Page 77 of For Real

“By hitting me?”

“I promise.”

He sighed and slapped the flogger into my outstretched hand. “I must be fucking nuts.”

“Thank you. Can I take off your dressing gown?” After a moment, he nodded. “Okay.”

I undid the knot and pushed the fabric off his shoulders, letting the whole garment flump onto the floor in a pile. It wasn’t cold, but Toby shivered instinctively in his nakedness, and gazed up at me with slightly widened eyes, kittenishly blue, I realised, in natural light.

“Just so you know,” he said, “I’m not feeling all that dominant at the moment.”

I dropped the flogger, took him into my arms, and kissed him. First, his mouth, then his throat, his shoulders, his collarbones, soft and steady worship to remind him that I served him, adored him, wanted only to please him.

When he was hard, gasping, and shivering for quite different reasons, I turned him to face the wall and had him brace himself upon his hands. He made a slightly unhappy noise, almost a whimper, and tightened his shoulders, his enthusiasm visibly flagging. I covered him with my body, caressing him, loving him with my hands and my mouth, until the position felt natural and he was warm and pliant beneath my touches.

I didn’t think he even noticed when I stepped away to pick up the flogger, but when I drew the tails slowly up his back, he jerked and then let out a long, shuddering breath. I did that for a while, letting him grow accustomed to the feel of deer hide against his skin, the weight and drag of the tresses.

“You know where it’s safe to flog someone?”

“Yeah.” His voice was pleasure-thick and husky. “‘S’on the internet. Back, arse, not spine, not kidneys.”

It had been a while since I’d held a flogger, longer still since I’d used one on someone. It felt comfortable in my hand, though, its weight familiar, and its movements predictable. I practiced a little against the air until my arm and wrist remembered how to make the tresses fall as I wished.

And then I hesitated, staring at Toby’s naked back, awkward in a way I hadn’t anticipated. Standing there, completely unrestrained, a flogger in my hand, and needing—of all things—reassurance. “This… You would… It’s all right, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Totally. ‘S’nice.” He pulled his shoulders back, opening his body to me. “I trust you. In, like, all the ways.”11

“Try to keep still in case…I—” Miss. Wrap the tails. Hurt you.

“Promise.”

I moved close behind him and kissed the nape of his neck, because I knew he loved to be touched there. He responded with a little moan, but—true to his word—he didn’t move. Then I stepped away, steadied my hands, and began. It was a tease, a seduction, another act of worship, this time with thirty buttery soft pieces of deerskin free-falling against his upper back.

Toby had tensed initially, the muscles in his arms tightening as he braced himself for the pain I would never give him. But as soon as he got used to the steady rhythm of my strokes, the brush and heavy, caressing thud of leather, and the heat gathering under his skin, he relaxed again, his head falling forward between his outstretched hands.

“‘S’good,” he mumbled. “So good.”

His pleasure settled inside me, as warm as whisky, and banished the last of my uncertainties. I was completely out of practice, but this was so gentle—simply the weight of the flogger and the guidance of my wrist—I could probably have kept it up for as long as he wanted. As it was, it took only about fifteen minutes until my Toby was flushed and supple and moaning softly with every fall of the flogger.

He was beautiful. And as usual, I was desperate for him. For his pleasure. And utterly humbled by his responses, his honesty, everything he gave and made me want to give.

I switched to figure eights, letting the tails land more firmly now on each side of his back. The first strokes drew a deep, blissed-out groan from him, like the first time I’d taken his cock into my throat. I didn’t know how long we lasted, the air full of soft swishes and slaps, my harsh breath and Toby’s, but it was long enough to make me sweat and ache a little. Which felt right too, so very right.

“Laurie…Laurie…I need…” Toby sounded almost drunk.

I dropped the flogger, and he pushed himself away from the wall, swaying into my waiting arms. The skin of his back was burning against my chest, but he was utterly pliant, a molten boy, cast in the shape of all the pleasure he’d taken from me beneath the falls of a flogger.

He caught my wrist with trembling, clumsy fingers and dragged my hand to his cock, which was as hot as his back and straining towards his belly, damp-tipped. I made a fist round him, and he came against the wall a few seconds later, his face turned into my neck, his mouth painting yes and Laurie and I love you, I love you, against my skin.

We finished in a sweaty, sticky pile on the floor, both of us barely able to move. I was half-aroused, half-content, wholly Toby’s.

“Oh my God,” he said finally. “I need to be able to do that to you.” He sat up, still naked and come-splattered, his hair shiny with perspiration and sticking up hedgehog-style from the top of his head. “Teach me how.”

I groaned. “I’m an old man. I’m exhausted.”

But nevertheless, I staggered to my feet and taught a very eager and quick-learning Toby a few basic strokes, including the ones I’d used on him, and quite a few harsher ones he could…use on me.

“Man.” He inscribed several perfect figure eights in the air. “This should have been on the syllabus. I’d have been at Oxford by now with my four As in Kinky Sex and Further Kinky Sex.”

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