Deliver Us (42 page)

“Oh,” Ben nods, wagging a finger at the south side of the building, “I enjoy that wallpaper. Tell me, do you think those are pansies or violets?”

“Blue bells,” Micah replies, thinking it over. “Gives the room a quaint, country charm, don’t you think?”

“I hate you guys,” Gabriel complains half-heartedly.

“Trace fucked me in that room once,” Ben says, recalling the memory fondly with a sigh and a small smile. “He’s a vigorous lover, isn’t he, our Trace? Bet your asshole is plenty sore right about now.”

“And how,” Micah agrees.

“Sitting on wooden benches doesn’t help much, either. Want me to get you a cushion?” Ben offers.

“Wait,” Gabriel interrupts, “Trace fucked you? In the ass?”

“Well, I don’t have a pussy, so yes. In the ass. Shall I describe it for you? The fucking, not my ass. You’ve seen my ass. Obviously.”

“
’Obviously’
...?” Gabriel squints before waving a hand in annoyance, moving on and asking, “When did Trace fuck you?”

“It was just the once. What can I say? I was curious about his man-meat and legendary sexual prowess. It was a tranquil but bitterly cold fall day in October of the year two thousand and five, I believe. I caught him leering at me from across the dungeon, the wooden spanking paddle in his hand gave me lewd ideas and I felt myself blushing like a schoolgirl....”

“Ben!” Gabriel shouts, interrupting and covering his ears with his palms. “For the love of
God
, dude!”

Ben beams at Gabriel’s discomfort.

“I like you,” Micah grins over at Ben.

“Thank you, Micah!” Ben gushes happily, “I like you too. What do you say, shall we go fuck in the recovery room with the quaint, country charm? Who’s gonna take it up the pooper? Flip a coin?”

“Jesus Christ,” Gabriel moans, though laughing. He stands, taking the remains of his lunch with him. He tosses it into a trashcan. “I’m going back to work. Enjoy your lovefest. You two deserve each other.”

The sheer ridiculousness of the entire morning and then lunch puts Gabriel at ease for his turn as symbolic sub to Micah’s Dom that afternoon. But, when they find themselves all alone in the dungeon, knowing that Trace, Ben, and the client are in a session in Diadem’s outdoor setup located in an old barn to the back of the property, his ease falters.

Gabriel gets to the bottom of the dungeon’s stairs and sees Micah standing in the relative darkness, candlelight and shafts of daylight from the stairwell the only brightness in the huge space. He has removed his shirt, as the Doms of Diadem are wont to do, and his black trousers hang almost obscenely low on his hips, the belt barely catching on the rounded swell of his backside to keep them aloft. Gabriel is forced to admit to himself that he looks much more attractive that way—half-dressed—especially with a determined fire burning in his eyes; clearer and more intense now than that morning when he had first seen it. Micah’s slightly off-kilter personality and bizarreness was funny and entertaining at lunch and when Trace was there to control it. It only seems dangerous now that it’s just him and Gabriel with no one else even in the
building
, let alone in the room to mediate.

Micah shakes his hair back out of his eyes and measures out lengths of rope.

“You don’t mind the lighting, do you?” Micah asks, noticing how Gabriel is standing immobile and hesitant by the exit to the upper floors. “I wanted it to be as real as possible to see if I can tie these knots in the dark.”

After a delay, he answers, “No,” rousing himself. He starts to unbutton his shirt. “That’s fine. Makes sense.”

It occurs to Gabriel that this is the first time he’s been alone with Micah for an extended span of time. In a flash he remembers how Ben always used to tease him that Micah had a crush on him, and always specifically requested to have Gabriel assist in his sessions.

Getting his shirt off, and hanging it from an arm of the Saint Andrew’s cross nearby, Gabriel walks around Micah to where the cameras have been stashed against a far wall. Sliding one of the tripods over, he positions the digital camera in front of the padded tabletop they will be using for their practice session.

“Is it all right with you if I turn this on? I gave Darrek the access code so that he could watch if he wanted to,” Gabriel says without turning around.

“Of course. Having an audience always makes things more interesting.”

Gabriel glances back over his shoulder and sees Micah winding the thin, strong, hemp rope around and around his fists, testing the give and feeling the texture of it against his skin. Brow lowered, and eyes in shadow, he looks rather menacing. Gabriel wonders that he ever questioned Micah’s ability to switch to the Dominant role, as he’s clearly able to make even Gabriel, a larger man and more experienced Dom, feel anxious with only a look.

Spread out on a counter are printouts—diagrams of a handful of positions that Gabriel had emailed earlier for Micah to review. Micah studies them thoughtfully and Gabriel’s stomach flips at the thought of Micah putting him in those specific positions, one after another until they finish. Gabriel’s fingers hesitate only a moment before they begin undoing his fly.

“Are you okay with this?” Micah asks seriously. “Tell me now if you aren’t. You seem... unsure.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m just not used to being on this side of things.”

Pushing his jeans down and stepping out of them, leaving himself in his boxer briefs, Gabriel thinks of something to say or ask to relieve the suffocating tension.

“Um... I, uh... always wanted to ask. What’s your day job? So to speak.”

“I started a tech firm. Web hosting. Really boring stuff, but I sold it last year for a big profit. Since then, I haven’t exactly needed to work, so I’ve been... bored. Sometimes I write or act as a consultant to my former colleagues, but mostly I’ve been doing this.”

Gabriel boosts himself up onto the tabletop and sits on the edge with his legs dangling over the side. The response and the relative normalcy of Micah’s previous occupation both calms and concerns him. The concern stems mainly from the knowledge that, yes, Micah really is that smart, and yes, Gabriel thinks Micah is probably cleverer than him, by a great deal.

Walking over to the table, and Gabriel, bringing with him the cart laden with his supplies and instructions, Micah nods, indicating wordlessly that Gabriel should lie down.

“You know what we’re reviewing then?” Gabriel asks, easing back onto the padded vinyl and stretching out his legs, resting his hands on his chest.

“Yes. I think I have the knots down; I’ve been practicing those. But I want to make sure I get the correct tension and body positioning for best effect. Plus, I’m still working on my... technique... so I’ll be treating you as my sub.”

“Understood.”

Taking one length of rope, Micah slips a hand under Gabriel’s wrist, lifting it off of his chest. He begins to wind it around repeatedly and knots it. As he secures it to the other wrist, binding them together, Gabriel watches. Micah asks, with a flash of green irises beneath dark lashes, “What’s your safeword?”

“Discovery,” Gabriel says, staring up at the ceiling and trying not to recall in detail the last time he needed to use his safeword.

Guiding the bound wrists up above Gabriel’s head, Micah pulls the other man’s arms until they are straight and fully elongated. He ties off the ends of the rope to a metal hook at the head of the very long tabletop. Taking his time, he tests his handiwork, wanting to get it tight, but not too tight. Gabriel tries to be patient, all too aware of his near nakedness and the way the figurative helplessness of his situation is beginning to arouse him in the sickest of ways.

He’s all too familiar with being made to do sexual acts, acts that the person with him is enjoying much more than
he
. His cooperation is borne out of misguided duty or expectation. Offering himself up as a plaything, something to be toyed with and used, triggers intense negative reactions, but those emotions tend to get buried under conditioned responses honed over years and years of abuse. This is how Gabriel begins to feel himself mentally submitting to Micah even before they really start, and without fully understanding why.

Staring at the camera, Gabriel knows that the glowing red light on the side means that Darrek could be watching, that Darrek is there with him in one sense at least. Gabriel feels Micah’s hands skim down the underside of his taut arms, over his armpits and it tickles but he can only twist a little, unable to get away or cover up. Seeing Gabriel’s response to the tickling, the instantaneous reaction in his body which twitches away, wriggling, he does it again, getting Gabriel to squirm even more. He shoots Micah an angry glare and ignores how good it feels. Fingertips of both of Micah’s hands brush down his sides, and that tickles too, so he curses under his breath, closing his eyes to calm down. But then the fingers hook in the waist of his snug-fitting boxers, easing them slowly, steadily down.

A war of reactions and thoughts buffet him as Micah pulls the underwear down and off his legs. Staring away from Micah, and over at one of the flickering candles instead, Gabriel licks over his suddenly dry lips, half hard. He hates himself for it. This is even though he knows he needs to be naked for this, and that he also needs to be fully erect so that Micah can practice binding his genitals with the rope, this being the area of the body that needs the most care and skill when it comes to this sort of binding. They certainly don’t want to injure a client, so practice is a must.

Micah takes in the sight of Gabriel’s complete and utter nakedness, reluctantly looking away to glance over at the printed diagrams before he goes on with the next step. His hands skim over Gabriel’s bare hip and right thigh lightly enough to drive Gabriel insane. The backs of fingers brush back and forth over his navel, tracing circles around and dipping into his belly button and down to his pelvis, closer and closer to where his twitching cock lays up against his belly. Deciding on which pose to do first, Micah says, “Bend your legs sharply, calves flush to your thighs, with your knees back to your chest.”

Biting his tongue and breathing through his nose, Gabriel does as told, knowing, dreading the position Micah has chosen. He doesn’t watch when Micah ties a rope end to his left ankle and then winds it around his leg, binding his calf to his thigh, keeping his knee sharply bent, doubled up with his heel near his ass.

“Arch your back up as high as you can.”

The rope snakes under the middle of his back and through to the other side where it is all repeated, binding his right leg in the same way. Unsatisfied with the rope tension in his first attempt, Micah undoes his work and tries again, getting the rope under Gabriel’s back tighter to keep his legs yanked farther apart, and unable to move.

It’s a long process, but Gabriel knows that speed comes with practice too. He is almost able to relax and detach from what’s happening as the minutes tick by. But then, the position is nearly complete, his legs are bound, and he feels incredibly exposed.

As he works, Micah rests his right hand every so often just below Gabriel’s navel, his pinky finger only a hair’s breadth away from grazing the tip of Gabriel’s cock. It makes Gabriel nervous. With his other hand, Micah winds the longest length of rope on the cart around and around Gabriel’s torso and under the table as well. Soon he is tied flush to it, tightly enough to keep him from taking too deep a breath.

With the pose finished, Gabriel waits to see what will happen next. Micah steps to his right and turns slightly, putting his back to the camera, blocking the shot.

“You’re in a twenty-four/seven, Dominant/submissive relationship with Darrek, I hear,” he says conversationally, with a slightly brittle edge that Gabriel doesn’t miss.

Micah’s hand slides over the ropes that are beginning to really bite into the flesh of Gabriel’s left leg. It glides along the inside of his thigh, over the soft, sensitive skin at his hip, the junction of his thigh and torso. Then the hand moves lower, tickling over his ass cheeks.

“Control and power must be very important to you,” Micah says.

Fingers find the crease of his ass, trailing through it, avoiding the one spot Gabriel is most conscious of. He thinks Micah is just fucking with his head, testing him. He thinks he’s not going to go through with it. But then, the pad of one finger circles the rim of his opening lazily before coming to rest right on it, not pushing, just touching. Gabriel squeezes his eyes shut and counts backward from ten in his mind.

“Don’t,” he spits out. He opens his eyes with effort, staring up at Micah, and warns, “Don’t fucking do this. This isn’t supposed to be....”

The dry finger pushes, the tip breaching him.

Gabriel makes a small noise and tries to move, to escape, and can’t. He can’t move. He’s bound too tightly for that. The finger stays there, inside him. And impossibly, Micah ignores him; keeps talking as if Gabriel did not say a word.

“But I get the sense that you need to give up that control once in a while. You like to pretend that you are this powerful, impenetrable Dominant....”

The finger presses deeper, up to the second knuckle before pulling out and free. Gabriel whines.

“...but I think you get off even more on being dominated, and having the control taken away from you.”

“No. You don’t know me. You don’t....”

He doesn’t finish the thought because what happens next wipes all thought from his mind.

The fingertip forces back into his rectum to the first knuckle. Gabriel tenses every muscle in his body at the same time, not thinking, just spasming, pushing and fighting with every primal response in him. At the same time, the fingers of Micah’s left hand close gently around his dick, tickling up and down it once. Then, with light pressure, he pinches them around the shaft, down by the root. They shift slowly upward, squeezing, pinching as they go, applying pressure to his shaft and moving the flesh so that it is perfectly centered where it lies against Gabriel’s stomach.

When they get to the smooth skin of the head, they squeeze firmly around the spongy ridge. Micah traces his index finger back and forth over the dip on the underside, rubbing and pressing at the bundle of nerves. All of the specific, focused attention works. Gabriel’s cock swells even more, until it strains against Micah’s hand, completely full and wanting to arc up. But Micah restrains him there as well, and keeps it pushed down flat against his belly. It’s uncomfortable, but the point is to make him aware of how aroused he is, and it works.