it helps.”
“Wow.” Kelly smiled faintly. “Must be great for them, having an instructor who gets it.”
“I hope it helps. God knows it would’ve made a huge difference for me back then.” I brought my hand back down and rested it on top of his. “If someone in my life had understood executive dysfunction, I might’ve done better in college and art school.”
Kelly’s eyebrow arched. “Executive dysfunction?’
“Yep. It’s things like…” I thought about it, trying to come up with a good example. “Like when I need to fill out a form or make a phone call, and I put it off and put it off and put it off because just thinking about it makes my brain lock up. Then, after stressing about it for ages, I finally make myself sit down and do it, and it takes all of two minutes.” I rolled my eyes. “I know when it’s happening too. Like I literally know ‘this is executive dysfunction,’ but it is so fucking hard to push past it and just do whatever I need to do.”
“Jesus.” Kelly made a face. “That sounds kind of exhausting.”
“It is.” I laughed humorlessly. “Good thing fucked-up sleep patterns aren’t also a symptom. Oh…wait…”
“Wow. That sucks!”
“You don’t say. But the meds help, and I’ve learned to cope with it and work around it as best I can. It is what it is. Just…knowing about it would have made my academic career a bit less frustrating.”
He exhaled. “Yeah, I bet.”
I laced our fingers together and looked him right in the eye. “So, while your family thinks you’re a failure because you bailed on medical school after your third year, I’m over here thinking I couldn’t make it through a sophomore business class and would’ve bailed on day two of medical school. Assuming I ever made it through pre-med.”
Kelly blinked.
“You’re not a failure,” I said softly. “You were just following a path someone else decided for you, and quite honestly, I think it’s admirable that you made it as far as you did. And that you put your foot down and said, ‘this isn’t for me.’”
His lips parted. “You…really?”
“Yeah. There’s more to life than being the top of the class and doing what someone else thinks you should do. You took the reins back, and even if you haven’t figured out what you want to do, you have control of your life.” I brought his hand up and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “Don’t let anyone tell you that’s failure.”
Kelly held my gaze, and then he exhaled, some more tension leaving his neck and shoulders. “Thank you. Really—that means a lot.”
I just smiled and drew him in for a soft kiss. We let it linger for a moment. Not enough to get us spun up again, but enough to draw out the decadently gentle moment.
When he drew back, Kelly rubbed his eyes. “Man. I am wiped out.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s been…a day.”
“It has.” I reeled him back to me, and he settled on my shoulder again. Neither of us spoke. We just lay there, warm and comfortable beneath the covers.
Before long, he’d fallen into that telltale slow, steady breathing, and I just stroked his arm and let him sleep. Especially after how wound up he’d been earlier, I was glad he was this relaxed.
The problem was that now I was the one who was wound up.
I wasn’t sure how to feel about what Kelly and I had done today. It should have been strange, being this gently intimate with a man who wasn’t my husband. It sort of was, but it also sort of wasn’t.
When Aaron and I had played with other submissives in the past, aftercare had always been part of the equation. Depending on the sub and the play, sometimes that meant cuddling in bed and being affectionate. Sometimes it meant talking. Sometimes it meant holding them while they slept. So it wasn’t like this part was new.
But it…kind of was.
Because the intimacy here went beyond aftercare following a scene of heavy kink. I couldn’t put my finger on any particular line we’d crossed or any sin either of us had committed. It just…felt like we had.
And the thing was, Aaron and I had been clear with each other that we didn’t want a poly arrangement. This was kink and friendship. Nothing more.
Theoretically, everything I’d done with Kelly today fell within those boundaries. I’d been helping him out in his attic, and when the past started hitting him in the feels, I’d taken him in