Chapter 7: The Taste of Ruin
The word hung between them, final as a judge’s gavel.
Ethan didn’t smile. He simply nodded, once. Then he stood, letting the towel around his hips drop to the floor. He didn’t pose or preen; it was a functional movement, like shedding a layer before a workout. The afternoon light loved his body, gilding the planes of his chest, the defined cut of his hips. He was completely, unnervingly exposed.
“Well?” he said, his voice calm. “You’re calling the shots. Where do you want me?”
Leo’s mouth was parchment. His heart was a frantic bird in a cage of ribs. He scrambled off the bed, his own nakedness feeling suddenly childish next to Ethan’s grounded presence. He gestured weakly toward the center of the room, to the patch of hardwood floor between the bed and the closet, striped with shadow from the blinds.
“There,” he managed.
Ethan walked over and stood, waiting. He looked at Leo expectantly.
This was it. The laboratory door was open. Leo’s mind was a chaotic scramble of downloaded scenes, close-ups, staged moans. He licked his lips. “On your knees.”
Ethan went down smoothly, kneeling on the hard floor. He kept his back straight, his hands loose at his sides. His expression was neutral, patient. It was infuriating. It wasn’t how they looked in the videos. They were always desperate, already begging.
“No,” Leo heard himself say, the word sharper than he intended. “On your stomach. Face down.”
A slight hesitation, almost imperceptible. Then Ethan complied, lowering himself onto the polished wood. He turned his head to the side, his cheek resting on the floor. His back was a long, taut line, the muscles in his shoulders relaxed. The earlier scent of sweat and soap was gone, replaced by something cleaner, more vulnerable.
Leo stood over him. The power was a dizzying, nausea-inducing drug. He remembered the belt, the one he’d seen earlier kicked near the foot of the bed. He retrieved it, the leather cool and supple in his hand. He stood astride Ethan’s legs, looking down at the man’s wrists, crossed loosely near the small of his back.
“Hands,” Leo said, his voice attempting the rough command he’d rehearsed in his head a thousand times.
Ethan brought his hands together behind him without a word.
Looping the belt, Leo fastened it around Ethan’s wrists. He pulled it tight, watching the leather dig into the skin, hearing the soft creak of it. Ethan’s breath hitched, just once. It was the first real reaction, and it sent a jolt of electricity straight to Leo’s core. He fastened the buckle, securing it.
He was now literally bound to Ethan. The reality of it was nothing like the fantasy. The fantasy was frictionless, a quick cut to the next scene. This was awkward. He could see a tiny freckle below Ethan’s left shoulder blade. He could see the slow, steady expansion of his ribs against the floor.
“Say something,” Leo demanded, kneeling over Ethan’s back, his own knees on either side of Ethan’s hips.
“What do you want me to say?” Ethan’s voice was muffled by the floor.
“Say you want it. Say you’re nothing.”
Ethan was silent for a long moment. Leo could feel the heat of his own arousal, a demanding throb, but it felt disconnected from the scene, like a TV left on in another room. He raised his hand, brought it down in a sharp slap against Ethan’s ass.
The crack was loud in the quiet room. The skin bloomed red immediately, a perfect handprint. Ethan jolted, a grunt forced from him.
“Say it,” Leo repeated, leaning down, putting his mouth near Ethan’s ear. The words he’d collected for years spilled out, filmy and hollow. “Tell me you’re just a hole. Tell me you need me to wreck you.”
Ethan turned his head, his eye meeting Leo’s from the uncomfortable angle. His gaze was clear, unsettlingly aware. “Leo,” he said, and his voice was quiet, almost conversational. “You’re trying to read a script. I’m not an actor. If you want to fuck me, fuck me. But this… this dialogue is for losers.”
The bottom dropped out of Leo’s stomach. The degradation, meant to strip Ethan bare, had somehow turned back on him, exposing his own artifice. Rage, hot and shameful, flooded him. He shoved Ethan’s face back into the floor, his hand gripping the back of his neck. He fumbled beside them, grabbing the half-empty bottle of lube from where it had been knocked earlier.
He poured it messily over himself, the cool gel a shock. He didn’t prepare Ethan. The fantasy was about force, about taking. He positioned himself, the head of his cock pressing against the tight, clenched ring of muscle.
Ethan was tense, every cord in his back standing rigid.
“Relax,” Leo snarled, the command brittle.
“Trying,” Ethan gritted out, the word strained.
Leo pushed. There was a brutal, impossible resistance, then a sickening, tearing yield. Ethan cried out, a raw, truncated sound swallowed by the floorboards. He went utterly rigid, his whole body seizing. Leo pushed deeper, engulfed in a scorching, suffocating tightness that was nothing like the slick, welcoming fantasy. It was a violation. It was anatomy. It was pain.
He began to move, a brutal, pistoning rhythm. Each thrust jolted through both of them. Ethan’s bound hands clenched into fists. His breaths came in short, sharp gasps. Leo kept his hand on the back of Ethan’s neck, holding him down, chasing a feeling that kept receding. The porn rhythm was a lie. This was work. This was a horrible, intimate mechanics. The degrading commentary died in his throat. All he could hear was the slap of skin, Ethan’s choked breathing, the faint groan of the floor.
He fucked with a frantic, punishing intensity, trying to outrun the collapsing disappointment. The climax, when it came, was a purely physical seizure, a wave of sensation that left him empty. He collapsed forward, his weight smearing his own sweat onto Ethan’s back, his forehead pressing between Ethan’s shoulder blades. He shuddered, spent.
For a full minute, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing. Leo’s mind was white noise. He slowly, clumsily, pulled out and rolled off, landing on his back on the cool floor beside the bound, motionless form of Ethan.
He stared at the ceiling fan, its blades still. His body felt used and alien. The fantasies were gone. In their place was a vast, hollow quiet.
A movement beside him. Ethan, with surprising grace given his bound hands, rolled onto his side to face him. His face was pale, etched with strain. A faint tremor ran through his thighs. But his eyes, meeting Leo’s, were the same steady, assessing eyes from before. Dark. Satisfied, but not in the way Leo had imagined.
“Now you know,” Ethan said. His voice was rough, scraped raw, but the words were clear.
Leo didn’t speak. Couldn’t.
“You wanted to know what it was like to truly take,” Ethan continued, his gaze holding Leo’s, refusing to let him look away from the wreckage. “To have all the power. That’s what it feels like. It’s not a victory. It’s just a thing you did.”
He shifted, wincing slightly, and nodded toward his hands. “You wanna get this off me?”
Leo moved mechanically. He unfastened the belt, his fingers clumsy. The skin beneath was marked with a deep, red band. Ethan brought his arms around slowly, flexing his hands, working the feeling back into his fingers.
He sat up, then stood in one fluid motion, despite what had just happened. He walked to the bathroom without a word, closed the door. The sink ran.
Leo remained on the floor. The shifting light had reached the far wall, painting it a deep, bruised orange. The single sneaker by the bed seemed like a relic from another lifetime. He could still feel the phantom pressure of Ethan’s body around him, the echo of that pained cry in his ears.
Now you know.
He did. The knowledge was a cold stone in his gut. He had stepped through the door, and the fantasy hadn’t been on the other side. Only Ethan had been there. And himself.
The bathroom door opened. Ethan emerged, cleaned up. He didn’t look at Leo. He pulled on a pair of grey sweatpants from a drawer, then a faded t-shirt. He picked up his phone from the nightstand, thumbed the screen.
“Nate’s texting,” he said, his voice now utterly normal, flat. “Pizza’s here. You hungry?”
He finally glanced down at Leo, still naked on the floor. His expression was unreadable, a mask of casual indifference. The door, as promised, had slammed shut.
Leo pushed himself up, his limbs heavy. “Yeah,” he croaked. “I guess.”
“Cool. Get dressed.” Ethan turned and walked out of the bedroom, leaving Leo alone with the silence, the stripes of shadow, and the profound, unsettling understanding of what he had just taken.