by M. Q. Barber
What a jumbled mess this sweet boy had fallen into.
He scraped at the layers of error. He’d peel them back and paint anew. “What happened when you broke that rule?”
Rolling and ducking his head, the younger man shifted his hips. He dared raise a hand and trace his master’s finger, the one wet with saliva.
Henry curled Jay’s hand into his own. “Tell me.”
“She laughed at me.” He whispered his confession. “Said I was worthless. Pathetic. And she paddled me.” He shook his head, confusion plain in his voice. “But she said it was fun, after.”
“It likely was, to her. But now you know that isn’t a proper game for you. You owe the dominants here courtesy and nothing more. Your submission is yours to grant as you choose.” He squeezed Jay’s hand. “At present, I am lucky enough to claim it. The only rules you need to concern yourself with in this room are mine. Did I instruct you not to come?”
The boy stilled. “No, Master Henry. But”—his voice hit the higher register of surprise and distress—“but I made a mess and ruined your game.”
At last, a problem requiring seconds, not weeks, to set right. “Nonsense.” He poured gentle amusement into his tone. “You’ve christened your sheets.”
“Mine?”
Surprising this man was a delight he might never tire of enjoying.
“Part of your homework.” Explaining now would do no harm. Would, in fact, encourage Jay to take ownership of his tasks and request what he needed. “Shall I share it with you now?”
“Yes, please, Master Henry.” Eager and wriggling, Jay roused his passions. A sweet torment. “I’d like that.”
“Where do you believe these sheets came from?”
“The laundry downstairs? I took towels there once.”
“Mmm. Not these sheets.” He dragged their linked hands across the cotton, soft and smooth as silk. “I took these from my own bed this evening.”
Jay clenched, lifting the fabric. “Your sheets, Master Henry?”
“The sheets I lay in this week as I honored our schedule. As I thought of you carrying out your homework.”
Whimpering, Jay pushed his hips in his master’s groin.
Henry hissed as he inhaled, the pressure on his cock a dangerous enticement. The younger man showed signs of new life already. They sat cradled together on his own sheets. How sweet it would be to slide into his submissive and show him the joys of growing hard thanks to the internal massage from his partner’s cock.
Not tonight. He’d done no preparation work with his student. Taking him now would send the wrong message. Jay had granted him rights to his body in ignorance. Held nothing back, negotiated no terms. Impossible to teach safety and control if he couldn’t control himself first.
“When you leave here tonight, you’ll take these sheets with you. You’ll lie on them this week when you take yourself in hand and finish your homework. Next week, you’ll bring them back to me.”
“Our sheets,” Jay whispered.
“Our sheets,” he agreed. “You’ve simply gotten a head start on your homework, my dear boy.”
He rubbed a hand down Jay’s bare thigh and kissed his jaw. An indulgence. “I think you might manage another for me. Show me how you’ve been practicing this week, light and slow.”
Jay’s breath whooshed out in a single gust. “Really?”
“Really.” He laid his chin on the younger man’s shoulder, their faces side by side. “Show me.” Jay’s slender waist filled his palms. He stroked trim, solid abs with a feathery touch. “Do you hear my words in your ears when you wrap your fingers around your cock?”
Jay gave a shaky nod, and his hand stuttered as he reached for himself. More than half-hard. Excellent recovery time. Quick to climax lost some of its stigma with a rapid reload and a sustained follow-up.
“Does having my guidance please you?” He stayed close, dismissing the silent voice suggesting he did so to satisfy his own desire.
Cradling Jay offered him comfort and encouragement to diminish his shame. He did so as the young man’s dominant to create pleasant associations with the act. The care, the approval and security a dominant ought to provide. That was all.
“Yes, Master Henry.” Jay cupped his scrotum, squeezing and releasing with light pressure. “I like knowing I’m doing it for you.”
“For us both,” he corrected. Jay needed to take ownership. If he tied his pleasure only to his current master, he might backslide when the time came to give him up. “I want to see you take pleasure in it.”
Jay gripped his shaft in his other hand. He stroked with delicate slowness, his cock jumping as he hardened fully. Back and forth, avoiding the glans. Worried about his stamina, perhaps. He needn’t be. But how sweet of him to want to give his master an extended show.
They were of a size, though the younger man was more slender, in this as in every respect. His tanned fingers paled against the dark flush of his arousal. He worked himself in silence, with only the harsh staccato of his breath to punctuate his heightened excitement.
Henry held his tongue to better observe his habits and responses. He took note of every hitch in his student’s breath. The warmth of his skin. The frequency of pauses in his stroke. The changes of pace. The shift from a light clasp to a tighter grip as his climax drew closer. The barest hint of vocalization, strangled in a tight throat. The habit of a boy accustomed to avoiding parental awareness or a roommate’s teasing.
“Why so quiet? I hear your want.” Flexing his thighs, he squeezed Jay between and hummed at the tremble in response. “Share your need and your joy with me.”
The throaty whimpers made his cock throb.
“That’s it. I hear you, Jay. I hear your need calling to me. It’s all right to finish.” He pressed forward, delicious torture, his erection trapped in his silk pants and jammed against his submissive’s firm ass. “Do you feel me? How much you please me? Don’t hold back.”
Jay slicked his hand around his shaft and over the head with the speed of a hummingbird’s wings. Rocking, he pushed back. His whimpers gained volume.
“I do,” he gasped. “Wanna please you, Master Henry.”
Release arrived in a rush. He produced little output, a single jet of white and a few drops spattering over his knees.
Lovely nonetheless. Perhaps more so because of the knowledge he’d drained the boy.
Mine.
He toppled Jay sideways to the sheets and kissed him. A fierce, passionate demonstration of ownership. His weight across his pupil’s chest held him down. Jay’s eager surrender fed his arousal. Holding his hips back lest the temptation prove too much, he pressed his claim with a thrusting tongue and firm lips.
Satisfaction flooded his chest. The pleasure threatened to spill over. Control at its limits, he pulled back.
“Exquisite.” His blood raced in a torrent, pressure humming under his skin. He breathed deep, and Jay’s musk filled his nose. “You’re a good boy, Jay. My good boy.”
Jay’s smile rivaled the brush of dawn, bright but slim, a touch shy. A beginning. He wanted to see that smile at noon, sunny and playful in a clear sky, more than beams breaking through heavy clouds.
“Thank you, Master Henry.” Jay blinked with dazed eyes. Postcoital stupor catching up with him, perhaps. “Thank you for not laughing. For wanting me. For wanting me, I mean.”
The fragile hope in the younger man’s face urged him to reassure. “No other would serve me so well, brave boy. If there’s to be laughter in our sheets, it will be a joyful sound for us both.”
His solemn promise to one he held dear.
He patted his pet’s chest. “Dry yourself on the sheets, and then we’ll fold them together while I explain the rest of your homework.”
Jay proved an able helper. As expected, he proffered no objections to an addition to his homework sessions.
“Just lighter, Master Henry?” He wriggled into his shorts.
“Teasing, my boy.” Not unlike the enticin
g display before his eyes. “Draw out your strokes. See how long you can make the enjoyment last before you either lose interest or need to climax. Push yourself.”
The more Jay understood of his own limits, the easier his training would be. The better Henry would be able to match him with prospective dominants. That was his goal here, wasn’t it? His responsibility. As was explaining the necessity of the remaining item on the homework list.
The sheets had been folded and handed off to his submissive when he raised the subject.
“Jay.”
“Yes, Master Henry?” He clutched the sheets to his bare chest, arms crossed in an X.
“I’ve made an appointment for you with my physician for Monday evening.” Jay’s blank stare made his lips twitch. “For a physical and a standard rundown of testing for sexually transmitted infections. We’ll discuss more safety considerations when we meet next week.”
“You think I’m dirty?” Wide-eyed, his submissive wailed in a sad, thin tenor.
Indelicately done, fool. Having no one to care for him, Jay as yet lacked the understanding of how these things were done.
“Not even a little, my dear boy.” He clasped his student’s shoulders and kissed his forehead. “I want you to be safe. Are you aware the desk allows all members to keep their health information on file? The database permits prospective partners to confirm the date of a player’s last submitted test results and their health status.”
Jay shook his head.
Months. Young Mr. Kress had spent months playing games of an unknown nature without once investigating a potential dominant.
“I want you to stop at the desk and ask to see my record on your way out tonight.” Clean, always, but he maintained a regular testing schedule. “Submissives, so often the receivers in these games, are more vulnerable to acquiring an infection.” An attention to such details was both a matter of honor, as the responsibility not to harm a submissive was his, and a courtesy to help submissives make an informed decision to trust him. “From now on, you’ll inquire at the desk about anyone with whom you wish to play.”
“I don’t want to play with anyone but you, Master Henry.” Fingers tightening, Jay crushed the sheets.
Hero worship, he reminded himself. Not fading yet, but it would. He stepped away and crouched beside his kit. Emptier now, without the sheets.
“Then you’ll keep your appointment. You needn’t give your name.” He pulled the card from the bag’s side pocket. “Go here, tell them you’re mine, and they’ll handle the rest.”
The younger man accepted the card. Good. The bill and the results would come to Henry before their next meeting. Jay had done well tonight. Coped with challenges, shared a painful memory, and learned to enjoy himself without pain.
“We’ll meet early next Friday, my boy. Have our table in the salon ready at 7 p.m., please.”
Was he mad? He’d issued the invitation without any intention of doing so.
“We’re having dinner?” Jay showed a distinct inability to stand still, and his eyes gleamed.
“Yes.” It wouldn’t do to go back on his word now. The dinner would serve as a reward for his companion’s courage tonight. The invitation owed nothing to the quiet of his table this week. The emptiness of the facing chairs. “We had an enjoyable dinner last week, did we not?”
“I liked it. A lot.”
“I’m pleased.”
He kissed his partner, thanked him for his submission, and ushered him out. He didn’t trust himself to follow Mr. Kress downstairs and keep him company as he changed. Not tonight.
He’d promised himself he’d keep a distance. That this would be no different from the dozens of submissives he’d played with through the years. He’d left them satisfied and parted amicably. Taught the occasional husband how to fulfill his wife’s desires when she discovered a submissive kink. Whipped submissive straight boys who feared even asking their wives for such treatment. Indulged his own appetite for voyeurism countless times.
Never had he blurred the line between harmless play and a deeper relationship. Yet he’d handed his sheets off to this boy. Demanded he use them on his bed. He’d overstepped. Made this personal.
For Jay’s sake. He needed this level of control and involvement.
Yes, a pretty argument. Jay needed him for the moment. Once trained to defend his own interests, with a few weeks for the hero worship to fade, he would find someone else. Someone who wasn’t his rescuer but his lover.
The bare mat in the center of the floor battered at him with its emptiness. Much as he loved to watch, would he be able to watch this boy in another’s hands? Without his voice guiding the younger man’s behavior?
“A vacation.” Once the time was up. “Perhaps it would be best to step away for a few weeks.”
Leave the boy alone?
Pain twisted in his chest. No. No. He’d play his role to the end. Introduce Jay around to good-hearted players who would treat him well. For their final week together.
No matter how far off, the date was sooner than desired.
Chapter 4
Stepping into the salon, Henry savored the sight of his obedient student.
Jay had done his work well. Their screen provided privacy in the same far corner, and the fidgeting submissive stood at the edge in a smart black suit.
A forceful kiss and a commanding manner would calm the nerves causing the younger man to shift his weight and rub at the sides of his slacks. His beautiful boy didn’t like to be left alone.
The dark head came up. Jay scanned the room. He froze as their eyes met, but a brilliant smile warmed his face in the next instant.
Henry nodded a greeting as he moved forward.
The change in his submissive flowed down through his body. He bowed his head. His shoulders lowered to their proper, relaxed slope. He clasped his hands at his waist.
Perfect stillness.
Jay mimicked the pose he’d been shown last week, an at-ease waiting stance. Delightful. A student who internalized his master’s wishes and carried them out to the best of his ability with the tools he’d been given.
Henry’s casual stride quickened to a sharp, focused step as he approached. He imagined the beautiful yearning certain to be in his partner’s eyes, soulful brown seeking his approval and flooding with contentment and desire when they received it. Jay offered submission without reservation and demonstrated utter joy when commanded with kindness.
Grasping Jay’s chin and raising his sweet face, Henry swooped in.
Jay melted into his kiss. Smelling of an evergreen forest and tasting of mint, he whined and sucked at his master’s tongue.
Henry allowed no pause, no give-and-take. He slipped his hand around the back of Jay’s neck and held him steady even as the force of the kiss threatened to push the younger man back. He released Jay’s mouth with a low growl and listened to the harsh breaths that followed.
Called to action, his cock fought to escape confinement, thump thump thump against his fly as blood flowed and filled and rose. He let out a single breath and brushed Jay’s cheek with his lips.
“I hope you’re hungry, my boy. I know I am, with you standing here looking delicious enough to eat.”
Jay shuddered and lifted his gaze, soulful and yearning as Henry had longed to see it all week. A shy smile added to his beauty. “I could eat, Master Henry.”
He gave his neck a gentle squeeze. “I’m certain you could. Dinner first, and then we’ll see what the night holds.”
Oral sex wasn’t yet on his agenda, but allowing Jay’s imagination to run wild with a scenario he’d already admitted to enjoying would do no harm. A bit of wonderment enhanced arousal.
They moved behind the screen to the table set with elegant perfection.
Henry laid their dinner to the side and ran his hand over the back of Jay’s suit coat. An exquisite fit. Tailored, if he wasn’t mistaken. Perhaps his eager submissive had taken the initiative after playing pincushion for Emma.
&n
bsp; He sat and sipped water with lemon between delivering instructions while Jay plated their meals. He’d chosen seafood tonight, a linguine topped with oysters, scallops, and shrimp in a thin white wine sauce. Steamed broccoli added a hint of color.
He ate a few bites before raising the subject.
“You’ve chosen an excellent outfit for this evening, my boy. The shape flatters your sleek, sensual body with its delightful angles.” He smiled at Jay’s blush. An innocent pleasure, yet praise seemed so unfamiliar to his student. “Tell me, is it new?”
Shaking his head, Jay laid his fork down. “It’s not new, but Mistress Emma helped me fix it when she took me shopping Tuesday.”
He concealed his surprise with a long sip of water. Emma had taken the boy shopping. Did Victor know what his devious girl had gotten up to?
“And she helped me pick a tie.” The tie popped, a splash of brilliant, deep green with linen pinstripes against Jay’s black-on-black shirt and suit coat. “Do you like it, Master Henry?”
“I do, very much so.” The tie and the red ribbon stood out, and both cried belonging. “Tell me about your shopping trip. Did you seek out Emma’s assistance?”
“She offered while I was looking at your health status at the desk last week, Master Henry. I asked if she’d check my table settings in case I got anything wrong tonight, and we started talking about dinner, and”—Jay shrugged with a sheepish bob of his head—“I wanted to look good for you. Mistress Emma said she’d take me to her tailor if I wanted. Was that”—lines crept across his forehead—“was that okay?”
Jay had done nothing wrong. Emma had overstepped, certainly, but he mustered no more than exasperation for her well-intentioned meddling. Her maternal impulses would have drawn her to the boy after seeing him so wounded, and their own friendship allowed for such emboldened entitlement.
“Of course, my boy.” Jay’s desire to please his dominant had guided him. Emma’s assistance had increased his self-confidence. A positive outcome, despite her trespass. “You wanted to please me, and you have succeeded.”