Current (Ch 38)

Wherein electric currents rise as honesty strains against private hunger.

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Eva arrived at Bruise & Bloom a few minutes early, the bell over the front door giving its half-hearted chime as she stepped inside. She passed through the velvet curtain at the back of the store and into the hallway where the classrooms branched off. At the reception desk sat a young woman trussed into a latex bustier and matching hot pants, the shine of it catching the overhead light. A nose ring glinted as she scrolled endlessly, one long acrylic nail tapping impatiently at the screen.

“Hey,” Eva said pleasantly. “I’m looking for Cherry.”

The girl’s eyes were glued to her phone. “Room one.”

Eva bit back a smirk as she pushed open the door.

Cherry looked up immediately. “There you are,” she said, face breaking into a welcoming grin. “Ready for your first modeling gig?”

Eva dropped her bag by the wall. “If by ready you mean mildly terrified and deeply curious, then absolutely.”

Cherry laughed, warm and unbothered. “Perfect. That’s the sweet spot.”

She busied herself with the contents of a bag as Eva took in the room: mirrors, neatly coiled ropes, a low platform already set.

“Thank you again for subbing,” she said after a few moments. “I like to have one male and one female model when I teach—different bodies, different balances. And Larissa’s migraines are acting up again, poor girl. So you’re saving me today.”

“Happy to be of service. What do you need from me, exactly?”

“For the demonstration portion, you’ll be a rope bunny, obviously,” Cherry said. “That means your job is presence, not performance. I’ll be showing fundamentals: placement, tension, transitions, how to read a body before you ever ask it to endure anything.”

Eva nodded, absorbing it. “And if I need to stop for some reason?”

“Then you say so. This isn’t about pushing limits; we’re teaching riggers how to see the person in the rope. They should make the rope respond to you, not the other way around.”

She checked the clock. “Daniel will be the male model, of course. He should be here any minute. He’ll take the second half of the demo so students can see the contrast.”

Eva smiled inwardly at the use of his full name.

Cherry glanced toward the door as footsteps echoed faintly in the hallway, then back at Eva with a conspiratorial look.

“Speaking of Daniel,” she said nonchalantly, “we’ve been talking about you.”

Eva arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“And Harold, too,” Cherry added. “That session last month has come up more than once.” She busied herself aligning a coil of rope, though there was an unmistakable glint in her eye.

“Actually Harold and I have chatted about doing another one,” she said casually. “Did he happen to mention that to you?”

Eva nodded. “Yes, briefly.” She shifted her weight, folding her arms loosely across her middle. “We’ve just been…busy. Life has been complicated lately.” She hesitated, then added with careful honesty, “I’m not sure another foursome is what I need right now.”

A flicker of disappointment crossed Cherry’s face before she smoothed it away with practiced ease.

“Not because I wouldn’t enjoy it,” Eva said quickly. “I was absolutely thrilled with the last one. I truly mean that, Cherry.” She searched for the right phrasing, her voice lowering. “I just…emotionally, I’m on shaky ground right now.”

Cherry tilted her head, studying her in a way that felt more diagnostic than judgmental.

“Something’s different about you, all right,” she said slowly. “But it’s not that.”

Eva frowned. “What do you mean?”

Cherry paused, taking her in from a few deliberate inches away. “It’s like you’re glowing,” she said at last. “Radiating this…frisson from your pores.”

Her hands slowed on the hank of rope she’d been winding.

“If electricity had a musk, it would smell like you right now.”

For a moment Eva couldn’t decide whether to laugh or protest. Heat climbed her neck again, but this time it felt less like embarrassment and more like being caught mid-spark.

Before she could find a response, Cherry stepped closer, her voice dropping into something softer, more intimate.

“You know,” she said, “if you want to keep things simple, I’d be willing to permit something between you and Dan alone. No scenes, no sessions—just two bodies occupying the same space.”

Eva swallowed, her pulse making itself known more insistently than she would have liked.

“I’m not sure I know how to answer that,” she said carefully.

Cherry’s smile was gentle this time. “You don’t have to.” She stepped back, resuming her quiet, precise coiling. “Just notice what your body does when you think about it.”

Eva nodded, attempting composure. Inside, the electricity Cherry had named seemed to crackle a little brighter.

Cherry put the last hank aside. “All right, why don’t you stretch a little. We’ll start slow, but you still need to be warmed up.”

Dan arrived while Eva was still limbering up, rolling her shoulders and easing into her hips with increasingly unselfconscious focus. He crossed the room without hesitation, dropped smoothly to his knees before Cherry, and pressed a single, deliberate kiss to each of her feet. Afterwards, he rose and drew her into a brief but affectionate kiss on the lips, then stepped back as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

Eva felt a small, private awe settle in her chest. Their dynamic moved with the ease of long practice, open and unapologetic, and she felt the tug of wanting something that lived that comfortably in daylight.

Dan greeted her with the usual golden retriever friendliness, then peeled off his outer layers and folded them neatly to one side, left shirtless now, wearing only black Lycra shorts. Eva glanced down at herself—her sleeveless black leotard and leggings, bare arms, grounded stance—and smiled at the accidental coordination. They looked like a matched pair, bodies prepared for display as much as instruction.

The students were let in then, close to twenty of them, filling the room with a low murmur that quieted as Cherry took her place at the front. She began with fundamentals, hands steady as she demonstrated simple knots on both models, speaking clearly about tension and placement. After a few examples she dismissed Dan with a nod and kept Eva forward, using her body to illustrate upper and lower ties while Dan observed from the side.

Later, as promised, Cherry switched them. Eva moved to the back of the room where she was partially obscured, and Dan took her place on the mat. For a while, Eva allowed herself to watch with unabashed curiosity: the breadth of his shoulders, the controlled way he followed Cherry’s direction, the visible ease with which he accepted leadership. A few times he caught her gaze and sent a quick, conspiratorial smirk her way, which colored her cheeks involuntarily.

More than anything, she was struck by how alive he seemed in submission—present, unguarded, wholly himself. And as Cherry’s rope traced intention into form, Eva felt that quiet pull again: the recognition of something she wanted not as fantasy, but as a way of being.

Her phone buzzed softly at her side, a small, insistent vibration that cut through the interiority of the class. Eva picked it up out of reflex—and froze.

She and Jeff had been texting like this for weeks now, albeit cautiously at first. He seemed to have realized his actions at the bar after work had pushed the envelope a bit too far, and had dialed it back at first, but then things unfolded with a growing ease that surprised her. Notes about books and music led to offhand observations about power and control, links to essays or images that made the other stop and think. Gradually—almost without either of them naming it—the messages had begun to lean into desire: preferences articulated carefully, fantasies floated like trial balloons, but nothing too untoward.

This one went further.

His torso filled her screen, muscle still faintly slick with sweat, lines of effort and discipline drawn cleanly from collarbone to just above his hips. One inch lower and it would have crossed a line they hadn’t yet agreed to cross.

Just finished a brutal core circuit, the accompanying text read. You worked out yet today?

Eva nearly choked mid-breath. Heat flared low and fast, her pulse answering the image as if it had been called by name. She was acutely aware of the phone in her hand, of the fact that she was sitting in a room devoted to rope and intention, clean dominance and quiet submission—and of how sharply this moment didn’t belong to any of those structures.

She still hadn’t told Harold about Jeff’s request. Still hadn’t said out loud that the conversation had drifted here. And Jeff, to his credit—or his patience—hadn’t pressed her for an answer yet. She stared at the photo a moment longer, as if trying to burn it into her memory and simultaneously smother what it had kindled.

“Eva.”

She looked up sharply, suddenly aware that a dozen faces were angled towards her. Cherry stood at the front, one brow lifted, rope looped neatly over her shoulder.

“Eva,” Cherry repeated, trying not to sound disappointed.

Heat rushed to Eva’s face. “Sorry,” she said, already rising. She slid the phone face-down onto the bench beside her bag and crossed the room, pulse still skittering beneath her skin.

Cherry smiled, indulgent. “One last thing,” she announced to the class. “A bonus tie with both models, just for fun.”

A low murmur rippled through the room.

Dan was already stepping forward, calm and unselfconscious, taking his place beside Eva. As Cherry began to work, the rope moving with practiced ease, Eva felt the space between her and Dan close. Their arms brushed. Then their sides. Then, deliberately, Cherry pressed them together, binding them as a unit rather than two bodies sharing proximity.

Eva felt it immediately—the heat of Dan’s skin through the thin fabric of her leotard, the solid reassurance of his body anchoring hers. Her pulse, already elevated, seemed to leap again, quick and undeniable. Dan felt it too: the subtle tremor beneath her skin, the telltale quickening at her throat when Cherry cinched a knot and drew them closer still.

He recognized the sensation for what it was: arousal, mid-bloom. He kept his expression neutral, gaze forward, accepting the rope and the moment as it was without comment.

Cherry noticed as well—she noticed everything—and smiled faintly to herself. She chalked it up to chemistry: the intimacy of proximity, the familiar electricity of rope and skin. Perhaps Eva was considering her offer after all.

When the final knot was tied, Cherry stepped back, appraising her work. “And there you have it,” she said lightly. “Connection. Shared structure. A matched pair.”

The room broke into appreciative applause.

Cherry gave her wrap up speech while releasing them with nimble fingers. As the class dissolved into questions and chatter, they moved off to dress, the afterimage of rope still lingering on Eva’s skin.

As she slung her bag over her shoulder and turned to leave, Dan caught her gently by the elbow.

“Hey, you were going through something near the end there,” he said. “I hope it was the rope and not my devastating charm,” he added playfully.

She reacted a few seconds too late. His smile faded just a degree as he read her hesitation. “I’m joking,” he added quickly. “Are you okay?”

Eva glanced toward the front of the room, then back at him. “You have to promise me something first.”

He guessed before she said it. “I won’t tell Harold. We may be close, but he’s not my priest.”

Relief flickered across her face. “Not here,” she said. “Please.”

Dan nodded, already turning. He crossed to Cherry and exchanged a few words Eva couldn’t hear. Cherry checked his watch and gave a brief answer, then waved him away.

Dan returned, already grabbing his jacket. “I’ve got forty minutes,” he said. “Let’s hit the coffee shop on the corner.”

Outside, the late-morning air felt bracing after the warmth of the studio. They walked in companionable silence, found a small table by the window, and ordered iced drinks. Dan took a long pull from his when it arrived, set it down carefully, and finally looked at her.

“All right,” he said gently. “What’s on your mind, Eva?”

“Cherry says you want to have sex with me.”

The words tumbled out before she realized that wasn’t what she’d intended to say.

Dan leaned back slowly in his chair, the wood creaking faintly under the shift of his weight. One eyebrow lifted—not startled, not defensive, just measuring.

“That’s what you want to talk about?” he asked mildly.

Eva ignored the implication that there were other, perhaps more urgent things they could have been discussing. This was an itch that demanded scratching.

“Is it true?”

He exhaled through his nose and folded his hands behind his head, elbows flaring wide. The movement pulled the cotton of his shirt taut across his chest, forearms tightening, veins faintly visible beneath his skin. That Eva’s eyes flicked there before she could stop them did not escape his notice.

“Yes,” he said at last. No drama. No hedging. “It’s true. But probably not quite the way Cherry frames it.”

“She said she’d be willing to permit it.”

Dan flashed an amused smile.

“Yes—well, I do need her permission in a sense. But this isn’t a ‘reward for good behavior’ type of situation.”

He cleared his throat and glanced briefly out the window.

“And it’s not about conquest either.” His gaze sharpened just slightly. “It’s about chemistry. The way you hold yourself, and how I feel around you.”

Dan lowered his arms, leaning forward now, forearms resting on the table.

“I’d like to feel that again. Does that make sense?”

Eva sat up just a little straighter.

“How do I make you feel?” she asked quietly.

Dan leaned back and stared out the window this time, one ankle crossing and uncrossing over his knee. His fingers tapped once against the condensation on his glass before he dragged his thumb slowly along the rim, as if testing the shape of the words before releasing them.

“Well met,” he said at last.

Eva frowned. “Well met?”

A faint smile touched his mouth. He shook his head.

“No. That’s not right.”

He exhaled, scrubbed a hand through his well conditioned hair, and stared briefly at the ceiling as though appealing to it for precision.

“You have gorgeous sub energy, Eva,” he said finally, more certain of his words now. “And every time I see you, it’s…more developed. More luxurious.”

Her pulse ticked upward.

“It’s not fragility,” he continued. “And it’s not passivity. It’s this—” He gestured vaguely toward her torso, as if indicating something radiating rather than contained. “This depth. This readiness. Like you’re standing in your own current instead of being swept by someone else’s.”

“I think Harold feels that same energy,” Dan went on. “But it does something different to him.”

“How so?” she asked.

“He wants to build a vessel for it,” Dan said. “Create a structure where it can intensify and crest. He’s very architectural.”

Dan paused to take a sip. Eva’s eyes were glued to him.

“Whereas I…” He searched for the right image, then gave a soft, self-aware laugh. “I just want to be steeped in it. Like walking into a sauna and letting the steam soak into your pores. Not holding, just…experiencing. Does that make sense?”

For a moment, Eva didn’t answer. She was distracted by a peculiar, disorienting sensation of being watched from multiple angles at once. Harold’s fierce devotion. Jeff’s sharpened curiosity. Dan’s honest, almost carefree admiration. It pressed against her awareness like light refracting through cut glass.

She traced the rim of her glass with one finger, buying herself a breath.

“It does make sense,” she said finally. “More than I expected it to.”

She glanced out the window briefly, watching a cyclist glide past, then looked back at him.

“It’s just…” She gave a small, self-aware smile. “I’m still trying to get used to the fact that I seem to be attracting a disproportionate amount of male attention lately.”

His mouth curved. “Two men counts as disproportionate?”

She told him everything then. With Dan it was almost impossible not to.

The words came out in an unspooling rush—about the session with Harold that had cracked something open in her, given her a vantage point on her own desire she hadn’t known existed; about running into Jeff at the lecture, the shock of it, the way recognition had turned into charge; about the drinks afterward, the careful, dangerous honesty of that conversation; the way the texts had shifted over the past two weeks from wry and curious to unmistakably sensual. She spoke until the iced coffee sweated into a pale ring beneath her cup and her throat went dry.

She didn’t mention the torso photo. Some self-protective instinct kept that piece folded away.

When she finished, Dan leaned back, arms loosely crossed, gaze unfocused in the way it got when he was actually thinking. The café hummed around them: grinders whining, a barista calling out names, the low murmur of other people’s afternoons continuing uninterrupted.

“So that’s why you wanted to talk,” he mused after a long pause. “How much of this have you told Harold?”

Eva felt heat bloom across her cheekbones. “Nothing.”

Dan let out a small breath, half sigh, half laugh. “Eva…”

“I know,” she said insistently. “I know how it sounds. But this feels different than—than you and me, and Cherry. It’s not the same.”

“It is different,” Dan agreed. “But different doesn’t automatically mean impossible. Or unacceptable.” He tilted his head, studying her. “That said, you need to ask yourself why you want this.”

She considered that. “Isn’t wanting it reason enough?”

“Logically?” he said. “Sure, you have free will. But I’m talking about the dynamic you’re building with Harold. That’s your reference point now. You have to ask what bringing Jeff into your orbit would do to it.”

Eva stared into her drink. “I don’t know.”

“And you won’t,” Dan said gently, “until you talk to Harold.”

She exhaled, the sound tight with frustration. “I’m just…afraid. What if he says no, and this feeling doesn’t go away? What do I do then?”

Dan’s expression softened. “I can’t answer that for you.”

She looked up. “What would you do? Has anything like this ever happened to you?”

He nodded once. “Yeah. Once.” A smile touched his mouth, faint and rueful. “There was a Domme I wanted to scene with badly. I brought it to Cherry. She said no.”

Just like that?” Eva asked.

“Just like that,” he said. “She didn’t like the way the woman spoke to her. Like Cherry wasn’t good enough. Like she didn’t deserve a sub like me.”

Eva blinked. “And you just…accepted that?”

Dan nodded again. “That’s the structure we chose. I gave her that authority.”

He leaned forward then, resting one forearm on the table. Without making a spectacle of it, he placed his hand lightly on Eva’s.

“But,” he added, meeting her eyes, “that doesn’t have to be your blueprint. You and Harold aren’t copying anyone else’s dynamic. You’re building your own.”

His smile was warm, disarmingly so. “Which means the only honest move here is to talk to him. Lay it out. Let him respond to the real thing—not the version you’re trying to protect him from.”

Eva closed her eyes for a moment, then nodded. “You’re right.”

“I usually am,” Dan said with a light smirk. “Talk to him, Eva. It’s the only way this stays clean.”

Clean, she thought, as they headed back to the studio. As if clean were something you could choose once and be done with, instead of something you had to keep choosing, over and over, every time the current pulled.