Chapter 13: Bathhouse Confessions
The city outside was a grid of anxiety. Travis walked its streets, a ghost moving through the vibrant evening. He bought a ticket to a loud, explosion-filled blockbuster he’d never see. He sat in the back, the flashes of light and thunderous sound washing over him without leaving an impression. His mind was back in the apartment, imagining shadows moving in the hall.
After, he forced down a burger at a brightly lit diner, chewing mechanically, the grease coating his throat. He watched the door every time the bell jingled. No one came for him there.
It was past eleven when his key turned in the lock. The apartment was dark, quiet. He stood in the doorway, listening. The familiar hum of the refrigerator. The distant rush of traffic. Nothing else.
“Mavis?”
No answer. A cold thread of fear pulled tight in his chest. He flipped the light switch. Nothing was out of place. No signs of a struggle. But the silence felt intentional, heavy.
He moved through the living room, checking corners. His bedroom door was ajar. He pushed it open.
The room was exactly as he’d left it. Bed unmade. Neon stars glowing. The hooks in the wall, empty. The matte-black disc of the hole, silent and dark.
“Mavis, come on. Talk to me.”
A faint sound, then. Not from the hole. From the bathroom. A soft, wet ripple.
Travis stood frozen for a second, then crossed the hall. The bathroom door was closed. A thin line of light glowed underneath. Steam curled from the gap at the bottom, carrying the scent of lavender.
He pushed the door open.
The room was a sauna, fogged and warm. The mirror was completely clouded. The air clung, thick with moisture and the sharp, clean smell of the soap he used. And in the center of it all, the old, deep clawfoot tub was full, swirling with a mountain of white, milky bubbles.
Travis stood in the doorway, his coat still on.
A small, familiar hand appeared over the rim of the tub, resting on the porcelain. Then Mavis’s head surfaced from the suds, his dark hair plastered to his skull, bubbles clinging to his chin. He looked exhausted, but his eyes were bright, watchful.
“Took you long enough,” Mavis said, his voice softer than usual, tempered by the steam. “Close the door. You’re letting the heat out.”
Travis shut the door, shrugging off his jacket. He sat on the closed toilet lid, the room pressing in on him, humid and close. “What happened?”
Mavis sank back into the water, so only his face was visible amidst the bubbles. “A visitor. Just after you left.”
Travis’s blood went cold. “Don?”
“No. A hireling. Big. Smelled like cheap cologne and sweat.” Mavis pushed a clump of bubbles idly. “He picked the lock. Very quiet about it. Thought he was a professional.”
“What did you do?”
Mavis’s smile was a thin, sharp line. “He made it as far as the bedroom. He was looking at the wall. At our wall. He had a little camera.” Mavis closed his eyes, drifting in the heat. “I dropped a hardcover book from the top shelf onto his head. Then, while he was stunned, I may have introduced his ankle to the business end of a straightened clothes hanger. He won’t be walking quietly for a while.”
A startled laugh burst from Travis’s chest, equal parts horror and relief. “Jesus, Mavis.”
“He left in a hurry. Limping. Cursing about rats.” Mavis opened his eyes. “I don’t think he saw me. Not really. But he felt me.” He tilted his head. “You should get in. The water’s still hot.”
Travis just stared. The image was absurd. Mavis, five inches of furious vengeance, defending their territory. The tension of the day, the waiting, the fear, all condensed into this steamy room and a tub full of bubbles.
He stood, undressed quickly, and stepped into the tub. The water was scalding, perfect. He sank down with a groan, the heat leaching the chill from his bones, the bubbles swallowing him up to his chest. The world shrank to this porcelain haven.
Mavis swam over, a tiny blur beneath the opaque, sudsy surface. He emerged beside Travis’s ribs, planting his small hands on Travis’s side for leverage. Without a word, he began to knead the tight muscle of Travis’s shoulder, his fingers surprisingly strong.
Travis let his head loll back against the curved rim, his eyes closing. The fear was still there, a cold stone in his gut, but Mavis’s hands were slowly warming it, smoothing its edges.
“He’ll send someone else,” Travis murmured, the words bubbling up with the steam. “Or come himself.”
“Let him,” Mavis said, his focus on a stubborn knot under Travis’s shoulder blade. “The first rule of hunting small things is that they bite back harder than you think.”
The intimate, non-sexual touch was a novel kind of unraveling. It wasn’t about control or teasing. It was about presence. About tending. Travis felt something crack open inside him, a dam of held-in words.
Mavis slipped under the water again. Travis felt him move through the suds, a small, warm current against his legs. Then, a new pressure. Not hands. Something softer. The slow, deliberate press of an open mouth against the base of his cock, right above where it met his body. A kiss. Held there, under the veil of bubbles and warm water.
It was tender. It was claiming. It stole the air from Travis’s lungs.
“Stars, Mavis,” he whispered, the words a soft exhalation into the steamy air.
Mavis didn’t move. He held the contact, a silent, submerged anchor.
And the words kept coming, spilling out of Travis like water overflowing the tub. Secrets he didn’t know he was keeping. “I love you.” The admission was quiet, raw, absorbed by the humid room. “I love your voice. Your stupid, knowing smile.” He took a shaky breath. “The way you love me so thoroughly. It wrecks me.” His hand found the edge of the tub, gripping it. “I love the feeling of you when you’re curled up asleep on my skin. Like I’m your whole world.”
Mavis finally moved. Just a slow, swirling pass of his tongue where his mouth had been. A silent acknowledgement. A promise.
Travis was laid bare, more than physically. The corporate threats, the man in his apartment, the looming chaos—it all faded into a distant rumble. Here, now, there was only this heat, this scent, this tiny, formidable creature who knew every hidden part of him and hadn’t run.
Mavis surfaced quietly, resting his chin on Travis’s stomach, looking up at him. Bubbles clung to his eyelashes. “You’re my world, too,” he said, simple as a fact. “Mess and all.”
They stayed like that until the water lost its heat and the bubbles began to pop. Travis washed slowly, methodically, and Mavis helped, a miniature attendant passing soap, scrubbing at a spot on his back. When the water was tepid, Travis pulled the plug and they watched it drain together, a shared quiet between them.
Wrapped in a towel, Travis stood before the fogged mirror. He wiped a clear circle with his hand. His reflection looked back, softer at the edges from the steam, his wild hair plastered down. He looked tired, but the hunted panic from earlier was gone. In its place was a weary resolve.
Mavis was on the sink edge, wringing water from his own hair. “He’ll try again,” Mavis stated, not looking up. “Tonight was a probe. Next time won’t be subtle.”
Travis met his own gaze in the mirror. “I know.”
“We could leave,” Mavis said, very quietly. “We could go somewhere else. New walls.”
Travis turned, leaning against the sink. He looked at Mavis, so small and fierce on the porcelain. “This is your home.”
“You’re my home,” Mavis corrected.
The truth of it settled in the room, clearer than the mirror. Travis shook his head. “No. We stay. We finish this.” A cold, clean anger, unfamiliar and sharp, was crystallizing inside him. Don had sent a man into their space. Into Mavis’s space. That crossed a line he hadn’t even known was drawn.
Mavis watched him, reading the shift. A slow, approving smile touched his lips. “Okay,” he said.
Back in the bedroom, Travis didn’t dress. He went to the wall. To the hooks. He picked up the coiled restraining belt, the nylon cold and dry in his hands.
“What are you doing?” Mavis asked, perched on the headboard.
“Not what,” Travis said, his voice low. “Why.” He ran his thumb over one of the D-rings. “It’s not just about letting go anymore. It’s about being ready.” He looked at Mavis, the neon stars reflecting in his eyes. “You said it yourself. He knows where I live. So we make this place a harder target. For both of us.”
Mavis’s eyes gleamed with understanding. This wasn’t about submission now. It was about preparation. About fortification.
Travis hung the belt back on its hook. It wasn’t a tool for escape tonight. It was a statement. A piece of the architecture of their defiance.
He crawled into bed. Mavis joined him a moment later, a small, warm weight against his side, silent and alert.
Travis lay awake in the dark, listening to the sounds of the building. Every creak was a footstep. Every rustle was a threat. But Mavis was here, a vigilant guardian in the gloom. And the hooks were in the wall, waiting. The edge was still there, but now they stood on it together, looking out at the dark, ready for whatever came next. The fear was still present, but it was no longer alone. It was paired with a hard, quiet rage, and that made all the difference.
It was paired with a hard, quiet rage, and that made all the difference.
Travis woke first the next morning, noticing Mavis curled to his lips. The man took advantage and pecked light kisses against his love’s tiny body, feeling the delicate architecture of ribs beneath his skin. Mavis stirred, a soft, grumbling noise escaping him as he swatted blindly at the giant nuisance. “Five more minutes,” he mumbled, his voice thick with sleep.
“You’re a lie-in luxury we can’t afford today,” Travis whispered, but he stopped kissing, content to just look. In the grey dawn light, Mavis seemed made of shadow and porcelain, a fierce, perfect little statue nestled against his jawline.
The coffee machine gurgled its morning anthem. Travis stood at the counter, watching steam rise from his mug. The apartment felt different now. The walls weren’t just boundaries; they were a perimeter. Every familiar creak of the building held a new, specific weight. Mavis was a speck of motion on the kitchen table, meticulously assembling a breakfast crumb from a shredded piece of wheat toast.
“So,” Travis said, the word hanging in the quiet. “The guy last night. He definitely didn’t get a picture?”
Mavis paused his construction. “Of the wall? Maybe a blurry one of the baseboard before the book introduced itself.” He shoved a piece of crust larger than his head. “His priorities seemed to shift toward bleeding and limping shortly after.”
A real laugh burst from Travis this time, tight but genuine. “Good.” He sipped his coffee, the bitterness a welcome anchor. “Cynthia said to watch my back. I don’t think she meant for me to have a five-inch tactical operative.”
“She doesn’t know the resources at your disposal.” Mavis patted his tiny, crumb-dusted chest. “I am a resource.”
“You’re a menace.” Travis’s smile faded. “He’ll know it was me who sent the files. The break-in proves he’s not waiting for the official process.” He stared into his mug. “I have to do something. I can’t just wait here for the next one.”
Mavis hopped onto Travis’s waiting hand, riding it over to the sink. “Do what, exactly? Storm his office? You’re a whistleblower, not an action hero.”
“I don’t know.” Travis ran water, careful to keep the stream away from his passenger. “But letting him set the tempo feels wrong now. It feels weak.” He turned his hand, so Mavis faced him. “You defended this place. It’s my turn.”
Mavis studied his face, those dark eyes missing nothing. “Your turn to what? Get hurt?”
“My turn to push back.” The idea was forming, jagged and half-born. “He sent someone to find dirt, to scare me. What if I showed him I’m not scared? What if I made it clear that coming here isn’t safe… for him?”
A slow grin spread across Mavis’s features. “Now you’re thinking like something that lives in a wall.” He crossed his arms. “But you’ll need a message. And a messenger.”
“Not you,” Travis said immediately, his gut clenching.
“Obviously not me.” Mavis rolled his eyes. “I’m the secret weapon. You need a human-faced message. A statement.”
Travis carried him back to the bedroom. His gaze drifted past the bed, past the neon stars, to the far wall. Not the one with the hole. The other one. It was blank, beige, impersonal. A space for a TV he never bought. “A statement,” he repeated, the idea snapping into focus, cold and clear.
He dressed in dark jeans and a plain black t-shirt. He moved with a new purpose, emptying the small toolbox he kept under the sink. Mavis watched from the dresser, a curious sentinel.
“What’s the plan, chief?”
Travis pulled out a hammer, a level, and a single, long picture hook. He held up the hook, its steel tip catching the light. “We’re going to give him a visual aid.” His voice was flat, deliberate. “He sent a guy to find leverage in my bedroom. So I’m going to send him a receipt.”
Mavis’s eyebrow arched. “I’m listening.”
An hour later, Travis stood before the blank wall. Centered perfectly, thanks to the level, hung the black nylon restraining belt. It was suspended from the single picture hook, its D-rings dangling empty. It wasn’t tucked away in shame or waiting by the hole for play. It was displayed. An artifact mounted on a wall.
Below it, on the floor, leaning against the baseboard, was the hardcover book Mavis had used. An Illustrated History of Urban Decay. Its spine was cracked, its corner dented from the impact.
The composition was stark, almost artistic. A tool of intimacy and a weapon of defense, presented together without explanation. Travis took a picture with his phone. The image was clinical, shadowed.
“He won’t understand it,” Travis said, staring at the arrangement.
“He doesn’t have to,” Mavis replied from his shoulder. “He just has to know it’s a message. That you’re not hiding. That you’re waiting.” He patted Travis’s neck. “Now send it to the woman. The corporate one. Let her be the messenger.”
Travis found Cynthia’s number. He attached the photo. He typed only five words: Tell Don his man forgot something.
He hit send. The whoosh sound was absurdly loud in the quiet room. It felt like releasing a breath he’d been holding for days.
His phone rang two minutes later. Cynthia’s name flashed on the screen. He let it go to voicemail. He watched the belt sway gently from the hook, a pendulum measuring this new, silent standoff.
“Okay,” he said, his voice quiet in the room. “Now we really wait.”
Mavis climbed down to the floor and walked up to the displayed book. He placed a tiny hand on its damaged cover. “Waiting’s boring,” he declared. He looked over at the other wall, at the matte-black disc waiting in its shadow. “We could work on your stamina. While we’ve got the time.”
Travis followed his gaze. The hooks by the hole stood empty, promising. The displayed belt was a declaration to the outside world. But the other one, the one still coiled by the bed, was a language only they spoke. A different kind of preparation.
“Yeah,” Travis said, a different tension settling in his shoulders. “Okay.”
He walked to the wall, the familiar ritual calming his racing thoughts. The silicone disc was cool under his touch. The world, with its threats and its corporate knives, shrunk back to the size of this single, focused point. He reached for the coil of black nylon, the heft of it a comfort in his hand. This was a fight he understood. This was an edge he knew how to walk.
This was an edge he knew how to walk. He clipped the D-rings to the solid hooks with two soft clicks that sounded final in the quiet room. The belt cinched snug across his hips, a familiar anchor. He leaned forward, the cool silicone of the updated sleeve welcoming him with its patterned, nubbed interior. He took a deep, settling breath, the scent of lavender from the bath still clinging to his skin.
Mavis was a silent presence on the other side. Travis waited for the first touch, muscles taut, expecting the usual slow, strategic build. He was braced for an endurance test, a measured climb. A soft, almost imperceptible rustle came from within the wall, closer to his head. He ignored it, focusing on the anticipation coiling in his gut.
The first contact was a feather-light graze, so delicate it could have been a mistake. It traced a slow, maddening spiral from base to tip, skimming over the textured spikes inside the sleeve. Travis shuddered, his forehead pressing into the drywall. “Finally,” he breathed out, a low sigh of relief.
But Mavis just teased that same path, again and again. He never increased the pressure, never offered the firm strokes Travis craved. It was just that whisper-soft touch, orbiting the crown, skating along the shaft, dipping underneath. It was pure sensation without payoff, a shimmering, constant almost. Travis’s knuckles were white where he gripped the wall.
“Gonna… gotta move, Mavis,” he grunted, pushing back into the sleeve, seeking friction.
The touch vanished. Completely. The sudden absence was a physical shock, leaving him throbbing and exposed in the cool, unfeeling silicone. He gasped, his hips straining pointlessly against the belt. “What? No, come on…”
A new sound, then. Not from the hole. Right by his left ear, pressed against the wall. A tiny, crisp scratching, like a pinprick being worked through paper. Then, a puff of plaster dust tickled his earlobe. A minute hole, no wider than a pencil lead, appeared in the drywall an inch from his ear.
Mavis’s voice whispered through it, clear and intimate as a thought. “Having trouble staying focused, Travis?”
Travis froze. The voice was right there, inside his head it seemed, separate from the physical space of the hole his body was using. It was disorienting, a surgical diversion of his senses. “What is this?” he managed, his voice rough.
“This,” Mavis whispered, the word a warm breeze in his ear, “is the real test.” On the word ‘test,’ the feather-light touch returned to his cock, tracing the same infuriatingly gentle pattern.
Travis moaned, his body arching. The duality was overwhelming—the whisper in his ear, the ghost-touch on his flesh. He was split between two points of contact, completely owned. Mavis kept up the soft, relentless teasing, the sensation a bright, humming wire under his skin.
Just as Travis felt the first real pulse of pre-climax, a tight, gathering thrum in his core, everything stopped. The touch vanished. The silence from the sleeve was absolute.
“Don’t you dare,” Travis pleaded into the wall, sweat beading on his spine. He was balanced on a razor’s edge, breathless.
“I remember,” Mavis’s voice murmured through the tiny ear-hole, conversational, “the first time you ever put your finger over that hole in the baseboard. You were nineteen. You’d had a shit day. You just… pressed your fingertip there and waited.” He paused. “I licked it. Just once. You jumped a foot in the air.”
Travis whimpered. The memory was vivid, sharpened by his current state. The physical need was a live wire, and Mavis was pouring psychological gasoline on it.
“You tasted like salt and disappointment,” Mavis continued, his tone fond. “Now look at you. All grown up. Hooks in your walls. Sending messages to bad men.” The touch did not return. The seconds ticked by, agonizing. A full minute. Then two.
“Please,” Travis whispered. It was barely a sound.
“Please what?” The voice was right there, a devil in his ear. “You’re so pretty when you beg. But you’re not there yet. We’re just at mile five.”
Travis’s breath hitched. A marathon. He’d braced for a sprint, but Mavis was pacing for a marathon. The understanding broke over him, a wave of despairing arousal. He wasn’t getting release. He was getting dismantled.
The feather touch flickered back to life, just a soft pass under the head. Travis cried out, his whole body jerking. It vanished again.
“Your boss,” Mavis whispered, “the one with the cheap shoes. He ever look at you like he knew? Like he saw the secret you were holding?”
“Mavis, god, please…”
“I didn’t think so. Nobody sees you like I do.” The touch returned, a slow, torturous circuit around the rim. Travis sobbed, his legs trembling. It was too much. It was everywhere and nowhere. Five minutes of this cycle felt like an hour, a year.
Mavis’s voice softened, losing its teasing edge. “My brave, messy man,” he said, the words so close they vibrated in Travis’s skull. “You sent that picture. You stood your ground. For us.” A single, firm stroke, straight and true, finally granted. Travis shouted, tears of relief and overwhelm springing to his eyes. It was gone again instantly.
The whiplash of sensation and emotion cracked him open. He wasn’t just turned on; he was laid bare, every fear and triumph of the last two days swirling in the void Mavis was orchestrating. The corporate threats, the break-in, the defiant photo—they were all just fuel on this pyre.
“I can’t,” Travis choked out, his body trembling violently. “Mavis, I can’t, I’m gonna…”
“You can,” the voice soothed. “You will. For me.” The softest, most fleeting touch grazed him. “Who owns this edge?”
“You do,” Travis gasped, the confession ripped from him.
“And who owns you on it?”
“You.” The word was a prayer, a surrender, a truth.
The complete, engulfing warmth of Mavis’s mouth on his slit took him then, deep and sudden and absolute. No teasing. No torture. Just perfect, wet heat and a suction that pulled the world out from under him. Travis came with a shattered sound, his body convulsing against the restraints, his vision whiting out at the edges.
He hung limp in the belt, spent and shaking. Gentle hands cleaned him, the movements tender now. The clips of the carabiners released. He slumped to his knees on the floor, his forehead resting against the cool wall beside the black disc.
The tiny hole near his ear was silent. From the main opening, a small, warm hand emerged, resting just beside his cheek. Travis turned his head, pressing his lips to Mavis’s palm in a weary, grateful kiss.
“Marathon,” he rasped, the word rough in his throat.
“Just the warm-up,” Mavis whispered, his voice back to its normal pitch, muffled slightly by the wall. But it was gentle. Proud. “You did good.”
Travis crawled to the bed, every muscle liquid. He felt hollowed out, but clean. The sharp fear from earlier was gone, burned away in the crucible of that sustained, exquisite torment. The outside world felt distant, manageable. He had been broken down and remade, here in this room, by the only thing that had ever made sense.
As sleep pulled him under, his last conscious thought was that the hook in the wall where the belt still hung wasn’t a threat to anyone else. It was a promise between them. A promise that here, on this edge, they were untouchable.