Sins of Omission

by T S McKinney

  “Yes, Arizona?”

  “Arizona? You sound so formal. You aren’t mad at me, are you?”

  “No, of course not.” Gently, I pulled my fingers away. “Get up and find something sexy to wear. You wanted to go to the upper deck tonight, right? To experiment a little? We can come back here after we eat and get changed.”

  “Okay,” he said softly, obviously picking up on my mood. I had to shake it off. I really did want him to be happy and if sowing a few wild oats would do that for him, then I’d try to be supportive and not tear some guy’s head off for looking at him. After all, he’d come on this cruise to have fun. I had to see to it that he got what he wanted. Somehow, I had to do that for him.

  After I shaved and splashed on cologne, I went back out to the main room, smiling at Ari as he slipped past me on his way into the bathroom. I went over to the closet and found my clothes for dinner, which on this cruise, was always a little formal. I put on a dark suit and silk tie, then turned as I felt a pair of arms slip around my waist. I raised both arms to the sides and turned in a slow half circle, letting him get a good look.

  Ari whistled softly under his breath and stepped in closer, hands reaching up to my biceps so he could squeeze them under his fingers. “You clean up nice,” he said, smiling at me. “I don’t think I ever saw you in a suit before.”

  “You’re not so bad yourself,” I said, looking down at him appreciatively. He was wearing tan trousers with a dark brown silk shirt that set off his porcelain skin and made me want to lick him all over. He stood up on the tip of his toes to brush his lips over my jaw. I moved my hands down his back in a slow, deliberate motion, imagining all that silken skin underneath. The skin I’d had my tongue on earlier.

  “You’re not mad at me, are you? For what I said earlier about the discipline thing?”

  “Not if that’s the way you feel. I want you to be honest with me.”

  “It’s just that I don’t like the idea of having someone boss me around. Telling me what to do all the time. I think that’s my biggest problem with the whole BDSM thing.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thanks for understanding,” he said softly, moving his hands to my ass as he captured my lips again. I guess it’s good that you’re not really into all that, right?”

  “Sure thing,” I said, hating the lie, but feeling caught in it now. “Come on, let’s go eat. I’m starving.”

  “After that big lunch you ate? I thought you’d have had enough.”

  “Never enough, babe,” I said, putting my hand on the small of his back and guiding him to the door. I tried to shake off the bad mood. I had Ari here with me, ready to take him out and show him off to the world. And then later, he was going to let me take him to the upper deck, where he was planning to bare his body and dance with me under the stars. No way was I going to let anything stop me from enjoying every second of this night.

  Chapter Ten

  Eli

  Our itinerary told us what restaurant we were expected at for which meals, so after arriving at the finely appointed and huge restaurant on an upper deck, we followed the hostess to a table with four other diners, all presumably gay men who were dressed similarly to the way we were. I pulled out a chair for Ari and we sat down, introducing ourselves to the men already seated. One of them was a banker, he told us, named Henry. He was from Atlanta, while the other, much younger man was a gorgeous blond.

  “I’m Cody. From Tennessee,” he told us with a soft southern drawl. He glanced appreciatively at both of us and then back at his boyfriend, who looked at us suspiciously. Great. That’s all we needed.

  Ari seemed oblivious though, and greeted both of them happily, receiving a warm response from both the men when he turned on that natural charm of his. “And how is everybody this evening?” he asked, as he reached over and took my hand in his. I saw Henry notice and visibly relax. It was part of Ari’s personality to always seem to be able to put people at their ease, and showing Henry that both he and I were “taken” seemed to soften his attitude a lot. For his part, Cody seemed a little bored, though, as the dinner wore on and the waiters began to bring in the various courses. Poor Henry.

  I skimmed the choices and picked out a simple entrée and salad, asking for Evian rather than a cocktail. Cody and Ari, however, both decided on the peach Bellinis, then toasted each other when the pink, frothy drinks came. The dinner wore on and finally it was over. Then, to my annoyed surprise, Ari asked Henry and Cody to accompany us to the upper deck.

  “Oh, I’ve heard about that,” Cody gushed as his husband frowned. “There’s a party up there every night of the cruise. Clothing optional.”

  “That doesn’t sound like anything we’d be interested in,” Henry said, and Cody turned on him.

  “Speak for yourself. I think it sounds like fun, and it’s exactly what we need. You promised you’d try to loosen up some on this trip and stop being such a stick in the mud, so let’s do it!”

  Taking pity on the guy, I shrugged. “I don’t think everyone takes off their clothes,” I said in a conciliatory tone. “I’m not going to, for example. But why don’t we take them up there and let them have some fun?”

  Henry grunted, but Cody grabbed his hand and practically pulled him out the door, calling back over his shoulder in excitement. “We’ll go get changed and meet you upstairs at the party, okay?” They disappeared in the large crowd leaving the restaurant and I shook my head.

  “I think you may have caused old Henry a problem tonight.”

  “Ah, he’ll be fine. We just have to get a few drinks in him. But what’s this about you not taking off your clothes? Are you chicken?”

  “No.”

  Ari laughed at me, pulling me out onto the deck and down toward our room, making little “buck buck” sounds in my ear.

  “Not all of us are exhibitionists, Ari. I’ll take you and let you see it for yourself. Maybe you and Cody can show yourself off to the crowd up there. That ought to be fun for you.”

  Even as the words came out of my mouth, I could hear that I sounded a little pissy. I guess I was more upset over his remarks earlier than I thought.

  “Are you saying something’s wrong with that?” he asked, hands on hips as he glared up at me. “You’re the one who encouraged it today at lunch.”

  “No, I’m not saying…look, I’m sorry. I guess I got too much sun today, and it’s made me a little tired and grouchy. Let’s go get into our suits and go to the party.”

  Slightly mollified, he nodded and we went below decks to get our swimsuits on. Neither of us talked much as we were getting ready, and that was fine with me. I couldn’t seem to shake the mood I was in, ever since he’d announced to me that he didn’t like BDSM because he didn’t want to ever be controlled or told what to do.

  Doms like me just naturally liked to push limits. That’s what I did on the balcony earlier—pushed his limits all over the place and he seemed to love most of it. All except the orgasm denial—he hated that part. But with every new step in a BDSM/power-exchange relationship, there was an internal evaluation that had to happen. That moment where the sub takes a deep breath, imagines it in his head, and thinks to himself: am I okay with that? And while it feels wonderful and freeing to give up control to his Dom a lot of the time, there are other times when it just doesn’t. But that was what was so great about the power exchange. Those lines got drawn, and redrawn, and redrawn again throughout the relationship, and the level of control a sub gave to his Dom changed all the time. Nothing happened in the first place if they don’t talk about it and nothing changes, nothing new is tried or adjusted, until then. Now Ari was telling me he wasn’t even willing to talk about the discipline. I didn’t know what to do with that.

  He wore the little scrap of pink lace to the party that had gotten me so hot and bothered earlier, and I wore my same trunks too, grabbing both of us some towels for later. We made our way up to the top deck where the party was in full swing, and we saw Cody right away—sans Henry.r />
  “Where’s your husband?” I yelled at him over the loud music when we joined him at his tiny table. How the hell he’d managed to get one in the first place was a mystery because the place was packed. But I had a feeling that Cody was the kind of boy who always got what he wanted.

  He stuck out his lips in a little pout and shook his head. “I told him to keep his ass down there in the room. He got angry when he saw my suit.” He stood up and twirled around and my mouth fell open.

  “I guess I can understand why.”

  Cody’s “suit” consisted of a small bandanna that looped around his dick and then tied around his thigh, leaving very little to the imagination. His ass was completely hanging out, of course, and when he stood up, he got several appreciative whistles. Ari was looking at him too, and I found myself gripping the arms of my chair a little too hard.

  “Well,” Cody said in a loud voice so he could be heard over the music, “I’m not putting up with it. He can stay in the room all evening for all I care.”

  He waved at the waiter and ordered a round of peach Bellini’s for the table. I didn’t drink them, but whatever. I had a feeling I might need to keep sober tonight anyway, from the looks Ari was garnering from all over the deck.

  As the evening wore on, things got wilder. Ari decided he would keep his swimming suit on, and that really surprised me, especially given how much he liked exhibitionism. But Ari and Cody mostly just danced and flirted with all the horny bastards who were ogling them, and maybe that was why he didn’t take off his suit. They really were a bunch of older, horny assholes.

  I managed—barely—to stay in my seat, even as Cody and Ari both bought round after round of drinks and Ari started looking like he was getting really drunk again. His cheeks were bright pink and his hair was adorably tousled all over his head because he kept running his hand through it and saying how hot it was up on that deck.

  It wasn’t all that hot. As a matter of fact, there was a strong breeze blowing, but I knew that just meant he was getting more and more wasted. Cody was too, and the last straw finally came when they both came back over to the table and Ari and Cody tried to sit in the same chair at the same time. Cody’s bare ass landed on Ari’s lap and I saw red.

  ****

  Cody and Ari stumbled back over to the table where I had sat brooding for the past hour or so, and that’s when Cody made a simple mistake, but one I should have been expecting considering how drunk he was. Ari sat down in the wrong chair and Cody fell all over himself trying to avoid him and inadvertently landed in Ari’s lap. His bare ass in Ari’s lap! I saw red, even though I knew it was an accident. It’s just that Ari had been dancing with him all night—with him naked, for all intents and purposes—and they had both been the subjects of a lot of attention from the other guys up there on the deck. I was pissed, and it was hard to hide my feelings, even though Cody jumped back up to his feet and apologized.

  To tell the truth, I’d had a few drinks myself, partly to calm myself down. I hated how jealous and possessive I was, and I fully intended to work on it. But first I had to know Ari was really mine and then maybe I could make my heart and mind believe it. In the meantime, I was kind of a wreck. At least that’s why I think I reacted the way I did when Cody landed his naked ass in Ari’s lap. My emotions, which were already heated, reached the boiling point and I snapped.

  “Cody,” I said, getting to my feet and nodding at the blond man Ari had been dancing with. “I’ve seen a lot of drunken dancing up here, but I was told there’d be a lot of sex too. Is that what you heard?”

  Ari and Cody both looked up at me. Ari looked puzzled, like he couldn’t figure out where I was going with this.

  “Yeah,” Cody said, nodding in an over-exaggerated, drunken way. “I did hear that, come to think of it.” He peered around the deck at all the men. “Where’s the sex?”

  “Maybe they’re waiting for someone to show them how it’s done.” I slung an arm companionably around Cody’s neck. “Why don’t we stage a little demonstration on the proper technique for sucking cock?”

  Ari glared at me, his eyebrows raising. I could practically see the steam coming out of his ears. Oh, so when the shoe was on the other foot, it didn’t feel so good, huh? He could flirt with beautiful, naked men, but I couldn’t, was that it? Actually, I was fine with that—he was the only one I wanted, but there was a double standard there I didn’t appreciate much. He pursed his beautiful lips at me and gave me a eat-shit look. I could practically see the wheels turning in his head and I knew he must be remembering how he’d told me just that afternoon how he felt about sharing me with anybody else.

  It was kind of delicious.

  He crossed his arms and shot daggers at me from those eyes. “Speaking for myself, I don’t need any pointers on my technique. Besides, I didn’t come on this cruise to watch. If you and Cody want to get it on, then go ahead! Go for it. It doesn’t bother me in the least. I’ll find somebody else to have fun with!”

  Over my damn dead body.

  “Oh, I’m not asking you to watch me and Cody,” I said, the corners of my mouth turning up in a smile. “You are going to demonstrate on me. You said you wanted to come on this cruise to have fun and experiment. Well, here’s your chance. Experiment on me—show me how you’d suck my cock and make me like it. Unless…oh, do you think you wouldn’t be able to do that? Are you not quite ready yet to show off your skills in public? I thought you might be—you being a bit of an exhibitionist and all.”

  He got an adorable expression of confusion on his face. He looked uncomfortable in the extreme, but he glared back at me and lifted his chin, accepting my outrageous challenge. “You think I won’t? You don’t think I’d do it, do you? You probably think I’m too young for this crowd and that you’d embarrass me and I’d run back to the room with my tail between my legs. Well, too bad. Let’s do this! The joke is on you!”

  I smiled as he dropped down to his knees. “Come on over here,” he said, waving his hand impatiently at me. “Let’s get this started!”

  “Oh no, sweetheart,” I said, my smile even broader. “Why don’t you come over here to me?”

  He huffed and started to get up, but I stopped him with a soft command. “No…on your knees, baby. Crawl over here to me.”

  He looked up at me and his mouth dropped open. “You can’t be serious!”

  “Too much for you? I understand. Maybe some other time then. I don’t think you’re ready.”

  He wanted so bad to tell me to go to hell. I could see it all over his face. He wanted to jump up and storm out of there and forget that everybody was looking at him and wondering if he’d take the challenge. But here’s the thing. I think he wanted to do it more than anything. He wanted to take my orders and do as I said. Maybe not forever—maybe not even all of the time. But right here, right now, I think he wanted it. Maybe the alcohol had removed a few of his inhibitions. Maybe the idea just appealed to him. Because it wasn’t a big leap from exhibitionism to a little humiliation. Properly administered and applied by a loving Dom in a safe environment, it could be the extra little kink he’d been waiting for. Maybe it was time to find out. Was it degrading? Check. Was it humiliating? Check. Did it make his cock hard as a rock? Double check.

  Mine too.

  Slowly, he dropped down to his hands and knees, his face a gorgeous shade of pink. Ever so slowly, he started crawling toward me, and slowest of all, I raised my eyes to look at him. What he probably saw in my face made my dick start to throb.

  Arrogance—sheer, unadulterated conceit. Hubris, self-importance, egotism, a sense of superiority? Check, check and triple check. I was feeling all these things. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him. He looked so damn sexy on his knees, slowly crawling toward me, his beautiful ass swaying behind him. I smiled and crooked my finger. “Come on, babe. Right here between my legs. Twist that gorgeous ass a little.”

  Oh, how he wanted to tell me to kiss his ass! I could see it written all over his face. But h
e just kept crawling, loving and hating every second of this, I thought. I hoped. He was pushing all of my hot buttons, and I had emotions I didn’t want to recognize or even admit. I wondered if it were the same for him. Finally, finally, he crossed the four or five steps separating us and reached for the front of my swim suit. “Oh no you don’t…I didn’t give you permission to use your hands.”

  “What? But how can I…?”

  “I’ll let you figure that out,” I said and sat back to wait. He cast a furious gaze up at me from under his lashes, but we both knew he was going to do it. He had gone too far to back out now and besides, every eye in the place was on us both. I could feel the heat of their gazes. He leaned in and took the top of my suit with his teeth. I leaned over him and the scent of his skin and his soap and his own unique maleness swirled around me like smoke and made me weak. He was so angry, so humiliated at this, but he still wanted it. He was so fucking hot.

  He tugged and pulled at me like a puppy with a toy, but finally, he got my suit pulled down enough to take my cock in his mouth. I was so aware of everyone looking and so intent on Ari and how he was feeling, I was only about half hard!

  Before I could get embarrassed, Cody stepped in. “I think you need to slow down, Ari,” Cody said, his voice full of mischief. “Eli seems a little bored. I think he’s just going through the motions.”

  Bored? Hardly. This was one of the best things that had ever happened in my life. Before I could tell him he looked up at me with his eyes a little glazed over.

  I looked down at him and shrugged. “Sorry babe, I’m not an exhibitionist. If you want me hard, you have to work a little harder.”

  I knew how much he loved a personal challenge. And I knew exactly how he would respond.

  “Like this?” he said defiantly, and licked his way slowly up the length of my cock, stopping at the head to mouth it and nip at it. I winced and he redoubled his efforts, swallowing me down until I thought he might choke. He did, a little and he pulled back, looking up at me. I put my hands on either side of his face and looking down at him, checking to make sure he was okay. When he recovered his breath, I slowly let him go.