One Life to Lose

by Kris Ripper

  “Messed up in what sense?”

  Josh leaned against the counter. “It’s a mental game. He knows I’d never restrain him and leave him. Never. But he was a dick all day, which means right now he’s feeling guilty and ashamed and a little like I’m punishing him, even though I’m not. We don’t do that kind of thing.”

  “So what are you doing?”

  “Taking away his control, his agency. Because every instinct he has is telling him the only way he’ll survive this week is if he controls everything, if he grasps for every scrap of decision and bites off all ambiguity. And Keith’s not built for acting like a jerk; he feels so bad, so fast. He doesn’t even enjoy it.”

  I nodded. “So giving that up to you helps.”

  “Giving it up? Ha. I had to fight him so hard tonight, man.” Another glance at his watch. “But it’ll be worth it when he realizes you’re here. And I guess it helps, as a sort of one-to-one ratio of needing control and handing it over. But it’s more, I don’t know, personal than that. When we got together, he never let himself act out, for anything. He never bit my head off, he never snapped at anyone. He held it all inside. So now he lets it out more, and this is another way of doing that. Of choosing to externalize anxiety differently than spending eight hours poring over the books and griping at me for misfiling things.”

  “Even if the choices are all yours, not his?”

  “Hell, Cam, all the choices are Keith’s. Always. Yeah, it looks like I’m doing to him, but I’m just his instrument. And anyway, that’s not what we’re doing tonight. Tonight’s all about sensation and surprise.”

  “So no paddles?”

  “Fuck that. Paddles, whips, clothespins, ice cubes, whatever we want. But it’s not about endurance.” He paused. “When it’s about enduring, he goes to a place in his head that digs in and locks down. He knows he can get through it. Maybe it’s really hard, but he knows all he has to do is wait it out. Tonight’s a whole different game, so we’ll get to him a different way. And it’s time. Christ. That was exactly twenty minutes and it felt like a fucking hour. He must be losing his mind.”

  “What are we doing?” I felt suddenly nervous. First-date nervous, as if I might trip over my feet or spill my coffee.

  “Sensation.” He wiggled his fingers at me. “We might not need anything else at all. Come on. It’s a really awful feeling, not knowing when someone’s coming back for you.”

  “Then why make him feel that?”

  “Because tonight he needed it. He needed to find a way to surrender to it before we even started, and it had to come from him, not me. Come on.”

  I followed him back to the bedroom, where Keith twitched a little, though it wasn’t cold. Josh turned to me, made a gesture I didn’t understand. After a moment I offered my hands and he smiled, rolling up one of my cuffs, then the other.

  It was a shockingly intimate thing, Josh’s fingers brushing over the sensitive skin of my forearms, the insides of my elbows.

  He’d said we could speak, but I found myself only mouthing Thank you. He nodded and motioned me over to the opposite side of the bed.

  I didn’t think we’d made any sounds, but perhaps Keith could feel us moving around. He tugged against the restraints, first each hand, then each foot.

  Chest rising and falling, licking his lips—Keith looked more frightened than I was prepared to see, and neither Josh nor I moved until he whispered, “Josh?”

  Josh pressed two fingers to Keith’s lips, and he subsided back into a more relaxed position.

  “Sorry. Knew it was you, but started to freak out anyway.”

  Josh’s fingers traced his upper lip, then his lower lip.

  “I love you too,” Keith murmured.

  The moment felt far too private to witness, so I stood there, frozen, hoping no one noticed me.

  Josh slid his fingers into Keith’s mouth and Keith sucked them.

  Arousal twisted into my guts, spiraling down to my cock, my balls, tying me into a knot of need and desire. No matter how I tried to tell myself to back off, I couldn’t. Josh’s fingers, dark and brown against the pink of Keith’s lips, didn’t stay in one place; he plunged them in and pulled them out, a clear parody of sex, but there was nothing tawdry about it, nothing even dominant. Keith sucked harder, lifting his head until Josh pressed him back down again.

  This time the play was more bald: Josh, holding him down, fucking his mouth with two fingers. Keith, sucking hungrily, almost whimpering.

  “Good boy,” Josh said softly, though Keith couldn’t hear him. The hand holding Keith’s head down caressed him, fingers sliding into his hair. “So good.” He glanced up at me. “Your turn. Do something very light.”

  “I should—” Touch him? But yes, obviously.

  “It’s gonna startle the hell out of him. We’ve never done this before, so I might pull off his headphones to tell him it’s you, but I’d rather not, if I can keep him safe without doing that.”

  Safety, yes. I leaned over, staring down into Keith’s blindfolded face. He’d be able to feel both of Josh’s hands; he’d know immediately that something was off when he felt mine.

  I knew what to do. What I’d want if I were in his place, full of question marks. I cupped his cheek lightly with my palm, letting my fingertips rest just in front of his ear.

  He thrashed and I stepped back. Josh muttered “damn it” and reconfigured, framing Keith’s face with his hands and kissing him deeply.

  Keith calmed immediately, breathing fast. “I’m okay. I’m okay. Sorry. That’s gotta be Cam. I can’t believe you fucking—”

  Josh kissed him again.

  “Yeah. Yeah, sorry.”

  “We tried with a gag once,” Josh said, still keeping his voice low. “But I couldn’t take it. I needed him able to talk.” He offered a rueful smile. “He trusts me so much. I take a lot of strength from that. But I still worry.”

  “I’m sure that makes you a good fit for this.”

  “Yeah.” His thumbs brushed over Keith’s lips, then traced the bottom line of the blindfold. “Come over here, Cam.”

  I moved in again, heart having settled down a bit since Keith’s short-lived attempt to escape.

  “Will you kiss him? I think it would make him feel better to know for sure it’s you.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Except: “Yes, of course.” I leaned low, touching his cheek, kissing him—lightly, chastely, briefly—on the lips.

  Keith sighed. “Hey, Cam.”

  Since that seemed to want a response, I kissed him again, and stood back up.

  “Good,” Josh said. “Now we get to play. But look at him. You saw all the tension when we walked in, right? The way his muscles were so rigid he was practically shaking?” Josh dragged one finger down the palest, softest part of Keith’s arm, making him tug against the buckles holding him down. “Now he wants this more than he wanted to fight it.”

  I mirrored what he did on the other arm, and I could hardly keep my voice even enough to speak when Keith’s body responded. I’d managed not to look too closely, but now his arousal was obvious. “I thought fighting was part of the point. Or why do you need these?” I indicated the restraints.

  “No, those are for Keith. And it’s different for everyone. Some people have to fight all the way through. If he was gonna tie me down, I’d be that guy, the one who’d basically have to be beaten into shape. But he and I don’t take our clothes off until he’s way past that kind of fighting.” He bent over and breathed across Keith’s cock, which bobbed in response.

  “Ahhh.” Josh did it again and Keith’s hands fisted.

  “Poor Keith.” I certainly wasn’t going to mimic that, so instead I traced a line over Keith’s clavicle, then followed his sternum down to the center of his body.

  “Good. That’s perfect, Cam. That’s exactly what he needs.”

  Feeling especially daring, I circled a nipple, then the other, then abandoned both of them to return to his arm. This time I gave him a rou
gh, slightly awkward hand massage, and it only belatedly occurred to me that I was projecting my attention on his hand to prevent it going elsewhere.

  Josh took up the same thing on the other side and again, Keith sighed, relaxing into the bed.

  “Let’s do his feet next,” Josh said.

  I agreed.

  We didn’t use ice cubes, or whips, or anything else. We used our hands, mostly, though I hadn’t been aware how many different sensations you could make with only your hands, but Josh’s creativity was boundless. He’d use his knuckles on Keith’s toes, or his nipples, or his lips. He’d pinch and twist with abandon, until Keith’s thighs and belly were marked in red. He slapped and smacked, the sounds making me jump even when I expected them.

  I tried to follow along, to experiment, to be brave, like they were. It wasn’t easy to admit to myself that slapping Keith’s bound thighs turned me on, or that I liked the way his cock dripped as I did it. I found I could try new things, despite how closely Josh watched me. Or perhaps because Josh watched closely. My first attempts at slapping Keith’s taut belly were embarrassing. Josh showed me how to commit to it without my hand bouncing back, how to control each strike so it landed where I wanted, with the impact I wanted it to have.

  We tickled here and there, infrequently; Josh might hold Keith’s foot back so it was bared to him, then lightly play his fingertips across it until Keith writhed and begged him to stop. I realized I could elicit begging from any sensation over his ribs, and I found myself wanting to keep doing it, using my fingernails, my knuckles. Josh, grinning, went to his side of Keith’s body and used the stubble on his chin, brushing it over Keith’s ribs, only stopping when his painful forced laughter became howls.

  I almost didn’t repeat the trick. I didn’t have the thick, coarse stubble Josh sported at the end of the day. The most I could do was a little bit of fuzz. Still, I balanced myself and bent over, kneeling at his side, and brushed my cheek over his torso.

  His cock was right there. Still drooling a little pool onto his belly. When he thrashed again, because even my fuzz was enough to make him arch off the bed, his erection bobbed.

  I wanted it in my hand, in my mouth. I wanted Keith’s pleasure, after everything we’d put him through.

  My cheeks were scalding when I straightened up again, and I couldn’t look over at Josh, whose eyes I could feel on me.

  “I am completely and totally sure that anything you’d do, he’d want. But we’re not going to do it until we talk about it first. Sorry, Cam. Sometimes it feels like all we do is tease you.”

  “You don’t. And I agree. I only . . . got distracted, for a moment.”

  “I can offer you more distraction. He’s desperate for you to watch, you know. Hey.”

  I took a deep breath and looked up.

  “Want to watch me torture an orgasm out of him? It’s pretty hot.”

  “He’s okay with that?”

  “Oh my god, Cam. It’s like the number one fantasy of his since we met you. That’s . . . probably not something I needed to share. Damn. Forget I said that. But yeah, explicitly.” He raised his eyebrows. “What do you think?”

  “Yes. God, yes.”

  “You can keep doing whatever you want. If you want.”

  I didn’t. I stood beside their bed with my mouth hanging half-open, breathing heavily, while Josh expertly deployed first fingernails (scratching along the bright pink crown of Keith’s cock), then more pinching, more twisting, more—yes—torture, squeezing his balls until they were shiny, then flicking them. Making Keith cry out and grunt and hiss and beg.

  When Josh finally sucked Keith inside, I sighed in relief. He still controlled it, pinning Keith’s hips down, not allowing him enough movement to dictate speed or rhythm or anything else. He gagged, and Keith cried out again, arms pulling hard at the buckles around his wrists. Josh forced himself down and gagged again, and Keith came, one long moan punctuated by gasps.

  Josh looked as smug as I’d ever seen him when he pulled up, resting his face against Keith’s belly. “Yeah. That was good. You can hit the buckles if you want, Cam. I’m gonna take a breather for a minute here.”

  The buckles. Right. I could let him loose. For some reason my mind resisted the idea. I’d never lost sight that it was Keith I touched, Keith’s breathy sounds I sought with my fingers, but letting him up, actually speaking to him now, seemed harder than it should have been.

  Part of me wanted to beg off, walk out, not be available to Keith for whatever he needed now that he’d given up so much. I knew it was wrong, but for a second I thought about leaving as if that were more real than staying.

  Of course, I didn’t. And I’m not sure Josh would have let me go easily, even if I’d dared bring it up.

  I made my fingers work the restraints, first a wrist, then both ankles, then the other wrist. When he remained still, I lifted the headphones off. One more thing after that.

  Keith raised his head so I could loosen the blindfold. Then his dark-blue eyes were blinking into mine, a little watery, and he pulled me down for a kiss.

  This one was less chaste, but certainly not intrusive.

  “Hi, Cam.” His voice was a little hoarse. “You okay?”

  I swallowed, feeling far more exposed than he looked, naked and spent with his boyfriend still lying on him, watching both of us. “Yes. I didn’t expect— I wasn’t sure what to expect, but that wasn’t it.”

  “But you’re okay?”

  “Aftercare,” Josh said. “Keith’s checking in with you, Cam.”

  He’d explained aftercare as a concept that I thought only applied to Keith. For a moment I was unable to fully put my feelings into words, but Keith’s clear gaze made me brave.

  “I’m okay. You were amazing.” I glanced at Josh. “You were amazing too. I admire you both.”

  “Ha. You’re terrible.” Before I could react, Keith was pulling me toward him, and Josh was hauling himself up, and then all three of us were somehow lying in the bed, Keith’s arms connecting us. “That was really good for me. Thanks, guys. Even though it was a totally underhanded thing, surprising me like that.”

  “Underhanded my ass. You knew something was up all night.”

  “I did! I so did. And you were such a tool about it, pretending I was making it all up.”

  They seemed perfectly comfortable with the arrangement, but I felt like I might disrupt something if I took too deep a breath, so I tried not to move. Which lasted for the twenty seconds it took before they caught on.

  “Cam’s wigging again,” Keith said.

  “I know. It’s all right. Give him a few minutes.”

  “I’m not wigging,” I protested. “I’m . . . not used to lying in bed like this. With two other men. While I have all my clothes on.”

  Keith gasped dramatically. “I think Cam’s saying he’s totally naked with multiple guys all the time.”

  Josh laughed.

  Since pretending to be invisible was clearly not going to work, I sat up instead, facing them. I touched Keith’s arm. “Are you cold?”

  “A little.”

  I reached down and wrestled a blanket out of the pile of linens beside the head of the bed, then draped it as gently as I could over him. “I never knew any of this existed. Or I knew, but not as a real thing, as a thing that could be relevant to me.”

  “So it wasn’t too much for you?” Keith stroked my hand.

  “It really wasn’t. You can both stop asking me that now.”

  “We can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you haven’t seen it when we really get extreme. You’ve only seen little bits of it.”

  As much as I wanted to say Then show me, I also knew I owed them more than flippancy, or my greed to understand. I nodded. “When you want to show me more, you can. Tonight wasn’t too much, and if something is, I’ll tell you.”

  “You didn’t lose color?”

  “With you spread out naked and Josh showing me what to do? Ho
w could I?”

  Keith blushed. “My brain wanted to scare me about that, that you wouldn’t like me anymore.”

  “I— You were stunning. I could never not like you anymore.”

  “Yeah. I mean, I knew that, but you know. It’s not always that easy.”

  “I know.” My gaze slid past the alarm clock on the other (Josh’s?) side of the bed. “Ohh, is that time right? Is it really almost one?”

  “Damn.” Josh stretched. “We gotta be up soon, babe.”

  “Someday we’re taking the day off.”

  “Today was our day off.”

  “Okay, someday we’re taking two. Like in a row.”

  “Keep dreamin’.” Josh kissed Keith. “I’m gonna take a shower before bed.”

  “If I’m passed out before you get back, good night.”

  “Night.” When he leaned over Keith toward me, I suppose I knew this would not be a dry kiss on the cheek. But I wasn’t quite ready for how warm and right Josh’s lips felt, or how much I wanted to kiss him more. “I’m really glad you came over, Cam.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  “If you gotta go, you can. Just make sure you lock the knob. I’ll get the dead bolt after I’m out.”

  “Okay.”

  Another kiss, quicker and over faster. “You’re kind of a natural. By the way.”

  With that cryptic remark, he left the room.

  Keith sighed. “God. Tonight was amazing. We should do it again sometime. When I can see.”

  “I’m not sure I could have if you weren’t blindfolded,” I admitted. “That made it easier for me. I felt sort of ridiculous.”

  “Yeah, that should go away the more you practice. And you really should practice. On me. All the time.” He smiled, cheeky and sleepy at once. “Thanks, Cam.”