Page 47 of Love of the Egoist
He is not scared for his life at all... How can he be this confident? Does he really think he can overpower me if I attack him in his sleep?
Kuon snorted again, reached forward, and brushed Yugo’s thin lips with his thumb. They felt soft and warm and pleasant to touch. He stretched his bottom lip down, exposing straight white teeth. Yugo licked his lips, his teeth bit the air and started to chatter as if he chewed on food. Kuon chuckled and whispered, “Don’t you drool all over me.”
His glance traveled along the untroubled sleeping face, noticing that Yugo had extremely long lashes. In the morning sun, they cast elongated shadows over his sharp cheekbones. His smooth skin glowed with health; one-day bristle-covered his hollow cheeks and the rough line of his chin.
Kuon swallowed and reached to brush Yugo’s black hair off his forehead. Froze.
What the hell am I doing?Kuon jerked his hand back, he got up, overwhelmed by his own behavior.Did I just touch his lips? What the hell is wrong with me?
He shook his head, trying to get the weirdness out of his system and looked at Yugo with a new, evaluating, and concentrated look. Peering into his features, Kuon was eager to find any fault in the man’s portrait, but this illuminated, beautiful face disarmed him.
“I can strangle you right now, you know?” he bullshitted in a low voice, mostly to get the topic in his head changed. His fingers aimed at the man’s throat. A stupid thought floated in his head for the second time, raising his mood in a weird way. Maybe the feeling of power over someone else’s life made him high, or was it the fact that Yugo trusted him enough to sleep in his presence—he didn’t know. Of course, Kuon never seriously considered putting blood-thirsty steel through Yugo’s ice-covered heart. Even if he killed Yugo, what would be next? That was one of the Hydra’s heads. Even if he severed it, it would be replaced with two new ones. Organizations like Yugo’s didn’t die with their leader. Besides, he wouldn’t get out alive. Even if he did, he wanted to destroy Yugo in a different way. Kuon wasn’t a murderer, he’d learned that with The Gardener, hence he would find his peace only when this man was in jail.
He approached the wall and flopped down to the floor. Throwing a quick glance at the door, he turned to the window. Even if the door wasn’t locked or Yugo had keys in his pocket, Greg would probably be standing guard outside his room. Yugo was careless, but he wasn’t an idiot to stay in the same room with him without any backup. Looking out the window to the bright summer sky through the black bars of his prison, Kuon waited. How long had it been since he’d been outside and enjoyed the fresh air? Nostalgia compressed his heart, and he granted Yugo a look reeking of resentment.
Sometime later, Yugo yawned and stretched his muscles, flexing them under the sun-kissed skin. A wide smile inhabited his face. He opened drowsy eyes, scratched his bare chest, and took in his surroundings with a blank expression.
Kuon, sitting in front of him, never averted his blazing gaze.
Yugo grinned as soon as their eyes met, but then his expression darkened. A soft calm voice produced firm uncooperative words. “You are moving to my room. From now on you’ll eat with me, sleep with me, breathe with me. You go to bed with me and get up with me. If I don’t sleep, you wait for me. If you wake up earlier, you keep lying by my side and wait. Understood?”
Bewilderment and distrust rose in the prisoner’s heart. Kuon gave a timid snort and as if a dam burst inside him, loud and hysterical laughter flowed out of his mouth. He was hitching, wriggling, and choking with cramps in his sides for five long minutes. His eyes were tearing up, but he couldn’t control the water flow.
Yugo’s eyebrows drew together. The more he watched Kuon laugh, the darker his expression became.
Gasping for air, Kuon wiped his eyes with his clenched fist. He didn’t speak but leveled his tormentor with a venomous glare.
Soon, he will make a bowel movements schedule for me.This was the most ridiculous idea he had ever had, and he started laughing again. The noises he made resembled hiccups, but with additional guttural sounds.
“You are moving this evening. The room will be cleared of dangerous objects, in case we have misunderstandings in the future.” Yugo got up and approached the younger man. He raised a hand as if wanting to caress his cheekbone, but Kuon slapped his palm, dodging the touch.
“Kuon, I’m getting tired of this. Enough. How long are you going to keep up the silence?” His voice vibrated with irritation. His jawline hardened when he grabbed Kuon’s hand in his own and licked his fingers with a warm, wet tongue.
Un-fucking-believable.Disappointment and pain poisoned his blood as he waved Yugo away. Fatigue twisted his vision, and energy drained from his body.
Yugo doesn’t get it at all.He neared the mattress, dropped to his knees and curled in a ball, tugging the blanket over his head. He didn’t want to talk and closed his eyes, enveloped in lingering body warmth and the smell of Yugo’s cologne and cigarettes.
What is the point in talking? You wouldn’t get it even if I screamed right in your ear….Kuon thought, closing his eyes.
Yugo didn’t say anything. He stayed in the room for another minute before leaving Kuon alone.
CHAPTER 14
IN THE EVENING,as Yugo promised, Kuon was moved to the master bedroom.
Entering the dim room he felt degraded to a dog’s level who’d earned the right to guard his sleeping master, but somehow he was still excited about leaving his empty, white prison. Here, in Yugo’s bedroom, he could at least find something to do, something to occupy his mind.
Yugo didn’t lie; Kuon confirmed his words after his first round of the room. He found nothing he could have used as a weapon. A heavy metal sheet sealed the fireplace; chains hanging around the bed were secured with locks and he found nothing to pick them with. The black iron rods barred the freshly installed plastic window. And adding to his disappointment there were no books, no TV, not even a pen and paper.
But something still changed. If before he’d always been alone, except during evenings filled with sweat and the harsh odor of sex, now he was almost always with Yugo. His thirst for information and simple human contact had been quenched by shared meals, the bed, and body fluids. Sometimes, when Yugo was in an especially good mood, he talked. But even if Kuon wasn’t answering, he kept sharing his views about politics, economics, and sometimes, about his business.
Kuon drank crumbs of information hypnotized by Yugo’s low, smoky voice, but there was barely anything he hadn’t already known.
Yugo’s attitude toward Kuon had changed as well. He became utterly attentive in bed, gifting Kuon with one orgasm after another, drowning the younger man in his own moans. But if he’d ever been spoiled, it was nothing compared to what he became. Bossy, masterful, selfish. His needy demands and the thirst for attention drove Kuon crazy. Enjoying his power, he’d deprived Kuon of using any sharp object except silverware, and Kuon had no choice but to allow Yugo to cut his nails and shave his face.
But nevertheless, lying naked, curled up in a ball, Kuon had to admit—the training was successful.
My body longs for him. Every evening I anticipate him touching me. I’m pitiful… disgusting. The only upside is that I got out of that loathsome white room. But got out to where? To the heart of Sodom and Gomorrah? To this nursery of STDs? I’m so fucking going to shred his beloved ostrich to pieces.
