Accepting Service

I pick at the chicken salad he just made me. It’s 3 A.M. He realized I hadn’t eaten all day, cast me a searing look and headed for the kitchen – over my stringent objections that I didn’t need anything, he didn’t have to get up, I was fine, I could do it myself… He finally told me to be a good dominant and shut up.

“Is it about sex?” I ask, continuing the conversation I had started by asking him why he, a gay man, married, happily collared, and submissive to another man, would ever kneel to me. Something I suddenly realized, he did quite often, so subtly I hardly realized he was doing it until tonight.

“No.” He settles onto the other side of the bed where he will sleep tonight – simply because it’s big enough for both of us and more comfortable than the couch so I flatly refuse to allow him to refuse my offer to share.

“Not at all?”

He thinks about this, his fingers tapping absently over his body in that way I recognize as him taking a moment to communicate with his physical self. I wonder if other people do that or if it’s a dancer thing.

“Not at all.” Then he tilts his head and adds, “Not with you. With David it is, but not with you.”

“So what is it? Why do you do it?”

His fingers are tapping again and his eyes lose focus. His fingers fall still against his left pectoral. “Here,” he murmurs, his gaze still unfocused. “Because I feel it here.”

I still haven’t eaten any of the chicken salad and he slants me a narrow-eyed glance. I sullenly scoop some into my mouth and chew on it while I study him. He has picked up the book I’ve been reading and opens to the bookmark.

“What do you mean?” I ask around the mouthful of chicken.

He sets the open book on his lap and stares at it for a long time.

“I kneel because I serve you in my heart. Because it feels right. Because when I serve you, when you let me, it feels like opening the doors on my heart and… letting yours come inside and…my heart swells up…” he is speaking slowly, haltingly, then he makes a face and looks sideways at me. “Three sizes. Like the Grinch.”

I can’t swallow the chicken salad in my mouth because my throat is suddenly tight and I feel like my own heart has grown three sizes…like the Grinch. I chew to give myself a moment.

He shrugs and seems to take a long time skimming over the page he’s opened to.

“That’s very sweet,” I finally say softly after getting the chicken down my throat with some effort.

He shrugs again, still looking down at the book. Muscles are jumping in his jaw and I can tell he’s chewing at the inside of his lip.

“I don’t do it to be sweet. It’s just…” his mouth works for several seconds in silence, he seems to be searching for the right word and I want to offer one but I find I am truly at a loss to explain why he does it, I can only wait for his explanation. “It’s just… right.”

“Like…morally? Like…being a good person?”

He shakes his head. “No, like…when I’m dancing and I’m in that zone and everything is perfect and I know… just know… this is what I was made to do. God made me to dance.

“When you look at me just that way, when you…open to your power…I feel it. Just like music. I kneel. I open my heart to let your strength into me. Because I know that you are the one…one of the ones…I’m meant to serve. God made me to resonate to your music.”

“But there’s nothing sexual? Not even hidden?”

He looks at me directly now and his lips curve up and his pupils flare suddenly and I recognize the subtle shift to arousal.

“It is with David.” He grins. “Different music. His music is here,” he touches his pec again, “and here,” his hand drifts down, dipping below the platform of blankets he’s created across his lap.

I grin at him.

“Is it about sex for you?” he asks me just as I shove another mouthful of chicken into my mouth and I’m grateful for the excuse to think a moment. “With me?” he adds as I chew.

“Well,” I glance at the hand that is still resting just beneath the fold of covers, “sometimes you’re just sexy as hell.”

His lips quirk into a smile.

“But this…” I feel my own smile fade suddenly as I lift the bowl of chicken salad, half-eaten. The tightness is back in my throat and I try to swallow it before I speak. “This makes me…” My eyes are stinging, I have to swallow because my throat is so tight I suddenly don’t think I can breathe. “This makes me feel like crying.”

“Why?” I can hear the confusion, concern, and the borderline of hurt in his voice.

“Because…” I take a breath. I’m not going to make it through this without tears. I know it and still try to breathe them back… “Because it’s…” My breath catches and shudders into my chest, the tears spill as I duck my head and let my hair fall forward ineffectually, he already knows. His hand strokes my head.

“Why?” This time the hurt and confusion are gone, replaced with gentle encouragement, which just seems to rip my breath from my chest.

“Because it’s kind…” I let the words out in a single breath before my throat chokes off speech again. I sob softly, setting the chicken salad aside as I pull up my knees and curl into myself.

“Aw, baby girl,” he shifts to put his arm around my shoulders. I can hear the smile, the combination of affection and exasperation in his voice. He kisses the side of my head. “Kindness makes you cry?” There is laughter in his voice, but it is gentle, sweet. I can only nod into my knees.

He kisses me again and I hear him sigh then he lays his cheek against my shoulder and we sit for several moments in silence.

“You don’t think you deserve it…” he finally says and I can’t tell if it’s a statement or a question. I don’t answer and finally he adds his own. “You do.”

“I don’t take care of myself so someone else is forced to go to extra trouble to do it for me because I’m too lazy or stupid or whatever the fuck is wrong with me to actually do what needs to be done for my own damn self.” I’m angry suddenly. It’s an old dance, he’s done it with me more than a handful of times. He sighs again and lifts his head, though he keeps his arm around me and pulls me more firmly against his chest.

“When you let me do for you what you can’t do for yourself, you give me the gift of being helpful, you give me the opportunity to serve you, to be who I am. If you always did everything all the time what would be left for me?”

I have a juvenile urge to pull away from him and cross my arms over my chest in a sulky pout. I resist it and settle for glaring at my blanket. “You could take care of your own life instead of being dragged out of bed to come take care of me because I am irresponsible and stupid and broken.”

It’s the second time in three minutes that I’ve called myself ‘stupid’. It used to be a habit so common I didn’t even feel it when it fell from my lips. But I worked hard to break that habit and now I wince as I say it and I finally feel the stiffening in his torso that I know means he’s getting angry. I bite down on the rest of the vitriol that presses to escape from my mouth. He still hasn’t said anything, but his body is still stiff and his breathing has quickened just slightly. I’ve expended his reserve of patience (which is short when it comes to me bashing myself) so I pick up the bowl of chicken salad again in a spirit of conciliation.

As I finish it, I glance around, contemplating where I can leave the bowl for the night where it won’t be smashed to the floor by the cat.

“Here,” he is holding out his hand.

I shake my head. “No it’s okay, I can put it…”

“Here,” he says again, more firmly and I look at him.

“It’s fine, I’ll take it.” I start to push the blankets off of my legs and he rises to his knees and shifts so he’s straddling me.

“Give me the fucking bowl,” he growls, his expression is set in challenge, but there is a sparkle behind his eyes that softens it just enough.

I feel his challenge trigger my own stubborn streak (some call it my dominant side) and I tilt my head at him, raising one eyebrow. “I said,” I say slowly, enunciating each word, “I’ll take it.”

“Let me be who I am.” He holds out his hand again for the bowl.

“I DID let you, I let you make it and bring it to me, it’s only fair that I take it back to the kitchen.”

He rolls his eyes. “You’re really bad at this.”

I raise both eyebrows, I can feel it fully engaged now, the play of power, the play of…playfulness mingled with power… it swirls between us and I realize, in a way, it is like music – tangible though invisible.

“Fine.” I thrust the bowl forward. “Take this to the kitchen, boy,” I say in my most prim and haughty tone, so unlike me that I know he will understand, and he does.

One side of his mouth pulls up into a smirk. He takes the bowl with his right hand and with his left, he pats me twice on the top of the head. “Good dominant,” he says in an indulgent tone that is also so unlike him that I understand as well. As he shoves himself off of the bed I take a swipe at his leg and despite him moving in the opposite direction, my hand still impacts his thigh with a satisfying crack.

He makes a sound that comes out halfway between a curse and a yelp and dances out of reach, tossing me an insincere glare before striding out of the room.

He is back in less than a minute and clambers over me again to his side of the bed. I’m still sitting cross-legged and he pats my pillow.

“C’mon,” he says and picks up the book again.

I contemplate for a moment exactly who is the dominant one in this moment as I obediently slide down under the covers and lay my head on my pillow.

He leans back onto his own pillows and rests the edge of the book on his belly. “So… Roland and Eddie were in the cave…