Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 12

909 THE SOUL CAGES

THE SOUL CAGES

I woke up with a beam of afternoon light coming through the bedroom window. I did not feel the slightest bit guilty about sleeping late. I'd been explicitly told by my doctors that long, deep sleeps (drug-free) were good for me, both my brain and my body.

Ziggy was awake. He was in bed next to me, reading one of the professor's books. This one was some kind of philosophy. He had a bemused frown on his face as he read.

"Good book?" I rolled over toward him.

"Eh." He shrugged and set it down on the side table without putting a bookmark in it. I'd learned that was usually a sign he wasn't planning to go back to it. "How are you feeling?"

"I was going to ask you that."

"I asked you first." He smirked. This was beginning to be a common sort of exchange between us.

"I feel okay," I said, holding up my hand and flexing my fingers. "By which I mean, nothing hurts terribly right now." Mind, body, or soul. Then my memory started to catch up with things we'd said to each other while we were having sex the night before, and my heart did one of those squeeze-flip movements that hurts, but you don't mind because it's a happy one of those. "Did you... did we... promise each other some things yesterday?"

I remembered it perfectly well, even if a naked Ziggy could be tremendously distracting. I hadn't been drinking either. Drunk on lust or love, maybe. Which was the only reason I doubted what we'd said. Because I'd learned by then that we were both prone to saying things in the name of lust that maybe we didn't mean, but I was hoping things said in the name of love were the opposite.

He had been in my arms for make-up sex after the fight we'd had. He had said something about being committed. I had said, "you can use the m-word."

"Married?" he'd asked.

"Monogamous," I'd answered.

Thinking back on it sent a shiver of panic through me, the usual one when I ask for something that I want and my nerve endings get ready to be slapped down when I'm told no.

But he hadn't said no. He'd said yes. Well, within certain boundaries, anyway.

Ziggy snuggled close, nosing at the tattoo on my upper arm. "We did make some promises. I promised you my everything, which you graciously took."

A different kind of shiver–a deep thrum of lust I still had for him when I remembered being joined physically–ran through me.

"Though you said I could still let people suck my dick."

"The dancers," I said. "I didn't say people in general."

He nodded. "I didn't mean people in general. I just meant that the dancers are people other than you."

I believed him, but I felt good that I'd specified it. "I didn't realize having detailed exclusivity was going to be such a... thrill."

He purred happily. "Me either. Although, as you know, our negotiation is not quite finished."

"I know." I'd promised him exclusivity, too, but with one loophole at his insistence. But it was a loophole that would take a third party's agreement to be ratified. "Let's invite him over for dinner."

"Yes, let's, because he's delicious."

"Zig!" I mock scolded him. "Don't make assumptions."

"It's going to happen eventually."

"Probably, but how about let's prove to ourselves we can keep our hands to ourselves by not going there tonight."

That was how I ended up calling up Colin and inviting him over to have dinner.