50 Shades of Drake 3 and 4

Torn: Chapter Fifty-Four

    "So, what is this about the marriage and children shit?" Lawrence asked Aubrey.

    Aubrey stared towards the greenhouse, wondering what Destiny and Patty were talking about. "I've come to accept that I can have children, even with the lifestyle that I lead, but I still have reservations because of the upbringing I had with my father."

    Lawrence tipped his Blue Moon beer back. "Concerns of repeating the mistakes of one's father are pretty heavy," he admitted after gulping down his beer. "I'm not sure if there's anything I can do to help you with that."

    Aubrey lowered his eyes down to his beer bottle. "The thing that I haven't yet told Destiny, is that I want to have children with her. I've had these incredible dreams where I had the perfect family with her. The cutest kids. The play room. I had it all. I want nothing more than to make it a reality, but I'm scared that I will tell her that I want them and fuck it up. If I don't wuss out completely, I feel like I'd fail my kids somehow. I don't know, man." He raised his bottle to his lips.

    "You haven't told her any of this?"

    "I told her about the complex I have with not wanting to repeat my father's mistakes," Aubrey said, rocking in his chair. "I wanted to tell her the rest, but the night I was going to..."

    "Ah. She came home late and you heard that she was out with another man." Lawrence grimaced. "How do you get yourself into a crazy, mixed up situation like that?"

    Aubrey shook his head. "There are times when I feel like I know exactly what I'm doing, and everything I'm doing makes sense, and then times where it's like...What the fuck was I thinking? All I want is her. I just want to make a life with her, and be happy with her, but it feels like there's so much shit standing in our way. When we push past one thing, there's just another piece of shit to replace it."

    "I wish I could tell you that it all comes to an end after awhile, but that's life, my friend," Lawrence told him. "I can tell you that it gets easier. Patty and I have a system. We had trials and tribulations, just like you and Destiny. Well - not just like yours and Destiny's - but we had our own challenges. Back then, each of them felt like the end of the world, the end of us. Nowadays, Patty and I just brush them off as if they're fleas."

    "You laugh in the face of those challenges now, eh?" Aubrey asked him with a wide grin stretching across his face.

    "We really do."

    Aubrey raised his eyes to the greenhouse again, and he caught a flash of color moving past the door. "I love her more than I've loved any other woman, but I keep fucking up."

    "We're men!" Lawrence exclaimed. "Fucking up is what we do! Why do you think we refer to women as our better halves?"

    "My fuck-ups tend to err on the side of epic," Aubrey said, and sighed heavily.

    "Would you believe that I still fuck up?" Lawrence asked him. "Me. A man who's been in this lifestyle two decades longer than you have. I still fuck up. You've been in this lifestyle, what? A few years consistently? Other than a few previous toe dips in the ole BDSM pool? You've been practicing for a few years and you expect to know everything? Get the fuck out of here. I still spank Patty a little too hard sometimes, still misjudge just how hard I'm..."

    Aubrey held up a hand. "Less detail."

    "Right," Lawrence said hurriedly. "The point is, I still mess up. She's so damned fragile now. She's getting older. We both are, and sometimes I forget. I've thrown my own hip out."

    "Less," Aubrey repeated. "And I never claimed to know everything. I've told Destiny that the training I gave her was sloppy. I told her that she deserved better training, on more than one occasion. I've been meaning to give her a more proper training, but...things happened. Got in the way. Now... now, things are more complicated, as you've heard."

    Lawrence laughed. "No wonder you and your girl have so many issues. Both of you are so damned uptight. God. Are you both walking around on eggshells in your own house?"

    Aubrey shook his head. "Not quite."

    "Both of you need to loosen the fuck up. Stop being so...broody and shit. She's still with you, isn't she? So your fuck-up wasn't epic enough to lose her. Redeem yourself. Then push past your shit. Resolve your issues with your father's shortcomings. That's something you should do whether you decide to have children with Destiny or not. You can't walk around this earth feeling like you can't be a father because of some bullshit your father did or didn't do. If you want to have some kids, have some fucking kids. If you want to get married, get fucking married. Shit."

    "You make it sound so easy." Aubrey ran the pad of his finger around the rim of the bottle.

    "Because it is easy!" Lawrence shouted at him. "Good grief, man. You're making shit more difficult for yourself than you need to. Before you can train her, you have to deal with all of this shit. No wonder you're messing up her training if you're dealing with all of this...emotional angst. So you want my advice?" He leaned forward and balanced his bottle on top of the porch railing. "My advice to you is, deal with the issues that are weighing you down. Deal with the issues that are holding you back from being the best Dominant that you can be. Because until you deal with that shit? You will continue to fail her. And if you're sharing her with someone else, it will only be a matter of time before she leaves your ass for the next guy. Handle your shit and get that together, and once you've done that, hit up some of the groups. If not the real, in-person ones, then try an online group. Something. It sounds like your training is rusty as fuck. Brush up on that."

    "You're right," Aubrey said quietly.

    They settled in a comfortable silence, watching as their women exited the greenhouse and started back down the stone path.

    "You really called her a sneaky little bitch?" Lawrence asked suddenly.

    Aubrey laughed dryly and rubbed the back of his neck. 

    "Wow," Lawrence muttered. "You're shocking me across the board today."

    "It just...kind of came out," Aubrey explained. "Not something I planned. I was just feeling savage and-"

    "And you went for the gold medal in savagery?" Lawrence joked. "Goddamn, man. Both of you need to loosen up. Seriously."

    "I'll work on it," Aubrey said as Patty and Destiny reached the porch steps.

    Destiny turned and gave Patty a hug before climbing the stairs to join them.