by Lyssa Dering
Wish’s eyes go empty for a second, but then he smiles. “I was here, but now we’re both here, so what does it matter?”
I crawl back on top of him. “I was just curious.” I kiss his temple. “You want me inside you, right?”
“Yes. I’m all ready for you.”
I reach down between his legs and find him open and slick. Most guys would probably be thrilled, but I don’t want a sex toy. “Maybe I want to get you ready myself.”
Wish gives a little gasp, and suddenly his hole is dry and clamping down on my fingers. I can’t help but laugh but also melt a little. “You want to please me so bad, don’t you?”
“You can hurt me. You can do anything you want.”
I know how to administer all kinds of pain, but I’m not feeling it right now. This Wish feels damaged already, and he let me go so far so quickly. It’s up to me to look out for him. “I don’t want to hurt you right now. I want to take care of you. Is that okay?”
Wish looks at me like no one has ever said that to him. “You really want that?”
I trace his bottom lip. “Mhm.”
“Okay.”
“Manifest me a bottle of lube?”
Above Wish’s head, some twenty odd bottles appear. Universe help us.
I choose a pink one with little strawberries on it. “Relax, Wish. I like the pain, but we already did that part. Now, it’s time to feel good.”
“Okay.”
I pop the cap on the lube and sniff it. Strawberries, for sure. I put some on my tongue and am happy to find it doesn’t taste like cough syrup but more like a strawberry milkshake.
“If you don’t like it—”
I silence Wish with a look. He cowers into the blankets like a cat who doesn’t want to be petted, and all the other bottles of lube disappear.
“What did I tell you to do?” I ask.
“Relax, but—”
“What do you need to be cowed, hmm?” My heart thuds in my ears as anger rises beneath my skin. “What will make you submit to my will instead of trying to take control of this? Do you need more pain before I care for you?”
Wish’s cheeks turn even redder. “I’m not— I’m not trying to take control.”
“Yes, you are. You’re worrying about what I want when I’m perfectly happy right here on top of you, and you already know what I want. I want you to relax and let me get you off.”
“But I want to get you—”
I backhand him. His head turns with the force, a mark blooms on his cheek, and guilt twists in my stomach. I’m probably confusing him with my words and actions out of sync. But then he looks back at me with his expression slack and pupils blown and makes a noise that’s all need.
I scramble to lube up my fingers. When I spear him, his hole is still delightfully tight, and I stretch it open like I would a real lover, or a lover who isn’t special, anyway.
Wish breathes hard through parted lips and keeps his gaze locked on mine. I fuck him with my gaze and my fingers, drinking him in like expensive scotch. As I get lost in pumping my hand and watching his lashes flutter, I feel weightless.
Wish opens his mouth wider and makes a tiny sound in his throat. This draws me out of my trance, and I slather my dick in strawberry lube.
“Lake,” says Wish.
“Don’t make me bitch-slap you again.”
He moans. “Please, more. I like it, I like it.”
I slap his hip instead. “This isn’t about what you like. I’m in control. Turn over.”
“Yes, Sir.” The honorific washes over me like a thousand lovers’ hands. Wish obeys.
Once he’s on his stomach, I yank him onto his knees and grab my dick. “I’m Sir, now?”
He looks at me over his shoulder. “Is it too cheesy? Would you like something else? I could do Master or Daddy or whatever you—”
I give him a hard swat on the ass, and his front half collapses into the mattress. He isn’t the first boy I’ve had turn to goo from a slap.
“Sir is fine,” I say.
“Yes, Sir. I’m sorry, Sir.”
“It’s cute what a smack does to you.” I smile and pet him where I hit him. He rubs his face into the sheets like he’s embarrassed of his reactions, and my hands tingle with the desire to hit him again. “Should I spank you, Wish?”
He gets on all fours again. “Sir…”
“I need a yes or a no. Should I spank you?”
“Please don’t ask. Please just do it.”
That kind of thing goes against my conscience, but for now, it’s a clear yes, so I hit him. Once again, he collapses but keeps his ass up, and I keep hitting, picking up a rhythm that gets me lost. My palm stings, but I keep going, watching Wish’s ass get redder and redder. I know when to stop, and we aren’t there yet.
“Lake!”
Wish’s shout jolts me into halting, and I collapse on top of him, pushing him down into the mattress with my weight. “What?” I’m breathing so hard I can barely talk.
“I—I was going to come.”
I rut against his seared ass. My cock is like a hungry pet with a screeching yowl—impossible to ignore. “Why didn’t you?”
Wish whimpers instead of answering me.
I guide his face backward into a sloppy kiss. I want to ask more questions, make him answer all of them, get into the hidden parts of his head and wreak havoc and make it better and do it all again, but my brain’s given all its blood to my dick, and my balls are aching. I don’t get like this very often, but when I do, it means the games are over. I need to come.
I push myself up and bring Wish onto his knees again. Then I give one of his still-red ass cheeks a squeeze before I ready my cock and push it into him. I grip his hips and slam home in one go—so hard our skin makes a slap when we connect. Wish screams, and his hole clamps down on my cock. He’s coming and still screaming and I’m helpless as his body forces the cum out of me. I bite down into his shoulder and groan into the flesh as my balls empty.
When it’s over, I can’t move. My cock stays lodged inside Wish where we lay on top of each other, both of us breathing hard, my heartbeat pulsing in my fingers, toes, everywhere.
Wish reaches back and gropes until he finds my hand. “Lake, let me make us a collar. Please.”
“Hmm?” I manage. Did he say collar? Images of long-term couples fill my head. A mistress and her pet I met once, then a cross-dressing sub and his surly master, both long past middle age.
“You can be my Sir, and I can be your boy, and it’ll be perfect and for all time because we have eternity now that you’re dead. Please, Sir. Say yes. Let me be your submissive.” Wish’s overzealous words cut through my afterglow and chill me despite how hot I am. I kiss Wish’s shoulder where I bit him and probably shouldn’t have. “Let’s talk about it later, okay? We’re too high right now to make any big decisions.”
Wish goes quiet but grips my hand tighter like I’m going to run if he lets go. I pet down his flank and kiss him behind the ear and try not to take what a sub says when he’s high too seriously.
6
Lake
It’s impossible to know what time it is because this bedroom Wish transported us to has no windows. I don’t know if phones die in Wish City, but I can’t check the time there either. My phone is in my coat, which is on the floor somewhere, and Wish is curled up on my chest, blond lashes fanned against his cheeks and breath coming slow and even. I don’t want to disturb him, but I have to piss. Plus, the longer I stare at these windowless walls, the surer I get that there isn’t a door either. My eyes could be playing tricks, but what if when Wish made this room, he forgot about exits? Where’s the bathroom?
“Hey.” I touch Wish’s shoulder, but he doesn’t stir. “Hey, wake up. Wish #2.”
His eyes snap open so suddenly I flinch. “You know I don’t like that. If anything, I’m #1. I’m better.”
I swallow, and my dry throat clicks. “It’s a joke.”
“Not a funny joke.” His elbow digs
into my torso as he sits up.
I sit up, too, and rub out the ache. “Can you make me a bathroom?”
“You don’t need a bathroom.” While he’s talking, my urge to piss goes away, but the morning wood stays. The invasion turns my stomach, but frankly, I’m not sure I want to poke the bear right now. He’s obviously not a morning person.
Wish switches on the bedside lamp, and I shove at my dick through the sheets where it’s making an obvious tent.
“Can’t hide from me.” Wish gives me a wicked smile. “Would you like a blowjob, Sir?”
I look for a door, but I was right—there isn’t one. Anxiety makes my heart hammer, and I’m not turned on—not at all—but my dick’s still hard. He’s controlling it. He’s inside me doing whatever he wants without permission, which is so not what a sub is supposed to do.
“I don’t want a blowjob,” I say firmly.
Wish points to my cock, where a wet spot darkens the sheets. “Then why’s it leaking, Sir?”
“Stop. I’m not into this. Stop it, Wish.”
Wish chuckles, and I almost fling myself across the bed and choke him out, but then the sheets dry, and my cock softens.
There’s still no door.
“Can we go somewhere else? I’m getting claustrophobic in here.” My ears and face are burning up, and I’m tense everywhere. I think I prefer the other Wish, who does the same type of shit but on a much smaller scale, and he’s yet to lock me in a room like this one.
Wish pouts and gives me puppy-dog eyes. “But I don’t want to leave yet.”
“I do. I want out.”
“Let’s pick a collar first.” Wish holds out his hands and a tangle of leather strips appears in his palms. He pulls the strips out one by one and lays them on the bed.
I make a fist so I don’t shove them all to the floor.
Wish holds up a white collar with a heart-shaped silver ring in the center. “What about this one, Sir?”
I snatch the collar out of his hand. “No.”
“Okay, what about—”
“No to all of them.”
Wish stares wide-eyed at me.
“I’m not going to be your Sir, and you’re not going to be my boy. I barely know you. I’m not giving you a collar, especially since you don’t know how to fucking listen!” I do shove the collars to the floor this time, and nothing has ever satisfied me more.
Wish looks at me with knives in his eyes then swats me across the face—not unlike how I slapped him when we fucked.
I see red. I launch myself at him, going for his neck, but instead of his flesh, my hands land and slide against rough pavement. I wince and pull my hands toward my body. No blood, at least, though they smart badly.
Universe, I’m in a nightmare. More specifically, an alley under a street lamp. Up ahead, traffic lights throw their beams into the night as cars whiz past an opening between buildings. Instinctively, I cover my dick. Of course, Wish had to send me here naked without my fucking phone.
Damn it! I should have known better than to make him angry with me. In fact, I shouldn’t have gone to meet him at the club in the first place. I should have told the real Wish about that invitation as soon as I read the postscript telling me not to.
I get to my feet and scowl at the roughness against my bare soles. I hope the Universe doesn’t see fit to punish me for my idiocy by throwing some broken glass or a rusty nail in my path. That is, if the Universe has any bearing on Wish City. Maybe this isn’t Heaven at all, but purgatory, a dimension untouched by the Universe’s laws and shrouded only in the whims of one messed-up guy. Still better than St. Louis but still bullshit.
I amble carefully toward the mouth of the alley, one hand on my dick and the other against my crack. Are there cops here? Maybe they’ll arrest me for indecent exposure and I can call the real Wish to bail me out. At least his phone number—1—is really easy to remember.
At the end of the alley, I rear back. Here, a busy, four-lane freeway stretches. I don’t know the name, and I’m not close to a street sign. I’m not real thrilled at the idea of walking down to end of the block to investigate, but I guess I don’t have much of a choice. This alley might not stay empty of threats, and I can’t stay here regardless. I need to get to Wish. He apparently doesn’t know there’s a second him walking around with the exact same power, and if Wish #2 is as temperamental as he seems, who knows what he’s been up to? What else besides BDSM dungeons has he been creating?
I inch out of the alley.
A car honks. Someone shouts—maybe at me, maybe not. But I head to the right down the sidewalk, keeping my eyes on the cement. At least it’s not as cold as it was earlier when I was walking to the apartment. If it was, I’d be miserable right now, shivering my way toward hypothermia.
I make it to the end of the block. Sunrise Blvd. and 53rd. Great! I don’t remember seeing either of those streets when I was following the route to Club Neon.
“Woohoo!” A woman in the backseat of a car at the corner flashes me her bare breasts. Before I can do anything but gape, the light turns green, and the car speeds away.
I back up into the shadow beneath an unlit store front’s awning. I don’t know what to do. Should I flag down a stranger, ask to use their phone? Before I died, I could never have done anything so reckless. Strangers couldn’t be trusted. They could have a gun and a defensive attitude even if they didn’t know you were a special.
Here, I don’t know the risks. But maybe that’s worse.
“Excuse me.” A dark-skinned man in a leather coat approaches. “You coming off Love?”
Maybe I’m hearing him wrong, because his words sound like gibberish. “Please, do you have a phone I could borrow?”
He squints at me. “I could make a call for you. What’s the number?”
“1. Thank you.”
The man hesitates. “You looking for Wish?”
“Yes.” I almost specify the real one, but I should wait for Wish to divulge what I know.
“Alright. Give me a second.” The man takes off his jacket and hands it to me, and I use it to cover my waist. Above us, the sky glows with the sunrise. Thank the Universe I didn’t have to walk around in daylight with my dick out.
The man starts the call, but seconds tick by, and he frowns. Is Wish sleeping? I resist the urge to beg the man not to leave me alone if Wish doesn’t answer.
The man takes the phone from his ear. “Okay, come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“To my car, then to Wish.”
I don’t have any reason to trust this guy other than he hasn’t done anything threatening. Still, I go with him. “How do you know Wish?” I ask.
The man chuckles. “Everyone knows Wish. But I work for him. I’m Mercer.”
Wish
I wake shivering in a heap of bodies on a hard floor. I ache everywhere. Even though I deserve the pain, I get rid of it with my power. I need to be a leader now and clean up this mess.
Next to me in the dim sunlight streaming through foggy windows, the replica of Lake stirs. “What happened?” Genuine fear clouds his gaze, and his pretty hair is a greasy mess.
I push it out of his face. “Someone must have shot you up before I got here, but everything is okay now.”
He sits up out of the sea of skin and gropes for my arm. I need to put him out of his misery, but I don’t want to say goodbye yet. When I was high, other men and women tried to get at me, but Lake never let them penetrate me. I only took him. And it was wonderful and awful—mostly awful—but part of me wouldn’t mind bringing the real Lake here and letting him ravage me. He wouldn’t even have to be high, but then, the Love whores don’t like it when you show up and don’t take a syringe.
“How do you feel about me now that you’re sober?” I ask the Lake replica.
He winces and looks down between his legs. “My dick is raw.”
I use my power to heal it. “All better.” None of the bodies around us stir, and I make sure they
won’t. It’s eerie but peaceful. I don’t want to go home.
“I don’t know how I feel about you,” says Lake.
I laugh. He doesn’t know because I don’t know how the real Lake feels.
I use my power to command a different answer.
“As soon as I saw you, I got butterflies, and they don’t go away no matter what I do. Even sober.”
I cup Lake’s jaw. “That happens to a lot of people.”
“You’re just so beautiful and powerful. It hurts.”
“I know, I know.”
Enough. I make Lake disappear, then the bodies, then the house. I dress myself in a comfy blue tracksuit and leave behind a manicured empty lot because I don’t have the energy to erect something in the Love house’s place. It’s not like Wish City needs another bakery anyway, or a nail salon or bookstore or crystal shop or whatever.
I send Char a message. I used to just make my employees appear when I needed them, or make myself appear anywhere I wanted to go, but it proved to be an unnecessary energy expense. Except fifteen minutes go by, and Char is nowhere to be found, and she hasn’t answered my message. I’m in the middle of calling her when the SUV finally rolls up.
I get into the backseat.
“Sorry, sir,” Char says. “I won’t be late again.”
“And why were you late?” I squint at Char’s neck where a little star tattoo sits. I’m pretty sure she didn’t have it the last time I saw her.
“Traffic was pretty bad on Sunrise Blvd. I’ll leave earlier next time.”
As we set off, I make myself a pair of sunglasses and lean my head back. I’ve got to do something about these Love houses. Maybe if I meditated, imagined a cage around my subconscious every night before bed or something like that.
I chuckle to myself. What a stupid idea.
“Alright back there?” Char asks.
“Yeah, don’t mind me. I’m just losing my fucking mind.”
Char frowns but doesn’t say anything. When we get stuck in traffic on Sunrise Blvd., I make half the cars disappear, and we get to my house ten minutes later.
I hesitate before I get out of the SUV.
