Page 54 of All Tied Up

“OK, got it.” Neil didn’t know a ton of people whose pronouns varied, but he’d met enough of them that he was pretty sure he wouldn’t mess it up tonight. It wouldn’t be difficult, either, with those adorable braids and Jamie’s touch of lipstick.

“Actually, I should mention now that Daddy is agender.”

Neil blinked. “What does that mean?” Sebastian seemed to be all male, a thick, muscular man who perfectly embodied everything a Daddy should be.

“Just that he doesn’t identify with any gender. I think he wishes all the genders would just go away.”

“And how is that different from being genderflexible?”

“Oh, well, I love gender, preferably as much of it as possible, all of the time, and sometimes more than one gender at once. I think of gender like a toy to play with. Daddy thinks of gender as an incomprehensible annoyance.”

“So should I… not think of him as a man?”

“I think he’d rather that you thought of him as a human or a person. Or, you know, a hotel owner or a Dom or whatever. That’s why I call him my partner rather than my boyfriend.”

That was, strangely, going to take more time for Neil to wrap his mind around. Sebastian didn’t look like whatever he thought an agender person might look like. “I think I might… still notice things about him that I think of as masculine.”

“Like his sexy beard and all that tasty fur on his chest?”

“Yeah.” And just the way he held himself, the way he moved.

“Believe me, I notice that, too. I’m two hundred percent gay, and we both know that my attraction to him is partially based on the type of body that he has. Daddy likes his body, though, or at least he appreciates what it can do. His only issue is when people make assumptions about his identity based upon his body. He grew up in a pretty traditional culture, with all of that machismo and rules about what he couldn’t do as a ‘man.’” Jamie made air quotes. “And then there were the same sets of rules for women. His sister’s quinceañera cost more than most weddings. Sebastian just wants to opt out of gender altogether.”

“OK. I can do that. I mean, avoid doing that.” He was going to Google the hell out of this later, though. Genderflexible and agender. Right.

“Good. Daddy will appreciate that. We should also get moving downstairs.” Jamie gave him a little tug.

They bypassed the elevator completely—which Neil would have probably taken on his own—and walked slowly down the stairs at Jamie’s pace. Neil thought he’d seen Jamie walking down the stairs before by alternating legs on each step, but tonight he—no, she—was leading with the prosthetic and then catching up with her other foot.

Jamie was still in much better shape than Neil.

“So, what’s your name going to be?” she asked after the third step.

“Johnathan?” Neil tested it out. It was the first thing he could think of.

Jamie’s eyes glinted with mischief. “OK, so you just had the opportunity to think of any name in the world, and you went with the most common name of all time. Tell me about it.”

“Um… I don’t know. When I was a kid, I always wished I had a nickname. You can’t make any nicknames from Neil, you know? Because it’s already so short. And there was this kid in my class named Johnathan. His parents called him Johnny, his teachers called him John, and his best friends called him Jack. Not that I was one of his best friends or anything.” Neil had always been too awkward to have a lot of friends. “But I was always jealous of his name. He could have been Joe or Nate or Nathan, too.”

“Awwww… OK, Jonathan. So what does the high school bad girl who was just feeling you up in your room call you?”

“Uhhh… whatever she wants to?” Neil was already in so far over his head. And to be honest the thing he’d wanted most in a nickname was being important enough for someone to give him one.

“Mmmmmm… I like the way you think. Are you feeling ready for this evening?”

“I think so.” But now he wasn’t actually so sure. He’d talked a lot with Sebastian this afternoon. But Sebastian wasn’t here now. And when he saw him, he realized for the first time that Sebastian wouldn’t be Sebastian.

“Daddy and I both know your safewords. How do you feel?” Jamie asked gently.

They rounded the corner and descended toward the basement. How did he feel? “Nervous,” he finally blurted. This was what he’d been dreaming about for years, and it was finally happening. The snug briefs replacing his boxers, the tightness of the shirt, and the scratchy tie just made it more real. It wasn’t much of a costume, but he felt like a naughty schoolboy.

A nervous, naughty schoolboy who had made a mistake. An adult man who had no idea what he was doing and was in over his head.

“You should be,” Jamie, no, Jasmine, joked. “We’re not supposed to be making out upstairs. It’s against the rules.”

“I didn’t do anything!” he weakly defended, testing out the lines. His stomach was twisted in knots, and the erection that had been full when Jamie touched him upstairs was faltering. “You were the one who was touching me!”

“You didn’t stop me, though. Anyway, you were the one who got naked in front of me.”