“I also need your approval on the … never mind. We’ll talk about the rest when you catch up.”
I nod again.
When Gina is gone, I finish reading through texts and emails. I play Beethoven through the sound system to quiet my background thoughts, but it doesn’t help. The music annoys me, so I turn it off.
At 10:50, I take my private elevator down. When the doors open, I’m confused. Instead of the warm light of the tenth floor and the soft music floating out from the tea room, I face the silence and cold barrenness of my private level of the parking garage. My keys are in my pocket, but I don’t remember putting them there.
The doors start to close. I should let them. I should hit the button for the tenth floor and pretend this didn’t happen. But I slap my hand on the door to stop it from closing.
***
Elias emerges from his building right on schedule. I’m not sure what I expected, some deviation maybe, after I fucked him into unconsciousness last night.
He pauses at the top of the steps, looking for something. Looking, I realize, for me.
I’m here, baby.
I’m parked on a side street, watching him through binoculars. It’s frustrating to be so far away after being inside him last night. My dick tries to swell inside the cage. I hate it, but I was right to put it on. If I were hard right now, I wouldn’t be able to keep my distance.
Even this is a mistake. I’m sliding back into my role.
But how could I possibly have missed this moment?
Elias gives up and descends the steps. He’s moving slow. I’m sure he’s sore. I like that. I like that he can feel where I was inside him, how hard and deep I fucked him. But I don’t like how his shoulders are hunched.
I’m about to start my car so I can drive a few blocks ahead when Elias stops abruptly. I watch through the binoculars as his head comes up and a smile plays across his striking face. He reaches into his jacket and pulls out his phone. At first, I’m annoyed, because who the fuck is texting him? Then I realize, as his smile fades, that he thought—hoped—it would be me.
Oh, baby.
I’m here. I haven’t left you.
How could he think that I would, when he’s the one who made me like this?
But that’s not true. Elias didn’t make me like this. He simply made a space for this part of me. He invited me in, and like a fucking vampire, here I am.
Elias sighs. He types out a reply, stows his phone, and walks on.
Avoiding the street he’s walking, I drive a few blocks ahead to my next observation spot and wait. Elias comes back into view three minutes behind his usual pace. He’s hurting.
My dick tries to swell again. I can hear my own harsh breathing.
If Elias were with me right now, I wouldn’t fuck him, not while he’s sore, but I would torture him. I’d tie him up, blindfold him. I’d make him cry, I’d make him come.
I’d make him feel so much better.
***
I can’t make myself return to The Axis. I go instead to my converted warehouse apartment. I prefer it to the penthouse. Parts of it have been made beautiful and comfortable, but it’s got a gritty old soul. It’s brick walls and old pipes. If you open a window, it’s noisy and sometimes stinks. The penthouse balcony is too high above the streets for that. This place feels more real.
I bypass the renovated space of the kitchen and the living area with its open sleeping loft above. I go down to the basement cell where I kept Peter Grange for six days before I set him free to kill himself.
I take off my suit, draping each piece neatly over the chair where he spent those six days. It’s clean. I’ve scrubbed it.
Once I’ve stripped completely, I gaze down at my cock in the cage. I hate it, but I’m afraid to take it off. I know what’s going to happen. I know what I’ll have to do.
Hands trembling, I unbuckle the straps. I unlatch the cage and pull it off. My dick swells so abruptly, so fully that I cry out. I hit my knees on the sealed concrete.
I wrap my hand around my stiff, aching length. I shudder.
