Chapter 2: Hate-Fuck Reckoning
The studio was a cavern of shadows and sharp edges, lit only by the cool blue glow of Dunk’s computer screen and the sodium-vapor streetlights bleeding through the large window. It was past midnight. The city’s hum was a distant, lulling buzz. He was chasing a deadline, the intricate lines of a logo design consuming him, a welcome anesthesia. The click of his stylus on the tablet, the soft whir of the computer fan—these were the only sounds. They were rituals of control.
He didn’t hear the door open. The new lock on his apartment door hadn’t been installed here.
A floorboard creaked.
Dunk froze, his spine going rigid. He turned slowly in his chair.
Pond stood just inside the doorway, backlit by the hall’s faint emergency light. He looked like hell—hair disheveled, eyes red-rimmed and shadowed. He smelled of stale beer and desperation. He held up a key, the old spare Dunk had forgotten to ask for back. “You changed the home lock,” he said, his voice gravelly.
“Get out,” Dunk said, the words automatic, cold. He stood up, his chair rolling back and hitting the drafting table.
“I can’t.” Pond took a step forward, closing the door behind him with a soft click. The finality of the sound was a trap snapping shut. “I’ve been going out of my mind. You won’t answer. Joong is… he’s a fucking ghost, haunting me. He says it’s your fault. That you’re making this bigger than it is.”
“Get out,” Dunk repeated, but his pulse was beginning to hammer in his throat. The studio felt suddenly small, the air thin.
“Or what?” Pond took another step. The mischievous glint in his eye was gone, replaced by something darker, more frantic. “You’ll call the cops? On me? After ten years?” He laughed, a hollow, broken sound. “You hate me. I see it. I feel it. It’s fucking killing me.”
“Good.” The word was a shard of glass.
It seemed to pierce whatever fragile restraint Pond had left. He crossed the room in three long strides. Dunk braced for a blow, but Pond’s hands seized the front of his shirt, not to hit him, but to push him. Dunk stumbled back, his hips hitting the edge of the heavy oak drafting table. Pens and rulers clattered to the floor.
“You want to hate me?” Pond growled, his face inches away. His breath was hot and sour. “Then fucking hate me harder. Hate me for something real. Not for him. For me.”
He crushed his mouth against Dunk’s.
It wasn’t a kiss. It was an assault. A collision of teeth and anger. Dunk shoved against his chest, but Pond was taller, his lean frame fueled by a wild, tensile strength. One hand fisted in Dunk’s hair, yanking his head back to deepen the brutal kiss. The other hand slid down, groping, squeezing Dunk’s ass through his jeans.
Dunk bit down on Pond’s lip. He tasted copper.
Pond jerked back with a hiss, then laughed, a low, wicked sound. “Yeah. That’s it. Be angry.” He licked the blood from his lip, his eyes glittering in the screen’s light. He slammed his body forward, pinning Dunk fully against the table, the hard edge digging into his tailbone. His hands went to Dunk’s belt.
“Stop it, you fucking psycho!” Dunk twisted, trying to knee him, but Pond shifted, trapping his leg.
“You stopped me from explaining,” Pond panted, wrestling the belt open, the buckle jangling. “Words are done. Let’s do this instead. Let’s see if you can fucking feel nothing.” He yanked Dunk’s jeans and boxers down in one rough motion, the fabric scraping against his thighs. The cool air of the studio hit his exposed skin.
Dunk gasped, a shock of vulnerability freezing him for a second. That second was all Pond needed. He spun Dunk around, forcing his chest down onto the spread of unfinished sketches. The paper crinkled and tore under his weight. Pond’s body covered his, a heavy, feverish weight.
“Get off me!”
Pond ignored him. He rutted against Dunk’s bare ass, the rough denim of his own jeans abrasive. Dunk could feel the hard line of his erection, and a traitorous, dizzying heat pooled in his own gut—a sickening mix of rage, fear, and a dormant, deeply buried hunger that had nothing to do with love and everything to do with oblivion.
“You want to forget?” Pond whispered, his mouth against Dunk’s ear. His voice had changed, dropping into a register Dunk had never heard—low, possessive, stripped of all pretense. “I can make you forget. I can make you feel so much you won’t remember your own name.”
One hand pinned Dunk’s wrist to the table. The other slid down the curve of his spine, over the swell of his ass. Pond spat, a wet, crude sound, and rubbed the saliva roughly over Dunk’s hole.
Dunk tensed, a full-body flinch. “Don’t you dare—”
Pond shoved a finger inside. It was dry, too fast, a burning, tearing intrusion. Dunk cried out, back arching against the pain.
“Shut up,” Pond breathed, but his voice wavered. He worked the finger in and out, the friction harsh. He spat again, adding a second finger alongside the first, stretching him wider. The burn was intense, a white-hot ache. Dunk gritted his teeth, his vision blurring with unshed tears of fury and shame.
Then Pond crooked his fingers.
The angle changed. The pressure shifted deep inside, finding a specific, electric point. A jolt, terrifying and immense, shot through Dunk’s core. It wasn’t pain. It was a seismic pulse of pure, undiluted pleasure, so acute it stole his breath.
“There,” Pond snarled, feeling the involuntary clench around his fingers. He rubbed the spot again, a relentless, circular pressure.
“Ah—fuck!” The curse was ripped from Dunk’s throat. His body betrayed him utterly. His cock, trapped against the cold paper, swelled and hardened. A wave of nausea rolled through him at his own response. This was violence. This was violation. And his traitorous nerves were singing.
“See?” Pond’s voice was thick with triumph and something like agony. He scissored his fingers, stretching him further, never stopping that maddening rub on his prostate. “You hate me. But your body knows me. It remembers. We shared everything else. Why not this?”
He added a third finger. The stretch was brutal, overwhelming. Dunk sobbed, a raw, broken sound, as the incredible, shameful pleasure mounted, coiling tight in his belly. He was panting, drooling onto his own sketches, his hips beginning to move of their own volition, pushing back against Pond’s hand, seeking more of that degrading, mind-blitting friction.
“You’re gonna come,” Pond chanted, fucking him with his fingers, the wet, obscene sounds filling the silent studio. “You’re gonna come on my fingers while you hate me. And you’ll never forget it.”
It was too much. The collision of hatred and raw, physical ecstasy shattered him. The coil snapped. Pleasure detonated, a silent, blinding whiteout that ripped through him with vicious force. He came, hard, striping the paper beneath him, his body convulsing around Pond’s invading fingers. It was the most intense, emptiest orgasm of his life, leaving him hollowed out and trembling.
Pond slowly withdrew his fingers. Dunk collapsed, boneless, his cheek pressed against the ruined drawings. He heard the rustle of clothing, the zip of Pond’s jeans. He couldn’t move.
Pond leaned down, his lips brushing Dunk’s sweat-damp hair. His voice was now quiet, shattered. “Now you have a reason to hate me that’s just ours. Not his. Ours.”
He stepped back. Dunk heard his footsteps recede, the door open, then close.
Silence, but for Dunk’s ragged breathing. He lay there for a long time, the cooling come sticky on his stomach, the ache of the penetration a deep, throbbing reminder. The ghost of that unbearable pleasure still flickered in his nerves.
He pushed himself up, his limbs weak. He looked at the mess on the table, on himself. He felt scraped raw, his emotional landscape reduced to rubble. But in the center of the wreckage, something was solidifying. Not anger. Not hatred. Something colder.
He cleaned himself with methodical, robotic movements. He rolled up the spoiled sketches and threw them in the trash. He righted his chair.
He sat before the glowing screen, the new logo he was designing staring back at him—sharp, aggressive, unrecognizable from his old style. He picked up his stylus.
His hand was perfectly steady. The tremor was gone. The conflict was gone. Pond had been wrong. He hadn’t given him a new reason to hate. He had given him the final piece of clarity.
He opened a new document. Not a design. A message. He typed a single line, addressed to both the blocked numbers he knew by heart.
If you ever touch me again, I will break your hands.
He did not send it. He saved it. A private vow. He looked out the window at the sleeping city, his reflection a pale ghost superimposed over the lights. The man in the glass had empty eyes. The sensitive, loyal boy was gone, buried under the sweat and semen on the studio floor.
He went back to work. The lines he drew now were like scalpels. Precise. Cutting. Designed to scar.
The new lines were clean, surgical. He worked until dawn, until the sharp angles of the logo felt like weapons in his hands. He slept on the studio couch, a thin blanket pulled tight, and did not dream. The hollowed-out feeling remained, a quiet chamber where emotions used to echo. For three days, he operated like this: a machine fueled by black coffee and a cold, focused silence. He ignored the vibrating phone, the knocks at his apartment door that eventually ceased.
On the fourth evening, the knock came at the studio door. It was not tentative. It was a confident, rhythmic tap-tap-tap-tap. Dunk knew that cadence. His stylus hovered over the tablet. His heart did not pound; it simply hardened, like clay fired in a kiln.
He opened the door.
Joong leaned against the doorframe, looking unfairly pristine. His athletic frame was wrapped in a soft cashmere sweater, his boyish charm dialed to a practiced ten. He held two takeaway coffees. "You look like shit," he said, smiling as if he’d just commented on the weather.
"Leave." Dunk moved to close the door.
Joong’s foot shot out, blocking it. The charm didn’t slip, but his eyes grew sharper. "I heard about Pond’s little meltdown. He’s a mess. Blubbering. Says he ruined everything forever." He shoved the door open wider and stepped inside, placing the coffees on a shelf. "I told him he was being dramatic. We’re adults. We can talk this out."
Dunk stared at him, this stranger he’d once loved. The arrogance was breathtaking. "There’s nothing to talk about. You fucked my best friend in our bed. Then he forced himself on me on that table. The conversation is over."
Joong’s smile finally faltered, just at the edges. He hadn’t known the details. A flicker of something—not remorse, but annoyance—crossed his face. "He... what? Jesus, Pond." He ran a hand through his hair, the picture of frustrated concern. "Look, that’s fucked up. That’s not what I wanted. I just... I missed you. And he was there. It was a mistake."
"A mistake." Dunk’s laugh was a dry crack. "You came inside him, Joong. I saw it. That’s not a typo. It’s a fucking manuscript."
The vulgarity hung in the air. Joong’s gaze dropped, then swept the room, landing on the drafting table. His eyes darkened. "And he did that to you here?" He walked toward it, his fingers tracing the wood’s edge. "This is where you create your beautiful things." He looked back at Dunk. "He defiled it. He doesn’t understand you. He never did. He just takes, messily."
The manipulation was so transparent it was almost artistic. Dunk said nothing.
Joong closed the distance between them. He didn’t smell of beer and despair like Pond. He smelled of expensive sandalwood and ambition. "I understand you," he murmured, his hand coming up to cup Dunk’s jaw. Dunk didn’t pull away. The numbness held. "I know what you need. You need order. You need to be reminded who you belong to."
His mouth was on Dunk’s then, but it was nothing like Pond’s violent crash. This was a reclamation. It was soft, persuasive, deep. His tongue slid against Dunk’s, a familiar, devastating invasion. Dunk’s body, traitorously, remembered every nuance. A low heat, distinct from the frantic fire Pond had ignited, began to smolder in his gut.
"See?" Joong breathed against his lips, his hands sliding down to Dunk’s hips. "You remember. This is real. That other thing... that was just noise."
He guided Dunk backward until his legs hit the edge of the same drafting table. The memory of Pond’s fingers, the painful, brilliant pleasure, flashed behind Dunk’s eyes. Joong pushed him down, not with violence, but with an insistent, confident pressure. He knelt.
He undid Dunk’s jeans with deft, sure movements. He took Dunk’s half-hard cock into his mouth without hesitation, swallowing him down to the root in one smooth, wet glide.
"Fuck," Dunk gasped, his head hitting the table. The sensation was overwhelming. Skilled. Intentional. Where Pond had been a chaotic storm, Joong was a calculated tide, pulling him under with relentless expertise. His tongue swirled around the head, his throat constricting on the downstroke. He knew exactly how Dunk liked it, the rhythm, the pressure.
Dunk’s hands fisted at his sides. He stared at the ceiling tiles, trying to divorce his mind from the slick, hot pleasure engulfing his cock. He couldn’t. His hips began to move, a shallow, involuntary thrust.
Joong pulled off with a lewd pop. He looked up, his lips glistening. "You taste the same," he said, husky. "You feel the same." He stood, unbuckling his own belt, his eyes locked on Dunk’s. "I’m going to fuck you now. Properly. The way you need it."
He didn’t ask. He manhandled Dunk, turning him onto his stomach, pressing his chest flat against the wood. Dunk was pliant, caught in the dissonance between his mind’s cold fury and his body’s humiliating responsiveness. Joong’s spit was warm and crude against his hole, a brief, slick preparation. Then the blunt, insistent pressure of Joong’s cock, bigger than Pond’s fingers, nudging against him.
"It’s been a while for you, huh?" Joong whispered, not waiting for an answer. He pushed.
The stretch was immense, a burning, full feeling that stole Dunk’s breath. Joong sheathed himself in one slow, brutal inch, then another, his grip on Dunk’s hips iron-tight. Dunk cried out, a muffled sound against the wood.
"Shhh, baby," Joong cooed, burying himself to the hilt. He stayed there, unmoving, letting Dunk’s body clench and tremble around him. "There. Now you’re filled. Now you’re mine again."
He began to move. His thrusts were long, deep, and perfectly measured. Each one dragged against Dunk’s prostate with a precision that was maddening. It wasn’t the frantic, overwhelming rub Pond had used; this was a targeted assault, a relentless reminder of a territory Joong believed he owned.
"You come on his fingers?" Joong grunted, his pace increasing slightly. "That’s pathetic. You come on my cock. Only on my cock. Say it."
Dunk shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. The pleasure was coiling again, tighter, hotter, born from a shame so deep it felt bottomless.
Joong slammed into him, changing the angle. The new pressure was dizzying. "Say it!" he demanded, his cool facade cracking into raw dominance.
"Yes!" Dunk choked out, the word ripped from him.
"Yes, what?"
"I come... I come on your cock!" Dunk screamed it, the admission shattering something inside him.
Joong’s hand snaked around, fisting Dunk’s leaking cock. Three strokes, in time with his deep, punishing thrusts, was all it took. Dunk shattered. His orgasm was a silent, seizing wave, his cum striping the table beneath him as his body clamped down violently on Joong’s invading length.
Joong followed with a guttural groan, pumping his own release deep inside Dunk, his thrusts turning jerky and wild. He collapsed over Dunk’s back, his sweat soaking through Dunk’s shirt, his breath hot on his neck.
The silence that followed was thick with the stench of sex and betrayal. Joong softened inside him, but didn’t pull out. He nuzzled Dunk’s hair. "See?" he whispered, triumphant, tender. "We’re okay. We’re us again."
Dunk lay there, filled with a man he now understood he truly hated. The numbness was gone. In its place was a crystalline, howling void. He saw the vow on his computer screen, unsent. He saw the sharp lines of his new designs.
Joong finally withdrew, tucking himself away with a soft sigh of satisfaction. He gently turned Dunk over, leaning in to kiss his forehead. "I’ll call you tomorrow. We’ll get dinner."
He left, whistling.
Dunk slid off the table, his legs buckling. He caught himself on the chair. He felt the slow, hot trickle of Joong’s come leaking down his thigh. He looked at the mess on the table, at his own reflection in the dark computer screen—a used, empty thing.
The cold resolution from days before was gone. Now there was only a silent, screaming rage. It had a taste: like blood, and coffee, and another man’s spit. It had a sound: the confident click of a closing door.
He reached for his stylus. It trembled in his hand now. He opened the saved document, the one with the unsent vow.
He deleted the single line.
He began to write something else entirely.
He began to write something else entirely. A list. Not of feelings, but of facts, observations, assets, and weaknesses. Joong: vain, needs control, competitive with Pond. Pond: impulsive, emotionally volatile, guilt-ridden. Studio lease: mine. Apartment lease: joint, expires in 3 months. Client portfolio: mine alone. The words were clean, surgical. He typed until the gray dawn light washed the screen’s blue from the walls.
He showered in the studio’s small bathroom, scrubbing his skin until it burned. The water couldn’t reach the feeling of being full of them, one after the other. He dressed in clean clothes from the emergency duffel he kept under the desk. He balled up the soiled clothes and threw them in the trash, on top of the ruined sketches.
A week passed. He worked. He ate. He ignored the flowers Joong sent to the apartment, the rambling, pleading voicemails from Pond. Their noise was background static. The list on his computer grew, a living document. He added a new section: Patterns. Joong would seek validation after any conflict with Pond. Pond would seek oblivion after any contact with Joong. They orbited each other, a unstable binary system, and they’d always tried to pull Dunk in as their stabilizing force.
He was done being their gravity.
The knock came late on a Thursday. It was hesitant, a fragile tap. Dunk knew who it was before he opened the door. Pond stood there, shivering in a thin jacket though the night was warm. His eyes were huge, hollow.
“Hey,” Pond said. The word was a ghost.
Dunk didn’t speak. He simply stepped back, holding the door open. An invitation. This was new. Pond entered cautiously, like the floor might give way. He smelled of cigarette smoke and cheap laundry detergent.
“You let me in,” Pond said, disbelief softening his features.
“You look like you haven’t slept,” Dunk said, his voice flat. He walked to the kitchenette, filled the kettle. “Tea?”
“Yeah. Okay.” Pond hovered near the drafting table, his fingers brushing the wood where Joong had bent him over. He flinched back. “Dunk, about what I did…”
“It happened.” Dunk set two mugs down. The domesticity was a weapon. “You wanted a reaction. You got one.”
“I didn’t want that,” Pond whispered. “I was out of my head. Seeing you… the hate in your eyes. After what we did to you. I just wanted you to feel something for me again. Even if it was disgust.”
“It wasn’t disgust.” Dunk turned, leaning against the counter. He watched the words land. Pond’s head jerked up. “It was pity. You’re a mess, Pond. Joong’s a user. He used you to hurt me, and now he’s using me to hurt you. And you’re just… letting him.”
Pond’s face crumpled. He walked to the window, pressing his forehead to the cool glass. “I know. I fucking know that. He came to see me. Bragged about coming here. About how you… how he made you…”
“Say it.” Dunk’s voice was a razor.
“He fucked you.” Pond turned, his eyes blazing with a jealous, wounded fury. “Right after I did. On this same table. He couldn’t wait to tell me.”
Dunk nodded slowly, sipping his tea. The calm was a wall. “He did. It was efficient. He’s always been efficient.”
“Efficient?” Pond laughed, a broken sound. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means he knew what buttons to push. He always does.” Dunk set his mug down. “Just like you knew which buttons to push. The angry, passionate ones. You both have your scripts.” He took a step closer. “The question is, are you tired of yours?”
Pond stared at him. The mischievous glint was gone, replaced by raw need. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying Joong thinks he’s won. He thinks he’s reasserted his… ownership.” Dunk let the word hang, vile and precise. “He thinks we’re both waiting for his next move.”
“Aren’t we?”
Dunk moved then, closing the distance. He didn’t touch Pond with violence. He reached out and brushed a strand of hair from Pond’s forehead, a gesture from a decade past. Pond’s breath hitched. “What if we made our own move?” Dunk’s voice dropped to a murmur. “What if we showed him his script is obsolete?”
Pond’s eyes searched his face, desperately looking for the warmth, the loyalty, the Dunk he knew. He found only a cool, calculating blankness. It seemed to excite him. “How?”
Dunk’s hand slid down, cupping Pond’s jaw, his thumb stroking the stubble. “You came here for forgiveness. For connection.” He leaned in, his lips a millimeter from Pond’s. “So connect.”
The kiss was nothing like the last one. It was slow. Deliberate. Dunk initiated it, controlled its pace. He tasted the surprise on Pond’s lips, then the desperate, hungry response. Pond’s hands came up, clutching at Dunk’s shirt, pulling him closer. A low moan vibrated in Pond’s throat.
Dunk walked him backward, never breaking the kiss, until the back of Pond’s knees hit the couch. He pushed him down. Dunk straddled him, looking down at the wrecked, beautiful face of his former best friend. “You want to feel something real?” Dunk whispered. “Forget him. Just for tonight. Be here with me. Not as a weapon. Not as a mistake.”
Pond nodded, a frantic, eager movement. “Yes. God, yes, Dunk.”
Dunk pulled his own shirt off, then pushed Pond’s jacket from his shoulders. He kissed him again, deeper, his tongue mapping a familiar geography. His hands worked open Pond’s jeans, delving inside. He wrapped his fingers around Pond’s cock, already hard and leaking. Pond bucked up into his grip with a choked cry.
“Shhh,” Dunk soothed, pumping him slowly. “This is just us. No audience this time.” He said it knowing it was a lie. Joong was the invisible audience for everything now.
He moved down, trailing kisses over Pond’s chest, his stomach. He took Pond into his mouth, swallowing him down in a wet, hot slide. Pond’s back arched off the couch, his fingers tangling in Dunk’s hair. “Fuck, Dunk… oh god, your mouth…”
Dunk worked him expertly, using his tongue, his throat, the techniques Joong had taught him, the ones Pond had only ever guessed at. He hollowed his cheeks, applying perfect, tight pressure. He felt Pond’s thighs begin to tremble. He pulled off with a slick sound.
“Not yet,” Dunk said. He stood, shedding his own jeans. He retrieved a bottle of lube from the desk drawer—a new, full bottle. He poured a slick, cool pool into his palm. He looked at Pond, who was watching him with wrecked, worshipful eyes. “You want to be inside me?”
Pond could only nod, his mouth agape.
“Then do it properly. Gently.” Dunk turned his back, bending over the arm of the couch, presenting himself. The position was a deliberate echo. A reclamation.
Pond was behind him in an instant, his hands trembling as they smoothed over Dunk’s ass. He coated himself with the lube, then pressed the thick head of his cock against Dunk’s entrance. “Okay?” he breathed, his voice ragged with restraint.
“Yes.”
Pond pushed in, a slow, inexorable glide. There was no burn this time, only a deep, filling stretch. He bottomed out with a groan, his hips flush against Dunk’s ass. He stayed there, panting, his forehead resting between Dunk’s shoulder blades. “I missed you,” he whispered, the confession raw and true.
Dunk closed his eyes. He focused on the physical sensation: the full, solid pressure, the heat. He detached it from Pond, from the history. It was just a feeling. He pushed back. “Move.”
Pond obeyed. His thrusts were long, deep, and surprisingly tender. Each stroke was an apology, a plea. He wrapped an arm around Dunk’s chest, holding him close, fucking him with a rhythmic, heartfelt intensity. The slick slap of skin filled the quiet studio.
“You feel so good,” Pond chanted into his skin. “So perfect. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Dunk let the words wash over him. He reached between his own legs, stroking his cock in time with Pond’s thrusts. The pleasure built, a steady, rising wave. It was good. It was even real, in a way. But Dunk’s mind was elsewhere. It was on the list. On the expiration of the lease. On the way Joong’s face would look when he realized.
“Come inside me,” Dunk ordered, his voice steady, almost casual.
Pond’s rhythm shattered. He slammed in hard, once, twice, three times, and then he spilled with a broken sob, his release pumping hot and deep into Dunk’s body. The convulsion of his orgasm pushed Dunk over the edge. He came silently, his own release striping the couch cushion, his body clenching tight around Pond’s softening cock.
They stayed like that for long minutes, Pond still buried inside him, his tears wet on Dunk’s back. Dunk waited for the emotional crash, the regret. It didn’t come. There was only a cold, quiet certainty.
Pond finally pulled out, collapsing onto the couch. He reached for Dunk, trying to pull him into an embrace. Dunk allowed it, settling against him, his head on Pond’s chest. He could feel the frantic beat of Pond’s heart.
“What happens now?” Pond whispered into his hair.
Dunk looked across the room at his computer, the screen dark. “Now,” he said, his voice soft and final, “we let him find out.”