Rough Canvas (15 page)

“Who was the other guy you…you know.”

“Some poor, unfortunate—or perhaps he considered himself lucky—complete

stranger. It was a month after I was certain you weren’t coming back.” There was a faint hardening in Marcus’ gaze. “I took him to a private dungeon room and fucked him within an inch of his life. Slapped him over a bench, rammed my cock in him six or seven times, flogged him until he had to use his safe word. Then I kissed every welt so he was begging for more.”

Thomas closed his eyes, his jaw flexing. His hands clenched into fists on the towel.

“You son of a bitch.” When he began to jerk away, Marcus caught his arm, held him there with a fierce grip and an even fiercer look.

“Tonight is your turn. I’m going to use you, pet. Drive you crazy. Give you pain and pleasure so you don’t know which is which. Don’t deny that’s what you want, because your hard-on is saying something different.” His gaze shifted down, then back up, pinning Thomas in place. “I’m going to do what I’ve always wanted to do, what you’ve always wanted me to do. Make you surrender to me utterly.”

“But I’m here for a week…”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with time, pet. It has to do with accepting what is, no matter what happens. Lie back down on your stomach. Now.”

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When Marcus had Dominated him before, often in the harsh light of day Thomas

had rationalized it as a game, role-playing he’d “allowed”. But since their separation, he’d recognized that for the lie it was. Thomas found himself lying down again, despite the resentment burning in his gut. That inexplicable emotional compulsion to obey Marcus’ commands didn’t care about his wounded feelings. His cock sure as hell didn’t care.

All those different times, watching the things Marcus had described, Thomas had sensed something in Marcus, waiting. Something in him had wanted to beg for his Master to take command, do more, though he had no idea what “more” was. Whatever it was, he knew he was afraid of wanting it. But that didn’t stop him from wanting it so much.

Marcus’ hands smoothed over the muscles that had re-knotted in his back. As

Marcus leaned forward so the ends of his hair grazed the back of Thomas’ shoulders, Thomas felt his breath there. “After I give you all that pain tonight,” his lips brushed Thomas’ skin, making his fingers convulse on the sand, “I’m going to kiss every one of
your
welts, soothe everything I’ve torn apart and put it all back together again.”

His last scrap of sanity warned Thomas he should back out of this. They had so

much shit tearing up the ground between them, and there seemed no way to make it smooth. Thomas wondered if his passive acquiescence was just a way of stumbling blindly down a road they’d never taken this far to see if a solution would present itself.

Marcus massaged his body in silence for about ten more minutes, until Thomas was both more relaxed and more aroused again. Then his lover stretched out on the towel next to him, apparently prepared to take his own nap.

As Marcus lay on his back in the sun, his sunglasses shaded his eyes, one lean strong arm relaxed over his head. His other palm rested on his abdomen, just above the waistband of that sinfully low-riding suit, drawing Thomas’ eyes to the impressive mound triangulated between his thighs. Even at rest it was able to make saliva clog his throat.

“We’ve always played on the edges, you and me,” Marcus said, his eyes hidden, his voice neutral. “It’s time for you to understand what me being your Master means. My Will becoming the air moving in and out of your lungs, the blood pumping through your body. You’ve submitted to me, your heart yearning to be my slave, but you

haven’t taken that final step. When you do, the chains you’ve wrapped around your internal organs to squeeze the life out of them might just fall away.”

A few minutes later the merciless bastard succumbed to a doze, leaving Thomas

like a tightly strung wire next to him.

Eventually Thomas sat, knees drawn up, one arm linked over them. He got a beer

and opened it, took a swig. Watching the volleyball players, he listened to the wind and surf.

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He also watched over the man next to him. Jesus, even Marcus’ inhumanly,

perfectly styled jet-black hair was drying in an attractive windblown look, despite the saltwater content that should have made it like bedraggled seaweed.

As Thomas rocked the half-empty beer between his fingers, he thought of Marcus

touching that faceless slave, kissing away his hurts. Ramming his cock in his ass.

On second thought, Marcus really could use a rinse.

* * * * *

Fortunately the coffeehouse Andrew and Ben recommended was on the ground

level of a yacht club with showers. Andrew was a member.

“You had to douse me with Bud Light? There was bottled water in the cooler, for Chrissakes. Or a good quality wine, at least. I smelled like a college frat punk. Or a mill worker on Friday night.”

Thomas grinned without repentance as Marcus returned to their table with damp,

newly washed hair and the acid comment. Glancing down as the waitress set a cup in front of him, he thought he was probably the first person who’d ordered plain black coffee since the place opened.

It was delivered in a mug the size of a soup bowl. If he drank all of it, he was sure he’d be bouncing off the walls, and his nerves didn’t need any more jangling. Though the dumping of his beer had helped relieve some of the tension, and this relaxed atmosphere was a simple pleasure, he still saw the anticipation of the impending evening simmering behind Marcus’ eyes.

Marcus’ hands settled on his shoulders, a double-edged reassurance. “Ben,

Andrew? I have to go down the street and pick up some things. Would you mind

looking after Thomas for about thirty minutes?” He ruffled Thomas’ hair, rested his hand on his nape as he straightened. “How’s the coffee?”

“Fine.” Thomas lifted a shoulder. “I don’t need a sitter. You know, I have been out in public before. Where are you going?”
And why aren’t you taking me with you?
Gods, was he getting that possessive?

“Hmm.” When Marcus signaled, the waitress practically leaped to his side, his

obvious sexual preference notwithstanding. “Please take this toxic waste away and bring my friend a chamomile tea.” He bent again before Thomas could snarl at him, met him eye for eye. “Your stomach’s already upset. You’re not going to get out of this by poisoning yourself.”

“I can walk away anytime. I don’t
have
to do anything.”

“You’re exactly right. But you’re not walking, are you?” Marcus brushed his lips over his, just a passing caress that had Thomas torn between a self-conscious hunching of his shoulders and a wrenching in his gut for more of that mouth. “You keep your ass in this chair and I’ll be back soon. It’ll be worth the wait.”

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He straightened again, nodded to Ben and Andrew and headed for the door.

Thomas reached for coffee that wasn’t there anymore, scowled as he glanced over his shoulder to watch Marcus walk out the door. Along with every other person with a pulse in the café.

“Someday he
is
going to get old and ugly.”

“Let’s hope so,” Andrew observed. “Too many of us who look like that, don’t. Get old, that is.”

Thomas turned his attention back to his two companions. Ben had his arm casually hooked on the back of Andrew’s chair as he leaned back. Demonstrating the ease of lovers who’d been with each other long enough that the close proximity was as simple as breathing. Thomas took a swallow of the tea the waitress brought him to cover the burning ache that thought created. Jesus, he couldn’t do this. He was having enough problems just being around Marcus, and he hadn’t completed a full twenty-four hours yet.

“How long have you two been together?”

Thomas poked the tea bag deeper into the cup with Ben’s unused straw and swirled it around, hoping to get a flavor closer to the strength of coffee. “We’re… not really. I mean, we used to be, but it’s not that way anymore.” Trying to assume a nonchalant attitude, he shrugged. “I’m up for the week to do some work at Marcus’ place. That’s all.”

Thomas took another swallow of his tea. Damn if it wasn’t settling his stomach

down. Sure as hell he couldn’t drink it around Rory, though. It would kick off a whole new set of homo jokes.

He
was usually the nurturing one. Marcus knew how to dress him up, handle certain things, but Thomas had added warm, more personal accents to his penthouse.

Made Marcus get off the phone at least by one in the morning and get a decent night’s sleep. He’d liked cooking Marcus breakfast before he went to the gallery. For some odd reason, Marcus always seemed disproportionately gratified and fascinated by the domestic touches, as if they moved something inside him.

It came so easily to Thomas, the desire to take care of Marcus, even though Marcus seemed the last person in the world who needed someone to do so. Maybe that was why it felt so…good, the way Marcus reacted to it. Now Thomas sourly wondered if he’d mistaken gratitude for suppressed amusement, a sophisticated lover’s fascination with the provincial quirks of his bedmate.

Jesus, was there anything he wasn’t going to question about every moment they’d had?

He looked up to find Andrew studying him with narrowed eyes and Ben grinning

from ear to ear. “What?”

“I’m willing to bet everything you just said was technically, factually correct, and all of it was total bullshit. We’ve been together fifteen years.” Ben glanced over at Andrew with obvious fondness in his gaze. “And it’s been tough. Particularly the first 78

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years, when you’re still dealing with issues of individual identity, just like most couples. Pride. Then there’s family, God help us all.”

“Where are you from? There’s mint julep in your voice.” Andrew handed him the

slice of lemon from the sweet tea he’d ordered and Thomas accepted it with relief, squeezing it liberally into the tea.

“North Carolina. My family runs a hardware store down there.”

“It’s good to know the giants haven’t driven them all out of business,” Ben put in.

“He says that, but try to get him out of Home Depot in under three hours. He’d live there if they let him,” Andrew teased.

“We live in a pretty rural area. That’s where the small stores can still make it. And if we don’t have it, there’s a bigger chain store about an hour or so away.”

“You grew up there? In the sticks? That couldn’t have been easy. How did you get here?”

“He means how in the hell did you and Marcus ever run into each other?”

“I’m an artist.” It had been a while since Thomas had said that, and it was like taking a clean breath of fresh air. He paused a moment, feeling it. “I had a teacher in high school that sent some of my work to friends in New York. When I graduated, they encouraged me to come up and enter an art school there. I started showing my work in a small co-op. That’s where I ran into Marcus. He runs a gallery.”

“But…it sounds like you’re back in the sticks, based on what you said.” Andrew

frowned. “Did it not work out?”

Thomas lifted a shoulder. “My family needed me. Health issues, death in the

family.”

No, it didn’t work out… I’m an artist…
The words mocked him, as did the memory of the store’s paint display. Why don’t you do a nice mural, show them what you can do with color? You’re so good with color… I remember when he painted a princess on a unicorn on the wall of Celeste’s bedroom when he was eleven. Everyone thought it came from one of those stencil packets…

What was his mother doing now? Sitting in church, praying, lighting candles for his endangered soul while he sat here enjoying a day at the beach? Was Celeste trying to put on a brave face and counting the minutes until she could go back to school as Rory rolled around in his perpetual cloud of bitterness? Watching his friends hoot and holler their way down the road on Friday nights in their souped-up cars, while their mother went to bed holding their father’s picture?

The forested surroundings of the Berkshires and the dotting of farmhouses he’d

seen as they headed to the beach and the city had reminded him somewhat of home.

But North Carolina was more open, the country area more…country.

When Thomas kept the woodstove going in the winter in the shop, the men would

congregate in the morning, drinking the complimentary black coffee, analyzing

weather, hunting, fishing… It was a life he’d never fit with, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t 79

Joey W. Hill

a part of it, the blood of that world running through his veins, giving him his foundation.

“No,” he said at last. “It didn’t work out.”

Fortunately, Ben was intuitive enough to change the subject. They spent the next half hour talking about their respective businesses. Before starting their fitness operation, Ben had been a lawyer and Andrew ran a restaurant. Being with them was calming as well as painful, watching the casual touches, the intimacy of two men who knew they had a present and a future as well as a past.

“It’s not easy, Thomas.” Andrew broke the thread of the conversation mid-sentence.

He either had his own dose of intuition or, as Marcus had pointed out before, Thomas’

expression was just too transparent. “It isn’t easy for any couple to figure it out, gay or straight. Everything can sometimes work against you. Particularly family. Forget that

‘let no man put asunder’ bullshit. Even hetero couples know that’s wedding day crap when it comes to family and friends.”

He leaned forward. “They may call it well-meaning meddling, concern, whatever,

but lots of time people in your life, the people you really love, will work to tear you apart. You’ll even help sometimes, being your own worst enemy. But the two of us decided a long time ago love
isn’t
given frivolously.” He glanced at Ben. “If you’re given the gift of it, you fight to keep it, on all fronts. Don’t think it was a mistake or not meant to be. That kind of thing isn’t a mistake, and it’s too rare to fuck up. Okay?”