Paul stroked his beard, ruminating, and now he really was starting to look like Xander’s fantasy ideal of what a therapist—analyst—whatever—should look like. “And do you want to take away Benjamin’s power?”
Xander took a deep breath. “Yes, actually, and I don’t like that about myself. But that’s why I’m here. Benjamin and I had a trial, a total power exchange for a few days, and…it didn’t go well, let’s put it like that.”
When he looked up, Paul’s eyes were merry. “Alright,” he said. “Why don’t we begin there today? You can tell me about the power exchange, and what you think went wrong.”
Chapter Ten
When Xander thinks back to his early sessions with Paul, all he feels is a kind of amused pity for himself. Shields up; defenses primed and ready.
But this time, for all his previous attempts at understanding himself, and for whatever reason—privately, Xander thinks it must be thanks to a certain superhero scribe, as the tabloids like to call him—this time it worked. The therapy, the analysis, the navel-gazing: whatever people want to call it, this time with Paul it stuck, and Xander has actually changed.
He’s changed enough over the last year that he even felt comfortable asking Benjamin Ballard to move in with him. The Xander of old would never have wanted something like that. In fact, the last time he lived with people, it was Adam and Raj, and that was a disaster that has haunted him his whole adult life.
But Ben is so different. So different to everyone Xander’s ever been with. He has to remind himself often not to put Benjamin up on a pedestal, but really, truly, the guy is like no one else.
Xander never knew before what this could feel like: love. Not just a feeling, not even just an action, but a state of being. He’s never shared himself like this before, not with anyone else. There have been times he tried, but with Benjamin, it never even requires trying.
It just is.
Everything between them is getting along for perfect. If only the same could be said for the rest of his life.
Xander enjoys his role on The Hunter, playing the villain; the scripts coming out of the writers’ room always give him something to chew on, a new challenge, a new way of looking at his character. Yes, he really does enjoy playing Jasper Crane, and he likes his co-workers, too. It’s just everything else that goes along with it that sometimes overwhelms him. The attention, for one thing.
The hours, for another. Xander agreed to guest star appearances in the current season because he’s not a fool, and he would have been to turn down the money they were offering. Only he’d thought it would be easier, flying back and forth between LA and New York.
Now that Benjamin has moved in, Xander finds he wants only to be with him. To spend every moment with him. He doesn’t want to waste a second more of his life where he’s not getting to know every nook and cranny of Benjamin Ballard: physically, mentally, emotionally.
Well. Especially physically.
Xander has just finished up a meeting with his own agent—much milder and less sharky than Ben’s Ramona Jones, but that suits Xander fine—and he finds himself with time to kill before he’s due to meet Ben. For once there are no cameras following him around, but he still puts on his customary dark glasses and a hat, and sets off towards Karl’s coffee shop.
Despite the fact that Karl doesn’t sell cookie things, Xander has a nostalgic love for the place. Karl is, as always, delighted to see him, and asks how everything’s going with Ben.
“You know, I’m glad you dropped by,” Karl breaks in, when Xander takes a breath during a long monologue about how amazing Benjamin Ballard is. Xander might almost think he was being extra, the way Karl seems desperate to change the subject. “I had some loser in here asking about you.”
“Some loser? As in, someone who looked like a pushy fan, or someone looking to collect debts?” Xander asks lightly.
Karl, however, looks troubled. “Someone who was real interested in you,” he says. “And when you and Ben started going out, and that whole history there. You know, a lot of my new kids—” he gestures around to the new staff, and Xander wonders if he himself was ever really that young. “—they get a kick outta knowing who worked here in the past, so I tell them stories sometimes, you know? And Layla, one of my best girls, she saw this guy talking to me and told me he’d been in here the day before, asking about you then as well. And she told him the usual when he asked, that you’d been a terrible barista—”
“Hey!”
“Well, you were. Sorry, Xander, but I cannot lie. Anyway, she said he asked about how often you and Ben came in here.”
Xander goes still, thinking it over. “This guy—what did he look like? Was he blond? Green eyes? Kind of like a surfer?”
Karl shakes his head slowly. “Nah. He was older. My age, maybe, only more grays. Jeans, sports jacket. Needed a shave.”
Xander lets out a little breath of relief.
Not Adam, at least.
Then he realizes. “Oh, it must be that photographer that likes to follow me and Ben around.” The description does seem to fit him, from what Xander remembers.
“You know what else he said? He said he’d seen you at the place down the road, buying those damn cookies.”
“Uh…”
“Supporting the opposition? Come on, Xander, you’re killing me here,” Karl grouses.
Benjamin is always so busy these days, whereas Xander likes to relax when he’s in LA. He’s been hustling so long as an actor, and the flights back and forth are wearing him out, so he’s given himself permission to take time off when he is back home. Frankly, he wouldn’t be unhappy if his profile dropped a bit. The showrunners and producers are ecstatic with his rocketing fame, of course, but they’re not the ones who have to deal with the side effects.
But tonight, for once, Benjamin has shut down his laptop early, and Xander has prepared them dinner, and even poured Benjamin half a glass of wine, although Xander has plans for his boyfriend later. Plans…and a present. But by the time they get to later, the wine will have worn off.
“This looks amazing,” Ben says with a warm smile as he sits at the table.
Lasagna; Xander’s mom’s recipe, and Ben’s favorite. Artisan bread from Xander’s favorite bakery. And a simple green salad on the side.
When Xander isn’t busy, he loves to cook. He loves to watch Ben eat what he has cooked for him. It makes Xander feel at one with the human race. This is what normal couples do, right?
He puts that thought away for now; it’s the kind of thing he used to snap the rubber band on his wrist about.
I am a normal person, he reminds himself.
Ben’s phone buzzes in the middle of the meal, and he glances at it casually, before frowning and opening up the message, clicking on a link. “Shit,” he says.
“What is it?”
Without a word, Ben passes Xander the phone.
He might play a JC but he ain’t no saint. This out-and-proud actor is newly famous and newly co-habiting, but he hasn’t changed his ways. He likes to spread his loving around town. If you can call it loving, that is: this hunter plays rough with his toys. Sometimes, we’re told, he even breaks them.
“I’m definitely not cheating on you,” Xander says at once.
“I know that,” Benjamin says, rolling his eyes. “When would you even have time? I’m more concerned with how not-blind these blinds are getting. What’ll the next one say: ‘this sadistic gay dude plays Crasper Jane on a hit Sunday night TV show?’”
Xander can feel the tension rising in the room, only he’s not sure if it’s coming from Ben, or from him. If there’s one thing he hates, it’s people thinking they know him, like this stupid blind item purports to do.
“This is definitely Adam,” Ben says. “He’s trying to spin it into abuse.”
But Xander isn’t so sure. “It’s not that I don’t think Adam is capable of this,” he says, pouring out another half glass of wine for each of them. Play possibilities tonight are dw
indling. “It’s just that he’s usually about the money. And I haven’t had any more demands since that day after you moved in.”
“Perhaps he’s moved on to pure psychological torture,” Ben sniffs.
Xander reads the blind again.
“I want to ask you something,” Ben says.
Xander looks up, trying not to feel the usual wariness he feels whenever Ben says something like that. If there’s one person on earth Xander does want to know him, it’s this beautiful boy sitting opposite him. He reminds himself of that as he replies.
“Anything, baby. What do you want to know?”
“Was Adam the one you had the accident with when you were choking them? I know you don’t like thinking about that, but—”
But Xander is already shaking his head. “No. That was before Adam. I told you, it was someone I met at one of Zee’s parties. It was pretty traumatic, baby, but the thing that stands about that night—the one thing I really remember clearly—was Zee helping me, when I’d been such a complete dick to her sometimes—”
“You were a dick to the Doctor?” Ben asks. “Damn. You must have had balls of steel.” He sounds so hushed and appalled that Xander can’t help laughing.
“I mean, I didn’t realize who she was when I was being a dick. What she was like. How much influence she had in the community. She really was the queen of the scene back then.”
“Tell me about it?” Ben asks, almost wistful. “Tell me about when you met her?”
Xander hands his phone back to him. “Alright. After dinner, we can snuggle in bed and I’ll give you a bedtime story of How I Met Your Doctor. But first we need to finish eating and then clean the kitchen.”
“Yes, sir,” Benjamin says with a smirk.
Xander flips him the bird, and Ben laughs and laughs.
At least it’s taken Benjamin’s mind off the blind, although Xander has definitely decided to put off the present to another night.
The blind does stick with Xander, though. He doesn’t like the possibilities it raises: that someone he knows, maybe even someone he trusts, might be talking to the press about these private things. It’s a worry not just for Xander, but for everyone else in the community, some of whom would have far more to lose than Xander Romano does if their preferences got out.
There’s an implicit rule in the scene that everyone follows, at least among the people Xander knows, his tight-knit friends.
You don’t talk about Kink Club.
“Orgasms before storytime,” Ben insists, when they tumble early into bed together. It’s raining outside, a true, thundery storm that makes everything feel cozy and safe inside.
Xander pulls the blanket up over their heads to cocoon them. “You’re a man after my own heart,” he murmurs, and runs a hand over Ben’s arm and onto his chest. He loves to feel the warmth of Ben’s skin, the movement of what’s underneath. And touching him like this helps Xander picture what it looks like underneath: the veins, the muscles, the sinew, the bones, the heart beating strong and regular.
Xander thinks about that heart as much as he thinks about Benjamin’s cock.
But speaking of…
Xander palms said cock and watches Ben shift underneath him. There’s a rumble of thunder outside and the rain starts battering the roof. In some ways, perfect conditions to provoke that lovely fear out of Benjamin; but not today. Today Xander has to face his own fears in opening up about his past. So he’ll settle for pain today, and maybe not even that: maybe just mild discomfort for his precious, pliant toy.
He strokes Ben’s cock in the usual rhythm, the one that makes Ben settle into his pleasure with a hum of satisfaction, and right when his breathing shifts, Xander pinches him, high up on the inner thigh.
And Benjamin yelps and flinches, and opens his eyes to give Xander an injured, bewildered stare. Sometimes, Xander swears, the boy completely forgets how much Xander loves the pain. But Ben also forgets just how much he loves it himself, too.
With a massaging motion, Xander soothes away the pain, and then goes back to jacking Ben’s cock. Just until he’s relaxed again, and then—another pinch.
It’s almost too easy sometimes. The way Ben reacts to the smallest hurts is only scaled down a little from the very biggest hurts. It fascinates Xander. He even had a conversation with Zee about it one time, in the very early days, about whether Ben really was a masochist.
“He hates the cane,” he’d told her over the phone. “I mean, fucking hates it like no one I’ve seen before. But he really gets off on the crop. Do you think it’s not actually the pain he likes, but just the idea of it?”
Zee had been brusque; in-between patients, her receptionist Adrianna had patched him through, but Zee was less than impressed when it wasn’t an emergency like he’d said. It was to Xander, just not too Zee.
“You sound like a man who needs a reminder session. I’d be happy to whip you with both cane and crop if you come up to the house this weekend—just so you can compare the sensations, of course.”
Xander snorted. “Uh, no, thanks. I already did my time there.”
“As I said, you may need a reminder. In any case, why are you asking me about what your sub feels?”
“Because you’re my mentor,” Xander said. Or tried to say. It came out more like a whine.
“And he’s your sub!” she snapped. “Who better to ask about why he loathes the cane so much?”
There was a pause, and then Xander said: “He’s not just my sub. He’s…”
There was a silence on the line instead of the busy typing of what Xander presumed were Zee’s patient notes, which had been playing in the background for the whole conversation thus far. “How interesting,” Zee had said, a smile in her voice. “When can I meet him?”
“No, Zee,” Xander had said at once. “My toy, not yours.”
It had made her laugh, but Xander had meant it more than she’d known. The very thought of sharing Benjamin, his Benjamin, made something savage and crude and primitive rise up in him, and so despite Zee’s warnings, and despite his own knowing better, Xander had kept Benjamin away from the scene, away from others.
Kept Benjamin to himself.
It’s not something Xander is proud of these days, but he puts the thoughts aside and concentrates on the here and now. On the Benjamin writhing under his hands and panting in excitement as much as protest. He’s right on edge, Xander can tell, and with a few more strokes and one last well-timed cruel pinch he has Ben gasping and groaning and flooding all over his own stomach.
After a moment, Ben smiles. “What about you? How do you want to come?”
He’s back to forming full sentences. That will never do. Xander grazes the back of his fingers along Ben’s soft cock, making him flinch. “You’re really sensitive after you come, aren’t you?”
“Aren’t we all?” Ben asks, licking sweat off his top lip.
“Not like you. Not that sensitive. Can I play?”
The sheets have pulled off to the side. Ben looks down at Xander’s hand, resting so close to his balls that he could reach out a finger and stroke them. He nods.
“Tell me if it’s too much.”
Ben nods again, and bites his lip as Xander pets the head of his dick.
“Does it hurt?”
“It’s uncomfortable. Not painful.”
“I want your pain tonight,” Xander says. “That’s what I need from you.” He rolls on top of Ben to rut against him, against the softening flesh, helped by Ben’s cum, which is pooling in the concave dips of his abs and in his bellybutton. And when that’s not enough, when Ben seems to be encouraging him rather than wincing, Xander grabs their dicks in his hand and squeezes them together.
Ben hisses through his teeth, arching up, and his lips move—in a prayer or a curse, Xander can’t quite tell.
“Yes,” Xander says. “Like that. That’s what I want from you tonight.” And he stays there for several minutes, jacking the both of them together, watching the peculiar thoughts
flit across Benjamin’s face, betrayed in his eyes: pain, of course; but shame, too, even though he literally just came, at his cock being flaccid; humiliation; excitement building again faintly, and supported by his cock filling out a little again—not hard, nowhere near hard, but not soft, either.
But it’s time for Xander to play with fear again, his own this time, not Ben’s, so with a brutal kiss, he rides out his own orgasm, adding to the sticky pool on Ben’s stomach.
As he shoots, there’s a flash of lightning outside, illuminating the room in black and white, and Xander can see Ben watching his face with reverent interest.
The thunder that follows an instant later is so loud it shakes the house.
They shower, fast and together, because Ben’s curiosity is riding him now like a demon, making him inquisitive, making him think, making his glances sharp and speculative. It’s how he always looks when he wants to know something, and Xander has come to love it as much as he dreads it.
Benjamin would not be Benjamin without the constant need-to-know.
They tuck themselves back into bed, and Xander thinks about where to start.
“When I started going to the clubs here in LA,” he says at last, “it was like a lifeline. Sure, I’d messed around at kink nights when I was in college, but LA is different. Lots more people. Lots more variety. Suddenly it felt like I could be exactly who I was supposed to be, and I threw myself into it totally for a long time. Got really into that culture of the sub-culture, you know? I collared some poor guy, dumped him like a week afterwards, got myself blackballed from at least two groups, not very good ones, but still…”
“Why’d you dump the guy?” Ben asks. “And is this the one Elijah and Dean met?”
Flying Free (Rough Love Book 8) Page 9
