almost every day. One day, Tom and I were eating lunch, and it was a Monday morning, and we’d both been at the same play party that weekend, so we were both just ridiculously tired. We were getting kind of…” I flailed my hand as I searched for the word.
“Loopy?” Will supplied.
“We’ll go with that,” I said with a sharp nod. “We were tired and loopy, and… I mean, this judge and his wife are ridiculously cute. He basically waits on her hand and foot, puts sugar in her coffee for her, the whole works.”
“Sounds like a sub,” Kelly mused.
“Exactly what Tom and I decided. So we kind of started this head canon where they have a Master/slave thing going on. And every time he does the most innocuous thing or we see them together, we add to it. It’s…” I shook my head. “It’s ridiculous, but we’ve pretty much decided that Judge Faulkner wears a bondage harness under his robes, his wife has like twelve pairs of thigh high leather boots, and she makes him dress like a horse and pull her around their basement in a buggy.”
Kelly barked a laugh. “Oh my God.”
“You forgot the cock cage and the butt plug,” Will said.
“Oh! Right!” I snapped my fingers. “I was in Judge Faulkner’s courtroom one day, and he… I don’t know, I guess he hurt his back or something. But all I could think about was something Tom had said one night when we were drunk about how if Faulkner really fucks up, his wife probably sends him to work with a butt plug and a cock cage.”
Kelly snorted, covering his mouth. “How did you keep a straight face in court?”
This time, Will laughed. “Yeah, Aaron?” He arched an eyebrow. “How did you keep a straight face in court?”
My cheeks burned, and I chuckled as I said, “Well, it just so happened that, as we all know, a certain other Dom likes to use cock cages as punishment…” I shot Will a look. “And that day…”
“You’re not serious.” Kelly glanced back and forth between us. “You were in a cock cage while you thought the judge was?”
“Oh, I knew he wasn’t. But I was, and it was bad enough feeling it every time I moved—I could feel it every time he moved too.” I whistled. “That was one of the longest mornings I’ve ever spent in a courtroom in my entire career.”
Will laughed his usual sadistic laugh.
“Is that how lawyers entertain themselves?” Kelly was practically giggling. “Make shit up about people around them?”
“I mean, if we get really bored, we’re running on no sleep, and the coffee isn’t cutting it…” I shrugged. “You do what you can to pass the time.”
“Yeah, it sounds like it.” He chuckled. “It would’ve been funny if that judge had caught on, though.”
“For you guys, maybe,” I muttered.
“Exactly,” Will said.
Kelly leaned across me, and they high-fived.
“Assholes,” I grumbled, which of course made them laugh.
After a moment, though, Kelly sobered. “It’s, um…” His shoulders slumped. “Last night aside, it’s probably not a good idea to do anything kinky tonight. For me.”
Will and I exchanged alarmed looks.
“How do you figure?” I asked.
Kelly pushed out a breath. “It’s just been a day.”
He didn’t elaborate. Will and I glanced at each other again.
Then Will put his hand on Kelly’s knee. “Talk to us. We’re not planning on playing, but if the mood does strike, I don’t want us to get into a scene and then find out too late your head’s not in the game.”
Kelly’s shoulders drooped farther and he avoided both of our gazes. I empathized. One of the worst feelings was when I had to admit to my Dom that I wasn’t in the right headspace to play. No matter how many times Will and I had talked it through, no matter how many times he’d assured me that he would never be upset if I needed to put myself first and say “not tonight,” I hated disappointing him and letting him down.
Some shitty Doms out there made subs feel like trash for that, though. Maybe Kelly needed to hear from me, the man who’d submitted to Will for twenty years, that this wasn’t a Dom who’d give a sub grief for bowing out.
I sat up a little. “We get it. We both have off nights and have to bail sometimes. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. And Will and I were talking earlier about not playing tonight because he wasn’t in the right space.