Ink and Ice

by Erin McRae

  “Breaktime,” Katie declared prompt, and steered him to the door.

  Once he was seated on the bench in the hockey box, Katie got him tissues and his water bottle then sat beside him.

  “I’ve noticed a pattern,” she said. “And I’m curious if you have.”

  “I have noticed nothing except the rapidly diminishing number of days before I have to show this program off at camp.”

  “Your footwork is strong, your jumps are solid, and I have nothing to say against your artistry.”

  Aaron nodded. Praise, welcome as it was, didn’t make him feel any better when it still wasn’t working. And after he’d asked for and gotten a new program.... He sank his head into his hands.

  Katie rubbed a gentle hand across his back. “All of which means it’s your emotion that isn’t working.”

  “Sometimes it works.” Aaron tried to cling to that. If he could get it to work when he needed to... but no. People could win a medal by luck, if all the stars aligned. But he couldn’t have the kind of season he needed to get to the Olympics solely on luck.

  “It works when it’s just me here with you,” Katie said. “And I’ve walked by a few times when it’s just you and Zack. It works then too.”

  “You’ve seen that?” For a moment, Aaron was startled out of his misery.

  “I work stranger hours than you know. But anyway. It works for me and it works for Zack. Not—” Katie gestured to the rink, where a handful of other skaters were on the ice and another handful were working on off-ice drills on the mats. “When anyone else is around.”

  Aaron pondered that for a moment. “Huh. I guess I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Which tells me something. If this is the program in which you want to showcase your true self.”

  “That I’m only comfortable being that self around you and Zack?”

  “Bingo.”

  “How do I fix that?” Aaron asked plaintively. He hoped she had the answer. Katie came closest to understanding what it was like to be from a world so different from what anyone else came from. If anyone knew how to deal with this problem, she did.

  “No idea,” Katie said. “I’ve been retired for years and still struggle with it. But,” she said, standing and offering him her hand to pull him to his feet. “Now that you know what the problem is, maybe you can work the solution out for yourself.”

  WORKING OUT THE SOLUTION himself probably should have meant spending time alone either with meditation or journaling to try to crack the problem that Katie had raised. And Aaron did, dutifully try that for a couple of days. But while he could see the problem, clearly, he didn’t see a solution to it, at least not one that was anything other than practice.

  Dealing with fear—physical or emotional—was mostly about desensitization. At a given point he had to believe the problem would solve itself through time.

  And time, of course, dictated every aspect of his life. Eventually, on the night before camp, he had to accept he had done all he could to prepare for it and allow himself, instead, some time to relax, whether that meant thinking about something else or thinking about nothing at all.

  He went over to Zack’s place knowing this was his last chance to see him not just before camp but before the season and its pressures truly got underway. Unfortunately, the challenges of having any sort of personal life while competing were already making themselves known, at least in Aaron’s head. He’d have to talk to Zack at some point about all the rules around food and sleep he was going to have to follow to be at his competitive best.

  He didn’t think it would be a big deal, but he still felt weird talking about it. What was normal for a competitive athlete could easily seem—and perhaps was—disordered to a normal person.

  Zack asked questions where he was curious, but shrugged most of it off. Aaron recognized this not as indifference, but as someone accepting him at face value.

  No wonder I feel uncertain around nearly everyone else, he thought to himself.

  “I have a question,” Zack said after dinner. “Which you can totally say no to, as I realize the timing is either bad or romantic... in a pervy way.”

  Aaron barked with laughter. “What is it?”

  “You seem to like the bondage thing,” Zack said.

  Understatement. “I do, but that’s not a question.”

  “I bought some proper rope for doing some proper work with it. If you’re interested. I mean, it’s right before camp, so if you’re not or not now I super understand....”

  Zack was babbling, and Aaron was aware he found it quite cute. He was also aware that his whole body suddenly felt pulled towards Zack with a force he couldn’t control.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Zack blinked at him, startled.

  “Did you think I was going to say no?” Aaron asked.

  “I didn’t... I wasn’t thinking at all,” Zack said. “Most of the people I’ve dated, if we were doing stuff like this, I met them in spaces where it was a given they shared the interest. So, you’re exciting and new and I am out of practice.”

  Aaron smiled. He liked the idea that Zack sometimes felt as out of place as he did. He found it reassuring and flattering.

  “I like being exciting and new,” Aaron said. “Now tell me what’s next.”

  AARON GOT UNDRESSED as Zack laid out the different lengths of rope and explained how they could make this about art or sex or some of both.

  This is why I like you, Aaron thought as he stretched—that was the reality of skating. Every moment that he moved, he was either looking for more mobility or to work out some stiffness from his training.

  Zack stared him, clearly fascinated.

  “What?” Aaron asked, coming up from a standing backbend.

  “How long can you keep your back arched like that?” Zack asked.

  Aaron squinted at him. “With my head upside down, not that long.”

  “But if you were lying on the ground?”

  “You mean like this?” Aaron said. He dropped onto his stomach and reached back to grab his ankles in a yoga bow position. “Pretty much indefinitely. Why?”

  “Can I tie you up like that?” Zack asked. “You would be so beautiful and strange.”

  ZACK MADE AARON GET up on the bed for the actual project.

  “If my idea works,” he said, “it will be more convenient later, trust me. For now, close your eyes.”

  Aaron did as he was told. He felt himself drop out of the world as soft rope was looped around his ankles with a knot tied sharply between them. The ropes then found his wrists, and Zack wove and coiled and knotted them up his arms, explaining softly about the different types of rope bondage that existed in different cultures and how he had taken what he had learned in terms of art and pleasure and safety but was also making things up as he went.

  Aaron, trapped now in the bow until Zack released him, absorbed maybe half his words.

  Zack seemed to sense how far away he was and ran his fingers through Aaron’s hair and across his face. Aaron whimpered slightly, and stretched to capture one in his mouth. He could feel his cock getting hard under him, which felt good now and was going to be torture later. He would surely struggle against his bonds and the bed to get release, and would no doubt only obtain it when Zack said he could.

  Zack touched his hands. “Can you feel this?”

  “Yes.”

  “No tingles, all normal?”

  “All good,” Aaron said impatiently, annoyed to have to deal with the world again for the moment.

  Zacks hands moved to his feet. “And here?”

  “They’re fine,” Aaron nearly snapped. He understood the concern, truly he did. But his circulation felt fine. He’d had pairs of skates that were worse for him than this.

  “Good. Then, I’m going to add more rope.”

  Aaron hummed and dropped his head forward, as Zack laced rope through the harp-shape formed by his legs, and hands, and back. He tried to picture it, like the cables of a suspension bridge, and
while the image pleased him, he still wished he could see it for himself.

  “Take a picture?” he asked, breathless. He needed to know and to see what this thing was that he had fallen into with this man.

  “Are you sure? I can’t imagine you want anything like this floating around.”

  “I trust you,” Aaron said, “and we can delete it later.”

  Zack tied a final knot and tucked in a tail of rope. As he stepped away from the bed to get his camera, Aaron felt a moment of desperate fear, not that he would be abandoned like this, but that he would be made to wait even further for his pleasure.

  But Zack was back in a moment, caressing his back and his face and his ass, gentling him, the wild animal he was.

  Zack’s hands left again, but then there was the click of the camera—once, twice, another handful of times as Aaron threw his head back to make the position look perfect.

  The motion sent him rocking on the bed, forward and back over his hard dick that was pressed into the mattress under him. He groaned.

  And Zack chuckled.

  “You’re very clever,” Aaron managed.

  “You have not,” Zack said, “seen anything yet.”

  Aaron heard the sound of the snap and zip on Zack’s jeans and opened his eyes to Zack pulling his cock free and jerking himself off.

  “Yes, please,” Aaron breathed.

  “Oh good.”

  Zack stepped closed to the bed. He placed one hand along Aaron’s throat and under his chin to coax him into lifting his head. Immediately, Aaron opened his mouth to take him in. He needed this—the taste, the smell, the thickness on his tongue and the way it drove all the rest of his life away.

  Zack placed one hand in Aaron’s hair and tightened his fingers quickly. It didn’t quite hurt, but Aaron gasped around his cock as more nerve endings came alive.

  But the trick was it all was yet to come. Zack tugged softly on Aaron’s hair and the bow of his body rocked forward—over his own hard, miserable cock—as he took Zack in further. Under no control of his own, back and forth he went, trapped, as he fucked his own cock into the mattress while Zack stood there, letting his dick fuck Aaron’s mouth in turn.

  Chapter 16

  THE MORNING AFTER THE Thing with the Ropes

  Zack’s Apartment

  IN THE END, ZACK HAD cut Aaron out of the ropes. Not because he needed to—Aaron’s circulation was fine, and the position, as he had said, posed no obstacles. But they were both so terribly overwhelmed—Zack had come over Aaron’s face and then Aaron had found his own release against the mattress—and Zack’s fingers were shaking too much to fiddle with knots. He just wanted Aaron, held and safe and bundled up in his arms.

  Which he was, now that Zack had dealt with all the clean up their little adventure had demanded. Against his side, with his head on his shoulder, Aaron was now quiet and no longer full of the little whimpers he had made as he was coming back to himself.

  “That,” he said eventually into the long silence, “was exactly what I needed.”

  “Are you nervous about camp tomorrow?” Zack asked.

  “Yes and no,” he said. “It’s both a very big deal and not. I’m still having trouble with the program.”

  Zack frowned. He couldn’t figure that one out. “It’s looked great every time I’ve seen it.”

  “That’s exactly it,” Aaron said, rolling onto his back. “It’s apparently great if you or Katie are watching it. Anyone else, and it’s as if I don’t want them to see it.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “It feels too revelatory. I’m not used to trusting that people want to see who I really am.”

  “I wish I could fix that for you,” Zack said and meant every word of it. But this was, he knew, beyond his power. Aaron would simply have to make a choice; that was the nature of fear, unfair as it was.

  “I know. I appreciate it. I wish I could fix it for me too,” he said with a little laugh. “Hey, can I see the pictures?”

  Zack leaned over the side of the bed to grab his camera so that Aaron could page through the photos on the little screen on its back. He watched as Aaron touched the screen.

  “The ropes are pretty,” he said, looking up at Zack. “That’s cool. Can you send me these?”

  “Sure,” Zack said. “They’re your photos to control entirely.”

  AARON HAD JUST LEFT Zack’s apartment when his phone rang. Zack glanced at the screen and swore. Sammy. Whatever this was going to be—which was probably that Sammy had read his incomplete draft and wanted to kill him—he didn’t want to deal with it while not fully dressed and not remotely awake.

  Hastily he pulled on pajama pants and a t-shirt and hit the answer button before the call rolled to voicemail.

  “Sammy. Hi.”

  “Zack! Good morning.”

  “What is it?” Zack scrubbed a hand through his hair and wished he could be getting in the shower right now. Or, better yet, going back to bed.

  “We’re starting to edit your piece. Which is full of holes.”

  “I know, I told you it was.”

  “Well, the holes haven’t filled themselves. There’s barely anything in here about the other kid. Sauer. It’s not balanced.”

  “He won’t answer my calls! Nor will his coach or anyone else at that place. I don’t know if that’s me or them or—”

  “Try again.”

  “Well I can’t right now, because he’s currently on the way to some high-performance camp with the other major contender for the U.S. Olympic Team who I am currently sleeping with!”

  “Oh, fuck.” Sammy sounded despairing. “Zack, you’re the worst.”

  “I am well aware!”

  “What were you thinking?”

  “That I sent you my draft and that he’s extremely cute and anything else I am thinking about this situation is absolutely something you don’t want to know.” Zack knew he sounded panicked but he didn’t know what to do or say or how to fix any of this.

  “I hate you,” Sammy said in the voice of the long-suffering.

  “I know that too!” Zack tried to take deep breaths. There were going to be consequences to this mess and he didn’t want to face any of them.

  “Since you’re already violating all journalistic ethics in every way possible anyway, maybe get your boyfriend to get Sauer to talk to you since they’re going to be in the same room.”

  “That’s a wretched idea.” Zack was appalled at the notion. Aaron was already wound up beyond belief about camp, and it was more than obvious Sauer was not his favorite person.

  “So is sleeping with your subject. Or former subject, or however you’re justifying it to yourself. And you’ll notice that while I’m mad about it, the only thing I want here is to get this piece finished and in my magazine so everyone involved can get paid and famous as appropriate, so maybe a little thanks would be appropriate here.”

  Zack deflated. The truth was, he had no better or even any other ideas for how to get the material he needed for the article. If he had, he never would have considered this.

  “Fine,” he told Sammy. “I’ll ask him.”

  “Good.”

  ZACK SAT DOWN WITH his laptop on his bed. The sheets were still rumpled and, if he closed his eyes, he could imagine he still felt Aaron’s warmth in them. Aaron probably wasn’t even at the airport yet, much less at camp, but Zack wanted to get this done with.

  Hey, he started the email to Aaron. Hope your flight goes well. Or went well. I know this is crossing several boundaries and that’s why I’m not including any emotions or compliments in this email. You can absolutely say no and it changes nothing between us, but if you’re willing, I have a favor I need to ask you...

  He laid out what he needed to Aaron, read it over once to make sure everything was spelled correctly and then again to make sure it made sense.

  He hit send.

  Chapter 17

  U.S. HIGH PERFORMANCE Figure Skating Camp

  Sacramento, CA<
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  THE FIRST DAY OF CAMP was always the worst. Checking in. Seeing everyone he wanted to, and everyone he didn't. Cayden Sauer topped Aaron’s list of people he wanted to spend as little time with as possible. Not because they were the ostensible rivals for an Olympic spot; Aaron had good friends he competed with all the time. But because Cayden was a jerk and seemed to like to make people feel small. In the constant jockeying for some sort of position, both in the social order and the psychological game, he was always an instigator in the unpleasant thick of it.

  At least Aaron could sit on the other side of the room and ignore him during endless meetings that involved people reading aloud from schedules and rules Aaron could read himself. He had Zack’s email, asking him to ask Cayden to talk to him, but he could deal with that later.

  The skaters at camp might have been on the same team, but they weren't, not really. There weren’t any other U.S. men’s singles skaters from TCI that Aaron could hang out with. Angel and Nikolai were in juniors, and Sam and Morgan were a pair. They all had their own schedules and their paths rarely crossed. Sure, being here was about preparing for the first half of the season, but it was also about starting to see who would manage to make the second half of the season and the Olympics. Which was the only reason anyone would put themselves through all this.

  AARON SKATED A FEW laps around the rink as he warmed up to show off his free skate program for the federation officials. He tried a few jumps to test how the ice responded. Although the ice itself was fine, Aaron disliked pretty much everything else about the situation. The arena was mostly unpopulated, with empty seats stretching out on all sides. The panel of officials were seated behind their table, frowning and—it felt from the ice, at least—soulless.

  Rightly or wrongly, Aaron was sure, any number of other people, including Cayden, were lurking somewhere, watching him and waiting for him to fail.