Filthy

by Katherine Rhodes

  “Stop and listen to me, little bird. Whatever is going on—and I think Lincoln is pretty close to it—is not in the realm of what we all believe normal is. This is bigger than we know. I know whose bed you sleep in each night, and if I have to share that with a few others to balance the universe, well…I guess that’s not so bad. Especially since I see the way Lincoln treats you, and the way he helps me protect and support you. Bastian, as far as I can tell, is a good man. He’s been through Hell—figuratively, I think—and if he needs you and Lincoln to keep going, then so be it.”

  I let out a slow breath. “My first and always.”

  “Sweet little bird,” he answered.

  “Nothing happens here. No matter how much it kills me to not touch,” I said.

  His voice was quiet. “Wren, I’m getting super filthy pictures in my head right now.”

  Groaning, I put a hand to my head. “Fuck you, Fischer, why did you say that.”

  He chuckled. “I love you, little bird.”

  “I love you too, Fischer. We’ll be home as soon as we can.”

  The connection cut and I handed the phone back to Lincoln. He was quiet a moment and then looked at me.

  “He was thinking about four of us in bed, wasn’t he?”

  I grimaced.

  “Yeah,” Lincoln murmured and shifted his pants uncomfortably. “Me, too.”

  Lincoln

  Watching this nawashi, Bill, unbinding Bastian from the rigging was one of the most erotic things I’d ever witnessed.

  Wren and I sat in lotus pose in front of the rig while Bill had been reading something quietly in his chair. He finally set the book down after glancing at the clock.

  He moved from his chair to the floor in front of the rig. He knelt in a reverent pose and held it for a good five minutes. He finally reached up and put a hand on Bastian’s skin where it was bare on his chest.

  Bastian’s eyes flickered open, serene and calm.

  “Master,” he whispered.

  “Release time,” Bill said.

  “Thank you, sir,” he whispered, and he closed his eyes again.

  Bill stood and chose the right side. His fingers danced over the simple knot there, and unlashed it.

  “That is the only real knot in the whole rigging,” Wren whispered. “The rest are all twists, twines, and fold overs.”

  “Just the one?”

  “It’s rope art. Shibari, the art of binding. There are buildings in Japan that have been held together with ropes like this. Just one knot.”

  The knot disappeared and Bill’s hands traced the ropes back and back again, unbinding, unwinding them. As he did, he carefully spun the rope into coils, straightening it, looping it, and then finally winding the tail end of a length around itself and placing it on a hook on the wall.

  Every time the rope directed him to the other side of the rigging, he would pass a hand over a piece of Bastian’s skin, teasing him, making him aware of his presence. As more and more rope was untied, Bastian’s eyes opened more often, then opened and stayed open longer.

  It was as if his consciousness was bound by the rope and by loosening it, he came back to awareness.

  “Meditative binding,” Wren whispered.

  “Are you fucking reading my mind?”

  “Your body language, Linc. I’m a doctor of social work. That means I can read people, really well. And since I know you, intimately, I barely have to look to know what you’re thinking.”

  “Show off.”

  Bastian was more awake now, but there was no question that he remained relaxed as Bill’s hands slowly passed over him more and more. The ropes were coming closer and closer and Bastian would have to stand soon.

  “Master,” he breathed.

  “You have visitors, pet,” he answered.

  “Who, sir?”

  “Wren and Lincoln,” he answered.

  He chuckled softly. “I figured Lincoln for a kinkster.”

  Bill laughed, passing a soft hand over Bastian’s face and smiling. “It’s Wren who’s the kinky one.” He smiled at us, and I saw Wren nod. “She was submissive for a while, and then a Domme.”

  A long, slow breath escaped, with just the tiniest hint of a moan following.

  Bill threw us another look, and Wren nodded again.

  “Why were you hoping it was Lincoln?”

  “Fucking sexy.” A ghost of a smile passed over his lips.

  “But you were turned on by the idea of Wren domming you,” Bill said.

  Oh, this was going to be interesting. Wren had given him permission to grill him while he was still just half awake.

  “Fucking sexy,” Bastian said again.

  “So, you like women…”

  There was an ascenting hmm from him.

  “And you like men…”

  “I like everything,” he whispered.

  “So, you’re pan…”

  Another ascenting hmm escaped him. But the smile slipped off his face. “Anything for Vicky, though. Whatever she wanted.”

  “What did she want?” Wren whispered.

  “Just me.”

  Hell. He’d loved that woman enough to never stray into his pansexuality. No wonder he was having so much trouble recovering. Victoria had been his life, his North Star. Now, he didn’t have that.

  I looked at Wren and realized I would be as broken and lost as he was if she was gone from my life. Especially if she was taken as violently as Victoria was.

  “Kid gloves,” I whispered.

  She didn’t look at me, but grabbed my hand and nodded. We sat quietly watching as Bill got closer and closer to having Bastian completely unbound from the frame. He motioned the two of us over and put one of us on either side of him as the last secure rope was unwound. Wren and I put Bastian on his feet as he let out a hiss of pain.

  “He hasn’t stood for six hours. Just hold on until he gets his feeling back.” Bill walked around the three of us and finished his disassembly of the rig.

  At the same time, Wren and I saw that he was bound up separately from the rigging. He was still trussed up, the ropes still not completely off.

  But he was aware.

  “What…” His eyes shot between the two of us. “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you, Bastian,” Wren said.

  “You disappeared, man,” I added. “No one knew where you were.”

  “Reid knew.”

  “We didn’t know Reid. Not until today.”

  “We don’t have time to discuss you disappearing, Doctor,” Wren said. “We need your help.”

  He glanced down and looked back up. “Uh…”

  “We’ll wait. We’ve been here all this time, another few minutes is fine.”

  “Yeah, no. You’re going to have to step outside. This is the part where…” He sucked in a breath and steadied himself. “You need to wait outside.”

  Wren caught my eye as she moved close to him, and whispered in his ear, “This is the part where your cock gets as hard as steel and your nawashi enjoys taking care of you just before you’re completely free from the ropes. Because it’s that little bit of danger before freedom that gets you hard. And because you know that in here, in this club, nothing is verboten as long as it’s safe and consensual.”

  Jesus, she had my dick hard with those words.

  “You’ve had your compass star ripped away from you, Bastian. You had your heart shattered with the slip of a knife. You’ve had your trust betrayed. You are lost and flagging and confused, and these ropes…” Wren trailed her finger along the edge of one of the solid bindings, touching his skin. “These ropes have helped you hold you together while you find yourself in a starless night.”

  Bastian shivered from head to toe.

  I was right there with him.

  “We need you, Bastian. Not just to help save the kids. We need you. Me, Lincoln, Fischer. We all need you with us.”

  “I’m still broken,” he breathed.

  “Let us fix you,”
I whispered.

  His eyes grabbed mine and his stare was both delighted and petrified. “Us?”

  “Us,” Wren said, her word sibilant. “We’re going to stay, Bastian. While your master unties you, we are going to watch, and we’re going to take you with us. We can save a lot of children with what you have in your head.”

  “I can’t…”

  “You can. I know you can. You know he’s dangerous, a liar, and pedophile. Let us take you home. Let us help you. Help us save them.”

  Sebastian

  My mind was quiet.

  It was the first time in long weeks it had finally shut up. Bill’s hands and ropes were everything my brain and body needed to just be quiet, still. It was a relief.

  I lost all track of time, all track of me, just floating in the pleasant ether of perfect subspace.

  Exploring my sexuality in just the past week had been shocking. I was basically a no-limits soldier with a sex drive that could beat out Dale Earnhardt at Daytona. There was a lot of guilt, at first, that I was doing this so soon after my wife’s death, but after my mind settled earlier in the week, I could almost hear Vicky.

  Then, last night as Bill rigged me up, I could hear her. I was pretty sure it was a hallucination, but it had been shockingly vivid as she had run her fingers through my hair. I had adored when she did that.

  …“Did you think that I would be upset at you, Bas?”

  Her fingers were calm, soothing. My hair was shaggy.

  “I don’t know what to think, Vic.”

  She hummed softly, her fingers on my scalp. “I love that your hair is longer. I know you kept it short to look professional, but the long hair rock star was always your look.”

  “You never said—”

  “There were lots of things I never said, Bas. You had a hard enough time keeping your sexuality in check, and I didn’t want to add to it.”

  “You knew?”

  “I’ve been with you since we were nineteen. I would’ve been a fool if I hadn’t seen you ogling the boys. And the enbies, and the trans, and the queers, and fluids…” She smiled. “You studied sex and sexuality, love. I knew what was what.”

  I rolled my head in her lap and stared up at her big brown eyes. “I love you.”

  “I know you do, and I love you. I am sorry that I couldn’t be more for you, but…”

  “You were everything for me, Victoria.”

  She leaned down and kissed my forehead. “Sexually, my love. I never needed or wanted more than we were in the bedroom. In some ways, I felt as if I held you back.”

  “Never.” I grabbed her hand. “You grounded me.”

  She grinned and ran her fingers through my hair again. “God, I’m going to miss you until I can see you again. I was so lucky to have you. But you’re not mine to keep, Bastian. You were mine to set my soul on fire, and to teach yours how to bank that fire. Your destiny is so much bigger.”

  “Victoria—”

  “Ssh and listen, love. I love you and I always will. But who you are, what you are meant for, is bigger than my heart could handle. The children and I are safe, cared for. You will see us again someday. But you must be ready for the battle that is coming to you. And to do that, you must be who you are.”

  “And who am I?” I asked, softly.

  “Min. You are filthy and sweet and caring and loving. You are the embodiment of sex. You are sex. You are lust.” She leaned in close to my ear. “You have a place in the universe that is not next to me, but under the guidance of another. You are Lust, and you need to be tempered. I could only hold you back so long, and now you must uncover the reason you exist.”

  I shook my head. “That doesn’t make sense, Vicky. I am yours and—”

  “It will make sense, my love. Trust me. More, trust yourself. Let go, let your nature guide you, fill you, show you what you can do.” She smiled sweetly and twisted her fingers in my hair again. “I love you. I will always love you. And I will always be proud to have been your wife.”

  “You were my life…”

  “And now, life has something new for you to do. Explore, Bastian. Open. Share. Be. Find your place.”…

  God, I loved her. I always would. But her words freed me in some way I didn’t understand. Everything I’d realized about myself since I was thirteen had piled up behind the simple, powerful love that Victoria asked of me.

  I’d given it freely, locking desires away. For her. For a life. For children. I would have left here and gone back to who I was once I screwed my head on straight.

  But that hallucination, vision, freed me in a way I didn’t know I needed. I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but her words had felt real. The permission, the directive, even the name, broke down the walls.

  As I came back out of the meditative state the ropes had put me in, and dropped into a hard arousal, I asked for something I had never ever asked for before.

  Bill was delighted to accommodate my request for a blow job. Not only was he delighted, he was skilled and eager. It was the first time I’d had a man’s lips on my dick and I liked it.

  No, I’d loved it.

  I’d kissed a few guys in high school and early in college. But I had never gone further. Victoria slid into my life and I was happy to have her.

  But now I had her permission to explore this. Explore who I was. Find out what being Min meant.

  I’d looked up the name after the vision. Being a doctor meant that I was endlessly curious anyway. Min was the Egyptian god of love, fertility, and lust. If you couldn’t get it up, you prayed to Min. If you couldn’t get pregnant, you prayed to Min. Horny? In love? Looking for a good time, big boy? Pray to Min.

  But my mind still needed some down time, and the ropes were almost a short cut to that head space. While my mind seemed okay with this whole thing, my heart was still looking for a reason to shut down. The next night I asked for Bill to rig me into the ropes again. I’d very easily fallen into the rules of the lifestyle, and I wanted to learn more.

  Bill had delightfully taken the initiative and given me another blow job. Everything he did was deliberate, and his lips were slow and purposeful in that. I’d fallen quickly into sub space after and floated, peaceful in that place.

  Coming up out of sub space, there were voices. Other people in the room aside from Bill. And they were people I didn’t expect at all.

  Two faces stared at me—Wren’s pretty, delicate nearly angelic face with her big hazel eyes flashing green in the light and long, fluttering lashes and Lincoln’s handsome, chocolate eyes with the flecks of amber, and his strong and stubbled jaw.

  I could barely make heads or tails of the conversation they were trying to hold with me. I tried to follow, but my mind was still circling the ideas that had been left in my brain before I’d been bound.

  “…I’m still broken,” I managed. It was going to be a long time before I wasn’t.

  “Let us fix you.” Lincoln’s voice was warm, smoky.

  My eyes found his and held his gaze, and the very idea of being helped, healed by them both delighted and petrified me. “Us?”

  “Us,” Wren said. It shot straight to my dick. Goddamn it, she was gorgeous. “We’re going to stay, Bastian. While your master unties you, we are going to watch, and we’re going to take you with us. We can save a lot of children with what you have in your head.”

  They were talking about Barry. They wanted me to reveal him. That was against my oath. “I can’t…”

  Wren held her hand on my cheek. “You can. I know you can. You know he’s dangerous, a liar, and pedophile. Let us take you home. Let us help you. Help us save them.”

  Them. All the children that Barry and his compatriots had kidnapped, stolen, ruined, rented, and sold.

  They sold children.

  And Barry knew where they took them. He hadn’t told me, but I knew he had the information.

  They sold children.

  And they’d fooled me for too long.

  Staring at Wren and
Lincoln there, I nodded. “I will help. I’ll find the children.”

  To my shock—and hell, delight—Lincoln crushed his mouth to mine, and kissed me hard. His tongue slid against mine, driving me, pushing, seeking, tasting. He slipped a hand behind my head, and held me so he could plunder what I was quite willing to give him.

  He tasted divine, like smoky bourbon, and a bit like a wild east wind off the ocean.

  My body was limp, relaxed, save for one part that was now crushed against the ropes. Someone’s hand brushed against me and sent waves of desire through my entire body, raising chills everywhere.

  There was a snicker next to us. “That was my move,” Wren whispered.

  Lincoln’s hand then? I didn’t care, really. It felt good. The two of them backed up a bit and motioned Bill over.

  “Would you like me to cut him out?” he offered.

  “No,” I whispered. “No, don’t cut me out. Finish this please. I want to feel all of this.”

  Lincoln leaned in. “Fine. But your cock is mine.”

  I groaned.

  Wren

  I had not expected that kiss.

  It was fucking hot. Watching Lincoln drive his tongue into Bastian’s mouth did things to my panties that I was going to have to clean up later. The little moans and noises they made while they were lip-locked did more things to my panties.

  And when Lincoln claimed Bastian’s dick?

  Didn’t have to worry about the panties anymore. They were gone, either melted or exploded. No idea which.

  Bill motioned me to the wing back chair, and I moved so I could watch everything. He moved to where Bastian waited, still trussed and tied up.

  He leaned in close to Lincoln’s ear. “Would you like to help me?”

  “Yes,” Lincoln said, never taking his eyes off Bastian.

  Sweet Jesus.

  Bill took one of Lincoln’s hands and ran it over a rope. “These are extension of your psyche. They are part of your soul. Each length of rope is a thought, a word, a deed, and for your sub to truly be yours, you must be nothing less than reverent and kind with these. To bind someone with hate or anger is to ruin the trust. To unbind without thought is to lose purpose of the ropes. On or off, it must be deliberate on everyone’s part.”