A gay story: After the End Ch. 15 Author’s note:
This is the third chapter of After the End – Part 3, the final novel in my dystopian erotic romance trilogy. If you enjoy intensely provocative sex with a power play twist, handsome male heroes in emotionally satisfying relationships, and unconventional happily ever afters — you are in the right place! These books are full-length, publication-quality, and currently being offered free of charge. 🙂
Descriptions of each book can be found in my bio by clicking my user name. Feel free to drop in on specific chapters or sections based on your mood or interest, but the dramatic tension is strongest if you start from the beginning of Part 1. As always, I appreciate hearing your reactions and feedback. It truly does help me create the best stories that I can for readers to enjoy.
Content warning: This chapter depicts a brief discussion of past parental neglect and death of immediate family members.
Tags for this chapter include: #bisexual male, #dystopia, #novel, #romantic, #married, #threesome, #submission, #male submissive, #tickling, #friends
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Julian:
It was predictable that Avery would start spinning out shortly before Graham was due to meet us for the second time. Our first threesome had been such a success; I should have known there would be backlash, no matter how careful we’d been and how at ease he’d seemed afterward.
“I don’t think we should do this,” my husband announced, coming to a halt beside the desk where I was studying an operations manual Graham had let me borrow. He’d been pacing for the past ten minutes, which wasn’t unusual in itself. But this sounded like more than pre-performance jitters.
I put the manual down. “What do you mean? You’ve been excited for days about him coming over.”
“I just think…maybe we should wait.”
“We can, of course, if that’s what you want,” I reasoned. “But it went very well last time. What are you worried about?”
“I’m not worried,” Avery argued, though his tense jaw and anxiously defensive tone belied his words, and he kept his gaze away from mine.
“Ok…” It never helped to exhibit frustration in these situations, so I summoned my patience. “Why don’t you want to do this then?”
“It just –” He aborted the sentence and offered another vague non-explanation. “I don’t think I can.”
I suppressed a sigh. The only way to get to the bottom was to keep digging. “Did something happen between you and Graham?”
That drew a brief glance, but his focus darted away again immediately. “What? No. Like what?”
“I have no idea, but earlier today you were looking forward to this, and now it’s the opposite, so I’m trying to think of possible reasons for the change.”
“Nothing happened.” He sounded strangely guilty for all that I believed him.
I swiveled on the wooden stool to face him fully. “I’m sure Graham will understand if you need to cancel. But something’s obviously bothering you, and if it’s about our arrangement with him, it’s important that you and I be able to talk about it. That’s how we keep our relationships within the boundaries.”
Avery picked up a well-worn Robert Heinlein novel and fidgeted with it for a moment, then shrugged. “There’s nothing to talk about if we’re not doing it.”
I cocked my head and studied him, but I didn’t have enough clues to decipher this riddle. He’d pined over the Bravo Company captain for weeks before I arranged a meet-up, and he’d clearly loved the sex we’d had together. Graham had been great about calming his nerves and caring for his emotional safety. Why wouldn’t he want to continue?
I stood and moved to sit at the foot of the bed. “Come here,” I invited, and reluctantly Avery sat next to me. I propped my right arm against his back, resting my hand on the quilt.
“Babe, I know how much you enjoyed our first meeting. Whatever your reasons for wanting to avoid this one, they’re going to be true whether we sleep with him or not. So it’s still going to affect me, and I’d rather you just tell me.”
He fanned the pages of the book a few times. When he answered, he seemed less agitated, but he still didn’t look at me. “I didn’t want you to…be upset.”
I was starting to get alarmed, but I kept my voice composed. “Why would I be upset?”
He didn’t say anything, and the memories that rose into the silence were some of my darkest.
“I’m not going to throw you out, if that’s what you’re concerned about,” I told him quietly. He would know exactly what I meant.
Avery let out a stressed breath, then he abandoned the book and took my free hand, leaning against my shoulder. “No, Julian, it’s not that. I don’t — I wouldn’t do that. I don’t even want to.”
“Then what is it, babe? Please.”
He hesitated for a long time, but at last soft words materialized. “I don’t want to do anything with him, without you. But even if you’re there…it doesn’t seem fair when — it feels like this.”
There was another pause, but I left the space empty until his confession resumed.
“It wasn’t like this with Vik. I mean, obviously I like him a lot, and it was super hot to be with him. But I didn’t…like him. I didn’t…feel things, just because he looked at me, or talked to me, or came anywhere near me.” He took another breath. “If we sleep with other people, it’s supposed to be just for sex.”
Well, this wasn’t exactly news. I wouldn’t have expected that his intense attraction to Graham was strictly physical. And they’d plainly connected during our “date,” before we even got into bed.
“Avery, it’s alright for you to feel that way,” I assured him, squeezing his shoulders for emphasis. “I’m not upset. Don’t you remember the conversation we had on Vik’s birthday? Feelings are involuntary. They’re not against the rules, either, unless they’re going to interfere with our marriage.”
He still sounded unsure. “But that was about Vik. He wasn’t with anyone, so it didn’t matter if he had feelings for me.”
“Let me ask you this, then: Do you like Graham as much as you like me?”
Avery looked at me as if I’d lost touch with reality. “Of course not.”
“Ok. Has your interest in him made you less interested in me?”
“No!”
I pressed on, needing to make my point. “Do you think that if we keep spending time with him, it’ll cause you to like me less, or cause you to want to be with him instead of me?”
He was growing distressed, and his hand tightened around mine. “Julian, no. Nothing will make me want to be anywhere except with you. I don’t like you even saying that.”
“I’m not suggesting I think it would, babe,” I soothed. “I’m just illustrating that it’s ok for you to like him. Our agreement is that our relationships with Graham will stay beneath the umbrella of our marriage. To me, that’s what I’m hearing. I don’t see why you shouldn’t enjoy spending time with him, as long as it remains within those boundaries.”
Avery just watched me for a minute, as if still waiting for jealousy to materialize.
“Honestly,” I added, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he likes you too. Maybe not quite to the same extent. But Vik never kissed you like that. Or called you ‘baby.'”
My partner’s gaze darted away, hiding beneath dark lashes, but there was a clear reaction in the curve of his cheeks. “It didn’t…bother you?”
“No. I thought it was sweet. It’s gratifying for me to give you joy, even through another man. That isn’t just true about sex.”
Some of the tension finally left his shoulders, and he adjusted his grip to interlace our fingers. “So it’s really ok,” he concluded tentatively, his thumb tracing my hand as if for the sheer reassurance of his skin touching mine.
“It’s really ok,” I confirmed. “And would it be ok with you, if I felt about Graham the way you do? I’m not saying that’s the case. But if we proceed along this route, it’s a possibility.”
There was a longer pause. Surprisingly, Avery’s reply was peaceful, even a little wistful. “Yeah. I think it would.” His fingertips pressed my knuckles, feeling out the familiar shape of my bones. “I wanted him to be doing things with me. But I also…wanted to see you with him.”
“Maybe you will tonight, then,” I told him with a smile.
He returned it, and I leaned in for a kiss. He met me almost with relief, and I caressed his lips tenderly.
“One more thing,” I told him when we separated. “Please remember that our arrangement with Graham doesn’t involve any commitment unless we all discuss and agree on it. I would hate to see you get hurt, because you got more attached than he did. Try to calibrate.”
He nodded, so I hugged his shoulders briefly. “I love you, Avery.”
“Love you too,” he answered. “Thanks for…you know.” He made a self-deprecating gesture. “Dealing with me.”
I pressed my lips to his once more. “Thank you for trusting me.”
Sex with Graham that night was as exciting and satisfying as it had been the first time. He seemed quite happy to see Avery, and not unhappy to see me either, judging by the way his gaze lingered on mine, and by the scorching kisses we ended up sharing. He partnered so well with Avery: encouraging him when he felt vulnerable, enthusing over him shamelessly, eagerly playing up to his turn-ons as he discovered them. And always drawing him in, with a joke, a smile, a caress… Graham shared affection so naturally, I felt stilted by comparison, even with my own partner. It didn’t inspire anything like envy, though. I saw no signs that either of them wanted to exclude me from their interactions. Avery still looked to me as his north star, and Graham showed not a hint of possessiveness either. He appeared to like my husband because he was my husband — someone whole and content and grounded; someone who loved and was beloved. Someone who gave from abundance, not lack.
Because of our prior experience with Vik and my trust in Graham’s judgment, I was comfortable having less structure during our meetings than we typically had with our previous partner. Although Graham willingly participated in our power games, he didn’t express a defined need for them like Vik had. Graham’s style was more about fun and spontaneity than about protracted control. Though he did seem pretty into getting Avery riled up. Which was a major bonus for me.
As far as the first encounter between Graham and me, he had the wisdom to let my husband dictate it. After they’d had some time to explore each other — Graham was particularly keen to use his mouth to explore Avery’s cock — the captain asked if he’d like to see anything from the two of us. When Avery shyly admitted he would, Graham made it into a game: the only contact allowed between him and me was whatever Avery ordered. It took the pressure off the situation, allowing Avery to set the boundaries and fulfill his fantasies at the same time, while I got to enjoy Graham’s skilled erotic touch without worrying it was upsetting my partner.
Avery wanted to see us kiss, and then he wanted to see Graham kiss a lot of places that weren’t my mouth: my neck, my chest, my biceps, my abs. Then there was licking, something Graham seemed just as eager to do as I was to experience. By the time Avery had instructed him to lap my nipples, and my balls, and the underside of my shaft over and over, I was feverish everywhere.
Graham was too different from my partner: mature, experienced, unafraid. And with nothing at stake. Avery had always viewed me through the lens of superiority — someone whose care and support he desperately needed. The captain may not have equaled all of my external achievements, but he was just as capable in command, and his formative years had left him significantly more intact than either mine or my partner’s, from what I knew and could observe. With him, I found it more difficult to shelter behind my customary stoicism. The way he smoldered at me while he mouthed my swollen glans painstakingly slowly, pausing whenever I started to pulse, amplified my nervous system to such a high voltage, I thought the pleasure would electrocute me if he kept teasing me there. When he finally engulfed my shaft and sucked me hard, I wanted it so badly, I couldn’t even try to resist. I’m sure some kind of animal sound tore from my throat when I discharged.
Avery was right; this did not feel like it had with Vik. The doctor was still a good friend of mine, and I had all the respect in the world for him. I’d shamelessly gotten off into or because of his body many times. But I’d never felt…passion. I’d never been out of control.
When he’d drunk my seed, Graham went back to my partner, who was in a proper state after watching the tableau with me. Graham teased him too — mainly, I thought, because Avery so evidently wanted him to. Graham ended up on his back, pulling Avery on top of him so they could rut their oiled cocks together in the captain’s fist while they made out. Damn, I was about ready to go again by the time they spurted simultaneously.
I couldn’t fail to notice that when Avery was finished, he collapsed along Graham’s side, head conveniently falling against his shoulder, and didn’t move away. And after the captain borrowed the washcloth to clean up their semen, he anchored a hand on Avery’s arm and didn’t move away either. My partner used to be quite snuggly with Vik, but this was different. I could almost see the sweet, tender shoots emerging from the fertile post-orgasmic soil and twining them together, like morning glory vines on a dewy spring morning. It stirred something in a deep chamber of my heart I hadn’t known was there.
A few evenings later, Avery and I made a visit to Graham’s new permanent quarters. Given his rank, he was allowed to choose civilian housing wherever it was available, and Fort Laurel had gratefully offered him a room like the one Avery and I shared, near the military side of our settlement. This put Graham a conveniently shorter distance from us and also offered more privacy than his tent had. On this occasion, he’d promised to show Avery a few songs on his guitar and maybe teach him some chords. Avery had no background in music, but he’d been fascinated by Graham’s performance at the variety show, and it seemed as good an excuse as any for a hangout.
Graham’s room was about the same size as ours, containing the same basic furniture: bed, nightstand, bench, desk, and wash basin. He hadn’t carted many personal items this far into the wilderness, but a few mementos and photos were tacked to the walls. There was one snapshot of him and Rae in their flight suits, arms slung around each other’s shoulders in front of an F-35 stealth fighter jet. Another showed him with his older sister Blair, her husband, and their two children. I hadn’t seen her for many years, but the woman in the photo looked enough like Graham to be recognizable, with the same coral undertones to her skin and a similar shape to cheekbones and chin.
Avery sat cross-legged on the bed next to the captain to watch him tune up, while I stood by the desk and perused the small collection of battered novels he’d dug out of a bag for me. At one time, millions of books had been available to anyone via electronic devices. Unfortunately, functional digital readers depended on many factors that didn’t generally align anymore: specialty materials, sophisticated manufacturing, stably maintained software, and connectivity. Plus protection from the elements. Paper books had to stay relatively dry, but they could withstand heat, cold, dust, and pressure. The two Third Battalion units had a few digital devices that operated on the military’s closed network, but most information that mattered was stored hard copy.
“When did you learn to play?” Avery asked while Graham plucked each string in turn, listening with an expert ear and adjusting the tension until the note rang true.
“Guitar? I started messing around with it ages ago, but I didn’t dedicate much time until I was posted near Sacramento. Seemed like one of the better ways to stay entertained, so I got a friend to teach me. But my first string instrument was the cello. My parents started me as a child with a private tutor. Used to play in the youth orchestra.”
“Seriously? You played the cello? I cannot picture that.”
“Julian played too,” Graham told him. “Not cello…what did they have you on?” he directed at me. “Brass, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, trumpet,” I scoffed, shaking my head. The whole thing had been ridiculous.
Avery jumped on that with even more incredulity. “What? How come I never knew that?”
“Because I had no facility for making music come out of a metal tube, and my father eventually had to give up his dream of a son who could captivate with a concerto just before ordering troops to let civilians starve. It’s the aristocratic tradition. The Lansings were much better at it.”
“Well I’m not sure that’s a compliment,” Graham rejoined. “But we did get some genetic luck where music is concerned. I don’t hold a candle to Blair; she’s nearly a virtuoso on violin.” He plucked a few bars, checking his work, then turned back to Avery. “Besides, he’s making it out to be worse than it was. I know he was in orchestra at least a couple years, and they wouldn’t keep even the Demos heir apparent that long, if he couldn’t stay on pitch.”
“Waste of time,” I muttered, turning back to the books. A couple were unfamiliar but looked plausible.
“So what do you want me to play, little one?” I heard Graham ask next, the question evidently targeted at Avery. It was the second time I’d heard him use the phrase.
“Why do you call me that?” my partner asked self-consciously, although mostly he sounded pleased. “I’m not as built as you, but I’m not little. I’m taller than you, I’m pretty sure.”
“Couple centimeters, maybe,” Graham joked in return. “No, I was referring to your age, not your size. I’ll be thirty-four in a few months, and you’re barely twenty-seven. Imagine you compared to a twenty-year-old. Or yourself at twenty. Think of everything you didn’t know yet.”
“That just makes you old,” Avery parried.
“Old?!” Graham laughed. “Come on, I’m in the prime of my life! You will be too someday. In seven years. Little one,” he added playfully.
“It’s not my fault I wasn’t born earlier,” Avery countered, now seeming much less sure.
“No.” Graham shifted to an affectionate tone. “And I wouldn’t want you to have been. Because then I would have missed the adorably bashful, eminently teasable creature you are today.”
I glanced up in time to see Avery retaliate with a mock-defensive shove. “I am not. Any of those things.” But he flushed slightly.
“No? You want me to put down this guitar and prove how teasable you are? I won’t even need to take off your clothes.” He moved as if to lay the instrument aside, but Avery pulled his arm back.
“Just play something,” he laughed, clearly enjoying the attention.
Graham gave him a smile. “Back to my question, then. What do you want me to play?”
My partner returned a casual shrug that did nothing to dim his glowing features. “Just anything. Something you like.”
“Ok.” Graham’s fingers warmed up for a minute, strumming through a chord progression. “Julian should know this one.”
He launched into an up-tempo track I recognized as being by one of the artists his band had covered. He played it well, keeping up with the notes seemingly effortlessly, even while singing at the same time. His voice was strong and sure, and he wasn’t at all reserved about using it. Avery’s focus stayed fastened on Graham’s hands for the most part, but he smiled shyly when the captain drew his gaze with particularly expressive vocal lines.
I flipped to the beginning of the most likely novel and started reading while I listened. I’d mostly come along to facilitate their interaction. I’d offered for Avery to go alone, but he’d balked. As much as he wanted to spend time with Graham, he was still nervous about doing it without a safety net.
When Graham finished, he looked to Avery with an inviting grin. “How was that?”
“Really good.” The intimate concert had apparently emboldened my spouse. He reached to trail his fingers across the strings, his eyes lit as if he were thinking of trailing them somewhere else — the most overtly flirtatious I’d yet seen. “Play another one.”
Graham’s return glance was fond. “Has he always been this interested in music, Julian?”
I took a similar tone. “I think in this case it’s the musician, rather than the music, that he’s interested in.”
“Shut up,” was Avery’s clever retort, directed at me.
“I don’t know what songs you know,” Graham told him. He picked out the beginning of a melody. “How about something you like, and we could sing together?”
Avery quickly retreated to safer territory. “I don’t…really sing.”
“You don’t sing? Can you sing, though?”
He shrugged in typically evasive fashion. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, he can,” I interjected. “He has a nice voice.”
That, of course, caused Avery to send one of his fascinatingly conflicted looks my way: frustrated that I was exposing him, but excited by it nonetheless. Not unlike looks he sometimes gave me when I made him wait longer than he wanted for an orgasm. Forcing him to be more vulnerable than he was otherwise comfortable being was precisely what stirred him up.
I met his gaze unapologetically, throwing in a bit of smolder. Graham, meanwhile, took the opening with enthusiasm.
“Oh, a nice voice? Come on — let’s do a song. I want to hear.”
“Now look what you’ve done,” my husband complained at me, but it was all part of the game. I took it up, advancing on him while his curly head tilted back so we wouldn’t lose eye contact. “Nobody asked you, you know,” he informed me, but the subtext was something else: adoration, devotion, and desire.
I smiled and fondly took his face in both hands, employing a meaningful tone. “I’m happy to go, if you’d prefer to finish this jam session by yourself.”
He didn’t answer in words, but I had four years of practice reading his expressive features. He knew it was an idle threat; I knew he wanted me to stay. I stared warmly into his eyes for another moment, then I brushed his cheek and sat beside him. He subtly shifted some weight against me when I settled a reassuring arm at his back.
Graham went back to coaxing improbably coherent music from the six strings of his instrument, and if he had a reaction to our interchange, he didn’t show it.
“You really don’t want to sing?” I checked with Avery.
“Maybe…another time. If I can practice first.”
“Play something that reminds you of Avery, then,” I suggested to the captain, giving my partner an affectionate nudge.
He went along willingly. “Something that reminds me of Avery? Ok. Hm.” He experimented with a few notes, then settled on an antique glam rock number about an extravagant alien guitarist and his back-up arachnids. Graham gave a hilariously theatrical performance, which had both his audience members cracking up: me because I’d heard the song before, and Avery because he hadn’t.
“Why did that remind you of me?” he exclaimed when the final chord resonated. “You’re the one who plays guitar.”
Graham joined in the amusement. “I know you’re a fan of sci-fi. And playing for you does kind of make me feel like a rock star.”
That gave me an idea for another song. Graham shot me a knowing smirk when I made the request, and Avery soon found out why. It was definitely on the raunchier side, and the captain performed it like he could have been stripping instead, complete with brazen looks on the more explicit lyrics. I could tell Avery was getting into it when he prompted me back toward the wall so he could lean against me and pull up his knees.
“You like that one, babe?” I murmured behind his ear afterward, weaving an arm around him. “Imagining Captain Lansing grinding up against you in a dark, sweaty nightclub?”
He clearly did. “Does that really happen? People having sex in public?”
“It absolutely happens, if you know where to go,” Graham confirmed. “Pretty hot way to spend a Saturday night.”
The idea of him working his pelvis against some stranger’s crotch to the rhythm of a thumping bass line, maybe wearing skin-tight leather pants, was not doing nothing for me either.
“You know, that guitar has been getting a lot of attention,” I noted to Avery, shifting into my provocative tone. “Maybe those skilled fingers would like to do some strumming on your excitable body.”
The captain confirmed in a voice like melted butter. “I would love to.”
Avery shifted minutely against me, and I could guess his pulse was quickening.
“You ever thought about what that pick would feel like on your skin?” I suggested before he could answer. “I bet Graham would let us find out.”
“Oh, absolutely,” our host agreed. “And I have more of them.” He indicated a stash in a small tray on the nightstand.
“There are some key techniques Captain Lansing hasn’t even learned yet,” I reminded Avery meaningfully, “when it comes to producing music on this particular instrument.” I slid one hand to curve around a favorite weak spot at his hip, one of the deliciously ticklish joints I hadn’t yet exploited in front of our new lover. Avery’s breath halted in his lungs as he realized my intention — a few targeted squeezes would be enough to set him off — but despite the lingering threat, he didn’t push me away.
Graham laid the guitar aside, definitely intrigued. “That true, little one?”
“Uh… No comment…”
“This must be good,” the captain decided. “Please let Julian show me?”
“You can always set this off limits,” I told Avery when he hesitated. “But don’t you want him to know all the best ways to make you squirm and beg and surrender?”
He groaned softly, and I knew I had him. That’s what had drawn him to the captain in the first place — a hunger to be taken, to be fully exposed and exploited, yet safely contained within the other man’s strength. The way he was with me.
“Fine,” he conceded. “But you better let me come.”
“I think I’ll leave it up to him. He probably will if you ask nicely.” I flashed a grin at our host.
Avery stayed close while we reviewed limits, safe words, and consent. He and Graham both agreed to follow my directions for this experiment.
When we were ready, I reached for one of the small plastic triangles and settled against the wall on Graham’s wool blanket. I bent one knee to make room for Avery to sit between my legs, leaning back against me. I pushed his knees down flat so he wouldn’t be able to hide whatever was going on between his legs, and I planted his hands out of the way. I left Graham sitting on the bed beside us to watch — for now.
I started the warm-up with Avery’s neck. His isn’t especially ticklish, but it’s a wonderfully effective pathway to rouse his libido. I ran the flat edge of the guitar pick down a line from ear to shoulder, deliberate and gentle, and immediately I heard the cadence of his lungs change.
“How’s it feel, babe?” I asked, drawing another line along the tendon.
“It’s like…really good,” he breathed. “My brain’s not used to it, so it seems like more than your fingers.”
“Good. I thought it might.”
I made sure to cover every reactive part of his neck, waking the pleasure and priming his nervous system, before hiking his shirt above his belly button. He tensed when I brought the pick to the skin I’d exposed near his waistband. As Graham had mentioned, Avery was quite teasable, both emotionally and physically. Lots of places on his gorgeous body got a response, given the right combination of pressure and speed. I used the plastic edge to tantalize around his hips and across the plane between, both because he was sensitive there, and because it would build anticipation for where else I might be going. Judging by the bulge beneath his zipper, it was.
I decided to make that more obvious. While Graham watched, I reached for Avery’s belt and pulled it open, along with his fly. I shoved his pants down a little, to make sure the shape of his erection was clear inside the thin fabric of his trunks, but I didn’t remove them. I’d discovered long ago that for him, half-dressed could be at least as impactful as undressed.
For the moment, I ignored his yearning cock. Instead I brought the pick to his chest, over his faded t-shirt, and carefully strummed his right nipple, which hardened at once.
“Oh god,” he muttered. Now Graham and I could both see the way Avery’s rod jumped when I touched his protruding nub. So I did it again. And again.
“Fuck, Julian, that feels so –” he cut off with a hiss when I moved to the other nipple.
“Good?” I suggested.
“Yes, but also –” His spine arched as I kept up those tiny strokes. “Frustrating…”
“Bit soon for you to be frustrated, isn’t it?” I remarked teasingly.
He answered only with another low groan.
When I was sure he’d grown needy enough, I pulled his shirt over his head. Then I moved downward again, drawing a leisurely line through the center of his pecs and abs and along his happy trail. I kept going right onto his underwear-clad erection, dragging the pick down the length of it and then slowly back up.
“Fucking hell,” Avery exclaimed, managing to keep still with an effort.
“This little piece of plastic getting you horny?” I taunted.
His reply betrayed the strain on his breathing. “It really is, actually.”
I gave his shaft some more light strokes, and it spasmed several times, but the rest of him didn’t move.
“That’s right,” I murmured. “Show Captain Lansing how you let me decide what you feel. Like you’re going to do for him.” I checked on our third partner, and he was very much a participant in this scene. His green irises had expanded, and he was practically salivating.
Now to reveal Avery’s secret. I reached for his right wrist and directed it upwards. When his elbow started to lift above his shoulder, he flexed, resisting my grip.
“Julian…” came the familiar protest.
“You want to stop, you can say ‘yellow’ or ‘scarlet,'” I challenged.
“But –” He shimmied slightly, his arm half-raised, then he gave in and let me pull him open. “You’re so mean to me.”
I loosely secured his arm behind his head with my other hand, shifting so I could see around his bicep. “I can hardly be blamed, when you like it so much that you consistently give me permission.”
“You like it so much,” he countered, but when I brushed the pick at the exposed skin just below his armpit, his voice tightened along with his torso and arm. “Fuck,” he swore again, then disintegrated into short gasps and huffs as I invaded his hollow.
He was good for me — he didn’t pull his arm down or try to block me from exploiting all those susceptible nerve endings. He just clenched his fist fruitlessly and squirmed a little between my legs, which my own erection very much enjoyed.
“God, you’re ticklish, Avery?” Graham sounded eager. “That’s perfect. I should have thought to check.”
“It is perfect, isn’t it,” I agreed, granting a brief respite. “It’s a challenge for him to endure, but if he’s aroused and you keep it tolerable, the erotic payout is significant.” I slid the edge up his pit again to prove my point — he hitched a laugh and thrust his pelvis slightly.
“This is so cheating,” my husband tried to say, but it turned into more of a giggle when I used the plastic tool’s point against his vulnerable triceps.
“Take off his pants, and I’ll show you more,” I directed Graham, releasing my partner’s arm. “Trunks too.”
The guitar pick turned out to be an excellent device for teasing the ticklish regions around Avery’s groin: the grooves running across his hips, the interior of his thighs, and the crevices around his balls. Graham assisted by pinning Avery’s legs apart to give me access, while our victim laughed and swore interchangeably, his cock twitching wildly.
Soon I had Graham tasting him while I kept playing with his body. The captain licked pornographically up Avery’s swollen shaft, nibbling the pre-come that surged whenever I plucked Avery’s areolas. Graham’s gently squeezing fingers worked their way up Avery’s thighs into the vulnerable joints at the juncture of his legs and torso, eliciting gasps and giggles, while his mouth pleasured Avery’s tool. I added the sensation of the pick scraping the sensitive areas above Avery’s collarbone again.
“Look how fucking hard you are, baby,” Graham raved. “God, that’s hot. I know Julian likes to deny you, but I want to see you explode. You gonna do that for me?”
“Your hands –” Avery’s lungs spasmed. “I can’t –”
Graham wriggled his fingers where they still rested in those lovely, tender creases. “You can’t come when I’m tickling you?”
“No –” My partner writhed helplessly.
“Aw, I bet you could if you wanted it badly enough. But here. I’ll keep my fingers still. You can handle that, can’t you?” His mouth bent to engulf Avery’s straining rod. I helped by flicking my tiny triangular weapon back to his nipples.
Judging by the short, desperate sounds that came out of Avery for the next couple of minutes, it was a close fight between the yearning and the overstimulation, but that just made the run-up to orgasm longer and the release more comprehensive. He cried out heedlessly when Graham’s tongue finally triggered the forceful contractions, and he didn’t quiet down until the blissful shocks ended. I hugged him against my chest while Graham licked him clean and crawled out from between his legs.
“You two are gonna be the death of me,” Avery sighed, head falling back onto my shoulder and eyelids shutting.
“No way.” Graham planted a kiss on Avery’s cheek, then sat beside me. “Gotta keep you alive and well, so we can do this lots and lots of times.”
“You guys probably want to come,” my husband mumbled drowsily. “I can move…”
“Just relax,” Graham encouraged. “We can wait.” His shoulder nudged mine. “You ticklish, Julian?”
“No he’s not,” Avery answered for me without opening his eyes. “It’s not fair.”
The captain turned an appraising look on me that was, I had to admit, slightly disconcerting. Avery hadn’t tried very hard to find out if there were any hidden places that could overload my nerves. Just like he hadn’t tried very hard to test my endurance for erotic torment. Not that I’d wanted him to. The way Graham was studying me, however, suggested he could be a lot more committed. And I wasn’t entirely sure I would stop him.
“Would it interest you to know that I am?” he offered suggestively, and my pelvic muscles contracted automatically.
“Yes it does interest him,” my traitorous partner spoke for me again. “His cock, anyway.” I leaned down to nip his neck in pretend punishment, which made him smile.
“Not a ton,” Graham went on, “but it’s there under the right circumstances.” His lips and eyebrows quirked up, both challenge and invitation.
Well this was an intriguing turn. “It was my session to run,” I responded in kind, holding his gaze.
“Mm,” he agreed meaningfully. “Yes it was.”
Avery and I didn’t get home until late that night.
* * * * *
Avery:
We’d been hanging out with Graham for a few weeks when I had to ask. He was over at our place, which had happened often enough that it didn’t make me nervous anymore, and I was reclining against him, propped by our stack of pillows, something that had also happened a few times, now that he didn’t leave right after sex. It still seemed like I shouldn’t have been allowed to, but it felt so natural to curl against his warm, impressively fit body after we finished whatever unbearably hot things we’d all been doing to each other. He welcomed me in so easily, kissing my head and murmuring gentle reassurances, not making a big deal out of it even though he teased me about other things. This just came into being as if by magic: my cheek resting at his bare shoulder; my palm against the light brown fur on his chest; his fingers idly combing my shaggy hair.
Julian leaned against the headboard behind me, not quite touching us. He’d helped soothe me through my orgasm, but after we cleaned up, he’d subtly left space for me to end up with Graham. We’d checked in with each other recently about how the relationship was going, so I knew it didn’t bother him when I spent my afterglow this way, even though he could surely tell it wasn’t the same as when I used to do it with Vik. It had felt good to have that physical closeness, to have a friend who wasn’t afraid of showing affection, but it never made me want emotional closeness. When I was with Graham like this… Well, I felt a lot of things that weren’t just friendship. But I didn’t know what he felt.
It had been quiet for a bit when I finally got my nerve up. “Graham?” I said from my place against his side.
“Yeah?”
Immediately I chickened out. “Uh…nothing.”
His reply was soft and warm. “What is it, little one?”
I tried to find my courage again. “I was just going to…ask you something. But it’s stupid.”
“Ask me anything you like,” he invited. “If it matters to you, it’s not stupid.”
I nestled my head closer to his, taking shelter from my shyness in his affirming words. “Do you — with us –” I started, then had to take a breath and regroup, my volume hesitant. “I know we agreed this is like…just for fun. For sex. But is it that now, for you?”
“You’re asking if I’m just here for sex?” Graham clarified.
I nodded.
His fingers stroked through my hair again. “I happen to think it’s not really possible to completely separate emotions from sex. Unless you’re a sociopath,” he added lightly. “But if I had come over just for sex, I probably would have left once we finished that, wouldn’t I? I wouldn’t still be here — holding you, playing with your hair, calling you ‘little one’…hoping you might ask me to stay the night…”
Some kind of iridescent joy glowed inside me, bright and insubstantial as a rainbow. “You would really want to?”
“Only if it’s what you both wanted.” I felt his head turn, probably to check Julian’s reaction. “But yes,” he told me. “I think it would be nice to be able to fall asleep with you like this, and not have to leave.”
It would be nice. And maybe a lot more than that.
“You’re welcome to stay,” Julian offered. We’d already discussed it, in case it came up.
“That what you want, Avery?” Graham checked.
“Mm hm,” I agreed.
“Then I will.” I could hear the smile in his voice even though I couldn’t see it.
I let my thoughts marinate another minute before speaking again. “Um…I was wondering…” He’d said I could ask him anything, but I was still hesitant.
“Yes?”
“Do you — see other people? It’s fine if you do,” I added hastily, even though I was prepared to be very jealous if he said he was.
“Not really, right now. You two keep me pretty busy. I don’t feel a need to see anyone else.”
The shimmery feeling inside glowed brighter. But I still had another question. “Do you think you might want to keep hanging out with us…for a while?”
“Damn, little one,” Graham laughed. “Relentless. We having this conversation already?”
I froze against him, afraid even to breathe while I waited for him to pronounce my sentence.
But he just cuddled me closer for a moment, then ran a soothing hand across my tense shoulder. “I like you, a lot. And your husband. I would like to hang out with you for a while, yes. That ok with you?”
I swallowed some moisture back into my throat, my hand still pressed over his heart. “Yeah.”
“Julian?”
“Yes,” he agreed softly.
“Good.” A peaceful silence reigned until the conversation moved on. Graham asked a less loaded question, and we talked for a while about other things going on in our lives. Evening melted to night outside the shutters, but one topic flowed into another, and none of us said anything about going to sleep.
I was sitting up again, still next to Graham, when we came around to the topic of our families. He knew by now that I had none, and why. It wasn’t much of a secret; our community had kept pretty isolated for most of the past century, and we all knew each other’s genealogies. I was missing half of mine, though, because my father had been an outsider who for whatever reason was allowed to join, and then he disappeared when it became clear that my baby sister was doomed by her defective heart to a short, sorrowful life. I was only four years old then, and my mother had generally refused to speak of him afterward, tangled as she was in her own web of despair. Older community members might have been able to shed some light, but it wasn’t exactly something I wanted to ask around about. So I knew little about who he was, and nothing about where he’d come from or where he’d gone.
“Do you think your father might ever show up looking for you?” Graham asked me.
“He better not.” Anger fired through me at the thought. “We’ve relocated twice since he left, so I don’t know if he could find us even if he tried. Even if he was alive, which I hope he isn’t.”
Julian took my hand automatically, knowing that although I’d made some progress dealing with my sister’s death and my mother’s suicide, I’d only grown more bitter over time about my father’s abandonment.
“Sorry,” Graham offered. “I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject.”
“It’s fine,” I huffed. “I just think it’s fucked up, that someone would make the decision to create not just one, but two human beings, and then decide it’s too much work, and leave the children to try to stay alive on their own, while he goes gallivanting off to wherever-the-fuck. You don’t want to bother with parenting? Then keep your fucking jizz out of fucking fertile women! It’s actually not that hard to not impregnate someone. Especially twice. Or if you decide your life just can’t be complete without spawning offspring, then man up and fucking handle it! Yeah, Ariana was sick. For ten years. Then she died. Guess what? We handled it. Well, my mom, not so much. But she handled it longer than that fucking asshole.”
I clenched my hand around Julian’s and stared blindly at the patterns on our quilt, other scenes flashing through my brain instead. Scenes I didn’t like to remember, but that were an inescapable part of me nonetheless.
“That’s a lot for a kid to have to deal with,” Graham empathized. “I’m really sorry it happened that way. If he ever does come here, I’ll be more than happy to help you kick the shit out of him.” He leaned into my shoulder, lending support.
I took a big breath and tried to let it out more slowly. The image of the captain beating the hell out of my deadbeat father did surprisingly make me feel a little better. Not that I couldn’t do it myself. Although I had no idea what he’d looked like, other than being the reason my skin was not nearly as brown as my mother’s, and the reason my face looked a lot like hers but was marred by freckles.
“What’s your father like?” I asked Graham to distract from the memories.
He accepted the change in direction easily. “What is old man Lansing like?” he mused in Julian’s direction. Graham’s dad was still active at the rank of general and would have been a familiar figure in their personal and professional circles. “Pretty standard-issue pluto-stratocratic functionary, I guess. Does what he’s been taught to do; believes what he’s been taught to believe. We have our arguments and our years where we don’t really speak to each other. I wouldn’t say we’ve ever been close, but he probably did his best. Blair gets along with him better. Her kids like him.” He finished with a nonchalant shrug.
“How about your mom?”
“Oh, she’s alright. Her social status is very important to her. She wasn’t satisfied with her first attempt, with my father. They split shortly after I went away to boarding school, and that was probably for the best. They both remarried within a couple of years: her to a senator and him to a younger socialite. She was closely involved in our education and activities growing up. Blair and I split school holidays between their two homes.” He shrugged again. “I’m rarely in Portland now, so I don’t see her much, but she seems happy.”
I tried to imagine what that would have been like: a mother who took care of me, a father who stuck around long enough to argue with me, a sister who grew up to have her own family. All of it seeming so normal that I could shrug it away.
“She still complains that I chose military service instead of going into business with my uncle,” Graham went on. “But can you imagine me sitting in a boardroom, listening to people yammer on about production targets and contract negotiations and profit margins? Wining and dining? Everyone knows you can only make money if you’ve done enough favors for the right people.” He shuddered. “That’s not me. Rather subsist on MREs out here in the wilds with you lot.”
“I’ll go into business with your uncle,” I volunteered. “I like to eat. And drink.”
He smiled. “‘Fraid it doesn’t work that way. The rich get richer, as they say. Unless you can trace substantial political, military, or financial power back at least two generations, the people who can buy won’t want what you’re selling. They’re very invested in keeping their money in what they consider safe hands.”
I looked at my own hand, interlocked with Julian’s. It was still hard to believe sometimes that he wanted to be with me, when he’d been bred to the type of wealth and status Graham was talking about.
We talked until pretty late, but eventually we wound down and got under the sheet: Julian in his usual place to my right, me in the middle, and Graham on the left. It was a nice-sized bed, so we could all fit without feeling too crowded. Of course, I generally wanted to be crowded when I was in bed with people I liked. Shyly I edged closer to Graham, unsure where his boundaries might be, my stomach fluttering with anticipation like the night of our first kiss. But he enfolded me without hesitation, pulling my back snug against his chest, sliding one arm beneath my head while the other wove around my torso.
“Can I…?” I asked, tentatively nudging my hand under his. I didn’t know if there was some kind of line between sex and sleepovers and holding hands, but he didn’t seem to think so.
“Of course, baby,” he replied, matching his fingers to mine. His lips pressed the top of my shoulder. “You want me to move later, just push me off. I won’t mind.”
“Ok,” I agreed, though I seriously doubted I would want any such thing.
I breathed into his secure embrace, almost dizzy with the sheer improbability of this moment. I wasn’t religious, but it felt sacred somehow — like a revelation I was receiving at the top of a mountain. That these two men would both end up in my backwater village, by way of completely unrelated and incredibly unlikely paths…that things had worked out between me and Julian to be able even to consider sharing a bed with a third person, let alone find someone who fit so well into our relationship… If even one link in a chain of thousands of decisions had been forged differently, this experience would never have been possible at all.
I tried to stay awake, because I wouldn’t be able to enjoy this once I was unconscious: my sexy new lover at one side, and my favorite person in the world — who I also happened to be married to — at the other. But I was too cozy and content to hold out long. The last thing I remembered was the two of them whispering goodnight.