Page 77 of That Defining Moment

Tucked into the banquette beside Dane’s vacated seat, a willowy blond beta sat with both hands wrapped around a latte. His white-blond hair fell past his jaw in a centre part. He was pale-skinned and fine-boned, with wide blue eyes that tracked Lysander’s approach.

His resemblance to Cassian wasn’t exact. This man’s jaw was narrower, his brows darker, and he looked younger by a few years. But his colouring and build were close enough that Lysander fleetingly saw Cassian sitting in a Chelsea café, waiting for his alpha to tell him what to do next.

“This is Gale,” Dane said, sliding back into the banquette and draping his arm along the backrest behind the boy’s shoulders. “My partner. He wanted to tag along and say hello.”

“Hi, Gale.” Lysander pulled out the chair opposite and sat down. He extended his hand across the table, and Gale shook it with a grip that barely registered.

He’d seen rather a lot of Gale already. Dane’s OnlyFans page featured Gale prominently. Lysander had checked it a couple of nights before, just to see whether there’d been any notable character growth since he’d closed the TheoTheO page. The thumbnail that had stopped Lysander’s scroll that night showed Gale on his back with his legs pushed up towards his chest, speared on Dane’s cock while a second alpha fed himself into Gale’s open mouth. Dane’s long fingers had been wrapped around Gale’s waist, and they’d spanned it easily, his thumbs nearly touching across his stomach.

Lysander had clicked through. He’d watched the whole thing with his legs crossed on the guest bed and his reading glasses on, examining Dane’s technique with the detached professionalism of a retired dancer watching their replacement’s opening night.

Dane had always been good on camera. He stayed aware of the angles, and had an encyclopaedic knowledge of which positions gave the lens the most access to Lysander’s bits. His content had shifted since his time with Lysander. The video with Gale was slower. More deliberate. Dane’s hands moved Gale across the bed like he was arranging something precious: lifting him by the hips, turning him onto his front, folding him in half with his ankles beside his ears, each repositioning performed with a careful, almost ceremonial control that left Gale entirely passive. Gale’s face stayed fixed in a glassy, doll-like serenity even as Dane drove into him hard enough to shift the headboard. He just lay where he was put and looked exquisite doing it, and Lysander had closed his laptop and sat in the dark for ten minutes afterwards, as the realisation settled that to Gale’s fans, his unquestioning compliance was the whole point of the performance.

“Gale’s doing really well,” Dane said now, squeezing Gale’s shoulder. “He’s getting big, actually. Properly big. We don’t have the male omega thing going for us this time, but we’ve carved out a really solid niche together.” He leaned forward, warming to the subject. “You know the dollification community?”

“Vaguely,” Lysander said.

“Massive.” Dane spread his hands wide. “Absolutely massive, and it’s only getting bigger. The whole aesthetic is about…well, you saw it, right? The smaller partner as this perfect, passive, beautiful object. Completely still, completely pliant, the alpha does everything. Positions them, undresses them, fucks them.” His thumb traced a slow circle on Gale’s shoulder. “Gale’s a natural at it. He can hold a position for hours without breaking. We did a scene last month where I carry him from the bath to the bed, bridal carry, completely limp, eyes open, and then I lay him out and dress him in lingerie before I fuck him. Sixty-two thousand views in the first week.”

Gale sat perfectly still through this recitation, his hands curled around his latte, his expression pleasant and unreadable.

“The thing people love,” Dane continued, “is the contrast, yeah? Big alpha, tiny partner. You get the scale right, make sure the alpha’s hands look massive on the body, and the audience goes mental for it. We’ve started doing these videos where I wash him in the bath, soap him up, do his hair, go through the whole routine. Then I carry him to the bedroom and position him on the sheets. Twelve minutes of setup before anything sexual even happens. Those are our highest-performing videos, Sander. The bathing ones.”

“People also really like the ones where he just brushes my hair,” Gale said, in a soft, breathy voice pitched so high it could only be rehearsed. “And then dresses me.”

Dane nodded, his thumb still tracing that proprietary circle on Gale’s shoulder. “As long as it ends with me ripping a hole into his pants and fucking him through it.”

Gale smiled, and the smile said: I am delighted to be here and I have no opinions about what is happening to me.

A flat white was already waiting at his place setting. Dane had ordered for him, just as he used to when they were together. Lysander picked up his coffee and drank. It was annoyingly excellent.

Lysander’s gaze kept drifting to Gale. He wanted to grab the kid by the wrist and walk him out of the café. But if someone had tried to pull Lysander out of Dane’s orbit at nineteen, he’d have gone right back. You couldn’t drag someone away from a fire they were still convinced was keeping them warm against the freezing cold.

Dane’s formula hadn’t changed one bit since Lysander had left him. Different boy, same operation: find someone young enough and quiet enough to mistake control for devotion, and monetise their willingness.

Lysander set his cup down and pulled his notebook from his back pocket, flipping it open to the page he’d rewritten four times. He laid the concept out for Dane in clean, professional strokes.

The alpha listened with his chin propped on his fist, his blue eyes tracking Lysander. His expression shifted as the pitch landed, brightening as he realised he was being offered free airtime on a platform with the potential for real reach.

“So you want me on the first episode,” Dane said.

“I want a sit-down with you, yes. And I’d give you quote approval on your own material.”

Dane glanced at Gale, who hadn’t made any contribution throughout, and then back to Lysander. “How big are we talking? Audience-wise.”

“Meredith’s last three launches all charted in the top twenty. One of them hit number one in its category within a fortnight.” He paused, and the next part tasted like something he needed to rinse out of his mouth afterwards. “And between our old subscriber base and everything that happened with Stephen, the stalker, the press coverage from all that, there’s a built-in audience that most new podcasts would kill for.”

Dane’s grin widened. “Right, yeah. I’m in. When do you want to do it?”

That was the thing about Dane. He’d never met an audience he didn’t want to perform for, or been offered exposure he thought to refuse. The podcast could have been about his crimes against humanity and he’d still have said yes, provided the download numbers justified the journey.

“I’ll send you the details once I’ve booked a studio,” Lysander said, closing his notebook.

“Lovely.” Dane offered his hand, and Lysander shook it, keeping his grip brief and professional. Dane held on for too long, his thumb pressing against Lysander’s knuckle. “It’s good to see you again, Sander. You look well. Happy.”

“I am,” Lysander said, and extracted his hand.

Dane settled against the banquette, one arm draped behind Gale, and gave Lysander a slow, appraising once-over that started at his jaw and ended south of his belt. “If anything ever changes,” he said, “and you fancied a turn in front of the camera again. You and Gale would be stunning together. Your dark hair, his blond.” He reached over and caught a lock of Lysander’s hair between two fingers, rolling it. “You’d have fun with him.”