The Athletic Aesthetic

by Vanessa Wu

  “No masks,” Elle Mason said, as Tom picked his up.

  “No masks,” he repeated, hoping he’d heard wrong. “Ms. Mason, I’m willing to work with your protocols, but I don’t want to lose an eye.”

  Rather than give him the cold dismissal he’d assumed he would get, Elle Mason looked right at him and smiled. Suddenly, she looked like Grace Kelly—soft and lovely and warm. Tom was fascinated by the change in her face.

  “Don’t worry, Granger. You won’t lose an eye. We’re using wooden épées with foam tips for this, and you’ll be fencing at quarter speed. Wait for Bisset. I’ll explain.”

  Warily, both men met at the center of the strip while Elle Mason brought two wooden épées down from the rack against the wall. Then she handed them over, first to Tom and then Bisset.

  “The object here is to anticipate each other. Speed is not the goal. Observation is, so you will fence slowly, keeping time to this.” She held up a small metronome and put it by the edge of the strip.

  “When you read an impulse off each other,” she continued, “I want you to say it. It could be mechanical, like “parry” or “riposte”, or it could be emotional, like “frustration” or “fear.” Don’t think. Just say. Clear?”

  “Clear,” Tom said.

  Something strong and sleek uncurled inside him. He smiled. He wanted to play.

  “This is ridiculous,” Bisset muttered.

  “Then you are welcome to leave.”

  Elle Mason gave him a friendly smile. Bisset grudgingly picked up his codpiece and put it on. Then he met Tom at the strip and lowered into position. Not for the first time, Tom reflected on how obscene they must look in their bulging leather cups. And yet Elle Mason barely noticed, as if the sight were so familiar as to be hardly worth her notice.

  “Heads are off limits,” she said. “Everything else is fair game.”

  Then she bent and turned the metronome on, setting it to tick at a slow, methodical pace.

  “En-garde. Ready. Allez.”

  Tom rocked back on his heels, thighs burning from hours in en-garde. The welts stung and his balls were sore, but while he mentally acknowledged the discomfort, he felt no attachment to it. His attention was on Bisset and the tick of the metronome.

  Tom lunged. Bisset parried, as something old and edgy flared up on his face.

  “What do you see,” Elle said, as the Frenchman parried again and came at Tom with an aggressive riposte. “Anger? Frustration? Say it.”

  Bisset lunged and Tom counter-parried, slipping past the blade.

  “You’re struggling,” Tom said without thinking.

  “Be specific,” Elle said.

  Bisset flushed and attacked again. Again Tom parried, before dancing out of range in time with the drowsy ticks, keeping his impulses measured. He wanted to go slow.

  “Fear pulls your strings,” Tom said, knowing, the depth to which it was true. Bisset lived in fear.

  Tom advanced with a flèche, synching the shock of the movement with the sleepy metronome. Bisset tried to retreat, but Tom’s sword landed squarely on his chest.

  “Bullshit,” Bisset said, breathing hard.

  “Don’t argue,” Elle interrupted. “Bisset, what do you see?”

  Tom stopped listening and attacked again, binding Bisset’s sword. Bisset shook him off with a violent remise, opening up his flank.

  “I see …”

  Bisset shook his head, at a loss for words, just as the tip of Tom’s sword glanced off his hip. The metronome ticked impassively beneath Bisset’s ragged breath.

  “Good. Granger, what do you see?”

  Before Tom could respond, Bisset charged him corp-a-corp. It was an aggressive, desperate move. Tom angled his body, sliding against Bisset as he parried the Frenchman’s sword.

  “You’re scared,” he whispered, right into Bisset’s ear. “You’re scared and it makes you sick.”

  “What the fuck do you think I am scared of?”

  Bisset advanced too quickly, nearly throwing himself at Tom. Tom backed up, giving himself the necessary space.

  “You are scared of this,” Tom said. Suddenly he lunged, tapping the other man’s codpiece, very gently, with his sword.

  Bisset dropped his weapon as if he’d been stabbed. The sword clattered to the floor.

  “Enough,” Elle Mason said, picking it up. “That’s enough. Break now. Be in the main training room in two hours. Well done, Granger. Bisset, cool off.”

  For a moment, she stood there, looking at them both, a queen assessing her knights. Then, looking preoccupied, she turned around and left. The door had barely closed behind her when Bisset stalked out. Tom hung back, giving him space.

  He should have felt something—pride, satisfaction, sympathy, remorse … it was Bisset after all. But Tom felt nothing. Nothing at all, as he walked down the length of the strip, and shut off the metronome.

  When Tom entered the locker room, only Cerra was there, drying off.

  “Where are Voloshin and Bisset?”

  The Spaniard shrugged. “I do not know about Bisset, but Voloshin is gone. The method did not suit him, I think.”

  Tom nodded but didn’t say anything. If Voloshin had left, there was nothing to say. Every man had to sort it out for himself. Cerra finished drying off and hung his towel up. Less than twenty-four hours before, Tom’s cock had been down Cerra’s throat. While his body wouldn’t have minded an encore, the rest of him held back. It was odd, Tom reflected. The embarrassed, submissive boy was still there, twinned by the Cerra in front of him—a man with the poise of a cipher.

  “Few people are what they seem,” Cerra said, as if he’d read Tom’s mind. “Voloshin was an exception. He lives on the surface. Better to leave than to push.”

  Suddenly, Cerra turned and held out his hand.

  “Good luck, Granger,” he said. The Spaniard’s grip was deceptively firm, very much like the man.

  “Thanks, Cerra. Good luck to you too.”

  Cerra smiled, his smooth, young face, unreadable. Then, without another word, he left the room. Tom shook his head. The whole exchange had been strange. At this point, he wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that Cerra was the Master …

  The news about Voloshin had him vaguely concerned about Bisset, but he was nowhere in the showers , or the dorm. Tom shrugged, and headed back to the locker room to grab a cursory shower. There was nothing left to do. He might as well sit in the sauna and keep his muscles loose.

  The welts on his chest and thighs had already begun to itch, but he ignored the discomfort as he opened the thick glass door, releasing a wall of heat and steam. Removing the towel from around his hips, Tom sat down and filled his lungs with thick, moist heat.

  Despite the buzzing silence in the hot, little room, Tom could still hear the metronome ticking in his head. Experimentally, he ran a hand over his length. Running the second exercise with Bisset had been one of the hottest, non-sexual things he’d ever done. There’d been so many dynamics to play with, and all while Elle Mason watched, and pulled the strings.

  Tom thought of the last time he’d seen Bisset. They’d been naked then too, though for entirely different reasons. He began to stroke himself. He didn’t think of Bisset that often, but when he did, it always came to this—his hand on his cock and a chunk of lead in his gut. He’d taken advantage on the strip … Tom leaned his head back and closed his eyes, breathing in the heat as his hand kept up the rhythm to an invisible metronome.

  Wisps of cool air over his feet.

  “Hello, Michel,” he said, not looking up. “Close the door, will you. You’re letting out the heat.”

  “Of course … Tamás.”

  Tom looked up then. Only three people had ever called him by his given name. His mother, his father, and Michel Bisset … and Bisset hadn’t used it in a very long time. Q
uietly, he watched the Frenchman settle down on the bench across from him. The room was so small, the hairs on their knees touched.

  “Voloshin’s out,” Tom said, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. His hand was still moving languidly over his cock. Bisset glanced down and shrugged.

  “I’m not surprised,” he said.

  Tom paused, waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t, he sat up and looked and at Bisset.

  “I’m sorry about calling you out in there,” Tom said.

  Bisset raised a brow, looking narrow and cavalier. “No, you’re not.”

  Tom smiled.

  “You’re right, Michel. I’m not.”

  “Why?”

  Why …

  The word was an invitation. Bisset always began that way. Inviting, suggesting … He left his aggression on the strip. Or at home, Tom supposed. With him, Michel liked to be taken. That’s why they had worked, for a while, anyway. Tom loved to take.

  “Because,” Tom said, leaning forward. He could practically hear the other man’s pulse. “I want to win.”

  Bisset’s eyes shifted, before he covered up the hurt, which is what Tom had needed to see. The hurt was Bisset’s key. Tom smiled, unlocking. Before Bisset could protest, Tom wrapped his hand around the back of his neck, and pulled him into a kiss.

  Tom teased Bisset’s mouth open, as the Frenchman stiffened and tried to pull away. Their kisses were always like that at first … Tom could barely stand it—the familiarity of it. He wanted to grind his hips against Bisset’s and feel the man’s erection rub against his own. But he held off, savoring the tension before the Frenchman relaxed, just as he knew he would. Then Tom slowly moved in, spreading his legs and moving forward on the bench, until their cocks stood beside each other, barely touching but hard as iron bars. Bisset groaned.

  “There’s something else,” Tom whispered, dropping the words in Bisset’s ear. The Frenchman quivered but didn’t move. “I’m not sorry because you need this,” Tom said, allowing his ego to push. “You just don’t want to need it.”

  Bisset’s breath went ragged as he pulled at Tom, scrabbling at the welts he’d laid over Tom’s skin. Tom winced and grabbed his hand.

  “Say it, Michel. What do you want?”

  Bisset looked at him, dark eyes pleading and full of sex. Worry and sex. They were always paired for Michel. At least, they were with him.

  “Say it,” Tom said, not relenting for once. “Say it, or get the fuck out.”

  “I want this,” Bisset whispered, trembling. He was so beautifully high-strung … Tom nodded, and kissed him hard enough to bruise.

  “It’s all right. I won’t tell a soul,” he murmured against Bisset’s lips. “Your wife will never know.”

  Tom didn’t like the bitterness in his voice, but he ignored it for what it was—old emotion. Nothing new. He grabbed a fistful of Bisset’s glossy, dark hair, and twisted until the other man whimpered, sending chills over his skin, despite the suffocating heat.

  “Come here,” Tom said, drunk on the scent of Bisset’s skin under the spicy expensive soap. The air grew even thicker. Bisset moaned as Tom slowly cupped his balls.

  “Don’t worry, Michel,” Tom murmured, yanking his head back while running a hand up the other man’s cock. “This is what we do. Now get on the floor.”

  The classy thing to do, Tom thought, would be to go to the dorm and lock the door, but he didn’t want to lose the momentum. Momentum was everything with Bisset, so he pressed the man to his knees, before following him down to the tiled floor.

  “Hands and knees in front of me. Stroke your cock,” Tom said, sounding, to his own ears, uncannily like Elle. “Get as hard as you can, but don’t come without permission. Do you understand?”

  “Oui,” Bisset whispered, voice cracking. He was trembling again. The man was built like a greyhound, Tom thought as his cock stiffened even more. Tom reached around Bisset, deliberately running his nails over the welts that covered his ribs and thighs. The sound Bisset made was gold, a strangled protesting hiss. Tom loved that fucking sound.

  Dripping with sweat, skin stinging, Tom prised open Bisset’s crack to reveal his tight, pretty hole. Knowing that time was getting short, he sucked on his index finger and gently pressed at the opening, nearly groaning as he did. Bisset shuddered beneath him but didn’t make a sound. Slowly the tight muscles gave way as if they recognized him, allowing Tom’s finger to move smoothly in before withdrawing again.

  “Don’t stop. Don’t fucking stop.”

  Tom smiled. Bisset was such a brat.

  “What do we say,” Tom said, withdrawing his finger and dealing Bisset a smack on the ass.

  “Please,” Bisset conceded. “Please don’t stop.”

  “Better,” Tom said, reaching for a pot of herbal balm sitting on the bench. He opened it and slicked his fingers with the sweet smelling ointment. Then he liberally greased Bisset’s hole, before sliding his finger back in. Bisset shuddered. Tom smiled and joined the first finger with a second. Before long, Bisset was pressing back against his hand, keening and moaning like a proper whore. Tom’s breathing tattered. Precum beaded the tip of his cock, drawn as much by the sound of the man in front of him, as from his own frustrated arousal.

  “How close are you to coming,” he said. He sounded breathier, more desperate than he’d have liked, but at this point, it didn’t matter. Bisset was quivering under him, offering his ass like a girl at prom.

  “I … close,” he said.

  “Good. Hands off,” Tom said. “Both palms on the ground.”

  Then he took Bisset’s dick in his hand as he slowly guided his own cock into Bisset’s eager hole. Tom groaned as the Frenchman’s body slowly accepted him, clutching with desperate heat. Beneath him, Bisset bucked. Tom gave him another smack.

  “Easy, Michel, I’ve got you,” he said, his soft tone belying the sting of his hand.

  Slowly, he set a rhythm, so and steady and painfully precise, like the metronome in his head.

  “S’il te plait … please. Please.”

  “Not yet. Don’t come. Not fucking yet …”

  Tom was pushing them right to the edge, but he was wanted to keep his control of Bisset right up to the end. Beneath him, Bisset thrust and struggled, unable to rein himself in. Finally, when Tom couldn’t hold back any longer, he pulled out of Bisset and came, splattering cum all over the Frenchman’s lean, gorgeous ass.

  “Now, Michel,” he said, panting. “Now come.”

  Immediately, Bisset came, wringing out his own orgasm as Tom milked his head. Then they both sagged onto the floor.

  They were still sitting in the sticky puddle of their spend when the door to the sauna opened, revealing Signor Donati.

  “Ah, good afternoon, gentlemen. Please, if you would clean up and meet Ms. Mason and I in the main training room as quickly as possible. There are announcements to be made.”

  Then Donati quietly shut the door.

  Without saying anything, Tom lifted himself off Bisset and held out a hand to help him off the floor. Bisset looked at him, shattered and tempted. Then he shook his head and got up on his own.

  “Thank you, Tamás, but no. This may be, as you say, what we do, but I don’t have to like it. I will get up on my own.”

  Tom nodded. Grabbing his towel, he turned and opened the door. Then they both stepped out into the cold, over-bright room.

  Nothing more was said, not as they showered or as they dried off. Tom watched himself and Michel as if through a distant lens. No eye contact. No conversation. No easiness. The habit of complication had reasserted itself. They were back to normal now. He was surprised to find himself feeling, finally, a twist of real regret.

  When they arrived in the main training hall, Signor Donati and Santiago Cerra were waiting for them beside the main practice strip. Cerra was clothed in tr
aditional fencing gear. Elle Mason was not there.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” Donati said. “Alexei Voloshin has withdrawn from the trials. What you may or may not have realized is that Santiago here has already finished the training.”

  Tom nodded. That explained a lot.

  “He was kind enough,” Donati went on, “to return and make a fourth this year, as we had only three suitable candidates. That means that you, Monsieur Bisset and Mr. Granger, are the only men left on the field. Ms. Mason has informed me of your progress this morning, and based on that, a decision has been made. All that remains is for this decision to be reinforced. It is up to you to either defend your position or change my mind.”

  “Where is Ms. Mason,” Tom asked, sensing a set up.

  “She is attending to other matters,” Cerra explained. “You will fence against me for your trial. Please, don your equipment.”

  Donati and Cerra waited patiently at the edge of the strip while Tom and Bisset put on the padded jock strap for what, Tom hoped, would not be the last time. Then, without acknowledging each other, Tom and Bisset, approached the strip.

  “Standard épée rules,” Donati said. “You will fence Cerra to five points. Monsieur Bisset, you go first.”

  Tom knelt, assuming rest position without a second thought, and watched as Bisset approached the center of the strip. To the unpracticed eye, he looked calm, but to Tom, he looked like a racehorse trembling at the gate.

  “Masks down,” Donati said.

  Bisset and Cerra lowered their masks.

  “En-garde. Ready. Allez.”

  Bisset and Cerra tapped blades, gauging each other. Suddenly, Cerra attacked at the mid-line, driving Bisset back. A fresh welt rose up on Bisset’s shoulder.

  “Point left.”

  Cerra and Bisset reset. Again, Cerra attacked at the midline, but this time Bisset parried and launched a running attack. Cerra retreated, but not quickly enough to avoid Bisset.

  “Point right.”