Page 71 of On Your Knees

“Me too.”

He breathes deeply, and so do I. There’s relief in the acknowledgment, like it’s okay, like we’re in this together.

A relationship.

Ethan keeps running his fingers through my hair. There are lots of tangles, which he combs out.

“It needs to be cut,” I mutter.

“Patrick can cut it. He’s pretty good.”

“Does he do yours?”

“He used to. There was a time that I…” Ethan trails off and is silent for a long time. I can feel his effort to speak, so I just wait. Finally he says, “There was a time that I couldn’t handle having someone else do it.”

“You’ve known him a long time.”

“Ten years. At the time, I was… not doing well. Patrick helped me a lot. He was… Fuck, I don’t know if we should talk about this.”

“I really want to know.”

Ethan blows out a heavy breath. “He was my Dom.”

“Your Dom?”

“Like I am with you. Different but… same idea. But it wasn’t sexual. At least not directly. We didn’t have sex. Patrick has never touched me. I mean—” Ethan lets out a frustrated sigh. “—not sexually. Fuck, it’s really hard to explain.”

“It’s okay,” I murmur.

Ethan’s body has gotten so tense that I know he’s incredibly uncomfortable, so I nuzzle under his jaw, hoping he’ll relax again.

It works. He takes a deep breath.

For a while, we just breathe against each other, and I think about what he’s said and what he hasn’t said. It’s strange how in the wake of Patrick’s words I can think now, like if my feelings are okay, I don’t have to worry so much about them. I can step outside of them and see other things.

“Why were you not doing well?” I ask. I’ve never asked Ethan questions like this before. I’ve never felt like I could.

Ethan’s fingers start combing my hair again, and it tells me that the question is allowed. His long silence, though, also tells me that he probably won’t answer. But he does give me something. He says, “There are some things I don’t know how to talk about.”

It’s an admission, and there’s vulnerability in it. I hear it. I feel it.

I tell him, “I understand. It’s okay.”

Ethan’s sigh of relief is so deep, that I feel like I sink into him.

“I’m glad Patrick’s here,” I say.

Ethan replies in a light, teasing tone, “Because I don’t know what I’m doing?”

It makes me smile a little. “It actually makes me feel better that you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Ethan snorts. Then his voice is soft when he says, “I certainly didn’t expect to be doing this.”

“This?”

“Being here. With you.”

I make a noncommittal sound because I’m not entirely sure what that means to Ethan. It didn’t sound like he meant anything bad, but things have been difficult, so I don’t really know and I don’t quite trust my own interpretations. Patrick validated my feelings, but they weren’t all correct. I misunderstood him after all. And I assumed rejection from Ethan when there wasn’t any.