By BristolBound
*This BDSM fantasy is a work of fiction. All characters are adults*
*This story must be read in order, starting from Chapter 1 of the original series “Season”*
Chapter 5: Victory Lap
I wore a beanie on Monday.
It was a navy bobble hat, pulled down to the top of my eyes, and I looked like a man in witness protection. It made no difference. A bald head and no eyebrows are not features you can hide under a hat. They’re a general atmosphere, and by ten past nine I had been asked four separate times if I was all right.
The lecturer was the worst. Dr Hollis taught supply chains in a gentle, rumpled way and had never once raised his voice, and when I came in late and sat at the back, he stopped mid-slide, and looked at me for a very long moment, and then, with enormous tact, waited until the room had emptied.
“Eric,” he said, “I just wanted to say that if you’re going through something, anything at all, the university has very good support. You wouldn’t have to say what. I’d simply sign the form.”
It took me a full three seconds to understand. He thought I was ill. He thought I’d lost my hair and my eyebrows to some horrible treatment and come in anyway, and he was being so kind about it that I wanted to lie down in the lecture theatre and let the floor have me.
“It’s not that,” I said. “It’s, um. It’s a hockey thing.”
