by M. Q. Barber
To see Jay ready to take such a momentous step on his own would prove his remarks to Victor incorrect. Young Mr. Kress had internalized his lessons in negotiation more than he’d thought. He would let Jay make the initial request to outlaw whipping. Agreement and praise would follow, swift and sure.
“But if you like it, I should do it.”
Hope drained in a sick swirl. He closed his eyes, a brief moment to recover himself.
“Am I really your good boy, Master Henry? Am I not good enough? You can tell me, Master Henry.” Jay poured forth words in an unstoppable torrent. “I can do it, I promise I can. I won’t scream or cry unless you want me to.”
So many wrong ideas it seemed impossible to choose one to counteract. His fears made manifest from the boy’s own lips. The smallest hint from a dominant, even one not his own, twisted Jay into a submissive mindset focused only on his master’s pleasure. Safety discarded.
The lack of self-awareness—or the lack of concern at what submitting to another whipping would do to his wounded psyche—would send Jay back into Cal’s dungeon the moment the sadist returned and issued a command.
“Come here, my boy.” He whispered the words not on purpose but because his throat ached with the howl he held back. “Come to me and listen.”
Jay shuffled forward on his knees.
Yearning to embrace him, he allowed the submissive posture instead. Jay found more security on the floor, and on the floor he would stay.
Henry patted his knee. “Lay your head here and look up at me, please.”
Earnest brown eyes gazed at him. Jay rubbed his cheek against the linen-silk blend of his slacks, a repetitive motion that seemed more comfort mechanism than conscious choice.
Resting his hand atop the boy’s hair, he found his own comfort in slipping his fingers through the dark strands. He’d planned to expose Jay to more scenes tonight, to test his responses and prompt him through determining which games he might enjoy, which he might tolerate, and which he might declare a hard limit.
No longer. Jay needed more focused emotional support tonight. He had arrived dressed to hide, been relieved to see his master, and pushed a single comment by a stranger into breakdown territory. Something had unsettled him before he’d entered the club.
He would determine the truth before the night was out. For now, he would be his boy’s calm, steady rock.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “Breathe with me, my biddable boy. Slow, deep breaths. How sweet you are, how eager to please.”
He slipped his hand across Jay’s ear and down to the curve of his jaw. A bit of scruff roughed his palm. He traced Jay’s soft lips with his thumb.
The younger man stared as if hypnotized, his gaze fixed on his master’s face.
“Before you became my boy, had you ever told a play partner of a desire you had for a scene?”
A slight nod preceded Jay’s quiet, “Once, Master Henry.”
“Did this partner fulfill that desire for you?” Being a dominant wasn’t unlike being a lawyer at times. One asked leading questions whose answers were known lest the witness deliver an unwelcome surprise.
“No, Master Henry. He said”—Jay pressed his lips together—“he said I was ‘topping from the bottom’ and he’d show me more respectful behavior.”
“By which he meant discipline?”
Jay nodded, but his face remained smooth and relaxed. Good. Closeness, gentle touching, and focused attention had a calming effect on him. Such small pieces would matter more as the questions grew more difficult.
“And the other times? Tell me your thoughts as you approached these players and agreed to serve them.”
“Umm—” Jay drifted, his eyes growing distant. “I guess. . . .”
The silence lasted minutes. He waited, stroking Jay’s cheek and hair, pressing his legs to his submissive’s sides in a gentle, supportive squeeze. The younger man’s easy sigh pleased him.
“They were the dominants, Master Henry. I thought, you know, their desires came first and mine came last. If I was good and did what they wanted, they’d do something I wanted next time, maybe. When I’d earned a reward.”
“Did they ask about your fantasies?”
The small headshake wasn’t unexpected.
“Do you understand why I ask you about them?”
“No, but I like it.” Jay squirmed. Perhaps his jeans had gotten tighter. “I feel good when you ask me, Master Henry.”
“I ask you because an honest and obedient submissive does indeed deserve to be rewarded, my sweet boy. But his dominant must know how to best reward him. A good boy who wants to be allowed to suck his master’s cock won’t enjoy a so-called reward of whipping, will he?”
Jay curled closer and wrapped his arm around his master’s leg. “I like that first one, Master Henry.”
Ruffling Jay’s hair, he smiled. “I know you do, my good boy. Because you’ve told me so, as an obedient boy should.”
His obedient boy’s enthusiasm and need for him had given rise to an urgent demand at his groin. The rush of blood to his cock and Jay’s sweet face at his knee called for sublime self-control. The carpeted floor of the changing room reminded him of the impropriety. Their room with its mat and new set of sheets waited upstairs.
Dominant urge diverted, he gripped the back of Jay’s neck with the firm but protective hold of a bitch carrying her pup. If a fleeting image gripped him in return, an image of Jay’s mouth open, willing, and eager as he swallowed on every thrust of his master’s cock, the younger man need not know.
“You are never required to accept a whipping or anything else to earn the privilege of giving a blowjob. You needn’t earn your desires at all, my brave boy.” Softening his hold, he smoothed back the dark hair. If he could make Jay understand this much, the rest might follow. “You may state them at the outset and refuse to play with anyone whose desires don’t match well with your own.”
Strengthen the foundation, build his self-worth, teach him to accept himself and take pride in his submission . . . the work of a lifetime.
He blew out a breath, and Jay echoed him.
“A sadist will always be a sadist, dear boy. You will never earn kindness from one. The kindness is a mask to inflict more varied forms of pain. Nothing you could have done, no perfect service, could have made him love and value you the way you did him.”
Whimpering softly, Jay blinked. “But you whip people, too.”
“I do, but I am not a sadist.” The complications of his own enjoyment, the aesthetic value, the beauty in the snap of the whip and the muscles in the back as the sub responded, the taut strain, the rebounding flesh, the boneless satisfaction afterward, would be too much for his submissive to comprehend.
“Their pain does not amuse me.”
Jay would volunteer to show his master those things, the things he wasn’t ready for even though he offered them with such guileless innocence. His beautiful Ganymede carried the cup of ambrosia to his lips, and he dare not drink a drop lest he drain the cup and damage the carrier.
“Their enjoyment in the act pleases me.”
“I’m sorry, Master Henry. I don’t understand.”
No, of course he wouldn’t. What enjoyment could he find in the act when it had been forced upon him too soon?
“Good boy.” He traced a finger down Jay’s cheekbone. Such a beautiful face, awash in angled elegance. A noble raven, perhaps. “It’s right that you should ask when you don’t understand. Thank you for remembering your lesson so well.”
Jay’s weight rested heavy against him. The physical reminder of the younger man’s dependence on him pleased him in ways he refused to examine too closely. These sessions weren’t about him. They were for Jay.
No. For the boy. Always for the boy. Safer, to keep that distance.
“Imagine for a moment you wait for me at the center of our sheets. As I approach, you see the coils of a whip in my hand. What would you say, my boy? You wish to please me? What would most please
me?”
“If I submitted like a good boy, Master Henry.” Jay smiled despite the flickering in his eyes and the tightness at the corners. “Positioned myself the way you wanted and listened to your instructions.”
Tipping Jay’s chin to better capture his gaze, Henry shook his head in a long, slow roll. “ ‘Tilt-A-Whirl.’ That is the word from your lips that would most please me, because it would prove to me that you understand you have the right to say no.”
“But then you, I mean, no one would want to play with me. No one wants a whiny sub who stops the game all the damn time.” Rote cadence flattened his voice.
Had Cal taught him that, or had the sadist’s clique of friends passed Jay along from week to week, each dominant reinforcing the shame of the week before? Preparing this gentle boy to accept Cal’s advances. Targeting fresh meat for the alpha of their own little pack.
“Some few won’t play again with a submissive who safewords, that’s true.” He wouldn’t lie to his student. The truth would better arm and defend him in any case. “That does not mean you’ve given up your right to safeword nor that you ought to.”
Cupping the boy’s cheek, he put every drop of confidence and command scraped from the bottom of his soul into the message Jay so needed to learn. “It means you do not play with them. Ever.”
Jay widened his eyes at his low growl. Mouth open, he sucked in a breath that shook his body, ribs quivering against his master’s calf.
Arousal, if he wasn’t mistaken. The gleam in Jay’s eyes certainly didn’t seem fearful.
“Your affectionate nature, your beautiful grace, your good cheer, and your respectful demeanor will bring you offers from any number of appropriate masters and mistresses once you’ve had a proper introduction.” He’d make those introductions himself in a few short weeks. More a masochist than he’d realized, perhaps. The pleasure of seeing the boy blossom would always be wrapped by a vine choking him with the loss.
“You will never again agree to play without first asking how the prospective dominant feels about safewords, do you understand? You will walk away from any dominant who either refuses to tell you or indicates a safeword will bring less than a complete stop of all activities until he or she has ascertained the nature of your need and corrected the error. This rule extends beyond our time together. You will obey it always.”
A demand he had no right to make. A flagrant abuse of his authority.
Jay soaked it up like a cat basking in sunshine. “Always, Master Henry. I will.” He squirmed closer, a warm and cuddly body wriggling between his master’s legs. Delightful torment. “I’ll always obey you.”
Residual fear invaded his pores. His student might also always obey Calvin Gardner. Whatever shame conditioning existed in Jay’s mind might take years to unravel. Professional help he himself was unqualified to provide.
Four months, Jay had said. Would that he’d seen Jay Kress on his first night. Wide-eyed wonder and mangled manners, no doubt. Had he had the opportunity to take this boy into his care then—
What a magnificent, happy lover he’d have now. All his.
He kissed Jay’s smooth brow and his slender nose and his sweet, full mouth.
“Return your things to your bag, please. You needn’t dress for play tonight.” He raised a warning finger at his submissive’s startled reflex. “I am not displeased with you. I am, in fact, so well-pleased with you that I wish to take you directly to our room upstairs tonight rather than observing others at play. The faster you finish your task, the faster I may have you naked on the fresh set of sheets from my bed awaiting us.”
Seven seconds. He counted.
He ached to push his submissive against the wall and take him.
Never mind that he had no plans to take Jay at all, let alone tonight. The wall would have to wait in any case. He wouldn’t have Jay feeling trapped or pinned with no escape.
He folded his jacket, smoothing out the wrinkles and laying it on the floor alongside his kit. He’d spread the mat and sheets in advance, expecting to be coming in the door with his companion well roused after viewing others’ scenes.
Slipping off his shoes, he nodded to Jay. “You may remove your shoes and socks, my boy.”
Jay kicked off his sneakers without untying them and yanked at his socks, dropping them beside his bag. He reached for the hem of his shirt. “Clothes, too?”
“No.” He slipped his tie free and laid it atop the jacket, careful not to smile at his sub’s crestfallen expression. So eager. “Line up your shoes neatly, please, with the socks tucked inside, and then go and stand at ease in the center of our sheets.”
He removed his own socks with slow precision as Jay obeyed. A lesson in patience was never wasted, but in truth, he sought more time to calm his libido and consider his revision of the night’s goal. Jay appreciated attention and praise. He lacked the ability to assert himself.
So.
“We’ll play a new game tonight.” He stalked in a broad arc around his submissive. “If you do well at your task, we will both enjoy the satisfaction of release.”
Jay jerked his head up and met his gaze. A flush of excitement colored his neck as his breathing deepened. Impossible to say whether the pleasure came from the promise of his own orgasm or his master’s.
“Will you try hard at your lesson?”
“I will, Master Henry.” Jay bobbed his head. “I promise I’ll be perfect for you.”
“Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, you are.”
A belief he ought to have kept to himself. Jay’s need for reassurance pulled at him with irresistible force. To deny himself what he wanted was acceptable. To deny Jay—no. To deny his student what he needed was not.
Trembling, Jay emitted a quiet whine. Getting his pants off before he came in them would be crucial, lest embarrassment or distress ruin the game. Pants first, then.
“You’re going to tell me what you enjoy about sex, my boy.” As he stalked closer, he held Jay’s gaze until no more than a brushstroke separated their bodies. He leaned in and grazed the younger man’s ear. “For every truth you tell me, I will reward you.”
“A-anything, Master Henry?”
Humming agreement, he blew a heated breath down his submissive’s neck and gloried in the wavering moan he received in reply. “You may share anything with me. The things you have not shared with your play partners. The dreams you harbor. The fantasies you cradle close.”
Something to start him off, perhaps. Specific cues helped his pupil better than open-ended ones. “The way the scent and softness of a woman hardens your cock.”
“I like when she’s on top, when I get to watch how she”—Jay breathed out in a rush—“you know.”
A hint of modesty. Embarrassment. Time would cure his sub of that affliction. Time and comfort and growing trust.
He laid hands on Jay’s waist and traced the edge of his jeans. “How she slides down on your cock? How her slick and welcoming body takes you in and shelters you in her warmth?”
A gentle tug popped the top button of Jay’s button-fly jeans through its snug hole.
“She smiles,” Jay whispered. “She says it feels good. I wanna make her feel good.”
“Of course you do, my sweet boy.” He slipped a second button free. Jay’s cock distended the fabric of his boxers beneath. Tension thrummed between them, his fingers close enough to touch. “You’re a good boy to think of her pleasure.”
“I please her with my tongue, too, Master Henry.” Jay’s struggle to stand still rippled in his taut forearms. “She’s over my face, maybe, maybe after. . . .”
“After you’ve pleasured her with your cock?” He brushed the third button with a fingertip, adding a slight pressure to the younger man’s trapped arousal.
Jay whimpered and jerked his hips before he controlled himself. The tiniest whisper spilled from his throat. “After you have, Master Henry.”
Heart tripping, he groaned his delight. His hand stuttered, yanking the third and fo
urth buttons open at once. A fantasy he could not fulfill for his companion, not without a fluid-bonded female partner, and he had none.
“Lapping at her honeyed center with my taste flowing onto your tongue? Mmm.” Giving the jeans a push past slender hips, he licked Jay’s neck and sucked at his earlobe. “What a lovely thought.”
“You don’t”—Jay issued needy whines between his words—“you don’t think I’m sick?”
That even such a tame fantasy shamed the boy provoked his ire. A submissive born to serve, the perfect pet for a couple. A master and mistress sharing a sub, or perhaps as the beta sub for a committed dominant and submissive pair. All of that beauty near ruined by Calvin Gardner and his pack of wolves.
“I find you beautiful and giving, my brave boy.” He redoubled his focus, squeezing Jay’s cock through his undershorts. The younger man would come quick with so much attention. Best to make the release a planned event rather than a spontaneous one that shamed him.
Claiming Jay’s mouth with a growl, he nipped at the lips parting for him. He shoved his hands inside Jay’s boxers, wrapped his cock in a firm grip, and cupped his balls in the other hand.
He swallowed Jay’s moans before pausing his possession to speak. “You’ve shared so well, my boy, that I will allow you to come now, in my hands, before we begin again. You’re not to hold back. Give me what I demand of you.”
He squeezed and stroked with increasing speed. Swarming Jay’s face and neck with hard kisses, he had no need to remind his submissive to vocalize. Jay whimpered with each breath, the pitch of his shuddering yips shifting higher as climax neared.
Slim hips thrust Jay’s cock farther into the pressure of his hand. The close, commanding hold gave him every intimate moment as Jay’s balls tightened and his cockhead swelled.
A growling bite beneath Jay’s jaw finished the job. Warmth spurted across his hands.
“My excellent boy, such a beautiful gift.” He began his verbal campaign even as his student moaned his completion. No waiting for doubt to set in. “How diligent you are at your studies to come promptly at your master’s command. How well you listen and obey.”