Chapter 11: The Second Session
The morning light was too bright, slicing through the grimy window of the bus and highlighting the dust motes dancing between them. Jason watched Simon’s profile, the way he chewed his bottom lip, lost in some internal calculation. The memory of the night before was a physical warmth in Jason’s stomach, a pleasant soreness in his limbs. But alongside it, humming just as persistently, was the memory of the machine.
The thrum. The helpless, exquisite precision of it.
They got off at their usual stop, the familiar cracked pavement and overgrown hedges leading to Simon’s street. The silence between them wasn’t awkward, but it was thick, layered with everything unsaid. Jason shoved his hands in his pockets, his shoulder bumping against Simon’s as they walked.
“So,” Jason said, the word cutting through the quiet like a stone dropped in water.
Simon glanced at him, a flicker of blue. “So.”
“I was thinking.” Jason kicked a pebble, watched it skitter into the gutter. “About the lab. About the… prototype.”
Simon’s step hitched almost imperceptibly. “What about it?”
“I want to go again.”
Simon stopped walking. He turned to face Jason fully, his expression unreadable. “You do.”
“Yeah. But different.” Jason met his gaze, holding it. The easygoing trust was still there, but underneath it was a new layer of intent. “Last time was you running the experiment. This time… I want to help design it.”
A slow, intrigued smile spread across Simon’s face. “Design it how?”
“You control the speed. The intensity. All the dials and whatever. That’s your part.” Jason took a step closer, dropping his voice even though the street was empty. “But I get to choose the tools. And where they go.”
Simon’s breath caught. Jason saw the scientist in him immediately engage, the sharp eyes calculating permutations, outcomes, risks. The friend in him, the one who had trembled and confessed, just looked wildly, desperately turned on.
“That alters the fundamental parameters,” Simon said, his voice low.
“I know,” Jason grinned. “That’s the point.”
They didn’t speak the rest of the way to the house. The tension was a live wire strung between them. Simon’s mom called a greeting from the kitchen as they passed, and Jason waved, his heart hammering against his ribs. The descent into the basement felt like crossing a threshold into another world. The fluorescent lights buzzed to life, bleaching color from everything except the ominous, patient shape of the chair in the center of the room.
The scent of ozone and old coffee wrapped around them. The machine was silent, but Jason could feel its potential humming in the air, a sub-audible promise.
“Okay,” Simon said, moving to the control console. His fingers hovered over the switches, not yet pressing anything. “Choose.”
Jason approached the equipment rack. It wasn’t a scary collection of sinister metal claws anymore. It was a palette. He studied the array of attachments: the teasing nylon brushes, the soft suede paddles, the relentless, oscillating silicon nubs. His eyes landed on a set of paired rollers, about the size of his thumb, covered in a dense, ultra-soft bristle, like a hairbrush from a doll.
He picked them up. The bristles gave way under his fingertips, promising a sensation that was everywhere and nowhere at all.
“These,” he said, holding them up.
Simon nodded, taking them. His fingers brushed Jason’s, a spark. “Placement?”
Jason didn’t hesitate. He pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor. The basement air was cool on his skin. He pointed to the lower arc of his ribs, just above his waist. “Here. One on each side.”
Simon’s hands were clinical and gentle as he fitted the brackets, securing the rollers so they would rotate against the sensitive skin. The touch was electric, a preview. Jason’s breath hitched.
“And?” Simon prompted, his voice husky.
Jason sat on the edge of the padded chair, then leaned back, swinging his legs up. He spread them, planting his feet flat on the rests. He pointed to the innermost part of his thighs, the unbearably tender skin that had made him shout into Simon’s neck just hours before. “Here.”
Simon’s fingers trembled just slightly as he secured the second pair. The brushes sat against his skin, a featherlight pressure. Jason was utterly exposed, strapped in not by leather, but by his own design. He looked up at Simon, who was staring down at him with a mixture of reverence and hunger.
“You have the controls,” Jason said. He gripped the armrests, his knuckles whitening. “Do your worst, scientist.”
Simon moved back to the console. He didn’t look at the dials. He looked at Jason. “Slow,” he muttered to himself, turning a knob with a precise click. “Teasing.”
A low whir filled the room, building from nothing. It was a different sound than before—less invasive, more insidious. The rollers on his ribs began to turn first. It wasn’t tickling. Not yet. It was a soft, swirling caress that made his skin twitch and his nerves sit up, confused.
Then the brushes on his inner thighs started to move.
A giggle burst out of Jason, unbidden, airy and surprised. The sensation was instantaneous and profound. The brushes rotated with a slow, maddening diligence, the thousands of tiny bristles combing over the hypersensitive nerves. It was a sweet, agonizing scritch-scratch that poured directly into his spine.
“Oh, fuck,” he laughed, his head tipping back. His body jerked, but the movement only pressed his skin more firmly against the rolling brushes. “Simon—”
“Adjusting,” Simon said, his eyes glued to the monitors showing Jason’s spiking biometrics. He nudged another dial.
The whir deepened. The rhythm changed, the rollers on his ribs switching to a gentle, jogging oscillation that danced over his bone. The laughter in Jason’s chest tightened, turning breathless. He squirmed, a full-body wriggle that had no escape. His grip on the armrests was the only thing anchoring him to reality.
“It’s… it’s too much,” Jason gasped, but he was grinning wildly, tears of mirth springing to his eyes. “Don’t stop!”
Simon watched him come apart. This was a new data set. This was Jason, architect of his own vulnerability, choosing the instruments of his torture. The trust was absolute, and it was hotter than anything Simon had ever felt.
“Tell me what it feels like,” Simon said, his hand hovering over the intensity slider.
“Like… like you’re brushing the inside of my soul with a feather duster!” Jason managed to get out before another wave of sensation crashed over him. The brushes on his thighs worked their relentless, gentle magic, turning his laughter into choked, squeaking hiccups. His abdomen ached from clenching, his legs trembling violently. “God, right there! It’s—ha ha ha—it’s everywhere!”
Simon increased the speed by a single increment.
Jason’s world dissolved into sensation. The two points of focus became a riot of static, a glorious, unbearable feedback loop of ticklish agony. He bucked against the restraints of his own making, howling with laughter that was raw and real and cleansing. He was a exposed nerve, singing under Simon’s meticulous control.
Simon’s own control was fraying. Watching Jason like this, participatory and jubilant in his own undoing, was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. This wasn’t a confession anymore. It was a conversation. A language they were inventing together, spoken in gasps and oscillations.
He brought the machine to a slow, gradual halt. The whir died down to a sigh, then to silence.
Jason lay panting, spent, a sheen of sweat coating his chest. His body still trembled with aftershocks. Slowly, he opened his eyes, finding Simon’s across the room. He was still grinning, wrecked and glorious.
“Conclusion?” Jason rasped.
Simon walked over, his footsteps loud in the sudden quiet. He didn’t touch the releases. He leaned over the chair, caging Jason in, and kissed him. It tasted like salt and joy.
“The conclusion,” Simon whispered, “is that you’re a brilliant co-researcher. And that the prototype…” He looked at the machine, then back at Jason’s flushed, triumphant face. “The prototype just became obsolete.”
Jason’s laughter this time was a soft, satisfied puff of air against Simon’s lips. He understood. The machine was just the bridge. They were on the other side now, standing in new, uncharted territory, maps in their hands and the echoes of a shared, invented language between them.
They were on the other side now, standing in new, uncharted territory, maps in their hands and the echoes of a shared, invented language between them. Jason broke the kiss, his breath still coming in warm, uneven puffs. A new, mischievous light sparked in his hazel eyes.
“Obsolete is a strong word,” he said, his voice scratchy from laughter. He wriggled his fingers. “Unhook me.”
Simon complied, his deft fingers releasing the brackets. The soft brushes fell away, leaving behind a phantom, tingling map on Jason’s skin. Jason sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the chair. He stretched, a long, cat-like arc that pulled taut the muscles of his stomach. He eyed the equipment rack again, his gaze analytical, as if scanning a menu for the perfect next course.
“Okay,” Jason said, hopping down. The concrete floor was cool under his bare feet. “Round two. But we’re reconfiguring.”
Simon leaned against the console, arms crossed. The nervous excitement was a live wire under his skin. “Your design, your rules.”
Jason picked up the two soft roller brushes from where Simon had placed them. He then walked to a different part of the rack, to a tray of smaller, more delicate attachments. His fingers hovered before selecting a single, slim wand of clear, medical-grade silicone. It was no longer than his pinky, tipped with a tiny, soft bulb.
“The ribs were good. The thighs were genius.” Jason turned, holding the tools. His expression was one of focused experimentation. “But it was… broad spectrum. I want a focal point.”
He moved back to the chair and lay down again, assuming his position. He placed the two roller brushes against his own hip bones this time, just inside the sharp ridges. “Anchor points,” he explained, looking at Simon. “Keep them here. Medium pressure.”
Simon attached them, his hands steady, the scientist in him captivated by Jason’s sudden methodology. “And the focal point?”
Jason held up the tiny silicone wand. He met Simon’s eyes, and the easygoing trust was total, layered with a daring challenge. He took Simon’s wrist and guided his hand, placing the wand against his own abdomen.
“Right here,” Jason said, his voice dropping to a whisper. He positioned the bulbous tip at the very entrance of his deep navel. “I want this one… placed right inside.”
Simon’s breath stalled. The intimacy of the request was profound, a deliberate exploration of a hypersensitive, often-ignored nexus of nerves. It was vulnerable in a way that felt deeper than skin. “Jason, the sensitivity there is… immense.”
“I know.” Jason’s grin was all wicked promise. “That’s why I picked it. You control the dials. But I chose the target. Now…” He pushed Simon’s hand gently, guiding the wand until the soft silicone tip nestled securely into the deep well of his navel. “Lock it in.”
Simon’s fingers fumbled for a second before he secured the bracket, his knuckles brushing the warm, flat plane of Jason’s stomach. The apparatus held the wand in a perfect, unyielding position, an infinitesimal invasion. Jason shivered, a full-body tremor that had nothing to do with cold.
“It’s already buzzing,” he murmured, eyes wide. “And you haven’t even turned it on.”
Simon returned to the console. His mouth was dry. This was beyond any calibration he’d ever conceived. He reset the parameters, linking the two hip brushes to one channel, the navel wand to another, separate one. He could run them in tandem or in counterpoint.
“Ready?” Simon asked, his finger on the master switch.
Jason’s hands gripped the armrests again. He took a deep, deliberate breath, his abdomen rising and falling, which only pressed the silent wand tip deeper. “Do it.”
Simon engaged the power. The familiar whir filled the room, but the effect was immediate and singular. The brushes on Jason’s hips began their soft, swirling rotation, a pleasant, distracting hum. Jason sighed, a smile playing on his lips. “Okay, that’s nice. It’s just nice.”
Then Simon activated the second channel.
The tiny wand in Jason’s navel came to life. It didn’t rotate. It vibrated, a high-frequency, pinpoint oscillation that was less a touch and more a direct transmission into his core.
Jason’s reaction was instantaneous and absolute. His whole body snapped taut, a bowstring pulled to breaking. A shocked, silent scream locked in his throat before erupting as a strangled, giddy shriek of laughter. “OH! SIMON!”
It wasn’t the full-bodied laughter from before. This was sharper, more frantic, a targeted assault on his very center of gravity. The vibration drilled into him, a dizzying, deep-cell tickle that echoed up into his diaphragm and down into his groin. He jerked wildly, but the anchored brushes on his hips held him firm, their gentle motion now a mocking contrast to the seismic event happening in his navel.
“Turn it—ha ha HA—down! Or up! I don’t know!” Jason begged, tears streaming down his temples into his hair. His abs contracted violently, trying to clench away from the sensation, which only increased the pressure. It was a recursive loop of exquisite torment. “It’s in my bones! It’s in my teeth!”
Simon watched, transfixed. The biometric screens were a storm of red and orange peaks. He nudged the intensity for the wand up a single, cruel notch.
Jason’s world dissolved into the buzzing. Every nerve was reporting back from that one impossible point. The soft brushes on his hips became a pathetic, distant memory. He was just a conduit for this relentless, tickling frequency. His laughter turned breathless, hiccuping, a desperate fight for air between waves of paralyzing sensation.
“Please—I can’t—Simon, I swear—” he sobbed-laughed, utterly helpless.
Simon slowly, so slowly, brought the hip brushes to a stop. Now there was only the wand, its relentless vibration the sole reality in the silent, sterile room. Jason’s pleas were reduced to whimpers, his body a trembling arc of surrender pinned to the chair by a inch of silicone.
Simon’s own control shattered. He crossed the room in three strides and killed the power at the main unit. The sudden silence was deafening, ringing. Jason went limp, collapsing into the padding, spent and shuddering. Sweat coated him like oil.
Simon unhooked everything with frantic hands, the brackets clattering to the floor. He didn’t say a word. He just gathered Jason up, pulling him off the chair and into his arms, holding his trembling, overheated body against his own.
Jason buried his face in Simon’s neck, his breathing a ragged mess. He was laughing softly again, a hysterical, relieved little sound. “You… you absolute bastard,” he mumbled into Simon’s skin, his voice wrecked. “That was… that was…”
“I know,” Simon whispered, his hand cradling the back of Jason’s head, his fingers stroking through the damp, messy hair. He could still feel the phantom vibration in his own palms. He looked over Jason’s shoulder at the quiet machine, the discarded wand lying on the concrete like a spent cartridge.
The prototype was indeed obsolete. It had been a question. This, now—Jason’s chosen vulnerability, his breath hot on Simon’s neck, the terrifying, beautiful trust—this was the answer. It was a truth so visceral it had its own frequency, and it was still humming in the air between them, in the very marrow of the quiet house.
It was a truth so visceral it had its own frequency, and it was still humming in the air between them, in the very marrow of the quiet house. Jason’s breathing slowly evened out against Simon’s shoulder, the violent tremors subsiding into fine, residual shivers. He didn’t pull away. He just hung there, boneless, his mind slowly booting back up from the sensory wipeout.
“My turn to reconfigure,” Jason mumbled, his lips moving against the column of Simon’s throat.
Simon leaned back, just enough to see his face. “Your turn? You just orchestrated your own internal earthquake.”
A slow, predatory smile spread over Jason’s flushed features. The easygoing guy was gone, replaced by someone intrigued by his own limits. He pushed gently at Simon’s chest, and Simon let him go. Jason stood, his legs a bit unsteady, and walked back to the silent machine. He looked at it, head tilted. Then he pointed.
“Can you move the wand?” he asked, his voice still hoarse but clear with intent. “I wanna feel it—and another one— on my nipples.”
Simon’s brain stuttered, synapses firing. The clinical part supplied data: Erectile tissue. Dense concentration of neurological receptors. Direct autonomic connection. The rest of him just short-circuited. He simply nodded, a sharp, mechanical motion.
“Also move the brushes,” Jason continued, as if specifying toppings on a pizza. He gestured to his hips, then lower. “So my cock is lightly pinned between them.” He finally looked at Simon, and his hazel eyes were dark, knowing. “I also want to feel your fingers on me, anywhere.”
The last part wasn’t a modification to the machine. It was a breach of its entire protocol. It was a demand for the human variable, the unpredictable touch. Simon’s mouth went dry. “That introduces chaos into the system. Unquantifiable interference.”
“Good,” Jason said. He settled back into the chair, his body a landscape of anticipation. “Get chaotic.”
Simon’s hands were steady as he worked, dismantling the previous configuration. He retrieved a second, identical silicone wand from the tray. His fingers were deft, clinical, as he fixed the flexible arms to position both tips directly over Jason’s nipples. The soft bulbs just kissed the tightened skin. He then carefully repositioned the two soft roller brushes, mounting them on opposing arms so they formed a gentle, open vice along the shaft of Jason’s erection. The bristles barely made contact, a whisper of containment.
“Light pressure,” Simon confirmed, his voice tight.
“Perfect,” Jason breathed.
“Perfect,” Jason breathed.
Simon’s fingers hesitated over the main power switch. The console lights winked up at him, a constellation of potential. He didn’t engage the complex program he’d just built. Instead, he turned a single, isolated dial a mere fraction to the right.
A subtle, almost inaudible vibration purred through the apparatus. The two roller brushes remained still. The twin wands against Jason’s nipples didn’t stir. Only the machine’s core hum was present, a low-grade promise thrumming through the chair’s frame into Jason’s back.
Simon moved. He didn’t stay at the console. He walked around the side of the chair, his steps silent on the concrete. He positioned himself behind Jason, where he couldn’t be seen, only felt. He leaned down, his chest almost touching the back of the chair. His lips brushed the shell of Jason’s ear.
“I’ll start here, at your armpits,” Simon whispered, his voice a thread of sound in the mechanical hum. “Then slowly make my way down.”
Jason’s breath hitched. He gave a small, jerky nod. His hands tightened on the armrests, his knuckles pale. This was the chaos he’d asked for—the unpredictable human variable. Simon’s own design was now just background noise.
Simon’s hands came to rest on Jason’s shoulders. He could feel the tension coiled there, the live-wire anticipation. His thumbs smoothed over the taut muscles. Then he let his fingers drift inward, tracing the defined line of Jason’s collarbone before skating down, without pressure, to the vulnerable, hollowed pits of his arms.
Jason flinched as if shocked. A sharp gasp escaped him.
Simon didn’t tickle. Not yet. He simply laid his fingertips there, resting them in the damp warmth. The skin was incredibly soft, a hidden patch of hypersensitive territory. “Your pectoral connection points,” Simon murmured, more to himself. “A nexus of intercostobrachial nerves.”
“Just say they’re ticklish, you nerd,” Jason managed, his voice strained.
“They’re ticklish,” Simon agreed softly. Then he moved.
He used only his index fingers, drawing slow, deliberate circles just inside the boundaries of the hollows. It wasn’t a scramble. It was a maddening, leisurely exploration. The touch was so light it was like being traced by a ghost.
Jason’s shoulders shot up towards his ears, his body clamping tight. A choked giggle burst out of him, followed by another. He tried to shrink away, but the chair held him, and Simon’s presence behind him was an inescapable wall. “Oh, god, that’s—that’s horrible.”
“Horrible?” Simon repeated, his fingers never stopping their slow, circling torture. He varied the pressure, sometimes just a whisper, sometimes a faint, scratching drag of his short nails.
“Yes! Don’t stop!” Jason’s laughter was gaining volume, turning breathless. The sensation was insidious, creeping into his chest and shortening his breath. His whole upper body was twitching with futile evasion. “It’s like you’re—ha!—wiring me directly to my own lungs!”
Simon continued for a full, agonizing minute, mapping every micro-reaction. Then, as promised, he began his slow descent. His fingertips trailed down the trembling sides of Jason’s ribcage, following the paths of the rollers from the previous session. He used a fluttering, spider-light touch over the individual ribs, counting them with torture.
Jason was howling now, his head thrown back, tears of mirth leaking from the corners of his eyes. The machine’s hum was a dull counterpoint to his vibrant, struggling life. “No! Not the ribs! Simon, I swear—!”
“You swore what?” Simon asked, his voice low and close to Jason’s ear. His hands glided over the quivering plane of Jason’s stomach, avoiding the navel entirely, sketching patterns on the overheated skin.
“I don’t know! Anything!” Jason shrieked, bucking against the touch that was everywhere and nowhere specific.
Simon’s hands finally settled on his hips, stilling him. His thumbs hooked into the crests of Jason’s hip bones, a firm anchor. He was silent for a moment, just holding him, feeling the violent tremors subside into shuddering waves. Jason panted, wrecked and waiting.
Then Simon’s hands slid inward, down the sharp V-lines, his thumbs now tracing the forbidden territory of Jason’s inner thighs, just beside where the motionless brushes hovered.
Jason went preternaturally still. A low, broken sound leaked from his throat. This wasn’t laughter anymore. This was a seismic shift.
Simon’s touch was different here. Reverent. His thumbs stroked the impossibly soft skin with a tactile curiosity that was entirely human, entirely un-programmed. He leaned in again, his lips against Jason’s sweat-damp hair.
“This is where I wanted to start,” Simon whispered, the confession raw and quiet. “The first day I met you. This specific, stupid, perfect spot.”
Jason turned his head, his cheek pressing against Simon’s arm. His eyes were wide, glistening in the fluorescent light. All the bravado, the experimental zeal, was gone. What remained was an open, vulnerable wonder. “Why didn’t you?”
“I was building a machine instead.” Simon’s thumb made another pass, and Jason shuddered, a full-body ripple of feeling that had nothing to do with tickling. “It seemed safer.”
“Is it?” Jason asked, his voice barely audible.
“It was the wrong tool,” Simon said, the words muffled against his skin.
“So what’s the right one?”
Simon looked up, his sharp blue eyes meeting Jason’s. He didn’t have a schematic for this. No phases, no parameters. Just the terrifying, exhilarating freefall of a choice.
“This,” Simon said.