I couldn’t agree more with that assessment, but I had yet to figure out how sex was supposed to fix this.
“I know you’re dealing with things the way you think you need to,” he continued. “But Graham is the same person he was two weeks ago. You trusted him then, and you can trust him now. I think it’ll be easier for you to see that when it’s tangible. So — I want you to submit to him. Not for fun, or for pleasure. More like a penance. You’ll do whatever Graham wants you to do until he releases you, even if it’s just standing in the corner for three hours. Let him give you the experience he decides you need.”
Damn. Sometimes I forgot how insightful Avery could be, when he stayed aware enough to deal more constructively with anxiety and trauma. But would Julian subject himself to my complete control, when right now he couldn’t even tolerate a hug?
He took Avery’s hand and didn’t look at me while he spoke, his voice quiet. “I don’t think it’s necessary, but if that’s what you want, I’m willing to do it.”
Guess I forgot to calculate in the fact that Julian would have found a way to lasso the moon, if his partner took a fancy to it. Especially after their brush with permanent separation.
“Thank you,” Avery told him, then looked to me. “Graham?”
“Yes, of course. And I think it’s a really smart idea.”
“Good. Can you be ready for tomorrow evening?”
“I can,” I answered. Julian looked a little like a prisoner being led to the gallows and still didn’t acknowledge my presence, but he nodded.
Well, he wouldn’t be able to ignore me tomorrow.
Avery wasn’t able to do anything except sit in bed and occasionally go for brief labored walks, and Julian tended to leave the command center early to pick up their dinner, so I would be the last one home. Once I’d eaten at the mess on base, I spent some time at my own quarters, finding the right headspace for what we were about to undertake. I wasn’t here very often these days; I thought of it sort of like a spare bedroom — available when two of us, or just one of us, wanted to get away alone. Or apparently when Julian had a fit of jealousy and exiled me.
After straightening the bedspread, left rumpled from the fitful night I’d recently spent under it, I sat against the wall with my eyes shut. I thought about my two men and how much they’d brought to my life, separately and together. I thought about Julian and what he might need from me in order to escape his fixation on Avery’s near-death experience. He was like an unmanned spacecraft that had been knocked off course and gotten trapped in a tight orbit around a planet he was only meant to pass by. He needed a jolt powerful enough to counteract the relentless gravitational pull of that event, if we were ever to move past it.
I hoped, if I did it right, this session would provide the juice. Because if I failed…if our beautiful three-fold relationship collapsed to a V, leaving Avery with two partners, but Julian and I each with only one… I didn’t want to think about that.
When I felt clear and centered on my intentions, I made the short, sweltering trip to the room I usually considered home. Even this deep into July, summer was still building momentum. Sundown was a relief, but the temperature never approached cool. We were nearer to the tropics here than even the southernmost regions of California, and the difference could definitely be felt.
“Evening, boys,” I greeted them when I arrived. It looked like Julian had cleared their dinner dishes back to the main hall, and they were gathered around a battered paperback novel I’d recently traded for: one Avery hadn’t read yet, a rare find. With so many convalescent days still ahead, it was going to be a challenge to keep him entertained.
“Hi,” Avery said, closing the book in his lap. Julian offered only a slight nod, but something in his eyes hinted at the charged anticipation already building between us. He couldn’t know specifically what my plans were, but Avery’s instructions were submission and penance. It was surely possible to guess at the intimate, intrusive activities I might design to fit that bill.
“Are we ready to get started?” Receiving confirmation from each, I took a seat on the bed facing them. Echoes of previous critical conversations we’d had right here reminded me that tonight could very well be as important as the day I left their relationship, and the day I returned. With Avery a week past his crisis, I hoped this time it would be Julian who returned.
“Yesterday we discussed the purpose and rules of this session,” I opened. “Julian, I intend to take them completely literally: you will obey anything I instruct you, regardless of whether you find it reasonable, relevant, pleasant, or safe. My goal is your complete surrender, and you might not like how I get you there, but it’s what Avery wants, so we’re going to do it. Your only role is to accept whatever I give you, and to give me whatever I want to take. The scene doesn’t end until I call it, but we won’t go later than midnight. Do you agree to those terms?”
“Yes,” he replied simply. He was doing his best to conceal whatever mixture of emotions simmered beneath his impassive surface, but I got the strangest sense that although one ingredient was dread, another was relief.
I turned to my younger partner. “Avery, I don’t intend for you to be anything but a spectator, but do you agree not to interfere, and to follow my instructions as well if I need you to?”
“Yeah,” he affirmed.
“The nature of this scene requires that I be the one to determine what your limits are,” I resumed with Julian. “I hope you know that my intention would never be to abuse you. But if there’s any boundary you want to negotiate in advance, this is your chance.”
“I…” he started, but then seemed to change his mind. “No. None to set.”
“Ok. Avery? Any limits?”
He shook his head. “Can’t think of any.”
“You’ll always have access to the safe words, Julian, but I urge you not to use them unless it’s an absolute emergency. Not that I’m intending to do anything you can’t handle; I just want you to go in committed.”
“I understand,” he replied.
“We’ve all just been through a very difficult ordeal, and this may bring up some strong emotions. So Avery, if you get too triggered, please call ‘yellow’ and give me a chance to discuss it with you. Of course you can also end the session if you have to. Understand?”
He nodded, slightly more sobered. He probably hadn’t considered the possibility that he might have to safe-word out of Julian’s penance scene.
“Anyone have anything else to discuss?” I offered finally, but neither of them did. “Alright. Rules are in effect starting now.”
I surveyed Julian, judging his mood and how to begin. He was watching me, alert and wary, as if we were well-matched gladiators entering the arena. He kept his expression carefully neutral, but I had more than a year’s practice at reading through his habitual stoicism, plus the benefit of sharing some seriously intimate sex. What I saw in this instance was not rebellion, resentment, or jealousy. Instead I saw his pain, the heartbreakingly raw grief and terror he’d suffered, unabated since last week. Pain he was trying to keep locked up — trying to deny and forget, along with his love for me, out of fear he might suffer more.