Geoff
I hid out when Jace and his companions came inside and retreated into his room, but the walls weren’t soundproofed. I might not have been able to see what caused those groans and shouts, and the hard smack of skin against skin, but I could imagine well enough.
Sighing, I hauled out my laptop and earbuds, pulling up one of my preferred amateur porn sites and checking my bookmarks to see if my favorite poster had added any new videos. He hadn’t updated, so I selected one I’d already seen from his channel. I stripped off my T-shirt and pajama bottoms while the top (always hooded and anonymous for some reason) cuffed the bottom to the cross and pushed a fat dildo into his ass. Without my earbuds in, it was soundless, but I knew the bottom’s groan by heart.
Grabbing a prostate massager and lube out of my suitcase, I climbed onto the bed beside my laptop and put the earbuds in my ears as the top was warming up the bottom with a heavy flogger. God, I loved that sound, the meaty thud of the thick falls that could no doubt be felt in the deep muscles of his back. That literally could be deadly for me, but I bet it felt amazing. Rolling onto my side to face the screen, I squeezed some lube onto my fingertips and reached back, slipping them into my ass.
“Oh, fuck yeah . . .” I groaned in unison with the sub.
The top worked his way through a number of implements. Paddles and straps, tawses and cats, and even a cane, leaving welts in parallel stripes across the bottom’s lovely, round butt. I lubed the prostate massager and worked it in to the point where my body took over, drawing it inside until the crosspiece caught against my taint, offering pressure there as well.
In my ears, the bottom’s cries grew more and more pained, his back covered in the blotchy red of overheated skin broken up by deeper scarlet welts. Then, as I clenched and relaxed to help the massager do its work, and took my cock in hand, the top stepped back and grabbed another implement.
A completely unassuming implement. A thin, flexible rod with a short length of cord attached that was knotted at the end. I’d had to research to find out what it was called.
A dressage whip.
It barely made a sound cutting through the air, just the quietest whistle, even though it was obvious from the top’s grunt that he was throwing it with all his strength. It was almost silent on impact, but the bottom cried out. A purple stripe so dark it was nearly black appeared. As I watched, the subsequent stripes got more livid and the bottom’s screams escalated. Finally a line of crimson could be seen, a bead of blood seeping down the skin.
I groaned and began to pull on my cock with intent, the prostate massager pressing on me inside and out. The bottom had no tattoos, but he had permanent marks, oh yes. Shining white lines of healed tissue on his tan skin. I’d seen this couple do whippings before, draw blood before. I knew where those crisscrossed scars had come from. Single-tails, bullwhips, willow switches. But it was this one, with that harmless-looking whip, that kept me coming back.
It sliced into his skin neatly, in controlled cuts. Ruby droplets welled and slid down his shoulders, but they were contained.
The horrible irony was that this was something I could have—if I could ever find a partner to give it to me. A heavy flogger along my spine could paralyze or even kill me, but that little whip could be safe with a bit of first aid.
I closed my eyes, the bottom’s moans filling my ears, and pictured myself bound to that cross, thin trickles of blood working their way down my skin. I could only imagine how it must hurt. Not the deep agony of joint pain, which I was intimately familiar with, but something else entirely. A pain freely chosen. I envisioned my own skin marked with the scars left by a man who spoke the language of passion not only with kisses and caresses, but with lashes and torment. The hooded top was replaced by a broad-shouldered, muscular blond who etched his signature into my flesh with a few inches of knotted cord.
The bottom’s cries sharpened and accelerated. I knew the lashes were coming hard and fast across his shoulders, the whistling of that thin whip nearly constant. My orgasm built, pushed to the crisis point by the smooth toy within me, by the pressure of the handle against my perineum, by my own hand tugging it up from my balls along my cock, until I cried out, and it burst free, splattering my torso to my shoulders. In my ears, the cries receded to whimpers, the top’s voice muffled through the mask but still tender as he soothed his sub. Next he’d let the bottom down and sponge off the blood before covering the stripes in antiseptic ointment. He’d turn the camera off as he took his sub in his arms, murmuring more comfort and devotion.
I lay there panting for a long moment, still frustrated and unfulfilled despite getting off. Porn was a flimsy substitute for what I really wanted. I sighed and cleaned myself up and put away my toy and computer before crawling into bed. I stared at the ceiling and listened to the party going on in Jace’s room, my mind pacing back and forth over a well-worn path, until I finally managed to sleep.
The next day was unseasonably warm for early June. Jace and I both dragged ourselves out of bed late, though for very different reasons. Jace looked far too satisfied with himself, at least until he saw the bloody linens on the bathroom floor.
“Hey, you okay?” he asked when he’d emerged from the shower.
“Everything except my ego.” I offered him a wry smile, pouring two cups of coffee. “Worst timing for a nosebleed ever.”
“Oh, man, seriously? Right while you were getting busy?”
“God no! That really would be the worst timing. No, we never got to that point. The mood was already sort of ruined.”
Jace’s forehead creased. “He was that put off by a nosebleed?”
“No. I was.” I heard the clipped, abrupt sound of my own words, knew I was starting to get—what had Robin called it?—prickly, and looked away, hiding behind my cup of coffee.
“So, wait. Let me read between the lines. You had a guy here and you sent him packing because you were embarrassed?”
“Not exactly, no.” I wasn’t about to tell Jace that the evening had ended with Robin putting me in my place for holding back critical information about my hemophilia. According to Robin, I didn’t get it, so Jace certainly wouldn’t. All he’d know was that my hang-ups over being a bleeder had lost me an opportunity to start living my life the way I’d promised I was going to, and I really didn’t need the I told you so.
When I looked back, Jace was still staring askance at me.
“Forget about it.” I set my coffee aside, then rubbed my forehead. “It was stupid.”
Jace’s lips tightened for a moment. Then he blew out a breath. “Well, I thought I’d go out to take some photo references of the beaches and dunes. Want to go with? You can find someone else to get laid by.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll hang out by the pool. This place is still wall-to-wall leathermen.” I grinned, but Jace’s look said he wasn’t buying it. I was staying behind because I was moody, and he knew it. Shrugging, he left, his camera bag over his shoulder. With my nostrils conscientiously lubed with petroleum jelly, I spent the afternoon under an umbrella beside the pool, sketch pad in hand. I wanted to have a much bigger catalog of designs to offer when I opened my own studio. I didn’t want to rely on the ones Rogier had already used on A-list celebs, taking credit for my work while he stuck me with the D-listers and porn stars.
By the time dinner was over and I’d turned down Jace’s invitation to check out a bar in Saugatuck, I had to admit that I’d gone beyond moody and progressed to sulking. The arousal of last night, followed by the spectacularly unsexy resolution, had hit all my buttons.
We lived in a world where the more physically able you were, the more desirable you were. The cult of masculinity reigns supreme. A lifetime of finding myself sidelined in ways large and small had done a number on my self-esteem, and I was tired of it. My twenties had almost completely passed me by. I wanted more, if only in this one realm. I wanted everything Robin had claimed he had to offer.
God, did I want it.
But aside from the glaring self-image issues, there were the actual problems I faced as a result of my hemophilia. Not just injury. Joint pain and depression could take their toll on sex drive and sexual performance. My sex drive seemed to be doing okay, but my performance hadn’t been put to the test all that much, aside from acquiring some champion cocksucking skills at glory holes.
I was still spinning these thoughts around in my head, endlessly fixated on a puzzle with no apparent answers, as night fell outside. I put away my sketch pad and lay on the sofa, restless and apathetic. Finally the reckless streak that occasionally popped up to say “fuck this shit” took the reins. I grabbed a light jacket and slammed out of the cottage, striding across the resort grounds toward some woods Jace had told me about the night before.