The Men Next Door

Ch 6 - Brooks

I couldn't stop thinking about Campbell. Not when we got back from that walk at the High Line, and not when Wednesday rolled around and I had two clients waiting on final revisions. Not when I wanted to know more about everything she'd told us. And especially not when I knew she was right next door.

So I packed up my laptop and a charger and headed for the quietest coffee shop I knew of. The one that almost felt like a secret club, hidden away in the back room of a laundromat. The rumble of the machines made for great white noise and blocked out every distraction from the front street, and there were never more than a few people inside at a time. It was the perfect place to stick to my overly-organized, rigid-as-fuck plans, as Luca would call them.

I was a few hours into my work and one too many buttery pastries deep when someone called my name and broke the spell of concentration. The voice was familiar, in some faraway corner of my mind, but I couldn't place it until I finished the sentence I was typing and looked up to investigate.

"Ilya," I said, eyebrows shooting up in surprise. "Long time no see."

"Too long," he said pointedly. I gave him an unamused look, and his face broke into a grin. "Kidding, kidding. You had your reasons for disappearing. I respect that." He took a sip of the coffee I hadn't noticed him ordering, too engrossed in my work before he joined me. "Everything okay? How've you been?"

"Fine. Busy." Ilya pulled out the chair across from me as I moved my growing pile of eat-in dishes out of his way. "Entering a mid-life crisis, I think."

It was his turn to raise an eyebrow. "Quarter-life, I hope."

"Don't think I'm going to make it to a hundred and twenty, man."

"Shit. We're old."

I chuckled. "Yeah. Hence, the crisis."

He crossed one ankle over his knee, getting comfortable in the seat he'd occupied like some sort of armchair therapist, then hit me with a stare that left no room for argument. It was like looking in a mirror. I hated it.

"Tell me about it," he instructed.

I huffed out a laugh. "Drop the Dom voice and I'll consider it."

"It's not the—damn it, Brooks, I just sound like this."

I sat down my mug, narrowing my eyes at him. "Jesus, Ilya. I'm kidding. Are you alright?"

He waved me off. "Going through a bad breakup at the moment. Related to the Dom voice and my generally overbearing life. It's a whole thing. Sorry for snapping."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. We lived together and everything. I've been crashing with Liz while my ex finds a new spot. You remember Liz?"

"I didn't forget about all of you just because I stopped coming around."

"It's been years, man. And you weren't that deep in it to begin with. "

I lowered my voice, just in case the barista or other patrons were listening. "Having a kink mentor is pretty fucking deep by vanilla people standards, Ilya." He had to recognize that, no matter how deep in it he was himself. And besides, I remembered him, didn't I? He and Liz might as well have been two dominant peas in a pod.

They co-led every event I went to during my short stint in the New York kink scene, from ropes classes to munches to lavish parties I was shocked to learn existed outside of novels and films. Why, I wasn't sure, since I was the one who got a little too curious and went looking for them to begin with. It all just...escalated so quickly. I was overwhelmed by the depth of it. But I guess that's what happens when you're twenty-five and the career you always dreamed of isn't half of what you thought it would be, so you start chasing a high that only certain activities can elicit. Ones that your prim, proper upbringing told you were lewd and unattainable and wrong.