Truman waited until Hugh was in the shower back at the hotel. Then he called Will.
“Please tell me you’re available for a phone call in fifteen minutes or so.”
“Sure. We’re just fucking around rearranging the living room again.”
“In private, Will.”
A pause, while Will left the rest of his housemates (Truman could hear Adam say something and Molly laugh).
“What happened?”
“I won’t know until I listen to him tell you the story. He’s in the shower now, but he’ll call you when he’s out.”
“’Course. He okay?”
I won’t know until I listen to him tell you the story. “He’ll be just fine, Will. Wait until you hear about our evening.”
“Aw, Tru, not fair!”
“Love you.”
“You too. I’ll be here.”
Yes, he would be. Phone in his lap, ringer and vibrate activated, ready to see Hugh’s name light up the screen.
“Speak to you soon.”
They hung up and Truman moved around the room, plugging in phone chargers and unpacking his essentials. He was reading when Hugh came out of the shower, prepared for moodiness and that sullen edge that still made him want to throttle his husband.
Instead, he got calm acceptance.
“I’m all right,” Hugh said, and sat down. “I will be all right.”
Truman held out his phone. “Talk to Will.” And braced for the convincing he had no doubt would follow.
Hugh opened the phone and hit speed dial three, which was Will on both of their phones. He waited for Will to answer and said, “It’s me.”
The story Hugh told Will was factual with just enough detail to provide a tease, and Truman smiled when Will’s voice rose in protest. He did not explain that Truman had lost himself to throwing the flogger (and gone much, much too far), or that Red had insisted he receive the same.
And yet, Hugh didn’t have to go into all that, because somehow Will knew what was underlying this particular darkness without being told.
“Yes, I realized that in the shower. No, in the moment I thought he reminded me of you, that I was reacting to their dynamic, but it wasn’t—” A pause while Hugh closed his eyes. “Yes, Will. I haven’t yet, but I will. I stepped out of the shower and he handed me a phone, I wasn’t avoiding anything.” Hugh sighed. “I wish you were, too.”
Truman sat back, satisfied now, and listen to them talk, trying to pick out the slightly altered cadences and tones in Hugh’s voice that indicated it was Will with whom he was speaking. Truman would know his Will-voice anywhere. He knew it when he was barely awake (Will called Hugh, knowing he’d be awake earlier), and he knew it in hushed tones when Hugh answered in public.
Right now, he sounded rueful, amused, and just edged enough to make Truman grateful he’d followed this particular instinct.
“No, it didn’t seem appropriate to record the evening, Will, you’ll have to use your imagination. Perhaps you can ask Truman to find a couple on Xtube who resemble them for your edification. No. Hush, Will. Yes. Of course.” Pause, and Truman inhaled, waiting. “Yes, I love you too. Here he is.”
He took the phone, kissing Hugh’s cheek as he did. “William.”
“Was the guy really like Ethan?”
How would I know? But Will didn’t know any more than he did. Both of them had formed a shadow impression of one particular ex of Hugh’s, and he couldn’t say that Bad either did or did not resemble him.
“I can’t imagine so, judging by how the evening went, but it’s hard to say.”
Hugh moved around the room, righting the things he needed to have out, carefully repacking anything he would not use between now and when they left in the morning.
“Shit, well, I don’t know, I guess give him a kiss for me and I’ll maybe see you when you get home.”
The idea that Will might just drop by—now, for the first time, possible—filled Truman with a deep well of joy.
“I’ll keep you posted about our progress up the coast.”
“Cool. Love you, Tru.”
“Love you, too. Goodnight.”
“‘Night. Again.”
Truman pictured Will’s smile and hung up.
“This is not something I feel the need to process,” Hugh said, rummaging in his suitcase.
“Because it doesn’t bother you, or because you’d rather ruminate on it all night in the privacy of your own head?”
“Because my feelings are old and irrational and do not bear any practical application to today.”
“All right, love.” Truman stood and began to undress. “I’ll just take my shower then.”
“Fine.” Not a petulant “fine”, a reserved, wait-to-break-down-until-you’re-asleep “fine”.
Truman showered, pulled on comfortable clothes, and climbed into bed. He reached for his book, which he’d left on the side table, but Hugh touched his wrist.
“Do you want to see your handiwork?”
No. And I’m so sorry, my love. But Hugh wouldn’t accept.
“I want you to see it,” Hugh admitted, voice low and even. “I want you to see the marks you leave, Truman.”
“Show me.”
Hugh’s back looked angry, splotched, red and pink and in some places almost shadowed, a brushing of purple.
“Oh. Hugh, I can’t believe I did this to you. You should have stopped me.”
“Stopped you? I couldn’t believe you kept going. I had to see where it would end.”
“But I—I didn’t mean anything like this. I was just trying to figure out how to get it right.”
“I know. And you did.” Hugh did not pull his shirt back on, just slid under the blankets on his side. “It felt nothing like the way it used to feel when it was other people. And yet I’m unable to stop picturing his skin.”
“You might have stopped.”
“Safeworded out of flogging a young man who clearly enjoys a flogging? On what grounds?”
Truman mirrored his position and smiled, with all the love and gentleness he could muster. “You tell me, Mr Reynolds. Under what circumstances would I be permitted to stop a scene like that if it was the three of us playing?”
“That’s different.”
“Because it’s okay for me to have limits, but not the great Hugh Reynolds?”
“I have plenty of limits, Truman. It was different because I didn’t want to prematurely end a scene that meant something to him. Red. The young man.”
Repetition of “the young man”, though Truman wasn’t sure if there was significance in the phrase itself.
“Will asked me if Bad was anything like Ethan.”
“I know. He wasn’t entirely off-base, though Bad was not anything like Ethan. Ethan would have gagged me and handed me over, all the more delighted if my fear wasn’t balanced out by excitement. He walked that line very, very well. Bad was altogether something else.”
“Bad wouldn’t have let you near his boy if you hadn’t bent over the table and taken a beating,” Truman said.
“Yes. I proved myself to him.”
“And to Red. I’d love to see he and Will meet.”
“I’d love to see Will take him in hand. For a spanking, maybe.”
Not a thought that had occurred to Truman (though now that it had he didn’t like his chances of banishing it). “What did Will think you were avoiding?”
“You, of course.” Hugh’s eyes roamed the room, never resting anywhere longer than a few moments. “But I’m not.”
At least, not deliberately. “Is your battery charged?”
“I have a fresh battery in the ereader just in case I burn through the battery on my phone.”
“Good. I apologize in advance for falling asleep.”
“Never. One of us has to drive in the morning. We can switch off after I’ve had enough coffee to see the road.”
Truman settled in beside his husband, allowing his mind to drift. The lights were off and the curtains pulled, dense fabric and lining, letting in only a wobbly line of light along the bottom. Hugh’s phone, set to its lowest, darkest setting, then tweaked with some app that changed the frequency of the light to dim it further, barely cast a glow.
He dozed some, not quite losing awareness of the stiff hotel sheets, or the rise and fall of Hugh’s chest. It might not be tonight. It might be tomorrow, during their drive. It might even happen tomorrow night, nestled in a bed that smelled like home. He didn’t know, and although he would hold the understanding of this particular open loop until it was closed, Truman rarely worried anymore about Hugh’s inclination to bury the things that disturbed him. They always surfaced eventually.
“I didn’t feel it,” Hugh said, voice parting darkness. “I felt it, but I also felt detached from it. I haven’t felt that way in a long time and it came so easily to me.”
Truman opened his eyes and kept his breathing even.
“And I watched him struggle, knowing he wouldn’t safeword, and I did almost stop. Not because I thought he needed it, or I would have, but because it was too disturbing to me to know where he was in his head. To remember that place.” Hugh paused. “Of course, it’s all projection. That was very much what Red wanted, and he felt entirely safe within it.”
Here, a shiny stone never before turned over between them. Truman extended one hand to splay across Hugh’s stomach.
“Nick has always said that I am, at heart, a switch.” Tired amusement in his tone now.
“What am I?”
“I honestly have no idea. You take on whatever either of us need from you at any given moment, Truman.”
“How is that different than being a switch?”
“The role doesn’t turn you on. Being with us turns you on.”
He turned it over in his sleep-fogged brain, trying to understand. “Yes. But watching you and them turned me on, as well.”
“If Will had been here, he would have imagined being in Red’s place. If I had seen the scene as it was before we entered, I would have imagined being in Bad’s.” Hugh’s hand slid into place over Truman’s, fingers lacing through his. “What did you imagine?”
“I thought Will would find it hard to take, in Red’s position. I suppose I thought about the three of us doing that, but mostly I just enjoyed watching your body. You are a very stunning man, my husband.”
“Thank you.”
“Will you be able to sleep, love?”
“No. Not quite yet. Still muddling through something. I suppose it’s a desire to reclaim that sensation. It’s so good when you get it right, and I skipped over any ability to enjoy it to go straight to numbness. I wish I hadn’t done that.”
“It was unexpected. And I pushed it much too far.”
“But that’s not why I stopped feeling it. I stopped feeling it the second it began.” Hugh shifted, hand not leaving Turman’s. “Maybe because we had an audience, though it didn’t bother me. And I did want to impress him.”
“Because he reminded you of Will?”
“Because he reminded me of myself, searching for a big strong man to guide me.”
Truman breathed, trying very hard to put the pieces together. “But what you got was Ethan.”
“Truman, no. No. Ethan was never even close.” Hugh tugged their hands to his lips and placed a gentle kiss on Truman’s palm. “What I got was you.”
I’m not a big, strong man. And I certainly know nothing about guidance. Not in this context.
“You have no idea, do you? You are my moral compass, Truman. You have been since we met. And I wish I’d let myself feel that flogging because you’re the only man I’d trust in that position, or to take me that far down.”
Completely at sea, utterly lost, Truman sat up. “What are you saying?”
“I envied him. Red. I envied him the bliss of his release. They’re probably at home right now, curled in each other’s arms, and he knows he stretched himself today, he can go to sleep with the understanding that he knows himself better now, in light of it.”
The lights creeping in under the curtains barely gleamed off Hugh’s eyes, but Truman could watch, could see that they still roamed the room, never resting.
“Do you want to submit to me, love?” he asked, wishing he could take a timeout, phone Will, clarify his comprehension.
“I wouldn’t have said that, no. But my…hunger, for that place, has certainly been engaged by the scene earlier.”
Hunger. Truman propped himself up with pillows. “Come here.”
“There’s no need—”
“For you to lie awake all night, Hugh. Come here.”
He pressed against Truman’s side, laying his head down over his heart, smoothing the folds and creases of his shirt.
Did Hugh feel his heart pounding? He must.
Truman ran light fingertips up Hugh’s back, barely touching. “Does it hurt?”
“I feel it.”
“But does it hurt?”
“Some parts, yes.”
What had he said, back in that room with Red? Years of practice in shutting down sensation. “Can you be here with me and not shut down, my love?”
“I’m not sure.”
Truman allowed his hand to rest on the hot skin of Hugh’s back, high up, just below his shoulder. He remembered that being a particularly bright spot on the reddened map Truman could still picture. “Does this hurt?” he murmured, denting skin with his fingertips.
Deep breaths pushed back. “Yes.”
He had no idea how far to take it, slowly curving his fingers so Hugh would feel his nails. “And this?”
“Yes.” Slow, steady breaths, Hugh managing pain, controlling his responses.
Hugh seemed always to know how far was too far; Truman had often thought that in addition to the usual five or six senses, Hugh appeared to have remote access to the senses of others. He could take Will to the edges over and over again, no matter what the did, no matter what mood they were in. Truman had no such superpower, but he bit down on his tongue and dragged his nails over Hugh’s back, all the way down to his waistband, a scratch that seemed to take forever.
“Breathe,” he whispered, when Hugh froze.
One ragged breath, then another, and as he drew the third, Truman did it again, just as slowly, and kept scratching all the way back up.
Hugh shifted, turning his face into Truman’s chest, not pulling away. If anything his back was now presented more fully.
Oh, love. Love. “Does it hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Can you feel it?”
“I can feel it.”
“Good.”
He had no idea how long it went on, or how many times he dragged his nails across Hugh’s skin, sometimes twisting them, sometimes holding his hand in one place and digging in, as if Hugh’s back was a plot of land and the only tools he had to turn it over were his fingers. He reminded Hugh to breathe when he seemed to be holding his breath, but otherwise they were both quiet, only the shifting of sheets and skin inside their hotel room, inside the anonymous dark of this temporary place, this tranistory moment.
Hugh’s fists clawed in his shirt and this time Truman didn’t stop moving, didn’t end the sensation. He kept scratching, slowly, deeply, up and down, up and down, until Hugh was breathing harshly, muscles tense, energy coiled as if he might leap up at any second.
This time when Truman stopped scratching, Hugh exhaled, as if expelling all the air in his lungs.
“Enough. That’s enough.”
Which was what Truman had been waiting to hear, so he didn’t know exactly what led him to do it again, just as long, just as deep, just as slow.
“We’re done,” he said, and Hugh collapsed onto him, maybe sobbing, maybe laughing, maybe some combination of both.
“God, Truman, you—” Hot kisses pressed to his neck. “Will is never going to forgive us for doing that without him.”
Truman wanted to quip something back about doing it again, but he wasn’t sure he could handle doing it again.
“It’s all right. Hell, it’s better than all right. I’m on fire.” In more ways than one, apparently. Hugh moved, balancing over him, rutting against him. “Truman, say something.”
“You want to have sex after that?”
Hugh, teeth pale, eyes glittering. “You kept going when I told you it was enough.”
“It’s what you would have done,” Truman said, trying not to sound defensive.
“Yeah. Yes, it is.” In some move that was two parts upper body strength and one part coordination, Hugh shucked his pants and shoved down Truman’s to mid-thigh. “Oh my god, my back is in fucking ribbons. I felt every centimeter of that.” He took both of them in his hand, no lube, rough and dry.
“Shouldn’t we at least—”
“No. We should come, right now. Do it again, Truman. Scratch me again.”
“Hugh—”
“Please. Please do this.”
And Hugh was the one in some kind of extended push-up position, holding himself up with one arm while he jacked both of them together with his other. Hard to deny a man like that.
Truman reached up, with both hands, scratching parallel lines down Hugh’s back.
“God, god, Truman—”
He’d never, in the years they’d been together, seen Hugh come so fast. That alone might have been almost enough for Truman, but coupled with the searing, desperate kiss, he gave in, holding on to Hugh now for stability as he came, letting Hugh have his breaths, his moans, his surrender to this thing he hardly understood.
“You are the hottest man alive,” Hugh whispered into his ear, both of them still panting.
“Oh shut up.”
“Not joking. I love you, Truman Jennings. Please don’t ever stop pushing me.”
“I won’t. I won’t, love, not ever.”
Hugh needn’t have worried about his batteries. He fell asleep without even turning his phone back on, and Truman held him, careful now about his back, already rehearsing how he’d tease Hugh for falling asleep without cleaning them up.
every. damn. time.
Amazing! I am in awe of how well you write. You make it so real I just want to snuggle into bed with them and comfort them both. I can't wait to see Will's reaction to Hugh's back. He's going to be so upset he missed both parts of that scene.
Wow … I think I need to go take a moment now …
Also, poor Will. He seems to miss out on most of Hugh's torment.
Truman. So sublime. Good work, Smutwriter!
I LOVE YOUR WORK! Especially scientific method anything! Can I request a fan fiction? Of will getting kidnapped for ransom of highs money? Maybe NCS but not required. Please!? Omg I love your work tho so much! Like insane love lol
My friend, you have just described, yes, fanfiction! I can\’t write fanfiction of my own work. However, I do own the rights, so I can certainly grant you permission to write all the Will-in-jeopardy fanfic you\’d like! As long as you’re not making money on it, go right ahead!
Omg so psyched up! No money just for fun. You’re so Uber cool man.