Tamed

by T M Chris

  Eduardo wasn’t the only guy Jake had ever made it through a scene with, but Eduardo was the only guy he’d ever dated—slept with and watched TV with, who asked him about his day and really cared about the answer. Sometimes Eduardo fucked him good and hard, and sometimes he made Jake get down on his knees and blow him until his jaw ached and he was swimming in that soft endorphin haze he always got between Eduardo’s thighs. But sometimes the sex was pretty vanilla. The other day, Eduardo had given him a blowjob—the sensation of a mouth moving gently over his cock so sweet and long-forgotten, it’d had its own intensity.

  Jake didn’t want to screw any of that up. He liked being with Eduardo. Liked being good for Eduardo. And so he tried. But every day it got harder, the itch under his skin growing more insistent. The marine in him enjoyed praise, but the brat preferred rebellion, and the brat was very close to winning.

  “Can we?” he asked, dislodging Eduardo’s massaging fingers by twisting in his direction. “A good scene—a rough one.”

  “Maybe cops and robbers? I could slap the handcuffs on you, take a baton to your ass. Maybe take your ass with the baton,” Eduardo suggested with a leer. “How does that sound?”

  “Good, yeah.” He’d get to play at resistance, have his ass beat red enough that he’d have a hard time sitting on it at the interview tomorrow. It would give him something else to think about, at least. “Let’s do that.”

  “All right. I’m going to put Earl out. He’s gotten so attached to you, and he hasn’t figured out what’s play and what’s not yet.” Eduardo led Earl into the kitchen and out the back door into the fenced-in yard. Earl gave an unappreciative bark when he realized he was being left out there alone, but Eduardo told him to settle and he did.

  “I never imagined I’d have to worry about my dog preferring my sub to me,” Eduardo said as he came back into the living room where Jake was pacing around waiting for the scene to start already. “He recognizes a kinship with you, I think.”

  On any other day, those words would make Jake feel good. He loved having a dog. Not that Earl belonged to him, but Earl thought he did—thought Jake was pack and Eduardo their leader. But today he couldn’t be bothered with Earl, didn’t even feel bad about him being put out. He just wanted to get on with it.

  “Go ahead and strip,” Eduardo said. “I’ll get some props.”

  Jake folded his clothes up neatly on the coffee table and went back to pacing. He gave a low whistle when Eduardo came in wearing a police uniform. Fuck, he looked good in that. When you saw someone every day, you stopped appreciating how hot they were, but Eduardo filled out the uniform in a precise, square way that screamed authority. He really had a fucking baton too—a long, black hunk of wood shaped like a mini-baseball bat he was tapping against his palm. All right, this would be good. It would be fine. He’d get a good beating, get his rocks off, and the pressure that made the inside of his skull feel like a bomb about to explode would fizzle away.

  “What kind of contraband are you carrying, boy?” Eduardo snapped on a pair of latex gloves. Prepping for a cavity search. Cute.

  “Not a fucking thing.” This was his opportunity to be surly, but it was just… ugh.

  “We’ll see about that.” Eduardo wrestled him over to the arm of the couch. “Bend over and spread.”

  “I’m not bending over for you, copper.” His resistance was honest, but the words felt like lies. This ought to be working, but it wasn’t. Role-playing was something he did to please Eduardo, and right now he didn’t give a fuck about pleasing Eduardo. Because he wasn’t a good boy. He was a bad boy. The worst. He deserved to be punished, not played with.

  Eduardo grabbed his wrist and yanked it around behind his back, but when he tried to slam a cuff on it—

  Jake just didn’t feel like it. He felt like fighting. Had felt like fighting all day. This playacting was bullshit. A scene was a game—not real, not punishment, not anything like what he needed. Fake-Jake might allow a cop to push him around, but real-Jake would never put up with that shit. He jerked away, hard enough to send Eduardo stumbling.

  “Give me your arm,” Eduardo ordered when he’d regained his balance.

  “Make me.” He took a stance, his fists raised and ready. “Come at me, fucker.”

  “Jake?”

  This was going wrong. Very wrong. But wrong was what he wanted. He lunged forward and snagged the baton out of Eduardo’s belt. “Did you think this was going to be enough?” he taunted as he brandished it in Eduardo’s face. Come for him with less than a gun and see what happened. He was a fucking Marine.

  Eduardo went very still, not fighting Jake the way he wanted to be fought, only watching him with alert eyes. Outside Earl howled, the sound ricocheting around the quiet living room. They both knew Jake was out of control—were afraid of him. Hated him.

  He flung the baton away because he wanted to use it. Wanted to smash and hurt and take out all the rage bubbling inside him. The sound of shattering glass said the baton had broken something, which wasn’t what he’d intended, but fuck. Fuck this. Fuck Eduardo. And mostly fuck him. He was so fucking fucked. It only made him madder.

  “I think that’s the end of that scene,” Eduardo said.

  Oh, that was the end of the scene, all right. Jake had just destroyed Eduardo’s… whatever. He looked over his shoulder and saw it was a lamp—a delicate spun-glass shell in the lightest seafoam green, a piece he’d always admired. Now half of it sat on the sideboard and the other half was in a dozen pieces scattered across the floor. The lamp was broken, the scene was broken, the bond that’d been growing between the three of them was broken, and Jake didn’t even know if he cared because the rage hadn’t broken, was still clogging his throat and burning like coals in his chest.

  He turned back to face Eduardo and found him swapping out his latex gloves for the black leather glove he wore for discipline. He took his customary spot on the sofa and said, “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Like you said, scene’s over.”

  “This isn’t a scene anymore. This is punishment. Let’s see, ten strokes for the lamp—you’re getting off easy there. For talking back…? Without knowing exactly when you stopped playing a character and started being you, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and call that twenty. Thirty altogether.” He patted his lap, as if Jake was really going to put himself over it.

  “Listen, you motherfucker—”

  “Forty. You know how this works.”

  In the background, Earl was still barking up a storm.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Eduardo stood up. Had he changed his mind? Jake had never seen him back down before. Eduardo disappeared into the kitchen and then Jake heard a series of barks and the skitter of Earl’s nails over the tile.

  “No,” Eduardo commanded. “Quiet.” Another bark, not as loud. “Quiet,” Eduardo repeated, a little quieter himself this time but still firm, and Earl finally hushed. “Go to your bed.”

  Earl walked into the room with his head down. He climbed in his bed and wrapped himself into a circle, giving Jake a glare before turning away in obvious dismissal. Jake turned away too. It wasn’t his fault Earl had gotten himself in trouble. Except it was. Earl had thought someone was being hurt, and someone almost had been.

  Earl was being good now, but good didn’t come as easily to Jake, not once he was riled up, and there was no undoing the damage he’d done, just like there was no chance he’d get that job. He was a fuck-up who fucked things up.

  Eduardo got back into position on the couch. He tapped his thigh, just like he had a minute ago, and said, “You know how this works, Jake. Take your punishment, show remorse, and it’s over. You don’t have to keep racking up more punishment, and you don’t have to walk around with this on your conscience. You can end it whenever you’re ready.”

  Could he really? Jake sidled a little closer. He’d ruined their scene, waved a weapon in Eduardo’s face, and then thrown it recklessly around his house. Did Eduardo really w
ant him anywhere near him and his belongings ever again?

  Eduardo didn’t stop him as he made his way, inch by slow inch, up to the sofa and over his lap.

  “There you go. I knew you could do it. What number were we up to?”

  “Probably a million,” Jake said sullenly.

  “Probably a million, what?”

  “Sir.”

  “If I give you a task, I expect it to be completed correctly. So let’s try that again. What number were we up to?”

  “Forty, sir.”

  “Better. So forty plus the extra twenty you just earned is sixty. Let’s begin.”

  Eduardo’s gloved hand thumping briskly against his ass wasn’t anything new, but Jake was ashamed of having ended up in this position again. No restraints, no whips, no playacting. This was the realness he’d asked for, and he felt it in every smack, all through his body.

  Bad boy, bad boy, bad boy.

  He hadn’t wanted to be bad. He’d been trying so hard to be good. But it didn’t matter how much he wanted to be good. He couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

  The tears came early this time, before Eduardo was even halfway through. They didn’t slow Eduardo’s hand or lighten its effect, but they washed away the restless urge for rebellion that’d been driving him for days. He’d rebelled, and he’d lost. All he could do now was take his punishment, certain that Eduardo would give him every lick of it.

  Eduardo had once told him it was okay to kick and squirm, so he did, letting the futility of his struggle highlight his condition. He was Eduardo’s to discipline, a small and powerless thing, unable to make himself behave, relying on Eduardo to do it for him. And so lucky to have him. Unless he’d ruined it.

  “Last ten,” Eduardo said with an edge of approval to his voice.

  Jake hadn’t even been counting. His ass was a fiery red, so much hotter and more personal than when Eduardo whaled on him with one of his toys. Eduardo’s hand was no toy, and this was no noble display of a submissive’s true strength. He had no strength, had nothing but regret and shame.

  “I think a little corner time is in order,” Eduardo said as he nudged Jake up to his feet.

  “I’m sorry,” Jake sobbed out.

  “I know. I can tell. But I could use some separation. Please go stand in the corner.”

  Jake went. He went because Eduardo told him to and because those words—I could use some separation—struck fear into his heart. Eduardo would send him away now. It would all be over. The discipline and the play and the homey everyday stuff. Earl. He would lose Earl.

  “Go on,” he heard Eduardo say from behind him. “You can go to him.”

  Earl settled at his feet, curling around him with a low whine. At least Earl had forgiven him. Jake wished he could bend down and give him a head-rub, let him know he was glad he was there and was sorry about getting him in trouble, but he didn’t want to make Eduardo any angrier, so he kept still and quiet, his face in the corner and his hands clasped behind his back, listening for the beep of the timer that would tell him his time was up.

  It was a long wait, and it wasn’t the timer that finally signaled the end of it. Eduardo’s voice, low and certain, called him over. Jake went down on his knees and crawled between Eduardo’s legs, hoping as he inhaled the familiar odor of Eduardo’s groin that it wasn’t for the last time.

  “Tell me what happened there.”

  “I don’t know. It just… wasn’t working for me.”

  “What do you say when a scene isn’t working for you?”

  “Yellow. Or red.”

  “That’s right, and I think you know it. So tell me what was really going on.”

  Jake hesitated. He was glad Eduardo hadn’t thrown him out yet, but if he explained how his mind worked, Eduardo would know how completely hopeless he was, and then most likely he would throw him out.

  “Talk to me, big guy.”

  “I needed something real tonight.”

  “Real,” Eduardo repeated thoughtfully. “You acted out because you wanted punishment?”

  “I guess.” It hadn’t been as intentional as all that, but that was what it boiled down to. “I can’t be good all the time.”

  “I never expected you to be. You’ve been putting more and more on your plate every day. I figured you’d drop the ball at some point.”

  “But then you’d be disappointed in me.”

  “Ah, Jake.” Eduardo’s face softened. He put his hand on Jake’s head, rubbing the shell of his ear between his fingers, then scratching over the short hairs behind it. “I won’t be disappointed by your being human.”

  “But getting to sleep here and everything we do—those are my rewards. If I mess up, I don’t get a reward.”

  “Having you here is a reward for me too. Usually. Not today so much.” Eduardo frowned, and Jake felt about an inch tall. “If you miss a line on your to-do list and take your spanking like a good boy, there’s still plenty of time for us to enjoy the rest of the evening together.”

  “You mean I can sleep over even if I get punished?”

  “If it happens like I just said, yes. But not tonight. Tonight, you’re going home.”

  “But—”

  Eduardo held up a finger to stop him. He leaned down and took Jake’s face between his hands. “I won’t drop you. No matter how badly you behave, I won’t give up on you. I’ll punish you every night, all night, if that’s what it takes to keep you on track. That’s my promise to you as your disciplinarian. But a romantic relationship requires a different level of trust. You broke my trust tonight when you turned on me with your body instead of using your words. Do you understand that?”

  Jake was so ashamed. Normally, he felt clean and forgiven after a spanking, but he saw how he’d broken more than a lamp tonight. “I understand.”

  “Let’s go to the kitchen. We’re going to write out your to-do list while you drink some water, and then I’m sending you home. Tomorrow, we’ll rebuild. Don’t use this as an excuse to backslide, Jake. I’m counting on you to be the man I want to have around my house—not just when I’m spanking his ass, but always. And I really believe you can be.”

  Oh, how Jake wanted to be that man. The prospect of it was more than he’d ever thought possible, even before he’d royally fucked things up tonight. That Eduardo still thought he had a chance…

  “I’ll try, sir.” He tilted his head up to accept the kiss Eduardo gave him, a reminder that they’d been more than Dom and sub once and could be again. If only Jake had as much faith as Eduardo seemed to in his ability to do better next time. “But, sir?”

  “Hm?”

  “I’ll probably act like that again. I don’t want to, but…”

  “Hmm.” Eduardo leaned back against the couch cushions, tightening his legs around Jake like a cage. “What do you think prompted your behavior today?”

  “The interview. But also all those days without.”

  “Without what you needed. I see. You were being so good for me that you didn’t earn punishment, but not ever being punished is a problem.” Eduardo tapped his chin a few times, thinking it through. “I can’t punish you for nothing. That wouldn’t be fair. But you could ask for punishment.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you need it. And when you need something, all you have to do is ask. Can we try that next time? When anxiety’s creeping up on you, we’ll punish it right out of you.”

  “But if I’m asking for it…”

  “Don’t worry,” Eduardo said with an indulgent smile. “It’ll be real. As real as this, but without the part where you terrify me and my dog first.”

  Had Eduardo been terrified? He’d never shown it. Jake didn’t know how he’d gotten so lucky to find such a good master, one with a steel backbone, an iron hand, and enough patience to deal with a brat like him. All he knew was that thanks to Eduardo and the punishment he’d doled out that night, he went into his interview calm and cooperative. He had the confidence of knowing he was well
-trained and competent, backed by a serenity that made his confidence come across without any aggression.

  When he got the call a few days later telling him he had the job, he and Eduardo celebrated with a fun scene that was all play-acting and pleasure-pain, no simmering rebellion at all. His life was finally turning a corner he’d lost hope of ever being able to turn. A strong daily routine, firm discipline as needed, and a whole lot of loving attention from both Eduardo and Earl made every day a happy and manageable one.

  Chapter 7

  Jake threw the stick for the two hundredth time. Or maybe it just felt like that. Earl and a few of his buddies went running for it. Earl was socialized enough now to play with other dogs, to pretend-fight over a stick instead of going for the jugular, and to occasionally lose without turning savage. Not that he lost very often. He trotted back with the stick and dropped it at Jake’s feet, guarding it from his playmates who wanted to snatch it up and run off with it. Earl knew the rules. The humans threw the stick. The dogs ran after it.

  The stick—which was actually a rubber chew toy—was absolutely disgusting by this point. Wet from dog saliva, dirty from the mud a rare rain had left, and pitted with puncture marks, but Jake picked it up and gave it a good wing, sending it a hundred feet easy. Earl and his playmates sprinted after it as it arced.

  “You save my arm a lot of soreness.” Eduardo was kicked back in a camp chair they’d brought.

  “I don’t mind.”

  “The exercise is good for both of you. You’ll pass out early tonight, and I’ll get to watch whatever I want on television.”

  “We always watch what you want anyway,” Jake observed with a roll of his eyes.

  “But tonight I won’t feel guilty about it.” Eduardo stretched his legs out in front of him. He looked sharp in a pair of dark jeans and a fresh white t-shirt. Jake hoped he’d get a little action before passing out, but it was true that a Saturday afternoon at the dog park tended to do him in.