I can do that. Although I'm not sure what TJ is looking for, what he expects. But I have everything ...
I show him the shelves on the other side of the podium, take him into the office and open the box on the desk. Cuffs and collars, paddles and floggers. Thin canes hang from hooks on the walls. Bolts in the mantle of the fireplace and on the floor in front of it. Winter fun. Almost as entertaining as hockey.
Liquor in the cabinets, with heavy crystal tumblers. Joints in the desk drawers. Cock rings and nipple clamps and quills sharp enough to draw blood. Soft white ropes and silk scarves and rosary beads and a bible. A priest's collar and handcuffs. A cock cage and weights to dangle from balls and M&M's.
What? I get hungry, just like everyone else.
A journal and an old pack of cigarettes beside a Zippo that I'd wondered where I had left ...
My fingers dance over the edge of the desk when I'm done and I turn back to TJ. My skin tingling as if he is already touching me. My cock aching, swollen and hard and hot in my jeans. My vision already narrowing to see only his face.
Blood pounds past my eardrums like ocean waves crashing on the beach. A silent prayer in my mind and on my lips ... and I sink to my knees in front of him.
It’s quite the candy store, complete with M&Ms; something for every taste, every kink, every desire. So much stuff, and yet …
My heart stops as David falls to his knees, head bowed. Waiting for me to bless him. Heal him. Guide him. The suddenness of it shakes me, moves me and I have to fight to keep my expression neutral, my posture from yielding.
Reach down, cup his chin in my palm.
If he doesn’t know, he needs to be told.
If he doesn’t remember, he needs to be reminded.
“Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus…”
Holy, holy holy.
Let my touch bring him to his feet. Kiss the top of his hand.
“Wait for me by the altar, David.”
His face is already ruddy and glistening with sweat as he turns and obeys me without a word. It takes seconds for me to take what I need, slip it in my pocket, but I wait a few beats to let my breathing regulate and gain my composure before walking back to David. He stares at me, and I can see his wheels turning, naked curiosity and anticipation and imagination warring with one another, making my cock hard and my palms itch.
I lead David to the cross, turn his back to it.
“The real bondage is never with ropes or chains, is it? It’s always what ties us up on the inside. What keeps us. What holds us.”
Reach into my pocket, and uncap the tiny vial of anointing oil. Rose, Narcissus. Decadent, indulgent. Symbolic of pride.
Take his right hand, and let a drop of the anointing oil fall like a tear on the ridge of bone and nerve at the junction of his palm and fingers. Draw it across that dividing line, glistening and slick and raise his palm to my mouth.
“You don’t need silken bindings,” I whisper, kissing the valley in his hand where the lines of fate, life, and luck meet.
Take his left hand. Another bead falls, splashing at the crest of his palm, and I swipe it in an arc below his long, tempting fingers,
“You don’t need steel chains,” I tell him, letting my lips rest in a starburst of lines that will betray his artists’ calling to any palmist worth her salt.
“Lean back. Let your shoulders rest on the cross. Now raise your arms, and take your burden. Carry it like the thieves following Christ’s path to Calvary.”
David bends his knees and loops his arms behind the crossbar.
“Like this,” I tell him, and take his left hand and place it on the crosspiece. “Use your hands. Hold on to it.”
Expertly drilled into the chapel’s support joists, designed to hold the crucified no matter their size or height, this cross is not meant to be lifted, or carried. Feet splayed, knees bent and aligned with his shoulders, David readjusts to get a handhold on the polished slat.
“When we met last night, I decided to answer any question you’d ask honestly, no matter what. I don’t understand why. Maybe because it’s easier than inventing lies or trying to keep track of half-truths. I don’t know. I just … saw you standing there and it was what I needed to do. Wanted to do.
“I told you that I was leaving today, and that was my intention. But sometime … I don’t know when it was, exactly. But sometime between being your canvas and stealing a cookie, I realized I couldn’t make that decision alone.
“I need your help, David.
“I don’t handle being banished well. That’s why I’m always the one to leave, always a step ahead of the rejection, the decision. I would rather have control of myself, of my life, even if it means walking away with nothing. At least I know it was my decision.
“But this is different. For the first time in my life I can’t choose. I don’t know what’s right. And I need you to help me.
“Here’s how it works. You hold on to that cross brace, just like you’re holding it now. All five fingers on each hand, holding on. At any time you want, you can let go. It’s entirely up to you.
“No ropes. No chains. Nothing to keep you holding on but will.
“If you let go - when we’re finished here I’ll walk out of this chapel, get my gear and be on my way.
“If either of your hands slips off the bar, I leave this place. Same for your fingers. Lift them from the wood and you’ve helped me make my decision. No negotiation, no turning back. No regrets, baby, because if that’s the way it plays, it’s the way it was meant to be.
I've never stood against the cross with any sort of clothes on. I've never stood here with out ties or fetters or leather or metal. I've never been asked to help anyone decide anything more complicated than what to have for dinner or whether to smoke a joint or drop acid or the white pill or the red. Never ... at any time.
I can smell the oil on my wrists and palms. Still feel the heat of his lips there. The wood is hard and unyielding behind me. It never gives. Not an inch, not a heartbeat. No second chances and there are no discussions or bargains to be made. I can see the hooks that I installed myself and I have nothing to pull against. Nothing to fight. Nothing to hold onto, nothing but the cross itself and the passion in his eyes.
"I understand."
I whisper. Letting all the questions go out of my mind. They'll either be answered or they won't. This is his time and I am, for now, here, for as long as he wants to play this out ... I am his.
Standing on the razor’s edge of risk, admitting my limits and desires and my inexplicable need to be helped. That’s hardest thing for me to do, always has been, and it is now. Even though David has acquiesced, I’m half expecting him to lower his hands voluntarily.
The next hardest thing for me to do is raise my expectations. And whatever happens here, I will forever have this beautiful, wounded man to thank for that grace. The instructions are barely past my lips and I see his nail beds turning white as he grips, see the muscles in his arms tense and flex with effort.
I don’t know how I remember this. Catholic prep, Latin Mass when it was dusty and out of vogue and forbidden by the mainstream. None of that matters now, it just reveals itself through me. Reach up, cover David’s palms with my own.
“Memento, famulorum tuarum David et Terrence…”
Be mindful of thy servants, David and Terrence.
“Who unto you we offer this sacrifice, for the good of our souls, for their hope of salvation, and deliverance from all harm.”
Prayers so unlike my own, yet so familiar, and I feel David’s lips move as I speak, as though he knows them, too. Slip my hands from their resting place, look into his eyes.
“You can let go any time, David. But if you decide to hold, don’t release unless I say the words ‘let go.’ Understood?”
He nods slowly, so I back away and lean against the railing. I can see the outline of his erection straining the prison of his jeans, working as well as any number of the restraints in his collection.
My voice is barely above a whisper, channeled somehow, but it echoes in my ears, carried on waves of light and heat.
“I need to hear your voice. I want to hear your voice. Not asking you to be silent. Not asking you to hold your thoughts. You asked me to give you some of myself, and I have. You asked me to be still while you bound me without ropes or chains, without anything but paint and brushes, and I was. You can ask me for more, and I’ll give it to you. No conditions.
“I’ve felt your heartbeat on my hand, from inside you. But it’s not enough. I want to know who was the last person to break you without chains, or whips, or collars or cock rings. I want to know how he did it, and why.”
There is an easel in the chapel's office. A painting on it that will never be finished. Stretched canvas and wood. Oil paints over a sketch done in pencil. Brushes that were never cleaned and are nothing but trash.
Blood red and dark brown. Pearl white and denim blue. Shades of black and flecks of yellow and gold. The only part that is done is the background at the top and one side. The chapel. Right here and right now.
"You'd think after a lifetime of this, that it couldn't happen without leather and metal. You'd think that a soul would become steel and a heart would be stronger than anything made to hurt. But it's not. I'm not."
Sweat trickles down my sides and chest. I can feel the burn start in my shoulders. The beginning of pain and I welcome it. There is something so clarifying about it. Everything that is immaterial is washed away in a tide of red and white and the only part that is left is the truth of what we are.
"I was broken with love. By love. Love so strong, so encompassing, so perfect that I couldn't bear to share it with anyone else. When it was, I stood up and fought for what I thought was mine ... I found out that nothing I knew was true and I was left with nothing at all. I was left alone."
I'm whispering. Trembling. Fingers pressing into the wood as if it is holding me up, keeping me here.
"There was love."
I close my eyes. Rest my head back for a moment. Fighting the need to go back there to find the truth. Fighting the knowledge that I already realized. And I don't know when or where or how. A drunken stupor at midnight. A stoned minute when I stood on the edge of the roof of the castle and the wind blew past me, through me. Staring into the mirror as I shaved one morning and it was right there. In my eyes. Lucky I didn't just cut my throat. Who was lucky, I'm still not sure about.
Sweat rolls from his shoulders, glistening in shallow pools in his clavicle, and his face and neck are flushed with effort. Ignore the heaviness in my cock, the blood thrumming in my ears, willing the white noise of desire and passion to the background.
Breathe, and center my energy.
"So you were lying to me in the shower, then? When you asked me to give you a moment of myself? When you said ... 'there is no owning'? Do you remember that, David?
"Is that something you learned on your journey, or just your standard pick-up line?"
I lift my head. Open my eyes. Look across to where TJ stands. Obviously as turned on as I am, those sweats don't hide much. He's standing still, but his chest shines with a light coating of sweat and his eyes are dilated with desire. His mouth wet.
I lick my lips and tilt my head. Shift against the cross, my jeans falling a little down my hips. Knowing my own cock is outlined in the soft, worn material.
"There is no owning, TJ. You know that. Yeah, it might have been a line, but nothing will ever make me stop asking ..."
I shake my head. Roll my shoulders. Put my skull back and look up, stare up into the dark above us.
I want him. I want him.
And all he wants is honesty from me.
What is that? When I don't even know who I am any more.
"I will still say mine when I fuck and I will still ask for more than what I deserve. I will still break who I can and bend when I can't ... I will never get tired of finding out what makes people who they are and I will never stop wanting to be touched ... to be held ... to be loved.
"And I really really fucking wish that you would come over here and kiss me."
Twist the beads in my fingers and let them fall back into my pocket. His hands are vise grips, fingers splayed wide, the span between his thumb and index finger on each hand barely bridging the width of the brace. Oil sheens his wrists, runs in rivulets down his forearms, leaving tracks sweeter and more bitter than blood.
I cross the floor and stand within arm’s reach of him, smelling roses and black narcissus and sweat and him. Heady and dangerous and addictive and he is so tempting that my mouth fills with saliva and I bite the sides of my tongue to remind myself that this isn’t nearly finished.
David leans his body toward me, arcing forward, asking without words to be touched. Begging for a kiss, for the skim of fingertips or tongue on superheated skin.
Instead, I reach for the top button of his jeans, unhook it without touching the satin skin beneath. He bucks toward me as I release another, and another, squirming himself out of his pants by twisting his hips. His cock springs free, purpled against the pale skin of his belly, trembling and rock solid as the jeans pool around his feet.
He takes my breath away.
Body slick with sweat, the outline of his ribs visible from the tension in his back and sides, nipples hard without breath, and kiss marks - bluish bruises where my mouth and fingers have pressed and bitten and sucked. Trails of scalded skin where my beard has burned him make me smile, make me want to redden them and feel him writhe under me, hear him beg for me . . .
Reach into my pocket and draw out the only other restraint we’ll need, at least for the time being.
David’s eyes widen at the sight of the beads, and I can only wonder . . . don’t need to, though, and spread them in my fingertips as if to say them.
Without touching his flesh, I loop them over his cock, and pass the crucifix through the loop to make a slip knot.
“There’ll be time for kissing in awhile, David. I promise,” I tell him, and pull the cross hard, tightening the loop.
I should feel cooler the instant my jeans hit the hardwood floor. But I don't. I should feel better that TJ has finally come closer to me. Close enough that I can smell him again. But I don't. I should be twisted in my soul by the rosary beads he pulls from the pocket of his sweats and I should feel the flames of hell licking at my feet when he ties them around my cock ... but I don't.
I'm caught for the moment in that space where there is nothing but what he wants. What he needs. What I am given.
Leaning as far away from the cross as I can without letting go of the wood. Dipping my head down to taste the air as I drag in breath after breath. Keeping my eyes locked with his.
Make another loop with the beads and another, double up the rows so the crucifix dangles between the juncture of his cock and balls. Can’t resist reaching and tugging on his balls, feel them tighten with just a touch. David’s moan echoes through the tiny space, absorbed by stone and time and so much history.
The color of his cock deepens, and his fingertips become ever so slightly paler as they dig into the cross. He dips down, struggles to reach me.
I step back, let cool air rise between us. His promises are good, and so are mine.
"I'm looking to be accepted for who I am. Me. Terry. Nobody else. Not the heir to some fucking monstrous machine. I'm looking for something more than acceptable satisfaction. I want joy. And passion and fire and devotion a reason to get up in the morning. I'm looking for a way to carry on."
I show him the shelves on the other side of the podium, take him into the office and open the box on the desk. Cuffs and collars, paddles and floggers. Thin canes hang from hooks on the walls. Bolts in the mantle of the fireplace and on the floor in front of it. Winter fun. Almost as entertaining as hockey.
Liquor in the cabinets, with heavy crystal tumblers. Joints in the desk drawers. Cock rings and nipple clamps and quills sharp enough to draw blood. Soft white ropes and silk scarves and rosary beads and a bible. A priest's collar and handcuffs. A cock cage and weights to dangle from balls and M&M's.
What? I get hungry, just like everyone else.
A journal and an old pack of cigarettes beside a Zippo that I'd wondered where I had left ...
My fingers dance over the edge of the desk when I'm done and I turn back to TJ. My skin tingling as if he is already touching me. My cock aching, swollen and hard and hot in my jeans. My vision already narrowing to see only his face.
Blood pounds past my eardrums like ocean waves crashing on the beach. A silent prayer in my mind and on my lips ... and I sink to my knees in front of him.
Reply
My heart stops as David falls to his knees, head bowed. Waiting for me to bless him. Heal him. Guide him. The suddenness of it shakes me, moves me and I have to fight to keep my expression neutral, my posture from yielding.
Reach down, cup his chin in my palm.
If he doesn’t know, he needs to be told.
If he doesn’t remember, he needs to be reminded.
“Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus…”
Holy, holy holy.
Let my touch bring him to his feet. Kiss the top of his hand.
“Wait for me by the altar, David.”
His face is already ruddy and glistening with sweat as he turns and obeys me without a word. It takes seconds for me to take what I need, slip it in my pocket, but I wait a few beats to let my breathing regulate and gain my composure before walking back to David. He stares at me, and I can see his wheels turning, naked curiosity and anticipation and imagination warring with one another, making my cock hard and my palms itch.
I lead David to the cross, turn his back to it.
“The real bondage is never with ropes or chains, is it? It’s always what ties us up on the inside. What keeps us. What holds us.”
Reach into my pocket, and uncap the tiny vial of anointing oil. Rose, Narcissus. Decadent, indulgent. Symbolic of pride.
Take his right hand, and let a drop of the anointing oil fall like a tear on the ridge of bone and nerve at the junction of his palm and fingers. Draw it across that dividing line, glistening and slick and raise his palm to my mouth.
“You don’t need silken bindings,” I whisper, kissing the valley in his hand where the lines of fate, life, and luck meet.
Take his left hand. Another bead falls, splashing at the crest of his palm, and I swipe it in an arc below his long, tempting fingers,
“You don’t need steel chains,” I tell him, letting my lips rest in a starburst of lines that will betray his artists’ calling to any palmist worth her salt.
“Lean back. Let your shoulders rest on the cross. Now raise your arms, and take your burden. Carry it like the thieves following Christ’s path to Calvary.”
David bends his knees and loops his arms behind the crossbar.
“Like this,” I tell him, and take his left hand and place it on the crosspiece. “Use your hands. Hold on to it.”
Expertly drilled into the chapel’s support joists, designed to hold the crucified no matter their size or height, this cross is not meant to be lifted, or carried. Feet splayed, knees bent and aligned with his shoulders, David readjusts to get a handhold on the polished slat.
“When we met last night, I decided to answer any question you’d ask honestly, no matter what. I don’t understand why. Maybe because it’s easier than inventing lies or trying to keep track of half-truths. I don’t know. I just … saw you standing there and it was what I needed to do. Wanted to do.
“I told you that I was leaving today, and that was my intention. But sometime … I don’t know when it was, exactly. But sometime between being your canvas and stealing a cookie, I realized I couldn’t make that decision alone.
“I need your help, David.
“I don’t handle being banished well. That’s why I’m always the one to leave, always a step ahead of the rejection, the decision. I would rather have control of myself, of my life, even if it means walking away with nothing. At least I know it was my decision.
“But this is different. For the first time in my life I can’t choose. I don’t know what’s right. And I need you to help me.
“Here’s how it works. You hold on to that cross brace, just like you’re holding it now. All five fingers on each hand, holding on. At any time you want, you can let go. It’s entirely up to you.
“No ropes. No chains. Nothing to keep you holding on but will.
“If you let go - when we’re finished here I’ll walk out of this chapel, get my gear and be on my way.
“If either of your hands slips off the bar, I leave this place. Same for your fingers. Lift them from the wood and you’ve helped me make my decision. No negotiation, no turning back. No regrets, baby, because if that’s the way it plays, it’s the way it was meant to be.
“Do you understand?”
Reply
I can smell the oil on my wrists and palms. Still feel the heat of his lips there. The wood is hard and unyielding behind me. It never gives. Not an inch, not a heartbeat. No second chances and there are no discussions or bargains to be made. I can see the hooks that I installed myself and I have nothing to pull against. Nothing to fight. Nothing to hold onto, nothing but the cross itself and the passion in his eyes.
"I understand."
I whisper. Letting all the questions go out of my mind. They'll either be answered or they won't. This is his time and I am, for now, here, for as long as he wants to play this out ... I am his.
Reply
The next hardest thing for me to do is raise my expectations. And whatever happens here, I will forever have this beautiful, wounded man to thank for that grace. The instructions are barely past my lips and I see his nail beds turning white as he grips, see the muscles in his arms tense and flex with effort.
I don’t know how I remember this. Catholic prep, Latin Mass when it was dusty and out of vogue and forbidden by the mainstream. None of that matters now, it just reveals itself through me. Reach up, cover David’s palms with my own.
“Memento, famulorum tuarum David et Terrence…”
Be mindful of thy servants, David and Terrence.
“Who unto you we offer this sacrifice, for the good of our souls, for their hope of salvation, and deliverance from all harm.”
Prayers so unlike my own, yet so familiar, and I feel David’s lips move as I speak, as though he knows them, too. Slip my hands from their resting place, look into his eyes.
“You can let go any time, David. But if you decide to hold, don’t release unless I say the words ‘let go.’ Understood?”
He nods slowly, so I back away and lean against the railing. I can see the outline of his erection straining the prison of his jeans, working as well as any number of the restraints in his collection.
My voice is barely above a whisper, channeled somehow, but it echoes in my ears, carried on waves of light and heat.
“I need to hear your voice. I want to hear your voice. Not asking you to be silent. Not asking you to hold your thoughts. You asked me to give you some of myself, and I have. You asked me to be still while you bound me without ropes or chains, without anything but paint and brushes, and I was. You can ask me for more, and I’ll give it to you. No conditions.
“I’ve felt your heartbeat on my hand, from inside you. But it’s not enough. I want to know who was the last person to break you without chains, or whips, or collars or cock rings. I want to know how he did it, and why.”
Reply
Blood red and dark brown. Pearl white and denim blue. Shades of black and flecks of yellow and gold. The only part that is done is the background at the top and one side. The chapel. Right here and right now.
"You'd think after a lifetime of this, that it couldn't happen without leather and metal. You'd think that a soul would become steel and a heart would be stronger than anything made to hurt. But it's not. I'm not."
Sweat trickles down my sides and chest. I can feel the burn start in my shoulders. The beginning of pain and I welcome it. There is something so clarifying about it. Everything that is immaterial is washed away in a tide of red and white and the only part that is left is the truth of what we are.
"I was broken with love. By love. Love so strong, so encompassing, so perfect that I couldn't bear to share it with anyone else. When it was, I stood up and fought for what I thought was mine ... I found out that nothing I knew was true and I was left with nothing at all. I was left alone."
Reply
He was never this beautiful.
Not in two thousand years of hymns and paintings and prayers and offerings of war and money and love denied in his name. Not for a minute.
"Are you sure it was love, David? Or something else? Answer me carefully."
I press my thumb hard into the crucifix, hard enough to sting and bring a sharp bite of pain up my arm. My voice stays low, gentle.
A warning.
"Please."
Reply
I'm whispering. Trembling. Fingers pressing into the wood as if it is holding me up, keeping me here.
"There was love."
I close my eyes. Rest my head back for a moment. Fighting the need to go back there to find the truth. Fighting the knowledge that I already realized. And I don't know when or where or how. A drunken stupor at midnight. A stoned minute when I stood on the edge of the roof of the castle and the wind blew past me, through me. Staring into the mirror as I shaved one morning and it was right there. In my eyes. Lucky I didn't just cut my throat. Who was lucky, I'm still not sure about.
"It was obsession. And possession."
Reply
Sweat rolls from his shoulders, glistening in shallow pools in his clavicle, and his face and neck are flushed with effort. Ignore the heaviness in my cock, the blood thrumming in my ears, willing the white noise of desire and passion to the background.
Breathe, and center my energy.
"So you were lying to me in the shower, then? When you asked me to give you a moment of myself? When you said ... 'there is no owning'? Do you remember that, David?
"Is that something you learned on your journey, or just your standard pick-up line?"
Reply
I lick my lips and tilt my head. Shift against the cross, my jeans falling a little down my hips. Knowing my own cock is outlined in the soft, worn material.
"Why are you standing so far away, Terrence?"
Reply
"I'm just waiting for an honest answer, David."
And I am.
Reply
I shake my head. Roll my shoulders. Put my skull back and look up, stare up into the dark above us.
I want him. I want him.
And all he wants is honesty from me.
What is that? When I don't even know who I am any more.
"I will still say mine when I fuck and I will still ask for more than what I deserve. I will still break who I can and bend when I can't ... I will never get tired of finding out what makes people who they are and I will never stop wanting to be touched ... to be held ... to be loved.
"And I really really fucking wish that you would come over here and kiss me."
Reply
I cross the floor and stand within arm’s reach of him, smelling roses and black narcissus and sweat and him. Heady and dangerous and addictive and he is so tempting that my mouth fills with saliva and I bite the sides of my tongue to remind myself that this isn’t nearly finished.
David leans his body toward me, arcing forward, asking without words to be touched. Begging for a kiss, for the skim of fingertips or tongue on superheated skin.
Instead, I reach for the top button of his jeans, unhook it without touching the satin skin beneath. He bucks toward me as I release another, and another, squirming himself out of his pants by twisting his hips. His cock springs free, purpled against the pale skin of his belly, trembling and rock solid as the jeans pool around his feet.
He takes my breath away.
Body slick with sweat, the outline of his ribs visible from the tension in his back and sides, nipples hard without breath, and kiss marks - bluish bruises where my mouth and fingers have pressed and bitten and sucked. Trails of scalded skin where my beard has burned him make me smile, make me want to redden them and feel him writhe under me, hear him beg for me . . .
Reach into my pocket and draw out the only other restraint we’ll need, at least for the time being.
David’s eyes widen at the sight of the beads, and I can only wonder . . . don’t need to, though, and spread them in my fingertips as if to say them.
Without touching his flesh, I loop them over his cock, and pass the crucifix through the loop to make a slip knot.
“There’ll be time for kissing in awhile, David. I promise,” I tell him, and pull the cross hard, tightening the loop.
Reply
I'm caught for the moment in that space where there is nothing but what he wants. What he needs. What I am given.
Leaning as far away from the cross as I can without letting go of the wood. Dipping my head down to taste the air as I drag in breath after breath. Keeping my eyes locked with his.
"What are you looking for, Terrence?"
Reply
Make another loop with the beads and another, double up the rows so the crucifix dangles between the juncture of his cock and balls. Can’t resist reaching and tugging on his balls, feel them tighten with just a touch. David’s moan echoes through the tiny space, absorbed by stone and time and so much history.
The color of his cock deepens, and his fingertips become ever so slightly paler as they dig into the cross. He dips down, struggles to reach me.
I step back, let cool air rise between us. His promises are good, and so are mine.
"I'm looking to be accepted for who I am. Me. Terry. Nobody else. Not the heir to some fucking monstrous machine. I'm looking for something more than acceptable satisfaction. I want joy. And passion and fire and devotion a reason to get up in the morning. I'm looking for a way to carry on."
Reply
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