The message bubbles appeared and disappeared several times without anything coming through. I sent,You’re on the floor.
Elias:How did you know that?
He thought I was watching him. In a way, I had been because I’d been at his door. But I knew because … I just knew.
I wasn’t about to go into any of that.
I texted,Next time I ask you a question, answer it.
Elias:Ok
I settled on my couch then, relaxing as my arousal started to feel good again. My hands steadied as I instructed him,Get up. Go take a shower. Remove the plug. Then get in bed. Tell me when you’ve completed your tasks.
I had to wait then, but it helped that I was imagining each stage of his compliance. Having watched him so much, I’m sure that I constructed a reasonably accurate image. The only real flaw was that I pictured him in my bathroom instead of his.
Fifteen minutes later, my phone lit up.
Elias:I did everything. I’m in bed.
My thumbs hovered for a good thirty seconds. I wanted to praise him, but it wasn’t the moment. It wasn’t my role. So I sent,Go to sleep. Tomorrow will be harder.
Elias:Ok. Goodnight
I stared at that until four a.m., waking up my phone every time the screen went black. I managed a few hours of sleep, but then it distracted me in my office all morning. I almost deleted it. Instead, I sent a new message, intending for him to wake up to it:Don’t masturbate before work.
The typing bubbles immediately appeared then disappeared. He was already up. Damn it. I didn’t expect that. When the bubbles didn’t appear again, I sent,Did you already come?
Elias:Yes. When I woke up.
A smile made an unfamiliar tug at my lips. I liked that he’d woken aroused and needful. I liked, too, that I could reprimand him.
That was very bad, I sent him.
Elias replied,I’m sorry. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to.
I typed, wishing I could whisper it in his ear,I’ll have to punish you for that.
Bubbles appeared and disappeared, but no message ever came through.
It wasn’t easy getting through the rest of my work day, and it really pissed me off that shit came up at the end, causing me to miss Elias’s walk to the bodega.
What if he was intimidated by the final plug and didn’t use it? I wasn’t there to catch him, to correct him. It’s myrole. But my other role, one less satisfying but more public, kept me from it.
When the bodega’s storeroom door opens and Elias emerges, I realize how still I’ve gone. I feel like stone, like I can’t break free. It’s a bad state for me to be in.
Usually, my stillness is predatory, watchful, a stillness that I’m in control of. It’s deliberate. But this kind of stillness is the kind I can’t control, and it can be explosive. I don’t like it. Almost, for a second, I start to panic. Nothing that would show, but I feel it—the hum, the buzz, the edge—
Then I refocus. It’s abrupt, intense, and it gives my control back to me. He’s using the plug.
I can see it in the glassy look of his eyes, the slight flushing along his high cheekbones, and the open, unselfconscious movement of his body. It reveals how naturally graceful he is. And he’s lost the downward tilt of his head. His beauty is on full display.
I’m not the only one who notices. Two women look up from their shopping, and the man behind the deli counter stares.
Elias is completely oblivious to all of them—but he does see me. He halts.
His lips are parted, his gaze locked. He looks half drunk, almost drugged, but I know he’s not. He’s aroused. He’s figured out, however, how to keep it from showing. His apron hangs flat. But I know what’s happening to his body. I know what’s inside him. I chose it.
I love that he doesn’t know that.
