Out of the Dungeon (30 page)

"I get around. I'm all over the country at
BDSM events and Renaissance fairs, vending floggers and paddles and
the like. On the road about half the year. International Mr.
Leather, Spank Me Colorado, Florida Leather College… you name it,
I've been there." He reached into a pocket and handed Roman a card.
"Victor Victorious, Implements Etc. That's me."

"Can I keep the card?" Roman asked. "With you
as an option, I'll never buy a flogger off the rack again."

Victor laughed. "Of course. So long as I can
tell people that the legendary Roman prefers my flogger over any
other."

Roman laughed out loud. "Go right ahead. Tell
anybody anything you want."

The waitress returned with Roman and Jason's
drinks, and took Victor's order.

Roman felt the press of lips on his head
again, and Jason whispered something that included the word
restroom.

Victor's eyes followed Jason as he made his
way toward the back of the club. "It took a stranger to get him
onto the stage. What do you know?" Victor commented with a wry
smile.

"Safety of anonymity?" Roman suggested. "In
never having to see me again if it went badly?"

"Perhaps," Victor said. "But I don't think
that's it. You have a big-city elegance, something in stance and
mannerism, that's lacking here. Lacking in most small communities,
I think."

Roman shrugged. "I wouldn't know. The truth
is that I'm a snob who ran a private dungeon beneath a semi-private
club. If I didn't like somebody's look, they didn't get in. Well.
They might have gotten in, but they'd have never felt like they
belonged. And if I didn't like somebody's behavior, believe me,
they wouldn't be back. It becomes privileged, doesn't it? This is
more real. I haven't been disappointed."

Jason was heading their way now, and Roman
watched people stop him, touch him on the shoulder or wrist, even
raise his shirt to admire his back.

"He belongs to them now," Roman commented.
"They barely acknowledged him before I took him up to the stage,
but now there's a familiarity, a lack of boundaries, that wasn't
there before."

Victor was nodding, and there was a look on
his face that Roman couldn't interpret.

"What?" Roman asked. "Am I wrong?"

"No, not at all. I was just thinking about
it. I think they didn't quite trust him because he never made
himself vulnerable. His self-imposed nickname is the Voyeur, you
know."

"Yeah, he told me. If he were my sub, in my
club, nobody would dare touch him, especially after a scene like
that. I'm a stickler about boundaries."

"It's your club. So it plays by your fantasy
rules."

The insight startled Roman, and he realized
Victor's assessment was dead on. He grinned at the man. "Yes. My
fantasy, my club, my dungeon, and my rules. So of course this party
isn't what I'm used to." The phone call from Vanessa came into his
memory then, how she'd called him a snob. "Maybe I am a snob," he
mused, half to himself.

Victor waved his hand, a gesture of
dismissal. "We all are, in our own way."

I
t was two am when
Roman arrived back at Gigi's. He could see the soft low-wattage
lamp was on, the one with the multicolored glass shade that sat on
the side table beside her easy chair. The back of his neck
prickled, but as he put his key in the lock, he saw through the
living room blinds that she was asleep in the chair. Tomorrow he'd
mention to her that a person can see right into the room if the
blinds aren't drawn.

He unlocked the door and sat on the steps
that led to the second floor to take off his boots. He could hear
the endless drone of an infomercial on the television. He almost
tip-toed up to bed, but then figured maybe he should wake her, and
see if she was sleeping in the chair on purpose, or if she'd sleep
better upstairs in her room. He didn't know her routine, maybe she
slept half the night in her chair. He'd heard somewhere that old
people don't sleep much, and Gigi was the oldest person he
knew.

He went into the living room, took one look
at her, and knew she wasn't breathing.

"Aw, Gigi, really?" he whispered. "But you
just won the battle to stay home and be left alone."

He stared at her for long minutes, then
reached out to press his fingers against her throat, though he
didn't expect to feel anything. He wanted to call Jeff. He
desperately wanted to, but he supposed there were procedures for
this kind of thing, and that those procedures began with a call to
911.

He picked up Gigi's cordless phone and
dialed.

"9-1-1, what's your emergency?" came a calm,
female voice.

"No emergency," Roman said. "My grandmother
passed away in her sleep."

She took down the information and said she'd
send the medical examiner, and asked Roman if Gigi had a funeral
plan.

Oh God. Would it be up to Roman to plan
everything, just because he was here?

He called Jeff's phone, figuring it was
almost morning upstate. He listened to it ring twice, then clatter,
then bang, and he heard Jeff cussing.

"Hello?" Jeff finally said into the phone.
"Roman? What's wrong? Is it Gigi?"

"Yeah," Roman said softly.

"Oh, Jesus," Jeff said. " I was dreaming
about her. Hang on a second, I have to get this damn phone
situated."

Roman waited.

Sorry," Jeff said almost a full minute later.
"Takes a minute to get comfortable. Now, what's up with Gigi?"

"She's gone," Roman said, and the words
coming out of his own mouth sounded surreal. "The coroner's on his
way. I just found her in her chair, looking like she was
asleep."

"Oh, Roman, no!" Jeff exclaimed, and Roman
knew it was genuine. Jeff liked Gigi. He'd called her feisty and
spicy. To her face, no less.

"I'm afraid so," Roman said, he held tight to
the control that kept his voice emotionless.

"Bad things come in threes?" Jeff
suggested.

"And fours, fives, and sixes," Roman said,
and almost smiled. "She won in court yesterday. She was extremely
pleased about that."

"So she died happy," Jeff suggested. "Without
interference."

"I guess," Roman said. "Will you talk to me
while I look through her filing cabinet?"

"Yes. And when we get off the phone, I'll buy
a plane ticket."

"You can't travel," Roman said, and that
reality made him feel so tired.

"The hell I can't."

"At least talk to your doctor first," Roman
said. "If you can get here with your doctor's approval, it would be
good. Maybe you could stay for a while. I don't want to do any of
this new life stuff without you."

They talked until the medical examiner
arrived, and promised to talk again soon.

Roman found Gigi's will and pre-paid funeral
information easily enough in her filing cabinet, and settled the
details with the funeral home by mid-morning. He went back to
Gigi's house, where he expected Albert to show up any minute and
accuse him of God only knew what.

Jeff was venturing into the city this
afternoon to see his doctor, and might even be able to come to
Minnesota. Roman's arms ached for him. His throat was tight and his
sinuses full of pressure. He needed to let go and cry, but he
wouldn't allow himself that without Jeff. He needed Jeff to keep
him from flying apart. Only Jeff. Always Jeff.

It was a day of endings.

And of beginnings.

***

Roman turned his phone on and saw that he'd
missed a call from Jason. He wondered if he should even call back.
Starting something with Jason now was going to be complicated. But
he'd promised Jason he wouldn’t disappear.

Roman called.

Jason answered, sounding breathless and a
little shy.

"Sorry I missed your call," Roman said. "My
grandmother died and everything that was already complicated is now
a million times worse."

"That's no fun," Jason said. "Now we'll never
meet her."

Roman smiled. "I know that part is
disappointing, but I'm pretty okay with it, myself."

Jason chuckled. "Yeah, I can see that. I'll
make an announcement, just so people who might wonder will know
that she's passed. Is that okay with you?"

He was talking about people on FetLife, Roman
realized with a start. His kinky grandma. There was something so
wrong about that. But whatever. "Sure, it's fine," he said.

"Okay, well. I suppose you're pretty busy. I
should let you go take care of things."

Yeah, Roman should have said, was planning to
say. Things are way too complicated to have some new guy around.
Jeff might be coming. They might be able to talk about having a
relationship again. Now wasn't the time for new relationships. Now
was the time to rekindle old ones, re-create his family.

But what came out of his mouth was,
"Actually, no. At this point, my schedule is frighteningly clear
for the day. Apparently I've just inherited a house, though, and I
intend to explore every nook and cranny. Would you care to join
me?"

***

Three days after Gigi's funeral Roman and
Jason sketched dungeon layouts and brainstormed how to bring in
revenue. They couldn't put a bar in the space, not with residential
zoning, so there would have to be another way to spin a profit.

Roman could make traditional furniture and
cabinetry, in addition to dungeon pieces, to generate income, but
it wouldn't be anything like what he'd been earning in New
York.

And once the dungeon was set up, he could
take clients again, although Jason made a face at this idea.

"What?" Roman asked. "Jealous?"

Jason pouted. "Yeah, maybe a little."

Roman shook his head. "You'll have to learn
how to put that away. Compartmentalize."

He wished Jeff was there to explain it.

And then the screen door between the kitchen
and the patio flew open, and he was.

Roman almost didn't believe his eyes. "My
God!" he said. Then, "Jeff!" and leapt from his patio chair to
embrace Jeff. Gently embrace. The Halo was still in place. "I
thought your doctor said he didn't want you to fly?"

"He didn't want me to fly commercial," Jeff
said. "But one of his doctor buddies was flying his personal
aircraft to Alaska for a fishing trip. He refueled here. My doc
hooked me up. I'm sorry I missed the funeral."

Roman shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I'm just
glad you were able to come."

The next moment was supremely awkward as Jeff
seemed to stare past Roman, and Roman half-turned to see what Jeff
was looking at, and then remembered Jason.

"Oh, sorry," Roman said. "Bad host." He
introduced them, and offered Jeff a chair. "I can hardly believe
you're here."

Jeff glanced at Jason, then trained his eyes
on Roman. "Vanessa's pregnant. The Club is closed. Dare is dating
my ICU nurse. You moved to Minnesota. Gigi is dead. The whole world
has gone mad, and she won't even tell me who the father is. I mean,
how the hell did she get knocked up? She was sleeping with
Suede."

Roman took a deep breath. He'd hoped Vanessa
would tell Jeff, and that Jeff's coming here was some kind of
forgiveness. But nothing is ever that easy.

"Me," he said.

"What?" Jeff said, in a distracted sort of
way, as if he'd lost his own train of thought.

"I'm the father. We're going to be parents,
the three of us."

Jason cut in to the conversation. "Should I
leave? You guys seem to have some catching up to do."

"Doesn't matter," Roman said, and the words
were directed to Jason, although he didn't dare take his eyes off
Jeff, waiting for some reaction. "Are you uncomfortable?" This,
also, was directed at Jason.

"Always," Jason said softly.

Roman shrugged. "Jeff?"

"Doesn't matter to me," Jeff said. Then
asked, "Are you his sub?"

Roman spared a glance for poor Jason now, who
looked like he had no idea how to answer that. And yet, like a
trooper, he answered anyway.

"What? No. I don't know. I guess at the
moment we're friends. It's too soon to know about anything
else."

Roman was impressed. Jason didn't skirt the
hard questions. Transparency, truth, and trust.

Roman saw the rigid line of Jeff's jaw relax,
then Jeff offered his hand to Jason. "Well. Friends are important,"
he said, and Jason accepted the grip.

They sat in uneasy silence, until Roman
sighed and said, "Let me tell you about the world going
topsy-turvy. The thing with Vanessa – it wasn't planned, or even
wanted. You were in the ICU, and Suede was being Suede, and Vanessa
was upset. I ended up bringing her home for aftercare. That was all
it was supposed to be. If you'd have been there, you'd have
insisted we bring her home and give her care. I was trying to do
the right thing."

"It's a long way from aftercare to
fatherhood," Jeff said, but he looked open to hearing more.

"A shorter trip than you think," Roman said.
"Bizarre things happen in the middle of the night."

"The full moon turns a gay man straight?"
Jeff asked, eyebrows raised. But he was almost smiling. Roman took
it as a good sign.

"Ha-ha, funny," Roman said. "Vanessa and I
were both shattered. We took comfort in each other. It wasn't
supposed to be anything more than that."

"I didn't know you wanted kids," Jeff said.
"Over a decade together, and I never had any idea."

Roman shook his head. "I didn't, not really.
But now that I've lost everything else, it feels like the right
thing."

I
didn't know what
to say. I let my fingers run across some papers that were lying on
the table. I shuffled them closer and picked up the top sheet. It
was a drawing of some sort. I held it up so I could read it, and
suddenly felt hot all over.