The thought of getting Mal to a state of extreme bliss—that rush of dopamine and serotonin and endorphins straight to the brain—is so tempting. It’s tangible, literally right at his fingertips. Rowan wants to get him to the point of giving complete control over to Rowan and trusting, trusting, trusting him to see him safely through to the other side. And he knows that Mal wants it as badly as he does. Asked him to come over so they could do it away from the Menagerie in the safety and privacy of his own home.

Rowan remembers way back to their first meeting after the gangbang. About how Mal had said he goes to the club—never invites anyone over to his apartment—because it keeps shit separate. That must mean that things between him and Rowan aren’t separate. Must mean there’s something more, right? Rowan would bet his life on it.

Or, he thinks painfully, Mal just really wants to get choked out. Break his own rule badly enough to have Rowan come over rather than breaking the club’s rule against choking and breath play.

Rowan shakes the negative thoughts out of his head. He knows by now that he and Mal have something special. Mal admitted as much to him on the phone a few weeks ago, and they’ve only grown closer since then. Their scenes have continued to evolve from largely impersonal, like they were at the start, to more and more intimate, and it sets Rowan’s heart ablaze knowing how far they’ve come since they first met each other.

He keeps reading, watching a few videos he’d found on a kink-related Reddit page that shows how to choke someone out safely—well, safer.

Once he’s comfortable with the motions in theory, he tries them out on himself. Wraps his hand around his own throat and positions his thumb and the rest of his fingers on opposite sides of his neck, gently starting to squeeze until he can feel his pulse in his fingertips. In barely a minute, he feels the light-headed rush that everyone online swears is better than an orgasm. In truth, it doesn’t do much for him—kind of makes him panic a little bit, honestly—but he can easily see how the tingling he’s feeling from his cheeks down to his toes could be pleasurable.