Title: Untitled Professor/Student Novella  
Author: Requests to remain anonymous
Pairing: JM/VK
Rating: NC-17
Ed. Note: Also contains an original character. Some non-con, not between JM/VK. 

As Vince felt two thumbs hook into his waist band and pull down his jeans, he wondered at which point betting five hundred dollars to prove the professor was into boys had seemed like a good idea.

Probably sometime the night before, between the second beer and the third whisky chaser, which Jones had insisted on getting in. Jones was always on a mission to get Vince drunk; make him do something truly fucking embarrassing. But then, Jones was a wealthy little shit so Vince guessed he was just trying to find a way to spend his money. Why that had to include Vince, he wasn’t quite sure.

The jeans inched down his ass, and there was a laugh from behind him.

“Typical college boy,” said the professor – Jim, his actual name was – “too lazy to do the laundry, so you just go without.”

Vince would’ve told him to fuck off, but his ass was currently laid bare in front of a professor whose class he’d dropped just two weeks ago. Fuck off didn’t really cover how he was feeling. He could just get up and get out, of course, but that would mean twisting round, grabbing his jeans and showing the professor his dick. So not ready for that particular shame.

Besides, the professor seemed to be enjoying the view. He just sat there, behind Vince, drinking his Chartreuse or whatever the fuck it was. Letting Vince’s skin tingle under his gaze until it was hot with confusion and cold with exposure.

Vince let his head sink into the sofa cushion and thought about killing Jones.

“Go on, you’re a pretty boy,” he’d said last night in the bar. “If the guy’s gonna give it up for anyone, I bet your ass would fit the bill.”

“How much would you bet?” said Vince, who was neither rich nor usually a gambler. But he’d had a lot of beer and whisky and he also knew that there was a big fat zero in his bank account as of that afternoon. He also, very deep down, wanted to find out if Jones was on the right track with the professor, who was something of a mystery around campus. Any professor who didn’t have a beard and sandals was a mystery, and since this one didn’t seem to have a woman either… he was funny, though. Vince had to give him that. Made them laugh in class, or did until Vince had to give it up to go get a job at The Break, the student cafeteria-cum-shop.

“You’ve got three choices,” said the professor suddenly, just as Vince was managing to forget he was there. “One, I get up and go into the kitchen, and by the time I come back you’re gone. Two, you can lift that truly Renaissance bottom of yours into the air and show me some more secrets you’d like to share. And three,” the professor leant down swiftly and put his mouth to Vince’s ear, “you can let me do it for you.”

He sat back up again, took another sip of Chartreuse. Vince took a second to process the options, couldn’t process anything, stayed put.

“I’m going to assume that means you’ve elected number three,” said the professor. “Although personally I’d have been more than satisfied with number two.”

“But not number one?” Vince managed to say weakly. Hey, at least he’d managed to say something. He felt the professor put a cold palm to the small of his back.

“Why are young people so insecure? I’d have thought the fact that I’m risking my entire career for the chance to touch you would’ve answered that question.”

Fair enough, thought Vince. The cold palm was smoothing its way down his flank now, and skimming his ass with the lightest of touches. Giving him the chance to change his mind. Vince wriggled ever so slightly and if his butt lifted into the palm – well, there was another thousand dollars at stake here. He could afford to go that extra mile. He felt drops of warm liquid sprinkle over his butt cheeks – the Chartreuse – and a delicate tongue licked them off. Then fingers stroked down his crack and he felt the chill of more exposure as his ass was held open ever so slightly, and more liquid dropped onto his ass hole. He squeezed his eyes shut, figuring that if he couldn’t see then he also wouldn’t have to accept that his dick was drilling into the sofa beneath him. Not exactly logical, but he was losing his mind here.

The professor – Jim – pressed his tongue very gently against Vince’s pucker and lapped the Chartreuse away.

“Fuck!” said Vince.

Jim raised his head.

“Say the word and I’ll stop.”

Vince made some inarticulate sound and buried his head deeper in the cushion. The professor lapped again, this time letting his tongue edge its way inside until Vince was yelling into the sofa.

“Enough now,” said the professor, pulling away. “The sight and sound of you will undo me almost as much as your kiss. And we’ve got a whole night to get through.”

He let Vince gather a few of his wits; Vince thought hard about Jones waiting in the car outside the professor’s house, waiting until morning, and that calmed him down somewhat. Then he thought about the night before, when he’d first kissed this mystery of a man. And that made him hard again.

Jones had offered five hundred dollars on the spot if Vince could get the professor to kiss him, there in the bar.

“It’s not like we’re even on campus,” said Jones. And they weren’t – they were miles away, having a go in Jones’ new car. Bastard. That’s why the sight of the professor drinking warm ale in this fake English pub had been so fucking amusing. He’d come to get away from the students – and to do things he didn’t want them to see, said Jones. Anyway, the plan was Vince would go up, ask a question about the class he no longer even took, then somehow – bingo! – kiss in a dark corner and Jones’ jollies were had.

What actually happened was that Vince went up, asked a question, and the professor said:

“Well, I’d answer that, but it seems like a waste of my brain power when you’ve dropped out.”

Vince felt a wave of shame.

“I had to get a job,” he muttered.

“Yes, at that nasty cafeteria place. I saw you. Why don’t you sit down?” The professor pointed to the empty chair beside him. “And tell me how much that very shiny young man has bet you to get me to… what exactly is it that I’m supposed to be doing?”

Vince, somewhat numbed by beer and whisky, just opened his mouth and said:

“Kiss me.”

“And you need the money, presumably, or you wouldn’t be wearing that tawdry little cap they make you wear in the food business these days.”

Vince nodded, mouth still open.

“Well,” said the professor, “seeing as you’re not my student anymore, and we’re not on campus, and you have the highest scores in the class bar none…” he leant over and put his lips to Vince’s, pushing his tongue into Vince’s mouth. Then sat back and looked into his glass of ale that was nearly empty. “I think another pint of this would be simply good manners, don’t you?”

Vince took the glass. Managed a smile.

“Mom always taught me to be polite.”

And he went off and bought the professor another warm ale with the last few dollars that were left in his pocket.

Jones paid the five hundred dollars the same night – was carrying twice that in his wallet, the complete fuck – and grinned like a bastard all the way back in the car.

“You are such a whore,” he said happily.

Vince just didn’t get why that would make Jones so pleased, but he didn’t care by that point. He’d spent another half hour with the professor, making a bad attempt at calling him Jim but somehow always ending up calling him Sir. Jim had been amused by the whole thing; asked him about his other classes, the ones he’d had to keep on, then asked about his folks at home in Ohio and what high school had been like.

“Ok,” said Vince. “I did track, so I wasn’t a complete geek. Even landed a cheer leader, and we’re still together.”

Jim thought this was very funny, and considering what had just happened, Vince could kind of see why.

“Well, here’s to you and your cheer leader,” said Jim, draining the last of his pint and getting up. “I think you should collect on that bet now, before your friend passes out from all the excitement. And if you should ever want to know more about that fascinating Russian literature class you so casually and cruelly dropped…” he took out his wallet and slid a business card across the table; Vince half-realised that from where he was standing, Jones couldn’t see what the professor had done. He took the card and pocketed it.

“It was a good class, honestly.”

“I know, I’m a good teacher. And you, my bright button of a boy, were a very good student.”

And with that, the professor was gone.

Over and out, Vince had assumed. Only here he was, the next night, face down on the professor’s sofa with his naked butt still slightly raised as if in pursuit of a good spank.

“You could turn over,” said Jim. “Let me see your face.”

“Don’t think I can.”

And honestly, Vince knew that if he moved right now he’d be having an accident that was even more embarrassing than the time he’d wet his pants in Mrs Levine’s class all those years ago. He heard the professor get up and pour himself another drink; the very idea that he was wandering around, able to walk straight, while Vince was pinned to the sofa by nothing but his own lack of stamina…

“I’ll tell you what,” said Jim, sitting down again and apparently opening a book, “I’ll read you the part from War and Peace – that’s Voina I mir in the original – where Prince Andrei meets Napolean. It always bores me rigid, so it should work wonders on you.”

He began to read out in that easy voice of his, the one that modulated like an actor’s, kept everybody interested and nobody dropping off. Vince tried to concentrate on the words instead of the voice in an effort to regain some control, and eventually the image of a short Napolean and a dull Prince Andrei won through.

“Better now?” said the professor. Vince nodded into the cushion and Jim went on: “D’you think you could look at me?”

“Don’t know about that.”

“Well, you don’t have to look at me then. But I’d like to look at you.”

So Vince shuffled round and lay with his jeans still round his knees and his dick poking up under his t-shirt. He stared assiduously at the ceiling, and the professor carried on reading for a while until Vince felt safe enough to let his eyes wander over to where he was sitting. He watched him read, he watched his mouth open and close and his eyes follow the words on the page, but Vince didn’t hear a syllable of it. Eventually Jim looked up and smiled.

“See? Dull as ditch water. I’m surprised you haven’t nodded off.”

“I was wondering,” said Vince, “what you meant when you said you were risking your career.”

Jim used War and Peace to point in Vince’s general direction.

“Again, I’d have thought that was fairly obvious.”

“But you kissed me in the pub.”

“A kiss is one thing, but this…” Another wave of the book. “This is like standing in quick sand. If you don’t take me to the authorities, then you and your friend waiting outside could easily blackmail me – although not advisable on my salary.”

“I would never do that,” said Vince hotly.

The professor looked at him steadily.

“Forgive me if I seem a bit doubtful, but last night you were willing to kiss me for money.”

“That wasn’t… I mean, the money wasn’t…”

“No, of course it wasn’t,” said Jim. “And no, of course you wouldn’t do anything as crass as to blackmail me. But that friend of yours – Jones? - he might.”

“He doesn’t need the money.”

“As witnessed by the fact that he’s willing to throw a thousand dollars away to get you to spend the night with me.” The professor handed Vince his glass of Chartreuse to take a sip. “And where your Jones is concerned, I doubt any of this is to do with money.”

“Huh?” said Vince, taking a big gulp and letting the sweet, spicy liquid rest in his throat. The professor shook a finger at him.

“The point about teaching is to enable someone to discover the truth for themselves. Meanwhile,” he took the glass back off Vince and set it down on the coffee table, “I have some other things to teach you, if you’re ready.”

He reached over and tugged up Vince’s t-shirt, and Vince found himself putting his arms in the air as Jim peeled the shirt off and dropped it to the floor. Then the jeans came all the way down, sneakers kicked off, and Vince was lying buck naked on the sofa with a hard on the size of Alaska. Jim knelt down by his side, leant over and kissed him for a long moment. Sat back on his heels and gazed at Vince for even longer.

“Worth the risk?” said Vince, who was feeling slightly less embarrassed and slightly more secure now the Chartreuse had found its way to his empty stomach.

“Yes.”

“Want me to … how did you put it? Share my secrets?”

“Right now? More than anything on this earth.”

So Vince knelt up and leant over the back of the sofa, letting this man who he didn’t know see everything he had. Arching his spine, curving his butt towards him, pushing his cock down between his legs so that even that could be glimpsed. In for a penny, in for a pound he figured. The professor made him wait for a couple of agonising minutes as he shrugged off his own clothes, and then Vince, who didn’t dare look, felt something cool and wet being worked into his pucker. A finger nudged into his hole and he tensed; until Jim kissed his ass cheek and whispered:

“First lesson – preparation. Or it’ll really be no fun.”

There was a second where Vince fully understood that he was about to have his ass cherry popped, and then another where he didn’t care. He relaxed and the finger buried itself inside – an odd, comfortable feeling – and was followed by another. They twisted and scissored as another hand played with Vince’s balls and reached for the tip of his cock. Vince couldn’t work out if he wanted to sink down further onto the fingers or concentrate on the hand, so he just moaned and bit the sofa. Jim stopped moving and waited for Vince to pull himself together.

“I've got lots more books I can read to you.”

“Seriously don’t think they’d work right now…”

So they waited some more, with Jim’s hand rubbing circles down Vince’s back. Vince dropped his forehead onto the back of the sofa.

“The trouble is,” he said, “it’s not even what you’re doing. It’s just that it’s you.”

“Oh. That’s very flattering, I think.”

Vince pressed on, feeling somehow that the truth was important at this particular juncture.

“Since last night, you see, you’ve been kind of in my head.”

And not just because Jones had doubled the bet if Vince could get the professor to go all the way.

“How are you going to know?” Vince had said. “I’m not taking fucking photos.” And Jones had come up with the idea that if Vince could spend all night at the Professor’s flat, Jones camping outside in his new car to check, then that would do.

“You’re forgetting I’m not into guys,” said Vince.

“You don’t have to actually do anything, you just have to stay the night.”

It was a fucked-up idea, with a lot of holes in it, but Jones was practically counting the money out in front of Vince. And the professor had given him an address. And Vince had an odd feeling that this was something he didn’t really want to pass up.

So he turned up at the professor’s door, and when Jim opened it, all he said was:

“How much this time?”

“A thousand, to spend the night.”

And Jim had kissed him in the doorway and said:

“You’d better come in, then.”

When the door was shut and Vince was following Jim into the study, with its book-lined walls and big fireplace, Jim had turned round and taken his hand. Put a roll of money into it.

“That’s two hundred dollars there, if you want to go now. Because you need to know, if you spend the night, you’ll be in my bed and on my dick for most of it.”

It was the crudest thing he’d heard the professor say, and it went straight to his cock. In fact, it had him on the point of coming right there, in his jeans. There was something seriously wrong, he thought, when not even his cheerleader could manage that. And it was that realisation that almost had him grabbing the money and making a run for the door and the safety of Jones’ car. Vince put the roll of money back into Jim’s hand and went and sat on the sofa.

“A thousand, to spend the night.”

“Well, I am an educator,” said the professor, “so I guess it’s my duty to teach you new things.”

And now, the professor was waiting for him to get his shit together while he behaved like some eleven year old who’d just discovered his own dick.

“You’ve been on my mind, too,” said Jim suddenly. “Which I really wasn’t expecting. Given that I was drowning my sorrows last night and not looking for… well, for ruination in a pair of sneakers.”

“What sorrows?” said Vince. “They might help.”

Jim started moving his fingers again, stretching Vince wider as he spoke.

“I split up with my very long-term partner.”

“Guy?” Vince breathed deep and slow.

“Yes, guy. My old professor, in fact. Met him when I came up to university, fucked him for twenty years on and off.”

“You having sex? Not helping.”

“Yes, quite… well, I worshipped him through my twenties, adored him through my thirties, and loathed him when I reached forty. Realised he was a selfish bastard with a selfish brain. Taught me nothing, I learnt it all myself. Just took me twenty years to catch on.”

Vince felt another finger join the others, so that he was completely full.

“So you’re into older guys.”

“Just like you.”

“I’m not.” Which sounded ridiculous even to Vince’s ears.

“Oh yes, I forgot,” said Jim. “You did track. You’ve got a cheerleader. You, young man, have been in hiding.”

He took his fingers out suddenly, and Vince was left bereft. Then he felt something hot and hard and naked taking their place.

“Hey…”

“It’s ok,” Jim breathed, very close to his neck. “This is just research. To see where -,” Vince yelped as the hot and hard thing touched something inside that almost made him black out. “Oh, there it is,” said Jim. He pulled out slightly, so the something inside was left to its own devices and Vince was left nerve-wracked and desperate. Did that count as cherry-popping he wondered? It was a cock up his ass, and another second spent lingering on that spot inside…

“So, to conclude,” Jim went on, “I was just considering tendering my resignation as I drained the last of my, frankly, horrible English ale, when there you were. Wanting to be kissed.”

“I didn’t want you to kiss me.”

There was a sharp slap on Vince’s butt cheek that nearly undid him all over again.

“Don’t lie to your teacher,” said Jim. “You might’ve fooled everybody at high school with your track and cheerleader, but you don’t want to anymore. Else you would never have agreed to the bet.”

He left Vince bereft again, only this time something cold and fat was slipped into Vince’s pucker. He twisted round to see what it was, and caught sight of Jim. Vince had seen naked guys before, of course, and seen the occasional hard-on by accident. But this… this was so definite, so there, so completely because of him. And Jim was in good shape, strong…

“Fuck,” he said. Then remembered Jim had just stoppered him up with what could only be a butt plug. Jim grinned.

“No point doing all that work, if your tight little ass is just going to undo it straight away. Now, I want to see you try and walk to the bedroom, because I have a mean streak that way.”

“Yes, Sir.” Vince made it sound just a little peeved.

“Oh, we can do that too, if you like,” said Jim. “I’ll put my old school tie around your neck and spank you over my knee, and you can call me anything you please. But first, let’s just see if you can make it to the bed.”

So Vince slid off the sofa, and immediately missed it. He’d been mentally clinging to it as his refuge since he’d first sat down and Jim had said:

“Are you going to show me what’s hiding under those ridiculously low jeans, or do you want me to look for myself?”

Vince, of course, had proved incapable of any sort of action, so Jim had somehow gently manoeuvred him face down on the sofa and taken over proceedings. Now, though, Vince was apparently expected to do something for himself - like walk. He glanced at the sofa, wished himself back on it with his ass in the air and under Jim’s scrutiny, because that was so much easier than trying to work out what to do with his hands while his dick dripped over the carpet.

“Oh, come now,” said Jim with a smile. “You’re using me shamelessly here. I’m allowed to make you feel just a little bit uncomfortable.”

Which made Vince smile, too. He took a step in the direction the professor was pointing and felt the thing in his ass wobble but stay put. It didn’t touch his magic spot, so no worries there. It just felt naughty, like when he’d played doctors with his best friend back at kindergarten and a wax crayon had just happened to find its way up Vince’s ass. Nothing had ever been up there since, because there’d been a while when his best friend hadn’t been entirely convinced he could get it back out. They’d still carried on being best friends for a few years after that, until Vince was faced with the very obvious fact that his best friend was the sort of guy that got beat up by footballers at college, whereas Vince was the sort of guy that could, with the wind in the right direction, do track and get a cheerleader.

And yet, here Vince was, something crammed up his ass hole again, pretty much mincing across a room with Jim’s gaze following his butt every inch of the way. You had to laugh. But then, suddenly, Jim’s hand rested on his backside as he walked and Vince’s butt cheeks were tensing and shifting under a firm palm. Jim used the palm to direct Vince down the corridor and into the bedroom, which was an odd, gothic arrangement of dark plum sheets and walls, books everywhere, another fireplace and piles of small change and a sculpture of a hare on the mantle. The fire was actually lit – or, at least, it was still glowing. There was a book lying open on the bed.

“I was trying to keep my mind off you,” said Jim, sweeping the book away. “But Dostoevsky just makes me want to slit my throat, so possibly not the best choice.”

He gave Vince’s butt another slight shove, and Vince found himself scrambling onto the bed and looking coyly behind him. Jim was taking a moment to stare.

“And that, my beautiful boy, is pretty much the picture I was trying to ignore.”

Vince let his eyelashes graze his cheeks, because he was feeling slow again from the drink and Jim’s words were so…

“Are you going to fuck me now?”

“If you do that thing with your eyes again, I might just eat you alive.”

So Vince did it again, and found himself turned over and pinned to the mattress as Jim kissed him with total abandonment. His long dick rubbed slick trails against Vince’s until it seemed like they were both on fire. His hands held Vince’s face tight, so he could work on his mouth and Vince couldn’t turn away, could barely breathe. His legs were wrapped around Vince’s legs, so there was nowhere for Vince to go. For a man who’d so far been in complete control, the sheer hunger for Vince was a shock. A revelation. A total fucking turn on.

Jim pulled away and collapsed on his back.

“I said, don’t do that thing with your eyes.”

Vince stared at the ceiling.

“You really want me, don’t you?”

“Is that the narcissism of youth I detect?”

“No…” Vince rolled over so that he was lying on his belly, next to Jim. “I just didn’t realise. I figured it was all about this -,” he reached a hand down and put it on Jim’s cock. It twitched and Jim took a deep breath. “When really,” Vince carried on, “it’s all about this.” He took his hand away and placed it on Jim’s forehead.

“Oh, I was so right about you,” said Jim. “Such a clever boy.”

“I mean, if you’d just wanted some teenage ass to screw, you could’ve picked up any kid in a gay club. But it’s never about that for you, is it?”

Jim sat up and reached over to what looked like an antique chamber pot sitting on a table by the bed. He fished out a condom – the only one in there – started to rip it open.

“If it means nothing, we might as well be animals. That’s pretty much the most important thing I can teach you.” He slid the condom out of the packet and held it up between his fingers. “I don’t know whether this night means much to you, but having you here, like this? It’s important to me. Unlooked for, but important.” He held the condom out to Vince. “Now, if you really want to learn something, I suggest you start by learning how to put this on me without using your hands.”

It took Vince a few goes, and Jim’s hand kept resting on the back of his head which made him feel trapped and furiously hard all at the same time. That and the close-up view of another man’s prick, red and leaking, disappearing down his throat until he gagged. Eventually, his mouth sticky with lube and his throat sore, Vince sat up and looked at Jim, who was propped up against the headboard with a dark expression in his eyes.

“When you kneel over me, Vince,” – and that was the first time he’d used Vince’s name – “your bottom lifts up in two perfect mounds.”

“With a butt plug sticking out the middle,” Vince grinned, trying not to listen to Jim’s words because they made him feel slightly ill at ease. Like he was the object of some illegal pornographic worship. Which was hot, when he thought about it, so he said:

“Describe me some more.” Jesus, did he have no self-control around this guy at all? Jim smiled.

“Well, the nasty bit of plastic I buried inside you, it’s a slave tag. Says nothing else is allowed in your clamouring hole until I come and take it out. Makes you look… desecrated.”

“Oh,” said Vince, aware that his cock had finally managed to reach a pain threshold he never thought possible.

“And your face, with your mouth held open over my dick, between your teeth that piece of latex that will keep me from you and you from me… you look like a boy from a Caravaggio painting. The one bitten by the lizard, with his plump little lips falling open…”

“I’m guessing Caravaggio was into boys, then.”

“If you came to my art appreciation class, you’d find out.”

Jim stretched his arms into the air and Vince realised that he had a thing for Jim’s chest. A huge fucking thing. He tipped his head to one side and counted the ribs, then put a hand to the dip in Jim’s belly just underneath where his cock was hovering.

“I think I’ll just stay here and appreciate you.”

“Enough,” said Jim, pushing Vince’s hand away. “Or I’ll spill without ever touching you.”

Vince felt oddly proud.

“Could I make you do that?”

“You already did. About five seconds after I got out of that so-called pub last night.” Jim – not really the professor anymore, Vince thought – knelt up and kissed Vince again with less urgency and more pleasure. Then he pushed Vince down onto the bed, flipped him onto his front, and slipped a pillow under his wet cock. “So I can smell you in the morning,” he whispered. Then Vince’s ass cheeks were prised open and the butt plug tugged and twisted out of his hole until he was empty and poised for what came next. He started to shake a bit; knew he’d already had Jim’s cock inside him but also knew that this moment was the real one, the one where Vince couldn’t hide from what was going on for a second more. He thought about his cheerleader, all soft and buttery under his mouth, sighing when he slipped his dick inside her; he thought about his best friend from kindergarten, who’d never said a word when Vince just stopped talking to him one day; he thought, strangely, about Jones, willing to sleep in the car just to prove that Vince was fancied by some professor they didn’t even know. Then he thought nothing more, because Jim was covering his body and entering it, hot mouth on Vince’s neck and hotter cock slithering up his ass. Vince was crushed, stabbed, imprisoned. Jim was everywhere around and inside him, trapping his fists above his head with one easy hand, shunting his groin back and forth against Vince’s backside until sweat was pouring off the both of them. There were words tumbling from Jim’s mouth onto Vince’s skin, words like ‘beautiful’ and ‘bad’ and, once, ‘mine’. And then, as Vince was managing to breathe with each of Jim’s accelerating thrusts, managing to find a place where he could be alone, Jim angled himself slightly differently and pressed the place inside that made Vince scream.

Really fucking loud.

Jim laughed and said:

“That’s where it was,” and drove his cock against the spot until Vince was yelling in one long, constant note. Quite what he was yelling, he didn’t know, but he did know that Jim had timed it to perfection because as he finally lost control of his dick and felt an orgasm race out of him and onto the pillow, Jim jerked and stuttered behind him and collapsed onto his back.

They lay like that for a good long while, Vince crying a bit and hoping Jim wouldn’t notice. He did, though. Kissed the tears off his cheek.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No…”

“So I hurt your pride.”

“Don’t think I've got any left.”

“You should have. It’s not every day I let a student destroy me.”

“I said I’d never do anything like that.”

“And that’s not what I meant.” Jim rolled off and lay beside Vince. Reached out and pulled him onto his chest, so that Vince had to look him in the eye. “You think I’ll be able to rest now I've had you? I’ll never be able to rest again.”

“I’m sorry,” said Vince, wondering if he really was. Jim pushed the hair out of Vince’s eyes.

“It’s better to be destroyed than to feel nothing at all. And if it takes a clever boy like you to do it, then I’ll succumb to my fate with a happy heart. And cock, of course.”

“In that case, you could do it again, if you like…”

“Will you cry again?”

“Probably.”

“Then give me a few minutes to fortify the flesh, and you can perch on my dick until you weep.”

Fortifying the flesh took the form of a shower, where Jim eased himself under the hot water while Vince lay numb on the bed. Wondered if he should take the chance to go, pretend the whole thing had never happened, make do with the five hundred dollars from the night before. Maybe Jones would actually lend him some money, seeing as he’d got wads of the stuff. And Jim had said, for Jones it wasn’t about money. Just what the fuck was it about then? By the time he’d finished wondering, Jim was out of the shower and back by the bed, towelling his hair. Vince gave up trying not to look at him; wondered instead just why he was letting this man do these things to him. He was hot, Vince figured, least that was the buzz amongst the girls in the class. Not particularly tall, but in great fucking shape. And although sometimes he talked with more words than strictly necessary, he always moved quicker than you expected. Kind of edgy. He looked much younger than his – what had he said? Forties? – and his face, Vince really had to admit that even from a guy perspective, those cheekbones were insane. And his eyes were… well, they always slightly amused at something Vince couldn’t quite see.

Even now, Jim was smiling; and nervous.

“Still here, then?”

Vince decided he liked him nervous.

“You thought I was going to leave?”

“I was giving you the opportunity.” He sat down on the bed. “Clearly you didn’t take it.”

“Yeah, well. Clearly I've gone insane.”

“If that’s what you want to call it…” Jim took the damp towel and patted it over Vince’s cock, which hadn’t really died down since the first time and now perked up no end. The towel was warm and wet, Jim cleaning the dried come from Vince’s skin like he was one of those people whose feet the pope liked to wash. Yup, pornographically worshipped – that was the thing that was keeping Vince frozen to the bed. Or, it might have been Jim’s mouth, closing over the tip of Vince’s dick, tongue poking deep into his slit then swallowing it whole. Every muscle in Vince’s body went rigid, and his hands flailed over Jim’s head until finally, cautiously, they settled on his hair. Twisting slippery wet strands of brown hair around his fingers as the head bobbed up and down with leisurely time. When Jim pulled his mouth away, he had that amused look again. He slipped another condom onto himself and said:

“Please tell me you’ve had a blow job before.”

“Not like that.”

Jim narrowed his eyes.

“You mean, not from a man?”

“Not…” Vince paused. “Not like that.”

Jim studied him for a second longer, then lay back on the bed with his hands behind his head.

“The things you do when you’re a teenager are embarrassing enough without someone judging them.”

Vince figured he was way beyond embarrassment. But whether he could climb on top of Jim’s cock was a different matter – that was like shouting ‘I’m gay’ from the rooftops. One thing to have Jim undressing and exploring him, pretty much leaving Vince no choice but to scream into whatever piece of furniture Jim had him pinned to. But it was totally another thing to straddle those narrow hips, hold that waiting, swollen cock to his hole and nudge it inside. Then lever himself up and down because… because he wanted to.

Which he really fucking did.

Jim reached a hand out and laced his fingers through Vince’s, which felt strange but kind of ok.

“We can just go to sleep, you know.”

“No…” Vince looked down at their entwined hands. “But you could do me a favour.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t let go.”

So Jim held his hand - like a fucking life belt, Vince thought – as Vince crawled over him and worked his way onto his dick; he held Vince’s hand as Vince stared down into his face and watched how those blue eyes turned black with each lift and lower of his ass; and he held Vince’s hand as Vince arched and came in three short, powerful spurts that pooled on Jim’s chest. Then he tugged Vince forward and kissed him, shuddering his own orgasm into Vince’s ass as Vince started crying again. This time, though, he found he couldn’t stop, which was possibly the most embarrassing thing that had happened all night - so far. Jim didn’t seem to mind, and let Vince snuffle into his shoulder.

“There was this guy,” Vince said eventually, “a coach from another school.”

“See? Older man.”

“Nothing like you, though. Built like a wall. And we were at this race meet, and I fucking won! Got a trophy and everything. And he said he wanted to talk to me about maybe joining the state team – which I didn’t want to do, because, you know, way too much like hard work.”

Jim laughed. Petted the back of Vince’s head.

“Anyway, he took me to dinner,” Vince went on, figuring that if he couldn’t tell this story now, he wasn’t going to be able to tell it any time. “And after, we went back to his place, and before his wife got home…”

Turned out, he wasn’t going to tell the story after all. The words were lodged somewhere he couldn’t reach. Jim let the silence grow for a moment, then said:

“I did a better job than him, right?”

Vince managed a smile.

“I said, didn’t I? Never had a blow job like that before.”

“And that’s all you got from him?”

“Are you jealous?”

Jim tugged the hair at the nape of Vince’s neck so Vince had to look up into his face.

“Yes.”

“Yeah well, don’t bother. His wife pulled into the driveway just as we were discussing, uh… terms and conditions.”

“Always are some where you’re concerned.”

“Fuck off.”

“Well, there are.” Jim nipped his ear. “Go on and tell me it all. I want to hear.”

“I was so freaked out, I just wanted to go home, and he wasn’t going to give me a lift without some negotiating. Of the physical kind.”

“Nice. What happened?”

“He had it out and I thought he was going to snap me in half, the size of him. He stuffed it back in when his wife opened the door. She drove me back. Think she guessed – showed me photos of their kids on the way.” Vince lifted himself up so he could look at Jim properly. “Thing is, how did he know in the first place? Because I fucking didn’t. Do I have this… sign over my head or something? This guy’s for hitting on?”

“Well, that’s not what it actually says…” Jim gave him a very slow, very lazy look which had Vince feeling worried again. Like he was about to get his jeans taken off and have his ass exposed – no, wait, that had already happened. In fact, Jim’s hands were resting on his butt and making little pinching movements, squirreling their way towards his pucker. Another second and…

“Jesus…” Vince dropped his head back down onto Jim’s shoulder and thought about nothing more than the finger that was pressing inside him.

“I’m going to do it slowly next time,” Jim murmured, “with you leaning over something, so I can see you wriggle.” Suddenly, Vince found himself flat on his back and Jim looming over him. He didn’t look nervous anymore. “But first, there’s the small matter of my old school tie. I think I said – what was it again?”

Vince swallowed.

“Round my neck.”

“And you?”

“Over your knee.”

“That was it.” Jim got up and fetched a mauve and yellow tie – very tatty – from the wardrobe. Knotted it carefully around Vince’s bare neck and sat on the edge of the bed, patting his lap.

“You don’t actually have to keep that promise,” said Vince.

“Think of it as recompense. For keeping me up all night.”

“Thought you said we could just go to sleep.”

“I changed my mind. Oh, and don’t forget - you were going to call me Sir. Although, on second thoughts, I think Daddy has a better ring to it.”

And as Vince got up and clambered over Jim’s knees, his feet in the air and the tie dangling towards the floor, he reckoned Jim was right – whenever he did something, there always seemed to be terms and conditions.

After the round on Jim’s lap, Vince’s ass was a merry shade of red and there was even more crying. Sobbing, in fact. This night was turning into the most shameful experience of his life, and still he couldn’t make himself leave. Jim had made him count each smack, thank his Daddy, then each time raise his butt ready for the next one. If Vince didn’t get himself back in position quick enough, Jim made him start counting all over again, until the number fifty seemed far, far away. Eventually, though, Vince got himself into a rhythm of squeal and lift, and there was no sound but the slap of flesh and Vince’s tearful voice calling out numbers. He felt equal amounts of ridiculous and anxious as he hoisted his butt into the air for another sharp slap. He was pretty sure he deserved it, though – as Jim pointed out, nice boys didn’t go around selling their tush for any amount of money.

“And you can’t expect to get something for nothing,” he said, tipping Vince off his lap and guiding him to the far corner of the bedroom, where he made him stand with his face to the wall and his backside throbbing for half an hour, while Jim went and got himself another drink. Vince couldn’t work out what was more shaming: being naked in a stranger’s bedroom, his bottom burning hotter than the fire under Jim’s scrutiny, or the fact that his own cock was so obviously enjoying itself. The fact that Jim only had to say the word and Vince was scrambling into any position Jim dreamt up for him. And as for calling the guy Daddy… that should’ve felt like a script for a bad porn flick; instead, the moment the word was out of his mouth, Vince had pretty much given up all hope of self-control. It was a mixture of acutely fucking embarrassing and, somehow, like being back at home. Safe. In a place where you didn’t have people like Jones tempting your ass into, near enough, prostitution, and where there were no big fat zeros in your bank account because, basically, you didn’t need a bank account. Daddy paid for it all.

Oh shit. Vince had Daddy issues.

“Come and sit down,” said Jim, after taking a few minutes to run his hands over Vince’s painful butt and lift his cheeks so his pucker and balls could be viewed. Vince started to turn round, and received a nasty slap. Jim raised an eyebrow.

“You’ve forgotten something.”

“Uh… thank you, Daddy.”

“I think I’m going to make you call me that for the rest of the night. It sounds so sordid when you’re still crying. Now, lie on your front, and I’ll make you feel better.”

Vince lay there while Jim smoothed cream into his skin, a fair amount making its way into places that hadn’t actually been spanked. He heard some moans, realised it was himself, blushed from head to toe. Jim nudged Vince’s legs open, sat between them and pushed three fingers inside his hole, searching out his scream spot with unnerving accuracy.

“You don’t want to give yourself up entirely, you know,” he said.

“Can’t fucking help it.”

Jim slapped him again; fingers up the ass, bottom in pain, Vince didn’t know which way to scream. Jim stilled his fingers.

“What are you going to do now, lovely boy?”

Vince tried to shift his bottom so that Jim’s fingers got back to where they belonged. Jim laughed.

“You squirm very nicely. Do you beg nicely, too?”

“Wouldn’t that be giving myself up?”

“I’m not complaining, I’m just… advising.”

Vince took a deep breath, waved goodbye to his final shred of dignity.

“Please, Daddy,” he sighed. “Keep doing that, with your fingers…”

“What, exactly?”

“Where you move inside me. Make me come, Daddy.”

“Just my fingers?”

“Anything you want to use, Daddy. You can put your cock inside me if you like, you can put your bottle of fucking Chartreuse. Just, Daddy, let me come now. Or I think I’m gonna die.”

“Well, since you ask so well…”

Jim started moving his fingers, so that Vince was wriggling on the end of his hand like something he’d caught on a line, desperate and flailing, at Jim’s complete mercy. And when Jim finally conceded a full minute of pressing into Vince at just that point he needed, and Vince soaked everything from the sheet to the mattress to the pillow, Jim took his hand away and pulled the quilt over Vince’s back and whispered:

“Are you really mine? Or were those just the words you always scream?”

“Hmm?” said Vince, already on his way to sleep. He hadn’t said any words, least he didn’t remember doing it…

“Never mind,” said Jim, laying down next to him and closing his eyes. “You’re mine tonight. That’s good enough.”

When Vince woke up, the bedside lamp was off and there was a faint, dawn light coming through the curtains. He wondered for a moment where the hell he was; stared at the unfamiliar ceiling and then at the fireplace at the foot of the unfamiliar bed. He began to turn over, get his bearings, and realised that someone – Jim, he remembered with a jolt of sheer fucking panic - was propped up on his elbow beside him, smiling down.

“Talk about the sleep of the innocent,” he said, tracing a finger along Vince’s collar bone. The tie was still round his neck.

“Why? What time is it?”

And why haven’t you kissed me yet?

“Five thirty,” said Jim, taking his finger away and stretching onto his back. “The night’s over, Renaissance boy.”

Oh. Vince rubbed his eyes and tried to make himself get up, get up, idiot. Jones is freezing his ass off in the car outside, and Prof Boner here clearly wants you out, now he’s had everything you’ve got to offer and a bit more besides.

He sat up and stared around the room for something that would cover him between here and the bathroom. Jim was watching him steadily.

“So, what did you learn?”

That I’m a slut for you. A total fucking whore.

“Uh, use lube?”

“Glad we covered the basics.” Jim started to roll away, a slight look of disappointment stealing over his face. He reached towards the floor and threw the towel at Vince. “Here, preserve your modesty if you need to.”

“Don’t want to see me now you’ve had me?” Vince said, aiming for joke, managing a whine instead. Jim took the towel away.

“If I told you to get up and go into the bathroom in your gooseflesh, would you do it?”

“No.”

At least, that’s what Vince knew he should be saying. Because that would signal an end to it all, as much as the daylight trying to prise its way into the room. So, of course, he said:

“Yes.”

“Off you go, then.”

Vince levered himself off the bed and walked in a crooked line to the en-suite, Jim’s gaze dogging his every step. He went and sat on the john, because he never could pee straight first thing in the morning, and stared at the tie dangling between his knees. Almost dozed off between feeling like the most pathetic, used piece of shit that ever sold his ass, and horny because Jim was still, apparently, the boss of Vince, even if he didn’t actually want him. Vince sank his head into his hands and thought about doing some more crying. It was kind of nice, giving in to total fucking pathetic mode. If you’re going to debase yourself, at least make a good job of it.

“What’s up?”

Vince glanced up. Jim was standing in front of him, very naked. Still very hot.

“Tired,” Vince lied. Well, he was tired, but that didn’t cover the half of it.

“Do you usually look like someone’s stolen your favourite toy when you’re tired?”

“Yeah, I do. So piss off.”

Jim squatted down, lifted Vince’s chin with a finger. Vince looked carefully to one side – at the bath - so Jim wouldn’t see just how completely desperate he was.

“I’m not a mind reader, you know,” said Jim. “You have to tell me if you want me to make it better.”

Vince considered throwing his sanity to the wind and kissing the guy there and then; that would do as telling, right? But he didn’t, because Jim had said the night was over, and the time for that sort of idiot neediness was way past. So he carried on staring at the bath, waiting for Jim to let go of his chin, which Jim didn’t.

“I can’t make time go backwards,” said Jim, “but I can promise you I’ll never tell anyone about this, or talk to you about it again.”

Bastard, thought Vince. Cherry-popping, ass-licking, kiddie-fucking bastard.

“I don’t give a fuck,” he said. “I’m just sitting on the john, feeling tired. So give me a break.”

He jerked his head, trying to free himself from Jim’s grip, but somehow didn’t manage, because Jim was suddenly cupping Vince’s face in his hands. Fucking smiling, like he knew it all.

“You want to sleep some more, lovely boy?”

“Yes.”

“Bad luck,” said Jim, “because on consideration, the phrase ‘spend the night’ means ‘when I leave for my first lecture’. And that isn’t until eight thirty.”

He dropped a kiss onto Vince’s forehead and hoisted him off the toilet with one easy movement. Pushed him towards the shower with a hand on his ass.

“Let’s wake you up, sleepy head. We’ve got lessons to learn.”

Vince gave a groan, but it wasn’t a very convincing one. After all, Vince was starting to realise, the bastard really did know it all.

In the shower Jim stood Vince under the jet and soaped all the places where he’d been, then rubbed Vince’s neck and shoulders until he was warm and happy. Vince let his head rest on Jim’s shoulder as he felt his cock standing up and nudging Jim’s thigh.

“Time enough,” Jim laughed, tweaking the top, then running his hand down the length.

“Three hours,” said Vince. He wondered if he could get himself to ask the question sometime over those three hours. The question that must’ve been on every girl’s lips right after those lips had been wrapped around some guy’s cock – can I see you again? Will you call me? He even felt like a girl, unsure if he was allowed to ask, desperate to know the answer before he walked out of the door. Maybe, if he was extra flexible now, bent any which way Jim wanted to pose him, there’d be an answer without having to say a single thing.

“Stop frowning,” said Jim, “and turn round the other way so I can look at you.”

Vince turned round, leaning his head against the tiled wall; felt Jim close behind him and then Jim’s dick sliding between his ass cheeks and into the small of his back.

“You can do it properly, if you want,” Vince heard himself saying. “Just you, don’t need anything…”

He got a sharp slap on his backside for that.

“I know you’ve not been anywhere but your cheerleader,” said Jim. “But do have the self respect to look after yourself. You don’t know anything about me.”

“I just thought…”

But Jim was already turning off the water, pulling him out of the shower and wrapping him up in some big towel. He rubbed at Vince’s chest and back for a while, then paused and looked at Vince carefully.

“You mustn’t do this, you know.”

Vince tried to smile.

“What - take a shower with strange guys?”

“Give yourself up like this. I’m older than you, I can easily…” Jim put his hand to Vince’s chest, just over his heart, which was thumping like a frightened bunny rabbit. “I’ll try and be careful, ok?”

“I’m fine.”

He was about to have a heart attack, but yeah, he was fine. Jim suddenly lifted his hand away from Vince’s chest and kissed the spot of flesh where it had been lying.

“I’ll be careful with this too.”

The frightened bunny froze for a second; thought it might die. Vince opened his mouth to ask the question, figured this was the only time he was going to say it and, for the second time that night, fuck all came out. Jim took the chance to kiss him on the mouth, so that Vince was left swallowing the words that never came. He’d been waiting forever for that kiss. When Jim pulled away, he gave Vince one of those slow, warm blinks that made him look nothing like a professor.

“You do need to understand something, though,” he said.

“Uh huh…” Vince was leaning towards that mouth again, watching it make words but not really hearing them.

“You need to understand that whatever happens, Vince, you’re the one who’s going to make it happen.”

There was his name again, just to prove that the professor actually knew it. Gave him a tingle in the cock to hear Jim say it – Vince. Like Vince was someone he might care about.

“Vince?”

“Yeah…”

“Do you understand me?” Jim gave his dick a sharp twist, so that Vince stopped leaning towards that mouth. He frowned, tried to remember what Jim had been saying. Realised instead that Jim’s own cock was ready and waiting not half a foot away. Jim sighed and patted his cheek.

“Ok, enough lecturing. Let’s go and see if you spit or swallow.”

“What?”

“Oh, so that woke you up. Don’t worry, like I just told you – it doesn’t happen unless you make it. And that goes for after you get into that car with your friend Jones.”

And he took Vince’s hand and led him back into the bedroom, Vince wondering all the way if the question he so very much wanted to ask had just been answered… and if somehow he’d asked it without realising.

The bedroom was cold without the fire, and gloomy. They climbed under the quilt and Jim spent a while warming Vince up with his mouth, just putting it to pulse points and breathing soft and wet and warm against Vince’s skin. After a while, Vince didn’t need a fire; he was burning up from the inside. Pulling at Jim’s shoulders, trying to get him closer, pushing towards and against him. Jim laughed and threw the quilt off, turned on the lamp so Vince could see where he was going.

“When was the last time you really looked at another guy?”

Vince thought; Jones was always getting his kit off at the drop of a hat. Parading around their room without a stitch on. But Jones was the kind of guy you wanted to look away from, even if he was big, good looking and shiny. He was too shiny, Vince reckoned. Whereas this guy, watching him now with that permanent amused expression, wasn’t shiny at all. Never mind the learning, and the clever words and the professor Jim crap - he was pure rude. Vince let his hand hover over Jim’s chest.

“Can I look at you?”

“For as long as you want.” Jim stretched out. “Although, I’m going to insist on feeling your mouth on me before we’re done.”

Vince eyed Jim’s cock; very different to put lips and tongue to that, when it was naked and drooling. Something in the mouth was even less impossible to ignore than something up the ass. And this time, there was no condom to get in the way – it was just taste and smell and… well, he’d deal with that when it happened. For now, he was happy to explore. So he spent a good while kissing and licking and wondering at the way a foreskin rolled back and forth. He even dipped a finger along Jim’s hole – Jim obligingly turned over so that Vince could lay his head on that lovely ass and watch the curve of the cheek. He got brave and ran his tongue down the crevice, stroking the wrinkled skin inside. Enjoyed the hum of pleasure from his professor, enjoyed the pinkness of the secrets that he saw. Lay on top of Jim and let his cock rest against those secrets, feeling it swell to ridiculous proportions at the idea that Jim was letting him do this. Didn’t even want anymore, which was a bloody good thing as this was almost too much.

“One day,” Jim said, as Vince finally slid off him with a moan. Vince tried not to look hopeful.

“Promise?”

“If you want.”

“Look at the state of me, for fuck’s sake. Of course I want.”

“Then let’s take your mind off things before we have an accident.” And Jim turned over, hauled Vince’s ass over his chest and let Vince settle nicely over his cock. “Daddy’s going to smack you when you don’t do it right.”

Oh, that was really going to stop accidents, wasn’t it? Vince opened his mouth to argue, and somehow Jim shifted his hips, managed to reach a hand between Vince’s shoulder blades – just how fucking flexible was this guy? – and Vince found himself sucking on cock, his ass waving around like a target. He forgot himself and let teeth catch on the foreskin, and Jim’s palm came down on his butt. He yelled, got more cock inside instead.

“Watch Daddy’s cock, darling.”

Vince reckoned he must look a sight, mouth wedged open and face all surprised, then glanced up towards the mirror on the wardrobe door, which Jim had left open, and realised he was right – he looked a complete sight. A picture of total pornography, that even he would’ve paused at if he’d found it on the internet by mistake. Because his eyes were huge, his cheeks were hollowed, his spine arched so that his ass was curving in those two mounds Jim found so interesting. It was like some boy from a painting – and Vince wasn’t stupid, he’d seen Caravaggio, knew what Jim meant – one of those boys had stepped off the canvas and spread himself for the delectation of all. And when Jim smacked him again to hurry things along, Vince’s head jerked and he looked even more surprised and spoiled. He wasn’t going to last long, with this cock nudging the back of his throat and his reflection apparently able to deep throat. He let his teeth bite once again, and got another lovely, tingling slap that ran through balls and cock, and felt the cock in his mouth twitch. Another second, another slap, and there was warmth rushing down his throat and no question as to whether he spit or swallowed. He did neither. He was too busy humping the air, searching for more punishment and reward, and Jim gave him both by holding his dick with one hand and spanking him with the other.

“Daddy saw you,” he murmured, “watching yourself in the mirror. Dirty little boy, turning himself on. Tell me what you were doing.”

“Watching me with Daddy’s prick in my mouth.” Looked like this sort of thing came easily to Vince now. “Watching how your cock filled me up, and how you spank me because I’m naughty. Watching how I turn Daddy on.”

And after, Vince couldn’t work out whether it was Jim’s hands or Vince’s own voice that did the trick, but whichever it was – he knew he’d learnt something that he wouldn’t be able to unlearn, no matter how much trouble it was going to get him into.

“So, you’ve got a mirror fetish,” said Jim afterwards, as Vince lay collapsed on the bed and Jim slid something cold and hard in and out of him. Apparently, Jim had a few toys that hadn’t seen the light of day for a while, and Vince was just too dizzy with fatigue to argue. Least, that’s what he told himself as yet another toy made its way up somewhere it had never been. Vince didn’t want to admit it, but the sheer nastiness of having his pucker crammed with dildos and some funny balls on a chain that made a popping sound as Jim tugged them out, and even something that twitched inside him like a small animal – Christ, he hoped Jim would never actually take him to that place – the very fact that Jim was using him like this kept him on the edge of sick excitement. Right now, if Jim had carted him into the street and fucked him against a lamp post for all the early morning commuters to see, Vince would find a way to get off on that, too. Wouldn’t even have to try too hard. Because when you were ass high on your professor’s bed, there were some things that you couldn’t really avoid – and Vince couldn’t avoid the fact that, apparently, he was a tart. The world’s biggest whore, with a kink for hot older guys telling him what to do. And then doing whatever the fuck they liked to his soft, sluttish, currently spread-eagled butt, because he’d beg them to if they didn’t.

And on top of that, he apparently liked watching them do it at the same time. He was never going to be able to hold his head up in public again.

Jim left the cold, hard thing inside Vince and sat back against the head board.

“You know why you like the mirror thing?”

Vince wriggled, feeling stretched and bad and…

“Because I’m completely screwed-up in the head?”

“Sorry, but you’re completely normal. There’s no insanity clause on this one. You’re just vain.”

“Piss off.”

Hard to say that with real intent when you’re stuffed with plastic and leaking over someone else’s quilt. Harder when the guy behind you just laughs.

“It’s ok,” said Jim. “I know I want to look at you all the time.”

“Oh,” said Vince, wondering if he could just freeze the moment – dildo in butt, cock rigid, Jim wanting to look at him all the time.

“Do you want to see what you look like now?”

“Yes.”

Well, no point lying, was there?

“Stay right there.”

“Think that’s a no-brainer.”

Jim disappeared from behind him, fiddled with something on the bedside table, opened the wardrobe door in front of Vince again. Vince looked at himself, eyes glittering, cheeks flushed; slight rise of his ass visible. And in the reflection, he could see a mirror on the bedside table, angled just so, letting him view that ass and all that was inside it. If he clenched his buttocks, the ones in the mirror clenched and dimpled. If he lifted his ass so the dildo stuck out, so did the reflection. And if he got onto all fours, reached a hand underneath and pushed that dildo in and out by himself – well, that was just way too much for Jim, because suddenly Vince was flat on his back with no dildo and Jim’s cock squirreling its way into the space it left. His legs were hoisted onto Jim’s shoulders and he watched himself upside down, his feet perched high on Jim in the bedside mirror, and Jim’s ass working tight and fast as he neared climax. No time wasted on Vince’s pleasure, no hitting his spot, just Jim, uttering a stream of nasty, lovely words and using him without apology. Vince almost came without being touched; it was ‘almost’ only because, just as he lost it completely, Jim murmured “Don’t,” and Vince had no choice but to bite his lip until it bled.

He was left aching.

“Please, Daddy…”

That had definitely worked in the past.

“No. Come and put your pucker over Daddy’s mouth, and then you can watch your naughty ass get licked.”

So Vince knelt over Jim’s very accurate tongue, and looked in the mirror and saw that tongue lap and tickle and poke inside him. When Jim told him to, he held himself open – and was that ever a sight to behold – and watched as Jim devoured him.

“Daddy…” Vince murmured. “Do I taste good?”

“Like cherries,” Jim grinned. “And if I had any, I’d pop them inside and suck them out.”

He sat up again, and pulled Vince into his lap. Held him close for a moment, closer than they had been all night, peppering his face and neck with kisses. Told him that Daddy would fuck him all day if he could, and all the next night, too, until Vince said:

“You can, if you want. You can keep me here, spank me when I’m bad, screw me when I’m worse. I’ll live on your cock, Daddy.” God, but he was getting good at this.  “Let me suck it and sit on it, let me watch you put it in me. If you ask me, Daddy, I’ll do anything you like.”

“I know,” said Jim. “I know, sweetheart. Because you’re just a baby and I could be your father.”

“No, you couldn’t. Trust me.”

Jim caught Vince’s face in his hand.

“I do trust you. God, I’d chain you up if I could, keep you forever…” Jim glanced at the clock that was hidden behind the mirror. “But it’s seven thirty.”

Vince put his arms round Jim’s neck, buried his face in Jim’s hair. Gave up all pretence of being anything approaching a real man.

“Please don’t. There’s time yet.”

“Not if I want to see you right.”

“I don’t care about that. I don’t even know what that means.”

Jim let him cling limpet-style for a minute longer, doing the crying thing all over again, then gently pushed him away until Vince’s wrists were held in one of his hands.

“It means, I’m not going to screw you until it’s time to throw you out on your ear. I’m going to look after you.” He wiped a tear from Vince’s cheek. “Going to make you breakfast, comb your hair, make sure you’re presentable when you climb into that car that’s still waiting for you.”

“If he’s even there.”

“Oh, he’s there alright, I checked.” Jim tapped Vince’s heavy cock suddenly. “I’m even going to give you some decent underwear, seeing as you can’t afford your own. So you stay there while Daddy goes and gets ready for work, and then he can see to you.”

Jim let go of Vince’s hands and got up. Headed for the bathroom once more, walking like there was no idiot kid on the bed staring at him with absolute fucking adoration. He stopped, though, at the bathroom door, and said without turning round:

“Of course, Daddy might prefer it if you waited for him on all fours.”

Which meant that Vince had to listen to the sounds of Jim’s shower and shave with his butt poking towards the bathroom and his cock dangling low towards the quilt, dropping patterns on the stitching.

When he was dressed, Jim filled the antique chamber pot with hot water and brought it over to Vince. Laid a towel under him and washed him down, letting the hot water run down his legs. Patted Vince’s cock with a warm sponge, while Vince trembled.

“Let’s make you smell less like a jock and more like… well, like a whore.” Jim dried Vince off, sat him up and touched cologne to Vince’s neck; combed his hair until his scalp tingled more than his dick. “Did anyone ever tell you how much you look like a girl?”

“Apart from Jones? Only my girlfriend. Think it turns her on.” And there was a big shudder of guilt when Vince said the word girlfriend. But before he could brood any, Jim was there, holding out a pair of boxers for him to climb into – nice ones, silk, were going to look real stupid sticking up over the waistband of his jeans. They felt good, though, sliding over his cock which immediately graced them with a damp circle.

“Marking your territory?” said Jim.

“So your boxers are my territory?”

“Well… yes. If you like.”

“We’ve had this conversation before. Whatever it is you suggest, I like. End of story.”

“And if I suggest a round on my lap for being impertinent?”

“I’ll drop these boxers and crawl to you with them around my ankles, then thank Daddy for each palm print that he leaves on my butt.”

Jim’s eyes seemed to go black again.

“You’re a very quick study,” he said. “I’m not entirely sure it’s healthy just how quick. Now, put the rest of your clothes on and I’ll make you breakfast.”

They sat in the kitchen, which Vince hadn’t seen yet, and Jim made him porridge. Stood over Vince while he ate it, then spooned it into Vince’s mouth when he left it unfinished.

“It’ll build you up,” he said.

“I don’t need building up.”

Jim took the opportunity of Vince’s open mouth to shovel another spoonful in.

“I’m not blind, Vince. You’ve been cutting corners on food to save money. Bet your mother would have a fit if she saw the state of you now.”

How come the guy who’d just screwed Vince upside down and sideways could actually say the word mother without making him wince? Probably because he was right; Vince’s mom would die on the spot if she saw the state of him – die, then get right up and bundle him into the car and back home. To Ohio. Where Jim wasn’t. Vince meekly let Jim feed him the rest of the porridge, and even pretend to enjoy it.

When breakfast was over, there were fifteen minutes left; fifteen minutes that should’ve been awkward and, for Vince, desperate. Instead, they sat in the study where the whole thing had kicked off, talked about Jim’s class, the things Vince had missed, whether he could take it up again if he ditched the cafeteria job. For a while, it was like they were friends – ok, an odd couple with years of difference and both of them trying to ignore the tube of lube on the table - but still friends. Then there were only two minutes left, and Jim was putting things in his briefcase. Snapping it shut. He came and sat next to Vince on the sofa and took his hands, looked like he was going to say something big and important and, very probably, final.

“Oh, fuck it,” he said suddenly. “Turn over.”

Vince scrambled onto his belly and felt two thumbs hook into his jeans. Apart from the silk boxers, this was exactly where they’d started, his ass bared for his professor, his dick crying out for relief. Jim was swearing softly under his breath.

“I've got no more… there’s no time.”

“Just do it,” said Vince, and this time he wasn’t asking, he was telling. Jim hesitated.

“Are you sure? I mean, I’m ok, I promise but…”

“I said, do it.”

“Yes, Sir.”

And Jim was more than a little late for his first lecture, and Vince’s ass was sticky with lube and come when he got into Jones’ car, but that was ok, because he’d felt the warmth and the softness inside him, and he knew that, whatever he had to do, he’d be coming back.

“Fuck me,” said Jones as Vince sat down gingerly in the passenger seat. “You actually went through with it. You let him screw your ass.”

“Didn’t.”

Jones pulled down Vince’s sun visor and pointed at the mirror.

“So those aren’t hickies on your neck.”

Vince looked. Sure enough, his neck looked like it had been a chew toy for a dog. A hungry dog.

“Fuck,” he said.

Jones was laughing, delighted.

“You let some guy stick his cock up your ass for money. What a whore. Hey, does that make me your pimp?”

“No, it just makes you a sick fuck. And anyway, I spent the night with him for the money. I had sex with him because I wanted to.”

Jones shut up for a while after that, and Vince stared out of the window, seeing nothing but the things that had happened in Jim’s bed.

“Are you, like, queer now?” Jones said eventually.

Vince shrugged.

“Does it matter? You can change rooms again, if it freaks you out that I did it.” Jones had already changed once, when Vince’s dope-head geek of a room mate had decided he wanted to spend the nights doing equations with some other dope-head geek who shared with Jones. Sometimes, Vince wondered just who had come up with the idea, because he’d been getting on just fine with equation boy. Then one day he’d got talking to Jones in the queue for the bathroom; the same night he’d ended up in the campus bar, drinking Jones’ money away; by the end of the week he was sleeping five feet away from him and, there was no denying it, having a lot more what you’d call ‘actual’ fun, most of it on Jones’ credit card.

Jones grinned.

“I couldn’t give a shit if you screw hamsters in your spare time. Though, I've got to tell you, if you’re going to play the bi card? Research shows that men aren’t bi, they’re just plain homo.”

“What research?” said Vince, irritated because he’d been telling himself bi was a distinct possibility.

“Proper psychological research. In Sweden, of course. I mean, where the fuck else? But if you ever read anything other than those piss dull Russian books, you’d already know. Hey – d’you want me to get you some boy porn?”

“Again, piss off,” said Vince, thinking about all those Russian books. That was one of the reasons he’d been able to drop Jim’s class in the first place – he’d read everything already. Course, he wasn’t about to tell Jim that, not when ‘teach me about literature’ was one of his most promising get-back-into-Jim’s-bed hook lines.

When they got back to campus, Jones wanted to have breakfast but Vince just wanted his own bed and sleep… and Jones’ thousand dollars tucked safe into his wallet. Jones followed him back to the room - “Got to see my tart safe,” - landing his hand on the top of Vince’s butt with a laugh. Vince winced – Jim had done a nice job of reddening that part with his own palm.

“You’re joking,” said Jones, slapping Vince again. “You got spanked! You’ve got more kinks than curly fucking hair.”

Vince threw himself onto his bed and covered his eyes with his forearm to block out the light – and big, shiny Jones, who was hovering over him.

“Show me,” said Jones.

“For Christ’s sake… just give me my money and let me sleep.”

“I’ll give you another hundred.”

Vince took his arm away.

“Why?”

“Because I've never seen a real live spanked butt before, and I figure you got your rocks off on my pay roll, so I should at least get to see it.”

Vince almost threw something at Jones. Almost. Then he said:

“Another two hundred, but you don’t get to touch, you total pervert.”

Jones put his hands behind his back.

“Takes one to know one.”

Vince sighed; undid his flies and wriggled out of his jeans.

“Are those his boxers?” said Jones, awed.

“Yes.” Vince turned over – he really wasn’t up to Jones laughing at his cock right now – and slid the boxers down. Let Jones look his fill of his stinging ass, which Jones did. Stared at it for a good long while, saying nothing. Just the sound of him breathing behind Vince.

“It’s bright fucking red,” he said finally. “And I think I can see hand prints. Jesus, that must’ve really hurt. How did he do it?”

“Over his knee,” said Vince, not sure why he was saying anything, but somehow desperate to tell someone. Even Jones. “He made me count each one, and if I didn’t get back in position for the next one, he made me start over until I’d done the number thirty like, twelve times.”

“Oh, he’s good.”

“And I had to call him Daddy. Thank him, too. Then stand in the corner while he inspected me.”

Uh oh. The sound of Vince’s own voice was having a rejuvenating effect on his lower reaches. That and the fact he was imagining Jim standing over him right now, and not Jones.

“You wouldn’t know it to look at him,” said Jones, sitting next to Vince but still not touching. “Wouldn’t think he had it in him to colour in your ass like this. Tell me how he screwed you.”

“No,” said Vince, pulling his boxers and jeans back up. Turning over and kicking Jones off his bed. “Where’s my money, perv?”

Jones took his wallet out, and it was literally stuffed with fifty dollar notes.

“How much did we say?”

“You know how much. A thousand two hundred, and then this whole thing is never happening again.”

Jones counted it out, then held it out of Vince’s reach.

“Admit it. For one night, you were my whore.”

“Fine. Whatever. I’m your whore, now give me the money.”

“Only if you take it like a whore.”

“Jones, I don’t give a fuck.”

Vince lay back, too tired to argue. Put his forearm over his eyes again, hoping by the time he took it away Jones would’ve disappeared. Jones chuckled, which wasn’t a pleasant sound, and there was a rustle of money.

“Ok, slut,” he said. “Here’s the first fifty.”

Vince felt a hand at his waistband, and before he could complain, he realised fifty dollars had been tucked into the top of his boxers.

“Man, that’s sick.”

“But fun. Now lie still so I can do the rest.”

And Vince lay still, letting Jones tuck each fifty dollar bill into his boxers, then turned over like he was told when there was no room left at the front. He tried to ignore the almost overwhelming shame that was as much from the fact that he didn’t care what Jones did, as that Vince was letting him do it in the first place. And when Jones had finished, admired the sight of Vince for a while then finally pissed off to get breakfast, Vince still lay on the bed, motionless, unable to get any sleep, feeling more of a whore now than he had done all night.

It turned out Vince had more money than he thought, because when he eventually managed to get undressed and sort through his clothes, there was a neatly folded wad of notes in his jacket pocket. Another two hundred dollars. Vince wondered if he was pissed off that Jim had paid him for services rendered, or pleased because he could take it straight back. Nothing was clear in his head anymore, but then he was living in a very murky world these past two days. He decided he didn’t have the energy for either pleased or pissed off, and collapsed naked under the duvet, praying that Jones wouldn’t want anything more from him. Because, seriously, Vince would hit him. He’d been in fights before, not come off too badly, and for all Jones was a big guy, he wasn’t the quickest on his feet.

Not like Jim.

Jim, who’d been buried waist deep in Vince just two hours ago, snapping his hips against Vince’s ass and pulling at Vince’s cock like it was an extension of his own. Of all the times they’d done it, that last one, fast and frenzied and bare, had undone the professor completely. He’d worked so hard his shirt had been covered in sweat and his jeans grazed against the raw skin on Vince’s butt; he’d pounded Vince along the sofa until Vince was bent over the arm, his head touching the floor. And the things Jim said, about ruining him, hurting him, making him scream… all true, because Vince remembered ruin and hurt and, as his cock opened over Jim’s hand, he remembered screaming. Couldn’t remember what he screamed – never could – but it made Jim swear some more, thrust even faster. Then Jim was lying on top of him, saying “Oh God, oh no, oh God…” over and over again, and Vince’s ass hole was leaking come. Vince squirmed round and held Jim close, and they lay on the sofa like that until it was way past time for Jim to go.

“You never did watch me wriggle,” said Vince, stroking Jim’s hair. “You’ll have to do it next time.”

Jim raised his head and looked at him and Vince suddenly felt a thrill of something he’d not felt in a long time, not since he still had his best friend from kindergarten who’d do anything for him. He remembered that feeling  – it was power.

“It’ll be ok,” he said.

“How can it be? I've not had anyone since, well… him. And for it to be you, as young as I was when I fell in love with him, it’s…”

“It’s nothing like the same. For a start, I’m way cleverer than you.”

Jim let his head drop down again.

“Oh God.”

“You’ll see.” Vince pushed Jim away – and how he ever managed to make himself do that, he’d never know – but he sat up and handed Jim his briefcase. “You’re going to be late.”

“Don’t go.”

Two greatest words in any language.

“Have to.” Vince leaned forward and kissed his professor, letting his tongue flick around Jim’s mouth and taste him. “Come on, now. Or Jones will think I've escaped out the back, and I’ll never get my money.”

“You’re a whore,” said Jim. “I've made you a whore.”

“Only for you. Everything else? It was an excuse.” Vince summoned up a smile, because if he had power, he wasn’t going to fuck it up like some kid. He was going to start trying to act like an adult. “So you can stop beating yourself up and go to work. Or school. Whichever turns you on more.”

Jim smiled back – just about. Stood up and twitched the wet shirt from his back.

“You turn me on, little boy. You destroy me, just like I said you would.”

“Good,” said Vince. And he meant it.

There was something else in Vince’s jacket pocket, something he wore the next day when he went back to Jim’s class – after all, he was up seventeen hundred dollars, he didn’t need that stupid fucking cafeteria hat anymore.

“Hey, cock sucker,” said Jones as they were eating breakfast, “what’s with the t-shirt and tie combo? You look royally stupid. Or slutty, I can’t decide.”

“None of your business,” said Vince.

“Ok, tell me why you’re eating that shit, then.”

Jones pointed his fork at the bowl of porridge that Vince was polishing off with a fair amount of gusto.

“I just decided to give it a go.”

“Man, nobody eats that stuff. It goes straight to the pigs.”

“Will you get off my case?”

“Hey, watch me backing off,” said Jones. “It’s not like I give a shit.”

Vince shrugged and went back to his porridge. Things had been weird between him and Jones, at least he’d thought they’d been weird. Couldn’t tell if Jones had noticed because he was still acting the clown, throwing his money around, generally in the direction of Vince. Only, now Vince had noticed that the buying of favours was one of Jones’ tricks, he didn’t feel like selling them. Plus, he’d let the guy stare at his butt for two hundred dollars, and he kind of didn’t want to know what that meant. It meant something, though, because Jones hadn’t said a word about the bet to Vince or anybody else, which was a golden embarrassment opportunity wasted. And when Vince had finally woken up after a whole day in bed, the duvet was somewhere round his waist and Jones was sat up on his own bed not looking. Usually, if Vince was getting changed and had his ass hanging out, Jones threw stuff at him and kidded around; tried to give him a hard-on by showing him his girlie magazines.

He wouldn’t bother doing that again, that was for sure.

Vince finished his breakfast, listening to Jones carry on about something – football, girls’ chests, his new car – then escaped to the bathroom when Jones was putting his tray into the rack. At the sinks, someone had left a shampoo bottle and a hairbrush, one of those round ones with an equally round handle. Vince found himself staring at it, and wondering. Next thing he knew, he’d locked himself into a shower cubicle and was watching his face in the cubicle mirror as the hairbrush made its slippery, shampooed way up his ass. He imagined Jim was standing behind him, telling him what to do: push it harder, further, like a good boy. Twist it round and find your button for Daddy. Don’t touch yourself. Now, press that nasty thing against it until Daddy can hear you scream.

He managed to keep the scream in his head and not out loud, which was a good thing as the main door slammed open and Jones’ voice called out.

“Are you in here, freak?”

Vince said nothing; jerked his hips in silence and watched in the mirror as his cheeks and lips flushed red and his pupils grew huge. The whole thing had taken no more than a minute.

“Freak,” muttered Jones, and went out.

Vince stayed for a minute longer with wobbly legs and the hairbrush jiggling inside him, pretended it was Jim’s dildo, pretended Jim was going to spank him for making a mess… then squeezed it out and sat his naked butt on the little wooden bench beneath the cubicle clothes hooks. Way to go, he thought. Screw yourself with a stranger’s hairbrush and get off in under sixty seconds. It took fifteen minutes with his cheerleader, and that was with some argument about which way she faced. All this time, apparently he’d just needed a stick up his ass hole and Jim watching. Boy, could he have saved a lot of energy if he’d known that three years ago.

He sighed and shifted his ass on the bench. Things were simple as fuck, really. It was just a matter of coming to terms with the blindingly obvious, and if the whole hairbrush thing wasn’t obvious then he was gonna need glasses.

There wasn’t really time, but Vince managed to fit in another round with the hairbrush before his first lecture. He put the brush away in his closet, and found Jones waiting for him in the common room.

“Tell me you weren’t wanking off,” he said.

“I swear, I never touched my dick,” said Vince, who was feeling slightly better now he’d released some tension. He even managed to slap Jones on the back.

“Hey, hands off the goods,” said Jones, although he still put his hands around Vince’s neck and pretended to throttle him. “We’re gonna be late, perv. And I've still got to tell you the next thing you’re going to do to earn my money.”

“Fuck off.”

“No, you’ll love it. Right up your street. There’s this old chick, cleans the john, always wearing these really low tops…”

And Vince let Jones talk on, laughing at every ridiculous idea, as they headed off for the first lecture.

By the time Vince was standing outside the lecture hall, waiting for Jim to turn up, he was a mess. He’d spent two hours learning about Madame Bovary (dull) and the subjunctive (duller) and hadn’t heard a word of any of it. It was like he’d never had that momentary feeling of power the morning before, when Jim had lain in his arms, shaking. It had literally been wiped away by all the ordinary things that had happened since. Now, looking at the other kids in the hallway, Vince knew he wasn’t anything but a normal student, waiting for a normal class. No better looking, no more exciting, no cleverer than pretty much everybody there. Jim was going to take one look at him and his sorry, scrawny ass and wonder what the hell he’d been thinking. It was taking all of Vince’s courage to stay put before Jim turned up and realised the stupid mistake he’d made; courage and the fact that his legs currently wouldn’t work. At least, thank fuck, Jones wasn’t hanging around anymore – he’d never been one for Russian literature, or literature at all unless it was absolutely necessary to getting his grade. He’d mugged off to a psychology class, promising to bring back proof of the Swedish research, and possibly a Swedish researcher for himself because they were all big, chesty blondes. He hadn’t even realised Jim’s class was next and Vince wasn’t so dumb as to actually tell him. Though if ever he needed some friendly back-up, it was the moment he saw Jim walking down the corridor with a friendly smile for all. Vince hid behind a big guy standing beside him, pretending to do up the lace on his sneakers.

Jim opened the main door, and everyone filed in after him, Vince bolting for the back row because the shame – the shame – of not being good enough, and the absolute certainty that he wanted this man even if he didn’t deserve him, was making him feel physically sick. He’d figured all morning that maybe, just maybe, when he saw Jim again, the complete turmoil inside him would stop, and he’d be the one who wondered just what he’d been thinking. He’d blame it on crazy dope, too much drink, stress about money, and he’d wince every time he saw that guy standing by his lectern, using those hands that had been on Vince’s butt to turn the pages of his lecture notes. And that would be it.

That so wasn’t it.

So Vince sat huddled at the back, listening to Jim talk about surrealism in twentieth century Russian literature, and gave up trying to keep a hold on sanity. Because nobody else in that lecture theatre knew what had gone on, none of them had the slightest fucking clue. That girl, the pretty Asian one who lent him notes one time – she didn’t know. That guy with the ice hockey sweatshirt – he didn’t know, either. In fact, imagine telling them. Imagine standing up and announcing that he’d had the professor’s cock up his ass for twelve hours straight. Or, better still, imagine showing them. Imagine if Jim looked up suddenly, and said:

“Vince, come down here.”

Vince would go, of course, because he always did everything Jim told him. And Jim would stand him in front of the class and say:

“This is an absolutely average specimen of a student. Nothing special at all. No will power, either – you can make him do anything you want, he’s so pathetic.”

And Vince wouldn’t say anything, he’d just stare at the floor, while Jim told him to take off all his clothes to prove his point. Off his clothes would come, one by one, all eyes upon his leaking cock, his tight balls.

“See?” Jim would say. “Pathetic. Now Vince, show everyone that butt.” Vince would turn round and let them all look, just like Jones had, and when Jim told him to reach down and grab his ankles so they could all see his pucker and balls – naughty, dirty boy that he was – Vince did that, too. Jim nudged his legs apart further and opened his ass cheeks so nobody missed out, then pushed his fountain pen inside because Vince was such a bad boy, could get off on anything, like a common dog. And see how he’s enjoying you all looking, see how his cock wants you all to fuck him. But he’s not going to have anyone up that pucker but me. So lie on the table, Vince, with your butt raised and open for me, and tell everyone how you want me to fuck you.

“I want you to fuck me Daddy. In front of everyone. I want everyone to see you put your cock up my ass.”

“Good boy,” says Jim, and then he’s inside Vince, talking to the class all the while, telling them how tight and hot Vince is, how dirty, how bad, how…

And as Vince snapped out of fantasy land before he had an accident, he realised that Jim had stopped talking and was staring up into the lecture theatre, towards the back row. At Vince.

For a second, Vince thought he’d been asked a question; opened his mouth to say sorry, he hadn’t heard properly, can you ask the question again please? But then he realised nobody else was looking at him, they were all still staring straight at Jim, who was standing there, frozen to the spot. Mid-sentence, apparently, because his mouth was slightly open. Vince felt himself blush right down to his roots, and thought about just getting up and making a run for it. He even tried to move his feet, but they weren’t for co-operating. So he sat there miserably and withered under Jim’s shocked, horrified, appalled look, and wished himself dead.

Eventually, although it was probably only a second later, somebody coughed and Jim visibly pulled himself together. Made a joke about the grey cells dying quicker these days, and went back to Russian surrealism without another glance in Vince’s direction. Vince carried on wishing he was dead for the next half hour, right the way through the amusing introduction to Bulgakov, and beyond Jim dismissing the class slightly early with a warning that there’d be a quiz the next week. Vince only realised the class was over, his whole life was over, when everybody started to get up. Jim busied himself with sorting out his notes and putting them in his briefcase – that fucking briefcase – and Vince made to get up along with everybody else. Only, just as he stood up, balancing on very shaky legs, Jim looked at him and nodded for him to sit down again.

Everybody cleared out fast, hungry for lunch, and Vince was left sitting alone in the back row as Jim continued to sort and tidy. Vince was beginning to think Jim was delaying the big ‘fuck off’ moment, and he wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw Jim’s sorting and tidying hands tremble just a little bit. Vince figured he could get up and go down there, stand by the lectern and get dumped like a real man. Or, he could sit tight because, after being the world’s biggest slut, he was also the world’s biggest coward. Besides, he was doing what Jim wanted, right?

Then, suddenly, Jim looked at him and sighed, and Vince’s whole life really did end, because he knew in that second that there wasn’t any hope. Jim was putting a stop to it. Jim came up the stairs to where Vince was sitting and sighed again.

“Fuck off,” said Vince, and put his head in his hands and did what he did best – cried. Jim squatted down next to him and tried to pat his arm, but Vince shoved him away.

“I’m sorry,” said Jim, and he actually sounded sorry too. “I said I’d be careful with you, and this is the only way I know how. To stop it before it starts. You’ve got to understand this is the right thing to do…”

Vince sank his head further into his hands. Wept silently, because he knew there were people still outside the theatre who could hear. Jim stayed put until Vince was finished, and when Vince finally looked up there was a tissue held out in front of him.

“Fuck off,” he said again. “Had enough from you, you bastard.” He reached into his jeans pocket and took the two hundred dollars out, thrusting it at Jim.

“This money wasn’t because of the other night,” said Jim.

“Liar. And you can have this back, too.” Vince pulled the tie off his neck. “Give it to the next dumb ass you take for a ride.”

“I didn’t. I meant everything I said -,”

“Fuck off.”

Three times was the charm, because Jim shut up and let Vince push past him and start down the stairs. Nothing but the sound of his footsteps echoing throughout the hall. He was almost at the front, heading for the doors and the rest of his pointless existence, when Jim said:

“Wait.”

For some reason, Vince waited, rubbing furiously at his eyes. Jim came down the stairs after him, holding out the money.

“I want you to have it. You need it.”

“You complete prick.”

Jim put the money into Vince’s jacket pocket, and stared long and hard at him. Vince stared back. Then, finally, Jim sighed again.

“I want you to have this too.” Before Vince knew what was happening, Jim put the tie back over his head, pulled it round his neck, and tightened the knot.

Vince went back to the dorm and spent the rest of the day in bed. First, though, he puked up in the john for half an hour; gripped the edge of the toilet bowl and stared into the swirling water, wondering what the fuck was going on. He thought about going home to Ohio for a while. He could let his mom cook something nice for him, hang out with his sister – the cool one – look up his friends who hadn’t made it out of the place after high school. Or he could even go see his cheerleader who was, of course, studying where it was bright and warm and sunny… if her sorority would even let him through the door in this state. Whatever, after Jim had left him standing in the middle of the lecture hall, Vince figured the only thing to do was to get the hell out of Dodge before he lost his mind completely. So he made himself get off the cold, tiled bathroom floor which was leaving patterns on his knees, and he made himself go back to his room, open a bag and stuff a few clothes in it. Then he shrugged off his clothes – apart from the tie – and got into bed because he was deeply, truly tired. Finding out over the space of two days that you’re not just into guys, but you actually love one and that the bastard doesn’t love you back – it’s enough to make anybody a bit sleepy.

He woke up to find it was past dinner time, and Jones was standing over him with a glass of water and a genuinely worried expression.

“Dude, you look rough.” He handed Vince the water and watched him drink it down. “D’you wanna sleep some more? I can turn the light out, go stay somewhere else.”

“No, I’m ok,” said Vince.

 Jones sat on the end of Vince’s bed and kicked the bag of clothes.

 “You off somewhere?”

 “Dunno. Maybe.”

 “Not because of me, right? Because this whole thing was only meant to be a laugh.”

 “Some laugh,” said Vince, though he couldn’t summon up the energy to be angry, because it wasn’t Jones who had him puking and crying and running away. Jones couldn’t ever do that.

 There was a knock at the door, and Vince pulled the sheet over his head.

 “Tell them to piss off.”

 “On it.”

 Jones got up and went to see who it was and Vince buried himself under the sheet, shut his eyes and tried to ignore the sound of voices and whispering that seemed to go on forever. Why wouldn’t whoever the fuck it was just go away? Leave him in peaceful turmoil. Finally he heard the door shut, and Jones’ weight dipped the bed again, although this time it was up near Vince’s covered head. A hand pinched the sheet and started drawing it down, and Vince lay there and swore to himself if Jones started that whole butt-staring thing again, he’d lay him out cold.

 “You really are in a mess,” said Jim’s voice as the sheet twitched down to Vince’s ankles and Vince was suddenly lying curled and naked in front of the person he most and least wanted to see. “Glad to see you’re still wearing my present.”

 Vince kept his eyes shut, praying that it was just him and Jim in the room, and Jones wasn’t gawking at them from his own bed. Jim patted his thigh.

 “Come on, I’ll take you to dinner. That charming friend of yours told me – how did he put it? – you were doing an Ethiopian on him and he could count your fucking ribs.”

 “Don’t,” said Vince, and he could hear his voice sound desperate. “I can’t… if you like me at all, you won’t…”

 “Oh, but I will. I can’t help it. Now get up and put something half decent on so you don’t embarrass me.” Vince didn’t move, so Jim smacked him, hard. “Vince, I’m older than you, set in my ways and I really don’t like changing my mind. You’ve made me change it three times in forty eight hours. Don’t make me change it again, or I’ll get your friend back in here and tan your backside in front of him.”

 Vince opened his eyes and got up.

 “Good boy,” said Jim. “And you can unpack that bag while you’re up, because you’re not running away, that’s what kids do. Oh, and come here…”

 He took Vince’s hand and brought him to stand in front of Jim, his rapidly blossoming cock level with Jim’s –

 “Jesus…”

 That was Jim’s mouth closing around his dick, just the first inch, letting it slide back and forth between his tongue and teeth. Vince stayed very still and tried to work out if he was dreaming. He was sick, right? This could be a hallucination. Only, when Jim suddenly squeezed Vince’s ass and pulled his hips forward, and Vince’s cock disappeared down Jim’s throat, Vince was pretty sure that was the sort of thing he wasn’t up to hallucinating. He gave up working out and thrust into the warmth and the wet, coming just as Jim’s fingers wriggled their way into his pucker and around his balls. He vaguely realised he’d forgotten to check if Jones was actually in the room, and the idea that they might be being watched made him come that little bit harder. Jim didn’t seem to mind – he held Vince in his mouth until everything was over, then pulled back a bit and cleaned him up with his tongue, lapping at his slit until Vince was getting hard all over again. Then Jim glanced up at him with a smile and said:

 “Promise me you’ll only cry when you’re on my dick.”

 “Right now, I’ll promise anything.”

 “The sight of you today, sobbing because of me…”

 “Is that why you changed your mind?”

 Jim got up and pulled Vince in for a kiss. A salty, Vince-flavoured kiss.

 “I like to make you cry. But I like it when you scream you’re mine, first.”

 “I don’t do that.”

 “Don’t you?” Jim gave Vince a little shove towards his closet. “Shirt to go with that tie, baby boy, I’m taking you somewhere nice. And then I’m going to take you back home where nobody can see what a bad man I can be.”

 Vince paused for a second, even though Jim’s hand was resting on his butt and every fibre of his being wanted to do as he was told.

 “You don’t have to buy me dinner if you want to fuck me. I’ll do that for free. Here, if you want, right now. And then you can go and I won’t cry, so long as you promise to come back.”

 “I know,” said Jim. “It’s why I tried to put a stop to everything. I’m a weak man, it turns out, as well as a bad one. But I’m strong enough to know you need some looking after, and I’ll do that until the day you leave me.”

 Vince shook his head.

 “Not gonna happen.”

 Jim just smiled and reached into the closet, pulling out a shirt.

 “This one, please. Then I’ll feed you and fuck you until you remember what you scream.”

 “So, you’ve got issues with food and money.” Jim pointed at the untouched plate sitting on the table in front of Vince. “That’s fifty dollars’ worth of fish pie prepared by Monsieur someone-or-other. It’s only good manners to eat it.”

 Vince pulled a face. Surreptitiously, of course, because he was sitting in the kind restaurant he’d never dare spit at, and there was a waiter, their own personal waiter, hovering at a discreet distance. And he kept looking at Vince’s sneakers and grimacing.

 “Fish is gross. And I don’t have issues with food or money, although I think you might, Mr Enormous Fucking Car.”

 “Eat the fish pie, it’s good for you.”

 Vince took his fork in his right hand and scooped a teeny bit of mashed potato onto it. Nibbled it.

 “Why don’t Americans know how to use cutlery?” Jim muttered, leaning over and taking the fork out of Vince’s hand. He loaded it with fish and handed it back – to Vince’s left hand. “Push, not scoop. Now, eat it or I’ll sit you on my lap and feed you, then let the waiter spank your irritating ass. Which given how much your very presence is annoying him, isn’t too far a stretch of the imagination.”

 Vince kind of agreed, and ate the fish. It wasn’t so bad, he supposed, and when Jim had ordered it he’d said it was the best thing for an unsettled stomach. Better than the hamburger and fries Vince had been on the point of begging from the waiter, because everything else had creamed this and pureed that.

 “For such a clever boy, you’re surprisingly ordinary,” Jim had said. “Haven’t you ever been in a French restaurant before?”

 Vince hadn’t been anywhere before. He was just very good at reading about things.

 They ate in silence for a while, Vince concentrating on pushing instead of scooping, and conceding to himself that, actually, Monsieur’s fish pie was shit hot when you’d just spent the afternoon throwing up. Jim pretended not to watch, and wasn’t very good at it.

 “I’m ok, really,” said Vince. “Look, fish on fork, fork in mouth…” He swallowed. “Fish in stomach.”

 “It’s whether it stays there.”

 “I’m not a wrestler. The only thing makes me sick is you dumping me.” Vince grinned suddenly. “So, I guess you can’t do that again.”

 Jim just sighed.

 “And besides,” Vince went on, “I had a whole bowl of that porridge crap this morning.”

 “Which ended up in the college plumbing. And how much did you eat yesterday, or the day before? You hadn’t had dinner when you turned up on my doorstep, I heard your stomach rumbling.”

 “And you didn’t offer me anything, you mean bastard.”

 “I was distracted by all that wriggling you were doing.” Jim poured some more wine into his glass and more mineral water into Vince’s, who wasn’t allowed wine on an upset stomach, apparently. Or beer – and there were some real interesting Belgian varieties on the menu that he’d wanted to try then brag about to Jones after. Thinking of Jones, the fucker… Vince took a gulp of water.

 “And I’m not doing an Ethiopian. I’ve just got a naturally fast metabolism.”

 “Well, you’re fast, I’ll give you that.”

 Vince kicked him, and that made Jim smile. Odd sense of humour, but who cared when the smile came with one of those slow, warm looks that made Vince’s insides sink? No wonder he wasn’t hungry these days.

 “Still,” said Jim, “if you’re going to be a slut, at least you’ve got a talent for attracting rich men.”

 “See, I knew you were loaded. I mean, that car.”

 “A good thing too, seeing as you like your boyfriends to shell out.”

 “Piss off.”

 “Tell me, Vince, when you do actually eat, who pays for the food?”

 “My overdraft.” Well, not completely true. That morning Vince hadn’t any money on him since he’d stuck Jones’ booty straight into the bank, so Jones stood him for the porridge. And he supposed the day before, when Jones had thrown a pack of sandwiches at him when he’d woken up, that was technically the same as buying him dinner. Then he’d shared his mammoth lunch with Vince the day before that, and done the MacD’s thing the night of the Jim kiss… oh fuck.

 “Jones isn’t my boyfriend,” said Vince quietly.

 “What was the first thing Jones did when you met him?”

 “Uh… stuck his hand down his boxers and pretended to wank himself off? We were waiting for the bathroom, see. Though when I realised I’d got no shampoo he gave me his.” Vince thought some more. “And then he bought me breakfast.”

 “And now he pays you to have sex with other men. For a slippery slope, that’s like throwing yourself off Everest.”

 There was more silence for a while, as Vince ate his meal and tried not to start feeling sick again. There are only so many self-discoveries a person can take in two days, and he figured he’d had his fair share. Finding out he really was a whore and quite possibly Jones really was his pimp was beyond a step too far.

 Jim suddenly reached out under the table and put his hand on Vince’s knee.

“Remember you said you thought you must have a sign

over your head, so people knew about you?” The hand traced a circle on Vince’s jeans, and it was hot against his skin. “Well, it pretty much has a dollar sign on it. Teamed with the way you look right now, it might as well be in neon.”

 Vince pulled his knee away.

 “You make it sound like I’m some druggie rent boy.”

 “You’re more dangerous than that.” Jim’s hand found the knee again, and this time it gripped it tight; wasn’t going anywhere. “Because you really have no idea of what’s going on. It’s about time you realised, though, before you get yourself in real trouble.”

 Vince stared at his plate; went on eating with Jim’s hand resting on his knee. Wondered if the waiter could see through table cloths, and whether he’d disapprove. Who was he kidding? Of course the waiter disapproved, because Vince had a big fucking dollar sign over his head that anyone with half a brain could see.

 “I don’t want money,” he said eventually, still staring at the plate.

 “No, you just want looking after, although it amounts to the same thing for most people.” Jim was letting his hand wander up Vince’s leg now, delving between his thighs and running his thumb up Vince’s ever-solid cock. “It’s ok to want that, nothing wrong at all, it’s just that you have to know that’s what you’re all about. A pretty boy with a courtesan complex.”

 “Courtesan just means prostitute.”

 “But it’s a much nicer word.”

 The buttons on Vince’s fly were opening one by one, and Vince took a deep, angry breath as Jim’s fingers searched out his dick.

 “I’m beginning to see the point of no underwear,” said Jim, managing to eat his own meal with one hand while the other played with the soft, spongy part of Vince. How come Jim was allowed to scoop with his fork, Vince found himself thinking between little short breaths. Fucking hypocrite. Fucking, amazing, beautiful hypocrite who was currently pinching the top of Vince’s dick between thumb and forefinger and not even looking at him.

 “Eat some more fish pie,” said Jim. Vince opened his mouth and found he couldn’t speak. His voice had vanished into his dick, which was singing away in Jim’s hand. I love you, I love you, it was chirruping. It stopped for a moment as Jim’s hand disappeared, but before it got all panicked the hand came back, with one of the heavy linen serviettes that were embroidered in gold thread. Apparently, Vince’s dick had a thing for good quality serviettes, because it started full-throttle opera singing when it felt itself wrapped up like a baby in a high thread count.

 “We don’t want to make a mess,” said Jim by way of explanation. “Pie, Vince.”

 Vince tried to focus on his knife and fork, and managed to aim one of them at the plate then into his mouth, although it could’ve been the knife for all he could tell.

 “I said I’ll look after you and I will,” Jim went on. “My money, my dick, my undivided attention. All yours. But if you want to do this, you have to pull yourself together.”

 Jim worked the top of Vince’s cock quickly between his fingers, the serviette wrapped around the length of it like a fur coat. As Vince clutched his knife and fork mid-air, jerking his hips ever so slightly under the eye of the waiter, Jim pulled the serviette up under the slit and caught it all neatly. Smoothed the linen over Vince’s skin until everything was if not really clean, then dry, and tucked him back into his jeans and did the fly up. Vince ate the last of his dinner mechanically, and Jim made no pretence of staring at him.

 “You look so pretty when you’ve come.”

 “I’m not…” Vince pushed his plate away. “I’m not this person, really.”

 “Sometimes you are.”

 “I mean, I’m sensible, and good with money, and I don’t cry all the time over some guy I don’t even know. And… oh shit, you thought I was going to do something stupid tonight, didn’t you?”

 “Maybe.” And now, for the first time, Jim looked uncomfortable. “It’s what I’d have done, at your age.”

 “So the only reason you’re here is because you were worried I might top myself?”

 “One of the reasons.”

 Vince lowered his head towards the table. How fucking shameful, to be so needy he was actually resorting to emotional blackmail like some screwed up girl. Jim lifted his chin with a finger and smiled at him.

 “You didn’t, though. Which makes you cleverer than me, because I've swallowed bottles of Advil to get him to stay.”

 “Oh.” Vince managed for a moment to feel sorry for someone other than himself. “But I did tell you I was the clever one. I mean, you’ve just offered me everything, and all I had to do was weep and eat fish pie.”

 Jim signalled the waiter over, dumping the serviette onto his empty plate.

 “But what are you going to do to get me to screw you?”

 “Eat all my dessert.”

 As the waiter came over, Jim leant towards Vince and whispered:

 “I want you so much. Can I have you?”

 “Always,” said Vince.

 “Can I keep you? Will you let it be just me?”

 “Who else?”

 Jim looked at him, and Vince thought: first, there’s Jones, second, there’s a cheerleader who, when he came to think about it, was pretty rich herself and liked to give Vince presents all the time. That sign over his head must show up to girls and boys alike.

 There was only one person he needed to see it, though.

 “Just you,” he said, then turned to the waiter. “What’s the biggest dessert you’ve got? Because I’ll have that.”

 There were johns, and then there were johns, Vince thought as he collapsed onto the chaise longue in the Gents. How many had a sofa and a marble fucking fountain in them? Or hand cream in glass bottles that you could pretty much walk out with, if you were cheap enough to nick hand cream. Which Vince thought he might be, seeing as he was cheap enough to do everything else.

 Jim had sent him off to wash up after the under the table incident, because Vince hadn’t sat still for a second all the way through dessert.

 “And if some old bastard tries to pick you up,” Jim said as Vince stood up from the table, “tell him I don’t share anymore.”

 Vince was going to ask what that meant, but Jim waved him away, and when Jim waved, Vince always had the urge to obey. So he went and peed into a marble urinal and, since nobody else was in there, stuck his dick under the fountain for fun. Kind of bubbly and frothy. Then he sat down on the unfinished couch to gather his wits, because they’d taken quite a knocking since… well, if he was truthful, since he’d left Ohio. Jim was just the culmination of a very odd, free-wheeling few months that had him bouncing from one idea to the next. From one person to the next. He’d felt like a balloon that someone had let go into the air, and was being buffeted around by every freaking breeze that took a fancy to him. And when Jim finally took hold of his string… and as comparisons went, that one needed some work.

 “So, I assume you’re one of his students?”

 Vince looked up, and saw a big guy, really big, in his late fifties. Buff. Hair shaved close to his head, and some of it was still black. Vince thought fast.

 “Uh… I’m his nephew?”

 “Sure. We used to play that line, too.”

 “Oh? Oh…”

 The guy sat down, and the whole chaise longue shook under his weight. Vince saw that his eyes were bloodshot, and guessed he was more than a bit drunk.

 “Has he played musical chairs with you yet?”

 “No…”

 “Well, ask him, because it’s real fun. He loved it when he was your age. Bouncing around on all those different dicks.”

 “That reminds me,” said Vince, edging away from a huge paw of a hand that was crawling towards his thigh, “he said to tell you he doesn’t share anymore.”

 “Selfish boy. Though I reckon we could fit something in before he finds out?”

 “You know, you’re nice and all, but I -,” Vince’s voice was cut off by the other hand that was suddenly clamped over his mouth. He squeaked.

 “Shall I tell you how he used to bend over and beg me, literally beg me, to fuck him?” The guy’s breath was on his face, and it smelt of whisky. His hand was attacking Vince’s fly now, yanking his cock free. And his cock was hard, because the idea of Jim begging anyone was enough to make Vince come right there, even with the incredible aging hulk squashing him. “Shall I tell you how he likes it if there’s someone else watching my cock going up his ass?” the guy went on, throttling Vince’s cock and – oh shit – leaning further towards him and running his tongue along his jaw and up his cheek. Overpowering smell of booze, and the definite impression that this guy could snap Vince in two, or suffocate him with that enormous hand, whichever he took a fancy to. “Shall I tell you how he always comes back to me in the end?”

 “For pity’s sake,” said Jim’s voice suddenly, coming from behind the man mountain. “Can’t you keep it in your jeans for five minutes?”

 The guy levered himself off Vince with a drunken smile and reached for Jim, who side-stepped neatly and had Vince up and tucked back in before Vince realised he wasn’t sitting on the couch anymore.

 “I didn’t do anything!” he said, sounding like a five year old. The guy was lolling back on the couch, looking not quite as drunk as Vince had reckoned. Sneaky bastard.

 “Reliving old times?” said the guy, smiling at Jim. “Where did you find him?”

 “The internet. He came free with a first edition Chekhov.”

 “Well, when you get bored…”

 Vince made a small, pathetic sound in the back of his throat.

 “Sure,” said Jim easily, putting his hand on Vince’s back. “I’m thinking in about twenty years from now. Which will make you… what? Incontinent? Talking of which, if you’ve pissed, could you, you know, piss off?”

 The guy sat for a few more seconds, then shrugged and stood up. He towered over them, and Vince found himself edging behind Jim, who actually took a step forward and somehow made himself look taller.

 “I guess I’ll see you in a couple of months,” said the guy, and the look he gave Jim had no trace of drunken asshole about it. He reached out suddenly and chucked Vince under the chin. “Ask him about the musical chairs, chicken. You’re missing out.”

 After he’d gone, Vince found himself watching the space where he’d been for a few, dazed seconds. Then he realised Jim was rubbing his back. He moved away sharply.

 “Did you know he’d be here?”

 “Yes.”

 “And you let him, like, molest me?”

 “Just for a little while.” Jim went and stood by the fountain, holding his finger under the stream of bubbling water. “Just so you’d know what real trouble looks like.”

 “You total wanking shitty bastard – what are you doing?”

 “Oh come on,” said Jim, who was undoing his flies. “You’re not going to tell me you didn’t do this too?” And he took out his cock, which was achingly hard, and held it under the water jet. He grinned at Vince. “I always did this whenever The Giant Haystack brought me here.”

 “The Giant who?” said Vince faintly. “And – wait, I’m angry here. I was gonna say stuff. You can’t just whip your dick out and distract me.”

 Jim didn’t seem to be listening. He looked ridiculously young standing there, wiggling his bare cock under a stream of bubbles.

 “Did you pee in here?” he said. “No, guess not. It turns the water green. They put some chemical in it, you know…” He stepped back from the fountain and looked down at himself. “Ok, that might last. Go bolt the main door.”

 “There’s a bolt on the door?”

 “Why else do you think he used to bring me here?”

 Vince went and bolted the main door; fancy French restaurants sure knew how to please the customers. Apart from the ones who really wanted to pee, that was.

 When Vince turned back, Jim had a look on his face that was part mischievous, part ravenous.

 “Tell me what I’m going to do next,” he said.

 And if Vince hadn’t exactly been in the mood before, he was getting there now.

 “You’re going to screw me?”

 “No,” said Jim, reaching out and hooking a finger into the waist of Vince’s jeans. “I’m going to tip your lovely ass over the arm of that chaise longue, and I’m going to make everything better.”

 Turned out, when Jim made a promise, he kept it, because Vince felt a lot better about everything after they came out of the gents. There was something about leaning over the fat arm of the sofa, his jeans round his ankles and his best shirt up round his ears, Jim whispering into his ear. To be told what he looked like in explicit detail – pink and soft and clean, apparently – and then listen to Jim’s voice describing how the tip of his cock was nestling between Vince’s ass cheeks and pushing inside, just as Vince could feel it happening…

 “I’m stretching you wide, baby boy,” said Jim. “Filling you up with my cock, and watching you squirm on the end of it like you’ll never get enough.”

 Which, Vince wanted to scream, he never would. But as usual his voice was hiding somewhere, and all he could do was press his own dick against the sofa arm and let Jim help him forget all the bad things.

 And the fact that someone was knocking on the door.

 “Monsieur?” said their waiter.

 “Coming,” said Jim after the third knock, and buried his head in Vince’s neck, biting him lightly, which made Vince forget he was incredibly embarrassed. The chaise longue took a battering, and Vince had to stay back once Jim had unlocked the door and wash himself down again – wet cock and wet ass really wasn’t comfortable. When he came out, a few of the other diners stared at him, and even though Vince was wearing his best shirt with jeans and shabby sneakers, and he knew everyone thought he was a rent boy, it gave him a rush; because Jim was waiting for him at the door and he was holding out the car keys.

 “Too much wine,” he said. “You can drive a real car, right?”

 “Yes,” Vince lied. Well, Jones had spent an hour yelling at him in his new car as Vince learned what a clutch was for. That counted, right?

 The waiter held the door open for them, and as Vince followed Jim out, the waiter stopped him with a hand on his arm. Vince looked at him properly for the first time, and the guy wasn’t sneering, he was grinning. He leant towards Vince and said quietly, and in a very American accent:

 “I’d say I loved him if he let me drive that car. Kid, I’d yell any damn thing he wanted me to.”

 Vince would’ve asked him what the fuck he was talking about, but Jim was waiting outside, an amused, patient look on his face that made Vince want to throw himself at the guy’s feet and fucking lick them. So he just smiled at the waiter and hurried out, because really the only thing that he could remember, the only thing from the whole evening, was the ex-fuck wanting him when Jim was done, and Jim saying:

 “I’m thinking in about twenty years from now.”

 Later, in Jim’s bed, Vince remembered a couple of things.

 “What the fuck is musical chairs?”

 Jim lifted his head from Vince’s ass, which he’d been using as a pillow.

 “There are things you shouldn’t have to know at seventeen.”

 “I’m not seventeen.”

 “But I was. I went up to university early. By the end of the first term, there was nothing I wouldn’t do for him, and believe me, he eventually made me do it all.”

 “Then why did you keep going back?”

 Jim settled back onto his pillow.

 “You saw him.”

 Too right, thought Vince. Big fucker with booze breath. Though he supposed a few dozen years ago the guy would’ve been hot, and if all that ordering you around and taking control turned you on… Vince wriggled slightly, feeling the weight of Jim’s head bounce around. Nothing nicer than someone else taking control, nothing more addictive than knowing they cared enough to bother.

 “Pillows aren’t supposed to jiggle up and down,” said Jim, turning over and nipping Vince’s ass with sharp teeth. Vince tried hard not to buck his hips against the mattress.

 “You still haven’t told me about musical chairs,” he said.

 “And I’m not going to. Use your imagination.”

 “I am, and it’s making lying still very difficult.” Vince looked over his shoulder and could just see Jim, flat out on his back, his eyes closed. Like a big, lazy cat. Vince jiggled again. “Go on. I like it when you tell me stuff.”

 “Not about him. Why don’t you tell me something for a change?”

 “Like?”

 “Like, what were you thinking about today, in my class?” Jim opened his eyes and looked straight at Vince. “Because I know it wasn’t Surrealism.”

 “Might’ve been.”

 “Vince - lovely child – you sat in the front row of my class for three months. I know what you look like when you’re listening to me, and I know what you look like when you’re off in that head of yours.”

 “Oh,” said Vince, trying to figure out what that meant. Was he that obvious? “Just so you know, when you come to do term reports, usually I’m hanging on your every word.”

 “Tell me what you were thinking.”

 And as that was definitely an order, Vince’s dick gave him no choice but to obey.

 “About you, of course. Making me… well, you know…”

 Jim kept staring at him.

 “Really don’t.”

 “Ok, well… you know…” Vince dropped his head and fixed his eyes on the head board. “The whole class was there, and I was thinking how it would be if you, kind of made me come to the front, and then… well, I guess I’d have to take my stuff off, and I’d be…”

 “Naked?”

 Vince was pretty sure he could hear Jim grinning.

 “Yeah, naked. In front of them all. And then you’d say some things, about how bad I was, and pathetic, and you’d make me do stuff…”

 “Because everyone would want to see.”

 “Yeah…” Vince stopped, gathering some more courage. This telling business was way harder than Jim made it seem. “I’d, like, show them and then… you’d put me on that table and screw me and tell everyone what it was like…” He paused, then said in a rush: “And you’d call me a good boy.”

 By now, he was staring so hard at the headboard, he could see faces in the wood grain, and those faces were pissing themselves laughing. For a long second, Jim didn’t say anything, and Vince thought he was either too embarrassed by Vince’s obvious pathetic tendencies, or he’d just gone to sleep. Vince was that boring.

 Then he realised the bed was shaking slightly, and when he braved a sneaky look, there was Jim’s hand wrapped around Jim’s cock, and it was working slow and sure.

 “I’m not sure you get top marks for that,” said Jim.

 “Why not?” Vince hated not getting top marks.

 “For a start, I’d never call you pathetic.” The hand got slightly faster. “Lost, maybe. Easily led, definitely. In need of a firm guiding hand, which I’d distribute freely, with you squealing and over my knee in front of them all.”

 “Oh, I forgot that bit…”

 “That’s why I downgraded you. Then, when your ass was that nice, deep red shade I like, I’d open you up and show them all how beautiful you were. Make you lie on that table with your legs spread, while they all filed past you and had a good look. No touching, mind you. You want them all to see you, right?”

 “As long as you’re there.”

 Jim’s hand went a bit blurry.

 “You really have a knack of saying the right thing, you know. Anyway, my little exhibitionist, after you’d been viewed from all angles, I’d sit you on my lap and kiss you, because you always deserve to be kissed. And it’s such… such a fucking lovely thing to do…” Jim trailed off, like his voice and his hand couldn’t work at the same time. Vince slid out from under him and crawled down the bed, lifting Jim’s hand away and replacing it with his own. He loved the way Jim’s cock was soaking, and how it jerked when it felt Vince’s fingers close around it. He loved the way Jim sat up on his elbows and watched Vince jerk him off.

 “Ok,” said Jim, finally letting his head fall flat on the bed, “where were we?”

 “Kissing.”

 “Yeah…”

 Vince bent down and bit the top of Jim’s cock gently, just to get him back on track.

 “Sometimes I think you aren’t lost at all,” said Jim, glaring at him. “Sometimes I think you know exactly what you’re doing.”

 “Kissing.”

 “Ok… so you kiss like the devil, you know that of course. All innocent and inquiring at the same time. And you taste of bubblegum, which doesn’t help matters.”

 “I fucking loathe bubblegum.”

 “Me too, apart from when your tongue’s in my mouth. But I’m digressing… oh, that means - ,”

 “I know what it means.”

 “Right… so since you’re already on my lap, I pop you on my dick and lean you slightly forward so I can see a bit of your butt. Then I describe how it’s like being inside a volcano when I’m buried in you, because you’re always clenching and shifting and ready to burst, and I can literally feel it in your ass when you’re about to lose it… and then I tell you to start moving and you hoist that bottom up and down and they can all see your pretty face flush… and I tell you… Jesus, I tell you…”

 “What?” Vince had both of his hands around Jim’s dick by now, and he was stroking them one after the other from base to tip. “Tell me what?”

 But he was already feeling the damp seeping through his fingers, and he could see Jim’s balls tight and high, Jim’s heels digging into the mattress and the muscles in his thighs tensing and it was too late to tell Vince anything. And it was too late after, when he’d licked Jim off his hands and found it ok – nice, even, because it was Jim – and Jim was sprawled across the bed with an arm pinning Vince to the mattress.

 “You know why else you got downgraded?” said Jim, lifting his arm and tucking Vince’s hair behind his ears. Vince was hovering between sleep and wanting another fuck, but being too lazy to ask.

 “Go on.”

 “Because I would never, ever ask you to do anything in front of someone else.”

 “What if I wanted to?”

 “I already told you, I don’t share. Now, either stop wriggling and go to sleep, or go and fetch that toy box from the wardrobe. There’s a few things in there that should keep you quiet for the next hour, and if not, I can always gag you…”

 This time, Vince opted for sleep because the bed was warm, Jim was warm, and now he knew he was never going to have to play musical chairs, there was twenty years left to go through that box.

 The next day was a Saturday, and Vince figured they’d spend it in bed, like he always did now he didn’t have to go pretend to be a track star.

 Jim woke him up at seven in the morning with a resounding slap on his bare butt.

 “Up, please.”

 “It’s the weekend,” said Vince, screwing his eyes shut and lifting his hips higher. “Why can’t we just… you know?”

 “Because I've got things to do, and so have you.”  “Haven’t.”

 “There’s the essay assignment you missed when you dropped out. I’m officially giving you two days extension, or you fail.”

 “I’ll fail, thanks.”

 Another smack landed on his ass, and it was a very meaningful one. After, Jim kept his hand on the burning spot, pressing gently so Vince could feel the draught from the open window on his pucker and balls. 

 “Remember the whole I look after you deal?” said Jim, kneeling behind Vince now and opening him right up with his thumbs. “I tell you to do something, and you do it. That way, hopefully, I can keep you on the rails as opposed to lying tied up across them.” A finger grazed across the skin of Vince’s ass hole, tickling slightly. “You are so very pink here, you know? It’s almost obscene.” 

 Vince shifted and tried to get the finger to take a trip inside, but Jim just laughed and let him flail.

 “Who’s tied me up, then?” said Vince, dipping his belly into the mattress so his butt could go even higher. He really had no shame anymore.

 “Well, eventually – me. But right now, all the people who want something from you. Got you literally tied up in knots, waiting for the train to come and flatten you.” Suddenly, Jim was leaning close to Vince’s ear, his body pressing down along Vince’s back. “I mean, look at you. You’re so desperate for a moral compass, you’re waggling your sweet little bottom at me like some bitch on heat. Aren’t you ashamed?”

 “No,” said Vince, and waggled some more to prove his point. He could feel Jim’s cock sliding between his butt cheeks and nudging into the small of his back. “I never feel ashamed when you do this to me.”

 Jim dropped his head onto Vince’s shoulder and breathed hard for a moment.

 “Vince, you do know I could easily fuck this all up.”

 “I won’t let you.”

 “But you don’t… you’ve only seen the best of me. I can be a real bastard… I’m trying to save you, and maybe I’ll be the one…”

 “The one that flattens me? You kind of already are.” Vince lifted his hips as high as Jim’s weight would allow, and felt the cock between his buttocks slip-slide. “And if you dumping me then letting your ex-boyfriend molest me is your ‘best’, I think I’d like to see your worst. It might be more pleasant.”

 Jim rolled off him, leaving Vince cold with sweat.

 “Ok, baby boy. That does it. Go and stand in the corner.”

 “What - now?”

 But Jim was already rummaging in the wardrobe – in the toy box. Vince staggered out of bed and went and stood in the corner, facing the wall, trying to figure how he’d just gone from warm and almost-fucked to gooseflesh and upright.

 “I think,” said Jim, looming behind him with something in his hand, “that an early morning dozen could be a very useful start to the day. Remind you who’s in charge. Now, take a step back… bit further… and put your hands on the wall.”

 Vince found himself, big surprise, stretched out with his ass sticking up and Jim tapping his shins with something until he shuffled his feet apart. Just fucking great, he thought. Annoy the one guy who probably went to boarding school and definitely knew how to use a cane. And as the early morning dozen landed in slow, regular beats across the fleshiest part of his butt, and Vince’s tearful voice faltered on number six and had to start all over again, Vince decided that spending a Saturday on a Russian Literature essay wasn’t all that bad after all.

 “It worries me that you can’t count beyond six,” said Jim later, guiding Vince towards the bathroom. “And it worries me just how much you enjoy losing count.”

“Fuck off – ow!” Vince took a little dancing step away from Jim’s hand. He was a complete mess – gulping back sobs, wiping his nose with his hand, cock like a ship’s mast. Jim had made him stand in the corner for half an hour while he went and ran a bath and generally pissed around doing his own things. He’d checked on Vince and his poor ass every few minutes, then finally come back looking clean-shaven and happy. Whistling to himself, the total bastard.

“You know,” he said, “I feel wide awake. How about you?”

Vince just sniffed, and let Jim take him first to the full length mirror on the wardrobe door, so he could twist round and count the twelve red welts patterning his bottom. He looked like a freak. His cheeks were hot and tear-stained, and his eyes were shining wet, and then there was that cock, refusing to lie down. Jim stroked it with the back of his hand.

“Right, bath time.”

Vince was too taken with his own reflection, and the sight of Jim’s hand and what it was doing, to raise any objection. He found himself in the bathroom, staring at the bottom of the old-fashioned tub, wondering if sitting in hot water was going to hurt.

“In you get,” said Jim, fetching a razor. “I want to scrape off that fuzz you call a beard.”

Vince climbed in and sat down quickly, wincing as his whole ass caught fire. Jim smiled.

“Stinging a bit?”

“Sadist.”

“You’re the one who leaves his butt in the air to get smacked.” Jim knelt down beside Vince, dipped a shaving brush in the bath and lathered it up. “Now, don’t move if you want that pretty face to stay pretty.” He worked the soapy brush into Vince’s skin and ran the razor in long sweeps from throat to chin. Vince sat very still, his arms hugging his knees, watching white foam drop into the water as Jim shook the razor clean.

“What are you thinking, darling?” said Jim, lifting the razor to Vince’s cheek.

Vince slid his gaze towards him, to see if he was joking when he’d called him darling. Jim’s face was a study of concentration. See? shouted Vince’s dick beneath the water. He loves you. Vince told it to shut up and said:

“I don’t really like it when you do that stuff to me.”

“The cane? Or my hand?”

“Any of it.”

“You only have to tell me to stop.”

“But I can’t.” Vince hugged his knees tighter. “I’d die if you stopped.”

Jim put a finger under Vince’s chin and turned his face towards him, reaching for the last bit of unshaven skin.

“And when you see yourself in the mirror, all humbled, all undone?”

“It’s like I’m seeing who I really am.”

“Nothing more frightening,” said Jim, “than finding out who you really are. I always thought I was one type of person, and then it turns out, I’m another completely.”

“Bet you didn’t find that out when someone was whipping your butt with a cane.”

“No, it was when one of my students turned up on my doorstep wanting to earn some money. Now, put your head back so I can wash your hair.”

Vince did as he was told, letting Jim tip a jug of water over his head because there was no shower attachment in what was turning out to be a genuine Victorian bath.

“I’ll do the whole cane thing properly next time,” said Jim, working shampoo into Vince’s hair. Vince fought free for a moment.

“You’re not going to dress me up like a school boy.”

“Could if I wanted to.” Jim raised an eyebrow at Vince, who wasn’t up for disagreeing. “But I meant we’ll do it without the playing games. I’ll just truss you up in rope and make you scream those lovely things you always claim to forget later on.”

“I do forget them. If I even say anything, cause you could be fibbing.”

“There’s a whole fancy restaurant that would back me up.” Jim started to rinse the shampoo away. “You just do it to tease me.”

Vince let his eyes close under the stream of water, and let his mind think about ropes and screaming and just what the fuck he’d said in the restaurant. Then he felt the bathwater move around him in waves, and suddenly there was a body slipping behind him and arms pulling him back against a cool chest. Jim hoisted him into his lap and there was a dick as hard as his own underneath his ass. Vince ignored the stinging and ground down a little.

“Relax a bit first,” Jim whispered, and kissed the newly-shaven chin. “Tell me things.”

“Like?”

“Like the first time you kissed another boy.”

“You might be the first time.”

“With a face like yours, I doubt that.”

Vince let his head fall back into the crook of Jim’s neck, listening to the bath tap drip water and remembering things that he’d spent the whole of high school trying to forget. It was lovely to be like this, drifting in the warmth, balanced on Jim’s lap. Even the pain from the caning was like a reminder of just how much he belonged here.

“I don’t want to tell you,” he said eventually.

Jim’s hands slid down under the water and started doing things to Vince’s dick.

“You’re a funny one,” said Jim. “Two nights ago you were promising to crawl onto my lap with your jeans around your ankles. Now you’re too embarrassed to describe your first kiss.”

“It’s different.”

“Like me punishing you in front of the whole class? Because you didn’t like telling me that, either.”

Jim cupped a hand around Vince’s balls and Vince found he didn’t have any answer to… well, to anything. All he knew was that talking dirty was a turn on, but telling someone the secrets in your head was more like how he’d felt in front of that mirror, examining his newly-reddened backside. Vulnerable. Exposed. On the edge of either incredible humiliation or the biggest fucking explosion of his life.

“I kind of like it when you’re all hesitant,” Jim was murmuring into his neck as those hands pretended to wash Vince but were really just creating more mess. “It makes me feel very bad. So if you want anymore of this…” He shifted slightly and Vince felt Jim’s cock press against his pucker. “You should get on with your first kiss.”

Vince tried to lift his hips so the cock could find its way inside him, but Jim held him back.

“Oh no, you don’t, my dirty little boy.”

“But it’s a piss boring story.”

“Indulge Daddy. And then he’ll fuck you until you’re all clean and fresh.”

Vince sighed; he’d like to see anyone stand up to that kind of temptation.

“Ok, it was my best friend at school. We were fourteen, and we’d stolen some of his brother’s dope, and we were just practising. Just in case we ever had to kiss an actual girl – there was this one girl in my class, who said she liked me, so it could’ve happened.”

“And whose idea was it to practise?”

“Uh…” Vince let himself sink further into the water, into Jim’s busy hands. “I don’t know… his, maybe? He usually came up with the ideas.” Ideas that Vince went along with, like the wax crayon. Fuck, he really was easily led.

“And what was it like?”

“Wet. Funny. I couldn’t stop laughing.” The best friend hadn’t laughed, though. He’d stuck his tongue in Vince’s mouth and done it properly, seriously, until Vince was just a little hard down below and panting slightly when they’d drawn apart. The laughing was because he’d been shocked, and scared. And high, because the next thing he knew, he was going in again for another kiss, only this time it was Vince’s tongue doing the work, Vince’s hands looping around another boy’s waist and then upwards, until one hand was gripping the back of his best friend’s head and the other was stroking his face.

“Was it a pretty face like yours?” said Jim.

“Fuck, was I talking out loud?”

“I’m beginning to think you have short term memory problems, the way you blank things out.” Jim lifted a hand out of the water and reached for the soap. “It’s probably the stress of being away from home.”

“Or selling my ass to my professor.”

“That too. But go on with the story.”

“That’s it, really. I think he came in his pants, which kind of sobered us up. I’m not sure, but he might’ve been on the point of offering a blowjob, because his hands were on my flies when he lost it.”

“Would you have said yes?”

“No way. Although… Jesus…” The soap had disappeared under the water and had found its way into Vince’s ass hole, where it was sliding back and forth.

“Although what?” said Jim, lifting Vince up easily and depositing him onto a solid cock. Vince took a few seconds to clutch the sides of the bath. Then he said quietly:

“When we were, like, nine he used to stay over at mine, or I’d stay at his, and we’d do stuff. When the lights were out. We’d have a torch and he’d make me get undressed in the sleeping bag, and then look… and touch… and you know, I liked the guy. He was a laugh, and he was nice looking. Teachers used to say we were twins. So he always said it was just like touching ourselves, if we looked alike. But we stopped doing all that later on.”

“Two of you.” Jim started to move slightly under and inside Vince. “Hardly seems fair. What happened after the kiss?”

“I, uh…” Vince paused, as much because he was ashamed as because Jim’s cock was aiming just right. Vince gave a little yelp as it hit his spot, and Jim started to breathe faster.

“Tell me,” he said, suddenly tipping Vince forwards so he was plunged elbow deep into water. Jim knelt behind him and, squeezed into the bath, could only fit his knees between Vince’s legs, lean his arms on the sides and pump away. His groin slapped against Vince’s butt and the sound reverberated around the bathroom, making Vince’s cock swell even bigger.

“I was a shit. He tried to talk about it after, but I wouldn’t. Just kept going on about this girl that liked me… oh fuck… even though I didn’t really like her. Then I stopped speaking to him when we got to high school because everybody was saying… saying stuff about him… about him and sometimes about me and… Christ, please…”

Jim had stopped moving and his dick was barely lying inside Vince’s ass.

“Please what?”

“Please, keep moving… keep doing that…”

“Tell me what Daddy’s doing.”

“You’re… fucking hell… you’re screwing me Daddy, making me want to come with your cock inside me. Fuck, I want to come every second when I’m around you, I want you to hurt me and fuck me and keep that dick filling me up…”

“Because you deserve it, you cruel little shit.” Jim started moving again, letting his cock work its way in slowly, agonisingly slowly. “You abandoned that best friend of yours, and he loved you. He could’ve done this, he wanted to, and you wanted him to do it.”

“Yes…” Vince wasn’t sure, but he thought he might’ve started crying again. Twice in one morning.

“Say it.”

“I… oh fuck, I wanted him to look at me, I wanted him to touch me… I want you to touch me, hold me there…”

“Here, baby?” Jim’s hand dipped into the water and grasped Vince’s cock, hard. 

“Yes.”

“Like this?”

“Like that, Daddy.”

Hand and dick were moving fast now, and both hit the right spot and left Vince panting and dripping sweat into the water.

“Why do you want it?” said Jim, his voice sounding harsh, his hips working against Vince so that Vince was almost head first in the bath.

“I want it because… because…”

“Tell me.”

“I…”

“Tell me.”

Vince opened his mouth, ready to say anything, the first thing that came into his head. He thought he heard his voice, somewhere far off, then something in his mind went black. All he could see was the water rushing up towards him and, weirdly, he could see Jim behind him, his own mouth open as he climaxed. Like an out of body experience, Vince thought vaguely, as his own orgasm shot through his body.

When he knew where he was again, it turned out he was out of the bath and back on the bed, wrapped up in a towel and Jim smoothing his damp hair away from his face. Jim smiled, and it was a worried smile.

“Are you back with me, darling?”

“Uh… I didn’t go anywhere.” Apart from, apparently, a short trip from bath to bed that was lost in the mists of orgasm. Freaky, that.

“You scared the shit out of me,” said Jim.

“Why? Did I say something really dumb this time?”

“You said you loved me.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.”

How embarrassing.

“Vince, you always say you love me. But you don’t always collapse face first into two feet of water, and not even struggle.”

Vince leant into Jim’s hand, suddenly very tired.

“I was trying to concentrate, so I could remember.”

“And that made you pass out?”

“I… well, yeah… I guess…”

Jim pushed Vince’s head away gently, so he could look straight at him.

“Do you often pass out?”

“No! Well… once, when I was out at a bar with Jones and my girlfriend called me on the mobile. Wanted to know if I was committed to the relationship, and I’d had so much to drink, I guess I just, you know.” Vince tried a smile. “Apparently I promised to marry her. Jones was pissing himself for days after… You can stop looking so freaked out now.”

Then he remembered he’d just told Jim he loved him, and the room started spinning and he felt like passing out all over again.

“Vince?”

Jim was shaking him.

“Oh, sorry.” This was getting beyond humiliating.  “Hey, was I still talking? Because it’s not really passing out if I’m still talking, right?”

“No, baby, it’s not.” Jim loosened the towel from around Vince’s shoulders and pulled the quilt over him. “But you know what I think?”

“That I’m insane?”

“I’m thinking that tying you up and whipping you is going to have to wait for a while, if this is what the cane does to you.”

“It didn’t. I – well, I haven’t a fucking clue what did this to me. You, probably. You kind of confuse me.” Vince yawned, sank down into the pillows. “We can still do the tying up though.”

“You should maybe get some more sleep.”

“Saturday in bed. Knew I’d win that one.”

Jim started to get up and Vince reached out and took his hand.

“You mustn’t go.”

Because when you were beyond humiliation, you could really say whatever the fuck you wanted.

“Vince, I’m just going to be in the next room.”

“I don’t want you to leave me.”

Jim hesitated, that worried smile pretty much a permanent feature, but then he climbed under the quilt and let Vince arrange himself around him, head on Jim’s chest, hand resting on Jim’s thigh.

“You still have to do the essay,” said Jim. Vince just yawned again, and let himself drift towards sleep. It was so early still, Jones wouldn’t be up yet, nobody would be up yet. Jim’s hand tugged at a lock of damp hair. “And I’m not angry with you, and I know you didn’t mean it.”

Vince tried hard to listen and make sense of it.

“Mean what?”

“Any of it.” Jim was twisting Vince’s hair around his fingers now. “You didn’t mean to pass out in my bath and scare the shit out of me, and you didn’t mean to say you loved me, because you don’t.”

“I do,” Vince mumbled.

“You can’t. You’ve only known me for a few days.”

“Haven’t.” Christ, he was beginning to slur. “Known you for three months. Fell in love with you the first day, when you went through the register and said my name. Just didn’t know it was love. Thought it was nerves.”

Maybe he should shut up now, because Jim’s breathing had got very quick. Oh well, what the fuck. He was almost asleep, and with any luck Jim would put it down to a brain scrambled by too much sex.

“When I wasn’t listening to you, I was imagining how it would be if I could get to talk to you,” he went on. “Get to know you properly. That’s all, never any further. Never… this. Not sure I knew how to imagine something like this.”

Jim’s hand wasn’t twisting his hair anymore, but lay still, heavy, shocked against Vince’s scalp. There was a lesson here, if only Vince could understand it. It might have been never let yourself get caned before eight in the morning, or you’ll make a complete fucking fool of yourself. On the other hand, letting his mouth open and the words just tumble out, it felt like the best tranquiliser on the planet. Better than that numb feeling he got after Jim fucked him into the sheets, or the bathwater, or the sofa in the study.

“I lied, you know,” he said, completely unable to stop now. Trying to fit it all in before sleep overtook him. “I used to blank out all the time. Did it when I kissed my best friend, did it when that coach bastard tried to pop my cherry, did it the first time I got laid by my girlfriend. She thought it was cute, tried to look after me and stuff. I was fucking terrified I’d said something dumb, because sometimes I used to see things… like my friend, when I kissed him, how he looked then and how he looked the day I stopped speaking to him. I saw that when I was with my girlfriend. How weird is that? Weird and pathetic, I guess… you probably want to dump me now you know I’m so screwed up, but you can’t, remember. You promised you’d look after me, until I left you, and… fuck, I’m tired… I’m staying right here…”

With that, Vince gave up the fight to be coherent, and mumbled some stuff into Jim’s chest, thinking all the time that the poor guy was so petrified by what Vince had just said, he was hardly moving a muscle. It was only when he’d stopped mumbling and was just listening to the sound of Jim’s breathing that he realised the hand that was still resting on Jim’s thigh was warm and wet – and that Jim was asleep.

“I thought you had things to do,” said Vince, as Jim stared into his fridge, looking for eggs and bacon to make a proper Full English breakfast. Feeding Vince up was his mission statement in life, apparently.

“I did,” said Jim. “You’re one of them.”

Vince liked the sound of that. He liked the sound of just about anything right now, curled up on a chair in Jim’s very old, very comfy dressing gown. The kind that had a rope belt and deep pockets and that reached the floor. Jim wasn’t wearing anything.

“Who the fuck uses lard these days?” said Vince, watching Jim’s ass as Jim reached into the fridge, and willing him to reach that little bit further. Ok, so he’d seen it all already; but people went back to see the Grand Canyon over and over again, didn’t they? It’s what you did with sites of national importance. And this time, Vince promised himself, he’d spend more quality time there, getting to know just what treasures were hidden in amongst the crevices… and this was exactly the sort of bad metaphor he’d read in the few girlie magazines he’d ever bothered to flick through.

“Vince? Are you still with me?”

Vince tore his eyes from the Grand Canyon. There was Jim, twisting round, worried smile, holding a box of eggs in mid-air.

“That’s the third time you’ve asked me that,” said Vince, “and for the third time, I’m still with you. I was just thinking.”

“Right.”

“Breakfast doesn’t make me throw a fit, I promise.”

“It’s lunchtime.”

“And I’m starving, so get on with it. And bend over some more, because it makes me feel better.”

Jim’s mouth dropped open in surprise, which was a lovely sight.

“What?” said Vince, grinning. “I bet that old guy you used to fuck made you bend over all the time.”

“I could always change my mind about the tying up and whipping.”

Vince widened his eyes and stuck out his bottom lip, which always worked with his cheerleader, and had occasionally worked on Jones, even if Vince didn’t like to admit he was actually doing it. Jim sighed and leant back into the fridge for bacon, which just happened to be on the bottom shelf. Talking of bottoms…

“Did he ever let you screw him?” said Vince, fiddling with the dressing gown rope belt.

“I told you, I’m not doing the dirty talk when it’s about him.”

“This isn’t talking dirty, this is healthy curiosity.”

Jim turned back, putting a pack of bacon on the counter.

“I think I preferred it when you were all woozy with too much testosterone.”

“I can still be woozy if you like.”

Vince let the rope belt drop to the floor, and the dressing gown fell open.

“Oh,” said Jim.

“D’you want to look at me?” Vince shrugged off the dressing gown completely, then turned round so he was straddling the chair. He let his arms drape over the chair back, and curved his spine into an arch. “Because you can do whatever the fuck you want.”

There was a moment of silence, when Vince should’ve felt embarrassed and ashamed, but he just couldn’t bring himself to care. Then Jim was by his side, wrapping him up in the dressing gown again and kissing him.

“It’s ok,” he was saying, “I get it.”

“Do you?” Vince wasn’t completely sure he got it himself.

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Only, let’s have some food first, so I can at least lay claim to be looking after you properly.”

“Ok, it’s a deal.”

Although fuck knew how he’d swung that one. But apparently offering himself any which way to Jim meant he got to ask stuff. Vince let himself be kissed for a while longer, enjoying the way Jim was tying the dressing gown cord tightly around him, like he was defending him from prying eyes. It was almost as much of a turn-on as being undressed by Jim.

And as for turn-ons, Vince was definitely going to ask Jim to bend over again, because when Jim did what he was told, Vince’s brain had its own personal meltdown and he wanted to shout out that he loved him just so he could remember saying the words.

“I’m hungry,” said Vince, pushing Jim away. “And I want to see you fry stuff naked.”

Jim gave him an odd look, then obligingly went and busied himself over the cooker.

“It’s a funny thing,” he said, dropping a chunk of lard into the frying pan, “but sometimes, when you get all cocky and above yourself, you sound just like… him.”

“Do not. He’s not even from Ohio.”

“Not the accent. The way you demand things.” The lard sizzled and started to splatter. He cracked an egg against the side of the pan. “The way you need me.”

“He doesn’t need you,” said Vince quickly, remembering how, back in the restaurant, the ex had told him – Jim always comes back to me. “He’s too old to need anyone.”

Jim laughed.

“Age has nothing to do with it. And he does need me, but I don’t want him anymore. I've got you.”

“Ok, ask.”

“Oh, thank fuck.”

Vince had been trying not to fall head first onto the notepad in front of him, and had been for the past two hours. They were in the study, Jim dressed now in his usual professor ensemble – no down-time for Prof Jim – reading a book on the sofa (“Oblomov, possibly the world’s most boring book about the world’s most boring man”). Vince was sat at the desk, on a cushion because of the whole sore ass thing, still snuggled into the dressing gown. Books were lying open all around him. Jim had decided Vince was going to do the essay, and so Vince was doing it.

Vince wriggled off his cushion and came and threw himself at the sofa, sprawling out and resting his head in Jim’s lap. There was the hint of a hard-on, which if Vince moved his head just so, seemed to become less of a hint and more of a reality. Jim tapped him gently on the forehead.

“Behave.”

“I can’t help it. I want you to want me all the time.” Where the hell were these words coming from? “You do want me, don’t you?”

“Is that your first question?”

Vince turned his head so his cheek was rubbing against Jim.

“No, I already know the answer to that one.”

“Stop it now, if you don’t want me to lose the power of speech.”

Vince giggled into Jim’s lap for a few seconds, like he was drunk on the idea of all this, then managed to get a hold of himself. He looked up into Jim’s eyes, and realised that the guy was anxious. Scared, even. So Vince reached up and put a finger to his lips.

“I was going to ask about all the stuff you used to do with the evil ex, then I was going to sit in your lap and see how slowly I could go. But now… I guess I don’t care. So let’s just lie here.”

Jim smiled behind Vince’s finger, and sucked it into his mouth. Vince had fun exploring for a while, until Jim nipped him.

“Ask,” he said, pushing Vince’s finger out with his tongue. “I want you to.”

“Ok… why do you like me?”

“Because you’re bright, you’re usually naked, and you’re in denial. It’s like finding a shiny new penny in your pocket, and it turns out to be worth a million pounds.”

“I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.”

“See? Clueless. It speaks to the Daddy in me.”

Vince stretched out a little, letting his dressing gown fall open to his waist. He could just see the hair starting below his navel, running down in a line to there… where it was all silky and dark. He put a hand under the folds of the gown and between his legs, just to feel. He was such a slut.

“This morning, when we went back to bed?”

“Yes…” Jim’s voice was a little scratchy now, as Vince’s hand moved the dressing gown to one side and revealed everything. Cock, balls, pubes… all there, just for Jim. Vince felt a rush of shame; and at the same time, he felt brazen. He took a hold of himself and pretended Jim wasn’t there. Then decided it was more humiliating – and better – if he didn’t pretend.

“You fell asleep,” he said, doing things the way he liked them, a tight hold on the first inch and a hand around his balls. “When exactly did you fall asleep?”

“That’s the wrong question.”

And that answer made him feel hot and demeaned and…

“What’s the right one?”

“At what point did you talking nonsense make me come like a teenager?”

“It wasn’t nonsense.”

“Maybe not…” Jim leant down and kissed Vince. “Get up now, and do as I tell you.”

Vince sat up and let Jim pull the dressing gown off, then leant forward so Jim could do some exploring of his own. After a while, Jim said:

“Touch yourself there.”

Vince worked his fingers inside himself, which he’d never done properly before, and felt utterly laid open, more than if someone had been doing this to him. He began to feel dizzy, and Jim put a steadying hand on his back.

“Too much?”

Vince didn’t answer; he just turned around and began to undo Jim’s flies. Crawled over him and settled down.

“I bet this makes for a good picture,” he said. “Naked student, fully dressed professor. You’re a bad man.”

“I am. But you’re a very good boy.”

Vince hoisted himself up and down quicker. Made Jim’s breath hitch and his head fall back against the sofa cushion.

“I do love you,” said Vince. “And I’m saying it now so I don’t forget.”

“You don’t…”

“You know I do.” Vince ran his hands along Jim’s shirt, material under his fingertips, material under his ass. “I love you. Let you do anything to me. I’m yours.”

Suddenly, Jim was gripping him to his chest, keeping him still so there was no orgasm, no yelling, no passing out.

“Say it again,” he whispered.

So Vince did.

When Jim got an idea in his head, Vince found out, it could be impossible to get it out again. First, there was the essay to do. No room for manoeuvre, not even a hint of help from the guy who was going to grade the fucking thing.

“I might be screwing you, but I’m not going to screw everyone else in the class into the bargain,” said Jim firmly. “So put that bottom back on the chair and do some work.”

“But I haven’t… you didn’t even let me… you know.”

Which was the second thing Jim seemed to have got into his head: no more passing out for Vince, so no more orgasms either.

“Just for the rest of today. Give yourself a rest.”

“But I like having sex with you.”

“You can have too much of a good thing.”

And it didn’t matter how much Vince let his dressing gown fall open, or how often he called Jim Daddy, the guy just wouldn’t give it up. When Vince tried a surreptitious wank in the bathroom, Jim followed him in and slapped his hand away. Then tipped him over his knee and slapped his butt for good measure, which made Vince howl.

“I thought you weren’t going to do that again,” he sobbed.

“I didn’t know you were going to misbehave.” Jim rested a hand on Vince’s sore cheeks, and checked his watch. “You should be getting back, you know.”

Vince struggled to turn round.

“But I don’t want to.”

“Tough.”

“Why?”

Jim wiped a tear from Vince’s cheek.

“Because I want you to spend time doing normal things, with your normal friends. Even, God forbid, the one who’s completely obsessed with you.”

“I could stay here, and you could spank me all fucking night if you like. Another round and I’d be coming all over your lap, so we’d both be happy.”

But Jim had decided that self-denial was better than happy, and after a couple of nasty slaps to Vince’s pucker and balls with a hairbrush, just because he couldn’t help himself, he got Vince dressed and drove him back to campus.

Vince opened the car door, but couldn’t stop himself from asking.

“Is this because of what I said?”

“No.”

“You’re not angry, then?”

“No. I’m terrified.”

“Are you terrified when I do this?” Vince leant over and kissed Jim, in full view of whoever was passing by. There were quite a few people around this time in the evening, but nobody seemed to notice. The world didn’t come to a stop.

Jim closed his eyes into the kiss, and let it go on for a good long while. Whatever the guy was scared of, it wasn’t losing his job. But then, Vince figured, with a car like that, he didn’t need a job.

“That’s enough,” said Jim, pulling away, “or I’ll make you sit on my cock in front of everyone.”

“I’d do it, too.”

“And you wonder why I’m scared. Off you go now, and don’t touch yourself until I come and pick you up tomorrow evening.”

“A whole day?”

“To be spent at the library, finishing that essay. So don’t drink too much tonight.”

“Bastard,” said Vince, and got a slap on his ass as he got out of the car.

Jones was waiting for him in the room – and so was his girlfriend.

“Dude,” said Jones as Vince walked in. “That was a long fucking library session.”

The girlfriend leapt up from Vince’s bed and threw her arms around his neck.

“Jenna gave me a lift, she was coming to see her brother. I left you, like, a thousand texts. Then I called and Jones said to come up anyway.”

Vince stared hard at Jones over his girlfriend’s head.

“Did he?”

Jones shrugged. He looked angry.

“I didn’t figure you’d be doing an all-nighter. And don’t sweat it, I’ll go kip on Brewster’s floor. He’s got a futon.” He smiled at the girlfriend. “This boy’s not even looked at another woman this term, so he’ll be up to see some action.”

The girlfriend giggled and planted a kiss on Vince’s lips. Vince just stood there. He didn’t have a clue what to say, so he said nothing.

“I’ll leave you to it,” said Jones, and went out of the room, banging the door behind him.

It was weird, Vince thought after, but the sight of his girlfriend in floods of tears didn’t make him want to be nicer to her, it just irritated him. All that sniffing, and the red nose, and the blood-shot eyes. He couldn’t figure out why Jim put up with it when Vince cried; Vince would’ve turfed himself out on his ass. But the fact was that Jim changed his mind when Vince burst into tears, while Vince just got more resolved. He didn’t tell his girlfriend why they were breaking up, of course – admitting it to himself was enough for this week. And he did feel sorry for her, because he liked her – thought he loved her, even - and she’d made his life a lot easier at school. So he stayed with her while she went through an entire box of tissues, wept over his pillow and called him a bastard, then told him she loved him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, over and over again. “I can’t help it.”

He really couldn’t.

Eventually, three hours later, he didn’t know what to do anymore, so he left. Just got up and left her there, crying on his bed. He went and finished his essay in the library, wishing all the while he’d remembered to bring his jacket with him because it was draughty under the high, vaulted ceilings in winter, and because his wallet was in there and he was fucking starving. When he got back to the room, so hungry that he was ready to face anything that was waiting for him, his girlfriend was still there. In bed. With Jones.

Vince closed the door on them and stood in the corridor with his back against the wall, willing himself not to black out. It wasn’t that he cared or that he had the right to care - he’d just dumped the poor girl - but to see her there… like his old life that he’d so carefully built up over the last four years was just crumbling around him. Standing against that wall, Vince wondered if he was about to get buried in the fall-out.

He walked to Jim’s, because he couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. The lights were out and the car was gone; so Vince, beyond hungry now and very cold, sat on the doorstep like some tramp, knowing he was being a drama queen about all this but unable to make himself get up. Mind you, at this rate there’d be no problem following Jim’s instructions. Vince couldn’t raise a dime right now, let alone a hard-on.

And anyway, where the fuck was Jim?

“Vince?”

“Not yet,” mumbled Vince. “Still dark.”

He wondered why he was so cold; must’ve left the window open.

“Vince, get up.”

Two hands grabbed him under the arms, and Vince suddenly found himself upright. His legs buckled and he reached out to steady himself. He found… Jim.

“Oh fuck,” said Vince. At least, he tried to say it, but his mouth was so cold the words came out slurred. He tried to remember why he was asleep outside Jim’s place at this time of night – well, morning, seeing as it was almost dawn. Jim, on the other hand, didn’t seem the slightest bit interested, being too busy trying to open the door and hold Vince up at the same time.

“Where were you?” said Vince, slurring again.

“Vince, you’re not making any sense.”

Oh, better shut up, then. Let Jim open the door, drag him into the hallway, then straight into the bedroom. The guy looked like he was ready to spit fire, so probably best to keep it zipped. Although when Vince’s clothes started coming off, and then Jim’s, he did try and point out that this went against the whole no sex thing Jim was so keen on.

Jim pushed him back onto the bed and curled up around him, pulling the quilt over them both.

 “I saw this in a really bad film,” he muttered. “Quickest way to warm the body up is another body. Never thought I’d actually have to use a tip from Val Kilmer.”

 “I like Val Kilmer,” said Vince, only even he couldn’t understand what he was saying anymore. His legs were starting to sting, like he had the worst cramp, and he could feel patches of heat where Jim was lying against him. The guy was hot, literally – burning Vince up. When he rolled Vince onto his back and lay on top of him, Vince thought he was going to catch fire. He even tried to throw him off, but Jim pinned his hands above his head and lay heavy against his legs and chest. Vince just had to lie there, skin itching and aching, feeling dizzy with heat and hunger.

 After a while, he had no idea how long, he remembered he’d just dumped his girlfriend – and that she’d had sex with Jones. Then he remembered he’d had nothing to eat or drink for hours, and he’d fallen asleep on Jim’s doorstep in December. ‘Oh fuck’ didn’t even begin to cover it.

 “Just kill me now,” he said to the ceiling. Jim lifted his head from Vince’s shoulder and stared down at him. “I didn’t mean it like that,” Vince added quickly.

 Jim just carried on staring at him. Vince took a deep breath, before his courage failed him.

 “Ok, I’m only going to say this once. I’m a total screw-up. If you want to finish with me, do it now, and I swear as soon as I can feel my feet, I’ll get up and walk out and never come back.”

 There was a long silence. Then Jim dropped his head back onto Vince’s shoulder.

 “I am so fucking angry with you.”

 “I know. I’m sorry.”

 “No, you don’t know. You’re an irresponsible little shit, who only thinks about himself. You could’ve died on my fucking doorstep.”

 “I wasn’t actually meaning to die…”

 “Shut up.”

 Vince shut up. His whole body was aching, but Jim’s weight was still pressing down on him so he didn’t much care.

 “Why didn’t you call me?” said Jim.

 “Mobile’s in my jacket, which is in my room, with my ex-girlfriend. Who’s in bed with my room mate. The total fuck.”

 “So you walked here.”

 “I wasn’t really thinking straight.”

 “Vince, you don’t think at all. You just do whatever comes into your head. For a clever boy, you’re a complete idiot.”

 “Sorry.”

 Jim sighed and let go of Vince’s hands, which were still pinned above his head. Vince let them stay there.

 “So Jones is fucked off with you?” said Jim, sliding down to lie beside Vince. He reached over to a glass of water standing on the bedside table, and put it to Vince’s lips. Vince sipped, and water ran down the sides of his mouth. Jim wiped them away with his hand.

 “How did you know Jones was angry?” said Vince.

 “I’d say screwing your ex was him trying to tell you something.”

 “Like what?”

 “Christ, you really are a complete idiot.”

 “Sorry. Are you going to be angry with me all night?”

 “I think I've got a right to be.”

 “Totally. Only…” Vince turned to look at Jim, whose expression was grim, “I’d really like it if you’d hold me for a bit. If you want, of course… and you can still be fucked off with me.”

 Jim didn’t move for a while, his expression only getting grimmer, and Vince thought – that’s it, I’m out on my ass. And I deserve it.

 “Come on, then,” said Jim suddenly, pulling Vince against him and wrapping him up in his arms. “Don’t thrash around, though. You almost broke my wrist, the fit you were throwing back there.”

 “You were so hot. Burning me.”

 “That’s called hypothermia.”

 “No…”

 “Yes, Vince. Another couple of hours, and you’d have been in hospital, at best.”

 “But you came back from wherever.”

 “Not the point. I don’t want to have to go around saving you from yourself. I haven’t got time.”

 “Sorry.”

 “You say it, but you don’t get what you just did.”

 Vince buried his head against Jim’s neck, wondering if he preferred sleep over food.

 “You’re getting angry again,” he murmured, deciding that warm sleep was the winner.

 “You know why.”

 “Because I’m a fuck-wit who acts like a five year old.”

 “Yes,” said Jim, leaning down and kissing the top of Vince’s head. “And because I love you.”

 “Oh… shit.”

 Vince let his head drop forward onto the kitchen table. Jim was at his side instantly, tugging at the sleeve of Vince’s dressing gown.

 “What’s the matter?”

 “I've just realised something.” Vince kept his head on the table. “I don’t know any five year olds who would do something as dumb as freezing themselves to death.”

 “True. They tend to have a better survival instinct than you.”

 Jim got up and went back to making breakfast, while Vince sank further into his quagmire of shame. Not even Jim’s ass bending over the stove could make him feel better. Sex was so much less embarrassing than this.

 “It’s not that bad,” said Jim. “You still haven’t matched me for the Advil.”

 “You don’t get it.”

 “Trust me, I do. Cheerleader, Jones, bed… lots of high drama there.”

 “That’s not it.” Vince lifted his head. “I said I wouldn’t let you fuck this up. But I’m doing that just fine by myself.”

“No.”

“I was going to be all grown-up about it, start looking after myself better, act like an adult. Two days later, I’m a popsicle on your doorstep, just because I didn’t have the guts to go and get my jacket from my own room.”

Jim put a plate of scrambled egg in front of Vince and sat down next to him. Started to fork it into Vince’s mouth; the guy really had a thing about feeding him.

“It’s not your fault,” he said. “It’s mine.”

“How d’you figure that out?”

“Remember how this started.”

Vince thought back, and it seemed a very long time ago when he’d first spoken to Jim.

“Jones bet me five hundred dollars you’d kiss me. So, still my fault.”

“That’s not what happened.”

Vince frowned; wondered if he’d had some mammoth black-out that night and Jim was about to tell him he’d taken his kit off in the middle of the pub and sworn undying love to a total stranger. Or something worse.

Jim fed him another mouthful of breakfast.

“What happened, Vince, was this: a student came up to me in a bar and asked me a question about my class and, even though I was twice his age and in a position of authority, I kissed him. Then I propositioned him and gave him my card.”

“The kiss was fucking nice.”

“And then, the next night, I encouraged that student to have sex with me for money.”

“Not your money, though.”

“And once we’d had sex, I gave him two hundred dollars.”

“Cheapskate,” said Vince, although he was beginning to see Jim’s point.

“Then, despite knowing that the student was emotionally vulnerable, I finished with him the next day in a lecture theatre, with the cleaners waiting outside to come in.”

“They were? You never told me that.”

“And then I turned up in his room and propositioned him all over again. Took him home and subjected him to a variety of degrading sex acts that included beating him and half-drowning him.”

“You sound like a lawyer.”

“I sound like an arresting officer. So tell me Vince, how is any of this not my fault?”

“You didn’t know I was going to stress out so much…”

“Anybody with half a brain would have known. You can’t remember what you say when we’re having sex, you pass out when things get at all traumatic, and up until four days ago you had a cheerleader for a girlfriend and a lot of buried feelings that would’ve stayed happily buried if it wasn’t for my recklessness.”

“You’re forgetting something,” said Vince, putting a hand over Jim’s. “You love me.”

“It might not be enough.”

“It is for me.”

Vince squeezed Jim’s hand, which was warm under his own. He remembered the time he’d kept hold of that hand while he rocked back and forth in the cradle of Jim’s hips, giving up any pretence of… anything.

“And anyway,” Vince went on, “what are you going to do? You can’t make me change back again, so at least stick around and see what you’ve done.”

Jim looked at him.

“And what have I done? Nothing good. Not for you.”

“How can this not be good?” Vince pointed at the breakfast. “Free food, a rich boyfriend – and I still think two hundred dollars was beyond stingy, by the way – and mind-blowing sex. Literally, mind-blowing.”

“Vince…”

“No, I’m not listening, I’m blacking-out. I've decided I can do it at will.” Vince stuck his fingers in his ears, because that’s what five year olds did, after all. Jim rolled his eyes.

“I’m going to have to fetch that hairbrush from the bathroom, aren’t I?”

“Can’t hear you,” said Vince, grinning. He uncovered his ears and caught Jim’s hand again. Started to kiss the tip of each finger, then sucked them in one by one. Jim watched him with dark eyes.

“I’m not this person really,” he said.

“Think that was my line. Come and sit in my lap, for once.”

Jim shrugged, like he was giving up. He let himself be pulled into Vince’s arms and, to Vince’s surprise, they fit together nicely, Jim resting his head against Vince’s shoulder, Jim’s arms looped around Vince’s neck. Jim’s bare skin against the faded softness of the dressing gown.

“Tell me where you were last night,” said Vince.

“It’s nothing to do with you.”

Vince slid a hand under Jim’s ass and pressed the spot between balls and pucker that he’d noticed made Jim squirm.

“Tell me.”

“I went to see my ex.”

“To fuck him one last time.”

“No… Jesus…” Jim’s arms tightened around Vince’s neck. “To tell him I wouldn’t. Because I always end up back on his dick, one way or another.”

“You like it there. You like being fucked.”

“Sometimes.”

Vince crept a finger deeper, working his other hand along Jim’s cock.

“I could do this to you properly,” he whispered. “Make you open up for me, slide myself inside.” He added another finger and twisted, enjoying the hitch in Jim’s breathing. “I’d be good at it. And you wouldn’t feel so guilty about all the bad things you’ve done to me.”

Jim shifted slightly, giving Vince more space, and Vince took the hint and made it three fingers and a firm, fast grip around Jim’s dick.

“Did you let him fuck you last night?”

“No…”

“But you wanted him to. You want me to.”

“I don’t have a fucking clue what I want anymore. Just don’t stop.”

“Is that an order?”

“Yes… no… oh, Christ…”

Vince was pushing his thumb onto that place again. He felt so powerful, with this man who loved him arching his back so Vince could reach inside of him; shouting out now, shouting out that he loved Vince, wanted Vince, needed him. Wetting Vince’s hand then collapsing against his chest, heart thumping through his skin, body flushed with sex.

“I’m thinking you could do it sooner rather than later,” said Jim finally. “If only it didn’t send you into a coma.”

“We’ll just have to practise me staying conscious.”

“Yeah, practice. That should do it.”

Vince tipped Jim out of his lap and stood up.

“Where are you going?” said Jim. “It’s not nice to fuck someone then leave them, you know.”

“I’m just doing what you said.”

“Whatever it was, I didn’t mean it. Stay here.”

“I can’t. I've got to get my jacket, and there’s the essay to hand in, and Jones to shout at. And this is me acting like a grown-up, so stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’d bend over the kitchen table if I asked.” Vince thought for a moment. “Go on. Seeing as everything’s your fault.”

“Later. Or you might not come back if there’s no incentive.”

“Haven’t you figured it out yet?” said Vince, heading back into the bedroom to get changed. “Your problem isn’t if I’ll come back or not, it’s how you’re going to get rid of me.”

By the time Vince got back to campus – catching a cab with some money filched from Jim’s wallet – his girlfriend had gone. Jones was still there though, sitting on his bed pretending to read a girlie mag, with a look on his face that said, very clearly, so what?

Vince flopped down onto his own bed, all his righteous indignation going the way of his cock right now - southwards.

“When did she go, then?”

“First thing. She was freaked out when you came in.”

“Didn’t think you’d actually seen me.”

Jones looked up from his magazine.

“You stood there staring at us like some weirdo for five fucking minutes. She was shouting at you and you just kept on staring, then you ran out. By the time she got dressed to come after you, you’d fucked off.”

So much for the not blacking-out. Vince turned over to look at Jones.

“Did you have to sleep with her?”

“Don’t play that guilt shit with me. You walked out on her. Twice.”

“I guess.”

“You guess?” Jones pointed at Vince. “You like to make out you’re all sensitive and shit, but really? You’re a total bastard.”

Was he? But then a sensitive guy would’ve stuck around with his girlfriend after he dumped her, made sure she didn’t end up in bed with Jones.

“You’re the one told her to come up,” Vince muttered. “And what’s with that, anyway? Why can’t you just stay out of my love life?”

Jones was suddenly towering over Vince.

“You can’t love that sick fuck. You’ve not even been shagging him a week.”

“I love him.” Just saying it made Vince’s cock twitch. “He loves me.”

“Everybody fucking loves you,” said Jones venomously, although Vince couldn’t figure out why. “He’s using you, got you all confused so he can stick his wrinkled old dick in some stupid chicken’s ass.”

Just about everybody thought Vince was stupid today.

“I don’t get why you’re so upset, when it was you shagged my girlfriend.”

Jones managed to look a little deflated.

“Ex girlfriend.”

“Did you tell her about Jim?”

“No.” Jones gave Vince a funny look that made Vince feel slightly dirty, creeped out. “That’s our secret.”

“Ok. Well, thanks, I suppose.” Vince yawned and stretched his arms above his head. He could feel Jones’ eyes on him, but he couldn’t give a fuck. Let his t-shirt ride up, let Jones stare as he inched his hand towards his waistband. At least it made him shut up.

Sometimes, Vince realised suddenly, he really was a tart.

He looked up at Jones, whose eyes were glued to what Vince’s hand was up to, and he felt bad. So Jones was a bit into guys himself – didn’t mean anything. Didn’t mean Vince should cock tease him by putting on a show, even if he was never actually going to touch himself. It was still a fucked-up thing to do.

Vince sat up.

“Wanna go get something to eat?”

“What – that’s it? I just screwed your girlfriend and you’re thinking about your stomach?”

“I’ll pay.”

Jones stared at him.

“Yeah, I know,” said Vince. “First time since… fuck knows when.”

“Since I met you.”

“Shit. That’s sad. I’m such a crap friend.” Vince grinned. “But I nicked some money from the sick fuck, so let’s go spend it.”

Jones opened his mouth, as if he had something important to say, but closed it again. Like he just didn’t know where to start. He grabbed Vince’s jacket and threw it at him.

“Ok, loser. Let’s spend your Daddy’s money.”

“Tell me what you said.”

Jim had Vince balanced on his cock, supporting his hands so Vince could lean forward over Jim’s chest. They were ‘practising’ in the back of Jim’s car. Very plush it was too, marginally more comfortable than Jim’s bed. Only now the seats had little Vince stain marks where he’d hit so hard half an hour earlier, it had gone over Jim’s head.

Vince thought for a moment.

“I love you?”

“Doesn’t count if you always say it.”

“I’m yours.”

“Yes, you are. But you always say that, too.”

Vince flopped forward, pressing down on Jim’s palms.

“Give up.”

“You said, ‘come home with me’.”

Huh. He’d never have guessed that one. The idea of bringing Jim home – bringing any guy home – to his folks was just ridiculous. Christ, his dad… the look on his face…

“Hey, where have you gone?” said Jim, dipping his arms and letting Vince fall closer towards his chest.

“Ohio.”

The arms dropped all the way down now, so Vince was hot and cold against Jim’s skin.

“Come back to me,” said Jim. “I haven’t finished with you yet.”

Vince smiled. He could still feel Jim’s cock inside him, hard as ever, waiting for its turn. Then there was Jim’s mouth, reaching up for a kiss that wasn’t anything to do with sex. A long, searching kiss that kept Vince right where he was; kept him here, in this car, with this man. Trapped almost as if it was Vince lying along the car seat, and Jim weighing him down.

Jim’s hands crept up and into Vince’s hair, tugging him closer, his teeth biting at Vince’s bottom lip until Vince was making tiny, hopeless noises in the back of his throat. Jim pulled away and held Vince’s face in his hands, looking at him seriously.

“Are you going to stay with me this time?”

“Gonna try.”

“Good boy.”

Vince suddenly found himself lying back along the car seat, staring at the fabric on the ceiling as Jim, somehow still inside him, loomed above. Vince’s ankles were up and resting on shoulders, which made him feel oddly exposed. His head was pressed against the door, which was kind of uncomfortable, but he forgot all about that when Jim’s hand reached down and clamped itself over his mouth. Fucking hell. For a confused second he twisted and turned, grabbed at the hand, but Jim shook his head and gripped tighter.

“Daddy’s had an idea.”

So Vince just whimpered against the hand, the sound going straight to his cock because he was such a whore. Jim grinned.

“Oh, you like that, don’t you? Legs spread and that pretty mouth shut for once.” He started to slide in and out of Vince very slowly. “I’ll miss it, mind - the things you say. The things you promise in return for my cock.”

Vince stared. What things? What… Jesus. His arms shot back, banging against the car door, and his whole body went rigid as Jim hit long and hard in the right place, then disappeared just as Vince was climbing towards something.

“Patience,” said Jim, as Vince made the most pathetic sounds into the palm pressed against his mouth. “I want to enjoy. Your eyes are so huge when you’re desperate.”

Too fucking right he was desperate, Vince wanted to say, but he couldn’t. Which made him even harder.

Jim slid forward and dropped a kiss on Vince’s thigh, speeding up slightly. At last.

“The idea is,” he said, his breath quickening, “no talking, no disappearing off in your head. Keep you focused on the moment.”

Vince couldn’t give a shit what the idea was; his hands were grabbing at anything – the seat in front, the parcel shelf - and his knees were reaching back towards his head as Jim rocked back and forth, almost casually hitting that place every time now. Vince tried to say something, anything, as long as it was more than the kind of noise some fucking animal would make. That’s what he felt like – an animal, used and fucked and… trapped. That word again. Trapped, with that hand stopping everything that made Vince who he was, stopping it from escaping out of his mouth. Jim was stopping him. Jim had him stuffed and fucking mounted and… oh fuck, the idea of it made him want to explode.

“Stay with me,” Jim was saying, watching Vince all the time. “Don’t go wherever the fuck it is you go.”

He grabbed Vince’s hand, bringing it to his own lips and just holding it there.

“I love you,” he whispered against it. “I… fuck…”

He pressed his lips against Vince’s palm and jerked inside him, fast and hard. Vince watched Jim’s eyes lose focus, the muscles in his arms go rigid, a blush creep into his skin. Knew he loved him, so he told him, even if Jim’s hand was there to catch the words as they fell. Heard himself say the words as his own orgasm shuddered out of him, and heard himself say, I’ll die if you go. I’d fucking die. You make me want to die.

And was glad Jim couldn’t hear him.

“What the fuck’s up with you? Daddy stopped your allowance?”

“No,” said Vince. He opened his wallet, showed Jones the neatly stacked twenties that always lived there these days. Every morning, when he left Jim’s place, there they were. Waiting for him.

“So what is it, then? You’re finally bored of sucking cock for a living?”

“Piss off.”

Jones swung his chair round from the library table, leaning back and balancing his feet on the bottom rung of Vince’s.

“Well, something’s bugging you.”

Vince stared at his books and wished Jones would shut the fuck up. He was having a crisis here – a complete meltdown. He’d checked the library clock every two minutes since they got here, and the hands were stuck. Had to be.

“You’re going to finish with him, aren’t you?” said Jones. “About time, if you ask me.”

“I’d never ask you.” Jones looked hurt, so Vince added: “I've just had it up to here with this assignment. D’you wanna go get some food?”

“If it’s on Daddy again. Speaking of, don’t you turn into a pumpkin if you’re out after dark without him?”

“D’you want to eat or not?”

Jones put up his hands.

“Only saying.”

Vince got up and started packing his books away. The library was empty apart from the two of them - it was a week before Christmas, and everybody else had gone home. Vince had told his parents he wanted to stay on campus, catch up on work he’d missed, which he kind of was. Jones was still there because… fuck knew why Jones was still there, but Vince was ok with it. They were back to pissing around, having a laugh during the day, so long as Vince didn’t try and talk about Jim too much because that made Jones’ face go pinched and mean.

The nights, though, belonged to Jim.

There wasn’t a second of the day that Vince wasn’t waiting for him, thinking about him, needing him. Sometimes, Jim met him for lunch; Vince didn’t give a shit about lunch. He’d quite happily sit and starve in Jim’s bed until Jim came home and fucked him. But Jim liked him to do the ‘normal life’ thing, wanted him to have friends, so here Vince was hanging out with Jones, counting the minutes until Jim’s car pulled up and took him back to where he belonged.

In the meantime, Jones was already waiting for him at the door, telling him to get a move on cocksucker, before the sun set and Vince lost a glass slipper.

“Piss off,” said Vince again, shouldering his bag and setting off towards Jones. Trying not to check the library clock one last time, because when it came to waiting for Jim, the clock hands weren’t just stuck, they were going backwards.

“Are you going to tell me, or do I have to ask?”

Jim’s arms curled tighter around Vince, who was perched in his lap, cock poking out of his jeans and in need of some petting. Jim hovered a hand over it, letting the wet tip paint trails on his palm. Vince couldn’t decide whether to moan for more attention, or shrink away from it; that hand could reduce him to an idiot in moments, and who knew what crap he’d come out with then. That time back in Jim’s car, hand clamped over his mouth, he’d figured that was a one off. He couldn’t seriously want to die, right? Only, the next go, Jim’s palm pressed over his face and Jim’s cock working deep inside, Vince had yelled the exact same things.

Vince had taken to giving a lot of blow jobs in the last few days.

Jim kissed him on the forehead.

“I’ll ask, then. But first…”

His hand settled on Vince, and there was really nowhere left to go. Vince tried to grab Jim’s other hand, plant it on his mouth.

“Indulge me,” said Jim, gripping Vince’s wrists. “I miss hearing you.”

“But I thought we were practising…”

“Later.”

Jim began a lazy stroke on Vince’s cock, and Vince buried his face in Jim’s neck, hoping to muffle what was coming next. He’d been ready for this all day, and when Jim had brought him home and scooped him into his lap like a kid, kissed him until Vince was dizzy then popped his fly open and freed his poor, aching dick – it wasn’t so much a matter of time as a matter of moments before Vince was twisting in Jim’s embrace, spilling himself in short, desperate gasps, and yelling the words for them both to hear.

For a while after, Vince sat very still with his eyes closed, wondering if not looking would make the words go away. They were so… not shameful, because he’d left shameful behind the night he did the teenage drama queen impression; but they were terrifying. What they meant, what they said about Vince.

What did they say about him?

“Vince? Look at me.”

Vince lifted his head from the safe place that lay between Jim’s neck and shoulder, and looked at Jim.

“Tell me what you said, Vince.”

“Don’t remember.”

Jim just stared at him.

“Ok, I don’t want to remember.” Vince sank his head back down. “You heard me. It freaks me out.”

“They’re just words.”

“Jim - you make me want to die. What kind of weirdo says that?”

“It doesn’t mean anything -,”

“It does.” Vince sat up, frustrated. Tried to wriggle off Jim’s lap and tuck himself back in at the same time. “I know I said I’d do anything for you, and all that romantic crap I was coming out with at the beginning, but I never actually got what I was saying, I never realised – fucking jeans, fucking hell… let go of me, can’t you?”

Jim let go and Vince tumbled to the floor, cock still out, jeans sticky from his own come. Christ, he was a mess. He glowered at Jim.

“Bastard. You didn’t have to do that.”

“You said to let go.”

“God, I fucking hate you.”

Jim looked at him levelly.

“And I love you.”

Vince gave up and lay flat on the floor, arms outstretched. Felt the carpet scratch his skin and wondered if he could drown himself in wool pile, hide amongst the god-awful pattern. But he knew it was too late for hiding. He fixed his eyes on the ceiling.

“This is starting to scare the absolute fuck out of me.”

“Good.” Jim stood up, loosening his tie. “Now you know how I feel.” He took his tie off and trailed it along Vince’s chest, letting it drop across his neck. Then he started to unbutton his shirt. “You might want to get up for this next bit,” he said, “unless you want me to sit on your cock, of course.”

Vince leant up on his elbows.

“Wait – what?”

“Of course, you’ll get carpet burns.” Jim’s shirt was drifting to the floor now, and the guy stood there, bare to the waist, looking down at Vince with that same level gaze. “Tell me what you want, Vince. Or I won’t know.”

Vince opened his mouth, then shut it again. What did he want? Sure, he wanted to fuck Jim into the next semester if the guy was willing to give it up. The idea of Jim on the end of Vince’s dick, coming when Vince made him… he always wanted Jim. To be with Jim, to make Jim love him. But really, that was all about Vince, self-obsessed little shit that he was.

“To make you happy,” he said finally.

Jim held out his hand and pulled Vince up to standing. Looked down at Vince’s t-shirt and put a hand to Vince’s chest.

“Look at that,” he said, sounding surprised. “You love me.”

“Because I was lying the last million times I said it.”

“No.” Jim shrugged. “I just thought you didn’t really know.”

Maybe he didn’t, not until now. Vince could yell ‘I love you’ from the top of the Empire State building, and it meant fuck all. This, though… Jim suddenly leaning against him, letting Vince hold him up… Vince slipped his arms around Jim’s waist and they stood there, Jim’s head on his shoulder, his hands ghosting over Jim’s back. Chill skin under Vince’s fingertips, the thump of Jim’s heart against his own chest.

Eventually, though, being noble took a back seat to the pictures playing through Vince’s mind, and his hands found their way down Jim’s back and under the waistband of his jeans. For a few minutes Vince touched the skin down there, imagining his finger was something else, and found he was starting to sweat. Jim lifted his head. His face was flushed, his eyes bright.

“If you start this, you have to finish it. I won’t let you go off in that head of yours.”

Vince answered by pressing his mouth against Jim’s and pushing his tongue inside. He left a hand working over Jim’s ass, and tangled the other one in his hair, pulling him closer, reaching further inside his mouth. Biting him now.

“Bedroom,” he said. “I’m going to fuck you.”

They stumbled out of the study, Vince stopping to throw Jim up against the wall in the hallway just because he could, and because he liked the way Jim’s head tipped back and he showed Vince his neck. Vince bit that, too. Then they were in the bedroom, Jim’s knees buckling as he was edged up against the bed. He fell backwards and Vince was on him straight away, flipping him over, tugging at his jeans. Jim dropped his head onto the mattress and let Vince work away until he was lying naked on the bed, and Vince was looming behind him, still dressed. Jim looked over his shoulder.

“You’re going to fuck me with your clothes on?”

“Maybe.” Vince crawled onto the bed, nudging Jim’s legs apart with his knee. He put a hand between Jim’s shoulder blades and forced him back down to the mattress. “Gonna make it hurt, though.”

“Thought you wanted to make me happy.”

“Same thing.”

“You’re a sick little boy, you know that?”

This last was said with a sharp intake of breath as Vince inched his fingers inside; Jim’s hands twisted in the sheets, and Vince knew the sight of that was enough to send him over. He stared hard at the ceiling for a moment, then let his gaze drop back to the task in hand – Jim’s hips lifted slightly, his spine arching under the pressure of Vince’s hand. Vince’s fingers already making him yell.

And Vince wanted him to hurt.

Teach him to do this, to make Vince scared, make him care so much that he was ready to do anything – anything – for him. Show him what it felt like, to have no control. To spend every fucking minute of every hour thinking about him, needing him…

“Fuck… Vince, stop…” Jim jolted forwards, swear words disappearing into the sheets. Vince stilled his hand. “No, fuck… keep going…”

Vince took his hand away and stood up. Jim twisted round.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m… nowhere, just…”

“You have to stay. You have to finish this.”

“I can’t.” Vince began to back away, panic overwhelming him. “The way I am, with you… this is scaring the fuck out of me…”

“So you’re leaving me.”

Vince stopped. Saw himself in the wardrobe mirror, looking scared and young. Saw Jim lying on the bed, breathing hard, watching him.

“No. I’m not leaving.”

“Thank God,” said Jim, and collapsed back down. Vince undressed and stretched out on the bed next to him.

“Did he used to make it hurt?” he said.

Jim lifted his head.

“We used to hurt each other. We got very good at it.”

“Then let’s not.” Vince reached out and pulled Jim towards him. “Not now, anyway. Let’s do this instead.”

So Jim did what he’d suggested in the first place, and climbed onto Vince’s cock, without ever taking his eyes off Vince’s face. As he moved up and down, his mouth opened and a stream of words fell from his lips: something about love, and belonging, and how Vince made him want to live. Vince didn’t touch him, just let him fuck himself, Vince’s cock burning up inside of him. He could feel the way he was being angled towards that spot, he could see the muscles on Jim’s thighs straining as the movements got faster and lost rhythm. All Vince could do was grip the headboard behind him and hold on as Jim sank down.

Suddenly, Jim was leaning forward, bracing himself over Vince.

“Fuck me, baby boy,” he whispered.

Like Vince said, he’d do anything to make Jim happy. He lifted his hips and thrust up, hands grabbing at Jim’s ass, trying to keep inside him. At the same time, Jim was kissing him like he was dying, biting a trail down his throat and yelling words against Vince’s skin. He went rigid for a moment, and Vince felt wet seeping against his belly, his cock being worked that bit harder as Jim jerked against him.

“Christ…” said Vince, and lost himself for a second as every muscle in his body tensed and exploded.

They lay together a while, Vince reluctant to move, impossible anyway with Jim lying on top of him, still kissing him in a luxurious, indolent kind of way. Like they had all the time in the world, which they did.

“Was that all you could think of?” said Jim finally.

“Huh?”

“Well, I fuck you, and you want to die. I give it up, and all I get is as single Christ. Like I’m not worth something more dramatic.”

“Next time,” said Vince.

“Oh, you’re presuming a whole lot of things, there.”

“You can make it my Christmas present.”

Jim frowned and got up, leaving Vince suddenly chill. He watched as Jim rooted in his bedside table for something.

“Here,” said Jim, handing him an envelope. “That’s your Christmas present.”

“Just a card? You really are a cheapskate.”

But Vince opened it, and found the envelope stuffed with money.

“I said I don’t want money.”

“It’s not for you. It’s for Jones.”

Oh.

“So, what? You’re kind of buying back my self-respect.”

“Double the amount, actually. So you’ve got self-respect in reserve. I’ll get you something proper when you get back from the holidays.”

“I don’t need anything,” said Vince.

Jim kissed him again.

“Apart from me, right?”

“Always.”

“Then let’s see if you can’t think of something more original to say this time. And also?” Jim stretched out on his belly, laying his head in his hands. “You can do most of the work.”

Sometime in the middle of the night, after they’d totally failed to go out for dinner and, in fact, even failed to make it out of the bedroom, Vince woke up with a start. He struggled out of the loose grip of Jim’s arms and sat, staring into the dark. His whole body ached, but that was nothing to what his mind was doing - that was in some kind of seizure. There’d been a moment the second time around, Jim bucking beneath him, swearing and begging in that voice he kept for just precisely those moments; and Vince was giving it to him, exactly where he needed it, concentrating so hard on keeping Jim on the edge that his own cock was nothing but the means to an end. Not necessarily Vince’s end, either. And Vince found himself watching in the mirror, where he looked like a child with huge eyes and sweat-soaked hair, and then he looked down and watched himself drive into Jim with slow, deliberate movements. Felt strong and generous and terrified all at once, because deep down he wanted to keep going until Jim was sobbing like Vince always did. Break him apart. Then piece him back so that the only thing holding him together was Vince.

At the same time, just as deep down, Vince knew that making Jim happy might mean something different entirely. Maybe nothing to do with the way Vince had him gasping for breath, pulling him up so he was sitting in Vince’s lap, his cock straining under Vince’s hand; maybe it was something simpler. Fuck knew what, though.

But now, in the dark, Vince kept going over that moment in his head, looking for an answer. A clue, even. How to love the man he loved; how to love him right.

“You’re a long way from me over there.” Jim’s voice was groggy with sleep. “Come back.”

Vince slid towards him and let himself be hauled on top of Jim and wrapped up in warmth. Simple was just this, letting Jim take over, running a hand over Vince’s butt and down between until Vince was opening up and whispering things that he hoped would lead to more.

“Far too tired,” said Jim. “You’ll have to do it yourself.”

Vince made a pathetic sound that earned him a smack. But Jim was smiling in the darkness, hands still busy.

“If you don’t know how to wank at your age, I suppose you never will.”

“Teach me,” said Vince. “It’s what my college fund is paying you for, anyway.”

Another smack, Jim’s hand staying around a little while after, just touching the warm patch of skin he’d created. Then he reached over and turned on the bedside light, pulling the covers back. He pushed Vince away from him.

“Kneel up, so I can see properly.”

“Are you just going to lie there?”

“This is active learning. You act, you learn. I rest.”

Vince pouted – which made Jim reach out and pinch his bottom lip lightly between thumb and forefinger.

“I've got something to go in there later.”

“I’ll bet.” Vince knelt up, his hands behind his back, his prick full mast and casting a shadow over Jim. The tingle of cold air on his skin made him shiver, but he felt hot, almost feverish. The way Jim was looking at him, like he was this odd mix of something bad and precious, something breakable…

“Start with your mouth,” said Jim quietly. “It’s where I always start in my head.”

“You think about me like this?”

“Only when I’m not thinking about you all the other ways.”

“Dirty old man,” said Vince, but he took one hand from behind his back – the other one felt shackled, even though nothing was holding it there - and sucked his fingers into his mouth, one by one, then ran a damp trail from his mouth to his stomach. Made a V with his fingers and balanced them on his cock, not quite touching it. He gazed down at Jim. “What do I do next, in your head?”

“You keep that hand just where it is, and use the other one to put some colour here…” Jim pointed at Vince’s chest, “and here.”

Vince found he could move his other hand; he licked that, too, then traced wet circles around his nipples. Pinched them hard until they stood out, red and sharp. It wasn’t something he ever did, but with Jim watching, it was making him sweat and start to gasp slightly. Plus his cock was leaking uncontrollably, trying to go off all on its own.

“Please…” he said, feeling his legs start to shake. Jim folded his hands behind his head.

“Please what?”

“I want to… let me touch my cock.”

“No. Not yet. Take a look in the mirror first.”

Vince glanced over his shoulder and saw his body, lean and tense. There were shadows in the curve of his hips, cords of muscle in his thigh.

“In my head,” said Jim, “this is where you miss me not being there.”

Vince carried on looking at himself.

“Where are you, then?”

“Trying to get back to you. So I can do with my cock what you’re going to do all by yourself.”

Vince nodded. Palmed himself open, still watching in the wardrobe mirror, and saw Jim watching, too.

“All the way in,” he said. “Just as if Daddy was there.”

Vince pushed a wet finger inside, followed by another one; he couldn’t work out what was in his head – pretending his fingers were Jim’s cock, listening to Jim’s instructions, watching himself do something so completely degrading. He turned back to look at Jim properly, and he was watching Vince from what seemed like a fuck of a long way away.

“Harder,” he said, and Vince fell forward onto one hand, the other twisting inside. Words came streaming out of his mouth and onto Jim’s chest.

“What?” said Jim sharply, pulling Vince’s head up by the back of his hair. “What did you say?”

Vince looked at him, but couldn’t see him. Could only feel a fist gripping the back of his head. His own fingers still worked away inside himself.

“Please…” he whispered. “Just let me come.”

“Sit up, then.”

Vince struggled back up, placing his palms flat on his thighs, waiting to be allowed to do… anything. His whole body was shaking.

“Put your hand around the top of that pretty dick of yours,” said Jim, “and one round the bottom.” He grinned suddenly. “I know what you like.”

Vince did as he was told, staying as still as he could for fear of losing himself again. Jim reached down and started to stroke his own cock at a leisurely pace.

“To keep you company,” he said, “and to show you how fast to go. Don’t come until I tell you.”

So Vince had to keep his eyes on what Jim’s hand was doing, and keep slow, agonisingly slow pace with that. Jim made him wait, made him stop at one point, hand hovering over his dick, teeth biting at his own lip hard enough to draw blood. 

“Don’t come, Vince.”

“Please…”

But Jim shook his head. Went back to stroking his own cock as if Vince wasn’t above him, whole body vibrating with need. Finally, though, just when Vince thought he was going to collapse with the pain of holding back, Jim took his hand away and said:

“Now you, all on your own.”

Vince dropped his head down.

“No, you tell me how.”

“Is that an order, baby boy?”

“Yes.”

“Then you can come now.”

Which was all Vince needed. He gave a pull to his cock and felt the high that had been building inside him for so long come tumbling through his body in short, needle-sharp shocks.

“Fuck, I want you,” he gasped, wet pooling on Jim’s chest. “I want to make you happy.”

Better than wanting to die he reckoned a moment later, as he sank into Jim’s arms.

“You can’t try and make someone happy,” said Jim, not even trying to do anything about his own hard-on. Just running his hands though Vince’s hair, breathing kisses against his mouth. “You just… do.”

“And?” said Vince, sleepy now, his mind loose and tired.

Jim kissed him deep and long.

“You just do.”

“What’s this?” said Jones, letting the money fall out of the envelope and onto his bed.

“I’m paying you back.”

“For what?”

“The whole stupid bet.” Vince glanced up from his packing. “It was crap of me to make you pay up.”

“But where the fuck did you get this much – oh.”

Vince went on folding his clothes, laying them neatly into his case. He was trying to stay calm, but he hadn’t figured on Jones being so… angry with him.

“Look, it doesn’t matter where I got it,” said Vince steadily. “I just want you to have it, because you shouldn’t be out of pocket.”

Jones scooped up the money and dumped it onto Vince’s bed.

“I don’t want it.”

“Why are you making such a big deal out of this?”

“Because it’s not you giving me the money. It’s him.”

“So?”

“So, he’s got you wrapped around his dick, that’s what. Doesn’t want anyone else to get a look in.”

Vince started to gather the money back up, trying to give it back to Jones.

“Come on,” he said, “you know it’s nothing like that.”

“You’re never here anymore.”

“I've been here all day.”

“Yeah, the day.” Jones pushed Vince’s hands away. “But never the night. And when you are here, you’re a fucking zombie. You only ever think about him, talk about him, it’s all about him. It’s like he’s kidnapped you, or something.”

“I’m sorry, ok? I love him. But I really do want you to have the money -,”

“Fuck. Off.”

Jones pushed Vince again, only this time it was hard enough to send Vince backwards, onto the bed. He sat down with a jolt and stared up at Jones, who stared back for a second then turned on his heel.

“I need a beer.”

Vince had done packing hours ago and was lying on the bed by the time Jones got back. He’d been trying to figure out what had pissed Jones off so much; then he’d given up, because he didn’t really, truly care. Tomorrow morning, he was about to leave Jim for a whole fortnight, and to have Jones throw a tantrum was just too weird. So he put on a smile when Jones came through the door because all he wanted to do was make up and forget all about it.

“Your Mom called,” he said, waving the message pad at Jones. “She’s not going to be home for a couple of days.”

Jones came and stood at the foot of Vince’s bed. He seemed sober enough, Vince reckoned, but there was something about his eyes. They were slightly unfocussed, pupils dilated. And there was the smell of alcohol – not beer, but spirits. Which explained the half empty bottle of Scotch Jones was holding. Vince pointed at it.

“Saved me some?”

Jones just stood there, eyes fixed on Vince.

“Jones, you’re freaking me out.”

“My name’s Gareth.”

Jones’ voice was low and steady. He was drunk, but he was in control. Not something Vince had seen before, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.

“I know your name’s Gareth, dumb ass. Now, are we toasting our goodbyes, or what?”

Jones started to walk towards him, and Vince noticed just how much the Scotch bottle looked like a fucking weapon. He found himself shrinking back against the pillows.

“I've decided something,” said Jones, sitting on the edge of the bed. Placing the bottle between him and Vince like a threat.

“That’s… that’s interesting.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I’m not the drunk one here.”

Jones leaned forward, and Vince could smell Scotch pouring off his breath.

“I’m going to save you.”

“Thanks… but I don’t need saving, at least I don’t think I -”

“I’m gonna save you from that bastard. I’m gonna put him away until he fucking dies from old age.”

Vince felt something icy unfurl in the pit of his stomach.

“What?”

“What he’s doing to you? He’ll go to prison, and then he can get cock stuffed up his ass and see how much he likes it.”

Vince tried to keep his voice steady.

“You’re not serious.”

“Too fucking right.” Jones pointed at the money, which Vince had left on Jones’ bed. “He’s paying you, for Christ’s sake.”

“Why are you saying this?”

“Because he’s got this weird fucking hold over you. Because you’re acting like a freak, all the fucking time.” Jones inched forward, waving the Scotch bottle in Vince’s face. “You’re supposed to be out with me, having a laugh like every other fucker our age. Instead you’re letting some… corpse stick his dick into you.”

“But I love him.” Vince couldn’t think of any words that made more sense. “He loves me.”

“No, he fucking doesn’t.”

“You don’t know…”

“Shut up.” Jones was suddenly standing up, glaring down at Vince. “You just shut the fuck up. I know exactly what loving someone is about.”

Vince felt his throat go dry.

“This isn’t the way,” he whispered.

“I’m not just going to stand by while you fuck your whole life up. I love you.”

Vince stared. He’d known what was coming, fuck – he’d known for weeks, if he was truthful – but now it was out in the open, shit it was so freaking insane.

“You don’t love me.” He tried to sound reasonable, keep the shake from his voice. “I mean, think about it. You screwed my girlfriend. Dude, how is that love?”

Jones smiled, and he looked tired.

“Because she was yours, Vince.”

“Ok, so you love me, ok, fine…” Vince swung round and put his feet on the floor. He was getting desperate now. There was something implacable about Jones that was freaking him out more than what he was saying. “So why take away the only thing I want?”

“I told you, I’m gonna save you.”

“But Jim –”

Jones crouched down suddenly, so he was looking up at Vince as if he was worshipping something.

“And I’m gonna destroy him.”

And Vince knew in that second, without a shadow of a doubt, that Jones meant it. He also knew in that second that he’d do anything to stop him, because he would never let that happen to Jim. He wanted Jim to be happy more than he wanted himself to be happy. He stretched a shaky hand out to Jones’ face and felt Jones’ skin under his palm. It was slightly clammy, flushed with drink.

“I’ll leave him,” said Vince.

Jones blinked up at him.

“Yeah, right…”

“Seriously, I’ll leave him.” Vince’s hand slid towards Jones’ mouth now, and he ran a finger along Jones’ lips. “If you tell, there’ll be all kinds of shit. Mom and Dad will find out. There’ll be police asking me stuff and everything. He’s not worth that. He’s… he’s just a bit of fun, in the end.”

“You’re lying.”

“Try me.”

Jones let the bottle of Scotch drop to the floor and caught Vince’s hand, which clenched into a fist. Jones opened it up and pressed a wet kiss against the palm. Vince wanted to scream.

“I only want to try and make you happy,” said Jones.

Vince smiled and slid off the bed and onto the floor. He closed his eyes, because he couldn’t bear to see what he was doing.

“You can’t try and make someone happy,” he said, letting Jones pull him into his arms. “You just do.”

Vince’s sister – the cool one – picked him up the next morning from campus, on her way back home from somewhere or other. She was a bit of a hippy, always off round the country to stay on a friend’s floor, see some new band she’d heard was good. Picking Vince up was no big deal, she said. Could do with the company.

Vince had been going to spend one last night at Jim’s, but there were these marks on his back when he went to shower, after… afterwards. He didn’t remember how the marks had got there. Everything was a bit hazy, now he came to think about it. Which he really didn’t want to. Either way, he couldn’t turn up at Jim’s and let him see the marks, and he couldn’t stay away without showing him… and it wasn’t like Jones was going to let him out of his sight right now, anyway. So while he was still in the shower block, he called Jim and cried off.

“Are you ok?” said Jim. “You sound strange.”

“I just said – I’m ill.”

There was a pause, then Jim said quietly:

“Ok. Feel better. I love you.”

“Me too,” said Vince, starting to cry. He hung up, then went to bed. On his own.

“I don’t like that guy you’re sharing with,” said his sister when they were halfway home. Vince stared straight ahead and said nothing. His sister gave him a sidelong glance. “You know, when I said I could do with the company? That kind of implies you do some of the entertaining.”

“Sorry. I’m just hung over.”

“Ok.” His sister pretended to fiddle with the stereo, then gave up pretending. “Can I ask you something, little bro?”

“Go ahead.”

“You’ve broken up with that girly-girl you were seeing through high school, right?”

“Who told you?”

“Small town. And you were two were like the fairytale couple – like beauty and the beast.”

“Hey!”

“Ok, beauty and the genius. But everyone knows everyone, remember. She was real cut up about it, you know. Going around saying you never called or even texted after it happened. Dad was pissed at you.”

“Yeah, he always liked her.”

His sister gave him another look.

“He liked that she was a girl.”

Vince laughed now.

“Come off it. Like Dad would say that.”

“Vince, this guy Jones. He’s not the reason you split up with her, is he?”

“No fucking way!”

“Because he sure seemed to think he was.”

“Have you been smoking something? Hey, if you have, I think I should drive -,”

“Vince.”

Vince shut up, and they drove on for a mile or so in silence, Vince unable to tear his eyes away from his window. Then he said:

“He’s not why we split up, no.”

“Some other guy?”

Fuck. This was it. This really was Vince telling his sister he was into guys.

“Yes.”

His sister laughed.

“Thank fuck. Because that Jones is kind of creepy. You can do much better.”

Oh, she had no idea. Vince looked at her curiously.

“How did you know?”

“Catching you and that friend you used to hang around with – bit of a dead give away, that.”

“What are you on about?”

“Don’t sweat it, I’m not going to make you share, not after five years of complete denial.”

Vince tried to work out what his sister was saying, and he didn’t like what he was coming up with.

“You could’ve said something,” he said. “Cos I had no fucking clue until a month ago.”

His sister nodded, like this wasn’t such a surprise.

“You know, Vince? For a genius, you can be really stupid.”

“Piss off…” Vince’s phone started ringing, and he picked it up. Jim’s number showed. He held the phone in his hand for a moment, just letting it ring, starting to panic about the idea of actually answering. His sister said nothing, just carried on driving.

Vince turned it off. The silence was huge.

“Someone stalking you?”

“No, it’s just an ex. Only he doesn’t know it yet.”

“Can’t you just tell him?”

Vince put his phone back in his pocket, and it burned a hole there.

“No, I really can’t.”

Jim rang every day for a week. Vince turned it off every day for a week, apart from when he was alone, when he just let it ring out. Wanted to see at what point Jim would call it quits. On Christmas day, when the rest of the family were downstairs attacking the presents under the tree, it got to a hundred rings. Vince wanted to smash the fucking phone to pieces, but he ended up going back to bed, the phone under his pillow. He didn’t bother getting up until the afternoon.

Jones rang every day too, but Vince answered those calls. Didn’t dare not to. He had no clue what Jones said, apart from when he asked every day if Jim had tried to get in touch and Vince always said: “Yeah, but I didn’t answer” which seemed to keep Jones happy.

“Bet he left some pervy message,” said Jones.

But Vince had checked, because he wasn’t that strong willed. And Jim didn’t ever leave a message.

By the second week, the phone stopped ringing.

“Just call him,” said his sister, when she found Vince out in the back yard, freezing his nuts off, staring at his silent phone.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Vince gave a miserable shrug. His sister hugged him suddenly, and it took all of Vince’s shreds of dignity not to weep against her chest.

“You think too much,” she said. “Make things too complicated.” She stood back and took his hand. “Come inside now. You’re starting to look a bit insane sitting out in a snowstorm.”

“I think I am insane. There’s stuff happens, and I don’t know why. How I got there. Here.”

“It’s like that for everyone.”

“Even you?”

“Yes. Even me. Only I don’t try and deal with it all on my own.” She tugged Vince’s hand and he let himself be pulled up to standing. “You should try and do the sharing thing once in a while, instead of keeping it all in your head.”

Vince didn’t answer. What a  fucking laugh – sharing. He’d shared with Jones and look what happened. It had only got him into deeper shit.

Vince had never really appreciated just how big Everest was, but now he was falling down it, he couldn’t see any sign of the bottom. He had no fucking clue how he’d ended up like this; he’d figured vaguely that once Jim was off the scene, Jones would somehow back off. Magically realise that Vince wasn’t interested. Instead, Jones had decided that he owned him, and Vince didn’t know how to stop it. Not that Jones ever directly came out with a threat – stop giving it up to me, and I’ll destroy the man you love – nothing so dramatic as that. He just kept on at Vince, always waiting for him after lectures, always paying for Vince’s stuff, always touching him. Since they got back from the holidays, always in the same bed. There were huge chunks of Vince’s life that were now missing from his memory. All he could safely say was that Jones was there when he went to bed, and he was there when he woke up in the morning.

Once, Vince woke up some place he didn’t recognise, in some bed that wasn’t his, with Jones’ arms snaking round him. He had a memory of Jones standing in front of him, watching, and Vince being screwed at the same time – by someone who wasn’t Jim – and if Jones was watching, who the fuck was it making him hurt like that? He didn’t bother asking, just let Jones drive him back to campus while he pretended to be asleep. When they pulled up, Jones touched Vince’s arm hesitantly.

“Come on, sleepy head.”

It was odd, hearing that sort of thing from Jones. Like he was Vince’s mother or some shit like that. Vince opened his eyes and saw Jones staring at him like he wasn’t sure what to do next.

“What?” said Vince, finally irritated into saying something.

“I reckon… maybe we won’t do that again, yeah?”

Vince shrugged. He honestly didn’t care what Jones made him do, it was all the same thing in the end. Vince getting screwed, because he was the one who’d screwed it up from the very start. What the fuck had been in his head, anyway? Kissing some guy because Jones paid him to. What kind of asshole did that? Jesus, he deserved whatever he had coming to him.

Jones got out, came round and opened Vince’s car door. Vince let himself be pulled up, but he shook Jones’ hand off his shoulder.

“I’m ok,” he said.

“That’s what you said last night.”

“So?”

Jones sighed.

“Look, I was pissed, ok? I figured if you did… that, because I asked, then yeah, you must love me back, at least a little bit. Even if you won’t ever say it.”

Christ, what did this guy want from him? Couldn’t he see that Vince didn’t love him? Wasn’t it blindingly obvious?

Jones tried to put his hand on Vince’s shoulder again. Again, Vince shook it off.

“I did whatever it was you wanted, right?”

“And then some.” Jones laughed, with no humour. “Still don’t know the answer, though. But you scared the fuck out of us. You cried so hard after, I thought you were, I dunno, broken or something.”

“I’m not broken,” said Vince. “I’m fucking destroyed.”

Or that’s what he wanted to say. But he didn’t, because it didn’t matter how hideous this whole thing got, he was still trying to save Jim. That was the only important thing.

He saw Jim, of course. Just the once, after a lecture. He’d dropped Jim’s class again, so he wasn’t expecting to come out of a lecture on Gide to find Jim standing there with a bunch of papers in his hand.

“This is just an excuse,” said Jim, handing the papers to Vince. It was his catch-up assignment that Jim had never gotten around to grading. He stared at the Alpha circled in red pen at the top of the first page.

“Excuse for what?”

“To see you. That’s why I kept hold of the essay so long, as a kind of last resort.”

Vince looked past Jim and down the corridor; Jones would be here any minute. Fucking miracle he wasn’t here already.

“I've got to go,” he said.

“Vince…”

“I’m sorry. I've got to go.”

He tried to move past Jim, but then there was a hand, laid gently on his chest. Ever so gently.

“Just tell me this is what you want,” said Jim.

Vince took a deep breath, and looked down the corridor again. Then looked straight at Jim.

“This is what I want.”

Jim took his hand away and smiled.

“You stay, then. I’ll go.” He nodded at the essay Vince was still clutching. “That was good, by the way.”

He started to walk away, and Vince thought he was going to die. Literally, die right there, outside a bloody lecture hall.

 “I’m sorry,” he said. He couldn’t think of anything else. Jim turned back.

 “Don’t be. Be happy.”

 And then he was gone, and Vince was alone.

 That night, he dreamed he was back at Jim’s place, in Jim’s bed. He’d been doing that a lot, lately. He had these orgasms, exploding out of him, as real as if Jim was there. When he woke up, there was never any sign of having enjoyed himself like that; just Jones, watching him like he always did. This time, though, Jim had him up on the bed, ass high in the air, and as he screwed him, he was telling him to be happy. And Vince was. Truly fucking happy. As he came, he told Jim he loved him. Was never going to leave him again. Couldn’t live without him.

When he woke up, Jones was fucking him and he had his hand over Vince’s mouth.

“Shut up!” he said, over and over again as he drove into Vince. “Just shut the fuck up.”

It was the only time Vince remembered what happened.

“It’s a celebration, so for fuck’s sake try and look happy.” Jones poured champagne into Vince’s glass. “I should spank you, the face on you right now.”

Vince couldn’t be sure, but he thought they might’ve done spanking already. He’d seen hand prints on his ass in the shower mirror, and really there was only one way they were getting there.

“Are you gonna smack me here, in front of everyone?”

Jones grinned. He liked it when Vince talked dirty, and Vince could do it so well. Didn’t even have to think about what he was saying. And it kept Jones happy, which made Vince’s life that little bit more bearable.

“Could take you into the john,” said Jones, downing his champagne. “Put you over my knee, bare that butt…”

Vince wondered if Jones knew the door locked in the Gents; wondered if Jones ever stuck his prick under the marble fountain, and peed in it until the water turned green.

“Drink up,” said Jones.

“What are we celebrating again?”

“Three months together. Three months since you finally came to your senses and escaped from that pervert.”

“He wasn’t a pervert,” said Vince. Why did his mouth do this? Why couldn’t he just keep quiet?

But Jones wasn’t about to have his bubble burst.

“Whatever,” he said, waving his hand at the waiter. “But you’re with me now, and I feel like celebrating.” The waiter came over and Jones pointed at Vince. “He’ll have the beef, I’ll have a burger and fries, thanks.”

The waiter managed not to wrinkle his nose and left.

“I don’t really want the beef,” said Vince.

“Not what I hear when you’re screaming away at the end of my dick.”

No, it probably wasn’t.

Vince reached for his champagne and drank it down. Held it out to Jones.

“I’ll have another glass of that, thanks.”

“Anything you want.” Jones leaned forward suddenly. “You know that, right? You can have anything you want. All you have to do is ask.”

Except for the one thing Vince really wanted, of course. He’d never ask Jones for that.

 It turned out that champagne got Vince very, very drunk. Jones left the car at the restaurant, and for some reason they ended up at the subway because there were no cabs around. Vince had to let Jones help him down the stairs and onto the platform, and all he could do was stand there, swaying. Jones wasn’t usually one for public displays of affection – thank fuck – but he seemed happy enough to support Vince’s arm, let him lean into Jones’ chest when things started moving around in circles.

“You’re such a girl,” said Jones, smiling. He glanced across to the opposite platform, and stopped smiling.

“What?” said Vince, concentrating on not falling over.

“Nothing. Hey, come here…”

Jones caught Vince around the waist and pulled him flush up against him.

“Jones…” Vince tried to push him away, but his arms were too numb, his brain too addled.

“What? Nothing to be ashamed of. Just a kiss.”

And Jones pressed his mouth against Vince’s, sticking his tongue far, far inside until Vince was gasping for breath. A train pulled in and still Jones kissed him; he didn’t seem to notice the people staring, the late-night party-goers laughing and pointing. He didn’t seem to notice the train pulling out again.

Vince struggled free for a moment.

“We missed the train…” He glanced over at the other platform, to try and get his bearings. Try and see something that wasn’t Jones.

What he saw was Jim.

Waiting for a train on the other platform, staring at the two of them. He was with someone, some guy that Vince thought he ought to recognise… the ex fuck. The guy didn’t notice Vince, but then he was too busy talking urgently to Jim. Putting a huge hand on his shoulder, like Jim was his once again.

Vince stared back at Jim for a moment, too stupid with drink to know what to do. He’d never wanted Jim to know, to see him sink this low. He just thought it would make it easier for Jim to think… fuck knows what, but not this…

Then Jim smiled. Put a hand to his head in a mock salute, like – that’s the way it goes, kid – and the next moment, his train was thundering into the station and obscuring him from Vince’s view.

“Jim…”

He struggled away from Jones. He couldn’t let Jim go again. He had to get to him somehow, tell him what was going on, even if Jim hated him for it…

“Vince, what the fuck? Vince!”

Jones’ arms were holding him back. The complete bastard. Couldn’t he see Vince had to get to Jim? Why couldn’t he leave him alone for one fucking second? Vince pushed him away and tried to make his legs work quick enough to reach Jim before that train pulled out.

Other arms snapped round his chest, and someone dragged him to the floor. Vince kicked out, desperate to find purchase for his feet. He called out Jim’s name, but Jim couldn’t hear. There was another train in the way. More people, lots of them around Vince. Jones yelling at him, and he looked terrified. Vince tried to get up again, but whoever was holding him was too strong and Vince was just too drunk.

So he yelled for Jim, again and again, hoping that somehow, even though Jim’s train had left by now and was disappearing down the tunnel – somehow, Jim would hear him.

Vince woke up in his own bed, alone, still dressed. With one fuck of a hangover. After a moment of complete confusion, his mind was racing over what he could remember, trying to work out if he could salvage something. Keep Jones from getting angry, from doing something out of spite.

He could hear Jones’ voice coming from behind the door, talking jovially to someone. Maybe things weren’t so bad, then. But when Jones opened the door and Vince saw his face, he knew he was totally fucked. He’d never seen Jones look like that – as if someone had died.

“You’re awake,” said Jones, sitting on his own bed and looking at Vince. Vince attempted a smile, patting the sheet beside him.

“Why are you all the way over there?”

Jones gave him a look full of such disgust that Vince felt like he’d been punched.

“Jones…”

“Stop it.”

Vince started to really panic.

“I’m sorry, ok? I was drunk and I can’t remember anything, but whatever I did, I’m sorry and I want to make it better -”

“Just stop.”

Vince stopped; held his breath. Wondered if staying very still would make Jones his normal, asshole self again.

Jones suddenly sank his head into his hands. When he looked back up, the guy looked physically sick.

Vince turned away and picked at a loose thread on the sheet.

“What happened then?”

“I fucked up.”

“You? But I was the one… well, anyway… what are you going to do?”

“Fix it,” said Jones.

Vince tore his eyes away from the thread.

“Why? How?”

“Why? Because you tried to throw yourself in front of a train.”

Vince actually had to laugh.

“I wasn’t doing that.”

“Don’t lie, Vince. I can tell when you’re lying now, and you don’t have to anymore.”

Jones couldn’t tell shit. The idea that Vince would try and do himself in was just insane. Then again, the idea that he could just walk across the train tracks to get to Jim, and not get flattened in the process – that was fairly insane when he came to think about it.

Turned out Jim had been right all along about Vince and train tracks.

And if they were going to play telling the truth… well, fuck it.

“Don’t give a shit if you think I’m lying,” said Vince. “You’ll only believe what suits you anyway.”

Jones looked away, that sick expression creeping across his face again. It dawned on Vince that it wasn’t him making Jones look like that – it was Jones himself. It was self-disgust. Self-loathing.

Good.

Jones stood up.

“I said I’d fix it.”

“Gonna save me from myself again? Because that’s been a whole lot of fun.” Vince was starting to feel nasty now, and hopeless too. Like the game was well and truly up. He’d have gone on playing though, if it meant Jim was ok.

“I never made you do anything.”

“Never stopped me either.”

Jones came and squatted before him, looking up at him with none of that adoration Vince found so sickening, but with a kind of pleading pity.

“I was just trying to make you happy.”

And that, for Vince, was the last straw. He kicked out at Jones and caught him squarely in the chest, knocking him backwards. Jones sprawled on the floor, just staring up at Vince as he crouched over him.

“You could never make me happy.”

“I –,”

“Shut up.”

Vince’s arm shot out and his fist connected with Jones’ face. He felt flesh and bone and blood under his knuckles, and he felt better. Better than he had done in forever. He remembered the last fight he’d been in when some kid at school had called him a little faggot, and how he’d fucking surprised them all by punching the crap out of that kid. He’d just kept on hitting, over and over and over until whoever was underneath had stopped hitting back and they’d had to drag Vince off him, hold his arms back, yell at him until he finally heard –

“Vince!”

He was standing up – held up, fighting for breath, arms pinned behind him. Jones was crawling onto his own bed, blood pouring from his nose. Vince tried to get to him, tried to struggle away from the arms, but his father held him tight.

“Stop it, Vince. Jesus, calm down. I’m here now.”

His father was here. Here, in the room. Why the fuck was his father here?

Jones was wiping blood away from his face and the bastard was fucking smiling.

“See, I told you,” he said. “Told you I’d fix it.”

It didn’t matter how many times Vince told them, his parents just couldn’t get it into their heads that he hadn’t tried to throw himself in front of a train. Eventually, Vince gave up trying to explain; it wasn’t like he was going to give details, so he guessed he couldn’t blame them. ‘I was just going to see a friend’ simply didn’t cut it as a reason to take a jaunt across the path of an oncoming express. He figured he was lucky that he was getting away with a deferred year from university and a therapist once a week. And an awful lot of careful conversations and worried looks at the dinner table.

At least Jones was off the scene. He hadn’t called or emailed or anything. The last time Vince saw him was when he’d helped his dad pack the car with all of Vince’s stuff, while Vince sat on his bed and refused to move.

“I’m not leaving,” he’d said when his father finally came to get him.

“Vince, come on…”

“No. You can’t make me.”

It was weird, seeing his Dad not knowing what to do. He always knew what to do – and Vince always did what he was told.

Jones, his nose still bloody and his left eye blackening already, had put a hand on Vince’s dad’s shoulder.

“Can you just give us a minute?”

When they were alone, Jones sat on the end of Vince’s bed.

“You need to go with him, Vince.”

“Stop playing God in my fucking life.”

“I will, I swear. But you still need to go with him.”

“Why? You’re the fucked up one.”

Jones shrugged.

“And so are you. Only you’ve got a nice family, so don’t piss that away.”

“I’m not going.”

“You are.” Jones got up and went to Vince’s desk, and opened the drawer. He took out a big, brown envelope that was hidden at the back. “I’m taking the money.”

“You fucking freak, you’ve been going through my stuff -”

“And you never gave this back to Jim. So now I’m taking it, and you don’t owe me anything and the extra…” Jones shook the envelope, “we’ll call it a bribe.”

“For what?”

“For me never saying a fucking thing, about any of it.”

So Vince went home with his father, knowing that Jim was safe but that somehow Jones had still won. Except he hadn’t, because he’d cried when Vince left, and said he was sorry and he loved him, and Vince hadn’t even bothered to say the word goodbye.

Some days, when he was really lonely, he missed Jones. The Jones he’d made friends with at the beginning, before everything went shit shaped. If he could only go back and do it all over, he’d make sure Jones never fell in love with him, was happy staying friends; but he’d never erase Jim from the past.

Vince’s therapist reckoned he needed someone to share with.

“Having someone you trust might help with the blacking out,” said the therapist.

No, having Jim’s cock up his ass helped with the blacking out. Jesus, were his parents actually paying this guy real money?

The therapist was still talking.

“You’re not allowing anyone in,” he said.

“I used to,” said Vince, “but he’s gone now.”

It was true, he realised. Jim had been the person he shared everything with. The last time that had happened was at school, before Vince had turned into track star and cheerleader-boyfriend material. He’d told his best friend pretty much everything.

Jim had been his best friend.

“So this person you used to share with - tell me about him.”

“No,” said Vince.

“Talking about him scares you?”

“Depends whether it gets him arrested.”

“Ah,” said the therapist. “I wouldn’t do that, you understand.”

“Sure. But if you don’t mind, I’d rather not take the chance.” Vince smiled to himself. “Kinda been down that road before.”

Vince wasn’t sure if it was because of what the therapist said, but the next evening he went for a walk and found himself standing in the porch of his old best friend’s house. Johnny’s house. Still so familiar he could count the number of paving stones from the gate to the porch step.

He couldn’t make himself ring the doorbell, so it was lucky Johnny spotted him and opened the door. Vince was half-expecting him to punch him on the spot, but Johnny, apparently, wasn’t one to hold a grudge.

“Heard you were back,” he said, standing back to let Vince inside. “Heard you were fucked up, too.”

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

Johnny grinned. Vince felt a tiny lifting of the weight that had been sitting in his chest these past months.

They went into the kitchen and Johnny made coffee, and Vince tried to work out if his former best friend was gay or not. He kind of looked it, but he didn’t really sound it.

He was also kind of hot.

“So,” said Johnny, hoisting himself up to sit on the counter – he still did that, all these years on – “what stupid thing did you do this time?”

“I fell in love with one of my tutors, then had sex with someone else to stop them from telling.”

“Guy tutor, guy someone else, right?”

Vince stared into his coffee. Johnny laughed.

“You really don’t do things by halves, Vinnie.” He was the only one who ever called Vince that. “You deny one hundred percent, and then you one hundred percent screw it up.”

“I've also been having these blackouts.”

“Oh yeah, I remember. They were real interesting.”

Vince looked up.

“They? How many is they?”

“Uh… every time we munched face. Twice the time you got your dick out. And, of course, there was the time your sister walked in…”

“Shit. That’s a lot of theys.”

Johnny looked at him curiously.

“You weren’t faking it, then? Because I always figured it was just you being an asshole.”

“No, no faking, unfortunately. Turns out, I really am insane.”

“Oh. Well, there’s a lot of stuff that’s starting to make sense in that case. Though I’m still pretty pissed about you not talking to me for three years.”

Vince didn’t know what to say, so he drank his coffee instead. Johnny slid off the counter and came to stand close by him.

“Hey, it’s ok. I’m doing way better than you, right?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“And this tutor, you’re still in love with him?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Try me.”

So Vince told him everything, from the bet in the pub, to the night spent at Jim’s for a thousand dollars, to Jones sticking money into the waistband of his jeans after staring at his butt. And everything in between and after. Then he told him about the suicide attempt that wasn’t, and Johnny started laughing.

“It is kinda funny,” he said. “Everyone thinks you’re mental, but really you were just trying to find a shortcut.”

Maybe it was funny. Maybe Vince needed to start seeing the funny side of things a bit more often.

Johnny gave him a ride home, but stopped at the end of Vince’s street.

“Don’t want your dad blaming me for everything. Again.”

“Huh?”

Johnny tapped his fingers against the steering wheel for a second before turning round with a wide smile.

“Forget it. Hey, wanna try something for old time’s sake?”

“Like?”

“Let’s see if you can stay awake for once.”

Well, Vince figured he owed the guy for three years of shit at high school. He leant forward and put his hands either side Johnny’s face – he’d had enough of not being in control – and he kissed Johnny on the lips. A slow, coffee-tasting kiss. Not one that went straight to his dick like one of Jim’s, but one that spiralled up into his head, and sparked off bits of memories that he’d never realised he had.

He pulled away first, leaving Johnny catching his breath.

“Jesus fuck,” said Johnny.

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, you know what? I’m not sure we’re ever gonna be friends again.”

“I can’t… I’m not really looking for something…”

“Vinnie, shut up. I know. I’m just stating the very fucking obvious.”

“Oh.” Vince struggled to work out how he felt. Not like he’d been looking for a new best friend, certainly not another boyfriend. But tonight, for the first time, he’d felt kind of happy.

Johnny patted his hand.

“I loved you, Vinnie. Everybody always does. Now go and sort yourself out.”

Vince nodded and got out of the car. Walked back down the road to his house, and found that he still felt happy. He stayed happy all the way up the back path and onto the porch, where he noticed that the kitchen light was on and there were voices coming through the back door.

Huh, visitors. Not many of those these days.

He pushed open the door and blinked into the light; his mom was standing by the stove, clutching a cup of coffee to her chest like it was going to defend her from an attack; his dad was standing at the kitchen table, both hands planted on the table top, glaring at the visitor who was sitting not an inch away from him.

The visitor who was Jim.

So running away might not be the most mature thing to do, but it felt completely logical to Vince as he leapt down the porch steps and ran down the path. There were voices calling his name – his dad, his mom, not Jim’s though – and he could hear them yelling all the way up the street. He wondered vaguely if he could catch up with Johnny’s car; he was running fast, like he used to on the track. Like something was snapping at his heels, trying to bring him down and tear him to pieces.

Turned out, there had been something to run away from all along.

After a few minutes, Vince couldn’t hear the voices anymore and he just ran for the sake of it. It was fucking wonderful. Just the sound of his footfalls on the tarmac, the night air filling his lungs. Nobody could catch him, nobody could make him face something he didn’t want to face. He was free, and he was utterly alone.

And Jim was sitting in his kitchen, with his parents.

Go sort yourself out, Vinnie. That’s what Johnny had said. Vince was pretty sure he hadn’t meant ‘go run the marathon because you’re too scared to stand your ground’. And Vince had had it up to here with not standing his ground. The man he loved was here, in his house, and Vince was running in the opposite direction.

Vince stopped running and stood in the middle of the street, feeling the burn in his legs. Fuck it. He was going to hear what Jim had to say, and if his mom and dad didn’t like it, then… then nothing, because Vince had a feeling, deep down, that they already knew the important things, and had done for a long time.

So really, all that was left was to go back home.

Vince turned round and started walking back the way he’d come.

You couldn’t really miss Jim’s car. There weren’t many like that, driving slowly around this town, stopping at the end of all the streets, the driver obviously taking a good look around. Vince paused, standing in the shadow of a tree, then walked out into the road and waited for Jim to see him.

“Hi,” he said when Jim pulled up and got out. It was as good a start as any, he supposed.

Jim just held out the car keys. Vince took them and climbed into the driver’s seat; remembered the smell of this car, and all the things he’d done in it. Jim sank down beside him, rubbing his face and yawning.

“Try not to crunch the gears,” he muttered.

“Where are we going?”

“You’re the driver.”

“Yeah,” said Vince, putting the car into first. “I guess I am.”

Jim fell asleep. Vince glanced over at him as he drove – loved how Jim’s face was pressed against the seat and his hands were folded across his chest; loved the dark circles under his eyes and the coffee stain on his shirt, like he hadn’t had time to change for a while. Wanted to climb over and into him, not just sex, but all the way inside. Live inside him.

But he was too busy driving, because someone had to.

“I kinda thought… there’d be more… more talking,” Vince gasped into the pillow.

Jim’s breath tickled Vince’s skin, and he pushed his tongue deeper into Vince, the place where his cock was supposed to go. Would hopefully be going very soon. So far, he’d not said anything much; just handed over his credit card at the motel reception, then followed Vince into the room, stripped off and collapsed onto the bed. Straight back to sleep. Vince went into the corridor to phone his parents, let them know he wasn’t dead on a train track somewhere. His dad answered, but his mom snatched the phone away. She wanted him back home, but Vince said:

“Not yet. There’s some stuff I have to work out.”

“Is that man with you?” said his mom, in a voice that told Vince she’d been crying.

“Yeah.”

“He told us… I didn’t really understand what he told us.”

“Does it matter?”

“No. I guess not. Not if you’re coming home.”

Vince hung up and went back into the room. Lay on the bed fully dressed and curled around Jim, not quite touching in case Jim didn’t want that, but not quite able to make himself sleep in the chair, either. He lay there, watching Jim’s chest rise and fall, until he fell asleep.

When he woke up, it was still dark outside and Jim was reaching out to him, fisting Vince’s hair so hard it hurt, dragging Vince over so Jim could kiss him with bites and bruises. Every time Vince pulled away to catch his breath, Jim pulled him back down harder, with more urgency. His hands moved down Vince’s back and over his butt, grabbing and pinching so that Vince was wriggling for more; hard as hell because the pain was nice, told him that Jim wanted him.

Next thing he knew, Jim had flipped him off onto his back, and his arms were pinned above his head with one hand, while the other worked furiously at his jeans. Yanked them down, scraping them over his hips, not bothering to take them off properly once Vince’s cock was open to view; just left them twisting around Vince’s knees like bondage, Vince’s prick wet and hot against the air. Jim stared down at him for a moment, letting Vince twist and shiver. Then he bent down and swallowed Vince whole, while the hand that had gripped Vince’s wrists so tight his bones were crunching under skin… that hand let go, and came to rest around Vince’s throat. It lay there, hot and heavy, making Vince tip his head back into the pillow if he wanted to breathe. Only, the more he tipped back, the heavier the hand got, until it was like a leaden collar pushing him into the mattress, keeping him tethered while Jim sucked the world out of his dick.

“Fuck…” said Vince, and the hand stretched out across his mouth instead. There were no more words after that, just the sound of Vince screaming into Jim’s palm. No wanting to die, no wanting to make him happy. Only one long, incoherent sound.

Jim took his hand away and turned Vince over onto his belly. Vince’s jeans were still half-mast around his knees and he felt tangled and vulnerable as he struggled out of them. Jim put a hand on the small of his back.

“Leave them.”

The hand pushed down, and Vince found himself lifting his hips in response. He wondered if he’d ever done that for Jones, and knew instantly that he probably had. He’d done everything for Jones, everything to save Jim; the only difference was that what he did for Jones, he did for something in return. What he did for the man now behind him, who was running his fingers along Vince’s crack and dipping them around Vince’s balls – Vince didn’t give a fuck if he never got anything back. He just knew that he had a lot to give.

Jim had something to give, too. Tongue, slipping in and out of Vince’s ass, while fingers prised Vince apart. Then, at last, cock. Naked and painful; huge. It lay inside Vince, crowding out everything that had gone before. Vince sank his head into the pillow and could only think about Jim’s fingers bruising his hips, his crotch scraping against Vince’s ass. There was nothing else.

“You are such a little fool,” said Jim.

Not exactly what Vince had in mind for the great reunion speech, but he’d take what he could get. Jim was here, and Jim was right. He could say what the fuck he liked.

Jim stayed still inside Vince for another minute, until Vince was squirming back. Then he reached round and checked on Vince’s dick, which throbbed in Jim’s fist like Vince had no control over it. Which he didn’t. He couldn’t work out which he wanted to move most - Jim’s cock or his fist. Jim suddenly angled himself at Vince’s spot, and oh shit – Jim’s cock. Definitely.

Jim pulled Vince up to kneeling, so that he was balanced on his dick with his arms looped behind Jim’s neck. Stretched out like some victim, as Jim worked his fist back and forth.

“Did you let him do this?”

“I let him do everything, I think.”

“And you never enjoyed it, letting him touch you?”

“No.” Vince frowned. “I don’t remember.”

“See, I think you did. Just a little.” Jim began to move against Vince’s spot with a slow, precise rhythm. “I think you got off on him taking control.”

“No.”

“Telling you how to fuck, when to fuck. Rolling over for him every night and morning.”

“No – why are you saying this?”

“It’s the truth though.” Jim started to pump his hips faster, and his fist gripped tighter around Vince’s cock. “You’ve got to tell the truth, Vince. There were a thousand ways to deal with Jones, and you chose the one that had you leashed to his cock, ass spread and willing and –,”

“No!” Vince struggled out of Jim’s hold and fell forward awkwardly, jeans around his ankles and t-shirt up around his shoulders. He didn’t give a shit. “You can’t believe that crap.”

“Why not? You spent longer with him than you did with me.”

“I did it for you.”

Jim stared down at him.

“I never asked you to. You could’ve told me, but you made your choice all on your own.”

“And I hated it.”

“Maybe, but you enjoyed it, too.”

“Stop saying that!”

Jim shrugged. Started to crawl his hand up Vince’s leg like he hadn’t just said the most painful thing in the world.

“Get off!” Vince tried to push the hand away. “What are you doing?”

“What, you’ll give it up for Jones but not for me? I thought I was the one you did it all for.”

“You think I wanted to be with him?”

“I know you did.”

“Stop fucking saying that.” Vince felt hysteria rising in his throat – and Jim’s hand was still moving towards his dick. “Don’t do this. Don’t… you’ve got to believe me…”

“Prove it. Prove you hated it all.”

“What? There’s no way to prove it… Christ, ask Jones. Ask him how I was.”

Jim’s hand was on Vince’s thigh now, and he was smiling, like he knew Vince was lying, and it was all a big joke.

“I did ask him. He said you screamed like a train.”

“I fucking tried to throw myself in front of one.” Oh. “I tried to kill myself, ok? That’s proof enough for you. I tried to commit suicide.”

Jim took his hand away and sat back. There was no smile, no big joke. He looked hollow.

Vince pressed himself against the headboard, drawing his legs away from Jim. Turning away.

“I saw you at the station,” he said, hearing the words for the first time. “And I wanted to die. I saw the train coming so I figured, what the fuck. I’d be free from Jones and so would you. Only, I didn’t think it through like that, because I was drunk. I just did it. Or, at least, I tried.”

The problem with saying it out loud – it made it real. The sheer horror of what he’d almost done, the stupidity, the waste. He glanced at Jim.

“You shouldn’t cry.”

Jim wiped his face.

“I had to know if it was true.”

“No, you wanted me to know.” Vince scrambled up onto his knees and reached out for Jim’s hands. “But it’s ok, I’m still here.”

Jim pulled away.

“This is wrong. I shouldn’t be with you. I should’ve left you alone.”

“You can’t, though.”

“Because I’m selfish. I wanted to see if you were all right. I wanted to touch you again.”

Vince took one of Jim’s hands and laid it against his chest. His heart thumped away underneath.

“I should go,” said Jim, not moving.

Vince shrugged.

“It’s too late. You’re already here.”

Suddenly, he was lying on his back, and Jim was on top of him, kissing the place where his hand had been. Resting his ear against it and listening to the rapid beat of Vince’s heart. Vince let his hands drift into Jim’s hair and over his shoulders.

Then Vince was on his front, and Jim was bracing himself above him, sliding his cock into the crease of his ass. He pulled away for a moment and Vince felt his legs tugged upwards, and his jeans finally coming off. Then Jim was back, running his hands under Vince’s t-shirt and following their path with his tongue until Vince’s back was a maze of cold trails.

Jim settled against him, cock nudging back to where it had been. As if nothing had happened between then and now.

“No, wait…”

“What?” Jim drew back immediately.

Vince twisted round and looked at him.

“I want to see you. See what you’re thinking.”

“All right. Come here, then.”

So Vince got up, and let himself be led to the closet, which had a full-length mirror nailed to the inside of the door. It was mottled round the edges with damp, and it cast a weird yellow glow on their faces, but when Jim lifted him back onto his cock and held his hair back from his face while he came – Vince could at least see that Jim was crying again, and he knew that Jim was going to stay.

When they fell asleep this time, it was like they were the same person. Vince’s head lay on Jim’s chest, his legs were trapped between Jim’s. Their hands were entwined. Vince felt the back of his hair being tugged gently, rhythmically.

“It’s grown since I last saw you,” Jim murmured.

“I’ll get it cut if you want.”

“Oh no. Nobody gets to lay a finger on you apart from me. Besides, it sort of makes you look like a Red Indian.”

“Native American…” said Vince sleepily.

“I’ll tie it back, so I can see your face. See what you’re thinking every second of every day.” Jim squeezed Vince’s hand. “Then I’ll know when… if something’s not right.”

“But you’re here, so everything’s ok.”

“I’ll look after you properly this time.”

“Don’t need you to.”

“You’re never going to find that out though, are you? Because I’ll always be wherever you are.”

Vince laughed.

“Even Ohio?”

“Even here. Now go to sleep, because there are things to do in the morning.”

So Vince did as he was told, and went to sleep.

When he woke up, rubbing the daylight into his eyes, there were bagels and coffee on the floor beside the bed. Jim was sitting in the easy chair, dressed, in his hand a camcorder. He was watching the viewer with an oddly serious expression.

Vince stretched out and grinned.

“You been sneaky filming?”

“No.”

“Well go ahead if you want.” Vince pulled the sheet down so Jim could see. “It’s all yours, anyway. I've never done it on camera before.”

“I think you’ll find you have.” Jim held the camera out. “You should see this.”

Vince looked at it warily.

“Why?”

“Jones gave it to me. After a fashion.”

“Then I don’t want to see it.”

But Jim just sighed and got up. Went over to the TV sitting on the chest of drawers, and plugged the camcorder into it.

“Don’t,” said Vince. “I don’t want to.”

“You have to.”

“But why?” He sat up. “Please, I don’t want to.”

But his pleading fell on deaf ears; Jim fiddled with the channels and found the one that showed the video. Then he pressed play.

“Come over here with me,” he said, going back to sit on the chair and taking one of the blankets from the bed.

Vince hesitated, but Jim was holding out his hand, and Vince had to do as he was told. He crawled into Jim’s lap and sat there, a miserable heap, trying to hide his face in Jim’s shoulder, while on the TV Jones was staring out from the screen. Jim pulled the blanket over the two of them and caught Vince’s chin in his hand.

“You can’t watch from there.”

“Why are you making me do this?”

Jim turned Vince’s face to the screen.

“Because your parents are worried sick about you. Because you’ve hardly spoken to them since you came home, and you won’t talk to the therapist.” He nodded at the TV, where Jones was still staring into the camera. “Because every time somebody tries to ask you what happened, you say you can’t remember. And that’s three months of not remembering, so I think it’s about time you tried.”

He let go of Vince’s chin, and Vince found himself looking at… himself. Lying on his bed, the sheet pulled up to his waist and his head resting on his arm, turning away from the camera. He was naked – at least, his top half was, so he figured the rest was, too. And he looked like he’d just been well and truly fucked.

Which was weird, because he’d have thought Jones would record the act and not the afterglow, so to speak.

“Look at me,” said Jones’ voice, and Vince saw himself turn and look towards the camera at precisely nothing. His eyes were seeing nothing.

Jones focused in on his face for a good long while.

“What’re you thinking?” he said.

Vince gave the smallest shrug, and carried on gazing at emptiness.

“Never can tell with you,” said Jones. “It’s not him though, is it?”

No response. Jones moved forwards with the camera, so there was nothing but Vince’s eyes filling the frame.

“Do you love me?”

Vince didn’t even blink.

“Do you love him?”

The slightest widening of his pupils. That was all. But enough for Jones, apparently, because the camera shook suddenly and Vince was wincing. Maybe in pain, maybe not.

“D’you like that?” said Jones, and it sounded hopeful and cruel all at once.

Vince shut his eyes, and said:

“Yeah…”

The camera pulled away from his face and travelled down to where the sheet had slipped below the rise of his ass.

“I’ll do anything you want,” said Jones. “I love you.”

The sheet slipped all the way down and the camera panned back so Vince could be seen lying naked on the bed, his legs slightly apart. Jones seemed to be kneeling up behind him, angling the camera towards the dark spaces between Vince’s legs and then up and over his ass and along his spine.

“I’ll even leave you alone,” said Jones. “If that’s what you want.”

Vince leant up on his elbows and turned round to stare at him. He frowned, deciding something; then settled back down on the bed with that same, deadpan expression. His hips lifted slightly, though – unmistakable invitation – and his hand drifted down to rest in the small of his back. It was the picture of acceptance. Sick, hopeless acceptance.

Jones let the camera rest on Vince’s hand, his fingers loosely curled. Then he pulled the sheet back up and let it settle over Vince properly, covering his shoulders.

“I love you,” he said again. “Maybe you should get some sleep, yeah?”

Vince closed his eyes and within seconds, the camera trained again on his face, he was breathing deep and slow.

Jim picked up the remote and turned off the TV. Vince, though, carried on staring at the blank screen like it still had more things to reveal.

“The rest is just you sleeping,” said Jim, watching Vince carefully. “Literally, a whole hour.”

Vince nodded, still fixed on the screen. Jim reached up and pushed his hair behind his ears.

“Do you remember any of it?”

“Is that how I look? When you fuck me?”

“No, when I fuck you, you look beautiful and happy. Not… dead, like that.”

Vince tore his eyes away from the TV and looked at Jim.

“You can make me happy again, if you like.”

“I will, but you haven’t answered my question. Do you remember anything?”

Vince closed his eyes. Let himself sink into the warmth of the blanket Jim had tucked around them, let himself feel safe for the first time in forever. Jim was here, his parents knew… knew something, at least, and Jones was gone. Seeing him again on that video, Vince had finally figured it out – Jones wasn’t the bad guy. Selfish and fucked up, sure, but the thing that had really scared Vince was himself. How the fuck had he ended up in that place?

He knew how. He remembered. He’d been heading there since he’d left home and gone to college – hell, he’d been heading there since long before. Since high school. Since his dad had told him to quit hanging around with that kid Johnny, because it was doing him no favours. And that was something he’d managed real well to forget.

That’s how he’d ended up in that place; trying to make Jim happy by making Jones happy, because Vince was always trying to make someone fucking happy.

So yeah, he remembered stuff.

He lay his head against Jim’s chest.

“I’m not asking, I’m telling you. Make me happy again.”

Jim leant down to kiss him.

“Here? In the chair?”

“No, on the bed. And bring that camcorder with you, because we’re going to wipe out the old Vince…” He shrugged the blanket off and went and lay on the bed, on his front. Gazing up at Jim just like he’d stared at Jones on the video, only this time he saw what was before him. “And you get to help make the new one.”

“This is truly fucked.”

Vince watched as Jim shifted the chest of drawers near the bed and plugged in the camera. He pointed it at Vince, and Vince’s face appeared on the TV screen. He studied the dark circles under his eyes, realised how thin he was looking; then stuck his tongue out.

“Is this so I can’t claim I didn’t know what was happening when you sell the highlights on the net?”

“This is so you can see what’s going on.”

“Yeah, totally fucked.”

Jim reached over and smacked Vince, and Vince saw and heard himself yelp. Hey, maybe they could do that, too…

They started where Jones had left off – the sheet up around Vince’s shoulders, Vince resting his head on his arms. Jim pulled the sheet down so it pooled in the small of his back and then slipped over the rise of his ass. Vince turned round and looked at him.

“So,” said Jim, from behind the camera, “what are you thinking?”

“That you’re wearing clothes, and I’m not.”

“Want me to get undressed?”

“Not yet.” Vince turned back, letting his head drop down again. “It makes me feel like you’re paying me.”

“Like I said, courtesan complex.”

“Just a whore - for you, anyway.”

Jim tugged the sheet below Vince’s bottom, and Vince watched it revealed on the screen. He really did look like a whore, collapsed on the bed, the curves of his ass and spine filing the frame. He raised his hips slightly and there was that invitation again, the darkness between his legs less of a suggestion and more of a reality. Jim pulled the sheet all the way off and knelt between Vince’s knees, reaching out to place a hand on his inside thigh. He stroked the skin there, rubbing at the crease between butt cheek and leg; revealing more of what was hidden to the camera. Vince watched for a second, then shifted his hips higher so he could see more of himself. He wanted to see it all, see everything he had to offer Jim and see Jim take it. He turned round again to stare into the camera, let Jim know he could do whatever the fuck he wanted.

“The things you make me want to do to you,” said Jim, like he was reading Vince’s mind. “I can never decide if I want to kiss you or smack you.”

Vince wriggled over onto his back and let his feet sit flat on the mattress, knees apart. He began stroking himself and Jim trained the camera on his face. It made Vince feel even more exposed than if it had been his dick Jim was watching; like his mind was on show.

“Jones smacked me a couple of times,” he said suddenly. “And not just on the ass.”

“You remember, then?”

Vince closed his eyes and bit his lip. His dick was heavy and dark, and everything he was feeling was concentrated there now. Each pull of his hand was bringing flashes of memory, some of them recent, like Jones hitting him across the face when he was drunk one night and Vince wouldn’t say the right words. Some of the memories were old, to do with Johnny – odd, excited moments that he was never going to get back – and some were to do with his father, times when Vince caught him looking at him like he was… disappointed, or worried. Or scared for him. And that made Vince scared for himself, too.

He stilled his hand and lay there, eyes shut, memories reeling through his mind. One after the other, and he couldn’t stop them.

Jones taking him to see some guy he’d met in a bar, a guy who’d called Vince his baby boy, just like Jim did, but without meaning it the way Jim meant it.

His dad telling Johnny off for something. Something small, but Vince had known his dad just didn’t like Johnny, however hard he tried…

His sister trying to talk to him in his bedroom after Johnny had gone home that time, and just wishing she’d go away, leave him alone. Telling her to fuck off.

“Vince?” Jim’s voice was very near. “Are you still with me?”

And Vince remembered that; one second being elbow-deep in water in Jim’s bath, the next sitting on Jim’s bed, Jim asking if Vince was back with him.

Vince opened his eyes and smiled at the man lying beside him.

“That was the best one.”

Jim put the camera on the chest of drawers and pulled Vince towards him.

“What are you talking about?”

“The things I was remembering.” Vince let himself be held, Jim’s clothes scratching his skin. “I like to remember you.”

“Can’t be that much to go on. You were only with me a month before you left.”

“I didn’t leave.”

Jim heaved Vince on top of him, and Vince could see them both on the TV –Vince caught in Jim’s arms. Jim looking only at him, camera completely forgotten.

“You left,” said Jim. “I said you would.”

“You missed me, right?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

Vince pressed himself against the length of Jim’s body.

“Why are you here? You’ve not said, not properly.”

“Nowhere left to go.”

Vince drew back and stared at Jim, who grinned and pinched his butt. Then did it again, only harder, and when Vince’s mouth fell open in pain, he slid his finger inside.

“Hot in there,” he said. “Is it going to be hot…” he took his finger out and ran it down Vince’s spine, “…in here?”

Vince fell towards him, boneless. Right now, he was burning up everywhere, confused and wanting answers and needing Jim to keep doing what he was doing.

Jim held him tight.

“Your mom called me,” he said.

Vince tried to concentrate on the words; how this man could do that to him, and actually talk about his mom at the same time…

“She’d tried to talk to Jones, but he wasn’t giving much away. Mentioned me, though. So she tracked me down, and I,” Jim suddenly rolled Vince onto the bed and straddled him. “I put the phone down.”

He placed a hand on Vince’s chest, keeping him in his place. Vince raised his arms above his head – look, I’m doing what you want – and Jim nodded. Started to take his shirt off.

“People in the faculty were saying things about you, why you’d disappeared. I wanted to see you, but when she called, I couldn’t handle knowing the truth of it.”

The shirt fell to the floor, and Jim began to unbuckle his belt. It slid through his fingers, and fitted neatly around Vince’s wrists. The leather was still warm.

“And then,” said Jim, “I went and fucked him, to see if I could forget you.”

“He told me you would.”

“Then we’re even. Both of us as predictable as predicted.”

“So we can start again?”

Jim leant forward, crawling up Vince’s body until he could reach down and kiss him. He didn’t, though, just brushed Vince’s lips with his own.

“I thought you said you never left me in the first place?”

“Never…”

Vince tried to catch himself a kiss, but Jim pulled back. Stared down at him.

“I couldn’t forget you, anymore than you could remember the things you say when I fuck you. So I resigned.”

“Wait -,”

And now Jim kissed him, to shut him up.

“And then I went to see Jones, who was watching that,” Jim pointed at the camera, “And drinking Scotch.”

“You hit him, right?”

Because Vince didn’t totally blame Jones, but he still wanted to make him hurt.

Jim gave one of his slow, warm blinks, fixing his eyes on Vince’s mouth.

“No, I didn’t hit him,” he murmured. “I screwed him instead… whoa now, you’ll just hurt yourself.”

Vince was trying to sit up, but it was difficult with Jim sprawled on top of him and his hands tied together – and apparently cunningly attached to the headboard. He flailed for a second, while Jim watched from a few inches above, then he collapsed back into the pillows and yanked on the leather belt that was holding him fast.

“It’s not going to come undone,” said Jim. “I made sure of that.”

Vince yanked harder. Fuck it, he had a right to be untied for this conversation.

“I… you… I’m gonna… undo the fucking belt, Jim.”

Jim braced himself on one hand and started undoing his flies with the other.

“Say my name again.”

“You bastard.”

Jim was kicking off his jeans, and he was as naked as Vince usually was underneath. He got them below his hips and then gave up and dropped forward, his cock resting squarely against Vince’s.

“That’s better,” he said.

“Fuck off, you… you fucking… you…”

Jim rubbed himself lazily along Vince’s length; then sat up and got off the bed. Started to pull his jeans back up.

“Where the fuck are you going?” said Vince. He was gonna have to think of some more swear words when he wasn’t so fucking angry.

Jim just gave him a look.

“You can’t just leave without saying anything. And, hang on, untie me!”

Jim started towards the headboard.

“No, wait - don’t,” said Vince. “If you untie me, you’re gonna leave, right?”

Jim nodded patiently. Bastard had this all worked out.

Vince gave the belt one last heave – and it stayed put. He kicked his heels against the mattress like a kid having a tantrum, then gave up. Let himself sink into the pillows.

“Good boy,” said Jim, and then he was naked and back on top of Vince, kissing him hard while he held their cocks together in his hand.

“Christ, Jim…” Which made Jim bite his tongue; breathing faster like hearing his name was the biggest turn on – bigger than Vince lying naked under him, with his cock leaking into his hand.

Vince found he didn’t care if Jim had screwed Jones all the way to Timbuktu, as long as Jim was with him right now. Where he belonged.

Jim kissed him deeper, his hand working the slip-slide of their dicks in time with his kisses. Vince felt a sort of hopeless relief, stretched out and helpless, with nothing to do but let Jim devour him. He closed his eyes and realised he was crying. He hadn’t done that in a while.

If Jim noticed, he didn’t care, because he suddenly let go of Vince’s cock and used his hand to push Vince’s legs up and wide. He shifted himself lower, somehow never breaking the kiss, and pushed inside. So Vince was bound with Jim’s leather belt, his wrists sore and his arms tethered, his legs pressed back and his ass lifting with each thrust; and he was crying.

Jim slowed his rhythm and pulled back to look at him.

“Say my name.”

“Jim. Jim, Jim…” Vince was sobbing now.

“Say, Jim – I forgive you.”

Vince said it, even though he didn’t know why he was saying it, but Jim wanted him to, so really – what more was there to know?

Jim reached out and lifted the camera, focusing in on Vince’s face as he carried on with his slow fuck. Vince didn’t even bother trying to hide, just let everything show.

“The new Vince,” murmured Jim. “You’re going to let everyone see who you are.”

“Yes.”

“No more hiding.”

“No – Jesus…” Vince bit his lip. “This is me. Crying again on the end of your dick.”

“Because that’s what makes you happy.”

“Yes.”

“Because you want to be happy.”

“Yes. Yes, I really do.”

Jim let the camera fall from his hand, and God knows what it filmed because Vince couldn’t see the TV screen, or even the rest of the motel room; all he saw was Jim, filling every space that Vince had left inside him. Completely encompassing Vince’s world.

“You’re sore.”

Vince nodded and held his wrists out to be kissed. The belt had left dark red marks and even the pattern of stitching. His skin stung nicely where Jim’s tongue licked and tickled.

“Shall I tell you about Jones, now?” said Jim, glancing up. Vince shrugged. He was sat on the edge of the bed with Jim kneeling between his legs, like he was worshipping him; or begging. Or confessing. It was all the same to Vince, so long as Jim was here.

Jim laced his fingers through Vince’s.

“You can’t be angry with someone when you’re touching them,” he said.

“I’m not angry.”

“That’s because you’re a good person.”

Vince frowned.

“You think I’m good?”

“More than anything.”

Huh. Vince reckoned his ex-girlfriend wouldn’t agree. Or Johnny, if you’d asked him two days ago. Or Jones.

“Is that why you love me?” he said. “Because I’m good?”

“It’s why I love you now. Before, it was for other reasons, but this is a much better one.”

Vince wasn’t sure, but he said nothing. Jim could love him for whatever reason he wanted.

Jim squeezed his hand.

“Don’t worry, I still love all the other things too.”

“Jones wasn’t better, then?”

“Yes Vince. A drunk, angry asshole was much more of a turn on than you.”

“I just meant… he’s good looking.”

“Is he?”

“Not to me. But girls like him, and he’s… well, you fucked him.”

Jim lifted Vince’s hands to his mouth and kissed each knuckle one by one. Vince watched him patiently; he hadn’t been lying, he really wasn’t angry. About anything.

Jim edged closer.

“I fucked him because he asked me to.”

“Oh.”

“I went to ask him what the fuck was going on, and when I got there, he was watching that video. I kind of lost my head, started yelling at him. Then he just came out and said he wanted to know what it was I had over you.” Jim looked down at the floor suddenly. “He said he’d tell me everything if I showed him, and I was so angry and desperate… I did.”

Vince took his hands away from Jim’s, and Jim looked up at him, pleading. Tried to catch them again.

“Vince, please…”

Vince shook his head.

“I don’t want to.” He sat back against the headboard, made Jim wait for a moment, then said: “I want to hold you instead.”

Jim narrowed his eyes, then came and lay with his head in Vince’s lap, letting Vince press his fingers against Jim’s scalp.

“You were cruel just then,” said Jim quietly.

“And I’m not sorry, either. I’m not that good. Now tell me you were thinking of me when you fucked Jones – you did fuck him, right? Not the other way round?”

“That’s just for you, my nasty, cruel boy.”

“Too right.”

Jim lay still for a while, then said:

“It was kind of sad, really. He did tell me everything – from his very unreliable point of view – then said he was going to take me to the university authorities for having sex with him.”

“But you’d already resigned.” Vince laughed suddenly. “And you’d have done that anyway if you hadn’t met me in that pub. Didn’t really save you in the end, did I?”

“Well, you did. Jones wanted more than my unemployment and I suppose your very strange way of dealing with it kept him happy – for a while.” Jim pushed his head further into Vince’s lap. “But you won’t make that mistake again.”

“How d’you know?”

“Because Vince, until further notice, I’ll be making all the decisions.”

“And what are you going to decide first, Daddy?”

“First? I’m going to fuck you again. And then, you can take me home.”

Vince let Jim have his way – with the fucking, at least. He didn’t really have much choice.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, when Jim wouldn’t let him off the bed, holding Vince back with a hand against his chest.

“You said that before.”

“And it was true. I was always with you.” Vince tapped his head. “In here, anyways. We had a nice thing going, you and me.”

Jim pressed harder against Vince’s chest, making him fall back against the pillows.

“What did you and me do?” He dipped his head to bite the inside of Vince’s thigh. Vince sighed at the pain.

“We slept in a lot.”

“Naturally.” Jim bit the other thigh. “What else?”

“You let me fuck you some more, and I got very good at it.”

“You’re very good at everything you do.”

“We argued some. Mainly about how I leave my clothes and shit on the floor, and you’re all anal and tidy. Oh, and I moved in with you. Which was why my shit was on the floor in the first place – Christ!”

Suddenly, Vince’s legs were up in the air, and Jim was fitting himself inside with a quick movement.

“Domestic fucking bliss,” said Jim, and he seemed angry.

Vince didn’t bother figuring it out. He lay loose, just letting himself be rocked back and forth, letting sounds escape his mouth with each thrust. Little catches of air, coming from deep inside him. This time, he knew, it was all about Jim, and the desperate way he worked his cock down and in, like he was spearing him to the mattress. He wasn’t trying to make it good for Vince – he was even deliberately making it hurt. If he happened to find the place that made Vince scream, he moved away.

Vince didn’t care. Just let himself be fucked.

Eventually, Jim slowed down and pulled away slightly, so he could watch the place where the two of them met. Now it was long, considered movements, like he was trying to tell Vince something, let him in on a secret. Once, he stopped moving completely and laid a hand on Vince’s cock instead. He rubbed it with his thumb, hard, testing it. Then he wrapped his hand around Vince’s balls, pulling the skin, stroking the bareness between balls and pucker. Vince made a tiny sound and Jim took his hand away immediately; went back to the slow fucking that was making Vince feel like nothing more than a place for Jim’s cock to live.

What the fuck. It could live there forever. Vince was going to lie here, in this motel room, crammed full of Jim until the day he died. Which, if Jim didn’t do something about Vince’s poor, painful cock, might be today.

Jim drew back completely and pushed Vince’s legs off his shoulders. Vince let them fall to the bed, and lay still. Waiting.

“Turn over,” said Jim.

Vince did as he was told and Jim took his hands and twisted them into the small of his back. Cuffed together with nothing but obedience. Then he spent a moment slipping a pillow under Vince’s groin and parting his legs; getting them just so. Lined himself up with Vince’s ass hole, which was burning nicely, and trailed the end of his dick from the place where it should go, upwards and into Vince’s hands. Just let it brush the tips of Vince’s fingers until they were wet and cooling.

Vince didn’t move a muscle. Not even when Jim slid back down, pressing his hands between Vince’s shoulder blades for balance as he pushed inside. The weight of him flattened Vince face first into the mattress, suffocated him against the sheets. Jim was a stone, drowning him where he lay.

Vince’s cock didn’t mind the drowning. It quite enjoyed it, from the way it cut into the pillow, sharp as a sword; aching with each stab of Jim’s dick. Aching more at the sound of Jim’s breath, dragged in and out like it was physically paining him to do this.

Finally, the balance of hurt and want evened out, and Vince found himself crushed, but somehow teetering on the edge of a cliff, staring down.

“Go on,” said Jim suddenly. “Show me. Show me how you can do it without even moving.”

Vince really only needed to hear Jim’s voice, and he was falling off that cliff with dizzying speed, mouthing words into the sheets but making no noise. Jim lay still, holding him down. He slipped a hand underneath to check Vince was done, and Vince was happy to lie in that hand, wet and warm and full, as Jim finished off. There was a lot to be said for being used.

He stayed put while Jim went and got a shower; lay there and thought of nothing. Jim came back and sat beside him.

“I’m still here,” said Vince. “You wanted to check on me while you were showering, right?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Obsession’s kind of sad at my age.”

Vince turned over onto his back and stretched out. Opened his arms to Jim.

“Why were you so angry?”

“You tell me,” said Jim, letting himself be pulled down.

Vince buried his face in clean, damp hair and wondered if Jim would mind getting dirty all over again. He could be angry if he wanted, or he could be relaxed – he was halfway there, now - loose and calm in Vince’s arms. Vince would climb on top of him and do all the work, and he would hold Jim’s hand again, just to let him know he really wasn’t going anywhere. Why would he when he had everything he needed right here, in this motel room?

“I reckon it’s the moving in thing,” he said, winding his legs around Jim’s back. “That’s why you were angry. You hate the idea, even when it’s just in my crazy head. How are you going to bring Jones back for a shag if I’m waiting in bed?”

Jim tried to pull away, but Vince gripped him tighter, laughing.

“It’s ok,” he said. “I’m joking.”

“Well, don’t. I lost my sense of humour these past few months.”

“Ok, I’ll tell you why you’re angry then – you’re mad that you couldn’t fix things. That you let it happen in the first place.”

“Ashamed would be the better word.”

“Yeah, whatever word you want. Truth is, I don’t give a fuck. So you want me to live with you?”

Jim’s head lay heavy in the crook of his shoulder, and Vince waited patiently for his answer. This kind of thing was supposed to be momentous, asking someone to live with you, but it seemed a reasonable enough thing to come out with, after the shag he’d just been put through.

“I put my place up for sale,” said Jim finally. “So I think it’s more a question of us living together.”

“Oh. Wait – where?”

“Here.”

“What… here?” Vince looked stupidly at the ceiling. “In this motel?”

“No, here in this town. Although after the reception I got from your father, I’m thinking not the guest room.”

Vince stared at the ceiling some more.

“I can’t.”

“You just asked me to.”

“I meant… well, not here. I can’t do that. That would be like… I don’t know. Wrong.”

“You have to.” Jim looked up at Vince and he seemed… guilty. Vince’s stomach got a sinking feeling.

“What have you done?”

“I might’ve promised your parents that I wouldn’t take you away.”

“You shit.” Vince was stood up before he knew it. “You were my one chance of getting out of here.” He started looking for his clothes, because he was damned if he was going to argue naked. “What gives you the right to go around promising my parents stuff?” Found his t-shirt, pulled it on, felt even more naked with spunk sticking to the material and his ass still hanging out. “I never asked you to talk to them – where the fuck are my jeans?”

Jim just watched him, infuriating bastard. Then he reached out and caught Vince’s hand, pulling him off balance and back on top of Jim. He pinned Vince’s arms and legs with his own, and kissed his forehead.

“You get cross very quickly, don’t you?”

Vince struggled away, unsuccessfully.

“You don’t get it,” he said. “Everyone here knows me. They all want me to be this… person, the one I used to be, before you.”

“Right. I don’t actually love that person.”

“So why can’t we leave? Go somewhere else?”

“Because you have to stay here and be the person I love. And the new Vince, besides.” Jim held him tighter. “I'll show you him on video if you’ve forgotten already.”

Vince gave up struggling. The new Vince already knew Jim was right, but the old one wanted to hold out and sulk for a little while longer.

Jim stroked his face while the old one got over himself.

“It’s not all bad,” he said. “I'm rich enough to get us somewhere nice, and I’ll even let you have your friends around.”

“Not got any friends.”

“We’ll make new ones.”

“You really don’t get the meaning of small town, do you?”

“It won’t be forever. Just until things with your parents are sorted.”

“You mean, until you all don’t think I’m going to walk in front of a train again?”

Jim smiled.

“Yes, Vince. That’s exactly what I mean. Now go and get a shower, because I think we’re done with this motel room.”

So Vince went and stood under the lukewarm shower, and cried because he was getting everything he wanted – which had only ever been Jim – and cried because he was shit scared of everything that came with it. And when he came out of the shower, Jim was waiting for him with a towel; rubbed him dry and sat him on his lap, and let him cry because… well, just because.

“This isn’t your house.”

“Not yet, no.” Vince ran the car up onto the kerb, making Jim wince. “We’re making a quick call first.”

“There’s no point delaying the inevitable.”

“Not delaying, just… practising.”

Vince leaned over to kiss Jim, which he hadn’t done for all of five minutes – since the last set of red lights. He was doing it partly to get rid of Jim’s anxious expression – the one that crept over his face whenever he thought Vince wasn’t looking – and partly because when he kissed Jim, the guy lost it a bit. Made these needy sounds in the back of his throat and held Vince’s face fast between his hands. Vince loved knowing he could get that reaction; over the past few months he’d only remembered how it was Jim could turn him into a wreck of shame and desire, and forgotten that he had some power himself. Now that he recalled the way Jim seemed to lose any sense of place when Vince kissed him, the way he was blind to the people in the passing cars, or the way he now hauled Vince into his lap as soon as the handbrake was on… it was good to have some power.

Vince squirmed on Jim’s lap for a second, letting Jim tangle one hand in his hair, the other trying to undo Vince’s flies.

Then he remembered he was parked outside Johnny’s house.

“Jim, stop. Someone’s gonna see me with my dick out.”

“I’m hoping it’s me.”

“Seriously…”

But impatient fingers slipped down the waistband of his jeans and grabbed a handful of what was down there, and Vince sighed into Jim’s mouth. Then Jim gave a sharp pinch to the top of Vince’s cock, and Vince felt his moment of power slip away, along with any sense of decency. Suddenly, he was struggling with his flies, trying to buck into Jim’s hand at the same time, all the while still kissing, still being kissed. His own fingers wouldn’t work the buttons, and he needed more space, more room for Jim’s hand to keep doing what it was doing – a hurried, desperate pull on the inch that he could get a hold of. Vince was soaking; frantic. Like a teenager, rushed into something illicit and uncontrollable. Dragging his jeans down over his hips without managing the buttons, just scraping denim over his skin until his ass was half-covered and his cock was free and Jim’s hand was covering – coveting it.

Vince pulled away from the kiss and leant his forehead against Jim’s, his face burning at the touch. He bit his lip as Jim stared up at him, hand working fast around Vince’s cock, the other one reaching round to stroke his butt, to inch inside.

“Fuck…”

Vince couldn’t make out which way to lean – forward into the blur of movement, or down. So he stayed put, at Jim’s mercy all over again. Jim, though, was breathing in short gasps, gripping Vince’s cock like it might disappear any second. To look at him was almost unbearable.

“Now,” said Jim, and Vince’s eyelids fluttered closed and little shards of light patterned his vision. He wanted to say something, but couldn’t say anything. Not anymore. He’d lost his words and now all he had was feeling, which had him tensing and shuddering into Jim’s grasp. And then he was collapsing against Jim, nothing more than a bundle of nerve endings, shaking under Jim’s touch.

They sat there a while, Vince listening to the blood rushing in his ears, then Jim kissed him again and said:

“I know it’s wrong of me, but I miss the things you used to say… they were always so honest.”

“Yeah, honest like embarrassing.”

“More like - unexpected. That very first night, you promised me you were mine.”

“I am.”

“And then, you said you’d been looking for me.”

Vince pushed his face into Jim’s shoulder.

“Well, I guess I was. Found you now.”

“You said that, too.” Jim hugged him suddenly. “Did I tell you I love you?”

“Kind of figured that.”

“So there’s really nothing left to say, then.”

Vince smiled, breathing in the aroma from Jim’s shirt.

“No, there really isn’t. Not to each other, anyway.”

There was a sharp rap on the window, and Vince craned his head round to see Johnny standing by the car, peering in. Jim opened the window, and stared back.

“Mom says stop having sex outside our house in broad daylight,” said Johnny. He watched as Vince struggled back into his jeans then grinned at Jim. “Hello, by the way.”

Jim just carried on staring. Vince wriggled off his lap and got out, pulling Jim up after him.

“Johnny, this is Jim.” He paused. Big fucking moment. “My boyfriend.”

“No kidding.”

Vince turned to Jim, who was still staring.

“Jim? Rude to stare at people.”

“Right…” said Jim. He held his hand out and Johnny shook it, his mouth curling with the faintest of smiles. He turned back to Vince.

“You’re coming in, then? I lied about Mom – she’s not actually home, so you don’t need to do up your flies.”

Vince glanced down, and realised he was pretty much hanging out. He sorted himself out.

“Aw, shame,” said Johnny, leading the way down the path.

Inside, Jim stood in the middle of Johnny’s kitchen and stared at the floor, until Vince drew him back against the counter.

“This is ok, right?” he whispered, nodding towards Johnny, who was pretending not to watch the two of them as he grabbed beers from the fridge.

Jim shrugged.

“If you think me having a heart attack is ok.”

“The boyfriend thing -”

“Not that.”

“Why then?”

“Because he’s got eyes,” said Johnny, appearing in front of them with the bottles. “He’s having a twin fantasy. Guys used to do it all the time with us.”

Jim actually blushed.

“What guys?” said Vince.

“Uh, Mr Draper for one. But then, he was the art teacher… oh come on, you’re kidding, right? You never noticed?”

Vince’s turn to stare. Johnny just laughed and knocked his beer bottle against Vince’s.

“Bottoms up. Well – yours, anyway. You should ring your mom, by the way. She’s completely freaking out about you and the, uh…” Johnny pointed his beer at Jim. “What was it they called you?”

“Pervert,” said Jim.

Vince frowned at Johnny.

“You spoke to my Mom?”

“Your dad, actually. He stormed round last night, said I was hiding you under the bed. Then he started crying. Course, he still thinks it’s all my fault.” Johnny suddenly got serious. “You really need to talk to him, Vince.”

Vince opened his mouth to say something, and found he couldn’t. His dad – crying. What the fuck? He couldn’t even imagine what that must’ve looked like.

Johnny took a swig of beer and looked at Jim all the while.

“So why are you here?”

“Just… dunno, really,” said Vince.

His dad. Crying.

“I was talking to your boyfriend.” Johnny said the word with that faint smile again. “Why are you here, Jim?”

“Apparently, to make Vince’s dad cry.”

“But you’re not gonna make Vince cry.”

Jim put a hand to Vince’s face and – forget what had just happened in the car, forget the kissing and the screwing in Jim’s bed - this was the most he’d ever done in front of someone Vince actually cared about. A hand, resting lightly against Vince’s cheek, like there were only the two of them in the room.

There really were only the two of them.

“I like him to cry,” he heard Jim say, “sometimes.”

Johnny looked at him speculatively.

“Oh sure. We all like him to sometimes. As long as it’s for the right reasons.”

“I’ll make sure it is.”

Vince shook his head.

“Hey, I’m right here, you know. Why are people always talking like I’m somewhere else?”

“Same reason everyone wants to look after you and shit,” said Johnny. “You just get this look.”

Jim, the bastard, was laughing now. Like he knew exactly what Johnny was on about. He kissed Vince on the forehead – and now that was the most he’d ever done – and slipped an arm around his waist.

“Off in dreamland.”

Vince couldn’t argue that one, seeing as he’d spent most of the last three months living in dreamland. Very nice place it was too – a place where he’d never left Jim, Jones was just a friend, and Vince’s father didn’t cry. Ever.

“Real life is hard,” he said.

And now both Jim and Johnny were laughing, and Jim was hugging him close. Vince didn’t get what was so hilarious, but the two of them seemed happy, so who was he to argue?

“This is the new Vince,” said Jim suddenly, tilting Vince’s face towards Johnny. Johnny studied him seriously.

“There was nothing wrong with the old one.”

“I told you about the train, right?” said Vince, freeing himself from Jim. “The bit where I… you know.”

“You told me a version of it. Are you going to tell me what really happened?”

Vince told him. He found there were a few more things to say the second time round, like how it had taken no more than a moment’s decision to try and kill himself; how even as he’d tried to do it, he’d been telling himself he wasn’t. How ashamed he was.

Johnny shrugged.

“There’s still nothing wrong with the old Vince. I loved him.” He looked past Vince and out of the window, as a car drove up the drive. “They’re back. Hey, if you want to practise the whole ‘this is my boyfriend’ thing, you should try it on my little brother. He’d throw a fit.”

Vince didn’t try it, because Johnny’s little brother was a pain in the ass but if he didn’t want to know stuff, it wasn’t fair to tell him. Johnny’s mom just gave Vince a quick, warm hug and let her eyes kind of… pass over Jim without ever quite stopping.

“Come over for dinner,” she said, and the invitation might’ve included Jim, or it might not. Jim, it turned out, was very good at making himself disappear and allowing Vince to do the talking.

When they left, Jim went first, leaving Vince on the porch, alone with Johnny.

“Thanks,” said Vince.

Johnny stuck his hands in his pockets.

“I never said last night - I missed you.”

“Me too.”

“No, you didn’t. You were too busy.”

“Being fucked up.”

“I would’ve… I dunno.” Johnny nodded in Jim’s direction. “He’s got years on me, and he still messed it up. Guess I wouldn’t have done any better.”

“Nobody would’ve. Because it’s up to me to sort it out, and no one else.”

“Oh, there’s the new Vince again.” Johnny grinned. “He’s kind of boring.”

Vince smiled and stepped off the porch and onto the pathway. Jim was waiting for him in the car, purposefully not watching. He’d been careful to look at Vince neutrally ever since Johnny’s mom and brother had turned up, and Vince loved him all the more for it.

He stepped back up to Johnny.

“I did miss you,” he said, and for one long moment he kissed Johnny like he kissed Jim – as if he was Jim. Then he pulled back and smiled at the dazed look on Johnny’s face… and set off for the car without glancing back.

The new Vince wasn’t so boring all the time.

Jim insisted on driving home – ‘to make sure we actually get there’ – and Vince sat quietly in the passenger seat. The nearer to his house they got, the quieter he was.

At the last set of lights before home, Jim locked the car doors.

“I’m not going to do a runner,” said Vince.

“You did last night. In fact, you actually ran.”

“Yeah, well you were sitting in my kitchen, with my parents. And did it ever figure with you that I might’ve not wanted you to show up at all? Not wanted them to know about you?”

“Vince, I get that you’re scared.”

“Am not.” He was. Really fucking scared. “Just don’t see how it was your job to tell my dad I was… I had…” Vince waved his hand in the air.

“Daddy issues?” said Jim without a hint of a smirk. Vince glared at him.

“You are such a stuck up prick. Always think you know best.” The thing about Vince, when he got scared – he got nasty. “Always got that fucking look on your face, like you’re being… patient.”

“Ok,” said Jim, pulling over amidst a blare of car horns from the other drivers. “Let’s do this now so we’re reading from the same page when we get home.”

He got out of the car and came round to Vince’s side; opened the door and crouched down on the pavement beside him and put a hand on Vince’s head rest.

Vince stared at him.

“Get up. Everybody’s looking.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do.”

“Tough, because you’re going to listen to me now.”

Vince looked stubbornly ahead. He’d have stuck his fingers in his ears if that hadn’t been a totally pathetic thing to do.

Jim sighed.

“I love you. Which you already know. So do your parents, even if they’d rather they didn’t. But if you think I’m calm about this, that I’m finding it easy to sit here and listen to you and be patient, as you put it…” he broke off for a moment and took a deep breath. “If you think I’m just going along, carrying on like normal when you almost… you almost died, Vince. You almost died. Jesus…”

Vince looked at him; reached out to touch him.

“Jim, it’s ok…”

Jim pushed Vince’s hand away.

“No, it’s not fucking ok.” His voice was loud, louder than Vince had ever heard it. “I spent months trying not to think about you – months. And now you’re back, every time I look at you, I see what could’ve happened. I see you gone, and me, alone. I was alone, you left me, you fucking little shit, you left me and I know you think you had a good reason, but I’m telling you, there will never be a good reason – and you sit there, saying I’m fucking patient…” Jim spat the words out; looked away. Vince watched him silently, watched how a muscle twitched in his jaw, how his fingers dug into the seat by Vince’s head. “And I hate you for it,” Jim said eventually, quieter. “When I’m holding you, I hate you for leaving, I can barely stand it I hate you so much. Because all I can think is that I've got to try and find a way to make you stay this time, because I love you. Which like I said…” and suddenly he was laughing, “you already know.”

Vince found he couldn’t look at him anymore. So he stared at his hands which were folded in his lap, and said:

“I’m sorry.”

And though he’d meant it all the other hundreds of times he’d said the words – to his parents, but never actually to Jim – he’d not understood just what he was saying. The weight of being truly fucking sorry; the responsibility that came with it.

The fact that Vince really was going to have to grow the fuck up.

Jim stood up.

“Turns out we did have something more to say to each other, after all.” He looked around at the traffic and peered back into the car. “Do you want to walk the rest of the way? Might clear your head.”

“What about the car?” said Vince, still staring at his hands.

“Leave it here. Besides, I’ll only try and lock you in again, and that just makes me seem desperate.”

Vince managed a laugh.

“Yeah, no self-respect. Just like me.”

“I’m starting to think self-respect is overrated.” Jim stood back to let Vince get out. “I like you doing exactly as I tell you. That way, I don’t get worried about what the hell you’re going to do next.”

They walked down the road together, not touching, Vince still unable to look at Jim. There were so many things pressing into his mind, he felt kind of numb.

As they turned into Vince’s road, Jim reached for his hand, rubbing his thumb into Vince’s palm, and they walked like that for a few yards.

“What exactly did you tell them?” said Vince. Christ, he really should’ve asked this question earlier.

“That I was your tutor. That I was worried about you.”

“That’s it?”

“Then your father pointed out that nobody drives this far when a phone call would do, and your mother, it turns out, had figured out a lot more from Jones than she’d been letting on.”

“She’s pretty clever, my mom.”

“So they asked questions, and I filled in some blanks. It’s up to you how much you say about Jones, bearing in mind your dad is looking to kill somebody.”

Vince stopped walking and turned to look at Jim.

“Was he really mad with you?”

“It’s like he’s lost you to me. Like he’s not your father anymore.”

“Did he actually say that?”

“Yes. And he’ll say it again. Vince -,” Jim pulled him into his arms and hugged him hard. “You don’t have to choose me, if it comes to it. I know I said all those things about you leaving me, but if you’re happy… they’re your family, you need them. I’ll be ok -,”

“Yeah, I chose you already.”

“Oh. Good.”

Vince let himself be held for a second longer, then stood back. He realised they were outside his house, and that his dad’s car was in the drive. He’d come back from work early – probably hadn’t gone at all – and was waiting for Vince to come home. For his son to come home.

Vince took Jim’s hand, and noticed it was shaking.

“D’you remember that time, in your car?”

“There’ve been lots of times in my car.”

“The one where I asked you to come home with me, only I couldn’t remember?”

Jim nodded.

“Ok,” said Vince. “Well, this is in case you didn’t think I meant it.” He leant over and kissed Jim, in full view of anyone who cared to look. Then he pulled back, took a deep breath. Glanced at his house, with the car in the drive and the porch door already opening; his mother standing there, unsure if she should call out or wait for him… then he looked back at Jim, whose eyes were fixed on Vince like he was the one thing that was going to stop the earth from spinning off its axis.

Vince grinned.

“Come on, then,” he said, tugging Jim by the hand towards the house. “Come home with me.”