“So here’s the thing,” Xander says. “I made a big mistake with Adam. I thought he trusted me a lot more than he did. And I thought he was into it a lot more than he was. One night I told him about something I wanted to try, and he turned around and told me I was sick and damaged, and that he was dumping me.”
“Okay,” Ben says.
“Okay? That’s it? I’m telling you my ex accused me of domestic violence, and all you do is shrug?”
“Well – I’m sorry you went out with a jerk?”
Xander looks slightly frustrated.
“What do you want me to say?” Ben asks. “The guy’s an idiot. You’re fierce about safe, sane and consensual play. And I love hearing about the stuff you want to try. I wish you would tell me more.”
“The thing is, I think – I think I hurt his soul,” Xander says, his eyes wide. From anyone else, that declaration would sound ludicrous, but Ben knows how much Xander can get in there, under the skin, the sinew, into the places of the human heart that are more than physical. “And I didn’t mean to. I think – maybe I broke him.”
Ben gets up and walks over to where Xander is sitting, pulls him into a hug against his stomach. He strokes his hair. “Why are we still talking about him?”
“I don’t want that to happen to us,” Xander says, sounding muffled. His lips move against Ben as he speaks, and Ben finds himself getting excited.
“You are not to blame for him being weird after the break up,” Ben says matter-of-factly. “Besides which, he left you.”
“Mm.” Xander sounds unconvinced.
“Did you ever do anything without his consent?”
“Of course not!” Xander pull back, looking horrified.
“And do you honestly think I’m going to end up like him?”
Xander thinks for a while and then says, “No. You’re too uncoordinated for surfing.” Ben laughs. It’s true.
“Anyway, I think you’re wrong,” Ben says. “I don’t think he’s broken, so much. I think he’s jealous of you.”
Xander looks up at him like he’s crazy, and Ben puts his fingers over his mouth.
“No, really. He wants to be like you. I could see it all over that stupid face of his. Okay,” he adds, seeing a familiar look in Xander’s eyes, “I won’t be mean. But I could see it all over his face. He wishes he was as secure as you are. He’s putting on a front to the world; you’re not. He’s frightened of himself. You try to own every part of yourself, even the bits you don’t like.”
Xander is silent for a moment, and then says, “Ballard, you are disturbingly insightful sometimes. I feel like my whole life perspective from the last few years has just shifted.”
“I know. I’m awesome. And I didn’t hit him, either. Now come to bed, because I deserve a reward for that.”
Ben pulls Xander up off the couch towards the bedroom, but stops in the doorway and shakes his head. “But seriously, Xan. That guy?”
Xander starts laughing. “Dear God, don’t ever call me that again,” he begs, and kisses Ben hard.
“Okay,” Ben says into his mouth. “As long as you throw me down on the bed now and be my guy.”
Xander doesn’t need to be asked twice.
Ben never says no these days to Xander. There’s no reason to say no. There’s always a been a tacit understanding between them about what’s Okay and what is going to cause Difficulties if, for example, Ben has to take his shirt off at the basketball courts, or he has to work a double shift at the coffee shop and needs to be well-rested. But Xander’s imagination is wicked and adventurous, and Ben knows he enjoys coming up with things to work around any obstacles.
Xander’s kinky inventiveness has the occasional unexpected outcome, like the time he attacks Ben with a sharpie and writes things all over him, like “Fuck Whore” across his lower back with an arrow down his butt crack, and “SLUT” on his forehead.
It’s supposed to be an illustration of dominance, writing demeaning phrases all over Ben’s body, but Xander can’t stop chortling long enough to do anything much except fuck him. And even that, Xander is doing without his usual talent.
“I’m sorry,” Xander says eventually, giggling. “It’s just – you look like you’ve slept on wet newspaper.”
“Wet pornographic newspaper. Can you shut up and get me off already?” Ben pants, jerking himself resignedly when Xander takes his hand off to wipe away tears of laughter. “Stop laughing and fuck me!”
Later, Ben comes out of the bathroom and gives Xander a bemused look. “Dude. It’s not coming off.”
“What?” Xander is still lying in bed, coming down off his orgasm high. “Yes it is.”
“Uh, no. It’s really not.”
Xander rolls up on his elbow and grins at him again. “You look fucking hilarious. Did you use –”
“Yeah, I tried that face stuff you gave me, and everything else in your bathroom, up to and including toothpaste.” Ben isn’t lying. He has a grainy white smear on his chest across “I can jizz up to here.” Xander makes a noise that sounds like snerk when he sees it. “I have that meeting tomorrow,” Ben says desperately.
Joe set it up for him, after Ben wrote a spec script for Joe’s show: a meeting with the higher-ups. Ben knows it’s more of a favor from Joe than anything else, and he suspects Xander did a lot of pleading about it too, but he can’t help having daydreams that he’ll wow the show runner and producer, and they’ll offer him a position on the writing team. Even if it is a lame family drama, it’s the biggest show on TV right now, and Ben could do with the money to help pay off his college loans.
“Huh,” Xander says. “I thought it would come off with soap.” And he’s trying not to snicker, and Ben is annoyed, but he starts chuckling too and they both end up gasping for air on the bed from laughing so hard.
They discover that Xander can lick off ‘SLUT’, and most of the “bite me” on Ben’s neck, so at least his face is clear. Somehow, sharpie marks are saliva-soluble where everything else has failed. But Xander ends up with a black tongue, even after brushing his teeth, and feels sick. Ben still looks like he hasn’t washed his face for days.
The rest of the words stubbornly stay put until Ben Googles it and finds a suggestion: hair spray.
“And God knows why you of all people don’t have hair spray in your bathroom cabinet,” he snipes at Xander.
“Ew.” Xander scrunches his face up. “It makes my hair crunchy.”
Xander buys some cheap hair spray and a new toothbrush from the 24-hour drugstore. He sprays Ben all over in the shower. The words run, but leave an inky puddle on the white tile.
They also find that excessive amounts of hair spray in an enclosed space is not a great idea.
“At least I got to hit my asphyxia kink,” Xander croaks later, when they’re trying to get to sleep. “Kind of.”
“Let’s not do that again,” Ben coughs.
“So what’s your ultimate fantasy?” Ben hazards one afternoon.
Xander nearly slices his finger off and curses, more than Ben thinks is really necessary. Xander has been preparing dinner for them: chopping, sizzling butter, and generally being insufferable about the proper way to caramelize onions, before Ben interrupted.
Xander washes the cut under the kitchen faucet while Ben gets tissues and a band-aid. “Sorry,” Ben says, once the bleeding has stopped.
“It’s cool,” Xander says, with an amused look on his face. “Kind of fitting, even.” He glances back to his work space.
Ben looks at him questioningly, and then at the blood on the chopping board, marinating the onions.
“Oh,” he says. “Ohhh.” He looks back at Xander, who is watching him closely but pretending not to. “Okay,” he shrugs casually.
“Maybe we can talk about it more later,” Xander suggests. “When I’m not trying to concentrate on food.”
“Sure,” Ben says. “Do you want me to take over and play sous chef?”
“You couldn’t ‘finely slice’ to s
ave your life,” Xander snorts. “You machete.”
“Oh, just move over. It'll be rustic.” Ben dumps the onions and rinses the board down. He watches Xander’s blood turn pink and then colorless as it swirls into the water and down the drain.
Xander has used a needle on him before, jabbing shallow pinpricks into his chest and watching the blood bloom.
Ben can feel Xander watching him, so he gives his best golden boy smile as he grabs another onion and says, “Pray continue, Chef. How exactly does one perfect caramelized onions?”
“Organic butter,” Xander says. "And consistent de-glazing." His voice is pleasant. Ben hopes Xander doesn’t see his hand shaking as he slices the onions. But Xander doesn’t say another word about his knife skills.
Later that evening, they collapse on the couch together, too full of French onion soup and gruyere and crusty bread. Ben wraps his arms and legs around Xander from behind and holds him so tight against his chest that he can feel Xander’s heart beat.
Xander protests, “Unhgh, my tummy,” but he doesn’t pull away.
After a while, Ben noses into Xander's hair, kisses the top of his head. “Can we talk more now?” he says. He wants to try before Xander starts falling asleep, which seems to be his usual reaction after too much food.
Xander yawns, on cue. “Okay.”
“So,” Ben says, because he’s not really sure how to start. “Blood, huh?”
Xander starts shaking on top of him, and Ben realizes he’s laughing. “What I like about you is the subtlety, Ballard,” he says.
“Oh, give me a break,” Ben mutters.
“Sorry,” Xander says, but he doesn’t sound contrite. “No, it’s not the blood.” He twists over, shuffling them both with determination so that they’re lying side by side and face to face. The couch is almost too small for both of them. “You have onion breath,” he tells Ben.
“So do you. Knives?”
“Not exactly.”
“So – what?”
“I’ve been living with this for a long time,” Xander says. “Mostly I understand myself. But there’s one thing I don’t really get.” He shifts, rubs his eye into the heel of his hand. “Look, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he says.
“You’re talking in circles,” Ben complains. He traces Xander’s eyebrow with a thumb to smooth it down. “Tell me.”
Xander’s not looking at him; he’s looking carefully over Ben’s shoulder instead. He’s not ashamed, not exactly, but he’s wary.
“Trust me. I’m not going to react like Adam,” Ben assures him. He hates even saying that name.
“Do you really enjoy it?” Xander asks quietly.
Does he enjoy it, Ben wonders. No, because enjoyment is not a word that fully covers the experiences he’s had with Xander. He's thought before that there’s a strange beauty in it, a kind of poetry he never knew about before. It's something far beyond enjoyment. But he doesn’t want to freak Xander out, so he just says, “Absolutely, yes.” A thought strikes him. “Do you?” he asks tentatively.
Xander releases a big rush of air, as though he’s been holding his breath. “Absolutely, yes,” he echoes.
“Even though…”
“Even though.” Even though I hold back, Xander’s eyes say.
“Then I want to find out more. About what you like.” Ben feels his heart hammering in his chest, and is surprised to find he’s terrified. It’s almost like falling in love. “So, ultimate fantasy? What did you want to do with Adam?”
Xander’s mouth twists.
“Honesty Policy,” Ben says sternly.
Xander rolls his eyes. “My ultimate fantasy would probably get me the electric chair,” he says, and Ben isn’t sure if that was hyperbole. He’s going to assume yes. “And that’s not what I wanted to do with Adam, anyway. But even so…maybe he was right, maybe what I wanted was going too far.” He pulls off Ben, struggling to sit up. Ben helps him and then they sit side by side, Xander looking at the wall and Ben looking at Xander.
Ben reaches out and places his hand over Xander’s on the couch. The band-aid on Xander’s finger scratches against his palm.
“In the kink community, they’d call it edgeplay, and I guess it is. But for me, it’s not about blood,” Xander says, staring fixedly at the floor now. “It’s about fear. I like seeing how people react when they’re afraid. I like being in control while the other person is terrified. I mean, really scared for their – safety.” He looks at Ben, finally. “Maybe if it had just been blood, he wouldn’t have minded so much. Cuts heal, after all. But I wanted to see his terror. He knew what I meant.”
Ben takes a deep breath. There’s a small voice in the back of his mind saying, No, that's too much. But he clamps down on it. He doesn’t understand it, but this is Xander. He trusts Xander, and Xander is trusting him.
“You’ve seen me scared before,” he says.
“Not really. I’ve seen you in pain and I’ve seen you beg. I’ve seen you not looking forward to something and I’ve seen you be very, very brave. I’ve seen you safe word. But I’ve never seen you actually afraid – afraid of me.”
Ben swallows. “Honestly, man, I don’t know if I could ever really be scared of you.” He’s not lying, even though he’s currently frightened. But he’s afraid of himself, afraid of saying something wrong, not afraid of Xander.
“Yeah, because I’m just a big pussycat underneath,” Xander says sardonically. He smiles at Ben, though. “It’s okay,” he says. “You can think I’m sick if you like. I don’t really understand it myself.”
“I don’t think you’re sick,” Ben says slowly. “I don’t know if I could do something like that with you, but I don’t think you’re sick.” He squeezes Xander’s hand. He doesn’t know if he’s telling the whole truth, but he wants it to be true.
“Maybe you finally found a hard limit,” Xander says. “Congratulations?”
“Champagne?” Ben suggests.
Xander smiles back at him. “Who are you kidding, Ballard? Champagne is wasted on your taste buds.”
“I am shocked and hurt,” Ben says, putting on his best shocked-and-hurt look. “You’re the one who savored the chemical tang of sharpies.”
Xander’s eyes light up. “Speaking of which, I found one which is guaranteed to come off with soap, so maybe we could –”
Ben groans loudly, claps his hands over his face, remembering. “I don’t think I could handle you laughing your way through sex again. It was demoralizing.”
Ben considers things over the next few days. Xander’s away in New York for the week, so he has time.
He thinks about the evolution of this strange thing he and Xander have started together. He thinks about the hole in the wall in Xander’s room (still not fixed). He thinks about Xander telling him not to be mean, and to use his vocabulary to express anger or pain.
He thinks about how weird it is to be in a relationship with a guy, even though it feels so right with Xander. He’s told his family now. He talked to his sister Katy first, blurring up the dates and timeline a little so she won’t be too mad it took him so long. She gave him an appraising look for a while, and then told him that he must be a better actor than Xander, to have carried off being so straight for so long. Ben was relieved, thankful, although he bickered with her like always. Because if she wasn’t giving him shit over it, things wouldn’t be okay.
His parents, coached by his sister before he spoke to them personally, were awkwardly calm about it all. His mother, smiling more brightly than usual, invited Xander over to a Sunday lunch, but Ben is holding off on that for a while. He knows his parents have always admired Xander, and were happy they turned out to be such good friends. But liking Xander and accepting him as Ben’s boyfriend right there in the dining room are two different things.
And he’s definitely not telling his family about all the other stuff. No matter how risk-aware and safe he and Xander play it, no matter how everyday-normal it might seem to Ben now
, he has to remember that the games he and Xander play aren’t for everyone. For some people it would seem like straight-up abuse, even though Xander is scrupulous about discussion and consent.
Ben has few people that he can talk to about that other stuff, and even then it’s vague and done with a veneer of humor, because he doesn’t want them thinking badly of Xander, or of him. Mariah will listen for a while before it becomes too much, and Dorian, but he doesn’t see Dorian in the flesh very often, although Dorian’s face has started appearing around the city on billboards and in department stores.
Besides, Ben want to keep most of it to himself. He feels like he’s sailing blindly, his compass broken and no stars to guide him – but it’s not a bad thing. It’s exhilarating. He feels almost lost while Xander’s away, although he berates himself for being so clingy. Ben has never really been possessive before of his lovers, and he’s uncomfortable with the sensation.
He thinks about knives, about fear. About how he can barely take ten strokes with the cane.
But what Ben thinks about most over the next few days is trust, and whether it’s enough. Because Xander is not a God, and something could go wrong. He’s not infallible, no matter how much Ben wants him to be.
And he thinks too often of Adam, of what he said about Xander. Don’t start thinking there’s anything special there just because he kisses it all better when he’s finished.
Xander flies back from New York, and Ben picks him up from the airport. “You’re not too tired, are you?” is the first thing Ben asks anxiously after they kiss hello.
“I missed you too,” Xander says. “And yes, I had a good time. Thanks for asking. Too tired for what? Sex?”
“I want to buy you a present.”
“A present that requires me to be awake and alert?” Xander's hair is lank underneath his hat, which is a sure sign that he’s been working too hard. And he’s kind of grumpy.
“I wanted to do it now,” Ben says, taking his bag. “On the way back to your place.”
Xander rubs his face. “Okay,” he says. “But I need coffee.”
Dared by Him (Rough Love Book 3) Page 4