Page 66 of Gilded Crown

“You don’t understand. I’m not the man for someone like you in bed.”

“If you have some gross fetish that you’re afraid will shock me, just say it,” said Jari. “There’s stuff I’ll never do, and I’m not that experienced with kinky stuff, but I think we can be adults about this. I’m not going to gasp and fall over.”

One of the worst things he could think of was a scat fetish, and Jari would certainly not be doing anything involving fecal matter.

Aurelius was silent.

“Is it poop? That’s definitely not for me, but I won’t judge you. Or do you want to pee on people?”

“No.” Derision tinted Aurelius’s tone.

“So…what?”

Aurelius remained silent, and Jari figured he wasn’t getting an answer. He was pretty damn sure the Prince liked knives in bed, but maybe he was too scared to say it out loud since some might be too creeped out by that.

“There was a whore at a whorehouse in Morning Glory that I used for tying up. Sometimes, I’d gag him and do kinky things like that, but we never fucked. Once in a while, I’d use my hand on him. For me to get off, it has to be…rough.”

“I don’t think that’s drastic,” said Jari. “Plenty like a rough fuck.”

“No, I mean like rape.” Aurelius’s form hunched down like he expected Jari to point at him and tell him how disgusting he was.

“Oh. Consensual non-consent. I get it.” Jari had never done it or wanted to, but he didn’t see the problem if two people liked it. It wasn’t the worst thing to him since the consensual part was crucial.

“It needs to be-” Aurelius lifted a hand and dropped it. “More real in a way. That’s why I’d go to the whorehouse when the needfor sex was too much. I figured it might work to get me off, and I was right.”

His low voice grew rapid as if he’d been bursting to tell someone. Or he figured he might as well get it over with so Jari could get to the hating him part.

“The whore I pay for that knows he has to attack me, and it doesn’t matter if I panic or freeze. He doesn’t use oil, it hurts, and it doesn't matter if I bleed. It forces me to cum simply because I’m stimulated, and he heals me right afterward. I fucking hate that I have to get off that way.”

Jari thought consensual non-consent didn’t hurt or cause blood. He thought the “victim” pretended to fight and beg while the other person held them down and did it without actually hurting the partner. Both got off and were happy in the end with no harm done.

As the top, Jari was used to making sure the bottom was okay since they were allowing him into a private space. Making them bleed or ignoring them if they panicked wasn’t arousing to him. “I wouldn’t be okay with hurting you like that.”

“I figured. That’s why you can’t fuck me. You’re not a violent man or someone willing to service a client for money and do whatever with no questions or feelings. You’d probably hate yourself afterward.”

“But I don’t understand. Have you ever had sex without that?”

Aurelius hesitated for a long moment, Jari thought there wouldn’t be any explanation forthcoming. It wasn’t like the Prince owed him one. He figured it had to do with the Zorians, but before he could think much more about that, Aurelius spoke.

“We went with Mother to a country home in the south because she wanted a summer away. When we left, we were about to cross the Prime, and she realized she’d left her necklace behind. I went back to get it. We knew some Zorians had gotten over the border, but we never suspected they were that close andfound the home. They didn’t know who owned it, but I guess someone spotted me in the distance. They hid in the barn, saw me go in, and knew who I was. King David told someone what I could do, and that man was the leader of the group. He left to go scout around the area and make sure I didn’t have anyone following or coming to find me. He said the rest could have me, and they cornered me upstairs. They held me down on the bed…I’d never been with anyone yet.”

Jari’s stomach plummeted at the outpouring.

“I was fifteen, and they b-broke me. Just about every damn fucking day for two years, the leader violated and healed me so he could do it again and twist my mind while he tried to force me to gild. When he raped me, the stimulation forced me to get off even though I tried to stop it.” Aurelius’s voice hitched. “I’m disgusting, and I hate myself.”

Two whole years. No wonder Aurelius hadn’t told him the entire truth. In a way, he’d tried when they escaped Zora, and he said that Jari had no idea what he’d been through.

Jari had still abandoned him that day. He didn’t know then, but if he could go back, he’d stay.

“He didn’t believe me when I said I couldn’t gild anything. They didn’t care about keeping me in good condition. He thought pure brutality would snap me the way he wanted so I'd stop refusing and do whatever I was asked. I stopped talking after a year, so he let the camp have me once…”

With every new thing, Jari wanted to find someone to kill. How could someone bear to do that even if the victim was technically an “enemy” and from the opposite side? He’d only been three years older than Sheline. How could “he,” whoever that man was, stand to live with himself after committing such acts?

Now Jari knew why Aurelius had cried in his privy room that night he went out. He was disgusted with himself for what he didat the whorehouse. It was why he didn’t like touch and needed Jari to sleep on the floor that night.

Jari wanted to wrap him in a hug, hold him tight, and try to keep away the bad that Dust couldn’t fight and made him sit outside alone with nothing by the past pressing on him. It had been on him that night in the barn.

Aurelius was still hunched down with his head turned away, and the sight tore at something in Jari’s chest. How was he supposed to protect Aurelius from phantoms of the past?

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