There's a ton of stereotypes about living in New Jersey. Most are grossly exaggerated, but there are some quintessential Jersey City moments every resident knows well. For example, what do you do for fun in Jersey City? You leave Jersey behind and go into New York.

My morning's carb craving having been satisfied, my body decided it would go ahead and demand sugar. Malcolm suggested we join the group Nicole had talked about getting together for the chocolate bar. I don't usually have a sweet tooth, but the prospect of hot melted coco made Aunt Flo very happy.

Nicole laughed when we called her, joking that this was twice now and clearly we didn't know what to do with ourselves without her.

So we made our way across the river to the Union Square area. Anybody who has ever seen a movie set in New York with a shot of skateboarders doing tricks in an open park area has probably seen where we were. It's a great place to kill time, great people watching and lots of shopping, including a huge Barns and Noble to wander around.

"Do you think they ever get discouraged? I'm pretty sure that guy with the Afro hasn't landed a trick in half an hour." We watched as, once again, the large haired guy raced his board fast towards a set of steps and attempted to do a kickflip down them. Once again, the board flew out from under his feet and he landed hard on his ass. His ass had taken quite a beating since we started watching.

"It must be why they're filming themselves. Actually sticking it is so rare that nobody would believe them without the evidence."

We sat under a tree on a lawn crowded with mostly families and other couples, one of which was tossing a Frisbee and coming precariously close to trampling their neighbors. It was nice to be there with Malcolm and feel a part of it. I'd been in similar spots and felt uncomfortably alone many times before. We weren't really doing anything, just chilling in the shade and making up stories about the people around us.

We imagined the guy throwing the Frisbee wildly was actually a pro. He could throw it directly on target if he wanted, but he kept making his date run and jump hoping that her sundress would fly up.

The family sitting on a blanket with a picnic basket were, we thought, clearly time travelers out of the 70s. Where else would they have gotten an antique folding basket like that?

We got really into it and lost track of time until Nicole called us asking if we'd changed our minds about coming. There was a crowd visible across the park gathered outside Max Brenner's Chocolate Bar. It was completely overrun and had a sign saying that the wait time for walk ins was 90 minutes.

"Good thing she got us on her reservation," Malcolm observed. The smell of sugar hit us as soon as we walked in. Despite the crowd, it was easy to pick out Nicole's bright red hair a few tables in. The tables, floor and ceiling design made it feel a little vintage, while the dishes in front of everybody felt inspired by Willy Wonka's Factory. There was a drink that seemed popular, which came in a huge glass and wafted misty steam. Passing by one table that had a pair of them, alcohol momentarily mixed with the chocolate we smelled.

My mouth watered immediately and my craving intensified. "We have to try that!"

There were three other people sitting with Nicole. I was pretty sure one must be her Mistress Sam, which was confirmed when Malcolm made introductions around the table. Sam was hot. Seriously hot. Just like Nicole had described, she looked like she'd just stepped off a runway. Long, elegant black hair framed a face that looked like it hadn't ever heard of acne, perfect eyebrows and deceptively natural looking makeup. She wore a fashionable, close fitting sundress that accentuated her curves. She wasn't my type at all, far too femme and not at all rugged enough, but she was the perfect image of what straight men fawn over.

The other two were much older than all the rest of us. In their early 40s? Somewhere thereabout. Jeff Valmont was big enough to make me feel small, which was rare enough to really stand out. At least five inches taller than me and easily 100 pounds heavier, he looked a lot like Wilson Fisk from the Netflix version of Daredevil, only slightly less villainous. Where Jeff's bald head and resting stern face gave a mildly unfriendly impression, his wife, Natalie, seemed to exude motherly warmth. Rather than shaking my hand as Sam and Jeff had, she pulled me into a hug.

"And, of course, you're already fast friends with Nicole here," Malcolm finished.

Sam, who had winced very slightly when Malcolm introduced her as Samantha, laughed and said, "she was just telling us about The Grand Magus reappearing out of nowhere." She turned to me and added, "I hope my Firefly hasn't given you any trouble. She can be a bit of a handful." She grabbed a handful of Nicole, as though to demonstrate, and pulled her close.

Sam's revenge for Malcolm using her full name amused me, so I played along, "Wow, you're 'Grand' now? Congratulations on your elevation from simple wizardry."

"Do you know why we call him that?" Sam asked, eager to tell.

"Yeah, Nicole already showed me the video."

"She did what?!?" both Sam and Natalie exclaimed at the same time.

"What! You were totally about to tell her that story!" Nicole blushed slightly as she defended herself.

"Yeah, tell her about it! It didn't strike you as maybe just a little bit weird to show her a video of her man making his ex cum? Especially on the first night they were together?" Sam shook her head disapprovingly, "I swear, I can't let you out of my sight for a minute."

"In her defense, it is pretty amazing. I probably wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it," I said. Turning to Nicole and trying to change the subject, I added, "so, I'm told you have strong feelings about Harry Potter?" Instead of taking heat off of Nicole, the rest of the table groaned and collectively condemned both Nicole being allowed to go into that again and Malcolm for planting the seed in me.

"Yall are a bunch of haters!" Nicole fired back.

"Isn't the whole point that you're hating on one of the best-selling books of all time," Jeff pointed out.

"Aren't we supposed to be gorging ourselves on chocolate?" Nicole countered.

"Yes!" I agreed, "I want one of whatever those drinks that steam in the huge glasses is."

"We've had one of those before. They're great. Basically a chocolate milkshake that gets you buzzed." Jeff voice didn't match my first impression of him, he sounded warm and melodious.

"It's why we wanted to come back," Natalie added.

I let myself fade to the background of the conversation. It was nice to take a breather after being socially "on" constantly for hours. I also wanted to see Malcolm in this group. There was the expected catch up talk, polite interest in his classes and upcoming summer internship.

Sam's dynamic with Malcolm was interesting. The way she moved and positioned her body seemed like she was used to holding men's attention. It seemed to work on Jeff, whose eyes would get caught on her chest and legs while seeming to unconsciously accept whatever she was saying. A momentary smugness would flash across her face when this happened. Something about that made it feel different than the way most women like to feel attractive. She liked the power her looks gave her over men, especially when they happened to be dominants themselves.

I thought about what Malcolm had said about her not liking men in general. Was there maybe something else there too? A little bit of contempt for someone who thinks with his cock? Or was I just seeing what I expected to? I wasn't sure.

Malcolm was a completely different story. I chuckled to myself watching him politely meet her eyes and completely ignore everything else. The things Sam was doing were the kinds of things I'd tried on him unsuccessfully for years. True, I did it because I wanted him to see me as attractive and Sam did it because she wanted to hold power over him, but it was still fun watching her struggle.

'Does that mean he isn't playing her game? Or is he winning it?' One way or another, it made his arm around me feel that much more special. I felt warm and happy, far happier than I'd expected to feel when Aunt Flo came knocking this morning. My sugar craving was being indulged to the fullest, I was feeling slightly tipsy from the drink Malcolm and I were sharing, and I found myself liking them. They seemed like the kind of people who could laugh at themselves without taking it personally and were comfortable sharing themselves, even with a newcomer like me.

Natalie drew me back into the conversation, asking politely about who I was, where I was from and what I did. As such conversations so often do, I ended up outlining my job and then complaining about it.

"The real problem with working with data is that nobody in management gets it. Like, they all think it's magic. Do a basic VLookUp in Excel and you get the same reaction as if you've created a predictive model to automate asset movement based on stock market trends."

"Have you ever done that?" Sam asked, sounding impressed.

"What? Oh, move company money? No way. I'm just an analyst code monkey. They barely trust me with access to get into the building, never mind permissions to design anything big like that. I'm just saying, they look at really basic things as the same as really hard stuff."

"Is that a bad thing, though?" Wondered Natalie, "If everything you do is magic, then that means your boss likes you for everything you do."

"Yes and no. It's a problem when they ask for things that are impossible and they don't understand why."

"I think I may be part of that problem," Jeff admitted. "It's hard for us businessmen to keep up with you techies! Everything changes every two years."

"My parents are the same way." said Nicole, "We've only just convinced dad that Facebook is the old people social media choice and he won't get infected by us youngins by posting."

Jeff and Natalie both laughed, "Well, we are old enough to be your parents," Jeff pointed out.

"How young do you think we are!" Sam asked indignantly, "Your kids are what? Eighteen now?"

"Yeah, we're sending them off to college in the fall." Natalie said proudly.

"Congratulations and all that, but you would have needed to get knocked up in high school to have kids our age."

"You know, I seem to recall that nearly happened a few times," Natalie said with a smirk.

"You two!?! You, who lecture us about being safe?" Nicole said with clearly mock disbelief.

"Believe it or not, we used to be cool. Your parents probably were too before you arrived and forced them to become responsible." Jeff shared his wife's smirk, meeting her eye and chuckling at shared memories.

"Because teenage pregnancy is the height of being cool," Sam muttered sarcastically under her breath.

"Does that mean that you're going to go back to being cool after Mike and Jen have left the nest?" Nicole asked hopefully, "It's been a while since you've had a party."

"Actually, since you mention it, they're having a camping weekend with their friends pretty soon. We were thinking of hosting something then."

"That'd be great!" Nicole grabbed Sam's arm, "We could perform for them!"

"That would be excellent. There is something else, though. Susan -- you all remember Susan?" Jeff glanced around the table for confirmation.

"Shy Asian woman who was at a few of your events?" Malcolm asked, "the one whose boyfriend wouldn't stop talking about Tom Brady?"

"That's her. She has a sister named Vivian, and she wants to introduce her to us." Jeff paused to consider before continuing, "Susan said she wants to show her sister a more positive view of BDSM. I kind of got the impression that she's worried about Vivian."

"You think she's in a bad relationship?"

"I don't want to speak out of turn, but that was my guess. I'll get more details from her, but I think what Susan wants is to try to show her sister that power exchange relationships can be better than what she has now." Jeff gestured to Sam and Nicole, then to Malcolm and myself, "it would be great if all of you are interested in being there."

At the time, it was impossible to know just how important this would end up being. I couldn't know how close Vivian and I would become, or how much sleep I would lose trying to help her escape her abusive relationship. It simply passed through my mind as another crowd of kinky people I'd meet.

It struck Malcolm differently. He tensed and darkly muttered, "Yeah, because I'm the poster child for happy endings to shitty relationships." It was just loud enough to carry across the table.

"Are you really still beating yourself up over that?" Sam said with some exasperation.

"—Sam!—" Natalie tried to cut her off, but she plowed ahead.

"She cheated on you, Malcolm. Twice. That was her choice and you handled it much better than anybody else would have. Just because you're the dom, it doesn't mean you're at fault for everything."

I was shocked. The exchange happened so fast, nobody knew quite how to react. Fury at Sam boiled up. How dare she! Sure, her words were supportive, but the way she delivered it felt almost disdainful of Malcolm for feeling like he did. I could have hissed and spat venom at her. On top of that, it was a huge revelation. That's what happened to Malcolm and Chloe. Twice? Did he forgive her after the first time, then have her betray him again? No wonder it hurt him so much...

Eventually, Jeff broke the silence.

"I think what Sam is trying to say, albeit roughly, is that none of us think you could have done anything better with Chloe. I suspect that, deep down, that includes yourself. Some relationships end, despite people's best intentions. It doesn't need to mean that people don't care about each other. Sometimes they simply are not meant to be, and both people come out the other side stronger." He gestured to me, "which you have. It's great to have you with us again, Malcolm. Anyway, I think that is a message that might help Vivian, and I hope you decide to join us for that too."

"Yeah, I'm sorry I came off harshly," Sam said quickly, "I didn't mean to be a bitch."

"It's okay. I understand, and thank you. You're all good friends." Malcolm sounded his usual self again, which probably fooled everybody at the table except me.

Talk returned to more upbeat matters, but I kept returning to what Sam and Jeff said. It reminded me of what Malcolm had told me at dinner after I'd confessed my feelings. I promised myself that I'd do a better job of being there for him. I hated hearing that dark, depressed tone when his recent past came up. I could face my own demons and talk about Chloe with him if it meant helping to save him from that pain. Right? Fucking A, right! 'But still, why couldn't it be something easy? Like getting my nails pulled out with pliers?'

A little while and a few thousands of chocolaty calories later, we said our goodbyes. Once we were on our own, I brought it up, "About what Sam said earlier. If you don't want to talk about it, that's totally fine and I understand, but I want you to know that I'm here for you now if you do."

He sighed. It felt like he wanted to, but he was hesitant. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

"You won't"

"I know you've never liked talking about my girlfriends. Especially not Chloe."

"It's fine—" I started, but realized he would see it as me putting a brave face on for his sake. Which was true, but still better to be honest. "—You're right, and I'm very sorry for that. I feel like I've missed so much of what's important to you because of my jealousy."

"It's fine." He chuckled a little, "we're both saying that, trying to reassure one another. I knew you didn't like that topic, but I didn't realize how you felt about me. In hindsight, that seems pretty dumb of me."

I smiled. 'About time he realized that.' He was opening up and I let him take his time doing it.

"The thing is, I know they're right," Malcolm said. "Logically speaking, I know it. But emotionally, I have a hard time really internalizing it. Part of me feels like I should have done something different to prevent it from happening."

"Her cheating on you?" I was careful to phrase it as "hers" rather than something neutral like "the cheating."

"Yeah. She never said why she did it. Honestly, I'm not positive she knew herself. She was absolutely miserable afterwards." He didn't look or sound depressed. More confused. Like somebody had told him a riddle then gone away without sharing the answer. "I think it was because part of her resented my control. Some small part of her wanted to exert autonomy away from me. But then again, that doesn't make any sense because she was the one always pushing to do more and more extreme things. More time together, more of our time spent in BDSM character, tighter bondage, harder impact play, always looking for more. If she wanted some space, all she needed to do was slow down a little."

"Is that why you spent some much time away from BDSM afterwards?" We had been making our way towards the subway but we stopped at a bench just outside the station.

"That's half of the story. I thought things were better after the first time. I actually think it hurt her more than it hurt me, she tortured herself trying to make it up to me. I was pretty angry myself, of course, and our trust took a major hit, but I was actually proud of how we handled it. But then, after she did it again three months later, I lost my temper."

"You did?" I said, surprised. "I don't think I've ever seen you do that. I mean, it's totally justified, but still."

"Yeah, it was bad. I... said things I'm not proud of. Very hurtful things, deliberately playing into her insecurities that she trusted me with. It really hurt her." Now he sounded worse, haunted even. I'd always admired how he could make himself vulnerable talking about difficult things, but this was hard for him. I squeezed his hand reassuringly.

"It's okay. Most people would have lost their heads the first time, never mind the second. We all say things we regret during a fight. God knows I have."

"I know, like I said, it's just hard to forgive myself. Almost like I'm taking the easy way out by letting it go. I don't know... anyway, it's what happened after that screwed with my head."

"What happened?"

"Chloe wanted to keep going with me. Like, rebuild our trust and stay together. After she confessed what had happened and I responded by reducing her to an incoherent mess of tears and snot." He sighed deeply, "something about that... I don't know... it felt like she was handing me a blank check to be as abusive to her as I wanted, and she would be okay with it as long as I forgave her. That just can't be healthy, can it? We hadn't resolved anything, just taken turns hurting each other. What really frightened me, though, was that there was a part of me that wanted to do it. Part of the sadist in me wanted to take that permission and just go at her with reckless abandon.

"That's what made me try to give it up. I stepped back and thought about how messed up it is that I get horny by hurting and controlling the ones I care about most. If you say it like that without the somewhat accepted labels 'BDSM' or 'power exchange,' it sounds pretty screwy."

'Fuck that's a lot to take in,' I