Great question, Grayson wouldn’t if he had the choice. He despises labels as they feel chafing and restricting to him. So, instead, I will describe. Grayson is attracted to all genders, with a particular affinity for cis women and trans men. But! He is largely demisexual, needing a connection, a relationship with depth before he feels sexual attraction. I also would place him somewhere on the ace spectrum as he really does prefer masturbation over sexual encounters with other people. He also has deep, deep seated intimacy issues that color all of this. It affects how he feels about intimate interactions with others and largely colors his preference for masturbation over sexual encounters. I would also call him demiromantic, even more so than his demisexuality, but even that I would say is colored by his struggle to connect with people. He very much operates in the manner of if it exposes my vulnerability I don’t want it.

Alice would describe herself as bisexual! I would agree with that assessment. Alice is trans-inclusive in her meaning of bisexual, but she has a preference for cis men.

I think Alice would say they take part in the queer community, Grayson would say they don’t, and I agree with Grayson. I don’t think going to the Pride Parade every so often (more often Alice than Grayson) counts as participating in the community. Alice would say she goes to queer events and I would say kink does NOT inherently equal queer, Alice. She thinks because she’s bi and has queer interactions at these events that it counts and I shake my head in disappointment at her. Grayson doesn’t participate in the queer community because Grayson doesn’t really participate in community, period. Doing things with the kink community in Chicago is exhausting to him and he only keeps it up in honor of his late mentor Dominic.

He just asked. LMAO, sorry, let me answer this seriously. I actually really love this question.

Mia (Puppy) was the first of the Menagerie to suggest being branded by Grayson, as it was something she'd been interested in for a while. Grayson was delighted by this suggestion and readily agreed. He spent a LONG time researching because he knew he wanted to do it himself, but he cared very deeply about doing it well so as not to cause great bodily harm to Mia.

During this phase of research, he researched the various methods of human branding and contacted and met with several people with experience in scarification and branding humans. Alice (Kitten), not one to be left out, told Grayson she also wanted to be branded. He chose to multiple strike brand them, a form of burn branding where a thin piece of metal is heated with a propane torch and pressed to the skin in small sections. He had a stencil of his initials made (GW, my profile picture on most social media) and settled on the right hip as the placement of the brand.

Mia went first, and with Alice present, Grayson carefully and slowly branded his initials into her skin. This happened in the playroom and would be the first of all the branding ceremonies. Alice was branded the next day, as she wanted her own special moment, and, like she was there for Mia's, Mia sat in on Alice's branding. In fact, she took photos of the event.

The next addition to the Menagerie was Elsie (Piglet), and it took a little convincing for her to agree to be branded, but in the end, Elsie never wants to disappoint Grayson. Alice and Mia both having brands also helped her be nudged in that direction. Alice and Mia were present for her branding, and again Mia took photos.

After Elsie came Dove (Bird). It was not difficult to convince Dove. She's a masochist to the highest degree. She said yes the first time he asked. For her ceremony, Alice, Mia, and Elsie were present, and Mia took photos.

The last addition to the Menagerie is Juliette (Bear Cub), and she was branded the day after her 18th birthday, which would inevitably be the reason Mia left. She was open to being branded, but very nervous about it. She got lots of reassurance from Alice before she was branded. The rest of the members of the Menagerie were present, and once again, Mia took photos of the event.

They each have a thin, gold necklace with their animal namesake as a pendant. Elsie, Dove, and Juliette first had their collars welded onto them, another skill Grayson taught himself in order to put permanent jewelry on his pets. When they were branded, Alice and Mia already had their collars on. The event became more ceremonious with each addition to the Menagerie, Juliette's being an event with all of the girls wearing their velveteen animal masks and chosen color like they do during their monthly dinners. If this all seems a little cult-y to you, it should!

(Warning for mentions of grooming, adult/minor relationships, domestic abuse)

The day after Juliette’s 18th birthday, Grayson brands her and officially makes her part of his Menagerie. Her birthday is February 28th, and her branding ceremony, involving the entire Menagerie, is on March 1st. It is tradition for Grayson to take each member of the Menagerie on a trip for their birthdays and their anniversary of joining the Menagerie. So, the next year, they celebrate what is actually Juliette's 19th birthday, but they celebrate it as her 20th, and then Juliette and Grayson go on their trip.

Alice, who had sex with Juliette for the first time when Juliette was 17, and Elsie, who started her relationship with Grayson when she was 16, both know the truth about Juliette's age. Dove doesn't ask, and wouldn't care if she did know. Mia, on the other hand, has a stronger moral compass than Alice and Dove and was not groomed by Grayson while she was a minor like Elsie.

So, when Elsie accidentally lets it slip to Mia that they were celebrating Juliette's 19th birthday, not her 20th, she realizes that Grayson branded Juliette the day after she turned 18. She connects the dots, understanding that this means he had a relationship with Juliette when she was underage. This is too much for Mia, who has been in a relationship with Grayson for twelve years, often being emotionally and physically abused.

When Grayson returns from his trip, Mia has cleared out the few belongings she had at his home, and schedules a meeting with him at his office. She brings her husband, and as the photographer of the Menagerie, a manila envelope containing all of the photos she's ever taken of Juliette and her permanent collar which she has cut off. She tells Grayson she's leaving him, and that as long as he never contacts her again, these are the only copies of the photos of Juliette she'll ever print. The heavy insinuation being that she would report what he'd done to Juliette.

She's haunted for many, many years about the rest of the ladies in the Menagerie, but is unable to stay because she can never see Grayson the same again.

It depends on who you ask and how old he is. He gets progressively worse as he ages and loses more people. I typically focus on him in his 30s and 40s, and at that big old age spectrum, I would say... If our range is 1 is an angel and 10 is the devil incarnate, I would put him at about a 6-8, depending on age.

The depth of his awfulness increases, and the worst action he takes at 28 is not as bad as the worst action he takes when he's 48. He ages like fine wine, if the wine enjoys ignoring people's boundaries, manipulating, gaslighting, and abusing people.

But, if you asked his wife, Alice would say he's a 3 or 4. The other members of the Menagerie would have different answers as well. Mia would say he's a 10, and that's why she ends up leaving. Dove would say he's a 6 or 7, but she's horny about it. Elsie would say he's a 1 or 2 because she adores him. Juliette would say he's a 3 or 8, depending on whether a certain horrific incident has happened yet.

(Ooooh, boy. Okay. Warning for grooming, adult/, domestic violence, torture, noncon drug use, and starvation.)

This one has sat in my inbox for a while because it's just... a doozy to answer. Sorry for the wait, but finally here it is.

Ridley met Grayson when he was only 16. He was working at a bar managed by a man named Jack Wolfe. He was living with Jack after running away from Alec, the man who groomed him. He was a busboy, a food runner, and he would play the piano and sing for the patrons.

Grayson started coming to the bar and conversing with Ridley pretty often. They were quite friendly when Jack died. Ridley was 17 by this point, and he had nowhere to go. Jack's sister, who was taking care of all of his things, his apartment, and his funeral, told Ridley that she wished she could take him in, but didn't have room for him. He was talking to Grayson about this at the bar one night, and Grayson offered to let Ridley live with him.

After moving in with Grayson, he was eventually coerced into signing a 24/7 BDSM contract with Grayson. He forced Ridley to disclose his childhood trauma, and the trauma of what Alec did to him in "therapy sessions." He gave Ridley a plethora of prescription drugs, taking him off of them and putting him back on in a manner that would never, ever actually help anyone, and he was only doing so to make Ridley's condition worse. He also regularly dosed Ridley with ketamine and forced him to drink large amounts of alcohol to get him blackout drunk. This was all on top of regularly beating and raping Ridley, often dragging him upstairs to his playroom that was filled with kink/sex furniture and a plethora of impact tools that he used on Ridley relentlessly.

What started out as an inappropriate relationship that Grayson indulged in turned into Ridley's worst nightmare. I often say that Grayson treated him like a sex slave, and I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that. He was expected to do all the household chores, cook Grayson's meals, and was expected to be sexually available for Grayson whenever he demanded it.

He often used the contract as a way to control Ridley, who didn't understand that it was not legally enforceable for many reasons, but it played off of Ridley's fear that his father would find him and learn that not only was he not straight, but that he had signed a kink contract with a man.

Ridley eventually attempted to run away from Grayson, but couldn't leave without Jack's guitar, which had been put in a hall closet and hadn't been touched in a long while, as Grayson had disallowed it. It was the only thing he had left of Jack's, and he couldn't leave it. In attempting to get it out of the hall closet, Ridley knocked some things over, and there was some loud crashing. He tried to get out of the house before Grayson caught him, but he only managed to get to the front door before Grayson caught him. He was beaten very badly for this attempt, and Grayson then chained Ridley to his bed and kept him there, without food for a significant period of time yet to be decided.

Alice, Grayson's wife, who I haven't mentioned up to this point, but has also been involved in Ridley's torture at various points, discovers Ridley like that one day while Grayson is at work. She unchains Ridley and takes him (and Jack's guitar, he demands it) to her apartment. Whilst there, she gets a call from Grayson, who's screaming and demanding she come to the house. She says she's on her way, hangs up the phone, and tells Ridley she'll be back, but she never returns. Grayson, however, shows up that evening. Ridley hides under one of the beds in the apartment as Grayson trashes it, screaming and looking for Ridley.

That's the last time he sees Grayson, as he leaves Alice's apartment soon after. Whether or not his fear of Grayson coming after him is grounded in reality, all Ridley knows is that Grayson destroyed Alice's apartment looking for him and most likely killed Alice since she didn't return. He prioritizes getting out of that situation and to somewhere safer.

(Warning for detailed discussions of eating disorders, ED recovery, calorie counting, and patient/therapist relationship)

It was a lot of things, honestly.

It was a long journey for Elsie to be able to heal her relationship with food and not force herself to calorie count. There were lots of things that went into her healing. Grayson had her mother come to sessions a few times so they could discuss boundaries around food and how she should and shouldn't treat Elsie. He used this as a way to drive a wedge between her and her mother, which would help him later.

He also had Elsie start practicing cooking skills, with the intention of having her connect with her food in a non-numerical way. Her mother had cooked all of her meals previously, and getting Elsie into the kitchen and being more hands-on with her food helped her think more about the flavor than the numbers. When she found she really loved cooking, he also encouraged her to try baking, which can be more difficult than cooking in some ways. It honestly helped her shift her focus from calories to the science of baking.

He also tied the consumption of food with pleasure. He would have her eat something whilst masturbation, occasionally while on the phone with him. He started having snacks in his office during session for her, often encouraging her to eat in front of him, for him.

The weight gain was incidental at first. She was finally consuming a proper amount of calories for the first time since her father died, and Grayson worked really hard with her to find worth in things other than the number on the scale and the size of the clothes that she wore. None of this was easy, don't get me wrong. I hope listing all of these things like this doesn't make it sound like it was easy for Elsie.

The road to recovery was difficult, and honestly, the fact that Grayson was grooming her on top of trying to help her recover from an eating disorder meant that she struggled in moments she wouldn't have otherwise. She was also seeing a nutritionist, and she and her mother went and saw a family therapist for a while. Having to keep secrets from these people was incredibly difficult for her, as Elsie is famously really bad at keeping secrets and lying, and this caused her to stumble more than once in her journey to recovery.

Even as a full-grown adult, Elsie will still occasionally struggle, especially during times of stress. She can't help but start looking at the details on the back of packages of food, and she has to work hard to keep herself from spiraling into calorie counting again. Something that helps her is baking something delicious for someone she loves. Genuinely, one of the best ways for Elsie to get out of the numbers spiral is to make a sweet treat for someone she cares about and watch how it brightens up their day. It helps her remember that food is not the enemy.