Chapter 3: The Expansion
The ride home was a silent cocoon of streetlights and passing shadows. Jaime curled against the passenger window, his body humming with a strange, distant ache. He could still feel the ghost of them, the specific pressures in specific places, like an invasive memory his flesh refused to erase. August kept one hand on his thigh, a warm, possessive weight.
Their apartment was dark and quiet. August didn’t turn on the overhead lights, just a small lamp by the sofa. In the gentle glow, he looked Jaime over with an intensity that was almost medical.
“Bath,” he said, not asking.
Jaime nodded, his limbs heavy. August ran the water, steaming hot, and poured in a capful of something that smelled of eucalyptus and lavender. He undressed Jaime slowly, his fingers tracing the faint, blossoming marks on his hips, the slight tremble in his muscles. There was a reverence in it that made Jaime’s eyes sting.
The water was scalding, perfect. Jaime hissed as he sunk into it, the heat seeping into his bruised insides. August knelt by the tub, a washcloth in hand.
“Look at me,” August said, his voice low.
Jaime did. August’s eyes were dark, searching.
“Tell me one true thing about how you feel right now,” August said. It was their game, their ritual after. No lies. No pretty words.
Jaime’s lip quivered. He looked down at the water, at his own pale body beneath the suds. “I feel… empty. But not in a bad way. Like a vase that’s been cleaned out. Waiting.” He paused, the next truth clawing its way up. “And I’m scared of how much I liked it.”
August’s thumb stroked his cheek. “That’s my boy,” he murmured, and it sounded like praise and absolution all at once. He washed Jaime with meticulous care, cleaning away every trace of the dungeon, the sweat, the salt. He washed his hair, massaging his scalp until Jaime nearly purred.
Wrapped in a soft towel, then in a clean sweatshirt of August’s that swallowed him whole, Jaime felt like a newborn thing. Fragile. Precious. August made him tea, and they sat on the sofa, Jaime tucked under August’s arm, his feet in August’s lap.
For a week, it was just this. A quiet, domestic healing. August cooked. They watched old movies. August would rub arnica into the last yellowing bruises on Jaime’s hips, his touch always landing on the exact spot that ached. The extreme sensation of that night began to transform in memory, softening at the edges, the sharp terror blurring into something more like awe.
And with the healing came a restless itch.
It surfaced during a lazy Sunday morning. August was reading, and Jaime was tracing the lines of muscle on August’s bare back with a single finger. He pressed a little harder over a knot of tension.
“What are you thinking about?” August asked, not looking up from his book.
“The cross,” Jaime said, the words out before he could cage them. “The one in the corner. The X.”
August slowly closed his book. He turned his head. “Yeah?”
“You… you never used it on me.”
“No,” August agreed. His eyes were careful, gauging. “It’s a specific kind of thing.”
“I want it,” Jaime said, and the want was sudden and deep, a thirst. It wasn’t just about the cross. It was about offering himself up again, but differently. More formally. A ceremony of surrender. “I want you to put me on it.”
August studied him for a long minute, seeing the residue of wreckage but also the new, determined light in his eyes. He cupped Jaime’s face. “It’s not just being held, Jaime. It’s being displayed. You’re open. You can’t move. You can’t hide anything. It’s all right there.”
A shiver that wasn’t fear traveled down Jaime’s spine. “I know.”
A slow smile touched August’s lips. “Okay. This Friday. We’ll go back.”
---
The dungeon seemed both familiar and utterly foreign. It smelled the same—leather, metal, the faint ozone of sex—but Jaime’s pulse thrummed with a new frequency. Anticipation, not just anxiety.
August led him not to the central mats, but to the corner where the St. Andrew’s cross stood against the stone wall. It was simpler than he’d remembered: two beams of dark, polished wood bolted together in an X, sturdy leather cuffs dangling from each arm.
“Hands and knees,” August said softly, guiding him down onto the plush rug at the foot of the cross. From a small bag, he produced a bottle and a strange object Jaime had only seen in pictures: a black silicone plug with a thin tube and a small bulb pump attached.
“Relax for me, baby,” August murmured, his fingers slick and careful. The initial pressure was familiar, a stretching burn as the deflated plug slipped inside. Jaime exhaled, dropping his forehead to his arms.
Then August picked up the pump.
A soft click-hiss.
Inside him, the plug began to swell.
It was a profoundly different sensation. Not a thrust, not a filling by force, but a gradual, inexorable expansion from within. It didn’t hurt, not exactly, but it was overwhelming. A deep, full ache that intensified with each soft click-hiss from August’s hand.
Jaime moaned, the sound muffled by the rug. His body tried to clench down, to expel the invader, but it only made the stretching more pronounced. He was being opened from the inside out.
“Good,” August whispered, pumping again. “Take it. Just let it happen.”
Click-hiss.
Jaime’s breath came in short gasps. He felt obscenely full, stretched to a crisp, singing tightness. The plug molded him, claimed a space and then demanded more.
“Okay,” August said finally, his voice thick. “That’s enough for now. Up. Let’s get you where you belong.”
He helped Jaime, who was dizzy with the sensation, to his feet. He guided him backward until his spine met the cool wood of the cross. August took his right wrist, kissed the palm, and secured it in a leather cuff. Then the left. The restraint was firm, unyielding. August knelt and did the same with his ankles, spreading him into a wide, vulnerable X.
Jaime was held. Immobilized. The position pulled his body taut, arching his back slightly, presenting his chest, his stomach, the swollen curve of his ass. The inflatable plug inside him felt a hundred times more present, a constant, throbbing reminder of his captivity.
August stepped back, his gaze a physical touch. “Look at you,” he breathed, a rough edge of lust in his voice. “This is how I want to see you. Split open. Helpless. Perfect.”
He reached out and ran a single finger down Jaime’s sternum, over his belly, a light trail that made Jaime shiver. Then he turned.
The lounge door was open. Men stood there again, a different group this time. Four, maybe five. Their eyes were locked on him, pinned like a butterfly to a board. There was no anonymity here, no frantic, animal pile. This was a viewing. He was the exhibit.
A tall man with silver in his hair stepped closer, his eyes appreciative. “Stunning work, August.”
“He’s something, isn’t he?” August said, his pride a living thing in the room.
The man leaned in, examining Jaime’s face, the strain in his bound arms, the way his body trembled with the effort of holding still against the internal pressure. “May I?”
August nodded.
The man’s hand, cool and dry, touched Jaime’s lower belly, pressing in gently. The pressure translated directly to the plug, sending a sharp bolt of sensation through Jaime’s core. He cried out, a short, sharp sound.
“Sensitive,” the man noted, a smile in his voice. He looked at August. “How much more will he take?”
August’s eyes found Jaime’s, a question and a promise. Jaime, breathless, his heart hammering against his ribs, gave a tiny, desperate nod.
August picked up the pump from the floor. He stepped close, so close Jaime could feel his heat. He kissed Jaime, deep and claiming, then pulled back.
“Let’s see,” August said.
He connected the tube to the valve at the base of the plug.
The click-hiss this time was a gunshot in the silent room.