Chapter 9: Manual Data Collection
The air in the bedroom was different now. It had been still before, just the residual scent of them both. Now it seemed to vibrate, charged by the directive hanging between them. Simon looked down at Jason, sprawled across his own rumpled sheets. The streetlight cut a silver bar across his stomach, highlighting the tense, smooth planes of his abdomen.
Simon’s hands hovered, fingertips trembling just above Jason’s skin. This was the map he knew by heart from biometric scans and thermal imaging. He knew the precise conductivity of this epidermis, the nerve density beneath that particular patch of flank. Knowing it theoretically and being granted manual access were galaxies apart.
“You’re thinking again,” Jason whispered, his voice a scrape in the quiet. His chest rose and fell a little too fast.
“Protocol initiation requires calibration,” Simon murmured, but it was a weak reflex. He let his left hand drop, finally making contact.
He started with the pads of his fingers, a ghost of a touch along the lower arc of Jason’s right ribcage. It was less a tickle and more a question. Jason’s breath hitched, a quick intake, and a shudder ran through the muscle beneath Simon’s hand. A small, breathy giggle escaped him, instantly stifled by a bitten lip.
“Calibration successful,” Simon said, more to himself. His fingers began to move, a slow, deliberate exploration. He traced the individual ribs, the spaces between them. He used the barest pressure, a sensation like a moth’s wing grazing skin. Jason squirmed, a helpless undulation that made the old bedsprings groan softly. His laughter was a soft, unstable stream now, peppered with gasped breaths.
“Okay, yeah… that’s… that’s the spot,” Jason managed, his hips twisting as Simon’s tracing circled a particularly reactive zone just below his pectoral.
Simon filed the data away. He switched tactics, spreading both hands and using his palms to skate lightly over Jason’s sides, from ribs to hip bones. It was a broader, more overwhelming stimulus. Jason yelped, his back arching clear off the mattress for a second. “Simon! God, that’s—!” He dissolved into giggles, his arms flailing slightly before he gripped the sheets on either side of him, knuckles white.
“Verbal feedback is non-specific,” Simon observed, but a faint, fascinated smile played on his lips. He was watching the landscape of Jason’s body react in real time, every tremor and flinch a live data feed more captivating than any graph. He leaned down, his dark hair falling forward. “I require precision.”
He moved his mouth close to Jason’s ear, his breath a warm tickle that made Jason jolt. “Is the stimulus under the left axilla superior to the right?”
Before Jason could process the question, Simon’s right hand darted in, fingertips finding the vulnerable, hair-soft hollow of Jason’s underarm.
The reaction was instant and electric. Jason cried out, a full-throated, surprised shout of laughter that echoed in the small room. His whole body coiled like a spring, trying to clamp his arm down, but Simon was already there, using his own body weight to pin Jason’s bicep gently to the mattress. “Hypersensitivity confirmed,” Simon noted, his voice clinical but his eyes blazing with discovery. He didn’t relent. He scribbled his fingertips in that delicate pit, feeling the fine tremors that rippled through Jason’s entire frame.
“Stop—wait—oh my god, Simon, please!” Jason begged, tears of mirth leaking from the corners of his eyes. He was thrashing now, but not to escape—the movements were chaotic, involuntary, a total surrender to the sensation.
Simon backed off, releasing the hold. Jason collapsed back onto the bed, panting, a wreck of giggles and shuddering breaths. Simon studied him, the heaving chest, the flushed skin, the utterly disarmed expression. This was the vulnerability he’d engineered with his machine, but here it was, raw and human and handed to him.
“You’re enjoying this too much,” Jason wheezed, wiping his eyes.
“I am cataloguing your autonomic responses. Your lacrimal glands are active. Your respiratory rate is elevated by one hundred twenty percent.” Simon let one finger drift down the center of Jason’s torso, through the fine trail of hair, to the dip of his navel. He circled it. “The abdominal diaphragm is particularly susceptible to paradoxical contraction.”
Jason’s laughter hiccupped. He was trying to stay still, to prove some point, but his stomach muscles jumped and quivered under Simon’s circling finger. “You’re a menace. A smug, brilliant menace.”
Simon didn’t smile. He was entirely focused. He mapped the sensitive crests of Jason’s hip bones with his thumbs, finding that Jason’s laughter pitched higher, turned breathless. He learned that the backs of his knees, when scratched lightly with blunt nails, made Jason’s legs kick out with helpless force. He discovered that the skin along the inward sweep of his waist, just above the line of his boxers, was so tender that a mere brush of Simon’s knuckles drew a broken, gasping moan that didn’t sound like laughter at all.
The bed was a symphony of creaks and rustles, a percussion track to Jason’s stifled shrieks and breathless pleas. Simon was everywhere, his touch meticulous and unrelenting. He’d push Jason to the brink, where laughter bled into frantic, wordless gasps, and then he’d retreat, letting him float back down on a tide of shuddering aftershocks, only to begin again on a new, untested quadrant.
“Please… no more… I can’t…” Jason begged during one such lull, his voice ragged, his body still twitching with residual sparks.
Simon paused, kneeling over him. He looked wrecked, beautiful, completely open. Simon’s own heart was hammering against his ribs, a biological response no algorithm could calm. “Your statement contradicts the initial objective,” Simon said softly. He lowered his head and pressed a kiss, startlingly gentle, to the frantic pulse in Jason’s throat. “You asked me to see how many times.”
Jason’s hands, which had been gripping the sheets, came up to tangle in Simon’s hair. Not to push him away. To hold him there. “Then stop talking,” Jason breathed, his hazel eyes dark and wide in the dim light, “and do it.”
The permission, raw and direct, shattered the last of Simon’s clinical detachment.
He moved with a new purpose. This wasn’t mapping anymore. It was playing. He dug ten agile fingers into Jason’s ribs, scribbling furiously. Jason howled, bucking beneath him, his laughter now a continuous, ragged soundtrack. Simon ducked his head, blowing a raspberry against the trembling skin of Jason’s stomach. The sound was crude, ridiculous, and it sent Jason into a convulsion of helpless glee, shouting nonsense syllables between gulps of air.
“Mercy! I yield! I yield!” Jason finally screamed, his body gone limp with exhausted hilarity.
Simon stopped. He was breathing hard too, his hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. He looked down at the beautiful, spent creature beneath him. Jason’s eyes were closed, a blissful, tear-streaked smile on his face. He looked utterly ruined and perfectly happy.
For a long moment, the only sounds were their syncing breaths and the distant hum of the city night. Simon slowly lowered himself, lying half on top of Jason, his head on his chest. He could hear the galloping rhythm of Jason’s heart begin to slow, feel the residual tremors in his muscles.
“So?” Jason mumbled after a while, his voice hoarse. His hand came up to stroke Simon’s back. “What’s the preliminary data? What’s the count?”
Simon turned his face, pressing his cheek against Jason’s warm skin. “The count is irrelevant.” He closed his eyes, inhaling the scent of them both—sweat, salt, happiness. “The significant finding is non-numerical.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
Simon was quiet for so long Jason thought he might have fallen asleep. Then he spoke, the words muffled but clear.
“The control group was flawed. There is no comparison. This… you… are the only valid result.”
Jason’s chest vibrated with a low, contented hum beneath Simon’s cheek. His breathing had evened out, the frantic gasps replaced by a deep, tired rhythm. The silence was a blanket, thick and warm. Simon’s words seemed to hang in the air between them, a confession too fragile for the earlier chaos.
“The only valid result, huh?” Jason finally whispered, his fingers still tracing idle patterns on Simon’s spine. “Sounds pretty definitive.”
“It is.” Simon pushed himself up on one elbow to look at him. In the faint light, Jason’s face was soft, his smile lazy and satiated. Simon felt a new, different kind of hunger settle in his gut. The analytical fervor was gone, burnt out in the fire of their laughter. What remained was a sharp, possessive affection. He wanted to touch him again, not to test, but to claim.
A devilish thought, a leftover spark from his mischievous streak, flickered. He had mapped the torso, the underarms, the hips. But one major data set from the machine’s protocol remained unverified by manual methods. The most vulnerable of all.
“What?” Jason asked, seeing the shift in Simon’s eyes, the faint curl at the corner of his mouth.
“Incomplete data set,” Simon said, his voice quietly deliberate.
“Oh no.” Jason’s lazy smile turned into a grin of genuine apprehension. He knew. “Simon. Don’t you dare. That’s a war crime.”
Simon didn’t answer with words. He moved with a fluid, sudden purpose. In one motion, he swung his leg over Jason’s body and slid down the bed, his hands gripping Jason’s ankle. Jason yelped, trying to curl away, but Simon was faster and utterly determined. He manhandled Jason’s leg straight, then planted himself firmly, sitting sideways across Jason’s shin, pinning it to the mattress with his weight.
“You’re dead! You are so dead!” Jason shouted, but it was pitched with helpless laughter already. He strained against the hold, but Simon’s wiry strength, amplified by leverage, was enough.
Simon started again, this time sitting on Jason’s shin while he delicately wiggled his fingers against the sole of Jason’s exposed foot. He began at the arch, his touch a whisper-light, scribbling exploration over the sensitive skin.
The reaction was immediate and catastrophic. Jason jackknifed, a strangled shriek tearing from his throat. It wasn't the full-bodied laughter from before; this was a higher, more desperate register, pure reflexive distress. “NO! SIMON! NOT THERE! OH GOD, PLEASE!”
Simon watched, fascinated. This was different. This was the core vulnerability. His fingers danced, tracing the ball of the foot, then skating down to tickle mercilessly along the instep. Jason convulsed, his free leg kicking wildly at the air, his hands scrambling to grab at anything, fists full of crumpled sheet. Tears streamed down his temples, his laughter broken by ragged, begging sobs for mercy.
“Please! I can’t—I’ll do anything! Stop, stop, stop!” he chanted, his body bowing in a tense arc.
Simon relented, his fingers going still, simply cupping the frantic foot. He could feel the frantic pulse in Jason’s ankle against his thigh. Jason collapsed, utterly spent, gulping air like a drowning man. His body glistened with a fresh sheen of sweat.
“Hyper-reactive,” Simon observed softly, his own breath quick. “The neural mapping was accurate. The plantar nerves are a direct line.”
Jason could only manage a wheezing, wrecked sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. He lay completely limp, utterly conquered. After a moment, he turned his head, fixing Simon with a watery, blazing look from across the rumpled battlefield of the bed. “You… are the worst… best friend… ever.”
Simon carefully released his leg, shifting off his shin. He crawled back up the bed, his body slotting against Jason’s side. He draped an arm over Jason’s still-heaving chest, feeling the frantic heartbeat begin to slow. “You’re the only subject,” Simon murmured into his shoulder. “For life. Non-negotiable.”
Jason’s hand found Simon’s, their fingers lacing together tightly. “Yeah, okay,” he breathed, his voice scraped raw. A slow, wobbly smile returned to his face. “But I’m getting you back for that. I’m gonna learn your spots. Just you wait.”
The threat was empty, a soft promise murmured into the dark. Simon just held on tighter, the aftershocks of Jason’s laughter still vibrating in the air around them, a testament to the terrifying, wonderful experiment they had become.
Simon just held on tighter, the aftershocks of Jason’s laughter still vibrating in the air around them, a testament to the terrifying, wonderful experiment they had become. Their breathing slowly synced, a duet of slowing heartbeats in the warm, tangled dark. The sweat on their skin began to cool.
Jason shifted first, turning onto his side to face Simon. He traced the line of Simon’s eyebrow with a fingertip, his touch still unsteady. “You broke me,” he whispered, but his voice was full of awe, not complaint.
“Temporarily. All systems show remarkable resilience.” Simon captured Jason’s wandering finger, pressing a kiss to its tip. He felt drunk on power and something softer, something that tightened his throat.
“My resilience is begging for a five-year nap.” Jason’s eyes were heavy-lidded, but they burned with a leftover intensity. He let his hand drift down, over Simon’s chest, his stomach. His fingers hooked into the waistband of Simon’s pants. “But you… you’re still fully operational.”
Simon’s breath caught. The analytical part of his mind, the part that was always observing, noted the shift in modality. The study of involuntary response was transitioning into a study of mutual, deliberate intent. He nodded, a short, sharp movement.
“Good.” Jason’s grin was a slow, wicked thing in the shadows. He pushed gently, rolling Simon onto his back. The position of power exchanged hands as smoothly as a shared breath. Jason looked down at him, his messy hair haloed by the streetlight from the window. “My turn to run a diagnostic.”
He didn’t tickle. His touch was deliberate, exploratory in a different way. He peeled Simon’s sweater off, his palms mapping the terrain of his ribs, the dip of his collarbones, the rapid flutter of his pulse. Simon lay still, absorbing the sensation, his own body singing a quiet, escalating song. Every pass of Jason’s hands felt like a confirmation, a silent echo of his own earlier exploration, but rewritten in a language of reverence.
“See?” Jason murmured, his mouth hovering near Simon’s sternum. “I’m learning.” He dipped his head and licked a stripe up the center of Simon’s chest, a slow, wet touch that made Simon arch off the mattress with a choked gasp.
“That’s—that’s not a standard diagnostic procedure,” Simon managed, his hands fisting in the sheets.
“I’m writing my own protocol.” Jason continued his path downward, his mouth and hands working in concert, stripping away the last barriers of clothing. The cool air hit Simon’s skin, followed immediately by the overwhelming heat of Jason’s attention. He felt exposed, more so than under any array of sensors, because this scrutiny was personal and full of hungry delight.
Then Jason’s mouth was on him, taking him in with a soft, slick heat that wiped Simon’s mind completely blank. His head fell back, a moan ripped from somewhere deep in his chest. It was an utterly different kind of helplessness. This wasn’t the frantic, nerve-sparking loss of control from tickling. This was a slow, deep unraveling, a surrender to a pleasure so acute it bordered on pain.
Jason was meticulous, attentive, learning his rhythm by the hitch of Simon’s breath and the tremor in his thighs. He used his tongue with a focused creativity that made Simon’s toes curl. The world narrowed to this point of connection, to the wet sound of Jason’s mouth and the creak of the bed.
Simon’s hands found Jason’s hair, not to guide, just to hold on. He was trembling, adrift on the sensation. He looked down, his vision swimming. Jason met his gaze, his hazel eyes dark and unwavering, his mouth full.
The words came out of Simon then, simple and direct, stripped of all pretense or analysis. They were just raw, wanton truth.
“I want to tickle your cock,” Simon said simply as he was licking said organ like ice cream.