Moments with Sir…and Sub Brother

It’s been pointed out to me by someone recently that I rarely talk about sub brother, while I talk about Sir a lot.  And I’ve been thinking about my response to that, and thought about making in a blog post.  So during dinner I brought it up to sub brother and asked him if he would feel uncomfortable if I wrote about him on my blog.

He gives me a wide-eyed look and asks, “Me?  Why do you want to write about me?”

“Because, you’re important to me, you’re my partner and my friend and… I write about Sir all the time, but I hardly say anything about you.”

“Well, that’s because Sir is more important…”

Sir turns to look at sub brother, a storm cloud building rapidly in his face, “I’m what??”

“No!”  Sub brother’s eyes go wide as he realizes what he said, “I mean… you’re more important to HER than I am…  I’m not…”

“You’re not more important to me!” I jump into storm of Sir’s outrage.  “You’re both important to me!  I just write about Sir because he reads my blog and he says it’s okay!”

“I read your blog!”

All three of us seem to freeze for a moment in a strange tableau…  The two of them focused on me, and me trying to stare at both of them at once.  “You do?”

“Yeah.”

“What?  Why?”

“…because you’re my partner and you’re important to me…  I won’t if you don’t want me to.”

“No!  I mean, you don’t have to, but I, I didn’t know you even bothered.  Did YOU know he reads my blog?” I ask Sir.

He shrugs at the question, “Sure.”

“How did YOU know and I didn’t know??”

“Did you ask?”

I open my mouth for a moment then close it, my hands drifting meaninglessly in the space in front of me.  “No…”

“Well.”  Sir turns his attention back to his food for a moment, Sub Brother continues to stare at me.

I try to trace the thread of the conversation back, “So… well, so I’m saying that… you’re important to me, I just write about Sir because I feel I have permission and I don’t feel that with you.  But you’re just as important.  The two of you are like… you’re a unit… and I love you both, and you… you make it safe for me to love Sir and Sir makes it safe to love you, and… without you I’d… be the only one responsible for makign Sir happy and I couldn’t do that without you…”

“What??”  The dissipated storm regathers as Sir sets his fork down hard on the table.

I ignore it, the words had become a torrent I couldn’t stop, words dammed inside of myself for too long.  “I know this isn’t probably a forever relationship and eventually the two of you will move on, and that’s okay, because, you have each other, and that makes me happy and if I have to lose this then I want the two of you to have each other, because then I can survive knowing you might leave because it’s not just… two of us…”

“Nobody is leaving anybody!” Sir’s face is turning red.  Sub brother’s mouth seems frozen open.

“You might someday!” I press on, heedless.  “But its okay because… it’s like Michael and Ryan, they always came first, I just loved them both, and then I came third.   like…” I turn to Sub Brother.  “I feel about you like I did about Ryan…  I loved Ryan.”  Tears have risen in my eyes.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!”  Sir’s face is now fully dark with anger.

“Write it!” Sub brother interrupts and draws a frightening look from Sir.  He takes a deep breath.  “Write the blog post, I want to read it.”

Sir stares at him for a long moment and Sub Brother focuses his eyes on the table in front of him.  I know he can see both of us in his peripheral vision this way.  His lowered eyes are an apology, and submission, even as his jaw is set… in rebellion, or determination.  His gaze flickers to my face for a second then back to the table.  He doesn’t look at Sir.

Still without looking at either of us, he raises his hands again, more tentatively.  “And I love you, too.”  His eyes find mine from his still bowed head.   “But I’m not Ryan.”

“I know…”

“If Sir ever treated you the way Michael did… He’d… I’d…”  Sub Brother’s face tightens, his lips press together.  “My loyalty would be with you, not with him.  And I wouldn’t let him have another chance at you.”  His movements have become short and abrupt with tightly controlled anger.

I sit, again, gaping at him.  He turns his head to look at me full on.  Though he keeps his chin tucked submissively, his eyes are full of fury.

For several seconds I can’t process this anger in him.  He never knew Michael.  Wasn’t on the front lines of that horror show the way Sir was.  I never suspected he had any great emotional attachment to that part of my life.  Then it occurs to me that Sir is nodding, a hard expression on his face as well.  I look at him.

“He just threatened to leave you…” I say, incredulous.

“Damn right,” Sir said, “I’d deserve it.”  He picks up his fork, then sets it down again to add, “And he would damn well do it the FIRST TIME I ever pulled any shit like ‘that one’ pulled over and over on you.”

I blink at him.  Then at Sub Brother, who seems to be sagging, now, clearly relieved at Sir’s response.

Sub Brother looks at me again, and again, says, “Write the blog.  I want to read it.”

Sir nods, then adds, “And write this conversation.  I want this written down because we have some things to discuss, girl.”  He gives me a hard look, then returns to his dinner, and Sub Brother and I, reluctantly, do the same.