Dirty Laundry: A Tucker Springs Novel #3

to think about doing anything like that without Denver, but he made himself do it anyway. If he couldn’t have Denver, he’d at least let their relationship have been the gateway into discovering this about himself. Sig had promised to help him find safe networks in the BDSM community, and Adam clung to that whenever he felt anxious about Denver and sometimes even when he was anxious in general.
    Mostly, though, he looked at the photos, imagining himself still bound and safe. He looked at them several times a day, in fact, especially when he lay in bed trying to sleep. He looked at them in the lab too, pulling them up like a kinky security blanket whenever his brain got a little rabid. He was careful to keep them private, and he kept his phone on a password as Denver had told him to.
    Unfortunately, Adam always worried he’d forget his passwords, so he never changed them. He forgot that Brad still knew all his passwords, and one morning after lab, Adam came into the student lounge to find Brad flipping, whey-faced, through his gallery. He saw Adam and held up the phone, which was cued up to Adam bound, gagged, glasses dangling, nipples clipped, and his face twisted up in pain.
    Panic didn’t rise. It swamped him. There wasn’t any getting hold of the horses. The horses were off and Adam wasn’t even sure he was with them. All he knew was panic because panic was all there was in the world.
    Give that back , Adam wanted to demand, but he couldn’t speak. He stood, frozen, feeling more naked and exposed standing there clothed than he had at any point during his play with Denver.
    Brad kept the phone held up, and he kept shaking his head too. “What the fuck , Adam? Seriously?” He looked from the phone to Adam, then back to the phone again.
    “Give that back,” Adam managed in a whisper. “It’s mine.”
    Brad leveled his gaze to Adam again, searching. “I’ve been trying to figure out for days what you’ve been staring at on your phone. I knew it had to do with that big, stupid guy. I had to check. I’d have thought this was some kind of threat, like he held it over you so you’d do what he said or something, but you’ve been looking at these like they’re your lifeline. You like this, don’t you.” Brad curled his lip in derision. “Jesus, Adam, you’re sicker than I thought. You’re . . . you’re sick .”
    I’m not sick . Adam couldn’t say it though, couldn’t make the words come out. “Give it back,” he whispered again instead.
    Of course Brad didn’t. He waved the phone in front of Adam, always keeping it just out of his reach. “ Sick , Adam. This is sick. You are sick. It’s bigger than OCD. It’s some kind of sex shit now. And that guy you’re letting do this to you is a monster.” He shook his head. “Jesus, were you like this when we were together? Is that why you were so weird during sex? Because you wanted this ?”
    A little. The answer came so fast, so quiet inside of Adam that he shrank into himself, afraid it might leak out. He tried to cling to what Sig and Louisa had said, to how he felt—he wasn’t sick, and Denver wasn’t a monster.
    Yes, he admitted to himself. Yes, he’d wanted what he had with Denver all along—if not specifically, at least in part. He’d always craved sex that took him away, always liked things a little bit dirty. And yes, he’d felt ashamed by it until now.
    But he didn’t feel ashamed anymore.
    “No,” he said, still whispering, but with heat behind the word. “I’m not sick. Just different.”
    “ Sick .” Brad threw the word at Adam, drawing out the sibilant, hissing it, clicking the consonants so hard they slapped. He held up the phone again. “You let him do this to you, and you let him photograph it? Christ, it’s probably all over the Internet by now.”
    You’re sick , Adam’s inner bully tried to parrot. This time, though, it couldn’t find a foothold. Adam could see the horses in the distance, and though they were still wild and afraid, he could tell they wished they had reins, wished they were under control. And unlike Adam as a whole, his horses wanted only Adam in control, even if that control meant passing the baton over to Denver sometimes. It wasn’t sickness. Maybe it was unconventional, but it wasn’t wrong, and it wasn’t unhealthy.
    Because Adam wasn’t sick. Adam wasn’t unhealthy. He had some mental illness, but so did a lot of people.
    I’m not sick. I’m not wrong. I’m my own way, and