Page 8 of Coffee and Tea

“At least eight years. We’ll see. Are we going to the gala, then?”

“Maybe,” Simon said, looking up at him with those fierce bright sapphire eyes, smile at the edge of his lips, wrist shifting a fraction in Ben’s grip. “Tell me it’ll be all right.”

“It will be.”

“Tell me it’ll be a good evening.”

“It will.” He’d make sure of that. “You’ll have fun. It’s a good cause. It’s nice that they asked you personally. And you like dressing up and being the center of attention.”

Simon grinned at him more for that. “I do. Could you, though…right now…”

“Put you over my lap, right here, and spank you until you’re sobbing my name?” He squeezed Simon’s wrist. Hard. “Because you know you need it, you want to feel it, and you also just like it, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Simon whispered. “Please.”

“I’ll punish you if you want—not really, I mean, I know who you are, who you’ve been, and I know you’re a good person—” He tugged at the wrist until Simon sat up, and made sure their eyes met, for this. “It’s not about you having to take it, like penance, to feel better.”

“No,” Simon said. “I know. But I want that, right now—like equilibrium. Relief.”

“Got it. And, hey—you know I always like spanking you.” That made Simon laugh, though the sound came tinged with rue. Ben wanted to banish that part of it. He said, “Then I’m going to make you feel it. Go pick out a collar. And bring back that blue rope.”

Simon’s eyes got bigger. “Oh, we’re being formal…”

“You asked for it.”

“So I did.” Simon hopped up, bounced into the coffee table and then the arm of the couch, waved off Ben’s attentive hand. “I’m fine, I’m fine…you know they say the most intelligent people aren’t always aware of mundane things like sofas, kitchen counters, bookshelves in their way…”

“I’ve seen you walk into a wall.”

“And I’m a genius and you adore me.” Simon blew him a kiss and darted off to the bedroom and the fun wardrobe, an excited tiny submissive in fuzzy pink pajama pants and one of Ben’s old plain grey shirts. He only managed to trip over his own feet once on the way.

When he came back, he was shirtless but still wearing the pants, and twirling a coil of sapphire-blue silk rope in one hand, thoughtfully. “You didn’t ask for more leather. Those cuffs.”

“I like this color on you. And I feel like practicing knots. Collar?”

Simon handed it over: not the oldest and most comforting, but not the most rigid stiff version, either. Black and wide, but simple. And then he got down on both knees, for once entirely graceful, between Ben’s spread legs.

Morning light like new veils, bridal and pale, shimmered through the windows. An enchantment of a day, bright and breezy. Full of temptation, like the blue of Simon’s eyes. Gold as a promise, like their wedding rings.

The moment extended. The ritual, hushed, filled up the world. Simon on both knees, Ben leaning forward. Leather wrapped around Simon’s slender throat, and anchored them both in place, in familiar roles.

Ben put a hand over it, at the side of his husband’s throat. “You left the fuzzy pants on.”

Simon shrugged a shoulder, smiling slightly.

“You want me to just pull down your pants and spank you like that, right?”

“What can I say,” Simon said, “I like a tiny bit of humiliation.”

Ben let out a breath, entertained. “And you like being a brat sometimes.” Not every time, he did not say. They both knew. “And that was getting pretty close to you making the decisions, here.”

In a different mood, Simon might’ve kept the teasing going; this time he opted not to fire back. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” His eyes were happy, though, so that just meant he very much wanted to be chastised.

“All right,” Ben said, sitting back. The window-shutters were only partly open, and they were at the back of the house, with no neighbors; no one could see anything, and he liked the softness of the morning, and did not want to interrupt. “Come here. Over my lap. Hands behind your back.”

Simon figured this out with minimal flailing, and ended up lying like a beam of sunshine over Ben’s thighs. The running pants were just going to get a different kind of workout; neither they nor Ben minded. He ran a hand along the plane of his husband’s back: English-pale, aristocratic, smooth. Simon had not ever done sports—imagine me on any sort of field, he’d said once, self-aware and self-deprecating—but liked long walks and acting out bits of his own stories, enthusiastically. Not to mention the sex. Very athletic, the sex.

Ben said, “I’m going to tie you up, so you can’t move, and I’m going to spank you—hard—and if you’re good I’ll let you come like that. All over my lap. Sound good?”

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