by M. Q. Barber
He’d had no one else to ask, not among the committed couples at the club. None he’d trust to witness Jay’s vulnerability without comment. None whose style he knew so intimately. None whose judgment he so respected.
If Jay panicked, Victor would let Henry handle the issue without taking offense at the interruption. If Jay was able to stay, Victor and Emma would show him the beauty in the bond Cal had so perverted. The shining example of what could be. Of what they could be someday.
Henry swallowed back his thoughts. The hopes and dreams for their future would wait. They’d cross this chasm first.
Bending his head, Victor whispered to his wife and received a sleek, sultry laugh in response. He stepped aside, revealing the nude canvas for his art—and the single-tail whip coiled at his left hip.
Short. A four-footer. Anything longer would be too big for the room. Twelve feet square, fourteen at the most, and Victor would need room for his backswing. A six-foot whip would be dangerous to work with here, an eight-footer impossible. The shorter whip would provide better control in any case, and Jay needed to see safety above all else.
He felt the instant Jay spotted the whip in his bones. The breathless stillness beside him, as if Jay might make himself invisible to the fear stalking him. He brushed Jay’s ear with a kiss. “Be truthful.”
Jay jerked to life with a short nod and a blown-out breath. Still, his gaze strayed more to Victor’s hip than the flowing curves of Emma’s bare back.
“Henry.” Victor nodded in formal greeting. “My beloved and I are pleased to welcome you and your boy. Emma so enjoys an appreciative audience.”
“Victor.” He returned the nod, a fraction deeper out of respect for his mentor. “Thank you for the invitation. The boy and I will be honored to witness this expression of your love insomuch as our comfort allows.”
He hoped Jay would register the words. The honor. The love. The understanding they might leave at any time if memory and fear proved too much to overcome.
Resting his hand on Jay’s back, he offered both reassurance and a check on reactions. Physicality would help him here. Monitoring Jay’s comfort level was made easier when his slender body communicated with every twitch, every stiffening muscle, every tremor and indrawn breath.
“Of course, Henry. Pushing beyond one’s limits too quickly is a fool’s errand. Such behavior only increases the distance to the goal. Done too often, it may place one’s desires permanently out of reach.” Victor paused, his voice thoughtful, as though he hadn’t said the words a thousand times. “Better to know when to say stop and leave the next step for another day.”
Victor hadn’t once looked at the boy, but the message was unmistakable. Henry could only hope Jay would heed the advice. That his sweet submissive would find his limits—help his master define them and show his understanding of their importance. Then, perhaps, they’d have a lifetime to expand them together.
Victor gestured toward a padded bench to Henry’s right. “Please, sit. We’ll have a bit of warm-up first.”
Brow furrowed, Jay tipped his head.
“Even so experienced a submissive as my beloved Emma wouldn’t begin the night with the kiss of a single tail.” Turning away, Victor spoke in a casual tone over his shoulder. “We must work up to it, mustn’t we, my darling?”
The slight shake of Jay’s head stirred a twisting anger in Henry’s gut. No warm-up. Of course not. Cal would relish the shock value over his submissives’ safety and enjoyment.
“As you say, my husband.” Voice low and liquid, Emma captured the hungry restraint evident in the gentle sway of her body as she rocked on the balls of her feet. “Your tenderness makes pain a pleasure I never tire of receiving.”
Henry led Jay to the bench and seated him as he had weeks before, straddling the width and cradled in his arms. Emma waited less than ten feet away, her body near perpendicular to their vision. Jay would have a slanted view of the touch of the whip and a window on her reactions to it. If she rolled her head right, he might even watch the enjoyment on her face.
Victor was likely to begin with a light flogging to sensitize his wife’s skin and flood her body with endorphins.
Henry doubted Jay would last through the warm-up to the whip at all.
Victor laid his hand on the narrow table across the room and lifted a novice flogger. Deerskin, perhaps, dyed deep black and boasting dozens of falls.
Safe in Henry’s arms, Jay trembled.
Victor crossed the floor in silence. Even his footfalls raised no sound. The flogger dangled from his right hand. Rolling his wrist in an absent-minded figure eight created a quiet shirring from the leather, overshadowed a moment later by Emma’s answering moan. Pure anticipation of pleasure.
Jay’s heart pounded beneath his hand. Less pleasure than fear, he expected, though Jay’s shorts showed a suitable physical reaction rising. He rubbed the slim, muscled chest in calming circles with one hand and threaded the fingers of his other through Jay’s.
The return squeeze crushed his fingertips to the point of pain. He said nothing.
Across the room, Victor stepped in front of his wife. Arms extended around her neck, he swished the flogger against her back in a caress.
She widened her stance, desire and acceptance in every line of her body.
“Do you remember, beloved, how prettily you begged for more when first I laid the deerskin to your sweet flesh?”
Jay leaned forward. The low, intimate voice seemed to hold him as spellbound as it held its intended target. He hungered for loving praise himself. Not something Calvin Gardner would have delivered.
“I remember, husband. You held me back when I would have charged ahead with blind desire.” Her words flowed like music, a song to guide Jay if he let the tune fill his ears. “Protected and sheltered me.”
“Did you love me for it?” Victor injected wryness in his tone.
Emma’s lilting laugh answered him.
Jay startled, bumping his master.
Henry nuzzled his cheek. This was what he’d wanted Jay to see. That he needn’t accept the short-term, transactional nature of play if he desired more. That beautiful, loving relationships existed as part and parcel of dominance and submission, a neatly wrapped gift on both sides.
“I railed against it, husband. I pouted. I stomped. I insisted I knew better. I poured out my anger and my need and my fears.”
Victor pressed a kiss to his wife’s forehead and slipped around her body to stand at her back. Trailing his fingers down her skin, he nodded. “And now, my love?”
Emma’s body rippled with her breath. “I’m grateful, husband. To myself for having the strength to voice my needs. To you for accepting me as I was then and as I am now.”
“Always,” Victor murmured. His lips brushed his wife’s shoulders. “As you were, as you are, and as you will be.”
Jay sighed in unison with Emma. His fingers relaxed.
Henry adjusted his grip, massaging Jay’s knuckles with his thumb. One hoped he’d absorbed the lesson as well as the comfort.
Victor stepped back. The flogger swung short of Emma’s body, though she arched toward it as the air flowed over her skin.
Jay flinched, retreating on the bench.
Henry straightened to offer more contact, a solid wall of safety at Jay’s back. I’m here. Raising Jay’s hand, he leaned over his shoulder and kissed the backs of his fingers.
Jay pressed into his body and dropped his free hand on his master’s thigh. He kneaded his fingers like a cat’s paw above Henry’s knee. The anticipation that woke excitement in Emma fed anxiety in this young man.
The physical nature of Jay’s response, combined with the growing musk of desire from multiple bodies, fueled arousal in Henry. Shifting with care, he sought to minimize Jay’s awareness of his erection. Arousal was hardly an improper reaction to the love on display before them, but a twinge of guilt settled in his chest nonetheless. The night was to be about finding the depth of Jay’s fear and his
ability to safeword, not his own joy in witnessing this couple play.
Victor clasped the flogger’s handle in one hand, the falls in the other.
Emma swayed in her restraints.
As her body stilled, her master let the deerskin fly.
Thwip.
Emma shuddered, a delighted murmur rising from her lips. The sting at her shoulder would be no more than the barest tease for her, not even the foreplay yet but the kiss of greeting.
For Jay, though, the imagined pain surely begat a psychological assault. Tension gripped his frame.
Henry patted his chest, a gentle tapping over his heart. His submissive required a reminder of his distance. He occupied his own skin, not Emma’s. He sat in his master’s arms, safe and whole.
The flogger flew again, zipping toward Emma almost faster than the eye could follow. Speed and precision, the hallmarks of control, though Jay would neither recognize nor appreciate the beauty. Not tonight.
A third swing. A fourth. A fifth, and a pink blush spread across unbroken skin.
Each time Emma moaned, each time the flogger landed and the sound registered, Jay jumped. He dug his fingers into his master’s thigh with painful intensity. He shook his head, the motions tiny and frantic. Squirmed back as if he meant to crawl away by any means.
Jay’s breath crashed like waves on a rocky shore, filling Henry’s ears. He squeezed Jay’s hand to offer comfort.
His sweet submissive yanked free.
What is he—
Jay cupped his hands over his groin and drew his knees together. He rocked forward, hunching in a fetal curl.
“Tilt-A-Whirl,” he gasped. “Tilt—”
Gripping Jay’s biceps, Henry muscled him to his feet.
“Good boy, it’s all right my beautiful boy, we’re going now.” He guided Jay to the door with no more than a glancing nod for Victor. Expecting the emotional response and Jay’s need to escape, they’d prepared the adjacent room for recovery and aftercare. “All’s well, brave boy. You’ve done so well.”
The door clicked closed behind them.
Jay pressed his back to the wall and breathed with heaving gulps. Tears cascaded down his cheeks. They drew no shortage of stares from passing players.
Henry framed Jay’s face in his hands. “Just a few more steps, my boy. We’ll have a bit of privacy to talk.”
Jay avoided his gaze, glancing at the floor, rapid shifts beneath half-lowered eyelids. He shook his head. “I’m okay. I’m fine. I just, just need a minute. We can go back in. I can do it. I know I can.”
His heart, bobbing like a rowboat in a sea of success, ran aground. They’d been so close. He’d thought Jay understood, finally, that using his safeword engendered no shame. That he needn’t put on a front for his master to be cared for—that in fact the opposite was desirable.
The harsher lesson, then. More painful for them both. Jay must admit the truth before healing could begin. He wasn’t fine. He needed more than a minute. So long as he pretended otherwise, he’d be a danger to himself.
Henry gripped Jay’s elbow and steeled himself for the pain.
“A minute? Excellent. Just enough time then, isn’t it?” He dragged his submissive forward, into the flow of players moving down the hall. “You’ll be ready to play when we arrive.”
“I don’t—time for what, Master Henry? Ready for what?”
He ignored the questions. Kindness wouldn’t help him here. He forced an edge into his voice and hated the need for it.
“How wonderful that you’ve entirely recovered from your experience. I haven’t a room reserved, but we’ll find a space, don’t you worry. I won’t deny my boy what he assures me he’s capable of handling.”
Jay faltered as they neared the end of the hall. The stairs loomed ahead, filling the space.
“Master Henry? What’s—where—”
He dragged the younger man to the banister. “Up the stairs. Go. Now.”
Jay shook. More than one player offered a curious glance, and Henry glared in reply.
“You’re fine, aren’t you, my boy? Put your feet on those steps.”
Furrows riddled Jay’s face. Hurt and confusion warred in quivering muscles. One foot lifted.
“If you want to play, you’ll obey your master in all things.” Hardening his voice, he fought the urge to physically block Jay from making contact. “Isn’t that the first rule? The stairs.”
His heart seemed to stop. His breath certainly did.
Five seconds.
Ten.
At thirteen, Jay lowered his foot.
The floor, not the stairs.
“I’m not ready, Master Henry.” Tears drenched his words and clogged his throat, but Jay persevered. “I’m not ready. I’m not fine. And my first, my first rule, it’s safety. My safety. My safeword. Tilt-A-Whirl.”
Relief burned through him, a cleansing scourge. “Thank you, my boy. My courageous boy.”
He kept up a low stream of patter, of praise and comfort, as Jay sobbed. Their prepared room waited far down the hall. Too far. Six steps away, a darkened room. A few minutes to recover, and Jay would be calm enough to take through the hall to the proper room. This conversation wasn’t one for an audience, nor were Jay’s vulnerability and pain a vintage for strangers to sip.
“Excuse us.” Pushing past the gawkers, he pulled his submissive into the nearest room, slapped the red card in the holder, dropped the blinds, and flipped on the lights.
Garish color assaulted his senses.
Jay blinked. His sobs tripped into hiccups. He made a slow turn.
“I’m not—” Jay pressed a hand to his abdomen and sucked in air. “Not hallucinating, right? It’s really”—he dissolved into chuckles—“groovy.”
No hysterical tinge, thank God. Outside forces made the younger man’s moods more changeable than the weather. He’d take providence where it showed itself, even if victory came in the form of a room covered in 1970s VW bus chic. The tie-dyed color scheme, the shag rugs, the beanbag chairs.
The life-size Grateful Dead bear strapped into a sex swing and dangling from the ceiling offered a crowning touch, a vacant-eyed and silent witness wearing an askew canary yellow neck ruffle. Someone’s idea of a joke, or a clue to how the club’s plushie crowd had been entertaining themselves of late.
He’d strayed into a swirling, mismatched nightmare of chaos, but if it put his submissive at ease, it would do. A source of amusement for one born long after the height of the counterculture era depicted. Youth might make the entire allure of the room as incomprehensible to Jay as the gaudy, excruciating color palette made it to Henry himself.
“Quite. A crayon factory exploded. I believe they left this room in memoriam.” He smiled at Jay’s giddy release. Hearing that laughter for the rest of his life would make him happy indeed. “I’m so very proud of you, my boy.”
Laughter gave way to a beaming face. “I got it right?”
“With perfection,” he murmured. “We’ve a place to build from now, to correct the misconceptions that make you hurt so much here.” He laid his hand over Jay’s heart.
Jay scrambled to cover the hand with his own.
“And we will set everything straight here.” He cupped Jay’s head in his free hand, ruffling the short, dark hair. “Discover all that makes you you, so you may consider in safety what you want as a submissive, how you want your relationships structured to meet your needs.”
Jay tipped his head. “My relationships?” He stepped back. “I thought—”
Henry let his hands drop. He wouldn’t chain this roaming boy if he needed to move.
“What I want is you.” Challenge rang in Jay’s deepening tenor. “Don’t you want me, too?”
“This cannot be about me alone.” He wouldn’t allow his submissive to so warp himself, to develop only to please a single master and not himself. “I know it seems that way to you now, but—”
“No.” Jay cut him off with a slash of his hand. “I’m not imag
ining it and I’m not some stupid kid with a crush.”
He thrust a finger forward before Henry could reassure him he’d never meant to dismiss the emotions.
“Maybe I haven’t been in love for real before, but I know what a crush feels like, and this isn’t it.” Throwing up his hands, he kicked at the gaudy purple rug. “Are you—are you gonna tell me I have to go fuck around and make bad decisions just so I’ll know you’re the one I want? ’Cause I already did that, and it sucked.”
He stomped the floor. “I want to be yours, Henry.”
Fearless. Unquestioning. He’d never seen his submissive so certain.
“So that’s my opening negotiation. I want to be yours, and I don’t want you to tell me I need to ‘expand my field of interest’ or whatever. I know what I want.”
Eyes blazing, chest heaving, the boy stood his ground.
No.
Jay.
Jay stood his ground.
My Jay.
Defiant and challenging, demanding what he needed. Jay wasn’t dependent on him because he needed to be. He simply wanted to be.
“I see that you do,” Henry murmured. He skated his knuckles across one smooth cheek.
Jay leaned into the touch.
“As it happens, so do I.” Teasing Jay’s lips, he coaxed them open with gentleness. His hands roamed. He tightened his grip on Jay’s head and hip. Drove him back with insistent prods until he pinned him to the wall and ground their hips together.
The younger man whimpered.
Henry swallowed the sound with a harsher kiss, nipping and growling.
Jay clutched his shirt, fistfuls of fabric, pulling at him, seeking more.
Henry drew his head back, moving his mouth out of his partner’s reach. “Tell me something that frightens you, Jay. A truth you are afraid to share with me.”
With a slight nod, Jay swallowed hard. “The nightmares. I’m still having them. When I wake up, I’m sweating, and scared, and—and aroused. Tonight, with the, with the—I didn’t want to come watching. How can I feel like my heart’s gonna burst with the fear and my cock’s gonna shoot at the same time? There’s something wrong with me, Master Henry. I’m all wrong.”