Aubreys Playground

:Seven:

"Trust me! Lebron is in LA for the weather. That man didn't promise a damn thing!" Aubrey argued back. "In Cleveland, he promised a championship! And he brought it. I don't remember him saying he was bringing a damn thing to LA, man is there to ride the wave and enjoy the weather."

Oliver shook his head and laughed as he wiped his face with his napkin, he dropped it on his empty plate and pushed himself from under the table.

"Iigh, though I would love to argue about whether or not Lebron gives a f**k about LA..."

"Here we go!" Nessel cut him off mid-sentence. "The I gotta go home because I have a wife speech!" He purposely changed the tone of his voice as he teased Oliver. Aubrey leaned forward in arms laughing out loud.

"Really? I have to go through this every time!?" Oliver argued back stretching his arms to either side of his body. "You two need to be finding a wife!"

"Oh!? Did you hear that Aubrey!? We need to be finding a wife instead of dealing with the surplus of v****a" Nessel said sarcastically as he turned to Aubrey.

"This is why my wife doesn't like you two, you're bad influences!"

"I'm a bad influence!?" Aubrey said in shock pressing his fingers into his chest. "Him, yeah! Me, no!" He pointed his thumb in Nessel's direction.

"You know what!? I'm going to indulge you two tonight..."

"Oh, did you hear that Nessel!? He's going to indulge us! How lucky are we to have his presence!" Aubrey teased. Oliver took his seat back at the table, he laughed as his childhood friends as they continued to mock him. "Please tell me why marriage is better than what I'm doing right now!" Aubrey asked leaning back in his chair and getting comfortable. "Marriage is the greatest thing that has fallen in your lap!? And I've been around to see the amazing things that have fallen in your lap! But you're telling me Marriage is the best one!?"

"Yes!"

"And when you divorce!? She now gets half of what she didn't work for!"

"We have a prenup! See that's the thing! You're thinking about the divorce before the marriage!"

Nessel frowned shaking his head. "Please! Prenups mean nothing!"

"You ask a woman to sign a prenup that's like spitting in her face and calling her a b***h! The first thing she says is... oh, you don't trust me!? You think I'm some kind of gold digger!!" Aubrey argued back.

"That's because it's the wrong woman! If she's in this s**t for you! She'll sign that s**t!" Oliver said back. Nessel and Aubrey shook their heads laughing.

Nessel leaned forward directing his attention straight at Oliver. "Men are supposed to spread and conquer. That is what I do as a man! It is in our DNA! We are not meant to be monogamous! It's been proven by science! Scientists, Oliver! Scientific research has told my black ass to spread and conquer! I mark my territory! I can't spread and conquer if I'm married!"

"Well, you have a son so you definitely handled the spreading part!" Aubrey said in agreement. "You got that part down."

"See! Spread your seed, conquer your women, and mark your territory!" Nessel explained further in a drunken slur as he laughed.

Aubrey joined. "I don't know about the spreading the seed thing, but I definitely do the conquering women and marking territory part!"

"Oh, yeah! I forgot Mr. Vasectomy over here! Not wanting that responsibility!" Nessel teased Aubrey rolling his eyes. "Got his nuts clipped cuz he's scared of a mini him!"

"Makes sense to me." Aubrey shrugged

"As bold as this nigga is! The one thing that scares him the most, that trumps his fear of marriage! This nigga is terrified of reproducing!" Nessel said looking at Oliver as he talked s**t.

"I don't want the responsibility! It's too much work!"

Nessel frowned, he twisted his face so much his eyes closed as he faced Aubrey. "You own and operate several successful billion dollar companies! What the actual f**k are you talking about... too much work!"

"Kids are problematic." He said sitting in his opinion.

"You just going to call your Godson problematic like that?..." Nessel asked Aubrey, when he remained silent he turned to Oliver. "You gone let him call your nephew problematic!?"

Oliver slightly frowned. "Jr is bad, though."

Nessel pressed his lips together and rolled his eyes as he pressed his back against the booth shaking his head. Aubrey let out a consistent chuckle while looking at Nessel's expression. "This conversation became pointless several sentences ago!"

"You two are f*****g idiots! This is why my wife hates you two! The toxic fumes coming off of you two are giving me a headache!" Oliver said laughing as he sat across the table. Aubrey and Nessel joined in the laughter, filling up the private dining room of the closed-off restaurant. The three men had their own messy situations and they owned up to them and in their case sometimes they just had to drink and discuss how mentally f****d up they were and could be. "The toxic masculinity coming from that side of the table!" Oliver said through his laughter as he pointed at both of them.

Their laughter grew louder, they bounced back and forth against the padded cushion of the booth. "THAT'S WHY YOU DON'T GET MARRIED! RIGHT THERE!" Nessel yelled, his drink sloshing around the walls of his glass. Aubrey covered his face unable to stop his laughter. "You learn words like Toxic Masculinity!" He said laughing harder. Oliver shook his head unable to stop his own laughing. "My cologne is called Toxic Masculinity!"

"Iigh! Iigh, look!" Oliver said trying to reel himself back in, he held his hands up in defense. "This is the reason I got married!" Nessel and Aubrey quieted, their laughter no longer echoed off the thick walls. "I got tired of the NDA's and the contract signing. You think prenups mean nothing!? Contracts and NDA's mean nothing! When a woman wants to be spiteful she will be spiteful! When she's had enough and decides to tells the world about your lifestyle and what you two did behind closed doors! That's out there FOR GOOD! And sure after you bury her in court, take everything from her, threaten her... your secrets are still out there for the world to judge you and think you're a sick monster for the life you live! the things you like! At any moment our sick secrets can hit the internet and now the world knows, whether they're true or not! You're still tied to them... forever! And now here you are in a press conference apologizing and lying that you're not that type of man! Denying who YOU are!" The room became stale, stagnant in silence as Oliver confessed his hidden fears about being a Dominant in the b**m world, fears that he had never expressed to either of them or anyone for that matter. Nessel and Aubrey stared Oliver down from across the table giving him their full and complete attention, his confessions seeming to draw their own concerns. "The lifestyle we live isn't normal! To use it's normal but to them out there! The outside looking in! They don't get it! It's sick, it's taboo, it's a mental illness, it's disgusting, we're freaks, How do you just go along with the sick kinks a woman asks of you!? How do you just ask a woman to do the sick s**t you like!? They don't understand it, it's sexist, toxic masculinity at its finest..." He looked directly at Aubrey. "You think the world is going to understand that your Wednesday night Sub gets off on rape play!?" Aubrey frowned at the comment then looked down at the brown liquor in his glass and quickly downed the rest of it, knowing that Oliver was right, the world wouldn't understand, it was impossible to understand that kind of kink for any woman to have and any right sensed man to agree to participate in it. He turned and looked at Nessel. "You think the world is going to understand that marking your territory can mean pissing on your Sub!... They're not! Them out there looking in they're not going to get it, they're not into that type of s**t and that's ok!" Nessel clenched his jaw and took a deep breath, his chest visibly rising and deflating as he released it through his nostrils. "With Nicole I don't have to worry about none of that! I fully trust her! I don't have to worry about her breaking her silence because I didn't give her her way, I don't have to worry about her with other men when she's not with me. You can make these woman sign everything under the sun but that just protects you legally! She can still physically do whatever the f**k she wants! Nicole knows what I like, what I don't like, what I need, what makes me pissed, what makes me happy, she knows me through and through! She completely trusts me as her Dom and Husband to take care of her in every aspect of life that's why she completely gives herself to me as a Sub and Wife! We try new s**t, we conquer other women together, neither of us is judging the other. I don't have to worry. That's it. That's why I got married. To not worry."

"Well, there's that." Nessel said under his breath before downing the rest of what was in his glass.

"Now like I said, I have to get home to my WIFE! Because she wants me home." He said with a smirk. He stood up and grabbed his car key from the table he walked around the table, pulling Aubrey into a brotherly hug then repeated it with Nessel, he walked out the single door of the room closing it behind him.

Aubrey sighed. "I get it..."

"Yeah... but they don't..." Nessel said quietly as he stared into space across the room. Both men had thought about Oliver's words many times before they became vocal, yet it wasn't until Oliver spoke it out loud that they took on different meanings.

Aubrey made his way back home the heavy gates that wrapped around his many acres of land slowly opened allowing him in, he parked in his garage and made his way through the door, it was quiet, the heat automatically kicked on heating every corner of the house, he groaned dropping his head in his hands and propped his elbows on the black granite kitchen counter, too many glasses of whiskey mixed with not enough sleep made for the perfect melatonin, it would easily knock him out as soon as his body hit the mattress.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and scrolled his text messages debating on if he'd make a last-minute call to one of his collected women that made themselves solely available to him and his needs whenever he asked. He stopped at Lori's name and opened the thread reading over the day-old conversation, he opted on not telling Oliver and Nessel about her out of fear he'd be speaking too soon, he didn't feel like being poked and prodded about spending the whole day with her on Saturday assuming she was another conquest, the last thing he wanted to do was explain his intentions especially when he didn't even know his intentions with her and that was a feeling he never had. It was always black and white, he was clear on what he expected from a woman and he was crystal when he told them his expectations, if she could offer it and wanted to offer it he brought her in, if not he moved on, he never sat and dwelled on the attention of a woman, he never begged a woman for her attention, he never begged a woman for anything and he never would.