You're supposed to know if you're a top or a sub by the time you're twelve. Fourteen at the outside. It's biological, the researchers say. It's not a choice. But sometimes Jon thinks that for him, it really was.

"Um. I don't know if you noticed, but sometimes I make bad choices about who to trust." Crow tipped his head neutrally. "So that's not my job anymore," Patrick said. "The making choices part. I still do the trusting part. I'm good at that." Or, as described by Petra, the story where Kaner is "like a therapy puppy on a leash, humping people's legs an making them smile."

Jonny doesn’t want to be here, doesn’t want to be doing this, but there’s a contract, there are rules, and he’s got as little of a choice as Patrick does.