by Ann Lister
“Sex club?” Mason almost choked on the words.
“The Black Key is the name of a very exclusive and private sex club for gay men,” Tessler explained.
“The place in the story really exists?”
“It does and I took a risk in writing about it, but since I published it under another name, no one really knew who was responsible for the story,” Tessler admitted.
“Now, I remember,” Mason said excitedly. “The stories are about a young guy’s sexual discovery at this bondage club.”
“Well, it isn’t all about bondage, but there are a few restraints used here and there,” Tessler said. “I broke all kinds of long-standing sales records with that series. I’m not sure why it struck such a nerve with the readers, but I’ve lost count of how many millions of copies I’ve sold internationally. By the time I hit twenty-two, I was already a very rich man.”
“I’m trying to remember the name of the author of that series,” Mason said thoughtfully.
“LJ Mechum,” Tessler said.
“Is that your real name?” Mason questioned.
“No, that’s just another pen name I used solely to write The Black Key Trilogy,” Tessler said. “LJ stands for Lancing Jacob, and I used the last name of my creative writing professor in college.”
“So is Tessler your birth name?”
“Nope, that’s the pen name I use for my science fiction stories.”
“And your birth name?” Mason pushed.
Did he dare spill it all to Mason? Tessler’s gaze dropped to his lap, and Mason softly touched his knee.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Mason said. “I’m asking too many personal questions, so I won’t push for the answer to that last one,” Mason said and chuckled. “I’d be too confused to pull off having three names though,” Mason commented.
“That’s exactly what I’m dealing with,” Tessler admitted. “It’s becoming more difficult to keep the three lives separate, and I’m losing the real me in the process. I also fear that one day all three identities could be forced into one, and I’m not sure my career or if I myself could survive that.”
“I knew you were complex, but I never would have imagined just how much,” Mason said.
“Is it a dealbreaker for you?” Tessler asked.
Mason shook his head. “No, not at all,” he said and slid closer to Tessler on the couch until they shared the same cushion with their shoulders touching. “I’ve got baggage, too. I mean, we all do, right?”
“I suppose so,” Tessler said and fidgeted uneasily in his seat. “Would it be a dealbreaker if I told you I was the young guy discovering his sexuality in that sex club?”
“What are you saying?” Mason asked. “The trilogy was about you and your experiences?”
Tessler nodded and his face heated. “Almost all of it was about me, but some of it was completely fictional.”
Mason’s eyes went wide and then he turned his face away. “Jesus, you’re so young now,” he whispered. “How old were you when you went to that club?”
“Twenty-one,” Tessler admitted. “That was the minimum age they’d allow.”
“You were only twenty-one?” Mason’s voice was strained, to say the least. “How did that happen? I mean, how does a kid of twenty-one find his way into a place like that?”
Tessler stood up and tossed a few more logs into the fire pit. Mason’s words were sounding more and more judgmental by the second, and he wasn’t sure he could handle it if Mason walked away from him now.
“The first agent I signed with was more than an agent,” Tessler said as he poked at one of the flaming chunks of wood. “I was young and stupid and had a libido of most normal kids that age. Compound that with the curiosity so many authors seem to have, and I found myself gaining access to that club as the guest of my agent.”
“You’ve packed the life experiences of ten men into one,” Mason replied.
“I guess so,” Tessler stated and shrugged.
“And you participated while at the club?”
Tessler drank the rest of the wine in his glass and reached for the bottle for a refill. “Not at first, but eventually, yes,” he answered. “I learned a lot about myself during my time there.”
“Any regrets?” Mason inquired.
“Not one,” Tessler managed to say. “Except for maybe going with someone other than my agent.”
“Why’s that?”
“He was a mind-fucker and always wanted things to go his way,” Tessler said and sat down on the far end of the couch. He kept his gaze on the fire and not on Mason. “Soon enough, I started to say no to him, and he wasn’t happy about that. When it was time for me to sign a new contract with him, I decided I didn’t want to and chose to walk away. We went our separate ways after that.”
“How long were you together?” Mason asked.
“We were never together, as in a relationship, but from a business standpoint, we worked together for around two years.”
“But I thought you said you went to the club with him,” Mason said.
“If you’re asking if we fucked, then yes, we did, but there was never any kind of boyfriend ‘relationship’ thing going on between us,” Tessler explained and used air quotes around the word relationship. He shifted on the couch again and rubbed at his temples. “Look, I’ve been with a lot of men, and like I said before, I have zero regrets about any of it. That part of my life is over and done with, but if it’s a problem for you that I have that in my past, then you’re not hurting my feelings if you want to leave.”
“You think I’d want to leave because you used to go to a sex club?” Mason asked.
Tessler finally turned to look at Mason. “Well, yeah. Isn’t that why you’re asking all the invasive questions and sounding judge-like?”
“I don’t mean to sound like that; it’s not my nature to pass judgment on anyone, either,” Mason said. “I’m asking the questions because I guess I’m … curious about it. I’ve never known anyone who’s gone to a place like that and it intrigues me.”
“Yeah? It really doesn’t bother you?”
Mason chuckled. “Not in the least,” he answered. “If anything, I’m a little jealous that you’ve managed to cram all that fun into your young years.”
Tessler slumped in the seat and started to laugh loudly. “Holy shit! I thought I’d scared you off by telling you that,” he confessed. “That’s exactly why I don’t tell anyone who I really am.”
Mason shook his head. “I’m cool with it,” he said and inched closer to Tessler on the couch. “Maybe you could share a few stories about the club with me or perhaps you could … teach me something?”
“Like what?” Tessler asked. “The proper way to bind someone so as not to restrict blood flow to their extremities?”
Mason stared at him with a warm smile for a long moment before he finally said, “Can I kiss you again?”
Tessler answered by slipping his hand behind Mason’s neck and pulling him forward. He pressed his forehead to Mason’s and inhaled. “You don’t have to ask if you can kiss me, and I’m sorry I brought up my past and who I really am. I didn’t do it to kill the mood of our night. I did it because I want to be honest with you.”
Mason rubbed their noses together. “It’s not killing the night, Tess. I’m just so happy to finally be here with you, and I’m thrilled you shared that piece of yourself with me.”
“Did you just call me Tess?”
“I guess I did,” Mason replied. “Is that a bad thing?”
Tessler sat back a bit and considered his answer. “I don’t believe anyone has ever called me that, except for maybe my current agent,” he remarked. “He might have referred to me as that once or twice. It sounds kinda girly, don’t you think?”
Mason laughed at that. “Believe me, no one would accuse you of being girly,” Mason said. “Everything about you screams all man.” And fuck! I’d love you to be my man, too.
“Tell you what, you can call me Tess because I
like the way it sounds coming from your mouth,” Tessler said. “But no one else gets to have that privilege, okay?”
Mason’s fingers sifted through Tessler’s soft, dark hair. “I like having something private with you,” he whispered right before his mouth covered Tessler’s in a kiss that stole his breath.
Mason tasted of steak and wine and complete decadence in a way that was all new for Tessler. It was like having a true taste of the forbidden because what he had growing with Mason was like nothing he’d ever allowed himself to have before now. He hadn’t felt safe enough to give someone any real part of himself like this, but he also hadn’t had a partner who he wanted that with, either. With Mason, everything felt real, like the motion picture had suddenly switched into Technicolor the way it had in the Wizard of Oz movie, and everything was that much more vibrant to look at.
Beautiful splashes of radiant color fired off with Mason’s kiss like a lightning storm inside Tessler’s head. It was his own private celebration with each new dip and swipe of Mason’s tongue as he played inside his mouth. It was beyond perfection. Their connection was hot, fierce, and urgent, and Tessler couldn’t get enough.
“Need more,” Tessler sighed.
“More kissing?”
“Jesus, yes, all of it,” Tessler mumbled almost incoherently.
“Are you about to serve me dessert?” Mason asked as he started to suck on Tessler’s throat.
“I’m about to blow a load in my pants,” Tessler said and pitched his hips up seeking friction against Mason’s groin. “I suppose that could be considered dessert.”
“Nah, you’d need to serve that to me in my mouth for it to be considered dessert,” Mason said.
Tessler grabbed a hold of Mason’s hips and used his strength to flip them over on the couch, then straddled his lap. Seconds later, he made a show of pulling off his shirt, undoing his belt, and opening his zipper. “You really want me to serve you dessert?” he asked in a husky tone.
“Fuck, yes!”
Chapter Sixteen
He felt it first in his periphery, just lurking there in the shadows like a criminal waiting for the perfect opportunity to attack. But it was skulking closer. Mason could feel it as the darkness tried to gnaw at him from the inside out. He was fighting so hard to keep those unwelcome sensations tamped down, even using Tessler as a distraction to the panic threatening to swallow him whole.
Then Tessler was on top of him. His body loomed too close, and the weight on his pelvis was too much. Every scrape of his own clothing against his skin felt like electrical shocks to his system. What had started out feeling blissful was quickly turning into something dark, and Mason was losing his control to stop it from happening.
Beside them the stone pit flamed brightly, as fingers of fire licked around each log and consumed them. The heat from fire began to make Mason sweat, and it felt like his exposed skin was starting to burn. The crackling sounds were getting louder and louder until he was having trouble hearing the dirty things Tessler was saying from above him. Two sharp pops from the fire sent small embers flying through the air towards them on the couch. In that moment, Mason lost his battle with the darkness and he was gone, swept away in a vortex of personal hell playing out inside his head.
“Fire! Fire! I’m on fire!” He heard himself scream the words like they were coming from someone else. His hands frantically slapped at his arms and torso, doing his best to extinguish flames only he could see.
He shoved Tessler off his lap, then wrapped a protective arm around his waist before he hauled them both over the back of the couch to take cover. A second later, they landed together in a heap on the roof deck behind the furniture. “Stay low,” he shouted at Tessler. “We’ll meet the rest of the team over by the back door!”
“Mason!” Tessler screamed. “There’s no fire! You’re safe with me on the roof of my building!”
“Listen to me,” Mason yelled. “We don’t have a lot of time! We’ve got to move out!”
Mason quickly scanned the area looking for a way through the fire, but in his mind it was everywhere, eating away at whatever was in its path. His eyes started to burn from the smoke—oh Jesus, the smoke! Suddenly, there was so much of it choking him, and he began to gasp for his next breath.
“I can’t breathe! I can’t … breathe!” Mason was screaming as loud as his hoarse voice could handle, but it didn’t seem to do any good. The thick smoke clogged his throat and it was suffocating. He started to pull at the collar of his dress shirt to free his airway. Buttons began to pop from his efforts. “Air! Air! I need to … breathe!” He dragged in elongated intakes of air to ease his burning lungs but nothing seemed to help.
“Mason. Mason.” Tessler said in a calm voice right into his face. “Breathe with me. Nice and slow.”
Seconds passed—maybe minutes, Mason wasn’t sure about much of anything right now, especially time, but then he felt soothing hands holding a cool cloth curled around the back of his neck, then it went across his sweaty forehead in long, slow strokes. The same calm words kept replaying in his head on a loop. Over and over like it was pre-recorded.
“Breathe with me. Please. Nice and slow. Do it with me.”
But who’s voice was that? It didn’t sound like anyone he knew from his team. Mason tried to open his eyes wider to see who it was holding him with such care and tenderness, but he couldn’t see the man’s face clearly through the smoke. So much fucking smoke!
His fingers reached to touch the man and missed their target, but the voice continued to soothe him. He couldn’t make sense of the whispered words, but the warmth they spread through him made it all feel like a magical dream. He tried to lean into the man to get closer. He felt boneless and so damn tired. The press of lips to his forehead and then to his temple nudged him further away towards sleep and he welcomed it—begged for the escape, anything to end this hell he was living.
And through it all, those softly spoken words continued to lull him like a song. Over and over, Mason heard them like a chant.
“Breathe with me. You’re going to be fine.”
Jesus, the words were a much-needed balm to his aching soul. When had simple words ever sounded so fucking beautiful? Sleep. He fucking needed to rest and conserve his energy. This is when his training needed to kick in. Rest and be ready. That’s what a Marine did. When he woke up, the fire crew would be there to rescue them, and he’d be ready to help them get everyone else out.
Mason woke with a start and sat up quickly to take in his surroundings. Where the fuck am I? He was seated on a floor behind something that looked like a large piece of furniture. In the other direction he saw a man sitting at a table staring at his phone.
Tessler.
Bits and pieces of the night began to flicker through his brain like the sun seeping through the leaves of a tree. He remembered being with Tessler on his roof top having dinner. Then there was a raging fire? He glanced around the area again. No fire. Relief for that hit him at the same time he realized what had happened instead. Logs burning in the fire pit sparked and I freaked out.
He finger-combed the longer hair on top of his head and kicked off the blanket Tessler must have draped over his legs. The movement caught Tessler’s attention and a moment later, he was kneeling beside Mason on the floor.
“Hey you,” Tessler said with a warm smile.
Mason scrubbed at his face with his big hand. “What time is it?” he asked.
“About twenty minutes after one.”
“Jesus, I am so fucking sorry,” he said quietly.
“Don’t you dare apologize,” Tessler said and cupped the side of his face.
“It’s embarrassing as hell,” Mason said. “That hasn’t happened for a while, so I stupidly thought it was a thing of the past.”
“Panic attack or PTSD?” Tessler asked.
“Starts off as panic and then sometimes I start getting … flashbacks from combat,” Mason explained. “Since I busted up my leg, I’ve had a few fla
shbacks of being trapped in the fire.”
“I think the fire in the stone pit last night triggered your attack, and for that I feel so bad,” Tessler said. “I should have known better than to have us sit beside the fire. I was going for romantic and ended up putting you through hell.”
“It’s not your fault,” Mason replied. “I don’t want you feeling bad about any of this.”
Mason pulled his legs up and tried to stand. Once again, Tessler was there with a helping hand to get him over to the table where they’d eaten dinner. “How bad was it? I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked as he sat in the chair Tessler had pulled out from the table for him.
“It was scary as hell at first,” Tessler admitted. “I wasn’t sure what was going on until you started talking about the fire and the smoke choking you.”
“Fuck, I feel like a complete idiot.”
“Knock it off,” Tessler said. “You went through hell in that fire, Mase, and combat was another kind of hell all together. No one walks away from shit like that without scars, physically and emotionally.”
Tessler stepped away to the refrigerator and opened the door. Mason watched the light come on inside the appliance and something caught his eye. It appeared to be a cake under a plastic dome and then it hit him.
“When is your birthday?” Mason asked.
Tessler grabbed two bottles of water and then shut the refrigerator door. “Well, technically it was yesterday.”
“And that’s why you wanted me to join you for dinner last night, so we could celebrate, and I fucking blew the whole thing by losing my shit in front of you. Now I feel like an even bigger asshole.”
“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing that I had the girls downstairs make a cake,” Tessler said and handed a bottle of water to Mason. “It doesn’t even say anything on it. It’s just a cake, not a birthday cake—simply dessert.”
Mason caught Tessler’s wrist and pulled him over to straddle his lap. Tessler struggled for only a second before he finally settled carefully onto Mason’s muscled thighs. “Thank you for staying with me and keeping me safe,” he said. “I’m typically alone when those attacks hit, and I know they’re not pretty, so it means a lot that you stuck it out. I’m also sorry for the way I am, but I’m working on making things better for myself, and hopefully one day this shit will be part of my past.”