actually go check if he's done. Driver duty. Wanna come? We can watch someone until he's ready to leave."
Adam remembered the way back to the general, non-sex area, so he made it a point to exit the door in front of Ronan and walk ahead. When he turned around shortly to check if the man followed, he saw a smile on his face. He couldn't help but copying it.
. . .
Gansey hadn't been back up when they —when Adam, when Adam had walked ahead of him to the chill-out area like he knew the place better than Ronan did, like he was guiding him, which definitely hadn't done anything for him— had left the room, so instead he had asked Adam what he would like to watch and he had ended up showing him around the room where public sex actually happened. At his request, they had found a couple playing with a fucking machine and asked if they could watch for a while. Rather, Adam had asked, because about and 80% or 90% of people in the club knew Ronan always subbed and that if he was with a man that wasn't Gansey, he was subbing for them. Everyone always waited for his Doms to talk first, and though he wasn't sure Parrish was aware of that, he seemed content enough with leading the conversation for both of them for Ronan to think he did know, and that he was just happy to be doing well.
There was something about him he couldn't pinpoint, and he tried and failed at not letting it bother him. He wanted to tell himself it was simply a matter of finding him attractive, but he knew that wasn't it. It wasn't just it, at least, because it was true there was no denying Adam was attractive. A part of him had been mortified when he had mumbled about it as an off-handed comment and Gansey had shot straight to greet him, but he had spent the rest of the night thinking about how he would have to thank him for it.
Adam waited with him until Gansey and the woman he had left with found them again. She talked with them briefly, very aware her boytoy of the night needed to go home and sleep. For an insomniac, Gansey sure liked to sleep after whatever amount of sex had befallen his body. They exchanged numbers when they left. He insisted Adam got Gansey's number, both because he had meant what he had said about introducing him to his friends and because it was probably helpful to have someone that been in DC for a long time if he had just moved in, and waved him goodbye with a "get home safe" before getting into his BMW with Gansey. The boy went limp on the passenger seat almost immediately.
"Man, what the hell did she do to you?" Ronan asked.
At his side, Gansey smiled with a mix of pride and mischief, and something that may have been stupidity. "You know how I like Arthuriana?"
"I swear to God, Gansey, if you say the Camelot thing once more I'll kick you off the car and run you over."
"You're mean!" the man whined. "But I had a great time. Just. I need a glass of milk and my bed."
"Manchild."
"You're the one who religiously goes to the kitchen at 3 AM to steal cookies from me whenever you stay over." Ronan didn't fight that. "How was your night? Were you with Adam the whole time?"
"Yeah," he said, trying to find a reasonable way of approaching their exchange. "Did you know he Doms?"
"Hm?" Gansey shifted in the seat and rubbed his eyes behind his glasses. "He didn't strike me as one. I guess that's prejudiced of me. Just, you know, he seemed very nervous at first, so I assumed…"
"It was his first time."
"Right, he just moved he…"
"First time trying BDSM at all," Ronan specified. Before Gansey could speak again, he kept going. "We talked for a while about how he got into it. Then we, uh. We compared sheets."
"Right." Gansey just nodded and closed his eyes for a bit. Ronan counted down to three before he shot upwards from the seat, eyes wide open again. "Wait, what for!? A tutorial on comparison or…?"
"What do you think?" He hoped it passed as his usual asshole-ish, sarcastic demeanor, though he was just asking to let Gansey say it instead of him. Gansey, who somehow had managed to stay a sweetheart towards him for the past decade and a half, didn't even answer explicitly, possibly for his sake.
"Since when do you play with beginners?"
"I let this guy from my childhood walk me in all fours before he realized he liked being overstimmed by hot women better, does that ring a bell?"
"Since when do you play with strangers that are total beginners?" Ronan shrugged. "Did he seem good? As in, did he have any idea of what was going on?"
"He was very reasonable." He stopped the car as they came to a red light. His mind went to Adam's hand on his knee, strong and confident, and his Southern drawl threatening to call him pretty girl. "And we seem compatible as fuck."
"Are you really gonna dive straight in with him? No shame or anything, I would just be a bit nervous to trust someone like that given the circumstances."
Ronan clicked his tongue.
"We are doing non-sexual stuff first. For two weeks, if possible." Gansey didn't say anything for a bit —in Gansey, this was extremely worrisome—, so he turned around to see giant doe-like eyes blinking at him in awe. "What?"
"Did you already plan a scene with him?"
"Not really. Not at all," he tried to explain. "Just, a general timeline? You love those, don't you?"
"For my thesis paper, not for a hook-up, Lynch!" Gansey sounded exasperated. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "What does the general timeline look like?"
"Eh… Three trial runs and then we see from there."
"Three trial runs," Gansey repeated. "Are you going to be with him for three weeks?" How he had gotten into History and not Mathematics with those brilliant skills of his would forever escape Ronan. He nodded, leaving out the part in which he hoped said three weeks would extend as much as possible. "No one in between? Just three weeks of Adam, one after the other?"
"That's what we settled on. Why?"
Gansey looked at him in silence, and a quick look let Ronan see that face he made when he was actively trying to pick out the words he needed rather than just talking.
"I don't remember the last time you were exclusive with someone for that long." What a Gansey-like sentence, full of that beautiful, beautiful cautious writing academics loved. He was gonna do so well with his doctoral thesis. "I'm not judging you. I'm just not used to seeing you like this."
"I know," Ronan answered, though he wasn't sure what "like this" entailed. "I don't know why either. He's handsome," he mumbled around his fingers, even if he knew that wasn't enough of an explanation, at least not for someone who knew him like Gansey did. "And he's easy to talk to."
Gansey didn't fight against that. It wasn't a lot, but it was a long way with Ronan, and they both knew it. He wasn't shy, and he wasn't dishonest, but he was, and had been for a long time, closed off to others. Walled up, Gansey had called it once. Ronan Lynch didn't let people in easily, but for some wicked reason that didn't apply to Adam Parrish.