JUSTIN’S POV
a little over an hour and a half later…
You wake up in the dark dungeon and feel alone at first, but then you slowly extend a hand and feel Brian’s back and hear him snoring. He only snores like this when he’s really tired. You prop yourself up on your elbow and blink as your eyes adjust and realize that he’s definitely sound asleep, just on his side and turned away from you. You can tell from the shadows that his hands are tucked up beneath his pillow. Closer you edge until you’re beside him, behind him, and you just look at the outline of his body, his shoulder bare as the blanket has slipped away. You want to sketch him like this, the rolling hills of his shoulders, the valley of his lower back, the re-emergence of his hips and then the fading slope to his feet.
A deep growl from your stomach exposes your most pressing need. You never ate lunch and you’re starving. It’s almost seven in the evening. Part of you wants to just get up and tiptoe out of this room and make sandwiches for both of you, but another part of you is afraid to leave without permission.
Plus, you have no clothes.
You ponder your choices, remembering how awful that punishment was, and decide that you’re going to wake him up. To date, you’ve never been punished for that.
You inch ever closer to him, sliding your arm around his waist, kissing his shoulder blade; his breathing changes, it stops and then starts again, the deep tone of his voice filtering through it. “You okay?” he asks sleepily.
“I need to eat something. You probably do, too. I’ll take care of it; I just…may I wear your shirt and go to the kitchen?”
“What are you going to make?” he asks rolling onto his back.
“Sandwiches?”
He nods at you and motions that his shirt is in the chair, and as you finish dressing and head for the door, he says, “You know you’re not under house arrest, right?”
“I’m trying to respect your rules, to make you happy,” you admit.
He sits up, wrangling with the sheets he rolled himself up in. “C’mere,” he says, urging you away from the door.
You take more steps on the cold stone floor to stand in front of him, and he puts his hands on your hips and draws you in, “I’ve very happy because you’re completely naked under my shirt.”
“I have to go get us something to eat before I faint.”
“You have five minutes.”
“Five minutes? Come on!”
Brian laughs, “Ten minutes and you’re back down here. Got it?”
BRIAN’S POV
You flop on your back when he’s gone and your mind rewinds to the minutes after that last fuck…
This time Justin was really gone, riding an endorphin wave that practically put him in a trance. He wasn’t alone in that pleasure; it had infected you as well, but it was over-ridden by your vigilance. You lay your head on your pillow and gently stroked his cheek with the back of your hand. His eyes stared up at the ceiling. You listened to his breathing and stayed quiet. He wasn’t in any distress.
It wasn’t lost on you in that moment how ironically the tables had turned in your relationship over the years. You find a twisted humor in how, in the early years, his persistent chase annoyed you, how you couldn’t tolerate feeling him need you, how it scared the shit out of you. Now he doesn’t chase you, but rather this high he gets.
That used to be your job.
You found the true thrill rides in the sexual landscape and fucked every one of them; you exploited them, manipulated them, made them thread-bare. And now Justin is doing the same thing to you. Whatever you taught him, it’s highly conceivable that you did it way too well.
When he returns with the food and opens the door to the dungeon, the warm light from the wine cellar makes him look like an angel in your white shirt; the shape of his body solid beneath the glowing outline.
He hands you a small plate and says, “I’m not sure if the turkey is still good, so I made peanut butter instead. Is that okay with you?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
Sitting cross-legged on the bed and biting into his the second half of his sandwich, he says, “I agree with the new schedule.”
You pause, peanut butter stuck in your throat, “Really? Are you being serious?”
“Yes.”
You feel unsure about this acquiescence of his, “Why? I mean, can I ask why because you were not on board earlier.”
He seems a bit embarrassed by your question, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “It’s hard to explain.”
“Is this because I punished you? Because it was--?”
He cuts you off, “No. I deserved that. It’s not really about that.”
You take his plate from him because you’re both finished and reach to sit them on the night table, “Do you want to tell me why?”
“Not really,” he admits and suddenly he feels too vulnerable to you. That particular feeling makes you cringe inside, so you offer a diversion, “Wanna take a shower?”
He nods and scoots to the edge of the bed, begins to pull your shirt off, “Yeah, I still smell like turpentine from painting all day.”
JUSTIN’S POV
Brian refuses your participation in bathing. He won’t hand over the soap, the shampoo, or you. Underneath the water, the way he touches you makes the fact that there’s actual showering going on just an added bonus. And when you think you’re pretty much done, he doesn’t; he presses you against the wall, stares at you for a few dewy seconds, and then kisses you like he’s not going to see you for a hundred years when the water is shushed. Ordinarily, you would think all of this was just foreplay, but it’s not.
It’s a spell of some kind or a battle for your soul, a fight that’s been decided over a decade ago.
And this, although Brian doesn’t know it, is exactly why you agreed to his schedule. Because something mystical is happening between the two of you regardless of what day it is anymore. Chasing the pain-pleasure see saw feels like the preview to whatever this is.
You reach around him and turn the water off when you realize he’s trembling.