by Eden Myles
I thought about telling Griffiths to fuck off, but then remembered how much he’d donated to the Good Samaritan Foundation just to spend a few evenings with me. I mean, I might be shallow and a little bit stupid, but I wasn’t that callous. I looked up at Peter and said, “Look, I’m sorry, man. Something’s come up and I gotta roll.”
Peter shrugged, rubbing his sweaty self down with a towel. “No problem, man. You come here pretty often, right?”
“Three times a week.”
“Maybe I’ll see you around!” He grinned before sauntering off to the showers.
I bowed over the phone and typed out Yes-fucking-sir, then thought better of being such an ass and erased the fucking before sending it. Time to pay the devil his due, I thought.
***
I rang the doorbell beside the big, double oaken doors of Griffiths’ penthouse apartment in Gramercy Park and waited, pulling irritably at the collar of my dress shirt. I really wasn’t a “suit guy” but it had been one of Griffiths’ requirements.
A few moments later, the door opened and I was stunned by the sight of a spectacularly beautiful naked dude. He had a chiseled bronze body like something off a centerfold, caramel colored hair tied back in a ponytail, and dark brown eyes under heavy brows. A tapestry of rebel tattoos covered his body, back and front, and he was wearing what looked like a dog collar and nothing else. He looked like a patron of one of the leather bars I frequented, even though I’d never seen him before—which was, frankly, a shame. I decided I wouldn’t mind being stalked by the likes of him.
I thought maybe I had the wrong address, but the guy laughed, a deep, cheerful, masculine laugh, and read my mind, “No, this is the right address. You’re Stefan Janovich, right?”
“Y-yeah,” I said, trying not to notice his rather impressive Prince Albert piercing. Even soft he was huge, and I thought about what that piercing would feel like rubbing against the back of my throat. It induced a combination of horror and fascination in me. “But you’re not Mr. Griffiths.”
Again that laugh. The sound of it was like soft velvet against my skin. “No, ‘fraid not. I’m Kyle.” He put his hand out to shake. “I take it Mr. Griffiths didn’t say anything about me.”
“Nope.” I took his hand and shook it.
He held my hand a fraction longer than necessary. His eyes squinched up while he scoped me. “I’m Mr. Griffiths’ courtier. Well, I guess you might say his other courtier. His permanent one. Come on in. Mr. Griffiths will be down shortly.”
He led me inside while I said, “His permanent courtier?”
“We’ve been together going on seven years.”
I tore my eyes away from Kyle’s fine, muscular ass and looked around Mr. Griffiths’ penthouse apartment. It was far from the cold, antiseptic space I’d expected. The walls were darkly wainscoted like an English manor house and covered in shelves and mantels. It was obvious Griffiths collected a lot of antique books and art. The parquet flooring was elegant and immaculate, covered by Oriental throw rugs. Gothic ormolu chandeliers hung in every room, and many of the windows had painted glass etchings of birds and gardens.
Kyle’s rebel beefcakeness looked a little surreal in such proper surroundings, but then I examined the pictures and statuary a little closer and realized that a lot of them celebrated the male form and were subtlety erotic in nature, so maybe he wasn’t so out of place, after all.
Kyle led me to the dark brown leather wrap sofa and offered to fetch me a drink of my choice.
“Just water, if you have it.”
“You don’t drink?” Kyle said as he worked efficiently at the wet bar across the room, unscrewing a bottle of mineral water.
I studied his adorable ass, the way the dragon tattoo on his back wound down around his buttocks, and said, “No. I’m a bit of a health nut.”
“Good. That’ll balance out my bad habits.”
I grinned. “What bad habits are those?”
He brought me a tray with the water bottle and a crystal goblet on it, serving it like an Old World valet—albeit a gorgeous, naked one. “Booze, smokes, guys…well, Mr. Griffiths broke me of the booze part, and being with him doesn’t leave me much energy to chase other guys, but we’re still working on the smokes. Old habits die hard.”
I sipped the water he’d brought me and squinted up at him. “You make him sound like Casanova.”
“More like the Marquis de Sade.”
I laughed at that. “You’re okay with this arrangement? With me?” I expected Kyle to be just a little more territorial than this. I mean, who likes a third wheel?
“He chose you, Stefan,” Kyle said, kneeling down on the floor before the sofa and putting his hands on his knees the way I regularly saw the martial arts students do down at the gym. “I’m down with whatever Mr. Griffiths decides.”
I looked him over. “Including not sitting on the furniture.”
“I will if he lets me.”
I arched an eyebrow at his display. “Seriously? You do whatever he tells you to do, no matter how ridiculous?”
Kyle smiled, an immensely peaceful look. “I trust Mr. Griffiths implicitly. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be his courtier. And his demands aren’t ridiculous. They’re calculated to preserve decorum between a gentleman and his courtier.”
“Does he always make you heel like a dog?” I said just to be an asshole.
But Kyle was unperturbed. “Mr. Griffiths is extremely generous, a very good gentleman, but he’s strictly old school. Very…” he searched for the proper descriptor. “…very Old World, you might say. He believes in strict boundaries between gentlemen and their companions.”
“So he’s like a power-dom,” I joked.
Kyle didn’t laugh. “He’s a gentleman, and he believes in upholding an image.”
Something had been nagging me since I’d seen him. “You look familiar.”
Kyle grinned and flicked his hands as if he were playing air drums. “Suicide Kings?”
I almost choked. “Holy shit, you’re the drummer of Suicide Kings?” I said, knowing it was true. “My friend Izzy and I saw you in concert last year. The reunion. You guys rocked muchly.”
“Yeah, we’re back together,” Kyle told me with a wide grin. “Well, minus Damian Michaels.”
I nodded. Damian was—had been—the bass player of Suicide Kings. He was also one of Izzy’s gentlemen. He’d retired from music some time ago to become an anesthesiologist and work with his twin brother Dorian. I said as much and Kyle nodded. “Isabelle’s good people. I’m glad she’s making Damian and Dorian happy. Now you…”
I held up my hand. “Griffiths just won me at the Dollhouse auction and I’m holding up my part of the bargain. This is not a real setup.”
Surprisingly, Kyle looked disappointed by the news, but before he could say anything, we heard footsteps as Mr. Griffiths descended the long, winding staircase from upstairs. He was dressed primly in dark tuxedo trousers and a deep, cranberry red smoking jacket and carrying a dozen white roses in plastic in his arms. He stopped to look me over from across the room. His face was stern, betraying no emotion, but I could see now that he wasn’t as old as I had first assumed. It was the thick, wavy, prematurely grey hair that had made me think so.
The room suddenly felt very formal. I was surprised to find myself standing up. “Hi,” I said, and then added awkwardly, “Mr. Griffiths.”
“Good evening, Stefan,” he said in his deep, buttery-smooth British inflection. “I trust Kyle has been entertaining you in my absence.” I almost expected him to bow or make some grand gesture, like a villain in a vampire movie or something, but instead he crossed the room to stand before me. I was pretty big, six foot even, but he was maybe three inches taller. I had to tilt my head up to see him. “I hope you’ll accept these as a token of my gratitude for joining us tonight, as well as my affections,” he said, offering me the roses.
I looked them over. They smelled fresh, not too flowery, a breezy scent that reminded me of Mr. Gr
iffiths. No one had ever given me flowers before and I had no idea how to react except to say, “You shouldn’t have done that.”
Mr. Griffiths looked down at Kyle, still kneeling between us, and snapped his fingers. Kyle stood up and wrapped himself around Mr. Griffiths’ waist. “And you shouldn’t tell Mr. Griffiths what to do,” Kyle said, staring up at his gentleman adoringly. “Just accept them for the gift they are.”
“Wise words, my courtier,” Mr. Griffiths said, brushing his fingers tenderly through a lock of hair that had fallen across Kyle’s forehead.
The earthy perfume of the roses made my head swim a little. When I finally looked back, I saw that Mr. Griffiths had cupped the back of Kyle’s head and was kissing him gently, thoroughly, with a trembling control that made Kyle rub his nakedness against Mr. Griffith’s leg. His pants leg was wet where the seeping head of Kyle’s greatly engorged cock touched him, but Mr. Griffiths didn’t seem to mind. His tongue darted around the edges of Kyle’s mouth while his other hand moved to the firm muscle of Kyle’s buttock and squeezed. Kyle let out a low groan of pleasure.
“Did you bring me anything, sir?” Kyle humbly asked.
“Don’t I always?” He reached under his jacket and whipped out a single, long-stemmed red rose tied with a ribbon. Attached to the ribbon was a gorgeous silver ring fashioned like a coiling dragon, its eyes set with real rubies, which he presented to Kyle. “A rose for my rose, though its beauty pales in comparison to yours, my love,” he said, and I felt a little funny, like I was looking in on a very private moment. I almost said something about leaving, but Mr. Griffiths turned to me with his arm circled possessively around Kyle’s slim waist. “I’m happy you’re here to share our company tonight, Stefan. I thought perhaps we ought to enjoy an intimate dinner together, get to know one another. Is that acceptable?”
I shifted around a little uncomfortably. The display between the two men had left me with a little more wood than I’d anticipated and a lot more questions than I wanted answers to. “Yeah…I guess…um, how intimate, exactly?”
Mr. Griffiths offered me his hand. “As intimate as you would like it.”
***
Dinner in the dining hall was a Chateaubriand with Pan Jus—blackened meat with truffles, all in its own juice—or that was how Mr. Griffiths explained it, anyway. It was certainly better than frozen Lean Cuisine nuked in a microwave. There was a French wine available, but I stuck with the water glass.
“Stefan doesn’t drink,” Kyle explained. “Health reasons.”
“Are you in ill health?” Mr. Griffiths asked with concern.
I put my fork down. “No, I…well, the thing is, when I was a teenager, my mom and I were in a bad accident. Some jerk was drunk, ran a red light, collided with our car.” I went on to explain about the seven facial reconstruction surgeries Dr. Dorian Michaels had performed, the years of physical therapy that followed. “I had to learn to walk all over again, and I couldn’t even look at myself in a mirror for the longest time.” I shrugged. “I guess it’s like a phobia or something. It’s stupid, I know.” I realized I’d talked more about my past in the last hour with these two strange men than I had with all the men I’d taken home and bedded combined.
“Dr. Michaels did an amazing job,” Kyle commented. He brushed a finger across my cheekbone. “I don’t even see any scars.”
Mr. Griffiths agreed it was amazing work. “You could be an actor or model,” he said.
“Never had any interest,” I admitted. “I’ve thought about designing games, though. I guess that makes no sense, hidden behind a computer all day.”
“If it’s your passion, you should pursue it.” When Mr. Griffiths noticed we were both finished with dinner, he invited us to spend time with him in what he called the game room.
I thought for sure it was code for some kind of BDSM dungeon, but it really was a room for games. It looked like a posh sitting room, like something from a British mystery movie. Beside all the tables set for chess, backgammon, and card games, there was also a wide-screen television for Kyle’s Wii and Xbox. I zeroed in on the glass shelves and saw he had like a gazillion games—some that hadn’t even been released yet!
He shrugged as I looked over his collection. “Mr. Griffiths likes to keep me happy,” he said. “Maybe one day you’ll be designing games I’ll be playing.”
We sat comfortably together, Mr. Griffiths and Kyle on a leather settee, I in a large wicker chair, while Mr. Griffiths showed me the fundamentals of an ancient board game called Senet that originated in Predynastic and ancient Egypt. He showed me the purposes of the pawns and how to move them across a wooden grid of thirty squares arranged in three rows of ten. “This would make a wicked video game,” I said as we played round after round. Suddenly, studying history started taking on more meaning—and interest—for me.
About an hour in, Kyle started rubbing himself like a great cat against Mr. Griffiths’ side again. He was hard and horny as hell. He blew gently into his gentleman’s ear and slid his hand into his lap, gently squeezing Mr. Griffiths’ rather impressive package.
“Keep that up, and I’ll put you on a leash,” Mr. Griffiths said as he moved a marker on the board.
“Promises, promises,” Kyle singsonged. He reached up and playfully tousled his gentleman’s silvery-grey hair.
Mr. Griffiths caught the young man’s wrist and twisted slightly on the cushions of the sofa so Kyle was more or less pinned under his weight. His muscles moved with sleek, liquid grace under his tuxedo jacket. Kyle made a half-hearted attempt to escape, but I could tell he was enjoying himself, enjoying this little war of wills. His cock was swollen and stiff, almost pinned to his lower stomach with his desire. He undulated his hips, rubbing a sticky streak of precum against his gentleman’s fine suit.
Mr. Griffiths used his one hand to trap both of Kyle’s wrists against the cushions above his head. He used his other hand to smack Kyle briskly across the balls. The slap was loud and startling and more precum pumped from Kyle’s cock. Kyle gasped but made no other sound. Mr. Griffiths leaned down and traced the contour of Kyle’s handsome face with his tongue before whispering intimately in his ear, “We have company. Do you plan to behave, my pet?”
“No. Not at all.” He grinned up at his gentleman. “You don’t mind, do you, Stefan? Mr. Griffiths has been out of town all week. We haven’t had much one-on-one time.”
Nice double entendre.
Mr. Griffiths slid a cushion from the settee under Kyle’s hips to elevate them, then went about casually spanking Kyle’s fine ass right in front of me. The smacks were loud, harsh and unmerciful. Kyle groaned and I watched those beautiful buttocks turn apple red from the stern impacts of Mr. Griffiths’ big, powerful hand. Generous precum leaked out of the tiny slit in the swollen head of Kyle’s cock and gathered in the shallow concave of his lower belly. Mr. Griffiths finally lowered his head to lap at the creamy spunk gathered there while Kyle buried both hands in his gentleman’s hair and writhed gracefully on the leather settee.
I tried to think of what to say and failed horribly. I mean, I certainly didn’t mind the show. They were really hot together.
Finally, Kyle undid his gentleman’s slacks and slid his hands inside, cupping his master’s hugely swollen balls and cooing while Mr. Griffiths bit gently at Kyle’s throat and rubbed his own ramrod hard dick between Kyle’s legs, sticky spiderwebs of precum slapping the inside of Kyle’s thighs. Kyle spread his legs further, and Mr. Griffiths entered him with a growl and a sharp, upward thrust of his hips. Soon they were rocking together, moaning and biting.
I shifted around in my seat, my blood thudding in my ears, my pants far too tight for my own comfort. I knew I should be enjoying myself, but something about their display annoyed me and made me sad. It was almost like I didn’t exist anymore. Nothing existed except the two of them going at it like Wild Kingdom.
Fuck this noise. And fuck them. I got up, grabbed my jacket, and headed for the door.
***
A week later, I was jogging a couple of extra miles before my first class when I heard my phone go off. I slowed to a less strenuous trot on the long path that wound through the private, heavily wooded grounds of the campus and slid my phone out of its jogging holster. I didn’t look at the number, just said, “Yeah.”
“Hi, Stefan. It’s Kyle.”
I didn’t immediately answer. For one thing, I hadn’t expected him to call me. For another, I really didn’t want to talk to him right now. Or ever again.
“You know…Kyle from the other night? Mr. Griffiths’ permanent courtier?”
Kyle the fantastically naked dreamboat who liked getting spanked and fucked. “Yeah, Kyle, I remember.” I rolled my eyes as I jogged in place to keep from cooling down. “What can I do for you?”
“You like opera?”
“No. Why?”
“Falstaff is playing at the Met. It’s one of Mr. Griffiths’ favorites.”
“That’s good to know. Why do I care about this?”
“You pissed about something?”
“No,” I said, though my voice clearly said yes. Was I pissed? Hell yes. Did I know why? Hell no. Maybe I just didn’t like hot guys cock-teasing me. “I have a class in about fifteen minutes, so can we get to the point?”
Kyle sighed. “Mr. Griffiths bought us tickets months ago and I can’t go tomorrow night. Suicide Kings has to be Los Angeles. We got a contract from a major music label. We gotta skedaddle and talk to some suits.”
“Happy for you. Again, why do I care about this?”
“Because you’re his other courtier! I was hoping you could cover for me.”
He made it sound like I was taking an extra shift. “I don’t know. I have to work tomorrow night.”
“You can’t take a single night off to spend with Mr. Griffiths?”
Suddenly, my blood was boiling. “No, Kyle, I can’t take a night off. I’m not some hotshot musician on a Los Angeles label. I work a shit job in a shit joint for shit pay. That means shit hours, and if I’m not there, I get sacked, which means losing my shitty little dorm. You get that?”