by Vanessa Wu
What he really needed, Tom reflected, was to get his equilibrium back. Ideally, he’d have wrapped Elle’s perfect ponytail around his fist and gently fucked her face. But that wasn’t going to happen, and he needed an alternative that wasn’t jacking off.
Tom walked over the heated tile floor into the adjoining dorm, looking for Bisset. It was a large, wood paneled room, lined with neat twin beds like a luxury barracks. At first Tom thought it was empty, but then he saw Cerra in the far corner of the room. His back was arched as he worked his cock with slick, fast strokes. Tom’s attention focused, like a dog scenting a fox.
“Wait.”
The word left Tom’s mouth, driven by instinct, not thought. Cerra looked at him curiously. Then, with obvious effort, he did as he was told. Tom’s shoulders relaxed. It wasn’t what he’d been looking for, but it would do for now.
“Don’t come. Not yet.”
Cerra nodded again. Tom crossed the room.
“Did the session turn you on?”
He let the smile enter his voice as he sauntered to the bed.
“Yes,” the Spaniard said.
He’d stopped just short of calling Tom, sir. Tom could hear the little word on the other man’s tongue, ready to fall into the palm of his hand. But it didn’t, and he was he was glad. He didn’t need the responsibility. He just needed to get off.
“How badly do you want to come?”
Cerra looked at him, naked admiration softening his eyes. “Badly enough, Señor.”
Tom glanced down at the cock in Cerra’s hand. Precum coated its rosy tip, just beyond the reach of his thumb. His hand was trembling with the strain of not finishing the stroke. Yeah, Tom thought. Enough.
“And how much,” he asked, “is enough?”
“Enough to earn it,” Cerra said.
Tom gave him a Hollywood grin.
“Let’s see you earn it then.”
“Si,” the Spaniard murmured, soft and full of promise, like the inside of a mouth.
Tom moved to the edge of the narrow bed. Cerra sat up, gracefully swinging his legs over the side. Slowly, the Spaniard’s hands drifted up Tom’s thighs until they came to rest on his hips. Then, without preamble, he took Tom’s length in his mouth, sucking and tonguing until Tom felt his cockhead bump the back of Cerra’s throat.
Tom groaned, grabbing a fistful of curly hair, as Cerra worked his length with a hot, nimble tongue. Enough was more than enough. Tom gave Cerra’s hair a tug and was gratified by the sweet little whimper that hummed around his cock.
Suddenly, Tom thought of Elle Mason’s sharp, pale face. Rejecting the image, he steadied Cerra’s head, thrusting harder and faster, until he hit the edge of his control. And yet, Cerra stayed latched on, working his dick with a highly skilled tongue while Tom failed to escape the vision of a sleek, blonde head.
Normally, Tom would have savored it. He loved the sound of whimpers and the clutch of fingers on his skin. But there was something inside him, something ugly and raw that needed getting out. Tom grit his teeth as it broke his control. He didn’t want to stop, so he thrust with a violence that was nearly sadistic, until the orgasm poured out of him, into Cerra’s hungry mouth.
“Do I interrupt?”
Tom opened his eyes as Cerra licked his swollen lips. Voloshin was standing just inside the door. He was smiling but there was a tightness to his mouth that Tom didn’t like.
“Not at all,” Tom said, squeezing the back of Cerra’s neck.
The Spaniard’s eyes were dark and unreadable, but there was a quirk to the side of his mouth. If he was worried about Voloshin, he wasn’t showing it.
“In fact, I was going to go get some food,” Tom said, disengaging Cerra and strolling towards the door. Whatever was going on, he hadn’t meant to poach. He’d be damned if he got involved.
“Señor,” Cerra said. “Do you grant me permission to come?”
Tom glanced back. He should have remembered …
“Yes. You earned it well enough.”
“Thank you, Señor,” he said, soft eyed and sweet. Then he turned to Voloshin. “Alexei. Come here. You’re late. ”
Tom looked at Voloshin, who blushed like virgin bride.
“I said, come here.”
The Russian jumped in his skin. Then, with a sidelong glance at Tom, he did as he was told.
Tom’s stomach turned as something in Cerra changed, unfurling and growing to fill the room. There was nothing of the boy about him now—he was a pretty-eyed demon with a closed, unreadable face.
Quietly, Tom left. The last thing he saw before shutting the door was Voloshin bent over the bed, legs spread wide, ass on display. The latched clicked just as Tom heard the crack of skin against skin.
For a moment, Tom stood there, unable to move. Then, with his back pressed against the wall, he slid down to the floor. He’d have bet money that Cerra was the purest of subs, not a switch with a huge fucking Russian ready to take it hard. He’d been miles off the mark …
Something was happening that he couldn’t see, and because he couldn’t see it, he’d missed something vital. Again. Which meant, Tom thought, closing his eyes, that he was wandering in the dark. Elle Mason, Cerra, his own arousal … He had fallen off the map.
Though Tom barely slept, he woke up early and went to the training room well before dawn.
Slowly and methodically, he stretched his back, legs and shoulders, isolating muscle groups and measuring his breath until his body was warm and relaxed. Outside the French doors, snow mixed with stars in the fading night sky, though there was still enough darkness beyond the window to reflect the mirrored room.
Tom saw himself in the windows, pliant and strong—the man he gave lovers, his father, himself … the man who’d fucked Cerra when he’d thought he was a sub … the one and only man who had ever fucked Bisset.
Tom’s mouth tightened. A habitual response. And then he thought of Elle.
She was so fucking cold, as cold as Bisset was hot. She was so cold that she burned, a blue flame in the night. He imagined the press of her body on the frosted window glass and the supple flex of her spine. Her eyes would flash, he thought, not with passion but impatience as she angled her hips and offered him her cunt. The thought instantly made him hard.
Tom rose from a lunge and leaned his head against the glass, stroking his cock as he did. He wanted to fuck that cold, white woman against a wall of ice and snow. He wanted the glacial cool of her body to thicken his blood and harden him like her. Tom stopped for a moment, cock straining in his hand, as the kernel of an instinct told him what he had to do. He could hear the truth of it, whispering and right … you must bend, bend, bend … But he wasn’t ready yet. Soon.
He began to stroke himself again. He wanted so badly to come, but he didn’t let himself. He hadn’t earned it yet.
“Sorry, Captain America. Don’t let me interrupt.”
Tom’s hand jerked as Elle Mason’s reflection appeared behind his. He smiled and kept stroking his cock.
“Hello Ms. Mason.”
Her eyes met his in the window, a cold level gaze, and he grew even harder, more ready to come. He was dancing on the edge. Slowly, he eased the pressure off his shaft, but he did not turn around.
Silence stretched between them, tensile and thin, broken only by their breath, as their eyes met in the glass.
“My apologies. I hope we are not late.”
Cerra slid through the door wearing his sleek, submissive self, with a subdued Voloshin in tow. Using their entrance as a cue, Tom ambled past Elle Mason and knelt on the thick black line. Moments later, Donati came in, followed by Bisset. There was something bruised about the Frenchman that Tom couldn’t peg and didn’t quite like, something deep beneath the skin. He filed the impression away.
“Thank you, gentlemen, for being prompt. We will be pairing
you off and moving you into different rooms for the first half of the day. But first, we remove your numbers, and start the day fresh.”
Tom looked down at his chest. He’d forgotten about the 3 … Tom accepted the towel and acetone that Voloshin handed him. In two swipes, the number was off and his chest was clean. He passed the bottle and rag to Bisset, who took them without a word.
When they had all removed the signs of their rank, Elle Mason moved forward, smooth as spilled cream.
“Voloshin, Cerra, you will remain in this room with Signor Donati. Granger, Bisset, get your equipment and follow me.”
Without acknowledging each other, Tom and Bisset rose and took a step.
“No. Hands and knees.”
“Pardon,” Bisset asked, voice sharp with challenge. Tom shook his head.
“I said,” she repeated pleasantly. “Get. On. Your hands. And knees.”
“I am not a hound, Mademoiselle.”
Elle Mason smiled.
“Why are you here?”
Bisset stared at her, silent.
“Too proud to say,” she went on. It was a statement, not a question. “I’ll help you then. You are here in the hopes of training in a method you do not understand. Unless you’ve changed your mind, you will get on your knees, or you will leave.”
“Jesus Christ, Bisset …”
Elle Mason cocked her head, and turned to Tom.
“Something you’d like to say?”
“Yeah, actually, there is …” Tom gave Elle a slightly feral grin and launched his opening gambit. His instincts had been right. It was time to play the game. “Get on your knees, Bisset. We’re pawns, and we’re right where they want us. Isn’t that right, Ms. Mason?”
Elle Mason smiled, in spite herself.
“No. Where I want you is five steps behind me, on your hands and knees with your equipment bags in your mouths. But yes. In the grander scheme of things, you are precisely where I want you.”
A thrill of pure arousal slid through Tom’s system. Jesus Christ, he wanted to fuck her. He wanted to split her wide open and pit himself against her will. He wanted to sink himself into her and absorb what she had—real, autonomous power. And the only way to get there was to maneuver and submit.
Tom knelt without breaking her gaze. Then he crawled across the floor to his bag. Face burning, he took it up in his mouth, but rather than fight the humiliation, he leaned into it and allowed his ego to squirm. Slowly, the heat drained from his face. He was calm and focused by the time he knelt five feet behind Elle.
“Very good, Granger,” she murmured. “Monsieur?”
Grudgingly, Bisset crawled after Tom, dragging his equipment bag behind him like a sullen hound. Elle Mason’s eyes flickered over them both. Then she turned and led them across the room as if she held their leads. Tom kept his eyes on the floor as she stopped before a mirrored wall. For a moment, she stood there, running her fingertips down one of the seams. Then she pressed it, and a door sprang open. Instinctively, Tom backed up, right into Bisset.
“Watch it, Granger,” the Frenchman hissed, losing the bite he had on his bag.
Normally, this would have irked him—Bisset’s irritation usually inspired a corrective response in him. This time he almost laughed. Bisset might have been a weapon Elle could use against him. But, luckily for Tom, he was as much a weapon as Bisset.
“Watch yourself, slick,” Tom said, teeth tight around the strap.
A vein popped out in Bisset’s temple, as Tom had known it would. Ignoring them both, Elle Mason snapped her fingers and led them into a dimly lit room. Tom followed, not quite at her heels. After struggling to get the strap back in his mouth, Bisset scrambled last through the door.
“Drop your bags. Wait in rest position there.”
Elle Mason pointed to a line in the center of the room. This room was smaller than the main training room, but no less well equipped. With her back to both fencers, she flipped on all the lights while Tom waited patiently, trying to understand how she moved. He could anticipate most people, but he could not anticipate her …
“Put your equipment on,” she said, selecting two swords from the rack. Her tone, Tom noticed, had lost its spiky edge. “I want both of you on the center line.”
Tom found himself having a curious response to the change in her tone. Moving quickly, he put on the jock strap, ignoring his hard on and the ache in his balls, as he glanced over at Bisset. Gauging the man by his cock, it would appear he had shrunk beneath the pressure and the stress.
“Masks and gloves. En-garde position and hold.”
Her command was voiced in a long, flat drawl, but beneath the boredom she was watching every move. Tom suppressed a smile. He was getting a sense for where things stood. Tom tightened a buckle on the jock strap and grabbed his mask and gloves. Then he met Bisset on the strip and sank into a loose en-garde.
To a stranger, Bisset would have seemed perfectly at ease, but Tom could see how tightly he was wound, from the tick in his jaw to the tension in his calves. The man nearly jumped when Elle Mason handed them their blades.
Unlike the weighted épée from the day before, the sabers she handed them were light and extremely springy, more like wire whips than swords. And yet these too had nasty barbed tips, in addition to sharpened blades. Tom’s stomach dropped—he hadn’t fenced saber in years.
Tom watched the smaller man flex his wrist, testing the weight of the blade. Bisset didn’t like the saber any more than Tom did. For a moment, understanding passed between them. The jolt of connection thickened the air as thoughts of curved muscle and salty skin flickered over the Frenchman’s face. Then Bisset broke the connection and Tom looked away.
“Don’t worry, gentlemen,” Elle Mason said, addressing their unspoken concern. “You won’t be fencing saber. These swords have a different purpose. The sabers I’ve given you have more whip than the weapons you’re used to. For this exercise, your only task is to guard yourself from getting hit. Nothing is off limits, but there is a catch. You may not move your feet.”
Elle Mason paused, smiling faintly while she allowed what she’d said to sink in.
“We must defend ourselves without footwork?”
“Yes, Monsieur Bisset. You are going to get hit, and it is going to hurt. Your task is to fence as effectively as you can.
“Now,” she went on, eyes bright in her expressionless face. “Masks down.”
Mind whirring, Tom lowered his mask.
“En-garde. Ready. Allez.”
Tom had barely settled into en-garde when a blade whipped out and slashed across his torso. Hot, itchy pain crackled over his skin, but he checked the impulse to lash out. Instead, he shifted his weight and watched Bisset’s blade spring back with more force than he’d expected. Taking advantage, Tom leaned from the waist and thrust, leaving a fat red welt on Bisset’s chest.
“Good. Again. En-garde. Ready. Allez.”
This time it was Tom who struck first, slicing through Bisset’s parry with a vicious remise to lay a pretty stripe over his thigh. Following instinct, Tom struck again, striping the Frenchman’s other thigh, to give him a matched set.
“One point per attack,” Elle Mason said, suppressing a feline smile. “Granger, where did you learn that control?”
Tom raised his mask and wiped the sweat from his eyes. It wasn’t all that different from a quirt. “Practice,” he said, dropping the mask back over his face.
“Fair enough. En-garde. Ready. Allez. ”
And so it went, until Tom and Bisset were slicked with sweat and covered in angry red welts. Thirty minutes on, five minutes off, until both were trembling from the strain of maintaining a single position for so long.
“Enough,” Elle Mason said, glancing at her watch. “Well done. Take off your masks.”
Tom took off his mask and eased out of en-garde.
His thighs felt like jelly and the cup had been chafing for hours. Challenges turned him on. He loosened the buckles a notch. Despite having received, on average, as many hits as Bisset, Tom was pleased with the results. The welts he’d given Bisset criss-crossed each other, deliberate and with style. His, on the other hand, were a ugly mess without precision or control.
“Granger. Well done. Bisset … you’re going to want that on.”
Bisset had taken off his codpiece and was breathing hard, more from stress than athletic strain. His balls, Tom noted, were tight against his body; his cock as hard as Tom’s. He caught the Frenchman’s eye, knowing full well what had turned him on. Bisset looked away and abruptly left the strip.
“Don’t we get a fucking break?”
“Of course,” Elle Mason said, ignoring Bisset’s agitation. “Five minutes to stretch and hydrate. Then we begin the next exercise. After that, you get a break before the trial bouts this afternoon. You’ll have the results by the end of the day.”
Without another word, she was out the door. Tom smiled to himself. He was gaining a deep appreciation for the scene she was running. Still, there was Bisset …
“You all right,” he asked. The Frenchman had his back to the room and trembled like a racehorse.
“This is bullshit,” Bisset said, without turning around. Tom nodded, oddly relieved by the arrogance dripping from his tone.
“I don’t know,” Tom said. “I assume there’s a point to it.”
Bisset made some sort of dismissive snort and faced him in the mirror. His erection had settled down a little, Tom was sorry to see. Much of Bisset was a mystery to Tom, but not his sexual wiring.
“This is not training. This is fraud.”
“You can’t really call it fraud. Besides, I thought you enjoyed learning new things.”
Tom leveled Bisset a look, half lazy dominance, half thinly concealed sex. He wanted to see how he’d respond. Blushing until his cheekbones were as red as the welts on his abs and arms, Bisset simply shrugged. Tom’s dick twitched in response.
He was about to up the stakes one more time when Elle stalked back into the room. He knocked back the last of his water, swallowing down half the bottle in one long, suggestive pull. Then he tossed the bottle aside and went back to the strip.