Page 58 of The Legend Next Door
“When you take a dick,” I clarify. “How does it feel. Doesn’t it hurt?”
It’s an odd question that makes me uncomfortable, but I want to know so badly that I can’t resist asking. I’ve had partners who liked it and partners who didn’t. Some liked it, some found it painful. Some liked it specifically because it was hard to take.
I want, no, Ineedto know what it’s like for him. I have to know so the things I see when I imagine him getting fucked are accurate.
His jaw drops microscopically. I wish to fuck the room was darker than it is so there’d be somewhere for me to hide. There isn’t though. There’s only Jeremiah. Only his face and choppy blue waves breaking as they crash to the shore.
The silence is loud, a big, clanky thing that wedges uncomfortably between us. His body is turned toward mine and he’s looking at me like he’s never seen me before. I’d cave, take the question back and apologize if it weren’t for the expression in his eyes.
They’re shocked, sure, but they’re also on fire. There’s a flare of unmistakable heat in them, and he hasn’t blinked since I spoke.
We’re on a knife’s edge. Jeremiah knows it, and I know it. There’s a point of no return for platonic friendships between men, and this is it. There’s a choice to be made. He can laugh off my question and crack a joke about it. We’ll both move on and act like it never happened.
Tomorrow will be the same as all the other days he’s come over. Everything will be fine. Nothing will have changed.
It takes a while, but he makes his choice.
“It’s different for everyone,” he says. My dick twitches hard in my pants. “But yeah, it hurts sometimes.” He hasn’t looked away yet, and he still hasn’t blinked. Neither have I. His mouth opens and his jaw clicks. “I-it hurts in the beginning, when it goes in, not hurts exactly, but it’s really intense…” His lids flutter shut and blunt fingernails make a pass over his mouth. “I don’t mind it. I-I like it. I like the moment before it happens. When I’m in position, waiting for it. When we both know it’s going to happen, and I don’t move. When I keep still and let it happen. Let him do it to me, even though it’s hard to take.”
And there it is.
There it is.
The blank focal point in a picture that’s otherwise crystal clear. The tiny, blurred space that didn’t make sense. The piece of the puzzle that’s been missing.
Understanding slithers slowly up my arms, across my pecs, and slots neatly into the hole in my chest. Lust and arousal roll through me, and more than that, a dusty, old recognition wakes something in me.
When I speak, my voice is my own. My own, own. My old own. My voice from before. Before I broke. It’s my voice like I know it. Like it was when I was whole and living the life I was supposed to be living. “Are you a submissive boy, Jeremiah?”
He hears my words and understands them. What’s more, he hears my voice and understands it too. He knows what it means. I know that because he looks down instantly, bowing his head without even meaning to.
It’s a sweet, reverent pose that turns me to solid steel.
He knits his fingers together and looks at them, shoulders tense, as he whispers a soft, spluttery, “Y-yes.”
I turn my body toward his, resting my arm on the back of the sofa. My hand is close to him. Close to his neck. So close I could wrap my hand around the back of his neck and make him let go of his tension if I wanted to. I don’t do that, of course. It would be too much. Too fast. Instead, I trace the back of my fingers over the ball of his shoulder, tapping him to let him know I want him to look at me.
He does. He works his gaze up from my navel to my face in slow, distinct stages. By the time his eyes meet mine, he looks like a man who’s come up for air after being held underwater for ages. For eons.
“Do you like being told what to do?” I ask.
There’s a shadow. A flicker of hesitation in his eyes because like isn’t the right word. The right word doesn’t exist. Like implies weakness and indecision, and being submissive doesn’t make you weak. It makes you strong. The right word, if it existed, would lie somewhere else. Somewhere equidistant between the complex trinity oflike,want, andneed.
His Adam’s apple rides up the column of his neck. A sluggish, jerky journey that only ends when he swallows.
He gives a single nod.
There’s a rush of heat that makes my ribcage expand. It’s a familiar feeling.
A swell of pride.
I’m proud of Jeremiah, even though, technically, I know he’s not mine to be proud of. My dick doesn’t know that. Judging by the way it’s slamming against bone, neither does my heart.
It’s frightening to tell others these kinds of things about yourself. Terrifying and vulnerable. Nothing will ever make you feel more naked and exposed than a conversation like this, and he’s telling me who he is despite all that.
I’m honored.
And horny. Jesus, I’m horny. My dick is so hard I can’t remember a time it wasn’t hard.
