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THE CROWD CHEERED AS Saltpeter Fluxx left the stage. Bo grabbed his bass and his amp and carried them to the green room in the back. He was covered in sweat and dying for something cold to drink.
He craned his neck right before he left the stage. Eli had been there with the other two guys, then he’d been at the bar.
Forget ‘bout him.
They’d been hot together, though, Eli and those two other guys. Who would’ve guessed? Such a geeky, soft-spoken guy, and he’d been doing a threesome floor show. As Bo ran the thoughts and images through his head, he realized his lips turned up in a small, shit-eating grin.
Quiet water runs deep.
His grandma always said that – it was the quiet ones you had to look out for. Maybe she was right. Also, maybe he was right and the best thing to do was to forget about Eli Winkler, find a willing body, and get laid before he went home.
He stowed his stuff, grabbed a beer at the bar, and looked around.
Guys, single and in pairs. Women, fewer of them, mostly in pairs.
His eyes rested on a tall brunette with legs up to her armpits. She was a knock-out, big and statuesque, different from Beth in accounting in every way. It didn’t work out with Beth – workplace romance seldom did, especially since he was only labor – but this tall Amazon might be just the palate cleanser he needed.
Except the tall Amazon wrapped her arm around the shoulder of a perky blonde and kissed her on the mouth.
Well okay, then.
His ego smarted a bit. Somehow he figured a woman like that would be drawn to a manly man, not to a smaller chick. Then it occurred to him it was an unfounded assumption. After all, Eli had been damn hot on that dance floor, and a lot of people would figure Bo, with his broad shoulders and strong arms, would never even notice another guy.
Except he did. Bo was equal opportunity when it came to getting laid.
The stools were taken and Bo slid down a bit to make the brass rail of the bar dig under his shoulder blades a bit. Playing on stage had relaxed him, but it didn’t make the Friday Ache go away. He’d have to stretch at some point. Hell, a massage would be lovely just about now. He sipped and sighed, enjoying the tingle of hops in his nose and the sting of beer carbonation on his palate.
“Your back hurts?”
Bo turned. A smaller, dark-haired guy stood to his left. He wore tight jeans and biker boots and his tight, black T-shirt stretched across his chest to show he was no stranger to gym equipment.
A bit wider than Eli.
As Bo ran his gaze up and down his new company, he realized he was comparing him to Eli-fucking-Winkler. Fucking irritating. The QC nerd was off with his buddies, probably doing a hipster impersonation someplace trendy before they went off to Eli’s place to fuck.
He wondered where Eli lived.
“I could help you with that,” the guy said with a small smile. Bo smiled back. He was being cruised, and dammit if it didn’t feel nice to get some attention.
“Yeah?” The guy’s hands were empty. “I’m Bo. You wanna beer?”
“I know who you are. You played at Station Square two weeks ago.” The guy wrung his hands in a nervous gesture, like talking to Bo took extra determination. “I’ve been there,” he said a bit quieter. “I’m Stan.”
“Beer or water, Stan?”
“Beer.” Stan looked up in Bo’s eyes. He looked mesmerized. Shiny eyes, blown pupils, a silly smile. Not many people were star-struck when they looked at Bo, and even though that wasn’t why he played in the band, the feeling of being appreciated warmed him. He got a nice IPA and pressed it into Stan’s hand.
“Cheers.” They touched the rims of the plastic cups together. Stan overdid it a bit, and sloshed some on Bo’s hand. “Oh, sorry. Sorry!” He leaned over and licked Bo’s thumb, his hand – the warmth of his tongue sent a zing of heat right down to Bo’s balls. As Stan suckled on his hand, slipping his agile tongue between Bo’s fingers in a promising display of skill and enthusiasm, Bo’s leather pants got tight in the crotch.
“Wanna take this upstairs?” He gasped the words right by Stan’s ear.
“Yeah, okay.” Stan gave him a starry-eyed look. It reminded Bo of Beth, and of how fucking hard it had been to get her out of his house. She’d taken up half his closet in less than a week. And how bossy she got in half that time.
He’d not make the same mistake again. “Upstairs it is.”
THE STRAIN of the DJ’s e-pop filled the air as Bo ducked behind the bar. Instead of walking up the stairs, he crawled, leaning against the railing with his newest hook-up plastered against his side.
“Oh you’re so sexy, so sexy, so totally awesomely hot...” Stan’s arm was wrapped around Bo’s waist and groped his crotch.
Few more steps – they’d get a space in the maze and get off, no strings attached, and...
Bo took one more step. The floor appeared in his field of vision, old dark wood boards, textured with decades of neglect that glistened with new polyurethane. The wall in the back had blue lockers, a row of wood benches, and the space above them, few feet from the stairs, was filled with an airy structural support. All steel and wood with hammocks hanging off. They called it the Monkey Tree. Right under it, where he could see through the bars of the railing, clustered three guys.
He recognized them immediately.
Eli Winkler’s naked skin glowed in the indirect, pallid light that added both form and intimacy to the cavernous space. He stood with his legs spread and his arms stretched out and up, tangled in a cargo web hammock that was half keeping him up and half holding him in place. His eyes were screwed shut and his face was flushed red, but not as red as his hard cock that jutted desperately in the air, searching for something, anything, to find relief.
The taller guy he’d danced with stood behind him, holding his hips, hunched over, trying to pull his hips back for access. Trying to fuck him, probably, except Eli didn’t know which way to move with the shorter guy on his knees to Eli’s side, licking, teasing, stroking.
Edging.
He heard Eli’s desperate whimper. “Please, guys...”
Only then Bo noticed the black straps digging into his cock and balls.
He froze. If quiet water runs deep, Eli Winkler was the Mariana Trench. He’d have never guessed a shy, nerdy, uptight QC staffer in a white shirt would have a public sex-and-bondage kink of this magnitude.
“Ow! Ow!” That didn’t sound like pleasure.
Somebody let loose an excited chuckle. “Let it happen, baby. Feel it, embrace it. It’ll be sooo good!”
“Yeah,” the guy by Eli’s cock said. “Patience, grasshopper. You’re gonna blow so big – once we let you!”
“Take it off!” Eli wailed now, writhing, his hard dick turning purple. “Let me go, dammit!” He tried struggled with the cargo net wrapped around his arms. His knees bent as he tried to get his bare feet closer together, but the guy behind him used his boots to shove him open again.
This didn’t look right.
“Wait here,” Bo hissed at Stan.
“Don’t,” Stan whispered, eyes all bugged out. He tightened his grip on Bo, but Bo just shook him off and bounded up the stairs.
The guys ignored him. People usually did, up here. And they were right to, as long as they played nice.
Safe, sane, consensual.
“Eli!” Bo marched up, splitting the air with a voice of command. “Eli, open your eyes!”
Eli did. His pupils were blown and it took him a while to focus. His flushed skin, all pink, was covered with a sheen of sweat from head to toe, and rivulets of tears were escaping from the corners of his eyes. He blinked.
“It’s me. Bo.”
A sudden recognition brought Eli to the here and now, and a look of desperate need and pain turned to horrified shock. “Bo?”
“You okay?”
“Hey, quit buttin’ in!” The shorter guy stood up, which meant he wasn’t teasing Eli anymore. Good.
“Who’re you?” Bo whirled toward him.
“Friends. We get together an’ play. Now fuck off!”
The other guy nodded from behind Eli’s head. His fingers were still digging into Eli’s hips, but he stopped trying to breach Eli for now.
“Eli, you okay with this? Or you done? You wanna stop?” Bo brought his face closer to Eli’s, alert for any sign of communication. Because if the guy couldn’t communicate, that wasn’t good either.
“Stop.” Eli’s voice was an exhausted croak.
Bo looked at his alleged companions. “Let ‘im go.”
“Fuck off!” The shortie pulled himself up and stared into Bo’s face. “He’s ours. He’s gonna love this!”
“He ain’t lovin’ it right now.” Bo towered over the shorter guy. His fingers curled into a fist. If this dweeb of a moron didn’t clear out...
“Fine,” the shortie said with a toss of his head. “You want him, you deal with ‘im.”
“Ow.” Eli whimpered again, and writhed. Bo looked down. Eli’s dick was huge and tight and swollen. The cock ring or whatever they put on must’ve hurt like a bitch.
This wasn’t how Bo imagined his well-deserved playtime after a long week at work, certainly not after a sweaty gig in front of two hundred people. Dammit, wasn’t he supposed to forget about Eli Winkler while he was here? He could’ve been fucking that other guy by now.
Bo dropped to his knees. “This will hurt,” he said, looking up, surprised when Eli met his gaze.
He’d have to touch Eli to get the thing off. He ran his fingers around the black leather strap behind Eli’s balls, the strong rubber strap around his cock. He’d seen gear like that online. Wasn’t there supposed to be a release of some sort? Except he wasn’t finding it.
Eli moaned, part pleasure and part pain.
Bo looked at the short guy. “How d’you take this off?”
“There’s a buckle,” the guy said, but the small buckle was buried by distended flesh and hidden in a nest of black pubic hair.
“Fuck this,” Bo said. He fished a knife out of his pocket and flicked it open.
The short guy took two steps back, and the guy behind Eli bugged his eyes out. “Hey... !”
Bo knew how sharp his knife was. He grabbed Eli’s cock, ignoring the pain-and-pleasure moan overhead and the reek of testosterone. It was hot and hard and big in his hand, but this was an emergency measure, right? He wasn’t supposed to enjoy touching. This was first aid, asshole, and he wasn’t going to perv on the guy.
Grateful he was sober, Bo gathered his resolve and eased the tip of his knife under the black strap, supporting it with the fingers of his other hand to make sure he didn’t snag any skin. He angled the sharp edge of the blade away from the skin and toward the rubber.
The strap was so tight, a mere touch of his knife made it pop like a balloon.
The rubber binding snapped, hitting Eli where it hurt on the rebound.
Eli screamed. He contorted his body, still hanging off the hammock by his arms and shoulders, his legs giving out.
Bo saw Eli’s purple, distended dick pulse and glisten for just a moment before a load of hot cream hit him right in the face.
ELI WASN’T quite sure how his regular playtime turned so wrong. All he knew he’d never been as turned on as this except it hurt, and whatever Matt and Jeff did to him, it went too far. He wanted it to stop, but neither Matt nor Jeff cared to listen. His cock was painful and hard, his balls about to explode, and the rest of his body seethed from too much sex play and Ecstasy.
Arousal turned to pain and the desire for release took on a desperate edge.
And then they put the damn thing on him, and he got tangled up in a hammock that turned from a trusted support to a frightening restraint.
His thighs trembled, his calves cramped.
He hated them. Matt and Jeff and their games, their possessive stupid machinations, their pithy efforts to make him come back.
He didn’t want to.
This was supposed to be just benefits. No strings attached.
They were supposed to be his friends.
When the pain got so bad his legs were about to give out, leaving him hanging like on a cross, Bo showed up.
Eli would’ve been embarrassed if he weren’t so damn grateful.
Did Bo really touch his dick?
He felt cold, then pain.
He screamed. A rush of heat surged forth, then weakness and a pitiful and entirely unsatisfying tail end of pleasure, followed by plain relief.
The hard, rough floor bit into his knees, his chin. A voice came as though from afar.
“Hey. Eli! Wake up, man. You want me to call the police?”
He blinked. His world was reduced to the dark brown wooden planks of the floor, a pair of black biker boots, and leather pants. Air stirred against his overheated skin like a benediction. His cock and balls still hurt, but it was different now. Less urgent. More like an old bruise than sharp pain, reminding him of gym in elementary school and the aftermath of soccer accidents.
Water.
A kingdom for a drink of ice cold water, or for a bath. He felt so damn hot it was like burning up. And his dick hurt again with blood rushing to it, filling it and stretching it.
Cold shower.
“Hang in there, Eli. Water’s coming up.” Cold, smooth mercy caressed his lips with its wet touch. Life giving, life affirming.
Time must have passed, hours or minutes or centuries. He heard the hiss of rain and felt two bodies against him, one tall and one short, and the smooth wetness of tepid water. Just cold enough to take the heat away. Refreshing enough for his legs to perk up just enough so he could stand while leaning.
If only his dick didn’t keep getting hard.
“Shit.” Eli didn’t know who said that. He wasn’t all dry when someone wrapped him in a rough wool blanket.
Cold, icy pain made him gasp. Just more pain.
“Keep the ice pack on,” the same, gruff voice said.
Eli drifted off, not remembering a thing after that.