The Third Date (Starting Over) Read online

  Like exactly the kind of cunt that an abusive master would whore his sex toys out to.

  Chris fucked him rough and fast, hands gripping Gabriel’s hips and fucking into him so hard that Aled didn’t bother to thrust. He just held a fistful of Gabriel’s hair and let Chris do the work from the other end, Gabriel’s whimpers muffled and occasionally entirely silenced by Aled’s cock. And when it got too much, when things started to darken—

  Aled yanked, pulled out and came on Gabriel’s face.

  It was a brutal climax, and it left him breathless and with a handful of loose hair in his fist. Gabriel gasped for breath, sobbing as Chris continued to fuck him, and Aled laughed coldly, tugging on the rumpled black spikes again.

  “Clean it off, then.”

  “Y-yes, sir—”

  His dick was too sensitive for sucking, but the soft laps of Gabriel’s tongue and the sight of his cum drying on those delicate features was almost like a second orgasm. When Chris finally groaned and—by the sudden stutter of movement—came, Gabriel dropped his head to sob, and Aled casually slid a hand under his throat to squeeze until he looked up.

  “What do you say?”

  “T-thank you, sir.”

  “And?”

  “Thank you, Mr Wheeler.”

  Chris raised his eyebrows at the title but said nothing. He pulled out. Gabriel grimaced, and Aled grinned as Chris followed his cue and smacked his arse with an open hand before getting up and walking out like nothing had happened.

  “You need to practice,” Aled said. “Don’t you agree?”

  It was a mixture of threat and question. A natural out without disturbing the atmosphere if Gabriel murmured a colour instead of an answer. A way of easing them back down without the shuddering halt of slamming on the brakes.

  But when Gabriel answered, it was plain as day that Aled wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to come down yet.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good,” Aled murmured, and worried at that exposed, vulnerable throat once more. “Now, be a good little cumslut and crawl upstairs to get your toys for me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chris shut himself in the bathroom, turned on the shower…and sank down onto the toilet.

  He had no idea what had just happened.

  Well, no, he did. He’d fucked Gabriel from behind while he was gagged with Aled’s hard dick. He’d screwed him like something out of a porn movie. He’d come so hard he’d nearly blacked out, and he’d watched Aled fuck it right back out of Gabriel in even harder thrusts.

  Chris knew perfectly well what had happened factually.

  But why the hell had he joined in?

  Usually if they’d started to play while Chris was around, he would have just walked out. Aled was normally pretty considerate about it, even. He’d make a comment before going upstairs, or send a text to warn Chris away. And Chris didn’t mind them starting in front of him, exactly, but…

  But why hadn’t he just walked away?

  The answer was right there in front of him—it was fucking hot—but after twenty-six years of being disgusted when he was turned on, why was it fucking hot? Why hadn’t he been appalled when they’d started? Why hadn’t the sight of Gabriel squirming to get away from Aled’s hands being a huge red flag and sent Chris fleeing into the next room? Why the hell had Chris’ response been to—to—

  He ran his hands over his bare scalp.

  What the hell had happened?

  Balance had been restored for the moment. He didn’t want to touch his dick to clean it off. He didn’t want to think about having sex. And the sounds had been stomach-turning—the wet slap of flesh, Gabriel gagging on cock, the squelching of his used—

  Chris cleared his throat and stepped into the shower to ward off the memories and the urge to puke.

  But at the same time, the disgust wasn’t so strong as before.

  And that was where Chris became unstuck. Sex had always disgusted him, ever since he’d found out what it was. It was the defining feature of his sexuality—sex was gross. It was the one thing that had plagued him since he was a child. He could accept being gay. He could maybe even accept being asexual, if there really were other men like him in that regard. But being so viscerally revolted by sex? That had been the thing that had kept him up at night. He could understand not being interested in sex, or not experiencing sexual attraction. But being outright repulsed? Chris couldn’t get to grips with how that wasn’t something awful.

  Yet what had happened downstairs—at the time—hadn’t been revolting.

  It was now, in the clean shower cubicle with hot water washing away the evidence. But at the time, no.

  And Chris didn’t know what to do with that. Or how to figure out why it had been different.

  Was it because—

  Aled had been treating Gabriel like an object, and that was how Chris had always fucked him before. Like a thing. Like a better alternative to jacking off. Like a doll. When he screwed Gabriel in his sleep, it was like a warm sex toy. He wasn’t going to move or talk or make demands or have an opinion. He wasn’t going to judge. And when Gabriel climbed into his lap to ride him, it was like a business transaction. They talked about other things, both their minds pulled away from what was happening. No judging. No opinions. No feeling.

  Deep down, way deep down where he was intensely ashamed of it, Chris knew that that was the point. He couldn’t handle the possibility of being judged. He couldn’t manage to let someone else see how appalled he was by the act itself, see how fucked up Chris really was underneath. So the way they’d always done it before was incredibly selfish. Get Chris’ dick off, and to hell with what Gabriel wanted.

  And downstairs had been—

  The same, in a way.

  But different.

  Aled had been controlling the scenario. Talking to Gabriel, abusing him, calling him a whore and a slut and—and—

  “Keeping him busy,” Chris whispered.

  Aled had kept him busy. As far as Gabriel was concerned, Chris hadn’t been relevant. He was a dick. Aled was the one to watch out for, the one making threats, the one being dangerous. Chris had been background noise. Why pay any attention to Chris when it was Aled’s hand around his throat and Aled’s dick trying to strangle him from the inside out?

  Chris swallowed dryly.

  He had—

  He’d enjoyed it.

  The post-orgasmic satisfaction was unmistakeable. He’d not need to touch himself for a good couple of weeks after that. And he’d never fucked Gabriel hard like that. Never fucked anybody hard. His hips burned with the strain and it only added to the endorphin rush. His thighs ached from more than just this morning’s run.

  Chris felt good.

  The shower stripped away the sweat and the smell, and by the time he stepped out, the raging confusion had settled into a gentler bewilderment. He still didn’t really understand it, but he didn’t feel quite so jarred either. It wasn’t that different from what they’d already done, really. Gabriel had been so distracted by Aled choking him that he’d been effectively almost unaware of Chris, and certainly wouldn’t have been thinking about it. And Chris just getting off in him like he was a thing had clearly been the point.

  Hell, Chris knew Gabriel well enough to know that was the point of most of the games Gabriel played.

  He’d just…never joined in before.

  He dried himself off, smoothed some cream onto the eczema patch on his hip and headed into the master bedroom to get dressed. To his surprise, Aled was getting changed into his pyjamas.

  “Where’s Gabriel?”

  “Locked him in the cupboard under the stairs,” Aled said. “Going to play with him again later. You all right?”

  “Bit confused,” Chris admitted.

  Aled paused, one leg in some ugly tartan pyjama bottoms.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  Ordinarily, Chris would have said no. But it wasn’t like Aled hadn’t gotten him to open up be
fore, and…hell. They’d shared the same sex. Even if Chris had no intention of getting any closer to Aled’s dick than the length of Gabriel’s body, he couldn’t exactly pretend they had to be proper and polite after that.

  “I’m not even sure how to talk about it,” Chris admitted, sitting on the edge of the bed to put his socks on. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”

  “Like a threesome, like the violence, like the humiliation…?”

  Chris licked his lips. “All of it, really. But…I suppose the violence of it. That’s what’s throwing me. I’ve never—you know, I—”

  He fumbled around for the words, yet Aled simply waited with the same calm patience as during their talk in the garden the first time.

  “I’ve never wanted to join in with your sex games,” Chris said eventually. “I’ve tried to avoid knowing any detail about them, to be honest. When we have sex, I’m trying my hardest to ignore that I’m actually having sex at all. But that—that felt different. Good. For me.”

  “Can I just…suggest something?”

  “Okay.”

  “From what Gabriel’s told me and the kind of things you said, you don’t like it when you have to focus on the sex. If you can get it in and get off as fast as possible, then you will.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So it’s not really any different to what just happened,” Aled said. “You rammed it in him and you fucked him like a fleshlight. To hell with him. He was just a warm hole.”

  Chris blushed hotly.

  “Hey, I’m not judging. Fucked him plenty like that myself. Definitely gets the job done. And he’s never complained about it.”

  “He probably should…”

  “Believe me, I’ve spent the last few years trying to figure why he likes being used and abused, but I’ve never found an answer,” Aled chuckled. “Everyone likes what they like. He likes that. We don’t really need to understand why at the end of the day.”

  “Guess not,” Chris said, and blew out his cheeks. “I—my skin crawls and I feel so uncomfortable when I have sex because the act’s pretty disgusting and I feel disgusting for doing it. And there’s someone else right there, judging me in my birthday suit, judging what I’m doing. And the way me and Gabriel do it, it—it kind of…mitigates that.”

  “Mitigates it?”

  “Yeah. We’ll…have a conversation or something so he’s not—you know, neither of us is paying attention to the sex. Or sometimes I’ll do him while he’s asleep so it’s just over quickly for me and he can’t—you know, he can’t judge. He doesn’t know until it’s done. So he can’t.”

  “Okay…”

  “That was—kind of similar,” Chris admitted. “He was too busy with you to think about me. I mean, you nearly choked him.”

  A smirk flickered across Aled’s face, but he said nothing.

  “So I could…” He grasped at his thoughts. “I’ve never fucked him that hard.”

  “You’re missing a trick, then. He’ll worship you for drilling him until it hurts.”

  Chris grimaced.

  “Hey, it’s true.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” he said primly.

  “Did you enjoy it, at least?”

  Did he? When he stripped back the confusion and the anxiety?

  “Yeah.”

  “Just surprised you did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, don’t overthink it,” Aled advised, shrugging on a T-shirt. “You know how the consent rules work, and you know he’ll talk about it if he has second thoughts later. If you liked it and he liked it, then maybe try it again sometime.”

  “I feel like I need to figure out why I liked it, though.”

  “It helps,” Aled admitted. “But sometimes it’s just one of those things. I never found out why I like doing what I do. I’ve just had to accept it. And I can talk theories about Gabriel’s tendencies, but it doesn’t quite fit with the rest of his personality, so they don’t quite work. But we work together. That’s what matters. And if you both liked that, maybe try it another time. Maybe try tying him arse-up over the dining room table so he’s available whenever you want. Maybe try making him wear a plug all day so all you have to do when the mood strikes is bend him over, rip it out, and shove yours in.”

  It sounded…scarily appealing.

  “Don’t get too caught up in why.”

  Chris nodded. He chewed over the questions one last time, then decided to lay them down. Maybe they could experiment a little with—with scenarios. Toys. Other stuff. But later down the line. Hell, he’d not even come to an understanding about his own sexuality, never mind whether kinky games were for him or not.

  “Later I was going to tie him to the bed and do a bit of anal training with some toys,” Aled said. “I can always leave him like that on the spare bed if you fancy trying out screwing him in bondage gear?”

  “No thanks,” Chris said. “I’m done for…a while now.”

  “God, you poor shit.”

  Chris snorted, the levity bursting the sombre mood like a popped bubble. “Are you kidding? I’d go insane if I needed it more often than once a fortnight.”

  “I’d go insane if I needed it less than once a day,” Aled quipped, but grinned. “Come on. Let’s make something good for dinner so he’ll get hungry and offer sexual favours in return for getting to eat. He can get pretty inventive when he’s desperate.”

  “You feed him anyway, right?”

  “Depends on the favour.”

  Chris didn’t—for once—ask any more questions.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Exactly five months after his accident, Gabriel walked back into the gym.

  Wakefield had several gyms, but this one fancied itself the cream of the crop. It used to be a short walk from their old house, but was now a long bike ride, a bus and a long walk or a drop-off from Aled on his way to work. Not fancying the long walk, Gabriel got dropped off and kissed at the door before the gleaming car roared away towards Leeds and he was left to dip his toe back into real life.

  And God, it felt good.

  Gabriel didn’t use the gym. Never had. His exercise was all sex and cycling, and it kept his body trim and his heart active. What did he need a sweaty old gym for?

  No, he worked there. He’d started out mopping floors and changing toilet rolls and had worked his way up to customer services—giving tours, flirting people into memberships and answering the phone in the nicest voice he could muster. The work was menial, but his colleagues were fun and the customers almost fascinating. The gym ran the full range, from musclebound steroid abusers posing in front of the mirrors to little old ladies turning up every week for their pilates and yoga classes with more solemnity than churchgoers. He had friends there. Had met the occasional hookup through working there. Had people who knew him as he was now, with none of his ugly history to cloud their opinions. Gabriel had loved it.

  Until he’d been hit by a bus.

  He didn’t have a right to sick pay. Jordan, his boss, had said he’d do his best to keep Gabriel’s job open for him, but he couldn’t make any promises after the first month. Gabriel had never had a guarantee he’d be able to come back.

  Then something had finally gone his way, and Jordan had said yes.

  “We’ve got the room,” he’d said when Gabriel had called last month. “We picked up a load more customers in the summer. If you can get back before the Christmas lull, then I can get you back on the payroll.”

  And so here he was.

  Walking back through the doors with his name badge on felt like closing a very dark and ugly chapter in his life.

  “Gabriel!”

  “How you doing, man?”

  “Look who the cat dragged in…”

  He’d been away an age, and many of the staff were students who came and went fairly quickly. Unfamiliar faces were everywhere. He didn’t recognise the name of the duty manager on the rota. Someone who had been promoted from changing the layout of the w
eights section again, no doubt. But Sophie on the desk gave him the usual good-morning hug. The grumpy cleaner who worked the poolside called him a shyster and Gabriel laughed it off like always. Some of the Monday morning regulars—mostly pensioners who came to give their heart a little pep talk and watch daytime TV—said hello like he’d never been away.

  He was on reduced hours and restricted duties, of course—no poolside tours for him, not until he stopped swaying altogether—but sinking into one of the desk chairs and calling IT to get his system passwords reset was euphoric. He could get some structure to his day. He could measure time by his own activities instead of when Aled was at work or whether Chris was out on a run. He’d get paid at the end of the month, even if it was a pittance. He could start contributing to the household bills again.

  God, it felt good to be able to work.

  Gabriel had been working since he was fourteen. Never great jobs—holding signs, knocking on doors, stacking shelves—but they were jobs all the same. Even when he’d been homeless, he’d had a job leafleting for a local takeaway. Even when he’d had nothing at all, he’d tried to pay his way. He hadn’t always succeeded, but he’d tried. There’d always been something. It had got him through the worst periods in his life, the days when he’d wanted to lie down and never get back up again. Going to work had forced him to get up. Being without a job had felt wrong.

  And the gym was the best job he’d ever had, so it felt like coming home. He flirted with Ben to make him blush. He spent his lunch hour talking to Gerald, a pensioner who’d been coming in daily since his wife died just to have something to do. He cooed over the photos of Gerald’s new baby granddaughter all the way out in Australia. He entertained a couple of little kids while Katie signed their parents up to a family membership. He kept an eye on the door, wondering if Aled would pay a visit after work. Not that it would be anything more than a brief nod and polite smile, as if they didn’t know each other. Gabriel liked this job so much that he’d never so much as kissed anyone on the premises, never mind had sex—and he’d not gone a single week at his previous place without shagging someone in the stockroom. But he wasn’t going to risk this one. Not even for Aled and his filthy smirk.