Page 10

I wondered what weird drugs Jake had been munching, because I had no idea what he was on about. He was putting on a load of laundry and trying to break open a carton of washing powder, and I was sitting on the sofa eating toast and drinking tea, my packets of meds lined up nicely in front of me on the coffee table as I put out the right amount of small white pills to go into my medicine organiser. Two for the morning, one at lunch, two at night. A red one in the middle. Seven rows of days. So many pills.

So what if Jake was making the rules? I would be bored stiff come Monday, sitting around like this. We were apparently washing sheets, walking Flossie, getting some shopping in and then what? Would he bend me over the worktop again and fuck me senseless? I wasn’t even sure that was an option during this weekend of his rules. I had no clue.

But I agreed with one thing. The idea of him having all the control.

Fucking hell. Terrifying.

Did I trust him?

I did. And that was even more frightening.

“Do you trust me ?” came out of my mouth before I could stop it. I had no sense, but the realisation of where his earlier question had come from hit me like a brick .

“I do,” he replied behind me. “Even though I don’t trust that you know what’s good for you right now. I know you want to run, but I won’t let you. We’re going to work some things out, and if you do as you’re told, you’ll see what I mean.”

“Says Jake, the master of riddles. What the hell, man?”

“You,” he said, sitting in the armchair and turning it so he was in front of me, with a peeler in his hand. He grabbed an apple from inside his hoodie, turning it between his fingers before systematically removing the green peel in a long, curly rope. He used to do this, years ago. Sit down and peel me an apple, cut it up and feed it to me whilst I did equations on paper, swearing loudly in between figures and numbers as he would quieten me with…pieces of fruit.

“I make the rules. You do as you’re told.” He smiled, now picking up the discarded knife from my plate of toast and cutting the apple into pieces. He chose one and fed it to me.

I took it, like a good boy. Chewed as he smiled.

“You’re beautiful, you know that? ”

“You used to tell me. I used to laugh it off. I mean, whenever I got dressed up to go out, you’d make me twirl round and tell me how good I looked.”

“I meant it. You must have known that.”

I’d had no idea. Jake was Jake.

“I never really thought of it, to be honest. I’m not saying that to be a twat, but you know. You and me? Never crossed my mind. I always thought I’d get married, have a couple of kids…”

I had to stop there. Take a breath. It was still a sore point. Something that hurt. We could have had a baby on the way by now. I shuddered out of that horrible space.

“It’s not your fault,” he said, like he could read my mind. “It’s never anyone’s fault. It’s nature.”

“I always wanted to be around babies. I was desperate for a sibling, kept pestering my mum to have another kid. She said no, refused to even entertain the idea and told me I was enough. I wasn’t, and then…” What the hell? Too much. “I learned early on that I couldn’t always have what I wanted. So I settled in with that.”

“You shouldn’t settle for anything, Bastien. ”

“But that is life, isn’t it? Things can’t always go your way. Like, I will probably never be a dad.”

“You know you will. You’ll be a brilliant dad. There are so many ways to have a child be part of your future, with a girl, or with… It’s all possible.”

“I just think I’m too…fucked up to take that on. I mean, I can’t even get married without making a fucking piss-up out of everything.”

“Not your fault. Just life.”

“Oh, don’t try that one on me. It’s not life. It was…”

Too many words. Too much to try to sort out. I wondered why he made it so easy to talk. Why I actually had. This wasn’t me. It wasn’t what Jake and I were. We were friends. Support. Laughter. We definitely weren’t fuck buddies and one hundred per cent not about all these words. I shuddered, still chewing the apple, sour and refreshing in my mouth.

I checked my bloods, the comforting green on the app soothing me a little.

“That’s it.” He put the last piece of apple in my mouth. “We’re going out. Flossie needs to go, and we need to clear our heads. ”

I had a feeling there were more things he wanted to say, but I went along with it. It was just easier that way.

He made me walk, too far for Flossie, who ended up inside my jumper as we trotted round the supermarket, with Jake pushing the trolley, chatting nonsense, as I followed him like a lost sheep. I suppose I was. He picked things off the shelves, then held them up for my approval, but I didn’t have the brain capacity to choose yoghurt flavours or loaves of bread, so he did it for me, like he’d promised.

It was a relief not to have to think. I just walked around in silence letting him lead. Sometimes he spoke. Mostly, he just let me be, a small smile on his face. He’d always had that little smile around me, a comforting detail in the midst of all this chaos. As long as I could make him smile.

I shuddered again. I hadn’t lied when I’d said I never saw this as an option. Jake, of all people. He hadn’t been, because I’d always been the straight guy. The flirty bastard. More girlfriends than I could remember. The sex? It hadn’t been an issue. Until —

“I wasn’t even drunk,” I said, out of the blue, walking back home. “I was just down, looking for a distraction. Ended up with this girl in a club.”

We kept walking, him nodding in some kind of understanding, Flossie sniffing around in the flowerbeds along our route, her little tail wagging in what seemed like constant excitement. He was carrying the shopping bags. I had a single bottle of sparkling water in my arms. Like the selfish twat I was.

“Okay,” he said softly, encouraging me to go on. I had no idea what I was doing.

“She pissed off with someone else, and this guy came up and sat next to me at the bar. Clinked his pint against mine. He wasn’t hitting on me or anything, he was just solidly sat there, staring at the wall, keeping me company in my misery.”

I remembered him well. His big hands. Hairy arms. The way he’d thrown me around that bathroom cubicle. The bruises he’d left on my hips. The feeling of being so utterly… Fuck.

“We ended up going to the gents’, and he fucked me. Right there and then. I didn’t even have the sense to insist on protection, but he was a good one. Condom and everything. I was so wrung out afterwards that he got worried and put me in a taxi. Came with me and let me inside. Kept asking if I was okay.”

“Nice man.”

“I never saw him again. Don’t even know his name. Must’ve scared the shit out of him.”

“How so?”

How so? Being fucked did that to me. Put me in that haze. Took me almost out of my own body. Freedom. Fucking weird shit that was better than any drug I’d ever tried.

“Addictive.”

He laughed softly. “Sex is, sometimes. When you figure out what makes you tick, it’s hard to go back. I like to fuck. Hard. I love men. I love arse. And I love how it makes me feel when someone lets go and I get to give that to them. Sex. With all it entails.”

He sounded like he was holding a lecture. The smile on my face felt uncertain compared to his happy grin.

“I like what you did to me.” That was a hard truth to admit.

“But you don’t like me like that. The feelings you have are not like the feelings I have for you. ”

Trust him to put me back in my place. Straight talk.

I clammed back up, completely, like I could feel my skin turn inside out again. I hated it. Hated when I felt like that.

Then he took me home, sat me on the sofa and made us food. Watched me eat, while I struggled with every mouthful. I didn’t understand why, but I was out of control.

“Do you feel like you’ve done something wrong?” he suddenly asked, catching me off guard.

I said nothing. Wrong? Me? I couldn’t do anything right.

“Do you feel like there’s anything you need to do to make up for it?”

Stupid question. He realised that too and shifted in his seat, putting his plate down on the coffee table. Damn coffee table. I was starting to resent eating here, on the sofa. Perhaps I should buy him a dining table. Maybe I could pick up the one I had bought for Juliet? I still had things to collect from the flat. All my belongings. Stuff from the storage unit.

“Look at me,” he demanded. I did, because I was nothing, and he was the only one here .

“You haven’t done anything wrong today, nothing at all. You’ve been great company, and we’ve had a good day, haven’t we?”

He stopped and looked at me like he expected me to agree.

“It’s been nice,” I managed to get out.

“I think you’ve made some questionable life choices lately. And you have been reckless with the people who love you, I agree with Juliet on that. You’ve been stupid with your health, and your feelings, and you should have sorted yourself out ages ago.”

Yup. Tell me something I didn’t know. Then here were those gloves again. Bloody things, and how Jake was slowly donning them, one finger at a time being stretched into black leather. I could smell them from here.

He fastened the clasp over the back of one hand, then the other. “You should also have talked to me, and that is a really big mistake. A bad choice.”

I sighed. Last thing I needed was a lecture. Not here. Not right now. “Those your washing-up gloves?” I countered. I was being a dick, but so was he, and I had no idea what he was up to.

“Bastien,” he said sternly, taking my plate from my hand and placing it next to his on the table. The clang of porcelain against glass was deafening in my ears. Too loud.

He was too close. Too intimate, his breath against my cheek as he softly brushed a gloved finger against my jaw. And again. I wanted to lean back, but instead, I leant in.

“I’m going to show you what I like. I will ask you questions, and you will answer them. Is that clear?” A finger across my mouth, the scent of leather strong. A little too strong.

Fear? God help me. I had no idea why this was turning me on.

Well. Maybe I did.

Fuck you, Jake.

“Stand up,” he ordered, suddenly straightening his back like he was in control.

He was. He’d told me. He’d always been. Which was why I tended to behave better when he was around me. When I let him…

Fuck. I liked this a bit too much. My dick did too. I stood up in my joggers and T-shirt, like I hadn’t been able to get dressed properly. Loungewear, my mum called it. My dad called it being a slob. I suppose I was.

But then Jake was wearing similar things, and he was sitting on that sofa, but hiding nothing. He had a boner; I could tell even though he was fully dressed. Apparently, I did that to him. Just me, stood here like a bloody idiot.

Slowly, he lifted his hands, tangled his fingers in the waistband of my joggers and pulled them down. Not all the way, just over my hips, so I could feel the leather of his gloves against my skin. Warm. Rough. Weird.

“Is this okay?” he asked.

I nodded like the weak bastard I was. His mouth, the way he looked at me… I shivered under that gaze, and I had no idea why.

“Good boy.”

Fuck my dick and its ways. Bouncing there right in front of him. I fidgeted in unease.

“Stand still,” he demanded. And there went my joggers, down by my feet as he looked up, motioning for me to step out of them. “You’re safe. Absolutely so.”

I didn’t believe a word of it, and it was making me fret on the inside. I had no idea what was going on right now. Apart from that he carefully removed my boxers, leaving me naked and erect, right in his face. Those gloves travelled back up my legs smooth against my skin, a hard grip on my thighs.

This apparently turned me on. A lot.

Then he stood up and carefully cupped my chin. He was still wearing his hoodie and jeans. Me? I was now fully naked, as he lifted my T-shirt over my head, my nipples shrinking as cool air hit me.

He leant in and carefully kissed me on the mouth, like this was now a thing Jake and I did.

I thought we merely fucked, but today had been different. Despite all his fancy words and reassurances and the way he had cried in my arms this morning, I had remained cool. Tried to ignore the absolute fact that this man…apparently loved me.

I felt it, and it was bloody ridiculous. I felt it in the way his lips pressed against mine, how his mouth moved, and how I took it, the way he made me kiss him right back, tongue and all. The way he cupped his hands around my face, like he was in awe of me.

I didn’t know how to feel about that, apart from that it had somehow calmed me down, right to this headspace, even though my legs felt like jelly and my dick strained.

“There you go. Now you’re calm. Good boy.”

Fuck you, Jake . I couldn’t get my mouth working, or I’d have said it out loud.

His hands travelled down my arms, ending up gently on my hips as he sat back down, leaving me standing there, shivering. Yet there was something else. Something incredibly…

His hands gripping my hips, he took my cock in his mouth, sucked it in almost all the way down, and I gasped, his warm tongue seemingly everywhere at once as he slid off, then took me straight back down again. Bobbed back up. Right back down. And again. His mouth. My dick. Oh, fuck. I watched helplessly, too mesmerised by what I was seeing. Those gloves on my hips. The way he pulled me in, rubbing his lips into the root, then pushed me out as he let me go. And I was making sounds. Fuck that. All of that.

He pulled off and just smiled at me. I couldn’t even pretend that I was cool with all this. I never let men suck me off. I just wanted the fucking. The helpless, rough, impersonal shit. Yet here I was, letting him do this to me. I whined louder as he did it again. Oh God.

“Jake!” I wanted to put my hands in his hair, tangle my fingers in that dark mess.

“I’m going to ask you how you’re feeling right now, and I want you to answer with colours. Green if you feel okay. Yellow if you need a moment to catch your breath or if you want me to slow down. And red? That means we stop. No questions asked. Do you understand?”

“This isn’t some BDSM club, Jakey.” Pathetic. But it made him laugh.

“No, it’s not. But it’s a way for us to communicate simply and honestly. As you know, we haven’t been very good at that so far. So today, we’re trying something new.”

Okay?

“How are you feeling?”

How was I feeling? I had no clue. Nothing. White? Would that be an answer?

“Green,” I said. And he nodded.