Page 7 of Sportsball is for Lovers

“I thought you said her name was Sylvie.”

“Sylvie is her pen name.”

“What, is she eighty years old?” I joke.

He gives me a hard stare. “It was her great-aunt’s name, of blessed memory. She was the only person in her family who gave a shit about her.”

Immediately, I feel remorse. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be a dick,” Yoni chides. “You’re better than that, Jare.”

With a sigh, I run my hand over my ears, adjusting the thick black stems of my glasses frames. It’s crazy how my little brother can make me feel so small.

Not that either of us are so little. Yoni is maybe an inch or two taller than me, and even though we’re on opposite sides of thirty, we’re both sporting a spare tire and then some around the waist.

When we were kids, our mom was always shopping in the husky section of the store, and no matter how much I diet and exercise, I can’t seem to shift the weight. The diabetes diagnosis a few years back didn’t help much—it means I have to be even more conscious of my intake, and considering how often I travel for work, where only junk food is available at arena concession stands…

Who am I kidding? I can make excuses all I want. The fact remains, I have Type II Diabetes, it’s not curable but it is manageable, and my entire life is different now.

“So tell me about what you do. What do you like about it?” I ask.

Yoni eyes me curiously.

“I’m serious. I want to know. Something is obviously drawing you to it, and clearly you’re good at it, so explain it. Help me see what you see.”

He blows out a breath. “I’m not that creative,” he says.

“Yonatan,” I snap.

As I expected, he winces at the usage of his full name. When I was little, I used to call him Yo-yo. Now, I reserve Yonatan for when it really matters.

“No, I’m not,” he interjects. “I’m smart, I’m good at math and science, but I’m not creative and I’m definitely not artistic. Sadie… She creates this world, this entire universe of characters that I want to be part of. She weaves the details so it looks effortless. But seeing the day to day, I see how much work goes into it, I see the effort it takes to make it look so easy.”

He sighs. “And I like being part of something bigger than myself. She needs grounding, balancing, or else she floats away in the clouds.”

“And you want to ground her?” I ask.

Yoni shrugs. “I mean… I like taking care of her.”

My eyebrows go up.

“Not in a sexual way,” he’s quick to assure me. “I’m committed to Elliott, and even if I weren’t, I would still never be attracted to a woman.”

Chewing the inside of my cheek, I wonder how much I should reveal about my own sexuality to my brother. Even though I consider myself Dominant, I’m what people call a “soft Dom,” where I get off on praising my partner and taking care of them instead of degrading them.

I want to make my partner feel good, and that extends beyond the bedroom. My whole world narrows down to my partner, to taking care of them and making sure they’re okay. I don’t necessarily need to be called Daddy—though it definitely doesn’t bother me.

I’m not in this to get my rocks off and move on to the next. There’s a deep-rooted need in me that gets satisfied by bringing my partner to the brink of pleasure again and again. The brain chemical cocktail called Domspace is a high like none other, and actually finishing has the unfortunate tendency to end the brain chemicals.

Since I’m on the road so much, I don’t have the time or inclination for a permanent, long-term relationship. I stick to one-night-only flings with whoever I can match with on my favorite kink app. It’s discreet, the algorithm is fairly robust, and it works for me.

I decide against saying anything to Yoni about all that. My brother and I, we don’t talk about sex. Aside from the time I caught him making out with a guy in his bed when they were in high school, that is. I reminded him that just because they couldn’t get each other pregnant didn’t mean it was safe to skip the condoms and bought him a beginner’s toy—and a giant bottle of lube, so he wouldn’t steal mine. I didn’t out him to our parents, though. When he was ready, he told them.

Once, he walked in on me and my ex-fiancée in a… compromising situation in our kitchen. We didn’t talk about that. He went red, turned away, and then refused to look me in the eye for the rest of the long weekend.

Okay—calling it compromising is a bit of a stretch. She was wearing a dress and her panties were around her knees, my pants were barely undone, and I was buried balls-deep inside of her, pinning her to the kitchen island. But he couldn’t see anything with the kitchen island between us.

Fuck. I don’t miss Candace, I really don’t, but she was fun to play with. She’s the one who got me into the scene. Ultimately, our lifestyles weren’t compatible, even if our kinks were on paper.